On 'schadenfreude' and other big words.

You know how it is. You have never heard the word before. But then you hear someone use it. After that, your brain spots the same word in a hundred blog posts or news paper articles. You begin to wonder how you managed to survive in this world, without knowing that such a word existed.

One such word is “schadenfreude”. I remember coming across the term in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book, “ Fooled by Randomness”, that I read just a year back. He explains that it is a German word that means “the joy that humans can experience upon their rivals’ misfortune”. Once that had been planted into my sub-conscious brain, it kept popping out of pages.

Wikipedia explains that the word entered popular culture in 1991, making an appearance in an episode of The Simpsons. Since then, it has been used in several other shows, usually with an explanation of what the word meant. A play called “Avenue Q” even had a song by that name.

Today I can’t seem to read a blogpost without tripping over the word. Hell, there’s even a blog site that is called http://www.schadenfreude.net/ . Google Blogs throws up no less than 89000 entries. One of the bloggers says “I love that word, schadenfreude. Sounds foreign enough to give it a false air of erudition while describing one of the most common of human emotions” and goes on to file the post with the tag “schadenfreude”, in anticipation that more such posts will fall in that category. The venerable Amit Verma, in a post in Aug 2008, noted that a study that mosquitoes preferred men would make feminists feel immense schadenfreude.

Hmmm. I must find a context to fit that word in. Casually. Into a conversation or a blogpost.

Conversation with daughter- 28

Daughter: Appa, how does one become a Prime Minister or a President?

Me: What do you mean?

Daughter: I mean, what does one have to study? Just as you have to study Medicine to become a doctor?

Me: Let me think. ….What you need to do is to complete a Bachelor’s course in Arts, followed by a Master’s.

Daughter: How does that help you become President?

Me: Well, that’s what this guy called Baracko did.

Daughter: Baracko?

Me: Yes, he did his B.A and then his M.A and called himself Barack Obama. That's how he became President .

Smoke, drink and be merry

The economy may be melting, automobile sales dropping, steel consumption declining, cement offtake dipping, share prices plummeting, retail sales dwindling, shipping rates crashing, airlines struggling and jobs vanishing, but there’s hope yet.

Cigarette sales have increased in the last quarter. ITC has reported an increase of 18% in revenues in the period from Oct 1st to Dec 31st, 2008. Incidentally, the ban on smoking in public places came into effect from Oct 2nd. The ban seems to have boosted the sales.

Another piece of cheerful news. Liquor sales posted a growth of 18-20% in 2008, bucking the general trend and proving that “Boom or gloom, anytime is a good time for the booze business”.

Doesn’t this lift your spirits?

Be Indian

“British passengers on the Titanic died in disproportionate numbers because they queued politely for lifeboats while Americans elbowed their way on, an Australian researcher believes.” Source ( via Tyler Cowen).

Do you still believe that Indians should emulate the British and form orderly queues, Ms. Taru Bahal?

Conversation with daughter- 27

Daughter: Appa, you have been biting my head off since yesterday.

Me: Not without reason, you will agree.

Daughter: You are over-reacting.

Me: Over-reacting?

Daughter: I admit that I have been overdoing things a bit, but you are over-reacting.

Me: Let us get this straight. If you agree you are overdoing, isn’t my increased reaction proportionate to your deed, and therefore not an over-reaction?

Daughter: No, even for the overdoing, yours is an over-reaction.

Me: Let’s use some simple mathematical terms to settle this argument. Suppose a wrong deed of magnitude X merits a reaction equal to Y, then a deed of X+x will elicit a proportionate response of Y+y. No?

Daughter: No. Your reaction has been Y+2y. Tone it down by a small y. That’s my point.

Tomato soup- 2 by 3

Security restrictions at airports don’t allow the entry of water bottles, a fact that many passengers discover to their considerable dismay when going past the Security gates

So, when the merciless guards ask them to leave the bottles behind, what do they do? Open the lid and gulp down as much water as their bladders can hold, before bidding a tearful goodbye to the bottle.

At any Indian airport, near the Security gate, you can see many such mostly-empty bottles piled up.

The Indian brand of frugality is well known. “Don’t waste food” we are told in our formative years. And most of us simply can’t, for the rest of our lives. A friend of mine is so obsessed with the idea of not wasting food that he will literally push unwanted food into his mouth and his overfilled stomach, if he had carelessly ordered more than what he ought to have. No amount of appeals not to punish himself would be heeded to.

But, in these difficult times, we may have something to teach the decadent Americans, says Anand Giridhardas in the International Herald Tribune.

As rich countries enter a new era of scarcity, the best practices of the “gurus of frugality” can serve as a textbook for frugality's new pupils.

The first tip of the Indian frugalist is to wear your money. One rarely misplaces funds when they are kept in gold and hooked through your nose or strung around your neck. Some Indian women wear saris woven with gold thread. The danger of nudity discourages whimsical spending.

The truly frugal segment friends and associates into two camps: those who merit their money and those who don't.

Cellphone calls may cost a cent a minute in India, but why call people who only rate a text? Why text when you can make a "missed call"? Millions of Indians dial and quickly hang up, hoping for the other person to call back and foot the bill.

Your upholstery is not for everyone. Sofas fray and stain; there is, in the final analysis, a cost per posterior. So cover your sofa with bed sheets and remove them for only the best behinds.

So, too, with crockery: Buy a set of expensive plates and keep it in a case where your friends can see them while they eat from the cheap plates you actually set before them.

When eating out, order soups fractionally: a certain number of soups split by a certain number of people. Start with "one into two," the realm of Indian beginners, then graduate in time to "three into five" and "six into seven."

For entrees, count the diners at the table, subtract one and order that many dishes - which, for a table of four, saves 25 percent over the one-person-one-dish norm.

So, the next time you order a “by two’ coffee or “ 2 by 3 soup”, or “2 extra spoons for the single dessert”, remember that you are promoting the Indian brand of frugality which will lead the world out of the financial mess it has gotten into.

Diversity is well and alive

An indicator of the damage caused by human action on the environment is the shrinking diversity of species in rainforests and other eco-systems. So I have been led or misled to believe.

Thankfully, I came across this graphic which dispels that myth completely. If you were to visit the Amazonian rainforest, you will see enough evidence of the growing diversity of species, as illustrated below

There is always hope. Don't believe the doomsayers.

GDP will grow by 7.23413% next year

In a panel discussion in which some usual suspects participated, I heard confident predictions on next year’s GDP growth, ranging from 6-9%. One of the panellists was quite specific. “I expect the GDP to grow in the range of 7 to 7.25%” he said.

Now, the total GDP is an aggregate of the individual GDP of the manufacturing, agricultural and service sectors, each of which in turn has several components. So, the statistics need to be compiled bottom-up and painstakingly to arrive at the aggregate. There are central agencies entrusted with this task. It is not a figure that can be arrived at by conjecture.

On the other hand, there is the Gestalt factor. This is the capacity of the brain to form a holistic picture at once, rather than going through the process of adding up lines and curves. This is often used in perception surveys. Airlines may ask you specific questions relating to check-ins, cabin temperature, food, service, etc and finally ask you a global question, “What was your total experience?” The answers to the individual questions may not necessarily add up to the answer you provide for the global question. Quite often, the top-of-the-head answer that you provide against the global question may reflect your honest views.

Sensex is another index that is calculated on the basis of aggregation. So, when someone – even if an acknowledged expert- says confidently that he expects Sensex to touch 15000 or 20000, it is possible that he could be right, but not probable.

When some corporate bigwig proclaims, with that air of supreme confidence, that the GDP growth next year will be 7.234%, he has absolutely no basis (except the Gestalt theory) for making that assertion. What he hopes for is that the air of confidence that he exudes will act as the perfect smoke screen for his ignorance.

Serious comedians

Two Tamil comedians that I enjoyed listening to were Cho Ramaswamy and S.V.Shekar. I use the past tense because I can’t stand them anymore. They have abandoned their traditional roles by dabbling in politics; Cho as a political commentator ( for many years now) and Shekar by throwing himself directly into the murky den of state politics.

Worse, from being satirists who used to delight with their wit and sarcasm, the two have turned into sanctimonious preachers. This, in my opinion, is gross misuse of the ‘humour’ platform that they built their early careers on.

The oxymoron, “wise fool” has always been used in Indian stories. Birbal and Tenali Raman come immediately to mind. Humour was seen as an important medium to impart sense into the minds of autocratic rulers who would not listen to conventional counsel. In the modern world, satirists, cartoonists and talk-show hosts perform that role admirably. But, when hubris seizes them and they take it upon themselves to expand their mandate to indulge in serious political discourse, they generally make asses of themselves. Bal Thackeray is an example that comes to mind of a cartoonist who took a turn for the bitter.

I faced the same accusation from a friend and loyal reader of this blog. He encouraged my attempts at humour, but when I tried every now and then to come up with a ‘serious’ post, he was extremely critical. I had to tag such posts as “boring stuff” so that he would be alerted and could stay off.

So, I guess, the need to be taken seriously and not just as a clown who provides a few laughs, is ticking in each aspiring humourist or comedian. Maybe I should be more charitable in my views on Cho and Shekar.

Nip this in the bud.

On the platform of Chennai Central Station, where I had gone today to receive someone, I witnessed a disturbing sight.

The same train was scheduled to return to Bangalore. Some passengers who were planning to board the unreserved compartment actually formed an orderly queue prior to the arrival of the train.

This queue in the middle of the platform and with seemingly nothing in front to queue up for aroused a lot of curiosity. Passers-by started asking what the queue was meant for. “To board the unreserved compartment as soon as the train arrives” was the stock reply. Reluctantly, a few others joined the queue. While, others like me who were mere observers couldn’t believe what was happening and kept watching the queue in silent amazement.

What kind of madness is gripping this country? Do we want to lose our core competences? When it comes to rushing into railway compartments, 100 people at a time, 100 metres before the engine finally comes to rest, few people in the world can match our speed, nimble-footedness and our elbow movement. Why abandon these unique skills that we have painstakingly developed and finely honed over generations and decades? Do we have to give up values that are quintessentially Indian and stoop to the level of standing in queues to get into a railway compartment?

I am disappointed, even dismayed. Bad enough that terrorists are trying to tear the fabric of this country, but must we inflict damage on ourselves?

One reason for this virus of orderliness to creep in is that some of our writers go abroad and get brain-washed. For example, in this post, Taru Bahl laments:

While (in London), I had the good fortune of boarding the tube at about the same time (6.30 pm). I was quite surprised to see that the swarming crowds getting off the many elevators at most stations was far more than what we would have BUT there was a difference. They wait for people to get off the tube before letting those who are waiting on the platform to board. There is no chaos, no anxiety and absolutely no question of toenails ripping off. They wait to install older people or those on crutches and wheel chairs first. It is an unspoken thing. The crowds part. Someone helps them on and the rest climb in without making a song and dance about anything. And no one misses the train.

I asked Mark, my Indian friend's English husband and quite an Indophile, as to why we could not do such a simple thing back home in India. Was it a question of just being indisciplined, callous or unmindful of rules? He said, "Taru if you can stomach the truth, fact is it is not in your DNA. It is a cultural thing and will perhaps take a century or so to change!"

That’s the point. Queuelessness is in our DNA and is our birthright. Why tinker with it and try some funny mutations? We may be creating a Frankenstein or a Jurassic Park.

I hope that this Taru Bahl has been quarantined and de-doctrinated

Itchy moustaches and prickly beards

Some years back, I had to bid a tearful adieu to my moustache and had penned this moving epitaph when I was caught in the resulting maelstrom of emotions.

Now, BBC News reports that India’s famous facial hairs are disappearing as India enters the clean-shaven digital age. It quotes a book as saying that that the traditional belief that facial hair is a sign of virility appears to be facing the chop. Young people in particular do not want an itchy moustache or beard which they think makes them look old.

Apparently, clean chins are becoming more commonplace among younger people who no longer have role models sporting beards or moustaches.

What have I done to this country? I never realised that, by removing my fearsome moustache, I was robbing the young people of a powerful role model.

Gen Next

When I was a student many decades back, preparing for exams required solitary confinement. Cutting myself off from human society, I had to single-mindedly focus on the task at hand, to wit the cramming of the passages and the equations and the diagrams. Slightest of disturbances was enough to distract my attention and disrupt the flow of information into my sensitive brain.

Not so with my daughter now. When she is seemingly studying, she needs to have a galaxy of gadgets around her. Surrounded by her books and with music streaming into her cars from the iPod, she can keep text- messaging a friend on her mobile phone and chatting on the cordless landline with another, while catching some pieces of the action on the TV screen in front of her. Not only can she multi-task, she has to multi-task. Without the constant stimuli from multiple sources, her brain ceases to function, rendering her unfit to study.

The difference in behaviour, explains an article in Times (via) is due to the fact that I am a “digital migrant” while my daughter is a “digital native”, terms coined by the futurist Marc Prensky to distinguish between those who have merely adapted to technology and those who have grown up with it. As a first-generation immigrant, I may be reasonably proficient with computers, but I still need to print out hard copies, still need to check with recipient if he/she has received my e-mail and can’t figure out how to use the webcam properly. Natives, on the other hand, multi-task, thrive on instant gratification and claim to function best when networked.

According to research cited in the same article, we are in the midst of a sea change in the way that we read and think. Our digitally native children have wonderfully flexible minds. They absorb information quickly, adapt to changes and are adept at culling from multiple sources. But they are also suffering from internet-induced attention deficit disorder.

So, I have a wonderfully focused mind that can do one thing at a time well, but can be paralysed if asked to take on more than one task; Whereas my daughter has a wonderfully flexible mind that can multi task, but will start re-booting if denied simultaneous sensory inputs from, at least, a dozen sources. It’s all a package deal.

All you religious fanatics out there

So you believe that you are not the ‘religious’ type and, especially, do not subscribe to many of the methods and rituals that religions resort to?

Even if your claim is right, you could be an unwitting follower of other surrogate religions, such as “brands”, if we go by what Martin Lindstrom says in his book, “buy-ology” that dwells on the subject of “ how everything we believe about why we buy is wrong”.

Almost every leading religion has ten common pillars underlying its foundation: a sense of belonging, a clear vision, power over enemies, sensory appeal, story telling, grandeur, evangelism, symbols, mystery and rituals.

But, what is not so well acknowledged is the fact that these pillars happen to have a great deal in common with our most beloved brands and products.

Religions were meant to create a sense of belonging and identity. Brands do the same thing to you. If you are a Harley-Davidson aficionado, the chances are you will feel a sense of belonging among other users of the bike- it’s like being a member of a club.

Like religion, successful brands have a clear sense of mission. “Man is the creator of change in this world. As such he should be above systems and structures and not subordinate to them” said Steve Jobs twenty years back. Apple mission continues to have its ardent devotees.

Sensory appeal is another key characteristic of religion. Light reflecting off the glass of the church, the tone of the bells ringing, the fragrance of the incense.. So it is with products and brands that evoke certain feelings and association based on how they look, feel or smell. The unmistakable Nokia ring tone. The leathery scent of a new Mercedes Benz car. Or the pleasing lines of an iPod.

Religions are propagated through story telling. Whether the New Testament or the Koran, every religion is built upon a heft of history and stories. Every brand similarly has stories connected to it. Think of Disney and the colourful characters that come to mind.

Most religions celebrate a sense of grandeur. Have you been to the Vatican? Among the vaulted ceilings and beautiful frescos and paintings, one comes away with the realization that all of us are mere mortals dwarfed by something far greater than ourselves. No building in Rome is permitted to be higher than the St.Peter’s Cathedral. Many companies, likewise, work to inspire feelings of awe and wonderment, from imperial banks to magnificent hotels and awesome flagship stores. All marketed to stir up notions of grandeur.

What about the power of evangelism- the power to reach out and secure new acolytes? Remember the devilishly shrewd way Google’s Gmail service started? By making the service available by invitation only. It became a virtual religion.

Symbols are ubiquitous in religions, as they are in brands. The cross, a dove, an angel – religions have their own icons. Brands have their logos that are instantly recognized. Think of the Apple icons. Think about Mcdonald’s Golden Arches or Nick’s signature swoosh.

Mystery is a powerful force in religion. The unknown can be as powerful as the known. For centuries, scholars have been pondering over the mysteries of the Bible or the Shroud of Turin. When it comes to brands, mystery can be just as effective. Coca Cola, for example, has drawn on a sense of mystery with its secret formula- a distinctive recipe of fruits, oils and spices that the company keeps in a safe deposit box in an Atlanta bank and guards zealously, to keep the aura alive.

And, of course, just as rituals are an integral part of any religion, they are quite extensively resorted to by brands as well. At Subway sandwich franchises, sandwiches are constructed in the same order each time, so customers know how to instruct the person behind the counter. Or the ritual of drinking Bacardi with Coke and a slice of lime. Clearly, rituals help us differentiate one brand from another.

To sum up, says Lindtrom,the emotions that we experience when we are exposed to iPods, Guinness and Ferrari sports cars are similar to the emotions generated by religious symbols such as crosses, Mother Teresa or the Bible. In fact, research work using brain scans on volunteers shows that the reactions are not merely similar; they are identical. Which is why marketers and advertisers have begun to borrow even more heavily from the world of religion to entice us to buy their products.

Glory be to the brand.

Stout denial

"Sticking to stout denial” was the tactic that characters in stories of P.G,Wodehouse would resort to, even when caught red-handed. For instance, in the Blandings Castle stories, Clarence or Lord Emsworth who had the habit of getting into trouble with his sister for some misdeed or other would simply keep denying that he had done it. For, “he was a great believer in stout denial and very good at it.”

I didn’t realize that, hundred years after these books were written, the technique of “stout denial” would continue to be practised with vigour, in Pakistan. So it is that even in the face of unimpeachable evidence of involvement of their men, they resolutely stick to “stout denial”. Wodehousian philosophy is well and alive.

We won! We won!

As a nation, we seem to harbour the impression that we had emerged victorious after the recent terror incidents at Mumbai.

Many TV channels had showered encomiums on our NSG commandos on winning the 3-day encounter against the terrorists. “Mumbai fights back” they said when thousands of citizens lined up at a rally a few days later, holding candles. “We won’t let the terrorist cow us down” said one banner. Another screamed, “You are just 15. We are 15 million”.

“Nation displayed tremendous courage” proclaimed the Prime Minister in Parliament, no doubt, complimenting the one billion people who tenaciously fought the war against the ten terrorists.

In the opening line of this post, I find that Dilip D’Souza uses the expression “ …..after the terror attack in Mumbai was finally defeated.”

Yesterday I saw a headline, “Triumph over terror: Taj and Trident back in operation”.

Alas, such semantics and sentiments are remnant of the era of “paleo war”, as Umberto Eco refers to it in one of his essays. ( I talked about in an earlier post). In those old-fashioned wars, conquest of territory was a key motive. So, an aggressor was considered victorious if he managed to capture a piece of territory belonging to an enemy, while the defender was considered the winner, if he managed to thwart such a move.

Conditioned as we are to this “chess board” logic, we view the eventual killing of the terrorists holed inside the Taj and Trident, as a clear sign of victory. As if the intention of the terrorists was to permanently annex and rule over the territory marked by these hotels, and by not allowing them to raise their flags and open a head office there, we have the right to claim victory..

In the neo-wars that terrorists choose to fight, the motives are completely different and varied, as are the techniques. In the case of the Mumbai attacks, it may be to prove a limited point that they could, while consuming minimal resources, cause serious economic damage, kill people without any compunctions and in one stroke destroy the reputation of India as a safe haven for foreign tourists and investors. And, of course, while doing all this, also gain sufficient mileage through the media, ever willing to reach out to them and oblige. If this was their agenda and if were to judge their performance against the objectives, they achieved 100% of what they set out to achieve. The fact that the few actors eventually succumbed to our gunfire is of no significance whatsoever. Make no mistakes, they won.

To say that they were “finally defeated” is to delude ourselves. Our act of patting ourselves on our backs for the courage could have been charitably dismissed as funny, if it were not hallucinatory.

Work less, consume less

A report filed by Reuters says that the recession in the USA is “a rude awakening for a generation of shoppers who grew up on easy access to credit and have never had to limit purchases to simply what they needed or could afford. Instead, buying and consuming have become part of the national culture, with many people using what is in their shopping bags to express their own identity, from the latest gadgets to designer handbags.

For those who need to abruptly curtail spending, that leaves a major void…People that have been ... identifying with and defining themselves by their material objects and expenditures are losing a definite piece of their identity and themselves”. ,

The article concludes that the downturn represents a chance to move away from "irrational" and "careless" consumerism toward "a more discerning consumer."

All very easily said. How does one curtail consumption?

Tim Harford asks in his post, “Why don’t we all simply work less, earn less, spend less and consume less?” The typical British man, he says, earns roughly twice what his father earned at the same age. When today’s teenagers are in their forties, there is no reason why they shouldn’t decide to enjoy their increased prosperity by working less instead of earning more. Rather than being twice as rich as their parents, they could be no richer but start their weekends on Wednesday afternoon.

The difficulty in attempting to working less and earning less today is that income is linked to our desire for status, which is collectively insatiable because status is largely relative. If my neighbour has a bigger car, I crave for one too. So, the solution is to force everyone to work less, earn less and consume less.

To begin with, why don’t we abolish Mondays from our calendar?

Which path?

In an article in Business Line, T.C.A. Srinivasa-Raghavan points out that Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh and Economist, Dr. Amartya Sen share a quality that is central to their success; neither takes any but the most central of positions on any issue. The Left and the Right could both claim them as well as criticise them. No one knows what they really stand for.

They believe that the ‘middle path’ is the most pragmatic route to take. You could say that both men want to have the cake and eat it too. On the other hand, you can’t pin them down, because both can trot out opposing quotes or theorems. In a way, concludes Srinivasa-Raghavan, they typify what the poet A.K. Ramanujam described in his perceptive essay called Is there an Indian way of thinking?.

(In that essay Ramanujam had observed that Indians don’t have an absolute sense of morality. Context is everything. The same action can be viewed as objectionable in one context, but permissible or even desirable in another.

In fact, the essay opens with the assertion that even the question Is there an Indian way of thinking?can mean different things and elicit different answers depending on which word you choose to stress, as in:

Is there an Indian way of thinking?
Is there an Indian way of thinking?
Is there an Indian way of thinking?
Is there an Indian way of thinking?)


Anyway, going back to the ‘middle path’ theory. This seems to suggest that the practitioners of this method carefully evaluate the two extreme positions of the spectrum, and then take an average of both to determine the coordinates of the path they ought to take. So, if one extreme position is that India should open its doors unconditionally and fully to foreign investments, and another is that we should hermetically seal ourselves and prevent the entry of more East India Companies, then Dr Manmohan Singh will adopt the policy of allowing FDI upto 49% of equity in select sectors for a limited period and subject to Govt approval, leaving the holders of both extreme positions bewildered .

I have tried to apply this principle myself. When a blogger takes an extreme position, I make sure that I read the views of another blogger with an opposing view, so that I can then carefully balance the views and take a middle position.

The problem is that when I read the first blogger’s views, I get totally convinced. When I go across to the blogger who has diametrically opposite views and read the posts there, I get equally convinced that he or she is right. This leaves me thoroughly confused and unable to cling to either of the positions, or to take a middle path. A blog I read regularly had provided a remarkably cogent argument to prove that climate change was real and could wipe out humanity by the year 2030. This was so convincing that I couldn’t find a single flaw in the reasoning. Hurriedly, I went across to another blog, which dismissed the whole thing as hype created by doom-mongering Cassandras. Again, I couldn’t pick a single hole in the reasoning.

You must have heard the following story before:

Prosecution : Based on the evidence, Your Honour, it is clear that the defendant has committed the crime.
Judge: You are right. I tend to agree.
Defence : Your honour, the evidence is entirely fabricated and my client was nowhere near the scene of the crime.
Judge : You are right. I tend to agree.
Clerk: But, Your Honour, both of them can’t be right.
Judge : You are right too.

I feel like that Judge most of the time.

On boring cricketers

Why do cricketers sound so dull, even dumb, when answering simple questions put to them by the media? Why do they need to be politically correct all the time? Why can’t they lower their guard, once in a while, and speak what’s on top of their heads? Why are they obsessed with the need to avoid controversies?

Tendulkar epitomises this breed of boring speakers. “How does it feel after the century?” he is asked. He replies with a deadpan expression, “Every century is special, but a century that helps the team win is what I cherish the most”. How does it feel to break the world record?”. “Well, I never play for records. Important thing is the honour of playing for the country”.

Some years back, when he had taken some important wickets to clinch a match for India, he gave a boyish grin and said, “Slowly, slowly, I am becoming bowler too”. Spontaneous and a top-of-the-head remark that stood out for its refreshing honesty. Today, the same Tendulkar, will deliver a pious speech filled with motherhood statements about how the wickets are dedicated to the victims of the terror attack and how he salutes the country for its bravery and courage. And end up sounding completely insincere.

The bovine fixation

In an essay titled, “Confessions of a Xenophile” that came as a supplement to the latest issue of Outlook magazine, Amitav Ghosh describes his stay in a little village in Egypt, in the 1980s. He later gave this village the name of Lataifa.

The villagers, he says, knew no English while Amitav knew very little Arabic. So, conversation languished, till the time they mutually discovered one medium of communication: aflaam-al-Hindeyya, that is to say, Hindi film songs. Everyone would ask him detailed questions about various film episodes, especially of the fifties vintage, featuring stars such as Raj Kapoor, Nargis, etc.

Another aspect that they would torment him with was ‘cows’. He would face questions like, “Was he a devotee of cows?”, “At what time did he conduct his prayers to cows?” “Could they witness his prostrations?”, “Wasn’t there a risk of being splattered with dung?” etc. From the barrage of questions, says Amitav, one would have imagined that Bollywood was a veterinary enterprise and that cows, not Raj Kapoors, were the true stars. Till he went to Egypt, says Amitav, he had no idea that cows played such a central role in Hindi films.

I had a similar experience once, more than 20 years back. A colleague from our UK office was visiting India for the first time. I picked him up from the hotel in the morning and as we set off to meet our first customer, he pulled out his camera and expressed his intention to take a few photos of cows on the road, something that he had heard about from his friends who had visited this country earlier, and a subject that fascinated him. He had never been seen cows on the road.

I told him that the chances of filming cows on the high-traffic city route that we were taking were pretty slim. And, that he was in for some disappointment. By the end of the day, however, he had spotted cows of every variety and in different settings, including one inside a tea shop. He finished an entire roll of film before sunset.

I guess that cows are so much a part of the scene here that we no longer notice them. It takes a new pair of eyes to discover them.

The softened target.

Glancing through my daughter’s history book, I find generous references to the role played by stalwarts of our freedom movement. On Independence Day, she had also taken part in a play with the clichéd theme that the British were a blood-thirsty lot out to butcher the heroic natives at the slightest hint of resistance or the faintest murmur of the words, “ Vande Mataram”.

Our history books, of course, will tell us only that version of the story and much of it is probably true. But, till recently, the average citizen did not have easy access to other versions and so could never attempt a detached, dispassionate study, removing the filter of nationalism. Google Books, fortunately, provides an avenue to gain another perspective. What was the mind-set of the British people in those times?

Much as we like to give the entire credit to our brave freedom fighters for throwing out the British, a fact that was also responsible for the softening of their imperial stand was the growing consciousness among the British people, starting from the Victorian era, that much wrong had been done in the name of colonialism.

After the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh in 1919, many in Britain did endorse the orders given by Brigadier-General Dyer and even complimented him on “nipping the next Mutiny in the bud”. But, some like Churchill could take a more detached view and see the incident for what it was – “an episode without modern precedent or parallel in the modern history of the British Empire. It is an event of an entirely different order from any of those tragical occurences which take place when troops are brought into collision with the civil population. It is an extraordinary event, a monstrous event, an event which stands in singular and sinister isolation.... Our reign in India or anywhere else has never stood on the basis of physical force alone, and it would be fatal to the British Empire if we were to try to base ourselves only upon it...”. The Hunter Committee eventually found Dyer guilty of using disproportionate force.

Dr. Rod Thornton, in a paper , touches on this incident and narrates how the mores and values of British society were undergoing structural changes by the beginning of the twentieth century, so much so, that an increasingly affluent middle class came to be influenced by a sentiment that manifested itself in a distinct turn towards liberal values and philanthropic action. Among other things, he says, a desire was generated among Government ministers and other opinion-makers of the time to correct certain wrongs committed in the name of imperial expansion up to that point. This sentiment stressed the virtue of humanitarianism and urged that imperial expansion, if at all, must be compatible with the new ideals of honour, duty and use of minimum force. These ideals, explains Thornton, melded with the Romanticism that dominated literature in the nineteenth century. Such chivalric principles were also publicised through the efforts of the Victorian school system. So, when the Amritsar massacre happened, the British- and the Army- were shocked by the uncharacteristic brutality. For, the understanding of the English Common Law, by that time, was that no more or no less force than necessary to restore the peace was to be resorted to. There was, of course, no precise definition on how much force was warranted in different circumstances, but this was left to good judgement.

So, by the time the freedom movement gained momentum, there was a corresponding softening of the stance already taking place on the other side. And, it was only a question of time, when both these forces would combine and hasten the departure of the British.