Ruminations

There was a time, when I was in school and the Ramayana and Mahabharat formed part of course material. Thus it was that I knew even the complex Mahabharat with its many characters fairly well and could predict which episode would come next in the tackily produced Mahabharat that was aired on Doordarshan then. I took great pride in it too. It never occurred to me as unusual that a religious text was part of school course material. Many years later, and for many years now I have felt miserable about my dismal knowledge of other texts and cultures that form part of my country. I am quick to proclaim myself a secularist, but I’m never sure I even understand what that truly means. I now have friends from different faiths, and several of them have cross married. I’m always delighted when I see them celebrating each others’ festivals and explaining to the children their respective significance. So it is that Tanvi is as excited about making rangolis on Diwali as she is about picking out the perfect Christmas tree. And so it is that I almost faced a language barrier when I first met Sanaa, for I started to chat with her in Hindi while she blabbered away in Bengali and Malyalam with equal ease.

I’m equally distressed when I see youngsters so enamoured by foreign cultures, their concept of Diwali is more about playing cards and bursting noisy crackers than about the victory of good over evil. And of course I’m distressed by my own lack of understanding about my religion which is being misrepresented by the fundamentalist Hindu right on the one hand and simplistic and distorted depictions in films and television on the other.

Culture-al Woes

Sometime back I happened to be at a memorial concert for a lady I didn’t know and had never met. She must have been a good soul though for there was a hall full of people who had come to attend, and they were in for a treat of beautiful Sufi verses of Kabir, Rumi and others sung so soulfully that I was nearly moved to tears.

As I sat listening I wondered about the people on stage- those people with a talent that takes years of practice to hone and master. I wondered how old they were, how much time they would already have spent and how much more they would continue to spend on understanding music better so their performances could get even more soulful.

And I wondered how much money they made.

I am aware of how pessimistic I sound, but I do despair at this state of affairs where art and culture gets such a raw deal. How many more bankers and MBAs and software engineers will we churn out before we realise what a monochromatic society we’re creating? All the emphasis in our education system, in society even, is on securing the future by working towards a well paying job. ‘Competition’, ‘professional’, ‘job oriented’ are the keywords in a universe that is far removed both from culture or uncomfortable realities of any kind. The only ‘culture’ that a vast majority of our young population has access to is the one they see depicted on television in regressive serials- and that couldn’t be more distorted!

This is particularly sad because we have an incredibly rich culture- thousands of languages and dialects, songs, dances, literature and folk tales, architecture, sculpture, art, story telling and puppetry traditions, and more that can’t be categorised but contributes to making this subcontinent beautiful and diverse. How much of it do we really see around us anymore? Much of it has been reduced to being practiced by select families, and the younger generations even in those are not really interested in carrying on. They would much rather be ‘educated’ and find jobs that offer instant money than devote their entire lives to a craft that few are willing to patronise. A few years back, I shot for an organization called Kala Raksha based in Bhuj. It was left to an American woman who fell in love with Indian textiles, to study and write a book and subsequently start an NGO and set up a museum and a school to preserve dying local textile crafts of the area. She had little money to make the film, but we went ahead and shot anyway because she wanted to capture some of their genius on camera before the masters passed away, old as they all were.

Much of our adivasi traditions are endangered by the ‘civilised’ world’s attempts to take them into their fold. Instead of creating tolerant diverse societies, where individual cultures can flourish, the attempt seems to be to homogenise. Always has been, I suppose. What else are all the drives to convert people to specific religions? What are the attempts at ‘educating’ the masses in a Western style?

I’m not sure I know how we can stem this decline. State patronage comes to mind. I wish we lived in a world where people who have the money also had the conscience to do the right things. Then perhaps corporations (some of which are now so powerful, their turnovers are more than those of many countries) would also encourage art. But I’m old and cynical. I don’t believe anymore that corporations that run on the primary motive of profit, would ever do anything without some returns in mind. And if state support is the only answer, then given the state of our governments and their policies, I’m guessing its not too bright a future for many many artistic traditions.

:(

It’s a strange bird

It’s a strange bird: love.

Almost every text ever written has touched upon some aspect of it, we’ve read about it, seen films, heard songs. Even after all that we know or ought to know after all that exposure, we still falter through life making mistakes and yearning for it. Almost everyone who ever lived has struggled with love. How is it that the one thing that we should know about, is the one thing that eludes us? How is one feeling capable of so many manifestations? It is but one ras out of nine. How then does it dominate the creation of all kinds of art?

Speaking from personal experience, I can say that I have known several times, several kinds. I have always been grateful for it, even if I sometimes faltered in my expression. Sometimes it has sneaked up on me when I least expected it, or from quarters that I least expected from, sometimes it slipped away from where I desperately wanted it to stay. Sometimes it’s stayed well beyond I had imagined or anticipated. And sometimes it has come back like a boomerang, long after I thought it had died a natural death. Sometimes it has changed shape, devoid of a reason to stay as it originally was, or to wither away. Sometimes it evaporated altogether, without a trace, leaving only a doubt and wonderment about the reason for its existence in the first place. I refer here mostly to romantic love of course, though I, like each one of us, has known very many different kinds. And yes, it varied wildly in intensity, much of it was unrequited and hence untested, but that isn’t really the point.

I continue to be enamoured by it.

Not so much by its presence or absence in my life but by the elusive idea that it is. An idea that captivates all yet remains just out of reach of many, or with the very real possibility of slipping away anytime, for others.

It’s hard to articulate, but I feel a sense of mystery and wonderment and yet a submission, for there’s no other way really to respond- like you would while contemplating say the universe. Can we really contemplate the universe- its origins, its size. It’s always been there, and it’s always amazed man by its mysteries and continues to. So I feel has been the case with this one emotion that can fill us with joy and wring at our hearts with a brutal, physical pain. In another manifestation it’s the one emotion that can cause wars and inspire peace, in equal measure.

From where I am currently, I feel a strange detachment with life and with the world. It’s like floating over yourself, and seeing things for what they really are, stripped of the trappings of attachments that tend to skew our perspective. From here nothing is indispensable and everything is precious. Love is beautiful as it should be, but it isn’t selfish or compartmentalised. It is ever expanding, and it makes you see people that you never thought you could like, with compassion. From where I am, love comes easy. I see beautiful pictures and I love the photographer, I read a beautiful piece of writing and I love the writer. I see a good film and I love the filmmaker, I see a good design and I love the designer. I may not have met them, but I feel a love anyway.

But I digress.

Even with regard to romantic love, there has been so much learning. Couples that I absolutely adored, broke up. Couples that I thought were doomed, survived. People married for reasons inexplicable to me, and they are happy. I have friends who found love early and have spent over a decade together. I have friends who struggled, unable to work out even long standing relationships, then marrying in a jiffy. And I know several people including myself, who have in their past, that one relationship that has become the defining one of their lives. Which is not to say that they continue to pine after what could have been, or draw comparisons or parallels, just that they are shaped more by that one experience than any others.

For me personally, getting over and ahead of that one was a liberating experience. Having touched the heights of happiness and the depths of sorrow with it, everything else since has been easy. I wonder, in fact I worry sometimes if this detachment is really a maturity aided by the new perspective accorded by Vipassana (which has had a small but significant role in my life) or if I have built an impregnable wall around me to shield myself from further hurt. It’s schizophrenic almost, to oscillate between those two states- of supreme peace and self-assuredness and of a deep, unforgiving confusion.

I’m not sure any of this makes any sense. This was an idea forming in my head for much of yesterday, and even as I sat down to write I realized it had already slipped away. All it left behind were these scattered thoughts.

More questions- reverting back to an earlier post

A couple of days back while on our way home, looking out of the auto rickshaw Malu and I noticed a young boy swinging on a pole, using his T-shirt. He had put the front of his T-shirt over the pole, and was leaning backwards, using his foot as fulcrum and his weight to swing. In front of him, a young girl was sweeping the pavement with broad strokes of a piece of cloth. For a second it seemed odd, until we noticed the tarpaulin sheet behind her, covering up their belongings. There was a water-bottle and a glass perched on the boundary wall adjoining the pavement. This then was home, and she was readying the ‘bed’.

As we observed this scene, an unlikely memory came rushing back. Some time back I had posted about the incident of this teenage girl who was picked up by the police for flinging her employer’s baby from their fourth floor balcony. What disturbed me about this story and the way it was reported was the amount of emphasis there was on the intentions of the ungrateful girl in flinging the baby away because she ‘was irritated by its crying’ contrasted with the kindness of the family that had taken her in. (She is a migrant from Bihar who was living on the street until recently.) The moment I read the news report, my first thought was about the girl- ie why was she brought to the house? Was it really out of ‘good intentions’ or for the cheap domestic help she could be? But most importantly, was she in any way molested- physically or sexually? These are all valid questions, if you ask me. But the Good Boy (yes, he makes an appearance again! That story unfortunately is unfinished- the short of it is that we became good friends and more, and spent a lot of time together for awhile. The long of it shall appear by and by) disapproved- both of the writing and the thoughts it encompassed. He felt that the writing was not lucid enough- it simply wasn’t clear what I meant by ‘not asking the right questions’. Though I’m not sure that’s necessarily true for he did get the drift. He further disapproved of my suspicion. He asked me why it wasn’t possible that the man genuinely meant well, and how I could think so ill of him, without any proof.This strikes me as very odd. There was enough evidence in the story I thought, skewed as the perspective was, to question the family’s intentions. It was a clear case of employing child labour. I suppose we are so used to the reality of our children having to work to feed themselves that we no longer find it out of the ordinary. And there may not have been evidence of any molestation, but that girl could not have been more vulnerable, and therefore it was an angle that definitely needed to be looked into and as far as I could tell from the story, it wasn’t. There isn’t even an iota of doubt in my mind about this. If there wasn’t any molestation or ill treatment, well wonderful! But there’s ground to check and make sure that there wasn’t.

And to his question, ‘So you’d rather that she stayed on the street?’- My response would be, ‘We’re still asking the wrong question!’

I understand where he is coming from. It becomes a matter of choices really. Is the security of a house better than the pavement, even if it means the loss of freedom? Better clothes, food to eat better than begging on the street? Made to work at home as opposed to being molested on the street? Since those are the only choices we seem to be able to offer to so many children, I suppose an act of the kind that the family did, is only welcome, while we pray fervently that she stays safe and well. Which is his (hopeful) stance.

I am more realistic, or maybe more cynical- I’d rather have the matter investigated. And I'd like to believe I’m also more demanding. I’d rather that we did not accept these as the only choices. That we fought for the future of our children. And that we were not content with such a solution for ‘taking them off the street’.

Ageing

On my way to work today

I ran my fingers through my hair

came away with a strand,

the grey at the root

working its way to the tip.

More than halfway through,

just like life.

When we met again

Many years I spent wondering
what could have been
How things might have been different
if we had spoken up
Would they have been different?

How we may have been different people
had we not been racked by an unnecessary guilt
Would we have been different?

How we may have met
had we met without context.

Many years later, the storm has passed
leaving behind an engulfing peace,
a quiet acceptance
and faith in the belief
that if this is how the Universe intended it to be
this is how it best is.

And so it was amusing to see
that meeting after years
you were more nervous than me.

13 days vs 10 years…

Sometime back, in a fit of understandable rage, a friend of mine wrote this on facebook:


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3 SIMPLE REASONS why IRON WOMAN IROM SHARMILA's case probably doesn't get the attention an ANNA gets-


1. A WOMAN is heading this agitation.
2. She is from the 'CHINKI' NORTH-EAST, which is not really India, is it? Only Delhi and Bombay and the other two metros are India, no?
3. She is fighting for a SPECIFIC, REGION-BASED, 'NARROW' issue - the repeal of the AFSPA. She is not fighting a 'GENERAL EVIL' like ‘CORRUPTION' so why should we give two hoots, right?
Honestly, I don't care as much about this vague piece of shit called 'CORRUPTION'. I myself am bothered, disturbed & repulsed most by environmental & cultural corruption/pollution (But who gives a damn as long as pockets are filling up, right?)
But I think I should care even more for a human being's life, no?
Shame on the Government/s for letting someone go hungry for MORE THAN TEN YEARS and conveniently ignoring her. Ten years and counting. This is one world record India should be ashamed about.


Can we please make this the next viral internet 'REVOLUTION'?
Can we please not let someone die for doing the right thing?
CAN WE MAKE IROM EAT PLEASE?!


This will be the real test. Do we care as much about insignificant human life as we do about all-important money?
SPREAD THE WORD.
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And this was my response:


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Ok, I didn’t want to be drawn into discussions about Anna Hazare and especially not the inevitable comparisons with Gandhi and Irom Sharmila. But since it’s you, I will write out my few bits, not in any particular order.


While its natural to remember Irom Sharmila at a time like this, it’s not fair, neither to Irom Sharmila nor to Hazare. It’s two different causes and two different movements, independent of each other. One doesn’t become more important or legitimate than the other because of it numbers… and well, what can I say about the other… The thing is, I’m uncomfortable about the tendency to compare things- causes, people. Why should they be justified on the basis of how they stand up to each other? Why should anyone have to choose between corruption and AFSPA as being the bigger evil? Isn’t it enough that they’re both evil? And it seems almost an insult to Irom Sharmila for Hazare to write to her asking for support. They claim to be non political. Isn’t it a kind of politics though- you support my movement and I’ll support yours. Huh?
Having said that, it’s alright really by me- to each his own. The man in Manipur is a lot more troubled by the AFSPA than corruption, and the man in UP obviously cares two hoots about it because he’s weighed down by his own problems and has no inkling of what the Army’s been upto in Manipur or in Kashmir anyway. There is even less of a case for a movement automatically gaining legitimacy on the basis of numbers. By that logic, the Hindutva movement would be much larger than the anti corruption movement!
So I’m uncomfortable from the start when I read ’13 days vs 10 years…’
Moving on, the first reason you enlist is that the agitation is headed by a woman. I have to confess, that thought never occurred to me. Nor do I think that’s a real enough reason. There is much female discrimination that goes on in this country, and incredibly there is an equal amount of female veneration. Once you reach a certain stage though, I don’t think it matters, even in this country, which gender you belong to. Or so I’d like to think.
The other two causes you enlist are in my opinion, the real reasons. Who cares about what happens in the politically insignificant NE? Then again, whose attention is it that you seek? The government’s? It’s perfectly aware of wrongdoings in Manipur and elsewhere. For the government it’s really a matter of political significance which ultimately translates to numbers. If the Hazare agitation hadn’t managed the numbers that it did, it would have met the same fate, right? The sad, sad reality today is that it needs not moral justification but numbers for the government to come out of its slumber. And here too, corruption has a role to play. There are reasons why some places are kept constantly unstable. It’s called the business of war, and there are gains to be made from it. It’s a kind of corruption at the end of the day.
It’s really how you define it, this corruption. Just because it has been simplified and made palatable for the common man does not mean that it should be regarded as such. And by saying this, I do not in any way mean to belittle the ‘common man’. I just mean to be realistic. The common man has enough problems of his own. Who are you expecting will understand and support a cause, any cause, unless it touches them directly? The farmer contemplating suicide in Vidharbha, or the tribal watching helplessly as his land is taken away for the next development project, or the mother in Kashmir whose son disappears or the Dalit in UP whose wife is raped or the slumdweller in Mumbai whose shanty gets flooded every monsoon? Which ‘common man’ in this country has the time for Irom Sharmila? Who has even heard of her, or of AFSPA? But corruption… everyone’s suffered at the hands of corruption. So of course it’s something that they can immediately relate to.
But I digress. Don’t underestimate corruption. It’s not merely a matter of money. For those that don’t get the employment that they are entitled to under the MNREGA, or don’t get full wages even after working, it is a matter of livelihood, for those who don’t get the ration that they are entitled to under PDS, or who have to pay for their BPL cards, it’s a matter of survival. Understand corruption for what it truly is and the extent of the harm that it’s doing. Corruption may well be claiming more lives in this country than we realise.


That still doesn’t make Irom Sharmila’s cause less worth fighting for. But again, let me clarify. Is fasting as a symbol of protest something that I agree with? No! However right the cause maybe, fasting cannot/ should not be the means to achieve an end. Fasting is violence of a kind, even if it is to your own self. And it is coercive, it leaves little room for dialogue, or at least it places a time limit on it. That by itself should be enough reason to be opposed to fasting. But the way governments react to it these days, by forceful feeding which is violence of another kind, makes it, to my mind, even less desirable or effective a tool of protest. What use is a person whose organs fail, or whose mind no longer functions to an optimum because it has had no nutrition for however many days/ weeks/ months/ years, to a movement? Well, very useful apparently, if you can gain mileage out of it, as Team Anna managed to do, and Irom Sharmila and Swami Nigamananda, and all those teachers who were sitting on a fast sometime back in Mumbai for a cause that I’ve forgotten, did not. (For all you know there are many others in all parts of the country sitting on similar ‘fasts’ right this minute. As an aside, are you going to support them all?) No wonder then that a simple minded man like Anna is the one fasting, while the movement is being organized, strategised and co led by a group. Of course I understand that it is not easy to go on a fast, and not everyone can do it, and the people who can, have a deep belief in their cause and nerves of steel, and ought to respected for it. Having said that, its still not a form of protest that is, to my mind, ethically right.
Besides, a fast by itself does not guarantee results, though it does demonstrate the hopelessness of the person who undertakes it.
I’m all for Irom Sharmila and what she’s fighting for, because she, like any other citizen of the country deserves to be heard, because it is her right, and not because she has been sitting on a fast.
So if you’re suggesting that I should care for her because ‘I should care even more for a human being's life’, then well, I care for her life anyway. And I care for her cause because I believe she is right, but more than anything else she has the right to protest. I disagree with her means, but that’s a personal opinion.
I suppose what I am trying to tell you is, of course I’m with you, but for different reasons.
Can we please make this the next viral internet 'REVOLUTION'?
Can we please not let someone die for doing the right thing?
CAN WE MAKE IROM EAT PLEASE?!
Of course we should.
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I'm so old fashioned!

And then there was this other piece today about ‘virtual parenting’. So working parents these days are resorting to CCTVs to keep track of what their children are upto? I don’t mean to sound critical or judgmental, I perfectly understand being busy and yet wanting to keep an eye on your child, but CCTVs? Really? Have these parents stopped to consider what effect this constant surveillance may have on the children? It’s the sort of thing you do to keep thieves out of the premises, not children out of mischief. Have they thought of the skewed idea of freedom that their children may grow up with. And of trust? Do they understand that they may be bringing up children who might never quite learn to be themselves because they are always being watched? Or who behave themselves only because they are being watched? The natural corollary to which would be the temptation to misuse freedom, that is bound to arise when they actually have the opportunity for it?
Whatever happened to the ‘sanskar’ that you are meant to pass on your children- a sense of discipline, that comes from within and doesn’t have its roots in a fear of being found out. I have always been opposed to the idea of inculcating values in children through a fear of punishment as opposed to the genuine desire to be good. As a result, I feel we end up raising kids who lack the ability to think for themselves. There is so much emphasis on absolutes- on the right ‘things’ to do, and not enough on building a moral compass so they can intuitively tell right from wrong.
It’s difficult I understand, bringing up children well, especially in today’s day and age where distractions and temptations abound. But to add to that such a dubious measure, with such long-term repercussions, is rather unfair to our future generations.

When we don't ask the right questions...

So this article in HT the other day, ‘Upset’ house help hurls 1-year-old from terrace', really bothered me. Check out the way it begins, ‘Byculla-based builder, Akhil Khakre, 47, brought home a girl to save her from a life on the streets. But he didn’t know that the girl would repay his kindness by trying to kill his one-year-old son.’ It goes on to say that the girl, all of 13, allegedly flung Khakre’s son from the terrace flat of a four story building because she was upset at being scolded for having broken a plate while washing utensils, an incident that had happened three days before.
So here it is then- a 13 year old picked up from the street and brought home, to be ‘educated’ and ‘assisting in domestic chores.’ While the incident is alarming in itself- people can just pick children up off the streets these days? Oh wait, who am I kidding, it happens all the time, doesn’t it?- what was equally shocking for me was the reportage. This stupid correspondent actually begins by attempting to paint a favourable picture of Khakre?!
The incident is distressing, I understand. And my heart does go out to the family, but that does not absolve Khakre in any way of having employed child labour. My heart goes out equally to the little girl, who may well have been abused, physically and mentally, for her to have taken such an extreme step. HT followed it up with another story that said ‘Byculla maid didn’t realise she would hurt the child: Cops.’ Huh? Which 13 year old does not understand that you can hurt a baby by throwing him around, let alone from the fourth floor?
This is seriously faulty reporting for all the questions that it fails to ask.

Random rainy morning conversation

The day began with a conversation with my two maids, both of who happened to land up at more or less the same time today. They’re friends and neighbours often looking out for each other- in fact I found one through the other. The conversation initiator was the rain. It has been raining incessantly for the last few days. Its like the monsoon decided to make a comeback with a vengeance. Not that I’m complaining. This city needs all the water it can get and more. As do the farmers tending to their fields, I suppose. Anyway, there was a fresh bout of furious rain in the morning right about the time that they turned up. Anita, the cook looked out of the window and commented on it. On how hard and relentlessly its been raining, and how the building compound, especially at the back, is waterlogged. I nodded absent-mindedly. My window opens out to the back of building compound, and the view is thankfully mostly green (and beautiful), and if you look down from the balcony or the window, you can see the empty brown patch that some residents use for parking. I’ve been noting the build up of the water in this small brown patch. It often turns into a tiny pond, as it did this morning, until the earth soaks up the water.

But I digress. All the romance of the rain went straight of the window when I heard what she said next. She mentioned how the water had come into their house and upto the ankles, wetting everything. Couldn’t sleep the whole night, she said, because everything is wet, you know, even the mattress, all the while smiling ear to ear. It never fails to amaze me. It’s not the first time that I’ve heard something like this of course, but it just seems so incredible that people can live like that and talk about it so nonchalantly, even happily. She spoke of the water seeping in from the ground. (All this ‘reclaimed’ land in Mumbai! I live on it, and I’m not blind to its repercussions. The city is bursting at the seams, and anyone with half a mind can see it. But the builder-politician nexus will not allow any corrective measures. So land will continue to get reclaimed, buildings will continue to come up, slums too for the people in the high rises need their maids and their guards and their delivery boys and their drivers.)

Then she spoke of the water coming in from above, and went on to explain that her husband, being stocky, can’t climb up properly and put the plastic sheet on the roof. Besides the day they had to buy the plastic sheet, he was at work and she was entrusted with the task of buying it, and she got the wrong size, correct length wise, but short breadth wise; so now they’re stuck with a roof that only provides part protection and the water keeps coming in. Animatedly they exchanged notes about their husbands, how Vibha’s knows how to build a house, and has build enough of a good rapport at work so that whenever he needs it, labour is easy to find. Like last year when the roof of her house came crashing down. Fortunately Anita was around then though Vibha was at work, and she took in Vibha’s kids and called to inform her (yes, they have cellphones!). Vibha was shocked, how could my house just fall like that? But her enterprising husband came with a bunch of men from work, and they put it up again within an hour. My house is also bigger, Vibha said proudly, and drier because it’s at a higher level, so the water takes much longer to seep through. And it has four layers of thick plastic as roofing, so the water doesn’t come in. They went on to speak of some unruly relatives, and how friends are so much more precious in times of need, and of demolition drives, when everyone comes to everyone’s rescue though some neighbours do take advantage and steal. Mostly it is the Corporation workers though. They take away all good stuff, the utensils, the gas cylinder even the bamboo poles used to make houses. All this accompanied with much smiling and giggling.

It had something of a humbling effect, this ‘girly’ conversation with my maids. It reminded me of how petty I can sometimes be in my concerns. It reminded me of the resilience of people, especially the poor in this country and I suppose in the world, and their ability to smile and be happy in situations that seem so hopeless to me. I wondered about my own ‘armchair intellectualism’, and its usefulness, if any. I wondered about the order of things- how it’s always been and will always continue to be (so why despair over it?)

And having gone through the motion of pondering over such questions, no wiser in the end than at the start, I sat down and wrote this post.

Meanwhile, it continues to rain.

Good Boy Update 2

This really should have been posted the very next day, so is rather belated, and much has happened since.
Still, for the sake of record, here's how the online conversation went.

'I never once skirted the topic. first time I read kill bill 1 (he prefers this name to Good Boy), I said a lot of things.

On kill bill 2, I said different things

None of that was response?

Post that when you told me about the conversation and that I hadn't reacted in a MAJOR WAY to being written about, and I said 'it was so unremarkable' - I meant that to be your response to whoever asked you about my reaction.

Pooja says to question asker - his reaction was so unremarkable that it passed without much event.

I didn't once say the writing / being written about was unremarkable.

thus seriously serious misinterpretation!'

Good Boy Update 1

A friend of mine asked me how the Good Boy feels about being written about.
I don’t know, I said.
Surely he read it, he said.
Yep, I said, but he didn’t say anything.
How is that possible.
Well, that’s just how it is.

So later in the day I asked the Good Boy what he thought about being written about. He still evaded the topic. I persisted.
Finally he said, well I found it so unremarkable, I didn’t think it was worth commenting on.

I’m not sure whether this was a reference to the writing or to the fact of being written about, though it sounds like the former. But hey, there it is.

Walking with the people

I think it would be safe to say that we’re living in very interesting times. Incredibly hard times too for many millions, and it is these very people who will make it more interesting still.
When I look around me, at the state of the country, at its corruption and its politics, its treatment of its own people, whether they be those dispossessed of their lands in the mineral rich Orissa or Chhatisgarh, or those dispossessed of their homes in the slums in Delhi or Mumbai, all those who suffer at the hands of ‘development’ and whose struggles never quite make it to any mainstream, national newspapers or TV channels, I wonder how it's possible that they won’t someday join hands and rise to awaken the middle class out of its 8-plus-percent growth induced slumber.
Surely the conditions are ripe for a people’s revolution? Though I have no idea what shape it would be in, and who would lead it.

For the moment, I am completely taken in by a small people’s movement raising its head in Golibar in Khar East in Mumbai. I’ve been following it only for the last 6 months or so and it’s been fascinating so far. For a history of the movement check:
Khar East Andolan website,
and this post about Golibar on the Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan website.
Here is Javed's account:
Invisible Cities Part 7: the Golibar Diary
(Javed Iqbal is a brilliant young journalist who shoots as well as he writes- or is it the other way round? His reportage of Chhatisgarh/ Tribal/ Maoist struggle is insightful, powerful writing. And some of his pictures are haunting to say the least.)
And here is a Times Crest article by Ashutosh Phatak and Chatura Rao.

When I heard of the Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan, I was reminded of all that I had read about people’s participation in the design process while researching for my dissertation back in architecture school. There have been many instances and experimentations around people’s participation in designing spaces, usually homes for themselves, from around the world, and it was (then) an evolving process, as it is bound to be. And yet it held tremendously exciting possibilities. More than anything else, it seems only logical that people should have a say in how they want to live. Yes, we need experts to work things out, and sometimes to demonstrate better ways of doing things, but as end users, it only makes sense that people have a say in the kind of spaces they want to spend their lives in. This becomes even more critical for a settlement like Dharavi, which is not just residential but home to many cottage industries providing livelihood to many thousands. But that’s a whole separate debate.

Coming back to the Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan. I have yet to understand it fully, but from what I gather these people are demanding (apart from their rights over their homes and lands) that rehabilitation be a collaborative process, not something that is forced on them. Having aided in building the city, they feel they are perfectly capable of building their own homes. While I’m not sure how the modalities of that would be worked out, it’s definitely an idea worth working on, and a fantastic initiative on the part of the people. If only our government could in turn, live up to the challenge. At the moment they don’t seem interested. Understandably. Much of the politics and by consequence public policy in this country, is heavily influenced by various pockets of money power. In this case it seems to be the builder lobby. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that they just want the people’s land; they’re not really interested in engaging with them at any other level. The ill-designed and maintained SRA buildings would stand testament to this. ‘Redevelopment’ is the new mantra, and there are enormous profits to be made, if the huge tracts of slum lands in the city can be freed up. This however necessarily involves rehabilitating thousands of people, many of who are migrant workers in the first place. This further involves massive administrative exercises of establishing the number of households eligible for redevelopment, which would be a constantly evolving number, of finding means of establishing ‘rights’ of these people who are not original inhabitants of the city, Constitutional provisions to the right to work and travel anywhere in the country notwithstanding. It involves taking the people’s consent to take away and homes and lands, and to ‘rehabilitate’ them in ill conceived, perhaps even inappropriate high-rise buildings.
None of these are debated in the public sphere of course, because if they were the government would be forced to face uncomfortable questions. And its records of rehabilitation are dismal to say the least. Given this context, the GBGB seems a logical if inconvenient response by the people. And has been largely ignored by the government, as far as I can tell.
Anyway, the Golibar people’s spirited fight for their homes reached a new milestone last month with some people from Ganesh Krupa Society sitting on a fast led by Medhatai Patkar, and the State Government agreeing to some their demands. A month later it turned out that the State Government didn’t want to honour the promises they had made to the people. So the people decided to take to the streets. They decided to walk from Golibar to Mantralaya, and meet the CM yet again. They were joined by others from all over the city, many of who were similarly aggrieved.
I joined the walk for a few hours on both days, curious to see the faces of these people, many of them hardly literate, who were nevertheless driven to fight for their rights by a corrupt, exploitative and unresponsive administration. And they chose to do so in a very Gandhi-ian way, using a non violent but forceful approach. All along the way they shouted slogans. A few articulate young men at the head of the procession constantly spoke about their grievances in the microphone, aiming to educate the people along the way and garner their support. At times the procession halted so Medhatai could give a short speech.
And so it was that to shouts of ‘ladenge, jeetenge’, ‘awaz do hum ek hain’, ‘buildaron ki jagir nahin, Mumbai humari hai’, ‘Maharashtra shasan hosh mein aao, bhrashtachar band karo’, ‘Rajiv Gandhi Awaas Yojana laagu karo, laagu karo’, ‘mukhya mantri samvaad karo’ and my favourite ‘sarkar humse darti hai, police ko aage karti hai’, people walked from Golibar in Khar to Mantralaya over two days, the 28th and 29th of May 2011.
Here are some pictures of the walk.

Women Power!




Curious cab drivers look on and take videos of the people walking. They prbably understand their reasons to protest all too well.


Some walking barefoot.


Walking under ever darkening skies. Soon after this image was taken, it started to pour.


Day 2: I joined the yatra at Lalbaug. Here Medhatai addresses the people...


... to an enthusiastic response.


Sangharsh Yatra!


Yes, this kid marched all the way. A country where children have to fight for rights to their homes (or lands as in Orissa) has much to answer for...


This one kinda 'marched' all the way too!


Ah smiles! I envy the photographer... was it Javed?




'Zameen and zameer bechna band karo'




Yes, it does get tiring, walking all day.


Vada pav- quick snack break.


Walking by the side of the road, so as to not disrupt traffic. The procession walked in a long queue of twos through the narrow streets of Golibar, and by the side on the main roads.


Walking, accompanied by the police.


The tireless Medha Patkar.


Informing the people along the way...


Keeping the NAPM flag flying high.


I had messaged a friend to get directions to Lalbaug, and he mentioned he was driving past the very area. So I asked him if he had seen the procession, so he could give exact current location. "No, flew over them all, I guess... With the new flyover.' Prophetic words, I thought to myself.


Md Ali Road. This is where a man walked up to me and asked if she was Medha Patkar. 'Heard of her, never saw her before.' he smilingly said.


Passers by stop to listen.






VT Station


Negotiating with the Police.


There were barricades near the VT station to prevent the yatra from proceeding towards the Mantralaya.


So the people went to Azad Maidan instead...


And sat there in protest while Medha Patkar and few other representatives of the people went to have a word with the CM.

Coffee post midnight is a bad idea... Contd

Is it the caffeine
that’s keeping me awake
Or thoughts as yet unthought?

My head hurts
from lack of sleep
But I struggle to stay awake
hoping to finish that one last conversation with you
Inside my head.

Coffee post midnight is a bad idea

Is it the caffeine
that’s keeping me awake
Or thoughts as yet unthought?

I met a Good Boy! Part 2

(Continuing from previous post...)

This is scary at several levels, and I am wondering where to begin.
I happened to mention this to a friend and she squarely blamed his Southern roots. While I’m not sure I agree with her, it gives me a starting point. Of course this is a cultural thing- it is, I suppose a very (South? No, I think) Indian phenomenon that the woman you date and the woman you marry are different. I’m not a man and women don’t seem to follow such rules, not at least the ones I know, so I can only wonder at the reasons for this unique trait, so bear with me while I wonder aloud in an attempt to understand. Though I do wish to limit the scope considerably, primarily because the part that interests me the most in this situation is the guy in question or what I have understood of him. Which also happens to be the most surprising part. You see there’s a certain kind of behaviour one comes to expect from a certain kind of people. It’s not right of course to judge people by pre-conceived notions, and yet we do it all the time. So it is that we would be surprised for instance, if an old dhoti clad man in a village suddenly broke into say, Spanish. Ok that’s a bit extreme, but you get the drift...
So as I mentioned earlier, he isn’t from some small town where people, especially men, can still be expected to be regressive in their attitude towards women. He’s from Mumbai, the cosmopolitan city where arguably India’s most progressive men reside. He’s not from an underprivileged economic background or lacking in education. He holds a Master’s degree. He’s not from an underprivileged social background i.e. he’s not from some backward caste; this clarification is for those of you who may still believe that that plays a role. He is in fact from a snobbish upper caste. He’s not from the North, for those of you who think this is a peculiar trait of the brash Delhi/ Punjabi lads. He is a good South Indian boy, and those according to my friend are prone to toeing the line and marrying within the community, a trend that is in any case more prevalent and rigid in the South. It’s not like his childhood or adolescence was deprived of female company i.e. he wasn’t sent to some Boys only boarding school. He’s grown up and studied in Mumbai. He’s not geeky, and shy or incapable of a good conversation like some of those engineer types can be. In fact there’s enough on his blog to suggest female company, love, lovemaking, longing, heartbreak, loneliness; basically the works. He’s not even Mama’s boy, he actually lives by himself though his family is in the same city, and shuttles between the two houses. And while he doesn’t cook, he does do the cleaning himself. So within an urban scenario, have I taken care of most of the stereotypes then? And established conclusively that he cannot be slotted in any of them?
Further, here is a man who gives up a lucrative corporate job to follow his love of writing and films. Here is a man who, as I have mentioned before, dares to write not just of his dreams and aspirations, but also insecurities, not just his achievements but also his failures. He speaks of having lost in love, and of extreme loneliness. He speaks of being lost in general and the struggle to gain composure. He writes film reviews that I identify with. And he writes lovely accounts of mundane everyday things like meetings, which were infinitely exciting for him, for he was on a new unknown path. Of course one could argue that some of that stuff is the writer in him, but even so, it has to be coming from somewhere! I always like to point out about my camerawork, or anyone else’s for that matter- that one frame is not one moment of brilliance, it is the result, or an amalgamation if you please, of many years of a life lived- in happiness, in grief, in regret, in failure, in love, in tears, in beauty, in pain… its many experiences, and the marks they leave on us, and the attitudes with which we go forth after. The same I suppose, would be true of writing.
Which part of him then, is not utterly likeable? Not for regular folks maybe, I understand. I mean if you were a father looking for a match for his daughter, you would make sure he was the last guy on earth she met. But for someone like me… why, here was someone who I could totally relate with. But that isn’t the point I was trying to make. The point is- here is somebody who is clearly a black sheep, as many admittedly, in the film industry are.
And the point is there is nothing stereotypical about the guy.
Except perhaps the dream of making films, which is a dream common to many in this city.

So how does a guy like that come to believe that the only way he was going to get married was if his mother found someone? Is that some kind of submission or delusion, I don’t know.

I feel the need to clarify here that I have absolutely nothing against matrimonial sites or arranged marriages. I don’t believe that there is a gospel truth to anything, including love and marriage. Whatever works for you! However, I do imagine that it would work better for a certain kind of people, with a certain kind of attitude. And as a corollary, it would not work particularly well for a certain kind of people, which is what is relevant in this case. But here is someone, smart and experienced, who is convinced that its not just possible, it is the only way! It makes me wonder if he is losing the plot somewhere, or I am.

But that is only a part of the problem, if I may be allowed to call this a problem. The other part of course, is the one in which the Good but lonely Boy decides he wants company. And sets out to look for it. Please note that he is convinced that he cannot find a bride to marry, but is hopeful nevertheless of finding a companion for all those long, lonely evenings. Clearly there must be something fundamentally different about the two. I am not even going to attempt this one. Apart from the fact that it is beyond my comprehension, it is downright hypocritical. It may be unfair and harsh to make a sweeping statement like that about someone who may well be in that situation for a wide variety of reasons, however I’d be hard pressed to find one in which I would find such an attitude justifiable… Understandable maybe, justifiable unlikely.
I recall he mentioned once in a similar context that he felt he was born in the wrong country. I’m not sure women in any part of the world would be happy with this. Hell, no one should be happy with a stopgap arrangement kind of love. And no, this isn’t remotely about feminism. It doesn’t matter if the positions were reversed. If a woman were doing this- looking for a male companion to fill in a gap, I would find it equally reprehensible.

But what I found even more intriguing was the thought that if he believed it was somehow possible, that there must be willing women as well?
So what does that mean? That there are all these lonely souls out there, looking, craving even, for some kind of temporary comfort? A no questions asked, no strings attached kind of closeness that seems possible only with a stranger or another of their own kind? Is this some kind of desperate attempt to clutch at romance as it should be, natural and spontaneous as opposed to pre ordained, which is how love in their marriages is destined to be (and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.) Is this an attempt at creating a memory to cherish and to live by? Or is it just the thrill of tasting fruit that will soon be forbidden?
Maybe a little of some or all of the above?

The redeeming factor in the case in question was the honesty. There was no attempt to mislead; there was in fact candour in admitting to his helplessness, which I have to say was almost endearing. It wasn’t even helplessness really, just a detached kind of submission. It made me realise that at least he had the kind of attitude that would be invaluable for the route ahead. Or perhaps that’s putting the cart before the horse. Perhaps the attitude stems from the submission to the situation. In any case, while the chances of this guy or his mother finding a companion of the kind he desires from a matrimonial site are questionable, that he will be able to align himself to whoever she picks for him is less so.

I met a Good Boy! Part 1

At the screening of ‘I Am’, I had a somewhat unusual guest.
This guy had contacted me through a travel website, in an attempt at ‘networking’. A travel website is not the best place to network, I remember mentioning to him; that there are social networking sites such as facebook or professional ones such as Linkedin for that, and his response that he is on neither, kind of won him some brownie points at the outset. (I later learnt that he had written to some 30 odd people and I was the only one who responded. Well, what can I say, I’m nice. And that’s certainly not saying very much about the others in this industry, whatever reports to the contrary you may hear.) So I replied, and agreed to meet him, for whatever it may be worth. With a warning that I wasn’t going to be very useful to him from a networking point of view, since I pretty much sucked at it myself. In the meanwhile I read up his profile, found much that resonated with me and figured that anyone who wrote like that couldn’t be some random guy. Or maybe it happened in the reverse order. I read his profile and decided it was okay to meet this guy. Whatever.
And then I got busy doing random shit, and forgot all about him. That’s not like me, mind you. I usually keep my word. So one day many weeks later, when I got another request from the same site, I suddenly remembered him. Wrote again and apologised. I could sense the pleasant surprise in his tone (At the apology? At the fact that I remembered?) when he wrote back to say, ‘No problem. Let’s meet now.’
What followed was two months of correspondence over mail and chat and lots of exchanges of interesting music, links to articles and blogs, about films, life, poetry. Along the way I discovered his blog, about 4 years old. It had ‘various pieces of expression, in varied forms whether it be poetry, life notes, or thoughts on films / books / music or anything else that inspires...’ His writing was honest and heartfelt, and really good in parts. I think what I liked best was the ability to share his fears and struggles, in I suppose, what he referred to as ‘life notes’. It’s a lovely quality, I think- to be able to bare yourself like that and to allow people a peek into your world, even when you’re writing from the very depths of your own personal abyss. There were very distinct phases that one could make out, of personal and professional lows, although the tone in general seemed to have been low for a long, long time. Now that made me think. Or rather it made me rethink my decision to meet him. It also made me realize something about my friends and in turn about myself- that I liked to surround myself with happy, cheerful people. No seriously, its not like my friends don’t have problems, or personal and professional highs and lows. But they all, invariably, have a sense of humour. They smile a lot, laugh a lot, crack jokes and are generally merry, even if that is sometimes aided by alcohol and certain banned substances. And I have friends from all kinds of backgrounds. Architects struggling with clients, writers and directors with great scripts no one’s willing to make into films, NGO workers struggling for space and funds, journalists and documentary filmmakers who see a side of India that would make anyone sob… But even when the going is tough, they manage to smile through it. Or is it? Is it that I am too detached? There for them only in happy times, not so much in the difficult ones. Does no one ever think of calling me when they are sad, or in trouble? Am I only a friend in good times? A troubling thought, that. Many of my friends are incredibly strong people though, I should note at this point. When I think of them, and the images run through my head, I feel blessed that I know so many good, talented, loving, compassionate, creative, beautiful people. It’s a humbling feeling.
But I digress.
So. This guy was anything but cheerful. Nevertheless, I had given my word. So after an exchange of particularly long mails, necessitated by an out of station shoot, in which several threads of conversation had to be abandoned for a more suitable, face to face interaction at a later date, we were finally in the same city and free i.e. ready to meet. This long exchange coupled with the blog writings made me feel like I knew this guy really well already. Now all that was left was to put a face to the name. (That’s not entirely true, for the travel site did have a few pictures, but still.)
So we met. And we did a walk and talk. I wasn’t perfectly at ease, but it was ok. A couple of days after that, he came to see ‘I Am’. And that’s when I realized that it is a bit weird when you think you know somebody really well, but his existence has only ever been limited to a name on Google Chat. So you may be perfectly comfortable with the presence online, having long chats, interspersed with long silences, making you feel as if you’ve almost spent the day with the person (and I mentioned this to him when it happened) but there’s an awkwardness still when you meet in the physical realm. That face, that voice, that body I was not used to, and something seemed utterly unreal. But that mind I was oh-so-familiar with. I mention this in so much detail because I find it very interesting. It’s probably not the first time that I met someone in reality after I met him online. But it definitely was the first instance of having a long online correspondence, over the course of which I came to realize how much not just his thoughts and ideas, but also his fears and insecurities resonated with mine. I had grown fond of the online avatar, the one that I was familiar and comfortable with, and felt I understood well. To meet then almost meant shattering that myth, for I felt it would never be the same again. I think I might even have delayed the meeting a little for this reason! That is exactly what happened too, and it did take at least a couple of more meetings to become as comfortable with the person as I was with the name and the brain that ticked behind it.
It may be clear by now that this was no longer a ‘networking’ meeting. At some point in all those interactions, I had realised that this attempt was part of a lonely guy’s search for companionship. It wasn’t apparently the first time that he had sought company through posts on websites, but its not difficult to guess where the others would have led him, if they led anywhere at all. And he was surprisingly open about talking about these attempts and their apparent failures (assuming that he did indeed speak of all of them.) At any rate, loneliness formed part of our common ground.
Time for another digression. Loneliness is something I am familiar with. You see, I’m not a happy person when I am single- I like to have someone to come back to, to share my day’s stories with, to share the excitement of discovering a fantastic new play or film together, or a shoulder to cry on when things aren’t going so well, to travel with whether it is to town for a screening or backpacking across some obscure country, and of course to occasionally have bitter fights with (anyone who knows me even vaguely knows that that’s part of the package.) Of course all this has mainly been in theory in my head, since I have unfortunately been single for a long, long time now, and family, friends and housemate have had to make up for it. Its not like I haven’t dated, though that too was sometime back. And the guy was absolutely fantastic. Trouble is, we couldn’t be more different. Quite the odd couple we were, more friends than lovers. And so we knew it could never work, and at some point we decided to part. We remain great friends still. I turn to him for every little and big thing, to him and to other friends. But the longing for a companion, someone closer than a dear friend, stays.
So then coming back, loneliness and longing for companionship was then the common ground over which we met, a dangerous ground to meet on, if you ask me. And I was quite aware of that, and had used it as a shield for a while, even in our online conversations, maintaining a safe distance and occasionally frustrating the hell out of the guy, I suspect. It didn’t help though that he was actively on the lookout for a date, and not willing to give up. And it helped even less that he is much younger. So cut to the chase, and we met a couple of times more, and some more walking and riding around aimlessly, and random conversations followed. You might wonder what I was doing meeting someone like that. To tell you the truth, I too thought that he might be a bit of a freak ☺ But then there was something very disarming about his honesty, and besides, his writings seemed to suggest a rather sensitive, passionate person.
And the person I met did seem true to his writings. Pleasant, easygoing, talkative, humorous, well mannered; he was all of that. Yes, I did say humorous- if he was indeed in as much of a low phase as his writing seemed to suggest, then it certainly did not show in his behaviour. Hanging out with him was easy. After the initial hiccup of the first couple of meetings, it all seemed very comfortable, taking me quite by surprise. But of course this was no casual meeting, he was categorical about his intention to date. I was toying with the idea, even though he was quite the kid. And I realise that that doesn’t necessarily have to do so much with age, as with levels of maturity and attitude towards life. But in any case, the age difference did trouble me. Also, questions such as ‘are you a ‘here and now’ kind of person or ‘where is this going’ kind of person’ had set alarm bells ringing.
Soon enough, inevitably, The Conversation happened. Quite short it was too. Here’s how it went. I had mentioned questions swimming in my head. He wanted to know what they were. So I clarified that while I was quite the here and now kind of person, and understood the importance of living in the moment, and spending time together and figuring out how one feels, I was at the same time, not flippant. I don’t get into things unless I mean to take them seriously. This led to a short discussion on the meaning of ‘seriously’. If seriously meant, he said, that it might eventually lead to say, marriage or spending our lives together, then that is something that’s not in his control. That key has been handed over to his Mom. Yes, you read that right. That is exactly what he said. No kidding! And to be fair to the man, I did know this. A simple google search, which I had had the wisdom to do, and later brought up in our conversations online, had revealed a profile on bharatmatrimony.com. He had taken pains then, to explain that there was nothing at all wrong with that route, that he had reconciled to it as the only way he was going to get married, and having done that, had found it easy to write up his own profile, a much more honest account than what he felt his doting mother had written.
So there it is then. I knew of course that such men exist, these good boys who will date and mate to kill time while their good mothers find appropriate brides for them. I just never imagined that one of them would find his way in my life. I think I’m still blinking my eyes in disbelief. It would have been easier if the guy was from some small town, or belonged to a different class or wasn’t as well mannered and well behaved as this guy is. This guy is one of us.
And that is a scary thought.