some Rants and Smiles

What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true? -Salman Rushdie

2012-01-18T09:10:00.001+05:30

There have been many losses in this last decade but the loss of theeasy return to India has been for me an absolute anguish, an inescapableanguish. I feel as if I've lost a limb. I am very anxious to bring that periodto an end.

-Salman Rushdie(1997)

Weeks back when I wastold that “The” Salman Rushdie will speak at Jaipur in a literary fest I wasall pity for myself, I lamented being at Hyderabad, lamented the absence of aliterature festival in the city of the IT boom and IIT aspirants, I evencontemplated a weekend in the desert state. Thankfully I never formalized theplans.

Zembla, Zenda, Xanadu:

All our dream-worlds maycome true.

Fairy lands are fearsometoo.

As I wander far from view

Read, and bring me home to you. –Salman Rushdie (Haroun & the Sea ofStories)

In Jaipur for now, SalmanRushdie is off the plates, period. The country that banned his book with a fool’salacrity, decades back has cautiously gagged him on this occasion. Thenincompoop fatwa-wallahs who, characteristically are offering decorations toshoe throwers, and a chickening government assured that one of my favoriteauthors shall not be allowed to speak his mind in the country where offence isbought at the price of peanuts. The agitations against the Satanic Versesstarted in India weeks before the book was released based on an article in aweekly, and this time around the Deoband asked government to deny visa toSalman Rushdie when he doesn’t need one to travel to India. The whole businessof sensibilities is being dragged too far, the piece of literature in questionwas banned years back, and now, for no justifiable reason the author’s freedomof movement and conversation is being compromised.

While some religiousclerics have repeatedly displayed incredible unease over varying interpretationof theologies and philosophy, the government has matched in its unwillingnessto stand up for the right of expressions. While I hoped that the government would show some spine on this occasionI had always feared it won’t, and it didn’t.

The clergy shallcontinue to take offence at anything remotely uncomfortable, they will typicallyretort with the whimsy impulse of the possessed but common sense will prevailin this nation of argumentative.

… India is not Iran, it's not even Pakistan, and I thought goodsense will prevail in India because that's my life experience of Indian peopleand of the place. –Salman Rushdie (to India Today)

Wishing Objectivity in The Land of Gullible Subjects

2012-01-03T22:37:00.001+05:30

The world is always changing, steadily and subtly and times come whensubtle changes translate to radical demands for the overhaul of an existingsystem. In acute cases the effort is at dismantling the foundation on which thesociety sits because that remains the only way out of the non-reconcilableinequity. In times such as these, emotions and facts, ideas and reality,actions and posturing and sometimes even right and wrong blur closer together,ideas compete and either the most powerful or the most romantic survives, andthe competing ideas swing from being powerful to romantic and back and fro. Anyrevolution that sustains itself thrives by the perfect mix of romanticism, andhard logic. The clever pioneer on the front knows what is what but is equally romanticizedby the idea of the romance.

So are we there yet? At the point of inflection. I have vented enoughcynicism over the last few months over any such possibility yet after weeks andmonths of restrain, recognizing strongly that I risk sounding snobbish andnaive at the same time, I decided to finally declare that a lot of our anger ismis-informed or worse, all the talk about inequity and injustice on the socialnetwork is an artificially synthesized, mass opium that has turned into aninstant hit in the social networking era which is represented by an evercontracting span of attention and increasing credulity. A friend's status, a140 character long tweet and a restless blogger have replaced the conventionalforms of news sharing as the primary source of informations, and this hasfueled romanticism and exaggeration, its not that we are not debating, but weare debating hyperboles and we go on to debate in hyperboles. The modesty oftruth is lost in our debates and the splendor of objectivity gone.

On July the 25^th last year newspapers across the country and outsidereported an official swiss central bank figures which suggested that India'sshare in the money deposited in the Swiss banks is 0.07%, the central bank also suggested thatthis figure on the highest end (compensating for indirect and proxy bankingaccounts) could be half a percent, even with that we remain in the bracket ofaverage performers, unlike what many proud Indians have been repeating over thelast few months. Now, my figures would disappoint many and they will instantlylook up Google (most of them will never return to this blog to read on) for“Indian money in Switzerland” and find 2006 figure of $1,456 billion, originalsource: some “Swiss BankingAssociation”. Now Google that (to chase away who came back the first time),what do you get? Nothing substantial, in fact what is substantial is “SwissBankers Association”, and even here our ever so excited patriot netizens wouldnot realize that “Banker and Banking” are two different words, some would arguewhat if they are different? At least theSwiss is common!

Sloganeering and sensationalization has for long been the hallmark of aprotest, those involved in a protest are easily offended and are willing tobelieve tales that substantiate the rightness of their protest. As a nation wehave been in a protest mode throughout the last year and the protestor as wecall our self has been playing to his traits. Recently when an ailing AnnaHazare was calling off his fast, he spoke with great vigor to a crowd that had come down to express solidarity.“India used to be the golden bird” he said, and right since independencethese treacherous politicians have been consistently betraying us, so much sothat, “today we mortgage our gold.” Earlier speaking on the FDI in retail hehad said “FDI in retail is an invitation to another East India Company.” Giventhe vast experience of the man, and his indubitable understanding of thecountry? I can only draw that his rants were clever metaphorical statementswhich were never meant to suggest a truth. But many believed that both thesestatements coming from a prodigy were undeniable truth.

Credulity by its very nature is contagious. It turns virulent if thebreeding ground provides for a week, ineffective government, for the entire2011 the government fanned distrust, and distrust on one voice leads to trustupon the opposing view. Sadly the parliamentary opposition remained confusedand inconclusive, and the vacuum of trust was occupied by voices similar to“Occupy the Wall street” sounds from the US. The year saw an increasingacceptance of Subrahmaniam Swami who not long back was at best recognized as acharlatan (not many remember the tea party hosted by this president of a oneman party, a decade and half back.), it saw the news and views dissolving andthe profligacy of tweets in news.

Though it generated an atmosphere that bordered on “sab Chor Hai” syndrome,the credulity in relation to team Anna and corruption did do some good to thecountry on many levels. But the inexcusable gullibility in southern India is areminder that susceptibility of this nature can effectively derail the engineof the nation. Government in Tamil-Nadu threatens to cave in to a massmisinformation campaigns run by organizations with theological leanings. Theeffort is at stopping an undertaking that senior scientists (including peopleas respected as Dr. Kalam) believe is harmless and more importantly is a criticalproject. In a strange show of defiance the protestors in Kudankulam have now pledgedusing CFL to conserve electricity, as if that would be good enough acompensation for stalling a major nuclear power plant based entirely uponunfounded fears which reside more in the minds of propagators of such mythsthan reality. When Kalama and otherobserver's report which sited that the Kudankulam nuclear plant is one of thesafest in world, was presented before, SP Udhayakumar, Coordinator, People'sMovement against Nuclear Energy, he aped the goal post shifting techniques ofthe Team Anna but for a terribly misdirected campaign. Replying to questions hesaid “We are not just worried about the safety of the reactor, we need to knowabout the waste issues, the decommissioning issues, the overall freshwaterissues. There are so many other issues that have been left unanswered untilnow.” Well just for records the agitation goes on and primarily because thesecurity fears are yet not allayed. The protestor just doesn't wish to listen,fearing what if he is wrong. The BJP's reaction to the controversy suggests whythey never filled in the vacuum that ideally they should have. It is theduty of the government to allay the fears, if there is any truth or unfoundedfears and assure the nation on the safety of the people," BJPspokesperson Prakash Javadekar told reporters. "Kalam is a respectedscientist. But we cannot comment, as we have not seen his 32-page report onKudankulam."

As a new year starts, the nation proud of its liberal character willstrongly counter any suggestion of censorship. But here's a little wish goinginto the new year, in-spite of the 29^th or 30^th December in Rajya Sabha, in spite of theRajneeti Singhs, the government must regain some trust, and the oppositionshould absorb that “It is the duty of the government” cannot be a perennialmot juste. A liberal country just cannot allow theological arguments to takecenter-stage just because of too much liberalism.

PS:
**Though I doubt there is something like too much liberalism.

** The image fascinated me enough to stop writing anything in relation withMullaperiyar Dam

Shades of the Color of Soul..

2011-10-19T00:10:00.000+05:30

As the battery of the Lap-Top threatened todie down, I switched off the music and turned down the lid, the power was gonefor long and the evening was getting darker. In the lonely silence of thepurposeless evening I lay on the cool floor as the rains and winds gatheredoutside my window. The leaves swayed and their dark shadows swung by my window,repeatedly sending the room into momentary grayness before restoring thediminishing twilight illumination. The enslaving lethargy curled me on thefloor and I peeped underneath the bed, into the fathoms of the darker shade ofgray. While the black concentrated, I rolled into a story.

The hills patched with the shadows of thelong pine trees, the shady, healthy deodar and the needles spread through thesilence of the slope. The bright sun filters through the vegetation and thehill resembles a messy chess board. The two talk loud and there echoes fill thevalley, the brook on the foot of the valley shines and the late afternoon sunfalls steadily. The green handbag in her hand creates a shimmering illusion onthe road as the sun filters through it, and then they go quite. On the nextturn is a temple, a small structure right over the hill lock, facing the west,the sun illuminates its unimposing modest entrance, the interiors are darkerand the shiv-ling is serene and cold as ever.

In the easing silence, one speak to theother, not knowing what is being said and then the words “I hear more when thewords go out” silence again. clouds, bright and expensive float over the bluesky and the stately sun. The winds go cooler and the sun more gold as themountain on the other end turn darker, an army of determined cumulus cloudsmove from the Mediterranean, the temperature will drop, next few days shall becold. As the clouds took control of the sky the sun appears through the crevices. “Its gettingdarker” he said. “Ya, It certainly is, and we have a long way to walk.” So theywalk again, a rucksack at the back and carrying the handbag.

“The sun feels like a silver disk, behindthe clouds. It looks cold and see its enjoying itself.” The sudden drop in thetemperature envelopes the road along the hill in a still silence, sporadicvehicles honk and grunt as they drive past, otherwise the silence is aspervasive as the fog that is slowly settling into the bottom of the valley.“When we are silent, we speak a lot more”, she suggests for the second time inthe hour. And he replies, “So does the sun shiver, when there are clouds allaround ? ” Another smile and the lights come down by another level, though itremains comfortably bright. “I have been thinking of these shades”, he sayswhile pointing at the rock grey and black on the roadside, “I look around andits all bright or dark in varying measures”. “Its all black and white in varying measures, no other color, no othershade exists.” She replies, ratherabruptly and conclusively, like a well rehearsed line of an act from the stage.And as she pulls her hairs back, the crumbling hairs reflect the slant rays ofthe evening sun, they were black, dark and glowing.

In the room the twilight had already faded, the shadows had disappeared andall that stood pretended to be a shadow of itself, I am lazy enough to have gotup and searched for some illumination, the power was still off. In aparticularly silent evening, the winds sounded like conch shell placed on theear.

The evening winds on the mountain road hassettled and the dark clouds continue marching in, finding space for themselvesin the dotted sky as the blue black of they sky is being slowly overtaken bythe grayish gloom of the evening. It would rain tomorrow, he thinks. “And mayeven snow” she says, drawing a string from an unsaid communication, “So, whereare we going?”

“I am not very certain, we may have to waitin a lodge for the night”

“Do you expect a lodge anywhere nearby?”

The moon appears and disappears, far frombeing the poetic silver it is more golden yellow, like a dying flame. Theevening darkens and they look for a shelter, the night promises to be cold. “Itold you its all black or white, look at the mountains, the trees and thehouses, and look at these clouds and look at the moon that goes white everyminute, with the sun gone the self consciousness is gone too and here you seethe true colors”

“You may be right, we need a place to stay”and he shows her toward a mercury bulb glowing like a distant fire about akilometer away.

I rolled my hands over the five o'clockshadow and thought of the shades of the countenance, I sensed as if revisiting thatold question once again, “are these colors, or are they just a deceit?, theseshades playing around me” The rains had subsided, winds continued the howlingand I imagined myself on the roof top. Looking at the houses around, theoccasional dogs barking, and the voices of the insects, on a night when wewalked a lot and had to take an unplanned break, I sat contemplating “So was ita good day or a failure”

“Does it always have to be a good day or abad one, or even a day with varying shades of good and bad? Is there anythingmidway good and bad?”

“I don't know, or may be I don't have to.Though there are things further from them, absolutely good and absolutely bad ”

Theysit down on the roof top, looking into the setting moon, the clouds cover theeast and the day is just beginning, the shades of dark and bright are givingway to the green, blue, red and gold and they look at each other, he walks downthe stairs pulls his rucksack, she picks the green handbag and her baggage, thegreen does not shine for now its not bright, the sun may not come out. Theclouds will color the blue sky with their shades, and she will ask “how doesthis transition happen, from bright to somber and somber to bright” “and, whatdo you like the bright afternoon sun or the somber looking cool clouds of themidday”.

As I stepped out of my room the evening hadturned dark blue, winds had blown away the clouds, while some scattered aroundthe horizon and I looked into one of them.

They step out of the overnight shelter, shepoints towards the east “Look there, look at that bunch of clouds, they are redlike ember.” And did she listen him say “wait for the lights to take over itwould be a white crystal."

Come On! Capture and Occupy the Rhetoric or I vs the 99

2011-10-19T00:08:00.000+05:30

I have been nagged by this for too long,just a bit too long. This year seems to be an unending year of over the top rhetoric,rhetoric which has snowballed into mass euphoria, who's drugged the world? Oras I always ask, am I too much of the “status-Quoist” (I pickedthis term from a pungently rhetorical TV debate)? Minutes within reading the we are 99%, I knew I am in a wrong wrong place,or as I always ask, am I too much of a wrong wrong one?

It starts closer home. I have had so muchfor the incredible revolution of the Modern Bharat. The summer was still movingin and the spring of the west Asia continued to remain romantic, amidst thesluggish governance and the inflationary graft, et alia the country osculatedanother freedom struggle. And I was Like...WHAT

Freedom, boy, Freedom, you won’tunderstand“d”, sixty years, 15 presumably fair elections later, we are in forfreedom struggle. You are young you won’t understand. Hei, you read too much,you won’t understand. Now I tell you kiddo, the issue is about how the countryhas lived for the last 65 years. Yaar, Why do you drop history into a youthmoment. So I never understood the Freedom struggle part, and somehow sat backwith naivety. I was the 1% then, the lonely 1%.

Well it’s still hospitable, I thought. Thelaws I understand are still understood. Oh the broken mirrors, the burningstores, now now now, that’s not for real. For all their apparent crazyweaknesses they are a decent law following bunch. What? They looted their neighbourbecause he had a bank balance, the other was beaten for his employment. The bottle of Champaign did have a lot offuzz. Now, I was not the 1%, but do you have to be the 1% around this madness,goodness a game of cricket was played and a few donkeys were sited. And whileeveryone decried the hooligans, the hooligans were in for fun and a BBCinterview. And the eccentrics called themselves esoteric!

And in my snake and ladder game as I travelfrom 1 to 99, I dare not speak of the Greek tragedy, or the Austrianromanticism, but I would gladly spank the obdurate Germans. So, I moved on andwitnessed an election next door, vote him, vote her, vote him-not, voteher-not, oh no, not me there, why do you ask me to be there, you are a crook, aperennial mala fide , you offend me. Look “I won”. Hang on, where were you? “Younever understand do you?, Here I am.”

Just when I thought I have resolved all, andthought I am anyway with the 99 I realised I was chucked, the Norris said “Some of the most miserable people I know are some of the richestpeople in America, they are the most miserable individuals I've ever seen.” So we go occupying, gheraoing,and honking(check the link) and we go doing so against a centennial sin,we decry democracy, we call for arevolution, revolution to occupy, occupy what? Oh, the occupation is symbolic,the protest symbolic, the honking symbolic, Abeiye bataa “for real” kyaa h?

Ok, then he is beaten, right beaten well.Well, the anarchist sees the anarchy hurting back. Where’s the right toexpression. So he was beaten for calling a referendum, not exactly he calledfor a call to referendum. Well the assaulters could have considered his lovefor referendum, and should have told a higher percentage than those who agreedto him at Chandni-Chawk would disagree to him this time. I did place thesuggestion, but I refuted, would an anarchist understand any language but anarchy.And the groaning from the kicks and undoubtedly manly hands had yet not faded,that a Bhatt immersed from the prison and started a season a new rhetoric, hecalled a sadbhawna prone CM acriminal and in the typical honesty of the charlatan pleader, he promisesjustice. Justice In this age makes quite a din before being delivered.

“Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits. ”“President Bush DID have a sure fire plan to end thewar in Iraq, However Chuck Norris was busy that day.” “Chuck Norris' tears curecancer. Too bad he has never cried.” Come on stop this, Where’s the sobriety.

An Infatuating Disagreement

2011-08-22T22:51:00.004+05:30

An idle self is a dangerous self, the devil's workshop makes little sound but it does fuel imagination. The nation goes revolutionary and an unforeseen spectacle folds before me, the self in its confused ambivalence sits before the computer screen with little to do. I had just heard a former IPS lady, definitive and loud in all her enthusiasm. I think I disagreed with her on a lot. Now in the idle cogitation the self concedes that the differences are bridgeable, there are many in the country whom I disagree so much more, and is not the alter ego so much enamored by these differences?

There are so many of them, they appear on the television and they appear on the news paper columns, I am tempted to listen to them and read what they say, how much do I want to hear them speak and how much I wish I could tell them they are so definitely wrong. Every time they are around they exhort me into imaginary debates.

The leisure leads to an innocuous act, I list them all, a countdown of those with whom I am infatuated in my disagreement. They are quite a few equally deserving, equally equal and than there is one the first amongst the equals, the one who undoubtedly leads the pack. The leader shall be talked about but lets venture into the ones who are still the equals. For now this list does not have an order of appearance, but that does not mean there's any denying the desire countering them whenever they express.

On the geographical top of the country is the lady carrying indefatigable eloquence of rigidity that effectively hides the politics in her utterances. Her father is a former chief minister and she can so well disguise politics for sentiments and disgust, rights and aspirations, and not just this she can do the vice versa equally well, the sincerity of her anger, the heaviness of the voice never gives away in an argument, but some like me remember that after all its an argument, a political argument.

Then there's a crusader, a prime conspiracy theorist, a professional letter writer, president of an one man political party, this professor from Howard has an uncanny knack of throwing important tea parties. He is objectivity and contradictions personified. One of the most audacious of all Indian writers, he claimed the constitution will be overtaken in a couple of years (just to assure you: that never happened) and then on a government change claimed that the nation is already under a planned foreign seize. His unique information and there equally queer sources, makes him the Swamy of Indian underground detective agencies. He is more thrilling than an Agatha Christie novel, somehow I can not agree to him.

It takes less than the first line of the Times of India article to get exasperated by the idea, yet I read it right to the end. Those hilarious pieces that I rarely give a second thought to, by the author of “the Second Thought” often claim to understand India, so often they fail utterly. A rather unilateral socialite version of India do little to cheer the spirits of the self. But the sincere effort at expression and the unarguable love and concern for the country however in contrast to my understandings does find a space somewhere, space enough for me to read her column's next edition.

I am tempted to talk of the first amongst the equals, so lets quickly get past the equals, the cancer surgeon with a indomitable devotion to the Lord and the Lord's birth place, the one who moved on chopper from place to place in the west of the country urging a cleansing. Being a surgeon he has a surgical precision to facts. Arguably the facts are often operated and sterilized before use. Also the famed Shaayar of our political class who has lost a lot of weight overtime, but remember his hay days and remember the couplets, somehow the insincerity gives away the person yet pulling out an argument from the pockets before him remains a wish, he would soon get a political party to perch upon. Some are still Diggyng there way into this list and some deserve a passing mention. The bartenders of morality in Bombay, the light on the left who seems to be too afraid of the US, the perpetually angry party spokesmen etc. Etc because one can never absolutely complete such lists and its easier written than etcetera.

Now the first amongst the equals, and this one is easy, The author of one of my favorite books sits right on the top, in fact she was the only one I could think about for minutes. Her articulation, the brilliant vivacity of her writing, the red cheeks that she compares with the Kashmiri apples (the apples shall be bitten into), her strange Gandhians and her proud adamancy lure into listening to her. She is not just strange, she is a compulsive confrontationist, not many take pride in a negative reputation bordering on notoriety. How does one debate with a person who throws a party at the slightest increase in disapproval ratings, whose self righteousness swells in direct proportion to the hate mails received. Give me a chance I would stand to her polemics, with the God of all words on her side she would say “It was a time when the unthinkable became thinkable and the impossible really happened” and I will debate with reason and without fiction and I know she would be comically good and outlandishly credible only to augment my marveling disgust, and consoling me, unable to resist the urge she would now say, “Some things come with their own punishments.”

As TV anchor shouts into the mike I ponder whether I am adding him to my list? “Not yet, It needs a sustained effort” said the self.

Damn the Version, let me speak

2011-08-17T08:12:00.000+05:30

Any goon on the street has the right to protest, and no government, no authority can pre empt an action on whims. We have often heard stories of how the autocrats impose purpose to actions that seemed even remotely uncomfortable to the regime, early morning today (infact late night yesterday) police in the capital of the country started detaining people and on a rainy day in New Delhi when the morning walkers were still returning back to have there breakfast an old man who claims to be a Gandhian was arrested. He had planned to protest against corruption.

Another version, No government can allow its authority to die down, no government can allow the legislations to be dictated from a parallel moral authority. If a group of self righteous man however moral come together with the demand for a Frankenstein that may undermine every institution (however imperfect) we have nurtured for the last six decades, than somebody needs to put his foot down and say “this is not done.”

Damn with the versions, a day after the independence day, in fact the end of morality is here upon us was known right since yesterday, a ruckus was played on the streets of the country. Sadly the ruckus was played at the democratic values that we so gleefully wear on our sleeves. The government, spineless yet obdurate decided to prove that it matters, probably this was a statement for those who talked of the governance vacuum too often for the incumbent’s patience, or was the government undoing the supposed sins of the RTI? or was the Delhi police really deciding things for itself and for once they turned virtuoso and acquired the so elusive efficacy? In the peacocks den as the clouds came down, the police, the administration and there big bosses acquired the grace of the dancing peacock and the wings grew over their backs. The wings glittered with pride which reeked of adamant insolence, and could anyone ask the obdurate peacock to look down at its ugly feet? And the peacock did think hundreds, twenty five hundreds had fallen to it charm following the birds ugly feet into the masters cage.

Speculating again, from the whats to the whys. stop this shameless game of dart board in the dark, there's no board on the wall. There never was one. So when a former boss was picked for a drive to the place she had so much restructured, from right outside the Bapu's resting place, Bapu must have been proud, such equity, such freedom. Was she traveling to Tihar? Asked the peacock in soil and green, who knows? The caravan rolled rather lazily out of the peacock den into somewhere. The water came down heavier and the peacock covered its feet, folded it's wing as they got wet. And the dart board that didn’t exist had holes enough for quite a few swiss franc bills to pass. And whose francs? Oops stop those question, why, what, who. Who cares?

The game-plan for this legal ruckus with all its fathomable might must have been drafted with a lot of work and this morning in that rain feed city, the peacock with its dragon fire strolled through the parks and the river banks, through the surreal corners known for witchcraft and the into the peacock den it went. It screamed, the peacock, ever heard it scream? That foul cat in pain sound at distressing decibels, the sound of the baby under the knife, the grotesque murder of the baby who got up on his feet for the first time, just the last evening. Incidentally the peacock has denied the screaming and has blamed the frogs for it. The frogs? Oh didn't I mention them? The peacock police usually feeds on the snakes, to its credit it keeps away from the bigger and the more dangerous ones but on days of utter emergency, when induced by rains the are around us everywhere, they aught to eaten. They taste nasty, but then they must be eaten.

Anna and his friends share a pie of fault and that must be written about too,but the crisis of governance seems too large, an unimaginative government that talks all law sans sense had invited this from a group which seems adamant on subversion, more later

Writing once Again

2011-07-26T00:13:00.004+05:30

Desperate scribbles on the paper echo through the walls of the silent room as the last drops of ink trickles from the sharp point of the pen, the haste increases exponentially, he looks around to check if he can borrow a pen, around his soldiers, tired he stoops while still leaning on the table. Then he thinks,

Am I obliged to write?
Why cant I sit down for the next few moments and then leave?

He closes his eyes, places his head on the table top and folds it around his arms, the lights go dim and he can now hear the unfiltered sounds around him, the muffled hum of the CPU, the cold groans of the air conditioner and the distant car honking on the far away highway. As he watches the flashes of lights play around his closed eyes, he remembers the comet that he has never seen and then imagines the splinters flying around in an island bonfire, the sand turning ember and the silver waters of the ocean that reflects the moon turn scarlet as they approach the fire . For a while he thinks of the isolation that he has so assiduously succeeded in creating for himself and then spends time wondering on the lonely wordlessness of the evening.

He heard the minute tick away on his wrist watch and lazily realized that he has a pen in his carry bag, as he rises from the table the lights go bright and the voices muted. So I must write he thinks, and starts again. What does he write? He remembers the lonely, schizophrenic father in a movie he recently watched, who repeated the same line over and again in a heavy volume. And then he hears the door open, the lanky, well built boy, steps in to the room, gracious gait and diligently dressed, he carried a friendly smile. Very late into the evening this sudden appearance startled and as he pulled the pen off the bag he finds the boy sitting on the table before him.

So, tell me a story, I hear you are quiet a juggler with words.
And what do you wish to listen?
Just any story, I am here to listen to you, anything that you have to offer.
I must forewarn you, not many listen to my stories, my tales are rather boring and often obtuse.
So what's the story for tonight?

And he started speaking, the ocean of love and the winds of sorrow, the land of Timbaktu and the king of Nowhereland, all appeared and disappeared like the characters in a Dickens tale, they came and went and came again. The twist were all anticipated and the surprises none. In the meandering, unending discourse of the pathos and joy of human kind the men were lost, one spoke and the other heard, the otherwise muddled phrases of the writer were vivid to the boy. They laughed together and they sobbed together and at times they had a their eyelashes equally wet. And then spoke the boy.

So where was the story?
I told you, I am no storyteller. You wanted me to talk didn't you?
Certainly, I wanted you to tell me tales, though you told no story but you certainly are quite a raconteur.
Ya, so I am, It's a pity though , I remember a lot, I don't forget at all.
I know a friend, he doesn't forget either, poor fellow he is perennially sad, he remembers every rainy day, every speck before the sun.
I try remembering the sunflower and the bird, and I remember the bubbly rose along with its thorns.

They went quite. Gazing into each other, smiling. The bulbs went dim again and the room went bright, the moon seemed to come closer and the stars gathered into a garland, like a Bollywood movie the interiors decorated themselves and a silent santoor played in the backdrop.

Is it for real?
You must know, you are here everyday, I was just passing by and decided to see you.
Then it must happen everyday, today seems no special, there was no mention in the newspapers of any unique astronomical phenomenon either.
Ya, it must be happening regularly, did you see it before?
I remember a lot, but I don't remember this. No doubt, I do forget a bit.
Probably you wont forget this time.
Oh, sure I wont.

The moon shone brighter, he thought of the day. It was another tiring day, not much good had happened, another dull day was wrapping up and from nowhere this listener has arrived. He remembers the angel who visited Abu-Ben-Adim and thinks of God. He knows he needs to write, but he needs to know who this young boy is.

And who are you, what made you come to me?
Oh, I have been wandering a lot traveling through the mountains, oceans and deserts and I decided to meet you. I had heard about you and wanted to meet you, we are in the same trade, I write the stories and you tell them.
But I don't tell stories, my stories are mundane, commonplace, everyday stories.
That's what I write and direct.
Then you are another boring, good for nothing thinker.
You may choose to say so.

Suddenly the impressive boy got up to leave, they shook hands and he said a goodbye. He didn't hear the door close but the boy was gone, the moon was nowhere and the stars hid behind a fluffy cloud. Another comet passed by and he rubbed his eyes, three pairs of bulbs were still glowing. And as he found a pen in his bag and sat down to write, he found paragraphs written in the diary and he read the lines one after the another...

I walked in the rain

2011-06-17T20:24:00.000+05:30

• Splash, chapppppp, and there it goes, the driver streams through the water on the side of the road. Water drawing itself like the fins of a swimming fish quickly settles down into the muddy pool at the road side. Sporadic drops continue to come down and a circle immerses, inflates and disappears on the surface of the pool, a light from the top of the building reflects and the walking girl flickers and waves as the winds tremble the still settling waters. A drop rolls from the top of the umbrella gets bigger in the downward journey and falls of the rim. Did the water shiver confused by the sudden confluence with the drop? Or did the little activity at the edge of the pool go unnoticed and even the muddy temporal pool remain indifferent to the drop from the umbrella? Whatever, by now the drop has lost itself into the stained, vanquished waters. The girl with tiny shoes on her tiny feet hops cautiously over the water avoiding any contact and the water shimmers partly to attract and partly of shame.

• The tree has gone heavy, it bows with a lot more grace, and with an added art. A few more inches and the shoot would soon support the root.

• Ankle deep in water, I let the stream run through me. A few leaves go around my foot, some cuddle for a while before they decide to leave. It sprouted off the hill, as the rains came down the water started flowing, as the rain patters steadily on my umbrella singing sprightly, its arms play around my feet sometimes caressing, sometimes tickling.

• I can hear it coming down, ya it is somewhere round. Here comes the one, right on the forehead, this ones on the palm. The spattered pearl spread on the back of the hand, I wont wipe it off. Now the mark on the dusty shoe and the hurry around me, the umbrellas opening, the drops on the shirt and on the face, the glasses go wet and the vision through them hazy. So here it comes, and the home is a long way away. Should I hide under a shade? I decide to walk in the rain.

• The darkness has taken over and the rain clouds appear like the roof dark and gray, somber and ancient. The moon floats behind the thin clouds and the halo appears to move through the mist, what was haze and mist now appears like the warm cotton of the quilt.

Tagore : The apolitical Gurudev

2011-06-10T19:41:00.008+05:30

"What language is thine, O sea?"
"The language of eternal question."
"What language is thy answer, O sky?
"The language of eternal silence."

The subtle Rabindra Nath has a carrasing method to all accusation that he makes.

I am not an avid Rabindranath reader but recently going through his conversations with the Mahatma and the texture of the debate between the two identities of India in the first half of the 20^th century I was able to reform a lot of my understanding about the nation and the nation state. I am not certain whether the political Mahatma Gandhi was more a nationalist or a humanitarian, but the literature and ideas of Rabindranath underlines his faith in love and humanism and the value that he endowed to the means over ends.

Characterstically of Gandhi his relations of mutual reverence with Rabindranath were built around differences. When Gandhi wrote to Tagore appealing public support for the non cooperation movement of 1921, Rabindranath contributed with these lines
What power is there in this world to rob me of my freedom? For do not thy arms reach the captive through the dungeon-walls, bringing unfettered release to the soul?
And must I cling to this body in fear of death, as a miser to his barren treasure/ has not this spirit of mine the eternal call to thy feast of everlasting life?Replying to the Mahtma he said "Power in all it's forms is irrational, - it is like the horse that drags the carriage blindfolded. The moral element in it is only represented in the man who drives the horse. Passive resistance is a force which is not necessarily moral in itself; it can be used against truth as well as for it."

Rabindranath sounds relevant in the present context. With the increasing debate over political and apolitical and the inflating confusion over the moral use of passive resistance Rabindranath's ideas demand serious discussion. A lot of our discussion has revolved around the adherence to the Gandhian values in our protest. We are fast reaching a stage where the morality of passive resistance needs a refined debate. Gandhi ji himself in 1948 expressed apprehension about the use of "passive coercion" in an independent India, sadly he could not live long after the Britishers to forge a means of protest against our own government and we have carried on protesting against our government, the way he did against a colonial regime. Gandhi's idea of protest was what he called passive resistance, he used his abilities to mobilise the nation to the best and Tagore commended Gandhi for his capabilities and never doubted his inclinations but repeatedly asked does the end justifies the means?

Tagore was uncertain that the passive resistance which sounds synonymous with non-violence was actually desiccated of anger, he argued that Gandhi utilised anger to channel the passive resistance and asked if anger can be the basis to a non violent movement, even if it is so, satyagrah he said has the potential to"beget evil on the other". While Gandhi and Tagore disagreed on what Swaraj is, they agreed that whatever it is, it has to be a process. Tagore was critical of protest through burning and boycott and called it "anarchy of a mere emptiness." He asked if the students leaving education institutes for no education is the process of swaraj?

Tagore repeatedly stressed upon the spirituality of India, he discarded the existence of an Indian nation state, he said politics can never bind this land and the nation state is a western political idea. His primary disagreement with Gandhi, was in Gandhi's effort at consciously politicising Ahimsaa and Dharma which Tagore believed maligned the two pious ideas. The India that Tagore believed in, is the spiritually strong, Karma oriented India. For him the politics of spiritualism not only trivialised the ideas but undermined the conscience of the country. Surprisingly Tagore even criticized the Swadeshi movement and called it an anti-colonial movement. He stated, "the boycott of Manchester had raised profits of the Bombay mill-owners to a super-foreign degree. This will not do, either; for it is also of the outside. Your main motive is hatred of the foreigner, not love of country." The lover that Tagore was and his views on India made it inevitable that Tagore would remain uninspired by a reactionary nationalism.

While Gandhi once called him an anxious poet, Rabindranath remained steadfastly committed to the Indian philosophies and beliefs "here is India, of about 50 centuries at least, who tried to live peacefully and think deeply, the India devoid of all politics, the India of no nations". Rabindranath apprehended the spiritual politics of Gandhi. He feared that the the politics may corrupt the spirit. whether this happened or not? remains an unanswered question, neither have the Gandhian ideals dwindled from the national consciousness, but the debate that Tagore initiated seems to have died down. Today in an independent India, While Gandhian fast and Satyagrah carry an irrefutable morality, the Rabindranath view of politics and nation are missing from our discourse. Probably the absence of Tagore is what makes Gandhi ever less effective and ever more politicised. India needs to revive the Tagore spirit, in the summers of protests a debate on passive resistance and disobedience is required, the communications between Gandhi and Tagore may well guide the nation. We need to remember and realise that Gandhi framed the appellation "Gurudev" and Tagore prefixed the "Mahatma" before Gandhi.

The "zH" in Kanimozhi and the Corrupt me

2011-05-22T23:29:00.002+05:30

Right at the peak of the summer heat I seem to have found some solace and consolation. About what and from whom? Don't Know and who cares? But this May fortnight turned out be an ointment of sorts. It could be the Sea of stories and Guppees, or even the dwindling bank balance that has infused some serenity into the otherwise perennially perplexed me.

What caught me through these 15 days was the ZH in Kanimozhi. She was everywhere, the reporters reported from the district court in Delhi, from the congress head quarters and from the news rooms. Invariably they had a varying pronunciation for the zh. Every time someone on my television said Kanimozhi I smirked. J, Jh, Z, Dh all was used but none got close to what I knew "ZH" is. So KaZHakottam continues to dispense pleasure even when Kerala is quite a few months behind me. Incidentally those live from Chennai on television remain better than me in the enunciation of the "ZH" and the cleverer once in Delhi quickly moved to the safer "Kani".

“Why can’t the corrupt lead an anti-corrupt brigade? You don’t need morals to say that something is immoral.”
A weekly magazine had it somewhere in its middle pages, this one was not expected to churn minds or roll many eyes.Afraid of the anti-corrupt brigade, I didn't venture too close to them. But these were like the words from a sermon and steadily all my doubts evaporated. My passport needed a bribe, my Birth certificate to be made on a week notice needed a kickback (I like the sound of the word kickback), every TATKAL railway reservation tickets I get are from touts, with all the chaai-paani, I somehow felt complicit. So this came as a liberator, as a redeemer.

I took joy in the Kani case and discovered that I am a forced bribe payer in a country where everything is systemically wrong. And I felt so much more comfortable.

The Rain that Refused to Go

2011-05-17T19:59:00.007+05:30

The road waves from the top of the mountains into the valley, like a river would flow meandering its way into the deep ravine. Still on the top of the hill, I can see layers and folds of the road as it patiently travels towards the roaring river. Beautiful in its Darker black and decorated with sparkling silver at places where the streams of water flows through it, the road seems to be the only one that wants the rains to continue. The trees are damp, the flowers heavy with incessant drops pattering at them, the soil has been steadily loosing patience with the dank days for some time now.

It has been raining for over a week now, a long dry spell finally came to an end. The clouds took over, in their blue black beauty they covered the sky, the rice sprouted with the hope of rains even before the rain, the mountain changed shades from the gloomy dusty brown and dry red to anticipatory darker shades. And as the rain came down that night, the tin on my roof played the music of the arrival of the rains, the Sarang, the Tanpura and the Guitars played with the tones of the rain, the winds hissed and the birds for once went quiet to listen to a music not heard for long. The clouds stayed on, the rain took a break and the river that I could see from my window sang in gaiety of its fullness, it hummed the loudest it had hummed for months. Some brown, dessicated leaves which were still holding to the drying tree as they were granted mercy by the unforgiving, warm winds of the past week, were magically turning green. The morning sun not bright enough to pierce the thick clouds remained unremembered, the winds that morning were cool, and even as gold abstained, green flourished.

As I travel down the hill I see a long crack through the road, the water disappearing into into the earth through the crevice, and the few travelers still traveling through the cities stranded on the either side. A tree, young by looks, lies by its chest on the road and the rains on my umbrella continue that unending musical track. A stone, marginally imperfect in its roundness captures the center of the road, announcing its domination in a time when a lot has been overturned.

It rained through out that day. As the noon approached the lights faded, it was a dark day and the rains were heavy. the strings of the Tanpura that started playing last night turned violent and the voices of winds gave way to the reign of rains, the quiet birds went quieter and a wet dog ran past to look for a shelter as I peeped through my study's window. The paddy got more lively, the trees assumed ever more enchanting green shades, the soil was settling to the new found sogginess and the streams were still looking for a perfect path to flow into the river, the mood around me was of uninhibited enthusiasm.

I realise it was just six days back. I see the textured fog float on the pine top, I move further down on the road that has already betrayed some signs of discomfort. The leaves that enigmatically changed colors lie spattered over the traffic ridden tracks and the flowers that caught the eyes draw an eery contrast with the wet tar. I take the next turn and the road disappears amidst a debris of the hill. I walk through the track made by the small vehicles which have found a way of travelling over the mud and the rocks.

The evening of the first day of rain I took an umbrella and brisked to the nearest grocery. The power was off for the large part of the day and I had to buy candles to be ready for a dark night. The rain had decided and declared "It shall come down the entire night." The evening was as dark as the afternoon, but the night promised to test. I picked up candles and things for the dinner. Every evening I walk to the temple at the bank of the stream, that evening with the relentless rains I stayed back in my little dark room. The clouds floated overhead and turned blue from gray, the dark night quickly took over.

It has been raining since that day, the power has been on and off and the close by grocery remains the only place I have been visiting. The dark days and candle lit nights give me good time to contemplate, and I always have an excuse to skip work, though I do sit for long hours on my study chair but the books have remained at a distance. As I reach closer to the valley, the rain partially subsides, the water in the river roaring, the loose soil from the mountain spilled across the houses, desolate village and a drenched wet pennant on the mast of the temple that I walked to. The tin tea stall is still there, but the gossiping men are gone, the bougainvillea tree barely standing, and the river is playing just under the little bridge. I walk to the temple, a debris of mud stands besides it, on reaching closer I could see the side crumbling under the rocks, yet threatened by the mud and water the temple still stands. The saffron flag heavy with the rain sways, the water waves with its new found ferocity. I bow before the deity, and hope to find someone to walk back to the hilltop.

The day before it rained, It was unusually hot, I sweated in my room as I studied and hoped for rains. Rains are beautiful I thought, the clouds, the accompanying fog, the green trees and the surprising streams that burst out of the hills. As the sun hid itself behind the great mountain and the cooler winds took over I walked down to the temple. Rarely do I pray in a temple but I think that day, I did ask for rains.

The rains refuse to go and half way to the hill-top it gets heavy again and the umbrella resonates with the teasing music yet again. I can hear people around my place, I find one coming to me, praising my Gods. Where have you been asks the other, I can see a detritus tearing through my musical tin roof into the room. Did I open the lock? Did I use the key? My computer's fine, the books are untouched, the debris touches the feet of my study table, it has swallowed my chair, effectively buried it. The roof continues to play the profusion of sounds.

In a True democracy none Reply

2011-04-21T23:47:00.002+05:30

Centuries back lived a king, in a large palace decorated with gold, silver, diamonds and rubies. The sun always rose in the east and the moon settled in the west, his people were happy, the grass grows green in my kingdom he used to say, the milk flows like the river, my cobblers are prosperous, my carpenter the best in the business. He was not wrong; in fact he boasted a little less, his empire had the best universities, the best Bazaars and the best artists. Such prosperity, such joy, the ministers all well read, well acclaimed, the masters of their subject. The king was revered; he was the lord of the land. The incredibly curious king read books, and experimented ideas, and one day in spite being advice against, he decided to inquire if his people desire to choose their King. The well read ministers said, "it’s not of much use, there's no reason why people would say yes." The king went on with the experiment, the people asked why this exercise when all is so well, we are happy, the king is good, and the God's are happy.

So came the scheduled day, and across the empire, under every Neem tree sat a box waiting for the secret yes and no, it was a festival of sorts, juices sold around the neem tree, people came voted and once they had voted the village headman's men took a note to make sure that no one votes twice. The King, his minister, their army, their sevaks and the plebeians all voted, one vote for all. The sun as always rested in the west and the day was called. The wish of the people would be counted tomorrow announced the king's courtier and the lights of the empire steadily went off for the night. When the cock bellowed early morning, the diligent officers of the kings collected the boxes, tumbled out the paper and started the counts of yes and no. The ballot was a secret, but the result was public, why should they choose their King when all is so good as it is? So as the sun rose higher in the sky and the sevaks started swaying their fans in the grand and largess common's court, came out the minister with the results of the count, he moved towards the king, the king asked him to stop and said "I will listen to the result along with everyone, do not come to me to whisper into my ears." The minister winked and addressed the crowd. He said "in the secret expression of their opinions a larger number of our citizens desire that they choose their King."

The court went silent, the gathered crowd stunned and the King stared into the vacuum, the minister continued "but obviously this does not mean that the King shall be chosen and the laws on the succession of a king and his retirement remain as they were." The King got up, with a signal of hand asked the minister to stop and said "in fifteen days from now we will have an election for the king, those who wish to be the king can participate." days later the boxes were again under the Neem tree, the juices were again sold and the sun again went to rest in the west, the next morning marked with the bellowing cock and the officer's went to work. This afternoon there were even more people at the common's court, none knew what to expect, the minister came out with a pause stood before the public, didn’t think of whispering into the King's ears on this occasion, and addressed an expectant crowd "The first elections to elect the King in our state concluded with the counting of the vote and the citizens of the state have decided that our king shall continue to be the King."

A long story cut short "In a prosperous empire, people wanted their king to be elected by voting, once given a chance they elected the king again."

Years later in a more descriptive land in a much more intriguing space, amidst the elections in the states we saw a revolution of sorts in the confines of a place that either fittingly or ironically has a name that invokes magic and surrealism, and on the urban roads of the land , Facebook and twitter came to life condemning anything corrupt in the country, '"this is the day nation waited for" declared a few and why not the educated affluent has once and for ever risen off his comfortable couch. No doubt it was a momentous occasion, the Laptop carrying technocrat had come down to the Mecca of protests, with chocolate in one hand, placard on the other, he marched from the roads to the chaatwaalah who enjoyed the sudden increase in sales. It was festive and the nation was bubbling, finally the tipping point was reached. The politician was nailed, the system was defeated, and when a little girl on my television screen proudly danced adorning a banner that claimed "Mera Neta Chor H" (my leader, he is a burglar!), many smelled a simmering revolution, but alas the conformist me, who was always inspired by the story of the democrat king was threatened by the gayety in voice of the newsreader who seemed to be in an inexplicable hurry, the only explanation I could think of was that she too had a bottled "Nimbu Paani" waiting for her to call off her fast, a fast of "uninterrupted and uninterruptable" babbling(as mani shankar aiyar being a politician was not allowed a say I borrowed his phrase as a part of mutual understanding).

The revolution seemed complete, the ideals were all laid down and the rich, the influential with all their erudition swore that they would root out the Neta who is the perpetuator of all evil that this land has ever seen. The candles burned and flamed the anger, the anger inflamed and the flames grew larger, the photographers huddled and swarmed, scrabbling over one another head they caught the moment, and in the photographers' fire some cynicist (cynics does not suffice to the grossness of their cynicism) saw a faith catching a flame or two. When a faith was asked to be replaced like the clothes and the Kitchen stove, a few sorry figures stood up to question, but then questions for a faith that is only half a century old are irrelevant. As I have already conceded I am a sad conformist, and on the first sign or sniff of a revolution I start worrying, so I was one of the cynicist, and I asked a few questions.

What if the faith is not ancient, it has yet helped us stay what we are, unlike our north, west, south or east, our democracy has provided us a unique position. And somehow the Netas have had their share of role in the proliferation of the democracy, why denounce everyone? I asked, and none heard. In the cacophony of the carnival of rejection I remained a loud mouthed cynicist, and I was condemned to a corner where my question turned into empty arguments which interested none. But I continued the barge of question, who if not the Netaji, I stated. The sounds got bigger, I got smaller, am I a minority? None answered, is this democracy? None answered, Who represents me, The Swami, the Accharya, the Guru, the Maulvi, the activist of the dams, the candle Lights, or What? None answered. Why answer to the minority, why listen to the minority, this is a participatory, open, true democracy, who needs minority, you seem to say I suggested, yet none contested. Anyone against the idea is a bribe monger, anybody with any idea is a dampener. Did someone say something, did I hear something? Does it matter I am a minority, a thin cynicist minority.

Why did the people ask for the vote in state of the King? He was the unimpeachable, redoubtable. Why need voting? Years back I asked my father the same question. “We want to have a say. The commons wish to speak for themselves." I was told. But why not let the most educated, the perfectly right minded choose for the nation? They won’t harm the cause of the country? It’s not about the highly educated he said, it’s about the greater good, it’s about the greater good of the greater number. So, that childhood wisdom was terribly wrong, those without a metric pass certificate cannot judge the right and wrong. In fact they are bound to choose the bigger evil, I learnt. It’s not just enough to be educated but it is the educated facebookphile, tweeting plebian that sees a strange affliction with Jasmine and Tehrir-Square, who shall speak for the greater good of the greater number.

I always debated, and none checked my instincts, somebody should have. I asked "Why choose the king again, what’s the point in electing to elect if you elect the same person all over again?" And I got an answer again, "The king was the suitable man and given and option the people rarely choose the wrong man, they want to elect to feel empowered and to make sure that no wrong man come to the throne." Hey give them an option I said, I thought I have a way out, I thought I have hit the bulls eye, none answered, the Television screen went angry, the countenance of that shouting man went angry, and I was given a good education. The Nation votes on liquor, the voting population is a liquor addict, cash ridden mass that sways where the money is, they vote when they are quenched. But the governments are toppled, Mps, MLAs loose, by your logic, being more powerful and prosperous they should not, in fact why don’t you talk of caste now? None heard this time and that angry man on television smirked with contempt. Am I talking to the vacuum, where's that education minister who listens them all?

"But it’s my land and it needs a different medicine, you cannot decide on the dose without consulting me" I sort of barked. But we asked you they said, we are your representatives. I thanked God, they said something. But hey wait a minute, what did they say? What did you say? I asked. None replied, some commented, some shared, some forwarded but none replied.

The Tale has a Flipside

2011-04-06T00:52:00.006+05:30

One of my post on this blog I talk of the tale of Kashmir. The tragedy of Kashmir I have often realized is the adamancy on either side to paint it as an insipid simplicity. A blog ( http://kashmir.wordpress.com/2006/06/10/fanaa-amir-and-kashmir/#comments ) on world press which reviews Fanaa from a Kashmiri Perspective now being circulated on facebook makes me write further on the inclination to overlook the key issues on Kashmir.

The blog states that the one of the protagonists took a bus from UdhamSingh Nagar to Delhi, which Kashmiris almost never do, as “The most convenient route is by bus to Jammu and onwards to Delhi.” And thus the writer draws the conclusion that Indians know so little about Kashmir that even their high budget films cannot deliver facts. For once it’s characteristic of the Indian films to muddle up geography, exceptionally here Kashmir is no exception to the rule that applies to the entire nation, additionally there is a road link between UdhamSingh Nagar and Delhi and thus the possibility of taking the road remains a point which our writer does concede. The point that I am trying to underpin is that while there seems to be an obvious discrepancy in the story telling but it is not something to cry foul over. I have repeatedly realized that many times India understands too little of Kashmir, but the fault for this must lie on both sides, while the apathy of Indians is apparent to all kashmiris, It is not strange for the population of the country to be a uninformed about and understand even less the pathos of the plebian who wish to impose passes on Indians coming to the valley, very often I am surprised by a Kashmiri telling me “Your country doesn’t care for us.” The complaint is an indictment of the Newspaper reading Indian who takes the good and the bad news from Kashmir far too casually, but it also is euphemistic method of stating that you don’t want us but our land.

The strangest argument was how the Kashmiri girl pronounces Srinagar in the movie, the writer obviously far to obsessed with his (pardon the mistake with gender if any as the writer chooses to be anonymous as ~K) restricted idea of Kashmir ponders “….[she] pronounc[es]ing Srinagar as Shrinagar, as most Indians do, but no Kashmiri ever will. It is Srinagar, not Shri Nagar.” The name Srinagar comes from the Sanskrit words Sri and Nagar which means the city of wealth or the city of goddess Lakshmi, in fact Sri in Sanskrit and contemporary Languages is pronounced as “SHRI”, this adamancy as recognising someone as Kashmiri only when the person technically mispronounces the capital city is similar to the resolute stand of calling Anantnag as Islamabad and overlooking a history that played equally important role in shaping the pride called Kashmiriyat.

The third error in the rendition by ~K further strengthens the belief that the unwillingness to look at the other side of the story, he eloquently writes “she quotes the famous words of Emperor Jehangir: ‘If there is a Paradise on earth, it is here [Kashmir], it is here, it is here.’ But, [She] attributes these words to Shehjehan. It sounds so stupid when movies with huge budgets make such silly mistakes.” Truly Jahaangeer then the emperor of India, who used to travel to Kashmir (a part of his empire) in the summers was so mesmerized by the beauty of the valley that he did say so In fact Shah Jahaan used the same words and the context was not Kashmir but TajMahal. So one never know’s whether the error was attributing words to Shah Jahaan or in replacing TajMahal by bracketed Kashmir. I would not dive this low in argument had the self serving writer not gone on to claim “It sure is not true for entire India. Organised killings like the ones in Gujrat don't take place in a paradise.” After years of unrest, and millions displaced I still consider Kashmir paradise enough and do not see any reason for anyone inside or outside the country to teach us lessons on co-existence and harmony, especially when the person who preaches believes that every political decision that the fellow Kashmiris on the other side of the border take would be dictated by the hegemony of the religion based Head-Counts and makes the unguarded, unveiled remark like “There are 99% Muslims in Azad Kashmir and I am sure they don’t want to become a minority in India and become become prey to a Gujarat like riots.” that proponents of such ideas actually talk of Gujrat riots with a holier than though attitude baffles the common sense of the common Indian. I will not argue about the minority rights in our adjoining world, but this hypothesis suggests a dangerous inclination of the ~K who claims to represent Kashmir and Kashmiriyat. For an average Indian this is an insinuation of a Kashmiri movement that relies, gets inspired and is driven by the desire to be a part of a land where people of certain faith can wield majority.

The unbridled imaginations let loose by an innocuous movie seems to suggest the unique history and culture that Kashmiris harp about in their attempt to distinguish themselves from India is a projection of the fear of being the minority. I need some right minded Kashmiri to tell me what historically differs Kashmir from India, is the History that you talk about is the history of 1947 or that of Jehangir or the Mauryans or even earlier that of the Pandvas and Kashyaps.

And to the countryman who says “Salman Rushdie created the Clown of Shalimar Salman Rushdie did not create the Clown of Shalimar, but Shalimar the Clown, and no Gandhi ever wrote the Ghosts of Kashmir, it was Shankar Vedantam who authored a compilation of short stories from Kashmir. At least get your facts right before propagating stories about Indian Secularism.

The colors of nation

2011-02-24T08:40:00.002+05:30

This place is a colorful place, color here, color there, color everywhere, transcending boundaries, from the inside to outside, colors throughout. Walk through the streets, they are color pools, from blue to orange and yellow mustard color of three-wheelers to sea green of the local buses, all cross the eye in one panoramic view of the clutter. It’s a bright, vibrant colored place. The roads are all color, the golden hay and the lime leaves, the red tunic and the crimson hairlines, the scarlet turban and the shining sand, this is a colorful place no doubt, we speak a language of colors of uninhibited, exuberant and amplified colors.

The colors and hues are often far too many, often maddening. The silver, gold, red, crimson, turquoise, blue, ochre bangles on display in the tiny overcrowded shop, the ladies equally fervent on displaying their share of tints, they are the bright pink to soberer flax, and where ever you go colors follow you in this land. The colorless water, and the colorful sharbats, the flying muddy haze in the highway, the appropriately named antique white of the colonial times, the candies of many colors in the grocer’s jars, the flying flags of religious and political organizations all add to the nation’s sense of colors. We are colorful people and we recognize our colors. The fast spreading translucent blue of the glass buildings in the mushrooming SEZs, the green backs replaced by rust red 1K notes, our color of corruption?, the so many colors of the shutters of the stores forced to shut down for the protests, the charred black of the burnt down trains, the flickering traffic light and the black and white zebra stripes that go unnoticed in the riots of color, and the painted walls, and their colorful slogans.

For years white has remained a favorite, the color of peace. Then came green with the farm revolution and the ensuing prosperity, and then white again as milk topped the charts, our nuclear weapons didn’t find a suitable tone but then sand of Pokhran often signifies our muscles, and with our madness for cricket we are a nation that bleeds blue, so much for colors!

And we talk in colors, we communicate in colors, the red of our anger, the pink of our smiles, the prosperity talked through our gold decorated fingers, the hunger through our sullied sienna skins. The boisterous vermilion of glory, the composing silent tones of understanding and empathy, the shrill blinding hues of our pro-activism, the sepia tones of our memories, it’s about colors everywhere.

And the colors seep well into the inside, the color of ecstasy, the color of success, the damp color of failure, the shivering colors of fear, the terrible colors of terror, oops terror I know has no colors, the bold colors of growth, the subtle shades of apprehensions, the color of charisma, the color of spiritualism, the colors of confrontation all merge into a eclectic bowl with a shimmering rainbow, sometimes a color increases and the other day another, the bowl stirred here and there and the colors play inside it creating a sight that beholds…

The Dealer of Mementos

2011-02-19T22:05:00.002+05:30

The nose was long and sharp at the end like the lead pencils, the numinous white skin had an orange tinge and it seemed he reflected some of the sun. He wore a bright white Kurta and stood in the middle of the street, all lonely on that hot summer afternoon. I would have recognized him as a character from one of my fairy tales but for his beard which was unkempt gray and not silky, streaming, snowy white like friends from the book. So he wasn’t jingling along as he approached, nor did friends in the neighborhood frenzied around looking for their smelly socks as they heard him from a distance.

His two arms supported a heavy sack over his shoulder, a red woolen rag peeped from inside the bag, a piece of broken glass diligently tried to tear its way through the plastic fabric, a rod jutted out to claim its share of attention , and there were stories diffusing from the bag. Somewhat interested I stepped off my doorway and stared at the bag and the lonely man in the street, as I looked at him he smiled conclusively, I assumed we were friends and I chuckled through my tiny teeth.

The gray bearded old man continued to smile and sat leaning on the fence of my home enjoying its shade. He rested by the fence with his bag lying beside him. We are tired he said and continued smiling, though neither he nor his bag looked tired. At the height of the day when mothers had plotted together to shut all friends into the monotony of the living rooms and I had somehow managed to sneak out, the man with bag promised to be the partner in the midday game of hide and seek, I knew little persuasion will bring me a good game.

You are tired, I stated not trying to conceal any anger. The smile broadened and the gray beard danced, shining in the sun. Why do you carry the bag if it tires you? I asked. A doll gazed at me from the open mouth of the sack, a single shoe with exquisite red lace decorated with sparkling plastic desired a foot to put it on. In the bag, he said, is what I earn working all through the day. A hard bound Pinocchio with long wooden nose smiled uncomfortably inside the bag and the not so old man continued, “I go one house to another, a neighborhood a day, I move from a town to another.” He didn’t work on simplifying his answers, he didn’t elaborate on what he said, and he treated me as an equal. I liked the somewhat mysterious cryptic answers, not often did a grown up man talked to someone of my age in the not so synthetic, tailored for the kid, conscious tone, and when my afternoon friend did so, he was puzzling but offered much attraction.

So you sell all this?

No he said, “I go around buying this stuff, from a door to another, I collect all I can.” He had collected much, the books, the copies, the cars that went ahead when pulled back, the bottles of orange juice that I drank everyday because I liked its sharp tinge, and some other dark brown and black bottles which I instantly liked for the artistic curves there neck had. I was already pulling things off his sack and spreading them around him.

It’s all there in the market I said, why do you have to come here to buy all this? He didn’t smile now, I felt he thought about it or he was attracted to the floating white speck of cloud that tried to hide the sun. “But I don’t get memories in the market.”

Where are the memories? I asked as I looked into the bag and surveyed it with searching hands, just if I could find some memories lying somewhere there. “They are there” he said and pulled out the red rag that so much wanted to come out. This is the memory, and then the shoe jumped off “and this is the memory.” He smiled again, taking pleasure in my confusion. It is still hot and he pulls out a tiny bottle filled with water, tiny as it was he emptied it in a gulp.

Are you still tired? I asked, preparing grounds for the game. He may have sensed the plan and said that he would sit for a bit longer.

So, who sells you the memories?

“The girl who lives in the first house in the block, she gave me the memories, the old lady living besides the temple even she gave me her memories.” Is it a gainful business? I asked. He seemed disinclined to answer but then he went on to say, “I make enough for living”.

I was still searching for a memory in the bag, I had spread the many detective novels on the floor by then, the news papers from years gone by, their headlines just like today morning’s and the scribbled notebooks. So all this is memory, I thought. And then he pulled out a doll, its hairs gone, a blinking eye closed forever. This is the memory he said, the girl who marries next week played with it through her childhood. This old doll all scrambled and dilapidated, is what she loves. This is her memory of the playful, carefree days. This broken glass he said, as he pulled the glass from the bottom of the sack, is the memory of the fleeting fury of the husband late for his work as he stormed from one doors of the room to another of the other room. He pulled out a charred Album, this is sorrow. When he removes the newspaper cover over the two dancing pairs, their protecting Plexiglas cracked, he said this is the story of long forgotten empathy, even I a kid then could feel a hint of regret in his voice. The newspapers which I had spread around the place were the consciousness of the nation. The mutilated members of the contraption were an engineer’s passion. He pulled out things one after the other, the bag emptied slowly and my little courtyard smelled of memories.

The scents of memories are strange, they exist in unison with all the floating aromas, yet each holds its individuality. Each scent can be sensed in its uniqueness, the air around me that day was such. I could distinctly smell somebody’s wedding feast, I could smell the sweat of the gardener’s hard work whose digging tool was lying besides the bag and I sniffed the expectant air from the letters in the bag. The poor report card smelled of sobs and tears, the newspaper reeked of scandals and conspiracy, the books effused invisible fluid of the fresh flowers that were placed between their leafs. And the detective novels had coffee all over them.

Where do you put all these things that you hoard so ravenously?

“I sell them” identifying a confused expression he added “memories stale themselves if amassed and collected in the closet, so I make sure they are regularly stirred.” I didn’t understand much but I did savour the vivid, fresh odors in the air that day. Through the rolling sentiments collected from the neighborhood he spoke “and hoarded memories won’t make me a living, you understand that, don’t you?” and he smiled again, the same conclusive smile that earlier made sure we are friends.

He had kindled a magic and amidst the magic he started packing his things, the newspapers went in, the bottles went in, so did the glass and the dancing pair. As they went in one after the other, the odors disappeared into the bag too, and when all went into the bag, the only scent that remained was a mystical peaceful odor, the odor strangely resembling the look of the numinous orange tinged face. He left with the bag and another cloud fine and thin floated before the afternoon sun.

And years later, when my music system was left with nothing but the plastics and magnets, I sold it to a hawker on the road, the nose was long not sharp, the skin white and bright, I thought of the long forgotten dealer of memories. But he was not my man. The beard was a flowing, streaming, snowy white. I made the deal, and did I see a twinkling tear on the veteran dealer’s eye? No, I saw a conclusive smile.

The Memories of Shaping the I

2011-02-05T19:25:00.006+05:30

I keep telling myself, I must be myself. In the lonely bus drive, in the later hours of work when the typing on the keyboard echoes through the large lobby, I keep listing the demerits of imitations when I am walking alone across the noisy, crowded street, and now as I focus on being myself I hate the hawker shouting from the roadside, I convince myself he is the posing intruder. The other time I keep searching the myself, as the sunshine goes brown in the evening over my roof, and the moon gets the color of ever more expensive silver I look for myself in the horizon, the distant me. Listening to the strangely soothing scissors playing over my head, sitting between the unending self images in the barber's shop, the idle I try to search for the image that resembles me the most.

As I board the bus I remember the mountain top, with the sun beating on the rock, and the Himalayas shining in the north-west, I place myself, only myself and just as myself in the solitude amongst the pine and just when I hear the amicable wind rustling through the woods, a sudden distraught feeling resembling anger surfaces and I aggressively resist the cacophony of the buses and sounds of their horns. I dwell upon the din and the din I realize is the plot to unsettle my insulation, a scheme to pierce through the blanket that I so laboriously adorn myself with. Then the anger recedes to give way to contemplation, on what I try to conserve? What I fear of losing? Why I must be the I? And what is the I that I must be?

Amidst the search inwards, I dwell around and go back to the curving streams and the sinuous roads, where the voice of human intervention is consoling and heartening, I go back to the brook over which is the little blue bridge, over which I walked so often. I was a little boy and I planned to own the bridge someday, stop all traffic over it and throw stones into the river. The stone drops from the height of the bridge falls into the water and splatters into the relatively deeper waters of the river. “Splash…” , In the local bus an elderly man, grey hairs, and lean looks stands besides my seat. Tired from the day’s work I am reluctant to rise for him, I close the open book and very reluctantly, trying to resist the proclivity to rise, I get off the seat. Without premonition another tide of streaming questions barge at me, and again the fear of losing myself unveils from the smokescreen of cryptic thoughts. Do I miss the shining dew of the morning assembly, or the wild berries that I guzzled, what attracts me to these sincere solitudes, what makes me feel comfortable in a lonely bus travelling through a lonely road with me as its only passenger. At this thought, I shudder, I am lonely or I am a recluse.

Am I recluse, a loner? The inquiry demanded an answer, and I decided, the answer is a negative. A strong confident no removes any reasons to dig further. The wind from the window in the moving bus seems frolicsome as it plays with my hairs. The hairs need a cutting, I realized. A friend to wish a birthday to, a novel to read, a note to complete and a movie to watch, I quickly listed out the plans for the next day, and thought of the valley that went deep down, as it went deeper its colors changed, the depth of the valley always captivated me with its ability to consume volumes, to keep everything so snugly it its womb. The valley of sporadic mango trees, of the rows of terrace farms, the stones that never got bored and never moved, the valley that turned damp every morning as the fog from the mountain slid into the womb that conserved all, the morning fog in those winter days made my valley white and wet.

The frolicky wind on the window seems to dry me, rid me of my dampness, how uneasy it must be I thought to make space for all, and then the deluge again. The questions that pulled themselves from the memories, stemming from every pine needle that I picked on my way to school searching for the elusive lucky needles that were found in a set of four. Invariably any day when I found the elusive quartet was a lucky day just because I had found it. Each pine needle coming back in questions, the questions always bordering around, why I must be myself? or How I must be myself?

I travel past a pond, leaves swimming upon it, and a lonely crow perched on a half submerged trunk, the distant lights of the city flicker in the joy of achievements of the day, and in the anticipation of tomorrow. The moon outmaneuvered by them, there on the rooftop with my family I counted the planets, the bright Venus, the red Saturn, they marched right above me, I searched for the constellation and when my parents pointed one for me I tried hard to make a pattern, and usually I couldn’t. In the bright skyline, the stars are nowhere to be seen, the planets are missing, but it’s beautiful, the brightness is dazzling and provocative, it stirs up emotions. Like the Himalaya, the valley, the pine it evokes the senses into admiration.

The Long queue outside the temple of local deity, the unending hum of devotees, a complete chaos, anarchy of devotion, the pattern less, incoherent chimes of the bells, thousands of them ringing in the small temple. The jeeps honking on the adjoining road, the sound of the conch shell, utter noise and utter confusion, and I was my own, no questions, no argument, I found the sounds, the clutter, the confusion all mine. I get off the bus, grasping somewhat of what I am, I am my memories, I am the beauty that brushed me while I travelled, I am what I am. The crow that sat on the pond tree shall be me. The glittering lights shall be me.

Contented I walk past the bus stop. The clouds floated over the blue mountain it rained, the green landscape was beautiful, the clouds came down further streams immersed, and vegetation sprouted, the rains continued and caused havoc. So what must I be? And how must I be what I must be? A dog runs to me, short and thin, I get down on my knees to caress him, the questions will be thought about some other day.

Tricolor politics

2011-01-24T00:27:00.001+05:30

When I see the tricolor fluttering in the wind, I feel a sense of delight, on owning the nation. The saffron, white and green come together to give me an overjoyed pride at the idea of "my nation". It’s an imposing moment when the flag unruffles, the petals of flowers fly in their gaiety and dance to the tunes of the national Anthem, and every time I am a part of this custom I bulge with the immensity of the occasion. So it’s somewhat strange,that a debate whether the tricolor should be hoisted at a busy crossing in Srinagar makes me ponder.

The symbolism of hoisting the tricolor in Kashmir valley is profound, the snow clad shivering valley will soon feel the warmth of patriotism, and it is a symbolic gesture to prove once again that Kashmir is an integral part of the nation. I wish as strongly as I wish to be an uncontested nationalist that I could appreciate these crucial interjections that are made in relation to one of the most fragile

regions of the country. I desire to have a logical, academic discourse with someone who could help me understand the reasoning behind the need of flaming a fire in valley to instigate patriotism, I would wish to dwell into the subject and try to find out why this patriotic bunch whenever in opposition can rarely think of any means but controversial Yatras to instigate nationalism of a kind or other.

I am not certain of what can be achieved through the flag hoisting, nor is anybody willing to state why the Indian nation needs two flag hoisting ceremonies in Srinagar to validate its territorial integrity? The only reason I can assume is that the opposition party wishes to undermine the government in the state and portray themselves as the savior of the Indian nationalism. It is a crude stratagem where if the government stops them from hoisting the flag, they cry hoarse about a treacherous government, and if allowed, they would claim that they were the sole representatives of the Indian nationalism in valley. These political nationalist thus see it as a win-win situation without having to own the responsibility towards anything.

The new found love of the BJP towards the tricolor is surprising too, in fact many of these tricolor lovers are those who revere the saffron pennant over the national flag, often express reservation and in innuendos suggest the fallibility of the constitution. To most of these ideologues republic day which marks the acceptance of the constitution is not particularly a day of glorification. The BJP and its fellow ideologues have different symbols of nationalism then those that the government of the country which is directed by the constitution propagates. Thus the present burst of patriotism with the hoisting of the tricolor rather than the saffron on the republic day seems to be a political game plan.

The other issue with the present adamancy of the BJP is the History of its government at the centre. Prime Minister Vajapayee began the process of cease fire with militants in Kashmir, he was the one who talked of Healing touch and contemplated increased autonomy, today the same party criticizes talking to the separatist who publicly abstain from condoning violence, they criticize any attempt at talking a way out of the Kashmir issue, and strangely when in early 2000 the valley was seeing worse time with heavy militancy and everyday killings and regular terror attacks nobody ever thought of an Ekta Yatra to the valley. This needs to be clarified why does the BJP turn into shrill nationalist party whenever in opposition, they have done many harms with their Yatras more cannot be allowed.

Its contemplative time for the nation. Even when the government is busy redirecting trains amidst handling the corruption charges, the BJP needs to understand that they have to be more realistic and measured in their approach to the issues that require careful handling. The years of BJP rules were brilliant times in relation to Kashmir, I always considered the statesmanship of Mr. Vajpayee the reason, I am being hurriedly forced to think it was because there was no obstructionist opposition that posed as a zealot nationalist party than.

Anecdotes From Kerala..

2011-01-01T10:50:00.004+05:30

The God’s Own Country and The Land of Communism

Back in 1957 this state became the first to elect a communist government to power, the shock waves travelled to US and prophecies were made from the USSR, and today as I walk on one of the three states where our own leftists play a mentionable role in the electoral politics, I am more amazed than anything else.

The hammer and sickle decorated by the red background is a ubiquitous presence and so are the churches and temples and mosques. The Sunday Prayers are more visible than anywhere I have been in the country. The temples are proportionately more active. The religions amidst there obvious competitiveness, have been able to coexist. At Kochi a priest at the Santa Cruz Cathedral takes pride in describing to his European audience how they and a Hindu religious trust work together for the poor, he continues to talk about the festivals and beliefs of the Kerala underlining the general harmony that the people live in. And as if delivering the final enchanting spell, he says “all this in a state ruled by democratically elected communist”.

The Santa Cruz Cathedral Kochi

This is the land of Aadi Guru Sankaracharya, and ParsuRam the combative incarnate of Vishnu, some of the oldest tales of the Hindu beliefs come from Kerala, the famed Sabarimalai temple near Kottayam sends Kerala into a spiritual lounge for a period of around two months. This is the land that sticks to the centuries old customs with all its gusto. The Christians call them sons of St. Thomas (the doubting Thomas of Bible, one of the twelve apostles) and claim to have lived here since the first centuries AD. Some of the best architecture of Churches in the country are here in Kerala. In a Synagogue in Kochi called “Pardesi” synagogue, the Jews narrated tales of their relation with the land, they revel in the stories about the invitation of the king of Travancore to the Jews to his place and also of the Jewish girl who charmed St. Thomas to Kerala with her music. Islam reached here not through swords but through trading seamen, and yet this state elects a communist government.

While the hammer and sickle is everywhere so are the religious activist from all the communities, Kerala at times appears like a cuisine under a continuing experiment with dabblers of various beliefs and ideologies adding condiment to suite their like. To a traveller the state gives an impression of being dawdling but is intense on the inside, with an unabated refinement taking place regularly. It is the state where the church, the Islamic preachers and the Hindu Rightist put much on stake.

There's immense goodness and tranquillity in the state yet all is not calm either, the clashes between the right and the left fundamentalist are common occurrence, these ideological clashes leading to murders and fatalities are common place. The Christians are blamed of structured and lured mass conversions, the Islamic fundamentalism is on rise and all this combined with governance and economic environment which many Malayalis have started considering restrictive is fast breeding a ground for what many predict shall be a silent revolution which will change the way Kerala works, for better.

Kerala must be closely watched, the tensions that exist in an otherwise quiet social structure requires some solution both economic and social. A liberal, often pioneering state like Kerala will find answers for itself. The answers that nation will use as unguent to its own uneasy itches.

Amidst The Backwaters and the setting sun of the shore..

The famed backwaters of Kerala are tranquil and also bustling with life, the salty waters of the Arabian Sea are feed with rivers in the south west coast through these backwaters which are fishermen’s paradise and a tourist hub. Peeping into the slowly moving waters of these pacifying and restful lakes, with vegetation flowing along is an unending leisure. The sea cutting into the land through the shallower waters has turned more sincere and reticent. Ever since it came deeper into the land it has been more considerate and more benevolent, the waters of the lakes invite into themselves. The silent waves are steady and induce confidence, and the coconuts and palms seen all over the state, bath in the still saline waters as the nature seems to collude together in the oneness of green, blue and the turquoise, all colours in the scenery are a gradual shift of shade from the panoramic blue of the lake.

A Fisherman's Boat on the Velly Beach

The Vembanad lake, 96 kilometres in its north-south extent is the largest and the most evoked of the lakes in the backwater networks of the south west coastline of the state, stretching from north of Kochi to Allepy (famed as the Venice of east) and further down, the lake forms an effective waterway which boasts of pristine beauty and varied bio-diversity. These backwaters are revitalising, the sea in them energises those who come in contact with the waters, the fishermen are feed, the water lover’s appetite is satiated, the rowers row there boat in zest, (the famous Onam boat race take place on the Vembanad in Allepy) it’s around these waters a bulk of Kerala’s tourism is focused.

The backwaters are mesmerising but I never stayed for long around one it was the beaches in Kerala particularly Trivandrum

The transparent clean waters at Kovalam and the its deep shore enthused into games with water, on the shore the blowing wind took the sand along and it seemed that the sand specks running on the shore represented the moving time, the nearby rocks changed colour with the sun from crimson-brown to magenta to darker red in the afternoon and finally as the sun set behind it, it was black and dark. The water changed its tints too but the waves remained milky frothy white. And when it was late twilight and the sea was dark black pool the white froth sparkled to the moon, the waves were like the white walls of sparkling salt running towards me on the shore.

The shores see a lot of activity as the waves come into the shore they wet the sand and for a while the wet sand reflects the colour of sky but soon the sand sops up the water and dries again, and just when the blue reflection is red sand again a wave washes in once again and the sky and the sketches of the clouds are again on the sand. On the forming deforming mirror children play football and cricket, a professional game of beach volleyball is also on, the boats stand in perfect discipline and they add to the grace and the aesthetics of the place. As the evening takes over music fills the beach, towards its western end an elderly man sings on a microphone with a group of extollers huddled around him, ice-creams are sold and a hawker throws a shining parachute into the air.

I kept planning and it never happened, I wished to see the shores of Kerala at the dawn, when a birds chirps of its nest, when the winds are cool and I shiver to them and when hopefully the dominant sound is the voice of wave, it didn’t happen this time but sometime again I would come down to Kerala and watch the sun rising over the rocks of Kovalam.

Water- Water Everywhere………. And a lot to drink…

The day after I reached Kerala It rained the entire morning and only after the mid-day did it relent. A lot of rain awaited us for the next three months, not many days do I remember when the clayish soil on the roadside was dry, it was always muddy a testimony to the last night’s rain. It’s a watery kingdom. There are the beautiful streams, with their clear waters, the shores of the saline Arabian Sea, the large lakes and their waterways, the Periyar and the Vamanpuram Rivers, the occasional waterfalls in the hill-stations of the Western Ghats, and the rains coming down so regularly.

This year they told me is a year of unusually heavy rains in the months of October-November, and that smelled in my room, it remained damp and soggy, dampness sneaking into the closet and to my clothes. The place is not hot but humid and wet, and with the abundance of water and a fertile soil the vegetation raises anywhere, the roof beside my apartment gave an impression of a carefully planned green roof garden, I needed a neighbour to clarify that a leaking tank and the Kerala air has together conspired towards this wonder.

The Back Waters

Even as it rains a lot in Kerala, and there’s water everywhere, the love of Kerala towards fluid is never too much, the fruit juice stalls are everywhere and they rejoice with their business, the glass of juice and shakes are invariably pleasing. At offer are delectable banana shakes, pineapple juices to the strangely named yet enticing Abu-Dhabhis and Sharjahaas. Anyone who gets a taste to the fruit sap that is true to itself with the minimal water will crave for it dearly once he is away from Kerala.

But then one disappointment in Kerala was the surprising absence of the coconut from the marketplace, and thus accompanied with it was the absence of the legendary “nariyal paani”. It was only in the commercialized sea shores that I found the coconut on sale or at a sole site on the pavement of the busy highway outside my workplace. I soon found a reason to it, every Malayali plants a few coconut trees around his house and he rarely needs to buy one. Not very lately on who brought coconuts from the market was in effect recognized as landless, with the increasing impact of urbanization and the advent of apartment lifestyle in Kerala, this tradition is seeing a saddening decay.

And talking of the drinks one story that cannot be left unsaid from the wet Kerala is about the long queues of the unwearyingly waiting men seen at many crowded neighbourhoods every evening, with a strictly government controlled distribution system and limited outlets, any booze earned in the state is spirits well earned.

PS: more to come : of the TechnoPark in the red-country, the kings of Travancore and their temples, and the meals that feed us through the stay....

The Post that must not have a title

2011-01-01T10:36:00.001+05:30

At the closest turn an old, rickety white body, blue stripes, bus appears, rising and falling as it rides over the tricky road that leads to me. Waiting on the bus stop for the last few minutes asking the riders of the passing buses, where they travel to? I have tried to decide a place to go to. Unable to reach a conclusion I decided not to decide. A bus shall stop before me and in the spurt of moment I would board it, and once on it I would buy a ticket to somewhere.

Travelling is joy, and travelling to somewhere, not knowing where that somewhere is, yet convinced that the journey is a treat, can be a disguised bliss. As the swaying bus arrived closer not just rising and falling but swinging end to end, its gait intrigued me. The bus stops before the platform and a girl gets off, somewhat gripping with her serenity, and as she walks in the aura of her assured peace, I board the bus to anywhere.

I have a bag on the back, even on a trip to anywhere I carry it along. The bag remains with me wherever I go, I want it with me but I like it light. In the bag is a thin book, a small pocket diary and a pen. The bus has many unoccupied seats I take a window seat somewhere in the in the middle of the length of the bus, I place the bag on the iron frame over the seat. I took a ticket to somewhere and that somewhere remains trivial enough to remember now. The bus is already speeding in its own unique gait.

The trees are the same trees I have been seeing for the last three months, the vast stretches of unending coconut hiding any habitation amidst them, the blue sky as it is regularly so, in this part of the country is dotted by the gray-silver clouds, the temples and churches on the roadside continue to surprise with the regularity of their appearance and the water flows in abundance like every day, unconcerned of where to go I like the water, trees and clouds. The bus moves leisurely through the town and the steadiness of my unhurried thoughts run in resonance with the motion around me, creating an energy that dwells inside me and searches for all leisure there is. The settings and the inside are curiously matched, causing a comfort that sustains itself even as the bus hits a pot hole on the road or when it sways from right to left in response to the sudden whims of the driver.

It’s still just past the afternoon and the evening has still not taken over. I watch a boy returning from school, a basket in his hand with his lunch-box and water bottle in the basket. The bus moves and I have much time to contemplate on all that happens around me, I have so much time to appreciate the houses decorated with palm and coconut trees. As I stay hooked to the scenery the bus stops for the very last time and the conductor tells me, it’s time. I leave the bus, just as I get down, I remember my bag, I need my light luggage I thought and went back to take the bag.

Some other day I will travel again, travel to anywhere and travel laterally around the dimensions, and some day like this one I will travel deeper as I travel longer. On every such occasion I will like the world more than I like it another day, and I would thoroughly enjoy the sensation of being able to like without scrutiny.

PS: I skipped the title because title brings a central theme, a destination. This is an ode to enjoying journey, unwary of the destination.

Eternal & Platonic and so Extravagant

2010-10-06T00:03:00.002+05:30

I have remained besotted with nature, I have appreciated the rising sun, often empathized with it when it sets, I have seen gold and silver ornamenting the neighborhood when others portend thunder. Those birds chirping early morning sound music to me, the winds often whispered in my ears and we together conspired notes of music at the solitary top of those hills. The rains brought me memories of childhood, of the paper boats that never sailed, of the art of origami that I so much desired but never comprehended. These trees they have stood here for long, they were always the older, caring members of the locality, and so vivid are those evenings when they counseled me through the hedges and rocks.

Even as the winds, rains and trees remain what they always have been, as the sun remains regular and punctual, I lose a day of sunrise, the other evening of sunset, I pretend I am too tired to talk of the composition that the enthused waft talks of, I refuse trying to float a paper plane past the window, validating the efficacy of the inaction. And as the lazy morning get longer I take my bath and wish to lie down again, after all I have a long day ahead. The sun shines through the clouds and peeps through the windowas if seducing an indifferent lover, I love my nap and am indulged with the bed I wish to tell, resisting the impulse I turn and lie on my stomach, this belly is getting too big for me, I thought for a while and then pulled my right limb and placed it at right angle to the left, I had gathered the bed sheet right under me and the sun continued its desperate effort at getting some attention, I hated it for the pestering.

The evening must have adorned itself with a few more ornaments and I was readily willing to overlook the site of clouds at horizon, the horns of cars and the hurrying trucks took prominence over the solitary song of the somewhat dejected cuckoo, a crow croaked and a cat purred and these were just incomprehensible sounds amidst the hegemony of the human alacrity, which was being blatantly declared from every corner of the road that I had decided to take. The celebratory noise of the human dominion is unique, it goes deep inside the layers of thoughts and occupies strange inflated volumes, the space feels filled with wordless sounds, the floating bubbles in the depths of layers collide and disappear too soon as the sounds inflate. And as the voices grow larger in the inside, the more coaxing they are, the more infatuating they turn. Every time a new sound is heard, a new temptation takes over and the fickleness of desire creates a sense of eternal incompletion and the maddening circle of desiring and achieving starts rolling for yet another loop, captivated by the wordless sound, I enjoy the merry go round knowingexactly where I will stop.

Every time I stop I hate the surrounding, I hate the neighbor, I despise the skyscrapers and the parked car, for their stillness is my stagnation. On such days I briskly stride past the roads or I would recklessly run to chase a bus. On a similar day, last Friday I chased a bus that wheeled to the nearby sea shore. I raced and loved my speed. I was thrilled as the bus left behind the pedestrians, even as there was no way they would overtake me, I prized myself breezing past them on the window seat of the comfortable city bus.

I ran to the shore, the waves raced to me. It was a minor accident of sorts, nothing was damaged, I claimed no compensation, and none of us was on the wrong lane. I was wet and the waves scattered between my legs, no words were exchanged, the waves moved past me and through me. In their marvelous whites shining against the sun, in the perfection of their built the waves diligently continued with their duty. The sensational energy, the overpowering wind seemed to have decided to take over, the boats pedaled and jetted to and fro before me, the sun glowing on the water like the expensive gold, the nature had come together and had contrived to satiate my desires to be feed with extravagance. The wind went stronger, the ocean bright gold and all the power and all the expenses lay before me in all their glory. Subtly undermining a lot that is revered, questioning the madness of desires and proposing the answers. As the sun gracefully shelters itself into the warm water of the sea, indifferent of its glory, unconcerned with the dampness of its place of night stay, I could see its content smile rising over the water. The waves of the ocean cheerfully roared on the shore and once the roaring subsided they were singing a sweet melody of reunion.

For the next half an hour I was on the sand, not moving much, not thinking either, prisoned by the steady transition as the moon takes over the duties from the sun. The nature continued its display of luxury. I was moving in a spiral, a journey in which the self moved from the larger circle to the smaller, as the journey continued the circles got smaller. From the horizon to the fisherman on his boat and from him to the large waves close to the shore, by the time the stars were immaculately displayed on the dark blue my spirals were moving within me, focusing on the body and then the body and the mind and for a fleeting moment it was just my heart that existed for me.

The hours were late already, it was time to return, and the beach had steadily gone solitary. I felt unsafe and alone and decided walk back, with measured steps and a relaxed gait I walked along the shore, the brown sand of the day had gone darker and the dark water sparkled at places. That perpetual love is reestablished, not a word was spoken, and not a word shall be said ever again. Yet these phases of triviality towards love shall recur regularly and every time a dawn, adusk or even the scorching afternoon sun shall outdo those infatuating loops of the merry go round.

the Rise & Rise

2010-09-02T23:50:00.002+05:30

The downy cotton fibers now fly, taking wings with wind they rise. Higher, over the shrubs, past the Neem, above the eucalyptus. Into the turquoise boundaries it elevates steadily. The carpet of green fabric glitters from the height, and the sun brightens the gratified petals on the altitude, glorified they sparkle, so vivid in there beauty. Sailing in the zephyr, it floats in blithe, in a voyage of increasing elevation, never does the steady rise betray a sign of haste.

The gust powers in from a distance, the grace of rise is mercilessly destroyed. The wings are dusted by the glittery dry sand, its no more white, its no more bright. whirl-pooling in the air a sudden descent starts. An uncontrolled, unnerving fall begins, more soil and more sullying continues and with gusto one final flurry of wind beats the cotton on the floor. Beaten it rolls and drags on the floor, the burden of history pains it, the weight of pang heavy and uneasy, the hour and minutes long and suffocating.

But as the hour goes a wind blows again rising over the fences and over the tense scenery the fiber rises again , traveling skywards once again....

A tale absorbing and cruel.

2010-08-13T19:09:00.001+05:30

I have tried to write about Kashmir on many occasions and on all occasions I failed desperately, to me and certainly for many it is a complex, strewn issue. Whenever I look at it with a perspective I miss the other, and there are enough perspectives to the entire tale. I say tale because I dislike calling it a controversy. As I cannot be factual and honest at the same time, and I guess being factual shall not satisfy me once I have completed this piece, thus I may be more of a lunatic traversing end to end on an issue that consumes the intellect of the nation. Do not ask me to be specific and to be ordained, nothing on Kashmir seems to be predictable and there is nothing like a destined line when I discuss an account that has engrossed the governments, armies and sentiments of two and a half nations.

Kashmir has been the place of Aadam Aziz the grandfather of the hated and loved Saleem Sinai our fabled Midnight Child, the state caressed by the love and acclaims of the grand Mughals, the state christened paradise, the land of the Kashyaps. Today it stands with all its identities unsure which to stand with and which to discard. It contemplates whether to embrace the anger or continue with the disconcerting calm, Kashmir muses upon participatory politics and the separatism. And tired of the unending cogitation, it seems it discards all.

Kashmir and Ironies are beautiful, for years I have marveled at the beauty of ironies. But for the northern most state of India it is a cruel irony. The heaven on earth is tarnished by pain, violence and the intense politicization of its dismay on the national and the international platform. One which should have been the most serene regions of the country and the subcontinent haunts the region whenever it’s discomforting stillness and quiet gives way to slightest ruffling. It’s hard to think about Kashmir, to think of the iniquity that this land of beauty has seen, it’s disturbing to go through the various lost opportunities of the past when this place would have risen as what Gandhi called “the distinguished land of hope”. The killings on the streets of the down town, the sons and husbands missing in thousands, the plight of the Kashmiri pundits, the increasing ferocity in the Chenab, the ever increasing chill of distrust in the valley towards the nation are always overshadowed by the naiveties like the third party interventions, the silent diplomacies, the fights to call Anantnag, Islamabad or vice versa and many such virtually irrelevant factors combine together to give us a meaningless profile of the Kashmir issue.

I wish not to talk of employment, development, medicine and education, when people are killed by rubber bullets these are no more the anxieties. The present outburst of anger has steadily made sense to everyone, as killings escalate the counterproductive nature of curfews and restrictions increases too. The government does not have many options either, but the repercussion is imminent. A land that is flouted as the paradise to the tourist has thousands of young men missing. It is not the lost paradise but the paradise of the lost. devilish underground cemeteries are unearthed on regular basis in the land which was once ridden of underwater serpents and demons by the Kashyaps, the mythical story of story of reclaiming the land from the great lake called satisar is being played in reverse today with each contributor drowning the valley in grief and distrust Like the quilted wrongs, the anger could not be dodged for long and today we see an angry generation pelting stones on road or verbal volleys on the web. Do we have a solution?

What is the way out of what is now being termed as a cycle of violence? I have my reservation to the term anyway. Over fifty people have been killed in stray firings by the paramilitary forces in less than a month, prime-minister in a televised address called for peace. He asked the Kashmiri youth to show restrain saying he understands their plight anyway he did applaud the forces for being able to work under the duress. The media strangely described this as healing touch. The prime opposition party which goes into the overzealous nationalistic mode whenever and wherever in opposition has asked the government to make sure that the security forces are in good morale. What needs to be criticized must be criticized, what needs to be lamented should be lamented. We are not in a war, our security forces are trying to impose curfew. Why bring in the rhetoric? We need to concede most of the stone pelters are our own boys. The day government does it and deals it that way Kashmir shall be lot calmer. Many unrelenting nationalist may criticize me of simplifying and overplaying the present crisis in Kashmir but imagine 50 people being killed in firing by security forces in UP, Bihar. The governments would have toppled. The parliament would have debated nothing but the killings. The Mulayam’s and the Laaloo”s would have decorated the security forces with adjectives unimaginable. One of my friend commented India is as much alienated with Kashmir as Kashmir with India, and at times I fear she may be right.

One can only hope that the unrest settles down and something goes right with this majestic place. With or without AFSPA the Chinaar, Gulmarg, Sonmarg, shall remain magnificent, A day before the autonomy or a day after the self-rule the Dal lake shall continue to reflect the imposing mountains around it, in the look for equity the spirit of the place shall continue to shape and reshape, and amidst all this a generation shall grow. We can only hope that words like Sufiism and Kashmiriyat remain relevant throughout and after the commotion that’s already over half a century long.

Writing: for the heck of it...............

2010-08-13T18:52:00.000+05:30

This is one of those occasions when I do something because I desperately want to do so. I don’t know what I am going to write or for how long I am going to write. Will this piece of undammed, directionless flow of thoughts be a presentable one, is the least of my concern. I write it because I want to write for the heck of it.
I looked at the walls of my room. The hands may have prided themselves at creating such homogeneity throughout the four walls, but for a bored I, this homogeneity was a terrible monotone. I wished I could see the mountains that overlook my windows. Alas it was too dark for that, in fact I saw nothing outside the grills and the nets. I wished these television channels had something better to air, and then I hoped that the walls turn into the spruce mountain. Nothing happened and in dismay I grumbled to the Lord, so many days I had not asked for anything a small miracle is what I demanded and you are so outright in your refusal. I nagged to him: I am bored.

And then I decided to write, to write for the sake of writing. And as I sat down the electric supply went off, it’s sultry in my study, within minutes I give up. I can’t bear the sticky smell of my body nor can I allow it to get any more gummy, when I was a child, which I regularly wish I still am, I feared my skin shall dissolve and wash off with the brine. I walked out, the dark was gloomy and the jaded me was quickly infected by the despair, I placed myself on the dark chair eyeing my dark neighbor on the darkened roof. I now knew I was gloomy, I searched for the reasons, I decided I will hunt for the next five minutes, if I don’t get some and the settings remain murky as they are I will have to cook some.

A dog barked in backdrop, a middle aged mother yelled at her son. It may be a daughter I am not certain, but then the mother yelled that must be a son. Can this be a reason of the gloom? I am a son and certainly my mother does sometimes yell at me. Not exactly, I have been a son since I was born, and my mother has been yelling at me since I was two. In fact the scolding and reprimands have been slashed heavily year after year. Also, had this made me miserable, I should have known earlier. The dog that barked was now barking on the road before me, a few more (dogs off-course) huddled together and ganged up to bark, fear and chase the interloper off their territory. I guessed I know what made me sad, the constant bickering in the name of borders, language and creed. I was certain I am unhappy because the man continues to fight like the dogs in my street. These dogs fight every day and so does the man, what brought this sorrow so heavily upon me today? Was it the homogeneity of my walls? No that must not be true, it was mid-day when I heard on the BBC about of those floods in Pakistan, of the killings in Manchester, of the trouble with Karzai in Afghanistan, and so much more, and I was fine than and in the evening. I even told jokes to the friends I meet while strolling in the marketplace.

What must have happened? I thought with added concern. Something terribly wrong has happened to me, I am sulking, I am edgy, I am losing my nerves and I don’t even know why. I was troubled immensely. I am also running sort of time, my five minutes deadline was tapping on my head. I feared I may have to fabricate a reason for the discomfort. That won’t be fair I told myself, I would be cheating on the self. Afraid of the cheating I concentrated again.

There has to be a reason, I may have had an ugly fantasy, a bad dream, or some problem with the neurons there in the cerebral. This thought frightened me, so should I visit a neurologist soon? Or should I wait and see whether this is a passing phase. I bet, I shivered with fear.

I could barely see the fat ant on the floor that solemnly treaded into a longish voyage. And I detested its calm. For a fleeing moment I had decided I need a voyage for peace, I didn’t get the sense of what I thought and I let the thought pass. But I am troubled am not I? I feel my head heavy on my collar. My eyes burning in the dark, my ears were listening to strange sounds. All of a sudden things brightened before me baffled I close my eyes, there were more sounds I shut my ears to them. I sneeze violently, I would have always aaaccccchhhhhhhhh… a piece of paper rolled into a size as small as a small nugget soars off my nose. The lights were the bulbs on the porch lightening from the reestablished electric supply. The sounds were the sound of the weeping guitars of the Beatles. And the discomfort was gone for now some other day when the world shall need me to share its sorrow I will be there.

History & Adamancy

2010-06-20T18:14:00.002+05:30

For the last few weeks 1984 has effectively caught the headlines in the Indian media, after what obviously turned out to be a preposterous decision in relation with the tragedy of Bhopal a Pandora’s Box of troubling unanswered question has been opened in public domain. Beginning with the simplistic demand of proper compensation and clearing the gas leak site of the toxin, the debate has grown into the Anderson escape saga and continues to get bigger with a former Supreme Court judge already coming under the fire of continuing shocking revelation. The 1984 disaster took place amidst a general election in the country and just months after Indira Gandhi’s assassination. It was the year that could well be described as the stand out disaster year in the history of independent India and probably this is the reason that the government was let off even though the handling of the entire case was far worse than what the word shabby describes. Now today when the nation looks back and asks questions, the political party that ruled the center and the state then, not only denies to detail on the issue but also does not fall short of suggesting that such questions are blasphemy as the person who ruled the nation than died a martyrs death a few years later, because his mother had died for the cause of nation a few months back and in the undertones because he was a Gandhi.

The Indian democracy has evolved and matured steadily is no one’s doubting. As a nation and a participatory democracy the involvement of the citizens in making the government take decision has grown considerably since the last two decades. But regrettably our politicians are still too touchy about history and there historic icons. The recent paranoiac responses from the leaders of the Congress party which include putting the blame of the weak charge sheet upon the judiciary, calling a senior secretary of the Rajiv Gandhi government traitor and claiming he has changed his political loyalty however laughable are a serious outcome of their unwillingness to revisit the past and decide the culpability. The reasons are obvious what if the onus of the damage comes on a government headed by the icon. From Rajneeti to the Red Sari there has been a repeated portrayal of the fear of downsizing the Gandhi’s from a position of assumed divinity. The grimmer concern is the way in which very often this political party tries to defend a proven wrong just because the wrong was committed by an idol. The voracity with which the congress defends the emergency is one thing but the absence of an iota of regret on how every constitutional institution was undermined is offensive.

The problem that exists with our politics is that decades down the happening our politicians do not have the grace enough to accept that “we floundered”. The apology or even an agreement of guilt for decades old mishap would not lose you your vote bank. Imagine how comforting it would have been for the Bhopal victims had the PM come out and said that, there were slipups and though we cannot undo all of them but the state shall support the victims in every manner possible. But that never happened. Instead when it was asked, what the government shall do? They retorted asking what BJP was doing for their 6-7 years at helm. Then as the anger grew the government finally decided on setting up a GOM.

There has to be a method of revisiting the past and learning from the mistakes. The people who are responsible for charting plans and roads for the nation cannot be adamant on the blunders of past, a party line cannot be decades and centuries long, the realization and acceptance of right and wrong in the life of a nation is essential. Such questions cannot be political in any sensible nation, the death of thousands and the facts surrounding them cannot be allowed to turn into a mockery of a mindless debate. The political parties especially congress desperately need to get there historical perspective right.

On a blind run.........

2010-06-20T18:13:00.000+05:30

he sky was still blue though moonless and patched with clouds, I tried to infer, it’s not very late in the evening yet. The Venus right before us shone bright, even as the somewhat stilted, shadowless giant black deodars hid it occasionally. The cool wind pleasantly brought back the memories of the hot day at a sticky sweaty destination. We were strolling down towards the tiny town of Bhowali in the kumaon hills. Even as the country sweated with heat, this place was comforting with its tender chill. Just hours back we were in a larger, hotter town, where the unshapely shopping centers were the only rescue from the sweltering heat turned murderous once coupled with the din of the place.

Earlier the sun was still completing the daily ritual of hiding behind those mammoth mountains, more green then they were huge. On the back of the open mini truck, just a foot or foot and a half above the road, cutting through the cool air we stood and could see the bright sun between a silver cloud and the towering mountain. The light filtered through the cloud, and the rays immersed to form an amazing spectacle. The stream of light consolidated with the bright heavenly cloud, magically transformed the sun light at the top of the mountain to bright yellow and sparkling white rain, the rays transforming to rain suggested a certain divine gesture and the truck curled is way down to a famous shrine of the region, the Kainchi temple. At the temple the unflustered serenity took over the buoyancy of the drive to the place. The muscles composed themselves involuntarily and the senses took time to slow down to the leisure and the minutiae of the place. The pines clustered over the temple, a stream flowed at its foot.

This all began when just past the midday, there was inkling for lunch. As clouds provided some relief from the sun, the argument on what we are doing sauntering in the heat grew? We were in Rudrapur then, a typical Indian town. Hot, hurried and unorganized with the generators running on diesel causing enough ruckus to create further discomfort. And then the suggestion, let us race up to the cooler mountains, yes we are late, its already past the lunch time, but then we can always squeeze time, run to the mountains at least 3 hours away and turn back with some fresh, cold air in the lungs before the night. The proponents of the idea were uncertain and those reluctant never stated the unwillingness. Without any plan, without the need for a road map we were off.

It was already twilight when we started the drive towards the temple of much revered deity of the kumaon, The darkness had started taking over when we reached Gorhakhal a cantonment area with famous temple of Golu devta. The temple is unique in its mood, at the top of the hill it has bells of all sizes chiming and hiding the walls of the place. The moments were adding themselves every now and then. The giant lake in the valley below us had begun to sparkle with the lights at the bank, and as the darkness took over there was no way we were getting a vehicle to Bhowali now. The walk down the cold road was always meant to be refreshing.

The breather on the stream of large rocks, the sudden change of unmade plans, the outlandish climate, a lake visible from wherever we go, some terrible food made a tremendous run, and with another 1 mile walk and some luck going our way, we were back in hostel by the midnight. The next morning was delightful, the sun hot as ever, the fan whistling overhead, and I was surprisingly unruffled after a good post-midnight sleep. It was half a day where no rules, no rationales existed it was all spontaneity. There was no fear of a plan going astray, no step we took and no direction we watched was restricted. It was a bit of madness and I can only wish for such madness happening to me more often.

Two Ideas... and more

2010-05-24T22:52:00.001+05:30

A new day it shall be tomorrow. A new day, I often feel doesn't need a new me, but every fresh morning offers me to shed the untrue insulation that I adorned over the past days. Each day offers me an opportunity to be what I always was and what I am meant to be. It calls me to be same everyday like the bright, famed and glorious sun that rises invariably in the east and proudly sets in the west in-spite of the day being dominated by haze and cloud.

It's so fortunate that I can assume "A sun rises in the east everyday and its not the same everyday"!!!

& The Third one....

I see the two leaves rolling on the road, mesmerized by the gaiety of freedom. They just broke off a branch their life may not be long now, but the naivety shall take them places with the wind. The life of reckless innocence sometimes promises so much more, it sometimes gives too much to be overwhelmed by.

The Movement of Moments

2010-05-18T15:01:00.003+05:30

There remains a continuing struggle between the joy of action and the comfort of inaction. Some say in every inaction there is an action, the other talk about the movement in the moments of leisure. For me it is like the waving flag, which in its leisurely motions acts incessantly and I can now hazard a guess that the action of the rooftop pennant is often inadvertent.

I see that saffron flag on the top of shrine in an incredible continuity of motion, as the buses and the cabs race pass the busy road I am impressed by the movement of the standing flag, somebody tells me it has been there for the last few years now, as agile as spirited as ever.

Flummoxed I was and I stepped closer, I had to cross the road and so did I, I could sense some wisdom shall come my way, I could smell the redolence of an experience to come. The flag fluttered gracefully like the butterfly's wings would when it wakes up from a sweet reverie.

The motion was not the only sign of life, as I reached closer I could hear the sound of the voice of flag, the steady leitmotif not musical in true senses but reassuring it was and just than I saw an arm pointing at me beckoning me towards itself. It was an orange decorated figure with the palm merging with the fingers. It was through the ever appearing, ever disappearing folds of textile that the hand flickered before me for a moment of unreserved faith.

As I reach closer the sound of voice grows. By now the distinction of understanding life and static was quickly blurring into the fine cool morning wind, and I decided its a soliloquy of a flag that I hear. The syllables grew louder, the sounds grew distinct and I could hear a clear synchrony. The language? In the lightness of being I could not make out the language or I never tried to recognize the restrictions of scripts.

A newspaper vendor runs past me,a football style shoulder push. I do not want to get distracted and the voice continue to be heard, after crossing the road reaching the shadow of shrine I could distinguish two voices. Now I need the answer, where is the second source? Who speaks in the sound of ether? I think loud, louder than ever before. The buses continue to run, engines must be snoring early morning, but for now I can not hear them, I hear the pennant answering, its the wind that sings the songs of eternal unification and the textile is joyously attuned with it.

And a new conversation begins, my with the saffron triangle that very short while back was a lifeless textile. The flag tells me of the gentle cuddles with the wind, of the inseparability with the music of nature, of listening to the birds and crows, it tells me of the heat and rain of the summer days, of the ever increasing warmth in the caresses of wind as the day goes by, the flag is already personalized, much more than the nearby tobacco shopkeeper. Finally he tells me of the joy of being still, steady and watching the sun rise every morning and seeing it hide behind the mountain side as the day progresses. What attracted me was the intense action,and as I talked what bound me was the contemplative silence. The unflinching composure, the motivating indifference towards the surrounding chaotic hurry teaches me the action in inaction.

The ever moving, the ever transitory flag on the top of the roadside shrine brings stillness into a new domain, in its leisure how often does it magnify and stretch seconds, to place more movement in the moments that drift for it when they race all around it.

Wandering Thoughts

2010-04-26T23:58:00.003+05:30

The stream sang, the waft danced, and I was a bemused spectator. The music was exclusively for me, it was for the solitary me that the air and water had come together to caress and to sing a lullaby; alas the reverie was broken as a heavy truck honked loudly on the highway.

I am ammused listening to the gentle steps of the passing moments, I talk to the minutes as they chug down non-challantly like a friend departing with the slow train on the platform.

I discussed what conditions and conditioning is. It is interesting how very often when I declare that I wish to do things or I wish to tread this path by my own conditions I overlook the conditions that are unwittingly being imposed upon those around me. The irony of the entire situation is that while I live by my conditions I demand unconditioned love.

A maddening pilgrimage.

2010-04-19T10:35:00.006+05:30

Not a month had passed since that famed madness from Ziddane in the world cup finals that my four years of cautious insanity began; these are the four fathomless, farcical, fabulous, farraginous, fantastic, farzi years now running to an end.

It has been a see saw between the highs and the utterly disappointing anticlimaxes, my measure of myself has fluctuated at a rate that would shame the Bombay stock exchange, These were the years during which disassociation was so easily and quickly overtaken by maddening bearish embraces, and the proximity was so easily destroyed to trouble the myopic me. The great depressions were assumed to be many, and the self-fabricated, self-imagined sab-time crises even more. If anything remained intransigent was the realization that I am boarded on a nonstop Duranto that stops only once. So much for the Mamta... .I shall have my hands over the heart and swear, board on Duranto never meant bored in Duranto. it was happening time, just that the why of happening even with much persuasion and seduction didn't reveal itself with the regularity that would comfort the inquisitive me, and the resulting desperation often pushed the limits of the queries, though non bore the promised fruits.

These were like the Dicken's time, the best of them and the worst of them. The four unfathomable years turned out to be a story of ever increasing empathy with myself and with the ever increasing kinship of the engineering graduates, it turned out to be a sordid tale of anger upon the disregard of joy, and it was about the ecstasy of learning and the discomfiture of occasional stagnation. This was like the journey when I travel home, the bus goes up and it comes down and climbs up again. In the process covering distances earlier I used to struggle with travel sickness. Things have changed now I go back home insulated with the ups and downs of the bus, listening to the music and forgetting the road, now I regret that I do not see the content fishes of the trickling green blue river but I travel comfortable unnerved by the spiraling bus on which I sit yet the more I think the things have changed the more they remain the same..

The four farraginous years were supposed to rally around changes, change from the uniformity of school to the aspirational challenges of the graduation. I feared changes and yet I desired them. The transitions approached ever so steadily characteristically pussyfooted. The desires didn't quench and sometime in between, when that nonstop engine had already caught speed an articulate, eloquent black American declared "we can change". Yes together we can, he said and that repeating twitch came to surface. I was already bored of the annoying monolithic Duranto, not bored in Duranto has to be specified again. The desire to stop and enjoy the landscape was overpowering the rational to move with the prototyped caravan. I wish this journey into graduating could have had some moments of leisure where I and kinship could sit down on a night's halt at some oasis and discuss our discoveries of the day. The call of that unsuspecting or in our case I should say uncaring, indifferent black American towards change echoed with many in my shire but that moment of leisure that Utopian hour of sitting around the fire sharing and enjoying learning has so far remained elusive.

The things got smaller and fickle. It probably is a side effect of growing, of maturing I should say. I could overlook those fishes for some comfort, I could write an exam with a few hours preparation and all this was like somehow stamping my growth and maturity. It feels silly calling it growth, but then is it how things happen? Even when my journey on the mono-graphic terrain was on, an iconic innovation had reduced the game of cricket to poly-graphic display of colors and glamor and short it was, so I was convinced that shorter spans and little attention are better, off course with some unflinching support.

Amidst the continuing journey things happened from the defeat of the giant Lalu in Bihar, to the struggle of the little NANO in Bengal, the overnight terror in Mumbai that certainly was different from our recurrent overnight terrors. Much more happened all had their impact. Not on the Duranto, as it’s well isolated to environmental changes outside it. It’s harder to decipher how it has been able to keep itself aloof of the changes in the inside. It is a maddening ride at times, it has promised to be a pilgrimage, neither the pilgrimage nor the madness is yet complete and I have my co-passengers with me to embrace any eventuality.

Of Desires

2010-03-24T23:56:00.002+05:30

Its a warm evening and the sun set red glows the tree, that goes from a dull brown to bright green as the spring displays its effect. Steadily the days get longer and the cold misty mornings of winters seem to be distant. What was then biting sharp and uncomfortable chill is now remembered as tickling cold, the hazy mornings are gone and the morning sun shines bright on my east facing window. I argue now, with myself questioning the reasoning behind weighing the mornings of two seasons on a lazy, drowsy evening.

The winters I often think had a promise of the approaching spring. I Imagined the leafless, nude trees adorned in the beauty of green clothes and red, yellow ornaments and I was blithe. As the spring takes over, my impatience grows. I crave for the green on the still dead trees. The uncomplaining anticipation of the grand tree that stands besides the road, saddens me at times and makes me furious on the other occasions. I desperately await leaves on every missing branch and desperation grows with every passing day, its like I fear a betrayal, like I apprehend a promise not kept.

This evening is warm, the heat forces me to live with the undistinguished hum of the three armed fan, the buzz of the mosquito distracts me from the joy of the surrounding music and I start disliking yet another season. I look back again, those nights when the blanket was always cold, when the thirst was quenched by the frosty water, how much I wanted a warmer day, I desired a cozier cabin then and now I wish to relive those cold bitter wintery nights. calm and serene, I can now remember they were.

The hours, minutes lead to seasons and the seasons are what I recognised I usually dislike. the heat of summer and the cold of winter are hard to overlook, but the other day what was disliked is desired, the cycle of changing needs complement the seasons and an unending mirage plays an unending game. As I get ready to put down the pen, to cogitate on something more worthwhile, I understand I like the efforts to fulfill my desires, in fact I live to live those desires. Desires that shall not only grow but also reshape themselves with the sun and rain.

"On my Forte"

2010-02-06T01:19:00.004+05:30

I see myself at the top of an old fort built on the rugged, rocky hill. The vastness of the scenery calls at me into the green-brown landscape with the criss-crossing rocky roads. I feel the height and the intensity of the winds fluttering against me at this height. I sense the laziness of the setting sun from the top and an old rock stands sulking besides me probably ruing the lost decoration of the gone days even as the roots of a mountain shrubs threatens to tear it apart in the present.

An audacious little bird flies in and I can hear it mocking me. I can hear it say there are things higher and over this windy blister. I tell consoling myself the blister is a harsh metamorphism, the wind I ascertained is hard enough and seemingly tests me. I stand for minutes gazing at the resting songbird, uncertain whether it is tired or if it wishes not to fly all alone, I can not appreciate why the thoughts have decided to confluence themselves on this tweeting thing that occupies so little space.

The bird I am certain talks to me again, it calls at me, wittingly challenging me, inducing me into swimming through the waves of winds. I tell her "Why do you ask for this to me, I am not the one with hollow bones, weak body and tender, meek fur" the floating is not meant for me. I stand strong and powerful facing the wind, the bird with its pupil glittering appeared to be smiling. Smiling I have learned is a lip business and felt said for the still waiting little bird without lips thinking "How does it smile anyway?"

A sudden gush of cold wind and I shiver the bird leaves the branch of the shrub that tears the rock, it rises and flutters around the rock, not inducing but seducing me into the grace of its flapping wings, into the music of wind, into open air and into the open sky, the little birds exhorts me into swinging my wings. I flap and flap and here I am flying against the winds, rising above the blister, past the past into the roads which I know I shall direct. The bird is no more there but I can hear it tweet and sing and I can feel it smile. Now as I land on the green pastures, the fort is high and over it I see an eagle powerful and large dominating the heights.

The Night that was...

2010-01-23T22:14:00.002+05:30

Live from CCF Pantnagar, TCS recruiting, I am bored and waiting

I have a shoe that doesn't fit good, a pant with size too small for the waist, I am placed on the revolving chair with sounds filling the eardrum, the Ts and the the Ss are too prominent. The vowels don't sound like music, yet I am determined to avoid calling it noise. The slithering Cs form the middle and those who were on there feet about an hour back are anticipating and seated.

The fingers dance with the synchrony of logic, the tongues wraggle as the overflowing, unaccomodated BITS decide theres no silicon stone further to keep afloat, the assidiously painted logic architectures threaten to go down like the cards,even as the transperent glass cabin insulate the sounds, the heat on a cold night threatens A'mangalam'.

The HR did call it a restless night and so it is turning into.

All Izz Well?? No way Idiots!!

2010-01-14T19:32:00.005+05:30

Why is it so, that a nation so obsessed with a handful of institutes that provide acceptable higher education has been so forthcoming in appreciating a movie that claims to place a question mark before the education system? How can it so happen that students and parents who so willingly undergo what is often referred to a five year ordeal (inspired by the now infamous five year plans) so heartily appreciate the epigram that “success follows excellence”? Does the success of the “Three Idiots” means that many in the nation believe that a rat race exist in our system? More importantly does the nation consider this Rat race as a crisis? Let us here evoke the US president’s envy for our students.

The Higher education as the idiots or for the sake of originality Ryan would put is certainly screwed, but does it matter to many, or do many in the country actually understand what the real trouble with the education in the nation is? A first look on the movie, and it desperately fails in throwing any thoughtful insight into the education system, a long way away from the uninviting realities, and one of the reasons that it attracted the country which shelters itself behind the cut throat competition of the school days, when it comes to the quality of higher education.

With the movie, the intention was not misplaced, the idea pretty appealing but with the concept Hirani could have gone places and he chose not to, either for negligence or for commercial reasons . The crisis of higher education institutes is tangentially different from the heavy bags of school days. Reducing the labyrinth that exists in our education system to an anti-common sense tale was layman’s idea. A film maker is expected to do and produce some exploration even when he creates a pure entertainer in which the director of an ace institute is reduced to a mocked upon, research paper producing archaic contraption. The situation becomes acute when you wish people to draw message out of your uncannily unapprised flick.

The movie is dangerous in the message it propagates. We can only hope that it was not the intention of the moviemakers to undermine the importance of books and theories that encapsulates common sense yet go farther over the simplified generic learning, we can only pray that the movie has not cashed upon the retained ire upon the education system that has made books and blackboard so much as villains. A graduation study brings with it many revelations, it is a joy going through historic revolutions in the field that you start considering so much yours, and the vastness of the subject, the depth of the hardback before you is an invitation. It is frustrating and teasing how in one stroke of commercial film making all this is nullified and how the nullification is glorified. It’s dangerous that none is talking about it.

The other disappointment is a more generic one, the storyline produced an opportunity to redefine the purpose of education and the definition of success but it was badly destroyed, the protagonist at a school in Laddakh was one of the stand out idea of the movie but it was all ruined when the school took a backseat and what shone bright was 400 patents in 10 years. So humbling it was for each of us who tend to take wings at time that even a superhuman, as the protagonist Rancho was, requires papers and patents to be called a success. Such a pity, and such a fall for what could have been the idea of the movie.

The movie aside and the response it generated, should the response be a worry? Certainly. The nation and its youth are tiring early, we do not wish to study further and at the slightest hint of such an opportunity we display the desire. The secondary education is a trial for the institute and course of choice (not debating whose choice), the higher education on many occasions mocks to be an extension of school, fortunately a lot of the action happens outside class and keeps many interested but the shelf life comes to play a role in most cases, the higher education should be path towards successes of life but it has reduced into a tool at the hands of credulous mechanic. The constant run and incessant lack of joy is one the many problems haunting the higher education, and this need to be fixed. Education is meant to produce bliss, it’s meant to contribute to joys of each day. This miserably lacks in our classrooms where the next term exam is more ominous and imposing than the beauty that decorates the class in black and white, the blackboard and chalk need to reaffirm themselves to salvage the joy of rising over common sense.

The New year Blog

2010-01-01T14:12:00.001+05:30

This one is short and in the spirit of new year. A time when you tend to understand the wonder and content of enjoying the change of celebrating the transitions, as small as the last column of the date turning from 09 to 10.

Happy New Year

Noisy and sleepy

2009-12-31T09:20:00.004+05:30

This is something that I have been thinking about for the last few months. Intrigued by the hum like sounds, of the noisy air conditioners, even fans at times. I have revolved and thought a bit around them. physicist and spectrum engineers call them noise or specifically white noise, though we are not going into the mathematics or even an introductory analysis of the sinusoids (why so rarely cosinusoid?) of the random signals uncannily surrounding us and troubling the so assiduous communication engineer yet there remains so much to share.

The idea that multiple frequency components, infinite here, that many philosophically talk of effecting life and energy flow cohere together to make those mathematical prodigies so much more comprehensible, is attractive and thoroughly lovable to any one who enjoys the game of generation through mathematics.The complete unification, the unmistakable utopia it is.Imagine the shouts of the rag-picker, the beating of the washerwoman's club on the cloth, the grand BMW rolling over, the radiating supercomputers all coming together to form one of the most talked about phenomenon in the science domain.

As I continue reading about the captivating hum, I am told it helps you sleep, it helps meditate, and it relieves stress, it helps reduce the uncomfortable din around you, and it can even insulate you from the constant bickering of your neighbor. Strange that its called noise, but than it is exactly so, a sum total of all imaginable disturbances, of all the competing sounds. Seems like the sounds that otherwise compete here come together in mutual understanding and see a face change, or whatever, but Amazon.com is selling the white noise for 3.99$.

“Today happens to be a beautiful day”

2009-12-26T22:56:00.009+05:30

"Today Happens to be a beautiful day" from the T-shirt of an unsuspecting young girl still in higher school; via the blog of one of her friends to me; this phrase has already made a few ponder and contemplate.

A nice day it is when the sun is bright, the sky royal and blue, when the green trees on the adjoining hill sparkle and when the dots of glorious, expensive white clouds decorate the scenery. What than is a day when the clouds dark as they are, rush in from the south west, to bring the resurrecting drops as desired as the elixir? who undermines the beauty of the morning fog or the glare of the cold rime over the shivering grass?and, the sun shining over the rime destroying, purging it is equally fascinating.

The sun is grand in the morning, red, orange and yellow it travels through the day ripening the wheat and barley turning the green to gold it sets down glowing red, not furious but exuberant and promising. The dark clouds on the other day make the green darker; the pines and deodar are quick to change shades as the drops defy gravity on the sharp needle point

Beauty probably is always this way, you keep overlooking its exquisite nature for long, the incessant beauty obviously can not cause flashes and is often corner shouldered. Every day that reaches me, brings the sun, moon, rain and snow. Every day nature whispers to me in the undertones, so delicately it adorns me with those commandments.

Wandering thoughts

2009-12-13T17:16:00.005+05:30

A miillion little things transpire around me, just as an innocuous microscopic green fly decides to relax, a spider prepares for an atrocious assault, the wall lizard savors the thought of an appetizing meal. And by now I had an illusion “so much work, so much attention”. It’s easy life, comfortable survival.

The single most important achievement of man is his ability to stand for what he has earned.

She is already into her twenties, a year older to me. I saw her playing with the pen knife, opening it and closing it. I didn’t stop her, nor did I draw anybody’s attention. Somehow the careless, unthought-of involuntary motion convinced me it was harmless. She left the toy placed it aside and I could see her hands repeating that motion over and again for the next few minutes.

Where do we point? Why miss the point?

2009-12-04T13:49:00.003+05:30

The Newspaper somewhat disquiets at occasions, I went through a project on one of the terminus of the New Delhi airport, a huge structure one of the most distinguished in the world, will be a symbol of modern India in the coming days and no more will we listen to jarring painful jokes about the capital’s International airport. The growth figures for the last quarter were released yesterday and they were startling and good, the nation seems to be developing and developing real well.

Yet I sat down this time to argue and question the country’s projection. The urban middle class is buoyed by the gush in prosperity and the media inspired by the glistening malls that surround there offices in some metropolis. The young educated youth sees opportunities and money floating around him. The nation senses optimism, a country that not so long back was sullen and cash ridden, where babudome dictated who could by a car is unhindered, and is relishing the new found profligacy. Listen to those voices acknowledging this turn around in unison.

The days of our soviet infatuation, when socialist dreams took eerie directions are safely distant. The irony is that not many seem to be ready to leave them behind. Unless we do so the prognosis is gloomy, with our inkling to take cues from pre 1990’s India we have rushed into consumerism and open markets, we are blinding our way from being a predominantly restricted economy to what may be a far too liberated market for a principally poor nation. The ghosts of the soviet ally India though a fleshless, impotent visage is forcing a brakeless drive towards unrestricted capitalism.

The nation has seen tremendous progress since the Manmohan dream budget, but what must not be lost sight of is the fact that this country is a welfare state in which many still vie for some fundamental services. The government as it has to cater to the people and go back to them every term end has kept a strict eye upon this aspect or at least it has pretended to do so. But the so active, the so noisy and often unrelenting watchdogs that work ceaselessly and unrestricted in the minutest scandal in metros are nowhere to monitor these efforts even within 100 miles from the capital. It was left for a Rahul Gandhi to bring the plight of Bundelkhand to the national media.The entire focus of our newspapers, of those thinking beings in the newspapers and the television media is restricted to number juggling, the national development in the psyche of many has been reduced to development around a few centers. The IPL is a measure of our progress for some, for some it’s the cold Mittal, some dare step down to mention airport terminals and others sporadically speak of the metro train. Talking of things below these strata is already out of fashion.

Our concept of economic development for the going decade remained anomalous.

Now that may sound a lot like the leftist craving on capitalism and inequity, it may seem like the articulation of all that’s not good in a world dominated by the United States. But then contemplating, reading, weighing and justifying over and again, I am here venting all that ire upon the blog. If it jingles like music for the likes of Karats and Yechuries, its unintended and no praises desired from that band either. More on that…

Of Joy & Sorrow

2009-10-22T15:12:00.003+05:30

In the marketplace I stand amongst the hurrying, teaming crowd. Unsteady and distracted I look on, peering into the eyes, peeping through the occasionally audible syllable. I can decipher much sorrow, an eight year old with bruises and cuts, a father of two with his fractured arm walks by, the mother unable to maintain the family budget during the festive season has obvious concerns marked all over the countenance, the incessant demanding shoppers drain the salesman on the counter of his patience, the man with the sweeper’s broom swears and swears hard.

I know I am willingly overlooking the joy of child as his mother aids his cuts, the fathers ecstasy at his kids assisting him, I turn my eyes against the shopping mothers fulfillment, I recognize I am artfully deceiving myself into perceiving the alacrity of the salesman as his impatience.

For once I am forced to contemplate is that hard swearing a loud, unapologetic expression of joy?

smiles: Of Joy & Sorrow

2009-10-22T15:12:00.001+05:30

smiles: Of Joy & Sorrow

Mused by Music!!

2009-09-04T13:03:00.001+05:30

The essential bliss, the uninhibited energy, the subsiding of all that clutters the brain, the inherent desire of joy, the wish to resonate with the graceful sound vibes, all existed together. Somebody sings in a hard to follow dialect, deciphering passages spread unevenly through out the lyrics, we appreciate every tone and every harmonic of the music that visibly fills the empty space.

As the tones from Thar, the dry, baked desert in western India display the colors and the vibrancy of the state known for spicy food and harsh, besotted tongue the music takes over the senses. The surroundings are either disappearing, or melting into familiarity. The vibrancy slinks through the pores into the heart and the brain and the oneness with the place and the music or an absolute dissociation with the setting is complete.

The desire to let go the power over the body takes over, the music induces motions, directs impulsive smiles, absorbs that residual energy nagging me for the past few days, the freedom is absolute. The trans breaks at occasions, I wish it doesn’t. I can recognize people around me, mesmerized, thrilled.

An hour with the melody, and now I wish to be of the sound. To rise, fall with the undulation of melody. I allow my hands to hit hard at the floor obeying the commands unperturbed by the sudden redness. I close my eyes my head resting on the chair, and it is me and me with the cheerful strains, all within me. I am the sound, I am the singer, I am the ears, and me the trembling waves. Following the periodic pattern and destroying them, both at the same time.

Shying from Debate

2009-09-02T20:47:00.001+05:30

Thus Jaswant Singh is no more a part of the Bhartiya Janta Party. His efforts to play a historian went largely unappreciated amongst his colleagues. The discussion of the historic facts, interpreting them and measuring the impact that partition had on India was termed as “a great sacrilege”. Another book has been banned in the democracy that bans the largest number of books, any possible debate on the faults of 40’s and earlier that lead to the independence with calamitous partition is again suppressed.

The book is about Jinnah, India of 1947, our unfathomable leaders, and the monumental errors of the past, yet paradoxically the argument is about the Indian Hindu activists, India’s need of a strong opposition, and about an apparently decaying organization. Speculations over the future of the opposition party that ruled the nation 6 years back are rife, a debate on how the obituary of the Hindu right party would look is on, reasoning that the group that has already seen at least three political avatars since independence is in for yet another major alteration or adaptation on this occasion, are being sold.

The silence over vivisection of the nation on the part of the political parties is conformist our leftist remained disinterested with the whole process than and probably are so even now, the central Congress does not have its slate clean on the issue and debating partition may lead to opening Pandora’s box. The rightist know if they do not properly indict Jinnah, part of responsibility may well be shared with their mother organization the Hindu Mahasabha, thus such a reaction to a book that indicates Jinnah was not a hopeless scoundrel but the Congress was also somewhat liable. To find that an exponent of the RSS is the one who bans the book in his state because denigration of Sardar Patel is an ideological challenge to the nation is amusing as incidentally Sardar was the person who ordered the first of the three bans on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

The crisis that India over the years has faced is that it has refused to mature as a democracy, the unwillingness to debate whether our leaders could have approached the days before independence with a different insight is just one of the examples. We have rarely shown the courage to debate upon the sensitive issues. Hardly ever do we discuss social relationship of the down trodden with the upper caste, our political party even our media has not displayed courage to discuss the reservation policy in terms of a social stimulant, the recent debate over the rights of the homosexuals also saw a similar fear when it came to treading into the realms of belief and traditions, how often we reject someone un-debated, un-debated we glorify men. Habitually we are a diverse nation that hurries into consensus; with those disagreeing preferring to stay quiet, sadly the only way we dispute is by burning trains.

Enroute to Ranikhet

2009-08-05T17:53:00.001+05:30

I love going places, I like watching the mountains, the plains, the vegetation speeding against me, a strange delight circumscribe me as I wish I could stop and feel the place for a bit more. As the distance from the populace increases and as the expanse of the mountain peak or the relieving silence of the secluded takes over the sanity, the aspiration to be of the surroundings, to surrender to the solitude, the fancy to let the winds undo gravity just for a while is absolute.

And as we hit the road this time round it was a drive from Almora to Ranikhet, both small towns in the Kumaon hills, one where I have lived for most of my life, and the other where I was born. Being repeatedly enchanted with places that you start pretending are so much yours is obvious. It has been a disappointing monsoon so far, not much rain has come down and the rivers faked as rivulets, rivulets seen in plenty the others years were all missing. The clouds though persistently decorated the light blue sky, and with the little rain that we had seen the pine, deodar and the oak had feed themselves to blue green beauty.

Driving out of Almora, with Bob Marley and Knoffler singing for us as the wind tries to catch up with the rhythm of music through the open windows of our vehicle we could see the entire mountain on which the town inhabits. It was structures and boundaries and structures and boundaries and a few veins they told me they were roads. It stood up like a creature in itself, fascination brought to the mind the picture of the moving townsmen as the blood and the fluid flowing through the creature’s body.

As we moved further away and went past a research institute working on agricultural innovations in Himalayan Sub Mountains the road narrowed down gracefully, loosing the luster of the well kept roads. The proximity defied human interferences and concrete if any didn’t vie for attention but formed a part of the scenery. We drove past a memorial of Mahatma Gandhi which being Gandhi’s memorial had his characters and it didn’t complain of the telling neglect, Monkeys and goats considered the occasional vehicle passing by as an intruder into what was rightly and ethically there’s. Bulls and cows challenged each others skill on galloping the longest in the shortest time, we could see the darker clouds and one of us predicted that we were approaching rain, amidst all this many lost there patience with the music from the gone days and within no time Enrique and A.R.Rahman were our new companions. The rain did come or we did reach the rain, they were hard, noisy, and lasted for time enough for the bikers to decide it’s heavy we need to take shelter in the vehicle with roof and to get down again and drive on.

Ranikhet is a cantonment town, perennially cool and beautiful, the mountain was again visible, the creature analogy worked again just that the creature had just bathed and was christened another way. Through the veins we went past the town, into the subdued sounds of insects, into the roads that spiraled us down a hundred meters. We could now see the towering temple close by, we could see the blue mountains, the clouds floating on and over those hills, but what we could not see was what otherwise are the imposing Himalayas hidden behind those impressive frothy white clouds.

We were at Hedakhan temple, a temple and a charitable trust, which a has a long legacy, the temple is a remembrance to the Hedakhan Baba who left his body at this place and is believed to be communicating with his pupil even today. The trust has its mobile hospitals, Ayurvedic medicinal centers, educational support institutions and more. The temple was a large hall with the Baba prominently seated as a stone idol, it is said that through this idol he speaks to the world. The fragrance was redolent of the purity and the vastness of the surrounding evoking the largish of human life. The trees, the birds, the temple, the priest and the priestess, we and our cameras as we photographed, our thoughts and our actions all persuading to be one. Very competently yet subtly we avoided the oneness, avoided the most apparent allude to the life in stone and the passive in us.

Of Believers and Believers

2009-07-19T10:47:00.001+05:30

I am not privileged enough to get the daily newspaper with the morning sip of tea. Its rather late in the day that I go through the views in the newspaper of the day, news in newspaper has somewhat lost its relevance since the advent of the all time beaming news channels, yet views remain.

As I reach deeper into the daily, into the international segment, open before me are two stories covered prominently on the left and right pages as I look on.

On says “Blast in Pak madrasa used as bomb making factory kills 16, several children among dead” the other goes “Is China fraying? Racial killing and heavy handed policing stir up a repressed dangerous province”

The two stories seemingly unconnected as they were to me, were connected by a mischievous and iniquitous statement from the Chinese authority claiming role of Al-Qaeda in the Xinjiang province. It is fascinating to have a communist regime digress to using religion to thwart an attempt at sabotaging its hold over the province, but with China and the present world order it turned out to be a no surprise invocation used by the Chinese premier.

The cultural suppression in Xinjiang, which even after large influx of Han Chinese remains a Muslim majority province, is comparable to the Buddhist Tibet. Ramdaan fasting is restricted, Quran is to be read in Mandarin and the majority of the province which is a national minority has been sidelined effectively. The resentment is obvious and the reaction of the regime predictable. The last occasion when a similar situation had to be weeded out in Lhasa, China used force as now, Han Chinese played up a similar outcry in the name of nationalism, the suppression was largely similar but for the fact that foreign media was not allowed in Lhasa or anywhere in Tibet, this time Urumuqi had a few foreign journalist who were not asked to leave, the web was not blocked with the same haste. Why?

The crisis in Xinjiang province is a natural outcome of enforcement of culture by the mainland China driven by its impression of integration of the nation. Dalai Lama represents Tibet across the world and symbolizes a peaceful struggle for cultural and ethical autonomy, thus China then feared that there act of violence would be deplored by the world community but a faith that has been tarnished by violence and absolution can always be subjugated to power and to the kind of claims that Chinese premier makes. That brings the fine link between the two news stories.
China called the Tibet issue an internal crisis that the world fraternity had no rights to meddle with, but the same Chinese government on this occasion called for the support of the global brotherhood to deal with the creation of terror. The pain of Islam is that it has not been able to distance itself with arms and violence, the voices of loath against such acts from the Islamic world, though they certainly exist in plenty, have been overshadowed in the media by the tapes earlier from Tora-Bora and now from somewhere in Pakistan. This situation is an obvious discomfort to the Muslims especially to those who are a part of the Minority. They are singled out, suspected and feared and at times there fair demands are eyed with misgivings.
Even as the decrees from those unwilling to concede to the reasons of present, who continue to live in an empire of the middle ages and who disregard the revolutions outside there confines, confiscate the desires of Islamic youth, the devious use of these circumstances for strategic gains further erode the confidence of a sulking Muslim. The fear that he who is caught between a developing world and most often an impractically orthodox yet influential clergy can go haywire always exists.

China’s reactionary statements are manipulating upon the prejudices that exist against the Islamic population. The widespread assumptions are not without reason, yet presuppositions are often unfair especially when used as cunningly as they are used on certain occasions. Unfairness breeds misjudgments furthermore. This cycle need to be terminated. Someone must decide on whom does the onus lie?

Rejoicing and asserting

2009-06-08T12:56:00.001+05:30

The longest political exercise of the world in the form of General elections in India concluded merely a fortnight back. This election as every Indian general election is was a cauldron where many ideas came together and each idea was a story in itself. If it was about the struggle for power, it was equally about the art of balancing your acts. If it was about an India that wishes to change it was also about its desires to hold onto to the past.

There were many stories during this election that caught the eyes, some over-reported, the others overlooked but each gave a sense of India as it is. The election was not only about the verbal bout between the two PM candidate to prove who is stronger, it was about a lot more, a Mamta Banarjee had decided to stand against the left in there forte, Tamil Nadu saw elections in the backdrop of Sri Lankan crisis, a story was building in Darjeeling, lonely lone created a tale in Kashmir, few villages in Jharkhand boycotted voting, a Gandhi was booked under the national security act, while another Gandhi was being framed as the leader for tomorrow, somehow 2014 was more intriguing for the opposition and they framed a PM from the original Gandhi’s Gujarat, social engineering as they call it was under another scrutiny, so much was happening and so much appeared to be happening.

Amidst all this as the April-May sun was beating down, people came out to vote in considerable numbers carrying out there plans without insinuation and as the psephologist predicted the vote swings and contemplated the distribution of communities the nation was deciding. On the 16th May when the fate was unguarded a lot was reframed.

They said, a national party is reviving in the Hindi heartland, the minority has shifted allegiance, the youth charisma has worked, the other national party didn’t find the right issues or didn’t carry them properly, they said a lot more, shouting into the television screens they talked of rural employment guarantee and welfare, they praised the countrymen for there insight, they praised the subjugated for destroying the vote engineering so on and so forth.

An election of many stories of many individuals gave out a clear indication, the nation needs no preaching by a few who claim to understand its need and the country does not beg for the intellectual capsules from those who follow the instincts of nation rather than guiding it. There were stories, reported or not, but were decisively transparent in there indications.

Telangana rejected the flip flop around the state hood, the already struggling Bihar mighty was further scaled down, not a single tainted “call them Bahubali” won from Bihar, the so called modern Indian faces were swept off from Gandhinagar to south Mumbai, Pilibhit and Kandhmal were won but were isolated, good governance from Chhattisgarh to Delhi paid and whether he was a part of it or not the common man asserted and rejoiced during the month long festivities.

dictated DESIRE?

2009-06-04T18:13:00.002+05:30

Read couple of articles in the newspaper today, both on the Tiananmen Square incident that completes twenty years today.Tiananmen symbolizes a lot. I understand some of them. Firstly the desire of a race can not be suppressed, some day “the people” as the say in China, will rise in agitation. An agitation that may well be as unpragmatic as the 1989 student rising of China was. Secondly the race desires collective wellbeing, very rarely is this desire expressed. Such occasions defy all prophecies. The occasion does not need some common minimum conditions to be fulfilled but one, the desire resonating in each at the same time. The third is if you can provide a specific challenge, which in case of China is a hysteria of leading the world, to the race you may well overshadow there desire that prevailed.

The question that comes out of a surgical change in desire of the Chinese youth with in one generation is what does the mankind wishes, Freedom of action and speech or the freedom of action and speech to establish money and security? The strength of a capitalist cum communist china is increasing; no doubt a substantial population has seen the benefits of the economic upturn. China has seen a spurt in nationalism, no longer does the Chinese wish a western system at there place in fact they aggressively defend the Chinese model. Does the certainty of a day’s bread and economic wellbeing overpower the desire?

The answer is found in the actions of the government or the party in China, and I call it action as what they do today is not reaction. The bulk of China has forgotten 1989 or they were not allowed to remember it. The student protest of 1989 enormous in its quantum has been very easily forgotten and not many care about it anymore. The protest is a story from the era when China was struggling thus need not be remembered. The naïve believes money is fine yet the shrewd knows a desire can be igniting thus the ban on twitter, Bing, MS live, You-Tube and so on. The shrewd knows desire is powerful thus the patrolling at the Tiananmen Square and the guidelines to TV and print to avoid mentioning history. So can a regime not only imprison but dictate the desire?

The strength of the Communist party has been its ability to seduce “The people” in China. They have placed a goal for the entire race, children learning English, Athletes being manufactured, strict rationing even today and more all for turning China into a great nation the greatest of them all. And when “The people” are busy racing towards the goal the party steadily compresses history, reduces the story of China to the bare minimum that it wishes. The party writes a new history of the future, does it wish to write the history of defining desires?

Will we see sometimes in the future individual, independent cohering desires shattering the delusive collective desire? Or will “The people” as they say in china, once they conclude one desire will be feed with another.

The approaching night

2009-03-29T12:01:00.002+05:30

Fade of red on the Horizon quickly dies out. The sky is gray, devoid of any decoration, probably the most somber it ever is in a day. This evening is no special its rather a characteristic one. The birds and animals have gone into there shells, the night animals are still not out the silence is cunningly big. The night not exactly a dark one is approaching, the sky remains dull, there's no star twinkling as yet, no moon to radiate, a gloom hangs around.

Its yet not dark and the features around are mysteriously monstrous. The fear of the darkness drifting in, yet not the darkest, makes them all look even more bewitched.

dreams and smiles

2009-03-29T11:58:00.006+05:30

Last night I had a dream, I smiled and beamed. A smile searched for me and reached me when I was the calmest I could have been and the most boundless I ever was. They tell me I smile very often but then why don't I always smile? Smile the way a child does when he really wants to smile. I smile, and I do so because I have to, not for others but for myself. Smile pierces the odds, breaks the shackles,induces energy and cheer. Fine I will smile, I will smile for myself today.

The spirits which often dampen the body will very certainly crop up repeatedly, so should we concede defeat and be a looser laying our arms aside. Probably not for we have the strength of “us” with us the “us” that he the supreme has shaped. The strength of an individual is immense. There is no reason that I should consider myself restricted no way that we are telling each other that we can do this or that. In fact we can do everything and is it hypocrisy? No,for the hypocrites give excuses we are daring. How often have we talked about the struggles of life? Are they worth discussing? the truth is either you are struggling and resisting or you are dead. Struggle free life for say even a day is weirdest thing to happen for one with spirit. So why shouldn't I smile. Who would stop us from radiating positivity? Even if somebody tries can he stop a bunch of true individuals from proudly proclaiming that they show off there lives?

The dream continues though now I am awake, Yet I am smiling and dreaming,or is it that I am just living? Non has lived without dreaming, non has lived without smiling. However why don't I always live?

On the road, I thought again..

2009-02-04T11:05:00.001+05:30

I was not too comfortably seated in a rather rickety bus on a characteristic Indian countryside road.The comfort yet remains a very subjective term, as one may often realise passing through the road. Moving on the road with a television screen like window is a tour through the highs and lows of the emotions.The Joy of the the small girl as she waves at you when you drive by saddens while the indifference of the huge towering structures interestingly enthuses.

The green farms contrasting the dark sky as the rains give a respite, were epitome of beauty there grandeur was unmatched and that had to reflect on the countenance of the farmer. Not only he had the means for the next few days but he had added grace to the surrounding which otherwise was dry rocks and flying dead soil. As the poppulation closed the beauty gave way to things I could envy, the giants stood tall humbly welcoming me,the harsh call of a hawker asked me to go to him wishing he would stop, the silence if any drew aperehensions.

I have always loved the sounds, the rising buildings, I have always appericiated the obvious hurry that man is in, I have alwaays adored the man's ability to change the face of earth, every single drive across those farms in there bloom tells me there are are means other than I know.Yet on every single occasion after the drive, I revert back praising and worshiping what I have always laid my faith upon.Somebody has taught me too well, I have learnt it too well so well that I can't unlearn it any more.

contemplating ...once again

2008-08-29T19:22:00.001+05:30

got a bad bad habbit keeps thinking and at times too much.

Talk of the day and it was exciting sleept between work people came and half awake did things.

It was wonderfull letting your instincts do things for you, not the most powerful the mightiest can let his heart do things for himself. They talk of utopia and what's utopia its all about heart and empathy. Shut the brains around the world ,keep the thinking caps aside just for few days let the hearts around the world talk and we would find the utopia.

a few sacrifice here a few there this the need for averting a few more for some time let the heart talk. A huge sacrifice on the part of a large group to live in utopia we are reaching there one day we will be there ..........................................some distant day for certain

2008-08-29T19:20:00.001+05:30

It has been a long time since I had a walk that's not my own , never in the recent past I thought of this. It's rather interesting that i claim the same not realising but moving and trudging along often with people, at times all alone yet the movement stays for parts it is a sprint and for periods its slow and somber crawling. Life has always symbolised motion and symbolism it is the epitome of the dynamic nature. together we move in directions often contrary, we move for our bliss its often on the opposite ends seemingly, yet we move together the spirit and the body carrying each other hand in hand , can you be forceful enough to pull the body along , or are we audacious enough to discard the spirits. I believe we can win , we can stand and love all at the same time with heart and body, the musceles and heart are too close to have disagreements they agree and desire the same. it's the me who stops the agreement who uses my brain bemusingly to defy the. Let the heart speak for you , let the brain think and just begin creating the ripples.

blogging now

2008-07-31T17:11:00.002+05:30

Growing up in a small town knowing a considerable number around you and recognising virtually everyone staying in the place for a gloat able time is fun. Very often you know a man is new to the town just because you don't seem to have hit him ever earlier .

As you enter this place a small english style hotel calls it "Haven of peace" . A small town,Almora, a unique Baazar, The carefree boys, The clumsy stores and more. The splendor and the wonder of the place is well concealed once you are in the market place . A foot here and there you are certainly in for surprises , surprises at their best. Himalayas calling at you from right behind the closest hill, the wind singing a serene tune, pure white clouds creating a perfect contrast with the dark green landscape, the roads spiraling through the mountains and the enormous valleys with ample trace of water.

Living amidst this beauty is wonderful especially when the place has an uncanny ability to spring the natural wonders at the least suspecting places. The winters are wonderfully cold and with the crowd of the honeymooners and the tourist back at there places this place is extremely soothing and energising .