My Little World

2012-02-11T22:03:00.000-08:00

Just “pick pocketed”!

You are out on a business; you feel for your purse in your handbag; to realize that the cute little thing is no longer there. How will you feel?

The first time I realized the taste of my pocket being picked. Until yesterday, it was someone else’s story. I am always careful; that’s what I thought. Those careless lots will lose their things and anyway they deserve it. I thought people always exaggerate their experience after their pocket is picked.

The other day I went to a temple. I do that very rarely. Not because I am a non-believer or something similar to that. I believe in the universality of God and I can reach God even from my dining table;so why should I go to temple to reach HIM. But then my mother-in-law liked to visit God at his abode and that day happened to be auspicious;full moon day and it was Thaipoosam. A special day to be at any one of Lord Muruga abodes.Due to the occasion, the temple was over crowded. All sorts of people were there- from shouting God’s praises (as if God has a severe hearing problem) to murmuring people. Women, men, children, all age groups!

The last time I opened my bag was to pay our regular 3 wheeler guy- Sekhar. Sekhar is a punctual guy and we hired him whenever we did not drive. Unlike other auto guys, he carries a book to read whenever he had to wait for the passenger. Then the bag was on my shoulder like an obedient pet. We waded through the crowd to see the six castles of Lord Muruga; Palani, Thirutani, Pazhamuthircholai, Tiruchendur Swamimalai, Thiruparankundram are these castles from where Muruga is said to have fought battles. Though these are scattered across Tamil Nadu, replicas of all the six are built in one premise on the shores in the Besant Nagar beach!!!

I did not know when it happened but once I was back from the prayers, I felt for my purse to buy some jasmine strings. I realized that the blue purse is no longer there in my bag. I felt for my cell phone, thank God, it was there. I searched the bag again and again as if the purse was a needle in hay-stack.

It was gone; a tidy sum (since we planned for a dinner too), my Voters Id, train tickets booked for a trip and 3 debit cards. I forgot to keep the cards back into the safe locker at home after using them for shopping a day earlier.

I cursed the person who had taken my purse. I hated my carelessness. I should have checked my purse at home and would have kept the cards at home; I should not have carried that much cash. I tried all possible- useless- explanations to myself so that I would not have suffered the loss even if the purse was stolen. This was despite Krishna saying that it is Ok. We cannot do anything about it; forget it. And Menons, our family friends, asked me to be happy that somebody did not snatch my gold chain from around my neck in the crowd. Ok fine guys. What should I do now? Be happy? About what? Losing my things or for not having lost more than I did?

On second thoughts, I put myself in action. [1] Be practical [2] hotlist the cards [3] worry less [4] learn your lessons

So I learnt a lesson the harsh way and from now, I can advise those people who have not pick pocketed yet, like Krishna does!!! He too had a similar experience more than a decade ago.

Aishwarya Rai Bachan and Radha

2011-12-01T00:38:00.000-08:00

Since last April or so, we have been hearing so much about the state of pregnancy of her highness Aiswharya Rai, the Bachan bahu, as she is popularly known as. Prior to that, there were speculations about her not getting pregnant; one imaginative journalist, even went as far to, attribute that to her state of health and the Big B protested vehemently through twitter. Media got annoyed about her not showing her baby bump. (It is another matter, if she did that often, they would have said that she is showing off her baby bump). Media made out her outings (which rarely happened) into an event. Not to talk about the number of astrologers who predicted the sex of the baby and so on. So much was talked about the pregnancy of this former miss world!

I thought, for a change, I will write about the pregnancy of Radha, a construction worker. I know this would not make hot news. But somebody should chronicle this for the sake of it. Radha got married to Murugan last year without much sound and furry. In her village in Theni district, every woman (read girl) gets married sometimes when they are 16 to 18 years of age and her parents did not defy the rule. In no time, they left to their honeymoon destination- to Chennai-, where Murugan works as a construction worker. They have an individual shack, thanks to the contractor. He sometimes thinks of the ‘welfare of the worker’. If they were made to live in the outskirts of the city, money should be spent on transport as well; and they may not reach the worksite early. Radha joined the workforce on day one without a proper call letter, interview or an appointment order.

Marriage brought out big changes in the life of Murugan. Now he does not have to think of carrying water from the tap and standing in a long queue for that; nor does he have to cook or look for cheap eat outs. Above all, somebody is there to make love at night.

Radha got used to the city’s ways in no time. Now she is comfortable with the filthy language that is used near the water tap and the fights while fetching water. Even she does not mind using such language now. Domestic chores are nothing new to her; but making love was. Radha got pregnant. Radha was ‘lucky’ and she could continue with her work as the construction work did not demand a perfect figure; but only the ability to lift and carry bricks and concrete mixture. Nothing much changed in Radha’s life; except that the other women allowed her to fill water without waiting in the queue; they sometimes prepared some food for her and also helped her while she was at work so that she got some rest. Radha worked till the week before her delivery.

Meanwhile, Murugan was running from pillar to post to make some extra money so that he could take care of her delivery. However, he was happy about her pregnancy like any other man of his class. He was a bit worried about her health as the doctor told him, in the previous visit, that she was weak and needed more attention. It wasn’t that she was on a diet or something; just insufficient nutritious food. He had to rush to the village to bring her mother to Chennai. Radha was supposed to go to her maternal home for delivery, especially when this was her first child. But they were too poor to take care of her. They are still paying off the loan they took for her marriage. And in Chennai the government maternity hospital is close by to their worksite in Egmore. Somebody should be there with Radha in the hospital when he runs around to arrange things. The hospital has had many incidents of child theft. He did not tell about this to Radha as it might scare her. But he was sure that some older women should have told her about the reputation of the hospital. But private hospitals were unaffordable to the couple. So Murugan was clear that somebody should be there with her till they come back home.

Radha delivered a baby girl today without knowing the significance of the day 11-11-2011. And nobody was particularly happy; it was, after all, a baby girl. I am putting this story in my blog as there were no takers for the story in the mainstream media; as it does not invoke any specific interest in the readers. Hence no news value!

My Journey to Kothagiri in Nilgiris

2011-10-30T23:49:00.000-07:00

I have been to Kothagiri, Nilgiris (Popularly known as Ooty) recently and I spent four enchanting days there. I have been to Ooty earlier as a tourist as well as for some work. Ooty is also beautiful but too crowded and too commercialized to my comfort. Walking through the tea estates was fun. But the real excitement started when we walked beyond the private estates (owned by wealthy classes and politicians) and entered the forest area. The local person who accompanied us was also some sort of a historian. He told us that the name Kothagiri means Kothar’s Giri (Mountain of the kothars- a primitive tribe in the area). Now most of this mountain ranges are owned by the wealthy and the politicians. Yet another long and dreadful story of exploitation of the Tribal over the centuries! Thanks to the British; they initiated the ritual of chucking out the tribal from their lands unceremoniously. And the mighty Indians followed it shamelessly. The local person explained to us with specific names of the politicians or the industrialist who owned a particular part of the mountain.

My trip was to meet the tribal, original inhabitants of the mountains, who were pushed towards the interior forests. Trekking through the thick woods breathlessly was fun as the ambience was enchanting and breathtaking. The forest was infested (I mean inhabited) by bison and also bears. The accompanying person narrated interesting (bizarre) stories of encounters with bison and bears. People would howl, at the top of their voice, or would throw huge stones (not in the direction of the bear but in a different direction, basically to create a huge noise) when they accidently met with a bear. And at nights, the tribal see to it that they ventured out in a group. The most interesting fact that I heard from the tribal leader was that, earlier, they never had the concept of fencing; they considered the whole forest as theirs. There was no need for a fence. Now they do have fencing around whatever little land they hold; but the community shares most of the things (even if it is a jackfruit from the forest). It is unheard of among us the ‘cultured’ and ‘civilized’ people. Thank God, we did not encounter any bears on the way. But only once, my leisurely walk ended abruptly when we saw a couple of bison hanging around a tea estate. It was too close to comfort.

The deforestation and climate change have made the lives of the tribal and the wild animals miserable in a similar way. They both lived harmoniously with nature for ages. Now the loss of the forests and lack of rains together have disturbed the balance of the eco system and as a result the wild animals do not have much to eat in the forest. They encroach into the agricultural land of the tribal and destroy whatever they see. Animals also come out looking for water. The tribal are not able to cultivate the traditional crops/grains which had given them a balanced diet. Yet another issue is that of rice having become the staple diet thanks to the free rice distribution by the government and the appalling disappearance traditional food grains. The shift away from millets to rice has certainly contributed to incidence of malnutrition in the region. Man animal conflict is frequent now. The animals do tread into the city sometimes

Tribal hamlets are small, around 20 to 30 families. I met the tribal women at their hamlet and we had a long chat about their lives, tradition and their aspirations. It is really sad that they no longer practice the traditional medicine and a number of persons who know the wonderful secrets of the plants and herbal kingdom have reduced into just a few. This exceptional knowledge may vanish from them (as these are typically transmitted through the oral tradition; no records are kept) forever, if efforts are not taken to preserve it. I felt happy that their music has not left them so far. The drums talked loudly. It was their festival season and they will travel a long distance through the forest to visit their kula deivam (traditional deity) drumming throughout the day. And they will have a special puja and a social feast will follow.

We trekked down silently listening to the whispering of the huge trees and the slow whistling of the wind hugging the tea estates. I am confused now; totally confused. What is development? Who are we to define development in our own terms? What is education? Is there something called culturally sensitive education? How the present education system is going to help them when the schools and hostels are not providing quality education and work only in name ? There are lots of questions to be answered. Well. It’s unfortunate that the answer is not blowing in the wind. The answer is not blowing in the wind!

Happy Diwali...Would have been happier if so many crackers were not around

2011-10-24T22:50:00.000-07:00

Anna Hazare led Anti Corruption Movement- Festival of Masses- From Chennai

2011-08-20T03:06:00.000-07:00

2011-07-16T04:52:00.001-07:00

“Crime” and “Punishment”

Haven’t blogged for a long time. Happy times make one feels content and inactive. I. was generally enjoying my break from work & work & work with my son chinks who is on a vacation here and also reading a lot. Just completed Orhan Pamuk’s White Castle and am now glued to another of Pamuk’s; My Name is Red. I had also enjoyed Palace of Illusions by Chitra Banerjee. So was generally in a reading mode.

Now I had this urge to break the routine comfort and write about the little boy Dilson who is no more. I do not know Dilson personally, I have only this newspaper reports lying before me with a photograph (obviously hurriedly sliced out from a family photo; may be this is the only photograph of the boy the family had) of this little boy. The report made me sick; like any other human being would be.

Dilson from Indira Gandhi Nagar slum was shot dead by a retired Lt. Colonel on the 3rd of July. The `crime’ that Dilson committed was that he sneaked in to Army Officers’ Enclave, the residential complex of army personnel, to gather badam nuts. 13 year old Dilson is a child worker; a 5th standard school dropout. It wasn’t, exactly, his choice. His father fell ill and Dilson was forced to step into his father shoe - provider. (Despite the tall claims of the Government and the NGOs after the Right To Education Act, there are a large number of working children. A national shame in the era of scams and black money running into several thousand cores of rupees).

July 3rd, being a Sunday, Dilson and two of his friends, thought of having some fun and also collect something edible. He sneaked into the Army officers’ enclave while his friends waited outside. He began to pluck the nuts and had thrown it to the friends across the boundary wall. This joyful ride did not last long. Somebody got irritated for obvious reasons. [1] The child trespassed [2] he made a noise. He would have disturbed the peaceful sleep of a retired Colonel in an AC room (his wife initially said they did not hear any shot being fired since they were sleeping in an AC room). The infuriated Colonel decided to silence this “nuisance’ forever. He shot at the child from a close range.

Unfortunately it was not an accident. The shot was fired with an intention to kill. Not to scare them away. A responsible army officer would know as to what such a weapon can do and more so when fired from a close range. The Colonel, trained in weapons, would not be that naïve to not know that aiming the head of the child from such close quarters will kill the kid. He admitted to the police that he committed the crime since he was infuriated as the children ignored his repeated warnings in the past. If he really wanted to live in serenity he could have selected a place far from the crowd in after his retirement. The newspapers do not explain as to why this man was living in the quarters in the army enclave even a couple of months after he retired? Was he a squatter himself?

This guy himself has three sons and I am sure that these children would have irritated him at many points of times while they grew up (otherwise children are not children). Children are not always angels. They sometime give you such hard times which will make you think the old saying that “your enemies in your last birth are reborn as your sons”. But you don’t kill your children just because they irritate you: you don’t kill them just because they are noisy. But you can kill a slum boy because he is after all a slum boy; no money, no power, no real connections. We all know whenever something gruesome happens to one of them, the slum people get restless for a day or two and they stop the traffic for a day or two. The police know how to handle such developments: a lot of cajoling here and a bit of pressuring there, etc, etc. They get to normalcy soon. They cannot strike for long as they have to think about their bread for the day.

Getting back to the situation, you will not shoot at children just because they trespassed in to your area and plucked some nuts. You don’t even do it to crows. I remember my childhood. Those were times when children were not hooked on to computer games and the SMSs . Of course boys were naughtier than girls and they plucked mangoes from others’ trees (not because they were hungry but just for the fun of it). This irritated the owner of the trees to no end. But they either shooed away the children or shouted at them or complained to their parents (that was the highest punishment). Once my twin brother (please forgive me bro) and his ‘gang’ went for a night show and while coming back, middle of the night, these teenagers attacked our one and only Mary Chechi’s mango tree. Those mangoes were very special as these were not sour even when they were raw. She heard the noise but did not open the door as it was mid night. However she switched on the light and peeped through the window to see who the culprits were. Knowing very well she would be behind the curtains, these boys shown their buttocks to her. Just imagine the state of poor Mary Chechi; all of a sudden seeing quiet a number of naked buttocks. Of course shell shocked! Needless to say she could not identify the face of any of those buttocks. We knew the story as my brother narrated it to us exclusively. But my mother heard the version of Chechi next morning and she cursed the boys, without knowing the active participation of her own son.

Dilson was killed for a lesser “crime”. Though this was a defence enclave, it was just another residential complex where there is nothing classified. Nor is this place situated anywhere near a sensitive installation.So much so, the security to the enclave has been outsourced to some agency and poor men from Orissa guard the compound for a pittance. And Chennai is not a conflict zone like Kashmir. There is a sentry at the gate who can intercept the trespassers and ask for an explanation about their presence in the area. Even the sentry was not under the instruction to shoot at the intruders.

Now I write this because I got angry with the sympathetic reports that have begun to appear in the newspapers; that the Colonel and his wife did not eat anything for a day when he came to know that the boy was dead (as if he did not know when he fired from a close range) and such other reports that ``he was under depression” and that “he dedicated his three sons to the nation’s security”. Such stuff made me angry. If a person is depressed, he should have taken treatment for that. And in that case it was important that he did not keep a lethal gun with him.I am ‘infuriated’, but of course not enough to kill someone but to write this to overcome my anger!

2011-04-06T23:46:00.000-07:00

I Salute Anna Hazare

It is too early to conclude what would be the outcome of the movement ignited by Anna Hazare at Jantar Mandir in Delhi. However, I am thrilled to see the massive response gaining momentum within a couple of days after he began his fast unto death. All that the Gandhian is demanding is an effective Lokpal (not the sham that the draft Bill prepared by the government) against corruption. These days I was little too pessimistic and always thought nostalgically that the era of peoples movement and protests are over forever. Rather I hardly saw any space for civil society protests in India. This feeling is not without reason. Look at Irom Sharmila’s non violent struggle for the last 10 years against the draconian AFPSA in Manipur. I was completely disappointed when I tried to discuss this issue with few students from the North East. They in turn asked me who is Irom Sharmila?. The movement, which is a Gandhian one, in every sense of the term, deserved better response from the government and the civil society. Here I am not trying to reduce the efforts of the groups that are taking up the cause for the last 10 years as non-consequential. The Narmada movement under the leadership of Medha Patkar too, though got wider publicity, should have got better treatment and support. I did look at the movement of the people in Egypt with envy.

I started thinking that the people, especially the large middle class, who benefitted out of the political system, are too self centered to think beyond themselves and the poor never had the space and time for organizing or be part of a protest; as their prime concern is to deal with their own everyday existence in this maddening world. The young generation, I thought, is no good as they are hooked to facebooks and tweeters and to their mobile phones. However, I stood corrected when I saw the crowd at India Gate and Jantar Mandir. And that too a large number of young people! I got touched when a young girl of 17, still in school, told that “if a 73 year old Hazare sab can fight for us, the least we can do is to be part of that fight in large numbers”. She further said, “no; we did not bunk classes. We told our teachers and parents that we are going to take part in the procession”.

It was nice to see the young ones sitting as part of panel discussions in TV channels (for a change) along with veterans like Lord Megnad Desai (Of course, Vinod Sharma, a journalist by profession and an eternally loyal supporter of the congress establishment was there too) and venting out their anger against corruption. It was clear that their participation in the movement may be spontaneous, but their anger was accumulated. It was accumulated against the corrupt system, corrupt politicians irrespective the colour of the flag they belong to, against corrupt bureaucrats and ultimately the inefficient system that invariably failed to take action against the corrupt. The anger and frustration were writ large on their faces.

An old man who came with his two young grand children told, amongst the candles of vigil, that he wanted his grand children to become part of this great moment. This is for them for years to remember.

I watched with pride the mass of people, swelling like flood water; felt bad that I was not there physically; and sing such songs that we used to in the university: “we shall overcome someday” or Bob Dylon’s “times are changing”. I see people- young, middle aged and old, men and women, from different parts of the country. People chanting…people singing…. I liked it when they turned back the politicians (who came to appropriate the movement in the pretext of supporting the cause) not so politely.

The visual media vied with each other to show the people at India Gate and Jantar Mantar with candle lights and brought live discussions to the drawing rooms of those who sit far away. I thank them for that. However, I got nausea when I saw Burka Datta anchoring a programme on Hazare’s fast. What an audacity! When she herself is very much part of the corporate-politician nexus with corruption! The least that NDTV could have done to the people was not put her up on such a show. And how much I wished that one person from her audience asked her: What about you madam? What right do you have to talk about ethics and corruption? Perhaps that was the only disappointment of the evening. I am eagerly waiting for hear more news on the protest. We are also thinking to do something in Chennai to show our solidarity to the cause.
“Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly again'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changing'.

2010-10-23T21:48:00.000-07:00

Walking in the moon light!
Yesterday was full moon night and we- Krishna, Chinku and his friends- two Ajays and Girish – were on the beach. The night was beautiful and bewitching. The typical evening crowds had returned to their homes; so had the venders on the beach. Only few romantic couples wandered around in the cool breeze making the night cozy and lively. Girish, a friend of my son from Gulbarga Central University, belongs to Palakkkad, the place of Porattunatakkam- a sort of theatre. I had experienced this art form in my childhood, when we lived in a small house near the Bharata Puzha. The villagers organize this drama during the harvest festival on a makeshift stage in the paddy field. When the night falls, the villagers gather there in the paddy field with mats and plenty of eats; the old ones with betel nut boxes. The actors wore colorful costumes: very different from their real life drudgery. There were no women actors; so the men dressed themselves as women and with extraordinarily larger boobs as if that was the symbol of womanhood. They would use the local dialects and the songs were rusty but appealing to all. We, the girls, always sat together while the boys sometimes went to the back- stage to peep into the makeshift greenroom. In fact, they only told us that the women characters who came on the stage were actually men.

Girish sang a poratunatakam song for us and also another folk song pleasing the snakes. Snake worship was common in Kerala and we used to have a small area covered with lots of trees and climbers (Pambukavu), exclusively for the snakes. It had idols of snakes carved in rock. Snakes were fed, once in a week, with milk. It was again a belief that snakes come out and drank the milk when we moved away. And we never questioned that; though the texts we read taught us that snakes do not drink milk. Diyas are lighted every evening. And whenever we saw a snake in the courtyard (those days it was not un common), my grandma would never allow us to disturb the snake; instead, she would calmly talk to the snake, “why did you come this time? Haven’t we given your dues? If not please forgive us: please don’t disturb the children. Go away.” And unbelievably, the snake used to go away. So we always thought that Grandma had extraordinary powers.

Girsih’s songs brought so much memories of my childhood in the village; I can still the smell the paddy in my mind. Grandma is still alive; but without her magical wand. Her paddy fields are gone. And her old tiled house which became unfashionable for her children has given way to a house with concrete roof. The old house had an “ara” (a dark wooden chamber meant for storage place) which was a treasury for all the children. She used to store so many eats there – bananas, salted mangoes, unniappam, achappam and even sugar. We used to devour the ara often; especially during the vacation. Once my twin brother stole a mouthful of sugar without realizing the ants in it! Ants bit his tongue mercilessly and he cried out quietly. He did not cry aloud for obvious reasons!

Now it was the turn of Ajay to sing and a thorough a city bred kid that he is, he sang an English song and my son joined him. They brought me back from nostalgia to the realities of the present. We sat there for long looking at the moon and the magic it spreads on the sea. You may say the moon is the same. But my moon in childhood days was a very different one: it had a different meaning in my life. Here sitting with these children, though the same age group but so different in attitude, behavior and brought up in different cultural settings, I realize that I am neither here nor there!

2010-06-14T08:04:00.000-07:00

Valley of Flowers (Photos by Chinku)

We had read about Valley of flowers and did not want to miss it at any cost. We reached Govindghat—the place from the trekking to the valley starts—early morning. We carried the necessary food, clothes for an overnight stay at Gangria and enough water. Unlike Kedarnath, there were no shops on the trekking path. And only two villages are there on the way. So it is better to carry all the necessary items from the base itself. Chinku, who was enthusiastic about finding new trekking paths, lost his way at one point and for an hour or so we could not communicate with him at all. I panicked. He was back finally with some bruises that happened while climbing up the rock.

We walked along the banks of the wild, but beautiful, Alaknanda. Like Kerdarnath, the first few KM were easy going but then the trek became too steep to climb up. The only tourists we met on the way were a Sikh family and they were returning from a visit to Hemkund Sahib Gurudwara. At some point we were even too tired to talk. It was a never ending trek! Finally, late in the afternoon we reached. Only one hotel was open and we got some rice and dal to eat. And it was a feast after that long trek.

The Valley of Flowers is just 3 KM up from Gangria. This stunning Valley was introduced to the world by Frank S. Smith, a botanist by profession in 1935. We started our trek to the valley early morning. The weather was very chilly and windy. But this time I was some what prepared; few warm clothes and a woollen cap and two pairs of trousers too! We were the only people on the breathtaking trekking path. No ponies are allowed here and that protects the sanctity of the area. We walked through a broken bridge and a hanging bridge over the river Alaknanda which runs passionately. It was beautiful to walk through the not so well laid pathway looking at the flowers and early birds. Unfortunately, the season has not begun. The first flowers were just coming out. However, at that moment the whole valley was ours. We sat on a rock watching the stunning enormous peak and down there the glacier where Alaknanda begins. The ethereal beauty! Time stops here!

We started back to Gangria, once again through the beautiful pathway. To make it gorgeous, the sun was playing hide and seek through the wild trees. We stopped in many places; this time not because we were tired but wanted to stand still and enjoy the serene atmosphere – far away from the maddening crowds. We were in a trance. And I want to come here again, when the whole valley will be blanketed with flowers. Krishna collected a bottle of water from the untouched river and I am preserving it as a treasure now.

We were back in Govindghat; this time not by walking but on a pony. Different experience- we – Chinku and me enjoyed enormously after the initial discomfort. But Krishna was yearning to get off the beast! And next day back to Haridwar and a night train to Delhi

So that was the end of our trip!

2010-06-14T08:01:00.001-07:00

Badrinath (Photos by Chinku)
Our next destination was Badrinath. Joshimath is the ideal place to camp to go to Badrinath and the valley of flowers. We took a jeep to Gupt Kashi, another one to Rudraprayag and a bus to Joshimath. We were in Joshimath by the evening. Now I have got used with the stomach churning rides through the hills. We checked into a small place called Morning Calm Hotel opening to a huge parking space cum playing ground. When we reached there at least three teams were playing cricket in different parts of the ground and the small children looked the most serious ones. I happily watched their gestures; surely, they were highly influenced by the TV.

The mutt set up by Adi Shankara was adjacent to our hotel. We visited the mutt, the cave where he lived and the kalpavriksh under which Shankara meditated. We were told that the shiv linga in the cave was formed out of spatika - ice hardened over the years and does not melt now. People from all over India come over here to get the blessings and they worship the kalpavriksh (a mulberry tree wrinkled with age) too. I picked up one leaf and kept it carefully in my purse. Just for the memory. Not only Adi Shankara, I too visited the place!

We waited for the jeep to Badrinath for quite a long time. It was a special day for us: Chinku’s results came. He did not disappoint us. To Badrinath, you don’t have to trek; it is accessible by road. Thanks to the Indian army and the Sino-Indian border only a few kilometres from the shrine. You just walk across the bridge over the holy river, Alaknanda, to reach the temple. We were welcomed there by a hail-storm. Chinku found his black jacket covered by the snow very fascinating and he wanted me to take a photo of it. My hands were frozen; we were not prepared for such a cold weather. And his request was rejected. There is a hot water spring near the temple. It saved us from the freezing cold.

We visited the ‘closed’ Badrinath temple, abode of Lord Vishnu. This was the place where God Vishnu came to meditate after being reprimanded for indulging in worldly pleasures. It was nice to know Gods also get punished once in a while. The temple will be open within a couple of days. Interestingly, in Badrinath temple, the pooja is performed by a Malayali priest, who will come all the way from Kaladi, Kerala during the season. It seems this arrangement was made by Shankara himself.

On our way to Badrinath, we had seen the men from BRO (Border Roads Organisation) removing the debris of a major landslide and we had to stop there for an hour or so. But while returning, the place was very much motor-able; hats off to BRO, they are doing a great job in Uttarachal! We were back to the hotel late in the afternoon.
Next is Valley of Flowers: no Gods and Goddesses; just nature!

2010-06-14T07:58:00.000-07:00

Kedarnath (Photos by Chinku)

Gowrikund is the base (this is the last point one can reach by bus or cabs) before trekking to Kedarnath. From Uttarkashi to Gourikund, it is long route through Srinagar, Rudraprayag and Gupt Kashi. It was, indeed, an adventurous trip for us, watching our mini bus negotiating the steep hilly road (in some places, not even proper roads due to landslides). We were the only tourists in the bus; others were the people who lived there; in the hills. They mostly slept or talked to each other loudly in Garhwali. Even the conductor of the bus joined them. The Chamba region is beautiful with the peepul taal (peepul lake) in the back ground. Its water appeared greenish blue from the bus. One can feel the shrinking forests on the way. May be the mammoth landslides are nature’s fitting reply to human greed.

Our 12 hours journey from Uttarkashi ended in Gowrikund in the evening. We got a clean, freshly painted room in the Behl Ashram Guest House for a reasonable amount. Season is yet to start! As the name indicates, the temple at Gowrikund is dedicated to Gowri (Parvathi), wife of Lord Shiva. The myth is that Parvati meditated here for a long period to get Shiva as her husband. Indeed, this is a nice place to meditate; having a reason or not. The green blanketed mountains, wild flowers and the misty air. The nature is in abundance here! A serene ambience! Another major attraction in Gowrikund was the gharamkhund (the hot water spring). That was a delightful discovery; in the cold weather a bath in the steaming hot spring water (which has medicinal values too). The tiredness from the long journey left us within minutes. And later on, Krishna became obsessed with the gharamkhunds.

After a good night’s sleep, we were ready for our trekking, early in the morning. We stored biscuits, dry fruits, water and few aloo paranthas packed from the nearby hotel. (We had arranged for that the previous evening itself). The people there advised us to take ponies, but we decided against that. We were prepared for the climb; at least that’s what we thought at that moment. We had trained ourself, for this, walking along the Thiruvanmiyur beach-- 7 to 8 KM-- every day for a month before we started our journey. We thought we were tough enough. The first 5 KM was fun. We were chatting and enjoying the weather as well as the glimpses of the snow capped mountains. And rested here and there!

People were setting up their shops for the season which will start shortly. There were few tea shops already open. Soon we realised that climbing up the hill is not a joke and we were not prepared. We felt the strain of the climb; our heart beat became erratic at times and we had some breathing difficulty in that altitude. We took breaks too often. Sometimes our legs refused to carry us though the mind wanted reach the destination. We asked a local as to how the climb ahead was? He said steeper. That dampened our spirits for few moments.

But then we did see people (the porters) were carrying heavy and unwieldy stuff on their head and walking ahead of us. We thought of their endurance and they inspired us to complete the task. Somehow we reached Kedarnath. And it was worth the walk.

The Temple was closed. I knew that we had missed the sight of the Jyothirling. However, I peeped through a hole on the door and tried to communicate with the God. We visited the Samadhi of Adi Shankara adjacent to the temple. After establishing the four mutts in the four corners of the country (mind, he walked to all these places in times when transport and communication facilities did not exist), he died here; not before constructing the Kedarnath temple. The temple is an architecture marvel, situated in the periphery of the snow hugged mountains.

We three sat there under a shelter to protect us from the drizzling and had the last few pieces of the Parathas. We were surrounded by mountains and eternal silence. While walking down to Gowrikund we discussed about Adi Sankara and wondered how he could have travelled through these difficult terrains in the short span of his life. Though I belong to Kerala (and so did Adi Sankara), I realised how little I knew about Sankara. I must read more about his Advaita philosophy!

2010-06-13T00:56:00.000-07:00

Uttarkashi(Photos Chinku)

We took a share taxi from Rishikesh to Uttarkashi (this part of the world is also known as Dev Bhumi- the land of Gods) which is approximately 150 KM away from Rishikesh. The name Uttarkashi reminded me of the devastating earthquake of 1991 that killed hundreds and caused extensive damage.

On the way to Uttarkashi, we could glimpse the snow capped mountains. It reminded me the days we spent at McLeod Ganj, the abode of Dalai Lama and his Tibetan followers; this is where I saw the snow hugged mountains for the first time in my life. We sat on the lawns of Chinar lodge sipping endless cups of tea, in the pleasantly cold weather; far away from the muggy summer of Chennai. I was engrossed in the beauty of the snow -- far beyond the pine trees, forgetting the world around. Well, there was hardly a “world” around us.

But this time, I could not enjoy the mountains as much as I enjoyed in McLeod Ganj. The hilly roads and the hairpin bends made me feel sick and withdrawn. On the way, in a small restaurant, we lost one of our cameras; thank God not with many photos. I must say that we left it there and forgot to pick it up while leaving. I am not sure if I must say that we lost it!

We reached Uttarkashi in the evening. This is the connecting place to Gangotri and to Gaumukh and that’s why we are here. The famous Shiva temple on the banks of Bhagirathi is the major attraction of the pilgrims. Uttarkashi is warm in the day and tolerably cold at night. Season had not begun. So we got a decent accommodation for a reasonable amount at Gangaram’s lodge. Gangaram is a typical guy whom you may meet in one of the tourist places. Unfortunately, Gangram was not very market oriented person. Though he has an excellent piece of land on the banks of Bhagirathi, he could not capitalise that. His rooms do not face the river; but bathrooms did. He dutifully informed us that we can see the river Bhagirathi from the bathroom. However, I was not very keen to spend an unusually time in the bathroom! Even if it was to enjoy the magnificent river! However you can do that while taking a bath, which is needless to say a pain since there was no running hot water.

But you can just get out of the room to watch Bhagirathi flowing proudly showing the blue pristine beauty amidst the rolling stones. We sat under the banyan tree, near the temple, for hours watching the evening river. There were few sanyasis who lived on the banks and in a temporary shed attached to a temple. They sat silently smoking. Well, they were in a different world. Mystic world!

In Uttarkashi, we visited the Viswanath Temple. The myth says that Parsuram, the great Muni built it. This is a small shrine except for the deity- a huge Shiv Linga. We could pray to the God from close quarters since there were hardly any visitors; thank God, the season was yet to begin.

We retired to bed early for we had to start early in the morning to Gangotri.

Gangotri

I was very excited about the Gangotri trip where I can meet Ganga in its purest form. We planned to walk up to Gaumukh. Reaching Gangotri was not at all difficult. Just 5 to 6 hours journey from Uttarkashi. The beauty is that we travel along the banks of the Bhagirathi. The Gangotri is famous for its temple; one of the chardams. We reached there around 11AM and had aloo paranthas (that was the only thing available) with pickle for break fast. There were only few shops as the 6 months season was yet to start.

Gaumukh (cow’s mouth or face – the largest glacier where Ganga originates) is 18 KM up the hill trek and we were advised against climbing up since the path way in some points were affected by landslides and the workers were still fixing it up. And you may need a whole day to reach up and return. We were not prepared for that. So we walked up a few kilometres from Gangotri on way to Gaumukh and returned.

We visited the temple which is dedicated to Goddess Ganga.

The weather was so unpredictable here. It was sunny when we reached; but within two hours cold wind began to blow accompanied by rain. We froze. So decided to get back to the base; Uttarkashi.

2010-06-09T23:52:00.000-07:00

Rishikesh (Photos by Chinku)

We reached Rishikesh in the morning enjoying a share auto ride. Of course I watched the ‘balancing act’ of carrying so many persons in a three wheeler with some nervousness. Rishikesh is famous for water sports like river rafting; but we decided against that since we had only few days in hands and we were keen on reaching the Himalayas, our real destination. Like everyone, else we walked towards the Ram Jhoola and across the hanging bridge. I must confess that I am scared of hanging bridges and seeing a massive crowd on the bridge made me dizzy. So I did not enjoy the view of the Ganga from the bridge; just hurriedly crossed. Temples across the river were too crowded to seek blessings; so walked ahead to Laxman Jhoola, the next hanging bridge. It was a pleasant walk in the not -so -hot morning sun and we had a bath in Ganga at Rishikesh also. I noticed that the Ganga was quiet and gentle here. Chinku sitting on a rock, threw a small stone into the river ( I think all boys do that to watch the ripples), but a local guy protested; “she is our mother, don’t do it”. I felt the local sentiments towards the holy river -- she is not just another water body. A quick lunch (early noon) at a small little place near the bus stand and we were ready for our next destination -- Uttarkashi.

2010-06-07T08:25:00.001-07:00

Well, I am back from a long hiatus. I was into a spiritual journey to the Himalayas – actually on the Gangetic trail part I, starting from Haridwar, Rishikesh to Uttarkashi, Gangotri, Kedarnath, Badrinath and the grand finale at the valley of flowers. Am back now.

Haridwar
Photos by Chinku

Our spiritual passage began from the holy city, Haridwar. We took the Jan Sadabdi express from Delhi in the afternoon and reached Haridwar late in the evening. Har ki Pauri is the main area and THE road unmistakably led to the Ganga; the holy river. We were there just after the Khumb Mela and got to see the remnants of the Mela, the largest religious congregation on earth.

A journey to Haridwar was one of my dreams and all of a sudden it became reality. Here the Ganga flows fervently; before my eyes, carrying the burden of civilizations. I was glued to it; in the mystic twilight; and plunged my feet into the cold water. The water looked muddy; but how does it matter. People come here to wash away their sins, get blessed and search for solutions. And me? I don’t know!

The bathing Ghats are secured with chains that are fixed to the metal pipes so that the devotees take a dip safely in the gushing water. Spirituality with safety! I could see people from different parts of the country, different age groups, speaking different languages; but all of them were chanting mantras eulogizing Ganga, the mother. She looked pleased too watching her devotees offering flowers to her in leaves and also the diyas lighted up. All these were to please her!

And there were the men, wearing a certain uniform so that they looked like officials, approaching the pilgrims, invoking their religious sentiments asking for money and offering special blessings in the event they paid!. They pitched it at Rs.101 and went on reducing the price to as less as Rs 10. The rates go down as the Maha arti is nearer in time. Well, I did not give any money. I think the mighty Ganga did not need money from me. Some people threw money into the Ganga and there were children of lesser Gods collecting that money wading through the knee deep water, daring the cold and the current.

Haridwar is famous for the ritual called Maha arti and we too witnessed to it. Maha arti takes place in the evening, day after day, with the priests holding as many lamps as they are near before the temple devoted to Gangama. People throng the banks to watch the arti; the whole thing lasts a few minutes. Well, it was a visual treat, I must admit. The air filled with chanting of mantras by the thousands of devotees gathered there from across the country, the colourful sky and the fragrance of flowers they offer; all these together created a surrealistic ambience. Surprisingly, I too became part of those unknown faces and sat there in a trance. Humility!!

And as we walk back down the same road, lined up with shops on both sides selling food, clothes and all such material needs of the people and also those selling video recordings of the maha arti or devotional songs. The cycle Rickshaws adventurously negotiated through the crowds while the motor bikes blasted rushed through blowing loud horns irritating those walking. Added to the chaos, the (holy?) cows too were easily finding their way through the crowd. People’s lives and livelihood in Haridwar are very much dependent on the pilgrims who throng here day after day and throughout the year.

Rishikesh, our next destination is just 25 KM away!

How to reach there: All trains bound to Dehradun pass through Haridwar. It is 250 KM from Delhi.These trains go to Rishikesh too. The Indian Railways operate a passenger train between Haridwar and Rishikesh too. A short distance of just 25 KMs.

2010-04-26T04:42:00.001-07:00

Maqbool Fida Hussain (MF Hussain)’s New Home

Well, what I am writing is not politically correct. It does not matter when one confronts with truth. Let me confess that I am not an ardent lover of paintings. Rather my knowledge on paintings is miserably restricted. MF Hussain is supposed to be a celebrity painter: so I read in the news papers. Somehow his name, as far as I can remember, is linked with some controversy or another; whether he was painting Maduri Dixit with passion or his painting of Goddess Saraswati nude

Mr. Hussain has been living outside India since the year 2006 after a series of disruption and threat that he faced while exhibiting his paintings in India. And dozens of lawsuits filed against him across the country for his supposedly ``blasphemical’’ paintings. He ended his run finally by accepting the honorary citizenship that was ‘generously’ offered by the Qatar government. And his film maker son said to the media that “having a sense of belonging was important at this stage of his life (Hussain is 95 now) and that his father missed home in India terribly”. A genuine feeling!

Newspapers reported that in Qatar he was warmly received by a large welcoming committee. Well and good! If I ask a question to Hussain as to whether he will be painting the Prophet with the same fervour with which he painted Goddess Saraswathi in his new found home, I will be treated like an extreme right winger. I do not want to ask that question; I am not a right winger. Instead, I will ask a secular question. Will the Qatar government receive Salman Rushdie or Taslima Nasreen with the same warmth as they received Hussain. They are also well known in their field and also on run since they had written the controversial books Satanic Verses (1988) and Lajja (Shame 1993) respectively. Well, I have already asked the politically incorrect question. Its ok, I don’t have to be pretentious; I am not an intellectual!

2010-03-17T01:38:00.000-07:00

Who is afraid of Women Reservation Bill??

Democracy is not merely a structural or a functional system. This, indeed, was not what the founding fathers of our Republic intended it to be. Democracy, in fact, is as much an ethical concept. As peoples’ participation is the backbone of democracy, in a modern democratic set up, the decision making process virtually begins and ends with the elected representatives. There will not be a disagreement that “people” include women also. However barring a couple of countries in the world, the women, who constitute about one-half of any nation’s population, are under represented in the various democratic institutions.

In India, women’s role in the political space is reduced to that of voters as well as activists within the parameters defined and earmarked for them by the political parties, which are once again, dominated by men. It is a fact that the political parties, irrespective of their ideology, have failed to provide adequate representation to women while selecting the candidates for elections. Resolutely, the parties keep women in the fringes of politics. Naturally, women’s representation in Parliament, the State Legislatures and in the local bodies suffered a set back due to this negative attitude.

The Report of the Committee on the Status of Women in India in 1974 rightly pointed out the attitude of the political parties towards women’s representation in the democratic bodies. It said: “The parties reflect the established values of a male dominated society, which would be difficult to alter without certain structural changes in the socio –political set up. The parties would continue to pay lip services to the cause of women’s progress and the policy of tokenism by having a few women in legislative and executive wings of the government whose minority and dependent status offer serious obstacles in the path of their acting as spokespersons for women’s rights and opportunities”.

The pandemonium that accompanied when the Constitution Amendment Bill to ensure quota for women in Parlaiment and State Legislatures was taken up for voting in the Rajya Sabha (on March 8!) only confirms the observation of the Committee made over three and a half decades ago. The MPs who opposed the Bill went to the extent of snatching it away from the Chairperson of the House and tearing it to shreds literaly.It was not at all a democratic or matured behaviour the MPs put up. However, this was reflective of the chauvinism that is rooted in the existing socio- political culture that discriminates against women in the affairs of the state.

Ram Monohar Lohia, one of the founders of the socialist movement in India, attacked the segregation of women in politics and equated it with the segregation on the basis of caste identities. To him “the two segregations of caste and women are primarily responsible for the decline of the spirit. These two segregations have enough power to kill all capacity for adventure and joy. All those who think by the removal of poverty through a modern economy, the segregation will automatically disappear make a big mistake. All on war on poverty is a sham unless it is at the same time a conscious and sustained war on these two segregations”.(Ram Manohar Lohia, The Caste System, 1953). It is indeed an irony that the three most vocal opponents of the Bill – Mulayam Singh Yadav, Lalu Prasad Yadav and Sharad Yadav – claim to be the legatees of Dr. Lohia!

The History of the Bill

The 1974 Report on the Status of Women in India, submitted to the Parliament, recommended that “a system of reservation of a proportion of seats in these bodies (legislatures and parliament) would provide an impetus to both the women as well as the political parties to give a fairer deal to nearly half the population in the various units of the government. If women enter these bodies in larger number, the present inhibitions that result from their minority position in these institutions may disappear faster and give them grater freedom to articulate themselves” (p.302 (Towards Equality - The Report Of The Committee On The Status of Women In India, Ministry of Education and Social Welfare by a Committee, Department of Social Welfare, 1974). It recommended further that the political parties should adopt a definite policy regarding the percentage of the women candidates to be sponsored by them for elections to Parliament and State Assemblies.

However, these recommendations had to wait for long -- almost two decades -- to be acted upon. It did move forward. The 73rd and 74th Constitution Amendments in 1993 were steps taken to get closer to the dream. For the first time in the history of local bodies in independent India, one-third of seats were reserved for women. And this remains a Constitutional imperative. This, indeed, was a radical step that initiated the demand in the political discourse to have such reservations to Parliamentary seats as well as the State Legislature. It is possible to trace the immediate provocation to the present Bill to the 73rd and 74th Constitution Amendments.

In this context, it will be interesting to see the women’s representation to Lok Sabha from 1952 to 2010. As the table shows that the women’s representation has never crossed the 10% mark except in the 15th Lok Sabha (present one). In 1971 and 1977, the 6th and the 7th Lok Sabha, women’s representation was abysmally low. It is the same story with the State legislatures too. If this is the case with the representation of women after half a century since independence, then it may take another century for women to touch the one third mark, without reservation. This is not to assert that reservation will empower the women. But this, indeed, will provide the political space for women and also the much needed exposure to the political discourse.

The contentious Women’s Reservation Bill was introduced for the first time in Parliament in September 1996, followed by the euphoria of the successful legislation of 73rd and 74th constitution amendment. The Bill that was known as the Constitution (Eighty First Amendment) was introduced when H D Deve Gowda was Prime Minister. Well. It was vehemently (and even physically) opposed, even at the introductory stage. Incidentally, the Gowda's government fell as the Congress withdrew its support. The Bill, however, remained alive and when I.K. Gujral was the Prime Minister, it was referred to the Joint Parliamentary Committee which was headed by Geeta Mukherjee, veteran parliamentarian and Communist Party of India (CPI) member. That was in 1997.

As chairperson of the Joint Select Committee of Parliament on the Women's Reservation Bill, she worked hard to accommodate the different view points and take the measure to its logical end. However she could not do so until her death on March 4, 2000. And with the fall of the Gujral Government and the subsequent dissolution of the Lok Sabha (in November 1997) the Constitution Amendment Bill too lapsed.

The bill was introduced again by the NDA government in June1998 as the 84th Constitution Amendment Bill. Unfortunately, the Vajpayee government also fell prematurely and the Bill lapsed. It was introduced again in November 1999 after the NDA returned to power. However, as expected, the political parties failed to reach a consensus and the Bill was put on hold. Sarad Yadav, a Janata Dal MP at that time and thus part of the ruling combine then spoke aloud that such “reservation will do nothing but helping few more women with bobbed hair (Bal kattis) to enter Parliament’’. This futile exercise was continued in 2002 and 2003. Despite the offer of support from the Congress and the Left no progress was made in this front.

The UPA government introduced the Bill once again in May 2008. And it was introduced in the Rajya Sabha; the difference is that the Bill will remain alive in that case even if the Government fell and the Lok Sabha dissolved! All that is only academic discussion now. This time it could not be mowed down. It went through the committee stage and the Bill was moved in the Upper House amidst protest from the Samajwadi Party, JD [U] and RJD MPs. Finally the Women reservation Bill reserving 33 per cent of seats in the Lok Sabha and the State Legislative Assemblies to women was passed by the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday 9th March 2010.

Seven MPs (four from the Samajwadi Party (SP) and one each from the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), the Lok Janshakti Party and the Janata Dal-United) were suspended for their unruly behaviour in the Upper House. The real absurdity was that these MPs who were physically lifted from the House, sat on a protest in front of the statue of Mahatma Gandhi. The absurdity was given Gandhi’s opinion on the entry of women into the political space. The Bapu had held that as long as women of India do not take part in public life there can be no salvation for the country. ``I would have no use for that kind of swaraj to which such women have not made their full contribution”.

The Bill is expected to be introduced in the Lok Sabha in May 2010; however, in today’s political climate, one is not sure of that. The three Yadavs- Lalu, Sharad and Mulayam- and their party’s rank and file oppose it vehemently for flimsy reasons. Their contention is that since there is no provision in the Bill for reservation for women from the Muslim community and the Other Backward Classes, it will lead to the marginalisation of the women from these sections and provide an unfair advantage for the upper class women. The argument does not, however, explain the question as if that is so how do the men belong to backward castes and the Muslim community get elected to the parliament without reservation? Another question is as to what prevented these leaders of large and important political parties, and that too claiming to the legacy of Ram Manohar Lohia, from adopting pro-active measures all these years to open up educational and economic opportunities to the women from among the Backward communities?

It is nothing but politics of desperation. Men in the parliament are scared of loosing their seats. Even the one third reservations, it is for sure that some of them inadvertently will lose their fiefdoms. They were ``manning’’ the corridors of power for such a long years and do not want to loose that position. Hence the opposition!

Now those opposing the Bill are asking for a wider consultation to reach a consensus. The same excuses stalled the Bill in the earlier occasions for almost one and half decades since it was introduced for the first time in 1996.

The point is if democracy is seen as an ethical concern, keeping women out on the fringes of the political institutions is an un-ethical measure. The women, after all, constitute half the population. Let me conclude this article with a quote: No matter how noble the man is: or how good his intentions are, he cannot understand a woman’s needs or adequately represent her”.(Marie Mitchell Olesen Urbanski).

2010-03-10T04:06:00.001-08:00

Photo- Chinku
Thank you Heike for bringing us the tulip plant, all the way from Feldafing, Germany to Chennai! It was little annoyed with the Chennai weather. However, this did not stop her from blooming beautifully!!

2010-02-17T18:16:00.000-08:00

Shame on you Jayaram!

The news is that Actor Jayaram made a nasty comment on his domestic help; specifically on her looks. He reportedly told a Malayalam TV channel, recently, that "my maid, a Tamil woman, is like a dark fat buffalo. So how can I look at her", when asked whether he had taken a second look at his housemaid in real life. The interview was in the context of his recent film. Of course, his comments put him up in a soup and there were protests against Jayaram’s comments in Tamil Nadu and a Tamil outfit went to the extent of ransacking the garden in his house in Chennai.

There are two or three points that I would like to make in this note. Firstly, I strongly feel that we must learn to treat any attack on the modesty of a woman (what Jayaram did in this case) as an assault on women irrespective of the colour, caste, religion, place, groups and so on. How does it matter whether the victim is a Tamil woman or a woman from Rajastan or Bihar? Hence the outcry “Tamil Woman” is unwarranted. It is yet another matter that the majority of Tamil Films too depict/treat women as a commodity rather than human beings.

Now about Tamil women! As a person who has been working with women for many years, I have had ample opportunities to travel all over India to work with the less privileged working women. The Tamil women, especially those from the lowest economic strata, had always surprised me with their endurance and fortitude. They are very enterprising and hard working and they take up any job without any inhibition.

In Tamil Nadu, there are many women headed families or families in which women are the main bread winner. They work in the agricultural field, run small eateries on the road side, work as flower vendors in front of temples, theatres, beaches and any other crowd pulling places and also a large number of them work as domestic workers; sometimes they manage to work in more than 6 houses and the with the meagre income they contribute largely to their households. So describing a human being, who also happens to be cleaning up your mess at home, by her colour and figure is a criminal and inhuman act. Hence Jayaram’s words, no doubt, are condemnable.

At a different level, I am not surprised by his comment, in the sense that, there is no dearth of Jayarams in Kerala, the most literate state in India. If you sit through any of the “comedy’’ shows in the Malayalam channels, the major event would be caricaturing politicians and second to that is vulgarising women through suggestive comments. In most of the cases women are being treated like commodities and there is no sense of shame in visualising them in such a way in the TV serials.

In real life too, women are intimidated in the public places and public transport. I still remember that in my college days; in the private buses, there is a “creature” called ‘kili’, who is supposed to be the cleaner of the bus. He would invariably stand on the steps of the bus and that used to be very inconvenient for the women passengers to get down from the bus. Sometimes, these kilis would rub their shoulder against the girls. As student activists, we used to protest against this and would insist that this man should get down while we got off the bus. And invariably, these men used to make rude comments insulting our looks. Their comment would be ``what you think? You are a world beauty or what that I am dying to touch”. They would drop some famous actress’ name too.

One of my CPM friends confessed secretly to me that he is scared to send his grown up daughter alone for tuitions in the evenings. He says, chechi, times have changed. “Yes the times have changed and so have the people. Now where is the movement comrade?” I wanted to ask. Let me leave it at that and may be for another occasion.

So Jayaram is in no way different from these larger groups. It is yet another matter that Mr. Jayaram’s pleasantly-plum-relatively-on-the-darker-side-wife (who was also an actress), was considered to be one of the fattest in that era. One may still be interested to know whether Mr.Jayarm addresses her as a brown fat buffalo and refuses to look at her at home???

2010-01-31T21:08:00.000-08:00

Film -Ayirathil oruvan (THE ONE in a thousand)

Director Selva Raghavan

I had the misfortune of watching the well advertised, much reviewed Tamil film “Ayirathil oruvan (THE ONE in a thousand)”. “Brave attempt at trying to come out with something new in the placid world of Tamil cinema”, “stunning visuals and grandeur”, “.breaking away from the shackles of the stereotypes”, the reviewers raved. Apart from the reviews, all the main actors too had done their bit in the print media by way of interviews recalling their spine-chilling and bizarre experiences while the film was in the making. Most importantly, the film took three long years to complete due the “density of the plot and the depth of its treatment” is what we were all told. And we were also informed that the director had to suffer a divorce, thanks to the film.

The film revolves around a bit of the Chola –Pandya rivalry; where the Cholas were pushed out of their kingdom to an Island somewhere near Vietnam. The heroine Anita Pandyan (Reema Sen) is in search of the idol of their deity, taken away by the Cholas, while on run. The second heroine Andrea is in search of her father, an archaeologist, who was lost somewhere in the Island while tracing the Cholas.

You have two heroines and unfortunately one hero who is condemned to carry the burden of the two heroines, literally, on his back. Well. He drops these compulsive ‘climbers’ then and there. It is yet another story that the second heroine cried foul before the press as her role thinned down after the first half.

We have this sexy and revolver wielding (she even manages to use them with ease, shooting down adversaries with both hands simultaneously) heroine, who is an archaeologist by training. She is supposedly strict; and hence filthy words flow with ease from her mouth while dealing with subordinates.

Karthi, the hero reminds us of his first movie paruthiveeran; his performance was acclaimed, for the right reason, in that film. He has the same ruffian role in this film too. However, in this movie, he cries too often. As it happens, finally he emerges as a real hero after a long absence in the second half.

The first half was boring enough and the graphics- supposed to be scary- were hilarious. Then we hope against the hope that the second half will give you something worth the money and the effort. That is where you go wrong. Despite the weak storyline you somewhat understand the story in the first half. But the second half leaves you blank. Thank God, the disclaimer said that the story is not exactly from any historical incidents: otherwise one would have searched the volumes of south Indian history to understand the plot.

But then you have this seductive number by Reema Sen, the first heroine and those who were interested in watching her cleavage and her flat belly the money spent was worth. Of course, there is no dearth of sexy numbers by these heroines.

And Partheepan, the Chola king looked like a king (raja part) in the village drama and he acted “too sincerely” for the money paid to him. His dialogues were too long and at the end of the sentence you almost forget where he started from. And he dances (Thandavam) too: Don’t ask why? I don’t have an answer.

There is a lot of violence and lots of men (supposed to be tribal) as if they were in a fancy dress competition. Most of them get killed. Of course, some of them at the hands of the heroine, brandishing two revolvers, and others by the army officers accompanying the trained archaeologist.

The film reminds one, in some frames of a series of English movies including Macanas Gold. But the director vehemently denies that the movie has anything to do with any of the Hollywood productions and let me trust him. What is wrong if two persons in two different parts of the world and living in two different times think alike?

The end of the film made me weep. I wept thinking about the money wasted along with a Saturday afternoon.

2009-12-18T19:01:00.000-08:00

Photo by Chinku

Quiet Flows the Kaveri: A trip to Kodumudi

A dip in the river Kaveri on the first day of the Tamil month Ayppasi brings you blessings. Blessings or no blessing, the sight of the river and that too so early in the morning was too tempting. So we set out on the road to meet her at Kodumudi on a Sunday morning. Kodumudi is 40 KM away from Erode town. Believe me; we drove little more than 80 KM (both ways) in the morning just in order to have a bath in the Kaveri.

Well, it was a pleasant experience to drive along the Kaveri Delta. The cold morning breeze smelt a mix of paddy, sugar cane and turmeric plants. Coconut trees, plantains and lots of other trees made the whole stretch look like a green blanket. Small irrigation channels run through the fields making the soil rich and fertile. Early cows were eating their grass! This was a refreshing change-- from the irrational concrete jungle where we live to this green landscape full of human life. No wonder, civilizations began on the river banks.

Kaveri at Kodumudi flowed quietly. People were already there at the bathing ghat engrossed in pujas; it was also a day to remember the departed souls. Well, upon reaching there, I realised that taking bath in a river is an art and I do not know it so well. The women around there stared at me; I was getting into the water with my pyjamas and a long shirt. The water was pleasantly cold and I took one step at a time to avoid a sudden surge of the coldness. Once you are in the water, it is fun; time flies and you don’t want to come back to the banks.

However, under the water, at the bottom, there were residues of clothes that gave me an awful feeling: the only discomfort I want to forget. Well, it was not unexpected as we are famous for dirtying our natural spots. Many treat the historical monuments as a place for eternalising their love story by scribbling on the wall.

But I enjoyed the Kavery and the rising sun. Women changed their clothes, there on the banks itself. It surprised me. I was awestruck. That they went about changing their clothes, from the wet to new, in the open space with such poise. And that too into a saree, artistically rolling the five and half meters from a public place! They did not expose themselves even a bit. It was really a talent. They did all that, oblivious of their surroundings. In a moment, the women who bathed were in fresh clothes and bright red bindis on their foreheads. Me, too self conscious, had to pay to find a place for changing. Good learning! The way of life in a village is very different. I am not romanticising. They are less pretentious than us.

An ancient Shiva temple stood on the banks of Kaveri. After the dip in Kaveri you are supposed to be bodily pure and the visit to the temple makes you spiritually pure too. Inside the mammoth temple wall, there is a major structure devoted to the main deity - Lord Shiva and there are many small structures that accommodated other Gods and goddesses. Lord Brahma is also worshiped here: perhaps this is one of the few temples that have Brahma as a deity. Brahma prathishta is under an incredibly old tree (it is supposed to be 2000 years old). The pundit told us that this particular tree won’t blossom at all and Krishna says that we can claim the legacy of genetically modified plants from as early as some 2000 years ago.

You are supposed to take 7 rounds of the deity and the tree to get the blessings. Due to constraints of time, I decided to stop with only 3 rounds and am sure I will get my due. The pundit chanted the mantras mechanically reflecting the monotony of their work.

On our way back, we bought lots of bananas as it was cheap and fresh; straight from the farm on the banks of the Kaveri; just picked

Indeed, a holiday to remember!

2009-12-13T02:49:00.000-08:00

Book Review Published in New Indian Express on December 13, 2009

Memories of a carnage unleashed

Justice delayed is justice denied. And 25 years is a long time for people waiting for justice. This is so with the victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom in Delhi and many other towns in northern India. There is a lot of talk, in recent times, of reconciliation and peace. But the simple point is that peace and reconciliation can be brought about only after justice is meted out.

On October 31, 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her own Sikh bodyguards. In the aftermath, Delhi and some other places in the country witnessed extensive violence that left over 3,000 Sikhs dead, their establishments looted and burnt down. Rajiv Gandhi, who took over as prime minister just hours before the carnage began, shamelessly approved of the pogrom. He said: "When a mighty tree falls, it is only natural that the Earth around it does shake a little". Evidently, the slaughter of more than 3,000 people seemed a natural course to him!

And if anyone argued that Rajiv Gandhis was an innocent statement in his hour of grief, evidence that it was not came soon after. The Congress leaders who organised the pogrom and orchestrated some of the mobs were rewarded with positions in Parliament and even in the Union Cabinet. All the while, the Sikhs were denied justice.

Jarnail Singh, an 11-year-old boy in November 1984, would not have thrown a shoe at Union home minister P Chidambaram in 2009 when he was 36, if justice had not been denied. For that matter, he would not have written this book, I Accuse. The writer is a journalist with Dainik Jagran who has reported extensively on Sikh politics and defence. The shoe incident made him (in) famous instantaneously.

While some felt he violated journalistic ethics that day, few others connected it to the plight of the Sikh yearning for justice.

The book is a detailed account of the 1984 violence and the brazen miscarriage of justice thereafter. The author interviewed some of the victims extensively and presents the carnage through their eyes. He narrates the brutal killing of an ex-army man in vivid detail: The mob was chanting; ˜kill these Sardars, traitors of the country". They first surrounded Mahan Singh and pulled off his pagri...

"He is an old army man, he has fought for the country", neighbours said.
"How does it matter¦ sardars are traitors"

Mahan Singh was murdered and his 11-year-old son Harkirat cut into three pieces.

This is only one of several stories. In many cases, all the men in a family were killed. Gurdwaras were ransacked and set on fire. The police were either passive onlookers or helped the mobs, the author says.

A number of the survivors have clearly identified the political leaders who led the mobs on their killing spree. H K L Bagat, Jagdish Tytler, Sajjan Kumar, Dharam Das Sastri are names that figured in the depositions by survivors before the enquiry commissions. There were many commissions and as many reports. The Nanavati Commission, which submitted its report in August 2005, recommended registering cases against Sajjan Kumar. But no action has been taken.

For the Sikh community justice is still far away. And you cannot talk about peace when justice is denied. It is their incredible endurance that has enabled them to get on with their lives.

Reading through Jarnail Singh's account is bound to horrify anyone and leave them revolted at the government's inertia. It should be prescribed as a textbook so that generations to come will learn from it not to repeat it. Those who refuse to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

2009-11-13T06:52:00.000-08:00

Who will bell the cat?
Book Review published in New Sunday Express

I love Fabindia clothes; but it is expensive…….

In nutshell, Making India Work by William Nanda Bissell is a vision about India and how to accomplish that vision through constitutional means. The author is better known as the Managing Director of the Fabindia chain that works with 40,000 craft people and rural artisans.

The author’s premise is that India is not a poor country but a “poorly managed country.” And accordingly, the administration contributes to the poverty and vulnerability further. Add to this, the ‘reckless consumption driven economy’ which he stresses is not a solution but a problem itself. This is where even the west had failed. Excluding environmental and social assets from the market system is destroying the world leaving billions in poverty. Hence, an outline for a new system — economically viable and environmentally sustainable — with appropriately scaled institutions is suggested by the author.

The ultimate aim is to guarantee to each citizen a basic quality of life where sustainable growth, environmental regeneration and alleviation of poverty work together. The author, who advocates a radical paradigm shift for sustainable development, explains that his ideas are not utopian but a practical guide. His concept of “Standard Authority” is very interesting. In the proposed system, this will play the important role of codifying assets such as ‘air quality, water purity and bio-diversity into measurable and therefore tradable products; these are hitherto un-tradable.

For instance, a city dweller who cannot afford to keep the green space, will have to pay for the green space and biodiversity that is protected by the village community. This biosphere credit value will encourage the villagers to protect and enhance the natural resources further. The author also proposes a new tax system as the current one “penalises the productive activities” and hence arrest the growth. The individual professional taxes and taxes on productive activities must go for good in his scheme of things. The proposed tax system, on the contrary, relies on increased taxes on property, inheritance and tax on economic transactions. Large scale revenue can be generated through this and this, according to him, will result in multiplying the present revenue generation.

The introduction of Target Catalysts (TCs) will take care of the empowerment and mainstreaming of the poor. The author finds the existing system of poverty alleviation as “too expensive and ineffective” while public money evaporates in the name of development which is inimical to the interests of the poor. He discusses how the TCs work and facilitate the poor to access better services.

The author also outlines how to reach “power to the people” genuinely. The active participation and representation of the local community is imperative in order to avoid “over-centralised and over-extended” power. He advocates the downsizing of the Central government and refurbishing the administrative system with the citizen at the bottom; the community, area, region and national units must constitute the next hierarchical units in his vision.
Suggestions are also made about a ‘fast track and corruption free’ legal system as he feels the present legal system is ‘Byzantine’ and ‘riven with corruption, blindingly complex and excruciatingly slow.’ He stands for a uniform civil code and also advocates the reduction of the number of existing laws to avoid complexities which affect the productive activities. The book has all the details on how the new system would work.

The importance of the General Performance Parameters is emphasised to make the administration effective and efficient. Instead of cabinet, there will be POBs (Parliamentary Oversight Boards with 5 MPs each), to oversee the activities of various departments.

The book also talks about the corporations and civil society organisations and suggests a single structure and governing standards (to be known as associations) to these bodies with shareholders and stakeholders respectively. In the chapter ‘Sustainable Living’, the author recommends a series of reforms that will ‘transform the way we live.’ In the beginning, he takes three case studies to illustrate his ideas to reach India an ideal nation — Panchasheel, the city, Mussorie, the town, Sewari (Rajasthan), the village. And at the end of the book he picturises these three places where his hypothesis is proved right. He strongly believes that another India is possible. The book reads well and his blue print for reform is excellent. But one may not be able to share the optimism of Bissell particularly in the milieu in which we live and where corruption rules over every aspect of our life. The point is who will bell the cat?

2009-10-29T23:54:00.001-07:00

Long Live our Democracy!!

Yesterday, the night security in our apartment informed us that he along with other few night watchmen in the area caught hold of a thief red handed while he was stealing some used clothes and shoes from a bachelor quarter. Promptly, they handed him over to the police. It is normal sport in this part of the country that the crowd thrashes the thief before the police formally arrests him and legally thrash him. They are ‘entitled’ to do so. It is not that every day you catch a thief! In case the thief dies in the process of ‘interrogation’, it is convenient for the police to put the blame on the public thrashing. However, the security told us that this guy wasn’t beaten up for a change. I felt sympathy surging in me for that bad guy, in the sense that it must have been real desperation that drove him to stealing used clothes and shoes.

Meanwhile, in a village in West Bengal, so far away from Chennai where I live, a 70-year-old widow was among the 14 tribal women arrested under serious charges ranging from attempt to murder to sedition and waging war against the state. They were in jail for over a month. They were arrested from their village Bansber on September 3, 2009. The Maoists negotiated their release in exchange for that of a police officer, Atindranath Dutta whom they had ``arrested’’ and held him in their ``custody’’. News paper reports said that the tribals, on release from judicial custody, did not even have the money to get back to their village and so much so the advocate had to pay their bus fare. I am yet to know when these poor illiterate tribal women become Maoists for the State. I am ashamed of myself that I am not able to do anything. Unlike these tribal women, I have many things to loose. A comfy home, a good pay package, the society I move around, etc. And I do not know what hunger means; I never experienced the pain of my land and my livelihood being taken away…..

Our honourable Supreme Court Collegium is still waiting for more and more evidence to decide on the land garb allegations against the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court, Justice Mr. P.D. Dinakaran. He bought one third of the village land and grabbed a good 200 acres of wet land and made it his own. These include the common water sources, path ways and grazing lands, etc. etc. This public land is supposed to go to the landless Dalits and backward people in the village. Well, I don’t want to talk about his possession of other properties since the list is so huge. The people of the village and the district collector, who is the head of the revenue administration, came up with ample evidence against the Judge. However, the Supreme Court wants more evidence. Well, my middle class sensibility is itching for an impeachment; though I know this will never take place. And the Hon’ble Justice Mr. P.D.Dinakaran is not an illiterate poor tribal to be dealt with by the state!

Meri Bharat Mahan

2009-10-27T03:34:00.001-07:00

Here’s how the Indian TV news channel would report the Jack and Jill nursery rhyme. All names (except those of Jack and Jill), are fictitious.. Krishna forwarded this one to me....It is hilarious....

Prashant - TV Anchor
Two persons have been injured in a freak climbing accident. Jack and his companion Jill had gone up a hill to fetch a pail of water when Jack fell down and broke his crown. Jill came tumbling after. Live from the hill, our reporter, Amrita Shah, takes up the story.

Amrita Shah
Thank you Prashant. Well, as you say, two persons - Jack and Jill - had gone up a hill to fetch a pail of water. Suddenly, Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after. Prashant.

Prashant
Thank you Amrita. What do we know about the hill?

Amrita
Not too much. Jack was going up the hill to fetch a pail of water when he fell down and broke his crown. Jill came tumbling after.

[Headline appears at the foot of the TV screen: “hill breaks crown of pail-boy Jack”]

Prashant
What news of Jack and Jill?

Amrita
Prashant, it seems that Jack had gone up the hill to fetch a pail of water. We know nothing about the pail, or how heavy it was but it seems that Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after. I have here with me, an eyewitness to the accident, Mr Shahid Trivedi. Mr Shahid, tell us what you saw.

Shahid Trivedi
Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after.

[Headline appears at the foot of the TV screen: “Boy and girl tumble down hill. Water spilled”]

Amrita
Jack and Jill. What do we know about them? Are they brother and sister? Are they married? Just what were they doing on the hill together?

Shahid Trivedi
Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail a water.

Amrita
And what happened next?

Shahid Trivedi
Jack fell down and broke his crown

Amrita
Go on.

Shahid Trivedi
And Jill came tumbling after.

Amrita
Prashant, there you have it. Two people innocently going about their business to fetch a pail of water when one of them falls down, breaks his crown, and the other comes tumbling after. Back to you in the studio Prashant.

[Headline appears at the foot of the TV screen: “Water errand ends in tragedy”]

Prashant
I have with me in the studio now, Professor Chandrashekar Belagare from the Indian Institute of Applied Hill Sciences. Professor: a hill; Jack; Jill; a pail of water. A tragedy waiting to happen?

Professor
Well that depends on the hill, the two persons, the object they were carrying and the conditions underfoot. Let us look at the evidence so far.

Jack and Jill
Went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down
And broke his crown
And Jill came tumbling after.

Clearly, one would suspect that if Jack’s fall was severe enough to break his crown then the surface of the hill must have been slippery or unstable. But I think we’re overlooking something quite fundamental here. Who was carrying the pail? Jack fell down and broke his crown and – this is the key – Jill came tumbling after. If Jack and Jill had been carrying the pail together, would they not have fallen at the same time? The fact that Jill came tumbling after suggests that Jack lost his footing first and perhaps knocked Jill over as he slipped.

Prashant
Professor thank you very much. So there we have it, two persons – Jack and Jill – went up the hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after. Later in the programme, Osama bin Laden captured in Afghanistan, President Bush says rent-boy menage-a-trois was "just a brief lapse of judgement", and Pakistan launches nuclear warheads against key Indian cities. But next up, join us after the break for a studio discussion about hills, boys and girls and whether water-fetching trips should be supervised. We’ll be right back...

2009-10-15T19:57:00.000-07:00

Happy Diwali!

I am looking forward for a calm and quiet Diwali …
Far from the maddening crackers …
With lots and lots of lights
But I know, I can’t help it
People have already started bursting crackers on their terrace, on the roads and wherever they found a little space
And I wish a happy and safe diwali to all my friends, foes and to the neutral ones

2009-10-14T21:57:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama, the US President, celebrated Diwali, the festival of lights by lighting the ceremonial lamp at the White House.

Now why don’t we honour him with a Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award of India?

The astrologers predicted an award/Nobel season for him!

2009-10-12T20:51:00.000-07:00

Media meddling and Actors’ annoyance

Well, press freedom is very important. Even if they represent and promote the ‘popular’ culture; or for manufacturing consent; even in the case of embedded journalism. Freedom of this rustic pillar has to be protected. The recent protest by the journalists, holding up traffic on the busy Kamarajar Salai in Chennai (down the Marina Beach for those who know Chennai that way) against the arrest of Mr. Lenin (charged under sections of the Prevention of Women Harassment Act was a case in point.

The story goes like this. Ms Bhuvaneswari, a small time actress was arrested by the police on charges of prostitution. It was reported that she was running a brothel in one of the prestigious localities in Chennai. She not only confessed to the crime, but also gave a list of actors who, according to her, are involved in the world’s oldest profession. Dinamalar, a Tamil daily, published the news and that provoked the film fraternity. They in turn barged into the city police commissioner’s office to register their protest. Apparently, some of the actors, whose names were mentioned in the report, are happily married and obviously, the allegations made them very upset. It seems that some of them were in tears (of course, without having to pour glycerine).

In Tamil Nadu, films and governance, always, coexisted. Our Chief Minister, ex Chief Minister, few ministers and MPs are actively connected to the film industry. Hence the complainants went to the court of the CM and that ultimately led to the arrest of the news editor of the daily. When the State wants something; it will happen. In Gujarat the police was silent spectators when men and children were killed and women raped and killed by thugs in February-March 2002; and in the Meerut violence witnessed in 1981, the police were the perpetrators. The political masters, in those places, wanted it that way at that time.

“Emotions ran high” and mind it, 250 journalists met up to “chalk out the future course of action” and declared it as “black day”. They demonstrated in the busy road leading to the State Secretariat from the Press Club (wherethey assembled that morning) and demanded the arrest of few actors who were involved in the maligning the media professionals. They denounced the police action as undemocratic and unjustified and asked for the release of the fellow journalist immediately.

There are two sides to this story. To begin with, the media sensitivity to the police atrocities- A few months ago, when the police entered the high court premises and lathi charged many lawyers, litigants and even a judge and destroyed property, most of the media justified the police action. Whether the lawyers are straight forward or crooks is a different question. How do you justify such an action? In what way was it different from police entering a new paper office and arresting somebody without a proper warning? In fact, the police entering someone’s premises is sanctioned for in the law whereas the force that was used in the High Court premises was without a legitimate authority.

Another aspect is that some of the Tamil news papers are notorious for publishing the pictures of the sex workers who are “caught in the police” net, invariably with a disgusting title ‘prostitute beauties’ (vibhachara azhagigal). These are the small time sex workers who fix their business on the busy streets of T Nagar or Parrys or elsewhere for a paltry Rs.50 to 100. I was part of a study team, commissioned by NHRC, on the trafficking of women and children sometimes ago and had interviewed many sex workers. They used to tell us that the policemen arrested them even when they went to leave their children at the school; just to fill their quota of arrests for that particular month. They also said that some policemen demanded free sex. They had no choice but to oblige. Once arrested, these dailies published their photographs, though there is a law preventing that. It is obvious that they get the photographs from the police only. A clear case of Police Press nexus!

And about the film stars’ protest and their grievance: Aren’t they aware of the fate of the many young girls, in the age group of 15 to 20 years, who are trafficked to the film industry and pushed into prostitution? Many in the industry demand sexual favours from these young girls to get them some work to get going. I am sure the so called leaders of the film industry are not so naïve not to know about these happenings. But hardly any intervention on the matter. Of course, STARS are different from ‘extras’ as far as the human rights are concerned.

Well, I did not want to mix so many things; but these are so interrelated – so I couldn’t help it

2009-10-03T21:23:00.001-07:00

Oops! Why do we insist that Judges should declare their asset?

The Judiciary has always carried an aura of purity and integrity. But now people know that it is no way different from the other pillars of the democracy. The wealth amassed by some of the judges is no longer a secret. Though only a few have made it to the headlines. Nothing surprising! Why should we expect the judiciary to be different or independent from the popular culture? It does represent the ruling culture of the day and the system. No wonder, why judges are soooooooooooo hesitant to declare their assets in public. Some of them have more than half of a village in their possession. More skeletons are waiting for their turn to tumble out of the cupboards. One can have a good laugh, if one’s sense of humour is still intact.

2009-09-25T06:43:00.001-07:00

When the media mediates In the name of neutrality…

Before I venture into writing about the death of the Pricol HR manager at the hands of workers of the same firm, let me qualify that I am against any kind of violence- unorganised or organised; orchestrated by the state or by individuals. I condemn violence. However, when I read the reports of the incident in the various newspapers, I got the feeling that the ‘lumpen proletariat’ killed an innocent person without any provocation. More than the company, the newspapers painstakingly explained the gory incident and that it happened without any provocation; the slain Roy George was too good; understood the workers and interacted with them individually about their problems. Even if he was not, the murder was not justified.

This is the second incident in India, in recent times. The first one happened in an Italy based MNC located in Noida almost a year back.

Well. If you dig a little bit further, the other side of the story will also appear. It seems that the company Pricol was not very worker-friendly. Apart from transferring many workers to Uttarakhand, it has also laid off many workers; some of them had worked for more than 20 years in the company; and at least half that number of years left before they retired. They were agitating for the last 2 years against the company hiring contract labour.

Thanks to the liberalisation and globalisation, many workers have either lost their job or are having to work as contract labourers; the principle of hire and fire at will has been made easy.

While my sympathies are with the bereaved family, my thoughts are with the workers who were arbitrarily laid off. To find another job immediately is a grim probability as the job market is messy. What will happen to their families? Will they be able to meet with their basic needs? What will happen to the education of their children, perhaps the first generation learners in those families?

I know the case of a worker whose case is being fought by Krishna in the labour court. He was thrown out of his job in 1989; 20 years ago and still fighting against the management and his case is being shunted from one court to another all these years. All these to get his job or legitimate compensation. The case is still on; from the labour court to the Madras High Court and now back to the labour court. God only knows as to how long it will take for him to get his money. Hopefully, he may get it in his own life time. I felt the trauma of the worker.

Let us look in to the other side of the story too. A negotiation, on equal footing with the workers, not victimisation, is the solution. How much I wish the media is neutral than taking the side of the rich. Memories of how the media focussed so much on the Taj Hotel and the Oberoi Towers and so little or even nothing was said about those who perished at the Mumbai Central station are fresh in my mind even now.

2009-09-18T22:48:00.000-07:00

An interview with poet Salma --a Malayalam version of this was published in Janashakthi (And thanks Cheri for the quick translation; it saved my time)

You have said that your childhood experiences inspired you to write poetry. What were those?
I was born into an orthodox Muslim family in Thuvarankurichi in Trichy district, facing the restrictions imposed on a girl with such an upbringing. I could study only till the ninth standard. The circumstances under which I had to leave school hurt me a lot; I had to pay a heavy price for a small incident at an age when I was unaware of the discrimination between boys and girls. As a child, I was crazy about movies. Three of my girl friends and I once bunked classes and went to a small theatre near my house, without knowing which film was being screened. We found ourselves the only girls in the theatre which was playing the Malayalam movie "avalude ravukal(Her nights)". My brother too was there amongst the audience. Despite ourselves, my friends and I managed to remain in the theatre till the end of the movie. But by this time, the news had travelled home and I was beaten when I returned. More than the physical pain, it was a blow to my heart. No one even scolded my brother. When I protested, I was told: YOU ARE A GIRL, HE IS A BOY.
With that, my studies were discontinued.
When did you begin writing poems?
After my studies ended, I was in a kind of house arrest for some ten years. I was not allowed to talk to boys and rarely ventured outside. Reading was the only means I had to escape this loneliness. I would read whatever I could. I grovelled before my brother for him to bring me books from the village library. I used to be a regular at that library in the days before I left school. It was in these lonely years that Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky entered my life. Reading broadened my intellectual horizons and my imagination. That is how, at the age of 16, I began writing poems. My poems, under my own name-Rajathi, were published in magazines like Kalachuvadu.
What were the repercussions of you being published?
In the little hamlet that I lived in, the poems kicked up a storm. How a Muslim girl could dare to write such things, people asked. My marriage had been fixed at a very young age, but with these problems, my engagement was almost broken off. After much debate and discussions, the elders decided: she is not to write after her marriage. With my marriage, the restrictions on me increased manifold, do not write, do not read, it went to that extent. No one understood me in that house. This was how Salma was born. I wrote surreptitiously, using the name Salma. No one in my house or my village knew of it. I would not even put my address when I sent my poems for publication.
Who encouraged you to write?
Senior writers like Sundara Ramaswami, who received my poems for journals like Kalachuvadu, encouraged me.
When did the world next hear of Salma?
The panchayat elections in Thuvarankurichi paved the way for that. The president's post was reserved for women. My family decided to put me up as a candidate as a proxy for my husband. Selfishly, they thought they would control the post through me. But when I won the election, I began taking an active interest in panchayat affairs. I had to travel a lot for work, and had to meet officials like the collector. This made me shed my insecurities and my fear of the outside world. Thus the world began to know of Rajati, of Salma. In the beginning, my husband had problems with me. But since I was in the habit of discussing panchayat affairs with my husband, we solved our issues.
Why do you continue to write, even at times you are engaged otherwise?
As I said, it was the pain and loneliness of my teenage years that got me writing. When I freely write what is on my mind, it is as if I am sharing my sorrows and pain with someone. That was what made me a writer. My emotional state must have been too intense to share with someone else. So writing is the only potion
What do you think is the strength of your writing?
It is for readers to decide on the strength of my writing and where it lies. For me, it is in the restrictions imposed on me as a girl, more so on a girl from an orthodox Muslim family. I have a feminist perspective. My pain and my problems are not unique; they are universally experience by most women.
How do you view Malayalam literature?
Malayalam has a lot of good writers, many of whom I have read in Tamil translations. My favourite Malayalam writer is Vaikom Muhammad Basheer. It may be that I relate to his works more than others', being a Muslim woman. I enjoy Kamala Das' poems very much; her poems reflect a woman's strength. I also like Zachariah.
How do you carry along your busy public life along with your writing?
I have been neglecting my writing for some time now, it is true, but I enjoy my work as the chairperson of the social welfare board. I can help many suffering people, especially women and children, and I am confident this experience with enrich my writing.

2009-09-10T21:25:00.000-07:00

The 99999 Campaign

IT was Exnora’s campaign -99999 (09-09-09-9PM-9 minutes) for switching off lights at 9PM; for 9 minutes. To show that we do care for the environment and we would like to contribute to prevent global warning. Indeed it was a good idea in times of the threat of global warming hanging over our heads; like the proverbial Damocles sword. The media had publicized this campaign quite a bit. And we participated in that campaign religiously. Sharp nine, we switched off all the lights; including the wet grinder which was running. From the terrace we looked towards the city to see the magic. How many environmentally conscious middle class and upper middle class people were there doing the same? To our dismay, we found lights on everywhere in our neighbourhood. The homes everywhere were brightly lit up with light peeping out through the windows of those airconditioned rooms! Of course, there were few people who switched off their lights; and the flat complex where the faculty and staff of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences reside were dark during that nine minutes. Thank God! There are still some people who care for the environment. And the day after, we were out at 5 AM; we were driving to the central station to pick up Appa and Amma and the Satyamurti Bhawan, the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee’s headquarters off Mount Road was illuminated with hundreds of bulbs. The occasion was that of the visit by the charming prince Rahul Gandhi to some parts of Tamil Nadu; mind you not in Chennai). So they had decided to light up the whole building. Besides this, hundreds of flexi boards were on display- the young Gandhi, sister Gandhi and mother Gandhi and the at the bottom, the photo of the chotta local leader at the feet of THE family. I am not totally disheartened – What do you expect of the politicians and political parties otherwise. I still prefer to believe that we and others who switched off the lights for nine minutes made a small difference. And I shall continue to do it where it matters. We don’t have to wait for a catastrophe to happen to amend ourselves. Do we?

Newspapers carried the photo of the Ripon building which is housing the Chennai corporation without lights and I appreciate their move.

YS RAJASEKHARA REDDY and others

Our politicians are benevolent kings. History will definitely write about them. Like we learnt by rote that how emperor Ashoka built roads and planted trees etc, or how Akbar built Fatheh pur Sikri and so on in our school days, the generations to come will end up reading by rote (thanks to our education system) how 21st century kings built flyovers, smart cities, SEZs and their children followed suit. When YS Rajasekhara Reddy, the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh and the major money spinner of the Congress died in a helicopter crash (while he was on his way to visit his subjects in a village), no wonder, it made headlines for a few days and newspapers taking the role of investigation agencies (a new trend in journalism) and looking into the crash from all ‘angles’. They did give expert opinion on the weather conditions, condition of the chopper; compared it with the other choppers and more importantly giving a chronology of deaths in air crashes. Well. My television is not connected to any cable now and hence lost out on the theatrics.

We, Indians are the most courteous people in the planet so we do not talk about the dark sides of a person after his death. So there were condolence messages about what the nation lost with his death- a vibrant, pro poor politician, etc, etc, they conspicuously buried his detrimental relationship with mining mafia in the state and many such things. One of those days, the news papers also carried a four line report that 6 more farmers committed suicide in the Vidarbha region. They added to the statistics of 136 suicides in the last one year due to the debt trap. Of course it does not have a news value; hence it would not make news. After all they do not belong to the ruling class; they are the subjects. And the fact that the peasants happen to be the people who feed and clothe the nation would not make any difference. Nor are they celebrities.

WOW! NATO did it again!

NATO admitted that its air strike in the northern province of Kunduz killed and injured many civilians. It was ‘just’ a mistake as they thought there were no civilians in that area. The strike was reportedly ordered by a German commander after Taliban militant hijacked two fuel trucks on a NATO supply route from Tajikistan. Of course, German chancellor Angela Merkel ‘deeply regretted’ the loss of civilians in the attack. I am sure God may take pity on Angela’s deep regret and give back lives to those innocent victims. This International Security Assistant Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan think that they are doing a great service to the nation as well for the humanity as they are saving the planet from Islamic terrorism. They had had their share of cleaning up in Iraq and in the process we have also come to know what some of the soldiers were doing. You act as a world police man and enter anybody’s b ack yard and fcuk up sovereign nations in the name of democracy. Life is precious everywhere – whether the lives of the people who got killed on 11 September or the lives of the people doomed in the Hiroshima & Nagasaki or the people perished in Vietnam or Palestine or the civil war victims in Sri lanka or the innocent civilians killed in the indiscriminate bombing in Afghanistan. Explosives burn you skin irrespective of its colour. That gives the worst memories to the one who has to live with the injuries and agonies about the beloved ones who died. The famous bible quote “for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword". This is relevant to the good terrorists and bad terrorists.

2009-08-26T23:08:00.000-07:00

When Hariharan Sang along with the sound of waves at the Elliot’s Beach!

One could not have asked for more! An evening at the Elliot’s Beach- Cool and breezy! An enclosure, lit up for the occasion; and decorated with flowers. The temporary podium stood against the relentless waves and Hariharian was there to enthrall the crowd with his Gazals. The ambience was just right. Of course, I have a different view about the audience. I think, Chennai is yet to get into the nuance of the Gazals.

Hariharan began with a few numbers from his album ‘Kaash’- ‘Kaash aisa koi’, Maikade bandh’….. The first half was good. And there was a break. During the break, someone who claimed to be a singer and an ardent follower of ‘Hariharanji,’ tried miserably to sing a Gazal. The rendition could be easily voted as the disaster of the evening. No wonder, someone from the audience was heard commenting that this girl is either from the sponsor’s family or from the times of India family (with all due respects to the ToI for gifting such a magnificent evening to Chennaites).

The break saw many people leaving; disappointment was writ large on some people’s face: That Hariharan did not sing those filmi numbers from Roja or the likes. Well. I do like Hariharan’s filmi numbers but would not have enjoyed them as much in what was billed to be an evening of gazals with that maestro. In any case, half the chairs in that enclosure were empty when Hariharan decided to take a short break. He deserved that after rendering one of his difficult numbers like Patta patta, butta butta'.

The first half, certainly, was good; but the second half was excellent. The one Gazal which was dedicated to his wife in raag Darbari left our eyes damp; the pain of separation was conveyed in the lyrics as well as his rendition. Even my husband, who refused to get a packet of popcorn for his wife, had moistened eyes!

Hariharan did play to the gallery once or twice: May be it was meant for the gen-next. A section of the audience did relish that and also enjoyed Hariharan mixing gazals and quawalis (Mere hi naam aaya hai yeh jam mehfil mein). They were seen clapping and whistling cheerily. That was all fine. But then, there was a silly girl who kept nagging; unfortunately we were sitting in the row ahead of her. She was irritated with the Gazals and wondering aloud; “ivaru eppo tamil pattu pada poraru” at the end of every gazal. After a point, she decided to register her protest, she was talking on the cell phone, loud enough, to disturb us and others who did not belong to her league. And much later, she did a wiser thing: just walked out of there to our relief!

And all the while, three boys, in their teens (who were hired for that purpose) were seen carrying the vacant chairs and gathering them in one place even while we were engrossed in the Gazals, the sound of the waves and the blowing wind. The boys were indifferent to all these because they were engaged only to clear the place in the night itself; before they went home for dinner and before they slept at the mid night after the work. Hariharan who? The only entertainment they had was blasting balloons that were flying into the enclosure from the rest of the beaches.

The memorable evening ended at 10 PM; Hariharan made it known that he should stop singing at the stroke of ten and the police would stop him otherwise!

2009-08-23T19:59:00.000-07:00

This book review appeared in The New Sunday Express, August 23, 2009

"FOOL'S GOLD" - Gillian Tett
Trapped in a vast, opaque spider’s web
E K Santha

The global downturn, the worst since the Great Depression of the 1930s, has affected Europe and the United States; and Asia, Africa and Latin America as well. With investors pulling back globally, the unemployment rate swelling across Europe and the US, steep GDP contractions and large numbers of people filing for bankruptcy, governments in Europe and USA are desperately cooking up economic stimulus plans to fire up the economy. Some economists predict a deepening of the recession, including a further fall in the GDP in the euro zone.

Fool’s Gold by Gillian Tett, a Financial Times journalist who followed the innovations in the investment banking sector since the 1990s, is an enquiry into the economic catastrophe caused by these innovations. Tett’s work unravels what went wrong, why and who was responsible.

In a narrower sense, it is an account of JP Morgan Bank and a young, super-savvy group of employees who were responsible for the new derivatives. Indeed, they became the model for other banks. The story begins at a private beach in Boca Raton, Florida, where they met to have fun and also gather ideas on CDs in 1994. Despite the stock market crash in 1987, when the banks lost fortunes in derivatives, they went ahead. Their ideas changed the derivatives worlds of America and Europe. There was no dearth of regulations — national and international — or regulatory bodies in the commercial banking sector to see that banks maintained a reserve equivalent to 8 per cent of the value of their assets to be adjusted against risk. Indeed, the colossal growth of derivatives so rapidly invited the attention of regulators; they insisted on the extension of rules for investment banking, especially on CDSs (Credit Default Swaps) and like products.

JP Morgan, along with the banks involved in large-scale credit derivatives, formed the International Swaps and Derivatives Association. ISDA furiously lobbied, in the UK and the US, for a self control mechanism rather than regulations. The regulatory bodies succumbed. All the four anti-derivatives bills were shelved in the US. Tett brings this out clearly to show where the fault lies.

Some of these regulations would have averted disaster. The Congressional Watchdog Government Accountability Office conducted a study on the derivative world and had commented in 1994 on the weakness in risk management that might create wider systemic risk. But it did not find any takers, as “market derivatives had grown overnight from a cottage industry into a bazaar where tens of billions of dollars of risk was changing hands.” Insurance giants like the American International Group galloped in to insure the risks.

The one thing the inventors of the derivatives had never imagined was the scale of disaster that their brainchild would unleash. It not only devastated Wall Street but shook the world as well.

Investors, who relied on the rating agencies, were riding for a fall because the agencies had no idea how to assess or assign risk for the CDOs (Collateralised Debt Obligations). Even bankers had a tough time understanding these complex instruments, but the ratings agencies nevertheless gave triple ‘A’s to many of these instruments.

Investment banking grew manifold in these magical years, the large banks by 14 per cent in fiscal 2003-04, earning a profit of $61 billion. Most of this came from the frenetic appetite for sub-prime loans repackaged into CDOs. Soon, the bubbles began to pop all over the place. Repeated shocks, such as the collapse of the Asian market, Enron Corporation, the Internet bust, the fallout of 9/11 and the collapse of some huge hedge funds exposed the system. By early 2007, “most of the Western policy makers were convinced that the credit cycle had been so extreme that it would inevitably turn soon” says Tett.

The inevitable did happen; prices of houses (yet another huge mortgage sector) started sliding and many banks suffered huge losses on the mortgages. In April 2008, total mortgages lost were approximately $400 billion. Big banks and brokers were collapsing and governments were trying desperately for bailouts. JP Morgan was forced to buy Bear Stearns, which was on the verge of collapse. AIG was sold to JP Morgan. Lehman and Washington Mutual Fund collapsed. Bradford and Bingley (UK) was nationalised.

“The CDs market had turned in to a vast, opaque spider’s web; linking together banks shadow banks and brokers alike with unfathomable trades and fear”. And Tett’s book conveys to us, that as in the case of Mackenna’s Gold,that Hollywood classic, the rush for riches in this case was Fool’s Gold.

This is a must-read book for the simple and catchy narrative of a complex credit derivative world and about how unrestrained greed corrupted a dream, shattered global markets and unleashed a catastrophe.

2009-08-18T22:42:00.001-07:00

Long Live Sree Kerala Varma College (SKVC)!

It is rather coincident that this post too is about my alma matter; not JNU this time. It is about Sree Kerala Varma College, Trichur where I spent 7 years before landing in JNU. Well. Unlike JNU, from where I obtained just an MPhil and a PhD (incomplete), I did take my Pre-Degree, BA and MA from the campus in Trichur!

We recently had the Kerala Varma College alumni get together; for the first time in the last 22 years. It was exciting!! The excitement began the moment Jayakrishnan (Pattande) called me up, after a gap of 22 years, to inform me about the get together. Apart from the elaborate travel plans (since I had to travel from Chennai to Trichur), I made several phone calls to connect with old comrades even before the D day. I was, somewhat, nervous for no reason.

I had left the campus in 1986; but then, I had made it a habit to visit the campus at least once in a year; every time I visited home, a few hours at the college was a routine. I met my teachers. In a sense, I have observed them over the years; those who were young men and women when I was a student had begun to gray and some are now retired from work. And during my brief visits, the all shared their own perception of the changes in the campus. Invariably, RG sir or KuttiKrishnan sir got me Sharbath and vadas from the shop located, round the corner outside the college gate. Sometimes Krishna and Chinku too joined me in this ``pilgrimage’’. Well. I also happened to teach in the same college for a few months; I had filled up a leave vacancy. The fact is that at no point of time did I feel like an alien in the campus.

This time it was different. I was so much excited about meeting my old comrades; it was with them that I inculcated the concept of ‘study and struggle’ in my life. Along with the old royal buildings, suppotta trees and Ooty, the campus was and is very much a part of my life. Kerala Varma’s Ooty deserves a special mention; this is the most beautiful part of our campus; a large tract of thickly vegetated land with water bodies. In fact, one of the ponds marks the boundary between Ooty and the ladies hostel. Beyond this are the paddy fields; in the summer months, I used to walk through the fields to the college from home. Ooty was also the most romantic and serene place in the campus. For the same reason, the entry to Ooty was eternally banned to the students by the not -- so -romantic administration.

Well. Couples managed to break the rules to attain the solace of Ooty; to be reprimanded later.

This was the campus I entered there for my pre-University course when I was still in my teens. I must thank my father for that; he defied disapproval from many of my relatives; Kerala Varma College, after all, was co-educational and hence! There were other colleges in town known for their disciplinarian methods and meant only for girls. And it was in Sree Kerala Varma College that I joined the SFI. And it was in this very campus that I received my first love letter; that one was mixed with poetry and prose. I said no to him. I was, at that time, a sincere comrade and thought that love affairs were part of the bourgeois culture.

In this very campus, we had long study classes, discussion and poetry workshops. Those were times when every second person wrote poems or stories; I too was one among them. RG sir’s classes were wonderful as he connected the Malayalam poetry with those from Latin America; and we learnt to love Pablo Neruda –
“And it was at that age...
Poetry arrived in search of me.
I don't know, I don't know where it came from,
from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices,
they were not words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face”

We had long sessions at the canteen with vadas and chai. Those days money was scarce; hence less number of sponsors for tea and snacks. Many a time our teachers fished us out of the debt trap!. And the SFI taught us to be political, lead a simple and socially committed life; urged us to decide “our politics because politics decided our future”. We all happily led a Spartan life, much to the ire of our parents and relatives. We, girls refused to wear gold; not even ear rings; the three Geethas, Jaya, Arya, Beena and many more.

There were demonstrations and processions; we sang revolutionary songs – “it is the time for struggle comrades”….Martyrs are the greatest and they show us the right path”….

We organized the best cultural events; from folk arts to showing of great films like Satyajit Ray’s pather panchali and made hand bills and posters in the evening.

Those days had its share of turmoil also. I lost my younger brother for ever; to the intolerant and brutal politics of the ABVP-RSS. He had just joined the college then. We were very close as siblings as well as comrades. The same ideology held us together. We just began to understand each other in a different light as members of the same organization. Then not even six months together in the campus; they killed him for nothing. There was no history of fight with them, no record of having provoked them. Nothing. Just like that they had decided to finish off somebody that particular night and this boy was an easy prey. He had his last supper at home and had a good laugh over something and left to watch the local festival; never to comeback. They were waiting in the dark. Just three deep stabs. A 17 year old life and his dreams ended there.

It took long; several months for me to come to terms with his death. A deep sorrow settled in the place of tears. My comrades were there to support me throughout the traumatic period.

And I met them after 22 years, around 200 of them. Some of them were very close to me; others were just known to me. Now we live in different parts of the country; some even abroad. Matured with gray hairs and several kilos heavier than they were! I must admit that I could not recognize some of them. I too realized that some people will never grow up in their life; even if they appear older.

But then, many others have grown older and wiser too. Soopan (Suresh) is now a bulky guy; I remember him as a lean and thin boy. And he is also wiser now. Prabha (our kalari payattu hero and hence called Chekavar by us) looked the same. He was a composed person then and continues to be one now too. Beena looked sadder and I thought of those vibrant days of struggle where Beena played a major role.

Politically, most of us are still left leaning; but some of us are not with any particular party. Comrades like Radhakrishnan (now the Speaker of the Kerala Assembly) and U.P.Joseph are still with the CPI(M). There are some others like them too.

But we felt the warmth of the being together and sharing a comradeship of the 1980’s. And it was also fun to have a lone KSU (I) guy at the get together. He jelled well with us.

Of course, SKVC looks better! Lot more trees now and hence greener. The old supotta trees defy their age and live there for ever, the buildings have been painted many times and there is a new auditorium. The old one, facing the beautiful Ooty is still there!

Thank you His Highness Sree Kerala Varma! Long live Kerala Varma College!!

2009-08-17T08:44:00.000-07:00

Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU)and Ragging?????

I was shocked reading newspaper reports that some students from the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) were expelled from the hostel on charges of ragging. It seems that they were caught red-handed by the anti-ragging committee. (Again a surprise: when did they begin to form an anti-ragging committee? Is it mandatory these days?). This is for the first time that I am hearing something of this sort about JNU; a campus known for a culture where the seniors take care of the freshers. For that matter, not only the freshers but also the young job seekers from the various small towns are taken care of in JNU! Such people are ``accommodated’’ in the various hostels, albeit illegally by the students. In the past, when stories of ragging were in the news, we were proud that ours is a ragging free campus.

I recall my early days in JNU nostalgically. I arrived there one morning in June. Summer was still scorching and I was tired after a long journey. I was depressed too. Hostile weather, alien language and food that I was not used to; an array of discomforts! In June, we Malayalis are used to the magical spell of the monsoon. And we are notorious for using coconut and its oil in any edible stuff. And as far the language, I struggled with my English and always answered in monosyllables. And my Hindi was equally bad!

But the most amazing thing was the way the JNU seniors welcomed you. I had to prepare for the interview for my M.Phil admission in Chinese studies. Please note the fact that I was not a student yet! I did not have any deep understanding on China though I had cleared my written test. Yamuna, was in JNU already. I did not know her until that day I arrived. But then, she let me stay with her till I got through my admission. A senior of mine at my Centre- Vikramsimha Rao -- whom I met for the first time in my life -- offered all help. He spent hours with me and discussed about the possible questions and prepared me for the interview. Though a perfect stranger to me, he had made me comfortable about the campus, and helped me to overcome my fears and worries.

Well. TK was there to steer me in the initial days despite his busy work with the Students Union. He acclimatized me with the way of life in the campus; sometimes even chided me for not going to the library. I have sweet memories of my seniors- helping me with the assignments, inviting me to the film club, photographic club, a dinner at Udippi or a trek to the Qutab Minar and so on. And in just a year’s time, I was a senior and I too reached out to the freshers:– Keeping the tradition on.

No wonder that the report of ragging in JNU (by few MCA students) disturbed me so much. It was so inimical to our glorious past and tradition, where everything coexisted - Jhelum lawns, Ganga Dhaba, library canteen, us and so many other things….. I would like to take it as a bizarre incident which would not be repeated….for I am planning to send my child to JNU… And I do not want him to come back and counter me saying…Mom, your much heard stories do not match with my experience.

2009-08-04T22:46:00.000-07:00

On Child Rights!!

I am all for child rights! I still regret the fact that I had beaten up my child on 3 or 4 occasions in the last 17 years; he says he hardly remembers as those were not even a proper thrashing. But I do remember those occasions, I lost my temper and behaved irrationally and I cannot forgive me for that. A number of reasons were there on my side but that cannot justify the act. As a rule, I always give him enough time to reflect on the mistakes he had committed and ask him to find a solution by himself. There are times that I had given stern warnings. That’s it!

I am pained when I read reports of corporal punishment (though it is banned) meted out by those children who study in the corporation and government schools. I get a shock when I read some of the extreme cases where the punishment ends in the death of the child.

But what about the methods of punishment that are in vogue in the so called “elitist public” schools? How does it feel when an adolescent boy is called a liar repeatedly before a class on an issue of a submission of a note-book? ‘Stupid, idiot, good for nothing fellow and no brain” are the other common phrases used by the teacher, often in the class room. What about the self esteem of the boy? What will happen to his self confidence?

I do not have to put myself into my son’s shoes to know the pain and humiliation that he is having to suffer. I did study in a convent school for sometimes where my maths teacher told me, “you fatty, you will never learn maths in your life. Other children laughed at the joke. I couldn’t do anything but stare at her with tears -blurring my sight and it was interpreted as my arrogance. I fought back my tears to cry under the lonely mango tree later. At times I was described as blacky or ugly. It is true that I never learnt maths in life, even though in later stages, I had wonderful maths teachers. The marks of beatings on my legs are faded and gone. But the pain and humiliation, I can feel it even today.

Of course, in a huge joint family, my mother did not have the time or inclination to understand the pain of this ugly duckling. But my son is lucky as we both are there for him to ventilate his pain and trauma - to accompany him for a long walk in the beach, some peppy talk and a kulfi. However, we are helpless; in the sense that we are not able to go to the school to have a talk with the teacher since my son is also bothered about the repercussions. He says he has six more months to go…

I wish I had I known about the school earlier….

And at night, I whispered into his ears: “don’t worry, one day I will borrow a burqua from Balkis aunty and follow your teacher into a market place and will call her stupid and useless and vanish”. Both of us know that I am not going to do that but he smiled at the thought of me doing that.

Good night dear!!

Children Learn What They Live

If children live with hostility,
they learn to fight.

If children live with ridicule,
they learn to be shy.

If children live with tolerance,
they learn to be patient.

If children live with encouragement,
they learn confidence.

If children live with praise,
they learn to appreciate.

If children live with fairness,
they learn justice.

If children live with security,
they learn faith.

If children live with approval,
they learn to like themselves.

If children live with acceptance, and friendship,
they learn to find love in the world.
Dorothy Law Nolte

2009-08-04T02:37:00.001-07:00

Idinthakarai Tsunami Habitat-(in) humanitarian Rehabilitation!!

The story about the illegal land developments taking place in the sterile area of the Kalpakam nuclear plant by realtors (New Indian Express, August1, 2009) was indeed shocking. It may also sound a bit unbelievable on the face of it. But then, the truth is that such callousness is not restricted to Kalpakkam.

Here is another story of this kind. The difference, however, is that it is about a plant that is coming up and the violators are not just the greedy realtors. It involves the Government and the NGOs. The common thread is about violation of national and international norms of reactor guidelines and building up a human settlement within the sterile Zone and all this being done with the support of the district administration. It is incredible but true.

Idinthakarai, a fishing village, situated in Radapuram block of Tirunelveli district (located on the coastal road connecting Tiruchendur and Kanyakumari) was swept away by the killer waves that hit the coast on December 24, 2004. The tsunami hit the village badly destroying most houses and killing two.

Humanitarian assistance poured in. And also a plan for rehabilitation of the victims in a safe area, away from the shore. A national NGO, otherwise known for their development and humanitarian work, pitched in to rehabilitate 2000 people. It offered to construct 450 permanent houses. The NGO tied up for financial grant, from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Presbyterian United (from USA) and Mennonite (from USA) with a view to complete the project.

The arrangement was that while the construction cost of the dwelling units were to be borne by the NGO (along with its international partners), the land for the rehabilitation project was to come from the Government.

The construction cost for each house – measuring up to 435 square feet on a piece of land extending to three cents, was estimated at Rs. 2.05 lakh. Approximately Rs.9.22 crore was spent over the construction. The district administration allocated 23.50 acres for this project. All that was fine! Except that the land happened to be incredibly close – just 2 KM - to the Koodiankulam Nuclear Reactor plant.

In other words, a cluster of 450 houses, inhabited by poor fisher-folk whose homes were washed away by the Tsunami in December 2004 being rehabilitated within a 2 kilometre distance from what would be India's largest nuclear-power centre when it goes critical.

This is clearly in violation of the norms set by the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board. The specific guidelines, insofar as inhabitation around a nuclear plant is that: A 1.6-km radius zone around a nuclear power station must have no habitation; the next 5-km radius area must be a “sterile zone” where “the density of population should be small so that rehabilitation will be easier.” And a third ring, outside the 5 km radius and upto 16-km from the plant where “the population should not exceed 10,000”.

The district administration could not have glossed over these. The Koodankulam plant, after all, was coming up and construction activities had been taking place when the Tsunami struck in December 2004. And yet, months after the tragedy, the administration allocated this land for constructing houses to the affected, violating the DAE norms. And even sunk a lot of money laying roads to the area and constructing electricity and drainage facilities, water taps and a community hall to this hamlet; an overhead tank with capacity to hold 60,000 litres too was built spending Rs. 8.80 lakh. Ironically a multi-purpose disaster shelter also has been constructed here along with the houses

The inauguration of this rehabilitation site took place in 22 November 2006 with the representatives of the funding agencies, the district administration and the NGO, praising each other for the amazing pace at which the construction activities were completed. 430 out of 450 houses are allotted to the “beneficiaries”. The media, incidentally, reported the event but for some reasons did not point to the fact that when the giant reactor, which stood in the vicinity of the new housing colony, when commissioned will warrant displacement of all these families once again.

For some strange reasons, the development agencies that conducted this rehabilitation programme did not find anything remiss in this site. Ironically the funding agencies spend a handsome amount on conducting campaigns and training programmes as well as building infrastructural facilities for disaster preparedness.

The tragic aspect is that these people are bound to be displaced from where they are now located as and when the Koodankulam plant goes critical. It will be difficult, may inhuman, to argue then that they shall not be displaced. For it will be exposing them to radiation and other issues. A little thought, when these houses were constructed, would have saved them of another displacement. But the authorities who failed to do this will, in any case, not be affected.

Now, who will take the responsibility for this catastrophe; the NGO, the District administration, the funding agencies or the poor people who did not have any choice on this?

2009-07-27T04:57:00.000-07:00

Nandigram and Orwell’s Animal Farm

Reading through reports, day after day in the past week about the violence and the atrocities against women in Nandigram brought back in me some memories of the mass rape of women in Thankamani, a village in the Idukki district in Kerala way back in 1986. I was then a student, doing my graduation. And belonged to a group and the bond among us was that we all were members of the SFI; we were, hence, closely associated with the activities of DYFI and the CPI (M).

We were enthusiastic about the need to do our bit to make the world a better place and there were many occasions when our enthusiasm was a bit too much. We were all oriented in the theory of Marxism from the study classes that we would attend thanks to our association with the party. There were important lessons to be learnt. Otherwise, we would have gone astray.

But we were free from any dogma and ended up raising uncomfortable questions on the party’s stand over the women’s question, the movement for democracy in Prague (Spring of 1968), the cultural revolution in China and ended up debating these day after day without necessarily finding a definite answer. In any case, the debates were not really meant to find the absolute answer. I recall that there was a lot of space available for discussions in the group. Intolerance has not crawled into the party structure like it is now. The culture represented by the infamous I-am-the-state attitude of Louis XIV had not yet set in then. These classes also ensured that our men comrades respected and supported the women and their struggle for rights.

We used to discuss women’s issues and would strongly react to incidents of eve teasing in public places. Sometimes we went about painting tar on vulgar posters in the city. It was at that time, one day in October 1986, that Thankamani happened. It all began with the villagers protesting against the refusal by authorities to extending the services of a transport bus to that village. The protest turned ``violent’’ when stones were thrown and the police resorted to lathi charge. However, things did not stop there. The cops returned to the village that night, raided the homes and raped many women.

We were disturbed. The news made us angry.Although we had not visited the village any time or met any of the victims, we took the hurt and distress of the women in Thankamani as ours and a small group of us demonstrated through the Trichur city; shouting slogans against the police as well as the then Congress government. Thankamani soon became a concern across the State and even contributed in a way to the the CPI(M)’s victory in the assembly elections in February 1987.

Now, I read the reports of the violence perpetrated on the women in Nandigram and also that this was done by the members of the CPM. It was not the police or the army who indulged in such atrocities on the women in West Bengal. In the bad times that we live, our senses are somewhat numbed by the frequency at which we hear stories of such atrocities that are committed by the armed forces in Kashmir and the North East. The Nndigram story, however, belongs to another genre. The long list of violence committed by CPM cadres (goons), include women, some of them pregnant (Manjura Biwi at Satangabari for instance) being beaten up and children and infants attacked brutally and raped.

It was so much excruciating to read the story of 40 years old Akhreja Biwi of Satangabari, who had been ganged raped on November 7, 2007. Her trauma does not end there. Her two daughters, in their teens were also sexually assaulted. And they are still missing. Story after story of such violence on women, men and children are pouring out of that place and people, including intellectuals and artists, who were the best show pieces of the party in cultural front, are now marching on the streets of Kolkotta protesting against this mindless violence.

Except those CPM leaders in power for many decades and the “disciplined and institutionalized cadres” every human being is pained.

I stare with disbelief. How could women leaders in the party like Brinda Karat, with whom some of us have joined to fight against the injustice against women (including on the controversial birth control pills) and who spoke against the token representation of women in the party’s Polit Bureau, now stand up and justify all the violence in Nandigram?

I realise, with lots of pain, that it is not the same old party, whose office was my second home when I was young. It is not the same party where I did a bit of my apprentice in the late Eighties organising the workers in Delhi’s Okhla industrial estate on a week-long strike demanding better living conditions. And sharing the slices of bread, gone cold and hard (packed from our hostel in JNU) for lunch with comrades on the dusty pavements in Okhla. Something is seriously remiss..

If you want to know how ghastly the comrades can be, you go to Singur and Nandigram. I am happy that I am no longer in the party and hence I am able to stand up for the victims in Nandigram and Singur.And I resolved to read George Orwell’s Animal Farm, once again. And I will, probably read it now from another angle and in the light of all that happened in Nandigram.

Article published in New Sunday Express (November 29, 2007)

2009-07-18T04:03:00.000-07:00

Tiananmen Square and Jawaharlal Nehru University

The press brought out the reminiscences of the Tiananmen Square massacre of 4 June 1989; the incident was ‘a conspiracy of the western powers to derail socialist china’, according to the Chinese government. ‘A well planned attempt to crush a democratic protest, the western counterparts cried out. It is a fact that the Tiananmen - Gate of Heavenly Peace -Square has been the central point for several major historical protests. And in 1989, demonstrators, mainly students, had occupied the square for seven weeks, refusing to move until their demands for democratic reforms were met. The social chaos had to be arrested. However, there were many other ways to clamp down on a protest when China had such a massive ‘people’s army’, the protestors could have been physically removed or caught, arrested and penalized.

However, the incident, which happened 20 years back, stirred the hornets nest in Jawaharlal Nehru University. The SFI (in its prime days) lost the elections to the srtudents union that year: thanks to the Tiananmen Square massacre. The comrades were treated like the carnivorous and they were confronted in the mess, library and canteen and everywhere; except when they took there after dinner stroll with their girl friends. Some sensitive comrades (who still adhered with the bourgeois human rights values), unabashedly supported the action of the Chinese government in public while denouncing it in private conversation. The real vanguards endorsed the views of the central committee, located some 15 or 20 KM away from the campus. Comrade Yechury came to the campus to dish out the conspiracy theory and faced insult from the “anti Chinese” .

Though I was a comrade (not in arms) then and even now, I was moulded in a “reactionary framework” as I opposed any kind of violence. Keyvan Sultani Felokori (Our Iranian refugee comrade) described me as confused and tried to instill sense in me on the inevitability of a bloody revolution. Let Ahura Mazda save his soul!

The saddest part of this story lies elsewhere. We used to have an elderly (not very old but compared to us, she was old) Chinese lady who was admitted to the Hindi language centre. A quiet and warm lady! We used to tease her with the way she said Namaste with folded hands and with her “shudh hindi”, in her absence. I distinctly remember that after the massacre at the Tiananmen Square, this lady ran through the corridor, from the bathroom, almost naked. And nobody seemed to understand what had happened to her. As days passed by the story came out. She had a son who was studying in Beijing University at that time and she was not getting any news about him. She feared that something happened to him and hence broke down. We all felt sorry for her.

Soon she went back to China….. till today I do not know what happened to her or her son. But I felt that pain (even though I had not even thought of becoming a mother, those days) and it stained my otherwise jolly university days.

Since then any mention of Tiananmen Square incident, brings the picture of that helpless mother. To me, it became face of the bloody incident.

Of course, everyone forgot the incident and the very next year, the SFI alliance captured the students Union.

Rahul Gandhi and kinley water

2009-04-28T23:00:00.000-07:00

Today’s the Hindu shows the pictures of few political leaders quenching their thirst in the midst of the surging election heat and as expected Rahul Gandhi was there wearing a bright red turban and drinking kinely water. You have too much of Rahul Gandhi these days in the print and visual media as he is one of the indispensable ingredients in the election masala- young, energetic and ‘charismatic’. As he claimed in 2004; “ I am here as a sensible, responsible Indian, because I want to help people get on track”. Unlike Sanjay Dutt, he does not offer “Jadoo ki jhappi and pappi”. These days, even we are unable to locate his Columbian or (Spanish?) girl friend. The confusion/debate over his studies has got clarified, when his university came out and said that they have awarded an M. Phil to him in Development Economics. (One may recall that his mother was also got into a controversy on her academic qualifications) His only thought is about how to reinvent India. For that, he spends a night at Dalit household; holds talks with Shivkumari Kori of Simara (Sultanpur), about her life as a Dalit widow. He can learn a bit more from his Grandma who even dared to travel on an elephant back to reach an inaccessible village. It will not be a long wait for us to see him as the prime minister of the country. His ‘smarter than him’ sister is discreetly pushing that idea ahead while disappointing many not so young PM aspirants of the oldest party.

What invoked my curiosity was that Rahul drinking a bottle of kinley water. If he so much pro poor how come he is not aware of the plight of the poor tribal villagers of Plachimada in Palghat who is putting up an unequal fight with the Coke company since many years now. During the last few years, the company dried up the water sources in the village and left the villagers to mend themselves without drinking water. They have to walk 3 kilometers for fetching water. This shows the hypocrisy of our leaders in the name of development. We are so much used to tokenism; hence talking about one Shivkumari in the parliament is good enough to make you a pro poor leader.

Then why talk about Rahul drinking kinley, most of our so called civil society organisations do the same thing. Even in the workshops against water privatization, it is a common sight that the water served is invariably from these giant companies. Interestingly, I used to have a boss who really chokes when she talks about the street children and whenever she talked about these deprived children she needed a bottle of pepsi to overcome her choking!!

Tibetans in South India- An outsider’s View

2008-11-14T00:48:00.000-08:00

It was an unconventional holidaying when we have decided up on a visit to the 3 major Tibetan settlements – Doeguling in Mundgod, Lugsung Samduping in Bylakuppe and Dbondenling in Kollegal-- in Karnataka to understand a little about the lives of Tibetans in exile. We started with Doeguling Settlement in Mundgod, which is an hour’s drive from Hubli, Dharward district.

This camp started in 1970 in the forest land provided by the Karnataka government. The first generation began their life with cultivation and poultry. And when family size grown and crops failed due to the unpredictable monsoon, depending entirely up on agricultural income became not viable; the second generation began to look out for some work for additional income.

As one enters the Tibetan settlements, a different world- culture milieu -open before you. You no longer feel that you are inside India. Huge colourful monasteries with stupas, monks attired in bright red and yellow robes in all ages and people speak an alien language. In a drive through the settlements, you see acres of agricultural land, small houses, every house growing some fruit bearing trees and colourful prayer flags decorating the courtyards. There are hospitals (including Tibetan medicines), schools, post office, shops etc. Young men and women were seen in modern dresses while old ones in the traditional Tibetan dress.
Interior of a monastery

Last 40 years they were trying to root themselves in an unfamiliar country fighting with extreme summer and finding livelihood while keeping their tradition and culture alive. Even the children are oriented about the Chinese atrocities, the exile of Dalai Lama in 1959 and how they were forced to leave Tibet. Dalai Lama’s leadership is indisputably accepted by every one. There are even many stories and songs about Tibet and Dalai Lama.

There were 9 camps (settlements are divided in to camps) at Mundgod and most of them have monasteries-big or small. These monasteries have some agriculture land where the monks work; needless to say this is inadequate in the context the number of refugees grows year after year but land remains the same.

Monasteries are colourful and marvel architecture pieces. Interior of monasteries are almost similar -big Buddha statues along with other important religious leaders and a photo of smiling Dalai Lama. On the altar you will see hundreds of small Buddha on the wall. In the huge prayer hall, there are many red cushions all put it rows where the monks sit and pray. Interior is so colourful-red, yellow, maroon and saffron- but significantly and peacefully decorated.

The main and the biggest temple was Gaden Jangtse Datsang. It was the day of exam for the monks when we visited the monastery. The monasteries teach Tibetan, Mathematics, English and religious lessons (Buddhist studies). Debates are very much part of the study. It was very interesting to watch the debates despite the language. Debate is also a test to measure the knowledge of monks in the religious books/scripts. The person who conducts the debate clap in a particular way. You will hear huge laughter when the discussant stumble up on some points and not able to proceed further.

We have visited a few representatives of Tibetan Government in exile which is very active in taking care of the refugees. People were very hospitable and warm. Butter (originally yak butter, now locally available butter) tea, a specialty of Tibetans, was plenty. Houses were small and the interior of every house looked similar - 3 or 4 cots according to the size of the room and a thick and colorfully woven carpet on the cot. Making beautifully designed carpets is a Tibetan art: still some people keep the weaving alive.

There are small shops with Tibetan artifacts and Tibetan eateries. We were taken to a place for lunch by Gela (Tibetan master) which was started a part of their new vegetarian movement. Though staunch Buddhists, Tibetans are non vegetarians and even the monks eat meat. Gela explained this to us. In Tibet, due to the hostile climate not much vegetables grow there; hence for the nutritional point of view, they have to compensate it with meat which was plenty and cheap. However, he said, in India, it is easy to follow vegetarianism due to availability of all vegetables, but it will take some more time to replace beef mo moss to potato and greens mo moss

Tenzin Kunga Luding, a Tibetan youth began the vegetarian movement along with like minded people and they are a registered society as Dalai Lama as its Patron-In-Chief.
They bring out magazines and show video films to propagate the idea of vegetarianism. This small eating place began as a part of this movement and you will get all Tibetan delicacies like Thuppa and mo moss, but vegetarian. The Kalachakra-2006, the kumba Mela of Tibetans, for the first time, only vegetarian food was served.

Our next point was Bylakuppe, Lugsung Samduping oldest and biggest Tibetan settlement which falls under Mysore district. Here we have got accommodation at Sera je, (A Tibetan lodging place) at a reasonable rate. This place is built for people who come here to visit and learn Tibetan culture. The famous Golden Temple is the main attraction of Bylakuppe and people from other beliefs also visit this temple. Our visit was on the concluding day of one weeks’ prayer (they call it Amrit Dev Pooja) for world peace and long life. You will be drawn into a mystic world with recitals of Holy Scriptures accompanied by Nga (huge drum) and Thongchae (long pipe). Normally every pournami day (Full moon), special poojas are conducted in the Temple.

There are around 5000 monks in Bylakuppe alone. These are run by agricultural activities in the monasteries as well as contribution from people who empathize with their cause (mostly from countries like USA, Germany etc).

Life is not easy for the Tibetan people in exile. Though they are provided with land, since it is a rain fed area, only one crop a year. Size of the family increased but land remained the same. Though they live as community in their settlements (Our host say that it was on the insistence of Dalai Lama, since he feels that if they scatter around, they will lose their culture including language: once they have to get back to their “promised land”, they have to identify as a “people”), many of them, go to cities and sell warm clothes there.

Our host at Kollegal and his wife buy warm clothes from Punjab and sell it in Bihar

Small children and elders are left at home. Children either go to the local Tibetan school or those luckiest ones who get sponsors (mostly from Germany and US), study in the cities. In Chennai, Ellen Sharma Matriculation School accommodates many children with sponsorship. So it is not difficult to find people who can speak one of the Indian languages here. We met Tibetans who speak Tamil, Kanada or Hindi.

Our last point was Dbondenling Tibetan Settlement in Kollegal Taluk in Chamrajnagar district, where we could stay with a Tibetan family and see their life from close quarters. They were so hospitable and were very happy to accommodate an Indian family. We could eat authentic Tibetan food. Prayer is a part of Tibetan life. They have small altar in every household, a small replica of a temple altar. They keep water in front of this every morning and change it before the sunset. Today, when people shrink into themselves so much, Tibetans’ community feeling is incredible. They live as joint family; visit each other often carrying butter and eggs and gifts; sometimes tea in big flasks.

In the moon light, sitting near the shadow of prayer flags in the court yards, our host shared a lot with us about their vision to be back to Tibet, their homeland which their children have never seen. They passionately keep the fire inside and pass on the tradition and culture to the generations thinking that “they shall overcome someday”. They do believe!!

Bomb blast in the market

2008-11-14T00:46:00.000-08:00

Yet another bomb blast in another city

Mangled remains of bikes

Burning cars

Severed limbs

Smoke billowed over the sky carry

Thick stench of burning metal and flesh

A cry for help dies abruptly

Death dances over the blood soaked street

A goddess’s picture hanging helplessly

On the makeshift shop

Mutely looking over the blood and remains

A wailing mother

And a consoling hand

In a corner, fresh cucumber in a basket

The weighing scales

Somebody weighed and somebody bought

Just a few minutes ago

And the bomb went off

How many dead? 60? 65?

No one knows

Who are the victims?

Mothers never returned home with groceries

Innocent childhood playing in the street

Men who never reached their office

The chirpy girls went out to buy bangles

A couple building their dream house

The cobbler under the neem tree

Who hums old Hindi Melodies?

The ever smiling chat- wala?

Who else?

They are not even bodies now

Limbs scattered all around

Somebody somewhere had the last laugh

Victory sign in the air

With all these limbs

Can you bring one life back-

You have taken away in a flash of a second

With all your sophisticated technologies

And precise triggering

Give back the mother to her children

Husband to wife

Children to parents

My anger frustrate on this piece of paper

Tomorrow yet another bomb blast in another city??

2007-08-03T22:34:00.000-07:00

Caught in the flesh trade
(Published in new Indian Express on November 2, 2003)

Lakshmi eloped with a man when she was just 15. They led a happy life in Chennai till their first child — a daughter — was born. A few days after that, he left her. She had to pay the rent for the premises and take care of her daughter. With an infant in her hand, nobody was willing to give her a job. So Lakshmi picked up odd works that came her way. That was when she met a flower vendor (a lady) in the neighbourhood who offered a job as a domestic help. She was told that the baby too was welcome. Lakshmi readily agreed. And before she knew it, she landed in a brothel. The flower vendor received a hefty sum for this good-looking “family” girl. They are much in demand in the flesh trade. Rani’s story is similarly saddening. The 13-year-old school dropout belongs to Madurai, Chennai. Her parents are agricultural labourers. She took care of the domestic chores while her mother was away at work. The monsoon failure and the subsequent drought drove the family into abject poverty. As the eldest among the siblings, Rani internalised the harsh reality and wanted to help her parents. She, however, didn’t know how she could help. That was when an acquantaince, a lady, offered to help her out. Rani was offered a job with which she could earn around Rs 1,000 per month. An incredibly high amount for her. She immediately agreed. She was brought to a bungalow where her “employers” used sedatives to “tame” her. Later on she was shifted to Kodaikanal with other girls to entertain the customers under the strict vigilance of the agents. Young girls always fetch bigger sums. In both instances, the girls were trafficked and thrown into the flesh trade. These are not isolated cases. Trafficking in women and children is happening across the world and is an estimated $9 billion industry according to calculations done by the UN and its agencies. It is estimated that in India alone 7 lakh children are trafficked, every year, for various purposes. The alarming factor is that the comparative age of the children trafficked into the sex industry is progressively decreasing. The issue is beginning to bother policy makers and civil society institutions in a big way. So far, there have been two World Congresses against trafficking, one each in Sweden, Stockholm in August 1996 and Oklahoma, Japan in December 2001. The factors behind the rapid rise in human trafficking are the increasing levels of poverty, apart from ignorance of rights because of illiteracy, a mindset that discriminates against the girl child, unemployment, tourism, migration, social and religious customs, consumerism and attraction to the glamour world. Trafficking is done systematically. Recruitment or procurement is the first step. A broad network that operates at the ground level is integral to this. Apart from them, there are part-time traffickers (who have regular jobs and indulge in trafficking as a part-time job), occasional traffickers (who do trafficking as and when they get a chance) and one-time traffickers. All these people may not even be part of a large network. Next comes the issue of transporting the victims, followed by their transfer to the various brothels or to other traffickers. Sometimes the brothel owners themselves are traffickers. The last stage is the exchange of money between the trafficker and the buyer. The buyer then “owns” the victim and she is pushed into the flesh trade. There are various means used to force a person into the trafficking chain, including that of threat, coercion, fraud, deception, or abuse of position. The victim’s vulnerability — financial or emotional — is central to all these instances as it’s the indebtedness of the victim or her family that is most often the starting point of the trafficking chain. And needless to say, those trafficked for sex undergo severe physical, psychological and sexual abuse. Trafficking is a very lucrative business as in drug or weapon trafficking. However, trafficking in drugs or weapons involve huge expenses and are far more dangerous acts to indulge in than trafficking in women and children. The investment involved in human trafficking is restricted to the price to be paid at the “procurement” stage and the expenses for transportation of the victims. The “procurement” cost is what is paid to the agents or the facilitators at the lower rung in the network; they are the persons who help in luring the away girls from their locations, making use of their vulnerability. The net profit is, invariably, more than 100 percent. For instance, a trafficker pays his agent anywhere around Rs 5,000 to procure a girl and spends Rs 1,000 more as cost of transporting her to the destination. The money earned by the trafficker when he “transfers” her to the brothel is about rupees one lakh or more, which works out to a big profit. The person who buys the girl, engages her to entertain different customers, over a period of time. All that the victim gets in return, as it was revealed in a recent study by the author, are food and clothing. Running away from this situation is just impossible. All the brothels have their own gangs to prevent such a situation. The girls do not have any choice but to entertain 20 to 25 customers per day. It is only natural that they become physically and mentally strained. The owners then drug them. While the drugs are administered initially by force, it becomes “voluntary” after a stage. Soon, the victims are also addicted. Out of 200 sex workers interviewed for a study in Chennai city alone, 90 percent were alcoholics. All of them, it was observed, had entered the business at a very young age. Legalities According to the IPC section 366 A, procuring a minor girl and forcing her or seducing her into illicit intercourse with another person is punishable with imprisonment up to 10 years. Those found guilty of this offense are liable for fine (also read section 372 IPC — selling minor for purpose of prostitution). The law is also clear that having sex with a minor girl (girls under 16 years of age) with or without her concern amounts to rape. Given this, sex with girls who are just 14 or 15 years of age is by itself a crime. Despite this, we find several girls in this age group being forced to “comfort” as many as 20 or 25 persons a day on a regular basis. Legally speaking all the men (customers) must be charged for rape. But it hardly happens. The first lessons the victims are taught here is to lie about their real age as and when they are caught in a police raid. They all declare their age to be 18 years or even more when they are taken before a magistrate by the police (for remand). The study also revealed that their statements regarding their age were taken as given by the police and courts! The victims are fined (after they admit to have indulged in prostitution) and they are taken back to the same old places by the same old masters (or mistresses)! Thus their own vulnerable state and the ineffective implementation of the law render them into a hapless lot. Access is an important factor in trafficking. Who is a trafficker? It can be anybody; husband, boyfriend, parents, relatives, friends, colleagues, recruitment agencies, an acquaintance. Strangers too manage to lure away girls at times. In all these cases, barring that of strangers, the victim’s proximity with the trafficker is the major factor. In one such case, the brother-in-law of a girl was arrested along with her. He was booked under 4(1) of ITP Act (pimping). This educated girl belongs to Kerala and was jobless. Her brother-in-law took her to Chennai on the pretext of finding her a job. No one suspected his intention. In the notorious Suriyanelli case involving the rape and abuse of a 14 year old girl, it was her lover who dumped her into the flesh trade. Rather he was also part of the network. Many unemployed girls fall into the dragnet of the “recruitment” agencies. Usually nobody checks the authenticity of the agencies. This makes their job easier. There are instances of celebrities turning traffickers. Take for example the reports involving an ex-Olympian from Austria. A skating gold medallist has been sentenced to 18 months in prison on charges of human trafficking. He was a member of a gang that recruited women from the Belarus, Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania. Trafficking in women and children is a huge and vicious network. It happens within the state (from rural to urban areas), across states and from one country to another. In India, this human trade is worth crores. There are agents and sub-agents functioning at various levels and possess the best of the communication equipment. Our study revealed that girls from Kolkata are brought to Chennai via Mumbai. They are on contract to spend a fortnight in Chennai, taken to Bangalore and spend the following week there before returning to Kolkata. These girls are all in their teens or their early twenties. Their clientele come from the middle level professionals in various fields and also the rich and mighty. Many countries have begun to take steps to tackle this problem and new laws have been enacted. Countries like Thailand, Philippines have initiated tough measures to prevent child prostitution. Sri Lanka too has taken radical steps to tackle sexual abuse of children. The US Congress had passed an Act recently. Prevention of Trafficking in Women and Children is now a serious concern for the governments in Europe. But most of these countries are only the destination points for girl children being trafficked. These are not the place of origin. It is the third world countries and the Republics of former Soviet Union that have emerged as the countries of origin. Though we have provisions in the Indian Penal Code and also the ITP Act, with which the guilty can be punished, they have proved to be inadequate to deal with the traffickers. As far as the ITP Act is concerned, it is used more to victimise the victims; in other words, the provisions apply more stringently against those who have been pushed into the flesh trade than those behind the cruel game. The traffickers, invariably, go unpunished. Hence we need an exclusive law to deal with trafficking. For the present, the least that can be done is to ensure that the existing provisions are effectively implemented. The most important factor is the role of civil society and the society. We need to campaign against the dominant attitude towards women at one level and think of a movement that will internalise women’s rights within the larger question of human rights.

Ban on Dance Bars

2007-08-03T22:30:00.000-07:00

Ban on Dance Bars
(I wrote this sometime back...)

The decision by the Maharsthra Government to close down the dance bars has triggered a controversy. And much of the debate has been on aspects of moral policing and the state. Such a debate is not unprecedented, particularly in Maharashtra. The BJP and RSS along with the parivar outfits are known to have raised the need for such bans in the past. And it is the Congress government this time. The debate, as usual has centred around issues of moral conduct against human rights. Both sides have loaded their guns with arguments. It is very difficult to decide as to which of the two sides is ``correct’’ and the positions have been determined by whether one is a liberal or right winger.

A statement has been made that these dance bars corrupt the moral fiber of hundreds of youth (and it is made out that it intact otherwise), that they encourage anti –social activities, threaten the local culture, encourage immoral habits as the dance bars are also a breeding ground for prostitution. It is, on the face of it, ridiculous to argue that closing dance bars will solve all these problems. What happens in these dance bars? All that the dancers do is to imitate the dance numbers from commercial cinema; the girls are clad in similar kind of costumes as the dancers do in cinema.

Now, we have not banned “choli ke peeche kya hey…” in which Madhuri Dixit literally reveals what is asked for in the lyrics. Or such numbers from the Bollywood hits where pelvic gyrations are becoming a rule and are vulgar in all senses of the term. It is a fact that in most movies the heroine is seen dancing to seducing numbers wearing as little clothes as she can; or take the case of the many advertisements films or the hoardings in our towns now where too clothes are worn not to conceal but to reveal as much as the human body.

We also have programme beamed into our living rooms by Television channels where gyrations are shown as dance numbers. For instance one Malayalam language channel, recently brought the dance girls from Russia (a cheap proposition after the break down of the socialist system there) to do belly dancing on the occasion of celebrating one of the milestones in the channel’s life. The costumes they wore seem to set new standards for ramp shows. The point is that, no government thought of banning them.

Let me make it clear that I am not attempting to take sides on the issue of the closure of dance bars Maharashtra. At the same time, it is necessary to delve into an aspect that the ``liberal’’ position on this issue (to oppose the closure) has conveniently glossed over. For instance, let it be clarified here that running dance bars is a very lucrative industry rather than any effort to promote a liberal culture.

The president of Bar Association of Mumbai, Manjit Sethi’s outcry that the bar owners have to pay several lakh rupees as license fee to get a bar license and that they also spend a fortune as monthly fee at the police commissioners office besides the extortion money to the local police and goons is evidence that it is big business. And despite all this, the fact is these bars fetch them a huge profit. All will agree that they are not running a charity to protect the dance girls; over a lakh of them in the State.

Let it also be stated that for the dance girls, it is certainly not a pleasant or enjoyable experience to dance surrounded by men who ogle at them; many of them in an inebriated state, throwing currency notes at them when they think the girl danced very well. If you call it entertainment, it does smack of entertainment in the medieval, feudal setting. Like the Greeco-Roman past-time where the of the citizens and the rulers were privileged to watch slaves fight between themselves and with wild animals, the middle ages generated developed dance bars where women were objectified.

It is possible to argue that these girls in the dance bars are aware of what they are doing and it gives them a livelihood and that they are in the dance bars not because they were born in such families (as it was, we are told, in the middle ages). One of the arguments is that they are all above 18 years of age and are mature enough and also have the right to chose what they want. But then, let us attempt an honest answer to the question as to whether these girls are there as a matter of choice.

Mumbai’s dance bars are one of the destinations of the girls trafficked from villages and small towns across the country. Many of these girls are trafficked into the bars from places like Bangladesh, rural West Bengal, from villages in the Southern States and from the tribal areas of Orissa. And they do not spend the rest of their lives dancing in these bars. A study recently for the National Human Rights Commission involved interviews with girls arrested by the anti-trafficking cell of Government of Tamil Nadu.

It was found out then that the girls caught by the police in Chennai city were mostly from the rural areas of West Bengal and elsewhere; they were taken to the Mumbai dance bars initially and later on sent to places like Chennai and Bangalore on a contract basis (15 to 20 days) by organized gangs. These gangs, as it was revealed by the study (the report has been released) are well connected and have agents in every major city. Some girls are sent as far as Coimbatore to cater the need of the customers there.

Once the contract period is over (and if they are not caught by the police) they are sent back to Mumbai and a different group will be brought by the gangs in their place. This continues uninterruptedly. The anti-vice squad in Chennai has a record number of such arrests; around 5000 women sex workers a year.

It is in this context that we should place the demand of the Bharathiya Bar Girls Union. Varsha Kale, president of the union demanded that the government formulate a programme to rehabilitate the girls before closing down the dancing bars. And the government, it is reported, agreed to rehabilitate; but only the Maharstrian girls in the industry. It turns out that only 4 percent of the dancing girls are Maharstrians. Nobody, including the liberals, is prepared to see this simple but revealing statistics.

Where do these girls came from? How did they reach Mumbai? Who brought them there? Were they taken to Mumbai and employed in the bars willingly or were they forces into it for want of another option? Do they want to go back to where their homes?

Rather than making it appear that to run and dance in night clubs as an issue of human rights (as it is made out to be by the liberals) it is worthwhile that the idea of human rights and the Right to Life is addressed to in a composite and honest fashion. So that, the idea of life with dignity, which should necessarily include the right to livelihood is taken up. Meanwhile, the National Human Right Commission and National Commission for Women (who will now have to act on the representation from the Bharathiya Dance Girls Union), will justify themselves if they look at ugly side of the industry and recommend measures for rehabilitation.

On Rape and Capital Punishment

2007-08-03T22:24:00.000-07:00

Who remembers rape victims
(This was published in New Indian Express on August 22, 2004)

What do you do when a child plays with a matchbox? You keep away the stuff from the child's reach since the child does not know how to handle a matchbox safely. Likewise, a rapist should be castrated, as he does not know how to use his masculinity. This was what a psychiatrist prescribed while discussing the ways and means to deal with rapists. The kind of media attention Dhananjoy Chatterjee got in the last couple of weeks made one sit up with some unease. Even Benjamin Molois, the South African freedom fighter and poet, whom the apartheid regime had sent to the gallows in 1985, did not get as much attention in our media. Dhananjoy is neither a freedom fighter nor an activist convicted for any great cause. Here was a person held guilty of murder and rape. He was given an opportunity to defend and prove his innocence and he did make use of all the legal avenues available. And more than this, it is also important that the crime, particularly the grisly nature of his act is recounted while his execution was discussed. Here was a man who had hit a 14-year-old child's head against the wall and killed her. The pervert had also raped the child. For these, he deserves the maximum punishment. Let me confess here that I am against death penalty; whether it is by hanging, by lethal injection or by the electric chair. Capital punishment, in my view, militates against progress and civilization. But then, the problem is that a life term according to our law will mean imprisonment only up to 14 years in jail. Not a day more. Thus the expression 'imprisonment for life' is a misnomer. Similarly, there is no provision in our penal codes for castration. This might sound a little too uncivilized or even borrowing a leaf out of the medieval justice system! But the trauma of the rape victims and the precarious feeling that women go through even when they imagine of being raped, the sense of insecurity that women go through, will perhaps lend a sense of legitimacy to this return to middle ages! Recently, as part of the field research for a study, I had the not so pleasant experience of interviewing some of the rape victims under 16 years of age in Chennai. One of the victims was a nine year old. She was frail. It was evident that the girl was famished. Her mother earns a living by working as a maidservant in the neighbourhood and her father is a coolie. On a rainy day, this child was playing alone outside their tenement in the slum cluster. There was hardly anybody around. A man in the locality, who knew about this girl's fascination for a ride on a two-wheeler, invited her to go with him. The innocent nine year old seems to have been overwhelmed by the invitation. She was taken to a deserted place and raped. He left her there bleeding profusely. She was almost dead but managed to drag herself to the roadside. An auto driver saw her and took her to the nearest police station. The cops admitted her to a hospital. When I met her it was a year after the crime. The family had to shift their residence. The child is traumatised and refuses to go to school. She is scared of all men and wants her mother with her always. She urinates involuntarily even at the slightest shock. Listening to her story left us in such an angry state that the lady police official who accompanied me simply muttered, "That should be shot". For a moment she had imagined her daughter in that child's place. Then there were cases of a mentally challenged girl whose family had migrated to Chennai from Andhra Pradesh, and that of a 15-year-old school dropout who was raped by someone who had a score to settle with her uncle. In all these instances, the trauma that these girls and their families had gone through was tremendous. They had to move out of the localities and shift residence. The social stigma that the victims and their families are put through forces them to move away from their homes, particularly when they are poor. For all these reasons, many instances of rape are not reported to the police always, though there is a certain amount of attitudinal change visible among the police towards the victims in recent times. Another disturbing fact is that the conviction rate (among the cases that are reported to the police) is very low. Dhananjoy Chatterjee was convicted and sentenced to death because the court was convinced of the heinous nature of the crime. The media, meanwhile, made Dhananjoy look as if he was the victim. The daily bulletins in the media about his life in the condemned cell, the graphic description of how he spent the last few days or the emotional presentation of how his family reacted together conveyed the news in such manner that the grisly act for which he was convicted was forgotten. While opposing the death penalty, those involved in the campaign against capital punishment will serve their cause better if they initiate a debate on the need for more stringent punishment for such criminal acts as rape. The maximum scale prescribed by Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code is imprisonment for life. In other words, up to 14 years in jail.