Saket Suryesh's Blog, page 17

Book Review: Broken Shadows- By Radhika Mukherjee

These stories, Collected under the title, Broken Shadow by Radhika Mukherjee, twelve shorts in total, celebrate words, in their plight to reach out to the world about which an artist seeks to search the meaning of, the immense beauty of those words, written with deep dedication which is visible in every word, one is caught up immediately. There is no build-up, no fooling around. These are not stories of plot and drama, twists and turns. These are the stories more in the style of Annie Dillard's The Writing Life and Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, contemplative, meditative. I hope I'd not be sued by Chicago Tribune description of The Writing Life, for it perfectly fits this collection of story, which I plagiarize with due credit here, " For non-writers, it is a glimpse into trials and satisfactions of a life spent with words. For writers, it is a warm, rambling conversation with a stimulating and extraordinarily talented colleague. " While the book is much shorter in length, only 33 pages as against the Annie Dillard's books or even Virginia Woolfe's- A writer's Journal, the feelings one gets is the same, and Radhika Mukherjee surely comes out as one talented colleague, if I may address her thus myself being a moonlighting, dilettante writer. Radhika is conscious and confident of her words and her adroitness and deftness holds the reader’s attention from the first sentence of the first story “Translucent”.
 “ Manifested in amorphous sensations and currents rippling through me- bringing one moment a tear, then a smile ” she writes. If one has picked up this book in passing, by the time one reads the first page of the first chapter, a perfumed, heavenly sense envelopes the reader. To me the most lovely prose is the one which melts into poetry. It is bit more handsome than poetry, less delicate, but as beautiful and as accurate. Radhika effortlessly attainst that which essentially evidences the effort that would have gone into it, not visible to the reader. In her first story, Art seeks to reach out, screams to the world, which moves uncaring and unconcerned, riding on its behemoth wheels, a giant juggernaut which rolls about, with a hope and a plea. The artist, is wrapped in a translucence of embarrassment about the abundance of sensitivity that every artist can be blamed for, which the world is not able to pierce through. This translucence is her comfort and her hope, as she writes- Could you come get me? Bring me a candle perhaps?
This is followed by the second story, Pain. This peaks of the eternal fear every artist is plagued with, sculptor in this case. A poet, a writer, always is haunted with the fear of a sudden loss of the building blocks of his writings, his words, his feeling and a mind to bring the two together, as if the night will burn it all into ashes and the morning will come coughing through the air laden with gray flakes of charred ashes, the last remnants of dead words. The fear is consistent and constant company. Here, Radhika, the sculptor has a back weakened with pain. This could be real, this could be symbolic. The back could be spine, the spine to continuously wage a war with the world , with blank spaces, driven merely on the faith in one's own feelings and ideas. The fear is palpable, and pain is apparent. What if I die with my art unfinished, perspective undiscovered, stories untold. What am I without them? It also opens another aspect of art. It is not leisure. Art isn’t luxury. Art is very serious hard work and each piece that one creates takes away a part of the creator. Not that the creator minds that, that is what she strives for, to offer a piece of flesh from the part very near to the heart, and to hope that the world will hold it with same love, same affection with which it is created. She wades through the very physical interruption, the pain, the noise, the television and then she creates, a piece of art, another one, in the long chain since the beginning of the mankind, as a consolation, a hope, a striving towards eternity.
Then we have the story Like, which expands beyond the realm of art and creation. It is everybody's story. She writes “ I’ll smile at anything. The smallest thing really. Even squirrels and marauding rats. ” The story is about the friendship with a tiny tortoise as a companion. But it is a story beyond that. The silent loneliness, the quest for company amid the almost unreal, unfeeling bombardment of the technology driven “connect” that haunts our days. Kooki is her friend, an undemanding friend which offers what a man needs most in today’s world, that “Thereness”. This word comes to me from “The Book Thief” by Markus Zussack, where he wrote, “Trust was accumulated quickly due primarily to brute strength of the man’s gentleness, his thereness”. As the new relationship gets established between the little girl Liesel Meminger and her foster father, Hans Hubermann, Markus Zussack write, The girl knew from the outset that Hans Hubermann would always appear mid-scream and he would never leave.” If Radhika is Liesel, Kooki is her Hans Hubermann here. The story also briefly touches upon our own lack of readiness, our own distrust with our capability to step into a relation as she ponders where to keep the tortoise goes about interfacing with the world. Will the world creep in and destroy a fragile friendship? I cannot make out if she intended to bring that about. But the style of stories is very much like a journal, free-flowing, cryptic and complex, and above all, brutally honest. We cannot make out if she intended to let in the modern day syndrome of wanting to get affirmation of our relationships from the world as we put picture of husband, kids, wives, boyfriends/girlfriends on social media and wait for them to be liked, nice things said about our relationships. Do we need reassurance of a hundred likes to value the company of those we love? What if they are not cute, handsome, and beautiful? When one is honest, truths emerge like herbs from all corners, sometimes unknown to the writer. That is the reason, one learns many things from reading, at times by even by reading your own stories. 
Actually, she ponders about the all-pervasiveness, the intrusion of technology in her following story aptly named “Addiction”. The smooth screen which we keep running fingers on helplessly, refreshing the screen for the newer messages, building newer relationships, overwhelming us in their hollow enormity. And then nature, our only refuge and remedy, which awaits in its eternally peaceful and patient presence, for us to reach out, like a rose in the pot, for us to wake up from the trance. Nothing helps but nature. Not even a pretense holiday, and meditation with some Guru as she tells in the following story, Holiday. What we search without, is within, untapped, unheard, silent awaiting for you to be free and listen to those constant whispers, begging attention, offering hope and emancipation. No guru can take you there if you aren’t ready, and once you are ready, no guru is needed.

The last of the story is about “Stories”, as to how they rise from within, which Radhika says, as if they were some mind-parasites, feeding on our own mind, and they writes themselves out. This is the last story. In the perspective, this is not an ordinary story-book. There are no characters and twist and turns of the plot. These are stories dealing with denser subjects and dig way deeper into the soul. These are more of meditations of an artist. A solitary, sensitive, soul, wandering about in a vast desert under a cloudy sky with no stars to show the way. Only possibility is a hunch, a feeling, an honesty of the heart to guide the way. The thoughts are meditative, the writing is reflective and the words, ah, that is the word, I was searching for, are exquisite. In an era and age, where even writing is being done a lot in an assembly-line fashion with test-group and market research rather than working on words and passionate treatment of ideas(which is why I usually end up reading old-time classics), it is a pleasure to read these stories. This book is a literary treat. Not in a hurry, with love, with respect, after one has washed the soul. You need to be ready to receive this. 
Amazon Link : Broken Shadows- By Radhika MukherjeePages: 33Stories: Twelve Stories

What Shiva Means for Me?

Image Courtery : GettyImagesI have several times confessed being a near atheist. But I think, I am wrong. If someone were to ask me if I believed there was a God, I would tell him that I knew there was a God. My conviction on God is not because I have scientific and empirical evidence of his being. It is because I believe, we need God. As Voltaire said, " If there is no God, It would be necessary to invent one. " An atheist’s insistence of non-existence of God is as stupid as a fanatic’s insistence of the existence of God. I believe God is a necessary idea. We need God as someone who is possible, who is to be aspired for. I believe, God is what man should aspire to become. He is not a jealous, revengeful thing, which attacks us at each of our failings. God, if He were as our religious people teach us often, spiteful, He would be a mean thing to hold my respect. Someone who punishes people for not loving Him. In my opinion, he is an idea of a man, or what a man should try to become. He defines humanity for us and sets what we call in professional world, definable parameters of achievement.
In this sense, I look at Shiva, who is a perfect model to follow. I believe him to be the truest of all Gods, and I trust, I am not alone in my thoughts since in the trinity, he is the Mahesh- or Greatest of all Gods. Shiva is closest to being human, and is the most modern in his outlook. Let us look at what makes Him a great God to aspire to become.
Solitary- Shiva is a great example of self-contentment. He is a non-conformist hero. He lives away from the people. He lives in the Himalayas. I would presume it to be a metaphor, something which reflects in the writings of great German philosopher, Nietzsches, the nihilist thinker, when he writes, “ Flee my friend, into thy solitude! I see thee deafened with the noise of the great men, and stung by the little ones ”. Shiva seems to have paid heed to his advice, or he got the philosophy from Shiva. The wiser ones intellectually intimidate and the smaller minds will indulge in pushing with smallness of their mind. The truth however is flung much higher than the articulation of the so called greats and much subtle for the meanness of the fanatics who understand little. Shiva therefore, moves to the higher planes, where the independence of mind could be preserved. He is the one for unorthodox and unconventional. Shiva tells us the value of quiet dignity, the power of meditation and solitary analysis, the significance of a mind not intimidated by the pettiness of small minds and not awed by the intellectual haughtiness of a collective which pretends to be revolutionary but is driven by greed and narcissism.
Benevolence and Kindness- Shiva represents benevolence and kindness. He is easy to please, has not hidden motives and therefore goes with the name of Bholenath. He represents the person with no hidden agendas and no cunning conspiracies. He is a trusting person. It is important in life to trust people. You may face betrayals. But it is false to presume that those who are always suspicious of people do not face betrayal. We have, all kind of people, our lives as larger continuum of tranquil trust, broken by sudden slips into betrayal. By cultivating trust, being bholenath or easily trusting, we enjoy the treasures of tranquil trust better. We must be strong to survive such occasions, but we must not prepare too much. Nothing we do in life can prepare us for life. Be trusting. For each occasional Bhasmasur, we have thousands of lovers and friends, and a general temper of happiness, joy, music and peace.
For the Larger Good- This takes from the earlier one. Shiva was the only God, who never had a plan for himself, or needed much for himself. He was the one who did not even want to secure anything for himself. He lived far from the larger society, in body and in spirit. Still when Dev and Asurs (good and evil) churned the ocean, and dreaded poison emerged, Shiva was the one to drink the poison and save the mankind. The blue of the poison which stayed on his neck, added to the beauty of the soul of Shiva and made him the savior of the world. He steps into something which he was neither the perpetrator of nor the beneficiary of only for the larger good. We need to also ask ourselves once in a while what is our contribution to the larger good of the people. We need to figure out in our daily struggle for self-sustenance to somehow look at our larger civic role, our contribution to the society, nation and world at large.
Playfulness, Art, Music- We need to play, laugh and dance. Shiva was a great warrior, greatest of them all. He treasured his solitude. He was not though, a boring man. He invented chess, played, and danced as the first dancer in the humanity. And anyone who has seen the human interpretation of Tandav, the dance of Shiva, will tell you, it is a dance with abandon. Shiva would dance as if no one was watching. That is the purpose of art- Art for the sake of art, as they say. That is what Shiva teaches us. Om - The first word, the first sound, from which all music, all literature is said to have emerged, belongs to Shiva.Cultivate a habit, protect the inner child, and learn to laugh, to dance, to be happy as if you were in a trance. He is a warrior, and as Nietzsche would say, his is the “ courage that scareth away ghosts, createth for itself goblin—It wanteth to laugh”.
Unconventional Friendships: British have told us that Indian society has been plagued with fissures and factions since, they would want us believe, forever. But that is a political game. The biggest God that we had, Shiva, never had conventional friends. He never had friends like King of Gods, Indra, what the communists would call the Manuvadi deities. His friends are Nandi, the bull, a man with face like a bull, ghosts. They wander in the wild and Shiva brings them love and affection. He never seeks to change them, he wants them to be comfortable. He becomes one with them. He is the one who moves among the kings and the poor with similar ease. He is a friend, who doesn’t judge. He is a friend, who enlightens, educates but never belittles or changes the other. His friendship choices are not always in line with social mores and dictum. He is an independent mind and dedicated friend. His friends will go with him and attend the congregation of kings and gods, even if it shocks His prospective in-laws. He isn't the one to disown His friends.
Respectful Husband: Tomorrow is the International Women’s day, a day after Mahashivratri. A coincidence, a thoughtfully happy coincidence. Shiva marries Parvati. Her parents are horrified at his dressing, his demeanor, his friends. They agree to her choice, but never quite accept him. And Shiva, all knowing Shiva, who can see the distrust and disdain in the eyes of his father-in-law, the great king of mountains, never utters a word of it to Parvati. He hopes Parvati would understand when they stay uninvited to the Yagya at Daksha’s place. She doesn’t. But what stands out in the story, is that Shiva doesn’t come in the way. He is TrikaalDarshi, He can see the Past, present and the future. He knows what painful future is ahead, still he would not have the heart to stop Parvati from visiting her parents. He stands by her decision. In a later life, He will stand by her decision when He would accept Her son, Ganesha, which she creates and never gives birth to. While Lakshmi spends time serving Vishnu, He is one God who is most respecting to his female partner. Parvati is an equal partner, who was the first to hear Shiv Purana, learn Yoga, play Kaudi (chess) with him, and eventually, in love, in happiness, in playfulness, in a joint search of knowledge they become one and Shiva becomes Ardh-Narishwar. His willingness to share knowledge of Yoga with Parvati indicates the respect with which he treats her, much ahead of the time, when some smaller mind declared women to be unfit for higher intellect. The respect for the partner, non-intrusive trust is something which can any man be the best bet for marital bliss even today. Kali, another form of Shakti, or Parvati, when mad with anger, was about to destroy the world, lost in the frenzy of killing, help was sought from Shiva. Shiva, the husband, the man, the Mahakal himself who had within his power to stop Kali, instead took a different way to stop the Devi. He lied at her feet and stepping over all-powerful Mahakal, The God of Death, Shiva, Kali felt a sudden shame and embarrassed stopped. It would take an extremely self-assured man to put himself at the feet of the woman he loves even when she is wrong. The Shiva and Kali story carries many lessons. The woman, Kali, goes beyond her brief, loses the track and goes about killing the innocent. Most modern women, who lose track of their own selves, in a blind pursuit of ambition, which begins with self-assertion, slowly deteriorate into ego and aggression, which feminist movements are many times blamed off. They pursue wrong motifs of liberation, unreal proofs of emancipation, and in process lose themselves. Shiva, in her feet, represents the sanctity and truth and a controlled energy which lies in surrender in philosophical sense and a saddened husband who brings her violence to a halt, not by overpowering her, rather by surrendering in utter love.

Shiva – The Eternal Lover and the Ideal Family man: Shiva loved Parvati and when He lost her in doomed Yagna at Her parent’s place, where she visits uninvited, He is mad with sadness and fury. He fights with her memories as He travels across the country, bit by bit coming to terms with his loss at eighteen Jyotirlings. He destroys the whole world in His agony, or the world seems to have ended for the sad lover. He then waits for her reincarnation to marry her again. He is the only family man among the Gods and He is always seen with his complete family. He is no Rama to leave his wife to satisfy the world, He would rather leave the world for his family. He is a message to the family men across the world, look inwards, forget the society. And if you respect your family, it will come on its own, with brilliant kid even with strange head of an elephant who would write the first poetry, a wife who will be Shakti or power in here own right. He invented the first game, to play. He appreciates the role of playfulness in keeping the family together and is not a prisoner of his own image of an ascetic, a sage, when he goes dancing and playing with his wife and child. 
Shiva- The Environmentalist: Shiva stays in the mountains. When the world is suffering with famine, he works, probably the first engineer in the history, to bring water to the plains. He turns and twists the angry waves of Ganges and makes it into mother Ganga for the impoverished, famine-struck people. He controls the nature, but never destroys it. He loves animals, the cows, the bulls- He is the PashupatiNath- The lord of the animals. Even a snake finds a place of love around his neck. It not only speaks of the courage of our first martial Hero, it also tells of his love for all things living. 
Shiva is Byronic hero. He is silent, unconventional, brooding, thoughtful, brave and still, loving, loving to a fault. He is my hero. He has, in his being, answers for you, whichever stage of life you might be in.

A Silent Tribute to A Young Death - Sujith- the RSS Guy

They say death is a great equalizer. The oppressor, the oppressed, the rich and the poor, the privileged and the deprived, the atheist and the fanatic, the prince and the pauper are all equal in death. They lie. They are wrong. All people are not equal in death. Death is as unequal as is life and as monstrously cruel.
How we are treated in death is defined by the people we leave behind. We are quite helpless in our posthumous passivity. It is also defined by how we have lived. If we have mattered to people as name and person or only as number. What is our identity in death, numerical reality or philosophical rallying point? Many things define where we find ourselves when the cruel chariot of death has run over the fragrant floral lives and the dust settles down, giving way to the stench of dead body.
From a very philosophical value, each life matters a universe in value, from a very cynical, realistic and analytic value, the quantum of loss out of any death will be defined by the length of life lived before fate strikes us with the ultimate eventuality. Some deaths will draw people on the streets, will bring outrage, bring out Tee – Shirts, even some jostling and police remands can do that. A logical view would place more disgust on an unsought death, I would say. A death sought for, by the person, a suicide, talks about a person’s surrender.
We can always make political points, as to how for one reason or other, a person gets pushed to a breaking point where he decides to take away his own life. But then, it is a very complex territory. Beyond rhetoric, and vile designs of politicians like the one who believed in liberty through her own statues, in a democratic nation, one can never know what could be the last straw, the breaking point. How could anyone judge? How was the teacher, the institute to know that a fiery student leader, Rohith Vemula will not be able to handle his rustication and respond with taking away his own life? He could have been sturdier, dropped out, emerged as a political force, baptized by fire, wrote like Carl Sagan and become a thought leader or he could have been even more delicate and killed himself at a scolding. There is no way of knowing that. 
There is also no way of knowing why he killed himself. Was it rustication, hundreds of students get rusticated, suspended? Was it because he felt hopeless in the politics of the nation, in high sounding ex-JNU Sitaram Yechuri who wanted Dalits to have reserved seats in private enterprise, irrespective of merit, but was not able to find a dalit meritorious enough to fit into the Politbureau. It could have even been his internal conflict being a proclaimed Dalit cause leader, and his internal awareness of not being a Dalit from his father’s side. Could that not have been a discomforting thought that his mother pawned her to a cause, he never thought he belonged to, and he never thought he needed anything but merit to be valued for what he was?
But the same politicians, who could not use him in life, are using him in death. But that is Rohith Vemula’s story. It is the story of a young man disenchanted by the world around him which refused to treat him as a person and insisted on tagging him to a cause, he did not feel he belonged to. But this post is not about the man who decided he did not want to live, did not want to belong to a cause he did not identify with.
There was about the same time a young 27 year old man in Kannur, Kerala, further down south. His name was Sujith PV. He was a man with an infectious smile. His picture has a neat looking man, with vermilion on his forehead. He is killed. He has no hand in his own death, even if prompted by state, or government, or political adversaries. His death was brought up on him. On February, the 16th, he was killed, hacked to death, in night at 11:30. The night had fell and Gods had also gone to sleep in God’s own country. He was up, a young man, religious, I’d believe, being from RSS. The man was not pushed into committing suicide by adversaries who did not know what amount of persuasion might cause his death. Unlike Rohith Vemula, PV Sujith’s adversaries did not need to know, if what they were doing that morning in Kannur in Kerala was going to kill him. Rohith Vemula’s adversaries, if at all, wanted him to be muted. PV Sujith’s adversaries wanted him to be dead. Their intent was clear, there actions were clear. So they forced their way into his house and hacked him with sword. Those who hacked him belong to same thoughts which is represented by the leaders crying hoarse on suicide of Rohith Vemula.
Rohith Vemula and Sujith PV are not equal in death. Liberals will argue that Sujith represented RSS and then the story will go to how he belonged to the ‘fanatic’ Hindu thoughts, or fringe goons as media loves to call them, thus in some convoluted way, deserved his sorry end. In the middle of searching the reports on this gruesome killing, I looked at report. Firstpost has three lines, where they merely quote BJP local leaders pointing to the contrast regarding JNU students and Sujith, who merely had a view dissenting to the liberal intellectuals. Trust that annoyed them, or the fact that possible his English was not good enough for them. Even those he thought he stood for seem embarrassed about him, forget any DU professor coming forward to adopt him like the one who wrote an editorial in leading daily about Umar Khalid, the man who has been booked for allegedly calling for the destruction of the country. We are a nation of blind people and our vision is steered and controlled by the media. Which is a shame. We hear what we are told, we see what we are shown, we think what we are told to think. Even BJP, will not call for a debate in parliament on this. If central leadership of BJP brought about death of Rohith Vemula, which undisputedly is a suicide, why the central leadership of CPI-M not be questioned for what allegedly resulted in their local cadres indulging in what is undisputedly a murder, a cold-blooded gruesome murder. They say the heaviest burden for a father to carry is the dead body of his own child. Sujith’s father even saw his child becoming a dead body, right in front of him. To see the strapping young man with eyes with a smile, beautifully congruent with his mouth, the same man he would have twenty seven years back held in his arms as a little child, lay bleeding, slowly succumbing to a ruthless, grotesque death. It must have been horrible, and his father would himself prayed for his own son a comfort which only death might offer as he would have fallen their bleeding into death, bit by bit, breath by breath. He would have pleaded to his father with those eyes which held dreams of every young man and a hope, and a choke would have become a vomit in his father’s throat.
For a month or so, newspapers were full of editorial and letters on Rohith Vemula, with politicians of all hues, including CM of Delhi, who has nothing to do with Hyderabad, or University or Rohith, making beeline to Hyderabad. In contrast, all we have for Sujith is reports. None of the reports even pretend to be obliquely lament his death. No one loves Sujith, but no one even feels sad about death of a young man, at least on the group we usually consider to be national conscience keepers, the Rajdeep Sirdesais and Barkha Dutt’s of the world. No editorials for him. The web of conspiracy, floating amid devious noise and conspiratorial silence is now blatant. The reports with a calm conscience mention three decade of rivalry between BJP and CPI-M in the state, setting some kind of context as if by joining the rightist ideology in a leftist state he was almost asking for an early death.
Those aghast at violence against students of JNU in courts (they call beating up by unruly lawyers as worst violence nation has witnessed), do not even raise a murmur on the killing in Kerala. Their hearts melt, their collective outrage sours to darken the Sun for pushing and shoving in Delhi, but they sit in their wise stony silences on Sujith. Most reports are remorseless, with allusion to traditional rivalry between RSS and CPI-M in Kerala, suggesting the inevitability and therefore the reasonableness of the killing. I am not an RSS man, nor a Bhakt. I am a common man, a father. I do not want to adopt Sujith like the DU professor, I believe it is hyperbolic to the extent of being ridiculous. But I would have loved Sujith to live with the father he had.
If some gory act has caused his death, I want us to sit for a moment in silence, since no one in paid media will pay even a silent tribute to a life cut short so abruptly. Let us pray for Sujith, even if we cannot bring out rallies for him, print T-Shirts with “Mera Saathi Sujith” or write editorials for him in flowery English (even if we do, who will publish, priests and priestesses of public media would not let it), let us at least pray for him in silence. Even the leaders from his leanings will not cry for him in parliament, his parents will never get to rub shoulders with BJP top leaders, forget the opposition, we must keep Sujith in thoughts. To my mind his death, in its isolation, its silent pride, is more shattering than Rohith’s and demonstrates failure of state more strongly than lawyer’s attack on Kanhaiyya. Only thing it could possible compare with will be Dadri Lynching but then the response to that makes the apathy of state and citizen alike, makes it even more pronounce, in terms of outrage, compensation and corrective steps. All deaths are not equal. We do not mourn all the dead equally nor outrage about them equally. We lose moral right to complain when we are not mourned in our own deaths. We cultivate biased grief. Pretense neutrality can only take us this far and then it falls with a total collapse and loss of morality.
This post is a tribute to the sad killing of a young man, abandoned equally by his supporters and opponents in his death.

Nationalism and Intellectual Priesthood- The JNU Fallout

Nationalism is a fragile idea, which as the Roman Emperor, the philosopher-kind would allude to, in his dying day, when he asks his General Maximus, “ What is Rome? ” and then answers himself, explaining that, “ One can only whisper her name, anything more than a whisper, and it will fade away. ” Nation is a delicate thing, therein lies its strength. It joins the patches of varied lands, groups of varied people. Intellectuals have tried defining it in earnest. Some have succeeded. Some were really intellectuals, who searched for truth. Others were pretending to be intellectuals, their intent, to use it as a tool to propagate their idea. Their wish to propagate their own ideas was not driven as much by their conviction with truth being on their side, rather on their own interests.
Truth is not the stagnant water of a muddy pond. Truth is the running river. A running river is certain of its existence but changes in its form. True intellect will always search for the truth. We have, of late, started mistaking language for intellect. It is not. A great intellect needs great language, there is no dispute. But the vice-versa is not always true. Sometimes great language, repetitive clichés are used to strengthen the arguments, when they were pathetically weak and had not foot to stand on. The priesthood of an elitist writer emerges from there.
There was interesting speech by venerable Dr. Gopichand Narang at Jashn-e-Rekhta, the Urdu festival on Ghalib. He spoke very eloquently how Ghalib, the great poet stood away from other poets of his times like Daagh or Meer. It was a long, charming speech, but the crux of it was that Ghalib did not use language as a tool to play on the surface of the ocean, and dug deeper than the most to search the truth. A study of Ghalib shows us some hallmarks of true intellect. One, it is always in search, it is never wrapped in delusional sense of self-importance (Duboya mujhko hone ne, naa hota main to kya hota- I have lost everything in cherishing myself, nothing would have been lost if I weren’t there), it is mostly charred by the disinterest of the state, the politicians and it knows when it depends on the powerful for survival and is neither intimated by it nor apologetic about it and therefore open about it (Hua hai shah kaa naukar, fire hai itraata, vagarna Shahar mein Ghalib ki Aabru kya hai- He is now the servant to the king and is so proud of it, otherwise what is the honour of ghalib in the city).
We are the people in hurry and slowly the onslaught of media on public conscience caught the fancy of the powerful. The governments, and the politicians of Lutyen’s Delhi understood that the people haven’t much time to ponder, and got to the people who had the control over the space of public debate, written or otherwise, like Newspapers, television. The journalists walked away from the Fanishvar Nath Renu mold and moved into the large bungalows, five star parties and political lobbying. Since the printed and television media was controlled, they weren’t much worried about things. The world of ideas fractured and the elite, lobbyist, intellectual journalist, emerged. This is what Arnab Goswami calls the Cabal of intellectuals and this is the cabal which runs the campaign to boycott his channel today. While in the backdrop of the affair at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, where students making anti-national speeches were arrested by the state for, well, anti-national activities, the Channel Arnab represents, stood largely on the side of the state, it is probably accidental or better reading of public mind (TRP).
Other channels, paraded intellectuals who were no more than fanatics with support of greater language to take a contrarian or in some cases ambivalent position. The whole debate of JNU smacks of how it offends the elitist pride and the fallout of it is the testimony of how the rise of social media, the democratization of the thinking space, slowly eroded into the happy priesthood of intellectual world, with Rajdeep, Sagarika and Barkha Dutt and the cronies from political class. The whole argument of JNU protester is flawed and one is horrified at the notion that soon these people, after spending the most of their productive lives under subsidized state education running well into their middle age, will find place in the pretentious liberal intellectual space. Also that by absolute control over the public space of debate, they will overwhelm the people with their idea of the world, which seemingly is based less in logic, and more in the allegiance to the political parties.
First let us look at their arguments. It is largely flawed, and in portion moronic. They say that India is an occupier in Kashmir. They forget that the state ceded to India in 48 under attack from Pakistan. They call from liberation of Kashmir, which is an odd thought. Even the people who thanked them from the valley during the protests yesterday, aren’t deluded enough to truly believe in independence, a small land-locked space in mountains, without any help from the large countries which surrounds it. The arguments of the protestors rests on columns of Arundhati Roy, who is a fiction novelist. Writers seldom make great politicians. Most of the slogan shouting, stone throwing friends which JNU students claim to represent do not even delude themselves. For them secession is not into Azaadi as these students want to believe, but into Pakistan, the theocratic state, where Omar Khalid might be welcome, but not Kanhaiya Kumar or Komal Mohite. I cannot remember and Hindu intellectual of public position and following from the other side of the border. Even for Omar Khalid, he would do well to remember, during partition, Jinnah had refused to accept the Muslims from India beyond a point, citing lack of resources and those who supported formation Pakistan had to remain stuck here (not suggesting that all Muslims who stayed back supported Pakistan). So the world they were fighting for does not exist, and the people they are fighting for aren’t fighting for that world which does not exist. Second they say, India to be destroyed. The nation, they speak about. They aren’t talking about the state, or the government. There is a distinction here.
The Nation is a collective formed out of the willful coming together of variety of people to be treated as one. It is willful, it is therefore, just. There can be no debate about it. Being the wish of people, it takes into account the larger masses which believe in it. From there, it draws legitimacy. Once formed it is almost religiously sacred. No questions, unless the wishes of the people changes. Before 47, the wishes of most people did not matter, for few, who held the power, it was with princely states. Post-independence, larger masses wanted the nation to be a melting pot of smaller state, a large, powerful nation and thus it became. The nation derives its power from the number which supports its existence, takes pride in it, and wants it to exist, proper and grow. The nation wants worshiping respect.
The state is the structure which rules the state. It can be democratic, socialist, right and left leaning. This is open to debate. This is again largely decided either by military power of few of by moral support of many. In India, it was formed with the moral support of masses. We may however, say that the preamble of the constitution that was changed much later by congress, does not reflect the view of the masses, but that is another debate. The state is powerful, to an extent aloof and agnostic to the people once formed. This is in its nature and this is how it ought to be. State protects, state serves. It cannot do either, without being strong. It cannot be strong if it easily pays heed to a meagre dissenting voice which tends to interrupt or insult the foundation from where it derives power- the Nation. The nation wants trust and belief.The state wants subservience and discipline.
Third is the Government. This is the one subject to easier change and object of most attack and ridicule and rightly so. It represents the people who have been assigned by the state to run the affairs, based on the authority the state derives from the notion of a nation. It is perfectly fine to oppose, bad-mouth and criticize the government. The government wants mandate and support.
Unfortunately, the call in JNU seeking Balkanization of hits not at the government or the state. It hits the nation. Since nation is formed of the wishes of larger masses of people, it hits at its people. When it calls for a fight till India is destroyed, it is not seeking, destroying the state. The state is democratic, which they cite as the explanation, why their right to air outlandish notion is sacrosanct. The state is secular, these protestors agree that they are also secular. The state is socialist, and these students are nothing if not that. So they are not against the state. The rants which we see in some doctored and other un-doctored clippings do not talk about the BJP, the party in power, or the government. So it is not about government. It attacks the nation. The Nation is a benevolent and fragile idea and leans of state and government for its protection. The state and the government are bound to protect the nation for it represents the will of the people. The nation is the least transient of the three entities. They say Go back, India. Go back to where? India is the nation. They don’t say go back democracy, or go back BJP. The media gets into overdrive. These protesters speak great English. They detest anyone who doesn’t. The media, especially television media is largely inundated by people who went into journalism post-Emergency. They do not understand the true depths of a vengeful state. They have not served as they term in government service, hardship areas except for Kargil coverage of Barkha Dutt or 2002 riot coverage of the Journalist duo, which live in poshest of the Delhi and who for some reason in the whole history of India found only one riot worth coverage. They are largely insulated to the people who read and watched them, simply because there was no other way. They are even insulated from their own co-professionals who write in Hindi and regional media, away from the limelight. They deal everyday with threats and violence which even ends in murder, without the SC or Press Club standing up for them. The state satraps deal with them with a very firm, and cruel hand. Journalists are killed, burnt alive, but the parties and lobbying continues unhindered in the capital among the elite. Then one day a scuffle or fist-fight happens, and hell breaks loose. We have much-applauded dark TV screen during the program of Ravish Kumar, whose idea of reporting is to begin with the inquiry of the caste and religion of the respondent. We have outraged righteousness of elite journalists which sounds much like- how dare they touch me? The efforts to change the narrative by replacing the nation by the state and then the state by the government is on, with a pretense to act as if the scuffle in Delhi is much worse than the killing of journalists, imprisoning the opposition. Journalists used to be people like us, common people who wrote. Now they are not. Any debate with them on social media turns into “We” against them, ‘them’ being the unwashed masses of India.  The media or the elite cabal, no longer comes from us, not longer represents us. They don’t even understand people, at most they even underestimates and detests their consumer, the readers, the audience, such is their moral pretentiousness and elitism. One journalist, when confronted by someone with no support for JNU protest, challenges people to come for a physical fight. Thankfully he doesn’t follow through when Olympic wrestler, Yogeshwar Dutt, and Olympian boxer, Vijendra Singh, takes a view opposing this protest in JNU which was nothing but anti-national.

It is a high time. The annoyance is high. It is time for our media to re-discover its mooring. It cannot continue to play the pied piper of Hamelin and guide people like mice. We are thinking people. Do not take your readers and audiences for granted. Internet and social media has democratized the state. There won’t be Privy Purse any more, and public media will not be short anymore. People will remember the man thrown into Jail for FB comment on Karthi Chidambram, son of erstwhile Home minister, they will remember arrest of Cartoonist, Asim Trivedi under sedition, they will remember police action on protesting common people who watch your channels and read your Op-eds, which left a woman dead, while the mainstream media only made fun of Baba Ramdev who escaped in women’s attire, and soon got busy in erecting Arvind Kejriwal as a symbol of hope, the man never went beyond the noise is besides the point. With 500 Cr of advertisement budget, does not make commercial sense for media to chase him.
People are not stupid. They notice the desperate effort to change the narrative. They notice when you turn a call to arms into a debate, when a battery of top lawyers turn up at the Supreme court to argue for bail of a students. Is he the first student to be caught up by Police? Even the principle of the college would not support the bail, for crimes much lesser, mostly against the city administration, not even the government, or the state, let alone the nation. Wikipedia defines journalist as “A person who collects, writes, or distributes news or other current information.” There is a clear sense of neutrality here. This neutrality is missing today. Christopher Essex called it paradoxical that “ scientists seek one truth but often voice many opinion; journalists often speak of many truths while voicing a uniform opinion. ” A journalist must not judge and pre-judge. He must not judge if running the clipping about the cash for vote will be good for the nation, state or government and he must not mix the three up. People are watching. Their right to freedom of expression is no lesser than yours merely because their English is poor. While it is possible that there would be issues hitting closer to you, and you will be affected, but then drop the charade of neutrality and instead of chest-thumping as “I am Anti-National” on social media, makes more sense to do a disclosure on your leaning before presenting a program, or writing and Op-ed. Why not go after the teachers and faculty which act like propagandists and ideologues and use these hapless youngsters as tools in their political designs like the one professor from Jadavpur University claiming with a stupid smile that symbols of the nation in the university will constitute infringement to the autonomy of the institute. It is a pity that teachers with such narrow understanding are teaching the impressionable minds in so-called world class universities. You may be leftist, but aren't you an Indian leftist or like an ISIS Islamist you are a part of global Jihad with no sense of nation? 
You would realize that being anti-national is not such a good thing. Nationalist people with poor English make your TRP and help you earn your living. As an IT person, I should never make fun of a person who wants to opt for cloud computing merely because he cannot spell computing properly, since he is going to buy it, use it and help me make my living. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, and it is the people who make the nation. It is not about being first and breaking news. It is about being honest. When scuffle is first page new and murder is page thirteen news, opinions are not getting doctored, people are watching you. This is not a new thing. Even Proust would say, “ The fault I find with our journalism is that it forces us to take an interest in some fresh triviality or other everyday..” and that was the time before Television. Be watchful. More than media, I would urge us to be watchful. For we own a mind, even if not that eloquent which has the capacity to decipher the truth and let us distrust anyone who tells us that he or she will discover our truth on our behalf. Never surrender the reason or the right to search for your own truth. 
Since there is massive trend since the efforts by the intellectuals disenchanted by current government to even convert a suicide into murder by citing a) freedom of speech and dissenting ideology and b) to quote Dr. Ambedkar as founding father of Indian constitution to substantiate imaginary accidents and imaginary positions, I will end with a quote by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar here, which clarifies where dissenting ideologies stop and the nationalism extends from. Dr. Ambedkar says, “ I do not want that our loyalty as Indians should be in the slightest way affected by any competitive loyalty whether that loyalty arises out of our religion, out of our culture or out of our language . I want all people to be Indians first, Indian last and nothing else but Indians.” Our media, intellectuals and strangely, the leftists, love quoting Ambedkar, hope they agree with him. The nation is not about OP Sharma, the masculine fighter of BJP only to countered by Shiv Aroor of India Today, it is about the poor farmer who faces famines after sixty years of supposedly pro-poor, pro-farmer government, and still dreams to send his son to army, to defend not the government, or the state, but the Nation, which he bows before, muttering Vande Mataram in his parched lips. 
Courtesy : Getty Image

Middlemarch By George Eliot- Book Review

Rating: If you are a writer, Must read.If you are not- Still, a must read.

I have just finished reading Middlemarch. It is quite a heavy and voluminous book. The story slowly rises, very slowly, spread across so many deeply developed and intricately engaging characters- the people of a fictional rustic town of Middlemarchin the 18th Century England. The narrative and the story is strong, well-built with huge shoulders to carry various causes which it alludes to. The beauty and charm of reading a classic of those times is that while these stories were written when Europe convalesced under the forces which were to set it on a path to glory; it is to the credit to wonderful writers like George Eliot (Real name, Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880)), that they never allow the narrative to surrender to their causes. While the story deals with love, marriage as prime theme, it is not a romance novel, as is evident by the male pen-name taken by the writer in those times. There will of course, be allusion to social themes like widow remarriage, love outside of marital boundaries, social divisions and woman emancipation, but there will always be the story which stands supreme. This is the skill of the writer that the story is the message. Author does not, for a moment, sit at the high pedestal to preach. From that perspective, this is another of Writer’s book (like Orlando, or Lord Jim or The Insulted and The Humiliated, for that matter).
There are no judgement which the writer makes on behalf of the reader. In that sense, the writer doesn’t misuse his exalted position as the creator and narrator of the story. The characters are exactly as they are supposed to be. They thrive and bloom in the thin land of reality which exists between the good and the evil. Therein lies the success of the Novel, it doesn’t preach or screech ever. Just as the oft said- Show, don't tell, this is another lesson, illustrate, don't preach.
The message is subtle, the build impeccable. Virginia Woolf called MiddleMarch as one the few English books written for grown-up people . One needs a degree of maturity and patience to let this book grow on you. By the time one ends the book, (which will be a long time, this being a longish book), you almost feel you have been to this small town, know all those inhabitants and are almost saddened when you close the finished story and miss them sorely, sadly and surely.
The story looms about the small town politics, with Nicholas Bulstrode, as a wealthy and overtly righteous banker, Sir James Chattam, Mr. Brooke and his nieces, Dorothea and Celia Brook, Clergyman Edward Casaubon, Vincy family and the young Doctor Lydgate, before it delves deeper and looks into lives of people, their relationships and evaluates, addresses their parallel stories which run side-by-side.  Much like life, no story is subservient to any other story and it takes special vastness of vision on the part of the writer to ensure that each story is dealt with as delicately as any other.
The Plot is very complex, mostly on account of multiple story-lines and makes one ponder about relationships, customs and conventions, without being judgmental about them. As a reader, it opens layers of your understanding about the world and at no point in the story, the writer tries to impose his vision, his idea on to you. The characters emerge as real people of flesh and blood with their very human weaknesses and strengths arising out of the story.
The story begins with Sir James Chettam wanting to get married to Dorothea, a lovely, young and intellectually awakened woman, searching for her moorings. Dorothea, is much impressed, instead with the wise, and self-effacing Rev. Edward Casaubon, who is much older than her. She however, feels that life would find purpose in the intellectual pursuit, rather supporting the intellectual pursuit of Casaubon. In the process, she spurns James Chettam, refuses to listen to her sister Celia, who is practical and intellectually superficial, and gets married to a much older man. Soon, on their wedding journey to Rome, she realizes her folly and finds herself into a lonely existence on the other side of the wall, beyond which Casaubon is busy in the pursuit of his own elusive intellectual glory. She, a sharp and wise soul, soon realizes the futility of her husband’s pursuit, as she finds the limitations of his mind. Nothing can put this disillusionment more eloquently as the author herself when she writes, 
“the large vistas and wide fresh air which she had dreamed of finding in her husband’s mind were replaced by anterooms and winding passages which seemed to lead nowhither.
And as time passes, it comes to a point, when Casaubon asks her regarding whether they should leave or stay, It seemed to her as if going or staying were alike dreary. 
As I wrote in the beginning, this is a writer’s book, it is an education for a writer. It takes you to such great pinnacles of glory of language, one bows the head in awe. She writes the loneliness of young Dorothea, searching for way to enter into her husband’s intimate life, 
“The distant flat shrank in uniform whiteness and low-hanging uniformity of cloud. The very furniture in the room seemed to have shrunk since she saw it before: The stag in the tapestry looked more like a ghost in his ghostly blue-green world….her religious faith was a solitary cry, the struggle out of a nightmare in which every object was withering and shrinking away from her.
 She meets in her days of loneliness in Rome, Will Ladislaw, Casaubon’s young cousin with little fortune to his name. She feels Will has been wronged and is sympathetic towards him. Right at the time, when one feels it is getting into Madam Bovary mold, the story soars as one understands Casaubon, even in his failures, as a human being. As one discovers the deeply distrustful husband in Casaubon, one also feels for him as his impending death is announced. She writes, when the commonplace, “We must all die” transforms itself suddenly into acute consciousness, “I must die and soon” then death grapples us and his fingers are cruel: 
Edward dies amid the disputed request by Dorothea to support Ladislaw. One doesn’t hate him, one does not love Edward. One does feel a little sad as if someone real had died. Dorothea shrinks into the shadows of young widowhood, under the admonishment of her dead husband’s will that she was never to re-marry and not to Will Ladislaw at least. Another story which runs in parallel is of the young doctor, Lydgate who arrives in the small town of MiddleMarch and while gains affection of Rosamond, the daughter in Vincy family, while helping her brother Fred Vincy recuperate from his sickness, and marries her. A romantic marriage is soon withered in the warm winds of poverty which brings out the vulnerabilities of their happy lives. Fred Vincy on the other hand, is in love with Mary Garth, a conscientious, wise girl and a daughter of Caleb Garth. Mary wants Fred, who is her childhood sweetheart to get out of his aimlessness, and find stability in life, before she could consent to marry him.
This is a wonderful story of man-woman relationships, of marriage, where love helps the three people survive their on fractured moralities, whether it is Fred Vinci’s view of life devoid of any seriousness, Lydgate whose marriage braves both poverty and selfish attitude of Rosamond to finally settle down and apathy of his in-laws, or Dorothea, who helps Lydgate come out of the unreasonable blame of death of Raffles . Raffles arrives late in the scene and carries secret regarding Bulstrode and Ladislaw. At the end, Dorothea marries Ladislaw, contrary to the will of her deceased husband and advise of her presumptuous and haughty brother-in-law, and erstwhile spurned suiter, Chettam. As a consequence, the relationships with Celia is broken. However, as they would say in Eighteenth century English, by-and-by things would come around all would fall in place. The best thing about this story is that it takes no side, and tells you that left to their own design, in the long run, truth prevails, love prevails. As VS Pritchett would write in 1946, No other writer has represented the ambiguities of moral choices so fully.  Emily Dickinson, when asked about what she thought of MiddleMarch responded by saying, “ What do I think of glory?”

While in most Novels, no character except the main protagonists, Ms. Eliot attends with affection to each character in the story. While this lengthens the novel, it ensures that one gets into the skin of MiddleMarch. This explains why the novel still captures the fancy of modern readers, more than a century after it was published (it is an 1872 novel), ranked 21st among the 100 best novels ranked by The Guardian in 2014.  

The Politics of Religion and Identity

Photo Courtesy GettyimagesThere was a Supreme Court directive which banned traditional bull racing festival Jallikattu in Tamilnadu. Today, as I write this, women groups are storming into a small temple in obscure town in Maharashtra. Media is in overdrive. Times Now seeks the rationale behind why women aren’t allowed in Sanctum Santorum of the temple. Yesterday they covered a Member of Parliament, sworn to the same constitution we celebrate today, who urged people to vote for their party, else they will lose their right to eat beef, which he posited, is a way of life for Muslims and Dalits. The rationale of it? Well, nobody would ask that. The same tribe which fights for the well-being of the animal also fights for converting the same animal into their dinner. But no, we don’t have it in us even to question such inept political positioning.
Left, always boastful of being atheist, jumps in gleefully. The people who have no faith in religion, step in to modernize the religion. I am not much of a religious person. That possibly diminishes whatever position I am here to take. If anything, I am borderline atheist. But possibly that gives me a viewpoint which is more objective, as I would like to believe. I care two hoots either way. These women are neither fighting for women reservation in parliament nor are they arguing for combat role for women in Indian Army. They want to get into a temple far 0ff. They won’t storm the TN assembly for three girls who committed suicide in Chennai or UP assembly where a man convicted of raping a girl was let off with five slaps as state sat impassive, or where a Dalit girl was raped and killed as political revenge.
They are neither perturbed by the cause of the women, nor by the cause of the religion. They are pursuing symbolism. Our politics is today the politics of symbolism. There was a student, who suicide had all politicians rally around. He was a symbol which carried political weight. We did not find the same politicians rally behind the IAF personnel mowed down by an influential politician in Bengal, nor found them asking higher compensation for him from the state.
There are many rituals we do not understand. When it comes to many tribal rituals, we do not and we are not supposed to understand. They are not supposed to give explanation. These rituals represent their way of life. If this were made uniform law across all temples around the country, possibly that might call for action. Why one temple singled out? Not that women are not allowed in the temple. They are not allowed in the core sector of the temple. But then most are not.
We are a generation in hurry, and we are great misers. We want our activities and protests and causes to fit in our weekends. We do not have time and patience to step in a do any change grounds up, like for instance, Brahmo Samaj movement resulting in abolition of Sati or child marriages. TRP needs media to move from symbolism to another symbolism. That is why we stay from the substantial work which could bring about substantial changes. Women having a drink and smoke is a larger symbol of women emancipation for us that a woman who shuns cosmetics and go for her morning run in unattractive sport shoes. It is a sad thing to happen, not only because it makes our positions untenable and weak. We seek symbols and we lose, even when we think we have won, those are pyrrhic, empty wins. Our movements are coordinated with the Sundays and driven by media.
It would be hard not to acknowledge, that India was only country to resist being overwhelmed by both Islam and Christianity. That position, that fluid faith which continued to survive both centuries of Mughal and British rule, has done so only because of the tradition of debate and reform. It is not a static, political religion. There are no military postulates garbed under God’s instruction to follow. There are thoughts, on multiple sides of any arguments. With time, the truth loses its relevance and changes happen. But the demand in Shani Signapur Nashik is not for visit to the temple. It is to touch the Shani idol. It is not a good time to be a Hindu. One is almost apologetic of being a Hindu. An intellectual Muslim/Christian is a proud Muslim, but an intellectual Hindu is an atheist. Being a woman, it is hard to stay away from the feminist groups or being Dalit, staying away from the tag. One can of course, but that doesn’t meet the liking of those for whom tags are banners to hide personal and political ambitions behind. One escapes it with difficulty, oftentimes with death, like a young student, who wanted to refuse to surrender his individual thought to mob mind, but ended up being a tag of identity politics in his death. One who is enlightened, refuses to be a tool and therefore is not liked by those who want young to agitate and die, to serve their cynical, old age in the glory of lofty principles, which they know to be untrue, as they settle down to debate with Champaign. That is why they do not support living causes, they prefer dead, for the dead could bring about something disruptive.
We do not have activist who read much to strengthen and evaluate their position. They take the noisiest one and make it their own. On one holiday. When your arguments are weak, you seek comfort in number. That is how it happens even in context of feminism. It is getting so shrill that objective arguments are losing their space. The collective- yes that is what we get from communism. The lofty elusive dream, which sadly has been ably exposed by Ayn Rand. From Intellectual perspective, Ms. Rand might seem low-brow, but one needs to go through We, The Living to understand, how the theory of herding men at the cost of individual, is nothing but a conspiracy to benefit the few, who are first among the equals. What collective decides, individual cannot counter or question, therefore, long list of sentence dissenters in Russia and in China.
If it is such flawed a philosophy, why there are so many left intellectuals? I guess the answer would be, because you need them. Man is inherently, as one would draw from Darwin’s survival of the fittest, capitalist. To make him communist, need aggressive reasoning, if not Gulag. You need lot of intellectual firepower to handle rational thinking which will not surrender reasoning to a little red book. The left thrives on it. The left hates any philosophy which celebrates individual thought. It loves a debate, when it can win it. That is the philosophy which is now ruling our public space. It wants to win, and individual is too little a cost for that win. It carefully picks its causes, causes which can ignite public anxiety. We, hapless individuals, are troubled citizens. We have to align with public outrage. If we don’t, it impinges on their freedom of expression, we are old-fashioned, bigoted, . Embarrassed, we either stay silent or fall in line. There is such power wielded by those who lament being powerless. It is horrifying, one can sense something sinister going on which people like us do not understand.
It is a deep web that spreads wide. And the disruption to that design is barely offered by the democratization of the debating space offered by social media. In this space, one struggles with old satraps of national opinion, the media. Every dissent is responded with you vs. us kind of argument. But that is another debate. For now, about religious freedom, I stand with it. If it is to go, and religious practices are to be changed per-force not by reasoning, in the interest of equity, I will support it. Then it should be without religious discrimination. First step should be uniform civil code, state take-over of all religious institution and enforce uniformity in line with the constitution. Pakistan’s biggest failure was uniformization of state as a uniform theocratic state. Let us not do it. Reforming religion, by all means, do it. But not by storming, I would say not by courts (unless after uniform civil code), but by debate and discussion. Every nation has a way of life. Hinduism is one of the most fluid of religions, where is the need to storm? There is no prophet in Hinduism whose words are the last words. Change is always a possible. That is why it always accommodated opposites like Dvait and Advait. For clarity, Temple in Nashik allows women, only prohibits them touching the statue, which is a matter of faith. Not my faith, but of those who takes care of it. Why mustn’t we value it?  We are OK on the instruction at Archies Gallery telling us not to touch the things. If below 21 are not allowed in bars, is it discriminatory to twenty year old? We must choose the worthy fights and fight worthy evils, like the rapes in UP as political tool. That will go long way in women emancipation, but path will be difficult, may not bring votes. Not now, and maybe not ever, as it will be slow and gradual to catch public fancy and grab votes.
PS- I guess, in this post I do not make much sense, but I am suffocated by righteousness and had to write this. I am a Hindu and not very religious, or as the Christians or Muslims would say, not a practicing Hindu. I believe, existence of all religions in India makes a delicate balance, which is necessary for the character of nation. If one looks at the nations which became religious states, it started somewhere here.

Who Do We Write Poetry For?

Courtesy: Getty ImagesI recently in The Paris Review came across an interesting quote by great poet, by Robert Graves (1895-985). He says, “ Never use the word “audience.” The very idea of a public, unless a poet is writing for money, seems wrong to me. Poets don't have an “audience”: They're talking to a single person all the time…... All the so-called great artists were trying to talk to too many people. In a way, they were talking to nobody. ”
I posted it on Google+, seeking the views of people. I got responses, some usual +1, I’d take it that they liked and agreed with the statement. But a dear friend, and wonderful poet Sum James , wrote that the words which are written for audience and is not something of an ante-thesis of poetry, as is seemingly contended here. It runs along. I would however, agree that the term audience here could be misleading. Every poem, I would agree with Sum James, is intended to an audience. Therein lies the reason for disagreement.
Poems are not scalar. Poems are vector, they have a sense of direction inherent in them. They need to go somewhere. They carry emotions. Emotions which are pent up, held in the dark corner, as if they were dead, only they aren’t, ride on the arrows that we call poetry. As all arrows they are directed to some direction and audience sits there. And audience here is not the reader. Audience has no say and the Reader is incidental.
However, I think, I do understand, what Robert Graves meant when he wrote the quote. The poet writes for the audience, which may or may not be a wider audience. The audience might not exactly be the one which is obvious. When the poet writes to an oppressive government, he more often than not, is not writing to the government. He or she is writing to the citizens, empathizing with them, urging them to change things or merely offering them a shoulder to cry on. We fantasize the poet as an eccentric who is so ill at ease with the world in which he would rather not be.
Nothing can be farther from the truth. A poet, or a writer for that matter, is the one who is most impacted by the world around me. Things which other people are not much perturbed with and are easily able to deal with, are the things which trouble a poet to no end. He writes out of that discomfort and poetry is his way of reaching out to the world. He is seldom understood which seldom matters to him.
Thus, it is established that a poet writes to the audience. The audience can be non-human, human or divine. This is where the twist is, which explains what Robert Graves possibly meant. His small discussion is not dependent on the willingness of the audience to listen to him. He writes words directed towards the audience, but he doesn’t care about the readiness of the audience. In that sense, his words may wither down and end up on the ground like dry autumn leaves, but they are there for someone. They are written in hope, in happiness, in horrid sadness, for someone.

I believe, the poet meant that poem cannot be driven by the market. Audience is a passive thing for a poet. Poems are driven by the poet and no one else. He doesn’t care about the willingness, the want or the readiness of the world. His poems are force of nature and they are written because they need to be written, like a river or a flower, or the meadows or the mountains. The poet decides, when and how. Robert Graves was possibly referring to the commercialization which plagues writing today, when he said that poets should not write for the audience. After all, he is the poet who wrote “ There is no money in poetry, but then there is no poetry in money ” and also gave, what I would say is best advice to a poet, on how to handle commercial failures and even success, when he said that poetry is a condition rather than a profession. I totally agree with him and would further advise writers to write poems, if only as an exercise to prepare themselves for prose. It brings exactness and urgency to writing. Cheers to poetry, anyways, it is a condition and all it needs is love. 

Reading and Writing in Year 2016

The year has just past by. Another year, another life, another sigh, another teardrop for the giant eye of the time.


Many things can happen in an year. Lives can change- a country's life, an individual's life. How does one day differ from another? Does the tide turn, the Earth revolves in another direction? It is a psychological peg we devise to measure our journey. To measure how far we have traversed from where we started. Did we travel farther than others that we measure against? It sounds such narrow-minded to measure ourselves against others around us, but what other way do we have?
This competition make us going, while in our heart of heart we know it will all end into nothing- cipher, a zero and only solace we will have, will be an unproven promise of afterlife. But as spaces around us reduce, shoulders rub against one another, we barely breathe, we sigh, long sighs, as if they would some day grow so big to swallow our whole lives.
We need friends, camaraderie, non-competing acquaintances. Friends in front of whom, we may become nothing, become our broken selves and not be judged, not be measured. Our bald heads, our protruding midriff, our awkward courtesies are adored and not looked down at with disdain.
That's why I have come to discover two things in life- Long-distance running and literature. Both are to a great extent non-competing indulgences. Those who do not practice these will not consider them thus. Both are pretty unforgiving exercises. Cruel, lonely practices both and while doing both, a part of you bleeds, something beyond and beneath the flesh bleeds. But, both, in the end, liberate. In both cases, I have found fellow practitioners encourage and push you to do better. Both in running and in writing. Very unlike anything else we do in life.
I did not do much of both this year. I ran my second half-marathon, rather limped through it. On writing, did not do much of writing this year. Blog yes I did, and very little of what could be serious writing. No, I do not look down at blogging, the way western world does when they want to disrespect writers getting killed in Islamic world by extremists- people and state. But for me, I have not written any good stories this year. Last Christmas, I wrote "A Sad Christmas. No new story since then. It is as if the spring has died off. No, that would be incorrect. I have stories in me. I think of them. One about a writer searching for what Hemingway called One true sentence. But it hasn't happened.
Tired and exasperated of not having written much, I went about and published "Rescued Poems" which was something of cheating. I collected all the poems I wrote, half-asleep, half-weeping on twitter and Facebook and put them together. Then I read some.
Some truly wonderful writing I read this year, though much less than I could and I should have. I read The Book Thief, an amazing book in the backdrop of World war, with death as a narrator. Another was All The Light We Cannot See, again in the same context. We worry, rave and rant about the inconsequential. All great wars have been already fought, all giants are already sleeping under the earth. What else I read? Brilliant Virginia Woolfe .
I have been reading her journals for last two years, but this year could summon courage to finally read her novel. There are some writings that once you come across then you feel betrayed. I do not know, but it did happen to me earlier when I read "The Great Gatsby" and "Notes from the Underground" and most strongly when I read "The Insulted and the Humiliated" or Joseph Conrad's "The Heart of Darkness". I felt a deep sense of despair, betrayal that I had lived all my life not knowing someone wrote such glorious words. Similar sorrow surrounded my reading of "Orlando" and "Mrs Dolloway" especially the former. The lovely thing which I notice is classics (also the one as of now unfinished "MiddleMarch") are so unhurried.
 We are in a hurry. We rush, and drag our souls through our brutal days. These books are unmoved by our sense of urgency. They sit staring at us, unmoved. They don't move at your pace, they slow you down so you can see things for what they are. These are the books about which Neitzsche wrote that one should take of shoes before reading (or something like it). The immenseness of thoughts, the grand divinity of words stretch itself about your being like a canopy of brilliant stars under which everything is strangely vivid, strangely and suddenly. Middlemarch tests you, teases you right till chapter IV. The Heart of Darkness rises to its crescendo right towards end. Love In The Time of Cholera, moves in such enchanting, winding manner that one is almost transport to a different world. That is the nature and power of a classic. That is what makes them timeless.
For a non-writer, these books are the lighthouse on stormy nights in the sea, these are the
stars on a dark night in the middle of sand dunes in the desert. They help you survive life. For a writer, these books are the universities that teach you writing. More than any fashionable course in creative writing. They are the teachers, we will never have, we the moonlighting litterateurs of twenty-first century, walking with unsure steps through democratization of literature with tools as blogs and social media. But social media is a double-edged sword. It gives one a sense of doing productive work while frittering away the time. That is one thing I need to ration. It creeps into writing space and even life and must be curtailed. So, less of twitter and FB this year, more of writing and reading, and God willing, completing A Difficult Love. Happy New Year and Happy reading to you all.




My Book Review:
Book Review - The Insulted and The Humiliated (Click Here)
Book Review - All The Lights We Cannot See (Click Here)
Book Review - The Book Thief (Click Here)
Book Review - Love in The Time of Cholera (Click Here)

A Sad Christmas (The Man in the Santa Suit)- A Short Story

Courtesy: Getty Images
It was Christmas night. It was a day of exuberance, of joy, of resurrection of faith. Happy delightful lights filled up the darkest crevices of night. The sounds of kids playing, the melody of sweet laughter, the Christmas carols running in looped consistency swallowed the dark sadness of a cold, December night. The air was full of warmth of close embraces which floated away, melting the freezing air. Beautiful people, dressed in lovely clothes, kids overdressed, men impeccably dressed, and women scantily dressed, wandered around in the air-conditioned interiors of the mall, trying hard not to bump into one another.

Rameshwar felt tired. His eyes waded through the crowd to the opposite corner of the Atrium where some good looking and rich-looking women had set up stalls selling cakes and other things to eat. He had been there during the afternoon and the upturned brows of the exquisite ladies setting up those stalls and the prices mentioned made him quickly retreat. Some people said it was for the support of poor people which amused him. From the look of those girls, you can make out that their knowledge of poor people is limited to what they have read in books, seen in movies or watched moving past their car windows. There was a very good looking couple. The man was tall, almost his height, well-built with thin moustache turned downwards as was with many men these days. The woman was also tall and thin, with thoughtful fair face. She held the man’s arm with a sense of unmistakable pride. Rameshwar felt the crowds nudging him. He did not understand much about Christmas. He had heard it was not only a day for happiness and love; it was also a day to pray. He did not know how to pray. The couple on the other end of the atrium did stroke something soft in his heart and he felt a prayer escape his lips with the wind of exhaled exasperation.

He fell into a momentary delirium. Some images from the past stay stuck in our thoughts, to mock, haunt and sometimes comfort us. They keep visiting us like the ghosts of our pasts. Rameshwar saw that image from his past. Surilee would use that iron pipe, blowing wind into the earthen stove, and look at him with a love and admiration which he had never known. Just like the lady on the other side of the atrium. The smoke would rise and those deep, dark kohl-bordered eyes would become mystical, almost unreal. The smoke rising from the stove, against the Sun sinking right outside the door, would add to her allure, almost giving a goddess like feel to his wife. Rameshwar would provoke her with feigned anger as she would look at him through the smoke while the food simmered on the stove, with, “What?”

“Ekdam Angrej Lagte ho,.Firang (You look almost a British, foreigner)” She would say with a smile and a mild cough. She would always make fun of his fair color. She knew her husband was the fairest in that remote village on the border of India and Nepal. Rameshwar would sit mesmerized looking at her as the Sun settled into the night outside their hut. He would tell her stories of the city where he worked. Most men in his village worked there. There was no job for them in their town. It was like an island which was left behind in the pace at which the rest of the country was running. Rameshwar wanted Surilee to come to the city. She would always have that look of disbelief on her face when he told her about the roads of the city where three buses could run side by side, in one direction alone. But he could tell she loved hearing it from him even if she did not believe what he said. She would laugh when he told her about the lights which would automatically turn to red and traffic would stop and how trains would run underground and their doors would open automatically. Whenever she laughed, Rameshwar always felt that such a laugh did not belong to those dusty village lanes. He always felt as if Surilee were some princess in hiding, some mythical princess sentenced to be there for some time by bad fairies his grandmother told the stories about. Her laugh ringed with the clear innocence of the mountain river. Sometimes a soft, mild cough would rise as she would make fun of his fair skin, and her smile would assuage all the wounds of poverty, or inadequacy. When he went to the village last year, the laughs became less frequent and the sounds of cough became more, as if the laugh had ceded the space to the invading armies of cough and sickness. The smile was feeble and when he saw it rising one last time to her eyes, it mingled with her last tear drop.

He came back to the city with his six year old held in his arms like a lost man. He was not only a man who had lost his biggest fight, he was a man who had no other fights to fight. The woman is the anchor and the compass which holds the vessel which a man is. He came back to the city as a sip which did not have an anchor, floating in a tempestuous angry sea, going nowhere. He would wake up to the voices whispering into his ears, “Firang (Foreigner)” and he would sit down, tears rolling his cheeks, listening to the fading sounds of sirens of police patrol piercing through the dead silence of the night.

“That man is fair. Almost like a firang. Do you think he can do it?” So said the voice of the man in suit last week as he stood in the queue outside the mall.

“Firang” The word this time did not make him blush. If anything, it made him wince as if someone had plunged a knife deep into his breast and twisted it twice. He thought of his son, Raghu. He had mild fever for last one week and he coughed. The doctor in his slum asked him to take Raghu to city hospital for a thorough check-up. Raghu was all that he was left with of Surilee, of his past, where laughter and smile did exist. He thought of his child and how Raghu would hide behind his mother every year when he visited home. It would take days for that awkwardness to fade away and his heart would be heavy every time he departed for the city with the thought of losing out on the childhood of his only son. He thought of how Raghu would hold his finger as if afraid of letting go when he got up on the Tonga to ride to the railway station. He thought of those little palms which would cusp around his finger. Then he looked at the little boy in front of him who had stretched his arm. He shook his hand as trained and said the well-practiced, “Ho-ho-ho, Merry Christmas.”

He thought of incessant questions of Raghu, like how the malls stayed lit up all night, and whether it was really like day inside the mall even through the night. The crowd pushed.

“Ho-ho-ho, Merry Christmas.”

He thought how Raghu would always wonder as to how the kids in the mall would not feel the cold even through the coldest of nights. His thoughts wandered to his damp, cold room which would be a tomb but for the living inside. He thought of the tattered blanket and thought how Raghu might be fending off the cold without the comfort of his father’s embrace. He felt nauseated. The crowd was getting excited. The crowd pushed and as if on a cue, he said, “Ho-ho-ho, Merry Christmas.”

He had not eaten anything since morning. He felt tired and the white beard itched against his skin. The thick cloth on the midriff felt heavy. He worried whether Asha, the lady in the neighborhood, would have given the glass of milk to Raghu. He had promised them that he would pay for it tomorrow. He wasn’t sure if they believed him. Poverty made cynics out of the best optimists. He hoped they did. His heart wept at the thought of Raghu going to bed without any food. The crowd pushed. He reached into his red bag of cookies and offered cakes to the tiny palms outstretched in front of him.
“Ho-ho-ho, Merry Christmas.”

He wanted to settle down on his knees and cry. He wanted to run away and snuggle with Raghu. We, in our adult ego, believe that we support kids by snuggling on to them. Seldom do we realize that it is our broken self which gets support from their innocent touch. He longed to hold his son. He felt something rising through his gut. He felt he was getting sick. He looked at the man in suite on the corner, standing behind the crowd. The man signaled ten minutes with his fingers. The crowd was getting more and more excited. He had never waited for the clock to hit twelve in all his life. His head moved in circles, with images floating, Sureeli smiling at him, Raghu in his tattered blanket. Tears were flowing through the white beard. No one noticed them. The crowd pushed and cheered.

“Ho-ho-ho. Merry Christmas” He kept repeating.
( The Story was first published on www.storystar.com as A Sad Christmas. Click to Read on StoryStar)

A Sad Christmas (The Man in the Santa Suite)- A Short Story

Courtesy: Getty Images
It was Christmas night. It was a day of exuberance, of joy, of resurrection of faith. Happy delightful lights filled up the darkest crevices of night. The sounds of kids playing, the melody of sweet laughter, the Christmas carols running in looped consistency swallowed the dark sadness of a cold, December night. The air was full of warmth of close embraces which floated away, melting the freezing air. Beautiful people, dressed in lovely clothes, kids overdressed, men impeccably dressed, and women scantily dressed, wandered around in the air-conditioned interiors of the mall, trying hard not to bump into one another.

Rameshwar felt tired. His eyes waded through the crowd to the opposite corner of the Atrium where some good looking and rich-looking women had set up stalls selling cakes and other things to eat. He had been there during the afternoon and the upturned brows of the exquisite ladies setting up those stalls and the prices mentioned made him quickly retreat. Some people said it was for the support of poor people which amused him. From the look of those girls, you can make out that their knowledge of poor people is limited to what they have read in books, seen in movies or watched moving past their car windows. There was a very good looking couple. The man was tall, almost his height, well-built with thin moustache turned downwards as was with many men these days. The woman was also tall and thin, with thoughtful fair face. She held the man’s arm with a sense of unmistakable pride. Rameshwar felt the crowds nudging him. He did not understand much about Christmas. He had heard it was not only a day for happiness and love; it was also a day to pray. He did not know how to pray. The couple on the other end of the atrium did stroke something soft in his heart and he felt a prayer escape his lips with the wind of exhaled exasperation.

He fell into a momentary delirium. Some images from the past stay stuck in our thoughts, to mock, haunt and sometimes comfort us. They keep visiting us like the ghosts of our pasts. Rameshwar saw that image from his past. Surilee would use that iron pipe, blowing wind into the earthen stove, and look at him with a love and admiration which he had never known. Just like the lady on the other side of the atrium. The smoke would rise and those deep, dark kohl-bordered eyes would become mystical, almost unreal. The smoke rising from the stove, against the Sun sinking right outside the door, would add to her allure, almost giving a goddess like feel to his wife. Rameshwar would provoke her with feigned anger as she would look at him through the smoke while the food simmered on the stove, with, “What?”

“Ekdam Angrej Lagte ho,.Firang (You look almost a British, foreigner)” She would say with a smile and a mild cough. She would always make fun of his fair color. She knew her husband was the fairest in that remote village on the border of India and Nepal. Rameshwar would sit mesmerized looking at her as the Sun settled into the night outside their hut. He would tell her stories of the city where he worked. Most men in his village worked there. There was no job for them in their town. It was like an island which was left behind in the pace at which the rest of the country was running. Rameshwar wanted Surilee to come to the city. She would always have that look of disbelief on her face when he told her about the roads of the city where three buses could run side by side, in one direction alone. But he could tell she loved hearing it from him even if she did not believe what he said. She would laugh when he told her about the lights which would automatically turn to red and traffic would stop and how trains would run underground and their doors would open automatically. Whenever she laughed, Rameshwar always felt that such a laugh did not belong to those dusty village lanes. He always felt as if Surilee were some princess in hiding, some mythical princess sentenced to be there for some time by bad fairies his grandmother told the stories about. Her laugh ringed with the clear innocence of the mountain river. Sometimes a soft, mild cough would rise as she would make fun of his fair skin, and her smile would assuage all the wounds of poverty, or inadequacy. When he went to the village last year, the laughs became less frequent and the sounds of cough became more, as if the laugh had ceded the space to the invading armies of cough and sickness. The smile was feeble and when he saw it rising one last time to her eyes, it mingled with her last tear drop.

He came back to the city with his six year old held in his arms like a lost man. He was not only a man who had lost his biggest fight, he was a man who had no other fights to fight. The woman is the anchor and the compass which holds the vessel which a man is. He came back to the city as a sip which did not have an anchor, floating in a tempestuous angry sea, going nowhere. He would wake up to the voices whispering into his ears, “Firang (Foreigner)” and he would sit down, tears rolling his cheeks, listening to the fading sounds of sirens of police patrol piercing through the dead silence of the night.

“That man is fair. Almost like a firang. Do you think he can do it?” So said the voice of the man in suite last week as he stood in the queue outside the queue.

“Firang” The word this time did not make him blush. If anything, it made him wince as if someone had plunged a knife deep into his breast and twisted it twice. He thought of his son, Raghu. He had mild fever for last one week and he coughed. The doctor in his slum asked him to take Raghu to city hospital for a thorough check-up. Raghu was all that he was left with of Surilee, of his past, where laughter and smile did exist. He thought of his child and how Raghu would hide behind his mother every year when he visited home. It would take days for that awkwardness to fade away and his heart would be heavy every time he departed for the city with the thought of losing out on the childhood of his only son. He thought of how Raghu would hold his finger as if afraid of letting go when he got up on the Tonga to ride to the railway station. He thought of those little palms which would cusp around his finger. Then he looked at the little boy in front of him who had stretched his arm. He shook his hand as trained and said the well-practiced, “Ho-ho-ho, Merry Christmas.”

He thought of incessant questions of Raghu, like how the malls stayed lit up all night, and whether it was really like day inside the mall even through the night. The crowd pushed.

“Ho-ho-ho, Merry Christmas.”

He thought how Raghu would always wonder as to how the kids in the mall would not feel the cold even through the coldest of nights. His thoughts wandered to his damp, cold room which would be a tomb but for the living inside. He thought of the tattered blanket and thought how Raghu might be fending off the cold without the comfort of his father’s embrace. He felt nauseated. The crowd was getting excited. The crowd pushed and as if on a cue, he said, “Ho-ho-ho, Merry Christmas.”

He had not eaten anything since morning. He felt tired and the white beard itched against his skin. The thick cloth on the midriff felt heavy. He worried whether Asha, the lady in the neighborhood, would have given the glass of milk to Raghu. He had promised them that he would pay for it tomorrow. He wasn’t sure if they believed him. Poverty made cynics out of the best optimists. He hoped they did. His heart wept at the thought of Raghu going to bed without any food. The crowd pushed. He reached into his red bag of cookies and offered cakes to the tiny palms outstretched in front of him.
“Ho-ho-ho, Merry Christmas.”

He wanted to settle down on his knees and cry. He wanted to run away and snuggle with Raghu. We, in our adult ego, believe that we support kids by snuggling on to them. Seldom do we realize that it is our broken self which gets support from their innocent touch. He longed to hold his son. He felt something rising through his gut. He felt he was getting sick. He looked at the man in suite on the corner, standing behind the crowd. The man signaled ten minutes with his fingers. The crowd was getting more and more excited. He had never waited for the clock to hit twelve in all his life. His head moved in circles, with images floating, Sureeli smiling at him, Raghu in his tattered blanket. Tears were flowing through the white beard. No one noticed them. The crowd pushed and cheered.

“Ho-ho-ho. Merry Christmas” He kept repeating.
( The Story was first published on www.storystar.com as A Sad Christmas. Click to Read on StoryStar)