Category: Articles

The wise see knowledge and action as one; They see truly and go beyond death

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

Now that the South Pole of the moon bears not just the imprint of the Indian Emblem and the Vikram Lander in sleep mode, not to speak of the Indian Flag, it is time to set our sights on newer horizons to conquer. We have perhaps been the first civilization to know that the ‘Brahmand’ as we call it, is in a way limitless and in a way limited to the smallest sub-atomic particle. Though we embraced modernity in the space race, the tolling of ancient bells somewhere in the subconscious has given us an edge in what we seek in the heavens.

It seems strange, but you may try to take Indians out of science, but you cannot take the science out of Indians. This has been proved time and again. The Indian Institute of Science was set up in the face of tremendous odds, a brain child of such visionaries like Swami Vivekananda and Sir J.N.Tata, which was finally brought to living, breathing life by the hard work and generosity of  Sister Nivedita and Maharani Kempananjammani Devi, the regent of the kingdom of Mysore. It is not strange therefore that a stalwart like Homi Jehangir Bhabha decided to make a fledgling nation an independent nuclear power, while Dr. Vikram Sarabhai set his sights on launching the nation into space much to the horror of the ‘Big Brothers’ of the world, the powers of the West, the biggest of whom of course, was uncle Sam. ‘Precocious’ was the only way to describe this new kid and it was certainly unbecoming.

It is no secret that ‘bullying’ is a traditional welcome offered to most new kids, whether on the block, on the street, or in school and if the kid happens to be rather down- at -heel with a torn satchel, second-hand books, dressed in hand-me-down clothes and is brown to boot, well, your imagination can fill in the blanks. And this was precisely the unsubtle ‘cancellation’ which the Indian Nuclear and its offshoot, the Space Program faced since its inception. It always faced the shadow, rather than the light of the moon.

The withholding of technology and the sanctions applied were all par for the course, but the real price India paid was the loss of scientific talent. With a seriously flawed education policy already in place, the stage had been set for a rapid brain drain. But this was compounded by death, which stalked the ranks of those scientists who remained, carelessly culling the best and the brightest with scant regard for age or knowledge. And not just any old death, but the planned and pre-mediated kind.

Beginning with the death of Dr. Bhabha himself, in a tragic air-crash in the snow-laden heights of the Alps in 1966, an incident which was never given the gravitas and investigation warranted (not least because it followed the death of the then PM Lal Bahadur Shastri by less than two weeks), the toll grew and grew like an unstoppable dirge, swelling well into the second decade of the new millennium, further besmirched by a spying case in the last decade of the nineties. A popular media house was somehow roused from its apathetic state of semi- somnolence to publish a piece on ‘The Case of the Missing Indian Scientists,’ but there was none of the hue and cry which would have been caused if there had been a few missing politicians (who certainly did nothing extraordinary other than rabble-rousing) or a few missing ‘popular actors’!

The sudden death of Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, a non-smoker and teetotaler with no known history of cardiac disease, the founder and first director of what began as INCOSPAR and what we now know as the much- feted ISRO, due to sudden cardiac arrest in a hotel room in Thiruvanantapuram on 30^th December 1971 and the subsequent refusal by the family to carry out a post-mortem, led to more than just niggling doubts which have never quite been silenced. Of course, the statement of the great man himself that he was being watched by both the Americans and the Russians did not help matters. Conspiracy theories aside, the loss of two top scientists in a span of five years was a setback which took a long time to overcome.

Now popularized by the film ‘Rocketry,’ which recently won the national award, the story of aerospace engineer and scientist S Nambi Narayanan, which mercifully does not end in murder and mayhem is no less sinister, not least because it spotlights the depths to which foreign powers can penetrate the best of our institutions and achieve their ends by ruthlessly mowing down all who stand in their path. His arrest and the subsequent spurious espionage charges made India not only lose out on cryogenic tech, but also a large chunk in the space economy, which was the ulterior motive all along.

What strikes one as truly devastating is that the price for which PEOPLE can be bought or sold is significantly less than the thirty pieces of silver for which Judas betrayed Jesus Christ! A distinctly unhappy scenario. When the ruling powers at the center, state, and the intelligence bureau all act in collusion and a certain person involved later becomes the Union defense minister, one can only wonder about what else is being sold in the open (black) market. Of course, when the IB officer involved in the arrest also joins politics later, one can assume that what smells fishy is much more than the fresh ‘Karimeen’ caught off the Kerala coast.

But there is worse. Between 2009 and 2013, eleven Indian nuclear scientists died unnatural deaths. It was bizarre because they were found dead on railway tracks or simply vanished while out on morning walks, only to be found dead in forests. According to a PIL filed by RTI activist Chetan Kothari in 2011, around 684 deaths had been reported in a fifteen- year period at various nuclear and space centers around the country. With most deaths being attributed to ambiguous causes with insufficient or downright shoddy investigations, it hard to prove or disprove the real reasons behind them.

A series of interviews with a former CIA operative, Robert Crowley by journalist Gregory Douglas has been published as a book ‘Conversations with the Crow’ where Crowley without mincing words talks about Dr. Bhabha ‘being a dangerous one’ who was bent on ‘stirring up trouble.’ Reading between the lines it is easy to see that crossing scientific swords with the powers that be is perhaps the most dangerous of all and the people who show the gumption to walk this path are marked men. Although Douglas has often been lampooned for being a ‘conspiracy theorist,’ some coincidences are one too many to ignore.

With the recent laurels in the crown of the Indian Space program, it is perhaps better late than never that so many of our ‘back-street boys and gals’ who slave away in labs and tech centers, unknown to most of us have been pulled into the limelight they deserve. Accolades aside, they are not only more deserving of the traditional ‘Lal -batti-ki- gadi’ than some of the scum who have nothing more to their names other than being born in the right cot, but deserve a safe and long life like (m)any other Indian citizens.

With the successful launch of the Aditya L1, the first Indian solar mission, let us hope that Indian scientists find their safe place in the sun without being haunted by the dark side of the moon!

( This article is the concluding part of the series ‘Dreaming by Moonlight’)

Picture Credit : Aryaa Rege

“Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon,
  The little dog laughed to see such fun and the dish ran away with the spoon!”

English Nursery Rhyme

The Vikram Lander from the Chandrayaan 3 landed with a soft thump on the moon’s surface, echoed by a billion relieved Indian hearts. Ten minutes later, I woke up with a heart thumping regretfully because I had missed the moment, having drifted into dreamless slumber, thanks to a busier-than-usual day in which I, unlike the lander had lost the battle with the elements and a particularly virulent head-cold which left me bleary-eyed and rather sorry for myself. Consoling myself that these were the days of recordings and reruns, I immediately placed myself in ‘watch’ mode.

Congratulatory messages poured in. Every news channel worth their salt had full screen coverage devoted to the moment. Even the normally ‘couldn’t-care-less’ denizens of the Mumbai rush-hour halted in their usual mad scramble for the local trains and trained their gimlet eyes on the huge screens put up on the railway platforms instead of the train notifications board, waving hands and mobiles in unabashed glee. Horns blared, whistles screeched, the Prime Minister waved a small Indian flag on screen and cries of ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ rent the air. It was a time for exhilaration, jubilation, and celebration for R.K Lakshman’s common man.

It was also a validation of the great Indian dream. That the unknown could be conquered with the right combination of persistence and grit. Indians now knew that they could aspire for and literally ‘reach the moon.’ It was the ultimate leap of faith for the largely middle- class Indian ethic of the importance of getting a good education which could be the ticket out of a humdrum existence. The song ‘Tere vaaste falak se main chaand laoonga’ which until recently had had most of the country gyrating madly on Facebook and Instagram suddenly seemed more ‘real’ than merely ‘reel.’ Indians were proud of their scientists, their largely home-grown technology and vicariously of themselves. It was the supreme ‘feel good’ moment and it was certainly well deserved.

The failure of the previous two moon missions which had almost resulted in the country’s moon aspirations being consigned to the dust-bin of history, made this victory that much more special. It was a much- needed confidence booster. The difference between ‘moon-on-flag’ and ‘flag-on-moon’ philosophy had been driven home. Everyone was mightily pleased, or at least so it seemed on the earthly if not the lunar surface. The Indian cow had arrived and how! Much to the chagrin and eternal disgruntlement of the New York Times, it was now comfortably ensconced in its new pasture and was contentedly chewing the cud. A truly ‘holy cow’ moment.

Wisdom, they say, can be found in the most unexpected places and one such nugget which remains with me to this day is a dialogue from the popular film Three Idiots. “Dost fail ho jaye, to dukh hota hai, lekin dost first aa jaye, to us se bhi jyada dukh hota hai,” and with the moon landing, India had the distinction of being the first to successfully attempt a soft landing on the lunar South Pole, a notoriously difficult terrain to navigate. And thus, it was time for the frenemies to come crawling out of nooks and crannies. They did not disappoint, rising to the occasion with aplomb.

While brick-bats from abroad questioning the validity and necessity of the Indian Space Program, apparently funded by ‘foreign aid’ when the country could put the amount to better use providing food, water, and medical aid to its impoverished citizens were par for the course, (there is something called sour grapes and colonial hangover after all) it was the home-grown litany of criticism which left many a citizen, including yours truly, truly baffled. Masquerading as cautions and well-intentioned advice of ‘not going gaga’ about one achievement, they were nothing but thinly veiled jibes with the single point agenda of giving a political slant to what should have been a singularly apolitical scientific achievement.

The complaints, it seemed, were not directed at the moon landing at all, but at the Prime Minister, of all people. There were complaints because he appeared ‘on screen’ to applaud the achievement and ‘hog the limelight.’ There were complaints because he dared to look for water on the moon when many Indians were starved of clean drinking water.  Within a short time, the internet was replete with stories of scientists ‘not being paid’ for the past eighteen months, and when this was refuted, of one of the companies involved in the construction of the Chandrayaan being ailing, never mind that the MOS for industries later replied in parliament refuting the involvement of touted company in the project and yet others who spoke lugubriously about ‘budget cuts’, failing health care, growing unemployment and a hundred and one other things which were wrong and in some strange convoluted way were direct offshoots of a successful moon-landing. Then there were those brilliant brains who questioned the pooja offered by the ISRO chief at the Tirupati temple. And yet others who had made a career out of being permanently stroppy about all the things which went right.

Of course, there was comic relief as well, when some people in responsible legislative positions demonstrated their grip on the subject by congratulating ‘the citizens travelling to the moon,’ and by agreeing to set up a welcome committee when the ‘lander came back.’ But the choicest vociferation came from the remarkably voluble chief minister of an intelligent eastern state who asked her fellowmen to recall the happy time when Rakesh Roshan, a popular actor of yesteryear had gone to the moon back in the ‘80s (FYI it was Rakesh Sharma, an astronaut who orbited the earth in a Russian craft, not landed on the moon).

The youth leader of the nation (who has mysteriously found the fountain of eternal youth, how else is he an immature fifty-two?) declared that a rover on the moon would not put food on the table. All that is awaited is full-page advertisements from the sagacious chief minister of Delhi, trumpeting the crucial role he played in the whole enterprise accompanied of course by a demonical cackle. The less said the better about the unnecessary furor caused by naming the point of landing ‘Shivshakti,’ which of course in they eyes of several is a sinister plot to make the moon a ‘blood moon’ (saffron, if you get my drift) once and for all.

Politics aside, this chapter of Indian history is a pean to the power of the people. The formerly elitist space program is now within the grasp of all Indians and it is heartening to hear them express themselves so lucidly. People have imbibed the ‘reach for the stars’ spirit and are finally shedding the inferior mindset brought about by centuries of colonialism. Apart from the expected development in the fields of telecommunications, defense, weather forecasting and aerospace engineering, the most noteworthy achievement of the moon landing is self-confidence. For only a confident people can forge themselves a new path.

Perhaps Mr. Anand Mahindra had the last word on the subject when he replied to a pesky BBC anchor who questioned what the anchor deemed an unnecessary expense “What going to the moon does for us is that it helps restore our pride and self-confidence. It creates belief in progress through science. It gives us the aspiration to lift ourselves out of poverty. The greatest poverty is the poverty of aspiration…”

So, like it or lump it, the Indian cow is on the moon and it is there to stay!

(This article is Part 1 of a series called ‘Dreaming by Moonlight’)

“If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way”

Napoleon Hill

The sight of jam-filled cookies fills me with indescribable nostalgia. The sweet centers linger in my heart long after the taste has vanished from the tastebuds. They carry me back to that happy and innocent time called childhood when the ‘dil’ was small, not just in size, but also in demands. When something as tiny as a jam biscuit emerging from my father’s pocket, had the ability to make me feel on top of the world. While the biscuit no doubt played its role, the real reason for the transports of delight was different.

Baba, as I called my father, was a busy man. Of course, being ‘busy’ in a small town, where I grew up carried a far different connotation from the harried (and sometimes unnecessary) ‘busyness’ of the metros which we see these days. Initially being too young to understand much, I only knew that he was a member of ‘committees’ and was a lawyer, all of which meant many meetings. The committees convened at least once a month to discuss things best known to them and since the meetings lasted for the better part of two hours, tea and biscuits were a given. The biscuits in question were the jam filled ones and Baba (who never ate any himself) always got one for me. Just one. Never more.

Now, when I look back on that little indulgence, I realize that the real source of joy was not the single biscuit (he could have well afforded to buy an entire packet) which he gave me, but the fact that he remembered my likes even amid his work. That he cared about the smallest things was the biggest reason to feel cherished. It was one of the first lessons that life was not a matter of milestones but of moments. This was the ‘dil has more’ moment for me and thus the small stuff became the corner stone of my life.

In one of my previous screeds, I have already mentioned that in addition to food, clothing and shelter, appreciation is also a basic human need. There are myriad ways to show it and while grand OTT gestures are the way to go these days, in the wise words of Winnie the Pooh (the real one, not his doppelgänger Xi Jinping), sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart. It is why we sometimes come undone and save a small page hurriedly torn out of a notebook with ‘Happy Birthday’ scrawled across it in childish letters in garish markers, decorated with even more lurid puffy stickers of roses and crystals, though the child in question may now be ‘video-calling’ on said birthday to say that he has booked the parent a holiday at a cherished destination and to enjoy it though he may not be able to make it. It is why the sound of the opening strains of a favorite song make us linger longer than necessary near its source and it is also why just a whiff of a long-forgotten bar of soap can make a gloomy day come alive.

Grandiose gestures, goals and achievements are of course to be admired and if possible, emulated whole-heartedly. But in the race to reach this loftiness, it will not do to belittle the little things which go into their making. After all, all that it takes to form a pearl is a tiny irritant grain of sand! In the constant race for loftiness, it is sometimes not just a need, but also a relief to look back at the tiny steps which have led thus far. To send out a tiny reassurance to oneself, that the same power which created the sun also created the fire-fly, blessing each with a different light, and its own distinct place in the scheme of things.

For, on a dark night, it is the fire-fly which fills a floundering soul not just with hope, but also with wonder that even though the darkness is huge and all encompassing, a single point of light is all that it takes to dispel it. And thus, every gesture of love and kindness, no matter how small does contribute to happiness, although it may not be immediately apparent. All that is needed is the patience to await its blossoming.

Never has the race for the ‘bigger and the better’ been so apparent as in current times. With ‘give me more’ being the modern-day slogan, it is very easy to overlook the small deeds which enrich our lives far more than we think possible. With most of us leading dual lives: the real messy one, and the other glossy one on social media, never has it been easier to fall into the airbrush. In this endless chase of being or having the best, it is very easy to snuff out the tiny sparks of everyday joys. It is only when their tiny pinpricks of light are smothered and extinguished by the looming cloud of our own great expectations that we know what they were: stars in the dark sky to light our path.

It is therefore important to keep up with the tiny acts of kindness and caring. Smiling at the night-shift guard when he is stepping out for home, while you are heading out for your morning jog, thanking your maid for fetching you that cold glass of water without waiting to ask, when you step in after a long day, calling your parents in a faraway town, for no reason, other than to talk to them or sending an ‘All Okay?’ message to your spouse when you are out of town for work, despite the busy schedule, are all gestures which we normally dismiss as being too tiny to notice. But do them sometime and the joyful beams and happy voices you are rewarded with will be the rich dividends that you will reap.

If the universe can be built from the invisibly tiny atoms, we can only guess at the importance of the ‘small good deeds’ which will take root to grow into the redwoods of kindness and compassion, a sore need in the modern world. As we strive towards greatness, both personal and public, it is important to remember that true greatness lies in being great in little things.

As for me, thanks to Baba, I know that to keep savoring the sweetness of the jam biscuits in my heart, I have to keep sweating the small stuff!

How a cocktail helped the cause of Cinchona, Conquest, and Colonialism.

What is common amongst Juniper berries, Dutch Courage, Anopheles mosquitoes, the Peruvian Andes, and the East India Company which carried out its largely nefarious activities in many parts of the world? The unlikely answer is a summer cocktail: Gin and Tonic!

For a teetotaller like yours truly, the advent of the long, hot Indian summer brings visions of traditional summer coolers like the Aam Panna, Shikanji, Nimbu-Paani, Faloodas, milkshakes, a few ‘Mocktails,’ or syrups and crushes from Mahabaleshwar. For the ones who happily partake of the happy juice, the choice of course is far greater. Long Island Ice Teas, Frozen Sangrias, Mojitos, Martinis, Pina Coladas and if the occasion is truly special, chilled bottles of Bubbly! But some like it simple and it does not get simpler than the G&T, a two ingredient mix of gin and tonic water with a lime wheel thrown in as a flavour enhancer.

Think G&T and a Kiplingesque picture of British Bungalows with cool shady verandas occupied by British Sahibs and Memsahibs pulling languorously on long cold glasses brimming with the good stuff, while indulging in genteel conversation without a care in the world, comes to mind. Nothing could be further from the truth. In all probability, the Brits were feverishly discussing new ways to stave off the ‘ague’ as malaria was known then. For the only remedy(strangely, both preventive and curative) they knew was G&T, an unlikely weapon in the British arsenal (almost as important as the Gatling Gun) which helped them not just conquer but also keep their crown of colonies, of which India was the jewel.

Turn to history books, and we are assailed with tales of a people who showed up on our shores ostensibly as traders, but fell so much in love with the unparalleled wealth they saw, that they chose to stay and make mayhem for two centuries. Armed with superior weapons, whether guns or germs, it did not take them long to conquer all that they laid their eyes on. But holding on to conquered land needed numbers. And these were dwindling thanks to not just the hostile weather, but also a fever with shivers which had been the bane of hot, damp, low lying, mosquito- infested areas since the zenith of the Roman empire. The malady was Malaria. And it refused to discriminate among the conquerors and the conquered, The British were on the lookout for some way, anyway, to prevent or cure this ill, which was a serious spanner in the great work of Empire expansion. Just another ‘White Man’s Burden’!

While Gin was of distinctly Dutch origin (there are references to a spirit flavoured with ‘genever’ or Juniper berries in thirteenth century Flemish manuscripts), the British soldiers battling it out in Europe took to it like ducks to water, frequently indulging freely before going into battle, helping themselves not just to Dutch Gin, but also ‘Dutch Courage.’ It was not long before the ‘Gin Craze’ took over London in the early eighteenth century. It was largely a cheap spirit because no duties were levied on it, unlike those on French Brandy. And thus, it gained popularity with the hoi polloi, disdained by the upper classes of society.

Tonic water was a different story altogether.  While the British were indulging themselves in Europe, on the other side of the world, on the high slopes of the Peruvian Andes, Spanish conquerors discovered a miracle bark which though the proverbial bitter medicine, prevented the ague in natives who gamely chewed it, having decided that bitter was better than dead. The bark in question was the bark of the Cinchona tree, which contains quinine, still used in the treatment of malaria. Peru and the conquering Spaniards would have had a stranglehold on quinine production had it not been for the enterprising Dutch at work again. They managed to smuggle a few seeds to their colonies in Java and lo and behold! There was quinine for all.

Once it was discovered that the powdered bark worked just as well as the fresh one, the Brits took to importing their preventive and curative medicine in large quantities and distributing it to their soldiers en mass, with strict instructions to down bitter medicine if they hoped to either avoid or stay alive after being afflicted by the ague.

The bitter truth bit everyone where it hurt the most: their taste buds, until someone came up with the idea of mixing a concoction of quinine powder, water, and sugar. Though the bitter pill was somewhat sweetened, there definitely was room for improvement. This came in the form of soda water which further reduced the bitterness. Since it performed the task of staving off malaria, it was popularly called ‘Tonic Water.’  An enterprising person called Erasmus Bond is credited with the first commercial production of Tonic Water, with suspicious serendipity in 1858, just when the rule of the East India Company was ousted in favour of the British crown. Schweppes in the meantime had started producing ‘Indian Tonic Water’ and this was brought to Indian shores by British sailors, who also brought their favourite tipple: Gin.

While the name of the bright spark who first thought of mixing the two has been lost to the mists of time, it was a match made in heaven. And viola! a new cocktail was born. It was a win-win. It was alcohol, it tasted great, it either prevented or cured a deadly disease and was something the doctor ordered. What could be better? Although recent studies have shown that the blood levels of quinine generated by downing the G&T are not sufficient to prevent malaria, it was probably the frequency with which it was downed which did the trick. And Plasmodium, (the genus of protozoan which causes malaria) having never been subjected to such alcoholic treatment was still too hung over to put up a strong resistance.

The British, for once, had crafted a sweet ending to a tale of woe (which was quite unlike them). The Crown conquered and colonized and Gin &Tonic made sure that bitter was always better with some added alcohol. Perhaps Winston Churchill had the last word on the subject when he famously declared “The gin and tonic has saved more Englishmen’s lives and minds, than all the doctors in the Empire.”

With Goa beginning production of artisanal gin, the G&T has come full circle. So, the next time you are accused of overindulgence (if you indulge in the first place), whether you belong to the healthcare fraternity or not, you have a suitable riposte up your sleeve, “The Gin and Tonic is not just a drink; it is a drug!”

“The wedding was great but the snacks were the real star of the show”

‘Come September’ might have been the music theme for the eponymous romantic comedy, but it has apparently gained fame in the northern reaches of the country as the ‘doosri wali dhun’ played routinely during baraats causing many a baraati to rock until hapless passersby are convinced that the person rocking and thus inadvertently blocking the route to their legitimate business is off his rocker in the first place. It is how we welcome the wedding season.

In this large and lovable country of ours, ‘Come November’ is a better theme because it is the start of the silly season which lasts well into June, when you are dragged nilly-willy into everyone’s itch to hitch. If Lord Vishnu can rouse himself from cosmic slumber on Prabhodini Ekadashi to marry Vrinda in what is celebrated as the Tulsi Vivah, how can puny humans not emulate Him? Taking a cue from the Gods, they rush to pledge themselves to their (not necessarily) better halves. Add a celebration prone people to the mix and you get glitz, glamour, gigatons of gold, good cheer, and gazillions of guests.

Any life-changing event needs witnesses. ‘The bigger the better’ has been a common theme since days of yore, accompanied by several rituals. If this is only too evident in births and deaths, can event as seminal as marriage be left behind? It of course deserves its own chapter in the book of life. And nowhere is this more evident than in the Big Fat Indian Wedding, with its ever-increasing BMI, which has either not heard or does not care about the global obesity and Syndrome X epidemic. The sizes of Indian weddings tend to follow the lines of those of American food portions: large, huge, and enormous. Even the most private of weddings easily boasts a crowd of a hundred and fifty or more. With the great Indian family boasting ties which not just bind but also gag, to not invite your aunt’s sister-in-law’s third cousin four times removed is an unpardonable crime. Playing the ‘better safe than sorry’ card, wedding venues burst at the seams with so many people milling around, that gate-crashers appear far more genuine than legitimate guests, as evidenced in the movie ‘Three Idiots.’

To be a part of this three-ring circus can be fun for the gregarious kinds, but if you happen to be the shrinking wall-flower kind (my favorite), then such weddings represent a Chakravyuh which will put the one designed by Dronacharya in the Mahabharat in the amateur class. Battling your way through this melee dressed in heavy armor (read your finery), accosted at every step by pesky long-lost relatives who pop up with the battle cry “Remember Me?,” adroitly fielding nosy queries about your job, money and family while trying to summon a smile when enlightened about how Chinki, Pappu (not RaGa, he has smartly avoided weddings for fifty years) and Sonu are doing much better than you can be extremely taxing for the uninitiated.

There was a civilized time which I remember from my distant childhood in which weddings were genteel events which you attended with your hand tucked safely in an elder’s, when you were expected to arrive for the Mahurat, shower the newlyweds with rice grains, blessings and a discrete envelope containing cash, partake of the ice-cream thrust at you by the waiter ( don’t even think of hanging around in hope of seconds) and beat a dignified retreat within the space of an hour. If you happened to be a relative or a particularly close friend, you were invited to join the banquet which was a classy sit-down affair with a few standard ‘wedding’ items on the menu. Immediate family like older, married siblings, uncles, aunts, and first cousins, next door neighbors and a few out-of-towners doubled as wedding planners, beauticians, decorators and if need be impromptu caterers and attended the pre-wedding ceremonies which mostly comprised of ritual poojas and havans, attended to by a well-endowed family priest in a dhoti and a large upvastram barely covering his girth as well as the main event. A small pandal to feed the extra mouths and a few strings of lights formed the decorations and distinguished the ‘wedding house’ from the others on the street. So far, so simple.

Now that times have changed, weddings like everything else have been ‘upgraded’ into bigger (though not necessarily better) versions of themselves. Wedding planners have replaced the aunties in charge, multiple cuisines with live counters and chefs tossing roomali rotis in the air have replaced the few homely food items and queues snaking for miles at the buffet and at the reception line have replaced the formal sit-down affairs. The venues are transformed from the street to the starred hotels. The less said about the themed decorations the better. The invitations have morphed from single page comprehensives to multiple page novels detailing everything from when, where, and how the happy couple met to what they expect from YOU on their several pre-wedding and wedding day functions. A clothing theme, an entertainment theme, food theme, song-and-dance theme. All you can do is heave a sigh of relief that you are not expected to tag along to contribute to the cost of the honeymoon theme! Most weddings these days stretch themselves for a minimum of four days with a Haldi ceremony, a Ladies Sangeet (what do the gents do I wonder?), a cocktail night, a reception and so on and so forth. The actual wedding ceremony is often lost in transit, what with flexible and multiple Mahurats!

Just how much of an effort the guests put into attending said weddings was borne home to me when the spouse had to attend a destination wedding in a golden beach state. Now, getting the spouse to dress in new clothes for any occasion is a Herculean task, but to co-ordinate all the clothes required for this three-day bonanza entailed several shopping trips on the part of yours truly looking for a pajama here, sandals there, and a yellow Modi jacket elsewhere for the haldi ceremony.  The list for the must have items for this wedding far surpassed those for his own (to me, unfortunately). Anyway, to cut a long story short, said items were procured, the spouse duly dispatched and I was looking forward to a couple of days of peace. No such luck. The wedding now having taken on the aura of Casper the (un)friendly ghost haunted me in the form of the spouse messaging a hundred times a day asking which pair of trousers went with which shirt, which jacket with which tie, which socks with which shoes and when was the yellow theme till all I could see was yellow spots before my eyes.

I generally try to slide out of the bigger wedding dos for the simple fact that most of them require me to wear a sari, which is not my strong suite. After four or five failed attempts, I finally manage the feat with several safety pins and prayers that both the pleats and the pallu should behave themselves and not cause unnecessary embarrassment by coming undone in a large hall packed with several elderly relatives. High heels, a handbag and a large buffet plate add to my woes as I teeter about trying to make small talk with several people who recognize me but whose faces and names don’t match in my middle-aged memory. While I feel a leap of delight on receiving a wedding invitation, it is laced at the fringes with a nameless dread at all the shenanigans involved.

As I discreetly rub my aching ankles after attending one of these necessary evils, I cannot help but remember the words of wisdom imparted to me by my uncle,  “After all these shindigs, no Indian in their right mind will do it twice. That is the real reason for the low divorce rate in India.” I tend to agree. Whether or not you believe the ‘Ek dooje ke vaaste’ theme of matches being made in heaven ala the movie ‘Dil to Pagal hai’, the themed weddings of the new generation are definitely the stuff of ‘Mad(e) in Heaven’!

“Never argue with someone who believes their own lies”

Long ago, I dreamt of studying in Cambridge. Given its venerable age, it ranked right up there with the rest of the best universities in the world. I wanted nothing more than to don long gowns and tiptoe down hallowed halls, discussing the essence of life and death and how to save all life forms inhabiting the good earth, while colonizing (read illegally occupying) a couple of other planets or their moons at least should humankind ever run out of space to spread themselves. I wanted to hobnob with the brilliantly illustrious, who would initially guide me and whom I would guide after the passage of a respectable amount of time.

Of course, life had different ideas. Forget Cambridge, I did not even make it as far as Colaba. Years passed and I had all but forgotten about it. Until recently. After my disastrous run in with the muffler and nearly being coopted into the joining Juggernaut, I had decided to lie low for a while, and take things easy. And that is precisely what I was doing. Minding my own business. Until blaring speeches and glaring headlines proclaimed the fall of an old bastion to the charms of venerable, middle-aged youth. Cambridge (or its management school, at least) had been conquered by an intelligent, impressive, inclusive, insightful, intuitive, and inspiring Indian! Reading all the adjectives used to describe him made me slightly irascible, but that is another story.

To say that I was disappointed would be an understatement. I had always imagined Cambridge to be the serene and halcyon haunt of the great and the good. Surely conquering such a hallowed place would take exceptional ability? Yes, my friendly conqueror did have one such exceptional ability. He could always be called upon to provide comic relief. All that it had taken to conquer Cambridge was a clown! And one with marked Chinese leanings at that. And of course, the less said about his confusing statements, guaranteed to confound the cleverest, the better!

After an exceptionally somber and busy week dealing with patients in the throes of some dreaded ailment or other, I decided to have a good laugh and set about downloading his speeches with gusto. If I was looking for something along the lines of ‘vision which is global, but China has it’ or ‘a machine which churns out gold if fed with potatoes,’ I was not so much in for a surprise as a nasty shock. The man, while on the run (sorry, I meant walk) had with his suave well-bearded look, also acquired a new clarity of thought and was giving clarion calls for help. Now on whose behalf said calls exactly were for, remained a serious matter of contention. Some claimed they were on behalf of the motherland. Others just as vehemently claimed that they were for the invasion of the motherland. The conqueror was using confusion to claim all for himself.

Repeat a lie often enough, they say and it can be mistaken to be the truth. And thus the ‘Democracy in Danger’ refrain, which went on and on, like a broken record. When the simplest of minds can understand that you get either heads or tails on tossing a coin, one failed to understand how he believed himself when he was allowed not just permission, but also protection while on the run, sorry walk. And how in the wide world was he allowed to fly the nest when he was supposedly put behind bars not once, but several times thanks to his self-righteous and obdurate stance against the fascist regime now holding the common population in its snake- like hypnotic stare? If the mind of the common man boggles, that of the Cambridge dons must have reeled into the realms of insanity.

If it was a word-perfect actor playing to the galleries on a world stage, to a script which would have even given Shakespeare a run for his money, our conqueror was certainly worth the full houses and headlines proclaiming his ‘coming of age’ at last! Closer home, a much younger, saffron-clad monk went about his daily tasks with a sad shake of his venerable head, knowing that he could never win this battle of the elixir of youth. Another person who had joined the regret band was the father of all things Indian. MKG. I am sure MKG was by now regretting his shared surname what with his Dandi March being blatantly compared to the great joining juggernaut. At least one can safely say that the British who saw MKG on his march did not mean to simply stand and stare and did cause some grievous bodily harm to his followers if not MKG himself. But it is totally believable that the few terrorists in Kashmir who saw the clown were either busy ROFLing or were too scared to approach him by the thought of being infected by some new form of virus thanks to his Chinese connections not to mention the copious amount of beard! Perhaps we had discovered a simple new peaceful missile to solve militancy in Kashmir once and for all!

Again, the worst was saved for the last. There were repeated mentions of all the ‘institutions, constitution and pillars’ which supported the largest democracy in the world were being constantly bombarded. You wanted real bombardment? Then forget Ukraine. India was THE place to visit.  And this is how a blatant invitation was issued to several Western powers to ‘ensure’ that democracy was restored. It was the new post-colonial school of thought. Conquer in order to free! The ‘Learning to Listen’ lecture which was the key to Cambridge had sinister undertones of ‘Sustaining Slavery in the Subcontinent.’

It has many times been seen that people prefer to don masks to hide the unsavory. And our conquering clown is no exception. Under the mask of a simpleton lies an extremely devious mind which will stop at nothing in an undisguised bid for power. A scion of a freedom fighter family making unapologetic appeals to foreign powers is the height of hypocrisy and the depth of depravity. For a would-be ruler, to be so unsure about the trust of the people whom he seeks to rule means that something is fishy and it is so much more than a basket of fish.

If, in a democracy, it is people who truly rule, it is time to unmask all the masqueraders and to vote for what lies beneath. It is time to read not just the writing on the wall, but in between the lines as well. It is time to see through the freebies and know that there is nothing like a free lunch and when the time comes, the price extracted will far outstrip not just the cost of lunch but that of an entire lifetime of full-board. It is time to no longer jest, but be just in choosing who we vote to power.

And to prove to the world that clowns may well conquer Cambridge but not the common man!

Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition

Marilyn Monroe

Come the Eighth of March and the world is awash in pink. Women’s Day Wishes fly around like so many interdepartmental memos in the ‘Ministry of Magic’ a la` Harry Potter world. There are promotions and promises, programs and prizes and articles (mea culpa) and awards which begin anywhere between a month to a day in advance. Everyone and their aunt and uncle ‘celebrate’ womanhood. Having made the right noises, everything is then wrapped in cotton wool and laid away carefully awaiting the next yearly outing.

It is an open secret that women in many societies are a repressed lot who carry the heavier end of the stick. A day to celebrate them is therefore a small way of acknowledging them and their vast contributions to society. It is an occasion for acceptance and appreciation which otherwise remains confined to the background. An occasion when the mostly voiceless are given a chance to be vociferous.

If the greetings which make their way on social media are to be believed, all women are possessed with superhuman powers, which become apparent only on the eighth of March. Perhaps they are hiding under a bushel the rest of the year? Touted as multitasking individuals, who can not only take on but also finish every assigned job at the drop of a hat, women are placed at the pinnacle of impossible achievements. Most media outlets, whether conventional or social seem to abound in achievers who are swiftly felicitated to make the correct corporate statements. Women of all shapes and sizes put their feet up, let their hair down and a general good time is had by all. So far, so fair and so frothy.

At the cost of sounding cynical, or even worse, critical of my own kind, I say that Women’s Day though important, nevertheless plays more on women’s inherent need of acceptance and appreciation than any concrete agenda for true emancipation. In many cases, it devolves into a feel-good thing to assuage the guilt which has built up over the course of the remaining three hundred and sixty- four days of the year. Something akin to offering a candy to a child to divert its attention from a badly scraped knee. While the candy is a good idea, the real need is to clean and dress the knee so that it can speed up the healing process.

It is but natural that men and women are different. Nature, of course has a strict no exemptions rule. Women trying to equal men in certain respects is simply not feasible. Nor should they try to. What is needed is for them to find common ground and let each other be, without stereotyping roles for either. The fine line which divides them, and believe me it still exists, needs to be not so much erased as annihilated, through genuine camaraderie, without continually viewing the other as a mercenary adversary. The discovery that they complement each other in more ways than thought possible can be liberating, while giving each other a more sympathetic outlook to the hurdles the other faces. And thus, the lofty ideal of the two being the two wheels of a chariot can spring to life instead of staying confined to the imaginary world of writers and their ilk. As long as the chariot runs smoothly, no one said anything about the wheels being exactly the same, the Tata Nano with its mismatched front and rear wheels being a prime example.

What we as women need, is to stop seeking validation not just for everything we do, but in some cases for our very existence. Strangely there is a flip side to this, in which some women expect to be continually complimented and lauded for being women, conveniently divesting themselves of traditional roles while staunchly refusing to don new ones. This will merely have the effect of widening the gap between the genders till it becomes first a chasm and then a yawning void. If it is equality that we seek, then it is important to remember that it works both ways. Act like a hot-house flower all you like, but then stop complaining about being confined to the hot house.

If we take pride in being touted as complete beings and truly believe in it then we will experience complete contentment too, without unnecessary competition. No one doubts that a fight for rights IS the right fight, but to fight just for the sake of ‘one upmanship’ would be akin to accepting defeat. It is the belief of the world in general and India in particular that women even after being awarded equal rights need to ‘prove’ themselves. This is equal to proclaiming males to be something more. Who suffers in this case? Women of course! By being trapped in their own thoughts and minds.

It is time for women to seek true equality and liberation. Equality in the eyes of the law, in family matters and in available opportunities. It is time to embrace the essence of ourselves, which make us different, unique even. The day we decide not to indulge the need of unnecessary competition with men, will be the day when we will truly wake. We will make our own pedestals and keep them in what will be truly our own space. Each day will be earmarked, because a single day to celebrate us is not enough. Every day will be ‘Women’s Day’!

‘Honest men cannot be expected to anticipate the actions of scoundrels’

I really get Trevor Noah and his classy wit. Especially his take on the ‘civilizational revolution’ which much of Europe foisted on the rest of the world. Of course, the bitter pill of loot, pillage and plunder was cleverly concealed under the sickly- sweet coating of ushering, (read dragging, kicking and screaming) the heathen natives, who did not know any better into the modern age, with its concepts of equality, prosperity and that elusive concept called freedom. It was a promise of a utopian world, were no one would be exploited, everyone would work together for the greater good and mutual brotherhood would rain upon all and sundry like manna from heaven. It was the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the mythical rainbow which when reached would lead humanity towards a bright new dawn.

Well, utopian dreams have a strange way of remaining only dreams and staying as far away as possible from coming true. And this is precisely what happened when the world engaged in a horrendous experiment called colonization. For us lucky ones, who were born with a sky to call our own, it might be difficult to fully understand carrying (in most cases literally) the white man’s burden of ill-conceived thought that anyone who was a shade darker was in severe need of redemption which could only be got through the good interventions of the West.  When natives after suffering tremendously decided that enough was enough and began warming to the idea of claiming their bit of the earth (unfortunately with all its bounties), sea and sky as their own, it was as if the earth shook under their expensively shod feet and sure enough, sturdy native boots landed on their backsides to send them back to where they came from. Adding insult to injury, the natives gradually proved themselves to be as good if not better at managing their countries and themselves. True, there were the initial hiccups, an odd famine here, a few wars there but on the whole, the whole operation was rubbing along far more smoothly than imagined. No one had recalled their erstwhile masters to rule them again, on bended knee, a secret Western aspiration. However, absolute power not only corrupts absolutely but also leaves a rankling lust for it behind long after it has been lost.

And thus began an even more dangerous game: one of dissemination. The old slave and master mentality no longer fit into the concept of the post war (both world wars and cold war) world. And thus, much of the colonized world had to be subtly pointed to the direction in which the old colonial masters wanted it to go. The right noises made at the right times, much hot air about human rights and stirring up trouble where there was none later, the world was beset with wars (evident in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan), economic crises (Pakistan, Venezuela and Sri Lanka) and several other man- made calamities including climate change. It was of course, so much easier to lecture others on what was right and wrong than it was to follow what one preached.

And when a busybody nonagenarian called Soros, in keeping with his name decided to add to the collective sorrows, well, every dark cloud had an even darker lining. A wonderful concept called the ‘Open Society’ was his beloved brain-child. It meant to do away with national borders and the recognition of different countries in what was to be a ‘truly global’ world. Old wine in a new bottle if ever there was. It was of course, a brilliant concept on paper but essentially flawed because the king-emperor, commander and high priest of this cabal in high places was to be Soros himself, who would not only decide who would rule where and how, but put his chosen ones on their respective thrones and made sure they stayed there. It was loot and plunder by proxy. Open Society would remain open as long as you toed his line. Questioning led to it closing its jaws faster than you could say ‘trap’ and more often than not taking a good chunk of your economy, peace and land with it. Several smaller countries ranging from the African to the South American succumbed to this, for want of a better name, underhanded warfare which relied heavily on arms, oil and pharmaceuticals.  An attempt in vain by an equally vain individual at playing ‘I am the king of the world’.

Since biblical times, the love of money has been described as the ‘root of all evil’ and our man of the many sorrows excelled at economic warfare. Trained at the knee of the master marauders (read London School of Economics), he made the better part of his considerable fortune by shorting the pound against the Deutsche Mark, earning the sobriquet of the ‘Raider of the Bank of England’. The dramatic fall of the Thai Baht and Malaysian Ringgit was also purportedly born of his fertile imagination, though never ‘proved beyond reasonable doubt’. After many such little debacles the world over, it was time to stage a big ‘kheddah’ to net the Great Indian elephant, especially when the denizens of the Indian jungle had had the temerity to elect a nobody who had not trod the hallowed halls of a few of the accepted temples of learning (western thought at its best and brightest) like Cambridge to the highest political post of the country. Not only was the man a forthright nationalist, but a staunch Hindu. The situation was simply untenable.

An uncouth brown man in a position of power! Especially an incorrigible one who could not be bought lock, stock and barrel. Who insisted on setting a nor’nor’east course when told to take the sou’sou’west. Who traded with the likes of the ruffianly Putin and bought and sold oil with impunity. The man had even exhorted his blighted country to come up with a new internet payment system to put paid to any ‘blockage’ sanctions from the West. Talk about a permanent cure for the various constipated nations of the world. A good part of the billion- dollar fortune pledged during the Davos summit had already been spent in half-baked attempts to bring about a regime change during the 2019 general elections, which had unfortunately fallen flat on their faces.

India of course was always a double-edged sword. While a quite a few people, especially in the fourth pillar of democracy could be easily ‘funded’ (read bought) and implanted to peddle their narratives, the number of people buying into it without reasoning for themselves were gradually diminishing, thanks to another revolution of recent times: the internet invasion, which allowed multiple forms of the same story to make its way around the world simultaneously. This of course gave rise to that biggest nightmare of the would-be supremacist: an ability to think and reason. The idea of toppling the Modi Government had latched onto several nefarious minds and the sorrows of Soros were intended to rain down through the stock market. An attack on a big business house, the owner of which was always in the news for more of the wrong reason of being the power behind the Modi puppet, never mind that he commanded a port-to-power conglomerate was the piece`-de-resistance that would send the entire Indian economy into free-fall beyond the point of no return.

The public sector banks which had lent lakhs of crores thanks to ‘crony capitalism’ would bear the brunt taking with them the small savings of the common man. When food was whisked away from the table, there would be chaos, fostered by a few discreetly placed rioters who would covertly carry out their master’s bidding in return for the thirty shekels of silver. If Jesus could be betrayed, Modi was small fry. But that was not to be. The Indian stock market took a hit, but the welcome spectacle of a blood bath did not follow as expected. Moreover, the banks had the temerity to declare that they were not as exposed to the business house as claimed, leading to the exposure of an old man who was still trying to play the obsolete game of White supremacy, sinning in trying to cause unnecessary sorrows.

In a way, we have Georgie-Porgie with his puddings and pies to thank for revealing the chinks in India Inc.’s armor so that we who have grown steadily to become the fifth largest economy in the world are not caught napping the next time a damp squib called Hindenburg Research tries to cheaply spook our economy and get away with it. Maybe it is time for George Soros to learn from Brendan Fraser to become ‘George of the Jungle’ the ‘all round good guy’, loved by all instead of going down in history as the ‘George Sorrows the Scoundrel’, the ‘all round bad guy’, despised by all.

The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid’

Art Spander

Winter is on the wane. The sun comes a beckoning earlier and earlier and looks at me curled up cozily under a duvet with a stern eye. “Get up woman”, it admonishes with its rays. “Get up and walk”. When the entire solar system following the sun’s diktats without a murmur of protest, I am really small fry. I haul myself out. Reluctant and rather cross I don the walking shoes and a pullover to ward off the three days of chill which we Thanekars proudly tout as the good weather. For good measure, I also wrap a muffler across the lower part of my face, where it flaps desultorily in response to my brisk step.

“Good morning!”, calls out a pesky and scarily perky person, hustling past. As I think black thoughts about the morning not being so good after all, he jogs past again, even as I huff and puff on my way. This time, he gestures at my muffler. “Are you on your way to join the yatra?”. “What is that?” I wonder peering around blearily for a large crowd to appear on the horizon, because I am never at my best and brightest this early in the morning. Deciding not to cross him for a third time and be bombarded with more questions, I change track and walk away in search of quieter climes. But I seem to be out of luck. I spot three or four other acquaintances and they all ask me if I am joining the yatra and all of them seem to look askance at my muffler.

Deciding that I have appeased the sun enough, I decide to make a bee-line for home and perhaps try and get to the bottom of this yatra affair, when I am accosted by the offspring, no sooner I open the door. She promptly falls about laughing at what she terms my ‘unwittingly hilarious’ appearance. It turns out to be the muffler after all, which I had been suspecting as a culprit for some time now. I pause to take a look at the headlines on my phone, catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror and nearly drop my phone in horror. No wonder people think I am joining in the yatra which is making news. With my muffler, I bear an uncanny (and totally un-necessary) resemblance to a mendicant politician who is following the steps of Adi Shankaracharya in an attempt to traverse the length of the country.

With a gasp of panic, I rip the muffler from my face and feel my cheeks for good measure, to ensure that I have removed every bit of the offending wool and not grown a forest replete with its own ecosystem on my cheeks in the half hour that I have been wrapped in the muffler. Thankfully I have not. A rejuvenating cup of tea later, I am pondering the ‘humongous’ trek meant to join the country, pretty much in the way of a tailor regarding a shredded piece of cloth and putting it together again by a stitch here, a tuck there and a zip somewhere else. Humpty Dumpty MUST be put together again, even though he is not broken.

But the more I ponder, the more baffled I am. What exactly is the purpose of walking, living in an airconditioned container and wasting five months pouring trouble on oiled waters (yes, that spoonerism was intended) is something I absolutely do not understand. What I find even more baffling is the statements issued which range from outrageous to downright silly, when a well-respected and somewhat venerable person, who is a youth leader nonetheless says that he embarked on this journey to heal the nation of hate, but found it brimming with love instead. I beg to ask, did his minions not conduct a proper survey? Was there no ground work done before sending a middle- aged man on a wild goose chase? Maybe the grand old party was looking for a grander party on the road what with several other ‘Junta Sewaks’ playing hooky from day jobs, members of ‘civil society’ getting into the spirit and actors, writers, thinkers, bankers, and not quite a few wankers joining in with gusto.

Of course, Indian politics, right, left or center is filled with gimmicks and if the grand old party were to be involved in anyway, it has to be the grandest gimmick of them all. And this is what precisely happened. Much rhetoric, renaming of roads, a few choice speeches in the dripping rain and whirling snow, a couple of quick flits home and possibly abroad in hired helicopters, a vain attempt at turning into Hagrid with a beard thick enough for birds to nest in and several new sobriquets like ‘Tapasvi’, ‘Sanyasi’ and ‘Awam ki Awaaz’ later, the great Indian joining trip finally ended in Srinagar in the midst of flurries of snow and the nation collectively wanted to know if the several news channels which had hardly covered anything else could now go back to their regular jobs and show the actual happenings around the country and the globe.

According to polls run by several sites, popularity or should we say Pappularity ratings are soaring and we apparently have an old prime-ministerial candidate newly back in the ring, joints all limbered up and well oiled, thanks to the joining exercise, raring to go. The venerable seventy-something Prime Minister apparently does not stand a chance against this bright-eyed and bushy bearded fifty something who can make intelligent conversation on the state of the economy, the roads and how he has killed himself in the same sentence. No wonder that if nothing else, New India has a strong vision as far as joining minds, hearts, souls, houses, businesses, families, and communities goes. If the joining Juggernaut has his way, the golden days of ‘Din- E-Ilahi’ are not far behind. All that remains is for arthrologists to take a few tips from this vision of a perfectly seamless joiner to ensure that none of the joints in the human body ever go wrong again. A tall order, but I am sure a true tapasvi will always be ready to help.

Now that Republic Day is past, the great Indian Juggernaut has finally rolled to a stop in Srinagar where the national flag was hoisted amidst much fanfare and most people who have been walking the talk or talking the walk have returned to their day jobs which are a lot of fun since they involve daily disruptions, much mud-slinging, an appropriate number of allegations, stalling scheduled work and generally thwarting the other denizens of Sansad Marg and South Bloc who are struggling to go about their daily work. Perhaps the citizens are already missing their daily dose of laughter, the best medicine.

In the meanwhile, my joints are feeling disjointed, as if they have been pulverized by the joining Juggernaut. No longer wanting my muffler to be mistaken for Hagrid’s beard, I have decided to resume my swimming schedule in response to the sun’s summons. Also, I am firm in my view that if I need another Juggernaut, I am visiting Jagannath of Puri, the original one who truly does join us all!