the brook

This wonderful novel explores personal stories behind religious fundamentalism in India. A young man, Vijay, brought up in South India, comes to Bombay to be a journalist in a little known magazine. The magazine’s editor, portrayed as a staunch believer in secularism and a deep thinker, heavily influences him. Vijay ends up getting involved in the riots in Bombay soon after the Babri Masjid incident.

To recover from his trauma, the editor sends Vijay back to South India to a town in the Nilgiri mountains. In many ways the retreat is a paradise, yet what awaits there is a reflection of what he has just been through - potential sectarian violence and fundamentalist rhetoric being propagated to achieve political ends. Being who he is, and spurred on by a short piece which he’s reviewing for his editor, Vijay cannot help but get involved and the story recounts the tale of his findings and efforts and their ultimate consequences.

One highlight is the piece which the protagonist is reviewing for his editor - which happens to be titled “The solitude of emperors” - and is about how three great men of India - Ashoka, Akbar and Gandhi - brought massive change in the country. This work, recounted piecewise during the novel briefly describes the beliefs and actions of each of these men, and ends with a wonderfully inspiring call to imbibe and contribute to the greatness of India.

Inhale the genius of this country. Do not discount anything, the transcendent poetry of the Sufi and Bhakti poets, the architecture of Hampi and Fatehpur Sikri and Mount Abu, the teachings of Ramana Maharshi and the Shirdi Sai Baba. Let the plaintive wail of the shehnai fill your senses, the plangent notes of the sarod and the sitar slice through the dullness of your waking life…

…do not neglect to absorb the poverty and violence and savagery of this country of extremes. Experience the despair of the coal miner in Dhanbad, where the very land is on fire, understand the hopelessness of the marginal cotton farmer in Andhra Pradesh, mourn with the widow of the Sikh garage owner who witnessed her husband being burnt alive in the Delhi riots of 1984. Let their pain become yours.

The other highlight is the characters in the book who represent a spectrum of actors in the play of sectarian violence in India and their personal stories. The idealistic and far-thinking editor who realized late in life that the nation needs every bit of help fighting off fundamentalists. The suave politician who can cleverly, even reasonably, argue for the need of religious glory in a country like India. The charismatic misfit and loner who has seen the world and seems to have given up fighting for it. And of course the protagonist who starts off apathetic, but is shaped by circumstances to care about something greater than himself.

A gripping tale, and yet more than a tale because it touches reality so deeply, and leaves the reader with a lot to think about.

Something went wrong with this post. I suspect wordpress was hacked somehow.

Looking into it.

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Yesterday evening, the nation of India watched yet another display of Just In Time Harakiri™ from their cricket team. The fans’ anger, however, was partly directed at the game’s referees, whose actions a viewer mailed in and charitably described as mentally retarded. Indian authorities and fans have complained bitterly not only to the ICC, but also Human Rights Watch, SightSavers International, Help for the Deaf and Dumb, and about twenty-two million gods and goddesses. It’s quite clear that umpire Steve Bucknor is not winning the Bharat Ratna anytime soon.

Every cloud has a silver lining however, and today ought to find Steve Bucknor smiling from ear to ear. A team of scientists have nominated him for the most prestigious prize in mathematics, the FIELDS (Fatally Idiotic Exhibition of Lousy Decision Schema) Medal. Apparently Stevie compares favourably with comsic gamma rays in at least one respect - generating random numbers.

Picky Ronting (name changed to protect identity), who nominated Steve Bucknor and is clearly in awe of the guy, explained. “True random number generation is one of the hardest challenges in mathematics. The best hope we’ve had so far have been purely physical phenomena - the amplitude generation of cosmic rays, for example. But even they have problems - the folks over at the SETI project keep finding patterns even in these signals and tell us about alien communications. We took a string of decisions given by Steve Bucknor and had the SETI folks run it using their distributed computing network of 50,000 computers, and it turns out his decision-making ability is unique for its pure, unadulterated and utter randomness.”

In a world where reasonable accuracy is so easy, we must applaud Mr. Bucknor for risking his outstanding position for the sake of service to science. Let not a few raised eyebrows stop the randomly raised fingers.

The Fake But Possible News Network asserts that any remote similarity of the events reported to reality is purely coincidental.

The Pakistani leader was shot dead just before a suicide bomber blew himself up at an election rally she was holding in Rawalpindi.

I liked to think that she was working to restore sanity in Pakistan. Obviously, there were people who did not agree. But what is clear is that whatever she was doing, it was with the full knowledge that this could happen at any time. This wasn’t a totally unexpected happening; this wasn’t even the first time she has been attacked. Yet she continued her campaign fearlessly. Much to admire, respect and learn. Working in the face of death at any moment is the bravest of all states, one I can only imagine.

May her soul rest in peace. Although we can hope otherwise, it seems clear that peace will elude her country for a while.

The upper echelons of the Indian judiciary have long been active in public affairs. Recently, however, they realized that they may have gone a bit too far. This has sparked a lively debate on whether the Supreme Court of India has interfered too much or too little with socio-political affairs in India.

Indira Jaising has a very interesting column about the issue:

Let us remember that in the Supreme Court, the discussion is confined to a handful of Constitutional ‘experts’, making it very undemocratic. While this is acceptable for matters of legitimacy in the domain of the judiciary, it is not acceptable for larger social justice and policy issues.

While Justice A K Mathur and Justice Markandey Katju commented that there have to be limits to judicial activism, Justice S B Sinha retaliates the following day refusing to decide the issue whether women prisoners in jail are being denied their rights. Further, the high court retaliates by refusing to decide a petition relating to beggars, for being chastised by the Supreme Court in entertaining all petitions in public interest.

And while the judges fight it out, justice suffers.

The other side of this debate may be summarized by viewing the comments on the above article; however, being the usual Rediff comments, they are couched in language and attitude too abysmal to quote. Essentially, the Supreme court has the status of a hero with many people (including, to some extent, me) - with its popular stance on many issues such as reservations, ragging and human rights. And of course, all Indians complain that the legislature of this country does absolutely nothing. Scarce a week in session passes by without near violence in Parliament, and recent reports of of MPs slacking don’t help. There’s long been a feeling of tiredness with our elected representatives; and we can’t help but applaud when an institution with a semblance of matched power steps in firmly and seemingly on our behalf. The people of India would like someone, anyone, to fix their problems, while they focus on how much money they can make now that the Sensex has gone above the 20,000 mark; and the judiciary seems a not wholly inaccurate approximation to what we need.

Nevertheless, Ms. Jaising’s argument and the judiciary’s self-reproach must be taken seriously. The judiciary isn’t there to do the dishes and clean up Parliament’s mess. Multiple branches of government exist to provide checks and balances, not backups. The parliament being lousy isn’t enough reason to have the judiciary start making national policy.

The scary thing about democracy is we get the government that we deserve. While I’d like for someone, maybe even myself, to just go in and fix some glaring issues in this country, I wouldn’t trade it for living in a democracy. At the end of the day, it’s the voters who must do the hard work for progress. As they say, democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.

So I’m in the queue at the Indian food stall in the canteen during lunchtime when this scenario unfolds. A couple of girls up ahead in the queue are chattering ecstatically, as girls are wont to do when a friend of theirs comes and stands right behind me. There was the usual wave of delightful glee and the torturous over-extending of the word “Hiiiiii” in chorus; I’m referring to the kind that must have convinced the apes to evolve away from humankind.

Then the inevtiable happened. The ladies up ahead made a tiny gesture of come-join-us with a perfectly matched roll of the eyes. People who invite other people behind the queue do so in complete confidence. Complete confidence that if someone’s caught and humiliated, it won’t be them. The response of the invitee, however, varies with queue-cutting skills and experience. Real experts can simply melt away from the back of the queue and smoothly appear in front in a process thats similar to gaseous diffusion and is still being examined by many scientists.

The dame behind me, however, after a hesitant glance left and right (I’ve no idea why, all the queue members were in front) shook her head no, and mouthed in a very low voice, “Log maarenge!” I was impressed. And wondered what other things she learned at her mother’s knee. For about twenty seconds.

So our hitherto courteous lady tells her friends surreptitiously in Hindi to just order an extra plate for her. A tactful gesture, assuming nobody figures out what she’s saying. Unfortunately, while this is Singapore with a dominant Chinese-speaking population, the queue is in front of a North Indian stall. All of this becomes irrelevant, however, as soon as this plan is given swift approval in the committee and the question of whats to be ordered crops up. At which point our heroine taps me on the shoulder, asks me to please keep her place in the queue (in English), and moves right up to the stall for the special preview of the chef’s recommendation. Returning, she helpfully translates terms like “chicken”, and “egg” into Hindi and shouts out her order to the co-conspirators in this subtle deception. An order which subsequently gets changed only twice as the lead implementers move up to the front.

By this time everyone in the queue is either trying to hide their smiles or their scorn, depending on how their pre-lunch class went. We’re Indians, queue-cutting is built into our DNA. It’s not that which worries us. It’s just that this particular damsel was saved from being in distress only because we’re way too civilized to helpfully point out glaring errors in queue etiquette. A concern about a fellow Indian who’s clueless while cutting a queue. A concern which only deepens as her two friends come down the queue with three plates of food, and suddenly, she seems to have an idea. Brightly she makes a double circular gesture with her hands and says, “Why don’t I come with you gals?” and walks away leaving behind some people with a palpable mix of emotions, ranging from homesickness to amusement.

I couldn’t hear the mutters of everyone in the queue, but I did hear someone who had to be a Star Wars fan say in a low voice, “Much to learn, she still has.”

Rediff reports:

Special judge Mohammad Shamim’s order in the matter came on a review petition filed by Rajesh Bidkar against Tendulkar, saying cutting of a ‘Tiranga cake’ by the cricketer was an insult to national pride.

Right. While the left parties band together and hold India’s international reputation to ransom with the US and IAEA, and the toothless Congress which ignores a near war-zone in Nandigram in the sole interest of pushing its own agenda; lets all focus our attention on how Sachin Tendulkar, who’s been an impeccable ambassador of India for eighteen years and counting, insulted national pride by daring to depict the Indian flag in an interesting way.

In India, we used to celebrate the 14th of November (birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru) as Children’s Day in school. It was one of the few days when wearing our uniforms was not compulsory, and instead of classes we used to have games and fun all day long. Truly the good old days.

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

– Khalil Gibran

The photo is a mosaic of snaps taken from my Flickr stream.

Wishing everyone a Hapyp Diwali and joyous year ahead!

Quintessentially Mumbai.