My little niece Amala was a super entertainer. As a child, she always ran. I think she didn’t know how to walk. And she ran like a big bouncing ball – never straight. And the little girl had a tongue right round her neck. She used to come up with such startlers that every time she opened her mouth in the presence of strangers, we used to get nervous. Like that day, when she stood leaning against her mother, looking with deadly calm at an elderly aunt whose one eye was permanently closed. Little Amala’s silence was like the calm before the storm, and I began to get nervous. And then, she raised her right arm slowly and deliberately, in a Heil Hitler fashion, folded her fingers except the index finger which she pointed in the aunt's direction, - and dropped the bombshell. “Looks like our chicken’s eye,”, she announced loud and clear. (One of our hens had died the previous day of some disease. It had gone around with one eye closed for a couple of days before it died). “What did she say”, asked my aunt, whose ears not quite tuned to the American twang. I don’t remember how my sister got out of the situation.
She was a little older when the family, sitting around the dining table, were discussing Morarji Desai’s urine drinking habit. Suddenly, I noticed that deadly calm settle on Amala’s face, and waited. No tension this time ‘cos only the family was there.
And then it came. “Ichayan”, said Amala, addressing my father in that typical musical tone reserved for him. “I have a doubt”. There was that full stop in her tone and expression at that juncture. She looked very serious. “ How did he drink his urine? Directly or indirectly?”
My father nearly choked over his food laughing.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
What are you doing, my son?
‘What are you doing, my son?’
‘Counting crowns.’
‘Crowns? What crowns?’
‘King’s crowns.’
‘Where are the crowns?’
‘Can’t you see?
The rain is making them’.
She looked where he pointed
At the water rising where each drop fell
And saw the crowns
King’s crowns
Thousands of them
I wrote this piece to be published anonymously in the college magazine, in a page dedicated to versification on rain. Most of my students guessed it was my piece ‘cos I used to relate this little episode where my 4 year old son opened my eyes to the crowns that rain drops made - to prove the point that all of us are born poets but our creativity falls by the way side in our struggle with this business called life.
I wonder if my son still sees the crowns!
‘Counting crowns.’
‘Crowns? What crowns?’
‘King’s crowns.’
‘Where are the crowns?’
‘Can’t you see?
The rain is making them’.
She looked where he pointed
At the water rising where each drop fell
And saw the crowns
King’s crowns
Thousands of them
I wrote this piece to be published anonymously in the college magazine, in a page dedicated to versification on rain. Most of my students guessed it was my piece ‘cos I used to relate this little episode where my 4 year old son opened my eyes to the crowns that rain drops made - to prove the point that all of us are born poets but our creativity falls by the way side in our struggle with this business called life.
I wonder if my son still sees the crowns!
Thursday, October 16, 2008
All About A Dog
I hate dogs but I loved Lincoln – maybe ‘cos he was around in my childhood. He was a dachshund plus something else, jet black and smooth and silky.
I remember the sleepless nights I spent thinking of his predicament after his death for, one day, I was told in the catechism class, that animals have no souls and so, they will not attain eternal salvation. I felt very depressed the whole day. At night, I couldn’t sleep! I kept seeing my siblings and parents and I having a splendid time up there in some place in the skies while Lincoln---sigh! Where would he be? “He will be over once he dies. You see, he has no soul. That’s what distinguishes man from animals”, the catechism teacher told me the next day. I was crestfallen. I wished God had given dogs souls.
There were days when I found it hard to believe that Lincoln had no soul. He followed us around wherever we went. He looked up at us listening when we spoke to him and seemed to understand whatever we told him. How can he not have a soul, I wondered. Guess I was too young to understand that intelligence was not soul.
Like the cliché goes, he was the very epitome of loyalty. My brother and I were, once, silent audience at a grown up conversation which began with the ingratitude of man and ended up with numerous anecdotes on the gratitude of man’s best friend – Dog. During the course of the conversation, someone remarked that the only thing that’ll make a dog bite his master is disturbing the animal when it is eating. My brother and I looked meaningfully at each other. Both of us had made up our minds to test the veracity of that statement.
Thus it was that the next noon, the two of us sat near Lincoln while he was eating yellow rice with plenty of meat stuff in it. Both of us had short sticks in our hands and we started jabbing him from both sides. Grrrrr--- he went, but continued eating. Our jabs must have got painful for he started looking at us and barking shortly. We would move back when he did that and then again close in on him when he went back to his food. This went on for sometime. Then I put the stick into his plate and started pulling it away. The poor dog looked up at me angrily, baring all his teeth and grrrrrrrrrrimg away to glory. I was thrilled. It’s working, I thought.
Just then, Vasu, the odd job man, passed by, not very close to us, carrying water to the estate bungalow. He had two big square tins filled with water in his hands, which he held by the cross bar fixed across it, and one tin balanced on his head. I did not notice him ‘cos I was busy trying to pull Lincoln’s plate away from him, and had almost succeeded it doing this despite the fact that he was trying to hold it back with his front foot. Just then, Lincoln looked up at me angrily, leapt forward and made mince meat of Vasu’s calf.
All hell broke loose. People arrived from all over with sticks, air guns, lassoes to deal with the rabid dog. Somebody expertly threw the lasso round his neck and tied him tightly to a pole, without allowing any rope length to enable him to dodge the thrashing. And then the blows started.
I screamed then. So did my brother. Together we jumped between the dog and the angry men and scared women. Our confession tumbled out. People dropped their sticks and walked away, throwing disgusted glances at us.
Poor Lincoln was released. He quietly went back to his food and finished it, while the two of us stood there looking at him guiltily.
Soon summons from amma came from the bungalow. We were made to watch the first aid being given to Vasu who was to be taken to the hospital which was some distance away. And then the two of us were made to sit in two deep chairs while all the elders of the family, towering intimidatingly over us, took turns to give us angry lectures.
For days, the picture of Lincoln trussed up and beaten haunted me. But the poor chap held no grudge. He continued to follow us around like before.
I remember the sleepless nights I spent thinking of his predicament after his death for, one day, I was told in the catechism class, that animals have no souls and so, they will not attain eternal salvation. I felt very depressed the whole day. At night, I couldn’t sleep! I kept seeing my siblings and parents and I having a splendid time up there in some place in the skies while Lincoln---sigh! Where would he be? “He will be over once he dies. You see, he has no soul. That’s what distinguishes man from animals”, the catechism teacher told me the next day. I was crestfallen. I wished God had given dogs souls.
There were days when I found it hard to believe that Lincoln had no soul. He followed us around wherever we went. He looked up at us listening when we spoke to him and seemed to understand whatever we told him. How can he not have a soul, I wondered. Guess I was too young to understand that intelligence was not soul.
Like the cliché goes, he was the very epitome of loyalty. My brother and I were, once, silent audience at a grown up conversation which began with the ingratitude of man and ended up with numerous anecdotes on the gratitude of man’s best friend – Dog. During the course of the conversation, someone remarked that the only thing that’ll make a dog bite his master is disturbing the animal when it is eating. My brother and I looked meaningfully at each other. Both of us had made up our minds to test the veracity of that statement.
Thus it was that the next noon, the two of us sat near Lincoln while he was eating yellow rice with plenty of meat stuff in it. Both of us had short sticks in our hands and we started jabbing him from both sides. Grrrrr--- he went, but continued eating. Our jabs must have got painful for he started looking at us and barking shortly. We would move back when he did that and then again close in on him when he went back to his food. This went on for sometime. Then I put the stick into his plate and started pulling it away. The poor dog looked up at me angrily, baring all his teeth and grrrrrrrrrrimg away to glory. I was thrilled. It’s working, I thought.
Just then, Vasu, the odd job man, passed by, not very close to us, carrying water to the estate bungalow. He had two big square tins filled with water in his hands, which he held by the cross bar fixed across it, and one tin balanced on his head. I did not notice him ‘cos I was busy trying to pull Lincoln’s plate away from him, and had almost succeeded it doing this despite the fact that he was trying to hold it back with his front foot. Just then, Lincoln looked up at me angrily, leapt forward and made mince meat of Vasu’s calf.
All hell broke loose. People arrived from all over with sticks, air guns, lassoes to deal with the rabid dog. Somebody expertly threw the lasso round his neck and tied him tightly to a pole, without allowing any rope length to enable him to dodge the thrashing. And then the blows started.
I screamed then. So did my brother. Together we jumped between the dog and the angry men and scared women. Our confession tumbled out. People dropped their sticks and walked away, throwing disgusted glances at us.
Poor Lincoln was released. He quietly went back to his food and finished it, while the two of us stood there looking at him guiltily.
Soon summons from amma came from the bungalow. We were made to watch the first aid being given to Vasu who was to be taken to the hospital which was some distance away. And then the two of us were made to sit in two deep chairs while all the elders of the family, towering intimidatingly over us, took turns to give us angry lectures.
For days, the picture of Lincoln trussed up and beaten haunted me. But the poor chap held no grudge. He continued to follow us around like before.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Religion - Not a Site for Violence
(This is a revised form of my response to a blog. Nothing original is these random reflections, but I still choose to post them, braving charges of mouthing platitudes and tinkering around with truisms. I do this ’cos we live in times when clichés need to be stated, defamiliarised. Familiarity breeds contempt, and when great truths are contemptuously dismissed as clichés, they need to be reinstated. Truth never becomes irrelevant simply because they are hackneyed. So here I go - - )
All religions are expressions of man’s search for the infinite. This search in not done in an ethereal vacuum - but down here, on the earth, on the ground, on the soil of our day to day life.
The first step towards the realization of the infinite is purging the mind of negative emotions and filling it with love - love of mankind.
If we negotiate our way through the peripherals of religions, we will arrive at the great truth that the core values of all religions are the same. There is no space in this core for violence and inequity. They are gross elements that adulterate the magnificent endeavour of mortals to reach out towards eternity. They can never be part of any religion, part of this search for the infinite. The presence of these elements with the label of religion attached to them can be ascribed to flawed interpretation and practice of religion.
A violent Christian should relinquish the label ‘Christian’. So should believers of other religions. The greatest disservice to religious teachers/teachings is to inflict injury on fellow human beings in the name of religion. Christians did it for a long period of time. The leaders have apologized several times for the crimes against humanity in the name of religion.
Indians too proselytized. Buddhism spread in the eastern part of Asia through the agency of Buddhist monks who took upon themselves the task of spreading the great man’s teachings. But how peacefully this religion was disseminated! Not a drop of blood was shed in the process. Buddha’s insistence on ahimsa was adhered to with great passion by his messengers.
Hinduism did not have a history of violence in the name of religion. Our ancestors were the ideal practitioners of religion. Religion was practiced as it truly should be – as a way of life. Hinduism was a way of life.
Alas! Those were glorious days. Hindus achieved long time back what followers of other religions are still striving to achieve. But, sadly, instead of perpetuating the great tradition of being model practitioners of religion, Hindus are now making the mistakes committed by the followers of other religions, mistakes which the rational and enlightened among the other religions are trying to rectify. What an irony!
And what a great disservice to Hinduism and to our proud, glorious tradition.
All religions are expressions of man’s search for the infinite. This search in not done in an ethereal vacuum - but down here, on the earth, on the ground, on the soil of our day to day life.
The first step towards the realization of the infinite is purging the mind of negative emotions and filling it with love - love of mankind.
If we negotiate our way through the peripherals of religions, we will arrive at the great truth that the core values of all religions are the same. There is no space in this core for violence and inequity. They are gross elements that adulterate the magnificent endeavour of mortals to reach out towards eternity. They can never be part of any religion, part of this search for the infinite. The presence of these elements with the label of religion attached to them can be ascribed to flawed interpretation and practice of religion.
A violent Christian should relinquish the label ‘Christian’. So should believers of other religions. The greatest disservice to religious teachers/teachings is to inflict injury on fellow human beings in the name of religion. Christians did it for a long period of time. The leaders have apologized several times for the crimes against humanity in the name of religion.
Indians too proselytized. Buddhism spread in the eastern part of Asia through the agency of Buddhist monks who took upon themselves the task of spreading the great man’s teachings. But how peacefully this religion was disseminated! Not a drop of blood was shed in the process. Buddha’s insistence on ahimsa was adhered to with great passion by his messengers.
Hinduism did not have a history of violence in the name of religion. Our ancestors were the ideal practitioners of religion. Religion was practiced as it truly should be – as a way of life. Hinduism was a way of life.
Alas! Those were glorious days. Hindus achieved long time back what followers of other religions are still striving to achieve. But, sadly, instead of perpetuating the great tradition of being model practitioners of religion, Hindus are now making the mistakes committed by the followers of other religions, mistakes which the rational and enlightened among the other religions are trying to rectify. What an irony!
And what a great disservice to Hinduism and to our proud, glorious tradition.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
The New Indian Express for a Theocratic India?
The New Indian Express adopts a very clever strategy - its editorials go that extra mile to project a secular image of itself. At the same time, it gives huge and prominent spaces to anti-minority intellectuals like Gurumurthy and Francois Gautier to propagate the communal agenda and divide the people. What is the purpose of this doublespeak?
God knows what fancy rate the paper gives a cantankerous journalist like Gautier. This Frenchman’s simplistic and shallow readings of Christianity and Hinduism, and his seeming sympathy with the ill treated majority is reminiscent of the age old dirty game played by the imperialists to divide and rule. What surprises me is the way the New Indian Express is playing into the hands of this incurable imperialist. Or is it t hat the paper is using Gautier for a straight-from-the-horse’s-mouth type of an impact to secure its communal agenda? His recent article has let loose a lot of hate responses, both in the daily and on the net.
Wonder what this paper is up to. Why is it indulging in these nefarious divisive games? Is The New Indian Express laying the foundation for a theocratic dispensation for India?
God knows what fancy rate the paper gives a cantankerous journalist like Gautier. This Frenchman’s simplistic and shallow readings of Christianity and Hinduism, and his seeming sympathy with the ill treated majority is reminiscent of the age old dirty game played by the imperialists to divide and rule. What surprises me is the way the New Indian Express is playing into the hands of this incurable imperialist. Or is it t hat the paper is using Gautier for a straight-from-the-horse’s-mouth type of an impact to secure its communal agenda? His recent article has let loose a lot of hate responses, both in the daily and on the net.
Wonder what this paper is up to. Why is it indulging in these nefarious divisive games? Is The New Indian Express laying the foundation for a theocratic dispensation for India?
Friday, October 10, 2008
Salaam Bombay. And Kerala? Sorry. No Salaam
I was in Mumbai in the 1st week of this month. I was astounded at the success achieved by the city in upgrading the infrastructure to cope with the huge population.
It’s quite possible that my stay in Kerala for a year and a half could be the reason that Mumbai fascinated me like never before. After all things shine by contrast.
And what a contrast it is! Mumbai and any city in Kerala.
Is it fair to talk of the two in the same breath? Can the gigantic financial capital of India be put on the same scale as the cities in the tiny state of Kerala?
Well, why not? After all, Kerala is supposed to be the first and best state on many counts, and is placed on par with the developed countries as per all sorts of national and international surveys?
What impressed me about Mumbai was the way the city has been cleaned up. From 1999 when I left Mumbai after my first stint there, Mumbai had changed visibly in 2004 when I returned for my next spell there. Flyovers had come all over the city, easing the traffic. The pollution level had come down drastically with taxis replacing diesel with LPG.
Now, the point I am trying to make is – Is it possible to bring about a change of this nature in Kerala, the most enlightened state in the country?
A highway planned by the previous government was sabotaged by the opposition for political reasons.
An overbridge in Kochi remains incomplete for God knows how long.
Flyovers in Trivandrum too stand like withered stumps of discarded development projects. And one of them is tainted with the blood of a Japanese contractor who made the mistake of not doing his homework on Kerala before he signed the contract with the Kerala Government. Wonder why no one told him that Kerala is a place where nothing happens, nothing can ever happen.
This last week’s visit to Mumbai filled me with a tremendous admiration and respect for the Mumbaikers. The waste of this huge city with its astronomical population is managed magnificently. Mumbai, which supports a population almost half the size of population of the whole of Kerala, has found a way to clean up the city and mange its waste. All those vegetable refuse that used to pile up along the roads near Dadar and other main markets, the plastic waste and rubbish heaps were conspicuous by their absence. It would do well for Kerala to send a team to Mumbai and study how this mammoth task is being achieved. The clean streets from Colaba to Andheri brought to mind the miserable rubbish heaps on the streets of Kochi. On my own, I made random inquiries of how this is managed in Mumbai. It seems, in addition to corporation workers, the tasks of waste disposal and cleaning the streets are given to private operators.
Can u imagine the mayhem that would be let loose if the private player is permitted to pick up a broom to sweep the streets in Kerala? Our service sectors with their dog in the manger policy spell the doom of the state.
Yet another issue I’d like to touch upon with some hesitation (hesitation ‘cos it amounts to admission that I used the public rest room in Mumbai) is the condition of the rest rooms in Mumbai. I was pleasantly surprised to find them clean, convenient and not stinking in the malls. But you could have knocked me down with a feather when I discovered that a public toilet (which I was forced to take on account of being caught in a traffic jam) near a busy station on the western line was in a usable condition!!! Considering the volume and the type of the consumers – migrant population who live in shanties, workers, and travelers- these restrooms were clean! In the sense, it was not in a condition that’d make one feel the need to jump into a tub of boiling detol water as soon as one reached home. My experience in the rest rooms of hotels and even resorts, were often unpleasant in Kerala. And the public toilets in Kerala? I’d rather die a thousand deaths than get into any one of them.
Again, the question arises as to how the mighty Mumbai city with its massive heterogeneous population managed to convey a sense of civic responsibility to its denizens. How come this cannot be achieved in the highly literate Kerala with its people who are eternally sniggering at the people from other states for their lack of hygiene- both personal and public?
Kerala is truly a queer and bizarre place. One cannot find any logical explanation for what it is.
It’s quite possible that my stay in Kerala for a year and a half could be the reason that Mumbai fascinated me like never before. After all things shine by contrast.
And what a contrast it is! Mumbai and any city in Kerala.
Is it fair to talk of the two in the same breath? Can the gigantic financial capital of India be put on the same scale as the cities in the tiny state of Kerala?
Well, why not? After all, Kerala is supposed to be the first and best state on many counts, and is placed on par with the developed countries as per all sorts of national and international surveys?
What impressed me about Mumbai was the way the city has been cleaned up. From 1999 when I left Mumbai after my first stint there, Mumbai had changed visibly in 2004 when I returned for my next spell there. Flyovers had come all over the city, easing the traffic. The pollution level had come down drastically with taxis replacing diesel with LPG.
Now, the point I am trying to make is – Is it possible to bring about a change of this nature in Kerala, the most enlightened state in the country?
A highway planned by the previous government was sabotaged by the opposition for political reasons.
An overbridge in Kochi remains incomplete for God knows how long.
Flyovers in Trivandrum too stand like withered stumps of discarded development projects. And one of them is tainted with the blood of a Japanese contractor who made the mistake of not doing his homework on Kerala before he signed the contract with the Kerala Government. Wonder why no one told him that Kerala is a place where nothing happens, nothing can ever happen.
This last week’s visit to Mumbai filled me with a tremendous admiration and respect for the Mumbaikers. The waste of this huge city with its astronomical population is managed magnificently. Mumbai, which supports a population almost half the size of population of the whole of Kerala, has found a way to clean up the city and mange its waste. All those vegetable refuse that used to pile up along the roads near Dadar and other main markets, the plastic waste and rubbish heaps were conspicuous by their absence. It would do well for Kerala to send a team to Mumbai and study how this mammoth task is being achieved. The clean streets from Colaba to Andheri brought to mind the miserable rubbish heaps on the streets of Kochi. On my own, I made random inquiries of how this is managed in Mumbai. It seems, in addition to corporation workers, the tasks of waste disposal and cleaning the streets are given to private operators.
Can u imagine the mayhem that would be let loose if the private player is permitted to pick up a broom to sweep the streets in Kerala? Our service sectors with their dog in the manger policy spell the doom of the state.
Yet another issue I’d like to touch upon with some hesitation (hesitation ‘cos it amounts to admission that I used the public rest room in Mumbai) is the condition of the rest rooms in Mumbai. I was pleasantly surprised to find them clean, convenient and not stinking in the malls. But you could have knocked me down with a feather when I discovered that a public toilet (which I was forced to take on account of being caught in a traffic jam) near a busy station on the western line was in a usable condition!!! Considering the volume and the type of the consumers – migrant population who live in shanties, workers, and travelers- these restrooms were clean! In the sense, it was not in a condition that’d make one feel the need to jump into a tub of boiling detol water as soon as one reached home. My experience in the rest rooms of hotels and even resorts, were often unpleasant in Kerala. And the public toilets in Kerala? I’d rather die a thousand deaths than get into any one of them.
Again, the question arises as to how the mighty Mumbai city with its massive heterogeneous population managed to convey a sense of civic responsibility to its denizens. How come this cannot be achieved in the highly literate Kerala with its people who are eternally sniggering at the people from other states for their lack of hygiene- both personal and public?
Kerala is truly a queer and bizarre place. One cannot find any logical explanation for what it is.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Mischievous Forwards
I got many forwards after the attack on Christians began in Orissa. The immediate forwards emphatically talked about how tolerant and secular Hindu India is, how tolerant India is ‘cos Indian culture is Hindu culture. They pointed out that India has had Muslim Presidents, Christian Defence Ministers, a Muslim on the board of trustees of a Hindu temple, Muslim chief ministers, that post Godhra riots are blown out of proportion while Hindu pundits predicament in J&K is soft pedaled, that subsidy is given to Haj pilgrims while none to Sabarimala pilgrims, that Muezzin calls are permitted, and how 85% of Indians – the majority population- craves for what 15% gets. This and more. Much more. I don’t contest any of these. In fact, I agree with every claim and am proud to belong to a model secular state.
But I did not forward these forwards as requested. I deleted them instantly.
And then another set of forwards started burdening my inbox. This time they listed out the number of Christian Churches destroyed, details of people who lost lives and property in the anti Christian riots; they pointed out that there is no relief organized for xians in refugee camps and that xians organizations are not allowed relief operations while they were most active & effective during the Orissa floods; they highlighted how 15 million students of all castes and creeds pass thru xian educational institution every year-but the percentage of conversion is nil. They talked of how there are laws in place against fraudulent conversion, but no cases of false & fraudulent conversion were filed or proved. This and more. Much more. I don’t contest any of these. In fact, I agree with every claim and am proud to belong to the Christian community.
But I did not forward these forwards as requested.I deleted them instantly
For I believe that the net should not be used to polarize the nation. It amounts to serious misuse.
Speaking the truth but not the whole truth, then interpreting them to inflame passions – that’s mischievous. I do not want to be a party to this virtual propaganda which is doing no good to this beautiful nation that is mine.
Let's use the cyber space in a responsible manner.
Jai Hind.
But I did not forward these forwards as requested. I deleted them instantly.
And then another set of forwards started burdening my inbox. This time they listed out the number of Christian Churches destroyed, details of people who lost lives and property in the anti Christian riots; they pointed out that there is no relief organized for xians in refugee camps and that xians organizations are not allowed relief operations while they were most active & effective during the Orissa floods; they highlighted how 15 million students of all castes and creeds pass thru xian educational institution every year-but the percentage of conversion is nil. They talked of how there are laws in place against fraudulent conversion, but no cases of false & fraudulent conversion were filed or proved. This and more. Much more. I don’t contest any of these. In fact, I agree with every claim and am proud to belong to the Christian community.
But I did not forward these forwards as requested.I deleted them instantly
For I believe that the net should not be used to polarize the nation. It amounts to serious misuse.
Speaking the truth but not the whole truth, then interpreting them to inflame passions – that’s mischievous. I do not want to be a party to this virtual propaganda which is doing no good to this beautiful nation that is mine.
Let's use the cyber space in a responsible manner.
Jai Hind.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
How Come My Face Remained Intact
I remember it was a Saturday during the Gulf war ‘cos my brother and I were discussing over breakfast how permitting the US warplanes to refuel in India amounted to a shift in India’s Foreign Policy and might tempt Saddam Hussein to direct his Scud missiles towards India. After breakfast, my brother retired to the guest room which was a level lower than rest of the apartment, and I went into the kitchen to cook for the week.
The maid came in and went straightaway to the narrow space in the far end of the kitchen to do the dishes while I put the pressure pan on the stove with moong dal in it. Then I thought I’ll watch the morning movie for a few minutes and settled down in the reclining chair. I must have remained there for fifteen to twenty minutes when it suddenly struck me that the pressure pan hadn’t whistled. So I got up quickly and went into the kitchen. What I saw then was one of the strangest sights I’d ever seen.
The pressure pan was shaking like a space rocket about to take off. And then, it really did take off!! It raised itself up slowly from the gas stove, went up a couple of feet ever so slowly and then took a right turn. By now it was out of the kitchen platform.
If I had any sense in my head, I’d have run for my life, for I’ve always been told that a pressure cooker or pan which indulges in strange behaviour is the most dangerous thing on earth. But this strange inexplicable phenomenon fascinated me and I went forward towards it, spell bound by the pan suspended in the air and shaking and moving as though it had a life of its own. And my maid – strange woman that she is – was blissfully unaware of the phenomenal event that was happening next to her. She kept at the dishes, singing the latest Malayalam hit song out of tune.
And then it happened. The weight of the pressure cooker came off the nozzle like a bullet and whizzed past my head (it missed my head by the skin of the teeth), crashed into the wall, bringing down a huge chunk of the plaster off the wall. The minute the weight left the pressure pan, the dal in the pan (thoroughly cooked) started spurting out at the speed of light, at my face and head through the nozzle; and the pan crashed to the floor with a deafening explosive sound. The pressure pan then started spinning like a top at full speed on the floor while I looked down at it with fascination, and continued to be sprayed with the yellow cooked dal.
The maid, in the meanwhile, had run to the end of the kitchen and clung to the wall, her song turning into a wail. The pressure pan rotating at high speed on the ground, soon began to slow down while, like an idiot totally devoid of common sense, I stood over it, fascinated - and continued to be sprayed with dal coming out of its nozzle. Hearing a sound, I turned my head to the entrance of the kitchen and saw my brother standing there, eyes popping out of his face (like Jim Carey’s in Mask. 0ops! forgive the anachronism) and his jaw dropping incredibly low ( like Carey’s again but without its manipulative power). He had rushed to the kitchen to grab me and run out of the house. He thought Saddam’s scud missile had targeted Kochin! That was when he saw me with the yellow stuff plastered on my face and head, and simply couldn’t make out what had happened.
Soon the neighbours from the ground floor and the adjacent houses started shouting out to us from the compound, wanting to know what had happened. None of them had the courage to come up to find out for themselves. They later told us that they thought that the gas cylinder had exploded and were looking out for fire and smoke and panicky screams.
Ok. Once I came to my senses, I found my own solution to the mystery of the pressure pan taking off as though it had a will of its own. I knew enough physics to know that the pressure trapped in the pan and which was trying to escape weighed more than the pan itself. They say this can happen when you cook dal in a pressure pan.
But how come my face did not have burn injuries? With all that cooked liquid dal spraying at my face straight from the pan at boiling point? Unless someone gives me an explanation, I shall continue to believe that it had everything to do with this habit of mine for years, of waking up in the morning with the words: “God, protect my near and dear ones and me from all dangers, diseases and evil”
The maid came in and went straightaway to the narrow space in the far end of the kitchen to do the dishes while I put the pressure pan on the stove with moong dal in it. Then I thought I’ll watch the morning movie for a few minutes and settled down in the reclining chair. I must have remained there for fifteen to twenty minutes when it suddenly struck me that the pressure pan hadn’t whistled. So I got up quickly and went into the kitchen. What I saw then was one of the strangest sights I’d ever seen.
The pressure pan was shaking like a space rocket about to take off. And then, it really did take off!! It raised itself up slowly from the gas stove, went up a couple of feet ever so slowly and then took a right turn. By now it was out of the kitchen platform.
If I had any sense in my head, I’d have run for my life, for I’ve always been told that a pressure cooker or pan which indulges in strange behaviour is the most dangerous thing on earth. But this strange inexplicable phenomenon fascinated me and I went forward towards it, spell bound by the pan suspended in the air and shaking and moving as though it had a life of its own. And my maid – strange woman that she is – was blissfully unaware of the phenomenal event that was happening next to her. She kept at the dishes, singing the latest Malayalam hit song out of tune.
And then it happened. The weight of the pressure cooker came off the nozzle like a bullet and whizzed past my head (it missed my head by the skin of the teeth), crashed into the wall, bringing down a huge chunk of the plaster off the wall. The minute the weight left the pressure pan, the dal in the pan (thoroughly cooked) started spurting out at the speed of light, at my face and head through the nozzle; and the pan crashed to the floor with a deafening explosive sound. The pressure pan then started spinning like a top at full speed on the floor while I looked down at it with fascination, and continued to be sprayed with the yellow cooked dal.
The maid, in the meanwhile, had run to the end of the kitchen and clung to the wall, her song turning into a wail. The pressure pan rotating at high speed on the ground, soon began to slow down while, like an idiot totally devoid of common sense, I stood over it, fascinated - and continued to be sprayed with dal coming out of its nozzle. Hearing a sound, I turned my head to the entrance of the kitchen and saw my brother standing there, eyes popping out of his face (like Jim Carey’s in Mask. 0ops! forgive the anachronism) and his jaw dropping incredibly low ( like Carey’s again but without its manipulative power). He had rushed to the kitchen to grab me and run out of the house. He thought Saddam’s scud missile had targeted Kochin! That was when he saw me with the yellow stuff plastered on my face and head, and simply couldn’t make out what had happened.
Soon the neighbours from the ground floor and the adjacent houses started shouting out to us from the compound, wanting to know what had happened. None of them had the courage to come up to find out for themselves. They later told us that they thought that the gas cylinder had exploded and were looking out for fire and smoke and panicky screams.
Ok. Once I came to my senses, I found my own solution to the mystery of the pressure pan taking off as though it had a will of its own. I knew enough physics to know that the pressure trapped in the pan and which was trying to escape weighed more than the pan itself. They say this can happen when you cook dal in a pressure pan.
But how come my face did not have burn injuries? With all that cooked liquid dal spraying at my face straight from the pan at boiling point? Unless someone gives me an explanation, I shall continue to believe that it had everything to do with this habit of mine for years, of waking up in the morning with the words: “God, protect my near and dear ones and me from all dangers, diseases and evil”
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Globalisation Of Higher Education
(Leafing through an old College Magazine, I came across this article I'd contributed. Thought I'll post it , 'cos I still hold the same views. Read on, if you have the patience. It's long, I warn you)
Some time back I attended a seminar on Higher Education vis a vis Globalization. A premier educational institution in the state had hosted it. The two-day seminar proved to be a very disturbing experience. It was revelation of how rhetoric can take a right about turn before our very eyes without us noticing it.
The meeting began with chief convener’s introductory speech on the ‘higher education Sector’. Yes, like public sector, private sector, energy sector, heavy vehicle sector, we now have higher education sector! Like all “sectors”, we have the producer, the stakeholder, the consumer, the commodity, profit and loss, and the eye ever straying to the bottom line!
During the entire course of the two-day seminar, no one spoke the social problems thrown up by globalization. No one spoke of the implications of globalization in a developing country like India. No one spoke of marginalization as an inevitable fall out of globalization. Not a word about formulating a Higher Education policy with the agenda to deal with the inevitable creation of a section of humanity that is likely to fall by the way side in the new order. No one had anything to say about redefining the function of higher education in India against the backdrop of the mammoth human crisis thrown up by the implementation of the triple slogan of liberalization, privatization and globalization.
But discuaaions revovled around the possibility of churning out youngsters capable of starting off with six-figure salary. God, when did this reduction of Higher Education to an industry take place? Needless to say, one does often see the product selling style of marketing education in the newspapers and at educational exhibitions. But this seminar was a platform provided by an institution which once took pride in giving leadership in inculcating social values though education; and to hear education being discussed in the language of trade and commerce alone, in paper after paper, by speaker after speaker – well , it came as something of a shock; it becomes hard to digest the fact that within the hallowed portals of this institution, all those noble thoughts associated with higher education were conspicuous by their absence, and education was allowed to be equated to mere technical expertise!
The modus operandi was interesting. Politicians and bureaucrats with their own axes to grind stole the show with their grand eloquence. While the minister waxed eloquent on his grand plan of transforming Kerala into an IT savvy state which can throw up that much valued human commodity for export, one bureaucrat spat fire and brimstones, and in high astounding terms spoke of the magnificent castles in the air that children should be taught to build, because in this cyber age these castles need no longer remain airy ones.
The outcome of the two-day programme was the ratification of the theory that mass production of highly competent professionals was the ultimate aim of higher education. All the teachers from the various colleges who came to attend the seminar were mesmerized by the sight and sound of the celebrities. No protests were raised from dissenting quarters for fear of being branded or ridiculed. Creation of individuals sensitive to human issues, social responsibilities of education -I shudder to think of the ripples of merriment that the very suggestion of these concepts would have generated in that charged atmosphere.
The papers presented by participating teachers dealt with the nature of higher education, the methods of teaching in the context of the IT revolution, globalization etc, etc. Excellently researched papers and well presented. But no one had anything to say of steering education, both higher and lower into a direction that would take the students in to the heart of terrible human issues that India of this century is bound to be beleaguered with on account of the inevitable course of liberalization that she had to take. No effort was made to enlighten this elite gathering of intellectuals on the danger of the chosen mode of development. No one drew attention to the deliberate and systematic attempts by the consortium of global corporates, to condition tastes and norms in order to successfully commodify cultures, women, poverty, everything. No mention of the need for a game plan to create a discerning mind in the younger generation in order to enable them to see through the discourse that assaults them from all sides. No word of caution against neo colonialism. Instead, all such fears were dismissed with celestial contempt as quixotic shadow boxing.
The seminar was a terrifying experience. If guardians of the high values of education speak this language and discard the other, it is time for genuine worry as to where civilization is headed. At that seminar, a silent consensus was arrived at on the definition of higher education as a tool for creation of human commodities for survival in the new order where many are bound to go under. After all isn’t that the law of nature, the survival of the fittest ? And social values are man made not nature’s or God’s, aren’t they?
Some time back I attended a seminar on Higher Education vis a vis Globalization. A premier educational institution in the state had hosted it. The two-day seminar proved to be a very disturbing experience. It was revelation of how rhetoric can take a right about turn before our very eyes without us noticing it.
The meeting began with chief convener’s introductory speech on the ‘higher education Sector’. Yes, like public sector, private sector, energy sector, heavy vehicle sector, we now have higher education sector! Like all “sectors”, we have the producer, the stakeholder, the consumer, the commodity, profit and loss, and the eye ever straying to the bottom line!
During the entire course of the two-day seminar, no one spoke the social problems thrown up by globalization. No one spoke of the implications of globalization in a developing country like India. No one spoke of marginalization as an inevitable fall out of globalization. Not a word about formulating a Higher Education policy with the agenda to deal with the inevitable creation of a section of humanity that is likely to fall by the way side in the new order. No one had anything to say about redefining the function of higher education in India against the backdrop of the mammoth human crisis thrown up by the implementation of the triple slogan of liberalization, privatization and globalization.
But discuaaions revovled around the possibility of churning out youngsters capable of starting off with six-figure salary. God, when did this reduction of Higher Education to an industry take place? Needless to say, one does often see the product selling style of marketing education in the newspapers and at educational exhibitions. But this seminar was a platform provided by an institution which once took pride in giving leadership in inculcating social values though education; and to hear education being discussed in the language of trade and commerce alone, in paper after paper, by speaker after speaker – well , it came as something of a shock; it becomes hard to digest the fact that within the hallowed portals of this institution, all those noble thoughts associated with higher education were conspicuous by their absence, and education was allowed to be equated to mere technical expertise!
The modus operandi was interesting. Politicians and bureaucrats with their own axes to grind stole the show with their grand eloquence. While the minister waxed eloquent on his grand plan of transforming Kerala into an IT savvy state which can throw up that much valued human commodity for export, one bureaucrat spat fire and brimstones, and in high astounding terms spoke of the magnificent castles in the air that children should be taught to build, because in this cyber age these castles need no longer remain airy ones.
The outcome of the two-day programme was the ratification of the theory that mass production of highly competent professionals was the ultimate aim of higher education. All the teachers from the various colleges who came to attend the seminar were mesmerized by the sight and sound of the celebrities. No protests were raised from dissenting quarters for fear of being branded or ridiculed. Creation of individuals sensitive to human issues, social responsibilities of education -I shudder to think of the ripples of merriment that the very suggestion of these concepts would have generated in that charged atmosphere.
The papers presented by participating teachers dealt with the nature of higher education, the methods of teaching in the context of the IT revolution, globalization etc, etc. Excellently researched papers and well presented. But no one had anything to say of steering education, both higher and lower into a direction that would take the students in to the heart of terrible human issues that India of this century is bound to be beleaguered with on account of the inevitable course of liberalization that she had to take. No effort was made to enlighten this elite gathering of intellectuals on the danger of the chosen mode of development. No one drew attention to the deliberate and systematic attempts by the consortium of global corporates, to condition tastes and norms in order to successfully commodify cultures, women, poverty, everything. No mention of the need for a game plan to create a discerning mind in the younger generation in order to enable them to see through the discourse that assaults them from all sides. No word of caution against neo colonialism. Instead, all such fears were dismissed with celestial contempt as quixotic shadow boxing.
The seminar was a terrifying experience. If guardians of the high values of education speak this language and discard the other, it is time for genuine worry as to where civilization is headed. At that seminar, a silent consensus was arrived at on the definition of higher education as a tool for creation of human commodities for survival in the new order where many are bound to go under. After all isn’t that the law of nature, the survival of the fittest ? And social values are man made not nature’s or God’s, aren’t they?
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
The Delhi Blasts - On Treating the Disease
I know a group of people whose refrain after each series of bomb blasts is “Narendra Modi - that’s what the country needs”.
I strongly disagree with them. The effectiveness of every action should be judged by its long term results. Did the state engineered post- Godhra riots rid Gujarat of terror attacks? Most certainly not. In fact Gujarat, unfortunately, seems to figure on the hit list of terrorists, if one is to go by the turn of events since Godhra.
There was a time when I seriously thought that if BJP could discard communal politics, it would be a welcome change from the Congress which has grown into an effete political force on account of compulsions of coalition politics and appeasement policies. But after the communal riots in Orissa and now Karnataka (BJP ruled states), BJP at the centre is an absolute no no. The BJP ruled states believe in denying space to non majority groups. That denial, it appears, is to be achieved by elimination in installments. Hardly an ideal situation in a pluralistic democracy like India. One does not cease to be an Indian simply because she/he is a Christian or Muslim.
I suppose, in this context, it is necessary to talk about the code of conduct of minorities in a secular political set up. If conversion by allurements by Christian missionaries is practiced, it should be stopped. Gurumurthy recently wrote a piece in The New Indian Express on the Orissa riots, laying all the blame at the door of Christian missionaries who converted the Panas(an SC community) and turned them against the Kandas ( a Scheduled Tribe community) who did not get converted to Christianity. Now, how much of truth there is in this claim is a matter of dispute, for, Gurumurthy has a remarkable capacity of twisting facts and figures out of shape to rationalize his Hindutva agenda (http://pareltank.blogspot.com/2006/12/gurumurthyism.html) . But if we are to give credence to the proverbial wisdom that there is no smoke without fire, this matter needs to be investigated. If there is some truth in what Gurumurthy says – that conversion is setting tribes against each other – the issue needs to be taken seriously and addressed. And addressed by Christian groups who must take a decision not to indulge in unethical conversions by dangling attractive compensations for conversion. So also the Muslim community. The leaders should do some serious thinking on how Islam could be fitted harmoniously into the Indian cultural setting. But, most importantly, the minority groups should not indulge in anything that offends the sensibilities of the majority group. I think the former owes that much to the latter who have been infinitely tolerant of differences. The Minority Rights should not to exercised in any way that is detrimental to the peace and harmony of a secular society
I look back with nostalgia at the days when one did not have to be apologetic about belonging to a minority religion. I’m not talking of some remote past but a past in Kerala, very much present in my memory. On several occasions, I have been embarrassed by my friends whom I knew as my classmates in the seventies, telling me that I survive in India with no rights denied cause of the goodness of Hindus. I do not question this but there was a time when we took each other for granted, never saw ourselves as Hindus or Christians or Muslims but as friends and Indians.
Is it possible to recapture those days? A disease can be rooted out and cured only if the diagnosis is proper. It is imperative that representatives from all creeds in India sit together, admit mistakes, make earnest promises to change and take a solemn oath that “we are Indians first”.
Or India will be broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls.
I strongly disagree with them. The effectiveness of every action should be judged by its long term results. Did the state engineered post- Godhra riots rid Gujarat of terror attacks? Most certainly not. In fact Gujarat, unfortunately, seems to figure on the hit list of terrorists, if one is to go by the turn of events since Godhra.
There was a time when I seriously thought that if BJP could discard communal politics, it would be a welcome change from the Congress which has grown into an effete political force on account of compulsions of coalition politics and appeasement policies. But after the communal riots in Orissa and now Karnataka (BJP ruled states), BJP at the centre is an absolute no no. The BJP ruled states believe in denying space to non majority groups. That denial, it appears, is to be achieved by elimination in installments. Hardly an ideal situation in a pluralistic democracy like India. One does not cease to be an Indian simply because she/he is a Christian or Muslim.
I suppose, in this context, it is necessary to talk about the code of conduct of minorities in a secular political set up. If conversion by allurements by Christian missionaries is practiced, it should be stopped. Gurumurthy recently wrote a piece in The New Indian Express on the Orissa riots, laying all the blame at the door of Christian missionaries who converted the Panas(an SC community) and turned them against the Kandas ( a Scheduled Tribe community) who did not get converted to Christianity. Now, how much of truth there is in this claim is a matter of dispute, for, Gurumurthy has a remarkable capacity of twisting facts and figures out of shape to rationalize his Hindutva agenda (http://pareltank.blogspot.com/2006/12/gurumurthyism.html) . But if we are to give credence to the proverbial wisdom that there is no smoke without fire, this matter needs to be investigated. If there is some truth in what Gurumurthy says – that conversion is setting tribes against each other – the issue needs to be taken seriously and addressed. And addressed by Christian groups who must take a decision not to indulge in unethical conversions by dangling attractive compensations for conversion. So also the Muslim community. The leaders should do some serious thinking on how Islam could be fitted harmoniously into the Indian cultural setting. But, most importantly, the minority groups should not indulge in anything that offends the sensibilities of the majority group. I think the former owes that much to the latter who have been infinitely tolerant of differences. The Minority Rights should not to exercised in any way that is detrimental to the peace and harmony of a secular society
I look back with nostalgia at the days when one did not have to be apologetic about belonging to a minority religion. I’m not talking of some remote past but a past in Kerala, very much present in my memory. On several occasions, I have been embarrassed by my friends whom I knew as my classmates in the seventies, telling me that I survive in India with no rights denied cause of the goodness of Hindus. I do not question this but there was a time when we took each other for granted, never saw ourselves as Hindus or Christians or Muslims but as friends and Indians.
Is it possible to recapture those days? A disease can be rooted out and cured only if the diagnosis is proper. It is imperative that representatives from all creeds in India sit together, admit mistakes, make earnest promises to change and take a solemn oath that “we are Indians first”.
Or India will be broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Women's Liberation - Kudumbashree Shows the Way
Saw an interesting picture in the newspaper today – a women’s pancharimelam team from a Kudumbasbsree unit welcoming the Health Minister Ms P. K. Sreemathi to the Tourism and Trade Fair.
It was an extremely pleasing sight. So different from the usual thalapoli walk comprising ladies dolled up in traditional Kerala sarees, looking pretty and walking ‘gracefully’, thereby endorsing the age old image of woman as an ornament, a seductress, the creature whose very rationale for existence is to bring joy and fulfillment to the man, the family and society – the frames into which are fitted the devadasi, the gazal dancer, the courtesan.
I don’t think these entrenched images have changed fundamentally in any part of the world. I was disappointed to see Michelle Obama dancing - for the white female electorate, was it? I would have liked to see her doing something more relevant to the role of the would–be consort to the most powerful man in the world – it’d appear that dancing and charming are only the roles that suit her, the woman. A President’s wife or a janitor’s wife, the story is the same.
Surely women are capable of less frilly roles too. The kudumbasree is a superb example of that. The cities of Kochin and Trivandrum would stink and be a breeding a ground for life threatening microbes if not for the fantastic service rendered by the kudumbasree in waste removal. Where the corporation and the municipality have failed, the kudumbashree has stepped in. It is the awakening and experience of the women power – sthree sakthi - that is seen in this picture where the kudambasree women chose to welcome the minister, not with thalapoli but with drums that are always associated with the strong, male of high utility value.
It’s time that women from the more privileged classes too made conscious efforts to break themselves free from these controlling images brewed long years back in the cauldron of patriarchal values. That liberation can come only when they experience the self esteem that the kudumbashree enjoys, a self esteem that is born of a realization that women can address and tackle not only women’s social and economic problems as they do, but also those of the society. The innovative self help banking system that they follow, their success in turning society’s problems into opportunities for themselves and service to the society, have enhanced their sense of independence and self esteem.
Which, I guess is why they didn’t line up in the Kerala kasavu sarees, holding thalipolis and walking seductively.
This reminds me to a function I attended in Florida sometime back. The Malayalee teenaged girls donned the kasavu saree, loaded their heads with jasmine flowers and walked up the aisle with the talapolis. What struck me was the most ‘unladylike’ movement of these young girls who had spent all their lives in Levis and Bermuda shorts. It looked awkward to me at first, particularly when one of them, impatient with the saree getting in the way, kept on hitching it up! But, as I watched them, I felt a certain sense of relief rising from deep within me. That ‘graceful’, seductive, annnanada(swan walk) is not something a woman is born with. It is imbibed from the air she breathes. Yes. No one is born a woman; she is made one.
I am not trying to say that these young teenagers are a liberated lot. Only, they have not been influenced by the Kerala concept of “how to be a lady” –at least, at that superficial level. As they weren’t trapped and trained in the ‘womanizing’ clothes, they hadn’t fallen victim to the images that control and shape the mind through the agency of the traditional attire.
It was an extremely pleasing sight. So different from the usual thalapoli walk comprising ladies dolled up in traditional Kerala sarees, looking pretty and walking ‘gracefully’, thereby endorsing the age old image of woman as an ornament, a seductress, the creature whose very rationale for existence is to bring joy and fulfillment to the man, the family and society – the frames into which are fitted the devadasi, the gazal dancer, the courtesan.
I don’t think these entrenched images have changed fundamentally in any part of the world. I was disappointed to see Michelle Obama dancing - for the white female electorate, was it? I would have liked to see her doing something more relevant to the role of the would–be consort to the most powerful man in the world – it’d appear that dancing and charming are only the roles that suit her, the woman. A President’s wife or a janitor’s wife, the story is the same.
Surely women are capable of less frilly roles too. The kudumbasree is a superb example of that. The cities of Kochin and Trivandrum would stink and be a breeding a ground for life threatening microbes if not for the fantastic service rendered by the kudumbasree in waste removal. Where the corporation and the municipality have failed, the kudumbashree has stepped in. It is the awakening and experience of the women power – sthree sakthi - that is seen in this picture where the kudambasree women chose to welcome the minister, not with thalapoli but with drums that are always associated with the strong, male of high utility value.
It’s time that women from the more privileged classes too made conscious efforts to break themselves free from these controlling images brewed long years back in the cauldron of patriarchal values. That liberation can come only when they experience the self esteem that the kudumbashree enjoys, a self esteem that is born of a realization that women can address and tackle not only women’s social and economic problems as they do, but also those of the society. The innovative self help banking system that they follow, their success in turning society’s problems into opportunities for themselves and service to the society, have enhanced their sense of independence and self esteem.
Which, I guess is why they didn’t line up in the Kerala kasavu sarees, holding thalipolis and walking seductively.
This reminds me to a function I attended in Florida sometime back. The Malayalee teenaged girls donned the kasavu saree, loaded their heads with jasmine flowers and walked up the aisle with the talapolis. What struck me was the most ‘unladylike’ movement of these young girls who had spent all their lives in Levis and Bermuda shorts. It looked awkward to me at first, particularly when one of them, impatient with the saree getting in the way, kept on hitching it up! But, as I watched them, I felt a certain sense of relief rising from deep within me. That ‘graceful’, seductive, annnanada(swan walk) is not something a woman is born with. It is imbibed from the air she breathes. Yes. No one is born a woman; she is made one.
I am not trying to say that these young teenagers are a liberated lot. Only, they have not been influenced by the Kerala concept of “how to be a lady” –at least, at that superficial level. As they weren’t trapped and trained in the ‘womanizing’ clothes, they hadn’t fallen victim to the images that control and shape the mind through the agency of the traditional attire.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Black Coffee and Milk - The Nazrani Obsession with Colour
I have always hesitated to write on the colour issue. But a comment from Silverine to my last post emboldened me. These youngsters, they are very courageous and often point out to you the road to be taken!
It was in the early seventies. I was, once, waiting for my friend in the parlour of a college hostel. Three ladies – all above fifty – came in and asked for Susan.
“Which Susan?” asked the parlour maid.
“A fair girl. Very fair”
The parlour maid nodded and disappeared.
One of the ladies recognized me.
“Aren’t you so & so’s daughter”
“Yes”
“What course are you doing?”
I told her. All of them got excited.
“Hey! Susan also is doing the same course, same year. Do you know her?’
“Yes”
They looked at each other, and then all of them, in unison. moved forward to the edges of their chairs and, in a conspiratorial tone, one asked. ”Is Susan beautiful?”
I remained silent. ‘Cos Susan was not my idea of beautiful.
“But I heard that she is very, very fair?”
“Yes. She’s milk white. That’s what we were told”. That in an accusing tone.
“Yes. She is milk white”, I agreed.
All of them looked relieved.
“So she must be beautiful”. Just then, in walked Susan and I saw all the three faces of the visitors go radiant with joy. Apparently they had come to take a peek at the girl proposed for a relative's son.
This Nazrani obsession with colour is inexplicable, particularly since there are some very very dark Nazranis too. And the similes used to describe colour are uniform across the tribe -”as dark as ebony” for the very dark, ‘milk white’ for the extremely fair. A husband wife team with one extremely fair & the other very dark is referred to as “black coffee and milk”. In the Trichur region, beauty is equated with skin colour. You can have a snub nose, thick oversized lips, buck teeth, mere slits for eyes but yet be beautiful if you are milk white. On the other hand, you can have finely chiseled features of a classic beauty and yet be “not really desirable for my son”.
In the seventies, when I was branded as belonging to the “incorrigible younger generation”, my group of friends (we considered ourselves modern & more enlightened than the rest of mankind) rebelled – in our private debates - against this colour obsession. The very fair was derogatively called ‘vella paatta” (white cockroach). Our relatives from Trichur, in their typical blunt manner dismissed this as a “sour grapes” approach.
I don’t think things have changed much even today. Each time parents inform us about the marriage of their sons, the first information is about the colour. And a light skinned girl always lends a lilt to the voice of the prospective in-laws. We often hear such statements as “she is so fair, yet they are demanding a fat dowry –and that too for that karamban”!
A couple of years back, I attended a social function in Trichur. I was caught in a group which was very excitedly discussing the effectiveness of Chakolas Fairness cream. How serious they were!
”You know Champaka? I saw her yesterday. She has changed a lot. Become soooooooo beautiful (read fair). I asked her what she did to herself. She is using Chackolas fairness cream”
“Really (four voices in unison-high pitched with excitement)
“Yeeeees. Pearl. Why don’t you ask your daughter to use it? After all she is of the marriageable age”
“As if my daughter isn’t fair enough”. Pearl indignantly.
“Don’t get me wrong Pearl. Of Course your daughter diamond is fair (Pearl smiles), but if she uses Chakola fairness cream, she will become fairer. If it has made Champaka fairer, it'll do miracles with Diamond?
Pearl looks happy. “Shall write to her immediately – Actually Bangalore has darkened her complexion - and these young girls, they are so careless about their colour. They are always in the sun. I ask her to carry an umbrella. She won’t. She says her friends will call her a mallu and tease her. But I have sent a sunscreen with 60%SPF and remind her every day to use it when she goes out. She is coming next week. Wonder (looks anxious) if she has become dark”.
“Yes, yes. These youngsters. They don’t realize that if they become dark, everything is over for them”.
That was when I realized that I better move out of that group before they ask me to try out Chakola’s Fairness Cream.
Shall conclude with a chota episode about my efforts to lighten my complexion. Succumbing to pressure from my dear ones, I went to a beauty parlour to get a facial done on the day before I was to attend a wedding in Trichur. I took my 5 year old son along as there was no one at home to baby sit. Not wanting to leave him alone in the lobby of the parlour, I took him along inside. Before the facial began, I talked to the beautician at length about the safety of using bleach on the face. She was a good talker and convinced me that bleaching is a must and will not harm my facial skin.
The next day, during the reception, I was making light conversation in the company of a large number of relatives when out of the blue, with no provocation whatsoever, my son announced loud and clear, for all the world to hear, that I'd put bleaching powder on my face the day before. Numb with horror, I kept mum. “Bleaching powder?” someone asked. “Yes, bleaching powder. I saw it, I saw it, I saw it, I saw her do it”. Then, angry that someone should question the veracity of his statement, he turned to me, and pointing his index finger at me, asked “Isn’t it true, amma? Am I not speaking the truth?”
It was in the early seventies. I was, once, waiting for my friend in the parlour of a college hostel. Three ladies – all above fifty – came in and asked for Susan.
“Which Susan?” asked the parlour maid.
“A fair girl. Very fair”
The parlour maid nodded and disappeared.
One of the ladies recognized me.
“Aren’t you so & so’s daughter”
“Yes”
“What course are you doing?”
I told her. All of them got excited.
“Hey! Susan also is doing the same course, same year. Do you know her?’
“Yes”
They looked at each other, and then all of them, in unison. moved forward to the edges of their chairs and, in a conspiratorial tone, one asked. ”Is Susan beautiful?”
I remained silent. ‘Cos Susan was not my idea of beautiful.
“But I heard that she is very, very fair?”
“Yes. She’s milk white. That’s what we were told”. That in an accusing tone.
“Yes. She is milk white”, I agreed.
All of them looked relieved.
“So she must be beautiful”. Just then, in walked Susan and I saw all the three faces of the visitors go radiant with joy. Apparently they had come to take a peek at the girl proposed for a relative's son.
This Nazrani obsession with colour is inexplicable, particularly since there are some very very dark Nazranis too. And the similes used to describe colour are uniform across the tribe -”as dark as ebony” for the very dark, ‘milk white’ for the extremely fair. A husband wife team with one extremely fair & the other very dark is referred to as “black coffee and milk”. In the Trichur region, beauty is equated with skin colour. You can have a snub nose, thick oversized lips, buck teeth, mere slits for eyes but yet be beautiful if you are milk white. On the other hand, you can have finely chiseled features of a classic beauty and yet be “not really desirable for my son”.
In the seventies, when I was branded as belonging to the “incorrigible younger generation”, my group of friends (we considered ourselves modern & more enlightened than the rest of mankind) rebelled – in our private debates - against this colour obsession. The very fair was derogatively called ‘vella paatta” (white cockroach). Our relatives from Trichur, in their typical blunt manner dismissed this as a “sour grapes” approach.
I don’t think things have changed much even today. Each time parents inform us about the marriage of their sons, the first information is about the colour. And a light skinned girl always lends a lilt to the voice of the prospective in-laws. We often hear such statements as “she is so fair, yet they are demanding a fat dowry –and that too for that karamban”!
A couple of years back, I attended a social function in Trichur. I was caught in a group which was very excitedly discussing the effectiveness of Chakolas Fairness cream. How serious they were!
”You know Champaka? I saw her yesterday. She has changed a lot. Become soooooooo beautiful (read fair). I asked her what she did to herself. She is using Chackolas fairness cream”
“Really (four voices in unison-high pitched with excitement)
“Yeeeees. Pearl. Why don’t you ask your daughter to use it? After all she is of the marriageable age”
“As if my daughter isn’t fair enough”. Pearl indignantly.
“Don’t get me wrong Pearl. Of Course your daughter diamond is fair (Pearl smiles), but if she uses Chakola fairness cream, she will become fairer. If it has made Champaka fairer, it'll do miracles with Diamond?
Pearl looks happy. “Shall write to her immediately – Actually Bangalore has darkened her complexion - and these young girls, they are so careless about their colour. They are always in the sun. I ask her to carry an umbrella. She won’t. She says her friends will call her a mallu and tease her. But I have sent a sunscreen with 60%SPF and remind her every day to use it when she goes out. She is coming next week. Wonder (looks anxious) if she has become dark”.
“Yes, yes. These youngsters. They don’t realize that if they become dark, everything is over for them”.
That was when I realized that I better move out of that group before they ask me to try out Chakola’s Fairness Cream.
Shall conclude with a chota episode about my efforts to lighten my complexion. Succumbing to pressure from my dear ones, I went to a beauty parlour to get a facial done on the day before I was to attend a wedding in Trichur. I took my 5 year old son along as there was no one at home to baby sit. Not wanting to leave him alone in the lobby of the parlour, I took him along inside. Before the facial began, I talked to the beautician at length about the safety of using bleach on the face. She was a good talker and convinced me that bleaching is a must and will not harm my facial skin.
The next day, during the reception, I was making light conversation in the company of a large number of relatives when out of the blue, with no provocation whatsoever, my son announced loud and clear, for all the world to hear, that I'd put bleaching powder on my face the day before. Numb with horror, I kept mum. “Bleaching powder?” someone asked. “Yes, bleaching powder. I saw it, I saw it, I saw it, I saw her do it”. Then, angry that someone should question the veracity of his statement, he turned to me, and pointing his index finger at me, asked “Isn’t it true, amma? Am I not speaking the truth?”
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
The Nazrani Conundrum
Who are these Syrian Christians of Kerala. also known as Nazranis? Where did they come from? Who converted them?
A sudden identity crisis, it’d appear. But no. No crisis or loss of identity as far as I am concerned. It hardly matters to me whether my ancestors were Namboodiris, or Arabs or Red Indians or apes. I care two hoots about who converted my ancestors 20 centuries ago. It has no relevance to my existence today. And I think this holds true for most Nazranis.
Then why these queries?
I was casually going thru a book on Kerala history. A chapter titled “Kerala Polity and Life of the 16th & 17th Centuries” has a section on the Syrian Christians of Kerala, where it is stated that Christians were - - -well, read for yourself: 'The vast majority among them were vegetarians; rice, curry and milk being their main items of food. Beef eating had not come into vogue !!!!!!!!! (Exclamation marks mine).The Christians as a class were also not addicted to drinks during this period' !!!!!???? (Exclamation and question marks mine). You could have knocked me down with a feather! It is not just a common joke but also a practice that the Nazrani rushes to the meat shop after the Sunday mass. There is also some truth in the saying that he chooses the church which has a meat shop in the vicinity. And to think that he descended from vegetarian stock!
Ok. This bit of information drove me to the net to find out more about the “vegetarian” Syrian Christian. And there I came across a riot of contradictory opinions, views, theories. Most of them were presented with intense heat. The controversy revolves round the questions of the original caste of the Syrian Christians and about St. Thomas, the apostle having come to Kerala at all. The meat eating habit of the Syrian Christians was used as evidence for both groups to prove their points. I shall, for convenience, call these warring netizen groups the Naboothiri Origin Group (NOG) and the Non Namboothiri Origin Group (NNOG).
The NOG were less vociferous- either they did not feel the need to prove anything to anybody or they didn’t have evidence that’d hold water.
The NNOG -they go livid a t the very suggestions that Nazranis have Namboothiri (Kerala Brahmins) origins. Their proofs:
Brahmins migrated to Kerala only after the 4 century AD. How then could St. Thomas convert them in 1st century AD? How can a nonexistent group be converted? Mmmm. They have a point there.
The NOG counter this argument with a quote from A. Sreedara Menon that ‘the first batch of Brahmin immigrants came to Kerala in the 3rd century BC itself, immediately following the advent of the Jains and the Buddhists. It may be recalled that the period coincided with the Mauryan age in the history of North India when a conscious policy of acculturation or dissemination of “the superior material culture of the Gangetic basin” was pursued by the Mauryan State’. Well, there the NOG has a walking stick to lean on. When ST. Thomas came, the Brahmins were around to be converted.
But the NNOG swear that the Christians were beef eaters and Namboodiris, the Brahmins of Kerala who came from North India where the cow was worshipped did not eat beef. In fact, they claim, the beef eating communities in Kerala were ostracized by the Namboothris. Pre-empting the theory of western influence after the Portuguese efforts at latinization of Syrian Church in Kerala, NNOG vow that a centuries old cultural habit of beef abstinence cannot be changed overnight by laitinization.
Now, the NOG won’t take this lying down. Again they quote A. Sreedhara Menon that ‘The advent of the Aryan immigrants (post 4th century) brought about other significant social changes as well. There was a change in the dietary habits of the people. The use of beef and liquor which was common even among the Brahmins in the early Sangam Age now came to be looked upon as taboo. Those who used beef had now some social stigma attached to their class. The continued use of beef by the panes was perhaps one of the factors which brought about the decline of their social status’. So the NOG aver that the Brahmins too ate beef before the second wave of Brahmin migration, after which they gave it up while the Nazranis continued, as they were already Christians and there was no taboo attached to beef eating in the Christian way of life.
But NNOG insists that this is the clearest proof that the Nazranis are Panas converted and not Brahmin (Namboothiri)converts.
And thus the controversy rages on - --
While the Nazrani continues to eat beef. After all pedigree is no substitute for beef.
And so back to the questions: Who are these Syrian Christians? Where did they come from? Who converted them?
A humble simble group whose paternity cannot be traced?
Some of them, particularly from certain parts of Kerala, are a shade lighter in complexion than the average Malayalee. And so the plot thickens and adds substance to the theory or (oral tradition?) that the Nazranis have decended from the by blows of the Christian traders from Middle East or Rome or Greece.
If that is true, what a fall is there my dear fellow Nazranis. You and I and all of us fall down while theories and theories flourish over us!
My posts on Nazrani:
http://pareltank.blogspot.com/2008/04/evolution-of-nazrani.html;
http://pareltank.blogspot.com/2008/04/bringing-up-nazrani-girl-child.html
A sudden identity crisis, it’d appear. But no. No crisis or loss of identity as far as I am concerned. It hardly matters to me whether my ancestors were Namboodiris, or Arabs or Red Indians or apes. I care two hoots about who converted my ancestors 20 centuries ago. It has no relevance to my existence today. And I think this holds true for most Nazranis.
Then why these queries?
I was casually going thru a book on Kerala history. A chapter titled “Kerala Polity and Life of the 16th & 17th Centuries” has a section on the Syrian Christians of Kerala, where it is stated that Christians were - - -well, read for yourself: 'The vast majority among them were vegetarians; rice, curry and milk being their main items of food. Beef eating had not come into vogue !!!!!!!!! (Exclamation marks mine).The Christians as a class were also not addicted to drinks during this period' !!!!!???? (Exclamation and question marks mine). You could have knocked me down with a feather! It is not just a common joke but also a practice that the Nazrani rushes to the meat shop after the Sunday mass. There is also some truth in the saying that he chooses the church which has a meat shop in the vicinity. And to think that he descended from vegetarian stock!
Ok. This bit of information drove me to the net to find out more about the “vegetarian” Syrian Christian. And there I came across a riot of contradictory opinions, views, theories. Most of them were presented with intense heat. The controversy revolves round the questions of the original caste of the Syrian Christians and about St. Thomas, the apostle having come to Kerala at all. The meat eating habit of the Syrian Christians was used as evidence for both groups to prove their points. I shall, for convenience, call these warring netizen groups the Naboothiri Origin Group (NOG) and the Non Namboothiri Origin Group (NNOG).
The NOG were less vociferous- either they did not feel the need to prove anything to anybody or they didn’t have evidence that’d hold water.
The NNOG -they go livid a t the very suggestions that Nazranis have Namboothiri (Kerala Brahmins) origins. Their proofs:
Brahmins migrated to Kerala only after the 4 century AD. How then could St. Thomas convert them in 1st century AD? How can a nonexistent group be converted? Mmmm. They have a point there.
The NOG counter this argument with a quote from A. Sreedara Menon that ‘the first batch of Brahmin immigrants came to Kerala in the 3rd century BC itself, immediately following the advent of the Jains and the Buddhists. It may be recalled that the period coincided with the Mauryan age in the history of North India when a conscious policy of acculturation or dissemination of “the superior material culture of the Gangetic basin” was pursued by the Mauryan State’. Well, there the NOG has a walking stick to lean on. When ST. Thomas came, the Brahmins were around to be converted.
But the NNOG swear that the Christians were beef eaters and Namboodiris, the Brahmins of Kerala who came from North India where the cow was worshipped did not eat beef. In fact, they claim, the beef eating communities in Kerala were ostracized by the Namboothris. Pre-empting the theory of western influence after the Portuguese efforts at latinization of Syrian Church in Kerala, NNOG vow that a centuries old cultural habit of beef abstinence cannot be changed overnight by laitinization.
Now, the NOG won’t take this lying down. Again they quote A. Sreedhara Menon that ‘The advent of the Aryan immigrants (post 4th century) brought about other significant social changes as well. There was a change in the dietary habits of the people. The use of beef and liquor which was common even among the Brahmins in the early Sangam Age now came to be looked upon as taboo. Those who used beef had now some social stigma attached to their class. The continued use of beef by the panes was perhaps one of the factors which brought about the decline of their social status’. So the NOG aver that the Brahmins too ate beef before the second wave of Brahmin migration, after which they gave it up while the Nazranis continued, as they were already Christians and there was no taboo attached to beef eating in the Christian way of life.
But NNOG insists that this is the clearest proof that the Nazranis are Panas converted and not Brahmin (Namboothiri)converts.
And thus the controversy rages on - --
While the Nazrani continues to eat beef. After all pedigree is no substitute for beef.
And so back to the questions: Who are these Syrian Christians? Where did they come from? Who converted them?
A humble simble group whose paternity cannot be traced?
Some of them, particularly from certain parts of Kerala, are a shade lighter in complexion than the average Malayalee. And so the plot thickens and adds substance to the theory or (oral tradition?) that the Nazranis have decended from the by blows of the Christian traders from Middle East or Rome or Greece.
If that is true, what a fall is there my dear fellow Nazranis. You and I and all of us fall down while theories and theories flourish over us!
My posts on Nazrani:
http://pareltank.blogspot.com/2008/04/evolution-of-nazrani.html;
http://pareltank.blogspot.com/2008/04/bringing-up-nazrani-girl-child.html
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Death Penalty in a Civilised Society?
Amidst all the gloomy headlines that greet us everyday, was one with a difference. It went thus: IRAN TO SCRAP DEATH BY STONING. (The new Indian Express, Aug 7, 2008)
That was good news. Countries associated with draconian, hideous, ‘savage’ laws and penal measures are beginning to look at them from a humanitarian angle. But this set me thinking. Who or what is to decide what mode of execution is brutal enough to warrant the epithet “inhuman” or acceptable enough to earn the label ‘civilised”? Why is it that stoning to death creates a moral revulsion in us, the inhabitants of the so called modern, civilised, progressive, liberal society?
Public hanging, public beheading, crucifixion and stoning to death must have had, at the outset, an exemplary purpose, and as such are specifically devised to terrorise the onlookers into deterring them from committing similar crimes. The more brutal, the more it strikes terror in the hearts of the onlooker. For the victim of public execution, there is a denial of dignity in death which can be as painful as the pain of execution. Of these, perhaps stoning and crucifixion are a degree more cruel in terms of the duration of suffering involved in the slow death of the victim. In its actual modus operandi, being stoned in public and by the public is akin to lynching. The faceless fury of the mob adds an element of humiliation to the horror and pain of the punishment. Again, the right to dignity in death is denied.
To come to the query raised earlier, I guess it is the attitude to the criminal that forms the basis for branding the mode of administering capital punishment as human or inhuman. The traditional society(read non progressive, non liberal. noncivilized), holds the attitude that a person condemned to death, from whom has been stripped the right to existence, has no more claim to the rights enjoyed by the living men of the world he is about to leave behind. That world, it is believed, is under no obligation to respect the life and dignity of the condemned person. For, the criminal has forfeited all his rights as the member of the society the minute he commits a crime which warrants death penalty. He is like a dead man walking.
The modern state takes pride in respecting a person’s rights till the last living moment. Efforts are made to make death as painless as possible. The last wishes of the condemned person are respected and he is given a wholesome meal and access to religious solace before execution. But does all this make execution a pleasant experience, or the mode of administering the death penalty less brutal or primitive? Hanging or electric chair or lethal injection is no less obnoxious than the aforementioned methods. They do not enable the person to conquer the bitterness of death. Most certainly, we cannot use the term ‘civilized, to these modes of killing, or for that matter, any mode of killing. For killing – and that’s what Capital punishment is – is immoral, brutal and primitive. I would call all death penalty officialised/legitimized murder.
Capital Punishment is immoral and unethical. Who has a right to take away from another person his right to existence? No judge or jury or tribunal or court can appropriate the authority to condemn a human being to death. Period.
Death penalty is objectionable also on account of the flaws in the justice systems. No legal system is flawless. It is no impossible task to frame an innocent person with a crime deserving capital punishment. It can happen that the defence is unable to prove his innocence in the court of law. It is also possible that a guilty person can get away with murder in the existing system. In other words, the judicial systems of modern states are so ridden with loopholes that miscarriage of justice is a possible eventuality and a common enough happening. This being the case, the state must abolish capital punishment in order to obviate the possibility of an innocent person being deprived of life for a crime she/he did not commit.
Those who disagree can argue that capital punishment is a deterrent and is, therefore, necessary to reduce crimes. Well, I beg to disagree with that argument. From time immemorial, death penalty has been there - all over the world. But man has always killed and looted, and broken every commandment handed down to Moses – and he continues to do it.
Abolition of death penalty in every country in the world would be a major landmark in the human evolutionary process. For that would amount to the official abdication of the right of governments to violate the most fundamental of all human rights – man’s right to life and existence.
Have another post on this issue: http://pareltank.blogspot.com/2006/12/death-penalty.html
That was good news. Countries associated with draconian, hideous, ‘savage’ laws and penal measures are beginning to look at them from a humanitarian angle. But this set me thinking. Who or what is to decide what mode of execution is brutal enough to warrant the epithet “inhuman” or acceptable enough to earn the label ‘civilised”? Why is it that stoning to death creates a moral revulsion in us, the inhabitants of the so called modern, civilised, progressive, liberal society?
Public hanging, public beheading, crucifixion and stoning to death must have had, at the outset, an exemplary purpose, and as such are specifically devised to terrorise the onlookers into deterring them from committing similar crimes. The more brutal, the more it strikes terror in the hearts of the onlooker. For the victim of public execution, there is a denial of dignity in death which can be as painful as the pain of execution. Of these, perhaps stoning and crucifixion are a degree more cruel in terms of the duration of suffering involved in the slow death of the victim. In its actual modus operandi, being stoned in public and by the public is akin to lynching. The faceless fury of the mob adds an element of humiliation to the horror and pain of the punishment. Again, the right to dignity in death is denied.
To come to the query raised earlier, I guess it is the attitude to the criminal that forms the basis for branding the mode of administering capital punishment as human or inhuman. The traditional society(read non progressive, non liberal. noncivilized), holds the attitude that a person condemned to death, from whom has been stripped the right to existence, has no more claim to the rights enjoyed by the living men of the world he is about to leave behind. That world, it is believed, is under no obligation to respect the life and dignity of the condemned person. For, the criminal has forfeited all his rights as the member of the society the minute he commits a crime which warrants death penalty. He is like a dead man walking.
The modern state takes pride in respecting a person’s rights till the last living moment. Efforts are made to make death as painless as possible. The last wishes of the condemned person are respected and he is given a wholesome meal and access to religious solace before execution. But does all this make execution a pleasant experience, or the mode of administering the death penalty less brutal or primitive? Hanging or electric chair or lethal injection is no less obnoxious than the aforementioned methods. They do not enable the person to conquer the bitterness of death. Most certainly, we cannot use the term ‘civilized, to these modes of killing, or for that matter, any mode of killing. For killing – and that’s what Capital punishment is – is immoral, brutal and primitive. I would call all death penalty officialised/legitimized murder.
Capital Punishment is immoral and unethical. Who has a right to take away from another person his right to existence? No judge or jury or tribunal or court can appropriate the authority to condemn a human being to death. Period.
Death penalty is objectionable also on account of the flaws in the justice systems. No legal system is flawless. It is no impossible task to frame an innocent person with a crime deserving capital punishment. It can happen that the defence is unable to prove his innocence in the court of law. It is also possible that a guilty person can get away with murder in the existing system. In other words, the judicial systems of modern states are so ridden with loopholes that miscarriage of justice is a possible eventuality and a common enough happening. This being the case, the state must abolish capital punishment in order to obviate the possibility of an innocent person being deprived of life for a crime she/he did not commit.
Those who disagree can argue that capital punishment is a deterrent and is, therefore, necessary to reduce crimes. Well, I beg to disagree with that argument. From time immemorial, death penalty has been there - all over the world. But man has always killed and looted, and broken every commandment handed down to Moses – and he continues to do it.
Abolition of death penalty in every country in the world would be a major landmark in the human evolutionary process. For that would amount to the official abdication of the right of governments to violate the most fundamental of all human rights – man’s right to life and existence.
Have another post on this issue: http://pareltank.blogspot.com/2006/12/death-penalty.html
Friday, August 29, 2008
LAL SALAAM BUDDHADEB BHATTACHARJEE!
The CPM stands for the right to strike by the working class as a fundamental right, said the party statement. This was an embarrassed reaction to Buddhadeb Battacharya’s landmark pronouncement “I DON’T SUPPORT ANY BANDH’.
Ok. We agree with the CPM that the right to strike, which is the right to protest against deprival of rights, is a fundamental right.
But all those ugly accompaniments of a strike – are they also fundamental rights?
Do fundamental rights include the right
• to terrorise the denizens into bringing normal life to a standstill?
• to destroy public property?
• to pelt stones at public transport?
• to indulge in arson ?
• to beat up law abiding people who choose to exercise their right to work?
• to commit murder?
• to deprive citizens of their right to medical help ?
• to deprive students of the education for which they and the tax payers foot the bill?
• to disrupt exams scheduled by the universities for which hundreds of thousands of students prepare themselves for years, and for which crores of rupees are spent by the government?
• to cause a loss of crores of rupees to the exchequer and public and private enterprises?
I earn my livelihood by the sweat on my brows. Don’t I have my rights? Does the CPM stand by the right of working class( please. who constitute this?) to deprive me, a law abiding and peace loving citizen, of my fundamental rights?
What/who is CPM to decide who should have fundamental rights and who should not? or do they think that the red is more equal that the rest of mankind?
Buddha has spoken at last. The CPM had better pay heed to him or many more Budhas will surface.
A silver lining is, at long last, making itself visible behind the dark cloud created by the muscle power of trade union politics of the bully called CPM.
Ok. We agree with the CPM that the right to strike, which is the right to protest against deprival of rights, is a fundamental right.
But all those ugly accompaniments of a strike – are they also fundamental rights?
Do fundamental rights include the right
• to terrorise the denizens into bringing normal life to a standstill?
• to destroy public property?
• to pelt stones at public transport?
• to indulge in arson ?
• to beat up law abiding people who choose to exercise their right to work?
• to commit murder?
• to deprive citizens of their right to medical help ?
• to deprive students of the education for which they and the tax payers foot the bill?
• to disrupt exams scheduled by the universities for which hundreds of thousands of students prepare themselves for years, and for which crores of rupees are spent by the government?
• to cause a loss of crores of rupees to the exchequer and public and private enterprises?
I earn my livelihood by the sweat on my brows. Don’t I have my rights? Does the CPM stand by the right of working class( please. who constitute this?) to deprive me, a law abiding and peace loving citizen, of my fundamental rights?
What/who is CPM to decide who should have fundamental rights and who should not? or do they think that the red is more equal that the rest of mankind?
Buddha has spoken at last. The CPM had better pay heed to him or many more Budhas will surface.
A silver lining is, at long last, making itself visible behind the dark cloud created by the muscle power of trade union politics of the bully called CPM.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
The Print Media : On the Decline?
There is no dearth of prophets of doom making predictions about the immediate life threat to the print media. I am an avid fan of both print and electronic media, but of late there has been a change in my consumption of the print media.
There was a time when I used to sit with a gigantic cup of tea and the newspaper in the morning for no less than an hour, and then another half hour in the evening with an equally gigantic cup of tea, going through the editorials which I always kept aside for my evening tea. Today, consumption of one cup of tea in the morning- not necessarily gigantic - is enough to cover the entire newspaper. If a newspaper accompanies my evening tea, it is definitely a different newspaper which I read just out of curiosity to see the how it fits in the events of the day within its ideological frame.
The reason for this change in the pattern of reading the newpaper is obvious. The channels exhaust all news. The local channels exhaust local news. So this makes newspaper reading a little tedious - I always have that deja vu feeling without the supernatural element attached to it. The discussions provided by the channels with various experts usually discuss the issues threadbare, with the newsreader's position (left, right, extreme right) reflecting the agenda of the channel. But that does not take away from the charm of the editorial, which , I find always offers a unique perpective and some good language encounter(sometimes they slip here. very sad.
This explains the way the print media has given itself a make over in the recent times. It now targets readers who are hooked on the entertaintment and serial programmes in the electroninc media. This category of readers has to to be mesmerised by sheer sensationalism. Hence the sensationalizing - sometimes ugly, sometimees indelicate, sometimes indecent, sometimes totally unsanitised, sometimes totally irresponsible - of news.
Another starategy employed by the print media(malayalam local papers) is the expansion of the obituary space. I know people who read the newspapers only to check out the obituary pages. Of course this is a service rendered by the media, and the print media in Kerala has discovered that this service will keep it alive for a long time. So one can expect another page added to the orbituary section.
Allow me now to add my drop to the ocean of predictions - though Cassandra like in my case, I know - regarding the future of the print media.
With the ever increasing reach of TV and the internet, the print media will have to micro focus on local news, local events and local services. Then there would be a minimum three pages of orbituary, sports pages, entertainment pages and one page of national and international news. How they will order it, I have no idea. Since the consumption of sports and entertainment pages will remain high for a long time, these pages would indulge in novel ways of sensationalism, perhaps highlighting sectarian interests in the spotrsworld where the local sportspersons will always be shown as underprivileged, or peeping into the bedrooms of adullterous relationships or deviant sexual practices of film personalities and other celebrities. In short, the newspaper of the future will be tabloids in the vernacular and English Language.
There was a time when I used to sit with a gigantic cup of tea and the newspaper in the morning for no less than an hour, and then another half hour in the evening with an equally gigantic cup of tea, going through the editorials which I always kept aside for my evening tea. Today, consumption of one cup of tea in the morning- not necessarily gigantic - is enough to cover the entire newspaper. If a newspaper accompanies my evening tea, it is definitely a different newspaper which I read just out of curiosity to see the how it fits in the events of the day within its ideological frame.
The reason for this change in the pattern of reading the newpaper is obvious. The channels exhaust all news. The local channels exhaust local news. So this makes newspaper reading a little tedious - I always have that deja vu feeling without the supernatural element attached to it. The discussions provided by the channels with various experts usually discuss the issues threadbare, with the newsreader's position (left, right, extreme right) reflecting the agenda of the channel. But that does not take away from the charm of the editorial, which , I find always offers a unique perpective and some good language encounter(sometimes they slip here. very sad.
This explains the way the print media has given itself a make over in the recent times. It now targets readers who are hooked on the entertaintment and serial programmes in the electroninc media. This category of readers has to to be mesmerised by sheer sensationalism. Hence the sensationalizing - sometimes ugly, sometimees indelicate, sometimes indecent, sometimes totally unsanitised, sometimes totally irresponsible - of news.
Another starategy employed by the print media(malayalam local papers) is the expansion of the obituary space. I know people who read the newspapers only to check out the obituary pages. Of course this is a service rendered by the media, and the print media in Kerala has discovered that this service will keep it alive for a long time. So one can expect another page added to the orbituary section.
Allow me now to add my drop to the ocean of predictions - though Cassandra like in my case, I know - regarding the future of the print media.
With the ever increasing reach of TV and the internet, the print media will have to micro focus on local news, local events and local services. Then there would be a minimum three pages of orbituary, sports pages, entertainment pages and one page of national and international news. How they will order it, I have no idea. Since the consumption of sports and entertainment pages will remain high for a long time, these pages would indulge in novel ways of sensationalism, perhaps highlighting sectarian interests in the spotrsworld where the local sportspersons will always be shown as underprivileged, or peeping into the bedrooms of adullterous relationships or deviant sexual practices of film personalities and other celebrities. In short, the newspaper of the future will be tabloids in the vernacular and English Language.
Friday, August 22, 2008
To Hell With God’s Own Country
The August 20th hartal, the 82nd in 2008, went a step further than all the previous hartals. Needless to say, the usual occurrences were there. To mention some
• A child suffering from cancer died without medical help as he could not reach the hospital
• A bank was invaded by CITU led by no less a person than the panchayat president himself. Of course, destruction of property and assault of employees followed. Three employees including the manager were beaten up, with all sustaining injuries. And it goes without saying, the policecomplaint filed by the bank dared not identify the miscreants.
• And of course, the Police looked on (they don’t even look the other way any more) while this attack on the building and the employees was going on.
• In Trivandrum city, the commodity most conspicuous by its absence on the streets was the police.
But then these are all very very normal things on a hartal day, and we should be taking them in our stride. By this time, we Keralites ought to have learnt how to deal with hartals.The bank got what it deserved. Didn’t the manager know there was a hartal? He ought to have gone, the day before, to the super market to frantically stock things for the day of the hartal and queued up before the liqour shop, and then sat at home on the day of the bandh , watching cricket and Olympics instead of daring to respond to the call of duty. The boy who died should have chosen another day to die. Didn’t he know that the left trade union had called for a national bandh?
If someone got hurt, they themselves were to be blamed. After all, it’s only on a bandh day that the indolent trade union guys get to do something and expend their overstocked energy. Our part is to keep out of their way, duty or no duty.
But this time, like I said before, the strikers made an improvement on the usual meal. The CITU stormed into the hitherto protected areas- the IT sector and the SEZs. The CI of Police, Kazhakootam issued a written warning to the Technopark officials the day before. “Shutters down please”, it said. “We wont be around if something untoward happens”!! Kinfra was invaded by the striking trade unions. The result? Crores of rupees loss to the protected companies.
Kerala was just beginning to find the answer to the mammoth unemployment problem that had been beleaguering the state for decades. The huge number of students coming out of the engineering and management schools were being absorbed by these IT companies.
This 82nd hartal, I guess, spells the doom of IT industry in Kerala. And the present government is trying to woo foreign investors, and set up a Silicon Valley in Kerala!! What a joke!!
The foreign investors who are already here, should get the hell out of this state. There are places in India other than this strip of land where IT parks can be set up and run without any hassles.
Let Kerala go to the devil its own way.
• A child suffering from cancer died without medical help as he could not reach the hospital
• A bank was invaded by CITU led by no less a person than the panchayat president himself. Of course, destruction of property and assault of employees followed. Three employees including the manager were beaten up, with all sustaining injuries. And it goes without saying, the policecomplaint filed by the bank dared not identify the miscreants.
• And of course, the Police looked on (they don’t even look the other way any more) while this attack on the building and the employees was going on.
• In Trivandrum city, the commodity most conspicuous by its absence on the streets was the police.
But then these are all very very normal things on a hartal day, and we should be taking them in our stride. By this time, we Keralites ought to have learnt how to deal with hartals.The bank got what it deserved. Didn’t the manager know there was a hartal? He ought to have gone, the day before, to the super market to frantically stock things for the day of the hartal and queued up before the liqour shop, and then sat at home on the day of the bandh , watching cricket and Olympics instead of daring to respond to the call of duty. The boy who died should have chosen another day to die. Didn’t he know that the left trade union had called for a national bandh?
If someone got hurt, they themselves were to be blamed. After all, it’s only on a bandh day that the indolent trade union guys get to do something and expend their overstocked energy. Our part is to keep out of their way, duty or no duty.
But this time, like I said before, the strikers made an improvement on the usual meal. The CITU stormed into the hitherto protected areas- the IT sector and the SEZs. The CI of Police, Kazhakootam issued a written warning to the Technopark officials the day before. “Shutters down please”, it said. “We wont be around if something untoward happens”!! Kinfra was invaded by the striking trade unions. The result? Crores of rupees loss to the protected companies.
Kerala was just beginning to find the answer to the mammoth unemployment problem that had been beleaguering the state for decades. The huge number of students coming out of the engineering and management schools were being absorbed by these IT companies.
This 82nd hartal, I guess, spells the doom of IT industry in Kerala. And the present government is trying to woo foreign investors, and set up a Silicon Valley in Kerala!! What a joke!!
The foreign investors who are already here, should get the hell out of this state. There are places in India other than this strip of land where IT parks can be set up and run without any hassles.
Let Kerala go to the devil its own way.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
The Decline and Fall of Kerala - Just Round the Corner
Can Kerala situation be described as a total breakdown of governance?
The youth activists are on the rampage again. The SFI in Mahatma Gandhi University, and the KSU in Kerala University!
In Mahatma Gandhi University, the victim of their assault was none less than the Vice Chancellor herself. She was coming out of her chamber when these rowdies pushed (!) her violently back into the room ( she didn’t fall, ‘cos the security officer was at hand), back into her seat and then forced her to listen to their grievances - despite her pleas of ill health and promise to discuss the issue the next day.
What a shame! What an utter disgrace?
And this is the second attack on her.
How come these goons get away with it again and again?
Isn't there any one to throw the book at them?
An interesting angle to this story is that the activists were lead by a female student. Yes. Kerala women have achieved gender equality. They have proved that they stand shoulder to shoulder with the males, at least when it comes to indulging in violence.
The Vice Chancellor of Kerala University , who is embroiled in a corruption case regarding the Assistant Grade posting, retired two days back. The matter is subjudice. The verdict is yet to come. Yet, the KSU activists pasted wall posters all over the city of Trivandrum with his photo and the caption "Azhimathi veeran, Lal salaam". This was planned to coincide with the day of his retirement.
Indecent, disgusting behaviour. Are no codes of behaviour applicable to these youth activists? Are they above the law of the land? In the case of the SFI, they can be booked on two counts - manhandling, and wrongful confinement of a person. In the case of KSU, it is a case of defamation - while the matter is still subjudice.
The provisions are there. But who will bell the cat?
They will get away scot free, as they always do. If you belong to the youth/student wing of a political party, you can get away with murder – literally. The arms of law do not seems to be long enough, fast enough and committed enough to catch up with these anti social elements.
And these are the future citizens of Kerala! These anti social elements. They are tomorrow’s promise!
And the universities, where education has taken a backseat, have become the breeding ground for these antisocial creatures.
The leaders of the parties are doing everything in their power to whet the appetite of their youth wings for violence. Or, to be a little more charitable in judgement, is it that they can’t rein in their youth workers? Quite possible, cos the leaders themselves appear to be so rudderless. The rage for power and pelf appears to divorce them from all vestiges of a sense of direction, responsibility, accountability, nobility, decency and integrity.
Today, an all India bandh is declared by left trade unions. The predictions are that Kerala will the state worst hit by it. And it is the 82nd hartal of the year in Kerala!! And with four more months to go before the year ends, Kerala might hit a century and get into all record books.
Somehow I get the feeling that the political parties are vying with each other in having to their credit the highest score in calling for bandhs, disrupting normal life, bringing the state to a standstill, indulging in shameful, barbaric acts of violence and in committing murder. It is similar to the way a country at war has the psychological advantage if the figures of enemies killed are bigger than the enemy's.But here in Kerala, who are the political parties at war with? With the people? if that is true, all the parties should be disqualified, and the state brought under President’s rule.
What a terrible condition for a state to be in!
But, can we, the people of Kerala, be absolved from all blame? I think not. People get the leaders they deserve.
These leaders, perhaps, are a projection of what we are - our alter ego?
I think we Malayalees need to look into our souls to find an answer to what has brought Kerala to this pathetic, shameful condition!
The youth activists are on the rampage again. The SFI in Mahatma Gandhi University, and the KSU in Kerala University!
In Mahatma Gandhi University, the victim of their assault was none less than the Vice Chancellor herself. She was coming out of her chamber when these rowdies pushed (!) her violently back into the room ( she didn’t fall, ‘cos the security officer was at hand), back into her seat and then forced her to listen to their grievances - despite her pleas of ill health and promise to discuss the issue the next day.
What a shame! What an utter disgrace?
And this is the second attack on her.
How come these goons get away with it again and again?
Isn't there any one to throw the book at them?
An interesting angle to this story is that the activists were lead by a female student. Yes. Kerala women have achieved gender equality. They have proved that they stand shoulder to shoulder with the males, at least when it comes to indulging in violence.
The Vice Chancellor of Kerala University , who is embroiled in a corruption case regarding the Assistant Grade posting, retired two days back. The matter is subjudice. The verdict is yet to come. Yet, the KSU activists pasted wall posters all over the city of Trivandrum with his photo and the caption "Azhimathi veeran, Lal salaam". This was planned to coincide with the day of his retirement.
Indecent, disgusting behaviour. Are no codes of behaviour applicable to these youth activists? Are they above the law of the land? In the case of the SFI, they can be booked on two counts - manhandling, and wrongful confinement of a person. In the case of KSU, it is a case of defamation - while the matter is still subjudice.
The provisions are there. But who will bell the cat?
They will get away scot free, as they always do. If you belong to the youth/student wing of a political party, you can get away with murder – literally. The arms of law do not seems to be long enough, fast enough and committed enough to catch up with these anti social elements.
And these are the future citizens of Kerala! These anti social elements. They are tomorrow’s promise!
And the universities, where education has taken a backseat, have become the breeding ground for these antisocial creatures.
The leaders of the parties are doing everything in their power to whet the appetite of their youth wings for violence. Or, to be a little more charitable in judgement, is it that they can’t rein in their youth workers? Quite possible, cos the leaders themselves appear to be so rudderless. The rage for power and pelf appears to divorce them from all vestiges of a sense of direction, responsibility, accountability, nobility, decency and integrity.
Today, an all India bandh is declared by left trade unions. The predictions are that Kerala will the state worst hit by it. And it is the 82nd hartal of the year in Kerala!! And with four more months to go before the year ends, Kerala might hit a century and get into all record books.
Somehow I get the feeling that the political parties are vying with each other in having to their credit the highest score in calling for bandhs, disrupting normal life, bringing the state to a standstill, indulging in shameful, barbaric acts of violence and in committing murder. It is similar to the way a country at war has the psychological advantage if the figures of enemies killed are bigger than the enemy's.But here in Kerala, who are the political parties at war with? With the people? if that is true, all the parties should be disqualified, and the state brought under President’s rule.
What a terrible condition for a state to be in!
But, can we, the people of Kerala, be absolved from all blame? I think not. People get the leaders they deserve.
These leaders, perhaps, are a projection of what we are - our alter ego?
I think we Malayalees need to look into our souls to find an answer to what has brought Kerala to this pathetic, shameful condition!
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Compensation for Suicide?
This is online news:
Thiruvananthapuram,Aug13 (PTI):Kerala Government today decided to sanction an amount of Rs.Two lakh to the family of sister Anupa Mary of St Mary's convent at Kollam who committed suicide allegedly due to 'sexual harassment' by a senior nun.
Speaking to reporters after cabinet meeting here, Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan said crime branch would probe the death under the supervision IG Haridas Nath Mishra.
Why is the government offering compensation for suicide? Does it supect murder? If so, surely it can wait till the crime branch's probe is over? Or is the compensation a tacit way of telling the crime branch what result the government wants the investigation agency to arrive at?
Why this indecent hurry in rushing to give a compensation? Was the nun an earning member of the family?
Will the government give compensation to all who decide to take away their lives, being unable to cope with the problems of life?
By the way, if the nun had not not succeed in her attempt, wouldn't she have been arrested for attempted suicide, which is a punishable crime according to the law if the land? So is the compensation meant for the successful completion of a crime?
The government should have weighhed the pros and cons of the issue before this impulsive decision.
The truth is, when it got a chance to nail its arch enemy - the Catholic Church in Kerala - it threw all logic tho the winds. The haste with which it decided to compensate the suicide was an absolute giveaway.
Goverments should be above vendetta. True, the Left has a five decade old score to settle with the Church. But this is a brainless way of doing it. While the messing around with education can be explained in terms of ideology, what ideology is there in compensating suicide in a state which already has the highest suicide rate in the country? is it an incentive? Will the government oblige if all families of suicide cases apply for compensation?
How can they refuse since a precedence has been set?
An angle the crime Branch should investigate: When did the government make the offer for compensation to the parents? before they spoke to the media or after?
Thiruvananthapuram,Aug13 (PTI):Kerala Government today decided to sanction an amount of Rs.Two lakh to the family of sister Anupa Mary of St Mary's convent at Kollam who committed suicide allegedly due to 'sexual harassment' by a senior nun.
Speaking to reporters after cabinet meeting here, Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan said crime branch would probe the death under the supervision IG Haridas Nath Mishra.
Why is the government offering compensation for suicide? Does it supect murder? If so, surely it can wait till the crime branch's probe is over? Or is the compensation a tacit way of telling the crime branch what result the government wants the investigation agency to arrive at?
Why this indecent hurry in rushing to give a compensation? Was the nun an earning member of the family?
Will the government give compensation to all who decide to take away their lives, being unable to cope with the problems of life?
By the way, if the nun had not not succeed in her attempt, wouldn't she have been arrested for attempted suicide, which is a punishable crime according to the law if the land? So is the compensation meant for the successful completion of a crime?
The government should have weighhed the pros and cons of the issue before this impulsive decision.
The truth is, when it got a chance to nail its arch enemy - the Catholic Church in Kerala - it threw all logic tho the winds. The haste with which it decided to compensate the suicide was an absolute giveaway.
Goverments should be above vendetta. True, the Left has a five decade old score to settle with the Church. But this is a brainless way of doing it. While the messing around with education can be explained in terms of ideology, what ideology is there in compensating suicide in a state which already has the highest suicide rate in the country? is it an incentive? Will the government oblige if all families of suicide cases apply for compensation?
How can they refuse since a precedence has been set?
An angle the crime Branch should investigate: When did the government make the offer for compensation to the parents? before they spoke to the media or after?
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
The Most Unforgettable Day In My Life
It was the day my son was to join school. My husband gave him a bath, dressed him in his best clothes, handed over to him the new colourful backpack with the accessories for the first day at school. The little fellow hoisted it onto his back immediately, and sat in the cane chair, his face shining from the shower and eyes sparkling with excitement. The rest of us in "Vivien Villa"– my husband, daughter and I- stood there for a moment looking at him, and then we broke up, my husband to the bathroom for his shave and shower, my daughter to her books till the school bus came and I, to the kitchen where I was usually caught multitasking at that time of the day(my niece who has a terrific sense of humour and a way with words always used to tell me that looking at me in the kitchen at that time of the day is like watching a fast forward clip).
I hurriedly put two large frying pans on the stove, poured ghee into them and arranged soaked slices of bread into the frying pan – ten of them –to make Bombay toasts (some call it French toast-but I’m mulish about Bombay). Then I whirled around and laid out four lunch boxes on the kitchen table and then was at the filter filling water bottles. Just then the delicious smell of Bombay toast frying in ghee came wafting up and I whirled around again towards the stove to turn the toasts over. I had just turned the last toast over, looking with satisfaction at the golden brown toast when I heard a loud yell from the bathroom.
I have fixed in my mind certain decibel levels as normal for each member of my family, based on their temperament, age and voice quality. That yell was way above the permissible mark set for my husband, and so, I did a magnificent hop, skip and jump through the rooms, my heart in my mouth.- Geyser shock? Fall? Accidentally cut the jugular vein while shaving? (always imagine the worst - that’s me)
“What’s wrong”, panic, fear in my voice.
“The lock is stuck”. He discovered this trying to come out of the bathroom after the shave in order to get the change of clothes. ”Try opening from outside”
I tried the handle twice. No good. I panicked. I tried it several times repeatedly. No good. I whirled around, and was about to break into a run towards the neighbour’s place when I saw my children standing at the door of the bedroom, looking anxious and scared. Click. I switched on a plastic smile. Then let out a peal of laughter “Papa has got himself locked in. He he he!”
They were not amused. “It’s OK.” I persisted through my plastic smile. “I’ll get Vinni’s father. He’ll open it. Don’t worry.”
My daughter went back to her books (a cool customer and I love her for it). My son went slowly back to his cane chair, with a somber expression in his eyes. “Math", i crooned, "you’ve seen this book? It’s soooo funny”. Avoiding my eyes, he took the picture book from me,looking very serious, his face immobile.
I walked out into the compound nonchalantly, but the minute I was out of his range of vision, I sprinted to the gate, out of it, into the neighbour’s compound and up the steps on to the verandah, all in my duster coat!
“My husband‘s got locked in the bathroom”, I blurted out between gasps. “It’s my son’s first day at school. I have a presentation at 10. He has a meeting at 10.30”
The neighbour, who was a civil engineer came with me immediately. He looked at the stuck handle as though he were a lock psychologist and tried it twice. Then turned it several times noisily in rapid succession. Nothing happened. Hearing sounds of shuffling feet, I turned around and saw all the male members from our immediate neighbourhood entering the room. All of them tried the handle in turns. No good.
They stood around the bathroom door, discussing animatedly.
“Basic rule”, that was the lock psychologist. ”The bathroom locks should be weak. Should open with one kick. Nobody observes the rules”
“What’s to be done now?” neighbour A
“Try removing the lock?” neighbour B
“DO you have a tool kit?” neighbour C
I give them the kit (I am briefly slipping into the present tense for special effect). The lock psycho is trying out the tools. I then take a quick peek into the drawing room and see my son craning his neck to look into the room where we are. His eyes meet mine and click, my plastic smile is on. He drops his eyes.
”This won’t do”, declares the civil engineer turned lock psycho, shaking his head.
I suddenly notice that neighbour B is crinkling his nose and sniffing into the air. “Something burning?”
“Must be some one burning the waste”, I suggest.
Then I find all of them crinkling their noses and sniffing.
“Something on the stove in the kitchen?”
“Oh my God, my Bombay toast”, moaned I clapping my hand over the forehead, and charged towards the kitchen. The frying pans were smoking like a coal engine, and there lay my 10 slices of Bombay toast, black as black can be. I quickly switched off the burners and turned around to return to the scene of the stuck lock drama – and, Oh heck! there at the kitchen entrance stood all the male neighbours and my children looking over each others’ shoulders, anxiety written large on their faces!
Out came the plastic smile to my rescue. “It’s Ok, it doesn’t matter” drawled I in a high pitched voice, and laughed heartily as though burnt Bombay toasts were the funniest things on earth. Just then another yell from the bathroom. Dangerous decibel level and all of us charged in a group to the bathroom door.
”What’s burning? Is something burning in the kitchen?” Panic in the voice from the bathroom.
“It’s ok, ok” I said soothingly “I’ve taken care of it”.
I looked at my children and smiled. My daughter went back to her books. My son walked slowly, gravely back to his seat and looked into the picture book.
Then I heard the sound of water falling in the bathroom. Apparently, my husband had decided to make the best of the bad situation, and started his shower. Another cool customer!
Another ten minutes passed while the trouble shooters debated.
And finally, the neighbour A asked,“Shall we get a locksmith?”
“Yeah better”, opined the lock psycho, carelessly putting his hand on the lock and turning it absent-mindedly - and lo and behold! The lock opened!
There was great rejoicing. My plastic smile metamorphosed into an organic one, rising from the bottom of my heart, streching from ear to ear and travelling to the eyes.
And my son came into the room and stood there, looking at my husband whose turn it was now to sparkle from the shower.
The somber look vanished from the little fellow’s eyes which were now dancing with sheer joy.
I hurriedly put two large frying pans on the stove, poured ghee into them and arranged soaked slices of bread into the frying pan – ten of them –to make Bombay toasts (some call it French toast-but I’m mulish about Bombay). Then I whirled around and laid out four lunch boxes on the kitchen table and then was at the filter filling water bottles. Just then the delicious smell of Bombay toast frying in ghee came wafting up and I whirled around again towards the stove to turn the toasts over. I had just turned the last toast over, looking with satisfaction at the golden brown toast when I heard a loud yell from the bathroom.
I have fixed in my mind certain decibel levels as normal for each member of my family, based on their temperament, age and voice quality. That yell was way above the permissible mark set for my husband, and so, I did a magnificent hop, skip and jump through the rooms, my heart in my mouth.- Geyser shock? Fall? Accidentally cut the jugular vein while shaving? (always imagine the worst - that’s me)
“What’s wrong”, panic, fear in my voice.
“The lock is stuck”. He discovered this trying to come out of the bathroom after the shave in order to get the change of clothes. ”Try opening from outside”
I tried the handle twice. No good. I panicked. I tried it several times repeatedly. No good. I whirled around, and was about to break into a run towards the neighbour’s place when I saw my children standing at the door of the bedroom, looking anxious and scared. Click. I switched on a plastic smile. Then let out a peal of laughter “Papa has got himself locked in. He he he!”
They were not amused. “It’s OK.” I persisted through my plastic smile. “I’ll get Vinni’s father. He’ll open it. Don’t worry.”
My daughter went back to her books (a cool customer and I love her for it). My son went slowly back to his cane chair, with a somber expression in his eyes. “Math", i crooned, "you’ve seen this book? It’s soooo funny”. Avoiding my eyes, he took the picture book from me,looking very serious, his face immobile.
I walked out into the compound nonchalantly, but the minute I was out of his range of vision, I sprinted to the gate, out of it, into the neighbour’s compound and up the steps on to the verandah, all in my duster coat!
“My husband‘s got locked in the bathroom”, I blurted out between gasps. “It’s my son’s first day at school. I have a presentation at 10. He has a meeting at 10.30”
The neighbour, who was a civil engineer came with me immediately. He looked at the stuck handle as though he were a lock psychologist and tried it twice. Then turned it several times noisily in rapid succession. Nothing happened. Hearing sounds of shuffling feet, I turned around and saw all the male members from our immediate neighbourhood entering the room. All of them tried the handle in turns. No good.
They stood around the bathroom door, discussing animatedly.
“Basic rule”, that was the lock psychologist. ”The bathroom locks should be weak. Should open with one kick. Nobody observes the rules”
“What’s to be done now?” neighbour A
“Try removing the lock?” neighbour B
“DO you have a tool kit?” neighbour C
I give them the kit (I am briefly slipping into the present tense for special effect). The lock psycho is trying out the tools. I then take a quick peek into the drawing room and see my son craning his neck to look into the room where we are. His eyes meet mine and click, my plastic smile is on. He drops his eyes.
”This won’t do”, declares the civil engineer turned lock psycho, shaking his head.
I suddenly notice that neighbour B is crinkling his nose and sniffing into the air. “Something burning?”
“Must be some one burning the waste”, I suggest.
Then I find all of them crinkling their noses and sniffing.
“Something on the stove in the kitchen?”
“Oh my God, my Bombay toast”, moaned I clapping my hand over the forehead, and charged towards the kitchen. The frying pans were smoking like a coal engine, and there lay my 10 slices of Bombay toast, black as black can be. I quickly switched off the burners and turned around to return to the scene of the stuck lock drama – and, Oh heck! there at the kitchen entrance stood all the male neighbours and my children looking over each others’ shoulders, anxiety written large on their faces!
Out came the plastic smile to my rescue. “It’s Ok, it doesn’t matter” drawled I in a high pitched voice, and laughed heartily as though burnt Bombay toasts were the funniest things on earth. Just then another yell from the bathroom. Dangerous decibel level and all of us charged in a group to the bathroom door.
”What’s burning? Is something burning in the kitchen?” Panic in the voice from the bathroom.
“It’s ok, ok” I said soothingly “I’ve taken care of it”.
I looked at my children and smiled. My daughter went back to her books. My son walked slowly, gravely back to his seat and looked into the picture book.
Then I heard the sound of water falling in the bathroom. Apparently, my husband had decided to make the best of the bad situation, and started his shower. Another cool customer!
Another ten minutes passed while the trouble shooters debated.
And finally, the neighbour A asked,“Shall we get a locksmith?”
“Yeah better”, opined the lock psycho, carelessly putting his hand on the lock and turning it absent-mindedly - and lo and behold! The lock opened!
There was great rejoicing. My plastic smile metamorphosed into an organic one, rising from the bottom of my heart, streching from ear to ear and travelling to the eyes.
And my son came into the room and stood there, looking at my husband whose turn it was now to sparkle from the shower.
The somber look vanished from the little fellow’s eyes which were now dancing with sheer joy.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Tagged Again
Am tagged again! And again by Sujatha!( http://fluff-n-stuff.blogspot.com/2008/08/its-wall-art-time-wall-e.html)
Here are the tag rules
Items on your walls:
Look up from your computer and stare at all the walls in the room surrounding you.
List each item on the wall and its origin (for example : Faded landscape print from _ , Family photo taken in Portland, Andy Warhol soup can poster, Starbucks neon sign, whatever...)
If you are in the great outdoors blogging, the tag will settle for a brief description of the flora and fauna (scientific names would be much appreciated, naturally).
Items on the wall:
I look up from the computer and stare at the walls. Blank. All of them. Origin of blankness? WOW! what a philosophical poser! Am not competent to undertake the history and origin of Soonya. Am not willing to rush in where angels fear to tread.
But this I can say. Blank is beautiful. But is difficult to attain. Have tried to while in savasanam ( my favourite yogic pose). "Concentrate on the sound of the fan" that's my yoga teacher. "Cut out all the other sounds-listen only to the fan (her aniquated fan had the most awful droning sound!). Listen to the fan, only fan, only fan--fan--faaann----faaannnnnnn---after sometime you wont hear it anymore. It will be soonya - blankness of the mind-a near - - - that's how far I hear each time. No. No Nirvanic experience. Only sleep. Gentle sleep. Somebody prods me. It's time for the concluding sloka.The next batch will come. I avoid the teacher's eyes. Sleeping is against the rules.
You are right and wrong Sujatha. A Ravi Varma waits with a few other facsimiles for someone to drill the walls, fix nails( this is Kerala), and release them from the bubble paper and baseboard packing material imprisoning them. Yes . There are a lot of activists in my house, very vocal in their demands for their release from such unaesthetic confinement so that they can take their rightful place on the walls.
Know something? Blank walls are beautiful. Empty walls make you feel less cabinned , cribbed and confined in the apartment existence. A little reluctant to let go of that sense of space.
Here are the tag rules
Items on your walls:
Look up from your computer and stare at all the walls in the room surrounding you.
List each item on the wall and its origin (for example : Faded landscape print from _ , Family photo taken in Portland, Andy Warhol soup can poster, Starbucks neon sign, whatever...)
If you are in the great outdoors blogging, the tag will settle for a brief description of the flora and fauna (scientific names would be much appreciated, naturally).
Items on the wall:
I look up from the computer and stare at the walls. Blank. All of them. Origin of blankness? WOW! what a philosophical poser! Am not competent to undertake the history and origin of Soonya. Am not willing to rush in where angels fear to tread.
But this I can say. Blank is beautiful. But is difficult to attain. Have tried to while in savasanam ( my favourite yogic pose). "Concentrate on the sound of the fan" that's my yoga teacher. "Cut out all the other sounds-listen only to the fan (her aniquated fan had the most awful droning sound!). Listen to the fan, only fan, only fan--fan--faaann----faaannnnnnn---after sometime you wont hear it anymore. It will be soonya - blankness of the mind-a near - - - that's how far I hear each time. No. No Nirvanic experience. Only sleep. Gentle sleep. Somebody prods me. It's time for the concluding sloka.The next batch will come. I avoid the teacher's eyes. Sleeping is against the rules.
You are right and wrong Sujatha. A Ravi Varma waits with a few other facsimiles for someone to drill the walls, fix nails( this is Kerala), and release them from the bubble paper and baseboard packing material imprisoning them. Yes . There are a lot of activists in my house, very vocal in their demands for their release from such unaesthetic confinement so that they can take their rightful place on the walls.
Know something? Blank walls are beautiful. Empty walls make you feel less cabinned , cribbed and confined in the apartment existence. A little reluctant to let go of that sense of space.
Friday, August 08, 2008
A Slice from Childhood Memory
This morning, I was having breakfast in the company of a nonagenarian. Seeing him struggle with the food not really meant for old people (puttu & kadala), I asked him not to force himself to finish it. “I should have been asked before I was served. Now I’ll finish it. Waste not. Want not”
My generation was also taught that rule. Waste not, want not. And my mother went a step further in order to drill this virtue in me. Amma told me that for every grain of rice that I wasted, I’d have to spend 10 years in purgatory. My catechism classes took care of frightening me about the horrors of purgatory. It was as bad as hell where tortures were concerned, I was told, but the only redeeming feature was that there was an end to the sufferings in purgatory. Once we serve out our term there (the duration determined by our sins, which included the wasted grains of rice),we’ll be taken up to heaven where all our dear departed will be waiting for us – that is, those among them who escaped damnation!
And so I was terrified about wasting food. I always made sure that nothing except curry leaves and chilly from seasoning were left on my plate, which the cook (ever ready to clarify my spiritual doubts) had told me would not be factored in for calculating the term to be served in purgatory.
An incident comes to my mind, an incident which took place when I was around five years old, and which still makes me feel yucky after all these years.
During the vacation when all the children were at home, kanji (with kadala or payar thoran and curds and pickle) was served for breakfast on a particular day every week. That was my favourite breakfast but my brothers hated it. On one such kanji day, I was the first to enter the dining room. I took my seat, mixed the kanji with curds and kadala, and was beginning to enjoy it when my brother with whom I had quarreled just before breakfast took the seat next to me. I wanted to enjoy my kanji in peace, with no one needling me. So I picked up my plate and moved with it slowly, careful not to spill the kanji almost up to the brim of the plate. Just as I reached my chair far away from the enemy – of-the- day sibling, he shouted out explosively to upset my balancing act – and the plate tilted violently and there lay my kanji on the floor!
I panicked. Images of purgatory with me in it and tongues of flame licking at me rushed to my mind. I dropped on my knees, and with my cupped hands, scooped up all that liquidy (sorry for the usage-but am no longer an English teacher) kanji from the floor, put it back into my plate and started eating it hastily.
As I was finishing, amma came around to see how we were faring at the breakfast table. When she reached me, her foot slipped on the kanji mess on the floor.
“What is this?”
No answer. We continued to have our kanji breakfast with great concentration.
‘I asked you what this is”
No answer again.
Then to me: “Milly. What is that?” Not fair, I thought. No fun being a girl. Always gets picked on first.
I spilled the beans. Had to. No one fools around with amma when she is in that mood.
“How could you do it Milly”, her distress was too much for me. “Eating things from the floor- you must have taken in millions of germs”.
“But I didn’t want to stay forever in purgatory”, I blurted out. My brothers burst out laughing – and so did amma.
I wanted to kick myself for having believed her. Apparently my brothers hadn’t. Why had I been I so gullible?
Then followed a lecture on hygiene, about the dangers of not observing the rules of hygiene (punctuated by the enemy- of- the- day with remarks like “or you’ll have worms crawling out of your nose and ears and mouth” – I wanted to hit him, particularly when I saw amma suppressing a smile at his remark) and a few stiff remarks on my lack of common sense. My enemy -of- the-day brother suggested that I be given a dose of castor oil which amma thought was a good idea.
That did it. I started bawling at that and made for the originator of that idea. Amma got in between, sent me firmly back to my chair and gave me a dressing down; another lecture followed, this time on ladylike behaviour, to which the villain sibling nodded his head in agreement.
It always ended up like that – with that reminder that ‘after all you are a girl - - - -
My generation was also taught that rule. Waste not, want not. And my mother went a step further in order to drill this virtue in me. Amma told me that for every grain of rice that I wasted, I’d have to spend 10 years in purgatory. My catechism classes took care of frightening me about the horrors of purgatory. It was as bad as hell where tortures were concerned, I was told, but the only redeeming feature was that there was an end to the sufferings in purgatory. Once we serve out our term there (the duration determined by our sins, which included the wasted grains of rice),we’ll be taken up to heaven where all our dear departed will be waiting for us – that is, those among them who escaped damnation!
And so I was terrified about wasting food. I always made sure that nothing except curry leaves and chilly from seasoning were left on my plate, which the cook (ever ready to clarify my spiritual doubts) had told me would not be factored in for calculating the term to be served in purgatory.
An incident comes to my mind, an incident which took place when I was around five years old, and which still makes me feel yucky after all these years.
During the vacation when all the children were at home, kanji (with kadala or payar thoran and curds and pickle) was served for breakfast on a particular day every week. That was my favourite breakfast but my brothers hated it. On one such kanji day, I was the first to enter the dining room. I took my seat, mixed the kanji with curds and kadala, and was beginning to enjoy it when my brother with whom I had quarreled just before breakfast took the seat next to me. I wanted to enjoy my kanji in peace, with no one needling me. So I picked up my plate and moved with it slowly, careful not to spill the kanji almost up to the brim of the plate. Just as I reached my chair far away from the enemy – of-the- day sibling, he shouted out explosively to upset my balancing act – and the plate tilted violently and there lay my kanji on the floor!
I panicked. Images of purgatory with me in it and tongues of flame licking at me rushed to my mind. I dropped on my knees, and with my cupped hands, scooped up all that liquidy (sorry for the usage-but am no longer an English teacher) kanji from the floor, put it back into my plate and started eating it hastily.
As I was finishing, amma came around to see how we were faring at the breakfast table. When she reached me, her foot slipped on the kanji mess on the floor.
“What is this?”
No answer. We continued to have our kanji breakfast with great concentration.
‘I asked you what this is”
No answer again.
Then to me: “Milly. What is that?” Not fair, I thought. No fun being a girl. Always gets picked on first.
I spilled the beans. Had to. No one fools around with amma when she is in that mood.
“How could you do it Milly”, her distress was too much for me. “Eating things from the floor- you must have taken in millions of germs”.
“But I didn’t want to stay forever in purgatory”, I blurted out. My brothers burst out laughing – and so did amma.
I wanted to kick myself for having believed her. Apparently my brothers hadn’t. Why had I been I so gullible?
Then followed a lecture on hygiene, about the dangers of not observing the rules of hygiene (punctuated by the enemy- of- the- day with remarks like “or you’ll have worms crawling out of your nose and ears and mouth” – I wanted to hit him, particularly when I saw amma suppressing a smile at his remark) and a few stiff remarks on my lack of common sense. My enemy -of- the-day brother suggested that I be given a dose of castor oil which amma thought was a good idea.
That did it. I started bawling at that and made for the originator of that idea. Amma got in between, sent me firmly back to my chair and gave me a dressing down; another lecture followed, this time on ladylike behaviour, to which the villain sibling nodded his head in agreement.
It always ended up like that – with that reminder that ‘after all you are a girl - - - -
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Hiroshima Day
Hiroshima day
What can one say about that terrible crime against humanity perpetrated at 8am, on the Sixth day of August in the year Nineteen Forty Five?
Time, it is said, is a great healer. But this wound, no time can heal.
It should not heal.
It should remain raw and fresh in the human consciousness like a festering wound.
Hiroshima represents the failure of Science,the failure of Enlightenment.
It represents the perversion of human intelligence.
The world has changed since the atom was split. That was Einstein.
Yes. The coming into possession of destructive powers of such magnitude released man from the civilizing chains of love, non violence, respect for life.
A limerick I picked up from somewhere during my school days keeps coming back to me today. It goes like this:
To break a single atom
All mankind was intent.
Now any day, the atom may
Return the compliment.
Yes. Annihilation - that's the promise it holds forth to us. Is it for this that we evolved from primates to what we are now?
The end of life.
The end of imagination( a la Arundathi Roy)
To be one among the other uninhabited heavenly bodies in the cosmos. Was that the ultimate purpose of the existence of planet earth?
Futile ramblings, I know. But I stumbled upon this interview of Paul Tibbets, the man who piloted the aircraft Enola Gay on its mission to Japan to drop the atom bomb on Hiroshima. The interview appeared in The Guardian, on Tuesday August 6 2002. Paul Tibbets was then 89 years old, retired brigadier-general
The interviewer: One last thing, when you hear people say, "Let's nuke 'em," "Let's nuke these people," what do you think?
Paul Tibbets: Oh, I wouldn't hesitate if I had the choice. I'd wipe 'em out. You're gonna kill innocent people at the same time, but we've never fought a damn war anywhere in the world where they didn't kill innocent people. If the newspapers would just cut out the shit: "You've killed so many civilians." That's their tough luck for being there.
! ! !
What can one say about that terrible crime against humanity perpetrated at 8am, on the Sixth day of August in the year Nineteen Forty Five?
Time, it is said, is a great healer. But this wound, no time can heal.
It should not heal.
It should remain raw and fresh in the human consciousness like a festering wound.
Hiroshima represents the failure of Science,the failure of Enlightenment.
It represents the perversion of human intelligence.
The world has changed since the atom was split. That was Einstein.
Yes. The coming into possession of destructive powers of such magnitude released man from the civilizing chains of love, non violence, respect for life.
A limerick I picked up from somewhere during my school days keeps coming back to me today. It goes like this:
To break a single atom
All mankind was intent.
Now any day, the atom may
Return the compliment.
Yes. Annihilation - that's the promise it holds forth to us. Is it for this that we evolved from primates to what we are now?
The end of life.
The end of imagination( a la Arundathi Roy)
To be one among the other uninhabited heavenly bodies in the cosmos. Was that the ultimate purpose of the existence of planet earth?
Futile ramblings, I know. But I stumbled upon this interview of Paul Tibbets, the man who piloted the aircraft Enola Gay on its mission to Japan to drop the atom bomb on Hiroshima. The interview appeared in The Guardian, on Tuesday August 6 2002. Paul Tibbets was then 89 years old, retired brigadier-general
The interviewer: One last thing, when you hear people say, "Let's nuke 'em," "Let's nuke these people," what do you think?
Paul Tibbets: Oh, I wouldn't hesitate if I had the choice. I'd wipe 'em out. You're gonna kill innocent people at the same time, but we've never fought a damn war anywhere in the world where they didn't kill innocent people. If the newspapers would just cut out the shit: "You've killed so many civilians." That's their tough luck for being there.
! ! !
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Pseudo Secularism Again
It was extremely distressing to see the nature of the cyber reaction to the bombing in Bangalore and Ahmedbad. The blame game is on, among the bloggers. If the blog and the comments represent the voice of the educated, privileged sections of India, then we have something to worry about - seriously.
A lot of blogs and a lot more comments blame the government and its pseudo- secularism.
Pseudo-secularism! How I hate the term! A term invented for political expediency, which subsequently gained respectability, and is now creating havoc in the minds of even the enlightened!
The term which provides a protective armour to those who want to launch a violent assault on the sacred value of secularism.
A term which validates the denial of the right to be called Indian to members of certain communities in the nation.
A term which rationalizes the putting back of the clock of history.
I wonder if those leaders who use this term liberally will have the courage to go on record to explicitly define the concept, and then explain how, according to them, it has permeated the Indian polity.
And also change it once/if they come into power with an absolute majority (God forbid)?
Jammu & Kashmir are burning; but, thankfully, India remains calm.
But the virtual world is aflame.
When will we Indians bring down the narrow domestic walls of our minds?
When will we learn to think Indian?
A lot of blogs and a lot more comments blame the government and its pseudo- secularism.
Pseudo-secularism! How I hate the term! A term invented for political expediency, which subsequently gained respectability, and is now creating havoc in the minds of even the enlightened!
The term which provides a protective armour to those who want to launch a violent assault on the sacred value of secularism.
A term which validates the denial of the right to be called Indian to members of certain communities in the nation.
A term which rationalizes the putting back of the clock of history.
I wonder if those leaders who use this term liberally will have the courage to go on record to explicitly define the concept, and then explain how, according to them, it has permeated the Indian polity.
And also change it once/if they come into power with an absolute majority (God forbid)?
Jammu & Kashmir are burning; but, thankfully, India remains calm.
But the virtual world is aflame.
When will we Indians bring down the narrow domestic walls of our minds?
When will we learn to think Indian?
Saturday, August 02, 2008
Sethu Samudram Project - Building Bridges
The Centre, the ASI and their legal outfits are fighting to clear the way for the Sethu Samudram Canal Project which proposes to connect India and Sri Lanka with a tunnel. The project has become highly controversial as it involves the destruction of Ram Sethu, an undersea formation, believed to have been made by Rama. This structure is sacred to the Hindus.
The government is being extremely insensitive and foolish – insensitive to the religious sentiments of the majority, already smarting under the appeasement given to the minorities. Surely there cannot be any world-shaking economic gain to warrant the building of the Sethu Samudram that might let loose another Rath Yatra, culminating in another Barbri Masjid and Godhra and post Godhra carnage and bomb blasts? Is the centre out to create issues and test the secular fabric of india? Don’t we have enough already on our hands?
During the trust motion. the PM accused Advani of triggering off terrorism in India by masterminding the demolition of Babri Masjid. Why does he forget that the issue was reopened by Rajiv Gandhi by permitting worship in a long defunct place of worship? Isn’t the Congress once again indulging in the same mischief with Sethu Samudram bridge?
Or, does the congress have a clandestine arrangement with the BJP? Is it a double edged strategy to provide an issue that will land BJP in New Delhi in the 2009 elections, and the Congress too but 5 years hence, by creating a situation where it can cash in on the minorities' sense of insecurity, and play the secularism card? Anything is possible in the present political scenario peopled by self seeking men and criminals, totally divorced from their conscience. We live in days when principles and ideals have only political utility.
And so, coming back to Ramasamudram controversy, it is immaterial whether Rama or Budha or Christ or Mohammed are historical figures or not. Cultures and religions have grown around them and their teachings. All of them are close to our hearts and minds and spirits. Myths, conventions, customs and rituals constitute the stuff that identities are made of. Our consciousness is pervaded by them and what they represent. Our value systems on which theories of social coexistence are based, come from them. In short, they have become inextricable part of our identity. Challenging them amounts to subverting that which gives us our identities, and therefore, our identities per se.
Nothing can be more foolish than using scientific opinions as trump cards to negate the religious sentiments of the the Hindus regarding the Ram Samudra. Faith and belief are not things that can be put under the microscope. By its very definition, faith is something that transcends reason. If something can be proved scientifically, what is the need for faith? And which scientists, or which organization or society can dismiss faith as superstition on the grounds that there is no proven ‘ truth “ in it. What is truth? Scientific truth? Is there no truth other than what is confirmed by science? True, science searches for truth; but can TRUTH be contained within the limits of science? Are there not truths which lie beyond the reach of science, outside its frontiers?
How plain and poor life would be if ‘yes’ was the answer to the last query. How insipid life would be if it is totally demystified. How incomplete life would be without the Scriptures, the myths, the rituals and cunstoms which hold forth truths of their own that science have not succeeded in annihilating. Perhaps, over a period of time, science has been theoretically challenging these truths - but has not driven them out of the hearts and minds of the people. For faith is rooted in the sixth sense which still remains a grey area for science.
The state must be sensitive to the faith of its people. It should not offend their religious sensibilities. The alternative path for Sethu Samudram is the answer, no matter how much more expensive it might prove. If the government can divert some of the mammoth funds it has in its custody that enables the type of horse trading we saw recently, ten bridges, I am sure, can be built across the Palk Straits.
The government is being extremely insensitive and foolish – insensitive to the religious sentiments of the majority, already smarting under the appeasement given to the minorities. Surely there cannot be any world-shaking economic gain to warrant the building of the Sethu Samudram that might let loose another Rath Yatra, culminating in another Barbri Masjid and Godhra and post Godhra carnage and bomb blasts? Is the centre out to create issues and test the secular fabric of india? Don’t we have enough already on our hands?
During the trust motion. the PM accused Advani of triggering off terrorism in India by masterminding the demolition of Babri Masjid. Why does he forget that the issue was reopened by Rajiv Gandhi by permitting worship in a long defunct place of worship? Isn’t the Congress once again indulging in the same mischief with Sethu Samudram bridge?
Or, does the congress have a clandestine arrangement with the BJP? Is it a double edged strategy to provide an issue that will land BJP in New Delhi in the 2009 elections, and the Congress too but 5 years hence, by creating a situation where it can cash in on the minorities' sense of insecurity, and play the secularism card? Anything is possible in the present political scenario peopled by self seeking men and criminals, totally divorced from their conscience. We live in days when principles and ideals have only political utility.
And so, coming back to Ramasamudram controversy, it is immaterial whether Rama or Budha or Christ or Mohammed are historical figures or not. Cultures and religions have grown around them and their teachings. All of them are close to our hearts and minds and spirits. Myths, conventions, customs and rituals constitute the stuff that identities are made of. Our consciousness is pervaded by them and what they represent. Our value systems on which theories of social coexistence are based, come from them. In short, they have become inextricable part of our identity. Challenging them amounts to subverting that which gives us our identities, and therefore, our identities per se.
Nothing can be more foolish than using scientific opinions as trump cards to negate the religious sentiments of the the Hindus regarding the Ram Samudra. Faith and belief are not things that can be put under the microscope. By its very definition, faith is something that transcends reason. If something can be proved scientifically, what is the need for faith? And which scientists, or which organization or society can dismiss faith as superstition on the grounds that there is no proven ‘ truth “ in it. What is truth? Scientific truth? Is there no truth other than what is confirmed by science? True, science searches for truth; but can TRUTH be contained within the limits of science? Are there not truths which lie beyond the reach of science, outside its frontiers?
How plain and poor life would be if ‘yes’ was the answer to the last query. How insipid life would be if it is totally demystified. How incomplete life would be without the Scriptures, the myths, the rituals and cunstoms which hold forth truths of their own that science have not succeeded in annihilating. Perhaps, over a period of time, science has been theoretically challenging these truths - but has not driven them out of the hearts and minds of the people. For faith is rooted in the sixth sense which still remains a grey area for science.
The state must be sensitive to the faith of its people. It should not offend their religious sensibilities. The alternative path for Sethu Samudram is the answer, no matter how much more expensive it might prove. If the government can divert some of the mammoth funds it has in its custody that enables the type of horse trading we saw recently, ten bridges, I am sure, can be built across the Palk Straits.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Education in Kerala - What a Shame!
I was talking with my 80 + & 90 + in-laws, and once again the thought came to me - it comes every time I converse with people of that generation - that they had a much better education than what Kerala offers in the present day.
Their comfort level in English, their awareness about the world around them, their sense of history, their knowledge of geography are way above that of the students I had to deal during my teaching days. Even as a young school and college going student, I’ve heard my parents talk of the school system they had in their time – and seeing the product that the system produced, I begin to feel that we should go back to those days.
All schools were Malayalam medium till 4th standard. A student who wants to continue in Malayalam medium gets promoted to 1st Form and goes on uninterrupted till she reaches 9th standard, which is the school completion point.
The student who opts for English medium education goes, after 4th standard, through the Preparatory class which gives them intensive coaching in basics in English. After that they go to the 1st Form. School education becomes complete with 6th form.
And I find that, that generation was educated in the true sense of the word. Being a teacher by profession, I can make this statement with authority. Our parents did not have tuitions, or ‘educated’ parents to help them with studies at home. But their standard in written English (spoken too if they were employed in positions which required them to use it) would put not just today’s SSLC students, but also graduates and post graduates to shame. I am not resorting to hyperbole to drive home a point- it’s the plain simple truth.
Yes. I think the education minister should sit up and take a look at what education has come to since the time of his parents, and try remodeling on those lines. Am sure it’ll produce marvelous results.
Of course, a necessary condition would be de-linking politics from reforms relating to education sector. Take a look at this case to see how different things are in other states. A Polytechnic affiliated to the SNDT University in Mumbai offers, among other courses, a diploma in Office Administration and Secretarial Practices. The students are screened for their competence level in the English language the very day they join – an entry level test as it is called. Divisions A & Division B are formed based on the results. Intensive training in spoken and written English (an imperative for the profession they are trained for) is given to the Division A comprising low scorers in the English entry level screening test. In the second year, both the divisions sit together, for, the students of A division would have improved their communication skills in English. There have been instances where those who scored high in the entry level screen test opt for A Division on account of the intense coaching in English they would get.
Try introducing this practice in Kerala. The DYFI and SFI and KSU and SUCI will be on the streets destroying public property and indulging in murder and arson to end the ‘bourgeois, elitist discrimination’!
Of course, it is not fair to put all the blame on the govt and the system for the decline in the quality of education in Kerala. Over the years, Keralites have grown to take education for granted. Our rulers in the pre independence days did us a wonderful service by starting schools in every nook and corner of the state. Our parents’ generation was the first full fledged takers of this education. They valued it. I remember my father telling me that he used to walk miles and miles to attend school. Today’s generation skips classes on a hartal day if they have to walk only walkable distance to school or college. And with subsidies and stipends, education has become cheap. And what comes cheap is not valued, but taken for granted.
And the fees my parent’s generation paid might sound trivial to us in these days when we speak in terms of crores. The women in the thirties had to pay Rs3 ¾ pm whereas men had to pay Rs. 5. The fees for preparatory around that time was Rs.2 ¼. In the school which my mother-in law attended, the boarding fees was 22 idangazhi of rice (1 idangazhi = 1 ½ kg, I think) and Rs. 4/. My father who graduated from Maharaja’s College paid Rs. 5/pm as his hostel fees. All these people I had spoken to sometime or other, swear that their families had to make immense sacrifice to make that kind of payment in cash or kind.
That generation PAID for their education - paid through their nose. They were not imparted education with the tax payers money. So they valued it. And the beauty of it all was, they had no mercenary attitude to it. Education was not considered a mere stepping stone to a job. It was a simple case of love of enlightenment, love of education for its own sake. Many beneficiaries of education in those days went back to their agricultural occupation which they could have managed without formal education. And most women remained housewives. But their education gave them a certain quality difficult to describe. To say that they were resilient, faced life’s wear and tear with a philosophical shrug, and became addicted to reading (and to Malayala Manorama in the Mid Travancore region), is to illustrate only some of the ways in which education impacted them.
The present day scenario is very depressing. As a teacher I have seen how students come to class and sit there bewildered when I start to teach in English (unfortunately, I am a teacher of the English language). If I ask them a question and insist they answer in whatever broken English they know, they’ll look at you with such a trapped expression that you excuse them hastily lest they send you running for smelling salts! Of course there are exceptions but the general rule is this.
What has gone wrong? Where and when? All the ‘progressive’ reforms have only made matters worse. Why isn’t anyone doing a serious study on this issue?
This year Kerala registered an all time high in SSLC pass percentage. That it was a political decision, there is no doubt. The situation at the moment is: there are many students who cannot not be accommodated for Plus One, despite the tall claims of fair admissions through Single Widow Admissions. The best beneficiaries of this crisis are the political parties. All those SSLC passed students who are not likely to get admission into schools form a veritable goldmine for parties to get recruits
What has gone wrong with Kerala education is, as I see it:
Politicization of all decision, including reforms related to admissions, examinations, pass percentage, fees - the works. The populist reform of introducing group system in SSLC to allow more and more students to pass was the first major death knell to education in the state. More and more electorate friendly reforms followed.
So, what is the role of academics in this scenario? Well nothing - except be happy tools in the hands of politicians and political parties.
What a fall from the days of yore!.
In the meanwhile, I hear the requiem being sung for quality education in the most literate state in the country.
And the red carpet that had been rolled out for mediocrity has been extended to welcome sub mediocrity.
Their comfort level in English, their awareness about the world around them, their sense of history, their knowledge of geography are way above that of the students I had to deal during my teaching days. Even as a young school and college going student, I’ve heard my parents talk of the school system they had in their time – and seeing the product that the system produced, I begin to feel that we should go back to those days.
All schools were Malayalam medium till 4th standard. A student who wants to continue in Malayalam medium gets promoted to 1st Form and goes on uninterrupted till she reaches 9th standard, which is the school completion point.
The student who opts for English medium education goes, after 4th standard, through the Preparatory class which gives them intensive coaching in basics in English. After that they go to the 1st Form. School education becomes complete with 6th form.
And I find that, that generation was educated in the true sense of the word. Being a teacher by profession, I can make this statement with authority. Our parents did not have tuitions, or ‘educated’ parents to help them with studies at home. But their standard in written English (spoken too if they were employed in positions which required them to use it) would put not just today’s SSLC students, but also graduates and post graduates to shame. I am not resorting to hyperbole to drive home a point- it’s the plain simple truth.
Yes. I think the education minister should sit up and take a look at what education has come to since the time of his parents, and try remodeling on those lines. Am sure it’ll produce marvelous results.
Of course, a necessary condition would be de-linking politics from reforms relating to education sector. Take a look at this case to see how different things are in other states. A Polytechnic affiliated to the SNDT University in Mumbai offers, among other courses, a diploma in Office Administration and Secretarial Practices. The students are screened for their competence level in the English language the very day they join – an entry level test as it is called. Divisions A & Division B are formed based on the results. Intensive training in spoken and written English (an imperative for the profession they are trained for) is given to the Division A comprising low scorers in the English entry level screening test. In the second year, both the divisions sit together, for, the students of A division would have improved their communication skills in English. There have been instances where those who scored high in the entry level screen test opt for A Division on account of the intense coaching in English they would get.
Try introducing this practice in Kerala. The DYFI and SFI and KSU and SUCI will be on the streets destroying public property and indulging in murder and arson to end the ‘bourgeois, elitist discrimination’!
Of course, it is not fair to put all the blame on the govt and the system for the decline in the quality of education in Kerala. Over the years, Keralites have grown to take education for granted. Our rulers in the pre independence days did us a wonderful service by starting schools in every nook and corner of the state. Our parents’ generation was the first full fledged takers of this education. They valued it. I remember my father telling me that he used to walk miles and miles to attend school. Today’s generation skips classes on a hartal day if they have to walk only walkable distance to school or college. And with subsidies and stipends, education has become cheap. And what comes cheap is not valued, but taken for granted.
And the fees my parent’s generation paid might sound trivial to us in these days when we speak in terms of crores. The women in the thirties had to pay Rs3 ¾ pm whereas men had to pay Rs. 5. The fees for preparatory around that time was Rs.2 ¼. In the school which my mother-in law attended, the boarding fees was 22 idangazhi of rice (1 idangazhi = 1 ½ kg, I think) and Rs. 4/. My father who graduated from Maharaja’s College paid Rs. 5/pm as his hostel fees. All these people I had spoken to sometime or other, swear that their families had to make immense sacrifice to make that kind of payment in cash or kind.
That generation PAID for their education - paid through their nose. They were not imparted education with the tax payers money. So they valued it. And the beauty of it all was, they had no mercenary attitude to it. Education was not considered a mere stepping stone to a job. It was a simple case of love of enlightenment, love of education for its own sake. Many beneficiaries of education in those days went back to their agricultural occupation which they could have managed without formal education. And most women remained housewives. But their education gave them a certain quality difficult to describe. To say that they were resilient, faced life’s wear and tear with a philosophical shrug, and became addicted to reading (and to Malayala Manorama in the Mid Travancore region), is to illustrate only some of the ways in which education impacted them.
The present day scenario is very depressing. As a teacher I have seen how students come to class and sit there bewildered when I start to teach in English (unfortunately, I am a teacher of the English language). If I ask them a question and insist they answer in whatever broken English they know, they’ll look at you with such a trapped expression that you excuse them hastily lest they send you running for smelling salts! Of course there are exceptions but the general rule is this.
What has gone wrong? Where and when? All the ‘progressive’ reforms have only made matters worse. Why isn’t anyone doing a serious study on this issue?
This year Kerala registered an all time high in SSLC pass percentage. That it was a political decision, there is no doubt. The situation at the moment is: there are many students who cannot not be accommodated for Plus One, despite the tall claims of fair admissions through Single Widow Admissions. The best beneficiaries of this crisis are the political parties. All those SSLC passed students who are not likely to get admission into schools form a veritable goldmine for parties to get recruits
What has gone wrong with Kerala education is, as I see it:
Politicization of all decision, including reforms related to admissions, examinations, pass percentage, fees - the works. The populist reform of introducing group system in SSLC to allow more and more students to pass was the first major death knell to education in the state. More and more electorate friendly reforms followed.
So, what is the role of academics in this scenario? Well nothing - except be happy tools in the hands of politicians and political parties.
What a fall from the days of yore!.
In the meanwhile, I hear the requiem being sung for quality education in the most literate state in the country.
And the red carpet that had been rolled out for mediocrity has been extended to welcome sub mediocrity.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Am I My Brother's Keeper?
The other day there was a news item on how two head load workers rushed Aiyeneth (poet) to the hospital from an accident site, and were rewarded by a public sector bank for it. I guess this must be one way of discharging Corporate social responsibility - by encouraging such humanitarian acts which should come naturally to us, but unfortunately don’t. The news item brought to my mind my involvement in a similar situation some fifteen years back.
October is the month when the North East monsoon visits Kerala. It is the time of the year when you’ll be caught in the thunder shower if you don’t rush home after work. One such October evening saw me hurrying to the bus stand at around 5 in the evening after work. I had to pass the main overcrowded junction (kavala) to reach the bus station. As I was waiting at the zebra crossing, I saw an auto come close to the footpath at breakneck speed, and run over the right foot of a woman. A young policeman started giving the auto the chase but as he ran, he called out to the passersby to take the woman to the hospital. What followed could constitute the theme for a brief a comedy show – a tragicomedy, would be more correct, for it testifies to callousness that we humans are capable of.
The minute I heard the policeman shout out, I bolted across the zebra crossing. I told myself “Got to go a long way. The locals will do it”. At 90 degrees to the zebra crossing there was one more to be crossed and as I waited for the signal, I tried looking through the corner of the eye to see what was happening at the accident site. I couldn’t see through the crowd. So hoping that someone would have taken care of the lady ( but knowing fully well, deep inside me, that nobody would) I threw an elaborately casual glance (often times we try to fool ourselves) across the Zebra path. To my horror, I saw that the lady, who had been dragging herself towards a jewelry shop, collapse there on the granite platform encroaching into the pavement in front of the shop. She was wailing, and bleeding profusely from her foot. People walking up and down gave her a passing glance (like my elaborately casual glance) and, like I too tried to do, went their way hoping someone else will do it. Through the tinted door of the shop fitted with gleaming thick steel handle, the employees in the gold shop were watching the woman, now weeping aloud and begging to be helped. I waited for a couple of minutes, one-liner save-the-situation prayers racing through my mind, one after the other.
“Yippee! You’ve heard me, Lord, thank you, thank you. That guy is looking earnestly at her- he’ll---oh, no. He too is a shirker - like me!”
My God wasn’t going to let me off so easily. The woman stopped crying and lay down as though she had lost faith in humanity.
I retraced my steps with a sinking feeling. Why Lord, why do you do this to me? I want to go home - it‘s getting to be very dark. And I don’t want to take all that responsibility.
Feeling very sorry for myself, I went back, grudgingly. I couldn’t walk away ‘cos if something happened to her, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself after that.
The woman was hefty. I needed help to lift her to her feet.
“Sir, can you help me?” He looks though me as though I am transparent. (Do I sound like Phil Collin’s Another Day in Paradise? :-))
I asked another and another and another, panic rising.
No one would come to my assistance.
I stood there bewildered, not knowing what to do, when, out of nowhere, two of my students came running. The three of us helped the woman - now rather weak, and weeping weakly and groaning in pain -to the zebra crossing and then the next drama began.
I stopped an auto and we started helping the woman into it. Just then the driver turned around and saw that this was an “accident case”. He violently pulled up the starter lever and swish, he vanished! We had the same experience with two other autos.
Eh, listen you sitting up there so coolly, I prayed (?), what have I done to deserve this?
“M’am, shall I ask the traffic policeman for help?”(This cop was in the elevated island right in the dead centre of the junction where the four roads meet). That was my student.
Almost as if he heard her, he turned around and showed the stop sign. Till the traffic cop gave the green signal, all vehicles had to wait behind the zebra crossing to allow pedestrians to cross. We noticed an unengaged auto waiting at the signal, and started helping the woman into it. The auto driver protested but he couldn’t rush off as the round stop sign plate still faced our side. Anyway, by then I had decided I’d put my foot down and not let him go. What the heck, is this my responsibility alone? I asked my students, in a loud voice, to take down his number, and then told him that if he does not take us to the hospital, I’ll lodge a complaint. He grumbled, pulled a long face but I got in after the lady and the auto started.
The govt. hospital was only a furlong and a half from the kavala, and he kept muttering something under his breath all the way (Why blame him? I was also muttering against the almighty for putting me in a spot like that). We reached the hospital and two attenders helped the woman out of the auto. Taking change out of my handbag, I turned around to pay the driver, but the auto had vanished! The man and the vehicle had fled as though the very devil were after them!
What happened in the hospital was even more upsetting. But that can wait- - -
October is the month when the North East monsoon visits Kerala. It is the time of the year when you’ll be caught in the thunder shower if you don’t rush home after work. One such October evening saw me hurrying to the bus stand at around 5 in the evening after work. I had to pass the main overcrowded junction (kavala) to reach the bus station. As I was waiting at the zebra crossing, I saw an auto come close to the footpath at breakneck speed, and run over the right foot of a woman. A young policeman started giving the auto the chase but as he ran, he called out to the passersby to take the woman to the hospital. What followed could constitute the theme for a brief a comedy show – a tragicomedy, would be more correct, for it testifies to callousness that we humans are capable of.
The minute I heard the policeman shout out, I bolted across the zebra crossing. I told myself “Got to go a long way. The locals will do it”. At 90 degrees to the zebra crossing there was one more to be crossed and as I waited for the signal, I tried looking through the corner of the eye to see what was happening at the accident site. I couldn’t see through the crowd. So hoping that someone would have taken care of the lady ( but knowing fully well, deep inside me, that nobody would) I threw an elaborately casual glance (often times we try to fool ourselves) across the Zebra path. To my horror, I saw that the lady, who had been dragging herself towards a jewelry shop, collapse there on the granite platform encroaching into the pavement in front of the shop. She was wailing, and bleeding profusely from her foot. People walking up and down gave her a passing glance (like my elaborately casual glance) and, like I too tried to do, went their way hoping someone else will do it. Through the tinted door of the shop fitted with gleaming thick steel handle, the employees in the gold shop were watching the woman, now weeping aloud and begging to be helped. I waited for a couple of minutes, one-liner save-the-situation prayers racing through my mind, one after the other.
“Yippee! You’ve heard me, Lord, thank you, thank you. That guy is looking earnestly at her- he’ll---oh, no. He too is a shirker - like me!”
My God wasn’t going to let me off so easily. The woman stopped crying and lay down as though she had lost faith in humanity.
I retraced my steps with a sinking feeling. Why Lord, why do you do this to me? I want to go home - it‘s getting to be very dark. And I don’t want to take all that responsibility.
Feeling very sorry for myself, I went back, grudgingly. I couldn’t walk away ‘cos if something happened to her, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself after that.
The woman was hefty. I needed help to lift her to her feet.
“Sir, can you help me?” He looks though me as though I am transparent. (Do I sound like Phil Collin’s Another Day in Paradise? :-))
I asked another and another and another, panic rising.
No one would come to my assistance.
I stood there bewildered, not knowing what to do, when, out of nowhere, two of my students came running. The three of us helped the woman - now rather weak, and weeping weakly and groaning in pain -to the zebra crossing and then the next drama began.
I stopped an auto and we started helping the woman into it. Just then the driver turned around and saw that this was an “accident case”. He violently pulled up the starter lever and swish, he vanished! We had the same experience with two other autos.
Eh, listen you sitting up there so coolly, I prayed (?), what have I done to deserve this?
“M’am, shall I ask the traffic policeman for help?”(This cop was in the elevated island right in the dead centre of the junction where the four roads meet). That was my student.
Almost as if he heard her, he turned around and showed the stop sign. Till the traffic cop gave the green signal, all vehicles had to wait behind the zebra crossing to allow pedestrians to cross. We noticed an unengaged auto waiting at the signal, and started helping the woman into it. The auto driver protested but he couldn’t rush off as the round stop sign plate still faced our side. Anyway, by then I had decided I’d put my foot down and not let him go. What the heck, is this my responsibility alone? I asked my students, in a loud voice, to take down his number, and then told him that if he does not take us to the hospital, I’ll lodge a complaint. He grumbled, pulled a long face but I got in after the lady and the auto started.
The govt. hospital was only a furlong and a half from the kavala, and he kept muttering something under his breath all the way (Why blame him? I was also muttering against the almighty for putting me in a spot like that). We reached the hospital and two attenders helped the woman out of the auto. Taking change out of my handbag, I turned around to pay the driver, but the auto had vanished! The man and the vehicle had fled as though the very devil were after them!
What happened in the hospital was even more upsetting. But that can wait- - -
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)