AN India THE Indians

Ignorance has been and may remain the fulcrum of all woes. We simply can’t write it off with pretentious defence.

This brings to us a pricking issue wailing for attention – half-hearted knowledge Indians have about fellow Indians andIndiaitself.

Like a curious jerk I tried to open as many windows as possible to spot the origin of this 21^st-century indifference. And I think I have spotted some reasons taking me closer to origin.

The man in his traditional attire in south is hardly aware of mekhla; the young vendor in Majuli island may not know how Kannada is different from Karnataka. I have heard people confusing Shillong with Sri Lanka and mistaking Sikkim as foreign soil. Even if I mellow down the intensity of divide, it is difficult to cite something less painful.

Reality is even bleaker. Indians refuse to revere differences. On top of it, they learn (to nation’s dismay) to become jingoistic at a very local level. When you cannot look beyond Rajputana courage,Patiala lassi, Bengali cultural showiness and Goanese snug, you are not fitting yourself into the fabric of Indianness. It is we who are creating tiny islands and sailing away from the mainland.

What can then hold us together and convert this nuclear mindset?

Encourage people to travel beyond their towns, their districts, their states and embark on a reformatory trip to neighborhood. But. With a receptive mind. Don’t let judgments muddle their thinking and the process of forming opinion. A non-partisan view of the places and people can make every new place their second home.

Regional media come cloaked with region-centric issues. You would hardly see highly popular dailies promoting events and highlighting exclusivity and drabness of regions other than theirs. Assam Sentinel should proudly talk of Munnar’s idyllic setting and Kashmir Observer should dare to carryGujarat’s USP as an Indian state. This mutual admiration and recognition of each other is a crucial stepping stone.

I am not asking you to balloon the idea of unitedIndia. That will be too naïve. The little you can do and you should do is to feel proud of the country in its entirety.

You may find cesspools in the country, you may see gross happiness being mowed down, and these warrant a sensible criticism. Every Indian needs gumption to raise voice against things unacceptable and that in turn should bring people closer. Don’t keep a fellow Indian at arm’s length since you never cared to peep inside his Indian being.

Use less of epiphany and stop singing selective eulogies. It’s a national ballad that should be sung in chorus.

Crime and Punish-meant

I think Tolstoy would have forgiven me for stealing the crux of his novel.

I wasn’t aware that fangs of Bhopal gas tragedy have transcended a limited periphery to carry on’legacy of death’ until the day I attended Dr Suroopa Mukherjee’s presentation. The title of her note “Oral History and Monstrous Memories: The Case of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy” took me to IIC as both History and Memories are close to my heart.

She uncorked the suppressed fact how government punished the victims of crime and not the perpetrators. As a one who has been spearheading the errand of seeking truth, Dr Mukherjee deftly put it how ‘profit comes before people’ for the ones at the top.

Recollecting her stint as a researcher and sustained engagement with the Bhopal victims, she narrated anecdotes, which qualify as testimonies to deliberate suppression on bureaucracy’s part. Her research on women’s ordeal was not a fact-finding mission. It was rather an attempt to delve deep into the abysmal loss and unearthing what we should have known and not what government wanted us to know.

As Aaron Levenstein once took a dig at efficacy of statistics and quantitative methodology he said “what it (statistics) reveals is suggestive, what it conceals is vital”. It is this ‘vital’ that Dr Mukherjee said was crucial in understanding magnitude of loss and earnestly considering a barrage of emotions which generally go unnoticed.

While explaining the voluminous recollections that came out of the interviews, she admitted that compiling them in a cogent manner was not easy. Listening to the gripe of the women survivors from a novelist (Dr Mukherjee had two books in her ‘kitty’ prior to her involvement with Bhopal victims) was moving to say the least. It was unnerving to know the crafty modalities of both state and centre. Strange, they didn’t manifest even a tincture of repentance.

As a listener, the feeling was that of disgust. It was crystal clear that our leaders quantify immediate and tangible loss without probing into the humanitarian crisis and the impact that won’t leave its footprints for eons. Being the power holder the least a government is expected to do is defend people’s rights and not suffocate them with regressive policies and alienate them from the mainstream. It needs to overcome its indifference towards those women living with ‘monstrous memories’.

Delhi: Long and the Short of it

After a lot of deliberations I decided to start with the obvious. Delhi is fun to be with. The city can be dicey but only if you are not living ‘with’ it. Looking at Delhi as an onlooker will give you a parochial view. It doesn’t work. Board an overcrowded metro, try ‘Rajesh ki Mashoor Shikanji’, gorge into plump ‘aloo ke parathe’ and allow yourself the luxury of ‘Chhole Kulche’.

Most people here barter hygiene for taste. It goes well with them.

Never question things. Why does the bus conductor sit pretty in his cozy seat and passengers fight for space? Why are full-grown men reluctant to leave the seats reserved for women? Why do people take over-sized yawns with their hands nowhere near to their gaping mouth? Forget all these and you will be forgiven.

Sutta is always sutta because fag is a term reserved for the Elitists. Recklessness runs in the family of drivers and don’t blame the septaugenarian CM for this.

If colored routes in Delhi Metro confuse you, ask the guy standing next to you. His situation is not any better because woh bhi ‘naya aaya hain’. Console yourself for things you can’t get hold of. Give Time a chance.

If the nation rues Fiscal deficit, the capital is home to trust deficit. Mutual distrust goes a long way giving birth to fear in residents’ mind. One factor that makes Delhi a ‘must-explore’ metropolis is its ability to remain a stranger to the majority.

The city throws surprises at you and watches your reaction. It is a homeland for strangers – living life all by themselves. The city of nagars, vihars and flurry of flyovers has very little space to accommodate your inflated sentiments. Your reticence is replaced by a forced pushiness and you lease a razor sharp self.

I like the way how people address miscreants as ‘Kalaakars’ and have fair amount of disregard for those who jostle to get in and get out of metro.

If lack of belonging makes a pigeon-hole in your heart, dark chocolate kulfi can work wonders. If arid faces have struggle written all over them then remind yourself of one thing – dust never settles here.

Weather God is crazy. Come summer and the city shimmers with no trace of repentance. It remains a hot oven even well past midnight.

Shed off the foreigner’s finicky look and spare a thought on how far the city has come. Formula One roads, progressive metro rail, swanky malls and 7 branded shops in 100 mts radius tell you how the city has hugged comfort and convenience.

While NSD and Indian Habitat Centre give a strong kick to get your intellect working, CP’s dazzling arcades and ‘Pebble stone’ lounges take care of the frolicking mood in you.

First world sleeps with Third World in Delhi. The maid from Kanhaiya Nagar gets a cozy corner in plush Rohini bungalow and the amateur helper from Okhla manages square meal at NFC’s expensive condominium.

Delhi can be a versatile crook or a jilted lover, you either get used to his ways or you don’t.

A Dictator who wanted to be an Artist

 

He named himself Führer (The Leader). The Austrian-born German politician, Adolf Hitler has been on the study table of many a scholar and probing minds. The world holds this man of short stature (physically) in extreme disregard for reasons more than one. His unpardonable fetish towards ethnic cleansing bore him flaks from innumerable corners, long after he had stopped breathing.

Hitler is an absorbing case study that needs multifarious interpretations. We know much about his full-grown tyranny and less about his juvenile days as a son and an aspiring artist. Adolf came into this world with a burden of illegitimacy bestowed upon him. He had no choice. His father was a dedicated thrasher who made him feel more timid and vulnerable. Conflict between father and son took a despicable turn when the man of strict Austrian ideals tried forcing his way on young Hitler, who breathed German.

A rebel started grew his first wing when German Nationalism got the better of Hitler. It was a challenge that future tyrant couldn’t run away from. He wanted to see his father down on his knees.

Wrongs befell Hitler at quick successions. Force was used to get him admitted in a technical high school despite his own wish to be a student of a classical high school and become an artist. By that time frustration had already started seeking a vent. Shrinking personal space, dictatorial fatherhood and stifling growing up culminated into a psychotic development of his thought process.

By the time Hitler reached his 15^th summer he already had something annoying in him. He turned little secluded and lot alienated. Bohemian life in Vienna went a long way to bring out the Maverick entity in him. Refusal wooed him throughout his academic and personal pursuits. Being twice denied admittance in the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (1907–1908), his “artistic dream seemed physically impossible”. His works were reduced to this expression – unfitness for painting. Becoming an architect kept the senile hope alive but detour arrived soon. His not-so-strong academic skill prevented him from being an achiever.

Hitler’s childhood shaped him into an all-devouring despot with moth-eaten sympathy. It was his defeated self who uttered, “I do not see why man should not be just as cruel as nature.” The sense of vacuity in life tore off his peace of mind and painted him as a restless oppressor who would stop only at the sight of pain, who would revel when others groan and celebrate people’s subjugation. His abject notion surfaced in his much controversial remark: “Any alliance whose purpose is not the intention to wage war is senseless and useless.”

War was ‘useful’ to him because peace had been rendered useless during his foundation days. He couldn’t come to terms with the reality that his artistic epiphany was left unrecognized, unappreciated and uncalled for. Hitler struggled as an amateur painter recreating scenes from postcards and selling his creations to every enthusiast he came across in Vienna. Leading a life in a shelter for the homeless and then moving into a house for poor working men perhaps made him anti-elite, anti-affluent.

It is to be noted that in 1920s and 30s Jews belonged to the rich sections of the society holding respectable positions in both Austria and Germany. The Jews owned all private banks in Germany and they even mastered complete control over the stock exchange. Successful and prosperous Jews perhaps bred abhorrence in Hitler’s mind.

His unflinching courage was a compulsion – an insatiable desire to prove it to the world. The comment “Germany will either be a world power or will not be at all” does explain his ulterior motive. He avoided grey areas. A failure in personal front desperately wanted compensation – acceptance before people by force if not by ideologies. His childhood humiliation and untimely death of his dream pushed him to the extremity from where he can become big.

For making oneself accepted, one needs to understand the pulse of the nation. But Hitler was not concerned about folks. In fact his errand was too grand to bother about miniscule issues. He was uncompromising with his newly found mission as his vehemence resounded, “I have no use for knights; I need revolutionaries.” The revolution he ideated and the ‘New Order’ he envisaged were born more out of malice than genuine concern. A hypochondriac, Hitler lived a measured life battling insecurity and abrupt end. 

The frantic pace at which he dwarfed humanity, the audacity with which he doled out deaths to millions, could only be a design of a mind preoccupied with the idea of being a successful totalitarian. Now you know what he meant when he said “Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong.”

V-Day: A global movement

Millions of proposals made, billions of roses plucked, hearts broken, negotiations with the past bruises made and all these in a span of few hours. Valentine’s Day is perhaps the only movement in the world that brings global change of such great magnitude. As I sit alone in front of a sufficiently opened window I wonder what is it that pulls in people across the world to celebrate this day. May be the addiction of coming together with the opposite sex, or may be the age-old habit to flaunt a well-earned relationship.

Pretty looking girls in their best attire and handsome hunks carefully dressed to suit the occasion. And what is the occasion? Don’t you know today is Valentine’s Day.  It is the day when we run into each other and pour out our emotions, it is the day when we find ourselves giggling despite hundreds of woes waiting in the backyard and this is that very auspicious day when we gain that extra wing of chivalry to woo our lady love.

Dark chocolates, Ferrero Rocher, Jovan White Musk, Fahrenheit, tapping heels, little blush and never-ceasing stares – all the elements of a pot-boiling evening with your desired ones. Tiresome long wait for your partner’s arrival, sense of disgust at the spiralling traffic and compromise over the choice of delicacies to be served during the dinner do take away the apparent charm of the ceremony.

Wait. It does not end here. Tables are set, candles are lit, discussions are embarked upon and lies are being told. Promises are made and promiscuity hinted. Time sounds alert – tomorrow is Monday. Selected words exchanged, food gulped in a hurry and the diamond finds a new owner. Nothing else changes. The world revolves the same, the stories are spun in the same manner, hearts remain insatiate as they used to and what passes away in the midst of all these is few hours, some flowers, loads of gifts and endless release of dopamine into the brain.  Happiness catches you unaware and little stupid talks here and there. Happy Valentine’s Day.

We scramble to understand the real struggle

Each of us is a Mujahid. A struggler. Terrorism and trouble across the boundaries may have covered the maximum space of the canvas but some corners are also left unsettled. If we look at life as an onlooker and zero in on the micro events of our lives we find bits and pieces of struggle lying everywhere around us.

We are justice fighters. We fight for the extra dose of blessings from the hundreds of spiritual babas, we fight to catch the first metro to office and we fight the uncertainty of future. It is in our instincts to fight, to move on with the little baggage called struggle.

The struggle for a man to shave off the acre of stubble hiding in a remote corner of his chin, the struggle for a bowler to pitch the ball in the right place and the recurring struggle of an old man to recollect the memories that bring smile to his face can never be gauged.

It is no less a struggle for us to bring smile in a mourner’s face and to grow up with an insensible heart. A student’s struggle to complete an equation in a hurry and a newly wed bride’s struggle to please her partner are all obnoxiously difficult. The desperate attempt of a deer to not to become a leopard’s prey and the constant effort of a thirsty crow to get his beaks closer to the water in a long vessel are more than sheer struggle.

Is n’t it horrific to see a dumb struggling to cry or a dog walking with three legs? How horrific it is to see a drowning man raising his hands for the last time and how grievous it is to find a young boy watching a cricket match sitting on a wheelchair.

Everybody is a freedom-fighter. If a baby struggles to free himself from the monotony of milk and diaper others fight to free themselves from the ugly looking curse called poverty.  The craving of an orphan to find a refuge when thunder strikes, the frantic search of a father to arrange blood for his child lying in a critical condition are more poignant missions than the terror-mongers. We notice the horror of getting killed in a terror attack but never read the lines that come from a deserted wife or a person soon to meet his death.

The old man’s attempt to get his pension running even after decades of his retirement is just another piece of struggle. Fear of losing one’s much waited first child and the forceful submission of a soldier before a fanatic general are no less terrifying. Do we give a stare of concern to the school boy who hurts himself while boarding an overcrowded bus? Do you fathom the terror of the family members who have not received any news of their sole bread winner for months?

Open your eyes and hearts, purge your ears and beckon your power of introspection before you can mull over this omnipresent struggle. You really need to be a struggle fighter for it.

India wants a stranger

India wants a stranger, a full-proof outsider who is ignorant of all the constitutional complexities and legal laxities but at the same time vivacious enough to repel the negatives and bring in the positive vibe in the socio-political ring. Too many over-rated fighters battling among themselves to see the crown sitting on top of their heads, India needs a leader.

The country needs a teacher who has every right to scold the whining students and punish a truant child. She needs a teacher who can imbibe in pupils the not-so-pedantic values but simple ideas about attaining goodness. No compulsion to go through rigorous examination every year and waste time in pulling fellow students down just to emerge winner. Let the skill and talent win over other factors and leave no space for last minute manipulation by the lesser lot.

India invites a soldier who fights for right and not for the side, who takes care of his family’s welfare. The country will gain back the missing pieces of peace only if the gunman knows how to use his weapons with discretion. She is in dire need of a virtuoso who knows the world better and is driven by first-hand ideas.

Our motherland needs an interpreter – a middle-aged interpreter who has learnt all the dialects in the world. Half-truths, convoluted phrases and equivocal speeches must witness a painful death under his dictatorship. He will make sure they return to the dust safely. The nation wants a translator who knows exactly what the others mean, neither an inch more nor an inch less.

A doctor is a must for this frail health of the country, bogged down with too many ills. A sensitive practitioner must be in-charge of helping the country recuperate and not to bring out his theory book and prescribe a long list of pathological tests. It’s a doctor’s religion to diagnose the malady and treat it with the medicine that is in best of his knowledge. The patient must not die of wait. Remember, justice delayed is a ripping-apart pain.

It always helps to have an engineer on board. To say building India is a Herculean task is an understatement. We beckon the architect of tomorrow at our service, who is well aware about how past has gnawed upon us. Our foundation has been shaken time and again and this time we want to ensure that we will never see our dreams turning to rubble due to a mere intensity of 2.3 on the Richter scale. Make us shock absorbers.

This is a time when we find hundreds of piranhas nibbling off India’s skin and we see our nirvana in combating this gradual dissipation.

Chronicles of an aam aadmi

Restless mind, sleepless nights and sugarless coffee go down to one thing. You are not at peace with yourself. Your day starts with the smoked morning and ends when the lights have spent their most.

BJP fights for JPC probe and your struggle lies elsewhere. You have Dolly Bindra’s tantrums in your drawing room and food in the kitchen with a pinch of onion.  The times are not changing it is only your hairline deciding to surrender. Age nudges you, lowering mileage hurts your savings and dearth of footage makes you go wild. You are trapped. Forget about the multi-million embezzlement, calculate your survival.

Kalmadi waves at you and Rathore with his mustachio throws a serpent smile. Every golden word of the scam lords come in ‘Breaking’ fonts and Dhoni invites you on his wedding. You return home with your backache and recurring sinus. Your grocery bill sets new benchmark every month and you stay glued on to Masterchef, insurance premium frets you and the pressure from younger ones compels you to have the Apple.

When inventory falls short, the inflation rate holds its head high. You repent the fact that gold is no more your choice of gift on the ‘much awaited’ anniversary.  Credit cards grace your wallet and you know why they say ‘Customer is King’. You grow sympathetic towards the paupers.

When we all confine ourselves within the prism of isms, you look for an open space to repose.  The diffused lights of your bedroom may make you numb but for somnolence to happen you need your anxiety to dilute. Targets, commitments, budget, shortage of time and arrangements come to you with a begging bowl and you can’t refuse.

News on deaths are more like common cold with only a few days of sneezing and voluminous coverage. The new arrives, opposition takes its position and the polity whistles off on the track that was traveled thousands times before.

Some of you are super talented. You think out of the satchel. You befriend hackers and snub neighbours. Your terror-model tempts many a young soul to goad their lives in the name of revolution. Stalwarts say “Yes We Can” and prepare a speech in defence of a rising unemployment. The lesser mortals sit back and count the hours of patience. Bilateral talks don’t break their in-house stalemate and parliament logjam does not put an end to their asthmatic life.