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!'