sound and fury

Peace

2009-01-18T02:10:00.000-08:00

As we segue into a new year, there is talk of war in the air. In a perfect world, we would be talking of peace instead. Wishing each other joy and prosperity, celebrating a season of peace and brotherhood. Ringing in the new. Ringing out the old with ease. In a not-so-perfect world riddled with fissures, such bonhomie sounds like a fairytale. India is still recovering from the brutal terror strike of November 26. Mumbai’s wounds fester. The fear that gripped us during the city’s siege smolders in our collective memory. Anger and unease still overwhelm us. So like a recurring chorus, war crops up in conversations at street corners and dhabas and college campuses. It resonates within the cocoon of five star hotels; makes it to the table at black tux dinners and socialite lunches. Is war the answer to our anxieties? Millions of Indians are mulling over the question as a new year dawns.
Those who make a case for waging war on Pakistan dredge up many reasons. War will send a strong message. War will scar the enemy in indelible ways. War can prove India’s might and salvage national pride. Peace is a twilight zone; war is the clear light of day. If war is all this, then this is the perfect hour for introspection. Let’s take a good look at the wars we have declared within our country. These wars are not waged on enemy territory. They are being fought with chilling regularity in our cities and small towns. They are ugly. They cause untold damage. They deny people fundamental freedoms and gloat over their misery. These wars are as ruthless as massacres engineered by machine guns and cluster bombs. They march ahead and sow the seeds of xenophobia to happily reap the bloody harvest.
These battles are staged every day. They corrode the plural, secular ethos of our country like a deadly poison. They are happening everywhere, everyday. A friend who recently shifted base from Kolkata to Delhi had the most harrowing house hunt of her life. Her story is not an isolated instance. People living in other cities and towns have similar experiences to share. Hina moved to the capital three months ago. She trawled all of south Delhi in search of rented accommodation. Weeks went by. Meetings with prospective landlords and ladies went on. Her interactions with them were always pleasant. They showed a great deal of interest in her job (television producer), her car (a brand new Chevrolet), her future plans (marriage, children). Everybody was courteous. Everybody promised to get in touch soon. Most of them never bothered to call back. The ones who did spat out the real reason behind their reluctance. She had the right credentials and the right credit cards. But her Muslim surname stuck out like a sore thumb in their faces. Landlords were not ashamed to say that they were keen on finding Hindu tenants to occupy their territory. Indian citizens of other faiths were clearly not welcome to their homes.
Why are our metros and burgeoning small towns turning to ghettos? Why do we allow such blind prejudice to flourish? Instead of baying for the enemies’ blood and asking Indian soldiers to charge across the border, we should be channeling all our energies into battling this tide of prejudice. This is a war worth fighting. A war we need to win before the tide sweeps us off our feet and drowns us for good. How can a divided house hope to stand up against external aggression? How can we waste our time and energy in drawing battle lines among ourselves?
The new year is a good time to wage constructive wars. It is the perfect season to take up arms against divisive forces. The time to fight politicians who make inflammatory speeches. Boycott leaders who demonise people belonging to any particular community. Battle politicos of all hues and affiliations who divide the electorate on the basis of faith. Wage a war on anyone who discriminates between Hindu and Muslim, Christian and Sikh. Challenge their false claims of exclusivity. Find loopholes in their dubious arguments. Stop them, by any means necessary, from polluting the air with conspiracy theories. Instead of crying hoarse about the enemy at our gates, we could resolve to take on the demons who engage in demented divide and rule politics. Declare a war against the politics of hatred. Welcome leaders who preach and practice tolerance towards all differences.
We could declare a war against inequity. Against the growing gap between the super rich and the starving man, between high rise and shanty town, the land mafia and the tribal cheated of forest rights, the money lender and the suicidal farmer. Against child labor and crippling poverty, female feticide and gender discrimination. Against malnutrition and maternal mortality. Against bonded labor and sweatshop enslavement. There is so much to fight, so much to set right in our own backyard. Are we going to continue to turn a blind eye to this mess and insist on dispatching our army to vanquish enemies across the border? Are we going to take cover behind another trumped up war and ignore the real battles we must fight? A new year, no matter how imperfect, is a time for new beginnings. A time for hope. A time for change. Whether the Indian government will decide to aggressively act against terrorist groups on Pakistani territory is still a matter of speculation. Governments will come and go, enacting draconian laws that promise to deliver us from all evil. No matter which way the pendulum swings, no matter how many dead laws are resurrected, let’s hope this new year sees the Indian citizen spearheading movements of change. Let’s hope to see an awakening of public consciousness that builds a lasting peace this year.

R.I.P

2008-11-06T21:55:00.000-08:00

(After eight years of unprecedented foreign policy disasters and serious manhandling of the English language, it is time for George W Bush to vanish from the world’s radar. This letter goes out to him; a frank farewell note, a huge sigh of relief, a final goodbye…call it what you will. But do not, in the words of the man himself, ‘misunderestimate’ this note.)

Dear Mr Bush: I use the word dear as a figure of speech, not as a term of endearment. In India, we are very fond of figures of speech. I’m sure you remember our prime minister’s recent visit to your country to sign the civilian nuclear deal and dance the bhangra afterwards. (Just to jog your memory: he wears a turban and looks apologetic at all times. His name happens to be Dr Manmohan Singh. I hope you are not confusing him with the other leader from the subcontinent who visited America around the same time and pawed Sarah Palin in public. He is Pakistani. Not Indian. India and Pakistan are two different countries. Have been that way since 1947, actually). So when our euphoric prime minister declared that Indians love you, he was just putting on display our fondness for figures of speech. Let me not drown my message in subtlety, coz I know that’s not your thing.
What I’m tryin’ to say is, not all Indians feel that way about you. No sir. Actually, a whole lot of Americans don’t either. Civilians who have managed to stay alive in Afghanistan and Iraq also swear that they are not in love with you. Why? We must go back in time to answer that logical question. On September 20, 2001, during an address to a joint session of congress and the American people, you formally declared war. On terror. You said, "Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”
You forgot to tell the people who were listening to you that under cover of this war, your government would launch military offensives that would annihilate innocent people in all corners of the globe. In the name of this righteous war, terror suspects would be jailed and tortured, detained indefinitely without explanation. After the twin towers fell, you took up a lot of air time to emphasise that America was the heart of the free world. You wouldn’t stop calling it the repository of all civilised values. A country that boasted of a way of life that promised freedom, equality and opportunity to all. After these rousing speeches were done, after the television cameras stopped blinking, you gave orders to carpet bomb entire civilisations. Eight years of your rule have made people all over the world hate America in the most visceral of ways. I pity the man who will have to clean up the mess you made.
You gave democracy a really bad name. Even though UN weapons inspectors did not find the mythical weapons of mass destruction that your government claimed Saddam was hiding, you drummed up a ‘coalition of the willing’ to march into Iraq. United under this theatrical banner, brute force delivered democracy to Iraq. Saddam’s regime was toppled in 2003, but the fires still rage in Iraq. Many members of your coalition withdrew after they realised the enormity of their mistake. But you, Mr President, parachuted from the sky into the midst of your tired soldiers and declared victory at inopportune times. May be your generals forgot to tell you that nobody won. May be they are still waiting for a good time to let you tune into the news.
I’d be lying if I said your presidency was all bad news. There were times when it was more entertaining than the best Hollywood can offer. How can I forget to thank you for the unforgettable quotes that you sprung on us? I treasure all of them. Always will. Let me mention a few favourites:
“The folks who conducted to act on our country on September 11th made a big mistake. They underestimated America. They underestimated our resolve, our determination, our love for freedom. They misunderestimated the fact that we love a neighbor in need. They misunderestimated the compassion of our country. I think they misunderestimated the will and determination of the Commander-in-Chief, too." -- Washington, D.C, Sept. 26, 2001

“I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe… I believe what I believe is right." -- Rome, July 22, 2001

"Russia is no longer our enemy and therefore we shouldn't be locked into a Cold War mentality that says we keep the peace by blowing each other up. In my attitude, that's old, that's tired, that's stale." -- Des Moines, Iowa, June 8, 2001

Most of the time, people didn’t really get what you said. Nobody understood you. Neither the cabal of neo-conservatives who surrounded you, nor the hapless millions who listened to your televised speeches. The sentences were so long and complicated, the policy decisions so warped, words misspelt, mispronounced. But, hey, I hate to bring up trifles…Rest assured Mr President. Your quotes will be enshrined in the memory of generations to come.
We will also remember your endearing habit of mixing up the names of countries and heads of states. We will never forget the many creative expressions your team of experts coined (Axis of Evil, Weapons of Mass Destruction, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom, Extraordinary Rendition….)
You leave behind such a rich legacy. Your impact on the world at large and the English language in particular has been spectacular.
But as they say, all good things must come to an end. And yours, mercifully, is here. Au revoir Mr President. Or as the French say, good riddance.
Sincerely,
XXX

WHITE TIGER, BLACK DAY

2008-10-14T22:59:00.000-07:00

Juvenile, gimmicky, corny...Many adjectives come to mind when I think of Aravind Adiga's White Tiger. But the Man Booker judges came up with a surprising one. 'Perfect!'Apparently the novel is a perfect book in many ways. A book brimming with schoolboy sarcasm. A novel that makes you want to run for cover after the first few pages overloaded with the most obvious and sloppy conceits. Granted that Adiga's book is backed by a powerhouse publishing house. But if that is the sole criterion of perfection, this is just proof that we live in pathetic times. White Tiger's win marks a sad day for good writing. Tragic, really.

After the storm

2008-10-09T20:22:00.000-07:00

As we step into October, the aftershock of the explosions that shook Delhi on the evening of September 13, 2008 lingers. The blasts continue to echo in the hearts of those who lost family members or friends that fateful day. Survivors and eyewitnesses continue to struggle with their memories of the horror as they carry on with the business of everyday life. Investigative agencies grapple with lists of suspects. The media goes into overdrive with the blame game, laying all responsibility at the home minister’s door. Television shows ring out with the dire voices of experts who pontificate about Intelligence failure that weakens our war against terror. They repeat the same pronouncements they had issued in October 2005 after the deadly blasts at south Delhi’s Sarojini Nagar Market. Anchors whose penchant for melodrama soared in the wake of the 2005 blasts hit the same feverish pitch. There was no escape from the sickening wave of déjà vu that sweeps you away as you watched their onscreen antics.
These were the avoidable repeats. But there were repetitions of the welcome kind too.
Life affirming acts that helped the city get back to its feet. A display of steely grit and determination to carry on in spite of the clouds of fear that mushroomed overhead. A spirit of survival that burnt bright, refusing to be snuffed out by the darkness of that night. Delhi is branded callous and brash, a city that runs on the wheels of the maxim of might is right. Yes, citizens of the capital are capable of monumental insensitivity. We pollute the Yamuna at every step of its journey through Delhi. We hack away carelessly at the Ridge which purifies the lethal smog that we inhale. On the streets, we speed past accident victims even as they bleed to death before us. In the rush of our hectic lives, mercy is in short supply. The city’s sins are many. But when calamity struck, it revealed a different face.
As soon as the news of the blasts spread across town, Ashok Randhawa, president of the Mini Market Traders’ Association, Sarojini Nagar gathered a bunch of volunteers and drove down to RML hospital where many of the injured were admitted for emergency treatment. The volunteers were on call day and night for blood donation. Randhawa also made sure that the patients’ relatives were provided food and water at regular intervals. He had lost a dear friend in the October 2005 blasts at Sarojini Nagar Market. The memory of his friend’s death spurred him into action when three city markets were stunned by the blasts on September 13.
There were many other random acts of kindness that night that went unreported. Buoyed by them, the city began it slow trudge towards normalcy the next morning.
Delhi is a city of survivors. History tells us so. City residents taste the truth of this historical fact on a daily basis. Mighty empires were built and razed to the ground here. Seven cities, (beginning from Indraprast of the Pandavas) stretch like shadows behind the face of Delhi as we know it now. Each shone like a jewel in its heyday. Many crumbled into dust as time went by. The city has seen some of the most brutal invasions in recorded history. In 1739, Nadir Shah and his army ransacked the city and unleashed a terrifying orgy of violence. Rivers of blood flowed on city streets. Emperor Shah Alam, the ruler of Delhi, was blinded in the presence of his courtiers. The city was forced to say goodbye to two of its invaluable treasures: the Peacock Throne that had adorned the Diwan-I-Khas for centuries; the Kohinoor, the diamond that symbolized Delhi’s grandeur (‘who-so-ever holds the Kohinoor holds Delhi’ goes the legend).
Delhi is no stranger to loss. It has been built and rebuilt, brutalized in unimaginable ways. The city is a phoenix that has risen from the ashes of every catastrophe. Millions of refugees flowed into the city after Partition ripped apart the sub-continent in 1947. Delhi grew like a hydra-headed monster to accommodate them. It is a city that defies geography; a city that keeps expanding at will; bursting at the seams with a population that charges ahead at the same manic pace as Delhi does.
The old and the new boast of a brazen co-existence here. There is room for the crumbling havelis of Old Delhi as well as the upstart skyscrapers of New Delhi. Room for the roadside barber and the five-star stylist’s salon; the computer programmer and the calligrapher. Delhi is its crumbling forts and tombs and the lush green garden the Lodhis built many moons ago. It dances to hip hop and stays up all night to listen to a Sufi singer pour heart and soul into his song at a dead saint’s tomb. Delhi is a kaleidoscope that can never make complete sense – a mix of faiths and customs and communities that have made this city of contradictions their home.
It belongs to no one in particular and belongs to everyone. It is a jigsaw puzzle every resident is free to piece together in her/his own imagination. It has seen the worst, this giant city and still retains the optimism to gaze into the future, its shell hardened by the memory of many natural and man-made cataclysms. From the moment the sun rises from behind the imposing ramparts of Red Fort till bleary-eyed midnight, it is propelled forward by the dreams of its citizens. Some dream of glory, others of power. Most, simply want to survive. It is their heartbeat that keeps the city going. Their resolve that sees the city through every night of terror to the clear light of dawn.

She's the one

2008-09-01T22:32:00.000-07:00

Tom Cruise has been replaced by Angelina Jolie. Not in child bride Katie Holmes' life, but in a new film called Edwin A Salt. The film is a spy thriller – car chases, dim-lit alleys, corrupt cops, grim secret service agents hopping on and off choppers, blazing guns, blood and gore, bombs and babes… you get the general drift? The movie tells the tale of a CIA agent on the run. According to reliable sources (if sources were delusional, would you quote them? Even if they were, would you confess they were unreliable representatives of the human race? Ah, cliche! Ah, mystery!) the script, once written with Cruise in mind, is being given a few minor tweaks for Jolie's sake. The gist of the story so far: a CIA agent, suspected to be a Russian informer, runs like a woman possessed till the truth is exposed. Innocence is finally proven as the sound track explodes in an orchestral flourish.

If you are wondering whether there is a famine in Hollywood when it comes to original story ideas, you are absolutely right. The spy on the run framed by a few rotten apples. You've seen it once. You've seen it twice, thrice, may be about a zillion times. You've watched it with special effects enhanced splendour in Mission Impossible. But you can see it again. No harm done, say Hollywood studios executives. And so Edwin A Salt will be coming soon, to a theatre near you. The only reprieve filmgoers can look forward to is the casting change. Instead of Tom with too much Scientology on his mind, we will get to watch Jolie kicking some serious ass. Leading men in Hollywood are quaking in their calf-leather boots wondering if the world, as they know it, is coming to an end. But filmgoers all over the world (especially men) are singing hallelujah. Jolie beats Crusie anyday when it comes to action, they say for obvious reasons!

Edwin A Salt should be a whole lot of fun to watch now that sour-faced Tom is out of the plot. Jolie, judging by her track record has more fun kicking ass on screen than any other Hollywood star – woman, man or animated robot. Cruise, on the other hand, barely moves a facial muscle and exudes as much excitement as a mummified Egyptian pharoah when he is jumping off a forty-three storey skyscraper or decimating an army of invading aliens. Nothing, except his obsession with Scientology seems to bring him back to life these days.

Let's drop the Jolie versus Cruise debate till good old Edwin pops up on the screen with a clap of special effects generated thunder. Till then, we shall hold our peace and think about the ripples this casting move will generate on Indian shores. As any Indian who has not been living in a cave far far away knows, what Hollywood does, Bollywood does too. Sometimes for better, sometimes for much worse. I've lost count of the number of Hindi remakes of Richard Gere- Diane Lane starrer Unfaithful. One of them was called Murder and belonged to Mallika Sherawat. The rest had different names and pretty much the same storyline. The list of Hindi films 'inspired' by Hollywood flicks is long, dreary and forgettable. But the point is, every move Hollywood makes, every million dollar breath it takes, Mumbai is watching.

So, will Bollywood directors and producers be 'inspired' to make similar casting changes? Can we expect a sequel to current blockbuster Singh is King with Lara Dutta in place of macho man Akshay Kumar? Will it be called Kaur is Queen or not? Or let's imagine Bachna Ae Haseeno in a new avtar. Instead of casanova Ranbir Kapoor, Deepika Padukone breezes through men in rapid fire sequence. While breaking hearts with the skill of an Olympic shooter, she also mouths inane dialogue about why men and women can never be friends because men are meant to be shikaar, not yaar, etc. In the film's second half, a sweet but sensible boy from a village tucked away among mustard fields in a corner of Punjab where family values still rule, steals her heart. He goes on to teach her the meaning of true love and commitment. Soon, the reformed heroine and virtuous hero end up in happily-ever-after land which looks like a cross between Upper Manhattan and mustard field territory. Ours not to reason why!

In the same spirit, Sholay, Indian cinema's enduring icon of male bonding may get a makeover. Possible scenario: Jai and Veeru to be replaced by Jaya and Veenu. The two female leads drive around town in their Porsche (because they can!) in hot pursuit of a biker gang which terrorizes upright citizens. They burst into songs which celebrate the bond that holds them together. They flip a coin to decide who will take the first shot at the annoying bikers as they zip past like the devil on wheels. And yes, there is also a gang leader called G Kaur who gets to mutter menacingly whenever the camera zooms in on her face. Casting directors, take note. Sushmita Sen can make a spine chilling G. Give the woman something meaty to do, for once. Stop wasting her in itsy bitsy item numbers.

Dhoom (1, 2…), Don (old, new), Sarkar, Lakshya, Border, Soldier, Ghayal, Hero, Qurbani, Trishul, Deewar, Jewel Thief…a few of the many films that may get a new life. Warring brothers replaced by warring sisters. Women proving their worth by sweating it out in the army, telling their version of the tale. Jewel heists, cop and robber games, love triangles. Women playing the lead in the drama and mayhem, instead of simpering side kicks. As stories are rewritten, will female actors take home pay checks that match the hefty sums their male counter parts earn? Are the winds of change headed for Bollywood or will they bypass its borders? Wait and watch…

a place called home

2008-08-02T23:49:00.000-07:00

On a windswept evening in MacLeodganj, Dharamsala, a group of young Tibetans were bustling about the city centre. They helped labourers erect a makeshift shelter close to the gates of the Dalai Lama's temple. As a gentle drizzle began, monks dressed in deep maroon and ordinary Tibetans trickled into the shelter. They sat crosslegged on the floor and began a prayer for fellow Tibetans who were protesting in China on their country's behalf. Many had been injured in the crackdown that followed the wave of public demonstrations. The prayer would be held through the coming weeks.

The energetic youngsters – all of them in their early or mid-twenties, strung brightly coloured prayer flags across the length of the city centre. A girl dressed in a traditional Tibetan costume tied the Tibetan flag above the shelter. As the rain built up to a crescendo over the city that hosts the Tibetan government in exile, the yellow flag quietly fluttered in the breeze.

In every nook and corner of Dharamsala's Tibetan settlement, posters and pictures remind the world of Tibet's predicament. Gaffiti screams from the walls of the town. The story of the country's forty-six year struggle for identity and the predicament of thousands of Tibetan exiles unravel in words and pictures. China hosts the Olympic Games which are set to begin on August 8, 2008. Banners hung from prominent spots in the town record a countdown to the spectacle. As the Games draws closer, every banner sends out the same message in big, bold letters: ONE WORLD, ONE DREAM. FREE TIBET.

The majority of young Tibetans who are busy with the campaign have never been to Tibet. They were born in India and educated here. They have no memories of Tibet except the ones their parents share with them occassionally. "My parents ran away from Tibet just after they got married. They were very young when they came here. They worked hard to provide me and my brother with an education. I teach at a local school. We have a good life here and I am satisfied," says Sonam (26), who was born in Dharamsala. Chemi (24) works at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives at MacLeodganj. She has never seen the spectacular heights of Tibet, but dreams of returning to her country some day.

The 100,000 Tibetan exiles scattered across India carry an imaginary map of Tibet on their mental screens. For many of them, Tibet is a landscape that stirs intense longing; an imaginary home that beckons from across borders. Some fear they may not be able to grow roots in Tibet since they have built a life for themselves in India. Whether they yearn to return to Tibet or not, the country occupies centre stage in their thoughts.

Chemi (24), who works at the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, MacLeodganj, has never seen Tibet's spectacular heights. She was born in India after her parents' move to o Dharamsala thirty years ago. "I have lived in India all my life. I am grateful for the government's hospitality and the generous gesture of giving asylum to Tibetans. But, in this country, we will always be seen as refugees. I want to go back to Tibet and live there. I haven't been lucky enough to see my country. But it is my home. And always will be," says her quiet, determined voice.

Among many youngsters, there is a growing frustration with His Holiness the Dalai Lama's demand for autonomy for Tibet. Though they consider him Tibet's supreme leader in word and spirit, they want more. Complete independence is their mantra. Whereas autonomy would leave China holding the reins of vital areas like foreign affairs, a completely independent Tibet will be governed in all aspects by the Kashag (Tibetan parliament).

"Our struggle is based on the ideology of non-violence. Peace and tolerance are an indelible part of the Tibetan psyche. We cannot forget that and launch a war for independence," says fiery Tibetan poet and activist, Tenzin Tsundue. But he sounds a warning note. "Non-violence is the right way. But is it enough to guarantee a victory? The world is watching our struggle. In our world, especially since after the attack on September 11, violence has become a given. How will the Tibetan struggle reflect this reality? You cannot escape from this reality," he adds.

An earlier generation may have been satisfied with the dim prospect of Tibet's independence and fuzzy hopes of a return to their homelands. The new generation, armed with the ferocity of youth, wants more and wants it now. As China hurtles towards unbridled economic growth and consolidates its economic hegemony on the world stage, which world power will drag China to the negotiating table over the thorny issue of Tibet's future? Geo-politics and trade, economics and military might. The construction of two new railroads in Tibet's remote reaches which many say will lead to an influx of Han Chinese into Tibet. This can destroy the fabric of traditional Tibetan society and its indigenous culture. Can Tibet's struggle for independence triumph over these larger than life realities?

"There is always hope," says a defiantly optimistic Tsundue. "We are fighting for the dignity of our people and there is no hard and fast route to independence. The struggle must be consistent. It must go on despite the pressures that are exerted on it from various quarters. Be consistent and carry on, that's my message to the people involved in this long, arduous struggle."

As the world watches the pomp and splendour of the Olympics unfolding before its eyes this month, some may spare a thought for Tibet. For others, it may not even be a blimp on their mental radar. The Olympics has turned the spotlight on Tibet's future for a few fleeting weeks. But even after the lights have dimmed, Tibetans all over the world will continue to dream. Their hopes, flickering, like a candle in the mighty wind.

2008-07-17T23:18:00.000-07:00

2008-07-07T20:41:00.000-07:00

2008-07-07T09:41:00.000-07:00

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To court, to court

2008-07-06T23:26:00.000-07:00

Say you wake up one morning with a desperate urge to save the world. You feel the need to get out there and fight a battle on behalf of X, Y or Z. The thought of crusading for their cause brings a rush of blood to your head. Your nerves are crackling, your reflexes are at their snappiest. You don't remember feeling this charged in your entire adult life. Ever. When you went to bed the night before, you were mousy pushover Peter Parker. But with the dawn of this bright new day, you have risen as an avenging superhero. You can scale any peak, move every mountain. Fire or flood, you will swoop down from the blue sky and save desperate mortals from damnation. You strut around like superman, you gyrate like catwoman, you suspect you can swing from tower to tower in the blink of an eye and decimate all evil as you fly by.
So far, so good.
Now that you are feeling this way, you are prepared to seize the day. Go forth and battle. On behalf of whomsoever it may concern. Or not. Meaning, you haven't the slightest idea who you are planning to fight for. Or what cause you will be championing. So you hold your superhuman urges in check for a minute and wonder who exactly you must represent. There are millions of people in our glorious nation who will lay claim to your attention. Children who hawk their wares on ruthless city streets. Homeless people huddled in the underbelly of concrete flyovers, battered by hunger and harsh sunshine. Underage runaways squatting on railway platforms as life whizzes past them day and night.
Farmers crippled by debt, pushed to the edge. Weavers and artisans sinking into the quicksand of poverty. Displaced tribes with no place to call home as forests dwindle in direct proportion to our greed.
The system is a giant sieve with cracks that cannot be counted. The number of people who have fallen through is mind boggling. And the count is on the rise. So you have no dearth of choices. Pick one, pick two, pick a zillion causes. But alarm bells ring loud and clear in your head. If you zoom in on a specific group, you will have to suffer its consequences. Say for example, you set out to build a school in a remote village forgotten by the rest of India as it hurtles towards the promised land of progress. This crusade will involve a lot of mental and physical struggle. You will actually have to travel all the way to the village. Bones creaking after the uncomfortable drive over dusty roads, you will have to slave over the project. There will be all sorts of red tape to cut through. There will be annoying details to take care of. You will be stuck in an endless cycle of meetings with government officials who care very little about your altruistic avatar and even less about the village. In short, it will be a drag.
Feeding the hungry, helping the homeless, rescuing runaways – all of these endeavours will involve similar hurdles. So you decide to pass. What's less cumbersome? You ponder. You brood. And the perfect idea hits you like the apple that landed on Newton's head and produced the unforgettable epiphany about gravity.
You will file a Public Interest Litigation – endearingly abbreviated into PIL. Filing a PIL will give you immense satisfaction. As the term makes clear, it is being filed on behalf of the public. So you are indulging in a purely altruistic, superhero like act. Warding off dangers that are headed our way, even if we are barely aware of them. Like a guardian angel, you will defend the public with the power of the PIL.
"To court, to court," you mutter and drive towards the courts at the speed of light. In a flash of blinding insight, you realize you are the messiah. You wonder if you should slow down your car and let pedestrians know that deliverance is at hand. You smile at one and all from behind the tinted glasses of your car. You know you can walk on water.
So you file a PIL – against an actress who dared to wear a micro mini to a public venue. She wears less in every Bollywood flick she has appeared so far. "But that, my dear unsuspecting public," you say " is a different story." Your PIL is rescuing the public from a grave danger. She is being warned in no uncertain terms that she cannot corrupt an innocent public in real life. What you do on the silver screen in a dim-lit cinema hall is between you and your producer. "But in the clear light of day, beware the wrath of the PIL," you holler.
If not an actress, you can target other offenders. A director who dares to make a film on a Hindu god or a Muslim king, a painter who depicts a goddess through an artist's eye, a writer who pens a lyric with a metaphor you just can't understand. In your book, obscurity is a crime against the public too. You argue that it is criminal to befuddle respectable citizens who have been dulled into mindless oblivion and hence, cannot decode annoying metaphors.
The PIL, just like dynamite, was intended to be a boon to humanity. In the 60s and 70s, litigation in India was strictly a private pursuit to protect private interests. In simple terms: if you had a problem, you had to handle it yourself. The 'injured party' or 'aggrieved party' – in legalese – had to initiate litigation by her/himself. Then you ran around in circles, all by yourself, till the verdict was declared. In the 80s, the supreme court decided to give all individuals, consumer groups and social action groups easier access to the law. PILs threw open the doors to the apex court. The ordinary citizen could approach it for legal remedies on behalf of the public or a section of it.
Public Interest Litigation has produced some landmark judgments in our country. But the number of frivolous PILs clogging the court is staggering. The judiciary has been issuing frequent requests to stop people from filing PILs at the drop of any absurd hat. Judges have sent out several stern warnings against the misuse of this legal tool.
Maybe the judiciary should strike back and file a PIL against over-zealous guardians of public morality who protest too much, too often, in too shrill a tone. Their silence would bring welcome relief to the public.

As Time Goes By

2008-05-31T23:54:00.000-07:00

In Kashmir, tulips bloomed flaming yellow and red this spring too. As spring segues into summer, they fade. The wheel turns, another season arrives. And the Valley sighs, wondering if an ancient promise will materialise. Will the train to Kashmir, linking it to the rest of the country, ever morph from dream to reality? How long does it take for a dream to ripen? How many generations must turn to grass before the wait ends?

An eternity has passed since the ambitious project was first conceived. The Maharaja of Kashmir once wanted to try his hand at it. The British had plans to execute it in the heydays of the Raj. In the fifty year lifetime of the Indian republic, governments have come and gone, holding out the promise like a shimmering dream. Work on the rail goes on, some deadlines have been met, many have fallen like ninepins on the way.

Older Kashmiris have accepted this as a fact of life. They treat the project with the same stoicism reserved for birth and death. "It goes on…" they say. Their tone is laced with neither hope nor cynicism. "How long will it take? Who can tell," they sigh and get on with the business of life.

Time has whittled down their hope to resignation. The story goes back to 1898 when Maharaja Pratap Singh enticed his subjects with the prospect of a railway line connecting Srinagar with Jammu. But the empire objected. Bowing to imperialist dictate, the idea was abandoned. Many moons later, the British proposed a rail link between the two. It was a spectacular project – a line snaking over the formidable Pir Panjal mountain range climbing up to a height of 11,000 feet. Powered by hydro-electricity drawn from mountain streams generously strewn over the range. The Maharaja approved the plan. But harsh reality never let it take off. The engineering challenges involved in negotiating the terrain sounded its death knell.

In 1983, the Indian government flagged off the construction of a rail line linking Jammu to Udhampur. Work on the fifty-kilometre stretch was to be completed in five years. The line, cutting across the Shivalik Hills would have 20 tunnels and 160 bridges. The Shivalik Hills posed lesser topographical challenges than the Pir Panjals to engineers. Even so, the line took 21 years to be functional. Built at an estimated cost of 550 crores, it was inaugurated on April 13, 2005.

It didn't take a savant to see that a rail link to the isolated Valley would bring its people closer to the mainstream. Years of centre-state hostility could be bridged at least to some extent through the connection. In 1994, the central government announced that a railway line connecting Udhampur-Quazigund and Srinagar, running all the way up to far-flung Baramullah was in the pipeline. It would make travel to and within Kashmir a less daunting task for residents as well as tourists. It would end years of Kashmir's alienation and open up new channels of communication. It was a prospect full of promise.

But hurdles loom large on its horizon. The project is one of the most challenging railway engineering feats ever attempted. Experts compare it to the recently completed China-Tibet railway line in terms of complexity.

Construction has to keep in mind the challenge posed by extreme winters and heavy snowfalls. The route crosses the Pir Panjals whose peaks touch dizzying heights of about 15,000 feet. Bridges, tunnels and via ducts have to be erected. The mountain stands tall in the face of puny mankind. Then, there is the mighty Chenab. A rail bridge -- 1315 metres long and 395 metres above the river bed – is being built across a stretch. Once completed, this structure will be the highest railway bridge in the world.

"Water seepage threatens the tunnels. The mountain exerts pressure on the tunnel beds and their dimensions have to be squeezed," says an engineer who has been working on the Quazigund stretch. Avalanches and snowfall has often put a stop to construction work. They also stand in the way of transporting coaches from Jammu to the Valley for trial runs.

"I've seen a train onscreen…in a Mithun Chakrabarty film," grins fourteen-year-old Vijay. He lives in Nowgam, a sleepy village in Srinagar's suburbs where the newly constructed railway station is located. Vijay and his parents have watched the coaches chugging across the line during the recent trial runs. "I can't wait to get on the train," says Vijay. "I want to hop on it and travel to Bombay, Delhi." He imagines the metros as exotic fairylands the train will ferry him to. His parents are sceptical about whether they will live long enough to see the train service become operational.

"Who knows what the government is planning!" asks Sabah. Her family has lived in Nowgam for generations. Sabah's family distrusts the rail link. "It will erode the essence of Kashmiri culture by throwing our doors wide open to the world," says Sabah's grandfather. "It will bring us closer to the rest of the country, the world," Sabah agrees. "But I worry that it will change us in ways we don't expect."

The latest update is that the stretch within Kashmir, from Qazigund to Rajwansher, will begin operations in 2008-2009. According to the railway budget of 2008, the deadline for the Udhampur- Qazigund link has been stretched to 2012. The authorities are tight lipped about the Udhampur-Katra route after recent tunneling difficulties. There was hope that it would be completed by 2013, but more delays are expected.

And so the Valley waits.

Moving

2008-05-26T09:57:00.000-07:00

Landlords move in mysterious ways. At least, mine does. All through the mellow months of January and February, he seemed fine with life as we know it. Perfectly civil tenant-landlord ties, we shared. Loosely translated, this meant polite 'good mornings' and good evenings' when I crossed the path of my landlord and his lawfully wedded wife. Our occasional chats covered the weather (too hot/too cold/ what fine weather), my job (journalism, such an exciting job, no?), annoying breakdowns (no water/ no power/bad plumbing).

Not that I took it to be a bond for life or anything, but we seemed to be getting along just fine. Lulled into a false sense of security by this state of affairs, I was trudging up the stairs one fine March evening. Living in a barsaati is an elevating experience. Both for body and soul. The terrace, a wide open space, such a rarity in the national capital. Blue skies above. The wind in your face. As for the daily climb up seemingly endless flights of stairs, that's mandatory exercise I can't shirk if I want to get home at the end of the day.

So, as I was humming a tune and floating (in a metaphorical sort of way, of course) up the stairway, my landlord decided to drop the bomb. There are many ways to shock tenants out of their minds. You could do it at a gradual pace. Begin by dropping a hint or two every week to warn the unsuspecting victim. Build up the tension a bit before pulling the plug. That way, the tenant might actually be prepared for the blow. And be left unscarred to move on to live a more productive life some place else.

Of course, my landlord did not subscribe to this school of thought. He executed his mission with the rashness of Bush ordering his men to bomb Afghanistan or blow up Iraq. No warning or prologue. Just a brusque announcement that he was not planning on renewing my lease. Ergo, I must clear out of the house as soon as humanly possible. End of conversation.

If only landlords didn't make arbitrary choices. If only they believed in reason or rhyme. If only there was a law against arbitrariness. If only someone would issue a fatwa against

feudal lords like these...After wasting a few precious days on such bizarre wishes, I started my preparations for the move.

There must be people out there who can move houses in the blink of an eye. They break down the convoluted process into pre-orchestrated steps. The moment they hear their landlords string together 'lease' and 'move' in a sentence, they speed dial their realtor's office. Movers and packers are summoned. Curtains and carpets and cushions and kitchenware are bundled into cartons. Books are bubble wrapped. Antiques and trinkets, photographs and paintings. Each in its own case, neatly packed, colour coded. Walls stripped bare in the blink of an eye. House dismantled in the space of a heartbeat. Moving at a war footing. Made ruthlessly efficient.

I must confess my circle of friends does not include members of this exemplary tribe. But I am not ruling out the possibility of their existence. Unlike the Sufis, I am not a stickler for experiential truth. I assume they occupy the planet, these ruthless movers, though I haven't actually run into any yet. The efficient movers must be zipping from apartment A to apartment B, belongings safely in tow, even as we speak. Some of them may write best selling guides on 'moving made easy' in the near future. Dish out dollops of chicken soup for the mover's soul. Enlighten the faint-hearted on the art of moving without moping.

But until that day dawns, moving will continue to be a loopy, disorienting, emotionally exhausting experience for us mortals.

First, the fundamental annoyances. Wheeling and dealing with your realtor. Infinite number of expeditions under the blazing summer sun to zoom in on a new place. Inane conversations with landlords/ladies haggling over astronomical rents. Your concept of a house – lots of light, airy and light, many windows to let in the light. Power, water, plumbing in place. Their concept – four walls, a ceiling. What else could you possibly want?

Bruised and battered from these encounters, you enter the next round. Knowing where you are going is not the end of the story. Round two lies in wait. Deciding what you want to take with you and what you can junk/leave behind.

This is no simple task. It's as befuddling as life's most enigmatic questions. If death and sex are eternal riddles hovering over humankind, so is this one. It calls for stock taking of the worst kind. It demands superhuman objectivity. It asks you to make an inventory of your life and then whittle it down to bare essentials. Packing up is letting go. In every sense of the cliched phrase.

For example. I have lived in three cities in the last three years. Souvenirs from all three are part of my baggage. Some of them have no utilitarian value. Some do, but I picked them up more for their finely crafted exterior than their actual, everyday purpose. Wicker baskets from Kashmir. A hookah from Srinagar. Metal work from the interiors of Maharashtra.

So I line them up and give them the once over. What must I take? What can I junk to lighten my load?

I single out the wicker baskets. But in comes a flood of memories. This one – I picked up in a crowded Srinagar market during my first assignment in Kashmir. This one – during a lazy jaunt in Sopore, strolling past saffron fields in bloom. That one...

Move on to the piles of books and magazines that have sprouted like hillocks on the floor. Saying goodbye to a book is like having an organ removed from your body. Better not risk it, I decide.

An old picture in a smashed frame. May be that could go into the trash can. But the people in the photograph have electric eyes. They watch my every move. If you dump us in the bin, there will be retribution, says their glint.

As the evening fades to night, I put a stop to my hopeless pruning exercise. Step out on the terrace and breathe in the cool air. Across the street, the familiar green of the tall neem tree. Darkened a shade deeper by the night. I hear parrots chirping from their perch in the branches. This tree is their home, asylum at twilight. I listen to them. This tree. This green. These birds.

These, I must leave behind.

Moving...

2008-04-18T22:54:00.000-07:00

Landlords move in mysterious ways. At least, mine does. All through the mellow months of January and February, he seemed fine with life as we know it. Perfectly civil tenant-landlord ties, we shared. Loosely translated, this meant polite 'good mornings' and good evenings' when I crossed the path of my landlord and his lawfully wedded wife. Our occasional chats covered the weather (too hot/too cold/ what fine weather), my job (journalism, such an exciting job, no?), annoying breakdowns (no water/ no power/bad plumbing).
Not that I took it to be a bond for life or anything, but we seemed to be getting along just fine. Lulled into a false sense of security by this state of affairs, I was trudging up the stairs one fine March evening. Living in a barsaati is an elevating experience. Both for body and soul. The terrace, a wide open space, such a rarity in the national capital. Blue skies above. The wind in your face. As for the daily climb up seemingly endless flights of stairs, that's mandatory exercise I can't shirk if I want to get home at the end of the day.
So, as I was humming a tune and floating (in a metaphorical sort of way, of course) up the stairway, my landlord decided to drop the bomb. There are many ways to shock tenants out of their minds. You could do it at a gradual pace. Begin by dropping a hint or two every week to warn the unsuspecting victim. Build up the tension a bit before pulling the plug. That way, the tenant might actually be prepared for the blow. And be left unscarred to move on to live a more productive life some place else.
Of course, my landlord did not subscribe to this school of thought. He executed his mission with the rashness of Bush ordering his men to bomb Afghanistan or blow up Iraq. No warning or prologue. Just a brusque announcement that he was not planning on renewing my lease. Ergo, I must clear out of the house as soon as humanly possible. End of conversation.
If only landlords didn't make arbitrary choices. If only they believed in reason or rhyme. If only there was a law against arbitrariness. If only someone would issue a fatwa against feudal lords like these...After wasting a few precious days on such bizarre wishes, I started my preparations for the move.
There must be people out there who can move houses in the blink of an eye. They break down the convoluted process into pre-orchestrated steps. The moment they hear their landlords string together 'lease' and 'move' in a sentence, they speed dial their realtor's office. Movers and packers are summoned. Curtains and carpets and cushions and kitchenware are bundled into cartons. Books are bubble wrapped. Antiques and trinkets, photographs and paintings. Each in its own case, neatly packed, colour coded. Walls stripped bare in the blink of an eye. House dismantled in the space of a heartbeat. Moving at a war footing. Made ruthlessly efficient.
I must confess my circle of friends does not include members of this exemplary tribe. But I am not ruling out the possibility of their existence. Unlike the Sufis, I am not a stickler for experiential truth. I assume they occupy the planet, these ruthless movers, though I haven't actually run into any yet. The efficient movers must be zipping from apartment A to apartment B, belongings safely in tow, even as we speak. Some of them may write best selling guides on 'moving made easy' in the near future. Dish out dollops of chicken soup for the mover's soul. Enlighten the faint-hearted on the art of moving without moping. But until that day dawns, moving will continue to be a loopy, disorienting, emotionally exhausting experience for us mortals.
First, the fundamental annoyances. Wheeling and dealing with your realtor. Infinite number of expeditions under the blazing summer sun to zoom in on a new place. Inane conversations with landlords/ladies haggling over astronomical rents. Your concept of a house – lots of light, airy and light, many windows to let in the light. Power, water, plumbing in place. Their concept – four walls, a ceiling. What else could you possibly want?
Bruised and battered from these encounters, you enter the next round. Knowing where you are going is not the end of the story. Round two lies in wait. Deciding what you want to take with you and what you can junk/leave behind. This is no simple task. It's as befuddling as life's most enigmatic questions. If death and sex are eternal riddles hovering over humankind, so is this one. It calls for stock taking of the worst kind. It demands superhuman objectivity. It asks you to make an inventory of your life and then whittle it down to bare essentials. Packing up is letting go. In every sense of the cliched phrase.
For example. I have lived in three cities in the last three years. Souvenirs from all three are part of my baggage. Some of them have no utilitarian value. Some do, but I picked them up more for their finely crafted exterior than their actual, everyday purpose. Wicker baskets from Kashmir. A hookah from Srinagar. Metal work from the interiors of Maharashtra. So I line them up and give them the once over. What must I take? What can I junk to lighten my load?
I single out the wicker baskets. But in comes a flood of memories. This one – I picked up in a crowded Srinagar market during my first assignment in Kashmir. This one – during a lazy jaunt in Sopore, strolling past saffron fields in bloom. That one...
Move on to the piles of books and magazines that have sprouted like hillocks on the floor. Saying goodbye to a book is like having an organ removed from your body. Better not risk it, I decide.
An old picture in a smashed frame. May be that could go into the trash can. But the people in the photograph have electric eyes. They watch my every move. If you dump us in the bin, there will be retribution, says their glint.
As the evening fades to night, I put a stop to my hopeless pruning exercise. Step out on the terrace and breathe in the cool air. Across the street, the familiar green of the tall neem tree. Darkened a shade deeper by the night. I hear parrots chirping from their perch in the branches. This tree is their home, asylum at twilight. I listen to them.
This tree. This green. These birds.
These, I must leave behind.

All you need

2008-04-07T22:34:00.000-07:00

Last month, twelve finalists on American Idol were sweating it out as they do every season. Many howled like men and women possessed. Some did sound familiar with the concept of finding the right notes and holding on to them till the song's natural end. To state the obvious – these were the few who actually seemed to realize the singing part mattered more than pouting like Angelina Jolie or mooning before the television cameras like Michael Bolton on an extra sappy day. Enough about the Idol…Idols come and go, riding on waves of flimsy sms polls. The only reason I dragged the show in here is because all the desperately seeking (shrieking?) finalists were set the same task. Stick to Lennon/McCarteny numbers please.

The Beatles are always on my mind. Buzzing in my head in a nice way, playing on as life's essential soundtrack. Bad days: Whisper words of wisdom, let it be. Charged days: One thing I can tell you is you got to be free, come together. Long days: It's been a hard day's night, I've been working like a dog. A new day: Here comes the sun, and I say it's all right...

I'm a huge fan, always have been. So this episode of Idol was music to my ears. "Hail to the Fab Four," I said, curling up on the couch. "Play on…"

Their melody and harmony, the chart-topping, heartbreaking lyrics. The soul, the sound. Who with a ear for music can resist the Liverpool four's magic? What human with a beating heart can not bow at their altar?

There are philistines who argue that the Beatles – yeah, with an 'A' – best belongs to the sixties. (Lennon once joked in a magazine interview that the group's name came to him in a vision. In the said vision, a savant had emerged from a flaming pie to declare that henceforth they would be called the Beatles – with an A. Ah, the whimsy stuff of legend!). So the carpers say that the group is a relic, best suited for a time when answers, my friends, were blowing in the wind. "All that 'I want to hold your hand' stuff, man" drawls a friend. "A bit out of touch with our time, methinks," says the ignorant. "Forgive him ye gods," I mumble. "For he clearly has no clue what he's dismissing."

Over 50 years have rolled by since Lennon ran into McCartney at a garden fete. That was July 1957. A year later, a very young George Harrison joined the group as lead guitarist. Three years later, Ringo Starr (aka Richard Starkey) played with them. And the stars, they shone bright over Liverpool's obscure skies. Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds, girl with the kaleidoscopic eyes, floating down the river in a boat, she smiled under tangerine trees and marmalade skies.

The Beatles not just defined the 60s and 70s, they owned those tumultuous years. Beatlemania became a legitimate word in the world's vocabulary.

They set an unbeaten record with 13 multi-platinum selling albums in the US. They created six albums which sold 10 million copies. They have had the largest tally of number one albums than any other band – 19 in the US, 15 in the UK. They stayed on for the highest number of weeks in the number one slot in the albums chart – 174 weeks in the UK, 132 in the US.

No more lists. Why cheapen their magic with tawdry statistics?

What makes them special, what ensures them immortality on the musical landscape as well as in our memory, is their enthusiasm to create new sounds and experiment with their possibilities in every album. Rubber Soul, Revolver, the unforgotteble Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. The sounds have a freshness that hooks you in. The band daringly used instruments which were never considered to be part of the popular rock and roll scene. String quartets, brass ensembles, sitar, swarmandal. They blended the new with the old, the regular with the unexpected. Made sure their songs cross the barriers of time and space, the lyrics winging their way over the years, all the way Across the Universe.

Those of us who watched the Grammy night on television this year were treated to a live Cirque du Soliel performance. The interesting mix of dance, acrobatics and theatre was choreographed to 'A Day in the Life' from the latest Beatles' album titled Love. Sir George Martin, the group's iconic producer and his son Giles Martin had edited the entire Beatles archive to compile the soundtrack of this Grammy winner.

Before new kids on the block like Rihanna rocked the Staples Centre at Los Angeles, the Crique du Soliet artists danced. And the Beatles cast their spell over the audience and millions of television viewers all over the world. The sixties may have become a dim memory. In the global village, there is no talk of revolution except the retail revolution. All that anti-war angst, all those dreams of a world where people live together in peace. You may say, they were given a decent burial. You may say, they don't matter in our time. But the magic of the Beatles, like a miracle, still seems to be working its wonders. Even in our time.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the Beatles track 'Yesterday' is the song with the highest number of cover versions in the history of popular music. The number of covers done so far – 3000. The song was released by the band in the summer of '65. The list of artists who went on to do cover versions includes Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Sarah Vaughan, Frank Sinatra, En Vogue…

"Why she had to go I don't know she wouldn't say

I said something wrong, now I long for yesterday…

Yesterday love was such an easy game to play

Now I need a place to hide away

Oh, I believe in yesterday…"

The game still goes on. There is war in our world, there is terror and dictatorship. The meek haven't inherited the earth, and the battle is still being won by those with the biggest arsenals. Money can't buy us love and never will. Heartbreak hurts like hell, even in the age of the all mighty free market. And without the sound of that Beatles album in the background, that song reaching out to hold our hand, how would we ever make it through the hard day's night?

TONIGHT

2008-03-06T01:35:00.000-08:00

Tonight a dream is wind for your sails. In a raging storm, sanctuary.

Tonight a dream is a bone stuck in your throat. Insistent irritant, you choke on it with every breath.

Tonight a dream is sand in your eye. You blink hard, your eye smarts. Tears stream down your cheeks. But the sand clings on, abrasive against the raw insides of your eyelids.

Tonight your dream is soothing breeze, sublime peace. A star, brighter than a thousand suns.

Tonight your dream is a tornado of terror that drowns your bravest impulse.

Tonight your dream is a bed of roses, a lush red carpet unraveling at your feet.

Tonight your dream is shattered glass, bare feet on broken glass, you bleed.

Tonight your dream is life breath, heart beat, steady pulse.

Tonight it is glinting knife blade at your heart. Crushing you with its burdens of hope, expectation, failure, disappointment.

Two fates hover over every dream's head. As the karmic dice rolls and you reach the crossroads, your dream can soar and fly, and turn into reality. Live the dream: the gods declare. Happy end, sweet delight…

Or the wind blows the other way. With tattered sails, your dream crashes into jagged rocks. Bitter end, a wreck in its wake. Too late like Icarus, you realize you flew too close to the sun. Soaring ambition has melted the wax of your dream. No feathers left to propel your flight, you sink like a stone, all the way down into the cold heart of the sea. No sky left to scale. Your tomb, the ocean's womb.

The Greeks, as always, hit the mythical nail right on the head. Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams, is pictured as a "being lying on an ebony bed in a dim-lit cave surrounded by poppies." He can change shape as he wishes. When he appears in the dreams of mortals, he takes on human form. Morphine, which has a certain reputation for triggering mind games, is named after none other than this Greek god.

The shape of a dream is always in flux. Like a cloud, it floats on your mindscape, changing form and scope with each new dawn. Chasing a dream is like chasing air, or a cloud or a whiff of smoke. It has no solid contours that you can hold up as proof to a disbelieving world. It exists, but only within the confines of the dreamer's head. You cannot spell it out in words. You cannot convince the world of its validity by drawing a pie chart or giving a power point presentation.

So the world treats dreamers with a mix of scorn and skepticism.

A dream will ask you to walk roads that have never been tread. It will demand you to make impossible sacrifices. To take leaps of faith which do not hold out any assurance of success. The dreamer's course makes no sense to those whose thoughts are imprisoned in a straight jacket.

For example. I walked into an editor's room to give him the news that I am abandoning my full time job to work on my first novel.

In response, I get a look of profound disbelief.

So, I explain the whole deal again, careful not to use words of more than three syllables, lest it befuddle the already befuddled eminence.

"So, you are saying you want to take time off from work to write your…hm…novel?"

"Wow," I think. Finally, the message has been decoded. A triumph of human communication.

"Yes. Yes." I nod encouragingly.

"You could take time off if you were sick. Or hospitalized. Or…" A considered pause… "Or pregnant."

"Huh?" I am stumped. I have no life threatening illness. Nothing that needs hospitalization. Or emergency medical care. I am not pregnant, not as far as I know.

"Like I said, I want to work on my novel," I mutter, kicking myself for having started this conversation in the first place. Would have been far simpler to walk out of the door.

"Yeah, you could take time off from work. If you were sick, or hospitalized…." Here comes the response again like a pre-recorded message.

I could have tried explaining the whole story. This time in Greek or Gallic. Maybe Mandarin or some ancient Mayan dialect? Urdu, Sanskrit, Norwegian, Russian? No. Whatever language I took refuge in would have led us to the same cul-de-sac. Obviously, the language wasn't the hurdle that blocked our path.

The lover, the dreamer and the lunatic are in the same boat. You are chasing an abstraction that shines like a beacon before your eyes. But as far as the world is concerned, you are simply a fool, stumbling in the dark.

But when the dream turns real, the world rushes in where it had feared to tread. Soon as a dream finds success, the world sits up and takes notice. Gone are the whispered asides about the dreamer's sanity. Scepticism is flung out of the window, the celebrations begin.

Marie Curie, Jane Goodall, Charles Durning – some celebrated success stories. Madam Curie's family went bankrupt when she a teenager. Though trapped in abject poverty, she managed to keep her dream alive. She doggedly pursued her passion for science and went on to complete her higher studies in spite of the hurdles.

When Goodall took off to East Africa in the summer of 1960 to study the chimpanzee population, it was considered an 'odd' if not outright absurd step for a woman primatologist. But an unfazed Goodall, whose research changed the very fundamentals of primatology, was determined to follow her childhood dream.

Charles Durning, who won the 2008 Screen Actor's Guild Award for Life Time Achievement in acting, kept his Hollywood dream alive in spite of a series of heart breaking rejections. As a youngster, when he applied to the American Academy of Dramatic Art, he was asked to stop wasting their time as he had "no talent." When he auditioned for film roles as a beginner, he was rudely rejected by directors. Durning clung to his dream and refused to be browbeaten. Then came a role in a hit Broadway play in 1972, followed by a meaty part in the Oscar winner "The Sting." His dream took wing…And the rest is screen history.

The ones who made it are well remembered.

The ones who didn't, are easily forgotten.

But in the end, what the world chooses to remember or forget is immaterial. What matters is whether you took the leap. And flied as close to the sun as you wished.

So tonight, follow the road your dream dictates.

quote for the day

2008-02-16T23:36:00.000-08:00

ThinkExist.com Quotes

2008-02-09T00:32:00.000-08:00

Will they? Won't they?

2008-02-09T00:27:00.000-08:00

Our resolutions… Will they take wing and fly? Or will they wilt and die?
The first month of the year has already tip-toed past. January, month of Janus, Roman god of beginnings. Mellow February's turn now. As 2007 was fading into the twilight, didn't most of us feel the compulsion to cobble together at least a couple of resolutions for the new year? Hope, as they say, is eternal. So we made another jab at it. Once more, we packed resolutions like bricks to build the edifice of the new year. Once again, we reaffirmed our faith in their power to piece together the jig saw puzzle of our lives.
Through the freezing December days, some of us may have actually put down our list of resolutions on paper. Others preferred a mental resolution-crafting exercise. Why write them down when they are going to play in our heads through the year like the beat of a familiar song?

There are some resolutions that appeal to all the people, all the time. (A short disclaimer: I am not bringing up the topic of resolutions to ring alarm bells. All the lucky souls who've already managed to forget the promise of sticking to their resolutions can continue to live in bliss.)
Since ours is an age of lists and compilations, there's no harm in bringing up a roster of universal favourites. These are resolutions that pop up like jack-in-the-boxes year after year on most people's minds. Topping the list has to be: "next year, I will lose weight." Or it could be: "next year, I will gain weight and make my presence felt." Resolution entirely dependent on what effect you usually have on the bathroom scales.
Let me give you a useful tip. When friends or acquaintances confide in you that their resolution involves losing/gaining weight, try not to ask them how they are planning to do so. Just look impressed by the strength of their resolve. Nod reassuringly. Say a congratulatory word or two. But do not, I repeat, do not ask how. For it is not your lot to reason how.
I speak from experience. When a colleague who is on the plumper side told me her resolution was to lose weight, I was foolish enough to follow it up with questions.
"So you are planning to go on a diet?" Moi.
"Huh?" She looks annoyed. She sounds annoyed too.
"I mean, will you stop snacking in office? Bye bye carbs? Hello green veggies?" Stupid me carries on bravely.
"What do you mean?" She has drawn herself up to her full height. She is eyeing me like a bird eyeing a lowly worm. I shut up. But the damage is done. There is an icy wind blowing from her cubicle towards mine. Not a word has passed between us through the month of January.
So I recommend silence, a smile and a nod of reassurance as the suitable response to the weight loss/gain resolution.
Enjoying top priority on the popular list are resolutions to quit/cut down smoking, eat right, exercise, spend more quality time with friends and family instead of obsessing over work and career concerns. Worthy resolutions, no doubt. Highly recommended for wellbeing of body and soul.
A friend of mine who is fond of theorizing – you have a problem, he has a theory – has come up with a theory on how to deal with the craving for cigarettes. He smokes like a chimney, hence…So his earth shaking premise is that a smoker feels the craving for a cigarette at regular intervals. "All you have to do is resist the impulse. As you learn to do that successfully, the interval between each craving will widen," he declares. If you are the sort who craves 15 ciggies a day, once you start the resistance, your craving will come down to 10. Then to 5. And then to none at all.
The pioneer of the theory is struggling with the resistance. But he is sure that once he pulls that off, his habit will go up in smoke. Good luck with that I say. Each to his own theory in this brand new year…

One of my friends decided to execute his resolution of spending more time with family and friends in all earnestness. As soon as the new year dawns, he takes the whole month off from work. Promises his wife to babysit their three-year-old through sickness and health, plans a long delayed family holiday. The works…
Two days into the month, he has a fight with his wife. They disagree on whether their daughter should take music lessons or not. It's too much of a burden on her time. Let her enjoy her freedom, he says. But it's a competitive world. We must catch them young, she says. War of words begins. Usually, he spends his day and most of the night at his office. When he runs into his daughter and wife on his weekly off-day or a rare national holiday, all goes well. Because he has no time or energy to squabble. The moments they spend in each other's company are short and sweet. Argument-free thanks to the paucity of time.
Ever since he has had time on his hands, a cold war has set in at home. His wife is speaking to him from between clenched teeth. Friends are staying clear of their house for the moment for fear of getting caught in the crossfire.
Word of caution: spend more time with family and friends by all means, but make sure all concerned can handle it. Look before you leap for your leave application.
As individuals, we make resolutions to improve our past track record. Resolutions are our brave acknowledgments of our failures in the year gone by.
As a country, there are some resolutions which are crying out to us for our consideration. It's high time we acknowledge our collective failure and embraced them. As far as these resolutions go, time is running out on us. It's a classic case of now or never. Tomorrow may be too late.
Of all the resolutions that we have neglected to make, this one stands out. It's a cruel irony that while we crow about India going global, one half of the population in our country still lives in fear. Of rape, sexual assault, eve teasing, acid attacks, dowry death. Before we give cosmetic makeovers to our metros, morphing New Delhi into New York, Mumbai to Shanghai, can we resolve to make sure our cities are safe? For women who want to travel, work, eat a meal in peace in a restaurant. To take a walk on city streets without being mauled or molested. To hop on a train without being assaulted.
We could also resolve to become a more tolerant set of humans. Let's not cry for blood each time an artist paints a picture that is 'objectionable.' Let's not set fire to cinema halls if a film offends our sensibilities. Let's not blindly follow political demagogues who thunder about caste and communal divides to inflame our basic instincts.
Let's resolve to listen to the voice of reason. To find ways of expressing our discontent without resorting to atrocity or extremism.
Let's issue a fatwa on hatred. Ring out old feuds. Ring in new friendships.
New year resolutions, like rules, are often made to be broken.
But it would be a shame if we didn't make them for fear of failing to keep them.

The H Word

2008-01-13T09:01:00.000-08:00

For a friend, it lies in her cat. He is a bundle of energy, darting around her apartment like a speeding arrow shot from a bow. He is aptly christened Mischief.
For another friend, a traveler who regularly escapes from the city's dissonance to the solace of the hills, it lies in a steaming cup of lemon tea. Brewed with care, tea leaves bleeding amber into water, a dash of lemon, slices of ginger for zing. A dab of honey, voila, perfection!
How many times have you caught yourself thinking that people find happiness in the oddest of things? Whatever else it may or may not be, happiness is excruciatingly subjective. What makes your friend or spouse or parent dizzy with joy may leave you cold. Or plummet you into deep depression. A writer friend who recently moved to a new city is house hunting. His property agent looked befuddled when he heard his client's brief. "Find me an old, lived in house. Preferably something with moss on the walls. No gleaming marble floors and freshly painted walls, thank you very much!" For most people, living in his dream house would be the perfect recipe for unhappiness.

There are some universally accepted indices of happiness. Food, clothing and a roof over your head are counted as basic requirements for human contentment. We can safely generalize that in the absence any of these we are left hungry, cold and grumpy. If you live in an impossibly crowded Indian metro, it's a sure bet that a clear street without traffic jams will leave you jumping with joy. Sun and sand, feni and frothy Goan seas too are generally guaranteed to put most people in a cheery mood.
Happiness does have its share of predictable qualities, but unpredictability usually rules. One grumpy person may feel thrilled when she watches the first snowfall of the season. Another may rave and rant and wallow in a sea of misery as soon as the first snowflake lands lightly on her nose. Happiness, like beauty, seems to lie entirely in the eye of the beholder.
My sister who grew up in the warmth of the tropics moved to the badlands of Ann Arbor, Michigan a couple of years of ago. For all practical purposes, Michigan residents are fated to live in the Ice Age. Winter is not just a season, it's a way of life. Ice and snow line the streets almost all through the year. Proximity to the Great Lakes ensures that icy winds haunt the cityscape day and night. "In India, rain used to make me so happy," says my sister. "Now, I am ready to burst into tears when I see rain clouds because the down pour is sure to lower to the temperature," she sighs.
Rain in the tropics can make you light headed with joy. You hum a happy tune as the thunder growls. You reach for pen and paper as the sky splits wide open and scribble an ode to the magic of rain. In the freezing northern hemisphere, the very thought of rain brings a scowl to your face. You weep as it pours.

So the same trigger can make you happy or blue, depending on your surroundings. Management gurus never miss an opportunity to remind us that the secret of a successful business is location. Happiness gurus – shrinks who claim their pills can waltz away your blues, new age divinities who lecture you on the path to happiness – can take note. Suggest a change of location to those hit by the moody blues. A move to the tundra, if the person happens to live in the tropics. If she is a tundra resident, obviously, you reverse the move.
Happiness is a slippery eel, escaping definitions with ease. Just when you think you have it pinned it down with a definition, it reveals another of its facets. Pop goes your definition like a fragile bubble.
Poets, philosophers, songwriters, filmmakers, mathematicians, physicists, Sufis and saints… Haven't they all strived to define happiness across the ages? Many realised that there is no magic formula for it. They were aware that no exclusive definition can tether it. So they traced some of the paths that lead to it and shared their arduous journeys along those alleyways with us.
Existentialists, thanks to their vocal discontent about life, have earned themselves the tag of grumpy philosophers. Jean Paul Sarte, that original rebel without a cause, has written reams on the troubles of humans "born into the mud." Left to fend for ourselves in an absurd, godless world, what chance do we have at stumbling on the oasis of happiness? Sartre famously said that life made him "nauseous" (no, he wasn't talking about global warming) and that he couldn't see the point of living, battered by "existential anguish."
But Sartre wasn't ruling out the possibility of happiness. He was simply raving against the threats to harmony and happiness that life presents before us. Awareness can arm us against the enemy. Knowing what you are fighting always gives you an edge.
Albert Camus (he of The Outsider fame) too ranted against the randomness of life and its fragility. But he did confess that he, like the rest of us mortals, is part of the eternal quest for happiness. In the man's own words: "When I do happen to look for what is most fundamental in me, what I find is a taste for happiness."
The mystic poets gave us their take on happiness. In their eyes, true joy lies in the union of the soul with god. The soul travels from darkness to light, transcends all that separates it from god, finally finding bliss when it merges in all encompassing godliness.
The Romantics looked to nature for the fount of true happiness. A field of daffodils in bloom, an idlyllic pastoral setting, a nightingale's song, a gust of breeze – the hues and fragrances of nature, its spontaneous rhythms – all spelt out joy to their tribe.
Hollywood studios have evolved their own prescriptions to ensure movie goers stay happy. Apparently if preview audiences burst into tears or leave the theatre with scowls o their brows, screenplay writers are called in at once to do a rewrite. A happy ending, the staple of every successful Bollywood film, occupies center stage in the Hollywood psyche too.
Ad-men promise us that shopping brings us happiness. Buy shampoos, soaps, perfumes, watches, televisions, playstations, cars, I-pods….Shop till you become a shiny, happy person, they holler at us.

Last month, I met a monk who came down to Delhi from the foothills of the Himalayas. He was in the city to give a lecture on "cultivating happiness as a skill." Not surprisingly, the lecture hall was filled with people. Eager seekers sat draped in pashminas, expensive pearl necklaces glinted in the dim-lit room. (Money can't buy you happiness?)
The soft-spoken monk made it clear that he had no magic wand to wave. He wasn't here to offer any quick-fix solutions. He wouldn't preach any gospel of salvation to his listeners.
He made a distinction between happiness and pleasure. Pleasure like a candle consumes itself. It is totally dependent on external factors – your surroundings, the weather, the time of day, your companions, your swiss bank account (or its lack), your car, your lovers, your pets, your job. Pleasure is influenced by a million things which lie outside your ken. It is a wavering flame that changes shape with every gust of wind in your life.
Happiness, on the other hand, is a steady state of mind. No matter how many peaks of ecstasy you hit, no matter how many black holes of defeat life flings in your orbit, you stay centered. Bitterness doesn't poison your soul, defeat doesn't fill you with malice towards others. "The measure of your happiness," said the monk in a comforting, sing-song tone, "lies in your equanimity."
As I drove back home after the monk's talk, I got stuck in an everyday Dilli traffic snarl. The driver behind me honked like a beast gone berserk. I checked the impulse to scream at him. I did not ask him in the rudest possible tone if he thought I was driving a flying saucer which could take off into the skies, making way for his gigantic Scorpio.

Calm, calm, calm. I muttered. He honked away for a few minutes. Then, silence.
One step closer to happiness, I was.
The wind blew through my hair. The birds were chirping, the sun raining down mellow warmth.
I zoomed away homeward.

Light, Sound, Magic

2008-01-13T08:46:00.000-08:00

What is it about the movies that make them so magical? I am not the first one to ask. And I won't be the last.
Maybe it's the heady mix of image and sound, light and colour, music and drama, emotion and action and intelligence, that does the trick.
Maybe it's the endless variety. So many kinds of films to choose from. A rich feast for even the most gluttonous appetite. Fiction, documentary, docu-drama mixing a bit of both. Classics. Cult films. Low brow, high art. The independent film, the pop corn movie, the blockbuster. The multiplex film, phenomenon of our times. Animation, short film, digital films.
Films have been made on every imaginable (and many unimaginable) themes. Boy meets girl. Boy meets boy. Girl meets girl. Love, hate, and the thin line in between, are all fodder for the filmmaker's imagination.
The agony of people trapped in the wrong body, most recently, Felicity Hoffman in TransAmerica. Extraterrestrials stranded on earth, ET who 'wants to go home.' Pregnant teenager with razor sharp wit, named after none other than the goddess, Juno. Many films have no qualms in training the spotlight on characters the world calls off-kilter.
Genres try to pigeonhole films. The swashbuckling Western. Brooding film noir. The musical. The road movie, the revenge drama, the coming of age film. Blast from the past – the period film. Romance, comedy, drama, action, thriller. Film as spectacle. Regaling us with exploits of Roman gladiators and larger than life mafia dons, making you 'an offer you can't refuse!'
Film as catharsis. Anger, passion, ecstasy – all our suppressed desires evoked, then purged in the cocoon of the theatre's darkness. Cries and whispers. Secrets and lies. As the frames run, 24 per second, our hearts beat in sync to their rhythm.
Tomes have been written about the magic of the movies. Film studies departments analyse it semester after academic semester. Reams of news print are spent on dissecting our evergreen love affair with cinema. Lists are compiled like an annual ritual, rating our love (in ascending or descending order?) for films which have been made through the ages. "Hundred films we love." "55 classics we love the most." "The best 100 films ever made, voted for by our readers." "Our critics pick 25 best films of the year."
Sometimes dire warnings which also serve as notices of our mortality are issued in place of lists. "1000 films to watch before you die." "If you haven't watched these, you are as good as dead!"
Lists may come and lists may go. But movies always have, and always will, continue to consume our curiosity.
Many filmmakers who are passionately in love with cinema have felt compelled to make films that lay bare the mysteries of the cinematic universe. So we have films on the rise and fall of movie makers, the loves and lives of actors, extras, singers, scriptwriters and song writers – the flesh and blood humans who inhabit the celluloid world. Films that track the cruel roads of tinsel town where survival of the fittest is the norm. Films that take a hard look at the faces behind the masks. Films that venture behind the scenes, while onscreen, the show goes on. Films about heartbreak in Hollywood. About aspiring actors, shayars and starlets, stalking the streets of Mumbai, 'ready for their close-ups.'
Kagaz Ke Phool – portraying the world of Hindi cinema at its cynical best. Who can forget the lyricism of Guru Dutt's black and white intensity? The shot of the once feted director's corpse being clinically moved out of the studio summed it all up in one take. Behind the magic lies a whole world of heartbreak. Kaifi Azmi's lyrics for the film said it best: "Dekhi zamane ki yaari/Bichde sabhi baari baari."
One of the most innovative films on movie making ever made is Dziga Vertov's Man With A Movie Camera (1929). With this documentary, the Russian filmmaker wrote an intense love song to the power of film. One of the pioneers to use real life footage (as opposed to staged versions shot in studios), Vertov simply lets the camera soak in real life in all its horror and glory. Then he edits them to fashion meaningful segments. The film pulsates with the raw energy of life. Dancers dance, athletes swim and race, workers build roads under a blazing summer sky, cyclists pedal along the roads, birds fly…Life goes on as the camera records its flow with a lyrical fluidity. The eye of the camera can make even the most mundane moment count, Vertov declares with every shot. If anyone was in doubt about the magic of cinema, I'd recommend a viewing of Vertov's classic.
Film is a visual medium, but part of its allure for us lies in words. Dialogue mouthed by actors ring in our ears when we step out of the movie hall. Many lines have become part of our collective vocabulary.
"Here's looking at you kid" (Casablanca). The flame between Bogart and Bergman would have burnt several notches lower without the line. And left us a lot less wiser about the angst of unfulfilled love.
"I love the smell of Napalm in the morning" (Apocalypse Now). What line can convey the horror of war better than this?
"The dude abides" (The Big Lebowski). Life wouldn't be the same without the dude's philosophical pronouncement to see us through the ride.
"Show me the money" (Jerry Maguire). I bet corporate boardrooms still ring out with the cry.
"Why don't you shut your goddamn mouth and play some music?" (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). Didn't McMurphy gift us with the best line to deal with a world gone crazy?
" Hum ne hamesha ek doosre ko samjha hai" (Kagaz ke Phool). That line summing up the essence of a relationship, lingers on in the air.
"Kya chahte hai aap zindagi se?" asks the poet.
"Ke pehle se behtar ho" replies the aspiring actress.
The conversation from Sudhir Mishra's lyrical Khoya Khoya Chand continues to haunt us, as we chase our dreams.
There is a character in a Woody Allen film who decides to commit suicide (as characters in Allen's films are prone to do). So the terminally depressed man walks down the street planning the finer details of his suicide. As he saunters along, he passes by a movie hall. There is a long line outside the box office, huge posters of the star cast are pasted at the entrance. The potential candidate for suicide takes a long look at the movie hall. Then he joins the line outside the box office, buys a ticket and steps into the darkness of the hall.
Next shot. Man's outside the hall, looking less morose than before. Then he speaks directly to the viewer (as characters in Allen's movies do) and tells us that "he won't be committing suicide after all."
May be it was a damn good movie. May be not.
The point is, cinema has the power to move us in ways beyond our control.
What makes its attraction so irresistible? Why does it hold us spellbound? What makes the spell it casts on our hearts and minds so potent?
May be its best left a mystery. Why look for logic in magic?
Surrender. Let the show go on.

It Never Happened

2008-01-13T08:24:00.000-08:00

Say it rained all night yesterday. Thunder growled, the wind wentberserk. Jagged streaks of lightning split open the skies. Raindropspelted the earth without stop, streams swelled, the ocean churned,rivers overflowed. A downpour as powerful as a waterfall. A wild beast of a storm, devouring everything on its way. Stomping across smalltowns and cities. In its wake, glinting towers of chrome and steel quaked. In villages, homes turned to rubble. Thatched roofs flew in the wind. Four-poster beds and pots and pans danced in the air, the wind jerking them around like puppets on a string. Deep in the woods,ancient trees uprooted. With a deafening thud, they crashed.
But when morning comes, I declare: "It never rained."I am sound of mind and body. All my faculties are intact. I can see,hear. I am sensitive to touch. Adequate supplies of oxygen areentering my lungs. I am not stretched out on a hospital bed in a coma.My brain, both left and right lobe, works.
But I stand up, spine erect, squint into the sunshine and declare: "It never rained last night."No, I am not insane.I am in denial.Denial is a many-splendored thing. It has a stunning range of uses.During his visit to New York this October, Iranian president MahmoudAhmadinejad stood before an audience and denied the existence of gaypeople in his country. All it took was a simple statement. The president stood up, spine erect, squinted at the flashbulbs andtelevision cameras and declared: "There are no homosexuals in Iran."
When gay people (who actually exist) in Iran heard about it, they aresaid to have been "shocked but not surprised."Homosexuals in the country are used to leading a secret existence.They camouflage their gay identity out of fear. They do not demandlegal rights or protection. Iran – in spite of the president's confidence in the absence of a gay population – has severe lawsagainst homosexuality. If a homosexual relationship between twopeople is proven, their punishments include lashings and even death.The president's denial sent out many messages at one go. Message togays: stay hidden or else…message to an interfering Western press:mind you own business. Message to human rights activists: yeah, gaypeople are human. But go tell that to countries where they exist.Message to gender rights activists: we don't have gays, so where's the question of rights?
A masterstroke in the annals of denial. Felling many birds with one stone.History is teeming with instances of denial. About 80 years ago, 1.5million Armenians were wiped out in eastern Turkey. They were not annihilated by floods or volcanoes or famine. A cold, calculated orgyof man-made violence snuffed their lives out. Blinded by its frenzy ofbuilding an exclusive Turkish identity, the state decided to murderthem in cold blood. But for years after the genocide, the country drifted in the twilight zone of denial. Text books never mentioned thegenocide. It was never discussed in universities or pubic forums.Children grew up hearing the tales of valour of the state, never itsbrutality. The dead Armenians did not exist in their collective memory.
History was written by people who agreed to perpetrate the crime of denial.When a Nazi sympathizer was sentenced recently by a European court, he was asked how he had lived with himself after aiding and abetting the holocaust. Day after day, month after agonizing month, didn't theghosts of Auschwitz haunt him? How did the mirror not shatter when hesaw his reflection in it every morning? How did he not smell the bloodon his hands?The man had found the perfect alibi in denial. "I had no choice. I had to do it."Denial is a million times more lethal than a lie. It coats monstrous decisions and their macabre consequences with the gloss of inevitability."My actions were inevitable. I had no choice."Closer home… in Bombay, Gujarat. When communal riots wrecked the livesof thousands, a compromised police force responded with the same.Inertia disguised as inevitability."We had no choice. Our hands were tied."
Denial is the luxury of believing that the easiest way out is the onlychoice you have. Without the crutch of denial, you are left with thetruth that you didn't behave differently because you simply chose not to. That's a terrible confession to make. That's a terrifying ghost towake.
Denial is used to score political points. To build empires. To justify invasions.If there is a master class on Imperialism, chapter one will definitely be devoted to the power of denial.Remember how Bush and the cowboy brigade justified the war on Iraq? By denying the existence of factual evidence. Denial of the reports byweapons inspectors who went to Iraq in search of the mysteriousweapons of mass destruction. They didn't find any because they weren't any to find. But one of the most brutal wars of our time is wiping out platoons of American soldiers and an entire generation of Iraqicitizens. Day after day.Because those who were baying for blood chose to live in denial.So Baghdad burns...
Is denial invincible? Do we have weapons sharp enough to penetrate its shield? Any missile that can shatter its fortified premises? The answer, mercifully, is yes.When the stench of denial poisons the air, art tries to give us cleanair to breathe. Films, about the Armenian genocide, the killingfields of the Khymer Rouge, the silenced voices of Auschwitz, Fascismand its silencing techniques. Novels which record the screams which were ignored. Poems and paintings which navigate us through the mazeof denials, bring us closer to the truth.Symphonies which immortalize those who were wiped out. Stanzas which celebrate those who were silenced. Bombard denial with stanza and verse. Bring on the metaphor and the apt simile. Illuminate the darkness with the glow of oil and canvas.Sing, speak out , drown the silence with full throated abandon.
In this lies our only hope.

2007-10-22T03:47:00.001-07:00

Smpli 4 U

2007-10-10T03:54:00.001-07:00

In the UK, the buzzword of the day is simplify. Classical Comics has> decided to turn Shakespeare's works into the quick text format.> Accompanying the text, there will be comic strips in case the reader> happens to be allergic to words, no matter how simple they are. These> quick text versions are targeted at primary school students and> teenagers.> A sample from quick text Shakespeare:> One of the most memorable lines from Henry V "once more unto the> breach, dear friends, once more" becomes "take a deep breath and> fight."> When Lady Macbeth goads her husband to murder, "Wouldst thou live a> coward in thine own esteem letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,'> like the poor cat in the adage?> Quick text translates: Don't be afraid!>
If UK simplifies, can India be far behind? In the global village, we> must keep up with the best of them, musn't we? If the Americans are> stocking up on nukes, we try to be up to speed. Get a few ourselves.> Or sign a pact with them, grovel and genuflect, till they agree to> show us how to make the nukes ourselves. If the Russians are> stockpiling fighter crafts, we do too.>
Looks like a global simplification drive is about to kick in soon. The> drive may start with Shakespeare, but it will spread like a blazing> forest fire. Across the realms of poetry and prose and music. It will> invade dance and drama and opera. Why leave cinema alone? There is a> whole treasure trove of films rich with complications, layers of> meaning which must be made simple. For the viewer's convenience, they> will broken down into easily understood (consumed?) snippets. The> drive will bulldoze its way through our lives in a million terrible> ways. Imagination will be made redundant simply because there will be nothing left to imagine. Any piece of art or music or poetry that is
enigmatic will be reduced to its bare bones. Like taking a clock apart, and laying bare its innards, operation simplify will demystify the world mercilessly.
Getting back to the Bard. Simplifying him will give a whole generation of young students the chance to breathe easy. Erase a major worry from their list of troubles. No more time wasted on decoding Shakespeare. No grappling with the complexities of poetic language. No need to peel off layers of intricate metaphor in the pursuit of meaning. Similes? Oh, please. What a waste of space. Metaphor. What a bore! Alliteration. Duh! Delete them. Dump them. Strip language of complexity. Goodbye tiresome figures of speech. Hello quick text. Wlcome 2 our midst!
In the simplified world many books will be revised. Volumes of poetry will be cut down to size. Films you have watched over and over again will sport a new look. No novel will be longer than a few pages. No poem will wander through the badlands of subtle shifts of meaning and metaphor. All will be clear. And quick.
A few samples: Playing at a theatre near you. The new, simplified, quick-texted Citizen Kane
Scene 1: Guy walks in with sledge. He has a faraway, dreamy look on his face. Camera zooms into the letters engraved on sledge. Rosebud.
Scene 2: Guy looks into camera and says: As a child, I skied a lot. This sledge is part of my childhood.
Scene 3: Guy has risen to eminence. He is a man of power and position. Scene 4: Guy in his office. He dreams of his sledge
Scene 5, 6 and 7: Guy fights with several people including colleagues, business competitors, wife, mistresses
Scene 8: He is now overweight and all alone. He is surrounded by slowly falling snow
Scene 9: Guy holds on to sledge and looks into camera. He says: I used to ski a lot. Lonely people end up alone. Modern man is alienated. END CREDITS (All names are written in quick text for the viewer's convenience. For example, Orson Welles reads as O Wlls)
Say you are in the mood for reading. You pick up Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman, revised and simplified.
Act 1: Mother: I refuse to believe my son died in the war.
Act 2: Son: My brother joined the war. He died. Because of my father's crass capitalism. My father is an American salesman.
Act 3: Father: What have I done? I have killed my son. All the soldiers who died in the war are my sons. I should never have sold faulty parts to the army. Oh god. I am going to kill myself.
Act 4: Mother: My son died. My husband, I believe has shot and killed himself
Act 5: Son: My brother died. My mother cried
Epilogue: There is a war going on in Iraq. Many soldiers – American, Australian and British – have died. Many more will. Iraqi people are also said to have died. The American troops are trying hard to bring democracy to Iraq. The White House is proud of their efforts.
CURTAIN
Or you might turn to fiction. A classic, finally shorn of annoying complications. No philosophizing. No more wandering through the wilderness of agonizing moral questions. Simple, reader friendly. Like instant noodles, all it takes is a minute to get to the point.
Anna Karenina for example.
Chapter 1: Married woman looking for love.
Chapter 2: Love found, outside marriage
Chapter 3: Woman must pay a price for transgression
Chapter 4: Flings herself in front of a moving train. Dies.
> Or The English Patient
Chapter 1: A patient can't remember who he is. Could be an Englishman Chapter 2: Nurse falls in love with him Chapter 3: The world war is slowly ending. War has turned the world upside down. Patient tells nurse his tragic love story
Chapter 4: Nurse listens to tragic story
Chapter 5: Patient wants to die. Nurse injects morphine into his veins Chapter 6: Patient dies. Nurse is sad
In the new world of simplicity, emotions will be colour coded. Say, you are angry. Or sad. Or elated. When you are angry, you simply hold a red card. When sad, use a blue one. Happiness and a bright yellow card go together. In case you are mystified about this system, there is a simple explanation. By holding the cards aloft, you are avoiding complications. Dispelling mystery. People around you do not have to tax their perceptive faculties trying to figure out what mood you are in. The colour reveals all. In one stroke.
Many more such innovative practices will be in vogue in the simple new world. But let me not list them all here. Might get a bit too complicated for you, dear reader….

Yesterday

2007-09-17T03:28:00.000-07:00

Wisdom, we are told, lies in letting go. "But what if it is memory that makes us who we are? What if the past is the only place we can hope to find our future?"Surjeet Singh asks these questions in a tremulous voice. The farmer turned 80 last year. His frail frame looks delicate, but his reflexes are razor sharp, his witticisms are lucid, caustic. Singh lives in a small town on the outskirts of Jammu. Singh is well known in his neighbourhood. His claim to fame: he carries an Indian flag wherever he goes!
Tri-colour in hand, he attends weddings and birthdays. He takes it to funerals. He carries it when he visits friends or relatives who have fallen ill. Last year, when he received an invite from the chief minister's office to attend a ceremony in honour of freedom fighters, the flag went with him to the auditorium. Singh and the flag are inseparable. "Because the flag is not a piece of cloth you unfurl on Independence Day and promptly forget," he says. "It keeps the memory of many sacrifices alive. They need to be remembered. They made us what we are today."
Some write off Singh's gesture as eccentricity. Some blame it on old age and the onset of senility. But Singh ignores the jibes. He is determined to proclaim his allegiance to the past. He believes that complacent Indians are badly in need of this reminder. His gesture, he hopes, will wake up indifferent citizens to the value of the priceless gift of freedom they often take for granted. "This is an antidote for those who have forgotten the struggle for our liberty. Thousands of people paid with their lives to win our freedom. If we allow that memory to die, there is no hope for our future generations."
There are places too that live seeped in memory. Pickled in the brine of lives lived, wars fought, loves lost, in another time. They can shatter your belief in the absolute quality of time and space. They jolt you out of your certainty because they are rooted in real time and space, but they also seem to have a life in other times, other spaces. They are tied to the present, but they belong to the past. Latitudes and longitudes anchor them on the cartographer's map. But they have the miraculous ability to break free at will, to shape themselves with memory's chisel and carve an image which matches no map.
So completely tuned into the rhythm of other times, other lives, they are a surreal mix of past and present. The past is not buried in musty archives. It lingers in the air like an old, familiar tune. It lives and breathes, it is flesh and blood. It lies in wait and bumps into you like a familiar friend when you turn the corner on a walk across town.
When I drift along the cobbled streets of Pondicherry, the sea breeze hums a tune from the past. In the heart of the city, the tall white columns of the Aayi Mandapam whisper tales of a 16th century courtesan. This memorial, built in the Greco-Roman style was commissioned by Napoleon in honour of Aayi who razed her house to build a much- needed water reservoir for the city. The story goes that three hundred years after Aayi's death, Napoleon's army quenched its thirst with the supplies from the reservoir. Moved by her altruism, the megalomaniac general ordered his men to build the memorial.
Matters of state are conducted at the sprawling Place Du Government (now renamed Raj Nivas). Once a center of colonial power, this 8th century building houses the legislative assembly. Pondicherrians smile when they point at the building, relishing the irony.
A stroll down Goubert Avenue which winds down the seashore feels like a trip in a time machine. At a prominent spot next to the promenade stands the war memorial, an ode to the memory of French and Indian soldiers who fought in the First World War. A statue of Francois Dupleix, former French governor of Pondicherry looms large further down the road.
Churches built in the 17th and 18th century in a burst of French missionary zeal also line the city. The Sacred Heart Church, Church of the Immaculate Conception, Church of Notre Dame. Under their high ceilings, sunlight filters in through exquisite stained glass windows. Echoes from the past resound in the heart of their gothic splendour.
At Karaikal, you stumble across a well-maintained cemetery located next to Market Street. Intricately carved headstones mark the graves. They house the remains of 19th century French officials, landlords and ordinary citizens. Death hasn't dulled their memory. There is a steady stream of tourists to the cemetery through the day. The graveyard is a familiar landmark, etched deep on the template of the city's daily life.
Colonial mansions built as far back in the 16th century are sprinkled across the city. Ivory coloured walls and spacious verandas, gardens in bloom. Like set pieces from a fictional world, they stand mutely behind gates painted a bright, burning yellow.
"I bought this house five years ago," says Dr Saravanan who owns a 17th century French villa. Born into a middle class family in Pondicherry, he won a scholarship to complete his higher studies at a French university. Now he heads the psychiatry department at a hospital in Paris. The doctor gets to spend his yearly vacation in the comfort of his villa. At other times of the year, he rents it out to friends or relatives.
As I take a guided tour of the house along with him, he tells me he has had a long love-hate relationship with colonial houses. "As a child, I looked at these villas with a sense of wonder. They offered me a glimpse of a magical past. I couldn't stop making up stories about them…"
Adulthood dulled the fascination as the villas began to remind him of the atrocities of colonial rule. But he thinks of memory as a double-edged sword. "A house built during colonial rule can remind of you of the wretchedness of our people who were oppressed. But owning one also makes me feel that old equations no longer hold true. Power changes hands. History teaches us that no empire is invincible."
Only a fool would cling to the past at the cost of forgetting to live in the present. But wisdom lies in learning the lessons the past offers. Without them, we would be fated to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

JULEY!

2007-08-07T02:41:00.000-07:00

JULEY!

Stuck in a traffic jam on the way to work. Bumper to bumper we clog the street. Driver ahead of me honks. So does the long line of drivers behind me. A shrill, jarring chorus. The sun burns a hole in the summer sky. We sweat and swear and keep up the cacophony. Theatre of chaos. Our early morning commute.
Later in the day under the blazing noon sun I trudge along to the railway reservation office. Every counter is packed, lines spill past the door into the courtyard. A lifetime or two will pass before I get to the indifferent clerk at the counter window.
Evening dishes out a sense of déjà vu. The sequel to the morning's traffic jam plays out when I drive home from work. We are stuck. As we were in the morning. A seething sea of humanity. Wishing with all its heart and tired soul that we could just move along.
And so it goes…
The summer sun shows no mercy. Mercury rising. The week drags on. Another day of dust storms and exhaust fumes. Another jam. I close my eyes against the day's scorching brightness. And wish I could get away from it all.
Remember the Queen number 'I Want it All?' Somebody should rework that one. For our time. Back in Queen's heyday, they wanted it all. And wanted it right then. In our time, we want to get away. And we want it now. In this summer of our discontent. Can't wait for another season. Can't look for another reason (Song writers please note)
Just as I am about to abandon all hope, I hear a friend is planning a trip to Ladakh. Land of lamas and legend. Magic wafting over the mountains. Sinuous streams, brilliant blue skies. Vast vistas of open space without a trace of the human race.Bye bye sun. Hello snow. Before you can say global warming, my bags are packed. And we are off, driving across the Leh-Manali road from Jammu.
We give ourselves three days to make it to Leh. The drive is a roller coaster ride. The road is a revelation. Impossible curves and hairpin bends wind across the mountains. At some points, the road simply disappears into a stream, a heap of stones or solid blocks of ice.
"Why drive when you can fly?" asks a mystified friend. A road trip has its own charm." We voyagers explain to the philistine as the jeep scales another mountain and comes to a halt at Rohtang Pass.

I brush aside a stream of touts who offer me skates, snow car rides and a photo op with a couple of domesticated yaks. The place is crawling with honeymooners who grab all of the above offers with a vengeance. "Remember Kerouac's road trip, The Motorcycle Diaries?" May be literature and film will remind my cynical friend of the romance of road travel. "But what's left to discover in this globalised world? No more Shangri Las for you to stumble on," my friend insists. "Even if you did, everybody there probably drinks diet coke and watches Desperate Housewives!"
Our conversation ends abruptly when my cell phone signal fades away as we drive away from Rohtang. By evening we are at Manali. After an exhausted night's stop we hit the road again the next morning.
It's a long day's drive to Jespa, a few kilometers ahead of Keylong. Keylong is the district headquarters of Lahaul and Spiti. The road to Jespa twists and turns and offers us dizzying visions of nature's splendour.
The sky is a bright, burning blue. Mountains tower over the road; gurgling streams trail along the valley below it. Except for an occasional truck or jeep passing by, there are few traces of civilization here. The silence is not just an absence of noise. It embraces you like a faithful companion, inspiring introspection. Your thoughts are free to take flight on its wings. They meander on love, life, past, present, future….
Jespa boasts of a guest house nestled literally in the heart of the mountains. The view from my room is spectacular. Mountains loom like somber sentinels just a few yards away, a clear stream glistens in the moon's silver sheen. There is something humbling about such unadulterated beauty. I bend my head in reverence to whatever power has created this perfection.
The guest house is plunged in darkness courtesy a two-day long power failure. Candles bathe the rooms and narrow corridors in their mellow glow. My cell phone is silent. The receptionist warns me that signals will not be back till we get to Upshi the next evening. This is bad news. Much as I appreciate the blessing of solitude, I hate the thought of spending the next 24 hours without conversations with friends. A day without inane text messages about lamas and Ladakh from people who have been bombarding me with witticisms since I set out. 24 hours without nagging reminders from my parents about the dangers of driving on mountain roads. I realize how much I appreciate the human race, warts and all. The conveniences of civilization take on a new appeal now. I swear I will treat them with all due respect from now on!
Once we start our drive towards Leh the next day, the landscape becomes desolate. For hours, we don't see a single soul on the road. Mountains stand watch, tall and silent as the road winds ahead. We feel like explorers making our way through virgin territory. When I spot a small group of workers on the wayside, I grab my camera and click their pictures. "People," I shout in amazement. There is an inexplicable pleasure in seeing fellow humans after such desolation.
The wind howls like a wild animal as we roll up the windows. Wispy snow flakes float in the air. The mountains peaks are covered in snow, they glint, pure white against the sky. The mountains continue without end, some grey and ashen, some reddish brown. Then there are tall ranges of sand which look like stupas carved by the wind. Towards evening we spot a herd of yaks dotting a flat plain we drive by. A hostile herdsman watches us without blinking from the wayside. His tent, pitched in the heart of the plain, is a grey speck in its vastness.
As we near Leh, tall green poplars break the monotony of the mountains ranges. After being starved of greenery for so long, my eyes feast on the trees. Gompas (Buddhist monasteries) rest on tall hillocks across the landscape. Their walls are painted a deep maroon, prayer flags flutter from rooftops in the breeze. Leh city welcomes us with bright white chortens and shrines housing intricately decorated prayer wheels. A chorten is the Tibetan version of the Indian stupa. It guards all Ladakhi villages. In it rests the remains of holy men, prayer scrolls, offerings to gods. The mountains are a constant presence, they watch over Leh city from all directions.
In summer, the weather gods are kind to Ladakh. Poplars and willow trees are covered with emerald green leaves. Wild rose bushes burst into bloom. Delicate pink roses cling to their stalks. Ladakhis tend their gardens religiously. Flowers, which last only for a few months, are nurtured like children. In winter, the trees are stripped bare. Icy cold winds howl in the bleakness, the flowers fade away. The harsh weather and the rugged landscape put human endurance to a tough test.
Despite the daily battle for survival, Ladakhis are generally a friendly people. On the streets, you are greeted with a smile and a cheerful juley. Juley is an expansive word. It can mean hello, goodbye, thank you and welcome, depending on the context. When I got lost on the streets, I was greeted with the word and given patient directions. When I thanked my guides, they would respond with Juley (welcome)!
One morning, when I take a walk up the narrow, winding alleys of the old city in Leh, an elderly homeowner invites me to his home for a cup of tea. He tells me that houses in the old city were built as early as in the 16th century. But they fell into ruin over the years due to lack of maintenance. Tibetan Heritage Conservation Fund, a non-governmental organization is now working to restore these houses. Water supply and sewerage, two thorny issues which were driving residents of the old city are also being tackled by the NGO.
House owners are grateful for their efforts. Many of them had given up all hope of spending the autumn of their lives in their family homes. They have happily returned to the old city with their children and grandchildren.
During my week-long stay, I meet many others who are passionate about improving the life of their community. Padma Dolma, a young gynecologist at the only civil hospital in Leh, is a dynamo of energy. On a busy day, around 150 patients walk into her consulting room. Some of them are heavily pregnant women flown in from remote areas of Ladakh by army choppers. Many of her patients still place their faith in the power of aamchi (traditional) medicine. She has to tread the thin line between their faith and the rationale of modern medicine every day.
SECMOL, headed by Sonam Wangchuk, runs Leh's only alternate school. The campus is located 18 km away from the city. Students are involved in every aspect of its day-to- day functioning. The campus makes use of solar energy and spring water harvesting. Students help to maintain two greenhouses which grow vegetables through the summer and winter. Living and learning in an environment close to nature makes school an enjoyable experience for students, many of who belong to remote parts of the Land of High Mountain Passes.
Chewang Norphel, a retired civil engineer, has revolutionized the Ladakhi farmer's life. Growing up in Skarra, a tiny village on Leh's outskirts, Norphel believed water was a magical word. Norphel's family, like other farmers in the area, depended entirely on snow melts from natural glaciers to irrigate their fields. When Norphel joined the state rural development department, he heard desperate pleas for water from every Ladakhi village he visited. The sprightly 70-year-old evolved an innovative project. In 1987, he constructed the first 'artificial glacier' at Phoktse Pho.
Norphel's artifical glaciers trap and freeze water at the start of winter. Water from a stream or river is diverted along a large wall of rocks built at the foot of a mountain. This water is channeled through pipes to an area which is protected from the glare of the mountain sun. The water accumulates and as the temperature drops, it freezes to form sheets of ice. In summer, this ice melts at the start of the sowing season. The water is diverted to fields, freeing farmers from their bondage to natural glaciers.
I am amazed by the energy, passion and innovative skills of these individuals. On a daily basis, they find new ways to tackle the challenges nature poses to life in their rugged terrain.

On my last day in Leh, I visit a monastery snuggled next to the ancient Leh Palace. Prayer flags flutter in the chilly evening breeze as a Lama unlocks the doors of the shrine. The offering bowls have been filled, the lamps lit. A benign Buddha smiles.
"Would you like some tea?" The friendly Lama asks after I pay my respects at the shrine.
The tea is sweet and milky and an excellent antidote for the cold. After finishing my cup, I thank him and say goodbye.Always be happy," he says with a twinkle in his eyes. Maroon robes flutter lightly in the breeze. "And make others happy." .
Journeys take you to distant lands. You savour new tastes, watch spectacular sunsets, walk across unfamiliar alleyways under dazzling night skies littered with stars. If you are lucky, you get to discover places that are never marked on maps. Their winding roads guide you to the soul of a place, their hearts always beat in tune to the pulse of their people.
Maybe the magic of the unknown has lost its sheen in globalised times. But even in our homogenized global village, there are still some paths left which take us closer to the essence of things.
They leave us wiser. About others. About ourselves.

The greatest love story ever told

2007-08-07T02:23:00.000-07:00

What will he wear tonight? He turns his wardrobe upside down. None of his clothes seem good enough for this special occasion. This night like no other… He has to be dressed right for it. Nothing but the best will do. He picks his beige shirt and lays it out on the bed. His movements are carefully calibrated. They have the grandeur of a man dressing for an emperor's coronation or a saint's canonization. He wavers between his blue shirt and the beige one for many agonizing moments. Beige looks good on him. This, he has learnt from first hand experience. Every time he wears beige to office, female colleagues shower him with compliments. He has calculated – based on empirical data – that he always gets an invite (or more) to office parties and weekend getaways on days he dresses in beige. Blue, on the other hand, isn't much good in moving him up the social ladder. It lags behind on the popularity charts.

Blue used to be his favourite colour. It reminds him of the ocean, of summer skies and school holidays he spent with his parents at quaint hill stations and sea side resorts. On the first day of their holiday, he would take off for a swim as soon as they had unpacked their suitcases. Bobbing up and down on the turquoise waters, he would watch fluffy clouds scurrying across bright blue skies. Drowning in the blue he forgot the monotony of school, meals that tasted like sawdust, served three times a day with clockwork precision. He inhaled the cool sea breeze as the waves rocked his body to their rhythm. Blue skies, blue seas, the promise of freedom, eternity...
He picks the beige shirt. His personal likes and dislikes are of no consequence. Its what the world thinks that counts. You have no choice in these matters. You wear what the world approves of. You say what the world wants to hear. You dress in the right clothes, you are in. You say the right words, doors that matter open magically before you. Everything – your wardrobe, your address, the car you drive, the cell phone you flaunt, the airline you fly – is passed through the scanner. One wrong choice, one uncool brand and you are a social pariah the next day. It's a tough game, so you play by the rules. Do whatever it takes to make your way in. And keep your place in the inner circle.
He finds a maroon silk tie to go with the shirt. A dash of colour to pep up the sedate beige. He wears the shirt, feels the freshly starched linen brush against his skin. Tie knotted neatly, he takes a peek at the mirror. He scrutinizes his reflection from every possible angle, tilts his face a bit to let the light accentuate his sharp cheekbones. His shirt is a snug fit, his trousers are ironed to perfection. Satisfied with the dress rehearsal, he heads for the shower. The imported marble floor gleams white, he steps into the shower cabinet and directs a jet of warm water on to his body. The bathroom made a massive dent in his pocket when he was setting up house. The budget the architect drew up for the bathroom could have fed a small country for a decade. The fat grand total at the bottom of the page set off his asthma and kept him hooked to his inhaler for about 15 minutes.
Jabbing the air with his manicured hands, the architect explained why what could be seen as an extravagance was in fact a basic necessity. "If your bathroom doesn't make a style statement," he cleared his throat. "I have to be frank…its all in the loo now. This is the space designed to impress your business associates, your clients. Your social circle's going to drool over it. You are going to love it" It didn't take much persuasion for him to cave in and give the go ahead.
Fresh from the shower, he wears the clothes he has meticulously laid out on the king size bed (Italian, imported, naturally). The house is quiet. The maid and the cook have left, the driver is on leave, down with the flu. He punches the sleek black remote control, sets the temperature for the air conditioner in the bed room. He leaves it on. The room must be cooled just right when he gets back. No point sweating it out. He walks past the giant LCD television screen in the living room, heads towards the front door. Burglar alarm set (state of the art, made in Germany, thank you very much), he steps out of the house. The car 's (Infiniti G 35 Sedan) idling in the garage, but it's just a couple of blocks and he decides he'll walk it for a change."
He finds a maroon silk tie to go with the shirt. A dash of colour to pep up the sedate beige. He wears the shirt, feels the freshly starched linen brush against his skin. Tie knotted neatly, he takes a peek at the mirror. He scrutinizes his reflection from every possible angle, tilts his face a bit to let the light accentuate his sharp cheekbones. His shirt is a snug fit, his trousers are ironed to perfection. Satisfied with the dress rehearsal, he heads for the shower.
The imported marble floor gleams white, he steps into the shower cabinet and directs a jet of warm water on to his body. The bathroom made a massive dent in his pocket when he was setting up house. The budget the architect drew up for the bathroom could have fed a small country for a decade. The fat grand total at the bottom of the page set off his asthma and kept him hooked to his inhaler for about 15 minutes.
Jabbing the air with his manicured hands, the architect explained why what could be seen as extravagance was in fact a basic necessity. "If your bathroom doesn't make a style statement," he cleared his throat. "I have to be frank…its all in the loo now. This is the space designed to impress your business associates, your clients. Your social circle's going to drool over it. You are going to love it"
It didn't take much persuasion for him to cave in and give the go ahead.
Fresh from the shower, he wears the clothes he has meticulously laid out on the king size bed (Italian, imported, naturally). The house is quiet. The maid and the cook have left, the driver is on leave, down with the flu.
He punches the sleek black remote control, sets the temperature for the air conditioner in the bed room. He leaves it on. The room must be cooled just right when he gets back. No point sweating it out. He walks past the giant LCD television screen in the living room, heads towards the front door. Burglar alarm set (state of the art, made in Germany, thank you very much), he steps out of the house. The car 's (Infiniti G 35 Sedan) idling in the garage, but it's just a couple of blocks and he decides he'll walk it for a change.
In the night sky, stars glint like shards of glass. A perfectly rounded full moon glides from behind a cloud. He doesn't waste his time admiring the moon and its extravagant beauty, he needs to get to his destination as fast as he can. Out of breath, his excited heart pounding like a drum, he turns the corner and walks into the neon lit brilliance of fifth avenue.
There is a huge crowd outside the tall glass windows of the store. Everybody is dressed for the occasion. Some have remembered to bring placards which welcome the new phone to the universe in bright, bold letters. He could have brought one too, but wearing his heart on his sleeve was never his style. He merges with the crowd and like devotees awaiting the messiah, they begin their vigil. Tomorrow, when the glass doors of the store slide open at daybreak, the new phone will be theirs. He will become one of the chosen few to own this mind blowing, sophisticated gadget. One wave of his credit card and the sleek phone will rest in the palm of his eager hand. To have and to hold. Till death or defunct batteries do us part. He wills his heart to be still. This night too must pass…
(PS: In June 2007, after months of hype, Apple released the iPhone in 164 retail stores across the United States. The gadget is a cell phone, iPod media player and wireless web device. Crowds reportedly held all night vigils outside stores in anticipation of the day the phone went on sale. Ripples of excitement permeated to all corners of the globe. The internet went berserk with bloggers who couldn't stop raving about the new gadget. They affectionately nicknamed it the 'Jesus phone' in view of the fact that it appears to be a miracle. Eager customers world wide are said to be waiting breathlessly for the company to release the phone in their countries. )

2007-06-19T01:47:00.000-07:00

YOUR GOD, MY GOD

2007-05-21T23:41:00.000-07:00

Faith. It moves people in mysterious ways.
A surrendered Kashmiri militant says he crossed over the border in his 20s, driven by his faith. Faith, like a drug in his veins, penetrating bone and marrow and heart. While his gods wept, the twenty-two-year-old took aim. The gun became his confidante, his prayer wheel, his rosary.

He remembers the first man he killed, the blood on his chest, the last breath ebbing out of his crumpled body. He taught himself to not feel the pain of the dying. To numb his ears to their cries. He believed the blood he spilt was a votive offering to a greater cause. A sacrifice at its exalted altar.

Gun cradled on his shoulder, he travelled from village to village under cover of the night. Hid in orchards, camped in jungles. Ate what he could lay his hands on, his reflexes agile, his nerves on edge, always on the run like a hunted animal. "It wasn't faith in my god or religion that made me sound the first war cry," he says. "It was the mad rush of youth, blind to consequences…"

This he says in retrospect, his weather-beaten face pressed against the cold iron bars of his prison cell. He surrendered five years after the bloodbath began. The stench of gunpowder clogging his nostrils, the gun on his shoulder growing heavier with each passing day. He saw the bodies piling up. But the situation on the ground had nose-dived into utter despair. He had mistaken the gun for a miracle, a magic wand he could wave and turn things around in the blink of an eye. Even if it was too late, he saw the path of the gun for what it was: a curse, a disease, a perversion of faith. He regretted his mistake.

Diving deep into the pool of that regret, he surfaced with the true tenets of his faith. "I put my faith in the might of the gun. Not the power of peace and tolerance that my faith preaches. I thought I was a believer but I was just a fanatic."

Misplaced faith that drives you to the edge. Turns you from a living, breathing being into robotic killer. Makes you strap a bomb on to your body and walk into a crowded market place. One push of a button, one flick of your finger, lives blown to smithereens. A suicide bomber programmed to dream of a perfect afterlife, a place in paradise, by those who pervert the very foundation of faith.

********

Faith that saves you from the deepest abyss.

A Tibetan monk in Dharamsala, string of prayer beads in hand, maroon and yellow robes fluttering in the wind like a prayer. He takes a deep breath and breaks into a calm, knowing smile when he speaks of faith.

"Faith is …" he gestures at the hills covered with tall pines, the clear blue summer sky, the prayer flags dancing in the evening breeze. "Like air, water. It comes naturally to me. Like breathing."

To the Tibetan people scattered across the world, uprooted from their homeland, faith is the beacon that lights up the long night. A kind, benign, forgiving faith. Praying for peace and hope for all sentient beings.

For the exile, faith is the home where the heart is.

*********

Faith in a cause, even when the odds are stacked sky high. People brought together by nothing but the strength of their belief, inspired to take up impossible fights. One man and his faith in non-violence taking on the might of an arrogant empire. One nation's faith in freedom forcing the sun to set on an empire whose armies bullied the entire globe.

Faith moving mountains, birthing history at midnight.

Faith in the power of the powerless. Moving people to fight for dying lakes and rivers, tribals robbed of forests, miners left to rot in the bowels of the earth, farmers bulldozed into parting with their land. Win or lose, faith keeps you on an even keel. It's the fuel that feeds the fire and keeps it burning, even on nights when your tired eyes droop, and victory like a shimmering dream, seems way out of your reach.

********

Then there are those who twist faith into shapes that suit their convenience. Misuse it like a terrible weapon of mass destruction.

"God asked me to send my army to Iraq," famously declared the American president. As cluster bombs rain on Iraq and corpses pile up, Jesus weeps…

Closer home, the saffron brigade sets fire to theatres which screen films they think can upset Hindu gods. Rip apart canvases which portray Lakshmi or Saraswati through an artist's eye.

"My way or the highway" says the cowboy brigade that runs the free world.

"Our way or the highway" screeches the saffron brigade.

Taliban hordes smash centuries-old Bamiyan Budhhas in the name of faith. The Buddha smiles as their axes take wild swings at the statues.

*******

For those who have said goodbye to the binds of organized religion, faith is a constant search. We seek, we find, we falter.

A friend woke me up this morning. The shrill ring of the cell phone rudely penetrated the mist of sleep. I cursed him generously in the grey light of dawn for destroying my well-earned rest.

"It's five in the morning for us mortals. Call me after… say…eight?"

"No I need to talk," his voice sounded odd, eerily disjointed.

"Ok…talk."

"Do you think there is a god?"

My patience levels are at an all-time low before sunrise. "Whose number did you dial? Nietzsche?"

But sarcasm simply bounced off the seeker. He carried on.

"I am serious. What the hell is one supposed to believe in these days? The world is going to pieces. Iraq , Iran, Kashmir, the north east, Israel, Palestine…"

"So there is war everywhere. There have been wars since ever. There's no hope for us except to believe in the possibility of peace."

Silence for a long second. Then his reply.

"Keep the faith? That's such a romantic idea."

Scoff. Scoff. At the voice of reason he dragged out of bed!

"Ok, so what do you suggest? Let's all turn into insomniacs, nihilists. Stay up all night believing in nothing?"

"No. I mean, I don't know. That's why I called. If I knew, would I call?"

"Brilliant deduction, my dear Watson," I muttered.

"If there is a god, how can he or she not intervene? Stop all this madness. Set it right?"

"May be we are supposed to do it ourselves. Since we started the fire. Our job to put it out?"

"No divine intervention? No miracles? Then how the hell are we supposed to believe at all?"

The sun is spreading like a blob of white paint on the horizon. Back-lit clouds glow in its splendor.

"Faith is a mystery. Nobody can explain it. Not me, of all people." I rest my case.

"So you don't believe in god?"

"What is this? The Spanish inquisition?"

My friend is a bloodhound in human form. I suspect he was trained at his mother's knee to track answers down.

"Do you?"

"Oh…there are days I do. And then there are days…"

"So what do you believe in? I mean, no matter what day it is."

"Possibilities I guess…" A sunbeam streamed in through the living room window, motes of dust caught in its way, did a jig or two.

"The promise of tomorrow. That no matter how dark the night, there is always the hope of a new day."

The sun slowly grew into a shiny, sparkling, golden globe. The sky was bright and clean, gleaming like a freshly polished floor.

A new day at our feet, unraveling before us like a grand red carpet.

A new dawn, a new dream.

Amen.

One More Life

2007-05-13T03:06:00.000-07:00

MAY 2007

One more life
I am not an apologist for gunmen, serial killers or mass murderers. Not a fan of annoying television shows which dissect the killer’s psyche after he mows down innocent people. Anchors with patently fake earnestness quiz mental health professionals. A cliché fest. “Sir, do you think the movies he watched drove him to shoot people?” “Could a rock band have influenced his behavior?” “Was he nursing a broken heart, a stubbed toe?” “Did his mother love him enough?” Crazy is what crazy does, guys. So take these damn shows off air, will you? As Chris Rock once famously said while hosting an Academy Awards event: “we can’t call them crazy anymore…whatever happened to crazy?”
That being said, I have a tale to tell.
A real life story. It sounded stranger than fiction when I heard it from a man who sat hunched on a chair in an impersonal cop’s office. Truth, they say, can set you free. The jury is still out on that. But truth can turn out to be stranger than most things imagination can invent.
The man’s story had a beginning, a middle, and an end. But the end was begging for a new beginning. In real life, this is a fairly common problem. Ends tend to be a messy business. No such thing as a clean cut, a bloodless incision. You can live through an experience and move on. But when you walk into a new scenario, ghosts of the last episode of your life trail after you. Ends, like shrapnel, are embedded in you.
There a chosen few who can carry off perfect ends. Writers for example. Or film makers. You create the perfect end for your cast of characters... And then they lived happily ever. Untouched by memory or regret. End of story. Or they melted into a splendid, dizzying, digital sunset as violins serenaded them on dolby stereo. Fade out, end credits. All is well. That ends.
But in a real life story, the lines are blurred. I met a man in Kashmir a week ago. A place so complicated you can be forgiven if you think you walked into a fictional set-up. The air thick with intrigue like a dark John le Carre novel. Plenty of violent twists and turns like a Forsythe plot. Official versions and unofficial versions. Official body counts and the real deal. The truth, invented, interpreted and recycled. By the army, the police, the paramilitary forces. By mainstream politicians, militant outfits, spies, informers. By people who are caught in the crossfire. By people who engineer the cross fire. By vested interests. By innocent bystanders. By those who have nothing left to lose. Their lives, written off as collateral damage as old power games spin completely out of control.
The man’s story begins in 1983. He was 15 then. He woke up to an ordinary day in Kashmir. The day, like any other, would see several bloody encounters between security forces and militants. The body count rising by evening. The breeze smells of bloody ends. Explosions of pent up rage. The sound of strident war cries.
He was 15. He left home for school in the morning. His green satchel slung over his shoulder. In it, school books, a pen his father gifted him on his birthday, the lunch his mother had cooked in the eerie grey light of dawn.
The man before me speaks in a flat voice drained of emotion. As if he is speaking of a third person. Reliving the story of another life, not this. Another’s story, not his.
“I left home and didn’t go to school.” He says, fidgeting in his chair, throwing a wary glance at the cop in the room. I have taken special permission from the cops to interview this ex-militant who surrendered to the authorities two years ago. They agreed, on the condition that a cop would stay in the room during our conversation.
“I teamed up with a guide who took me across the border,” he says. He is a man of 35 now. A thin wisp of a man, browbeaten by life. When he gestures, I notice the nervous tremor of his hands.
“I saw a gun for the first time. I was trained to use it. Aim and fire.” He looks at the cop. .
“Tell her more. Did you kill anyone when they let you out of the camps?” asks the cop with a lopsided grin.
“No sir. No. We lived in the jungle next to a village after we came back. I shot some people, wounded them. Never killed anyone sir.”
He lapses into silence. The cop clears his throat.
“Why did you join the militants? You were just a school boy.” I ask.
“Most of the boys from my village were leaving. We were curious. We wanted to find out what was happening out there.”
He gropes for words. “It was like a typhoon. A wave of violence. We were swept away. When you are that young, you don’t think of consequences.”
He makes a fist and stabs at the air. An empty gesture of emphasis. “I had no idea what I was getting into. It was a wrong decision, but it took me a few years to realize that.”
He raises his voice and flings a question at no one in particular. “Who doesn’t make mistakes? But don’t I deserve a second chance now that I have given up the gun?”
Life after his surrender has been hell. His wife is a nervous wreck. They receive threatening phone calls, letters, midnight knocks on their door. The message is always the same: prepare to die. Militant groups see him as a traitor, a turn coat who deserves the worst. His two-year-old daughter and wife have moved from their village to the city, hoping to find safety here. He works as a daily wage labourer at a construction sight. He reports regularly to the local police station to keep them informed of his whereabouts.
“The cops don’t trust me. The militants threaten me and my family. We could be bumped off anytime.” He looks up and makes eye contact. “All I want is a peaceful life. A second chance.”
Does he deserve one?
Who decides?

Traveller's Tales

2007-04-04T08:30:00.000-07:00

APRIL 2007, TRAVELLER'S TALES

Cities linger. Like lovers, their shadows trail after you. Long afterthe goodbye.Scraps of their memory cling to you. The first glimpse of a city'swinding lanes, cobbled streets, arching freeways. Minarets, turrets,castles and crumbling forts. Sepia-tints. Bright lights. Chrome and steel towers dazzle the skies in our odes to modernity.
Cities have no patience with etiquette. Like lovers, their memoriessurprise you. Any time, any place.
There are snapshots of each city wired into your brain. A jumble of images: the taste and touch of a city, its smells, the coda of its sunsets, the glint of its night lights. Ages after you wave goodbye,they will flash across your mind. Catch you unawares on a greyevening, a bright summer morning. On days you can't summon the will to live. On days you explode with energy and believe you can take overthe world. They simply turn up. Without preamble. Without a plot.
A memory of a walk in a centuries-old market in Istanbul where youstumbled on unexpected treasures. An antique lamp from a forgottenfairytale, beckoning you from a store at its noisy center. A long,rambling conversation with the owner, his face so furrowed you could swear he is an alchemist who owns the elixir of immortality.
A meal at a street side café on a sun-dappled Brooklyn street. An artist sits next to you and sketches the scene, as you bite into aslice of luscious honeyed cinnamon toast, the café comes to life on his canvas, bright yellow chairs, crimson coffee mugs, people huddled over tables, their movements slow and languorous, basking in the beginning of a new day. His brush traces the street, it moves in deft strokes, conjuring up fluffy white clouds, a benign Spring sky,beneath it, a tiny yellow café blooms like a flower, a lazy street unwinds.
Cities you lived in and will never forget. Streets as familiar as the lines on the palm of your hand. Their museums, parks, churches and cemeteries, bridges and freeways and music halls. Steak houses, strip clubs, ghettos, inner cities. You could find your way across them, blindfolded, on the darkest of nights. Cities whose geography you have made your own; like a lover's body, such intimate knowledge, a vein here, a mole there, a scar from an old wound etched deep into the skin.
Cities you visited and long to get lost in again. Stuck in your head like a tune. A jazz note you are free to improvise. Cities that seduce you. Surrender to the black magic of their bright lights. Their manic hearts pulse all day, all night. Cities that never sleep. Or stop to weep. Live in the moment. Let it be.
Cities that play your muse. Like perfect lovers, inspiring you to create prose and poetry, art and music.
Cities you remember and fight to forget.
Cities so close but so far away.
A recent visit to Kagul, a small town where I was born. This is a town in transition, fast morphing into a city. New malls, multiplexes. Flashy cars zipping across once sluggish streets. But I discover that if you stand still and listen, shut out the static and listen, you can still hear the song of the sea, the old lament, the soothing lullaby that rocked me to sleep, the primal roar that woke me up with a shudder on stormy childhood nights.
I wander the lanes of the old city which is tucked away behind the veneer of the flashy new town. People greet me in polite tones reserved for tourists, a reminder that natives who leave by choice need not expect to be taken back into the tribe. The landmarks of my childhood wink conspiratorially at me. The stately silver church by the water tank glints in the sunshine, the hands of the old clock opposite the railway station go tick tock tick tock.
In this city, I was a child. This city was my world. I remember early morning walks by the sea, clinging to my grandfather's arm. The gulls circling overhead, fishermen pushing their boats across the glistening sand, humming a happy tune, praying for a good catch. I chatter louder than the gulls, safe in the knowledge that my grandfather is anexcellent listener.
Trips to the city's only posh bookstore with my aunt. The store is about a half hour ride from home. We plan each expedition gleefully, it is my welcome break from the drudgery of school and homework andendless evening tutorial sessions. The owner of the bookstore, unlike most adults, talks to children, not at them. We discuss authors and new releases like old friends. I pick up Phantom and Mandrake comics, A Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist, a book of Shakespeare's plays. My aunt is a fledgling lawyer trying to find a foothold in the legal jungle. Her senior lawyer pays her a nominal monthly salary. But I fill my shopping bag with books, oblivion towards your budget being one of the exclusive privileges of childhood!
After years, I am back in this city for a wedding. A young cousin isdecked up as a bride, as her make-up thickens, her face transforms erily into that of a stranger's. As the auspicious hour of the edding ceremony draws near, the bride's family is bundled into cars nd driven to the venue. As we drive past endless rows of shopping alls and jewelry stores, the eternal question pops up in my head.
Can you go home again? Yes, you can.
But make sure you have confirmed return tickets before you set out. More survival tips. If you want to hang on to semblance of sanity, get out of town before the family ghosts come to haunt you. Before the matchmakers make a beeline for you. Keep it short and sweet. A brief trip down memory lane is all your system can take.
........................................................................................................
The past is a city you lived in once. Its lanes so familiar like the lines on the palm of your hand. In its maze you lose yourself. A city so close, yet so far away.
The future is a city that haunts your dreams. A tune stuck in your head. A jazz note you are free to improvise. The black magic of its bright lights hard to resist. Its manic heart, pulsing, all day, all night.
Here and now, in this fleeting, fragile present, so many cities left to see. With new stories to tell, they wait. Patiently.
IRIS