Musings from the hilltop

The Dreamless ones

2012-02-04T10:44:00.000-08:00

THE DREAMLESS ONES

Last one year, my job entails working with poor women, in a remote part of Goa. The idea is to empower them. But jobs are jobs, and human beings are way beyond them. Thus while trying to do my job, I could not help becoming intrinsically involved with the lives of these women.

All my life, I have met women from higher strata of society. They take decisions of career and marriage and seem emancipated. Compared to them, the women I work with are almost fifty years behind in terms of emotional independence, self confidence, education and choices. In fact in all socio-cultural aspects, they seem like an anachronism when compared to middle or upper class India. Yet, and sadly so, it is this class that forms the majority of the Indian population and is actually the real India.

Each woman seems to be caught in a matrix of society and narrow social mores. Each woman has a sad story which links her inextricably to her class, her family or her husband. Each woman is caught in a web from which she cannot escape. Each of them is so fixed in her predicament and so immobile because of it. Each woman is so helpless that I think hardly anyone of them even dares to dream that there could be a life for them beyond the prescribed one, to which they are so thoughtlessly subjugated.

Dreams are a luxury of the Haves. The Have-nots do not even dare to dream. And among these Have-Nots is the lowest common factor of our society----poor women- and they are on the wrong side of gender, class and caste. Right from birth itself, most women from this class realize that they are expendable and need to adjust and compromise to any situation. Many of them are victims of either abuse, or abandonment or just neglect. Because they have no real education, it is difficult for them to get any empowering jobs. Thus however unhappy they might be, they have to adjust in the given situation.

The most alarming thing is that most of these women are not even aware that an injustice is happening to them, as they do not have the capacity to even imagine that they deserve better. What progress or GDP can a country boast of when such a huge chunk of that country’s population is so completely unaware of its own value or sense of self respect??

One of the women, I admire, has been battling with her husband’s gambling addiction, which has ruined whatever married life they had, while their seven year old daughter is constantly traumatized by their daily fights. Yet the lady is stoically facing up to whatever life is bringing her and trying to keep some sense of home and sanity for her child. But one day she innocently asked me, “Madam would a man have put up with me if I had been gambling, like I have put up with my husband for so many years?” And in that one poignant moment, I realized how unleveled and cruel the playing field really is for women, especially for poor women who have no feasible choices.

I wonder till when will women keep facing so many traumas just because they were born as women?? And till our elected leaders address this question in a holistic manner, we, as a country, cannot even hope to call ourselves democratic, progressive or modern.

Natives and Outsiders

2012-02-04T10:43:00.000-08:00

NATIVES AND OUTSIDERS

“DOGS AND INDIANS NOT ALLOWED”

“…SURELY I HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMOVE MILLIONS OF AN INFERIOR RACE THAT BREEDS LIKE VERMIN” Hitler, about Jews.

Us Vice-Consul Maureen Chao: "I WAS ON A 24-HOUR TRAIN TRIP FROM DELHI TO ORISSA….AND MY SKIN BECAME DIRTY AND DARK LIKE THE TAMILIANS."

How do you feel when you read something like this?? Is anyone’s sense of identity so narrow that they cannot even recognize another human being when they see one?? Do we only see people as Jews, or Muslims, or Brahmins, or Aryans, or Goans or Africans etc?? Don’t we, as humans, have a deeper bond, beyond these superficial divisions?

The whole concept of identity, when based on one’s sense of class, religion and region, is a faulty one. Identity is not just a fixed entity, given to us when we are born. We CREATE our own identities. In that sense the whole dichotomy of an “insider” and “outsider” is precarious. These are relative concepts. From some people’s perspectives, because of Islamic terrorism, all Muslims are outsiders the world over; Jews are outsiders, as expounded by Hitler; Hindus are outsiders in a largely Muslim neighborhood; all Goans outside Goa, are outsiders there; all Catholics are outsiders, in a largely Hindu nation; Native Americans became outsiders in their own land when they were butchered under white supremacy; during the partition of India, all Muslims in India and all Hindus in Pakistan became outsiders even though they had lived there for centuries.

All the above, are examples of human intolerance towards one another, based on the flimsiest of all reasons---the differences in religions or regions or race. Are we then to be hounded all our lives by what we happened to be born as, irrespective of who we have become as individuals?? That surely is a scary scenario. And this country has seen more than enough of those---- Godhra riots, violence in Kashmir, 1984 anti Sikh riots are just a few. I remember vividly, when I stood on the terrace of my father’s home and watched all of Delhi burn around me, and faced the danger of being killed just because I was partly from Punjab, and a Punjabi Sikh had assassinated Indira Gandhi. I was just ten years old. I was in my own country, my own home town, my own birth place. I was not an outsider. Yet in an instant I was made into one. How secure you are, whether as a native belonging to a place or as an outsider in another place, can thus, change with one stroke of bigotry!

If how we are to be perceived, solely depends on who we were born as, then we will all cease to learn and grow as individuals. Societies and Cultures grow and evolve only if they incorporate in themselves new thoughts, ideas, people and perspectives. Closed societies and people spell their own doom. For every person, (outsider or native) who creates negativity, anywhere in the world, there are tens of people (outsiders and natives) who contribute in extremely positive ways towards the economy and culture of that place. If minds remain closed, all of us will be outsiders for someone or the other, wherever we maybe in this world, whether in our own home towns or outside it.

I would like to be one with people with open minds and hearts, whether they are Goans, or Spanish or Tamilians or Muslims, or Jews, or whatever….who cares?! What about you??

The Dirty Picture

2012-02-04T10:41:00.000-08:00

The Dirty Picture

Any piece of art is always a reflection of its times. No matter how conservative or ordered our world ostensibly might be, art always captures even small nuances of the collective angst of its contemporary times. The more the bigotry, the more is the rebellion. The more the conforming, the more is the expression of freedom. The more you move away from the safe much trodden path, the more are the chances of creating a new world order, BUT, unfortunately, the more the chances of falling like Icarus, who had wings of wax and flew too close to the sun. The wings melted. He fell, and died.

Something similar happens to the heroine of The Dirty Picture. A small town ordinary girl with no prospects wants to make it big and the only way she feels she can do this is through using her femininity in a way that other women do not dare to. Now whether the movie is well made or just a crass representation of the film industry and women’s sexuality is quite beside the point. The essence of the movie is much larger and poses quite a few questions for a perceptive audience.

And the most pertinent question it poses is --- how much real choice do women actually have in our society, especially women of the lower strata? And when these women do make rare and bold choices, what are the chances of survival in a male dominated world? The movie depicts an immense rebellion and ambition of a woman who breaks out of her social strata. She achieves her place in the sun for a short while. But can she sustain herself in this society??

The question then, no longer pertains to just women like the heroine of the movie. The question applies to ALL women in our society. All women might not want to shed off clothes and become famous. But MOST women are battling with some or the other forms of conventions or socially created boundaries, in their own unique situations and predicaments. No matter how much a façade of equality our society presents, is there really a good strong solid belief system behind it??

Can women across all social sections of contemporary India, make unusual choices and have the courage to sustain them? A man taking the same path might be accepted, even applauded, but a woman is often frowned upon. Women who make unusual choices vis-à-vis career, marriage, children, family, lifestyle, attitudes etc, have to really battle it out, all the way.

And that is why the movie is a reflection of our times---it explicitly depicts the hypocrisy of our society. If women like the heroine of the movie are considered so ‘dirty’ or crass, then isn’t our society crass as well, which watches, encourages and patronizes such art? This is quite similar to criticizing a political candidate vociferously and then voting and re-electing him repeatedly. When will we all accept our own responsibility for the way things are?

The journey of a woman, who makes novel choices, is often a lonely one. Such a woman walks on unstable ground with constant internal turmoil and constant external struggle with society. Her journey is fraught with inherent dilemma, where she knows she wants to fly but society offers only wings of wax. Even a slight transgression of boundaries might lead to the melting of the wings and the proverbial fall. For how long does society expect women to walk this tightrope??

Ilha de Rachol

2012-02-04T10:39:00.000-08:00

Ilha De Rachol

One can walk many eons in a single lifetime. The introspection of the mind, and its consequent deep dark journey, has nothing to do with the physical age of a person. Even a young woman, with the world at her feet, might have traversed more lands and seas in her mind, than a seventy year old, supposedly, wise man.

Somehow, when one lives close to nature, one tends to have time off from the hustle and bustle of the world and spend some quiet time with one’s own self. Repose is a much sought after entity in the modern times, but any village in Goa will offer it abundantly to anyone who can quieten the mindless buzzing of the mind and just reach for it.

Ilha de Rachol is one such village where you can drive your car right up to paradise, park it near the river front and just sit quietly. If there are no people around, you might get so lost within yourself, that a small child playing with a football nearby, maybe a sudden reminder of civilization and that you belong to it. In front of you, the Chapel stands tall and stately. Around it are a cluster of houses and a school. In the evening, a lot of boys gather there and play football and rarely the ball falls into the river and it’s a time for a lot of fun for all. Slowly, grudgingly, gingerly, one boy in tight sports T-shirt jumps down into the river, as the others cheer on.

Some ladies take time out from their household chores and join the laughter. Little children, too gather around and squeal with excitement. The boy is now swimming in the water and to everyone’s amusement, a big fish gets entangled in a chain hanging from his T-shirt. The fish jumps in astonishment and with that it lifts up the boy’s T-Shirt in a most hilarious manner. Everyone around, screams louder. The fish and the boy thrash together for a while and then somehow the fish gets unhooked and swims away frantically. The boy heaves a sigh of relief and the fish swims back, by mistake I think, or to show its triumph. We will never know. It was a fifteen minute holiday for everyone, as something out of the ordinary happened. After all, life is only about the romance in it, and a man or a woman are not always required for that. Sometimes it could be just a boy and a fish or the verve of life, and nothing else.

Evening falls and all the women and children start going home. The sky turns orange and dark blue. The world is going towards a sleep mode. I sit there drinking in all the peace and quiet after the frenzied excitement has passed. Now there is no one near the river, except a lone fisherman, whose song I can hear, melodious and pensive in the silence of the twilight.

Though, now connected by road, Ilha De Rachol still has a quaint island culture as it is far removed from the rest of Rachol. The road that goes there seems to go beyond time into the timeless. I am sure a hundred years back too, the boys played, the ladies cheered, the children squealed, just like they do today. The experience now gets embedded in the recesses of my mind, to be visited perhaps another day, when I sit in a city office, aching for what is called “REPOSE”.

One's own journey

2012-02-04T10:34:00.000-08:00

ONE’S OWN JOURNEY

There are so many roads one travels in a lifetime. But with every turn and swerve on the road, a new depth emerges in most of us. Of course, some people never give themselves a chance for that!

Few years back I worked for a real estate and development company. My job profile was to handle corporate social responsibility. I was convinced of the company’s ideals because I knew the boss and his personal character. His philosophy was to do well for himself along with doing well for his employees and the neighboring communities. The development was to be, according to regulations, eco sensitive, and would bring about immense opportunities for the locals who had been migrating away from their native land in search of employment opportunities. Such development is only progressive and spells an economic boom for everyone in the vicinity.

I felt happy that I could be part of a larger cause and reach out to poor ill equipped people and give them a piece of the paradise they dreamed of. My lofty utopian ideals, however, soon collapsed as I got acquainted with reality.

As I worked, I realized that the politicians were having a field day at the company’s expense. Each of them desired to milk the company as much as they could with the promise of keeping their side of the bargain, which they seldom did. They pledged support to anyone depending on seasons and mercenary reasons.

One has grown up with an idea of the Press being the people’s voice. But a part of the Press turned and twisted things for its own sport, fuelling sensationalism and contemporary mood and emotions.

Then there were the NGOs, the social evangelists. A whole lot of them jumped into the foray with various pointless regressive issues like caste equations. They were anti development for the sake of being anti development. Many of them had their own bread to earn out of people’s turmoil.

Of course, the lesser said about corporate culture, the better it is. All the employees were keen on showcasing their own work and achievement, often at the cost of each other!

And finally there were the people. I had grandiose notions of helping them have better lives. But they themselves had sold their piece of land to two different people and were now keen to sell it all over again to the company I worked for.

Even though I loved my job, of helping the villagers, the whole socio-economic-political ethos was appalling to work in. In the midst of all this disillusionment, the only way to keep my sanity was to still continue to do my work as sincerely as I could amidst a chaos of everyone wanting to have a piece of the pie, which real estate development is.

Well the greatest lesson I learnt was that expectation is the fatal flaw we have. We cannot expect the world to conform to our beliefs. To blame the ‘other’ is escaping responsibility, because we cannot control other people’s minds. But we can very well control our own. Once I realized this, the ‘self’ versus ‘other’ turmoil started resolving in my mind. Its then that I knew, whether I quit the job or stay in it, I would still be who I thought I was. There is some place within us, irrespective of all else without. I guess that is what we all call “integrity of mind”. I am not there yet. But I am getting there!

Have we killed our God?

2012-02-04T10:23:00.000-08:00

HAVE WE KILLED OUR GOD??

Since Einstein introduced the theory of relativity, it seems to be here to stay for good! We live in a world where absolutes are completely missing from our lives, whether they are philosophical, ideological, moral, teleological or cultural. Belief systems have rapidly dwindled in the last few centuries. Everything seems relative and nothing is absolute. Let us question ourselves---How many of us really believe in any of the political systems, social institutions, educational models, administrative systems and religious or moral values?? And some of us might claim to believe but how many of us actually make them our way of life?

The modern world is really a fragmented one, so much so that Nietzsche, in the nineteenth century, declared that “GOD IS DEAD”. Whether God was ever there or not, is not the topic of debate here. But to proclaim that God is dead is quite an expression of the complete ideological breakdown of absolutes. What kind of world then do we live in where all our belief systems are questionable and shaky?

No wonder, we have such an upsurge in the modern times of Babas, Yogic Gurus, spiritual homes, cleansing and rejuvenating centers, astrologers etc. We need these because modern man has become deeply insecure, and in absence of absolutes, is looking for any moorings that he can find. Haven’t we then moved centuries away from a holistic way of life to a deeply fractured and unsure one?

This realization hit me, when in my conversation with an aspiring political candidate for the coming elections in Goa, I asked him, “so which party are you standing from?” Without blinking an eyelid, he told me, “I will file my candidature from whichever party that is likely to win.”

Seeing my obvious surprise, he said, “Let me tell you honestly, if I win individually and the party loses, then I will have no funds to spend on my constituency and people will throw me out next time. So for my political longevity, it’s not the ideology of my party that is important. How much money I spend on the people is what is of importance”.

Well, who can argue against the truth of this logic? Dumbstruck, I realized that he was just being honest. He was expressing only the most predominant ethos of our times. In the absence of any ideological or moralistic or cultural mores in the contemporary world, nothing works like money and materialism! So why blame the politician when the whole society is in the throes of the same breakdown of absolutes?? Let us not forget, that however Machiavellian our politicians might be, their perspectives are only an expression of the larger world view of our society. They are a part of us. And hence all of us as a society are equally responsible for what we are today.

In a world where everything is so relative, how can we expect absolutes or belief in absolutes? We all have an inner core, a core that develops since childhood. A core that is a sum result of all our experiences, suffering, education and innate nature. That is really the God within us or at least capable of being like God, if we act and think with integrity and conviction. Haven’t we somewhere killed our God, both within and without?? Maybe Nietzsche does have a point there, a point to ponder upon, especially in the wake of the impending elections in Goa today.

Scorning Death?

2011-10-16T05:41:00.002-07:00

SCORNING DEATH??

Indira Gandhi ke do bête the.

Ek ko desh chalane ka shouk tha,

usne aeroplane chalane ki koshish ki

Aur mara gaya.

Doosre ko aeroplane chalne ka shouk tha

Usne desh chalane ki koshish ki

Aur mara gaya…..

This is an excerpt from a supposedly humorous Poem sent to me by sms. Have you ever wondered why in each and every culture in the world, death is mourned and the dead are given a stately burial? Except for a war scenario, are the dead anywhere left to rot and die and become carrion?? Why do you think in all the cultures it is forbidden to talk of the dead irreverently??

Death is something sacred, sacrosanct, and solemn. Whether it is the death of a friend or even an enemy, it is to be respected and not scorned at, because whatever our lives might be, death is the common truth for all of us. People rant about culture and religion, and yet, through this poem, someone has actually gone to the graves of the dead, dug them out most irreverently and made them vulnerable to human vultures—which is a sin according to ALL cultures and religions.

Even if one looks at it from a purely socio-historic perspective, what kind of society are we now living in which strikes at motherhood in such a monstrous way, by mocking the death of her two sons?? The justification is that Congress and the Gandhi family has misruled this country. Well, true, in many ways. But does that give any man a right to make a mockery of the death of a mother’s sons?? As far as they are considered, she was just a mother. Would her sorrow at the death of Sanjay Gandhi be any less than the sorrow of a Sikh woman, who has lost her sons in the 1984 riots??

Achilles commits the greatest of all sins, according to Greek Culture, when in choosing to disrespect, his opponent, Hector’s dead body, he loses his own dignity as a warrior hero. He drags the dead body of Hector, tied to his chariot, for twelve days, till Hector’s father, Priam, begs him for a decent burial for his son, and implores him--

“Think of thy father, and this helpless face behold!
See him in me, as helpless and as old!”

In Priam, at last, Achilles sees his own father, just as when confronted with death, we all, as humans, spontaneously identify and empathize with the kith and kin of the dead.

But the opposition parties feel they will win us over with such undignified campaigns and such inhuman punch lines?? As a nation, we are going through immense strife. We turn our faces in hope, towards the opposition parties of our country and all they give us is personal attacks??

The devil and the deep sea is the choice, for all of us. And we resign even to that, as a part of churning process that any nation has to go through to reach stability and prosperity. But we cannot and will not, as people, citizens, parents, submit to this inhuman scorn for the death of any mother’s sons.

It is a request to the ruling and opposition parties, from all the citizens of this country, to stop enflaming barbaric emotions, uncouth perspectives and divisive politics. Please keep your appalling sadism to yourself. In choosing to be with one party or the other, we do not want to cease to be human!!

The pilgrimage at Maina

2011-10-16T05:41:00.001-07:00

THE PILGRIMAGE AT MAINA

If you are busy with the mindless buzzing of the brain, you might miss the small narrow lane that goes from the main Maina-Curtorim road, to a place called Ulandi. The road is nondescript, yet leads to great beauty. As it goes ahead and meanders along rice fields, coconut groves, with the view of distant hills, it seems like a road to heaven. All through the year you can take your car and journey into the mysterious as you go along this narrow lane where only one car can pass at a time. But in the month of August, on a particular day, is the Feast of a very famous cross on this road.

On that day, from my hill top, I could see various cars, pedestrians, trucks, jeeps, thronging towards this cross. Though not much of a devout, curiosity got the better of me and I thought, if so many people are visiting this place from far and wide, then why not me, when it is right in my neighborhood? So I decided to leave the lazy Saturday behind and endeavor to see what the others could see in the cross.

The police made us park our car, way off from the cross, and told us that we have to walk the rest of the distance. So, I started on a pilgrimage of sorts. In hundreds of people, I too walked on slowly and quietly, a bit curious and a bit dubious. From a higher level on the road, I could see an unruly river of humanity curving and flowing towards the said cross. I guess we all looked quite small and insignificant as compared to the vast expanse of the green on the Earth and the blue in the sky. But we all trudged on towards the cross, carrying our own little crosses, our little thoughts and our little worlds inside us-- hoping for what? A revelation? A miracle? A solution to our problems? It must have been different for different people, I thought amusedly and wonderingly.

But something kindled within the heart of the non believer that I thought I was. When a vast sea of humans gets together and marches on in pious belief of something higher and beyond, there is a great positive energy born. It is both humbling and elevating, simultaneously. Humbling-- because you become a nameless part of the common human crowd, a small mortal human, among the colossal nature around. And elevating---because you get a glimpse of something beyond, something incomprehensible, something only to be experienced, not to be explained.

This collective positive energy touches you like a tangible power that comes from the faith of so many people together. I guess that is what pilgrimages do. They bring people together in their search for God or the transcendental or whatever you may call it. When we come together, thus in humility and faith, half our problems, self created, or psychosomatic, get resolved. We absolve ourselves and forgive others at that precise point, when we really, actually, begin to believe. We embrace everything with an open heart.

It would have been the same, I guess, if I had walked with hundreds of people to Mecca, or Hardwar. Believing, then, is like a leap of faith, a power that sweeps over you. Which religion you belong to and which pilgrimage you join in has nothing to do with it!! All roads lead to your own heaven, when you so believe.

Shall we dance

2011-10-16T05:38:00.000-07:00

SHALL WE DANCE

When people turn into their mid thirties, SOMETHING happens to them! They realize that all their adult lives, they spent in making careers, hooking up and marrying, bearing and rearing children, meeting deadlines, earning money etc. And being so busy, somewhere along the way, they forgot to live. Well, so they try to make up for lost time in connecting with old friends, on Facebook and real life, or sign up for courses as diverse as Art of Living and belly dancing. In essence, they now want to live with a vengeance!

I think something similar happened to a group of my friends, just lately. Leading hectic professional lives all the week through, we all signed up for ballroom dancing on Sundays. The dance teacher, Ossler, was quite a surprise. He looked more like a boxing champion. But when he waltzed, it was as if he was dancing on air, graceful and lithe. We were all much inspired by his closing his eyes, pursing his lips and dancing in a trance like state.

I think one of the couples was so enamored that they tried the closing eye floating a bit too early. The wife’s foot hit the man’s shin. He screamed and she went air borne, flying to the window and landing with a thud! We all kept sober faces. Then there was the tall couple--the wife turned her nose up and swayed as if she were Queen Victoria and the man looked ill at ease as if he were holding a tea set. Another couple looked more like they were wrestling with each other, perhaps a result of long married life. There was a couple, where the wife danced so well but the husband was a lost soul who kept giving her the look which accusingly said, “What am I doing here??”

Our Doctor friend turned out to be the biggest surprise. Quiet and introvert, we thought this man of science would never learn a graceful movement. But he swirled and twirled himself, and all the ladies, with the ease of a professional! And to my embarrassment, my Punjabi and Spanish genes, tended to turn all slow waltz steps into the quick disco and salsa. Some of us danced awkwardly, and some so smoothly, some were light footed like a deer and some thumped like elephants, some were graceful and some utterly disgraceful!!

We were a motley crowd from many states of India, but we had one thing in common---the desire to learn dancing and dancing is perhaps one of the earliest human art forms. And art always seeks to transcend from the worldly to the sublime. The dancer can get so absorbed in the dance as if he and the dance are one. No wonder W B Yeats famous lines,—“how can we know the dancer from the dance”.

What we didn’t know was, whether we became grand dancers or not, there was a lot of bonding taking place at those classes. Friendships were being formed. True human connections were being made. We were all having so much that our differences of language, culture, religions, regions, careers and temperaments, all dissolved in the collective joy and laughter. It is so beautiful when human beings connect beyond all differences. And I am sure we all made memories together, which we could visit at a solitary hour, and smile at, fondly!

A place called childhood

2011-08-11T23:50:00.001-07:00

A PLACE CALLED CHILDHOOD

Thousands of years ago, when I was a simpler species, I lived in a quaint place called childhood. It had its own share of travails and tribulations, though now they might seem small, compared to the bigger adult cataclysms of being jobless or moneyless or friendless or houseless or just plain worthless! But it surely was ‘a time of innocence and a time of confidences’, as the famous Simon and Garfunkel line connotes.

Trust and acceptance came easy. We were a motley crowd in a convent school in Delhi which had girls of all sorts, sizes, color, manners, demeanor, and backgrounds----all bowing down to catholic prayer songs, sung by Jim Reeves! Groups, friendships, associations, undying loyalty pledges, were based on hard core issues like---- whether the kids shared their food, or whether they squealed complaints to the teacher or pursed their lips in silent collusion, or what kind of books they read or didn’t read. And more importantly, whether they loved John Travolta or not!

I remember always being wedged between two south Indian girls—C. Aruna and K. Aruna. And as a kindergarten scholar, I wondered if girls in South India were made in batches of A, B, C, or D etc? Who cared how they made them in the South? They both were terrific girls and brought the most sumptuous food with the great explosive Gunpowder(some exotic mother of all Masalaas). Now C. Aruna was all into culture, song and dance. She was a live wire. K. Aruna, on the other hand, was a born serious philosopher, with such innate wisdom. Between them, lay the whole world, and I floundered from one to another, as if oscillating between hedonism and asceticism. Only later did I realize that C stood for Chandragopalan and K for Krishnamurthy. Do you think it would have made a difference if it were Chadwick and Kardashian instead?

Then there were twins from Kerala who used to disappear often for special Catechism classes, while we lesser mortals went through the drudgery of Math. Most of us had no idea what catechism was, but it surely sounded better than the exorcism carried out by the Math teacher. Whether they read the Namaaz or chanted mantras in Sanskrit or went for catechism, well who cared? We just envied them!

But undoubtedly, our all-time hero was the girl who stole a horse shoe magnet from the Physics lab, waved it around the head of the Hindi teacher and off came the tens of pins from her hair. And with them came down the colossal nest like bun she daily carried on her head. How we admired that girl! She surely shines in our collective memory as much as the French Revolution shone in History. She really stood for downfall of the mighty aristocracy (the teachers) and the rise of the proletariat (all of us downtrodden students).

I forget our hero’s name. But does a name matter? It was an age where we took people just as they were, without any preconceived notions or prejudices. How precious anyone was for us, depended entirely on her worth as a friend or a soul mate. Monetary status, background, class, religion or family did not matter to us at all. There were no ‘insiders’ and no ‘outsiders’. We accepted all.

And that is why I said “thousands of years ago, when I was a different species, I lived in a quaint place called childhood”.

WHAT IS IN A NAME?

2011-08-11T23:47:00.000-07:00

What is in a name??

When I was born, a name was given to me. I guess that was required. All the other labels that were subsequently granted or acquired were really utterly useless. The more labels they give me, the less they let me live.

Soon after my birth I realized my surname was always a point of laughter for my friends. Yet I was grateful to God that it was not Kakkar or Makkar or Allabadi or Misquita. Anyway my surname was grudgingly accepted by me. But ‘they’ did not want to stop at that. Next, they gave me a column of religion to fill in a form at school. Even as a young kid, I remember feeling the absurdity of it. Why did ‘they’ want to describe me in those terms and why did they want to create a difference between me and my best friend? My communion with God was my own. Why give a name to it?

So I filled in “atheist”, at six. At seven I realized I did not like my first name. So I went to The Principal, a sweet nun called Sister Innocence. She laughed so much at my request that tears streamed out of her eyes. Anyway, she kissed my forehead and changed my name in school records. But this name business never quite left me in peace.

In school I soon became aware of other names like Kayasta or Brahmins or Kshatriyas or Harijans etc. I didn’t really quite understand what I had to do with a system practiced in some Aryan age and how that had any relevance on my ‘being’. But soon I started recognizing who is who on the basis of this name giving. And it was all meaningless hogwash. Neither were the Brahmins wise, nor the Kshyatriyas valiant. Neither were the Vaishyas good at business nor were the Harijans really the jans of hari. It was all confusion and chaos and people were what they were irrespective of these names.

As I grew, another naming business started—Doctors, Businessmen, Journalists, shoemakers, carpenters etc. And surely one had to judge the respectability of a person by the name of his profession and his economic status. Another misnomer! Can we judge a man by his business? Then what of the pilots who are flying air planes without valid training and licenses? What about the Doctors who sell kidneys in the name of the Hippocratic Oath? What about the judges who play havoc with people’s lives for thirty pieces of silver?

And then the racial colonial prejudices surfaced in my life. Fair complexion denoted beauty, and good breeding. Dark was for common people. This Manichean day and night that was made of people seemed the epitome of bizarreness to me.

And now the worst of all---consumer goods and their names and people’s insane affiliation to them—Prada, Gucci, Lois Vitton!! Now why would I want to be identified with these business enterprises? They started as a way to make money, and not to give me some deep spiritual fulfillment or personal identity that I can attain by reciting their names like a prayer at every silly social occasion or party. Imagine being reduced to what brand I wear----utterly crass!

I wonder why we are all bent upon pinning ourselves and others like posters on a bulletin board—fixed and done and over with? We ourselves create boundaries and divisions which alienate us. And then we complain of the pain of a schism, not just between ourselves and others, but also within ourselves!

As a person what am I? Can the vastness inside me be explained by one name? Can my birth, my color, my religion, my social status---can it all ascribe me a fixed invariable stamp? Am I just this and nothing more?

Then why do we all take recourse to names, predicates, statuses? Are we so weak that we cannot exist on our own without the support of such epithets? Does it give us security to belong to a category?

But I want to face the insecurity, take the chance, take the risk, and pick up the challenge. I want to be who I want to be. My existence and ken is beyond what ‘they’ think of me. It is not in the labels they want to stick on me. It is within me, deep, and beyond all else. Isn’t yours too?

THE HAUNTED HOUSE

2011-08-11T23:44:00.000-07:00

The Haunted House

Everyone loves a haunted house, as long as it is not their own. It is what folk lore and fairy tales are made of and in this world of rationality and science, the haunted house is one enigma that cannot be understood or contained. Everyone loves a mystery, especially if it never gets solved!

In all the picturesque Goan villages, there is some place or the other that is less frequented and believed to be spooky or haunted. In my village, the village people believe that the house opposite mine is haunted! No one ever moved into the house. It has a dark, sinister, unkempt look and is also an ugly architectural disaster.

The village simpleton trudged solemnly uphill one day and sheepishly said to me, “That house opposite yours is haunted. You better be careful.”

Insecurity can make one take advice from a simpleton also, “What do you think I should do?” I asked ruefully.

Poker faced, he told me, “Light a fire, call all your friends and chant your religious verses”.

“WHAT???”

He replied, “Oh Yes, didn’t you know when all the people join together, they can oust anything and anyone?” I thought of the Government’s Lopal Bill and saw sense in what he said.

As I toyed with the idea of an absurd macabre fire dance ritual, some people from the village told me they had heard strange sounds from the house. One day I saw a girl and a boy walk on the terrace of the house. Two ghosts?? No. This was just a couple looking for privacy.

Another day, I saw the village drunkards sitting in one of the rooms, drinking and fighting. And yet another time I realized that robbers had laid siege on the house. Well, this was too much negative energy for me to handle. The haunted house had become the abode of the socially marginalized. And though I have my sympathies for them, it was too much of a risk to my own house.

It is then that I decided to perform the ritual because I wanted everyone in the village to really believe that the place was haunted so that no one would make it their temporary den for clandestine activities. I was trying to make a legend out of a myth!

I roped in some of my friends for this bizarre event, through a Facebook post. But finally many more turned up than was expected. Does latent madness lurk in all of us?? We lit a fire silently and my friends had a few spirits, to heighten their spirits, to fight the evil spirits. Is their sometimes sense in nonsense?

As the fire raged through the cold December night, on the windy hill top, where I live, and as the drinks had their effect-- the passions rose. People started chanting some mantras I had never heard --and they hadn’t either. After starting grandly in Sanskrit, the chanting moved to colloquial Hindi, then Romi Konkani, some grand Portuguese and then finally colonial English, where everyone joined as it was a medium of instruction they all knew. It became like a spiritual cleansing and words came forth meaninglessly, first denouncing the ghost and then celebrating him, as if he were a politician!

The chanting sounded vaguely like—

“The winter, the night,

A toast a toast,

To the fire, the grass,

The Ghost, the ghost”

The chorus started getting louder as everyone made a circle, held hands, and rhythmically did their hilarious jigs around the fire. Laughter roared through the stillness of the night. Dionysius would be proud of such a tempestuous crowd. If the ghost was watching, he would never leave such an entertaining neighborhood!

Anyway, after that night of the bizarre ritual we have had relative peace as no miscreant has used the haunted house as a sanctuary. Perhaps my plan worked; perhaps the united energy of all the people did get rid of all our real, imaginary, literal and figurative ghosts. There is great power when people get together. That is how revolutions brew up, whether against governments or ghosts!

OF GIRLS AND BOYS

2011-08-11T23:41:00.000-07:00

Of Girls and boys

For all the broadness of mind and perspectives we depict, most of it is humbug. It requires great amount of strength to think beyond socially programmed ideas and ideals. And understandably, not many of us possess that strength. How can we, when socialization and gender differentiation starts early in most households across the world. How men and women think, is not so much a result of their biological differences, as it is of socialization and environment.

Generally as gifts, we buy robots, airplanes, GI Joes for boys, and dolls, dresses, hair bands for girls. We teach our boys, aggression, suppression of emotion, swaggering toughness, and we teach our girls endurance, tenderness and nurturing. In today’s world and times both the set of qualities are essential for both the sexes. But we lay emphasis on only the culturally masculine and culturally feminine qualities for boys and girls respectively. And as the children grow up, they realize that this framework is the accepted one and society endorses it at every stage of their lives. As adults, the men are known for the jobs they do and their career achievements, and women are generally known for their social conduct, looks, home, children and only sometimes rarely by their careers.

At every stage of our children’s lives we create such differences, sometimes obvious and sometimes subtle. And then we make a huge hue and cry about dowry deaths, female infanticide, rape, domestic violence and gender biases! So we try to cure the symptoms, while we ourselves perpetuate and spread the malady. And now we hear that the sex ratio even in an educated state like Goa it is 961: 1000. This symptom is also a part of the same social framework which differentiates the roles of men and women in society--------- but just taken to its logical extreme.

Men do important jobs of earning and providing and women do somewhat unimportant jobs of child rearing and running the home!? So logically women are always expendable because they are largely doing unskilled jobs whether at home or in the office. AND they are socially an expense, they have to be educated and married off and given a dowry. It is an investment without returns! Nearly 500000 female fetuses are being aborted every year in India. The government needs to implement tougher laws to curb pre natal sex detection.

But making laws does not necessarily change age old attitudes. The solution lies in treating our boys and girls as equals. The solution lies in making them respect each other at an early stage. It lies in the kind of social framework and differentiation of the sexes that we give our children. The most often heard phrase even in educated homes is, “After all you are a girl…..” And a plethora of predicates and restrictions are attached to that.

If we start by giving an equally leveled field to both our girls and boys, we might reap a society that is more equal as well. When the playing field itself for girls is so unleveled and tedious, that they can barely walk in it, how then do we expect them to perform well and be of support to others? Unless we change the very upbringing of our children, we will continue to have a society that does not think much of its women and keeps killing them in the womb or as children--- both literally and symbolically.

THE ESSENCE OF A REVOLUTION

2011-08-11T23:36:00.000-07:00

The essence of a revolution

I hear great voices, of intellectuals, bureaucrats, business magnates, and people from all kinds of elite sections of society, criticize and ridicule the Anna Hazarre movement and their version of the Lokpal Bill.

But then, when have revolutionary movements ever started from the elite quarters of the rich, the powerful, or the intellectuals??

Revolutions start with the common man. They start with passion and conviction in ideals. They start with helplessness and frustration, when human dignity is crushed by a cold dysfunctional system, where a few enjoy the fruits of the labor of many. Revolutions simmer below a seemingly stable social order for a long time before a trigger just breaks loose the dam of endurance. Revolutions start when people put their personal agendas behind to look for a collective good for all. Theories, plans, policies are the prerogatives of the intellectuals. Action is the domain of the revolutionary.

For all the intellectual flaws in the Anna Hazarre version of the Lokpal bill, the impulse and the large following it has found in the people is itself a big sign. Just the fact that an elderly man, who has all his life fought against corruption, can through his sheer honesty capture the awe and respect of Lakhs of people in this country and hold the government at ransom of sorts, itself speaks volumes for the utter faithlessness the common man has regarding our government. And this disillusionment with the system is now like a pendulum, reaching an extreme where people will embrace any kind of person or system or movement that has a semblance of being genuine, honest and a-political and which will rescue the people from the daily payment of bribes, apathy and corruption.

After Gandhi, Anna Hazarre seems to be the first person who has brought people together irrespective of their class, caste or religion. Maybe like any idealist, he and his team are trying to attain an unrealistic Utopia through impractical means. The body that they choose to form to keep checks and balances on the various government departments is itself perhaps at the risk of being more arbitrary than the existing system. What is the guarantee that the people chosen from the civil society would be any better than the democratically chosen ones? These are just a few of the numerous glaring loopholes in the civil society Lokpal version.

Thus the Intellectuals argue that we already have the best system in place---Democracy. They tell us we have the power to choose and bring about a change through due process. But how measly are our choices when all the candidates standing for elections are equally corrupt?? Democracy then, is just an illusion. We are being controlled at all levels, whether it is by the politicians, the bureaucracy or even the media.

Any movement is of historic importance not just for what it chooses to achieve but also for what it happens to depict. The throwing of the bomb in a courtroom during the British times, and being punished for it with death, was ridiculed by intellectuals as being impractical and foolish. Yet Bhagat Singh brought an aching country together in unison of collective angst, that none of the intellectuals could.

Whether or not Anna Hazarre’s journey reaches the desired goal, it is clear that the journey has begun. And that itself is a goal achieved. Let us not forget the ‘essence’ of the movement in criticizing its ‘form’.

On a clear day you can see forever

2011-08-11T23:34:00.000-07:00

ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER

Coming from a big city like Delhi, I find life in a Goan village as a journey back in time and also perhaps into the subconscious -- the deep unexplored recesses of one’s mind. Maybe it is the colossal nature all around, or maybe it is the ‘susegad’ simplicity and continuity of village life, that gives a sense of perspective. It makes one aware of one’s own smallness, insignificance and transience. How meager and mortal we are and how much enshrined in our own selves, opinions and pre conceived notions. Egotistical sublime! How silly, really!!

And no one else brought that awareness to me, as best as the “village simpleton”, the swaggering, “Ipri”, who came as a replacement of sorts, to tend to my garden, when my usual domestic help went on a vacation. He is a happy soul and his feet barely touch the ground as he floats around the village with his characteristic swagger.

Everyday Ipri would laze around in my garden, and then leisurely pick some leaves and then snooze. Everyday I would see the messy garden full of windswept leaves and admonish him, “Ipri, why haven’t you cleaned the garden?”

Everyday, he would look at me nonchalantly, point at the garden and say, “Of course I have cleaned it! Cant you see??”

Flabbergasted I said, “But Ipri, it is all a mess!”

He would smile condescendingly and reply, “Mess?? Where?? You just can’t see properly.”

Exasperated, I would storm into the house as it was the same story of the “Emperor’s Clothes” repeated everyday. I saw my garden as a huge mess and he saw it as clean. I was always worked up and he was always at peace. Everything is relative I guess!

One day he asked me, “Can’t you hear the sounds in the deserted house, opposite? There is ghost there!”

Annoyed, I said, “Ghost?! I didn’t hear any sounds.”

He laughed mirthfully, and said, “Your garden is clean and there is a ghost in the neighboring house. But you can neither see nor hear!!”

While I fretted and fumed with Ipri, my life, work, home, groceries etc, Ipri himself led a wonderful carefree life; almost riding above the world, seeing and hearing things that I could neither fathom, nor find the time or inclination for.

After Ipri left my temporary employment, I often wonder, “Could I really not see and hear?” And yes, I realize how entrenched I am in my small life, social opinions, material comforts and all the rest of the baggage that we all love to carry, thinking it would make us happy and socially accepted. And ironically, all it does is, weigh us down.

Standing at the outskirts of social acceptance, is Ipri, watching it all from a distance, taking life as it comes. He lives every moment in the present, while we all postpone our happiness to the future, when we will attain ‘this’ or ‘that’. While he lives life on his own terms, many of our lives are passing by in meaningless socially schooled compulsive habits. And yet he is known as “the idiot” and we are known as “the sane”?? I guess it is all a matter of perspective. If we could only set aside our dogmas to see and hear clearly!

A day in a village in Goa

2011-04-19T09:31:00.000-07:00

A day from a village in Goa

The culture of any place has its inception in the quiet by lanes, laid back villages and the back of beyond, where tourists hardly go. It lives, breathes and seethes there; meandering quite a bit before it reaches the confines of a museum or the likes of Kala Academy. Not that museums or performance theatres do not have an intrinsic role to play in the spread of culture---- they do. But the actual experience of that culture is quite far away from such elite places.

That “culture” lives here in the villages of Goa. It wakes up with the hooting of the podder’s bicycle horn as it heralds the dawn on a sleepy misty green village with quaint lanes and mysterious by lanes. The bread man knows more about the village than the Panch. He sees all the early morning activities, some blatant, some clandestine as he cheerfully blows his trumpet, the cute little horn.

Sleep strewn, this culture finally wakes up to bath and ablutions and then it pays homage to its gods in a temple or a church, or a wayside cross or at a Tulsi plant. As I go to buy the newspaper, I see women dressed in their best skirts with children in tow, walking fast and talking animatedly as they go for Mass. Sometimes I hear the songs of a litany, which must have sounded so blessedly the same for the last three hundred years.

And then starts a marriage of culture with commerce. It goes about its day with the fisherwoman carrying her hand-woven straw basket, delicately poised on her head. She stops my car and tells me how fresh the fish is with special reduced price for me (lie); just as she whispers the latest gossip in my ear.

Our culture now goes about the warm forenoon, as some go for work to town and some cook food in earthen vessels, on dried firewood, and I smell the earth, deep, elusive and fragrant. Slowly the day is exhausted by the heat and the humidity and it retires for the afternoon siesta, to a plate of fish curry rice and cashew feni into the pot belly of a man who has just come from the Gulf. I hear some nice feisty Konkani folk songs being played in a nearby bar. “Mog” (love) is a word I hear often repeated in them and I guess that is the common ground in all cultures.

In the evening the culture rejuvenates as all the young boys play football in the village. Invariably I can see at least one or two guys with curly hair supporting the wet look. I see the high testosterone levels in the way they move as they follow the ball and the way their eyes follow the passing ladies of the village!! They all sit on the tar road later and chat.

At night the culture retires on some days with the local ‘tiatr’ playing some maudlin music and some slapstick comedy with a social message. I hear a man singing to his supposed wife as she pesters him jovially and I hear peals of mirth from the crowd. The village simpleton rolls with laughter and asks me to join the fun.

In the evening my neighbor calls upon me to help his cause. I wonder what that is and then he enlightens me that he suffers from unrequited love for a lady he met in the Church. We both sigh over the perplexing situation and hope for a solution as we solemnly gaze at the grotto of Our Lady in my garden.

Somehow, strangely, this culture goes to bed often with Bryan Adam’s ‘summer of 69’ playing at some wedding far away in the hills, and this seems to be, due to some inexplicable reason, the most heard song in Goa!! Mixed with Bryan Adams, I hear some fox howling, some peacocks calling and some wild cats wailing.

The culture of a place is not just its artifacts. It is a way of life. The real ‘susegad’ Goa is in its villages. Only a patient visitor who waits watches and listens carefully can really reach the intangible- the actual experience. Curios and mementos---Well! Anyone can buy those. But that is not Goa!

Let us avoid hysteria!

2011-04-19T09:29:00.000-07:00

Let us avoid hysteria!

We played a game and we won. It calls for celebrations surely, but not hysterics! Of course it is the India vs Pakistan semi finals that I am talking about. In the last one week I have received numerous smses and have come across various Facebook statuses which either make fun of the Pakistanis or throw barbs at them or downright depict hatred towards them and some even brand them all as terrorists.

I thought we were all participating in a friendly game but it seems more like a war!? And war with a neighbor who was a part of our country not too long back in the history of our common civilization?? The explanation given for this mass hatred is that Pakistan feeds terrorism towards us. It is here that we make the fundamental mistake. A country is made of its common people, like you and me. And common people all over the world are just trying to make a life for themselves and their children and find some stability, happiness and peace. Common people DO NOT feed terrorism. Common people DO NOT make policies.

Let us not confuse the people of a country with its government or with the terrorism present in that country. So often in history, the common people are just victims of autocratic regimes. Even in a so called democracy like ours, where we duly elect our candidates, do we equate ourselves with the government? Can we proudly claim to identify with our scam ridden and corrupt government?? Can you identify with Manmohan Singh or Monserrate or Mickey Pacheco?

When we do not equate ourselves with our own democratic government, then how do we equate the poor people of Pakistan with their weak and ineffective government and brand them all as evil or as perpetrating terrorism? By the same logic all of us would be evil too because our government is, well, full of evil doers!

And by the same logic, we would not be able to differentiate between Gaddaffi and the Libyan people, or Hitler and the Germans or the Czars and the common people of Russia. But this is where our maturity as a people and a nation should come forth. Japan has given a fine example of that maturity in the wake of a grave and colossal calamity, through a demeanor of solemnity and no hysterics. And we, even as we won the semi finals have depicted that perhaps the progeny of the great Indus valley civilization has somewhere lost out on holistic evolution. Winning or losing a game is surely of less consequence than our behavior towards another nation. That we cannot respect others depicts a deep lack of self respect as well.

By a cruel stroke of history, in 1947 our country got divided into two, on the basis of religion. We are culturally very similar people. We wear the same kind of clothes, eat the same kind of food, and listen to similar music. Moreover, Pakistan is a country which is in crises. Its people live in abject poverty, there is lack of law and order, the country is submerged under debt, it has been subjected to all kinds of dictatorial regimes and whole regions of it are under the terrible control of Taliban like groups. The least common factor of that country, like the least common factor in our own country is fighting for sheer survival. And yet we sympathetically lament the situation of the common man of our own country but brand the common man of Pakistan as a terrorist??

Let us not be led by mass hysteria and lose our humanity over a game. It would be petty on our part to bring religion and borders into it especially in the light of Afridi making a graceful and dignified post defeat speech, extending due felicitations to the Indian team.

Like religion, it is we who created borders and divisions. And now we criticize, all who are on the other side of those divisions, ----whether they are divisions of religions or languages or countries or ideas or philosophies or world views, or ethos. We have a tie that is deeper than all that. It is the bond that ties every human to another. As common people, we all have the same feelings, emotions, desires, hopes and fears. What have borders got to do with it?

MY TRYST WITH THE CARNIVAL

2011-03-20T23:01:00.000-07:00

MY TRYST WITH THE CARNIVAL

The culture of any place is so often born in its folk art and tradition. It lives, breathes and seethes in its people and not so much in museums or art galleries. And the biggest and most spectacular tradition of Goa is its carnival, of course! The very concept of the carnival is subversive in nature. Psychologists say it is held in many societies to act as a kind of pressure valve to all the energy, libido and impulsiveness of people, that is constantly being subdued and submerged under social laws, rules and regulations, which are in some measure necessary to keep a civilization going.

This year a group of friends, from the nearby village of Maina-Curtorim called me to join their group for the village carnival. Somewhat inhibited, I started going for the rehearsal of the Hawaiian dance that we were supposed to perform. And just three days later, I was standing on a vintage car, joining the carnival parade, with my group of friends following me on the road and all of us in some colorful wrap around skirts and adorned with flowers around our neck, arms, and hair. Suddenly the absurdity of the situation struck me.

Was it really me? I do a serious job and I write serious articles for the local newspaper. I do not do absurd things like this! But there I was now, decked up like some Hawaiian doll, perched on a 1935 vintage Ford!

The existential crises, “To be or not to be” never hit me as hard as it did standing bird-like on that car. I knew it was too late to back out now. I felt we all were under the influence of some mass madness or revelry. I needed help! Not accustomed to drinking, I gulped half a bottle of beer and braced myself. And just then the music began, blaring and loud! I looked at my friends sheepishly, they looked at me expectantly and I started the Hawaiian Hoola or whatever it turned out to be. And they all followed me. Truly subversive, spontaneous, crazy, fun---burlesque and carnivalesque!

As we danced and as the car moved on with our float, I saw various people whom I knew. I waved at them nonchalantly, as if I do this kind of thing quite routinely in my life! But soon, the music, the vitality of my group, and the participation of the crowd, made me shed off my discomfiture. We were all in full form now.

It is one thing to watch a cultural show in an academy and quite another thing to participate in a village carnival. It was my hands on tryst with the folk traditions, more authentic than any visit to an art gallery.

One can view the same thing from so many perspectives, I soon realized. An elitist couple that I know, smug in their class and financial superiority, asked me, “Oh my! You danced with those common people?” I laughed outright and said, “I thought it was a most uncommon thing to do. Wasn’t it?”

Two ladies from the moral brigade of my town asked me astonished, “But how could you participate in a parade? Imagine all those men looking at you?”

Mirthfully and saucily, I replied, “You are just jealous that they were not looking at YOU!”

The Nez Goenkar friend of mine told me, “Oh it is so good to see you doing so much for the culture and heritage of this land”. Well frankly I had had no such self righteous thoughts of culture or heritage. All that was a part of it just by default!

My friends from Delhi commented, “Hey you are adopting too much of an alien culture”. Poker faced, I asked them, “Do you think Goans are aliens?”

How quick we are to rationalize, comment and judge! To me, the carnival seemed like a great uniting event. People of all classes, castes, religions and economic status stood together in common enjoyment of a social ritual. It was quite a sharp contrast to the invitation to a local political event I had received a few days back, for which I was given a pass that specified that I was “General Category”!? Amidst all these divisive political agendas, art and culture is one big unifying force. We would be fools if we let go of local traditions for some elitist snobbery!!

Happy And Gay

2011-03-09T00:38:00.000-08:00

HAPPY AND GAY

We have a handsome German shepherd- young, gallant, swaggering, huge guy. It is with a pinch of salt that I acknowledge that often he gets noticed more than I do and often I have people knocking at my door just to look at him, or enquire about his family background. He is all of three years old and he is already getting more proposals than I can handle. Oh how hard it is to be an owner of an eligible dog!

My neighbor Tony came up to me and said, “Could I please take your dog for a day?”

“But why do you need him?” I asked chidingly.

“I just want to cross my female dog with him”, replied Tony sheepishly.

“Alright”, I conceded grudgingly.

Next day Tony took our Marcus, whom we supposedly named after some vague Greek or Roman hero, we are unsure of. By afternoon our hero trudged up the hill, back home, and immediately slumped on the ground, terribly spent and exhausted. We gave him water and food and then made jokes at his expense and on his virility. He looked at us unamused, annoyed and closed his eyes and did not wake up till late evening. At night Tony called and said, “Well, sorry to tell you but nothing happened. Perhaps the dogs did not like each other”.

“Ah! Well! Maybe Marcus would prefer a prettier female”, I replied saucily,

My neighbor grunted, said, “Your dog maybe Gay” and then slammed the phone.

“How preposterous! Of course Tony was wrong. He had just made a hasty judgment. Of course I would ‘forgive him for he did not know’, because he was such a good neighbor and friend. But oh God my poor Marcus, could he be gay?? Oh no. No. NO!

We brushed aside all lingering doubts, reinstalled our faith in Marcus’s virility and blamed Tony’s dog for being unattractive and carried on with our lives, TILL the truth struck us in our face. One time just last month, Marcus ran away from home! We went looking for him all over in the car. We walked up and down the hill calling out his name. We called near and distant neighbors in the village and still no sign of Marcus. By now, we were really worried and all of us saw images in our minds of Marcus running amok on the main road. The prospect was too scary to even contemplate.

And then after a wait that seemed like eternity we got a call from one of the villagers that Marcus was in his garden. Thank God! We sped off in our car down the hill to retrieve our poor dog from whatever had befallen him. When we reached there we saw Marcus standing there with another beautiful male dog with unusually light brown eyes and a shiny sleek burgundy coat. Our joy knew no bounds when we saw our dear Marcus. But Marcus?! That wretch gave us one look and turned away!!

Maybe he did not want an embarrassing show of affection from us in front of the other dog. Maybe Marcus was at that adolescent age, where any emotional gesture is anathema. Anyway, Marcus just ignored us totally and started frolicking around with the other dog as if oblivious of us. We tried our best to tempt him with chocolates and biscuits; still he wouldn’t even acknowledge us. Soon we realized, they could be into something more than “just good friends”. And then it struck all of us at the same time, “Oh God, could Marcus be gay??”

We returned home, somber and humbled. How difficult it is for us to accept anything that is not the norm, how often we are willing to write off an individual just because he or she has done something socially different, how much we can learn from life, first hand, if we just get rid of some second hand preconceived notions.

We love Marcus all the same, perhaps more. Now we let him be visited by his friend sometimes. We are still unsure of Marcus’s ‘relationship status’ because he just seems to be having innocent fun. But, one never knows these days. Better to just keep quiet and accept! It is after all, just his business.

Reality TV-Our inner Sadism

2011-02-24T04:25:00.001-08:00

REALITY TV---OUR INNER SADISM

How we gape at the age of the gladiators! What a horrible world it must have been where a man is thrown into a cage with a lion, while all the rest of the city folk sit around in an amphitheatre and watch the bloody denouement as a mere sport and everyone screams and shouts, cheering on. We say that the gladiators are symbols of a cruel and barbaric society. We safely distance ourselves from such a society, and yet, are our sensibilities really different? Are we higher than them on the emotional quotient? Have we as a civilization inculcated more sensitivity than our ancestors? NO. The prevalence and popularity of reality TV depicts quite the contrary! And it effectively proves Freud’s pessimism regarding any inherent nobility in mankind.

Visual entertainment started with the Greeks on the festival of Dionysius, with plays, where the chorus represented the voice of the most downtrodden section of society, which is on the wrong side of class, caste and gender- “the poor women of Thebes”, the lowest common factor of that civilization. Thus visual entertainment started with the impetus of bringing forth a voice to the lowest common factor and a means to depict what was wrong with society and thus a need for social change. As the visual drama developed, many other elements of pure entertainment like romance, slapstick comedy, wit, elaborate plot, story got added to it. Modern day movies and TV serials are an example of this.

What is strange is, along with this development and technological finesse, we now have the entity of reality TV which adds a totally different dimension to visual art, to TV, to us and to society at a larger scale. We look on the participants of a reality TV show just as the audience watched the gladiators slowly suffer and even die. We revel in the discomfiture of the participants, we marvel at their lies and dishonesty that is revealed on a show. We see weddings, dating, loving, fighting like cats and dogs, breaking up and axe your ex and what not now on TV. And we sit and watch smug in our drawing room while the participants break down and cry, and some of them lose their entire life and relationships.

The strangest thing is that for this distinctly modern need for five minutes of fame, people all over the world are now willing to be that guinea pig that is emotionally tortured on TV and is willing to sacrifice the sanctity of his life and relationships by exposing it to everyone.

We say we watch because it is being aired. We say we participate in such shows because that is the easy way to attain recognition. We say we make such shows because they sell. We behave as if we are driven by situations, circumstance, other people and ultimately by society. We claim we have no choice.

We are wrong. We all have a choice. We may not always have situations under our control, but we can have our own mind under our control. We can have our needs, our feelings, our thoughts and what we want to watch, all of them under our control. Do we really want to be that sadistic and masochistic society that derives its thrills from watching other people in actual distress?

The same question can be asked in our real lives as well. How many of us actually put our preconceived notions aside for really understanding someone? With understanding another human being, comes empathy. With empathy comes the desire to extend emotional support. But how many of us actually care to understand? For most of us, another being’s suffering is just a topic of mirth and gossip, quite like watching reality TV.

The human mind is like a microcosm of the macrocosm of the whole universe. It has within itself the power to, either, raise itself to a transcendental level and achieve empathy and oneness with everyone, or, to disintegrate into an abyss where you enjoy the suffering of another, as crass entertainment. The choice? -----------It is always ours.

The Bribe

2011-02-24T04:24:00.001-08:00

The Bribe

To build a house is a Herculean task anywhere in the world. But in India it is an Odyssey as well. From the initial approvals for construction, through the water and electricity connections, till the house number allotment, it is a dizzy journey that you have to necessarily make with the government, its myriad rules and its dubious employees. After the grueling task of house building was over, I went to a government office for House number allotment.

Because of skillfully managing some friends in high places, I had already had the person in charge of allotment ‘spoken to’. But not even the Member of Parliament could ensure that I get a smooth sailing. In spite of all my smiling and cajoling, the officer made me come to the office a few times and yet gave me no house number. Well!! In my great depression, a friend told me about “the easy way out in India”.

I thought since nothing else was working, maybe I should try ‘the easy way out’. But just contemplating it made me lose my sleep at nights and during the day my imagination made me feverishly think of a hundred ways to implement ‘the easy way out’. At last I mustered some courage and went to the office with a snow white envelope in my purse and pitch black intent in my heart.

As I spoke to the officer, I kept stammering and to my annoyance my eye kept twitching and fingers kept shaking. In a tremulous voice with trembling lips, I handed him the envelope and lamely said, “Please buy some sweets for your family”. The man did not lose his equanimity as he slipped the envelope in his pocket, but I think I did see a hint of shame in his eyes or maybe I imagined it.

I walked shakily out of that office finally with a house number, and forever with a twinge in my heart. Maybe the man wanted what others have. Maybe his kids saw the advertisements splashed on TV of exotic things and latest electronic items. Maybe it was mere survival instinct because I know his salary was really pathetic. Whatever his reasons might have been, mine were more deplorable.

I was one half of the part he played. I could have easily waited. He would have given me a house number out of sheer annoyance at my repeated visits. But I felt going there again and again was a waste of time and below my dignity. So I stooped even lower and became a part of that whole cycle which I so much rant against—Corruption.

While we were growing up, the concept of a new post independence India was still fresh in our minds as we had heard stories of the freedom struggle, first hand from our grand parents and parents. Every time the national anthem was sung, it moistened the eyes. No wonder my father resigned from the post of a PWD engineer because he was tired of being in a job where people came with bribes to his house. That was the environment of my childhood and here I was in my youth doing all the things, the generation before me had fought against.

I like to bury my deed usually but I guess the guilt keeps coming back and more so whenever I see the movie “GANDHI”. There was the father of our nation almost starving to death to win us our freedom and here I was squandering that hard earned freedom away. There was the sacrifice of so many people who stood for their ideals even at the cost of losing their lives and here I was disrespecting them and all that they stood for.

We are a society which feels all the fight against corruption, injustice, exploitation should start from the neighbor’s house. I wonder when we would reach that brink of frustration that all of us would want to start that fight individually and collectively right from our own house?!

What makes a woman beautiful

2011-02-02T01:11:00.000-08:00

WHAT MAKES A WOMAN BEAUTIFUL

The media might tell you a hundred success stories of how a certain skin whitening cream changed a woman’s life forever, or how her new slim look procured her many an admirer, or how a shampoo made her get a job, or how a certain workout got her a husband.

But what would anyone do with a husband or a lover who falls for you only because you look good and present yourself in accordance to the current fashion?

The constant race to look young, beautiful and slim is a tiring reward-less marathon, which can only make you look stressed out and haggard like all races do! Who are you racing with after all? Your pretty neighbor, or that sexy colleague of yours or the beautiful woman who drops her kid to school daily or that thin heroine of the last hit movie??

The concept of beauty, and women’s constant need to look attractive, stems from a society that views women in an innately flawed way. No matter how much women evolve, study or get good jobs, when a woman has to marry, it is her looks which are of prime importance, whereas men are judged on the basis of their achievements. More often than not, in social interaction too, pretty women and successful men are given special attention.

Women then often get objectified and are seen as items that can add value to any man, or his business or his self esteem, or to advertisements or movies or brands. This objectification of women then naturally commodifies them as well. They become trophy wives or arm candy or assets or “property”. No wonder the market is flooded with products that ensure and enhance beauty, with the promise of making you beautiful in thirty days?!

But are we so daft to think that we can just buy beauty out of a bottle?? The beauty I talk of is somewhere deep inside all of us and emanates like warmth and light from a flame. It is a measure of the peace that we have made with ourselves, it is the way we have accepted ourselves with all our moles and small eyes and double chin. This beauty reflects more of our inner journey, the things we have experienced, the passion we have felt, the love that we have given or got, the compassion that we have within, the empathy that we feel for all, the tenderness we have for that child of ours, the ardor we feel for the man we love so tremendously.

It is the beauty of wanting to take on the whole world for a single strong belief you have, it is the beauty which arises from great events, great suffering, great sacrifice and great achievement. Everyone need not be a Mother Teresa or Marilyn Monroe, or Indira Gandhi. Your own journey is unique and what is important is what you are through your own eyes, than what you are through the eyes of the world. This kind of beauty comes from the true grit that you have shown in times of trouble, it comes from forgiving those who do not know, it comes from never giving up on the ones you love, it comes from standing by when you are needed, it comes from rising to the occasion, no matter how distressed or disillusioned you might be.

This beauty comes from the ability to hold your own at a conference where you address two hundred men. It comes from dancing in gay abandon when you so desire. It comes from upholding your ideals and self respect at the cost of losing your job. It comes from taking all those chances which the world is scared of. It comes from all that you dared to do and all the terrible mistakes you made and yet had the desire to resurrect yourself like the Phoenix.

Your beauty is right there in you like the repose of calm unruffled waters. You have earned it after years of grit, courage and living your life your own way. Time, circumstance and suffering cannot take it away from you. All you need is a bit of confidence in yourself and some compassion for others, for your beauty to radiate out from you. An anti ageing cream or protein shake could never do an iota of that for you. Throw them away and just love yourself!!

A winter that never ends

2011-02-02T01:10:00.000-08:00

A winter that never ends

I happened to stay in Delhi once for a month in the long cold cruel biting death like winter. On my way to work, I daily passed a crossing with a roundabout in the middle of it. Within the roundabout, under the smog filled sky lived a poor homeless family with four children.

As I observed them daily, I figured out that the wife was a frail thin woman who often carried the youngest and begged on the road. The Father was usually busy selling magazines to the people in the cars that passed. The eldest son sat with a box of boot polish and polished the shoes of the infrequent passerby. One daughter in torn clothes, with a pretty face, often smiled and asked us to buy roses. The other daughter just tagged along, a mere child of three or four, shyly smiling from behind her eldest sister.

On my way back, I could see them sitting around a small fire, on some days. And some days they just huddled together. The baby was lost and shielded in the mother’s clothes and the little ones hid in their father, as people stand under a tree when it rains. I often wondered how they lived under the dusty sky, without a roof on their heads, exposed to the freezing cold, yet often smiling and laughing.

The youngest was a baby of about a year old, still suckling. He would often be lying on the pavement unattended in tattered clothes and would often be crying, while the mother cooked on a stove. The kids had probably never heard of a school or that they too were entitled to go there under the right to education act. They lived their life from day to day and probably never thought of a future.

One day, the woman came to me, as my car stopped at the crossing, and asked me if I could help her as her youngest, the little baby, was ill. She took my hand and through the window made me touch the baby who was burning with fever. I was alarmed! Did this woman have the wherewithal to see a doctor? What if the child dies? I gave them some money, and feeling smug about my good deed, went away.

Above them was a huge fly over, under rapid construction, getting ready for the Commonwealth Games. The face of Delhi was changing, at least ostensibly so. But its soul remained the same. It was more heartless than ever. Yet, all the same, a new face of the city was being carved for the benefit of the international participants. This was a grim, polished, painted, sadistic mask which hid behind itself, the suffering and laments of many a poor people who have come to this city to make a life-- but have barely made a living. Can we credibly hide behind the misleading and deceptive GDP of this country; make its capital look swanky and claim to be a developed country, when there are millions on the streets, homeless and helpless??

A few days later, as I passed by, I saw that the baby was missing among the family. Many a time I thought I would stop and ask. But didn’t I already know the answer? I was too scared to hear the stark truth from one of them. And how could I face that truth when I was in some way responsible for what happened? Couldn’t I have spared a few hours and taken the child to a good doctor?

The TV was full of the Arushi murder case because it touches the lives of the TV watching, so called educated middle class. But what about the numerous poor children who die everyday on our roads, of starvation, hunger, poverty, lack of medical facilities, molestation or just parental neglect? Who will portray the anguish of such people, who have no wherewithal to even know or realize what is happening to them? This vast multitude is neglected by the whole state, the government, the media, the intellectuals, the corporate houses. It is an unimportant class which has no access to anything. It is a nameless and faceless class with no God above them and not even their own shadow below them---utterly alone and helpless. Who will give a voice to them? And till we do that, aren’t we all a part of this farce of democracy and development? And we are all responsible for their plight, each and every one of us.

Harmony in Contradiction

2011-02-02T01:08:00.000-08:00

HARMONY IN CONTRADICTIONS

They say that all the contradictions meet and dissolve in the East. And that is a reason that many westerners, fraught by a desire to seek peace and contentment, come to the Orient. The unsaid unwritten tradition of this country has always been to contain—contain all kinds of people, all kinds of religions, all kinds of philosophies, all kinds of eras, all kinds of traditions ---all of them together and simultaneously.

It is no wonder then that men can go religiously to a temple in the morning and to a casino at night. Or women perform the Karva Chauth, fasting for their husbands and have beer in a pub with their friends. Or young people go into IT fields and work abroad, yet keep strong filial ties.

The western mind may balk at the idea of a religious place like the Khajurao temples, depicting, not just the statues of Gods but also scenes from everyday life, like hunting of animals, or celebration of festivals or even sexual postures. But for Indians, all of this coexists as harmoniously as one can imagine. The Hindu religion in its pure, pagan and unorganized (pre Fundamentalist) form is perhaps the most assimilative, accepting and fluid. It is just a way of life where everyone performs their Karma. It always has a strong impetus towards attaining a certain unity between self and creation and the bliss that comes through it. Krishna’s advice to Arjun of doing action or “karma”, irrespective of the fruit, is quintessential to this thought process.

I remember being shell shocked at sixteen when I realized that the Shiv ling that we worship is actually a phallic symbol in union with the yoni, the female. Similarly, praying to the phallic symbol of the Shiv-ling might come as a surprise to the westerner, but for Indians, it is as integral to their religion as praying to Goddess Saraswati for good luck in exams. The Indian way of life, is closely linked to the Earth, harvest and fertility rites. It is a rooted kind of ethos, where life itself is celebrated and is not traditionally or religiously linked with any kind of paranoia of sin or redemption, as it is in many other religions. The basic thrust in the Indian way of life is to be at peace with one’s own self and in harmony with the external world. The practice of yoga and meditation is one way to resolve the dichotomy between “self” and the “other” and move towards an inner repose, which is unruffled by the vagaries of life.

Perhaps this is partly one reason that Indians have an immense capacity to bear and still be content. Though this stasis might not be always good for bringing about social change, yet, it brings about some measure of peace!

This immense country not just lives in contradictions but thrives on them. People come to India not just for Yoga and gurus and meditation, but also for Medical tourism, IT hubs and for the immense market it has for consumer goods. Brand India, then at a “macro” level is a multifarious concept. We need to showcase it to the world as a holistic way of life, where the modern and the ancient, the rational and the traditional, the market economy and the soul stirrings, the eastern and the western, the ascetic and the epicurean----all come together in one unique symbiosis.

Whether in India or abroad, contrary to what we usually believe, “personal identity”, is not so much a conglomeration of our shared beliefs, traditions, religions and culture. It is in fact our differences and contradictions which constitute our identity. If we all firmly adhere to one set of beliefs and a common monolithic world view, and one form of behavior, we would be just like mass productions of a factory. Thank God we are all at a “micro” level too, a bundle of contradictions which cannot be homogenized and straight lined. It is those differences precisely which make us stand out from the rest.

A man around town is intellectually and physically attracted to a woman he ostensibly dislikes! A neighbor of mine behaves like he is a hard hearted coconut, but is into avid social service! My best friend is the most sensible, balanced and well rounded personality, yet can become quite an incorrigible devil after a drink! And as a country, we might be at equal ease performing Yoga, to the bhajans of Meera, and performing aerobics, to the songs of Shakira!! So cheers to harmony amidst contradictions. It makes us who we are.

The thread that binds us

2010-12-14T22:51:00.000-08:00

THE THREAD THAT BINDS US

The dynamics of being an outsider in a predominantly homogenous society are complicated. When a person ventures out of his own homeland to go and settle in a relatively alien place, he or she already puts aside certain preconceived notions regarding people, because he or she has taken that gigantic risk of venturing into a strange land with the hope of making it his own. It is quite like the proverbial “leap of faith”, where a person trusts the fundamental universal essence of human beings and puts aside conventional, traditional, racial, and ethnic prejudices. Surely there would be some way to connect to people, no matter what language they speak, which religion they follow, or which region they belong to. Surely there would be a little bit of earth and sky that even strangers can share. Surely a smile could bridge many a differences.

Somewhere in my mind I believed in this, without even being aware of it, when I came to this small village in Raia. The community here seemed so close, with everyone knowing everything about each other or at least claiming to know!! It was quite a change from the vastness of Delhi, where I grew up, with its relative anonymity and poignant depersonalization! These were two extremely different environments to develop social perceptions in. I was brought up in one and then suddenly thrown into another, just by fate. There was no other way but to deal with it.

The houses, in this breathtakingly beautiful village, are far apart and my neighbors down the hill seemed too self absorbed even to smile at me. Every time I smiled at my elderly neighbor, Tony, he would look down! Well, all my notions of bonding with them seemed to be put on the shelf and no matter how hard I tried to get through to them, there always seemed to come up a wall of prejudices against a woman who has come from a big city. However in time, I became a little friendly with my neighbor’s wife and we spoke whenever we met. This continued till the day my neighbor lost his lovely wife in an accident. He was now left all alone in the world. Gone were the walks they shared up the hill, gone was the smile from his lips and gone was the little sense of neighborhood that I had because of her and her kindliness.

Well, if I could not reach out to Tony, now, at the saddest hour of his life, there was no point being human at all. I started visiting him sometimes. Death is so solemnly universal, that one does not need to have a shared culture or language to feel its unbearable sadness. I felt his pain and he felt my empathy and thus started a tentative friendship between us.

Everyday, Tony comes up the hill to give my letters to me, which the postman leaves at his house. Whenever I need any information or help regarding anything in the village, I turn to him. Sometimes I go over to his house and scold him for keeping it a mess. Sometimes I call him over and we share good conversation and a meal. He tells me of his time and experiences on the ship.

It is not smooth sailing always. Oh NO! I tried to make exotic south Indian dosas for Tony and he ate them quietly, a few times for breakfast, and then finally got fed up and to my dismay, blurted out that he hated them and would prefer omelets and bread like the way Goans are used to!! And when I told him how touched I was by his thoughtful gesture of taking all the neighborhood dogs for a brisk walk in the woods, every evening, he replied poker faced, “I do it for my own exercise, not as philanthropy to them”!!

I can’t understand why he goes to the Church so often. He probably can’t understand why I have long, loud, bellowing singing sessions with my friends!! It took us a long time to accept each other’s attitudes and perceptions and we are still working at it! Last month, during the visit of Our Lady to my house, Tony came with the rest of the village people. And as I stood there, to my surprise, I saw the same man who would not even smile at me a few years back, lighting all the candles for me, so naturally and responsibly, as only a close friend would. As I watched the flame dancing and lighting up Mother Mary’s face, I felt I was loved.

Development And CSR

2010-12-14T22:45:00.000-08:00

Development and corporate social responsibility

As a child, I remember that development used to be a word synonymous with progress. However, now, the word development, especially land development, has almost become a four letter word with all its pejorative connotations. For this, we owe special thanks to scrupulous Ministers who get voted to power repeatedly and to conscientious citizens who vote for them repeatedly. Oh no, we can’t escape it! We are all responsible for this mess.

Development, as described by many avaricious NGOs, some befuddled NGO’s and few idealistic NGOs, is a word that denotes, degradation of environment, exploitation of people and murderous form of land use.

In a country of 1.15 billion people, with a booming economy, is it practically possible to stall and bury all kinds of development projects like hotels, schools, hospitals, housing societies, commercial centers and IT hubs? How will we then generate employment, create adequate housing or invest constructively? Can any place survive unless it is abreast with the times in terms of infrastructure which corresponds to the needs of a growing population and growing economy? It is a Utopian fantasy which cannot be realized unless a place and its people decide to live in a stasis or as an anachronism with no relation to the world outside. And for how long can such a model state survive before its own needs and the intrusion of building sharks swallow it up? What then is the way out of this conundrum?

The answer perhaps lies in the examining and understanding of the proposed developmental project, the kind of concern it has for environment protection, the kinds of jobs it has the potential to generate, the kind of social responsibility measures that it endeavors to take up. It is not enough to just chant the “No development” motto. The corrupt politicians, the corporate lobbies, the developers, are a nexus which is too difficult to break. Sooner or later, insidiously, the projects proposed by all these will come up just as they have in the past, even when such projects have been environmentally harmful and socially exploitative.

So what do we do? Do we throw up our hands and give up, or foolishly insist that we, the citizens have the power to stop all unwanted projects? That is a myth that has been sadly demystified many a time. As for NGO’s, for one genuine NGO, there are tens of corrupt organizations, and some of them are full of people who could not get anywhere in life through education, hard work or sincerity and thus find this the easiest way to have a piece of the economic and development boom in our country today.

A place that has no source of livelihood, a place which people are migrating away from, a place that cannot support its population, a place where there is no one to safeguard environmental concerns, desperately needs development, AND the right, holistic, well planned kind of development. Rather than take up cudgels against all kinds of development, it is more prudent to study the context and needs of the affected people and in what way the proposed development can improve their living conditions and economic status.

Some amount of development in a large developing country like ours is inevitable. We might not be able to fully control the quantum of development, but we surely can decide on the quality of that development. Let us get smart, smarter than the politicians, smarter than builders, smarter than industrial houses, smarter than the NGOs, and allow only that kind of development which improves the standard of living of the people.

Let us also be wary of the hogwash variety of Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR, which seeks to just pacify the protesting voices. Let us choose only those companies which through their CSR schemes provide sustainable development, which do not just fulfill short term needs of the people but equip them with skills and ensure employment, for lifelong economic stability.

If a project can grant me a job, make sure that my siblings and neighbors do not migrate to another country or place, improve the environment around me and be a project which, while earning money, stems from the needs of the people, what is wrong with such a project? Surely a poor country like ours should have the power of discernment by now. So let us be discerning. Let us not allow the power nexus to thrust undesirable exploitative development on us. Let us choose the development that suits us and addresses our needs.

The farmer and my narrow sensibilities

2010-10-29T19:50:00.000-07:00

THE FARMER AND MY NARROW BOURGEOISE SENSIBILITIES

I went for the Kisan Swaraj yatra meeting, on a whim, just to see what activism is like. The only stint I had with activism was, in college, as a member of the AISF, a CPI backed student organization. And there I was in the Grace Church hall, which was dusty, had old plastic chairs and reminded me of a surrealistic dream. I saw some uncouth people around me and I felt tremendously out of place. I could not be one of those, my super ego screamed. I do not belong here. I could never relate to them. Or so I thought, or so I was schooled by years of convention and class sensibilities and my narrow upper middle class upbringing.

The farmers started speaking one by one and soon I had no Earth to stand on and no sky to shield me. None of my traditional sensibilities came to my rescue. My journey in life, my problems and my concerns seemed miniscule and frivolous compared to the hard core realities of their lives. I sat there defenseless, shorn of all class equations and convention notions. And I was just a human being who could feel the utter pain and helplessness of the community that brings food to our table and because of whom, we have something called “life”.

And they hardly have one. And I felt responsible for it.

The farmer from Punjab, a state known for its green revolution, a thin wiry middle aged man got up and in broken Hindi mixed with Punjabi told us about how the green revolution which promoted the growth of crops through fertilizers and pesticides had actually poisoned the soil and environment, such that nothing really grew properly on that very soil which was the most fertile since the Indus valley civilization. He told us about how the Multi National companies were selling products to Indian farmers, products that were banned in their own countries because they were poisonous or cancerous. He told us how so many children in Punjab were born with congenital defects. He told us how the government was forcing us under the aegis of economic imperialism even after we had driven the British out, bearing years of violence, atrocities and sacrifice.

Another farmer from Maharashtra spoke about the amount of debt the farmers were under and how many of them had committed suicide. He made us aware of how the very profession which sustains all of human species earns no respect in our society. Development, for Mr P Chidambaran, means that we will soon have just 15% people living in the villages and all the rest of Indians would be Urban Indians. What does Mr Chidambaran have in store for farmers and from where will he procure food for all of us? Or will Roti be auctioned at a hundred Rupees each and rice plate at two hundred or three hundred??

And yet I live comfortably in my plush house and do my corporate job and live in a capitalist bourgeoisie world untouched by all this and indifferent to it. But can I live for long in this bubble I have created? Am I not dependent on this very farmer who is killing himself out of desperation and life threatening loans? Was my great grandfather not a farmer just like him? Was that uncouth, commonly dressed man, speaking tremulously on the microphone, any different from what I would be if I were in the same situation? Do our clothes and our class, rule our sensibilities? Are we just robots who have lost that human to human touch? Does the death of the man who puts the grain on my table mean nothing to me? Am I so desensitized to the plight of the very man whose whole life, hopes, joys, sorrows, laughter and pain are dependent on the crop he produces, which I consume so thoughtlessly?

A nation which neglects the Farmer is a nation that does not think. Visiting Temples and Churches without ever really thinking of our fellow beings is pure sham and nothing else. The economic boom is a myth unless it reaches the farmer. As long as the farmer commits suicide in this country, none of us even have a right to smile or sleep easy because with our food we are consuming the death cry, desperation and helplessness of the farmer. If any of you feel strongly about this issue pl log on to www.kisanswaraj.com and sign on the signature campaign which is led by the KISAN SWARAJ YATRA, that constitutes of farmers from all over the country, who are traveling to each state of India and culminating the yatra at Sonia Gandhi’s house on December 11.

In a society, none of us can exist in isolation. We are all interdependent on each other, whatever caste, class, state, occupation or religion we might belong to. Let us all become sensitive to the plight of the farmer and please let us look at people, beyond their class, accents and clothes. Look deeper……. We are just like them.

Herald Office

2010-10-29T19:48:00.000-07:00

THE HERALD OFFICE

After three years of writing for THE HERALD, I suddenly had an impulsive desire to go and meet the editor and the staff with whom I had been interacting over e mail and phones. What is INTERNET communication, compared to actual human to human interaction?

SO, I set out on this purpose to connect with the Herald people with mighty expectations of a warm welcome and a plush office.

First of all my office’s, swank big car did not fit in well in the tiny road where the Herald office is located. Anyway, in my zeal, the car somehow squeezed in, like cars do in Mario Miranda’s cartoons and I got off and entered a door where a befuddled security guard looked at me and made me feel I did not belong there. Presently, he gave me directions and off I went up to the second floor, panting, in a huff. But my perpetual sanguinity has often led me into great shocks and disillusionment. Yet I never learn. So I entered the HERALD office with my best smile which soon turned to an open mouthed shock and then to a frowning dismay.

The office looked so dilapidated and crumbling. I felt it might crumble right under my feet and I might reach back right on the befuddled head of the security guard! So I walked as slowly, diffidently and softly as possible, lest I disturb the rickety building which seemed like an old stately woman with grey hair who had once known youth, and beauty-- I am not so sure of. There I was in the HERALD office, my desire fulfilled and already satiated!

I saw one big hall with one single long platform on which several old and outdated computers sat menacingly. Next to them were some plastic chairs which too must have seen better days. There was no adornment of pictures or paintings on the walls. At several places the paint was coming off and at some places there were some unseemly cracks.

I saw the Editor’s small cabin, saw him through the glass door and he nodded at me to come in. He smiled and that was the first positive thing I saw in that building!

He seemed quite sensible, quick witted, and a well rounded personality. I guess he was admirable because he managed a newspaper that is quite bold and fearless in its approach and seems to be unbiased, adhering to truth and has a certain broadness of perspectives. I soon warmed up to him and from his conversation I gathered he was so much in to sailing. A sailor editor?? Umhmm eh? But as he spoke I was worried that the book cases behind him might fall on his head, and all the while the old air conditioner made a continuous, rumbling sound like the first steam engine must have!

He obviously did not find me as interesting, for he never offered me a cup of tea!! Not even for the readership that I had for my articles! Not even for the way I look! Well!! I guess I need a new hairstyle.

Outside, I met two ladies I had been interacting with on the phone. They were really warm and it was a pleasure to meet them. But again my mind wandered to the nondescript crumbling hall. I felt sad that the largest selling daily of the state was in this state.

And I was sad for myself too, because I would have to delete the whole plush swanky picture that I had created of the HERALD office in my mind and replace it with THIS! But the eternal optimist in me again woke up after the short term sleeping pill the office seemed to have given me.

I realized these were rooted, humble, self respecting people who had diligently, day after day been the source of so much of news, flux of so many ideas and so much of entertainment to people. In this divisive world of divisive politics, they were a uniting factor—uniting people of all classes.

As for me, even if today’s paper is tomorrow’s fish wrap, they had given me a chance at self expression which none of my highly paying corporate jobs had given me. Money, aesthetics, buildings, offices, are just structures. The essence is in the people always. The Herald people, anonymously, reach out to so many people in Goa, who avidly read the HERALD every morning. And because of them I have been able to touch so many people’s lives too. And I am grateful to them for it.

The village of Rachol

2010-10-04T09:58:00.001-07:00

The village of Rachol

Through the early morning mist you vaguely see the village of Rachol as you drive. It is a land where dream and reality intermingle. You have to pull yourself together to know it is real and not just a fragment of your imagination or a part of your dream or a picture you saw in a fairy tale book, as a child. It is THAT enchanting. There are vast expanses of land, surrounded by rain and river water that undulates so delicately, as if God had himself painted it with long loving strokes. In the distance there are mountains of green and blue hues lost among white dreamy clouds. It is as if the Earth is raising itself high to touch the heavens. And you are the chosen one to see the communion that ensues.

As the road meanders towards the ferry point, you see human abodes are few and far between. Nature here still holds supreme. And you feel more in harmony with the surroundings, your human history, your past, your joys and sorrows, and the earth that engendered you, than you do in a crowded noisy city, you lived in all your life. Man does belong to that pristine time where he and nature were one. You muse; this was how it was supposed to be, and was too, till in the last 100 years the ugly sprawling voracious cities came up which swallowed all that once was green and Earthy.

There is a huge rain made lake and there are narrow embankments through which you can take your car and park right in the middle of the water in your own never never land. Where the fields and green green grass end, the hills begin. The sun is rising somewhere. You cannot make out where, as the clouds reflect a maze of orange pink violet colors, myriad and almost unreal, spread all over the sky. You recline on your car bonnet and take in a deep breath, not just to feel the fresh air in your body but to memorize every bit forever. You might need to revisit it in your mind at a later time, maybe when you are pensive or sorrowful. It is bound to give you a perspective, some peace and plenty of repose. You are grateful Rachol still exists and that you are fortunate to have seen it, just as it must have been five hundred years back.

You drive to the village of Illa-de-Rachol, a tiny laid back village of quaint pretty houses, a beautiful Church facing the river, a small village school and boys playing football in the rain. You sit by the river on a small wall and see the distant hazy shores of Shiroda and a ferry chugging past. Some fisherman is setting out in the tempestuous river, yet undeterred, singing a song in a high tenor and your feet beat in rhythm to it. The football rudely interrupts your swaying, as it hits you on the shin. Sheepish looking small boys come and apologize to you. You are angry but the eager faces make you forget. You smile graciously and forgive the unintended mishap.

As you drive ahead towards the most imposing structure of the village, the Seminary, you wonder what all history must have been enacted here. Did the Portuguese live here? Did they envisage this great big white Gothic structure, with few arched and narrow windows? Did some lovers ever meet behind the huge wall? And how, you, the beholder, are now linked to each story of its past, because you happen to visit it? You drive ahead to the little jetty and sit by the river. There is a small tea shop where many old village men and some young ones are sitting and chatting over a warm cup of tea. They see you approaching and hospitably vacate a seat for you. You sip your tea, warm and wonderful. It is as if a part of Rachol is melting in your mouth as much as it has seeped into your soul. No matter where you go, it will live on in your mind. Which ever city, your work might take you to--- this will always be a wink away. You just have to close your eyes, take a deep breath and you will be in Rachol. If you feel passionately enough, you might even be able to get the smell of the river, the tenor of the fisherman’s song and the taste of the tea as your reminiscences take you back to the glory that is Rachol.

The Boss

2010-10-04T09:56:00.001-07:00

THE BOSS

A naïve young woman, that I was, who saw the world through rose colored glasses, once came to a sleepy hamlet in Raia and decided to build a house there. Soon, she grew up! Building a house wizens (sic) up everyone!

On a cold night in December I got a call from a laborer working on my site, “Madame, we have all run away!”

“Run away?!” I exclaimed, trying to figure out how weird that was.

“A man from the village came and beat us up and we ran. We are still running!”

Oh my God! Now who could this be? I phoned the local PSI and ventured out into the night with him to get my frightened labor back and find the miscreant. So we came to my deserted dark gloomy ghostly masonry structure which had no electric connection yet, and started looking for the miscreant who was supposedly hiding in the house.

Whether ghosts exist or not, that night they certainly did. The wind howled “Vroom Vroom” in the trees as the poor disgruntled policeman and I looked for the man. Someone told us he must be sitting in a local bar. Now that is the peculiarity of Goa. The street of the village is dotted with as many bars as the number of crosses. And I, carrying my own cross of venturing to build a house in a vague out of the world God forsaken place, started hopping from bar to bar looking for this troublesome man! The drunken men, at one bar, wondered what this outsider looking woman was looking for. One of them, in customer care fervor, came tottering to me, smiled sheepishly and said, “Oh Madame, please don’t go. I have special whiskey from Portugal just for you!”

“I am not looking for whiskey. I am looking for a man called “Boss”.

The drunken man said, “But Madame he is no good for you!”

“Crazy man I don’t want to marry him. I want him arrested”, I said exasperatedly.

“If that is the case, we will all help you. We are also fed up of him.” And saying so, they started looking under all the tables. I rolled my eyes up at the tragic-comic scene and made a hasty exit.

Next day, in all my self righteous anger, I went and filed a police complaint against the “Boss”, which was incidentally also the nickname of my favorite singer Bruce Springsteen.

Feeling shaky, I drove to my house site and was accosted by an unsteady man, who opened his arms wide and stood in the middle of the narrow road such that I couldn’t pass!

He looked at me and smiled menacingly and said, “Heard you have been looking for me?? I am the BOSS”.

The man reeked of alcohol and was looking murderously at me. Taking a wild chance, and shivering inside my jeans, I got out of the car, pointing a vehement finger at him and putting on my most fearless threatening face, I said, “Today, you have stopped my car. If you do it even once more, just once more, I swear I will run over you. You understand?? YOU BOSS!!” And in my heart I murmured an apology to Bruce Springsteen and drove away white with shock and fear.

Anyway, next day, I drove through the same road and saw him standing again in the middle of the road. He stepped out of my way and put up his hand. But to my amazement, he took it to his forehead and saluted me!!! OH miracle!! Could life get any better?

Since that day, he would salute me every time I passed by. The boys in the village, taking cue from him, never meddled with me! If the BOSS was saluting me, I must indeed be formidable, or so they thought!

SO the lesson I learnt was--- never show any fear. Pretend to be strong and strength becomes a habit! Because of that incident, I am regarded with awe in the village. I let the myth of my courage and valor, perpetrate and prosper! It helps me cope with all and sundry. If they only knew how mortally scared I was of him, this story would have ended differently!!

The story does not end there. The man passed away due to excessive liver damage. It was the time of the visit of Our Lady and I was welcoming her for the first time in my house. Unaware of the tradition or rituals here in Goa, I needed help. But irony of ironies!!-- It is the BOSS’s widow who came to my rescue. Graciously, she volunteered and presided over the whole prayer service. I wonder how life can take such twists and turns. It is so surprising, unpredictable, often incomprehensible and beautiful. We all look for larger meaning and try to make sense of our lives, in pursuit of happiness and success. But meaning lies in such small gestures like the one the BOSS’s widow showed me, so naturally, magnanimously and unassumingly and she really spread the message of Mother Mary more than any sermon ever could.

Religion through a child's eyes

2010-10-04T09:54:00.000-07:00

Religion through a child’s eyes

A discussion of religion can touch many a sore point, but children are yet to learn about sore points, I guess. One perky little five year old boy, I met in Delhi, with brown curly hair and the face of a cherub, studies in a Christian school. When asked what he wants to become when he grows up, he firmly proclaims, “I want to become a Christian”. When asked, “Why?” He says “HanuMAN is a Hindu and SpiderMAN is a Christian”. And he obviously seems to fancy Spiderman more!

No matter how much the fundamentalists rant about Hindutva, one young candidate is already lost, unless they school him to come around to an ideology of hate and phobias.

Things are really simple. It is just that we complicate them. Earliest religions, in all civilizations emerged as a celebration of all that man could not comprehend or understand, like the thunder, lightening, stars, floods, pestilence, seasons, death and life. All the things that inspired awe and could not be explained by any rational means were perceived as Divine, just as the five year old boy’s concept of the brave trapeze artist, Spiderman. In his mind, he quite equates it to Hanuman and his powers. Both Hanuman and Spiderman do things that he and most people cannot do and thus he sees both as divine. In quite a similar way ancient man would have stood in twilight gazing at the stars, and with no knowledge of galaxies or light years, would have sighed at the beauty of the divine. And that is how all religions began---as a tribute to the inexplicable, the incomprehensible, the noble, the good. They all fundamentally began with “wonder”. All that is wondrous, miraculous and beautiful is divine.

Different religions developed in different parts of the world but all of them preach almost the same things, depicting the common impulses in all of us, in all parts of the world, irrespective of our race or region. The same impulse of wonder and gratitude for rainfall that was felt, ten thousand years ago by a man in Africa would have been felt by a man in America or a man in India. The same human impulse to celebrate the “wonder” led to the growth and development of all religions.

The problem began when man gave a name to this “wonder” and ascribed rules to it, thus making the fundamental mistake of confusing the “wonder” with morality, law, place of worship and identity. And religion became an institution- organized, stifling and pedantic, with no element of “wonder” at all! Religion which started, common to all civilizations, as the most plausible way to achieve a communion with the divine, thus soon became a name to differentiate one group of people from another.

Rather than divide us on the basis of various names given to various religions, that impulse, which was the very source of religion, should be our most uniting factor. We need to see religion as our common desire to believe in certain values and ethics, which are fundamental to all of us irrespective of the age or time or region or country or state we live in. We need to see religion quite like that little boy or that ancient man who stood gazing at thunder and lightening. Instead, we are caught in an irrelevant debate as to who owns the land in Ayodhya and who has a right to build a temple there. And if we think our country is still in the middle ages, well across the globe too, one of the most developed nations is debating about a Mosque on ground zero!

Most of all, if we have to avidly believe in religion and God, let us not reduce that God to small squabbles of “your God” and “my God” or your shrine or my shrine. If we believe that HE created the world and is omniscient and omnipresent, I am sure he would want us to rise above petty disputes. Ram gave up a whole kingdom and kingship just to abide by his father’s word. And we are fighting over a small piece of land that belongs to none of us and on which there exists a place of worship of our very own brother??

More importantly, in a country where half the people do not have enough food to eat, do they really care about a Mosque or a Temple in Ayodhya? Religious issues never address the ground reality of any of our lives. The ground reality is housing, food, education. Yet the political parties ignore all these and keep such divisive issues alive as it serves their vote bank politics. Let us all rise above such pettiness and think of a progressive India, rather than fight ill begotten crusades. Let us keep our childish wonder intact and not replace it with misplaced notions of identity and religion.

Crimes against women

2010-09-26T00:16:00.000-07:00

CRIME AGAINST WOMEN

Crime, especially crime that can lead to the death of someone, needs to be punished severely. Our society really believes in this and adheres to it vehemently. But this universal belief seems to take a strange twist when it comes to crimes against women. If it is a high profile case, our whole society follows it religiously. We all try and look for answers and try to ascribe blame somewhere or the other, without even knowing the facts of the matter or its essence.

Something similar seems to be happening to the Nadia Torrado case in Goa, the Viveka Babaji case in Bombay, the Jessica Lal case in the past and to mostly all the cases where women have died. The fact of the matter is that a girl has died and if anyone has committed a crime, it should be duly punished. But the great, bulky paraphernalia of social norms that we all carry does not let the issue remain so simple. Whenever a woman is involved in a socially reprehensible situation, a crime done against her, acquires a totally different connotation. While the accused is hounded before being proven guilty, so is the victim-- the woman; and her background, her character, her demeanor, her social status, her past relationships, everything is brought out and published in newspapers and splashed on TV.

The ancient barbaric social evil, of a witch hunt, does not seem to leave us. We love to ascribe blame, and we love to do it on women, especially if we can link the matter to her sexuality. It gives us all a sense of complacency that we are not ourselves in that situation and someone else is bearing the brunt of transgressing social, moral and patriarchal boundaries. All over Europe in the middle ages and as recent as the nineteenth century, women who digressed from the beaten track, or did something socially amoral, or were educated or knew a lot about natural medicines or were extremely beautiful or had tremendous property or were too old to be productive in anyway----were branded as witches and burnt at stake, in the town’s marketplace where the crowd cheered on in the most inhuman and barbaric way. Women were often tortured to exorcise the evil in them and then killed for crimes that were uncertain, dubious and never proved. In India too, this practice still goes on in many villages and women are hounded by society such that they are driven out of their homes or killed.

In bigger, so called educated and aware cities, we do not commit such barbaric acts. We do not kill. We take the dead and exhume them again and again. We bring out every minute juicy detail of their lives and we devote a great deal of social talk and gossip to it. Very authoritatively, we claim that the woman was of low character or she was using her femininity or that she was of a dubious background. We love to hear how many affairs she had or how vain she was or how she was using the man. Well, while she was alive, none of us dared to air our moral considerations, when the deed was happening right before our eyes. But once dead, we love to flog the carcass?! The poignant question that arises is why do we do that?

Society has strange ways of dealing with things that it finds problematic to put into slots. A woman who dies in a promiscuous relationship or is raped or murdered or commits suicide is seen as something which was not supposed to happen in a civilized, moral and ethical society. So we need to ascribe blame for the unfortunate incident on someone. And who could be better than the woman herself?

Very self righteously, we conduct a social trial, where we are all jurors and come to a conclusion that the woman was responsible for the crime done against her. It is easier for us that way because it is extremely difficult to question a whole society which drove a woman to her death. Facing that kind of stark reality is not what most of us have the courage for. We cannot think that we all as a society have a role to play if a young woman is killed or raped or kills her self. We want to sit in our comfortable smugness and not question our existing socio-cultural institutions, merely because we do not have the courage to.

When a society reeks with crime, especially crimes against women, it is because of the way our society has evolved and hence we all have to bear a collective responsibility for it. The particular victim or crime is just a symptom of the deep rooted disease which is rampant in our society. Suppressing a symptom or finding a scapegoat to pile the blame upon is not going to cure the disease. We have to get at the root of it.

For this, the society as a whole has to march towards a social change, which can have a gamut of ramifications – like proper legislation, implementation of the legislation, empowering women, and changing social attitudes towards women. All this is a Herculean task and will obviously occur over a long period of time.

But the important point, and what we can start from today itself, is to stop turning the victim into a criminal. Whenever a crime is done against a woman, it simply needs to be punished like any other crime, without harping upon the woman’s background or her past life or attitudes or morality. The trial is not about her character, it is about her death.

Be it the Scarlet Keeling case or the German minor rape case or the Nadia case or those innumerable unfortunate cases, where women have made wrong choices, need to be viewed objectively and if the crime is proven, it should be punished without a social and media trial of the victim her self. It is foolish to proclaim that the woman invited it. No one invites assault, rape or murder.

There is a distinct difference between committing a socially unaccepted deed and between committing a punishable crime. We cannot put both at par and club the victim with the criminal. If we keep ascribing blame on women for the crimes done against women themselves, the criminal minded men who commit such crimes shall be emboldened and the crimes will continue to happen. And with what faith can a victimized woman go to society, police or the legal system when she knows that approaching any of these is going to merely expose her to further ignominy and trauma? That is the reason most of the time women do not even report a crime done against them.

Moreover let us for a moment stop judging these women, most of them very young, some of them even kids, naïve and perhaps misdirected. Isn’t it more human to empathize than to judge? And who are we to judge at all?? The song from the movie “Amir” rings to mind when someone dies an untimely tragic death—

“Ek lau is tarha kyun bujhi mere Maula?

Ek lau zindagi ki, Maula.

THE WORKING WOMAN

2010-09-07T08:30:00.000-07:00

The working woman

As the title suggests, this article is of travails, tension, problems, chauvinist attitudes, time schedules, homework, hurry and flurry and haste that makes waste; AND also of determination to make things work, against all odds!!

If you wake up on time, the day might start well. But if you were shocked out of your sleep at two in the morning, by foxes howling outside, then you oversleep and wake up groggy and curse those foxes, even though you are a great fan of environmental conservation. You go and wake up the child, while he is in a deep dream sleep. You try to be your loving best but time is running like a winged chariot and you end up screaming, “School! School!” The child wonders if the school is on fire and wakes up either dazed or thinking that you are mad. You soothe him and assure him of your sanity and explain the correct management of time to him. Meanwhile you yourself have mismanaged your daily exercise routine, because you are running late as usual.

You quickly take a shower, while going on screaming at the child to wake up. You realize you have been screaming a lot. But since you determinedly want to have a good day, you believe that screaming will strengthen your lungs, as Baba Ram Dev never could.

Life is all about--- not situations, but how you react to them. So you control your anger, grind your teeth, and ask your child to hurry, while trying to smile. The effect is of a horror movie. Surely the child wakes up at this. You both get ready at a pace that is like a comic strip of “FAST AND FURIOUS”.

The breakfast is thankfully prepared by the maid and you are more grateful to her than you could ever be to Dr Manmohan Singh. Even though inflation has reached a screeching point, you know it is only in India that you can afford domestic help. You smile and tell her how wonderful the omelet is even if it reeks of pepper and your tongue is on fire.

The child’s school snack and lunch is prepared at an equal frantic pace. You try hard to remember the Internet tips on a well balanced diet of Carbs, proteins and fat. But all you crave for is Fat and sugar, because a little indulgence here and a little chocolate there make you Oh so happy! But you conscientiously try to guide your child on healthy living, and hasty exiting, from the house.

You go to your room, pick up your bag, take a deep breath and apply some quick dash of lipstick. Your hair is a mess and you have a big corporate meeting in a little while. You need to look presentable. But you know all that you look like is something the cat brought in on a rainy day. You improvise a bit and smile in the mirror, promising yourself a good day ahead.

As you drive, through the small town where everyone knows everyone else, you see some faces that have been plaguing your nightmares. Life is like that. You rush to buy the newspaper. After all, you have to keep abreast with the current affairs, look beyond your life, and adopt a larger perspective. You take out money from your newly bought Hi-fi bag. The newspaper lady says a cheerful “Good Morning” and soon punctures it with, “Madame your bag looks so old”. But you have wowed to yourself that you will have a good day. So, undeterred, you run to buy vegetables from the Government horticulture subsidized shop.

The lady there is much more befuddled than you are. You sympathize. Just think she might be having eight kids, you only have one! She has just misplaced the 1kg weight and is looking for it. You step inside to quickly gather your onions and potatoes. Two ladies walk in and ask you, “Please put 1kg tomatoes for me.” You tell them politely, “I am not the shopkeeper”. They say, “It does not matter. Please, we are in a hurry. We have to go to office.” You see comrades in distress. You express your solidarity by standing and weighing and selling vegetables. Soon you wonder what your life has come to!

A man walks in, looks lustfully at you and says, “Wow! What a lovely vegetable seller. Please give me 1kg beans”. Well, you had enough of playing vegetable seller. You make coy eyes at him, go slowly towards him, and suddenly push him. He falls right into the tomato basket. You go away smiling and you are still determined to have a good day!

2010-09-03T19:05:00.000-07:00

Wake up call!

Funny, how things get blown out of proportion. If one coughs in Benaulim, it is heard as Pneumonia in Cansaulim. We have a certain innate knack for spreading news and in quite a novel way too, like the Reuters, the first international press agency. Innovation can never let you down. Perseverance carries you through. Clarity of purpose makes you reach your goal. We, in Salcette, know that. We reach into the offices of people. We reach their boardrooms. We reach their thoughts. We reach their pasts. We want to predict their futures. And we often reach their bedrooms!!

Our brains have developed in such a way that we are now programmed to GOSSIP. That gives us more mental gymnastics than any Bournvita quiz could. It keeps us abreast with the news. It makes us a part of some inside gang or favored coterie. It gives us our identity.

You see, we would not be anything much if it were not for this identity. We do not care about material success or transcendental spirituality. And we do not waste our time in working hard. We do not want to be creative, because Art, here, is often branded as being offensive to some or the other vague religious sentiment. We cannot afford to indulge in such mundane activities as we have weightier issues on our minds like which fish is being cooked in the neighbor’s house and who is his daughter seeing?! This is our forte.

We lament and dwell a lot on the outsider issue too. It is our favorite topic. It gives us a scapegoat. It gives us a stick with which we can beat all the social problems. Migration is a blasphemy for us. No matter how many of us migrate out of Goa to England, Portugal, Mumbai, Gulf, we cannot bear other people migrating to Goa. We neither endeavor to work hard to get government jobs nor do we set up many great business enterprises. Manual labor is below our dignity and so while our half-educated youth stands at street corners indulging in our favorite sport of gossip, laborers from neighboring states build our buildings, and we despise them. Our tourism is always afflicted with rapes, fraud and low credibility. But we all believe in our Tourism minister unambiguously, after all is said and done.

As far as education is concerned---THAT is no bar. Who says we cannot gossip if we have an M.Phil degree in English Literature. All the more reason to, because then our scoop would be embellished with Shakespearean sonnets, Post modernist analysis, Marxian dialectical theory etc. The more educated we are, the better the quality of our gossip, the more the number of followers that we have and the bigger the egos we have. It is our own form of Tharoorian Twitter, with no word limit. So a psychiatrist we divulge in, as part of our clinical visit, will tell the whole town we have severe schizophrenia. The hardware store owner would know how many nails and boards we bought, and they will be for our own coffin as we would soon be buried under gossip which will alert the Income Tax department. Which gym we go to is common knowledge. What we did, where, and with who, haunts our social reputation forever.

Unknown meticulous, self righteous agencies will be critical of our parenting skills, irrespective of whether they know anything about our own private journey. No matter how many men die in Kashmir, or how many farmer suicides occur, or the abysmal state of our present swaggering government and our ever floundering opposition---we are primarily interested in our neighbor or the man who struggled against his humble caste background to reach the top, or the pretty woman around town, or the funds of the GBA, or the Doctor who we are all envious of.

According to psychology, gossip is indulged in by people who are always envious of others, but secretly want to be like them. When we see in others, what we do not have in ourselves, it threatens our very existence. Psychologists say people who gossip are parasites on society because they generate a negativity that hinders new individual thought and social change. Pshaw!!! --- We, in Salcette, live on high moral ground, and we know better than that!

Sangay Larden Shenga

2010-08-23T18:31:00.001-07:00

Sangay Larden Shenga

“Hey what are you doing? Have you no sense?” A voice shouted at me. I looked down to see a girl looking up at me angrily from the flat below mine in the new neighborhood that I shifted into. I realized water was dripping from the clothes on my washing line, right on to her head and petite small frame. I apologized sheepishly. The next thing I heard from her is, “Hey come over for dinner. I am from Sikkim. We are going to have momos”

And there began a wild and beautiful friendship between Sangay Larden Shenga and me. I soon discovered that she was more into life and living than anyone I knew. She was the deputy collector of South Goa, and later Director of Industries and mines--- but that was just one of the things she did! To my astonishment, she just loved doing anything and everything. In our few years together as friends and neighbors I realized she was a powerhouse of ideas and action. She loved cycling. She loved cooking. She loved making pottery. She loved doing interiors. She loved dressing well. She loved buying gifts for everyone she knew, even the one’s subordinate to her in office. She went about her life on her own terms. And she was excellent at her work, dedicated and honest.

We were all in the bureaucratic circle and one evening we had to go for a formal dinner in the honor of the new Collector, her boss, at a fancy hotel. Sangay and I exchanged a knowing look, at the self important attitude on our table. I rolled my eyes in boredom. Suddenly, she clutched her stomach and her eyes contorted in pain.

“Oh please help me. I have severe stomach ache”. We were the only two women at the dinner table. So I got up to lead her to the rest room. Once outside, she laughed wickedly and held my hand and said, “Let us sneak up to the bar and have some Cocktails. Those men down there are so stifling”

So we ran up in excitement and fear lest we might be discovered. I had the first cocktail of my life with her and drank it up like coke, fast and swift. Soon, we went back. Sangay faked a weak smile when all of them looked concerned. And then she winked at me when we realized that the boring bureaucrats were themselves quite high with the drinks.

One of them kept looking at me and saying, “Madame you will run like PT Usha”. In last ten years I have not figured out that one! Sangay and I roared with laughter at the absurdity of it. Soon, we went out on another attack of stomach ache and came back with another cocktail in our stomachs. The rest of the evening passed in hazy shades of blunders and laughter.

Together, we had many escapades. I was the only one who knew driving in our young gang. I drove the big government jeep to a local fair in Navellim. When we reached back to our car, I realized my awry parking had caused quite a traffic jam. An irate mob was shouting at us, “So who is the deputy collector? Shouldn’t you have more sense than common people like us?” The men looked at Sangay and me trying to figure out who the deputy collector was. To my utter exasperation I saw Sangay point her finger at me and so the whole mob turned towards me and started talking in annoyance and agitation. I remember pouring a whole bottle of coke on Sangay later, half furious and half laughing.

After four years she got transferred out of Goa. We all went to a field in Rachol, which was surrounded by water, parked our car there, solemnly chatted till two in the night, and then went to sleep in the car, out in the wilderness! Next day she left for Arunachal Pradesh on her next posting. As I waved to her I told another friend, “I feel I am never going to see her again”.

A year later one of her colleagues called me, and in a strange subdued voice, said, “I have bad news for you. Sangay has died in Arunachal in a helicopter crash.” I thought someone with so much life cannot die. It is impossible. There must be a mistake.

I spent next few months unable to get up from bed. But one cannot die with the dead; one has to live with the living. Yet, I often feel she is alive. She lives in me and many others like me, whose life she touched.

If any of you have friends like Sangay--- hold on to them with all you have got.

Peepli Live--Farmer suicides

2010-08-23T18:29:00.000-07:00

PEEPALI LIVE

Human beings cannot take too much reality. It hurts. And the movie Peepli Live does exactly that. It is as stark and naked as only truth could be. One goes to the theatre, expecting a romanticized version of village life, because we grew up on images of lovely village belles in full make up, a loving submissive hard working mother, an honest farmer hero and a beautiful lush green setting of fields and trees. Well! You are in for a shock.

We live in a country of many anachronistic historical eras, all jumbled up. We live in a country that has many Indias within itself. Usually, we city dwellers only see and like to see our own India of swanky city life, great buildings, wonderful multiplexes, beautiful discotheques, huge malls, complicated relationships, beautiful slim women and handsome chocolate heroes. But there is 50% of our population that is below poverty line, lives in less than Rs 20, a day, almost starves, has no excess to education, health facilities, sanitation, drinking water, electricity and even--- dignity.

The movie depicts just that large segment of population without any regard for the city dweller’s fragile shaky sensibility. It shocks one, to see unpainted raw original unselfconscious faces. You feel you are actually walking in a village in India amidst all its heat and dust. The family in focus is past all politeness and softness in their interaction amongst themselves. Poverty has taken away their superego entirely. There can be no pretence when one is fighting for hard core survival. Social manners and etiquette are all a luxury of the rich.

The protagonist, devices a plan of committing suicide to save his mortgaged land. Just by misfortune, the press gets hold of the story and the family is hounded by Pressmen and news channels for whom they are nothing but a means of getting their weekly TRPs. The politicians, ruling party and opposition, the caste brigades, the communists—all join in for their pound of flesh and try to draw as much mileage as they can from it, just exactly as they do in reality--- the reality of millions of farmers of our country.

One poor farmer, emaciated and mal-nutritioned, whose land is barren, digs the Earth to sell soil all through the movie and at the end dies in the same pit. No one mourns his death because it is not a scoop. There is only one small time reporter, who, for a moment puts aside his own selfish need for a sensational story. He is the only one who, we feel and hope, could become the voice of conscience. But as in real life, he dies, taking away that tiny voice, of a man aching in his heart at the state of things in our country.

There are no moral voices in the movie, no commentary on the situation, no didactic stand, no aggrandized social perspectives and no romanticization. Yet the movie hits at the core of your heart, if you have one. It makes you feel responsible. It does not offer you an answer. It does not offer a new world view. And markedly, it does not offer a catharsis. It does not expel your uncomfortable feeling. It makes you go out of the theatre with it, forcing you to think.

A country which is still primarily agricultural, is witnessing the suicide of farmers all across its states. A farmer is the most vital component of any society. Just because HE knows the land so well and deeply, there is food on our tables daily. Each grain that we take for granted is so carefully grown by the Earth, Air, Water, Sun and the Farmer. And then it comes to us, after a lot of hard work, effort, time and hope that has gone into the process--- and because of it, we survive, live, thrive. Isn’t it then a cruel disrespect to the whole process of it, if the farmer himself is not taken care of in this country??

What is there to celebrate in a great GDP or a less severe recession, or IT pockets in cities like Bangalore, or any kind of progress, entrepreneurship, policies---when it does not reach the masses and especially the farmer who is the very foundation on which any civilization and society can stand and build upon. If that basic foundation, which literally provides sustenance to us all, is itself weak and crumbling, how can we even contemplate to talk of progress and development??

Each person, idea, entity, perspective, of a society is interlinked and forms its ethos. If we, in the city feel insulated from the kind of reality depicted in the movie, we are living in a fool’s paradise. Our own individualistic bubbles are going to burst, if we do not take into account the situation of the farmers. They are the basic components of any society. Government often tries to humor them with a plethora of schemes for farming, loans, irrigation, flood relief etc. But how much of it actually reaches the farmer?

More than 7,500 farmers a year killed themselves between 2002 and 2006, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). NCRB also states that there were at least 16,196 farmers' suicides in India in 2008. Peepli Live is thus the harsh reality of this nation. If we do not address it now, it is going to reach us sooner than we think because a disease or a lacuna cannot delimit itself to one segment of society. It will be all pervasive. Lopsided development, as it is happening in our country will only lead to more problems like inequalities—unemployment---increase in crime rate—and an unsafe world for all of us.

My own Maim

2010-08-08T22:46:00.000-07:00

My own “Maim”

An old lady works in my house for last nine years. She comes from down the hill, from the village. I call her Maim, “mother” in Konkani. Often I get this feeling that she is my employer, than me being hers. And that is because she comes and goes at her convenience. She comes only after she has done all her work of feeding her animals, cooking her food and roaming around gossiping with the whole village. Sadly, I know, mine is the only household to be cleaned at night!

Mostly, I am immune to her decrepit sense of punctuality. But sometimes rarely, I lose my temper and reprimand her for her late and unpredictable hours. She retaliates with full force. She starts talking furiously in her language, half of which I do not understand. If I ask her to keep quiet, she goes to the other room and keeps muttering loudly to herself for hours. And all of it is for my benefit!! She keeps giving me annoyed looks and says,

“Because of you I left such a good job, zannea tum?”

“Maim, if you cannot come on time, please go and find that job”, I reply angrily.

Then her eyes moisten up and that is the end of it. We have had exactly the same scene in our house many times over the last nine years. It always ends with me cajoling her with tea and biscuits and speaking in my best soothing Konkani, “Maim, tu rodtta kittyeak? Tu bas, aani cha pi”.

Then she invariably looks at me as if she is doing me a favor and keeps muttering a bit more. For next three days she comes on time and then slips back to her original ways.

She is a slender woman of four feet six inches, has the face of an imp and the naughtiness of a child in her eyes when she laughs. She is our daily connection to the village, our newspaper, and our gossip columnist. The moment she enters, she starts with a tirade on someone or the other. I try hard to follow her rapid Konkani. But half the time I am looking at her vivid facial expressions to understand what she is saying. Her conversation varies from the Panch, to the village simpleton, to the local goon, to her various relatives, to the rich and famous of the village. She knows who is amorous with whom. She knows who fought with whom. She knows where the Panchayat money is being spent. And I avidly lap it all up, knowing for sure, that she must be telling the whole village about the activities in my household, as well!!

Last month she slipped down while cleaning the steps and to our shock, she was drenched in blood. I rushed her to the hospital. The doctor said she needed stitches. I held her hand and kept saying, “Maim tum bi na. I am there”. But the doctor, who did not want any theatrics, sent me out. I saw them stitching her head, from the crack in the door. I tried hard to control my emotions, when I saw my frail Mai lying inert on the table, scared and shaken up. But soon I was bawling into my handkerchief, red eyed and foolish.

She came out within few minutes and said nonchalantly, “Rodtta tu?? I am ok. It did not hurt me at all. They gave me anesthesia”. She gave me one exasperated look and got into my car and asked me to drive her home!!

Maim and I have nothing in common, no shared language, religion, class or culture----except that we are both human beings----and that is shared identity enough, I guess. We crossed all those silly boundaries and differences long back and became family for each other. I do not have to have intellectual conversations with her. Just the fact, that I see her impish smiling face, everyday, brings meaning to my life.

High on life

2010-08-02T05:35:00.000-07:00

YOU ARE HIGH ON LIFE!!

Did you win a booker prize?

No.

Did you achieve success hitherto unimagined?

NO.

Did you reach peaks unattained?

NO!

Are you a great entrepreneur?

OH NO!!

Yet you are high, high on life.

Strange?!

Well where does the “high” come from, I wonder!

Some spunk or perkiness or even some perversity, always made you take the path less trodden. Youth makes you Oh so reckless and sanguine! But the path less trodden often comes up with curves and turns, you never imagined. It makes you go through such adversity, that you never dreamed of. You strive and strive, because you are in the midst of a journey from where there is no going back. YOU CHOSE IT! And now IT CHOOSES YOU!!

There is no way out. There is no turning back. You cannot let go. You cannot just give up. The ones looking up to you need you to walk ahead. Their journey started with yours and you need to bring it to a point where you enable them thus, such that their independent journey can begin.

Along the way, you fought with many demons and now you realize it was only the society within you and its prescribed ideas that you were wrestling with. Often, you tried to walk on a herd journey, of looking for material success and social validation and obsessive compulsive habits. You wanted to belong and be a part of all the rest.

And now you realize that the journey was your borrowed journey. It wasn’t your journey at all. So you embark on your own. Right or wrong, it is just your own. You have nothing to boast of but a childhood dream, realized, and a youthful passion, satisfied. Not many people you know would dare even half as much!

On the way, you learnt many a thing and suffered many a travail. That made your eyes a little more open to others and their suffering. Now you value empathy more than success. You value strength more than achievements. You value people who touched your heart more than the expectations fulfilled. You can do only so much for them and they can do only so much for you!! The rest has to come from within.

So you reach this stage when you have climbed uphill, amidst a road of thorns and pebbles, slipping and unsure, and suddenly you reach a clearing, from where you can see horizons flooding your skies, limitless and infinite. The valley lies before you and shows you that point from where you had begun and you realize how far you have really traveled and how difficult the path has been. You take a deep breath and then exhale. You have arrived!!! ---Well, as little or as much one can!!

And now there is repose like the calm unruffled waters of a deep deep river, not so much from without, as from within. You made the choices you wanted to. They define you as you are today. And look, you have come through it all! -----

Stronger? Perhaps.

Wiser? Maybe.

Humble? Definitely.

You love the people around you; you have a measure of worldly success. But you no longer need any of those to complete you now. You are within yourself, a whole.

And you are high on life. You have no more agonizing goals. You realize your life was a goal in itself. That you lived it the way you wanted was in itself a joy, however big or small that might seem to others. You do not look for reasons anymore to be high on life. You do not look for social validation. You create your own path and you walk as strongly as you can on it. That you survived it all and can still laugh and smile and be joyous and lose yourself here and there, every now and then, and celebrate every new morning, is reason enough to be high on life!

2010-07-18T05:58:00.000-07:00

Culture Curry- City and village

Goa is a beautiful continuum of village life. One village blends into the next and there is an easy flow of a common character, unique only to Goa. As one travels, here and there, occasionally, looms a town but soon subsides to the general tranquility of the rustic country side. Unlike in a big city, life flows unhurriedly, ponderously, languorously in these villages.

The village of Raia is one such picturesque village. Human abodes are just dots in the large expanse of hills, valley, river, fields, trees and clouds. The road to the village I live in is a long winding undulating meandering one. It seems to lend a slow rhythm to the place. All the ones who come from a fast paced city are naturally compelled to slow down a little. You just have to stop and observe a rainbow. You have to wait for the dog to get up as he looks sleepy and annoyed at being disturbed. You have to halt as the cattle go past, oblivious to you. You have to become a part of the rhythm, you cannot break it!

The people are quite friendly and willing to help. The great human ability to communicate with a smile never fails you. Irrespective of language or of any other barrier, mutual respect pays off and if you ask for directions, people might even lead you to the desired place.

Few days’ back I was supposed to have a guest, a Goan, from Panjim, who was a little out of sorts with village life. Unable to find my house, he stopped, and smoking a cigar, asked for directions to my house from a villager who leaned against a tree, gleefully eating a mango.

“Of course I know where she lives. Her car tire got punctured last Sunday. That is the time she had visitors from Sikkim. Where are you from?”

My guest was a little surprised that I was so well known in the village that even my car tire status was common knowledge.

“I am from Panjim”, he said rather shortly.

The villager was now in command of the situation and in a mood to talk, “You know she sings and roams around on the hill sometimes?!”

My guest raised his eye brows in astonishment.

The native went on, “Last Christmas she bought a new car. What will she do with two?”

“Yes”, said my visitor, now perplexed.

“They say she has no religion but you know she has a grotto in the garden?! She loves Mother Mary and because of that she can never go wrong in her life”, proclaimed the villager.

My guest now wanted to hurry to my house, embarrassed by the information being given to him. Quite taken aback, the poor city dweller entirely failed to see the social dynamics of a small village. To know about fellow villagers was a way of life here and their right! Often, when there is a clash of world views, we tend to make hasty judgments about others whom we cannot relate to.

So my guest said pointedly to the native, “Would you please guide me to her house?”

The village man promptly jumped into my guest’s car and said, “I will take you there. But first tell me how do you know her and what business do you have with her??”

My guest was now flabbergasted and wondered why he should disclose anything to this man.

The villager quickly added, “We should know who goes and comes in our village” And he whispered with an enlightening wink, “It is good for security!”

My guest tried to smile at this. And the villager added, “Besides, what will I tell all the others? They would want to know too.”

At that point, my guest who had had enough, stopped the car, and politely asked the village man to disembark.

The poor villager, peeved at this, retorted, “She will throw you out of her house. She is one of us now!”

When I heard this story from my guest, to his great consternation, I was delighted that I was so intrinsically accepted in the village even though the revelation came in this convoluted way!!!

The Child

2010-07-18T05:57:00.000-07:00

THE CHILD…

For Sahir

Motherhood hits you like a strong passionate force when you see a little body coming out of your own and your life changes forever. No matter how many millions of women give birth to how many millions of children, when you see your own child next to you, it is the most special moment of your life and you wonder “did I really create this being”?

The wonder is pretty short-lived! It soon changes into frustration, sleepless nights, colic pains, weary eyes, postpartum blues, curtailed life, disorientation, bad moods, overwork and exhaustion. This little thing you created, gulps you and your life the moment it comes to this world and yet you are quite crazy, besotted, and bonkers about it!

Now the little thing starts wailing at night, and, even though you are the kind who would sleep blissfully if there were tribal drums playing outside your house, you hear the wail instantly. So attuned you are, as if he and you were one. Your language itself changes now. It is never “I am going out”. It becomes, “We are going out” The “we” is, the child and you, of course, and the whole world is shunned out of this exclusive twosome.

The little thing now starts rolling on the bed and you are in perpetual fear that he will fall down and get hurt. You frantically run several times to check if all is well but you are never really satisfied till you are right next to him. At every sneeze, at every vaccine, at every wail, your heart wrenches, and you wish you could bear the pain for him. He walks now and falls often. You are a nervous wreck. At every step you foresee a potential fall. Your own bruises never made you a hundredth time as upset as his. Your life is a nightmare of falls and pain.

Somehow you manage to see through all the initial pain and discomfort. You wake up smart and early to the fact that this is one person you would die for, live for, stay up nights for, secretly cry for, learn for, and become strong for…. the list is endless. You know you would shield this person all his life and yourself stand in the way of trouble, harm, pain, suffering and even bullets, when it comes to him. No matter how much your mind is irritated with all the wiping of the thrown up milk or the changing of the nappies, you have no peace till the little one is contented, happy and well fed.

Then come the bizarre questions---

He asks you in front of all your friends, “Mama who is the fat friend who needs the gym?”

OR “Mama, when will granny become old and go to heaven?”

OR “Mama, why doesn’t Daddy have breasts?”

Then come the wise oracle truths----

“Mama, you look like Extra Terrestrial with this hair cut!”

OR “Mama, don’t worry. LET IT BE, LET IT BE!”

OR “Mama, TV gives me profound knowledge and Play Station is divine”.

You stupidly feel that things will get better for you as he grows up. You feel he will be more independent. You feel he will need you lesser. You feel you will get back your life. You are just making elaborate myths and creating fantastic illusions. It is never going to happen!! The little one starts growing up. The problems also grow up. They do not just grow, they become like a tree, with many branches that need more of your attention than ever. You wonder now, whether you have a life at all?!

And yet when you go to the first sports day, you have this lump in your throat as you see your child run his first relay race! Oh you appear this strong, confident, charming grown up and yet all you want to do is hug your relay runner and run home.

The problem tree grows further. Now it gets blossoms too!! The child’s grades are not good enough or he is distracted in class or he is bullying someone or is being bullied, or he did not show you his bad test paper or he comes home crying. At each one of these your heart takes summersaults. And the most dreaded is the call from school that he has fallen down and banged his head. You run to the school and see blood all over him. You rush him to the doctor and you cannot bear the stitches he has to get. He wails and your soul cries. At last it is over and you are home, your child safe in your arms and the ordeal over.

No matter how tall he becomes, you feel he is the most delicate, vulnerable and precious person on Earth. They might sell clichés in movies of the child being the Sun and Moon for the mother. What silly sentimental stuff is that?! But only you know how horribly true that is!! You try hard to look at your life beyond your child but your sight meanders a bit and back again it reaches the centre point, the inevitable focus---your child.

He is in school and you are cleaning his messy cupboard in his room. As you sort out the baby clothes from the teenage ones, you are a myriad of memories associated with the green baby T shirt or the blue navy jacket or the swimming trunks and the laughter, funny jigs, bruises, falls, wails, stitches, bad school reports, medals, and so much joy intertwined with some pain, and, your most unforgettable moments.

As you sort out the clothes you are unable to throw or give away so many, which seem to be the perfect emblems of each memory that you have bottled up in your heart and can take out and look at and smell. And for the first time it dawns on you that your mother must have loved you as much and her heart too would have wrenched at every pain you went through. It is amazing how sorting out your child’s clothes can bind you to both, your mother and your child!!

You call her and tell her you love her. For the first time in your life you realize and actually know how she brought you up and how her life and happiness is so linked to yours.

Is there anything in life that can surpass this beautiful cycle of mother-child-mother? Maybe so, in some unknown unseen heaven. On Earth, this is the only one. It is the only love which is beyond all selfishness or expectation. It is pure instinct. Rationality has no part to play in it at all.

I try so hard to be so many things and do so many things but I often end up just being a mother and nothing else.

Nadia

2010-06-27T22:11:00.000-07:00

NADIA

Question: “Why did Nadia keep Rattol in her house?

Answer: Because she was scared of Mickey Mouse”

Mobile phone messages of this kind have been doing the rounds in Goa…..and Goa is a deeply religious state. Both the large communities, Catholics and Hindus visit their Churches and the Temples very dutifully.

All religions and spirituality teach us that death is the only Truth. All else is ‘maya’ or illusion. In the ancient story of the Trojan War, Achilles the Greek hero commits the gravest of all sins, as believed so by the Greeks. And that is the sin of disrespecting the body of the Trojan warrior, Hector, whom he has defeated in war. Achilles drags the body, tied to his horse and desecrates not just Hector but “death” itself.

We seem to be doing something similar to Nadia. Of course she did not have the stature as that of a Trojan hero. But the point is not the comparison with greatness or ordinariness. The parallel is in “death’ itself, which unites us all and is our common fate no matter how great or small, we might be.

In all civilizations, the dead are duly buried, with elaborate rituals and rites. Death has such a finality and sanctity that wisdom tells us not to revile or criticize the dead. They have already gone away from our realm to another or into nothingness. We do not know.

Most of us, including me, did not know Nadia. Whatever her virtues or vices might have been, she is a person who chose to end her life and one does that only in an extreme situation of helplessness and angst or when the known world itself seems so alien that the unknown death seems a relief.

People who are devious, street smart and cunning do not commit suicide. It is only the ones who are so out of sorts with the way their life turned out because of their own choices or because of others, who take such a step. When they feel they cannot change their plight, they would rather die than compromise with the existing situation. Maybe if Nadia had a confidant or a real friend, she could have made the choice to live and fight it out.

Since we do not know, we have no right to pass judgments. More importantly so, it is inhuman to mock and scorn the dead, as these text messages seem to be doing. It reveals certain callousness towards other human beings, crassness, and an inhumanity that we all should be ashamed of.

A dead person is not a specimen on a laboratory table, for us to dissect or study and then pass profound moral judgments. What has calloused us so much that we can no longer feel, what the war poet, Owen, terms “the reciprocity of tears” or the ability to empathize and cry at the loss or suffering of another human being? If we cannot feel compassion, let us at least not make the life and death of a young woman, into a mockery.

Often many of us firmly lock the skeletons in our cupboards, and sit on high moral pedestals and pass moral decrees. A similar thing can happen to us or our children or someone we care for. A small quirk of fate, or a wrong choice or just chance could have put any of us in a similar situation. We are just lucky that it did not.

Or is it that we get voyeuristic and sadistic pleasure out of looking at other people’s lives and feel complacently safe that it did not happen to us? Maybe that is the reason Reality TV is so popular in our society. It gives people a chance to live vicariously without ever personally taking any risks and then sit smug and vindicated in their living room while others suffer and cry.

We are all meager, small, frail and mortal people. Let us recognize the fallibility in each of us and be more forgiving and compassionate to the people who could not cope up with what life had to offer. I hope it will be difficult to ridicule Nadia if we all realize our own mortality.

2010-06-18T19:35:00.000-07:00

Secular India and WOMEN

In the village where I live, in Goa, one can see women carrying hay or fish in a basket on top of their heads. There is nothing unusual in that, as I am sure rural India is full of such sights. The thing that is different is that the women are in jeans or some such modern dress. My milkman is not a man. She is a girl who wears long comfortable shorts, comes in a car, and is doing her Masters degree. Well!

These are all women evolving out of their stereotypes in society and consciously or unconsciously choosing hitherto new paths in their social journeys. All these women who go about their daily work, irrespective of being aware whether they are making any statement or not, are admirable women. And quite a pleasant surprise too. They are not content to play second fiddle to anyone.

Education has helped women build up their confidence. Globalization and the media have helped even the ones who are not fortunate enough to be formally educated. Women are getting acquainted with other women all over the world and perhaps want to adapt their lifestyle and dress code, as it is in many ways, liberating. Women are asserting themselves in careers that were traditionally male domains. They outshine the males in many academic performances. They are, on TV, quite candid and articulate about their views and lives. They are in politics, at ease and in command. They are in the forces, intelligent and physically trained.

That demure, shy, submissive woman is not as common as she used to be. Today’s woman is doing all the things she can, not really with a sense of rebellion but because she is capable of doing them and knows it. Since women form half the population of this country and half the population of this country are at basic subsistence level, we need to focus on “poor women”. Many of them have seen the lifestyle of the rich and the emancipated women, in the media or in reality, and thus want the playing field to be leveled so that they too can reach that status.

Any party like the BJP or the Ram Sene Or Shiv Sena, who emphasizes on traditional values and berates women for changing to modernity, is not going to be very favorably viewed by the modern Indian woman, of any class. This woman, who has got enough exposure, knows that only that political party that has an agenda of development and takes actual concrete steps towards that development, is a party that will win her over. Traditional values maybe sacrosanct for most of Indians and we are still a very traditional people, but that, in no way stops us from embracing some modern views, ethics and lifestyle.

Women have always been transcending the limits set by society but this has been accompanied by a fair amount of guilt or uncertainty as women are so trained from childhood to always keep in mind, society and “what people will think”. However, women today, have gone a step further and have rejected that sense of apology or guilt and have made choices of marriage, careers and social behavior, without feeling any mortifying self doubt.

Many women I know are social drinkers and yet perform various religious rites, like the Karva Chauth, with equal ease and real devotion. But why should the two things be mutually exclusive? Now, when this modern woman talks of Bungee jumping or of joining the police or goes to drink in a pub, she is merely doing it because she does not see any contradiction in it with regards to her ‘inner being’ or her ‘social self’. She is not on a binge of trigger happy rebellion or rampant erratic behavior. She is merely exercising a rational choice, which education, social exposure and development have presented before her and is as correct or as fraudulent in that choice as men are and have been.

And all of this has been possible because India is a democratic and secular country and our women are not in purdah or living a half hidden existence, like many women in non secular countries live. Thus being secular and non communal is fundamental to the progress of women and Indian women are already aware of that and they would not like to go back to the Purdah, literal or metaphorical.

For the BJP to be a strong opposition party and, if at all, a prospective ruling party, it is important that they woo this new Indian woman, who is looking for better education, better career opportunities, better lifestyle, better income, more self expression and respect.

Instead, they have been alienating this woman and trying to push her, figuratively, into a sexist ghetto as women in fanatic countries have been. Women in India are horrified with the diktats of the Taliban and do not want that kind of policing in our own country. Any kind of fanatic approach to religion, society, morality, traditions and values---and the woman realizes that it, ultimately, is going to affect her life in a fundamental way, because it is the women who are often the first targets of any kind of fanaticism and undoubtedly the first targets in all kinds of communal riots.

BJP, as a party needs to introspect that it is development and opportunity that need to be the key issues on its agenda, and not a fundamentalist, draconian, repressive, communal ideology. This ideology has always failed to gain any kind of real momentum in India. People of this country are largely secular, whichever religion they might belong to and women have realized that their empowerment is linked to secularism in particular.

If the opposition is sensible, it should wake up to this powerful half of the population. It would be better to unite this colossal and great country with secularism and harmony than to bind it on principles of religion or community. A strong, stable, non communal, progressive and secular country is essential for social development.

And that is what women want.

2010-06-16T00:33:00.001-07:00

The ugly power nexus

There is a strong nexus within the power structure, between politicians, bureaucrats, police and judiciary, in this country. The nexus however is not to work as a team to safeguard the interest of the common man. It is, often a nexus to hide their own misdeeds and leave the common man bereft of any justice at all.

We thought we saw a paradigm shift with the Ruchika Geherotra case finally coming out through the media and the whole nation avowing support for the fourteen year old girl who committed suicide because she was unable to take the harassment meted out to her through all those law enforcement agencies mentioned above. But maybe, we were too hasty in placing our hopes on it.

Power works in devious ways when there is no accountability, as is sadly the case in our country. The perpetrators of this power know that they can get away with almost anything and thus certain arrogance develops in many of them. The manifestations of this arrogance can be seen in varied ways. It might be to amass wealth or land or invest in illegal businesses etc.

Most importantly, in contemporary times, the megalomania of these people, leads them to such lengths that they view other individuals as objects, which can be used, as means to their ends. The brunt of this acute objectification, in a patriarchal society is borne by women, more than anyone else. And usually the women are not part of the power nexus. They are hapless common women who either get lured by the power structure or are victims of forced abuse.

The Ruchika Geherotra case and its judgment are celebrated today and we are all happy and relieved that the grinning cocky Rathore is finally facing the consequence of his heinous act of molesting a fourteen year old girl.

But we are all neglecting the main issue here. And that is, the whole power structure in this country which makes it possible for a man working as a senior police officer, who is supposed to protect people, himself, shamelessly indulging in such an act and then using government machinery in his own favor and getting away with the crime for TWENTY YEARS!

In the meanwhile, the victim, a young bright girl of fourteen has committed suicide because she had to pay the price of standing up against a powerful man and filing a case against him. She was harassed and eve teased by the police. She was thrown out of school. Her brother was charged and jailed for fabricated offences and tortured. Meanwhile Rathore was promoted and honored for exemplary service. The whole power nexus colluded in trying to break the spirit of each individual in the family of Ruchika because she had the courage to stand against injustice and was not willing to compromise her integrity.

The questions that come to mind then, are---- How can we all break this vicious circle of being abused, and then being too scared to stand up against the abuse, and thus get abused again??

We need to examine what is so fundamentally wrong in our society that in spite of living in a democratic state, we have no rights at all and no wherewithal to fight against injustice? And even in cases where the will and wherewithal is there, society makes it so difficult for a woman to actually stand up and expose herself and demand justice??

Or are we teaching our boys and sons to objectify women and not respect the sanctity of another human being’s life?? And are women not becoming the worst enemies of women in vulnerable positions? For how many mothers in this country have the courage to fight against the wrong done to her daughter and how many brothers have the guts to stand up for their integrity?

Ruchika was lucky to have a family and friends who valued their self respect and integrity. Not all are that lucky.

2010-05-31T00:48:00.001-07:00

Marriage—an individual choice or a social one??

The daughters of Eve and the sons of Adam - from where then, does caste come into this idyllic paradigm?

Or was caste born, along with sin and suffering, when the fall occurred and Man was sent out of paradise? Seems likely, as caste, surely is sinful and makes one suffer terribly!

Young lovers in Haryana have been suffering the brunt of it and paying with their lives. The Khap’s logic is that people from the same gotra are like siblings and thus their union is incestuous. Well, caste and sub caste and gotras were formulated during the Vedic period in India and since then many permutations and combinations have taken place in marriages. Hence racial or class purity has dwindled or rather paradoxically flourished into dilution and variety of offspring. The chances of the same genetic material overlapping, even among the marriages within the same gotra are very few. But if we were to use the logic of the Khap panchayats, we might not marry or mate at all, since all daughters of Eve are sisters to all sons of Adam!

While this logic can contribute phenomenally to the thrust of family planning, as the ghastly forcible vasectomies during the Sunjay Gandhi tyranny did, it does little for the people who fall in love without first contriving to checking their caste, sub caste and gotra!! The very concept of caste in a marriage becomes important, especially in villages and small towns, because marriage is seen less as a union of two individuals and more as a social pact. The man and woman are not left alone to make the biggest choice of their lives. It is the whole village or town that has a say in it! To appease everyone and yet fall in love is perhaps extremely difficult. Some or the other person in your community or family will always have objection to the one you choose as a life partner, whether in a socially acceptable marriage or otherwise.

The question then to be considered is, that is marriage more of a social pact or is it more of an individual to individual one?? If the khaps have their way, then in their patriarchal set up, marriage is an extremely social issue and it is the right of every male cousin, every uncle, every grandfather and every male neighbor, to decide who the groom to be, should marry. Women too are a party to this provided they concede to what the men decide! No wonder, women are often co perpetrators of honor killings. There have been barbaric cases in rural India where mothers have demanded the killing of the daughter for marrying the wrong man.

Can a wrong choice in marriage become such a social crime that it needs to be so severely punished, and so brutally, that the mother becomes privy to it? How does marriage between two people acquire such a colossal social significance that the entire family’s and community’s honor gets linked to it?

Our young MP from Haryana, Mr Jindal has been opposing honor killings while, simultaneously and, vociferously supporting the khap diktat, that same gotra marriages are anti social. He even went to the extent of asking a question to a TOI reporter whether she herself would marry within the same gotra?! One wonders if Mr Jindal’s claim to modernity is limited only to the hoisting of the Tricolor everywhere and anywhere, while he supports barbaric and outdated social postulates. Does empty form mean more to him than the very essence of a modern progressive thinking? It would not mean much to the young couples who are running for their lives to know that he has earned himself the modern privilege to wear a tricolor broach on his clothes everyday, while they are brutally hacked to death by a barbaric decision. Age old draconian social rules are often upheld in our country by politicians for fear of losing their vote banks and this cardinal sin is responsible for suppressing new voices of social change and progress.

Society is within us. We cannot escape it. It shapes us, and gives us a platform for growth and expression. We accept it or react to it but we cannot entirely escape it. It often gives us our moorings. It helps keep some sort of order, or civilizations would be chaotic. But there are some decisions, like marriage which are best left to individuals and their private space. The diktat of the Khaps is encroaching upon that very private space of individual choice, faith, perspective and lifestyle. A civilization can flourish only when there is a healthy dialectic between individuals and society. If society has to dictate every aspect of an individual’s life, there would be no scope for development, new ideas and change, in the world. Such autocratic thrusts are no better than Hitler’s extreme hatred of the Jews and his absurd beliefs in racial purity.

Does not say much for a nation, does it, if its deadliest terrorist caught in the jail gets the same sentence as two seemingly free people who inadvertently fall in love?? Are we then equating falling in love with terrorism and do both deserve death penalty? How absurd could we become as a society!

2010-05-31T00:47:00.001-07:00

MAKING VIRTUE OUT OF WEAKNESS??

How often have you heard women say to other women-----

“Join a car rally??? What a masculine thing to do!”

“You killed a scorpion?? My God, why didn’t you let the man do it?”

“Such a demanding career?? I would never to do such a masculine job!”

“You went alone to Spain? My Goodness, you are so bold!”

All the above actions are not great feats but are usually performed by males in our society. Most women, born and bred in a patriarchal set up do not do these things. Not able to define themselves in any fulfilling and positive way, they define themselves in the negative that they ‘cannot do this’ or they ‘cannot do that’. In our society, femininity is supposed to be weak. It is supposed to be a dread of killing scorpions, dread of pursuing a career, dread of taking independent decisions, dread of walking out of unfulfilling situations, dread of being assertive, dread of doing things which might seem unwomanly, like joining a car rally!

It is extremely feminine when you feel scared of every little thing and turn to a man with a maiden in distress syndrome. It is feminine to quit your job because your in laws do not want you to work. It is feminine to visit beauty salons and spend hours beautifying yourself. It is feminine to be abused yet stay in relationships for the sake of society or children. It is feminine to complain about everything and not do anything about it. It is so feminine to beg and request for things, you can never demand or command them.

I hope reading the above, you are not identifying with THAT idea of femininity! Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but all the above things put together paint a very whining, weak, ineffective and silly picture of women.

In our society women make a virtue of their weaknesses and of their inability to do things which men, and some women, can do easily.

Ours is the only species in all the animal kingdom where weakness in the female is celebrated and seen as a sign of femininity. In all other species, strength is not just celebrated but is also vital for survival. So the question that comes to mind is what kind of society do we live in, where it is commendable for one half to wail and cry and shed buckets at every small provocation, and so unacceptable for the other half to even sniff or shed a tear!

Often, women become the worst enemies of women. When faced with another member of their sex who seems to be handling a career, children, homes and themselves with equal ease, many women often become critical, because they themselves are not yet so evolved, as to enter, hitherto, male domains. They are afraid of taking risks, they are afraid of straying from the herd, they are afraid of making tough choices, they are afraid of making mistakes, they are afraid of questioning age old traditions and more than anything else they are afraid of how society will view them and judge them.

Well if society loves to see you as a weak, submissive, subservient, whining kind of creature and you are happy with that description of yourself, then you are already in your comfort zone! However, if you wish to do so many things that you dreamed of as a child, or so many things which other women are doing, then you ought to be strong enough to take the risks and go ahead. In doing that you will have a greater chance for self expression and lesser need to be jealous of other women!

Everyone is scared of danger. Women, more so, because for them taking risks puts them in socially precarious situations. The only difference is that strong women hide the fear they feel, better than their weaker counterparts, because they have made a commitment to be honest, first to themselves, and only then to the world. Being strong is in no way being less feminine. In fact if a woman has strength of mind and courage of conviction, her femininity can be all the more alluring and all the more lasting.

So participate in a car rally, swish past all the macho male drivers, and see how fulfilling it is!...... And what a riot you can create too!!

2010-05-27T04:58:00.000-07:00

OF FAIRNESS AND FAIRNESS CREAMS

As a child I remember the frequent screaming of my otherwise loving grandmother, “Come inside daughter, you will become like charcoal if you play in the sun all day long”. As a seven year old, I figured my grandmother had a deep dread for the Sub Saharan African black color and great admiration for the British colonial white.

“The British have gone Dadi and they left you behind” was my usual gleeful retort. As I grew older, I realized my brother was never pestered about becoming dark in the sun. Well, I just accepted all these special concessions made just for ME!

Since the sons of the soil have shown great affinity for the fair daughters of Europe, at the Goa village carnival event this year, I was supposed to play a Russian woman who is being chased by local men—to depict the degeneration in contemporary society. But again, the fair skin was the attracting point.

I have often been told how coconut milk can make one fairer, just as applying cow milk can. And lately, all these home remedies have been replaced by cosmetic fairness creams. The very individualistic argument is that if it makes someone happier to become fairer, well why not?! But the question to be examined is, “does it really make you feel happier?? Is Fairness quotient equal to Happiness quotient?” If that were so, then all the fair women of this country would be happy women. And I am sure we all know better than that!

The moment one starts using a fairness cream, one admits to one’s self, “I am not happy with the way I am and will become happy if I look fairer”. Wow, that is some premise to build your happiness upon!

Women, ever since they are born, are trained to look at themselves through the gaze of the others. We are often told how to sit, how to behave, how to take care of our looks, how to conduct ourselves in public and how to serve others. Instead of being happy within ourselves, we constantly try to be what is expected of us, and in excelling in fulfilling that expectation, we find a misplaced sense of self confidence and fulfillment.

Since most of my friends at some time or the other go for facial therapies, I feel wistfully left out. So one weekend I thought I too, should indulge myself in this pleasure. But just by a stroke of fate my neighbor dropped in, wanting to teach me a new recipe which I had been asking for. We ground and ground the masala, we fried and fried, we cooked and cooked, and over a warm cup of coffee, we exchanged so many anecdotes of our lives and discussed so many books we read. We connected as two human beings. The whole experience was pretty fulfilling, not to mention the sumptuous red Goan masala curry, we ate that day.

Next weekend I phoned my neighbor and told him that if he behaves like a good boy, I will send him a recipe that I tried. He smsed to me

“Oh God, good boy??!! I am so good that the Bishop is looking for me as he wants to place me at the altar in the Old Goa Church”. I laughed out aloud on reading this message. I also felt glad I had skipped the “feeling peeling healing” facial. In no way could it beat connecting with a good neighbor.

I, sometimes feel peer pressure when most women, I know, visit beauty salons and take such good care of themselves and look so well groomed. But I spend my free time writing for newspapers, which become fish wraps the next day! Writing does not make me Arundhati Roy, for sure. But it makes me who I am much more than a fairness cream would!!

2010-05-09T20:15:00.000-07:00

Moral Policing----We do not want it!

Morality is inherently a socially problematic issue. What is morality? Is there one single set definition that can describe it? Is your sense of morality the same as your neighbor’s? Can we all live in a carefully crafted society, which regiments our lives and allows us no scope for individual expression? Is your sense of morality the same as your grandparents?

Moral values vary from individual to individual and from era to era. Yet in every ethos, there is a certain general, unwritten and unsaid sense of morality. Various groups and parties, which do not have a well thought of and well defined ideology, play the card of public morality, hoping to get validation for their existence through it and hoping that the public will fall for the age old, self righteous do’s and don’t’s of social behavior. The moralistic agenda is a mere eye wash for the dire lack of ideology which all these institutions like Shiv Sena and Ram sena suffer from. Political mileage and publicity is thus sought through picking up the issue of women’s sexuality and its expression.

Something similar happened to Khushboo. Her spontaneous, off the cuff remarks were caught hold of, by some self righteously moralistic people and organizations and a whole debate ensued about pre-marital sex.

Sex is such a personal experience and personal choice, that no amount of social regimentation can really kill the impulse, not even in the Taliban ruled states where the penalty of illicit sex is through stoning and all kinds of barbaric punishments. How then, in a democratic country, where men and women rub shoulders at work places, offices, colleges, or while commuting or on social occasions, can it be possible to monitor the personal lives of people and consequently their sexual lives?

It is a fact of modern existence that internet, phones, sms make communication and accessibility between the sexes very easy. The actress Khushboo merely accepted this reality and remarked that it was fine for girls to indulge in pre-marital sex after taking precautions to keep unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases at bay. Later, she had justified her statement by saying no educated man could expect his partner to be a virgin. In no way does the statement encourage or discourage premarital sex. It only speaks of what is the evident reality of our times and hence the need to be careful.

However, the organizations which objected to this, deliberately misconstrued it, and implied that she, as an icon, was encouraging premarital sex, which according to society, is immoral for all, especially for women!

In a patriarchal society, women often have to bear the burden of morality, much more than men. From their childhood they are supposed to be demure, subservient and need to uphold the family honor by acting in a very socially acceptable way. Women’s sexuality is something which still makes most people in our country cringe with embarrassment. The socio-economic inequalities inherent in our society make the women more vulnerable in all relationships. But now when the women are coming out of their cocoons and making individual choices regarding careers, lifestyle, partners and social behavior, society is suddenly at a loss at handling this liberation. People do not know how to react and all of us set our own limits to this liberation and satirize the ones who have set further limits than ours!! In psychological terms too, people who are the least at ease with their own “self”, talk and gossip the most, about others. If people are so sure about their own morality, why does that morality get so easily threatened by someone who embodies a different morality? And is that morality so shaky that to protect it, you have to go on a witch hunt and public lynching, as was done to Khushboo?

Organizations like the Ram sena have branded the “social choices” for women as “social vices”??!! Referring to the attack on women, in a pub, by his party workers Mr Muthalik says “Women are being misused and misguided. We oppose this. Women have to be protected as the law has failed. We are the custodians of Indian Culture”….. “Their method was wrong. I apologise for that. It should not have happened. But it was done to save our daughters and mothers from an alien culture," a defiant Muthalik said.

We would like to ask Mr Muthalik what he is protecting us against. Is he voicing his concerns about feticide or going on a hunger strike against the practice of dowry or leading a campaign against rapes? No. His august Sena ignores all these hardcore issues which are forced on women all through this country. Instead it attacks women in a pub and physically abuses them. A similar impulse led to a fatwa against Sania Mirza for her short skirt. The “culture” that Mr. Muthalik seeks to protect itself is so multifarious that one cannot ascribe a single monolithic definition to it. India is a country where different eras coexist simultaneously and often anachronistically.

We live in many Indias. There is the India of highly educated urban economically independent women who get a chance to make their own choices in everything that matters. There is another rural India where women are on the wrong side of class, caste, gender and have almost no choices at all. There is a liberal India which almost mirrors the west in its lifestyle and values and there is the Feudal India with extreme patriarchal set up as evident in parallel law enforcers like the Khap panchayat. There is an India where everything is commoditized in the great economic boom and there is the India that does not get two meals a day. In a country that shows no uniform development, there are bound to be clashes between one India and the other, be it moral ethical personal or social values. A country cannot move forward unless its entire people walk together. When they do not walk together, fundamentalist and moral brigades get a chance to exploit the sense of social, cultural and economic inequalities, and indulge in moral policing.

Any kind of relationship, especially sexual, makes an individual vulnerable, emotionally and physically. If all you want to do in your life is to jump from one sexual encounter to another, you obviously have deep unresolved psychological problems and that kind of behavior can make an emotional wreck of a person. But for all the rest of the large majority like us, who live their lives without much sexual deviation or aberration or propensity, relationships are deeply emotional and personal along with being physical. Now why in the world would we as individuals be influenced by the likes of Ram sena, regarding our own individual sexual choices??

Khushboo has rightly made her triumphant statement as she emerged victorious after a long and traumatic battle against the moral brigades. Like her, we all hope that these people, who harangue about other people’s morality, have “SHUT UP”.

2010-04-21T23:21:00.000-07:00

Media--- sensationalism and trivialization!

News clippings from our newspapers---

PREITY AND NESS TOGETHER AGAIN?

CARMEN ELECTRA REGRETS GETTING FAKE BREASTS!

SUNANDA PUSHKAR: THE MINISTER’S “EXTERNAL AFFAIR”

I DON’T FEEL THE NEED TO MARRY JOHN! : BIPASHA

SHOHAIB MALIK : VICTIM OR ROGUE??

Do you feel strange after reading such news items? Is there a fraternity, like me, who wonder what Preity and Ness being apart or together, has to do with us?

If Bipasha does not want to marry John, are we supposed to rejoice or lament?

For days and days together the media carried the story of Sania and Shohaib and one poor fat deserted wife or not a wife! Maybe a one liner would be enough for us to know what the tennis sensation of this country is doing. But to go on and on about it!!!??

Why is then the press doing this? Why do our esteemed TV channels, with seemingly great commitment to NEWS, do this?

Who are they catering to? Is it to the great number of people who live on celebrity gossip and hence lead a voyeuristic life? Are their own lives so mundane and boring that all the fun is to be derived vicariously from other people’s escapades and other people’s miseries?

In catering to the masses, as is claimed by the media, are they not creating more readership of people who will read this type of news so religiously? Does this say anything to you about the society we are living in? Don’t some of us, who, when they see such items, feel a distinct sense of the bizarre and the absurd??

Media, especially, newspapers, magazines and TV channels, are a very powerful entity in our contemporary times. They have the power to formulate public opinion and thus they inherently have a responsibility towards that public. So much of initiation and flux of ideas takes place all over the world by one newsflash. So much so that the ramifications of it are felt like a ripple, more strongly by some and faintly by others. It is out of this initiation of thought process that political awareness might arise. It is this thought process that might lead to future radical thoughts and ideas. It is this which might lead to the intricacies of a protagonist’s mind, in a work of literature.

This is the far reaching extent and high impacting nature of the media today. Every, seemingly objective news coverage is going to have a very subjective response, depending on the socio-economic-political aegis of a community or individual. Media then acquires the same status in our lives as do our schools or education or text books because it forms a very substantial part of every individual’s experience and all experience contribute to our views, perspectives and consequently to public opinion too. In this scenario, where the media is the one of the great binding factors all over the world, it is very important to understand its power.

However, since the media is a relatively young entity, it perhaps does not realize its own power and is very often not acquainted with the responsibility it shoulders or rather should shoulder. That sense of responsibility is somewhere lost now, in the race for higher ratings and debating on non issues. How much do we really know about Shashi Tharoor and his so called lady love, to comment on their relationship and who are we to conduct a mass scale courtroom drama to ascertain whether Shohiab is a rogue or a victim? AND, more importantly how do their personal lives impact our lives in anyway?? Is their personal story going to change the quality of our lives? Is learning details about their sex lives going to bring a great revolution in society?

The Tv channels have been almost lynching the ex minister and his friend. Propriety has been perhaps transgressed by him but is it reason enough to hound him so mercilessly? Haven’t we seen bigger scams in this country where the Government’s money and hence the people’s money has been looted by politicians?? Many esteemed, so called feminist, journalists have tried to rip Sunanda apart with trivial details of her life, like her past relationships and her supposed plastic surgery. In what way is that relevant to the citizens of this country and why is the press creating this sort of inane readership and viewership? Right to expression is fine, but does it have to do away with the judiciary in this country and conducting nation wide media trials, very often on people’s personal lives?? And all this while the perpetrators of communal violence, dalit murders, rapes and corrupt officials are at large, scot free and thriving!!??

Seventy six men were butchered by the Maoists but the TV channels divided their time equally between the Sania- Shohaib mess and the massacre! This country has 60percent of its people below poverty line. There is Maoist and Naxal threat. There is the never ebbing terrorist threat. There is no safety or respect for women as is obvious in the number of infanticides, feticides, witch hunts, rapes and honor killings. There is not much credibility in the working of the government; there is hardly any accountability either. We live in an unsafe world where thousands are homeless and live on the streets of the metropolitan cities, like in the extreme cold of 2 degrees C, in Delhi, where newborns lie uncovered and unattended to on a concrete footpath, while the elite classes, boil and sanitize the bottles of their children or have maids to do so for them. Yet the media hardly takes up these issues and if they do, it is often to sensationalize and then never to follow it up.

We want to see this country develop as a whole, the farmers, the daily wager, the laborer. Media depicts the lavish lives of the rich and the famous and thus a poor man feels ever the more starkly, the difference between the classes. The media is one such powerful estate, which can bring about social awakening and change. Often, they do so, with great results. But very often they focus on non issues while this great big country is caught in such toils and travails and real hardcore survival issues. It is time that the media reassess its role in society and work towards development, rather than get caught in trivia.

Do we want to create a nation of thinkers or a nation of gossip mongerers? Media holds the key. Let them use it wisely, for all of us.

2010-04-17T02:16:00.001-07:00

Media--- sensationalism and trivialization!

News clippings from our newspapers---

GOA”S HEARBEAT: PREITY AND NESS TOGETHER AGAIN?

CARMEN ELECTRA REGRETS GETTING FAKE BREASTS!

SUNANDA PUSHKAR: THE MINISTER’S “EXTERNAL AFFAIR”

I DON’T FEEL THE NEED TO MARRY JOHN! : BIPASHA

Am I the only one who feels strange after reading such news items? Or is there a fraternity, like me, who wonder what Preity and Ness being apart or together, has to do with me?

If Bipasha does not want to marry John, am I supposed to rejoice or lament?

First Carmen Electra gets fake breasts—God alone knows why I should be interested in that!! But worse is that she regrets it---And should I call a penance ceremony for it?

For days and days together the media carried the story of Sania and Shohaib and one poor fat deserted wife or not a wife! Maybe a one liner would be enough for me to know what the tennis sensation of this country is doing. But to go on and on about it!!!??

Why is then the press doing this? Why do our esteemed TV channels, even the ones with great anchors, with seemingly great commitment to NEWS, do this?

In catering to the masses, as is claimed by the media, are they not creating more readership of people who will read this type of news so religiously? Does this say anything to you about the society we are living in? Or am I one of the very few, who, when they see such items, feel a distinct sense of the bizarre and the absurd??

Media, especially, newspapers, magazines and TV channels, are a very powerful entity in our contemporary times. They have the power to formulate public opinion and thus they inherently have a responsibility towards that public. That sense of responsibility is somewhere lost now, in the race for higher ratings and debating on non issues. How much do we really know about Shashi Tharoor and his so called lady love, to comment on their relationship and who are we to conduct a mass scale courtroom drama to ascertain whether Shohiab is a rogue or a victim? AND, more importantly how do their personal lives impact our lives in anyway?? Is their personal story going to change the quality of our lives? Is learning details about their sex lives going to bring a great revolution in society?

2010-04-15T09:45:00.000-07:00

Another honor killing in India-----A young boy of 18 strangulates his 16 year old sister when he sees her in a compromising position with her boyfriend on April 9, 2010, in Sonepat, Haryana, so near to the national capital of New Delhi.

Ved, 27, was killed in 2009, by a mob from, his wife, Sonia's village, after he arrived to retrieve her, as she was being held by her family against her will.

The bodies of Manoj, 23, and Babli, 19, were found floating in an irrigation ditch in the Karnal district of Haryana in July 2007, their hands and feet tied, after the Banwala panchayat ordered their deaths for marrying within their sub-caste, or gotra.

Du'a Khalil Aswad, 17, from Nineveh, was executed by stoning in front of mob of 2,000 men for falling in love with a boy outside her Yazidi tribe. Mobile phone images of her broken body transmitted on the internet.

Prabhjot Kaur and Pradeep Singh were shot down in broad daylight as they arrived at a school in the town of Firozpur so the bride could sit for her English exam

A Kurdish woman was brutally raped, stamped on and strangled by members of her family and their friends in an "honor killing" carried out at her London home because she had fallen in love with the wrong man.

“He who discovers his wife or one of his female relatives committing adultery and kills, wounds, or injures one of them, is exempted from any penalty”-----------This is actually a law in one of the most developed countries in the Middle East, Jordan. There are many other countries with similar laws. In India, there are no such Draconian laws. But, there is no need for a law! Patriarchy itself is an unwritten law, so deeply entrenched in our society, that its extreme forms are still suffered by women, as in honor killings, feticide, infanticide and witch hunts. And if that were not enough, there are the parallel courts of the KHAP Panchayats which are still going strong, as disrupting them would topple the vote bank balance. Though Honor killings have taken the lives of so many women, surprisingly, it is the first time that there has been actual punishment and death sentence, to six people who were involved in the 2007 case of Manoj and Bubli, in Haryana.

These heinous crimes against women are isolated stray cases, if one studies them in juxtaposition with other causes of death as in natural calamities or diseases or wars. So maybe we can continue are somnambulistic lives, after a bit of horror and pity. But are we forgetting that this is the society we live in, where such extreme reactions to women are still permissible?? Then no wonder the lesser crimes like domestic violence, rapes, desertions, social pressure, unequal opportunities, lopsided or no education, do not bother us at all !! And we do not even think of them as violations or injustices.

We sit in our comfortable AC environments, with our degrees in higher studies and our good jobs in metropolitan cities and read the national dailies and sigh for the woman slaughtered in an honor killing.

But are we so far removed from the horror as we would complacently like to believe?? Isn’t it all around us in some form or the other? Maybe women around us are not being killed for adultery or violating dress code or chatting on the Facebook or choosing the man they want to marry or rejecting their marriage (actual reasons for actual honor killings that have occurred in the past few years all over the world), but can we then extricate ourselves from the responsibility of such events, because we ARE living in a society where these crimes do exist? They exist either in their extreme forms like honor killings or the milder ones like torture, discrimination, subjugation and the never ending social and psychological pressures on women.

For every honor killing that occurs in the world, there are thousands of women suffering silently, through lesser trauma of all kinds of oppression. When we let the lesser crimes be permissible, we pave the way for more heinous crimes. We live it and we accept it in its milder form and thus it gets validity to be taken to its logical conclusion-----and that is to kill a woman who cannot be controlled by milder forms of suppression.

Though honor killings are prevalent in the followers of Islamic religion, their basis is perhaps tribal in nature rather than religious, as many cultures perform this barbaric act, in defense of the “honor” of their community or family. In tribal wars, it is shameful to lose one’s women to the enemy just as it is shameful to lose property or cattle. Women are thus property and are symbols of the honor of a tribe or community or family.

This concept of honor, of course is more applicable to women than to men, since they are objects, symbolizing the home and the hearth, and carry family traditions like chastity, dress codes, morality and submissiveness to patriarchy. For every woman who dies of honor killing, there are hundreds who die a daily death when they are less privileged than their brothers in the family, when their career options are narrowed down to suit the family’s needs, when their desires to reach beyond their limited social status is continuously crushed, when they are made to feel lesser by their husbands for not contributing o the finances of the family, while their paternal homes had never equipped them to do so! For a majority of women in South East Asia and the Islamic world, every little achievement is a triumph, because it is achieved against so many odds.

Women’s sexuality is socially a very difficult aspect to handle, in a patriarchal set up. In such a society, the Man symbolizes the external world of wars, occupations, finances, livelihood, and sexuality. The woman, though, is confined to the home and thus reflects the culture, home, family values, morality, compromise, submissiveness and subordination. While a man’s sexuality can find expression in many ways outside the family and home, and yet, let order prevail, the woman’s sexuality can subvert that order and the family, as in cases where she looks outside her marriage or if she gets involved with a man of another caste or tribe, or if she flaunts her body or sexuality as in transgressing dress codes. Since the unwritten rule of her subordination is so imbedded in the psyche of people, any kind of defiance on her part is viewed as a threat not just to patriarchy as a whole but very immediately, to her male family members who are not accustomed to such courage from their female counterparts.

Since women are seen more as possessions rather than individuals, that formidable element of “SHAME” comes into play when the chattel defies the master. Strange, and markedly strange, is the unnatural way in which fathers, brothers, uncles and even mothers have sometimes been party to these torturous killings as in the case of three Pakistani teenagers from South West Balochistan, who were buried alive after being shot, beaten and injured by many of their family members. Clearly, a Father’s role as a protector in these cultures is valid only till the daughter remains within the acceptable framework. Any step beyond that, and the father himself can turn into the perpetrator of violence, torture and death.

The essence, then to be understood, is that honor killings are just extreme symptoms of a disease that afflicts our whole society. We cannot root out a symptom unless we reach the very crux of the malaise itself. Any kind of discrimination against women, whether mild or extreme, needs to be dealt with seriously. Empowerment, through reservation in the elected seats of the legislature, through education, through equal opportunities needs to be the prime objective on this path of providing a leveled platform to women. In many cases women’s plight is seen only after their death, because society is so used to seeing them in a subjugated position, that unless the media highlights a case, it is given no cognizance at all.

“Every year more than 1000 women are killed in the name of honour in Pakistan alone.” In 1997, the Attorney-General in Palestine said that he believed 70% of the murders in Gaza and the West Bank were actually honor killings. Batman, a grey, bleak town in the south-east of Turkey is nicknamed "Suicide City". Three quarters of all suicides here are committed by women – nearly everywhere else in the world, men are three times more likely to kill themselves.

Why do we as a society wait for our media or our police or our politicians to take all the initiative and onus? How many of us at one time or another have been witness to violence or discrimination against women in our neighborhoods or with our maids, or in offices or sexual exploitation against innocent children and how many of us have actually had the courage to confront the violator or inform the police about it? Why do we resign ourselves to the plight of women and to the barbaric unwritten laws they are subjected to, TILL they are actually killed?

Unless we as a society recognize the discrimination against women which is done at a basic level in their everyday lived reality, in their paternal homes, in their marriages, at their work place; the extreme form of crimes against them, like honor killings will continue to happen.

Women have so long and so tremulously walked on uneven and unleveled ground that society has often not heard their whispers unless they became wails. Let us hear those whispers, while there is time, before crimes like honor killings silence them forever.

2010-04-04T21:46:00.000-07:00

The tomb of SALIM CHISHTI,…..and me.

You might wonder what Salim Chishti has to do with Sajla Chawla. Well the names obviously represent two different cultures and ethos. Yet there is a connection, so deep that only the ones, who have swayed, flowed and dreamt in their childhood, can understand it. Rationalists, fundamentalists, separatists, saffron brigades and orthodox mullahs, need not read ahead, as they would either doubt their sanity, or mine!!!

In those long lazy languid summer vacation, from school, I often had the opportunity to go to Agra and behold the splendor of the Mughals. And within the walls of Fateh Pur Sikri, lies a special place, where a strange custom thrives and draws thousands to it.

I was just seven when I saw it for the first time. They told me it is the Mazaar, or the tomb of one of the greatest Muslim Pirs, or holy men. Surrounded by marble walls with intricate carving in colored stone, the Grave looks beautiful and solemn, as if a great soul rests there. The seven year old was astonished by the devotion and faith with which people would come and bow their heads to the Mazar.

“What are they all doing mama?” I asked surprised, as I saw people untying and tying knots with thin red bands on the walls which had sieve like carved openings.

“It is just faith”, said my mother. But I wondered what faith was?

An elderly man with a silver beard and an exotic cap heard this exchange and came towards me.

“Daughter, if you want to wish for something in your life, just tie a thread here and ask God to make it come true. Our Pir does not disappoint anyone.” He said smilingly.

Our teacher had just narrated the story of Alladin in our second standard class, and to my delight I thought Salim Chishti had opened doors to my own Private Genie and if I tied a band there, my heart’s desire would be fulfilled.

“Really??” I asked wonder struck.

The man smiled and said, “Try it, my precious”.

So I took the red band, stood on tip toe, found a tiny vacant place, and tied a band wishing for a house which stood alone, between hills and river and valley.

Next year we visited the same place again. I had not yet got my house in the hills. In Delhi there are no hills. But I thought Salim Chishti could manage something just for me. We met the same man there. He was probably the caretaker.

“So did your wish come true?” he asked.

I was eight, a year older, and a little disillusioned with life.

“No Sir” I answered dejectedly.

“Oh come on, don’t sulk. Make a wish with all the passion inside you”, he said kindly.

Faith, childhood wonder, desire to believe and innocence made me stand on tip toe again, tie a thread and wish for more marks in my exams, so I could get a job soon and show that fifteen year old brother of mine that I earned my own money and would not be bullied by him anymore.

Sure as the blue sky, I got good marks, but no job, Alas! Maybe Salim Chishti could help me only some of the way. The Moral Science teacher taught us, “God helps those who help themselves”. So I decided to run away from home and join the circus as I was so good at gymnastics, cartwheels, parallel bars, and as nimble as a monkey on monkey bars. And after a major fight with my brother, I took off, looking for that Circus which would be my ticket to freedom from suppression.

I walked out empty handed from home, but full of strength from my belief in Salim Chishti. I was only aiding him in fulfilling my wishes. I walked till the other end of Delhi, till my father caught up with me. Everyone hugged me and my brother even said ‘sorry’!!

Salim Chishti’s power was working wonders I thought. Even though I was the youngest in the family, after that interlude, everyone seemed to respect me and I guess, were scared to scold me for the fear that I would run away!!!

Well, I never did it again. But later in life Salim Chishti gave me a good job and a house in the hills. And now I realize my bond with Salim Chishti was only the bond of childish wonder with something higher, something inexplicable. It bound a little Hindu girl to a great Muslim Pir, and it still does.

2010-03-22T22:44:00.000-07:00

Revisiting dark times-1984

Twenty five years have passed since the 1984 riots. What is strange is that the reports of resurgence of terrorism in Punjab coincide with the news of the disappearance and bail out of Sajjan Kumar. There seems no apparent link between the two. Is it really so?

Society is a web, a matrix. Social impulses or movements do not happen spuriously. There is a common ethos which leads to a certain thought process and hence certain actions and events. We are all products of a certain socio-cultural-political milieu of our times. We as individuals or communities may react differently to that milieu but we cannot escape it or live in a Utopia. Is there then possibly a connection between Khalistani terrorism and Sajjan Kumar?

Both are ugly faces of the same society. Terrorism is one face that seems to be worldwide phenomena today, whether it is the Jihadi or the Maoists or the Naxals or the Australians hitting out at Indians. The basic tenet of all terrorism is supposedly a group of people fighting for a common sense of identity, be it religious or political or caste based or as a state. But is it really so?? NO. Terrorism seems more a product of a few men using the sensibilities of a certain section of the masses for their own megalomania. Who are the people who are willing to die and become martyrs for a cause? Are they like you, the reader of an English daily newspaper? NO. They are the unemployed, disillusioned, poor, often illiterate youth that is easy to brainwash. It is a very convenient ploy used by terrorist leaders to blame the condition of a certain community, on its lack of proper “identity”. It is not too difficult to maneuver young vacant minds and gear them all up to fight for a common identity.

But the whole concept of that identity is hogwash, pretence, humbug. The real reason lies elsewhere and is much simpler. And that is ECONOMICS. Give the same young terrorist a proper education, a job, basics like a house and amenities, a secure environment, and it will be extremely difficult then to incite his feelings regarding a common communal identity.

Terrorism, then, is linked to economic exploitation and a set of political power equations, quite as much as politicians like Sajjan Kumar are--- And that is the link between the two. The basic fact is that in a state where a politician of the ruling party himself is the perpetrator of murder and riots, he feels he is above the law and has adequate protection from the government. It is under the same aegis that Bhindrawale, another politician-terrorist, rose to power. He had enough political clout, and became so fond of his own notoriety that the very people who nurtured him had to perform Operation Blue Star against him.

As usual, many common people were killed in fake encounters during those years; so many women were victims of both terrorist and police brutalities, many people died at the hands of the terrorists. So did Mrs Indira Gandhi. And then more people died in the 1984 riots, 3000 as a conservative estimate. Voting lists were used to identify Sikh homes. Many youth congress workers were part of the rampage. Yet after so many years and 10 Enquiry commissions like the Ahuja Commission, Marwah Commission, Jain Aggarwal committee or the Nanavati commission, none of the perpetrators of the riots were really punished and now one is absconding. If this is not government apathy, then what is it? Or are they giving more ploys in the hands of few fundamentalist terrorist leaders? These will be again employed by them to use the unbridled energies of the youth to join a Khalistan movement, knowing very well that Punjab cannot survive as an individual country and Pakistan is anyway a bad option for any state to align itself to, in the present times.

Are we then going to witness a cycle after cycle of politics-terror-strife-ineffective governance-riots-rapes-death? Yes, we will be hapless victims of this vicious scheme of things as there is too much disparity emerging between the classes, who have profited from the economic boom, and the ones below poverty line, a staggering 37 percent. The resentment in the unemployed, uneducated and untrained youth, which sees a government unable to grant justice even after 25 years, is a sure tool to be exploited by anyone who wishes to do so.

The opposition could serve the country better if they pay more attention to real hardcore socio-economic issues affecting the common man, his well being and safety, rather than keep raising the issue of a Ram Temple in Ayodhya or spend its time in castigating a Shah Rukh Khan or a Hussein. One fails to understand how any of this can in anyway improve the quality of life of any Indian?

I was 10 years old when 1984 happened. I did not realize I had a Sikh identity till then, or that it was different from the others in the Catholic school in Delhi, where I studied. My cousin had been kidnapped earlier that year by a terrorist organization and later released as his father, my Uncle, was a much respected doctor in Ludhiana. My father was a photo journalist, on duty, when Mrs. Gandhi was killed. We did not know whether he would return home. My brother migrated to the US after the trauma of the 1984 riots. I was myself sent to the house of a Hindu Uncle, for fear of rape and torture.

As I stood on the terrace of my parent’s house, I could see fire all around. Delhi, the capital of my country, was burning. And my family or I could have been possible victims when a large mob came, all dressed in white, carrying similar hefty sticks as weapons. It seemed a well planned aggression. They were obviously goons, sent by someone. My whole idea of a safe home, a secular country, an able government, a supportive community and all that I studied in school, was shaken up. I was one among many who faced this disillusionment. We survived the riots, unharmed. But I often wonder at the plight and psychology of the people who saw their loved ones being burnt, killed, raped, and that too after being ridiculed and tortured. These were also the people who had already witnessed a much worse trauma, that of the Partition.

Justice was not delivered to the victims of 1984. Are we then going to keep repeating our mistakes as a country and as a society? Unless the economy takes all sections of people in its stride, unless the farmers of this country are happy, unless basic housing and amenities are provided to all, unless education becomes a must, unless our youth is employed gainfully, unless there is a better standard of living for all---- terrorism is going to thrive and so are politicians like Mr Sajjan Kumar. They are both products of a similar kind, in a society which proclaims false notions of identity, ignoring the grass roots of all problems, that is----economic inequalities.

2010-03-19T08:15:00.000-07:00

LOOKING FOR YOU

Is this yet another piece on “Inner Beauty” and “world Peace”?? I HOPE NOT!!!.

Aren’t we all just tired of women dressed up to the hilt, all looking alike, anorexic, dying to eat a piece of cake, churning inside with depressive insecurities, but smiling cheerfully and speaking of inner beauty?? True, we live in the world of media, and true, it serves us a very stereotypical idea of beauty. But do we have to lap it all up in the name of being abreast with our contemporary times?

The way women are portrayed on the TV, in commercials, soaps and in many movies on the big screen, one would imagine they are all two dimensional, brainless beings. Be it cars or chips or milk or washing powder or even diapers, no advertisement really catches as much attention as when a pretty woman, wearing few clothes, is endorsing it. Well, it all adds up. We all want to defy natural odds and look beautiful. We all want to defy time and look young. We all want to defy hunger cravings and look slim. We want to be like the women we see on TV.

Really??? Spend a little time on the question. Do you want to be the one who keeps looking fresh out of the beauty parlor and washing clothes in a madly delighted manner? Do you want to be the ever so virtuous daughter in law who gets regularly beaten up by a terrible mother in law as in the soaps? Do you want to go around in your car and sit on the bonnet in a mini skirt with stars in your eyes and imbecility on your face? Do you always want your head to be bobbing stupidly and falling over a man’s shoulder, as if your centre of gravity was awfully awry? Do you want to make funny gestures with your hands like the MTV anchors do, and say “YO” “YO” all the time?? Or do you want to be so dimwitted that you swoon over a man just because he smells of a certain after-shave??

Obviously you do not want to become THAT. Yet, you cannot help feel that tinge of jealousy when there is a prettier or a slimmer woman at the party for which you dressed for hours. Now is this to go on all your life? A life spent in wistful longing to possess what you never had, or had, in your youth and lost it to the ever running, tireless, cruel TIME? Is this search for a false self to continue till you die? Or maybe you are looking for your self in all the wrong places and wrong things?

We can all sit back and blame the media for perpetrating an idea of femininity, which has no connection to real women with real issues like careers, children, bills, inflation, competition, relationships, patriarchy, social labeling and typecasting. The media objectifies the woman, her body and her mind, so attractively that we all want to see ourselves as those objects and become them.

But life is not just your tryst with the media, is it? There must have been so many moments in your life where you connected to people, in a way that was beyond any rules or stereotypes. There must have been so many moments when you even forgot who you are, while you were so overcome with the pain of others. There must have been so many moments of self realization when you decided that no matter what is socially right, you will do as your heart says. There must have been so many moments that you connected with the very wretches of the world, the leper on the road, the cancer patient dying in Shanti Avedna, the beggar child looking wistfully at your ice cream, the distressed friend who had no one to turn to, the lonely neighbor who once was so happy. All those moments made you who you are. And yet you want to be like that two dimensional skewed model who just wants to become fairer and goads you into buying hordes of Fairness creams which damage your skin and add to your downslide??

Constantly looking at your self through other people’s eyes disconnects you from your own self and from a meaningful connection with others.

I am looking for you just as you are, with all your flaws and blemishes. And so are so many others. Now it is your choice, whether you come forth just as you are, or hold back, in trying to become someone else.

2010-03-12T21:33:00.001-08:00

IDENTITY ISSUES- WHAT IS IN A NAME?

Marathi Manoos, niz Goenkar, Punjab da Puttar, Bengali babu, Telegu Bidda….If “identity” were just such a short delimiting label, we would be a nation of imbeciles. WE ARE NOT!

“Identity” is something that forms naturally as we grow up and experience life. It is formed by the socio-economic-cultural-historical ethos of our times. Do we want to keep that context very localized and parochial, pertaining only to our small state, religion, caste or language; or do we want to look at ourselves as part of a larger whole that not only comprises our local context but our national one, and, in this shrinking world, an international context too?

In philosophic terms as well, there is no sense of an “I” unless there is the “other”. We are products of a mixed society and have an identity in context to that society. Whether we adhere to it or rebel against it, we cannot de-contextualize ourselves and form an isolated identity, negating all that is around us.

Oil crises in the Gulf hits economies around the world. An African American president coming to power in America is liberation of sorts from racial prejudices for the whole world. What Marx wrote in the last century was sought to build many socialist economies. The concentration camps live on in the collective consciousness of all of us.

Red China, insecure America, racist Australia, the fall of Russia, Palestine issues, the Kashmir problem, the Gujarat riots, the Maoist rebellion, avant-garde literature, modernism, post-modernism, Google, cell phones, Bt brinjal, Hollywood, Bollywood, climate chane and environmental havoc ---- all contribute in forming our “identity”. Amidst this vast ocean of “identity” forming factors, our state, our caste, and our religion are just too miniscule to count.

However, when you deliberately want to live in a cocoon because you are aware you do not have much of an identity anyway, you seek haven in being a Marathi manoos. And once you do that, you are bound to see and expect your followers to see - a man brought up in India, who is the General Secretary of the Congress, only as a “ROME PUTRA”.

What is purity of race, caste and religion in our times? Can we after thousands of years of intermixing of races, ideas and culture, proclaim we belong to a high caste or low caste or Aryan or Dravidian race? And do we form an “identity” based on that alone? Then what about our individual experiences, our childhood dreams, our youthful aspirations, our wisdom in mellower years,? What about the school we went to, the careers we took up and the choices we made? Were they all done keeping our caste, religion or state in mind? Obviously not.

Finally, how is it that a handful of people are able to keep the financial capital of one of the world’s fastest growing economies on hold, indulge in hooliganism, threaten to disrupt a movie screening, announce their identity and differentiate it from the rest of the nation, not on the basis of progress or ideology or ethics, but on the fact that they merely happened to be born in that state.

A country like ours need not just a powerful but a responsible opposition party with a well defined ideology based on socio-economic issues. As a country we should refuse to be influenced by people who neglect these basic issues of our lives and constantly harp on “identity”- whether religious, caste based or regional. We cannot be a nation of illiterate, homeless, below poverty line, unhappy people, and content to live in cocoons of regional identities.

As an individual, my identity is the memory of all the experiences I have had, the books that I read, and the people that I met. It is as much in the enchanting early morning call of “Allah ho Akbar” in my childhood in Delhi, as it is in the pleasant sacred ringing of Church bells in my present Goan neighborhood. It is as much in the warmth of my Tamilian friend’s mother feeding me dosas, as it is in the hospitality of a wayside Punjabi dhaba. It is a common ground in every human heart that we all wish to seek; a common identity that brings people together as humans, in spite of all the beautiful diversity.

2010-03-08T00:08:00.000-08:00

DOWN WITH PATRIARCHY

It had been a long day and everything that can go wrong, had gone wrong. It was almost dusk and I stopped at the local supermarket to buy some groceries. The parking lot was full, with only one empty slot. As I thanked my stars and drove towards it, a middle aged man quickly swerved in, parking, not inside the slot, but behind it, such that neither did he use the slot, nor anyone else could use it! Well!!

I politely but firmly asked the man, “Could I please park in there?”

The man pretended not to hear. I got out of the car and asked him once more. He ignored and walked past, nose up in the air, with maddening nonchalance and a crazy stubbornness.

An elderly man, looking at my flabbergasted face, decided to intervene and said to the cocky man, “Why don’t you let her park if you are not using the parking space?”

The cocky middle aged man just strode past him with a smug smile on his face which was partly hidden behind an orange, henna dyed, beard.

By now I was fuming and seething with frustration. As it is, my whole day was spent in dealing with difficult men. The morning had begun with a lunatic trying to race me as I drove at a great speed to office. His ego probably could not take that a woman was a better driver than him. At the office, my co-worker, another man, was obviously sulking because I had done better than him in a skills workshop. And my boss had ruined my weekend by giving me too much homework. Oh these patriarchal, chauvinistic men! They either treat you like a china doll, or, make you feel you are too inconsequential in a man’s world. And now this!!!

“How does one deflate car tires please?” I asked a group of young men ogling at me. A gallant young man took a pin and said, “Just put it in there”.

So I just put it in there! Since I had never deflated a tire earlier, I was shocked at the loud hissing sound it made! OH God! The whole shopping complex turned to look at me and I guess I made a queer spectacle, kneeling down in my very formal office suit and puncturing tires of other people’s cars!!

Hearing the commotion, the cocky man looked down from his fourth floor office balcony and screamed, “Hey someone stop that woman!”

I looked up at him, guilty now. Not knowing what to do, I just waved at him. He was visibly enraged at this and started flaying his arms in the air like a mad man, “Catch her! Stop her! The witch is ruining my car!”

I looked up at him and wanted to justify my act, not just to him, but to the whole crowd that had gathered there and was looking at me suspiciously.

“I told you politely to let me park. But, neither did you park there, nor did you let me park. So now you face the music!” I said, while the tire made another loud musical HISSSSSSSS!!

The crowd was now cheering me on. One watchman came over to me and said about the cocky man, “He is in the habit of blocking parking lots. If we tell him to move, he hurls foulmouthed abuses at us. You are a very brave lady”.

Just while the second tire was almost deflated, the cocky man shouted from the fourth floor, “I will get you arrested. Oh you terrible woman! I will put you in….in….Afghanistan!”

Now I am a very politically aware person and that remark did not go down well with me. I must confess Joan of Arc had been my childhood ideal. The martial trait in me had come out in full swing by now.

“Alright”, I bellowed at the cocky man, “Will you call the police or should I call them, you rotten egg?!”

By now I was enjoying it. The crowd was shouting, “Yeah, Yeah!” We all seemed to be gladiators, in the lion’s ring, of some ancient barbaric civilization. Dr Freud was right. Man is just a “noble savage”.

And then I saw the cocky man move towards the lift to come down. Well, there should be a reasonable limit to impulsive bravado. And since I am such a reasonable person, I made a hasty retreat, sat in my car and sped off, smiling, and muttering gleefully, “DOWN WITH PATRIARCHY”.

2010-03-05T06:11:00.000-08:00

Our infinite identity

The claim to “IDENTITY” in narrow terms of caste, religion, state and race seems extremely suspect to me. I wonder what the whole noise is about. Can even one person proclaim, he is only this or only that, and validate it with a convincing argument? If so, then the person has to be an idiot or a fanatic.

Racial inter-mixing, mass migrations, cultural amalgamations, inter-religious influences, have happened ever since man started from that common identity of being a Homo Sapien. Then where is the question of absolute purity of even one pedantic social institution, that we subscribe to so fervently? If one views from a historic perspective, the very nature of religion or caste, or race or nation state has been different in different times. Society is constantly in a state of flux, such that even moral or ethical values are relative, then which ‘identity’ does one so faithfully adhere to, when that identity is always changing?

The change in an individual’s identity occurs at a plethora of levels. And the factors that influence that change might be so vast and varied. They range from personal, social, cultural, economical, and political; a whole gamut in fact, which makes that particular ethos of the times in which the individual lives.

Our fast developing economy, yet the plight of the poor, the rise of an Afro American president in America, yet the economic insecurity of his times, the fall of Communist Russia and yet the mammoth rise of Red China, the famines in Ethiopia, the homeless on the roads in Delhi winters, the rise of educated politicians at our centre, the enormous power that Media wields in our lives today, the corruption at every level in our Government offices, the music we listen to, the movies we watch, Google, cell phones--- all and many more, are factors which form our identities. To just brand oneself as a Marathi manoos, or a Punjab da puttar or nez Goencar or Telegu Bidda is a deliberate delimiting, diminishing, and falsification of one’s vast identity. All of us, individually and collectively as a society, are so much more than our states or religions or castes or our genes.

In philosophical terms too, the concept of “I” continuously changes and grows in context of the “other”. The “I” is not a fixed entity. Your thought process at one point and place in your life might be totally different from it, at another point. So anyone who tells you that your identity is definable in just one word----- as a Hindu or a Muslim or an Aryan or Dravidian or Marathi or Bengali or Brahmin or Shudra, and that you are nothing apart from that; is definitely involved in some propaganda and is USING YOU. In the process, he is also crushing your infinite “identity” and turning you into a brainwashed one-dimensional zombie. The question is, why on Earth would we allow that fatal event to happen to us??

Which is the Hindu identity that is being proclaimed from roof tops by the Ram sene and the Shiv sena? Does Hinduism itself have a very regimented and uniform identity all through this nation of ours? NO. The Hindus in Punjab have more in common with the people of what is now Pakistan, than they have with Hindus in South India. There is no difference in the attire of Muslim, Hindu or Sikh women in north India. And they all look extremely different from a sari clad, bindi wearing south Indian woman. While Hindus are largely vegetarian on Shiva Raatri, there is necessarily the sacrifice of a goat in the celebration of the same festival in Kashmir. While Brahmins are traditionally vegetarian in UP and Bihar, the ones in Goa cannot do without fish. If celebrating Valentine and cozying up as a couple is such a crime in modern India, what about the whole tradition of the Kaam Sutra and the ancient Hindu temples exhibiting sexual postures?

Similarly, what is the absurd concept of a “Jihad” in modern times? The misplaced faith in fighting for one’s religion just brings death, terror and destruction for ordinary people. And it also brands the whole religion and its people, such that even the secular ones are always defensive because however innocent they might be, they are looked at with suspicion. Why make your own people go through such trauma by giving them a false and narrow idea of identity?

Many Hindus have undying faith in Muslim Mazaars in this country. Many Catholics go to Zambavli Temple. Many people from all religious faiths visit the church of St Francis with awe and veneration. The cities of India have their unique architectural character because of the forts built by the Mughals and the majestic buildings built by the British. So much of our Indian music is influenced by the Sufi gayaki and ghazals of the undivided Punjab. We incorporate the western culture in so many ways in our life, because watching it in the media, influences us. Our common identity comprises of too many factors. Then why brand ourselves with a label which cannot even define an iota of one’s self?

This is a country of ancient wisdom, tolerance and acceptance. We are a smart people and the whole world recognizes that. So please do not sell us some nonsense of caste based, regional, religious or racial identities. We do not buy it. We do not wish to live in these, small, cocoon like definitions of our “IDENTITY”. All we want is a safe life, with some measure of economic stability and a clean progressive government. Both the government and the opposition need to have an ideology based on real issues which can give a better life to the country’s citizens. We cannot be a nation of under-nourished, illiterate, below poverty line, unhappy people, who are content to live in narrow concepts of regional identities.

As an individual, I come from quite a mixed stock. My great aunt was a Malaysian. We are ancestrally from what is now, Pakistan, and came to India during the partition. My maternal grandmother was a Sikh. All the rest in between, were Hindus. My father comes from a Sikh family. My sister in law is an Irish Roman Catholic. My favorite aunt is from Andhra. Another is from Rajasthan, My friends have been from all parts of this country and I have learnt so much from them. From Peshawar to Ludhiana to Delhi to Mp to Maharashtra to Goa, the generations of my family have migrated often. My identity might be a result of all of that. But it is also much more than that and I humbly accept that I cannot define it. When I myself cannot define my own identity, how can I let some vague person sitting in Bombay, define it for me???? I guess I am somewhere uncertain, floundering, discovering, growing, marveling, sighing--- just a human being, beyond definitions.

2010-01-27T09:13:00.001-08:00

CULTURE CURRY---MARGAO TO AMRITSAR

Punjabis are exuberant people. They celebrate occasions like weddings, birthdays, anniversaries and inaugurations, AS IF there were no tomorrow. Maybe it is the right way to live--- just in the present moment. Maybe it has historic reasons because the North West frontier has always borne the brunt of all the invaders who came into India, and its tough people are so used to seeing their houses and their lives fall apart one day and equally used to mustering up courage and rebuilding those houses and lives, the next day. Their’s is a turbulent history and maybe it shows in the loud mannerisms of the people, in their warm hospitality, their easily flaring up tempers, their love for song and dance, and their die hard attitude of “you only live once”.

I had an opportunity to attend one such, large occasion, in Delhi. “Large” is a key word for Punjabis, their pegs are Large Patiala pegs, their houses are large, their hearts are large and generous, their egos are larger than all that put together except of course their women are larger! It was “Happy weds Dolly” on the large elaborate invitation card. As I entered the colossal tent, which was decorated in the theme of the Arabian nights, a large elderly man came to me, “Oh my daughter, where have you been gone? Why have you left your own kind and migrated to that Portuguese colony?” And he gave me a bear hug such that I was almost smothered and breathless and oh my, I did not even remember who he was. And did he think Goa was still under the Portuguese? Well it is impolite to show no recognition of someone who is so warm and affectionate, so I took a chance and asked him how Pinky was, as there is always a Pinky in every Punjabi family. He gave me a look that spewed hatred and started a long tirade on how awful Pinky was and in spite of all the help rendered to him, Pinky was now absconding with his money and his youngest daughter. Good Lord!

Trying to look unfazed, I walked ahead where I recognized some familiar faces. One middle aged lady came towards me and I was a recipient of another throttling hug. She said, “Oh ji, how are you tussi? Enjoying in Goa shoa? You must sing a Portuguese song here today.”

Oh God! They all think Goa is a colony and I felt a pang for all the freedom fighters of Goa. “I really can’t sing much” I said most apologetically.

A man with a big moustache thrust a glass in my hand.

“Oh but I do not drink” I said shamefacedly, in this land of large drinkers.

An aunt of mine poked in, “Of course you drink-shrink, if you live in Goa. The Portuguese were famous for their high spirited parties!” And she gave me a naughty wink. It was quite an experience to see my country cousins now from a stance of an outsider, as I had lived almost fifteen years in Goa.

Meanwhile, I could see many waiters dressed in long white Arab robes gliding by. Soon some Arabic music started playing and young women dressed in Gypsy clothes swarmed the place, doing a special belly dance. Many men, drunk and sober tried to do the belly dance with them but it seemed like a scene from a comic strip, with one man’s stomach shaking, while another could only shake his neck, another just managed to shake his beard while another shook, while his turban writhed with a life of its own.

The hospitality was warm and personal. The food was so elaborate that one would have to spend an evening just choosing what to eat. Many of the people present there were Maninder, many were Satinder, Parminder, Joginder. A huge chunk was Surjeet, Harpreet, Manpreet. But the Happys, Lovelys, Dollys, Sunnys, Babys, Sonus and Pappus outnumbered everyone!

By the end of the evening I was the tottering recipient of at least a hundred warm hugs, I had met two hundred neighbors, had eaten fifty chicken tikkas, had gulped two cocktails, such that I seemed to be losing my centre of gravity. So when they asked me to sing a Goan song, I gladly obliged them with “Aoon Sahiba Poltordi woita”. To my surprise they all joined in, as Raj Kapoor, another Punjabi had made this tune popular in his movie, Bobby.

Suddenly on my right I saw a man, high to the hilt, almost screaming the song in a wonderful loud reverberating voice, singing the tune so well, but the words seem to be some strange gibberish like, “Astra pashaw pshaw wroom sta brita” “What is that language you are singing in?”

“Portuguese, I hope”, he said sheepishly.

Well!!!! And in my inebriated state I could not control my laughter and laughed very unceremoniously, while everyone there appalled at my behavior, thought, “Goa does strange things to people!”

2010-01-17T09:32:00.001-08:00

Sensationalism in the media and trivialization of Rape

Is there a judiciary in this country or not? If so, then why are all the high profile and sensational cases being tried in the media by politicians and media persons alike? The trial seems to be now occurring out of court and in TV newsrooms for all the country to watch, with skewed subjective perspectives which might have no connection to the facts of the matter or the plight of the victim or the alleged accused. Goa has been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately. One is because of the Media attention on the rape case and the other because of the vociferous speech of the MP of Goa in the Parliament.

Focusing first, on Media and its role in the present debate of the rape cases in Goa, is it really because the law and order situation here has drastically and suddenly deteriorated or is it because the media now chooses to rest its baleful eyes on Goa giving a much blacker picture of it, than what it deserves? Any woman, who has lived in any other city in this country, would be aware that the kind of relative autonomy, and freedom from male harassment that is there in Goa, is unique only to Goa. But now the media is portraying it as the rape capital of India, when statistically speaking there are much more crimes against women in other parts of the country, and Delhi, in spite of being the capital, is the worst off.

Media and especially news media, news channels and newspapers are in the present day world, a very powerful estate in all countries and societies, as much as the Politicians and the Bureaucrats are. However, often, neither do they, nor do we, the common people realize the enormity of their power or the impact it has on contemporary thought. So much of initiation and flux of ideas takes place all over the country by just one panel discussion on a news channel. Media then, also acts like an educator, as it causes a certain thought process to be initiated which consequently formulates public opinion.

When it can have such a powerful impact on our world view, it becomes the responsibility of the media to act with reason and sensibility, which many of the news channels are pathetically failing to do. Goa is a tourist destination and obviously a large chunk of the economy rests on tourism. The media is being highly irresponsible when it takes up Goa and focuses its attention on the rape cases, so much so that it seems there is nothing else that happens here. Rape is a heinous crime anywhere in the world. But why is that rape of a Bihari woman in Delhi or a Dalit woman in Uttaranchal of less consequence than of a Russian or British woman in Goa?

This country has serious issues to talk about and deal with, like the plight of farmers who are the food producers of all societies but in our country are being forced to suicide, or the various class inequalities or the fact that 62 percent of this country’s people live on Rs 20 a day. Why have we been so desensitized to all these issues while we are sensitive to what Tiger Woods does in his personal life or who Kareena Kapoor is dating? Isn’t it because Media is conditioning us that way? People argue that there is a demand and supply axiom being applied here, that is, media gives to the masses what the masses desire. However Media is powerful enough to go beyond this simplistic excuse and act with sensibility and sensitivity and educate the masses such that they focus on real issues that this country is ridden with rather than just sensationalism.

The Media does bring out the fact that no one is above the law, by exposing the megalomaniac traits of our politicians and hence there disregard for people and especially for dignity of women. But it often pronounces judgments even before a trial has taken place and often blows up things out of proportion merely for their sensational and marketable potential.

Coming to the second issue for which Goa has hit the headlines, is the speech of the MP. It is a pity that the representative of people in the Parliament, and that too, the house of elders and supposedly sensible people, should make such a remark. Rape is too traumatic a crime for any woman to have “invited” it. However misguided a teenager might be, can she ever “invite” rape and murder? It is all a matter of perspective to say that foreign women do not know what to wear or how to behave. If a group of women from any metropolitan city of our country or Goa, go and reside for a week in a remote village in Bihar, they are likely to be found appalling by the locals, who have never seen a woman in a skirt. So should we infer from that, that the women are inviting rape?? Moral, ethical and social values are very relative and are different in different places, just as they keep changing in different eras. BUT A CRIME IS A CRIME. And to make the victim a culprit by implying that she herself is responsible for the rape, is a gross disrespect of a human being, besides being extremely sexist and socially regressive.

How “different” are the women who go out at night, before midnight, from the ones who go after midnight? Does Goa change from a safe haven to a land of murder and crime and rape at the stroke of midnight? The whole essence is that it is the duty of our elected leaders to make a place safe at any and all times. And if a crime does occur, it would be more dignified on their part to apologize for the lapse in Police action, because if rape as a crime is adequately punished, logically, lesser men would attempt it. In blaming the victim and further victimizing her and digging up her past, background, family, morals, ethics and psychology –society is just trying to hide behind its own veil of hypocrisy and sham, and in a sense, justifying rape. Or else why is the morality and upbringing of the man who commits rape, never pointed at? Aren’t we then breeding men who rape by justifying that the woman provoked it?

Rape is RAPE, and a heinous crime, whether it is against an ordinary woman or a “different” woman or a child or a prostitute. The state has equal responsibility towards all of them. Women today are “different” from what their grandmothers used to be. Women in the cities are “different” from the ones in the villages. Women, who pursue careers in socially and historically male domains, are “different”. Western women are “different” from Indian women. Where will society draw a line anymore and categorize and brand women into just two slots of being “traditional” or “modern”? Haven’t women already proved that it is impossible to delimit them by putting them in such narrow categories? If rape is provoked by the “different” woman, then why is it that so many poor traditional women get raped too, and some of them within the framework of holy matrimony??

It is true that in the present times, the laws are so much pro-woman, that some of them take advantage of it and misuse them to frame men. But it would be in consonance with the democratic and judicial set up of our nation, if we wait for a fair trial rather than jump to misguided conclusions, triggered by the Media and Politicians, regarding such a grave social malady as rape.

2010-01-17T09:31:00.000-08:00

The passionate life

Everyone wants a life, a little larger than life. Oh to live life with a vocation or a passion or something which you can give your heart and soul to! Some might say it is not the way to live, as one might burn oneself with just the sheer verve for life and burn all others around you because the energy you exude is too unbearable. They might say that balance is what you need, a life carefully planned. A life lived walking the well trodden road, where there are no excesses, no transgressions and no transcendence. Alas! A life which quickly dwindles into diminutive mediocrity where one always says and does what is politically correct. And Lo! You are sixty, and you realize that you never lived life at all.

You created such an illusion of what your life should be that the real thing passed you by and you didn’t even realize. You ruminate, you ponder, and you know now, that at every juncture you had an opportunity to choose. It was your own choice to go for everything that was socially accepted and applauded. You chose a middle path with as few risks as possible. You feel so complacent that you upheld tradition. You gloat in your own success and the money you earned. Then where is the lack, you wonder?! Is there that special ingredient missing in all the cooking that you did from all the books that you read? Why is the zing missing in jobs, in careers, in bringing up children, in marriages and in all your obsessive compulsive habits that you so carefully inculcated? Is this what you were looking for? In the zeal of reaching where you wanted to, you missed most of the journey which could have been so much reason itself to celebrate.

The Itlaian poet Dante, in his poem The Divine Comedy, reaches the paradise he so fervently desires all his life, only to realize that the path itself was the ever eluding goal that he aspired for. Paradise was in the journey itself. A life lived with passion for whatever one does, such that the heart, mind and body become one with it, is a rare life indeed, and undoubtedly a well lived life. As the great Urdu poet, Ghalib writes in one of his very characteristic Ghazals,

Raghon mein daurdte phirne ke hum nahin kaayal

Jab aankh hi se na tapka to phir lahoo kya hai?

The life blood flowing in your veins is not something that moves me. That kind of blood flows in everyone. It is only when it flows through the eyes, it is only when the passion reaches that crescendo, that it is something laudable, all the rest is mediocrity.

It is the same theme of living one’s life with passion that is explored in the movie THE THREE IDIOTS and hence it’s immense popularity. Well who does not want to live their life at that pitch? But how many of us have the courage to? It is one thing to watch a motivating movie and find a catharsis to all your unfulfilled dreams, through it. It is quite another thing to stand alone, against the current, ready and willing to take all that comes and live your life the way you want to, against all odds.

The central character in the movie, played by Aamir Khan is beyond all definitions or ideology or labels. His identity, his name, his purpose in life, all are suspect as they cannot be understood in the traditional way in which we perceive reality, as our perceptions are so colored by age old and received notions of life, society, rationality and values. Yet, he touches everyone and connects with all, across the confines of class, gender, to all the various historic eras which simultaneously exist in this large country of ours. What is so appealing about the man he portrays? It is that special zing that we find missing in our lives and he has that in plenty! So are we all craving then for a new, original and creative way to live but are too bogged down by the social sense of right and wrong? All through the movie he seems to be doing things that all of us at one point or another wanted to do in our lives but the society within us stopped us from doing them.

Making mistakes has its own pitfalls. But only those who live to the fullest, commit those mistakes, as they live life in their own special way. The large majority just sits on the fence, awfully bored, had and done with! Perhaps they are wistful, perhaps envious, of those who dared to live a life of passion and intensity. Maybe burning like a flame has its own charm. But one has to live it, to know it!

2009-12-16T07:57:00.000-08:00

RAPE OF THE SOUL

As if rape were not heinous enough, over that is loaded the callousness of policemen and the push and pulls of politicians. Now Goa's Rajya Sabha MP has made a statement in the Parliament, that when rape is against “a woman who moves around with a person beyond midnight” it should be treated differently. A frog in the well does well, when he is a frog in the well and should not perhaps get out of it and harangue such parochial and sexist remarks in the most colloquial and literal translation of Konkani, as reflected in the words, “moves around”. The question that comes to mind is, what does the MP mean by the word “different”? Does he mean it in the same way as one should not drive at night as it might cause an accident?

It’s a wonder how in an overzealous attempt to be loyal to his state and to the “sons of the soil”, the MP quite neglected the other half of his state - the daughters of the soil. Or does he mean that since both the girls that he referred to were outsiders and since anyone outside the small boundary of Goa is a “GHANTI”, the girls were more "ghanti" than "ghantis", since they are from other countries altogether? Well perhaps he was just trying to defend Goa, which unlike what the media is currently projecting it to be, is relatively a safer place for women. Undoubtedly so, if one compares it to the country’s capital, Delhi. Whatever his motives might be, the MP obviously spoke with his foot in his mouth and consequently created uproar of protest in the parliament.

Rape is a word which exudes repugnance, shame and trauma especially in the psyche of a woman. It is the ultimate physical subjugation of a woman. No matter how empowered she might be, “rape’ confirms that she is physically weaker than the man. For a woman, the word “rape” signifies something that can happen to her and thus is always associated with fear. For a man, the word “rape” means much lesser, because it is something he is not ever likely to suffer. Men and women thus view rape entirely with different perspectives. So the whole question of “women who move around with men past midnight” is sought to be seen as “different” because that is the only way rape can be justified, - by implying that the woman invited it. Hence the victim becomes a culprit, while the real culprit sits pretty in the smugness of this skewed argument. The accused is absolved and so is the government and police of Goa. But one would like to ask the MP of how he would justify his remark that the woman was "different"? Where does the difference lie? Where will one draw the line between an ordinary woman and the "different" one?

The women in the medieval times who were burnt as witches were different. The woman who works in male dominated domains is different. The woman who chooses to become an air force pilot is different. The woman who chooses to stay unmarried to pursue a career is different. The woman who is a single mother is different. The woman who flouts patriarchal norms is different. Women who work in night shifts and travel late at night are different. Well, should they all be burnt at stake or should they get a chance at justice just as their more traditional and ordinary sisters? Or should women be constantly persecuted, firstly because they are women, and, secondly because they are different kind of women??

In the post industrial era, women contribute phenomenally higher to the economy, than they did in the agrarian way of life. They are now an important entity as voters, in the political arena; consumers, in the market place; and contributors in the family’s economy. Women are trying all the careers which were traditionally male domains. Women are experimenting with all the social vices, virtues, norms, subversions, beliefs, revolts. They are causing ripples and sometimes even upheavals in their lives and the lives of those around them. They are definitely changing the way they look at themselves and the way in which society looks at them.

But, in a herd culture, the path less trodden is naturally fraught with suffering. Especially, as in the course of history and civilization, women’s presence in public spheres, is a relatively recent phenomena: 12000 years of confinement to home, to the mere 250 years of post industrial stepping out of home. Everyone needs to change and everyone needs to start accepting the “different” women, beginning with the MP of course, since his responsibility is not just towards men and traditional women, but also towards “different” women, just as towards people from different castes and religions.

The society has to adjust to the change. More importantly, it is the woman herself who has to feel comfortable with her own evolution. But women are torn between the way they are supposed to be traditionally, and the way modern science, industrialization and technology is naturally evolving them and their functions in society. The conflict is so intrinsic that women are often uncertain and floundering, trying hard to keep a balance between tradition and modernity. Hence many rape victims do not even file a complaint and many retract their statements as the whole fight for justice becomes almost as traumatic as the rape itself. What kind of message does the statement of the kind made by the Mp, send to rape victims? What confidence, then, can the victim have in herself or the government and the judiciary?

In such a scenario, dilemmas, confusion, self doubts, wrong choices and desperation abound. Leave alone rape, the Times of India recently reports that over 40% women in India are victims of domestic violence and 54% of them think it is justified! Women like Sonia Gandhi or Pratibha Patil are obviously not a representation of the general women in our country. They are mere exceptions. For a large number of women in India, life is at best a compromise, and at its worse, like the dalit women who are often raped and killed by the upper cast men or the killing in the womb itself or the poor nourishment and no education or child marriage and domestic violence.

Coming to men, well not all men are rapists. The ones who rape are ‘different’ from the norm. Then why is it that in all the cases where men are accused of crime, it is the woman’s whose background, morality, psychology, family and ethics is questioned. What about the man who has committed the crime? Or is it that questioning his background will open the Pandora’s box and a whole society’s sham and hypocrisy will be exposed?

Maybe it is a moment in history where women are still trying to discover who they are and what they want and how much they can handle. I hope they reach a juncture where their struggles would just be the same as men’s, as individual human struggle usually is, with finances, diseases, fate, jobs, calamities, poverty, governments, exploitation, sorrow.

As it is, there is so much in our lives against which we humans have to keep striving. At least at some point in time I hope women’s strife in life stops arising from the fact that they were just born as women, and not as men.

2009-12-14T01:04:00.001-08:00

As told by a friend who now resides in France----

My earliest memory is of my father picking me up by my shirt and trying to throw me in a well. I remember struggling and screaming, not that I particularly wanted to live, but because I was scared of death and the water that would suffocate me. Someone from the neighborhood intervened and I was saved, while my drunken father was chastised by horrified onlookers. My mother had died just a year back, of illness and a hard beating that my father had given her. I remember she had loved me. Love was a faint memory for me. It meant my being hidden in her lap under her saree pallu whenever anything unpleasant happened. That was love, when I felt protected from the big bad world, personified by the man who had given birth to me. She shielded me, putting her own self at stake, for she would take all his blows and abuses and keep me out of his way. When he would fall asleep in a drunken stupor, she would recount me the stories of her life with her parents. She would give me whatever little food was there in our broken down hut and then she would sing me a lullaby and put me to sleep and I would dream of a better life for her and me.

She died when I was six, before we could have that better life. Instead, I was at the mercy of that terrible man whom I called Father. I took all his beatings after she passed away, till he was on the verge of killing me by throwing me in the well. And that is when I ran. I knew no other world except that neighborhood. But some hope which had emerged from my mother’s stories and lay dormant inside me, made me run away from that monster, towards---I do not know what or where. I had yet to find out.

I ran as far as I could but the city squalor continued and I could not see even a semblance of a world that my mother had told me about. It became dark and I fell asleep, tired and hungry. Next day I saw some children begging for food and money and I did the same. I got enough to eat and I decided I would not beg any more. I decided I would work and soon I got a job to serve tea at a small tea shop. I slept there at nights and dreamt of my mother. She had given me an idea of love, goodness and nobility, that no one could or ever has.

I was nine when a French couple came to the shop as their car had broken down. The owner of the shop told them my story and somehow they felt a connection with me. They adopted me and once the formalities were over, they took me to France. They were very kind to me but I found their country and their ways so alien to ours. I was admitted to a French school and I went through agonies of inferiority as I became the object of ridicule because of my color and because I could never eat with a fork and a knife.

After many years I got used to my new way of life. My new parents loved me and made me what I am today. I was educated in a good school and went to the university where I majored in European Literature and now teach as a Professor. I have borne a lot in my life and I know I am one of the very few lucky ones who were picked up from the streets and got a home.

Sometimes I wonder why I had to endure so much as a child and more than that I wonder why my mother had to die? Why are there people like my father, who torture and beat? Why are some lives so disfigured? I find no answers in science or religion or spirituality or in all the literature that I studied. Each of us seems to have been thrown into this world with a random fate or luck or whatever you call it.

The only thing I know for sure is that I was loved so passionately and selflessly by that frail and helpless woman who taught me to dream of a better world. Here I am, mother, a very ordinary human being who has been lucky. All through my life whenever I have feel lonesome, I just close my eyes and the smell and touch of her saree comes back to me and keeps me going in life, strong and smiling……for I have been loved.

2009-12-12T06:38:00.000-08:00

Mr X

On an ill fated day in the mellow autumn month of august, I decided to embark on the long procrastinated purpose of replacing the broken lid on my house’s water tank, up on the roof. I found this dashingly professional company on the Internet, which was a pioneer in putting lids to gaping mouths of various tanks and of various over smart people like me. Feeling very much a part of the IT savvy world, I contacted them and requested for the much exclusive lid. The man arrived the next day in the company uniform and my admiration knew no bounds when he meticulously did his job and cut the rim of my tank to the size of his lid! Well, if that was the way to do it, why not?

Everything seemed just fabulous till the next day when we realized there is no water coming out of the tank and I was left high and dry while in the middle of a shower. Along with all my entourage of domestic help, I climbed the seldom frequented roof top. As we peeped into the tank, to our shock we realized that the very efficient man from the dashingly professional company had left a million and one shavings and pieces of the tank rim in the tank itself and they had got into all the water pipes. To rectify the problem, each and every wretched pipe would now have to be cut or opened. Piteously, I held my head in my hands on the rooftop in the sweltering sun, wanting to scream. But being very smart as I earlier said, I sent a mail of my woes to the very professional owner, Mr X of the very professional company.

Holy cow! The guy did not reply and so I sent him a stinker. Out of town on a business trip, he saw the stinker first, and replied me with a stinker. By this time both are tempers were high. And I was on fire because the great entrepreneur refused to believe that the clogged pipes were because of his man’s carelessness. We wrote each other many a nasty mail. And to my dismay, in my confusion and anxious state, I sent a mail meant for my best friend, to Mr X. The mail contained all embarrassing details of all my erstwhile crushes and the more recent one on George Clooney. The mail also contained a tirade of complaint regarding the dire lack of George Clooneys in Goa.

Mr X seemed pretty gentlemanly about the mail but continued his stubborn stance over the water tank issues. He finally agreed to send his plumber to check the credibility of my story. The plumber, very professional, immediately saw the million pieces and deciphered that it was indeed the fault of Mr X’s careless lid fitting guy. So he cut up several pipes of my house, ostensibly to clean them. And he did. Mr X wrote, “All is well that ends well”.

WRONG. It was only the beginning! The plumber had left a kitchen pipe not tightened properly and next morning, the whole floor was like Kolva Beach and I sat by its side, sipping Beer, to cool me down so I do not strangle Mr X. The water slowly seeped through the floor into an electric circuit and started dripping out of the electric call bell in the servant quarter and the wall started giving an electric shock and every minute of my waking life and every minute of my nightmares was filled with MR X and his dashing professionalism. Soon the whole circuit went KAPUT. The fridge point and the water filter were a part of the circuit and so I had no working fridge or water filter anymore. And all for a fancy tank lid!!

Mr X, by this time had washed his professional hands off the matter and left me alone to deal with the chaotic aftermath of the revolution his man had caused in my house. Since I could not leave the house in such dire straits of water and electric shock, I had to postpone my tickets of a well deserved holiday. It cost me a few hundreds for the lid and a few thousands for the consequences.

Over a period of time I got over the maddeningly complacent Mr X. I ran into him around town and noticed he was very stingy with his smiles. I forgave him, good soul that I am, and sent him a reconciliatory quote from George Clooney. Instead of rising to my friendly expectations, Mr X woodenly, reiterated the professionalism of his company.

This time I lost it for good. How much can a person take after all?? And so I blurted out, “Mr X, you can see nothing else but your water tanks and lids. They block your vision. In fact, you will soon become a water tank yourself”, I thundered. And then I ran away from what could have been the scene of crime, for I would not want the murder of the tall, dark and handsome Mr X on my hands. DELIVER US FROM TEMPTATION O LORD!!

2009-12-12T06:19:00.000-08:00

Beautiful morning.

The morning comes here so slow and languorous, happy and content, like a bride who is much loved and cherished the night before. The Church bell goes Ding dong Ding Dong, but the Rooster needs no such wake up calls. He woke up himself and woke everyone around him, long before the morning came. Between his crowing and the first light of dawn, Morning stands for a while, pondering and unsure. Time stands still for those few moments and we lie in bed, sleep strewn, fresh and sanguine. Then suddenly she wakes up from her trance and the birds start chirping, all together in one great orchestra which seems to have no musician to direct it. Yet, the sound is harmony and beauty. The village stirs, yawning and refreshed.

Soon there is a crescendo of sights and sounds. It is the moment that Morning has been waiting for, standing behind the shadows. Now she sweeps the hillside and the valley in one toss of her skirt, sudden and swift. And all changes in a moment. Gone is the darkness, the birds chirp louder than before, the Sun comes up from behind the hill, pink and orange, a few cirrus clouds are hovering way up in the otherwise clear sky and coffee melts in my mouth, brown and aromatic with all the passion of the Earth that engendered it.

The cheer spreads and I see dogs frolicking around as Morning walks along, now strong and resolute that she is the harbinger of the day. The milkman comes smiling up the hill with fresh cow milk. The neighbor’s dog is most offended that there is no milk for him and tackles the milkman on the way. Some of the milk spills, white and thick on the road as the naughty dog slurps it up. Morning stops for a moment to gleefully witness this quaint scene, while the milkman fumes. She then walks ahead, almost marching now, heralding a new day for all the sleepy ones still in bed, annoyed at their laziness.

She goes sauntering up the hillside, where the long grass sways with the wind, in waves of gold and corn. The sky is now a bright orange, in the east, where the sun is brightly emerging. The rest is, oh so blue, like the river below it, which glimmers now as it reflects the light. I see a golden snake with beautiful brown markings, make its way up a tree to stand aside as Morning goes up to the sun kissed hill where the trees gleam green and majestic, bowing to her.

Here on the hill, in this sleepy little village, Morning is yet innocent of all that is happening in the world. What does she care about the summit in Copenhagen or the split of Andhra and Telangana. What does she care about Obama or Osama or all the other mere mortals like me and you. She is an entity in her own right and needs nobody else to give her a stature. Whatever the newspaper brings is irrelevant to her. She wonders what their hue and cry is about. She is timeless and must have stood here long before I came and will continue long after I die. She humbles me and all my concerns, ambitions and desires seem petty and transient as I behold her in all her resplendence.

One of my distant neighbors runs up the hill, driving a bull ahead of him and there is the sound of feet and hoofs stamping up the hill. The man seems to be training the bull for some village event. Morning invigorates the Bull and he shows obvious signs of annoyance with the man. He looks at him menacingly and then with the toss of his head, dismisses my poor neighbor as if he was not worth the effort and instead runs amok all over the hillside, leading the man quite a dance. As the man shouts angrily at the Bull, Morning seems to be cheering the Bull on, and there is quite a riot on the hill by now. The black Bull, the brown Man, the golden Grass, the lush green vegetation and the blue sky, are all a motley color as the Bull and the man run helter skelter, while Morning laughs mirthfully at it all.

The day is getting brighter and Morning will soon be gone as the warm humid day approaches. I look at her wistfully as she departs and wish she would come again soon and fill my little pond with beams of hope and beauty.

In this part of the world, Nature still seems to be reigning supreme. Though Man contends with nature, he keeps falling short. The Morning, the Bull, the Dog, the Birds, still seem to wield a power which we can never fathom or equal. And I hope it stays this way forever. Let us just be a part of it all and forget trying to control it.

2009-12-10T23:43:00.000-08:00

Somnambulistic lives

Many of us walk through our lives in a state of somnambulism. Maybe it is better that way for most of us, as waking up can be quite a shock which many of us cannot handle. So we wilfully close our eyes to everything that our inner self says and we lead a life of social slavery. As we grow up we are so much influenced and controlled by the ‘norm’ that we spend our lives conforming to it. To think or act in a radically different way from the ‘norm’ can lead to a confrontation with society. The average man does not want to do such valiant stuff. He wants to be a part of society; he wants to belong.
In all the ‘belonging’ that we do in our lives, our own creativity and originality takes a beating. We become individuals who are riddled with stereotypes, prejudices and preconceived notions, such that we often lose out on understanding life as it unfolds before us. So we go through our lives with pre-programmed concepts regarding society, morality, ethics, education, conduct, marriage, etc. We are so much schooled by society to see things in a certain way that anything different from the ‘norm’ is hurriedly termed as ‘abnormal’, ‘strange’, ‘weird’ or ‘bad’!
Imagine a Marwari giving up business and beginning workshops on spirituality. Unthinkable! We firmly believe what we believe and will not accept anything that is different. So we believe all Bengalis are jhola-carrying Marxists; all Keralites are terribly shrewd and slimy; Rajasthanis are so cunning that they can sell sand to Rajasthanis themselves; Haryanvi Jats have no superego and blabber loudly and cut their women into pieces for family honour; Punjabis are all about showing off and ostentation; and Goans are always singing, dancing and drinking and suffer from a crab mentality. Nor do we stop at regional stereotyping. Brahmins are an opportunist lot who are only bothered about getting their work done by hook or by crook; Kshatriyas are militant and ready to fight for nothing, just like the Sikhs; all Muslims are waging a jihad, so maintain a distance from them; Hindus are very secular and so the saffron brigade must have some legitimacy!
Prejudices abound regarding other countries too. Westerners have no values. The British are snobs. Germans are racists. The French are just fooling around. Russians are into prostitution. The Japanese want vengeance for the American bombings and hence their phenomenal progress. The Chinese are megalomaniacs planning a world-wide economic takeover.
It’s women who take the cake when it comes to generalisations. Simple housewives are on the grand pedestal which they share with all the women in Hindi TV soaps. Career women in high-profile jobs are cunning cut-throats. Single women are out to find husbands. Pretty women always lure men, as asserted by over-the-hill wives whose husbands show visible signs of boredom with marriage. If you show no interest in men and marriage, you have to be a lesbian. If you show a lot of interest, you might be guzzling men. Overweight women with a serious disposition are intelligent. Pretty women have no brains. If a man walks out of his marriage for another woman, the wife automatically becomes a saint to be canonized. The other woman is of course a witch who messed up a marital paradise. Well, if it were really such an idyllic paradise, why did the poor man walk out? He was led by the witch, of course, like a five-year-old tempted by ice-cream.
Notions about marriages are almost too outrageously conforming! It is quite alright to have an affair or two, but to break a marriage is blasphemy. It is alright to keep ogling at other women and calling them up and following them around town like puppies, as long as the wife has no knowledge of it. My poor neighbor, whose wife left him long ago, , toiled hard to bring up two small children, but he is often blamed for not getting along with his wife. And that too by a person who gets along so well with his wife that an affair or two that she had in his absence did not matter to him in the larger interest of preserving the institution of marriage!
In this state of somnambulism, we fail to see the individuality of people, situations and values, as it gets lost under the burden of preconceived social notions. It takes a lot of courage to see things for ourselves rather than through the social glasses that we get addicted to. There is a common ground in every human heart. It depends on each of us whether we build bridges connecting each other or walls blocking us off.

2009-11-01T08:27:00.000-08:00

THE HOMELESS

How much can one castigate a certain group of people on the basis of their religion?? And for how long?? Till all of them are driven beyond their endurance into becoming militants or leading a ghetto life??

In our largely Catholic neighborhood, there was a tiny shop of scooter repair, owned by a young Muslim boy. The boy was the sole breadwinner for a family of four. His father had died in the Gujarat riots. He ran for his life followed by a group of crazed Saffron fundamentalists. He was finally caught and ridiculed for a long time, so that he first lost his dignity, and then his life.

The Ahmed’s had been living there peacefully for several generations and had many friends from all religions. They were known for their generosity and secular views. Being too busy with their lives and trying to make a decent living, they were not very devout and seldom went to the Mosque or read the Namaaz. They often celebrated Christmas and Diwali as much as Id and were proud to be living in a secular nation that India is. The illusion broke most cruelly for them after their father was literally butchered before their own eyes.

Unable to bear the most inhuman and torturous memories, they decided to move to Goa, which they felt was a safe haven. They lived here for a while and the young boy’s small little shop prospered, till, the news of impending terrorist attacks in Goa started coming in. Soon the neighbors started giving them a cold shoulder. After a brief illness he was asked by a small boy in the neighborhood, “Hey where were you all these days? Were you making a bomb to kill people in Margao?”

The young boy was left speechless. But along with his family, he could see a pattern of behavior emerging around them. Soon they were no longer invited for social occasions. His young sister was once teased by the local boys and he went to confront them. They said, “You are an outsider here. You are a Muslim. You have no right to question”

The boy decided to walk away, knowing he was pitted against too many adversaries, but something in him made him turn around and say,

“Whatever or whoever I maybe, I am still a human being, am I not? He asked piteously. The young boys did not know what to say to this but many of them were ashamed and later apologized to the family.

Another day, his younger brother came home crying from school and refused to ever go there again. After much cajoling, the poor eight year old finally divulged that after a fist fight in school in which he vanquished his opponent, all the boys started calling him, “Terrorist.”

The mother could not bear to see her youngest boy, whom people often called FARISHTA, because he looked so divine and cherubic, being branded a “Terrorist”. She wept along with all her children at what was happening to their lives and to them.

I met the young Muslim boy a few months back and he told me parts and bits of the humiliation he faces, sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant. He said, “Whether people are nice to me or not, I always see an underlying mistrust in everyone. I do all my work honestly but I still see mistrust”, I could see tears in his eyes.

“I trust you. Do not lose hope. Not everyone is the same.” I tried to console him.

His voice broke now. “We lived there for generations and then came here looking for safety and now we are treated with disrespect and suspicion. In this whole wide world, where should I take my poor mother and sister and little brother? Madame, where should I go? Is there no place for me in this world? What is my fault?”

After a few days, I heard the family had gone away to live in a Muslim neighborhood in Hyderabad, where a large number of Muslims lived in great numbers and much squalor. I realized how all of us were responsible for forcing the Ahmeds to a ghetto.

Just recently Margao has witnessed a bomb blast and if it had not accidentally occurred before its scheduled time, it would have killed many innocent people. Should we then hate all Hindus and displace them as it was a Hindu organization which was responsible for it? Should we punish a whole community for the crimes of just a few?? NO WE SHOULD NOT. You would say, “Most Hindus are secular”. Well so were the Ahmeds!! Then why could we not let them live in peace? In my heart I apologize to them and to all the countless people, whether Hindus or Muslims or of any other religion who are victims of communal fanaticism and are rendered homeless, not because the world is not large enough to accommodate them, but because our hearts are not large enough.

2009-10-18T08:58:00.000-07:00

Crossing Boundaries

What are boundaries anyway? Can human beings ever be categorically separated from each other by nation states when we all love, suffer, hate, mourn, worry, work, cry, laugh and sway to music, the same way everywhere? However, these boundaries do seem important in terms of governance or there maybe chaos. And there is a feeling of belonging to a certain country, whether it is through the daily news that we watch or the tedious history lessons that we learnt at school. It is just always there, under the surface. We cannot escape it. It has a strange Jack-in-the-box quality to it and comes out as suddenly.
I had a similar experience on my current visit to Delhi. The Red Fort loomed before us, magnificent and huge, seething with the numerous stories told of it and surging with many untold, as well. We stumbled through the walls where many intrigues, romances, battles, usurpations and --simply life, had passed before us. On a chilly October night, we gathered, a motley crowd, curious to see the ‘light and sound show’, hoping some mystery of our common past would be unraveled in that grand Fort of Delhi.
A voice powerful and strong boomed around us as we just took our seats in the open air and suddenly lights fell on the Diwan-e-khas. The voice recounted the succession of Shah Jahan, the great builder, to the Mughal throne. The sounds of laborers busy at masonry while exchanging small talk was heard. The whole city of Delhi celebrated when the Red Fort was ready and there were sounds of jubilation, laughter, and music.
THURSDAY- was the day when the fort was opened to women and we heard the voices of many a women laughing and gossiping, while buying feminine trinkets at the Meena Bazzar, which, till today, is a unique feature of the Red Fort.
The show traced the history of the Red Fort and consequently of Delhi and thus of India. Through sounds of horse’s hoofs, it led us through the victory of Aurangzeb’s usurpation of the throne as the sad music depicted the plight of an old Shah Jahan, imprisoned by his own son. After Aurangzeb, the Red Fort was ruled by inconsequential weak rulers, especially Muhammad Shah Rangeela, and ashamedly, we listened to the many sounds of revelry and music, even as the battle cry heralded the advent of Nadir Shah into Delhi. Nadir Shah gave the license to loot, plunder and kill. We sat through the cries of destruction, wails of women, children and of death.
To read about history is one thing but the feeling of living through it, is awesome. Through the light and sound show we were living a simulated history and we were witnesses of all that befell the Red Fort, with all its grandeur, through its fall, to its resurrection. The last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, the poet, participated in the first war of independence against the British. The voice of the British Jurymen, who tried him, in the Red Fort and consequently ordered him to be imprisoned for life, was heard by all of us, somber and grieving. We could feel the burden of the British Empire and all its cruelty and injustice, sitting there amidst the splendor of Red Fort.
It was with great relief that we heard the voice of Gandhiji, overriding all divisions of caste and religions, urging Indians to become one and rise against the British in the Quit India movement. We were all too involved by now, as if we were living through the freedom struggle. After all the suffering and sacrifice, we finally heard the voice of Jawahar Lal Nehru giving his earnest speech as the first prime minister of India and I sensed jubilation among all of us sitting there, as the tri-color was hoisted for the first time at the Red Fort. Nationalism ran like blood in our veins and stung with tears in our eyes as the JAN GAN MAN suddenly and unexpectedly began and we shot up to pay our reverence to it, to our country and to all those who made it happen.
Now you might think that the show was deeply nationalistic, but I saw tears in the eyes of many a foreigner sitting there, who had no ostensible relation to our socio cultural ethos. I guess there is a common ground in every human heart. There is that “reciprocity of tears” as the war poet Owen terms it, which is the natural reaction to cry when you see another human being crying. What seemed like a nationalistic show, thus, crossed all boundaries, for the triumph of the human spirit on attaining freedom, is common to us all. Gandhi ji, who epitomizes that spirit, belongs to our country but he did more than enough in his lifetime to transcend all boundaries and as I saw the emotion in all our eyes that night, be it Indian or foreigner, I realized he belongs to the whole world and all its people, just as truth and greatness does. In spite of all our divisions and boundaries, we are all the same. We are one.

2009-09-27T06:01:00.000-07:00

THE BURQUA

The burqua and its validity have been questioned time and again. The tradition surprisingly dates back to pre Islamic times. When warring tribes attacked each other, the victorious ones often took the women of childbearing age, of the vanquished tribe. Women, like houses, cattle, livestock and things became just goods that had to be acquired and hence came the Burqua, to cover them. Though there is no specific mention of the burqua in the Koran, it has become synonymous now with the Islamic religion as it is still worn all over the world in Muslim cultures. The Quran mentions the Hijab however, and the need to be modestly covered in public.

While we in Asia are accustomed to seeing it, all over Europe, it is often looked upon with suspicion. Many European countries have banned its practice in educational institutions and President Sarkozy has gone to the extent of calling it “most unwelcome” as it robs a woman of her ‘Identity’. President Obama too has commented upon it and said that it should be a matter of choice rather than of compulsion. Whereas in the Muslim countries like Iran, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, women are dealing with real issues of women’s rights to vote, to express themselves, the right to education etc, the western world sidetracks all these issues and largely comments on the Burqua, which perhaps becomes the most visible form of repression, while the real issues take a backseat.

The Burqua then gets magnified and the western world often sees it as a huge symbol of the “other”, of a culture it cannot explain or relate to. It is claimed that it divests a woman of her identity and objectifies her, as if the half nude provocative videos and photographs of women in advertisements, TV and movies, in the western world, give a great stature to women!! In both, women are objectified in diametrically opposite ways. In the former they are sought to be covered so no one can covet them and in the latter, their bodies are so prominently on display as if they were nothing else besides their physical selves and hence the modern pressure on women to look good and their consequent obsession with their looks and body.

My own tryst with the Burqua was one of the strangest experiences in my life as perhaps it would be in the life of any woman who is not born or bred in the tradition. I bought a burqua on my visit to Batkal which is a predominantly Arab settlement on the western coast, few hours south of Goa. One summer’s day, with due respect to the garment and the sentiment behind it, I gathered enough temerity to wear it to Margao. I parked my car near the market and then walked towards the market. Passerby’s looked at me curiously and I reveled in the fact that for once, I could look at anyone or everyone boldly in the eye. They could just see me as a figure but in all other ways I was a nonentity and thus for the first time perhaps in the market place, I could be myself.

According to existential philosophy, we are always a “self” because of the “other”. We are who we are, not on our own terms, but always as others perceive us. Everything we do in our lives is governed by not what we really want to do but what is expected of us, so strong is the eye of that other. Well, wearing a burqua, at least momentarily made me escape that “self” and “other” dichotomy, that is always plaguing mankind. Take away the eye of the ‘other” and see how the “Self’ changes too, and that became obvious to me when I wore the Burqua. Since others could not see me, I felt radically different inside and responded differently to everything. It felt like a liberation of sorts!!

The change was felt not just as a person but as a woman too. Because I was in a Burqua, I was not worried about any unwanted attention or subtle harassment which women in India are so used to from the opposite sex. There were no men trying to cater or smile or catch my attention. I did not have to worry about disheveled hair or smudged make up or whether my clothes were appropriate. I was just a masked figure and what went on under the mask was known only to me!

In no way am I endorsing the burqua or proclaiming the safety it gives women, for it was quite hot and sweltering in there and it might be a novel experience for a few hours, but as a necessary compulsion, well perhaps that would be too much to take! We live in a world that has uniquely evolved, differently in different cultures. And maybe we should accept “each to his own”, as long as they do not harm others.