Two Strikingly Handsome Men - All The Way Deep Inside

Paul Newman......... Sunil Dutt

Two of the most amazing men on this planet have now moved on.

Yesterday, Paul Newman.
Three years ago, Sunil Dutt.

This is what Paul Newman has said : I'd like to be remembered as a guy who tried - tried to be part of his times. Tried to help people communicate with one another. Tried to find some decency in his own life, tried to extend himself as a human being.

Sunil Dutt died in 2005.
And this is what Sunil Dutt has said, and dedicated his entire life for : "Disease and suffering have no religion and no nationality."


Paul Newman : Forever changed the lives of all those he touched with his generosity, humour and humanness. Quietly turned over the entire value of his ownership in Newman's Own, to charity. An astounding US $ 120 million.

Owned The Hole In The Wall Gang Camp, a summer camp for children with cancer and other blood-related diesases (and their siblings) in Ashford, Connecticut. Also runs a fall "Discovery" program for inner city kids, also in Ashford.

Finished 2nd in the 1979 Le Mans 24 hr. race in a Porsche 935.

(1987) Won Best Actor Oscar for "The Color of Money" (1986).

(1990) Chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the world.

(1995) Chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#12).

Sunil Dutt - Whatever we speak of him will never match up to his towering presence. Whatever he did for India, Indians will never be able to be grateful enough. I was not even aware of one more aspect that I came to know from my friend - he blogs thus: The details of his will is another proof of his greatness. He wished nothing should be named after him, not even a postage stamp.

This planet in its relentless rush towards its future may not find the time to halt and say thank you. To these stalwarts.
Generations to come may not even be aware of the full extent of the persons they shall have missed.


Sunil Dutt : Jalte Hain Jiske Liye....

Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward


Another factor, not at all trivial :
Their respective loving monogamous relationship. Paul Newman with Joanne Woodward.
Sunil Dutt with Nargis.
Till the very end.
In an industry - and indeed increasingly in this world, where this is not just an exception. It is downright queer.

What is it that went into the making of these men? Why are they so rare?

Postscript :
From the Economist, Oct 4th 2008, that points out that Paul Newman was 'the most generous individual, relative to his income, in the 20th century history of the United States' (profits of over US $ 250 million went to charitable causes around the world including Hole in the Wall camps):
Paul Newman thought little of his blue eyes. He asked his fans whether this was all that they valued him for. His epitaph, he once said, should be "Here lies Paul Newman who died a failure because his eyes turned brown"

Celebrity bugged him in every aspect : the studio contract system from which he rapidly escaped, the Hollywood gossip mill, from which he fled into long-term marriage, motor-racing and Connecticut, the loveless pressure for Oscars and nominations. All this was 'rubbish'. He was unbothered when age began to furrow the brow and fill out the jowls. Unlike Robert Redford, he never made any attempt to preserve his prettiness. Hollywood could deal with him as he was...
Mr. Newman was not a man for plans; he preferred creative chaos.

And in the issue of Oct 13, 2008, Time, and written by Robert Redford :

Paul was very engaged at work. He was there. he liked a lot of rehearsal. But he was fun too. Whenever he made a mistake on set, he would enjoy it more than anybody.
What impressed me about Paul was that he was very realistic about who he was. He knew the world of hyperbole and distortion he was in. That meant he maintained a certain amount of privacy. This commitment to his profession was as serious, as was his commitment to social responsibility and especially to his family. He had a life that had real meaning...
Whatever success one of us would have, the other would knock it down. If you are in a position to be viewed iconically, you'd better have a mechanism to take yourself down to keep the balance. I think we did that for each other.

Bade Ghar Ke Bete... Why I have No Issues with Abhinav's Rich Background

All my friends, quite a few in the media - are talking about Abhinav winning the Gold Medal in a shooting event at the Beijing Olympics - simply because he had a dad who could afford to give him the best of the best training. A sort of scorn for the State, yet tinged with pride.

Look at these two pictures - see the similarity?
Both are Bade Ghar ke Bete... Scions of wealthy parents.

All I say is this :
Better for the nextgen of the 'haves' to be shooting in the Olympics, than at the hapless Jessica Lalls, here in India.

We have hundreds - perhaps thousands of very well-to-do indulgent Indian parents out there. Who will do anything for their children.

Well - may they all learn a thing or two, from the Bindras - Apjit and Babli rather than from the Sharmas - Vinod and whatever, who were ready to cover the tracks of son Manu Sharma - pictured here at right, in his shortlived 'acquittal' in 2006. For the murder of Jessical Lall, in 1999, with so many witnesses who were then arm-twisted. Justice has since prevailed, and he is serving Life Imprisonment.

Unfortunately, the truth is this: Each of us can list at least six families - those in the media - the celebrities and politicians, or even in own circle friends or society, where there is a higher probability of parental 'cover-up' tactics rather than the patient year-in-year-out training, as seen with Abhinav. So, for sure, he has an Olympic size back up system at home.

Better a training ground at home, international coach, than a Mercedes or a BMW. And dad's unlimited political clout.

What Happened to the Child?

Sulochana Bai cannot read or write. Her conversations are peppered with words like 'danger', ' 'emergency', and that favorite word used by so many folks : 'Chapter', to be used this way: 'yeh aadmi ek chapter hai'. Chapter = What a Character.
She was with me, next to me at a hospital in front of the MRI department, and wanted to know what MRI was. Was it X-Ra (that's the way she pronounced it - X-Ra).

As I struggled to come up with an explanation, she came to my rescue herself:
'CT- Can type ka kuch hai kya?'
Yeah!
'Haan na, CT-Scan ke tarah hi kuch hai.'

Bai may be illiterate, but she is the current head - adhyakhsh - of the mahila mandal in her residential area. Time spent with her is always so illuminating. About life in the basti, social tensions, how resolved, how not. And I always wonder why I don't talk more often about these essentials, rather than day to day stuff like 'kapda-dhona, sukhana, bartan saaf karna, kuda-kachra'.

She asked me if I remembered what she had told me a couple of years ago - of the couple that had died by pouring 'rakel' kerosene on themselves, in her neighborhood? Of course I recalled the incident. The man was a perennial drunkard, and the wife struggled to make ends meet, to send her seven year old child - who was slightly handicapped physically - to school.

One day after the usual late night fight over her money, she had - in a fit of pique - poured kerosene on the man, and dared him over god knows what. He was part -drunk, went and picked up a match, lit it. Before she knew what was happening, he went and caught her in a tight bind, saying ' *#@*, come, you die with me'.

The little boy had come running to Bai's house, the neighbors went running back. The man had over 80% burns, she had less - 60%. Was conscious, narrated what had happened. Over the next few days, she succumbed first. He went a day or two later.

Her sister arrived from somewhere in the boondocks of Northern Maharashtra.
When the neighborhood said - and this is always such a heartening aspect of life in a basti - they would pool in and continue to send the boy to school, the aunt said, No need, I'll take him back with me, to myhome. And send him to a good 'English' school there. I owe this to my sister.

Bai became suspicious when she happened to see this woman trying on various saris of the dead sister, when she thought no one was looking, inside the small home.
But the police said they wouldn't stop her from taking the child. After all she was the legitimate relative. The basti women on their own, quietly removed the dead woman's bank book, and kept it in their own safe keeping. With some Rs. 30,000/- in it. That they could not touch, of course, but the idea being that it could go to the child some day.

The dead man, it seems, had just sold the hutment. For some Rs. 25,000/- advance and this issue and the money already in the home was the root cause. Of all that had then taken place. Aunty dearest got this money, sold the TV, almirah and whatever else she could get hold of, and went away.

This was two years ago.

Last week, she arrived, asking for the bank book. Saying how the boy was now in fourth standard doing so well. After all, he had always been a quiet, shy and such a good student at his studies as all the neighbors were aware of. She arrived with this man, who went off to catch a drink. Bai and the other women of the mahila-mandal smelt a rat, and continued drilling her, talking to her, trying to figure out how the boy was doing.

A couple of hours later, the man comes back, completely drunk, and tells them 'Don't you believe a word of all that she is saying. She threw him out two years ago. She just wants the bank money now'.

This 'aunty' later, I am told, escaped.

After a sound thrashing from the basti women. Apparently, in a moment of distraction, while they debated what to do, how to get the police to take some action.... Basti life and the police after all share a strange, uneasy equation - they had wanted to be sure of what to do.

No one has any idea where the little boy is today.
Is he somewhere begging. Did some kind soul take him under his / her wing (our minds would want such an outcome, and these are the 'happy endings' we wish are happening). Is he alive at all. Does he have anyone to call his own.
And what about his state of mind? What happens to a shy, quiet, endearing seven year old? Who was a favorite of the neighborhood. And yet, how could a seven year old ever find his way back to a certain loving basti of this large metropolitan city from some place 250 kilometres away?

And having heard this incident, what can we do? Do I leave it as it is? Another story to be filed away in my mind? And how do believers explain this 'logic' of God?

And how come some 'shy, unassuming' kids become Abhinav Bindra, chased by all the newspapers. Others - I don't even know this child's name - fall between the cracks of our attention?

At Long Last, A Great Satisfying Read!

There are some excellent reviews out there. Of the Case of Exploding Mangoes.
New York Times
Jai Arjun

And some overly critical ones as well. The Guardian for example.

What can I add? Yet it is one of those books that affects deeply and goes beyond trite words such as unputdownable, brilliant and so on.
And I don't think it is merely because we in the subcontinent are aware of this moment of our regional history - Of Zia's assassination in 1988.

Each of us will have our own favorite parts in this book as we read it ...
One to me, is this. ... Almost at the tail end of the book, 'Ali' the protagonist (who is in every alternate chapter, author writing in first person) grabs the book his friend Obaid is reading - "Chronicles of a Death Foretold", and reads the first sentence.
"So does Nasr really die?"
"I think so"
"It says so right here in the first sentence. Why keep reading it when you already know that the hero is going to die."
"To see how he dies. What were his last words. That kind of thing"
"You are a pervert, comrade." I throw the book back at him.

And Mohammed Hanif has most successfully thrown history back at us - After all, we all know Zia (a hero in his own eyes at least) is dead, and the book in the very first chapter describes his last walk up to 'Pak One'. The one that explodes four minutes after take-off.
Like a Moebius strip we come back at the end of the book to the beginning, and it is magnetic enough to make me want to continue reading all over again.
So I would wager that this viciously satirical book will have hundreds of thousands readers like me, across the subcontinent, across the US and the rest of the world, devouring every bit. Reading the book at a multiple of levels.
To the West, this book reminds of Yossarian and Catch 22. To us Indians, it is seminal as well . Somewhat like what English August was to the IAS, this one is to the Pakistan Air Force - and I expect all Armed Forces anywhere in the world. I was also reminded of Manil Suri's Death of Vishnu somewhere - I am not quite sure why.
Here then is a master writer. His command over language, situations, satire is awesome. Even the words related to religion. Words that the rest of the world is usually mortally scared of, words used gingerly in general in the fear of hurting sentiments of some moral guardians somewhere. Ditto for his searing indictment of archaic laws in a radically Islamized nation.

And New York Times has indicated the book's zany timeliness - the book is about a time when the Soviet forces were about to pullout of Afghanistan, now in real-time of the book release, it is NATO's pullout time from Afghanistan; back then it was the mystery of Zia's death along with so many of his key Generals, now it is Benazir who has recently been assassinated. (NYT also makes a very pertinent observation in the beginning about the fact that it is 'Men' who love to write about things like assassinations!)

I for one am most fascinated by the Reality Show nature of the current world we live in. Our entire media. TV shows - Fear Factor, the choice of our music icons, Big Brother and what not. That tread a thin line between fact and fiction, where it is all a simulated reality. So when a popular lead music icon dies - in real life last week, it is almost as if the reality show TRPs just shot up, so it was worthwhile to someone somewhere. Kind of eerie.

This author - coincidentally or not, he works in the world of 24 X 7 TV: BBC - follows such a genre as well - with 'a foot in both boats' as we would say - of real history as well as masterfully manufactured fiction. And gets away with it. I have often wondered how people who are alive in real life take it when they seem to wander into the realms of fiction via the imagination of authors.
Do they shrug it off as non-facts, or do they get all het up? In this book, apart from the usual General Beg, CIA etc. , Mrs. Zia ul Haq comes off - if not exactly smelling of roses, at least a person one can wonderfully empathize with. Similarly Nancy Raphel, wife of the then US Ambassador to Pakistan (the ambassador went down in Pak One along with Zia) surely she exists somewhere out there. Is she then to be treated as 'real' or not, as part of this world we live in? Or should she be treated as a faded shadow, no longer relevant thus to be 'fictionalized'. Perhaps she is a fictional character through and through. And there is no Nancy Raphel?

At some point, 'Ali' calls Lata and Asha the 'old, fat, ugly Indian sisters who both sing like they were teenage sex kittens' . So should Lata and Asha ignore it. After all wherever they are spoken of in the book, it is as if in Ali Shigri's thoughts and his world , as if 'through the mouth of a fictional character'.
Or is it about the author's own aversions?

American reviewers of course are hugely amused that OBL of Laden & Co is in the book as well, when he comes to the party thrown by the ambassador and where all Americans come dressed as the mujahideen.

And I begin to feel : do we in our own lives nowadays live like that? Not quite sure where fact ends and fiction begins. And perhaps it just doesn't matter in this post-modern world we inhabit.

Aka 'Cigarette smoking is injurious to health', we all know the line 'All characters in this book bear no resemblance to anyone living or dead'.
Random House the publishers have done away with this statutory announcement in this book.
Making you wonder why all the other books all these days required it anyway!

Ultimately it is Le Carre's description of the book - 'Deliciously Anarchic' - that says it all.
My money is on this book for the Booker.
If this book misses this year's Man Booker, all it means,
critics' critiques have begun to override the public imagination and the mangoes were sour.

ABHI NA JAO CHHODKAR...

Recently this song Abhi Na Jao Chhodkar Ke Dil Abhi Bhara Nahin has been spoken of by Shankar Mahadevan and even by Farhan Akhtar as their 'all time favorite'. In the build up to their new film Rock On.

Undoubtedly, Hum Dono had some of the most amazing songs of all time.
I can listen to them again and again for hours.
A tribute to Sahir Ludhianvi as to Jaidev.
Kabhi Khud Pe, Kabhi Haalat Pe Rona Aaya...
Allah Tero Naam, Ishwar Tero Naam... each a jewel.
And especially the song Abhi Na Jao in Hum Dono could be part of the story of so many young couples falling in love - it is that toe-curlingly wonderful in its everyday point of view.

The only thing is this.
There was another HUGELY talented music director and Thumri singer. By the name of Balakrishna Das. A student of Bade Ghulam Ali Khan saheb. Who had also assisted the legendary composer R.C. Boral for a while in the '40s/ '50s.
... and there is this absolutely adorable Oriya song Nayana Sunayana Re that is his composition. His HMV record of this song, sung in his own voice was out in the late 50s. Long, really long before Abhi Na Jao happened in 1961, this love song was on many Oriya lips. And the tune?
You guessed it....

Does that reduce Jaidev's talent? I don't think so. His national awards - luckily received for other movies, not Hum Dono are (hopefully ! :-) ) well-deserved.

Perhaps all it does is this : it enhances the stature of Balakrishna Das... Here was a music director who had been approached by Bimal Roy to compose for his movies, but this non-materialistic gentleman did not find Bombay his 'cup of tea'.
Even when Abhi Na Jao reached stratospheric heights, and he was asked to take Jaidev to task, Balakrishna Das shrugged it off. 'It's OK. Let him be' he said. (Btw, two of Balakrishna Das's other tunes would be familiar to Bollywood aficionados ... am waiting to get the irrevocable details from Orissa - shall upload as soon as I get it)

These then, are the people who make India what it is.
Tolerant, all-encompassing, loving.
Sometimes walked and trampled over.

Abhi na jao chhod kar ke dil abhi bhara nahin
Abhi abhi to ai ho abhi abhi to
Abhi abhi to ai ho bahar banke chhai ho
Hawa zara mahak to le nazar zara bahak to le
Ye sham dhal to le zara
Ye sham dhal to le zara ye dil sambhal to le zara
Main thodi der jee to lun nashe ke ghunt pee to lun
nashe ke ghunt pee to lun
Abhi to kuchh kaha nahin abhi to kuchh suna nahin
Abhi na jao chhod kar ke dil abhi bhara nahin

Sitare jhilmila uthe
sitare jhilmila uthe charag jagamaga uthe
Bas ab na mujhko tokana
Bas ab na mujhko tokana na badhake rah rokana
Agar main ruk gayi abhi to ja na paungi kabhi
Yahi kahoge tum sada ke dil abhi nahin bhara
Jo khatm ho kisi jagah ye aisa silasila nahin
Abhi nahin abhi nahin nahin nahin nahin nahin
Abhi na jao chhod kar ke dil abhi bhara nahin

Adhuri aas
Adhuri aas chhodke adhuri pyaas chhodake
Jo roz yunhi jaogi to kis tarah nibhaogi
Ke zindagi ki raah men jawaan dilon ki chah men
Kayii muqam aenge jo ham ko azamaenge
Bura na mano baat ka ye pyaar hai gila nahin
Haan yahi kahoge tum sada ke dil abhi bhara nahin
Haan dil bhara nahin nahin nahin nahin nahin

So We Understand Each Other...

Just completed The Motorcycle Diaries. First the book and then, the DVD movie.

Although I had purchased my copy of this all-students-must-own book two years ago, got around to reading it now. Post vipassana. Post - well, so many other things as well...

Am awed anew. At Che Guevara the iconoclast.

This twentieth century icon begins his memoirs on his youth thus :

This is not a story of incredible heroism, or merely the narrative of a cynic. It is the glimpse of two lives that ran parallel for a time, with similar hopes and convergent dreams.

And with these words on the first page of your diary, Che, I have felt a deep bond of kinship, that has strengthened as I have gone through all the pages. The quiet strength, the underlying sense of humour, the eye-opening moments, the loneliness of adventure even when shared with marvellous friend Alberto.

And I have felt so proud of you!

... to know that I share my date of birth with you.

... To recognize how the trials & tribulations of human lives always touched you in life, especially on this most seminal of trips when you were 23-24 , a very 'Coming of Age' age.

... To be totally moved at your vision of a single race not divided into unstable and illusory nations and narrow-minded provincialism. You mention America and mean 'Mexico to the Magellan Straits.'
I think of the entire planet. And when you describe certain lives, it is like seeing my fieldwork in Solapur come alive... Some give the impression they go on living only because it is a habit they cannot shake. I am reminded of the beedi workers met in my fieldwork again, when you say: On top of the very low wages paid in the south, unemployment is high and the authorities afford workers very little protection.
How things have stayed unchanged, Che, 40 years since you were murdered, even as the world has moved on, in man's indefatigable thirst to take control and exercise total authority.

In my need to establish more spiritual and emotional points of contact, I find I can link a few more. Some might say tenuous, but in this journal of your self-discovery, mere mortals like me shall seek other parallels with legendary souls who went on to find themselves :

... To find out you were born in Rosario, a town that I have visited up the Mar del Plata on a most incredibly memorable ship voyage (the only time I have been on a ship that actually went up a river - she traveled across the Atlantic from Antwerp, and then slowly and majestically moved up this river with breathtaking banks visible both port and starboard, all the way to Rosario) , a city I recall in vivid detail. Both its comic aspects ( my first evening ever at a sailor's 'pub' and all because I, an officer's wife, had asked good friend Piggy, the Captain of the M. V. Mannan (Piyush Srivastava actually) about where all the sailors disappeared to as soon as we berthed at any port - and he insisted I go along to 'see' for myself, much to the shock and horror of the officers but more so, those 'girls' in the pub :-)) .
Also the underbelly of the city, with the sight of its middle class begging and selling off everything owned - Argentina those days of the mid '90s was in severe recession.

To know you visited Necochea for a day on your motorcycle - a town I visited for exactly a day too, and one I recall as fascinating - pride of place in the town square held by the statue of - a dog. And where in its port, I had my first close and hilarious 'brush' with a moustached walrus. To know you played soccer and went to medical school in Buenos Aires, that city where time stands still. Where I felt I was transported into another era and catapulted as if into the insides of a beautiful movie.

You write : 'The person who wrote these notes passed away the moment his feet touched (back in Argentinian soil). The person who reorganizes and polishes them, me, is no longer, at least I'm not the person I once was. All this wandering around - has changed me more than I thought.'

The movie rephrases these original words and ends thus:

I am not me anymore. At least I'm not the same me I was.
Was our view too narrow, too biased, too hasty?
Were our conclusions too rigid?
Maybe.

Change and Che.
Isn't that true - even if not in a world-changing way - of all our diaries and journals? Of all of us? The global and universal theme of a search for one's identity.

And Che leaves us at the end of his introduction chapter 'So We Understand Each Other' thus :

It will be hard for you to find an alternative to the truth I am about to tell. But I will leave you now, with myself, the person I used to be.

Che, salut !! To the young you and to the you you became. A legend and inspiration to all those who denounce suffering. Hatred. Inequality.

From both me that was.
And the me I have become.

NO RESIDUES

Swami Chidananda says:

For most people, activities of life not only cause physical tiredness but also mental exhaustion. When we are wise, the latter reduces if not disappear.

A hundred people pass in front of a mirror and images of all of them are formed on its surface. However, they go their way and the mirror remains unaffected. Even the heaviest of those visitors does not leave behind a ‘residue’ through his or her image that was formed upon the mirror.

Can our mind also likewise be totally silent after a hectic day filled with interactions? Can it be silent in the sense of absence of regret, guilt, pride or other residues? Can it be quiet but vibrant, cheerful and available?

Shri Krishna calls this akarma in karma (Geeta 4.18). Non-action in action is when the action does not leave behind any noise in our mind. Ordinarily we go on remembering especially the moments of friction, compromise or contradiction. I should not have said that, or I should not have done that, etc keep coming up in our thoughts. Upon a close examination of the matter, we realize that all this is the result of self-importance. The ego in us is much upset if something goes wrong at our hands. I should be perfect and all should admire me, etc are the underlying assertions.

We cannot be quiet by deciding to be so. At the most it will amount to suppression, and the emotions suppressed will explode at a later time. Many people in the world take shelter under some ideal and, in its inspiration, are successful in making the selfish worries and agitations subside. Religious or secular models give us often a lift and we are able to put aside our sorrows of loss or defeat. The limitation here is that the ideals also tend to change and, as we evolve, we cannot receive the same inspiration from them as we did before. Further, many realities of life collide with the ideals we adore and we are torn between the ideal and the actual. Some of us even meet with a total disillusionment with regard to what we held before as the supreme truth or the most right way of living.

The healthiest way to arrive at inner peace is by giving up egoistic ways right away. We need not cling to some conceptual support (like an ideal) to do this. We need to directly see how our thoughts have given undue importance to I, me and my. What I said, how somebody ignored me and how my position was undermined – these are the crux of the matter. Let us not justify it all saying it is most natural. If we do so, then endless suffering also would be natural. Egoistic ways are not so much natural as they are wide-spread and common.

Our mind is in a true learning mode when we keep the ego under control. The ego is itself a bundle of residues and it further causes residues to be formed. Right in the present moment, we must perceive situations with full attention. As we do so, we gain understanding and move on. There is no burden of hurt or pride. Then, as Shri Krishna put it, though there was action (which normally strains us), it is as though there was no action (for the mind is free of all strain).

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

www.fowai.org

As I go for Vipassana at Igatpuri, these are the vibrant thoughts, that steer me! Really looking forward to the next 10 days...

Our 'Copying' Fetish in Education

A building coming up in Powai has signs put up all around it : IBS Mumbai. India Business School Mumbai.

This morning, front page ads announce the CFA Program leading to a CFA charter.

The ponytailed hero of the Indian MBA wannabes, Arindam something-or-the-other takes full page ads in the national dailies with - among all else, for sure - his own photo. (I know a professor at IIM A who cringes each time - he is a namesake!)

Yet another gentleman 'Chate' ensures he hogs the media ad space every time there is talk of extra classes or tuition classes.

IBS is written exactly as the logo of LBS, the London Business School. Down to the very same blue square background. With a red underline.

The CFA India thing uses words of the original CFA program of the US, but is actually a Tripura based body, who even took the poor firangis to court (and won!). Calling what they give as a degree a 'CFA charter' and what not. A different matter, if I-Banks such as Accenture, Lehman Brothers, E & Y give a far different weightage to who they see as the actual CFA charter holder - a crazily tough place to get into and then get through its exams, where even chartered accountants and IIT engineers are known to fail - as versus these tom-tomming media and space hoggers. God knows if the Tripura one is at all entertained by the international finance institutions. It would be interesting to see how these two CFAs measure up against each other, in - say - a third exam.

Even suggesting this - same for IBS versus LBS - is perhaps giving them too much 'bhav'. And 'bhav' is something the Arindams and the Chates obviously give bhav to.

While India is definitely going places, it is a sad state of affairs that she is doing so willy-nilly.
An Anything Goes attitude that would make Paul Feyerabend cringe.

Soda - A Caustic Story....

Fourteen year old Pooja candidly indicated the shape of things to hear at Solapur.

She said : Pepsi and Coke and drinks like that have soda. And soda is what mom uses to clean the sandhaas.

Sandhaas or sandaas is the rather popular colloquial word used across all of India - well, most of it - for a dirty Indian toilet.
I mean Indian etiquette demands that sandhaas is one of the first words we jettison as we become 'cultured' - it is that 'dirty' a word.

A couple of days later, in another part of Solapur, as part of a different interview - for my PhD stuff - nothing corporate about these interviews - ten year old Naveen more or less repeated the same thing when he remarked rather casually - he was encouraging me to drink the cool nimbu pani his mom was offering me ( i really needed no second bidding for it, what with temperatures of 45 d. And no electric fans either since all non-metros face a scorching load shedding schedule... the size of the town in India is in reverse proportion to the number of hours of 'black-outs', and so what if the current Minister of 'Power' at the center Sushil Kumar Shinde is from Solapur, and of course by now I think I'm getting away from my topic or perhaps not...)

Aunty, I never drink Coca Cola, he said dismissively. That's the stuff used in the sandaas...

Oh Oh!

Apparently Ramdev Baba in his very successful recent visit to the town had addressed a session on the sprawling open grounds of his shibir, one day - with the students of various Solapur schools. His message had been simple - and as we have seen - starkly evocative. The need to stay in good health not just by vyayaam or exercise but via the ingestion of the right stuff.

Completely irrefutable logic as far as all the children were concerned.
Yes, soda is indeed the word written on the 'do-not-touch' powders used for the recalcitrantly dirty toilets.

At least we Indians do not use 'soda' as a generic word for colas as in the West.
Can you imagine the plight of Pepsi and Coke if that were so :-) :-)

You Know You Are Back Home When...

* You come back to India and see magazines with a nation wide reach continuing to have Amitabh Bachchan on its cover as STAR of stars. 'Oh No', goes the mind, but then within the covers, one discovers a treasure trove of truly excellent articles such as Mukul Kesavan's take on why Dharmendra (an all-time favorite!) never got the true recognition he deserved, or any award. Paromita Vohra's comments on Bollywood stardom : 'a genetically modified, steroid-sculpted giant tomato'. Even Bhaichand Patel's indignant reaction on having his dreams shattered by discovering that the feet and knees he had fantasized over, as Meena Kumari 'bathed' in Footpath, belonged to someone else.

* You come to know (many days after the event) that bomb blasts have occurred in yet another city - this time Jaipur, creating a trail of media indignance nationally. But nary a ripple internationally in a terror-weary world.

* In the coalition politics of the home - between bai (the maid), Bharati (the cook), mali (the gardener), and Ganesh, the general handyman, the homefront has borne the brunt of its stresses and strains... a microcosm of the nation :-)

* When the headline that greets you as you deplane - is of a nose-dived fellow Air India aeroplane.

* When everyone you recount an incident to - of a question asked to me at the conference I am back from - Can you in India hold focus groups with a few 'untouchables' in it - is morally indignant at the West's tunnel vision.

* And then, the next day's lead story on the front pages is of celebrating a brother-sister 'other backward caste' duo who have broken through the glass ceiling of the uber-elitist IAS.

My next step:

To locate Mukul Kesavan's book 'The Ugliness of the Indian Male, and Other Propositions'. Sounds very interesting indeed....

Randy Pausch, Steve Jobs - What Do They Have in Common?

You don't speak ill of the dead.
You don't speak ill, even more so, of the near-dead.


So far, my gold standard of a lecture at a university - any commemoration lecture that is - is Steve Jobs' convocation address at Stanford in June 2005. Recently I was one of those who added up to the curious 10 million who've hit youtube to see Randy Pausch's Last Lecture.

And you know what, my Steve Jobs gold standard has just become platinum.

RP's talk was painstakingly gung-ho. For some reason it had the same effect on me as when a stranger had once begun to cry opposite me in the local train. You know, you are taken aback, then you want to reach out, mumble some pacificatory stuff, put your arm around the person with what you hope will be taken as compassion rather than pity, and when the stranger disembarks, there is a curious sense of being touched yet untouched - I would even say achievement rather than sadness - like the feeling just after doing a good deed or participating in charity.

What else can you feel anyway?

Randy Pausch's Last Lecture (note the capital L's - it's already an epigraph) was so much 'Look at me, I am OK, Don't pity me' - esp the push up part, remember? that contrarily, 'pity' starts becoming the overriding theme of the viewing. And also it was somehow nerve wracking in the speech's intensity of dotting every unfinished 'i' of life, and crossing every 't' junction he is now never likely to reach.

In Steve Jobs speech, otoh, the quiet 'I've seen death face to face' moment (incidentally both touch on pancreatic cancer), is not reduced in any way just because he managed to get out of it providentially... In his talk, there is a sense of expansion, of breathing deeply and savoring every transient moment of life - that gets infectiously communicated.
So much so that you expand, reach out. Want to send the talk to all your loved ones. And this is surely the story of 9999 of us in every 10000 perhaps, who have no idea how long or short is going to be our Future, with a capital F. We, who have no idea when and how we are going to die. There is one day in every year that posterity will know as my Death Day, but we are blissfully unaware of it now. What comes across in Steve Jobs' Stanford speech, with its minimal number of words, is the sense of quiet and monumental creativity that will always find an outlet whatever the circumstances doled out by fate - of a person whose genius is surely one in a billion.

And so. In the years to come, give me the June 2005 lecture of Steve Jobs anytime -and I will draw sustenance from it. Randy Pausch's?
Well... All I can say is, we all have to die one day, don't we? So many of the 10 million who hit youtube are perhaps already dead, for that matter. Who were vicariously trying to figure out this 'death' thing from afar.

Recall the first week after Princess Di died? In 1997? It was like the world came to a standstill, every minute, every hour in that first week was encased with Diana, enshrined on every channel. But after the stirring funeral, there was a sense of closure, of in fact feeling a bit abashed at having spent so many hours glued to the TV, and of everyone in the world wanting to get back to the daily routine.

I have this peculiar habit - and I know it is peculiar - of clearing up my tables, finishing my backlog of work, and sort of ensuring that my paperwork is in order, when it is time to go abroad (not as often as some, but often enough - say once a year). Yeah, yeah, I know more accidents take place on the streets in your local town blah blah blah. But bus, waisi hi hoon.

So right now, have made lists of all payments made, future payments to be made, cheques, bills to be cleared, pending dues... I mean the domestic and home related stuff. Not work of course. That has a semblance of order courtesy income tax and the chartered accountant.

All my keys are now neatly labeled. I mean the tangible ones. Kaun jaane cyber space passwords ka kya hoga... where no duplicates can be made either... Preparation, preparation, preparation.

In one respect, am way behind Chhotokaka. When Baba, my father in law passed away so suddenly back in 1991, we were all caught unawares. Shocked. Everyone, and especially the soft hearted Chhotokaka, in disarray. The religious sanskars came to the rescue keeping the mind occupied - the rituals, the preparation for the shraddha. Attending to the hundreds of well-wishers who came over in Calcutta. And in the midst of it all what did Chhotokaka - Baba's youngest brother - do?

Having witnessed the chaos in locating a good photo of the departed soul (ultimately a group photo was enlarged, spliced and a part again blown up - this was way before the ease of the digital times).
He suggested to all the siblings and his gen to go to the nearest photo studio and take the right photograph. With proper lighting etc. To be garlanded in the future.
'At least when our time comes, we'll rest in peace knowing what everyone is sadly staring at', he said.

Msg for Gaurpriya

During my three time sent-for-repairs cell phone, have lost your tel number.

Please do call :-)

Black or White... Sons and Moms.....

The magazine Time has decided to tell us about Obama’s mother who was this (white) PhD in anthropology. After all these days of building up the story of the first ‘black’ candidate who’s reached so far, the media finally wants us to think of him as legit as if we can now talk of his ‘acceptable’ side or something? Crazy.

Anyway, no point in agonizing over this duniya’s sense of do's and don'ts, rights and wrongs. Have had a nice lazy morning reading the meandering blogs of Abhinav Jain. He loves to talk of his loving 52 year old mom ( the shape of things to come in a few years when my daughter starts to announce the parental age with impunity. I mean the age by itself is not the problem, I wouldn't mind some more grey as I wouldn't mind waist length hair. In the hope that it makes one look suitably distinguished - and sexy. It is the way the nextgen carelessly shunts the parent over to a sort of passion-less territory :-)). And here’s the interesting bit – he has a persistent gang of ‘commentors’ who are all almost equally entertaining. Like there’s this continuous hyperventilation over Abhinav’s punctuation marks and why he always leaves a gap before his commas and full stops. Then there's this gang who wants to score points by being the first (or the 50th or the 100th) to post a comment. Quite a fan following of girls – has this young and single 26 year old namesake (Munnu). Each of his string of blog comments always seem to end with some anonymous haplog mail that goes blah blahHindi.haplogdotcom Malayalam.haplogdotcom kannada.haplogdotcom music.haplogdotcom radio.haplogdotcom tv.haplogdotcom (Tamil.Haplogdotcom)

I am sure there was yet another mom and son combo I had been meaning to write about – before I got called away on dire emergencies at home. By bai (‘didi, istri wala keh raha hai ye kapde aapne diya pur maine ye pehle kabhi nahi dekha’), by Ganesh (‘didi, kachra wala terrace ka kachra nahi lega, kahan phenku?’).

Was it about my hubby and his mom? My younger bro and his mom (mine too?). Nah I I don't think so…

May be this is the onslaught of early Alzheimer’s. Am not sure how deeply I should agonize over the memory loss. Worse is what if the retrieved memory is quite a let down. Perhaps it is better to stay in this stage of ‘let me see if I can recall’…

Like nostalgia. And mushy sentimentality. Wonder if this is a necessary side-effect of blogging. Am sure everyone keeps getting called away. The other thing I wonder about is if everyone has this feeling of being vaguely guilty. At taking time out to blog. As if there are more important things to do and I am shirking from the things that make the planet go round....

(Three hours later)...

Yaad aaya. Two more combos actually. Richard Branson & his mom, and SRK and his mom - both pairs as gleaned from resp autobio and bio. Anupama Chopra displays her usual assured sense of the heartbeat of Bollywood. As usual her books are total paisa-vasool and sometimes she uses phrases that resonate long after the book is over and done with. Here I love her take on Hindi movies esp of Yash Raj films that she says are never about 'the inexplicably untidy debris of relationships'. SRK's mom completely endorsed all that the son planned to do and was not around to see the heights he reached.

Richard Branson's autobio is rivetting. Am on page 136 now. The SRK book gives a great feel for the superstar's life, especially its unreality. It even has a 'cast of characters' in the beginning - that theatrical it is... The 'cast of characters' has real people as well as Gabbar Singh listed.
Otoh, RB's is so real so down to earth that you feel you can be one of his friends too, invite him over for dinner to your home for potluck perhaps and he'll come.

And his mom. The sort of things done thru childhood to instill values - make him bicycle 50 miles to make him independent, continually find things ('work') for the kids to do, ensure that the company at dinner was as interesting (often more interesting) than the food, always valued the children's opinion....

My indefatigable mom is no less come to think of it. (Don't want to tell her I'm writing this. She may get a heart attack or something what with our constant 'loggerheads' way of reaching out to one another!) She made me and my bro human and whatever we have achieved today is as much her level of motivation. Right now, she is resident at the village of Kamarpukur, all the time going after families of beggars ensuring they send their children to come to school. Since the state schools give lunch on the other days, she feeds them breakfast everyday plus two hours of morning tuitions, and on Sunday, lunch. Busy, busy, busy with her Spoken English classes as well as Computer classes (we sent our old desktops over to her) for the youth of the village. Her logic to go off into the boondocks was that we grew up and did not need her services any longer. Needless to say, they all adore her. The streets resonate with 'amma' , 'amma' wherever you go with her. She loves this name far more than her own - Nivedita.

As Gerald Durrell has said of his mom in 'My Family and Other Animals', our mom is a credit to how well we have brought her up :-)

And now that I am reading RB , let me surf the net for what I wanted to check out - the sound of Tubular Bells.

The Reader-Author Jugalbandi

Some 5000 read my Jab We Met review. In 2 days? Bollywood topics sure attract the readers, no?

MSN allows the reader to rate it, some 49 of these readers have taken the pains to mark a very middling 3 out of 5 in their rating. It only means this: Next time, shall keep in mind that the saamnewala is - right this moment - scoring me a low grade :-) when I hold forth at gatherings and parties.

Did the scores get averaged out? If I give myself a low rating of 1 out of 5 now... wonder how that'll get reflected in the overall scheme of things...

Earlier today, I seemed to come across the Dalai Lama everywhere. (In every paper and magazine I mean, aam aadmi jo hum thehre). Here is one revered individual who we get to meet, mediated by the skew and tilt of the newspaper and the lens of each writer. Newsweek, just arrived at our doorstep, for instance, starts off the entire interview by asking Dalai Lama straight out something like ‘What happens when you die?’

??

One can even hear the casual Amriki twang in the tone of this question & little matter if there is an Indian journalist Sudip Mazumder who’s also supposed to be partially taking this interview. He speaks Newsweekean. Ultimately, it is what 6 billion plus non- Amrikis see as the inward gazing ‘I don’t give a damn’ attitude. The overall article is full of innuendos and quotes on the Dalai Lama... The way he is spoken of, is full of 'He said he was driven to tears' (instead of - 'he was driven to tears') or look at this line : 'Meanwhile the Dalai Lama is losing his ability to rein in his militant followers' . Or this one: The Dalai Lama's 'great respect' (quotation marks of Newsweek as if let's begin to doubt if this is real) for Hu Jintao etc. Newsweek just a week or so back had this article on how 'we' are oh-so-unbiased, but in the overall sum and substance, is the media's new smart and sneaky way, to go out and be as biased as you wish.

The magazine ‘Time’ was lying in the HSBC waiting area. Here, the magazine does the ‘We know Dalai Lama the best – after all, it is Asian Pico Iyer who writes on His Holiness for us, over the years, 1987, 1997, and now in 2008’. (Thus kal- ka - chhokra Pico Iyer shares his name and almost equal space on the cover, with the revered DL). More of a sense of deep respect evident through the article, beginning with how the young Pico kept a picture of the Lama on his desk all through his childhood, and yet, Time is another magazine out of the US. Bending backwards the other end.

And Vinod Mehta of Outlook does the ultimate Indian reverse snobbery thing – the ‘I-don’t believe-in-these-spiritual-types-though-I-am-an-Indian’ . But one who reveals his totally dehati and desi roots when he owns up to touching the Dalai Lama’s feet, before he leaves his presence!

Am reminded of Foucault’s ‘What Is An Author’. The author as the origin of something original is deconstructed by Foucault. Right now, how we plebeians view the exalted soul, depends on what we read in the media and who writes about the Dalai Lama.

The only point of view is that each medium presents a fragmented point of view. The truth is, there are no universal Truths, even when His Holiness is involved. Perhaps even more so when Buddhism is the central theme. Each author is nothing but one more manifestation of the current social dynamic. Each one somewhere deep down dwells in and revels in his (his magazine’s) own ‘Will To Power’… to quietly swell his chest in his role of mediator in moulding and creating a reader perspective. (Aside: I use the pronoun 'he' purposefully in these politically correct gender times we live in :-) )

The identity of the Dalai Lama then shifts from the reader perspective – from author to author. All we get to see - in today’s media-exploded, internet enabled world, is that the author-function is murkier than ever before.

And if we hapless readers give a low ‘grade’ to the media spewed output, like I'm doing at this moment, all we are doing is deluding ourselves on having had a say.

Jab We Met... And DDLJ

Is there any rule that states reviews of movies need to be written as soon as the movie is out? Thing is, I've just seen Jab We Met, five or six months after it got released (courtesy Moser Baer – still cannot believe DVDs cost Rs. 49/- !). Adored the movie like all met so far.

And compared it to DDLJ – again as any Bollywood moviegoer ought to have already done.

At the risk of talking about what everyone has seen and heard, here goes my forty nine paisa worth … and like a good myth and story, hope you don’t mind if the movie is rehashed once again.

I am going to first begin with comparing moms and dads. Then I’ll go along to compare trains. (Can’t help it, trains are the leit motif of my current life… indeed, have always been so… trains have taken me to known destinations, have taken folks away to destinations unknown…)

We shall also talk of acronyms. When Jab We Met is already so succinct and wonderfully Indinglish, why make a much- longer- in- phonetic-terms JWM (Jay-Double U-Em) out of it, right? Unlike Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge, a local language mouthful, that just needed to be ruthlessly downsized to DDLJ, and so what if the vistas were London and Switzerland. (Already the so called younger gen Adi Chopra and Karan Johar with their KANK, KKHH, K3G sound passe, the speed at which things move in today's planet!). And if there is time (which I am sure I’ll find since I am procrastinating in the writing of my forthcoming international presentation), we shall talk of Hindi movie ishtyle ‘pyaar-vyaar’ in the ‘90s versus the ‘00s. If not of earlier.

I begin with a question to Javed-saab. After all, you & Salim wrote the ever-eternal and cult-following line ‘Mere Paas Maa Hai’ in the ‘70s.

How do you place the character of Shahid Kapoor’s mom in the story? Is she present or is she absent? If she is present, why is she voiceless? If she is absent, why is she present at all? At this rate, where do you think, is the ‘mom’ likely to be headed in ten or twenty years time?

And which one was the bride’s dad exactly? In DDLJ, Amrish Puri was the hugely larger-than-life, humungously louder-than-life father-figure. Here, in Jab We Met, for someone who was not paying all that much attention to inessentials (me), there was some confusion between Kareena’s ‘dad’ and ‘chacha’ with the two characters seeming quite interchangeable. It was grandpa Dara Singh as created by Imtiaz Ali that had a firm grip, and always stood out, ancient deer antlers above him, true relics of a bygone era.

Point kya hai, you ask? Point yeh hai, ki grandpas are always putty in grandchildren’s hands, and if we now celebrate ‘family’ by blissfully rubbing out the beech-wala generation, it only means what we have all always known but never been ready to face. The face of future India is one in which we parents shall be present if we sort of fit in, within the youth’s scheme of things! And never you mind all that gyan about Indian tradition that reveres age and experience.

And so. While both movies celebrate the ‘no cause to rebel in life, everything is so hunky-dory’ post-liberalization phenomenon, chronologically the initial one that had to come along and pave the way was DDLJ. This movie indicated that prior to boy and girl coming together, huge labour pains in the form of garmagaram family dialogues, even painful and gory violence was necessary. Whereas by the time we reach the more recent Jab We Met, we see that we can conveniently brush off all family objections by a simple ‘Oh, they’ll come around, give them time’. Conservative attitudes of the girl (remember Kajol?) are passe, and as long as she is 'true' to her love, the family is with her. We can even 'happily run away' from reality. It is the modern pyaar version… If the guy and gal truly script their love together, other family members merely provide the much needed props and the backdrop. Along with Bollywood things like the fun Pritam soundtrack, halt-in-the-tracks lines such as 'Manzil se behtar lagne lage hain yeh raaste' and endearingly choreographed dances. Where the bottomline is Jo kuchh insaan real mein chahta hai na, actual mein, woh usey mil jata hai.

And then the whole train thingy. Today, we stand proud in our own Indian skins, and Laloo-land railways is good enough for us, thank you very much. London and Switzerland give way to Ratlam, Kota and Bhatinda. And although we laboriously lock and chain our belongings in real-life trains, sleeping fitfully and waking up with a start to check if all is in place every few minutes, in reel-life it is absolutely possible that we have all our stuff carefully delivered at the next station by a station-master we rude-talk to.

Am I beginning to sound whiney now? It is true I pretty much thought DDLJ was over-hyped, once upon a time. But believe you me, I loved, absolutely was smitten by Jab We Met, and have now seen it four times in three days (the new Rs. 49/- pricing feels even more paisa-vasool - value for money, the more you see it) and with the round-the-clock presence of a movie at home that has an eleven year old in it... it may actually be more than 4 times.

Imagine. If we extrapolate this to my fellow Indians, who are all much quicker off the mark than I have been, I cannot even begin to imagine the number of times we have all met up with Jab We Met so far.

A final curious question – do they still run that DDLJ daily single matinee at Maratha Mandir, as proudly as ever? God! What an anachronistic contrast! :-)

In the Holi Interstices of Life

Tough to know if I'm coming or going - this frenetic month. But experientially rich nonetheless. Moving from the left to the right of the country. To top everything, my letter ‘a’ of the new E series cell-phone decided to go defunct & hide itself. With life and business being conducted on the sms, I find I do figure out w'ys to keep ‘a’ out of the picture. Soon, even seem to think with no ‘a’ in it! This write-up till now, title et 'l, without ‘a’... But most irrit'ting. Vowels r essent'l like so m'ny other ch'r'cters, in life. Not complaining too loudly since this cell-phone is one’s client too!

West Bengl, Krntk, Mhrshtr… Brdwn, Kolh’pur, Sol’pur, Bij’pur. Unilever project in smll towns, plus PhD fieldwork. Not to mention qlty time with mom in her vill’ge school in the birth village of Sri Ramakrishna, Kamarpukur, district Hooghly, where she is now resident past one year. And then, b'ck to short interv’ls at home when - here - m comfort’bly living out of suitc’ses.

Just bck fm an outstn trip – t’ken with family in tow ( me on work at Sol'pur… dtr on her spring break in school, hubby's decided to recruit in sm'll town desh, pretty successfully I might add... he got some excellent engineers). Str’t eleven hours drive b’ck from Bij. But wh’t a wonderful 2 day get’wy. 3 of us roadies on the Golden Q’dril'teral highway. Not knowing who we will meet next, where we'll stay at next, eat next, see next. Qlty bonding within. With everything im'ginable b'ck in the boot – why am i pushing this non-a business to the extreme?? You want a fan? We hve a mini electric p'nkha. Pillows? Hai na. Ordin'ry nahi chalega - bolster hi ch'hiye? Woh bhi hai. Gifts to give junta? 300 of them (OK, this one ws for the Sociology PhD fieldwork). ‘Discovered’ this new archaeological marvel at the Mhrshtr-Krntk border, tks to the excellent archaeologist Dr. Jadhav of Solapur University for pointing the place out.

KudalSangam, next to the coming together of the two tributaries of Krishna river, Seena and Bhima, and here an unbelievable eleventh century temple. Surrounded by miles of untouched greenery. Two garbha-gruhas side by side inside the temple that has emerged just six years ago, from centuries of being hidden – one for Shiva and one for Vishnu … with novel frescos on the ceiling carved out of single stone representing the bala-krishna, that you can twirl around 360 degrees and look at. Sunlight that reaches deep inside through seven doors in a direct ray, only on the solstice of 14 - 15 Jan every year.

And what a magnificent sight.... the 360 torsos each jutting out from the lingam - together in the shape of this large elegant shivling. Never seen anything like this anywhere. 360 is the number of days in the Marathi calender. The two huge Naga wall frescos were equally mesmerizing. Snakes have always held our fascination down the millenia. Sudhir Kakar has an excellent analysis in 'Intimate Relations' - what a book in every which way.

I tell you, what a country we belong to. Hidden treasures everywhere. Spotted by just a few. In the people, in its towns, in its digs. Folks ever smiling in spite of the worse possible struggles and situations in life, in the eternal and somehow assured wait for emerging triumphant. The Shaikh family in Solapur, that gamely moves along debts and all. The Nagane family hit by yet another tragedy after the third daughter's wedding. This other woman just met, with three children, who makes beedis and earns Rs. 35 for every 1000 made (and if the raw material provided by the factory owners runs out before the magic figure of 1000 is reached, she is expected to replenish at own cost) who wants to give us 'sherbet', yet another family who makes the cylindrical paper package covers that cover the tobacco sold in villages. She gets Rs. 5/- for every 1000 such covers made. We time her. She takes 6 seconds to make one.... Average of 9 per minute, that is 500 per hour, and thus two hours of working like a machine with no break gives her rupees five. My daughter is awed. By the value that the same money that carelessly passes through our hands, can command.

Bijapur – one more town that is so much a part of this nation, yet not quite on the beaten trail – with its Gol Gumbaj of the Adil Shahi sultanate. The original geodesic dome. HUGE. Made around 1640. A whisper at one end of its inner ring verandah that is at 7 floors height - we go up the minaret on its outside, what a view! - and this can be heard at the other distant end of the cavernous inner diameter. Even the rubbing of the palms (as instructed by a helpful fellow tourist, what would we do without them) is clear, and I as I walk to the other end, I overhear my daughter quietly negotiating the next Coke with her dad, even as they wait for me to reach the other end. I whisper a 'No thanda' firmly, and they are both startled at the clarity. The Adil Shahi must have turned in his grave deep down there below at mundane Coca Cola conversations.

If he hasn't already done so that is. He has his wife tombed on one side and his 'Hindu dancing consort' entombed on the other :-) , so we were told - again by yet another helpful chap .

Right now, back here on this holiday, every neighboring apartment building worth its brand new sturdy foundations is strenuously playing up the loudspeakers. The one to our West is playing ‘Harre Ram Harre Ram Harre Krishna Harre Ram’ from the movie Bhool Bhulaiyya. Our lobby – building friends have by now called at least 5 times asking us to come down and join the community celebration – is playing Nagara Nagara Nagara bajaa. The reverberations of the hits of 2007. A building further away is playing a more ghisa-pita old Holi song. Some silsilays are best erased yet remain a burr deep in the mind. What to do. Sounds of actual drums also. The mishmash in total – surprisingly – is not cacophonic. Ek ajeeb sa festive sa mood hai. Sounds. Colours. Smells...

Home reverberates with the khandaan. The three musketeers – Isha, Anupama, Ishani – ages 11, 10 and 9 – have at last managed to pester their Ron-kaka to wake up, leave home and bring abeer and pichhkaris. Their two grandmoms from Kolkata - Thamma and Bubu have at last located enough purana kapda for all to wear. Chhod-dada, their favorite grandpa visiting from Kolkata, insists on sleeping through it all to their chagrin. Aja, the other favorite and resident grandpa has refused to step out of his home at Powai Park. Bulpi-pishi is busy dishing out cheese omelettes, and Tina-kaki has just got the terrace ready water pipes et al, for the imminent dunking session. Breakfast has also triggered IAI to go make a ‘fruit-chaat’ for all. 3 bachchas plus 2 adults in the kitchen (not me) – it is a happy and holy mess all around. I love it!

But I digress. Where was I? Yes, in Bijapur. My holiday reading was ‘The Routledge Companion to Post-Modernism’. My attempt to make sense of subjects such as Critical & Cultural Theory and my life – not necessarily in that order.

And my daughter Isha was reading Skellig.
Her homework assignment from school. I tried reading it. A play with a 12 year old protagonist Michael. Who discovers this creature in his garage. Who loves Chinese food, but could be an archaeopteryx. Or is it all in his imagination? His friend Mina can see it too anyway.

And does having the main character as a child, make the book a children’s book? More so, a padhai wala book? Talk of post-modern works. If I began the book clueless, have ended it even more mystified. Can’t imagine our Indian boards – ICSc, CBSE, any of our state boards ever recommending a book like this as part of academic reading. What is this book?? Is it weird, or what!

Yet it is a compelling play. Compelling also in its lack of a clearcut narrative (belied by the presence of a ‘narrator’ on every page). The only aspect that makes you do a double-take is that this book is supposed to have won quite a few awards. It's a very recent book released in 2003. And the ultimate paradox - it's a recommended book for 11 and 12 year olds in an IB school. Post-modernism turned upside down. Have asked my daughter to explain life as the book and the character Skellig sees it. If this is essential reading, I am surely missing something - perhaps need to understand life as the nextgen sees it, once explained to me.

And with this general delicious feeling, I now go back to catch a much needed and well-earned snooze. On this lazy frenetic, noisy day of Holi, life is quiet.

Managing Hurt...

This is something Swami Chidananda sent - as usual his timing is impeccable! (More on him in www.fowai.net)

When a blade hurts us physically, there are medical means to heal the wound. Let us consider here psychological hurt, and see what can heal the injury.

This topic is of utmost importance. All spirituality is essentially about being free from hurt. When our mind is totally cleansed of all the scars of the past, that itself is moksha, liberation. The root cause of hurt and of its continuation is one and the same in the cases of other common psychological ailments such as fear, worry, greed and jealousy.

We say, “I am hurt.” The wise ask us, “Who is hurt? Who or what is that ‘I’ that is hurt?”

The entity that is hurt is a conception of I. Many thoughts, born of memory, build this concept. If I have enjoyed fame and name for years, there is a large bundle of memories of all that and I carry a ‘me’ that expects special regard and attention from others, who are common men (and women) in my eyes. When I do not receive any special consideration, it hurts me. Even in the case of a relationship between just two people, it is the attachment to memories that keeps certain expectations arising and, when they are not fulfilled, there is hurt. Go anywhere in the world, you will soon be caught in the net of expectations. Spiritual centers are no exception. You expect the so-called gurus to constantly pay attention to you; what is more tragic, some (unripe) gurus seek attention or continued admiration from a good number (if not all) of their followers.

A mind that expects nothing cannot be hurt. Such a mind is an empty but alert mind.

We cannot go far by merely deciding not to expect. Willpower is a charming aspect of mind’s capabilities, which actually is utterly incapable of blessing us with true freedom. Intelligence and willpower are poles apart when it comes to how they influence the human mind. The former is born of total seeing while the latter breeds on partial consideration. With willpower, we may win battles but are sure to lose the war. Its glories are short-lived and it puts no end at all to any human misery. Will power gives us energy in a chosen direction and helps us achieve tasks but we are back to square one very soon. Intelligence removes basic misconceptions and leads us to illumination.

We need to give up our hurried ways that often border on panic, and take a dispassionate look at how we think. What drives our thoughts? Does a certain self-image act as the basis of all our reactions to situations? Is this image closer to facts or is it sustained by fancies?
Do ideas of ‘what we should be’ have a great power to shape our thoughts? Is the fact of ‘what we are’ on the back seat, helpless and hapless?

True intelligence is the ability to see through the games that our own thoughts play. It is about gaining basic understanding of how the machinery of thought functions within us. It is not a matter of generating great thoughts; it is rather made of insights into the structure of thought.

Self-observation, carried with intelligence, dismantles all the images in the mind. The walls of the hall then shine brightly without the clutter of too many framed pictures upon them. Such a mind comes upon silence. It has transparency. Old hurt leaves it and new hurt cannot then be.

Swami Chidananda

Monday, March 17, 2008

MANY LIES, MANY MASTERS…

1.5 million copies sold. Says the jacket. True story, it says. Of a psychiatrist, his young patient and the past-life therapy that changed their lives.

I made my 18^th attempt to complete reading ‘Many Lives, Many Masters’, my interest in half life mode. i.e. going down exponentially - half-hearted as compared to the last time I tried reading - each time.

How come so many folks swear by this book, and I find the going so totally uphill?

Don’t get me wrong. I would absolutely love to do a past-life therapy on myself. Imagine if science can get my DNA to talk, and tell its fascinating history. Imagine – if I can re-look at the seed of me that existed at an earlier point of time – for something of me was there, always, in the past, that is as sure as I stand here living and breathing.

If I decide to begin my journey, say, a mere hundred years ago, there are clearly eight people I am, for sure, merged in – the four sets of parents of my grandparents. Each with future bits of me… my predilections, my genes, my inherent tendencies…Ah, that’s the one I got the dust allergy from. Oh, he’s the one who dislikes sweets, is it? And wow, look at how well she sings and plays the instrument – why did this gene evade me? My ancestors, while they gave me the genes, what I would love to know more of, is what is called the ‘environment’ they each lived in - each bound in social roles, so many untold thoughts, so many untold histories. And all stories, in a real and fascinating way, enmeshed deep deep inside me, in the mist of the past.

Imagine. As I go back further and further in time, there are not just eight, but perhaps hundreds who I am, in a real sense , a part of back at any point of time – I am a living proof of their presence on this planet today. This is such a soul-stirring feeling, such a seamlessly connected to the wide world feeling, so much my-continuing-life feeling. So simple in the truth in it. So awesome too.

Just like the flower blooms so simply,

The morning in my life has woken up the same way.

… and I hope that my evening time also recognizes

To end in the same tune…

Tagore, I think. Who else can put in focus, our time on this planet, so well.

And science tells us there are no endings. If I am a drop in the ocean, I am so, along with billions of molecules. When I merge and go back, and then re-emerge, it will be as another combination of molecules perhaps, but what a mesmerizing history each subpart might have. Like the billions of strands in the double helix of my DNA.

Yet, what do we do - we look at the whole, and seek the past of the complete drop as such. That is because we are so attached to the 'me' of this life!

That’s what this Brian Weiss is missing the point on. When the true reality is so very fascinating, how can these descriptions of past life, by one young girl – each sounding suspiciously like some pages out of a school history text book hold my attention? I mean, her past lives (and the many masters) would do yeoman service to the world, not by providing what is being presented as 'gems of wisdom' but by perhaps going to times that would make it truly incredible - such as deciphering the Indus Valley script, no? Why isn’t anyone ever from some place like this, in her past lives? And that’s the basic defect in the Weiss logic. That he well camouflages under the academic degrees, and with continuous explanations that he rambles on & on about - of his own doubts, and thus smartly tying up of every loose end that could degenerate into outright suspicion by other readers such as me, of course written in a fairly easy to read style.

But then, if indeed she had deciphered the Indus script, the irony is that the book may not have become this famous. Whoever heard of reality – such as archaeology – sell a million and half copies? And that is a telling comment on what we humans seek – doubtful answers to the unknown are always more interesting than some proven and concrete solutions.

I loved watching the movie Ghost – still watch it if I catch it on any of the channels. Enjoy the chemistry between Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore, and the story is one you want to believe in - you want to imagine it real. It is exactly what a good 2 hour movie is supposed to do – provide entertainment, in a world of make-believe simulations outside. I loved reading Roots too, once upon a time, and could never understand why folks dissed the book saying Alex Haley created a work of fiction. So what? That’s great, it was well-researched, and an important addition to the racial anthology, I felt.

But I just cannot bring myself to fit this Many Lives Many Masters anywhere into my acceptance grey cells. It is a piece of shit - to me. And my opinion each time I try to complete it, only digs in deeper. And thank god for blogs where one can bare one’s feelings as it is!

Cell Phones: Cement or Fragment??

Just back from Solapur...

Overheard this cell-phone conversation, as the young fellow talked first to his mom, and then his girl friend, even as one of his chums sat opposite... the guys were sitting across in the AC three tier.

The first thing the two guys commented on, as soon as they boarded the train Hindi-movie style while it was leaving the platform, all out of breath, is 'Arre, yahan recharge point nahi hai '. (Me - oldgen - I was thrilled enough to see clean purdahs and sheets, in our esteemed Rlys, now-making-a-profit ka AC dibbas)

Laloo, Laloo, suno toh sahi... While one of them swore he had seen it on a recent trip in another train, the other was a tad skeptical about it. Meanwhile, the skeptic received a call - ring-tone the default Nokia one - from his mom. Conversation in monosyllables, though mom, like all moms, seemed to have lots to say.
Apart from the 'Hmmmms....', 'Ji....s', 'Haan, Ma....'s', he got agitated at one point when his mom must have asked him - well, we can all guess what she asked him ... 'Ma, woh shahar ke ek kone mein rehta hai, aur mein doosre kone mein, kaise mil sakta hoon'?... and then, his phone got cut off...
Commiserated other friend , 'In today's time and age, this cutting off of signal is criminal.'
Nokia ringtone happens again almost immediately, though young man is sitting back not trying ...
'Nahi, Ma, yahan coverage nahi hai... YAHAN SIGNAL NAHI HAI...'
(listens) 'Main pahunchkar baat karta hoon... BAAT karta hoon.... nahi, Ma- TUMSE baat karunga...'
Had just about finished this conversation, when a piercing & loud police whistle went off with car-horns blaring, in the quiet of the train-night.
That - we all soon figured - was his ring-tone for girl-friend's call coming in...
'..Yeah, my phone was busy... was on an official call.... Sorry, i can't hear - there's poor signal.... No, no, SERIOUSLY, please believe me, coverage nahi hai... sach...
Arre bhai....
'Bhai' is just a figure of speech, yaar, hey-hey'....
Phone cuts off again...
Says sympathetic friend from the other side : 'In one or two years, we'll not be able to give the poor signal reason to anyone you know, what will we do...' (I made note and added to young gen's list of future problems in life in India)
Our friend (the one with the mom and the gf) is frantically trying to dial through - and getting jammed...
Piercing police constable whistle happens.... Train chugs along. All of us junta stoically do our own thing...He puts on the phone, not to his ear - first, to his mouth.
'Hello... Hello.... Mike... Testing... Testing....'.....
'Just checking.... Yeah.... OK, I am joking now....'
'Yeah, hey-hey - me too....'
'Warning you OK? The signal's not good, I am warning you, OK? Don't tell me later I didn't....'

So what do we call this aaj kal wale conversation and dialogues - is it two way/ three way / no way??? All that was spoken of, was the absence of a signal! While there was one voice I heard all through, funnily enough I never heard him - it was three other voices that were really speaking, speaking. Besides, if we remove 'signal' talk/ the cut calls, will service-providers start earning a lot less??

Mikhail Bakhtin, that great Russian thinker must be jumping up and down in his grave in delight... Back in the 40s, and later in the 60s and 70s, he had postulated the 'polyphonic' concept... the human capacity for simultaneous multiple voices; what he said was part of a 'dailogic imagination'... and his thoughts emerged out of his dislike for any structural codes of language.
Wouldn't he just adore this new fragmentedly together world we live in!!!