She is two plus seventy

She is two plus seventy!

Slightly hunched, with gait of a pendulum. 

She climbs difficulties; she restrains. 

Strains are lines on her face, her skin etches episodes. 

She is twelve plus sixty!

Less resigned, more resilient; 

Few grudges, enough grace. 

Her hair is now a trickle, her choices fickle;

And her best days “were those…” 

She is twenty-two plus fifty! 

Gods keep her company. 

She fumbles and stumbles; her memories tumble. 

Brooding eyes behind the bifocal; trenches near collar bones. 

She is thirty-two plus forty!

Fragile knees undeterred, heart in the right place.

She knits old stories; stays warm in oblivion. 

Despair crosses her path, but she waits for daybreak. 

A migrant

A woman is always on the move:

From a “cute child” to a “responsible sister”,

a “fine prospect”, a “loving wife”,

 a “doting mother” and a “progressive mom-in-law”.

She never has time to tarry a while.

She migrates:

From painful puberty to fleeting fertility;

Forty weeks of swelling, and then, a difficult pause.

She is a migrant in perpetuity:   

Advancing, pushing ahead;

Leaving her home, her whole…

To nurture, to nurse, to provide.

To an artist who was true to his name

After watching Namesake, Sharmila Tagore wrote a letter to Irrfan Khan and thanked his parents for giving him birth. Her Thank You note was probably less for that first-generation immigrant in the US, but more for the familiarity he exuded for Bengal’s cultural mores and how effortlessly he could straddle different layers: a reserved father, mild-mannered husband, and a buoyant Bengali man.

We now all feel like Gogol. Ashoke Ganguli left us before we could truly learn to appreciate him.

My earliest recollection of Irrfan Khan was a scene with Om Puri from the film Ghaath, which I happened to watch couple of months after the film was released in 2000. Those few minutes were gripping. His eyes, tonality, a subtle ease, implied villainy—all were so captivating!

Much later, films such as Life in a Metro and Saat Khoon Maaf, drew me closer to the artist that he was. While the inheritors of good genes and muscles were doling out superhits one after the other, this man was fishing for challenges. He was chasing nuances. He was comfortable not being a star.

I consider Amol Palekar, Farooq Sheikh and Om Puri among those who helped Bollywood audience cultivate the taste for anti-heroes. Irrfan is certainly in that league. If you watch him play a poor bullied barber in the film Billu, a lonely widower in Lunchbox, a middle-aged garage owner in Karwaan, you will know what I mean. His on-screen anger at being called a ‘daaku’ and not a ‘baaghi’ in Paan Singh Tomar, unapologetic flirtations in Qarib Qarib Single, and impatience at an old man’s eccentricities in Piku are not just case studies on method acting, but something more elevated: how curious and absorbent an artist needs to be, to be true to any art form.

I am yet to watch most of his early films, which are not much talked about. Ek Doctor ki Maut is one of them. Whenever I will sit to watch a handful of such films, I would have his advice in mind: one must remember films not because of how much they made at the box office, but for what they did to them.

Besides being a master craftsman, he was a humourist; or else, how do you explain a person battling cancer, calling his life a suspense story. He had observed that his search for rare stories made him find a rare disease. When he couldn’t venture out to promote his last film, Angrezi Medium, in a manner of complain, he told his fans that some “unwanted guests in his body” are keeping him tied up and not letting him go out.

In the penultimate days of his life, his humour and optimism gradually deserted him. Irrfan had admitted to knowing what ‘running out of time’ actually means. You can make out a gentle lament when he said, “I had become excessively busy, so much so that I almost missed (watching) my sons become young adults from little boys.” While his lamentations now rest in peace with him, it would be really long before we can leave behind this overriding grief of losing an honest artist. At the same time, we would continue to feel as if, all this while, he was doing extended cameos, and waiting for a blockbuster.

We will now be forever deprived of the greatest role he could have essayed.

Almost invisible, but not dispensable

Source: Pexels

On a wintry night, a BBC journalist sat beside a young woman, who was lying on a busy street of London. She has been rough-sleeping for almost two years. The journalist asks, “Do you feel lonely?” “Yes. Very. It is not the rain, cold nights or any of that stuff. For me, the worst part about being here is not being seen. People will walk past and you will see them look, but they look away rather quickly,” the woman replied. “What can we do?” was the second question, to which the woman put forth a counter question, “Who are ‘we’?”.  “We, the government, I and the people,” the journalist replied. The young woman was laconic. She replied, “Care.”

Stateless, homeless, and often invisible

This story is universal. From London to New York and Moscow to Mumbai, homelessness is evident in numbers. While the UK has at least 320,000 homeless people, New York City, which has been the epicenter of COVID-19 outbreak in the US, alone has close to 80,000 homeless people, among the highest in the country. According to the Census 2011, India is home to more than 1.7 million homeless residents. This figure has been questioned by several advocacy organisations that estimate the population of urban homeless alone to be about four million. Delhi is estimated to have around 150,000 – 200,000 homeless people, of which at least 10,000 are women.

Then there are others. Millions of people are growing up (and growing old) in refugee camps across the world. If we shudder at the idea of community transmission of novel coronavirus in Dharavi or Kibera, can we even begin to imagine the state of affairs in Kutupalong—the world’s largest refugee camp in Bangladesh with more than 630,000 people—or the notorious Al-Hol camp in northeast Syria? According to the UNHCR, there are around 70.8 million displaced people around the world, among them nearly 25.9 million people are refugees. These people are not just denied a nationality, but also access to education, health care and employment.

It is not just their sheer number, but also the chronic stress that they live in is hard for us to wrap our heads around. The people we see (or don’t see) under the bridges, on the road dividers, along the railway lines and inside the wobbly tents are squeezed between structural fault lines. Minors pick up drinking habits after their parents. Women are abused; they are too afraid to sleep at night. They bear the brunt of cold and heat. Their mental health takes a serious beating. On top of all this is the indignity thrown at them by the locals.

Poverty tax adds to ignominy

Some of these people find shelter in informal settlements, where they have to often pay dramatically higher costs for basic services, which is referred to as ‘poverty tax’, according to a study conducted by the Tata Centre for Development at University of Chicago in collaboration with other research and advocacy organisations, including the Mumbai-based Pukar. The study, which covers 24 slums across seven states, posits that this poverty tax affects social mobility and a range of socio-economic outcomes.

In some informal settlements, where there is no public provisioning of basic services, prices of electricity appear to be several times higher than market rates and water prices up to 100 times higher, the initial findings of the study suggest. It also points to a worrisome trend: higher cost of basic services in these informal settlements leads residents to use less of those services than would be optimal. In the time of Covid-19 pandemic, washing hands with water even after using toilets or before having food is not realistic for them.

Mainstreaming the marginalised

While the actual extent of homelessness may not be known for some time, four million could be a good starting point. Assuming that 25 per cent of the 4 million homeless people in the country are women, can we not absorb them where we need them the most? The primary health care workforce. They could be trained to become ASHA workers—the frontline change makers and backbone of primary health care. So far, their contribution in improving health outcomes is undeniable.

A large chunk of remaining three million could also make meaningful contribution to India’s well-being: making the country water-secure. Lately, building water harvesting structures has gained momentum in the country, which has seen sporadic cases of severe water crisis and apprehends bleaker times ahead. MGNREGA—the largest rural employment guarantee scheme in the country, and perhaps in the world–can come to their rescue. Under this scheme, these people can be deployed in building contour trenches, percolation tanks, and desilting dug wells and other water collection chambers. Importance of such activities need not be harped upon.

Having said that, what would be the cost implications for the government? Currently, there is a huge difference in wages (from INR 190 – INR 309 per day) paid to MGNREGA workers across states. Taking INR 250 as average per day salary for 100 man days for 2 million people (erstwhile homeless), the government will have to cough up INR 5,000 crore, which is little more than 8 per cent of total outlay for MGNREGA in 2020-21 Union Budget. That’s not much if we think of positive outcomes: it will lead to reverse migration, generation of livelihood for so many people, ensure less water stress during our agricultural seasons, and hopefully, reduce the number of begging gangs in cities.

Peacock, roasted coffee beans and aroma

Coffee is not my cup of tea. I look for words like ‘Assam’ and ‘Darjeeling’ whenever I am handed over a menu at any café. While my better-half likes mug full of latte, frappe, mocha, espresso and any other variety you can think of, I am happy to see tea leaves soaked in hot water, gradually showing their true colours.

I didn’t think it would be any different when we visited the Blue Tokai café (In Saket, Delhi) this evening. As someone flung open the door, a sudden gush of aroma hit me. Was it nutty? chocolaty? winy? Not able to decide, I walked down the alley with whitewashed walls lit up by long hanging lamps.

Amidst giggles, high-fives and animated talks of coffee connoisseurs, we approached the service counter. It took me some time to figure out that the café has its own roastery. Yes, this place was different. While most other cafes reduce coffee to two-line blurbs overshadowed by imaginative first names, the Blue Tokai has made people realise the love that coffee demands.

When you sit facing the roastery, it’s hard not to get curious. It whets your dormant appetite for ‘why’ and ‘how’. As you watch them roast coffee and pack it in batches, the Arabica starts working on you, even though you are passively taking in its beauty.

On my left were Mata Ni Pachedi paintings hanging on the walls. I am told it is an art form that venerates mother nature. All the paintings have coffee trees as the protagonist and a couple of bulls and peacocks strewn here and there to show harmonious coexistence.

As you look little farther, coffee beans of different ethnicities—they take pride in their distinct texture yet huddled in a tray.

After a long time, I was reminded of the lingering legacy of coffee in the southern India, just like its aftertaste. Do come to this mecca of coffee even if you are a puritan tea drinker.

 

Literary fiction has an obligation to environmental refugees

“For a long time I missed home; it was a missing tooth,” said Sholeh Wolpe, an award-winning Iranian-American poet and literary translator. She was recently in India to talk about her experience of living an exiled life. She left Iran at the age of 13 when the Iranian Revolution stifled freedom and fettered people’s dreams.

The sense of banishment from one’s own land was palpitating in the expression of Valzhyna Mort—a Belarusian poet who now lives in the US—when she narrated the helplessness of her grandparents who saw their lands being taken away by Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution and given to collective farms for “better good” of the people. “Everything that’s ours has also been claimed by others,” she sighed.

These stories of anguish and living in parts are worded and recited across the world.  But there’s another form of forced migration that we don’t get to hear or read: climate-induced migration. Islands in the US and Canada are vanishing fast against the rising sea level; people in Bangladesh are seeing their lands being gobbled up by raging river and those in the Horn of Africa have turned into reluctant itinerants due to the staggering pace of desertification and prolong drought.

We are not deprived of an impressive line-up of academic books on refugee crisis across the world, especially Middle East and Africa, but those are mostly critical analyses of State-engineered subjugation and religious conflicts. They succumb to statistics and academic jargons.

While I was reviewing UR Anathamurthy’s ‘Bara’ (meaning drought)—written in the 70s and translated into English by Chandan Gowda—it occurred to me how truth can be told without moving away from the literary landscape and how political inaction and machination can turn an extreme weather event into full-scale disaster. Literary fictions, which would imagine beyond the current crisis and expose layered victimisation of those who are hounded by extreme weather events, must exist. Is it the lack of awareness or lack of creative imagination that is preventing contemporary litterateurs from writing about the disenfranchised lot living at the mercy of weather gods? I don’t know.

Author Amitav Ghosh recently sparked off a flurry of discussion on whether the issue of climate refugees has been largely ignored in contemporary literary fiction. “If we believe that the arts are meant to look ahead, open doors, then how is this huge issue of our time, absent from the arts? It’s like death, no one wants to talk about it,” he rued recently. His latest book, ‘The Great Derangement’ is an evocative work of fiction on climate catastrophe and its impacts.

The Nigerian author Chinua Achebe used to say, “It is difficult to identify with someone you don’t see, who’s very far away and who eats a different kind of food. When you begin to do that then literature is really performing its wonders.” We must heed his words.

 

 

Does it not bother you?

Are we losing the art of having patience?

It wears thin too fast and argument dies an early death

We have less time to “stand and stare” and more to slam and scare.

Is it still a virtue to delve deep?

There’s so much to listen, but we choose to look the other way

While half-truths and heedlessness create jaundiced notions,

Our attacks grow imitative, criticism too acerbic.

Is perseverance no more in vogue?

Mythology has it that persevering Bhageerath brought Ganga to the earth

Dashrath Majhi could carve a path through a hill, all alone.

Can’t we invoke due diligence and finish the steeplechase graciously?

Is it too difficult to realise the rewards of optimism?

Every challenge is now seen as conspiracy, every difficulty an act of hostility

Why can’t we admit our indolence and put up with the rain?

Take off your cloak of cynicism and enjoy the rainbow dear

Has anger been enshrined as a potent survival strategy?

A small scar on cars makes us froth at the mouth

And we are often at each other’s throat to prove a point.

How long can we look back in anger and not reflect before reacting?

Do we ignore the call of forgiveness?

I see a grumpier and crankier generation unable to unburden the past

An ugly spat or a sentimental tussle gnawing at their hearts.

Forgiveness shows the road to future; don’t go astray and for too long.

While standing outside an ATM and awaiting my turn…

Date: December 8. Time: 10:45 PM. Location: CR Park (Delhi)

Exactly a month after that damned (some call it haloed) day when the Indian PM declared Rs.500 and Rs. 1,000 worthless, I ran out of patience and money. The resolve to withdraw Rs. 2500 from any ATM was too strong to be dampened by biting cold.

These days, people don’t crib much about long queues outside ATMs. They set aside two unproductive hours, accepting this vivid waiting. I felt tad confident when I approached the queue in front of the Canara Bank ATM near Market 1. But then, when you have about 80 people standing in front of you and stories do rounds about unfortunate countrymen and countrywomen coming back with empty pockets despite waiting for hours, a feeling of fighting a lost battle doesn’t escape you easily. I have hours to wait before I get cash. That was the only certainty.

While some grumbled about coming from as far as Badarpur Border to withdraw money, few others had a stoic expression on their face, perhaps hardened by the harassment. Some red-eyed folks with stinking breath had lined up in a group. While they were sharing wisdom about which ATM in the vicinity is dispensing cash at some ungodly hours, I was toggling between Twitter and Dr. Manmohan Singh’s write-up that demonises the idea of demonetisation.

Distraction appeared in the form of a young fellow, who, in a bid to get attention of the crowd, suddenly proclaimed, “Machine kharap ho gaya, doosri ATM mein jaao (the machine has conked off, go to some other ATM). He narrowly escaped being beaten up for the cruel joke he played. Just when the frayed tempers had calmed, a clamour from inside the ATM made the wait even more tense. Someone was trying to use second debit card to withdraw money and faced the ire of the fellow queuers.

It was beyond ordinary to see how people cope with difficult circumstances. As I write, I can distinctly recollect a motley crowd who stood in the queue for the second time after a long-one-and-half-hour wait in their first turn. They had withdrawn Rs. 2,000 at about 11: 45PM on December 8 and they are now ready to wait for few hours more after midnight, as the new day entitles them to withdraw Rs 2000 more.

In the same queue was a 20-something guy who was bragging about how he hoodwinked a security guard in one of the ATMs into using two debit cards and withdrawing Rs. 5000. There was a smirk on his face. Desperate times drive people to break rules.

As we moved one step a time, gathering hope by looking at the shrinking length of the queue, a mini scuffle emerged. This time, a man was accused of absorbing his recently-arrived friend into the queue. The lady, standing in front of me, asked in English, “Why do they have to jump the queue every time?” I didn’t know to whom was the question directed, but my instant response was an unconcerned shrug.

All this while, a little fellow was sitting on his father’s back, quite patiently. Seeing me come out of the ATM, he uttered in excitement “Humara number aa gaya”. I sincerely hope that this child grows up to see Modi fulfilling his promise: “Line that I’ve made you stand in is the last line, to end all lines”.

As I reached home at quarter past 12, I am reminded of what the old security guard at the ATM had said sardonically, “Acche din ke intezaar mein, humari raatein kharab ho rahi hai.”

Women in Africa and their story of acquiescence

Credit: Rod Waddington

“Wives are young men’s mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men’s nurses.”   –  Francis Bacon

In Africa, a woman is not Adam’s ribs, but rather his shoulder and backbone. She represents 80% of the manpower working on the continent. But these women are still forced to believe that men hold the reins of power.  My first look at Chema Rodriguez’ documentary, ‘Will you marry me?’ stirred up some thoughts you might agree or disagree with. In India, we have several instances of parents marrying off their daughter due to poverty or for fear of straying from tradition. But familiarity should not breed contempt.

The Ethiopian city of Harar, with 110 mosques and 102 shrines, is called the ‘City of Saints’. However, the same city shelters sinners who force their daughters into marrying people of their father’s age. They fix marriages which are in ‘everyone’s interest’ except the bride’s. The story of a 23-year-old Rachel is that of a rebellion. She fled to Addis Ababa at the age of 16 to avoid such a marriage and now she is seen as an infidel who hasn’t followed the prophet’s book. Much as her mother sheds tears in secret and wants her to come back, she cannot convince her husband to bring the daughter back because “women can’t take decisions in such matter”.  Rachel’s story looks even more believable when you know that about 125 million girls in Africa are married before the age of 18.

From Ethiopia, the documentary takes us to a fishing village in Mali where people have no qualms about polygamy. If you have read the stories of water wives in drought-hit Maharashtra, you won’t be taken aback by the idea of getting married just to increase the number of helping hands in a family. But for men in this village, a second or a third wife doesn’t only mean an additional worker, but also an additional partner who can comfort them in bed when their other wives have just become a mother.

It’s a taboo in many parts of Africa to have sexual relations with a lactating wife. According to folklore, sperm can taint mother’s milk and cause kwashiorkor in the suckling child. Public opinion also link infant diarrhea with resumption of sexual intercourse. The man, who featured in the documentary, is a product of a gerontocratic society that peddles such ideas. While it’s true that new moms prefer to abstain from sex due to fatigue, fear of pain and often due to lack of interest in the first few months after childbirth, that doesn’t mean she would like this phase to be prolonged.

Howsoever hard you try not to see the gender inequality in this whole discourse, you can’t turn away from the fact that women are subjected to more restrictions and control than men are. The man in the family gets a new woman, a new helping hand and someone to give him company at night. And the first wife has to make her husband promise that he shouldn’t make his second wife his favourite.

In West Africa, at least 30% of men are polygamist and interestingly, more than half the polygamist families in West Africa are either animists or converted Christians. One of the common reasons cited for polygamy flourishing in Africa is the decades-long civil strife and insurgencies that create war widows. In some countries, especially Rwanda, Somalia, Senegal and Libya, there are double the number of women than men of marriageable age. Men take advantage of this distorted sex ratio and their “relative bargaining power increases”.  With men being scarce, women enter into a polygamous marriages and often settle for less. They end up marrying men whose advances they would have otherwise declined.

Credit: Eric Lafforgue

In Dakar, the capital city of Senegal, women participate in Miss Yongama competition—a platform for single women to feel beautiful and to attract a prospect. For them, it’s the best way to find a good match because only crème de la crème of Senegal flocks to this beauty and style contest. The documentary also shows how cosmetics stores have mushroomed across Senegal to meet the growing demand for harmful skin lightening creams and other beauty products. The locals blame it on the West for dumping their products on African soil and infecting the locals with racist thoughts.

These days, between 52% and 67% of Senegalese women use skin lightening products: all in anticipation of higher social standing, better employment and increased marital prospects. Others try to keep their husbands’ attention with perfumes or sexy lingerie. One of the protagonists spoke her mind when she said, “Men are like children. When they get home, you have to serve dinner to them and get dressed up to play with them. You have to keep them excited.”

Majnu ka Tilla: A legacy in exile

Buddhist prayer flags were fluttering on top of the footbridge that connects both sides of Majnu ka Tilla (Hillock of Majnu), the largest settlement of Tibetan refugees in Delhi. A pagoda gate welcomed us into a long alley, which seems blind at first glance. The sound of ‘Om Ma Ni Padme Hum’ from the CD stores, the assembly of colourful Tibetan thermos, the smell of barbecued beef and incense stick: all conspired to give you a feeling that you are in some exotic land.

As we made our way past Nor Khyil restaurant, Norling Gallery, Kham Coffee, Cho’s Pyod book shop and Sera Jey Dharamsala, it seems that this new civilisation survives by selling artefacts, Thangka paintings and by ferrying people to and from Dharamsala.

At Ama Cafe

We checked in at Ama (meaning mother in Tibetan) Café. The murals portraying a Buddhist monastery, lamp shades made of bronze wok with perforated bottom, and a prayer wheel next to our plunge sofa seem to recreate Lhasa.  As we sat down to drink Chinese Jasmine Tea and Banana Muffin, I came across a glossy cover page of the Tibetan Review (magazine) with the Dalai Lama peering at us.

photo credit: Sayantani Chatterjee

The first whiff of despondency was evident in the pages I flipped through. One of them read, “While the Dalai Lama’s popularity is becoming stronger than ever, he is not growing any younger.” Others admired the leader for his ability to “convert sorrow into benediction”. In another instance, I read one of the Indian ministers referring to the Dalai Lama as “the most powerful refugee in the world”.

Once back to the buzzing by-lanes, we headed to the monastery. The snaky walk led us to an open courtyard where women in their 60s sat weaving woollen sweaters, men in their 70s looked content with their prayer wheels and some of them in their 80s reflected a sagging hope for serendipity.

The history of this 50-year-old settlement is that of emigration and its future seems to lie in immigration. I am not saying this because I spotted a few immigration offices in this small neighbourhood of north Delhi, but the sense of living a borrowed life is palpitating. The desire to leave the ‘refugee’ tag and escape into a promised land looks inescapable.

Yet, they are graceful in times of despair.