High alert!

A news item on Dec 5th this year reported: “A security alert has been sounded across Uttar Pradesh and other communally-sensitive places in India ahead of Monday's 18th anniversary of the demolition of the Babri mosque in Ayodhya, a home ministry official said”

Presumably, the validity of this ‘high alert’ notice expired on the midnight of Dec 6th.. This emboldened some terror organizations to carry out a ‘low intensity’ blast in Varanasi, on the evening of Dec 7th. . Promptly thereafter, the Home Ministry issued a ‘high alert’ again. In fact, I heard one explanation that the terrorists must have planned to carry this out on Dec 6th, but must have realized it was difficult because the police was on ‘high alert’ that day.

Today, the Govt has issued another ‘high alert’ and has asked the NSG to stand in readiness.

What does this mean? That there will be brief periods of ‘high alert’ that will be announced in advance by the Govt and withdrawn after a few days, when the danger has seemingly passed? That the terrorists are supposed to lie low when the country is on ‘high alert’ mode?

In other words, when the default setting of ‘low alert’ mode is restored, you and I should be worried, very worried.

In one of his essays, R.K.Narayan writes about a childhood experience of an all-night journey that he had to undertake by bullock-cart to reach his home town after alighting from a train in a station thirty miles away.

“The bullock carts moved in a caravan, winding along a dark, tree-shaded highway. Robbers were known to attack such caravans about ten miles from the railway station at midnight. The menace was warded off by a simple expedient. One of the cart-men walked ahead carrying a lantern and a staff and throwing bloodcurdling challenges to the night air. “Hey, keep away, prowlers, if you don’t want your skulls pulped… Who goes there? and so forth, the other drivers also sitting up and urging their bullocks with the loudest swear words. This was kept up till we passed a jutting rock beyond the twelfth milestone; the moment we crossed this spot the challenger went back to his cart, curled himself up in his seat and fell asleep, the entire caravan following this example. By some strange law or understanding, the robbers never seemed to step an inch beyond the jutting rock. It always seemed to me that the robbers were missing a fine opportunity to attack with all the cart-men fast asleep and the only wakeful person being myself as I tried to sleep on a pile of straw expecting any moment to be killed.”

By some strange law or understanding, terrorists are expected to respect the Home Ministry’s ‘high alert’ warning and wait for the ‘all clear’ siren to be blown.

Be warned, Ministers.

In an article in The Outlook, Madhu Purnima Kishwar writes:

I fail to understand why almost every commentator, every TV anchor, every editorial writer feels compelled to pay ritual obeisance to the “personal honesty and integrity of Dr Manmohan Singh” while dealing with the scandals emanating from his cabinet colleagues. They do so even when there is clear evidence that the Prime Minister was well aware of various shady deals, as in the case of Telecom scam, and that he did nothing to stop the brazen economic crimes indulged in by his ministerial colleagues over the last 6 years.

Even if not guilty of an ‘act of commission’, the PM is certainly accountable for his various acts of omission. Doesn’t he know this?

While reflecting on the PM, I came across this passage from a book written by one Horace Wyndham. One of the characters suppressed by a feudal lord addresses the latter thus:

"Listen to me, Your Lordship. You have broken my business. You have ruined my home, you have sent my son to prison and my wife to a dishonoured grave amd you have seduced my only daughter. But, be careful, Lord FitzWallop, I am a man of quick temper. Do not try me too far. "

I thought this tone would suit the PM perfectly. I can imagine him addressing his cabinet.

Listen to me, you guys. Your have made a killing of several hundred crores from the Commonwealth Games. You grabbed apartments and buildings meant for war widows. You have made the nation lose Rs 1,76,000 crores by allotting the 2G spectrum for a song. But, be warned. I am a man of great integrity and quick temper. If I come across any instances of corruption, I will not tolerate it.

 

Strong-arm methods

“Household Words” a journal edited by Charles Dickens, carried this chilling narrative in one of the issues that it brought out in the year 1856. It describes the practice of torture in the Madras Presidency by the District Collectors appointed by the British East India Company.

Indifferent as we are in England about Indian affairs, there are few who do not know that more than one-half of the entire revenue of that vast empire consists of a land-tax or rent, which is exacted from the occupiers by the government.

In Madras, the Honourable Company is not only the head landlord; but the sole landlord. No proprietor, no middleman, no intermediate grade whatever interposes between the actual cultivator of the soil and the great company which is at once his seigneur and his sovereign. The Honourable Company itself lets the land, fixes the rent, raises or lowers the rent, and collects the rent.

For the purpose of rent-getting the presidency is divided into a number of pleasant little districts, each comprising some three or four thousand square miles and containing from half a million to a million of inhabitants ; and over each of these is placed a British head-collector, who, besides making his own fortune within the limited time is expected to supervise the collection of the entire revenue of the district.

To assist him in this duty a large staff of tahsildars, monigars, curnoms, duffadars, peons, taliaries, and other nondescript native officials of high and low degree, is spread through the several villages of the district—but, as this native staff is described by unexceptionable witnesses as little better than a delusion, it may be doubted whether on the whole their services are precisely such as we should desire to see employed in the collection of public money, or in the delicate negotiations between the Honourable East India Company and the miserable defaulters in the land-tax.

Connected with this department, there is also another Indian institution, which may seem, a little harsh to English readers. We at home should object if the collector of income-tax, poor-rate, or county-rate were empowered to proceed summarily, by his own authority and without the interposition of a magistrate, or of any civil process whatsoever, to arrest the person of the defaulter. Even in India itself, bad as things were, this used to be unlawful. But the Honourable Company is strict in money matters and, by an enactment, now about forty years old, all authority, whether of the revenue, the police, or the magistracy, is vested in the same set of officials—those very gentlemen who are declared thieves by their friends.

And now let us see how the case stands. Messrs. Elliot, Stokes and Norton have collected information from all parts of the Madras Presidency, and have heard evidence from every class, directly or indirectly concerned, from the rent-collectors and the rentpayers, and from every section of both. These gentlemen unhesitatingly report, as the result of their inquiries, that personal violence on the part of the native revenue and police officials prevails throughout the presidency, personal violence of such a character that, in five recorded instances, "death has followed upon its infliction." They declare this to be the only conclusion that any impartial mind could arrive at.

The use of wooden pincers (the kittie),trussing a man, bending him double (anandal), squeezing the crossed fingers with the hands, punches on the thighs, slaps, blows with the fist or a whip, twisting the ears,making a man sit on the soles of his feet with brickbats behind his knees,  putting a low caste man on his back, striking two defaulters  heads against each other,or tying them together by the hair, placing in the stocks,tying the hair of the head to a donkey's or a buffalo's tail, placing a necklace of bones, or other disgusting or degrading materials round the neck,— are some of the usual ways of expediting the receipt of money.

The police officials often however resort to more severe procedures, as, for instance, twisting a rope tightly round the arm or leg so as to impede circulation, lifting up by the moustache,  suspended by the arms while tied behind the back,searing with hot-irons, placing scratching insects such as the carpenter beetle on the most sensitive parts of the body, dipping in wells and rivers till the victim is half suffocated, beating with sticks ; nipping the flesh with pincers,  putting pepper or red chillies in the eyes, these cruelties being occasionally persevered in till death, sooner or later, ensues.

Rent-day, then, round Madras is not like Rent-day in Great Britain. The rents which are there collected are not the rents of a mere private proprietor, but of the Honourable Company itself.

The officials who figure on the Indian scene are not the steward, or bailiff, of some great estates in the Highlands, or in Connemara; they are every one of them the chosen and salaried servants of that great public body which represents England in India, and for every one of whose doings the good name of England is pledged to the countless millions whom we have taken under our paternal rule in that unhappy empire. For every official deed of theirs, for every act of cruelty, injustice, or rapine ; for every anna of the wretched ryot's substance wrongfully extracted ; for every torture or indignity inflicted upon his most miserable carcase, the Honourable East India Company is responsible.

While the account is quite shocking to read, it must also be recognized that there were conscientious citizens in Britain who brought to light these excesses committed by officials of the East India Company and raised awareness.

You miserable sub-45 creatures.

Mark Lowry, comedian, in this hilarious interview when he turned forty, explains how the description of birthday changes every decade.

You BECOME 21. You TURN 30. You're PUSHING to 40. You REACH 50. You MAKE it to 60. By that time,you’ve built up so much speed you HIT 70. After that, it's just a day-to-day thing"

Yes, old age catches up quite fast. I can vouch for that now. But it is not all bad news.

In a recent article, The Economist dips into various global studies on the subject and explains the correlation between age and happiness.

When people start out on adult life, they are, on average, pretty cheerful. Things go downhill from youth to middle age until they reach a nadir commonly known as the mid-life crisis. So far, so familiar. The surprising part happens after that. Although as people move towards old age they lose things they treasure—vitality, mental sharpness and looks—they also gain what people spend their lives pursuing: happiness.

….One paper, published this year by Arthur Stone, Joseph Schwartz and Joan Broderick of Stony Brook University, and Angus Deaton of Princeton, breaks well-being down into positive and negative feelings and looks at how the experience of those emotions varies through life. Enjoyment and happiness dip in middle age, then pick up; stress rises during the early 20s, then falls sharply; worry peaks in middle age, and falls sharply thereafter; anger declines throughout life; sadness rises slightly in middle age, and falls thereafter.

In short, what these studies tell us is that, after the peak happiness in the twenties, there is a steady decline till the age of 45 or so. At this point, there is a U-bend and we start the upward climb on the happiness curve again.

So, what I want to convey to the kids in the age group 25-40 is this: No doubt you are young and all that. But you are on the downward slope of the happiness curve and will keep sliding steadily for some more years. Whereas, I have bottomed-out of that curve and am well on the ascending part of the graph. Take that, you miserable lot.

Hill cricket

A few years back, a friend of mine suddenly decided to leave the corporate world and join a Foundation that was into social work.

What drove him- someone with a promising career ahead of him- to make this jump, I had asked him.

He had happened to attend one the programs organized by the Foundation, in one of the southern districts of Tamilnadu, he told me. It was a sports event- the Village Olympics- in which hundreds of farmers and others from the rural community had taken part. It was perhaps, for the first time in their lives that these people had ever indulged in a properly organized activity of this scale and nature. There was much fun and revelry and the simple folks went back home in such high spirits. It occurred to my friend then that if he were a part of the Foundation, he could put his organizing capability to good use and contribute to the cause of bringing joy to hundreds of people.

Quite an amazing decision, I felt, my friend had taken. And he didn’t sound morally superior or use a condescending tone as if he was the chosen one to light up the lives of the villagers. I felt his passion was quite genuine.

I was reminded of this friend when I read this story of the 1,342-team T20 Mahasangram cricket tournament being organized in the hills of Himachal Pradesh.

In its second year, the tournament, branded as “the world’s biggest”, hopes to take cricket to every village of Himachal Pradesh. Organised by the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA), the tournament, which began on November 29, will go on for a month and a half. The participating players are mostly local villagers and though the organisers provide them balls, they have to pool in for bats and helmets, food and travelling expenses.

With breathtaking views of the Kullu Valley and the Dhauladhar ranges, the setting is spectacular. But the playing conditions are nowhere near perfect. The pitch is matting and the playing field is far from level—balls hit by a right hander towards the leg side tend to roll downhill where children in slippers play with bats crudely carved out of any available wood and balls made of cloth.

Balls are sometimes hard to field when they slide off slopes or plop into streams. Occasionally, play has to be stopped as cattle and ponies traipse along the outfield, on their way to the jungle to graze.

Yet, the game goes on. The players, dressed in white, like regular Test cricketers, come in all shapes, sizes, ages and professions. The enthusiasm shows when they bend that little bit extra to send the ball racing, then dive to stop singles and come up smiling after having saved runs and bruised their elbows.

It is a wonderful story, well narrated by Jonathan Selvaraj, the IE reporter.

India vs Egypt

Amira Nowaira, in her column in The Guardian, writes on the eve of the Egyptian elections:

Egypt's contradictions may be a source of infinite amusement, but also one of genuine distress. Where else can you find a state of emergency that stays in place for 30 years? The word "emergency" implies a brief, intense situation that should disappear as soon as it is dealt with. But 30 years?

And where else can you find a presidential candidate casting his vote for another instead of himself? This was what the 90-year-old Ahmed El-Sabbahi did in 2005, when he proudly declared that he gave his vote to Mubarak.

More seriously, where else can you find a banned organisation like the Muslim Brotherhood getting high-profile coverage in the media and a sizable representation in the 2005 parliament? If the organisation is illegal and banned, why are they all over the media, giving interviews and making statements?

Where else can you find a nation with more than 50% of its population under the age of 15 that is ruled mostly by septuagenarians and octogenarians? Whenever the ruling NDP tries to indicate its endorsement of the nation's youth, it is actually referring to people in their 50s. One must admit, though, that the NDP deserves marks for consistency at least, for if power is still in the hands of octogenarians in the prime of life, then the 50-year olds of the NDP are green youths still being groomed for their future.

Well, the ‘emergency’ in India lasted much less than 30 years. Also, I don’t think I’ll be able to cite examples of any Indian politician casting his vote for another opponent. But, to that question about octogenarians ruling a country where 50% of its population is less than 15-years old, I believe I can provide a strong counter-claim.

In Tamilnadu, we have a 85-year old Chief Minister who has to be taken around on a wheel-chair. Competing with him is the Governor who is also 85 years old and who can barely get up from his chair..

According to a report, the average age of the Indian Union cabinet is 64.4 years which is almost two-and-a-half times the country's median age at 25.9. This is far greater than most of the developed economies where the difference is only a decade or so. Even the Chinese leadership is more youthful with an average cabinet age of 61.2 years.

The only way we can correct this geriatric tradition is by adopting the system suggested by Italo Calvino in a short story -which I had cited in an earlier post.

Sorry for what?

In one of the Radia tapes, Mr Tarun Das, ex-CII, is heard accusing Mr Kamal Nath of corruption. The Hindu reports

Mr. Das says Mr. Nath can still make his “15 per cent” on this. “You can do national service and also make money… and do really something worthwhile here,” Mr. Das says, to which Ms. Radia's responds: “This is still an ATM [automated teller machine] for Kamal Nath.” “Absolutely,” says Mr. Das.

Asked by The Hindu how he could speak of a Minister doing national service if he was “also making money” and why he pushed for Mr. Nath's candidature despite harbouring apprehensions about corruption under his watch, Mr. Das said his “15 per cent” remark was “irresponsible and unfortunate.”

I regret that, he said. “Loose talk. My public apologies to Mr. Nath.”

Should Mr Tarun Das have apologised?

All of us have some private conversations which we, under normal circumstances, don’t allow to get into the public domain. Talking to my wife in the privacy of my home, I might use the choicest expletives while describing my boss, secure in the knowledge that he is not going to hear about it. But, if my phone had been kept on by mistake and my curious boss- the crook- at the other end manages to eavesdrop on the sensitive dialogue, am I supposed to apologise to him?

Taking the argument one step further, suppose there is a device invented that can read my mind, will I be arrested on charges of harbouring an intention to molest a woman, when I am just fantasising about her?

The rules of civilised behaviour do not apply under all conditions. Digging my nose in public may be gross, but it is perfectly alright when I am alone. If someone catches me doing it, using a secretly-embedded camera, am I supposed to feel bad?

Bug anybody’s phone or room, several dark secrets and skeletons will tumble down. It would be stupid of that person to apologise for something he or she had said during a private and exclusive conversation with another person. Such conversations are like the noise created by a crashing tree deep inside a forest. No one else is supposed to hear it.

The Indian Alchemist

Allen’s Indian Mail and Register of Intelligence in its despatches in the year 1846, narrates this interesting case.

The ingenious knave who successfully contrived to defraud an unsuspecting conicopillay in the service of his Highness the Nabob of no less a sum than 425 rupees, and who almost immediately after the achievement became noninventus—has been apprehended at Chittoor, and is now there in durance vile.

It may be remembered that the fellow, a Fakeer, set himself up for an alchemist, and that having won the confidence of the conicopillay by a prefatory trick, he undertook to convert as many silver rupees as this man could furnish him with into as many gold mohurs, by a process which terminated in his own favour at the time, for it made him master of 425 rupees, and set him, thus enriched, on a felicitous tramp into the interior.

But his joys were destined to be of short duration, for a talliar of police, armed with a warrant, was sent in pursuit of the fugitive, and soon came up to the chase.

How the minion of the law came to direct himself to that especial point of the thirty-two points of the compass is problematical, and can only be solved by ascribing to the nasal organs of the officers of police that nicety of scent for carrion which distinguishes the vulture. But be this as it may, the Fakeer was apprehended and on him was found the "handkerchief" which contained the reagent, but not the reagent itself.

The Fakeer acknowledged the fraud, and said that he gave twenty rupees to each of bis accomplices. He may be expected here shortly to undergo the process of magisterial purification.—

Suckers and conmen have been around for a long time. Only the tricks have mutated and evolved over time, keeping pace with new technology

Taking the queue.

Indians have this reputation of ‘jumping’ queues, and – quite often- not forming one at all. Why can't we accept the simple fact that someone reached a particular spot before we did, and so is entitled to that space? Yesterday, while at the airport, I had the experience of being ‘jumped’ over quite a few times and ended up feeling like I was a piece in a game of Chinese checkers. While some did it brazenly, a lady sought my permission to move ahead of me, as she was late for the Delhi flight- incidentally the same flight I was going to board. Yet another guy shoved me aside at Security and pushed his bag through the scanner. Why? Why?

A paper ( or rather a draft of one) that I found on the net has this to say on the subject:

The queue is, effectively, a mechanism of social regulation in which a randomly assembled group of strangers is caused to act, quite counter-intuitively, in a particular way. Previously unrelated strangers are somehow persuaded to subscribe collectively to a normative code which they then police themselves.

Waiting in line is one of the great levellers of humankind. The queue is no respecter of persons. In the citizenship of the queue no rank is relevant other than the rank order of one’s position as determined by the coldly neutral datum of sequential arrival in the line. Within the queue, roles and relationships become ‘demystified and objectified’. Differences of background, class, reputation, education or socio-economic status count for nothing.The queue is one of the ultimate manifestations of the democratic impulse – in some jurisdictions almost the only evidence of democracy at work.

There is some evidence of a cultural or socio-legal affinity between the ultimately Anglo-Saxon conceptualism of estate ownership and the social discipline of the queue. The practice of queuing tends to be most strongly prevalent in jurisdictions which have always been familiar with the legal apparatus of ‘estates’ in land, that is, with the sequential arrangement of various grades of time-bounded ownership. It has been wickedly observed that ‘[a]n Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one.

One intriguing study of queuing in Hong Kong’s Disneyland has also pointed to the strong resistance to queuing culture exhibited by mainland Chinese visitors to the park as compared with the greater degree of queue conformity evident amongst Hong Kong Chinese themselves. Nor is it without significance that the 15 million inhabitants of Beijing are currently being indoctrinated, through the medium of mobile phone text messages, in the practice of queuing. In preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games the Chinese Communist Party has designated the eleventh day of each month as ‘Queuing Day’

So, what explains our extreme reluctance to fall in line? Our relatively recent exposure to laws governing property rights? Our desire to increase the entropy of the Universe, which after all is the natural order? Because a queue gives us an opportunity to challenge hierarchies? Or we see it as a plain nuisance and a silly Western habit? Or all of you just ganging up on me and pushing me out of my rightful place in the queue?

Boys will be...

A news story in The Hindu today.

A boy who swam to reach the central hall of the temple tank located near the Kapaleeswarar Temple in Mylapore here on Monday drowned midway. According to police sources, the unidentified boy aged about 13 years was seen swimming towards the central hall of the tank holding a thermocol sheet around 7 a.m. A few metres ahead of the hall, he drowned.

It is sad that it had to end this way, but the boy deserves a salute for displaying the spirit of a…boy.

When one is a 13-year old boy, there is no such thing as ‘impossible’ or ‘too dangerous’. Doing things the ‘done’ way is unthinkable. Climbing down the stairs from the third floor is not an option, when a perfectly good system of sunshades and pipes exist. Tall trees need to be climbed to untangle kites, 8-ft high walls need to be jumped over to retrieve the cricket ball, cycles have to be monkey-pedalled, swings need to be subjected to rigorous testing to establish its escape velocity, dad’s razor sets have to be tried out and experienced, puddles must be dived into and water splashed all around, bee hives must be stoned at…. This is a very basic instinct hardwired in the brains of boys and, in the days when food had to be hunted, probably helped them prepare for the hard years ahead.

So, the boy who spotted the thermocol sheet near a water body must have immediately converted it into a raft and set sail for a distant land- the central hall of the tank in this case. It was the only logical thing to do. The thermocol sheet couldn’t have existed for any other purpose.

To write stories, read poetry

If you aspire to be a good writer and a story teller, where do you get your ideas from? To begin with, says Ray Bradbury, you could read poetry every day of your life.

Poetry is good because it flexes muscles you don’t use often enough. Poetry expands the senses and keeps them in prime condition. It keeps you aware of your nose, your eye, your ear, your tongue, your hand. And, above all, poetry is compacted metaphor or simile. Such metaphors, like Japanse paper flowers, may expand outward into gigantic shapes. Ideas lie everywhere through the poetry books, yet how rarely have I heard short story teachers recommend them for browsing.

My story, “The Shoreline at Sunset” is a direct result of reading Robert Hillyer’s lovely poem about finding a mermaid near Plymouth Rock. My story, “There will come Soft rains” is based on the poem of that title by Sarah Teasdale and the body of the story encompasses the theme of her poem. From Byron’s, “ And the Moon Be Still as Bright” came a chapter for my novel. “The Martian Chronicle’ which speaks for a dead race of Martians who will no longer prowl empty seas late at night. In these cases and dozens of others, I have had a metaphor jump at me, give me a spin and run me off to do a story.

What poetry? Any poetry that makes your hair stand up along your arms. Don’t force yourself too hard. Take it easy. Over the years you may catch up to, move even with, and pass T.S.Eliot on your way to other pastures. You say you don’t understand Dylan Thomas? Yes, but your ganglion does, and your secret wits, and all your unborn children. Read him as you can read a horse with your eyes, set free and charging over an endless green meadow on a windy day.

Diwali- 1836

Carey’s library of choice literature, published in 1836, carries this description of the Diwali festival in Benares:

In no part of Hindostan can one of the most beautiful of the native festivals be seen to so great an advantage as at Benares. The duwullee is celebrated there with the greatest splendour, and its magnificence is heightened by the situation of the city on the bank of the river, and the singular outlines of the buildings. The attraction of this annual festival consists in the illuminations : at the close of evening, small chiraugs (earthen lamps,) fed with oil which produces a bright white light, are placed, as closely together as possible, on every ledge of every building. Palace, temple, and tower seemed formed of stars. The city appears like the creation of the fire-king, the view from the water affording the most superb and romantic spectacle imaginable,—a scene of fairy splendour, far too brilliant for description.

Europeans embark in boats to enjoy the gorgeous pageant from the river; all the vessels are lighted up, and the buildings in the distance, covered with innumerable lamps, shine out in radiant beauty. European illuminations, with their coloured lamps, their transparencies, their crowns, stars, and initial letters, appear paltry when compared to the chaste grandeur of the Indian mode; the outlines of a whole city are marked in streams of fire, and the coruscations of light shoot up into the dark blue sky above, and tremble in long undulations on the rippling waves below. According to the native idea, everything that prospers on the evening of the duwalee will be sure to prosper throughout the year. Gamblers try their luck, and if they should be successful, pursue their fortune with redoubled confidence. Thieves also, anxious to secure an abundant supply of booty, labour diligently on this evening in their vocation : while others eat, drink, and are merry, in order that they may spend the ensuing period joyously.

This festival is instituted in honour of Luchmee, the goddess of wealth, and those who are anxiously desirous to obtain good fortune, seek for two things on the night of its celebration : the flowers of the goolur, a tree which bears fruit but never blossoms; and the soul of a snake, an animal which is supposed to deposit its spirit occasionally under a tree.

The whole of the Moosulman population arc abroad to witness the superb spectacle produced by the blaze of light which flames from every Hindoo building at the duwallee, and the festival being one of a very peaceable description, goes off without broil or bloodshed—and what is still more extraordinary, without occasioning the conflagration of half the houses;

Leave him alone

Every now and them, we have some writer or other imagining what Gandhi would have done had he lived in these times.

Thus, we have B.S.Raghavan, in his column in The BusinessLine, telling us what Gandhi would have done had he been in charge of Reliance now.

The dress code would henceforth be nothing more than white khadi pants and shirts and ordinary chappals, if not wooden sandals. He would immediately effect an across-the-board cut in the emoluments bringing them down to a tiny fraction of the present package.

The very sight of Rs 4,500 crore worth, 28-storied, 400,000 square feet of living quarters of the elder Ambani would transport him to heights of ecstasy.

He would look upon it as a ready-made home to shift the entire slum population of Mumbai, using the huge landing grounds of helicopters and the swimming pools on half-a-dozen floors for hospitals, schools and orphanages.

He would see to it that all the assets of the Reliance Company are converted into a People's Trust, insisting that the rich should live for the poor and not for themselves, and their life's mission should be to wipe every tear from every eye.

The advantage in writing such stuff is that nobody can refute this or challenge your assertions ,even though they sound deceptively similar to the Rajinikanth jokes that are doing the rounds. You are merely transporting the person to a new era and applying his attributes in a new context.

Which is precisely why I liked Naipaul’s observations on Gandhi. He says that Gandhi was a special product that materialized at the appropriate time. Many circumstances- his mother’s austerity, English Law, South Africa – had shaped him before he arrived in India. He was a unique mix of several parts that made a significant whole, but the combination of his traits worked in a certain context. It is impossible to create another Gandhi with the same blend of attributes as it is impossible to create the set of circumstances that had shaped him. Similarly, the context is so different today, that the same Gandhi if he were alive will not be able to have much of an impact.

Let’s leave him alone, shall we?.

I, Drill bit.

When it was clear that the Chilean miners would be rescued soon, several Christian factions in Chile were squabbling over which of them had been instrumental in getting God to answers their prayers. The Evangelical, Adventist and Catholic clerics each claimed credit for what they said was divine intervention in the survival – and expected imminent rescue – of the 33 men who had spent 67 days beneath the earth.

Now the Wall Street Journal says that capitalism was what saved the miners. The basic principle is that innovation happens when you let free markets operate unhindered and incentivised by profit motives, as illustrated in the famous parable of the pencil ( “I, Pencil”)

In the case of the Chilean miners, several factors converged to create the possibility of rescue. The central rock drill bit- that stood out for its toughness - was made by a small company in the USA. The high-strength cable winding came from Germany while the communication cable that kept the miners contactable came from Japan. . Samsung of South Korea supplied a cellphone that had its own projector. Cupron Inc. in Richmond, Va., supplied socks made with copper fiber that consumed foot bacteria, and minimized odor and infection.

The WSJ article concludes:

In an open economy, you will never know what is out there on the leading developmental edge of this or that industry. But the reality behind the miracles is the same: Someone innovates something useful, makes money from it, and re-innovates, or someone else trumps their innovation. Most of the time, no one notices. All it does is create jobs, wealth and well-being. But without this system running in the background, without the year-over-year progress embedded in these capitalist innovations, those trapped miners would be dead.

Morals without God

Whatever criticism we may level against religion, it has to be admitted that it has provided us with a moral framework or compass. Even the most non-theistic societies in the world have derived their sense of morality from religion. In short, there is no evidence anywhere for what morality would look like without religion.

Frans B. M. de Waal, a biologist, has written a fine piece in the New York Times in which he argues that even if we managed to throw out religion from our lives and develop a different framework to advocate a certain moral outlook, the elements of that model will look pretty similar to today’s religion. It is bound to produce its own list of principles, its own prophets, and attract its own devoted followers, so that it will soon look like any old religion.

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12000, 13000, 14000.....

Watching Tendulkar when he is in full flow is a joyful experience, but I have found his continued success in the last few years quite annoying. After some analysis, I have concluded that my irrational reaction is mainly due to a) the dread of the sugary, syrupy statements that he insists on making after breaking some record or other  and b) the thought that, for the next few days/weeks, the media will resort to painful hyperbole, such as “ He is the greatest living Indian”, etc. Both get to my nerves. I am more than willing to concede that he is an excellent batsman, but I am not going to raise him to the level of a demigod or collude in such efforts.

In contrast, I am far more relaxed while watching Dravid bat. I know that if he scores a century, he will come up with an honest statement, without any added sugar or preservatives. Moreover, the media chooses to leave him severely alone and doesn’t make him out to be a cult figure. So, I don’t have to worry about an imminent onslaught of screaming,bold-fonted headlines.

But, even a diehard Dravid fan has to admit that the 'law of diminishing returns' caught up with him long back, even while Tendulkar, who is of the same age, has been  going from strength to strength.

Many theories have been put forward to explain Tendulkar’s sustained age-defying brilliance. His poise, his balance, the way he understands his body’s limitations and stays within that, his child-like enthusiasm, his commitment, etc. But are these qualities good enough to keep him going?

In the book, “The upside of irrationality”, the author Dan Ariely while arguing that too much stress or motivation can be counter-productive, cites an example from the movie “First Knight” starring Richard Gere and Sean Connery. In it, Sir Lancelot is a vagabond expert swordsman who duels to pay his bills. Seeing him win consistently, a person named Mark asks him how he managed to do that. Lancelot offers Mark three tips: first to observe the man he’s fighting and learn how he thinks; second, to await the make-or-break moment in the match and go for it then. Up to that point Mark nods happily, sure he can learn to do those things. Lancelot’s final tip however is a little more difficult to follow. He tells his eager student that he can’t care about living or dying. In other words, Lancelot fought better than anyone else because he had found a way to bring his stress level to zero. If he doesn’t care whether he lives or dies, nothing rides on his performance. He doesn’t worry about living past the end of the fight, so nothing clouds his mind and affects his abilities- he is pure concentration and skill.

I thought of Tendulkar when I read that. His power of concentration or his technical wizardry or his commitment, by themselves, could not have enabled him to excel this long. If so, Dravid too has these qualities in abundant measure. So, taking a cue from Lancelot, I would like to submit that what sets them apart is this. Dravid takes his sobriquet of “The Wall’ too seriously. Consumed by the sole objective of holding on to his wicket, even as his reflexes get slower, he stresses himself out completely. Tendulkar is unburdened by such thoughts. He bats as if there is no tomorrow. So nothing clouds his mind and the resulting serenity more than makes up for any age-related drop in his levels of concentration and skill.

Can faith trump logic?

Siddharth Varadarajan agonises in The Hindu today that “Force of faith has trumped law and reason in Ayodhya case”.

…..leaving aside the question of who “the Hindus” referred to by the court really are and how their actual faith and belief was ascertained and measured, it is odd that a court of law should give such weight to theological considerations and constructs rather than legal reasoning and facts. Tulsidas wrote his Ramcharitmanas in 16th century Ayodhya but made no reference to the birthplace of Lord Rama that the court has now identified with such exacting precision five centuries later.

The “faith and belief” that the court speaks about today acquired salience only after the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bharatiya Janata Party launched a political campaign in the 1980s to “liberate” the “janmasthan.”

 

He is entitled to his views, of course.

An hour or so spent on Google Books provides me a different perspective.

In the early years of the nineteenth century, there was a directive from the British Legislature that Indian subjects of Britain must be protected in their rights according to the ‘laws and constitutions’ of India, on the principle that law can only sanctify long-held human customs and traditions. Following this, there were attempts by many to determine what were the ‘laws and constitution’ that would apply in India. Examples : William Jones, Colebrokes, Sutherland – these were some of the authorities engaged in the task. They even went into differences in belief systems in different regions of India. For example, in his book, “ Hindu Law principally with reference to such portions of it as concern the administration of justice in the King’s courts” written in 1830, Sir Thomas Strange, Chief Justice of Madras, has compiled an exhaustive list of cases in which opinions of learned pundits had been taken while delivering verdicts more suited to Hindu tradition.

A judge who had to enquire into the subject; “ In whom vests " the property of the soil under the British government " in India; whether in the Sovereign, in the Zumeendar, " or in the Cultivator?" first had to determine which law to go by, the Hindu law or the Mohammedan law? In his book,” Observations on the law and constitution of India” written anonymously and published in 1824, the judge concludes that the public law in India was indisputably Mohammedan law and had been so in the preceding 800 years. He notes in passing:

It would, indeed, be absurd to suppose, that questions of property in lands, of revenue, finance, police, where the rights, interests, or regulations of the sovereign were involved, could ever have been remitted to the decision of any tribunal but that of Islaum.

By the Moohummudan law, the Daur-ool-Hurb, as a foreign province, becomes the Daur-ool-Islaum; that is, becomes annexed to the Moohummudan dominions by the mere act of conquest, and the exercise of even a part of the law of Islaum in it. "That country is the Daur" ool-Islaum," says the Jaumeea-oor Iiumooz, " in which the laws of the Moslemeen prevail;" and, adds the same writer, " it is stated by Zauhedee, that according to the unanimous opinion of the learned, the Daur-ool-Hurb becomes the Daur-ool-Islaum, by the exercise of even some of the laws of Islaum in it." Profession of the Moohummudan faith on the part of the inhabitants is not a condition. Therefore, by the Moohummudan law, India undoubtedly was the Daur-ool-Islaum : nay, is held by law to be so now; for it is not a necessary condition that the sovereign be a Moslem.

If, then, by law, the empire of India, by virtue of the Moohummudan conquest, become the Daur-ool-Islaum, that is a part of the Moohummudan dominions, it would have been absolutely contrary to law, even an heresy, in its most formidable shape, to have suffered any law or constitution to exist in India but that of Islaum. Every law, even private right and interest, which existed in the country prior to the conquest, by that act alone perished; and so strong is the Moohummudan law on this point, that supposing even a Moohummudan subject to have previously taken up his abode, and to have acquired lands or houses in India, by the mere act of. subsequent conquest by the Moslems, the lands of their domiciled brother would fall to the conquerors, along with those of the conquered infidel, although his .personal property would be secure to him.

The Moohummudan law of conquest is explicit; and the first act of the conqueror is required to be to carry the law into effect, either by partitioning the spoil and lands among the conquerors, or by fixing the khurauj, or public revenue on the lands, and the capitation tax on the heads of the conquered. The inhabitants are first called to embrace the faith. If they become converts, they enjoy all the privileges of Moslems; if they refuse, they are then called upon to pay the capitation tax; for if they consent to this and to pay the khurauj, it is not lawful to put them to death.

Thus, for 600-800 years, starting from the 11th century, there was absolutely no legal avenue open to the Hindus, especially in the region where Ayodhya is located, to seek justice. The writ of Mohammedan law ran large. It was either ‘silent belief’ or ‘death’. This was true even in the reign of so-called tolerant rulers such as Akbar.

But, the power of faith kept the belief in Ram’s birthplace alive, well into the nineteenth century. Lord Dalhousie had commissioned Montgomery Martin to make a survey of ancient practices in Eastern India, and the latter, in his book, “ The History, Antiquities, Topography and Statistics of Eastern India” ( pages 335-338) describes his visit to Oudh ( the British name for Ayodhya) and talks about the claim made by Hindus with regard to the birthplace of Rama and their contention that a mosque had been built after destroying the temple there. After some research, Martin concludes that there is no evidence that a mosque was built over an existing temple, but concedes that it was certainly built over the ruins of an Hindu temple or palace. He even provides a sketch of a pillar ( carrying images of Hindu gods) used in the construction of the mosque. (Justice Khan, while delivering his verdict yesterday has come to an identical conclusion).

So, Siddharth Varadarajan’s assertion that “the “faith and belief” that the court speaks about today acquired salience only after the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bharatiya Janata Party launched a political campaign in the 1980s to “liberate” the “janmasthan” is completely incorrect. The ‘faith and belief’ has been alive for centuries- glowing, albeit on low flame, but glowing.

His point that in deciding on matters of law ‘theological considerations cannot come in the way of logic and reasoning’ can be accepted upto a point, but as the British legislators realised two centuries back, when it comes to law, ‘logic and reasoning’ cannot be completely divorced from ‘ faith and custom”.

Vacuous and Verbose-21

In a Tamil play written by Cho Ramaswamy, a middle-aged man constantly dreams of a role -even a small one-  in the movies and keeps honing his oratory skills. One day, a director succumbs to his begging and agrees to cast him in a single scene in his movie. He would play the role of a postman who had to deliver a letter at the hero’s house. His entire dialogue would consist of the two words, “ Sir, Post”. He is asked to  appear for ‘shooting’ the following week.

The whole week or during the countdown to the shooting, the wannabe actor is shown practicing his dialogue and attempting several variations. Should he say “ Saar, post” or “ Saaar, pooost” or “ Saar ( pause) post” or a more musical “ Saaaar Pooost”? Ultimately, during the actual shooting, he has a nervous breakdown and ends up messing it up completely.

I remembered that scene on reading in the papers today that President Prathibha Patil will inaugurate the CWG, by uttering the words, “ Let the Games begin”, soon after the Queen’s message is read out.

I am not sure if that is all the President has to say. If so, she must be in a state of extreme agitation now.

In anticipation of the event, her speech writers would have smacked their lips and sharpened their pencils to write a grandiloquent speech which would cover in its broad sweep, our ancient civilizations, the embedded meaning in the Vedas, the archery competitions described in our epics, Buddha’s enlightenment, Shivaji’s valour, Gandhi’s ahimsa, excerpts from Vivekananda’s brotherhood speech, memorable lines fom Nehru’s “tryst with destiny’ speech, extract from Rajiv Gandhi’s “ I am young. I too have a dream” speech, etc and end with a flourish by referring to India’s booming economy, its vibrant people and its colourful customs. The President’s inaugural speech would start on the Opening day and continue in the background for the next week or two while all the events are conducted and finally end during the Closing ceremony.

That’s how it should have happened in the normal course.But then the CWG committee imposed this restriction and has asked the President to utter just four words. I can see her now practicing her speech. Which word should she lay emphasis on? Should she say, “Let the Gamesss begin” or “ Let the Games Beginnn” or “ Lettt the Games Begin” or " Let the Dames start Begging" or " Let the Blame Game Begin" or....

The President is going to end up being paralysed by the unreasonable brevity that is demanded of her. It is like asking a morose Russian author to compress his novel to the size of a twitter message.

Collective awakening-2

“Is there something that is embedded deeply now in our collective consciousness as normal, right-thing-to-do, which we will, through a process of enlightenment in the future, realise is a terrible mistake and will make us let out a collective gasp, wondering why we did not even question that it was wrong all along?” I had wondered in a post two years back. (Aside: Can someone help me re-construct that sentence? Or maybe break it up into two simpler ones?)

Kwame Anthony Appiah, a philosophy professor at Princeton University asks the same question in his recent article, “What will future generations condemn us for?” in The Washington Post and provides some answers too. Our prison system, our treatment of the elderly, industrial meat production and our lack of concern for the environment….

Flights of fantasy

In the introduction to his book, “Other Colours”, a compilation of his writings on Life, Art Books and Cities, Turkish author Orhan Pamuk says:

An imaginative novelist’s greatest virtue is his ability to forget the world in the way a child does, to be irresponsible and delight in it, to play around with the rules of the known world- but at the same time to see past his freewheeling flights of fancy to the deep responsibility of later allowing reading to lose themselves in the story. A novelist might spend the whole day playing, but at the same time he carries the deepest conviction of being more serious than others. This is because he can look directly into the centre of things the way that only children can. Having found the courage to set rules for the games we once played freely, he senses that his readers will also allow themselves to be drawn into the same rules, the same language, the same sentences and therefore the story. To write well is to allow the reader to say, “I was going to say the same thing myself, but I couldn’t allow myself to be that childish.

Sadly, about 15 years ago, I lost the ability to appreciate novels and movies. As Pamuk explains, to enjoy the experience, one must let go and allow oneself to be manipulated by the author or the director. This is precisely what I guard against. When I watch a movie, I am so conscious of the movement of the camera, the rapid zoom-in and zoom-out and the background music that is played with clear intent to create the necessary effect and to stir my emotions. Due to this constant vigilance, every scene looks artificial, every story completely unrealistic and every Rajinikanth movie over-the-top.. The net result being that I deny myself the simple joy of reveling in fantasy or even absurdity..

Clearly, such periodic and child-like flights of fantasy are necessary to re-charge one’s brain, improve powers of imagination and foster creativity. The old theory of right-brain complementing the left brain.

Note to self: Loosen up.