Swami and friends and nobility!

It is past eleven thirty at night and i have just finished reading,Swami and Friends by RK Narayan.I have read it umpteen number of times before but it occurred to me to now that the last time i had read the classic which Grahame Green had so fondly described as 'one in ten thousand', was over a decade ago. Ten-twelve years ago, the work had left such an indelible impact upon my young and ridiculously innocent mind that I could never help getting lachrymose everytime i read or mulled over the scene in the last chapter in which Swami, the protagonist goes to the railway station at dawn to bid adieu to his best friend and idol, Rajam who is about to leave the town of Malgudi forever. Swami is overwhelmed with utter despondency at the thought that never again shall he get to see or be with Rajam again but the latter, in sharp contrast, is unfazed and even nonchalant to the plight of his friend. In the end, he deigns to accept a parting gift from Swami and even though he exchanges no words with the crest-fallen hero, the latter is hopeful that perhaps Rajam has forgiven him for his mistake...
The story of Swami and Friends with its simple, unassuming narration never failed to make me yearn for a friend like Swami or to entrench my view that true camaraderie is greatest of possessions in the whole, wide world. But these were my feelings years ago, when i was not yet capable of critical analysis of literaray texts, when i did not comprehend symbolism and its role in shaping the characters of the novel. I did not then know that the playground of the Albert Mission school was a microcosm of the colonial Indian society nor did i realise that how idyllic the life of Swami was, replete with innumerable heartbreaks and acts of revolution and bravado.
When i began to read the book again three days ago, I averred cynically, "Try to use your critical faculties in interpreting the droll antics of the ten years old Swami and you will not have to reach out for your handkerchief." But, here i am on the verge of tears again, having made a very unexpected kind of discovery. It, the book, enlightened me that why we-I, atleast-always seek to cherish friendships is not because in this ego-driven, treacherous world, it is wonderful to know people who wont unleash their egos or treachery on you but because-and my cynical self blanched at this discovery-friendship inspires us to be noble!
Swami had foibles galore yet his devotion and love for Rajam was the source of his salavation, enabling him to overcome his apprehensions and meet him; Rajam inspired him to be noble. What would you call me if i said that i desire to feel the same way for my friends? A maudlin fool, perhaps. Or a pretentious wastrel. But never mind those adjectives and nouns, i still want to feel that way. Thanks Swami!

Got friends in my head.....

I woke up one morn,
And in the mirror, viewed
A visage unknown!

But vaguely familiar,
Perplexed yet pleased I stare
And then a voice, I hear

That murmurs, “It is of the girls you see
every morning, in your dreams!”
I recognized the face, smiling just as I did, with glee.
---------Shosha Mitter.


Drivel! I nodded my head disapprovingly as I read my verses. “Its so hackneyed. Its downright silly, actually!” I told myself and re-read my poetastry. But it pretty much expressed how I was feeling at that moment. The moment was, to be precise, 6 pm of August 6 and I was in a class, attending a lecture on Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the French Revolution. I could see myself, with the eyes of my mind, as a vociferous French radical vociferously criticizing the Englishman’s highly conservative perspective on the Revolution. I saw myself in a Paris tavern surrounded by people also castigating Burke for denouncing the Revolution as sort of an upstart and I suddenly noticed that all these people around me were women, and women I knew well. They were, as a matter of fact, my friends-Sonu, Swathi, Sita, Koyel.
In April 2010, when I left the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, our dear, old TISS, and returned home, I was terribly upset. Obviously. I could not reconcile myself to the idea that never again in the future ahead, would I get to stay with those people again for long. I missed the comforting ambience that their company created and the soothing sounds of their voices in conversation.
Four months have passed and my sense of loss has allayed. Of course. I no longer wish that Swathi was around when I am introspecting or doing Yoga. I don’t anymore miss Sita when I am snacking at mid-night and philosophizing. I no longer hope Sonu was there with me whenever am feeling wretchedly depressed. I don’t mind anymore that I do not have anyone with whom I can discuss my oldest and most cherished ambition to become a wordsmith, with as much élan and abandon as I did with Koyel.
I had reconciled to the idea that they will be together again forever, smiling as eternally as sunshine, only in the snapshot in my mind.
But then that image of the French tavern crossed my mind and I suddenly realized that something has changed in me,changed perhaps forever. I no longer hesitate in expressing my views on issues of politics, caste, gender with confidence. I don’t any longer blame myself entirely every time some unexpected tragedy befalls. I know have learnt to share credits with adverse circumstances.That is so because unconsciously, I have tried to adopt the carefree cheerfulness of Sonu, I realized. I still cannot laugh in the infectious manner in which she did or spread joy with her magnanimity. But I am, undoubtedly, jollier.
I have, again unconsciously, become less apologetic about my idiosyncrasies. Whether it has happened for better or for worse, I do not know yet but I am now more nonchalant towards those who perhaps are critical of my eccentricities, just as Apurva used to be. Undoubtedly, I can never match her level of sophisticated insouciance but I certainly have learnt to enjoy my quirkiness just as she does hers.
There is another thing which I have learnt-its not enough to be sensitive towards others; its not enough to sympathize with someone in agony. Sympathies amount to nothing more than pity unless they are backed by the desire to convey to others nothing is sacrosanct or beyond scrutiny. Everything-customs, mores, institutions-all ought to be questioned and this much cherished discovery of my life happened not so much because of the umpteen books which I have read that advocate the importance of being inquisitive as much because of Sita. I never realized until now that she is the one of the first practitioner of metaphysics i know in person and whom I am trying to emulate.
Resilience evokes respect and it can be expressed simply by doing as little as to assert one’s views, even if laconically. I, perhaps, always knew it but never believed I could ever cease to enjoy the state of lazy confusion until now. It is now that I have realized there is a beauty not only the hazy, cloudy firmament of perplexity but also in the bright sunshine which comes with clarity of thoughts and aims. And who has enabled me to see this immaculately blue azure over my head? It is Koyel. Without me realizing it myself, I have become determined about everything I feel is worth pursuing. It would be long before I come to possess the ineffable strength of Koyel but that I have started trying, I did not even grasp it until now.
Probably, I am only imagining it and what I perceive as changes in me are only the formulations of my hyper-imaginative and perpetually idealizing mind. Perhaps, I need to more pragmatically figure out if I have actually inculcated more optimism, more sang-froid, more intellectual sensitivity and more ardour to pursue-eeks! this is such a cliché-my goals. Perhaps, am still the muddle-headed, maudlin girl i used to be. But I certainly have learnt to understand the warmth in relationships, the sublimity in sacrifices made for friends and the ‘beauty in being different’; I have surely learnt to appreciate the quaint charm of the qualities which my friends possess and that has been because of Swathi. She hated it every time I told her that she is the most mature amongst all our friends but now when unintentionally I try to be understanding, kind or as winsome as she was, I feel vindicated. She is, indeed, the most mature and never mind whether I can ever have her pragmatism or not but I can at least endeavour. Koyel is a lot like Swathi and Swathi is a lot similar to Sonu while Sita and Apurva are alike in many ways. Yet they are all different. And the best or the worst part is that some trait or the other of these people are struck in my head. Or should I say, in my subconscious, subtly and imperceptibly changing the architecture of the labyrinth in my mind! And it here that the story begins!

Promises to keep before i die...

I have been happy, tho' in a dream.
I have been happy- and I love the theme:
Dreams! in their vivid coloring of life,
As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife
Of semblance with reality, which brings
To the delirious eye, more lovely things
Of Paradise and Love- and all our own!
Than young Hope in his sunniest hour hath known.

-Edgar Allan Poe
Following are the things i have dreamt so much about since childhood that i think i ought to tag them as 'things to do before i die'-
1. To script a documentary on the 'hippies' who came to and lived in India in the 1960s-1970s: I think i shall begin the screenplay with a description of the visit of Allan Ginsberg to Benares, where during a boat-ride on the Ganges on a rainy day, he was inspired to compose verses on the Dashasvamedha ghat. In defense of the seeming pretentiousness of the theme, i shall also raise the question what makes some of us, suspicious of religion and disdainful towards spiritualism through rituals usually, view our own customs and traditions through the wonder-tinted glasses of the firangis?
2.To live in a town at least for a year where i can travel around in a bicycle:I think it should be some distant, exotic city like Warsaw or Buenos Aires where i shall go to work everyday in a bicycle without having to fear that people around might comment that its unnatural for any girl who is not a school-girl to ride a bicycle or that the vehicles around might trample me. Imagine how unattractive the idea is to die on the street knowing till the last moment of your consciousness that you cannot blame the car-driver who has mortally wounded you, for cutting short your flamboyant life because the poor creature himself has been pushed to the brink of insanity by the countless hours of traffic jams that he encounters daily on the crater-ridden roads! So, i would like spend the year in Budapest or Reykjavik, thank you!
3.To write a novel called the 'Trashy novel':No, i cant reveal the plot right now because i have not exactly revealed it to myself yet...but i will write it, sooner or later.
4.To read an authentic biography of Poe: Edgar Allan Poe, my tragic hero who lived his life in dire penury and obscurity only to die am undeservedly frivolous death and then was celebrated as a literary genius not by the smug, Puritan America he was born in but by the highly idiosyncratic French folks!

A Couch-potatoe's Guide to TV Viewing

Tonight, like most other nights, my chief post-prandial activity was tv viewing.Or rather, it was tv channel surfing. one channel was telecasting the farcical IPL awards, which as we all remember was held on the day the scandal involving IPL mastermind Lalit Modi was exposed; the scandal that was given the moniker of IPLGate by the media.enough evidences have been revealed and umpteen arguements have been put forth to prove to the world that the IPL was aimed to be nothing save a money-spinner for all its stakeholders. but i dont think that the Indian cricket afficionados care much about it-perhaps, they savoured the unfolding of the IPLGate as much as they savoured watching the IPL matches. it is but natural, therefore, to assume that the same people would also enjoy watching the IPL awards. but why it came across to me as such a travesty of an award function is because all the cricketers who won the different awards had already won throughout the tournament, a number of prizes for their feats and yet, they all sat smiling unfailingly at the prospect of being awarded again. some even performed on stage with Bollywood stars and i concluded at the end the torturous ten minutes that i spent watching the funny show that perhaps, every time a cricketer is signed in for IPL, he is told, "You will get the opportunity in IPL not only to hone your cricketing skills but also, to enhance your glamour quotient.
I changed channel and what do i behold? a more glamourous show and involving not pretentious cricketers but the people they try to emulate-the bollywood stars who watched and clapped,as their collegues cavorted and gyrated, with such earnest expressions as if they have been told that they could save the world from Hunger and Unemployment by doing that!i changed channel within five minutes this time.
On the next channel, there was a man who was talking about his annual turnover from his leather factory.for a moment, i thought that it was yet another science programme about some entreprenuer who has found an eco-friendly way of production but it wasnt-the next speaker was a benign look man who spoke how Dharavi is always considered to be synymous with grime,poverty and anti-social activities and how utterly wrong such assumptions are. i immediately knew that the show would be rivetting.Gradually, the show deconstructed the myths about Asia's largest slum, situated right in the heart of Mumbai.Dharavi may come across as the receptacle of the entire city's filth but the truth is it is here that recycling of all kinds of garbage is carried out so that the rest of the city can breathe clean air.it is assumed that the impoverished and the unskilled languish in Dharavi but the fact is that it is this slum that is the hub of all kinds of low-capital but hugely productive entreprenuerial activities-from the production of designer leather goods to the manufacture of plastic goods, to the mass preparation of nutritious and cheap food items like idlis and vada pav, which are enjoyed by thousands of Mumbaikaars every day. as the amazing show advanced, it highighted how the women of Dharavi have taken the initiative to maintain communal harmony in the area by forming their own welfare board. the show ended with the same benign-looking man commenting that the residents of dharavi have, during the nearly hundred years of inhabitance in the area, built up amongst each other a complex symbiotic relation of economic cooperation which no urban development plan can overlook as insignificant. before the authorities go ahead with their grandiose plan of transforming India's financial capital Mumbai into Shanghai, they ought to look at the city through the eyes of the residents of Dharavi to realise that Mumbai comprises not merely of plush Nariman Point or swanky Malabar Hills but of hundreds of lanes,narrow and dark seemingly,but where thrives a thousands of dreams.
I watched the show,enthralled and at the end of it felt none of the rancour against the Idiot Box which i had felt while watching those strange award shows, and actually experienced a kind of satisfaction. not so much because i could now absolve mysef from the guilt of watching asinine stuff on tv but because telivision and satellite telivion to be more specific, which was a marve for those of us who were kids in the ninetees,still has food for thought to offer, it still can stir souls and shape creative perspectives of its viewers.

The Fool Vs. Himself

There was once a fool who had to live under the scourge of knowledge that one fellow whom he absolutely could not stand was the one whose company he could never avoid! Himself! The fool hopelessly wanted to help Himself to reform but he had no control over the ways of Himself: him self’s lack of communication skills, incorrigible lethargy and worst of all, pride in his weirdness. Thus the fool loathed Himself whenever he noticed Himself wallowing in interminable reveries-that himself was the centre of a parallel universe where all eccentrics, daydreamers and sad poets lived; a universe where existed a time-space continuum. The fool was woefully ashamed of the ways of Himself. He attempted to coax Himself to realize that the parallel universe was fictitious; a creation of the lazy lunatic ensconced in the mind of Himself but the latter’s obstinacy was insufferably entreanched as his indolence….The fool told Himself, “Remember how when we were younger and enthusiastic, after reading poet Narendra Kohli’s interview in the Sunday Express we were so touched by his one quote that we had decided to make it the mantra of our lives-‘the aim of my life is to purify and improve myself.’ How can you let yourself lose your mantra, huh?”
Himself looked a trifle unruffled; shamefacedly replied, “I am, mmm, I wanted to feel the beauty of that quote too but I cant help myself…”
“Why cant you? Do you like to see yourself getting wasted? Why cant you fight your indolence, your lack of practical sense, your stupid expectations?”
Himself was now incensed; the fool had no business to be so mean to Himself who presently says,” Why do you detest me so much? Is there anyone who is flawless in this world?”
The fool was edgy now; yet he tried to reason with Himself, “No, no one is flawless but no one is as self destructive as you are and actually proud of the traits which would bring about your doom..”
“I am not proud at all.”
“Yes, you are. And self-centred too. You think material, practical world comprised of ‘normal’ people is a worthless place; it is your parallel universe invisible to everyone else is the utopia where all dreamers and poets and thinkers, dead and alive want to live. There freedom fighters and adventurers, reformers burnt at stakes and scientists ostracized as well as unhappy geniuses come from all continents and ages to bow before You, the empress…”
“This is ridiculous!”
“Dare you oppose me! Listen you idiot all your intellectual wordsmiths and sensitive heroes despite their dreaminess, were hard-working…they worked hard at whatever they were passionate about. But you only live in your stupid universe and make no effort to see how in the real world, in the tangible address of yours which is deonar, Mumbai, India , you are a wastrel…and how the inhabitants of this world where you physically live think you are an irresponsible weirdo!You..”
The Fool could not continue because Himself interrupted with a wild yell, “Stop! Stop typing please. Close that stupid word document you are typing our conversation in…I cant help it…what do I do?”
The fool had no reply; he stared helplessly at the mirror; he shut the document.

Ambitions Unfulfilled…

Looking out of the window
I glimpsed it as it whizzed past,
A speck of light far away
Phantasmal, fading away fast!

Why did I, princess of serendipity
Behold it so briefly, why?
Through the shroud of darkness did it appear
To lure my fancy, to rouse my dreams to fly.

They-the poetess’ dreams-tried to wing their way
To the iota aglow, a universe of promises umpteen
Of beauty, of love, of a bonhomie easy
Alas! The darkness perplexed them back, to me they careened!

Or maybe, it was the train that competing
With the nocturnal hours had moved too quickly away
From the shimmer miles away, of some sylvan lamp
For me to seek its warmth, as I traveled from night to day….

How alike are my ambitions, from high up there
They challenge, they vex, they tempt
Me to run to them but I realize that
The path is too treacherous yet I-princess of serendipity-will attempt!

Dostoevsky, God and confusion....

One of Fydor Dostoevsky's greatest discoveries was:

The nature of man is corelative to the nature of God! if there is no God, there is no man.

I donot know if he was the kind to yell "Eureka!" after this discovery but i uttered an involuntary "Shucks!" when i read this line, in the introduction to his most celebrated novel Brother Karamazov. What thought-provoking, disturbing and even distressing line to pen...i wondered over its meanings, both obvious and subtle!

does it mean that all those who believe in innate goodness of human nature, all the folks who would like to think of themselves as humanists also have to be believers?

or to put it in other words,

I cannot be a humanist if i am an atheist?

Because, he seemed to hold the view that the 'human' in man will be eradicated as 'shame and disgrace' if he does not inculcate faith in the Providence. What am i to conclude from such a view?

That perpetual confusion is my lot or that i was always right in believing that God exists, and exists in the Human Conscience...The moment i cease to feel the prick of conscience, God too ceases to be a meaningful word for me.

Mr. Dostoevsky, you have succeeded in perplexing me very well....

Ode to Brother William of Baskerville

if only i had a cottage atop a hill, on misty mornings i would have peeped out of my library window and seen you walking towards the gate!

But, i only have a dingy room in a crowded megapolis and i can meet you only for a few fleeting minutes, when exhausted and benumbed, i return to my bed for a nap.

Guilt like a nagging task-master hovers around because i meet you when i am supposed to slog over assignments. yet, i cannot help but meet you, BROTHER WILLIAM!

MAGIC REALISM AND THE MONK!

Without my brown study, where would I be? At least not here, elucidating on what has been a not-so-unpleasant vision; in fact, if I may ignore prim Aminura for a moment and let honest Aminura opine, it was quite a fine figment of my imagination.
The vision arose on a late afternoon hour of a summer day. The blazing sun even after singeing the earth for hours, was still relentless and continued to be scorching. Naturally, the thoroughfare which my classroom window overlooked wore a deserted look…
On such a soporific hour I was there, seated exactly opposite the window-did it mean that though I purportedly was in the empty classroom on a Sunday so that I could concentrate better in studies, I actually sought distractions myself?- and typing an assignment on a borrowed laptop, wondering each time I saw somebody passing by what could have made him/her venture out on so excruciatingly hot an afternoon? For quite sometimes nobody walked past my view and I was almost fully focused my paper on ‘social security from development perspective’. Suddenly, for no real reason, I looked up from the laptop screen straight outside the window and what did I behold there?
I saw a tall, gaunt, broad-shouldered figure with a solemn visage briskly walking past my view. I saw him barely for a few seconds but my fecund imagination needed no more time to flood my mind with impressions galore. “Tall, athletic and kinky”-this description of Agasthya Sen’s appearance in the novel ‘ENGLISH AUGUST’ could very well also be the description of the appearance of the person who just passed by. “This is interesting,” I told myself. “its not often that you see people who resemble one of your favourite literary protagonists.” So, who could he be? Obviously, he is a student; but what else apart from that? Could he be the great August himself who had come just to ‘hi!’ his ardent admirer, Aminura?
Or maybe, he, with his tanned, honey-brown complexion and lanky looks, is a character out of a RUSKIN BOND travel piece set in the Himalayas. I can easily imagine him on a picturesque but dangerously narrow road in some remote part of the Garhwals, panting with exhaustion but also satisfaction after trekking for hours. He likes to trek alone because the wild flowers in the lush forests, the gushing brooks and the distant snow-capped mountains get intimate only with a solitary trekker, so he tells Mr. Bond during their single rendezvous on a wild, hill road.
Or perhaps, his lineaments wear a staid expression and his bearing is of aloofness because he is a lot like STEPHEN DEDAULUS, the protagonist of Joyce’s ‘THE PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN’. Like Dedaulus, he dreams of escaping the grim realities of existence some day and until then, chooses to follow ‘cunning, silence and exile’. Maybe…
Or maybe, he is none of them; he is a character my own imagination has eked out. He is the MONK! No, he hasn’t joined any order, he doesn’t live in any hermitage either. He is a monk whose hermitage is his own intellect and humour! He doesn’t wishes to escape the materialistic world; instead, he lives in it, mocks at its sheer craze for everything kitschy and at its petty insecurities and he cherishes the world that is co-existent with this more palpable, more predictable one-the exciting, mystery-filled world of nature which enriches human emotions and sharpens human intellect….

I have seen him several times since then and he doesn’t any longer seems to be anything more than maybe, a slightly eccentric fellow with a solitary disposition. Yet, at times I am reminded of that blazing afternoon when he seemed to me like so many of my favourite fictional characters! Maybe, MAGIC REALISM is more than a mere literary device; maybe it is a reality-maybe, that afternoon, even if only for a fleeting second, my dearest literary heroes did walk past my class room window. And, so did the protagonist of my own novel which I am yet to pen-he who will be called THE MONK!

Adieu!

The million slivers of moon
That laid scattered on the crest of the sea
Were counted fervently, with a mad glee
By someone resolving not to miss one of them...

The same person
During the last winter rains
Had wondered if she is sane
As she wept, thinking of old,mullioned windows,grim
And a child, who used to while watching pours,dream .....

Now the puerile idiot
Doubts about that you have need not
Has moist eyes again, for her noetic sojourn
Of a heart break, nay, a thousand heart breaks and frown
That comprised, will morph into memories
Soon.

Last Night.......

Last night.....
With lights switched off
In voices soft,
The quotidian ritual
Of baring bosoms mutual,
Was being performed.

Thoughts, giggles and chides
Exchanged were secrets till late night
Until one of the girls, the older
With an affectionate pat on her shoulder
Said her friend,"After ten years, i would like to meet,
Would like to know, when not at 20, will at 30, you be an adult?
And in what need?"

A chasm, a million miles wide....
Suddenly pushes the two away,far aside
The older is bemused,
The younger is reduced...
To being the possessor of a wounded bosom
For the truth gruesome,
Has stuck her that
Adulthood, strange, elusive
She seeks it never!

The Adonis and his tome......... On Siddharth Shanghvi

Had the lovers not possessed such skill and panache
Had their love, written about in interminable paragraphs, been
A bit flawed, a bit imperfect…..
Had the characters- the heroine, her man, her cousin, been
A little layman-like
And not demigods, astounding beyond imagination
Had I been a bit less dreamy,
A bit more admirer of magic realism A bit well, less addicted to poe
Then the Adonis would have bowled me over!

College Assignment put up as a post: umpteen doubts about its worthiness!

Parashuram: The icon of neo-Brahminism

News item no.1-
At the Brahmin Maha Mela organizedon June 5 last year by the Bahujan Samaj Party(BSP) in Lukhnow, Mayavati was presented by Sudhir Chandra Mishra, the Brahmin leader of BSP with a silver axe, the weapon of Parashurama, the warrior who vpwed to kill all Kshatriyas in order to protect the Brahmin community. As all these unfolded, the crowd shouted not only the BSP’s traditional slogan ‘JaiBheem’ (alluding to B.R. Ambedkar) but also ‘Jai Parashuram’.

News item no.2-
There has considerable pressure upon the governments of atleast two states , Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, to announce Parashuram’s birthday as an official holiday.

News Item no.3-
An all India Parashuram Association and Foundation have been formed to promote the economic, political and social interests of the Brahmins. Prior to the national conference of this association in June, 2005 at Surat, a Parashuram ‘Kalash’ (sacred pot) was carried in procession from the Somnath temple to the conference’s venue.

All these stand as evidences of the emergence of Parashuram as the new icon of Brahminism, at least in north India. The Brahmins in India are clearly no longer happy with their age-old image of being scholars, priests, teachers and ascetics like Manu, Vasistha, Panini and Shankaracharya. They would now prefer to carry the image of being intrepid warriors like Parashuram, the legendary Brahmin hero who exterminated the kshtriyas several times.
It is interesting to note that of all the illustrious Brahmins in history, Parashuram should be chosen as the icon especially now, when they are uniting to strengthen themselvrs economically and politically. It is well-known that in every part of India, the Brahmins are divided into endogaous sub-castes and sub-sub-castes. But, nowadays the Brahmins are forging unity first between the sub-sub-castes within the sub-castes and then between the different sub-castes within the Brahmin caste in various ways.
One such way of establishing unity adopted by the Parashuram Foundation is to encourage ‘love marriage’ between the various Brahmin sub-castes by organizing ‘marriage melas’ where boys and girls of the caste are given an opportunity to meet and mix with an aim at marriage. The association also provides scholarships and loans to students to encourage meritorious students of the community. The Parashuram association also organizes festivals, pilgrimages and pleasues trips, and several other activities to strengthen unity within the caste.
The association, in fact, has units at lower levels such towns which form a federation for the region , which in turn becomes a part of the all India association . The grass-root level activities of the organization has contributed towards enhancing its powers I the political arena. One may wonder as to what led to the formation of the brahmin organization and why has there been a sudden rise in its activities.
The reasons may be traced in the growing sense of insecurity amongst the Brahmins, as a result of reservations for the scheduled castes, tribes and other backward classes in educational institutions and government jobs. The feeling is particularly strong among the poorer Brahmins who feel that the while the false notion that the Brahmins always corner the high, plum jobs still remain stuck to them, in reality it is the OBCs(Other Backward Classes) who occupy the plum positions mostly. The Brahmins who eke out their living by working as peons, cooks, or bus-conductors feel that they, in spite of their economic backwardness are left out while even the affluent SCs and OBCs enjoy the benefits of reservation. This has been an important cause behind the formation of the Parashuram Association. In order to protect brahmin interests against encroachments by the OBCs, the Association is ready to align with the dalits. In Uttar Pradesh, the Brahmins have already established political alliance with Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party, which is essentially a party of the dalits. This naturally reminds one of the stories about Parashuram, which say that he had trained many a shudra including Karna of the Mahabharata as warriors. Hence the Brahmin alliance with the dalits who, now look upon the OBCs instead of the Brahmins as their oppressors, is in a way a silent revolution, which is smashing into bits the thousands of years old caste hierarchy.
This mutations go hand in hand with the declining influence of notions associated with caste such as purity and pollution, not only in towns but also in villages. The Brahmins are now competing with other castes in matters such as increasing their strength in educational institutions, employment market and the political arena. In order to achieve these, it is of utmost importance for the Brahmins to enhance their internal unity and bolster their economic strength. They feel that all these can be gained only by adopting the same methods as the other castes have adopted: the methods of militarism. In such a zeitgeist, when the brahmin community is endeavouring to transform itself, it has rightly chosen Parashuram as the new icon of this militant face of brahminism. However, whether they will be able to tread on his path or not and assert their socio-economic and political superiority over other castes, is a question the answer of which can be given only by time.

B.Wordsworth...

Years ago, i once read a short-story by V.S.Naipaul, which perhaps falls in the gamut of his least-known works.

It was called B.Wordsworth.

And it was the story-narrated by a boy- of a man who
'felt like a poet but could never be one'.

B.Wordsworth-the 'B'is later revealed to stand for black-was a kind of tramp in one of Caribbean islands, who after befriending the narrator tells him that he was writing the world's greatest story or poem, i dont exactly remember. The boy who had found in Black a kindred soul, very different fro his nagging monther,much later realised that Black had written zilch.....

for he was some one who 'felt like a poet but could never be one'.

i had then and till today, wonder as to which is more painful?

To be endowed with no poetic spirit at all or to have the spirit but not the faculty to give it a tangible form on the paper?
i think its the latter.

English August and some fantasies....

(Upamanyu Chatterjee and a scene from English August)

Upamanyu Chatterjee's fourth book,Weight Loss has just hit the book shelves and all national magazines,whetther it be India Today or The Outlook,have carried articles on the book in their latest issues.As i read these articles, i felt certain emotions resurging in my heart, certain memories resurfacing in my mind. they are ineffable but what i can do say about them is that i first experienced them nearly five years ago when i had read Chatterjee's debut novel,English August the first time. needless to say,like hundreds of other seventeen-year olds who have read it,i fell head over heels in love with Agasthya Sen, the most famous fictional bureaucrat of india.so many years later, when i once again felt that adolescent excitement and elation, the thought struck me that maybe, my euphoria wil be heightened if i allow my fancy to go wild and write about what was missing in an otherwise absolutely rivetting and adorable novel:Agasthya's love life.
imagine- i told this to myself-what shhould be thenature of the girl who would win August's love? he has been an anglophile since his school days in Darjeeling, for him indian country side is nothing more than 'miles and miles of familiar bt unknown hinterland',he has the appearence of a porn film actor,he says lies without an iota of hesitation, he is at times irreverant in the most outrageous ways and hence, as a character in the novel describes him, is 'the English type. yet,if he was to fall in love in the novel-and i have brooded over it myraid of times-it would be with some one whose trysts with and admiration for the intellectual as well as the popular cultures of the West has not turned her cynic of everything indian.
She had to be a bureacrat like him other wise how could they havemet in the novel which was such a brilliant crique of Indian Babudom,babus and their whims and caprices.
Except intellectually, she had to be,for literary excitement, an antipode of August.Reticent,truthful and innately simple,she would have struck August as someone so different from all the pretentious and hum-bug spewing friends he had had in life.

She could have never been someone astoundingly pretty. Had she been so,then there would have no scope for describing how August's initial insouciance for her gave way to admiration for her subtle charms and dreamy dispositiion.

Naturally, she would have been liked by both the gentle-hearted father of August, the Governor and his irascible and cynical but idealistic uncle, Poltu kaka.

She and August, in my fantasy, would have met in Madna itself at some government function where in the midst of insufferable shameless hangers-on and equally pompous babus; they would appeared to each other as exceptions.
Finally, what would have been the name of this woman with whom an unrelenting cynic and -i feel- even iconoclast like Agasthya Sen aka August aka English would have madly and perpetually in love?

Well,.....i would like Mr.Chatterjee suggest one. ihope he approves of young August falling in love. He needs to understand that girls will be girls and i am a girl who cannot bear to think of her favourite literary character and first crush leading a life devoid of true love!

This is me, doing what August inspired........

POLLS THAT CAUSED SPLIT.

What could have been utilized as a golden opportunity to curb the powers of Robert Mugabe, the dictatorial ruler of Zimbabwe for a quarter of a century now, actually ended up further bolstering his political clout.
It is the Senate Elections that were held in this trouble-torn southern African nation on 26 November, 2005. The senate was created in August this year by the passage of a controversial constitutional amendment that gives the senate little real power and mandates that the body will go out of existence in 2010. Critics say that President Mugabe created the Senate as a source of jobs for ZANU-PF cronies.
This election, which witnessed Mugabe’s party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) winning an overwhelming majority of seats, had registered an average voters’ turn-out of mere 15-20%, the lowest in any national polls since the country’s independence in 1980. This was because many Zimbabweans regarded the new senate as, at best, an irrelevance, and more likely as a wasteful extravagance that the country can ill afford.
But what made the election a cynosure for the international community is the fact it has caused a split in the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the only opposition party that could have offered a serious challenge to Robert Mugabe. The cause of the split is the differences between Morgan Tsangirai (the president of MDC) and Welshman Ncube (the party’s secretary) over the question whether the MDC should take part in the election. The former had called for a boycott of the polls on the grounds that President Mugabe would not allow a free and fair election, and therefore, participation in it would only legitimize a bogus process.
But the faction behind Ncube was firm on its stand that the MDC should run the polls, for a boycott would only strengthen the ruling ZANU-PF’s control over yet another administrative institution.
But there are other causes of the split and tribalism is one of them.While Tsangirai is a Shona,-along with three-fourth of his compatriots), Ncube is a Ndele, a tribe constitutes a majority in Matabiland where thousand of Ndeble people were killed in the 1980’s by the security forces.Naturally, the Ndeble were eager to participate in these elections.
Another factor, which can be cited as a cause of division in the MDC is the gradually increasing dislike for Tsangirai’s autocratic leadership.This discontent further deepened last month when Tsangirai overruled the decision of MDC’s National Council to run in the elections and went to the extend of expelling twenty six MDC members who had decided to stand as candidates against his orders. Tsangirai and his supporters have described the low turn out at the elections as an evidence people’s faith in his decision.
However, what he attempts to ignore yet remains conspicuous is the truth that the election campaign has left the MDC bitterly and perhaps, irrevocably divided. And, as it moves closer towards performing a political hara-kiri, the common Zimbabweans have lost almost all hopes of emancipation from the undemocratic, violence-ridden rule of Robert Mugabe. It is most palpable that the elections will do little or nothing to address Zimbabwe’s enormous and labyrinthine problems.
More than seventy percent of Zimbabweans cannot find employment in the ever-contracting economy. Inflation exceeds three-hundred percent. More than four million people are at risk of hunger. Government mismanagement has led to severe shortages of fuel and foreign exchange. The new senate may provide jobs for politicians, but it will not put food on tables or bring wages into alignment with inflation.

The future of Zimbabwe politics seems to have become all the more bleak.

The Killing Fields.

On the morning of 18th October, 2005 the nation was shocked when it discovered the intensity of the brutality, which characterizes militant attacks in the North-East: twenty-two people belonging to the Karbi community were hacked to death the previous night by Dimasa rebels in Central Assam’s Karbi Anglong district. The gruesome massacre took place after two buses were waylaid by militants and then, set on fire near a Karbi village called Charchim. The militants, next, raided the village, burning homes and killing fifteen more Karbis there. In the wake of this appalling incident, the administration had clamped an indefinite curfew in the area and had also issued shoot-at-sight orders. Karbi Anglong, indeed, is in a vortex of violence and blood-shed.
In 1970, the United Mikir and North Cachar Hills was split into the Mikir Hills district and the North Cachar Hills district and in 1976, the former was renamed Karbi Anglong. Though the district has a Karbi majority, over forty-thousand Dimasas live there and they had a peaceful coexistence until the late nineteen-nineties. This period witnessed the birth of the United People’s Democratic Solidarity (UPDS) which claims to be the protectors of Karbi interests and the Dimasa Halam Daoga (DHD), which wants a separate state for the Dimasas called Dimaraji comprising of North Cachar and portions of Karbi Anglong and Nagaon districts. This demand of the DHD combined with the fact that the area along the Dhansiri river in Karbi Anglong has a Dimasa majority made the UPDS antagonistic towards it and clashes between the two soon became inevitable. In May 2002, the UPDS had entered into ceasefire agreement with the government and the DHD followed suit in January, 2003. Under the ceasefire rules, the 450 listed DHD militants and 115 UPDS cadres were to confine their movement in and around their designated camps. But the rule was not to be adhered to.
What triggered off the recent spate of violence were the murders on September 26 of three Dimasa auto-drivers whose bodies were found near the predominantly Karbi town of Maza. In the three-week-long orgy of bloodshed and devastation that followed, 88 people officially confirmed killed, of which 76 were Karbis and nearly 45,000 people from 200 villages lost their hearths and are presently living in relief camps numbering around 55. The fact that it is the Karbis who are he worst affected by the violence has made many Karbi leaders contend that it was pre-planned by the DHD. The latter, however, has refuted the allegations and has, instead, foisted the charge on the Black Widow, a breakaway DHD faction. The blame-game does not end ever. The Tarun Gogoi-led Congress government in the state feels that both DHD and UPDS are responsible for the protracted violence as both have flouted the ground rules of the ceasefire. The Governor of Assam, Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Ajai Sinha has even sent to Delhi the recommendation of disarming both the rebel groups. The authorities have also decided to investigate the allegations that the local CPI ML (Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist) leader Jayanta Rongpi and the former Defense Minister of India, George Fernandes –he visited the area twice before the outbreak-had instigated the clashes. But the Opposition parties like the CPI (ML) and AGP (Assam Gana Parishad) have blamed the State government, which according to them, could have stymied the violence through timely deployment of security forces n the area. The BJP and RSS, on the other hand, have accused the NSCN (Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagalim) of provoking the Dimasas and Karbis by proselytizing people in Karbi Anglong, an accusation to which the NSCN has reacted sharply. All these only render egregious the deplorable state of Indian politics in which every unsavoury occurrence sparks off volleys of accusations and counter-accusations.
The need of the hour, however, is an immediate and thorough revision of the ground rules through democratic consultations and also implementations of other measures like allowing not more than one designated camp for each outfit and that too, only in the area densely populated by members of their community. Monitoring of the militant outfits is also necessary. But these short-term measures are not sufficient; for permanent resolution of conflict between the Dimasas and Karbis, the first and foremost step that needs to be taken by the governments at Guwahati and New Delhi is to initiate peace talks with the DHD and the UPDS. But the DHD has declined to participate in talks unless the DHD camp in the Dhansiri region of Karbi Anglong is shifted; a demand which the DHD has refused to concede. There are, indeed, several hurdles in the path of resolution of the Karbi-Dimasa ethnic strife; the necessity is that the State and the Central governments should look in to the problem and its various aspects, in earnest.

Amit Chaudhuri: The Portrait of an Author who is also a Conjurer

“ In Bengal, both tamarind and babies are soaked in mustard oil, and then left upon a mat on the terrace to absorb the morning sun…….With their frantic, miniature limbs and their brown, shining bodies, they look like little koi fish caught from the Hooghly River, struggling into life.”- ‘A Strange and Sublime Address’ is liberally interspersed with such comparisons that are unusual, unexpected, startling. They are one of the myriad of factors, which make the novel what it is: a delight that is stimulating and relaxing at the same time; a tale which fills one with a sense of wonder at its author’s power of evoking brilliant imageries.
The author is Amit Chaudhuri, one of the most widely acclaimed among the Indian authors who write in English. Born in Kolkata in 1962 and brought up in Mumbai, Chaudhuri has an academic resume as impressive as his literary achievements. He graduated from University College in London, then was research student at Balliol College in Oxford and later, was a Creative Arts Fellow at the Oxford University. Yet he says- and this heightens his appeal amongst his readers- he knew no English until he entered school. In his essay on ‘Bombay’, he writes, “My Bengali parents had taught me no English, settled outside Bengal, they had longed to make me intimate with the Bengali language”. In this essay published in the Granta magazine, he reminisces with nostalgia about the Bombay of his childhood which he feels has many a trait of the American cities. “Bombay’s mixture of the childlike and the grown-up, of naivety and ruthlessness, a mixture that, as I know, is also peculiarly American.” he says. His another famous essay ‘The Tailor of Gujarat’, also published in the Granta, followed the fortunes of Ansari, a Gujarat riot victim whose picture with folded arms and tearful eyes, was widely circulated and published in the national media and had consequently, rendered him an unlikely celebrity. In the piece, Chaudhuri in a subtle yet effective way, lambastes the media, which unscrupulously and often makes a ‘breaking news’ out of human tragedies, strips a common man of his protective cover of obscurity and then, when the hullabaloo surrounding the news dies down, turns a blind eye towards him.
But Amit Chaudhuri is best known for his novels. His first novella ‘A Strange and Sublime Address’, which won the 1991 Betty Trask Award as well as the Commonwealth Writers Prize for the Best First Book, captures through the eyes of a ten year-old boy, Sandeep, the ineffable but endearing beauty of the apparently mundane, middle-class life in Calcutta. The observations, ideas and of course, the comparisons of the precocious protagonist are all so remarkable and revealing that one cannot help but resolve to treasure his copy of the novella for life. His second novel, Afternoon Raag (1993), revolves around the life at Oxford of an Indian student whose imagination is dominated by his love of Indian classical music and the memories of home and parents. His other novels are Freedom Song (1998) and A New World (2000). None of these works have action-driven plots but various facets of family-life, dreams, memories, yearnings et al are all explored and expressed with such astonishing vividness by Chaudhuri that they are most fascinating to read. Chaudhuri’s editing skills and poetic talent found expression with the publication of the Picador Book of Modern Indian Literature (2001) and ‘St. Cyril Road and Other Poems’ (2005).
Chaudhuri has been variously described as a ‘miniaturist’,-perhaps his elliptical, understated style of writing, renders his works in to some kind of miniatures- ‘a master of prose’, ‘sensual writer’ and ‘a great writer of the world’. But for the readers enamoured by his works, he is simply a conjurer whose magic-wand are his words, subtle, simple, evocative and beautiful, which leave an indelible mark on his mind.

Who writes poetry?

Some one in Ulanbator,
wakes up in cold dawn
and almost weeps
at the sight of virgin,freshly-fallen snow…..
Some one in Kingston,
spends all noon on the balcony
reading on his palms and neck
the sapphire messages brought by the wind…..
Some one in Chennai,
gulps coffee every alternate hour
with a coffee addict
who has smirks galore and nonchalance unbound for her..
Such are the people whom
u are likely to find
on days
gloomy and joyous…..
writing poetry!