Cricket is the root cause of our Olympic debacles.

Sports columnist, Nirmal Shekar, writes in his piece in The Hindu:

As a professional sportswriter, I am sick of hearing the question over and over and over again. I find it almost nauseating. If there are tens of millions posing the question, then, over the four decades that I have spent in the profession, there have been tens of hundreds of answers, from serious commentators and sports critics down to lay persons.

Why does a nation of over 1.2 billion people end up with just a few pieces of bronze and silver every four years in the most celebrated event in sport? 

This is a clever (but overused) method of using a clichéd subject for a column, by making it appear as if others are mouthing such clichés, while the writer himself is sick and tired of the question, but is forced to use his valuable column space to answer the stupid question. Something like the technique used by MGR to sneak in and take part in hot scenes in his movies, entirely imagined by the heroine, while he himself was pure and blemishless.  

Anyway, let me not get into details of those dream scenes. Back to Nirmal Shekar.

He discloses the reason for the repeated Olympic debacles:

..if you chose to leave aside all serious analysis as to why Indian track and field athletes, swimmers, gymnasts, hockey players and other Olympic participants fail to live up to our — and sometimes their own — expectations and came around to zeroing in on a rather reductionist, and surely controversial, viewpoint, the answer might be simple.

For, this question raises its ugly head for only about two weeks every four years. The rest of the time — for three full years and eleven and a half months — we are obsessed with, worship and shamelessly pay obeisance to a sport played with any degree of seriousness by eight-and-a-half nations. Let us, then, accept the truth. We are a one-sport nation. And even a toddler would tell you what that sport is.

So, let us forget the London Games. In a few weeks, the Indian cricket team will be playing in the Twenty20 World Cup in Sri Lanka where the conditions will suit Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his boys to the hilt.  

Ha, yes . Cricket is the root cause of all evils plaguing other sports in the country. QED.

He goes on to admonish the cricket-lovers:

…..we don’t care about them for three years and eleven-and-a-half months. We don’t care about their impecunious circumstances, their heroic struggles, their fight against-the-odds and battles with cynical, self-serving sports administrators heading often corrupt sports bodies.

…We have failed the Koms and the Yogeshwars and the rest as much as we seem to believe that many Indian athletes have failed us. They don’t owe us as much as we owe them.

And concludes on this grand note:

Nothing reflects our unity in diversity — and is a greater tribute to it — than our national obsession with cricket.

Sorry Mary, we forgot about your gas cylinder and the constant problems with power failures in your little house. But that is who we are.  

Yawn.  Will someone who knows this writer tell him a few things?

·         It is true that cricket is patronized in cities and large towns. But I’ve seen no evidence of the game being an obsession in smaller towns and village, where- if we are to believe our Census bureau- 60-70% of our nation lives. Tap them for your sport, by all means. We will applaud the effort.

·         Even if 100 million people are passionate about cricket in India, it is a staggering number which I suspect is more than the populations of Australia, England, New Zealand and South Africa added together. So, it does create an impression that the whole nation is doing nothing else.  But the reality is that it is still less than 10% of our population. Dip into the other 90%.

·       How does my love of cricket come in the way of progress of other games? Is it a zero-sum game? Are the cricketers encroaching on a hockey ground?  Or having their net practice in a shooting range? By all means play your respective games in your respective arenas and earn glory for the country. I am sorry about your struggles, but I assure you as a cricket-lover that I haven’t caused any of them, not do I wish that you should struggle. If the media is focusing only on cricket, don't blame me. Get them interested in your sport.

·         It is my choice not to watch or buy a ticket to watch Mary Kom in action. While I admire her spirit and her tenacity and would like her to get gas cylinders in her house and win a gold medal at the Olympics, I find boxing a barbaric sport and refuse to have anything to do with it. Same with Sushil Kumar, the vegetarian wrestler who bit his opponent’s ear and caused much blood to ooze out. In my view, wrestling is one of the ugliest events you can watch.But I do recognise that there are others who like to see their favourite wrestler chew chunks of the opponent's anatomy. I respect their right to choose and enjoy their sport.

So, please spare us the sanctimonious lectures. And stop trying to make cricket-lovers feel guilty and accountable for the poor performances in other sports, when we have enough ‘poor performance’ to contend with in cricket itself.

There must be a reason- other than cricket- why a nation of over a billion people does badly at the Olympics. Find it.  If you are obsessed with blaming cricket constantly for your ills, you will never get out of your misery.

ARR vs My brain.

It is said of A.R.Rahman’s music that one must listen to his songs several times before they can be really appreciated. I remember the difficulty I had in making sense of his song, “Fanaa” in the film “Yuva’. The first time I heard it, I thought it was a cacophony of wild sounds more suited for a tribal ritual. After listening to it a few more times, I liked the song. . His song, “Jana Gana Mana” from “Aayudha Ezhutha’ is another example of a song that drove me mad initially and then gained acceptance by my brain. These songs don’t stand out for their melody ( the opposite is actually true) but the rhythm is catchy.

Why this delayed appreciation?

In a chapter dedicated to the musician,  “Igor Stravinsk “ in his book,  “ Proust was a neuroscientist”, Jonah Lehrer provides this explanation of how our brain responds to music:

 A work of music is not simply a set of individual notes arranged in time. Music really begins when the separate pitches are melted into a pattern. This is a consequence of the brain’s own limitations. Music is the pleasurable overflow of information. Whenever a noise exceeds our processing abilities- we can’t decipher all the different sound waves hitting our hair cells- the mind surrenders. It stops trying to understand the individual notes and seeks to understand the relationship between the notes. The human auditory cortex pulls off this feat by using its short-term memory for sound (in the left posterior hemisphere) to uncover patterns at the larger level of the phrase, motif and movement. This new approximation lets us extract order from these notes haphazardly flying through space, and the brain is obsessed wih order. We need our sensations to make sense.

It is this psychological instinct- this desperate neuronal search for a pattern, any pattern, that is the source of music. When we listen to a symphony, we hear a noise in motion each note blurring into the next. The sound seems continuous. Of course, the physical reality is that each sound wave is really a separate thing, as discrete as the notes written in the score. But this isn’t the only way we experience the music. We continually abstract on our own inputs, inventing patterns in order to keep pace with the onrush of noise. And once the brain finds the pattern, it immediately starts to make predictions, imagining what notes will come next. It projects imaginary order into the future, transposing the melody we have heard into the melody we expect. 

By listening for patterns, by interpreting every note in terms of expectations, we turn the scraps of sounds into the ebb and flow of symphony.

So, with Rahman’s music, our brain has to ‘unlearn’ some set ideas and structures and discern new patterns. He frequently dispenses with the conventional structure of songs and weaves together different threads into a composition, yet manages to infuse harmony. For our brain to understand what's going on and settle down, we need to give it some time.

The attachment of a country dog.

The British military doctor, Henry Harpur Spry, who I had referred to in my previous post, records his observations ( page 44) on the numerous stray dogs to be found in all parts of Hindustan, and how one of them got attached to his entourage on one of his travels, across jungles, on a palanquin in the year 1835. 

A singular instance of attachment on the part of one of those numerous country  dogs which infest all parts of Hindustan occurred to me in this journey. I first fell in with the animal shortly after I quitted the town of Logassee, in Bundlekund. The day had then broken, and supposing the dog belonged to one of the palankeen men I took no further notice of him. 

On reaching Chatterpore, however, I found that he still accompanied us, which led me to inquire whether he was the property of any of the party. The reply was in the negative. As the poor animal had come so far with us, it was only fair to give him house-room, so I permitted his resting in the same apartment with Lieutenant M. and myself. A portion of our scanty meal was all he had to eat. On setting out in the evening the animal was again on the move, and kept beside the palankeen the whole of the night, till we reached the Heerapur dak bungalow, the next day at twelve, having been our companion throughout the whole of the nocturnal wanderings in the Golgunge jungles.

We had now been in company together upwards of sixty miles, and with the exception of a few small biscuits the creature had tasted nothing. At Heerapur he bore evident signs of exhaustion ; no sooner had we entered the hovel than he threw himself on the ground, panting violently. I procured some water from a boy of the village, which, when placed before him, was eagerly lapped up. 

My stay, as I have already mentioned, was a very short one. I did not get in till twelve  and the air being cool in comparison with the previous day, I started again at two. The dog, notwithstanding his fatigue, also got upon his legs, and seemed determined to go on. He kept up for about five miles further, and then giving me a look, which seemed to ask for sympathy, and which I shall never forget, dropped in the rear, and lay down. Of course I soon lost sight of him, and being very far from any habitation, I very much fear the poor creature must have died.

The inviting figures of Hindu women.

In the course of his travel through Central India, a British military doctor, Henry Harpur Spry, makes an admiring reference to Hindu women and wonders how they manage to acquire their ‘inviting figures’ without the use of corsets that were then popular with European women. He has recorded his observations in the book, “ModernIndia: with illustrations of the resources and capabilities of Hindustan ...,Volume 2,”  published in 1837. ( page 133) 

The women, especially those in the large towns, have inviting figures, with an erect and elastic gait. No man can have lounged at a ghat, or ridden through a town, without being sensibly struck with the pleasing gestures and graceful actions of the softer sex; and did they possess faces only half  so attractive as their persons, the hearts of the gazers would be in imminent danger. Corset makers find no employment in India, and yet the ladies of Hindustan possess forms which cannot be surpassed. When they have the advantage of a pretty face, in addition to their well-developed person, it is only just that they should lord it a little over those to whom Nature has not been so bountiful.

The extraordinary degree of gracefulness and elasticity displayed by these women may be attributed in part to an artificial cause, although a corset, as I have just remarked, or anything resembling it, is, I believe, unknown to them. From their earliest childhood they are taught to carry vessels on the head, and, as they grow up, a daily morning visit is paid to the village or town well for a supply of water, which is always brought home by the girls in earthen jars, thus poised. This exercise has the effect of bringing all the muscles of the back into action, and consequently strengthening the spine; while the chest is thrown forward and expanded. We see no crooked backs, or shoulders, out in Hindustan. This employment teaches them, as they walk, to permit the centre of gravity to fall on the middle of the foot, giving them, as they go along, a firm and upright gait. 

I have long been of opinion that this course, if followed by the persons conducting boarding schools at home, as a calisthenic exercise, would be infinitely more effectual than the method now pursued, to give tone and muscular powers to the delicate frames of young females; and the benefits derivable from it would, I think, be so apparent as to supersede the present machinery of dumb-bells, back-boards, hoops, and skipping-ropes. In order to secure the success of the undertaking, it will be necessary to model the jars employed in strict accordance both in size and shape to the lotah and gurrah used in Hindustan. The former is made of brass, and contains about a pint; the latter is earthenware, and varies in size from a quart to a gallon. 

The following sketch will convey to the reader an idea of the forms of these two vessels. 

They might first be poised on the head, and then carried forward and backward filled with water, by the assistance of one hand only. After a steady upright step has been attained, the bearer should make the attempt without the assistance of either hand, and in six months, I have no doubt, a manifest alteration for the better would be discernible.

A Hindu Colony in Armenia

The Asiatic Journal and monthly register for British India, China and Australasia in its edition of 1837 ( page 181-185) , has this interesting story on a Hindu colony in Armenia, consisting of migrants from India, around the 1st century BC.

A singular account of a certain colony of Hindus, that emigrated from India into Armenia, is recorded in the historical work of Zenobius, a Syrian bishop and primate of the convent called Innaknian, who flourished in Armenia in the beginning of the third century. The narrative was evidently written in Syriac, and intended for the Syrian nation, though the writer seems to have subsequently re-written the same in the Armenian language, but with Syrian characters; the letters of our alphabet having been invented a century posterior to that period. By a very long residence in Armenia, Zenobius was successfully enabled to acquire a perfect knowledge of the Armenian language, in which his history has been handed down to us. This interesting work was published in Venice, in the year 1832, being carefully collated with five manuscript copies, written in different periods.

I shall, in the present memoir, first give a description of this Hindu colony, the narrative of Zenobius, and then an account of the religious wars waged between them and the first propagators of Christianity in Armenia.

"This people had a most extraordinary appearance. They were black, longhaired, ugly and unpleasant to the sight. They claimed their origin from the Hindus. The story of the idols, worshipped by them in this place, is simply this: Demetrf and Keisaney were brothers, and both Indian princes. They were found guilty of a plot formed against their king, Dinaskey who sent troops after them, with instructions either to put them to death or to banish them from the country. 

The felons, having narrowly escaped the pursuit, took a shelter in the dominions of the king Valarsaces, who bestowed on them the principality of the country of Taron. Here a city was founded by the emigrants, who called it Vishap or Dragon. Having come to Ashtishat,they raised idols there in the name of those they worshipped in India. Fifteen years after their settlement in the country, both of the brothers were put to death by the king, for what fault I do not know. He conferred the principality on their three sons, named Kuar, Meghti, and Horain. The first built a village, and called it after his own name Kuan. The second founded a village on the plain, and called it after his own name Meghti. The third also built a village in the province of Palunies, and gave it the appellation of Horains. 

After a certain space of time, Kuar, Meghti, and Horain, of one accord, resolved on changing their abode. They sojourned on the mountain called Earki, which to a delightful temperature added a fine and picturesque appearance. It abounded in game, herbs, wood, and all that is adapted for the comfort and convenience of man. Here they raised edifices, where they set up two idols, respectively dedicated to Keisaney and Demetr, in honour of whom attendants were appointed out of their own race. Keisaney had long flowing hairs, in imitation of which his priests allowed the hairs of their heads to grow, which custom was afterwards prohibited by authority. This class of people,  on being converted to Christianity, were not deeply rooted in their faith. They durst not, however, openly profess the religion of their pagan ancestors. They continued, therefore, dissemblingly to allow their children to wear plaited hairs on the crown of their heads, in remembrance of their idolatrous abominations."

The description of this idolatrous colony is entirely accordant with the colour, appearance, manners and religion of the present Hindus. The cause of their emigration from India is distinctly stated by Zenobius, but through what route or in what period they found their way into Armenia, it is very difficult to determine. It is, however, clearly evident that they had formed a permanent settlement in our country prior to the commencement of the Christian era. Valarsaces, under whose government they found protection, was grandson of Arsaces, the Parthian, and brother of Arsaces the Great, by whom he was appointed king over Armenia, Anno Mundi 3852, or a century and a-half before Christ. 

The story concludes thus:

It is impossible to know what was the number of this Hindu colony at the time of their emigration from India into Armenia. We are, however, certain, that from the date of their first settlement in the Armenian province of Taron to the day of the memorable battle, a period of about 450 years, they must have considerably increased and multiplied, and thus formed a part of the population of the country. No vestiges of this Hindu race can, at present, be traced in Armenia, save the record of their exploits, handed down to us in the narrative of Zenobius.

(Read the full story here)

Moving mountains

In a post in August 2010, I had noted how the ancient Chinese had moved a 200-ton block of stone on ice over a great distance, and contrasted  it with the transportation of a 80-ton granite block by Raja Raja Chola in the 11^th century by using elephants. 

Recently, a 340-ton boulder was transported over 100 km, in 12 days in California. No elephants were necessary. They used a 200 feet long trailer. This feat will now feature in the Guinness Book of World Records. (source)

Today, I read that the construction of the famous Angkor Wat in Cambodia also involved mind-blowing logistics. As this report explains: 

The sandstone blocks from which Angkor Wat was built were quarried more than 50km away (from the holy mountain of Phnom Kulen) and floated down the Siem Reap River on rafts. The logistics of such an operation are mind-blowing, consuming the labour of thousands – an unbelievable feat given the lack of cranes and trucks that we take for granted in contemporary construction projects. According to inscriptions, the construction of Angkor Wat involved 300,000 workers and 6000 elephants, yet it was still not fully completed.

What was the motivation for these people to attempt such feats?

The nucleus of the Indian Army- 1628

The United Service Magazine (Part 3) in its issue of 1835 (Page 311), traces the history of the Indian Army set up by the British. 

The Indian Army forms, perhaps, the most extraordinary spectacle on which the eye of the philosopher has ever rested. Composed almost exclusively of natives, none of whom are ever permitted to rise to offices of rank or trust, it has ensured to England, for not less than seventy years, the undisputed sovereignty over a tract of country incalculably more extensive than herself, and divided from her by the distance of half the globe. Nor is it alone by preserving peace at home, and supporting a handful of strangers in the dominion which they there exercise, that the Indian Army has established for itself an illustrious name: whenever they have been employed in the field—whether against foreign or domestic enemies—whether against Asiatics or Europeans,— the Sepoys have done their duty, if not with the daring recklessness which characterises British soldiers, at all events with steadiness, with patience, and with courage. 

Such a body deserves, if ever an armed body did, that its merits should not pass unnoticed, and that they who benefit by its devotion and its truth should at least give to it the recompense of well-earned praise. 

There is nothing in the records of ancient or modern times more remarkable than the rise of the Indian Army. It has been, if we may so express ourselves, the growth of a day. It sprang up all at once from the seed to absolute maturity. 

For many long years after the trade with India had been opened, and the Copany had established factories at different points along the coast, the Indian Army had positively no existence. A few peons, armed, according to the custom of the country, with swords and circular shields, were the only species of guards which the factories admitted; and these never ventured to oppose themselves to the encroachments of the local authorities, however flagrant and however unjustifiable. 

The fact, indeed, is that when the English merchants first established themselves in the ports of Hindustan, they did not dream of the possibility of founding anything like an empire in a country thickly peopled, highly civilized, and accustomed to the working of regular governments. They were content to receive protection—they never thought of being able to afford it; and so long as the native princes permitted them to trade, their ambition soared no higher. The excessive caution with which they departed from this system is very striking, and we will endeavour to give of it a sort of bird's-eye view. 

On the 2nd of May, 1601, Captain Lancaster's renowned squadron sailed from Torbay. After touching at Acheen, in Sumatra, and trading there—after capturing in the Straits of Malacca a rich Portuguese ship, and receiving from the Moluccas large quantities of spices, Lancaster steered for Java, where, in Bantam, the first factory was established over which an English merchant had ever presided in those seas. This was in 1602. In 1612 we find new factories erected at Surat, Ahmedabad, Cambaya, and Goja. As these increased in wealth and importance, they drew towards themselves the notice not only of the native princes but of European rivals, who, sometimes by force, hut much more frequently by intrigue, endeavoured to ruin them. Against direct hostility, however, the English were content to guard themselves by appealing to the Nabobs and Naigs on shore; while at sea their ships maintained, as they best could, a struggle with their assailants.

But this state of things could not last for ever. Their rivals, especially the Dutch, gathered strength from day to day: they built forts, they sent out bodies of troops, and began to wage war with the powers around them. They conceived that they must in some sort follow the example, not indeed in commencing hostilities with the princes under whose protection they dwelt, but by assuming such an attitude as might overawe the Europeans, and hinder them from acting towards themselves on the offensive. 

In 1626, when displays of hostile intentions had become, on the part of the Dutch, more than ever frequent, and the condition of India, torn by civil wars, chanced to be peculiarly forlorn, the English merchants judged it expedient to apply to the soubahdars of the different provinces in which they were settled, for permission to enclose their factories with fortifications. Some time elapsed ere the desired sanction was obtained; and when it did reach them, they were too poor and too feeble everywhere to avail themselves of it; but at Armagon, on the Coromandel coast, a fort was erected in 1628, which mounted twelve pieces of cannon. 

The garrison of that fort—the nucleus as it may be called of the Indian Army—consisted of twenty-three soldiers,—Europeans hired by the chief of the factory, and of course subject to no species of military law; for the idea of establishing an armed force in the East had never occurred to any of the home authorities, and no provision could of course be made for its management. There it was, however, the foundation-stone of the hosts which now keep in subjection a population of one hundred millions of souls—a gallant army of twenty three burgher-guards, of which the chief of the factory was the commandant. 

Do read the rest of the piece here.

Who will be missed?

What is about death of actors that makes people go irrationally sentimental?  People who have never even seen or spoken to Rajesh Khanna in person feel or claim to feel a sense of loss. There was a near stampede today as his fans thronged the crematorium. “He’ll be missed” says one of the media reports. Missed? The man had stopped acting long back. So the ‘missing’ is not something that arises from the news of his death. 

His fans knew him only through the characters he portrayed. So are they mourning the death of the characters that he played? That doesn’t make sense. The characters had a finite shelf life anyway- till that particular movie ended. And it was possible that one or two of the characters played by him would have died too. His fans did not take that so personally. 

Is it charisma? As I wondered in an earlier post, why should actors have a fan following at all? Unlike singers or cricketers whose real persona display their respective skills in real life, what is seen by the public in movies are virtual images of actors. It would be logical for the virtual character to be admired, but why the actor in flesh and blood? He won’t even be able to sing a single line of the popular song that his “character” had sung in the movie.

People do identify, vicariously, with the film characters and find an outlet for their fantasies through them. If they cannot – or do not want to- distinguish between the actor and the character he plays, his death could cause a deep sense of loss, as if a part of one’s self had been snatched away.  The ‘fantasy’ world gets shattered when the actor- the creator of the characters- dies.

Do you have an explanation?

Update 28-07-12

Sunil Gavaskar in his column last week ( online link not available) paid tributes to Rajesh Khanna and commentator, Suresh Saraiya and said that such heroes ought to be remembered. 

About Suresh Saraiya, he had fond recollections. It was Suresh who brought Gavaskar a photograph of his new-born son, Rohan, when he was on a long tour of West Indies. He also recalled the hard work he put in as a commentator and his passion for the game. It is clear that Gavaskar knew him personally and closely. Therefore, his sense of loss on the passing away of Suresh Saraiya is understandable.

About Rajesh Khanna, Gavaskar writes that his movies were very popular with the Indian team. In particular, Ashok Mankad was a great fan and would imitate the actor very well. Mankad would entertain the team, acting out scenes from many a Rajesh Khanna film. 

In the entire piece, Gavaskar provides no evidence that he knew Rajesh Khanna personally. He knew only the on-screen persona but seemed to make no distinction between the actor and the characters he played. 

The early-morning flight...

Here I am, at 5.15 in the morning, suited, booted and waiting in a line to get inside the airport. The grumpy security guard wants some proof of my identity. I pull out my driver’s licence. He stares at it intently, trying to figure out if the person in that photograph is really me. I don’t blame him. I’ve had the same doubt for a long time. Even when I had collected my licence at the RTO I had complained to the person at the counter that my photo looked terrible. He had given me a curt explanation that just as they register cars on an “as-is-where-is” basis, they photograph people on an “as-is-how-is” basis. 

In one of his essays, R.K.Narayan describes a portrait done of him by M.F.Husain: “When I saw the portrait” writes RKN, “I remarked that I didn’t look like myself. Husain had smiled at my lack of taste and replied that I wouldn’t know my real self. I left it at that." It is the same with me and my RTO photo. I don’t know my real self. 

At long last, the security guard convinces himself that I have no immediate plans of blowing up the airport and lets me in. 

I make my way to the check-in counter. I wait behind four other passengers. Just when it is my turn, I get a tap on my shoulder from a chap who wants to check in ahead of me as he’s late for his Delhi flight. What audacity! 

Consider my state of mind. For my flight at 6.40 a.m. I had started from my house at 4.45 a.m. making allowance for traffic snarls, flat tyres (one each in the front and at the rear), CM’s cavalcade passing by, cranes toppling over during Metro Rail construction, Adyar River overflowing due to unexpected overnight rains and an assortment of other contingencies. I had carefully set the alarm for 4.00 a.m. but was woken up even earlier by my call-taxi driver. He dialed me at 3.15 a.m. asking for directions from a place that was a good 20 km away from my house. In these days of GPS, mind-boggling Google Maps and dozens of geo-synchronous satellites orbiting the globe, it is ridiculous that we should be woken up at ungodly hours by people wanting to know how to reach Point B from A. 

You can see that I have sacrificed my sleep and subjected myself to much misery just to be at the airport in time. And I am confronted by this chap who insists on jumping the queue after spending an extra hour in bed, though his flight is scheduled to leave 30 minutes ahead of mine. I am simply outraged by this brazen display of aggression. I allow him to go ahead only because I don’t want to pick up an acrimonious fight so early in the day with a guy who possesses the biggest biceps and the most menacing looks I’ve seen.

Brooding over the unfairness of it all I collect my Boarding card and join the serpentine queue for Security clearance. After 20 minutes, I reach the scanning machine but somebody in a pilot’s uniform brushes me aside to place his luggage first. Why am I being pushed around by all and sundry this morning? Who do these pilots think they are? Why do they need to be given this special access? And why do they need such huge suitcases? Damn it, they don’t even fly the planes these days. I’ve heard that the cabin crew comprises a computer, a pilot and a dog. The computer flies the plane; the dog is there to make sure that the pilot doesn’t touch the controls; the only job of the pilot is to feed an occasional biscuit to the dog. That’s all there is to flying a plane. Perhaps the large suitcases are used to carry the dogs inside.

Clearing the security check after an eternity, I bump into my old friend Govindarajan. Good old Govind. The veteran traveller. Spends more time at airports than at home. Holds more frequent-flyer cards than his wallet can hold. Looks the same every time I see him. As we chat, it occurs to me that my last four meetings with him have all been in the security area of the same airport. The truth hits me now. He must be an airport ghost. Yes, that’s what he is. Govind, the Ghost. No wonder he looks the same always. Wife and family must be under impression that he’s on yet another of his long tours while his ghost keeps restlessly hovering around the security area where he had spent half his life waiting for some plane or other. I notice that Govind (or his ghost) is looking at me in a strange manner. Maybe he feels the same way about me. Perhaps most early-morning travelers are just ghosts trapped inside airport buildings. You never see them outside. Just the right theme for a Night Shyamalan movie. 

I settle down in a chair and try to sort out the ghosts from the real people. Some of them look quite spooky. One tormented soul has his laptop open and is staring unblinkingly at the screen. Yet another ghost has been pulling his strolley all over the lounge without any sense of purpose. A third one has been yelling into his mobile phone and I suspect that he’s not even on a call.

The blasted announcements keep interrupting my thoughts and observations.”LAST and FINAL CALL for so-and-so, repeat, LAST and FINAL CALL.” Don’t they know that ‘last and final call’ can be given only once? If there’s going to be one more call after this, they need to call this the ‘SECOND-FROM-LAST and PENULTIMATE call.” Besides, where was the need to turn on the decibel level to an ear-drum shattering 120 dBa? Have they set the audio level to suit the hearing frequency of ghosts?

I rise from my seat once I realise that the so-and-so being called out is actually my name. I saunter through the aero-bridge muttering to myself that no society which inflicts these early-morning flights on its members can call itself civilised.

The singular case of the undug stretch of road.

The Chairman of the Committee To Ensure Continued Dissatisfaction of Chennai Citizens (CTECDCC) was a worried man. The situation was alarming enough for him to convene an emergency meeting of the CTECDCC.  A report had been filed by the Roving Audit team (RAT) that a serious violation had been committed.  On one of the roads in the southern part of the city, a continuous stretch of 10 metres had been spotted with the top surface intact and investigations showed that it had remained so for the last 48 hours. This was unpardonable.

The CTECDCC was a cross-functional task-force consisting of members from the departments in charge of water supply, sewage, storm water pipe, electricity cables, telephone cables, data cables and roads. The team members needed to coordinate their respective activities in such a manner as to ensure that, at any given time, any part of the city roads was kept dug up on both sides. If a given stretch was dug up by the Storm Water Dept and filled and paved after 4 months, the telephone department had to swiftly mobilize its resources and ensure that it was dug up again. After a few months when the re-filling was done, the electricity dept would take over and so on. The constant filling/re-filling was necessary to provide an element of surprise. Drivers shouldn't be allowed to settle down to a pattern for too long.

The noble mandate of the CTECDCC was to make sure that citizens did not get accustomed to or spoilt by paved or smooth road- which would unnecessarily increase expectation of service levels and put the system under strain. Moreover, keeping the roads dug and with potholes ensured benefits to the local economy and resulted in good GDP growth. Cars had to change their shock-absorbers more often, tyres had to be fixed for punctures and motor-bikes that had fallen into ditches needed extensive repairs. Injured pedestrians and disabled senior citizens boosted the income of hospitals, while vehicles consumed more fuel and provided revenue for oil companies. Besides, when each department dug up the road by turn and filled it back, a virtuous cycle was created. Workers could be kept continually engaged and diverted. 

The CTECDCC was an ISO-9000 certified organization and systems were in place to eliminate possibility of non-conformance. Roving teams were trained to alert them even if a small stretch of road was found undug.

Yet this lapse had happened.  And a full 48 hours had passed before the Committee came to know about it. 

There was only one thing to be done. The house owners on either side of the road and abutting the undug stretch had to be prosecuted on charges of willful and gross negligence in not bringing the matter to the notice of the officials.

Yes, only such a measure would prevent such slippages again and ensure that all citizens would discharge their duties as required of them. If rules were not enforced stringently, Indian society as we know it and take pride in being a part of, will crumble and degenerate. The CTECDCC could not be a mute spectator. 

Orders to that effect were passed by the Chairman and the meeting called to a close.

Law-breakers, unite.

A ‘good samaritan’ in my neighbourhood catches hold of all the stray dogs in the area and manages to tie collars around their necks. This, he explains, is to give them the status of ‘owned dogs’ and prevent them from being rounded up by the Corporation to be castrated or killed or whatever it is that Corporations do to stray dogs. 

The interesting thing here is that this good fellow doesn’t realise that the Corporation personnel are law-enforcers and that they could be removing these stray dogs for a proper reason. His compassion misguides him here. 

Same with the case of the driver fraternity. Seeing traffic cops waiting to catch helmetless drivers of two-wheelers, they are quick to alert and warn other drivers heading in that direction of the danger lurking in the corner and to take a different route. The police are trying to enforce a law here and punish the offenders. As law-abiding citizens, we ought to support the Police and help them nab the rule-breakers. Instead we reach out, in a spirit of brotherhood, to the defaulters. 

Why?

Is it because of a general cynicism that the law-enforcers are a corrupt lot and that the sole purpose of their exercise is to harass and demand bribes?  So, drivers as a community must unite and fight the system in whatever way possible?  Or there is something about ‘ authority’ that says we must defy and rebel?

The rise of the 'novel' and 'abstract art'.

The ‘novel’ in the form we know it now, and defined as an “extended fictional prose narrative with emphasis on character development” came into being only in early 19^th century and gained popularity towards the middle of that century. Why or how did it suddenly become popular? One explanation is that the industrial revolution saved people a few hours of work a week and provided them more time for reading and entertainment.  A different perspective is provided by Orhan Pamuk in his essay, “ Who do you write for?” (part of his book, “Other Colours”)

We must remember that the rise of the novel coincided with the emergence of the nation-state. When the great novels of the nineteenth century were being written, the art of the novel was in every sense a national art. Dickens, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy wrote for an emerging middle class, who could in the books of its respective national author recognize every city, street, house, room and chair; it could indulge in the same pleasures as it did in the real world and discuss the same ideas. In the nineteenth century, novels by important authors appeared first in the art and culture supplements of national newspapers, for the authors were speaking to the nation. In their narrative voices we can sense the disquiet of the concerned patriot whose deepest wish is for his country to prosper. By the end of the nineteenth century, to read and write novels was to join a national discussion on matters of national importance. 

Today the writing of the novel carries an entirely different meaning, says Pamuk. But the origin of the novel was linked to a set of circumstances in the nineteenth century.

What about impressionist art? How did art mutate from being literary portraits into a more abstract form?  Jonah Lehrer provides this explanation in his brilliant chapter on “Paul Cezanne” in his book,” Proust was a neuroscientist”. 

The story of abstract painting begins with the photograph, which literally means “light writing”. That’s what a photograph is: an image written in frozen light. Ever since the Renaissance, artists have used camera obscuras (“dark rooms”) to condense the three planes of reality into two dimensions. In the nineteenth century, with the discovery of photosensitive chemicals, painting lost its monopoly on representation. Light had been captured.

Painters , still in the business of copying reality, saw the new technique as a dire threat. How could the human hand compete with the photon? J.M.W.Turner is said to have remarked after seeing a photograph that he was glad he’d already had his day, since the era of painting was over. But not all artists believed in the inevitable triumph of the camera. The symbolic poet Charles Baudelaire, a natural skeptic of science, reviewed a photographic exhibition in 1859 by proclaiming the limits of the new medium. Its accuracy, he said, is deceptive and nothing more than phony simulacra of what was really out there. Inspired by his writings, a motley group of young French painters decided to rebel. The camera, they believed, was a liar. Its precision was false. Why? Because reality did not consist of static images. Because the camera stopped time, which cannot be stopped;  because it renders everything in focus when everything is never in focus. Because the eye is not a lens and the brain is not a machine. 

These rebels called themselves the impressionists. Like the film in a camera, their idiom was light. But the impressionists realized that light was both a dot and a blur. If the camera captured the dot, the impressionists represented the blur. They wanted to capture time in their paintings, showing how a bale of hay changes in the afternoon shadows, or how the smoke of a train leaving Gare Saint-Lazare slowly fades into thin air. They painted what the camera left out. 

Thus the ‘novel’ and “abstract art” both rose in response to specific developments in the nineteenth century, and gained acceptance gradually. Writers and artists had to change with the times and adapt their skills to fit into a new context, if they had to survive and flourish.