the brook » india

World Cup victory celebrations in Mountain View

Anshul — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 20:31:49 +0000

Went out to brunch in Mountain View right after the match, and a ton of desis were out there having fun!

The Hungry Tide, by Amitav Ghosh

Anshul — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 07:37:35 +0000

Set in the mysterious, dangerous and constantly changing terrain of the Sunderbans in East India and Bangladesh, this gripping tale of young woman’s journey unfolds spectacularly with all the drama of a Shakespearean play and mythological echoes of the great Indian epics.

A young Indian born American marine biologist, Piyali Roy journeys to the Sunderbans to study their unique marine life. To help her navigate the rough seas and terrain, she engages a fisherman, Fokir who doesn’t speak English but has an almost mystical knowledge of the lay of the land and sea. She also runs into Kanai Dutt, an urbane, suave and witty character who happens to be visiting his aunt in the Sunderbans and goes along with the mission out of a sense of intrigue and a personal interest in our heroine. The interplay between the three is masterful, but the story is set on two levels. Kanai’s widowed aunt has found old documents that describe events three decades earlier, a struggle between Indian authorities and settlers in the Sunderbans region. The tale of the refugees fighting for their political rights years ago interspersed with the storms that Kanai, Piyali and Fokir battle make this a truly breathtaking piece of literature.

I don’t read much fiction these days, but I picked this book up and was floored by it. I heartily recommend a read.

Curfewed Night, by Basharat Peer

Anshul — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 18:19:14 +0000

“There are no good stories in Kashmir. There are only difficult, ambiguous, and unresolved stories.”

This line from Curfewed Night perfectly captures the message of the book. Basharat Peer tells an enchanting, if sad, tale of his childhood and youth in the Kashmir valley. The struggles of its people walking a thin line between two two-faced sides: the freedom-fighters who can be terrorists; and the democratic rulers who can be oppressors. In a land as charged up as Kashmir, every sip from the cup of life — growing up, choosing a profession, educating a child, speaking your truth — is laced with the dreaded poison of navigating a maze of choices between competing politics.

The wistful, lyrical references to Kashmir’s natural beauty woven throughout the story only serve to make it all the more heart-wrenching. How tragic that a place still referred to as “Heaven on Earth” should go through such hell.

The book serves as a sober reminder of the value of freedom, which so many of us from India enjoy without savouring. How hard it is for a people to come to a consensus on what represents freedom and how it is best achieved. People who talk about Kashmir only in black-and-white terms of terrorism or government oppression should take some time and think about that.

The Gandhian bridge

Anshul — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 06:20:34 +0000

Timothy Roemer writes in India Today:

The US, India, and Gandhiji have a long history of influence on each other and Gandhiji’s impact, both past and present, on the US has been immeasurable, invaluable and immense.

Gandhiji was a guiding light for Dr Martin Luther King Jr, and Gandhiji’s teachings on civil disobedience set the tone for the civil rights movement in America.

Just as Gandhiji inspired Dr King, the American philosopher Henry David Thoreau helped shape some of Gandhiji’s strongest beliefs. Gandhiji’s civil disobedience movement was greatly inspired by Thoreau’s essay “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience,” written in 1849. In fact, Gandhiji titled his 1930-31 movement after Thoreau’s essay.

Thoreau himself was motivated by the ancient Hindu writings, the Upanishads, which had been translated into English in the early 1800s and read by Thoreau while studying at Harvard College. Thus, as former US Ambassador to India Chester Bowles wrote, the political technique of boycott and non-violent protest has already crossed and re-crossed the ocean to strengthen hearts and to influence minds in South Asia, South Africa and in the US.

FBPNN: Routine enquiry yields seminal body of scientific work

Anshul — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 19:16:22 +0000

In the myth-shrouded history of medieval England, a single apple’s fall moved Isaac Newton to discover the well known theory of gravity. In an understandable, if not excusable, pursuit of this process, the Indian administration decided long ago to on its Controlled Ordering of Vacuous Enquiries to Really Understand Phenomena (COVERUP) policy.

In India, whenever a significant object – a bridge, a canopy, a streetlight – related to the government succumbs to gravity, the COVERUP policy is triggered, under which an official enquiry is ordered. In almost all cases, as befits scientific enquiry, the examination goes far beyond the immediate nature of the incident and focuses on the more fundamental underlying theories. The date of the next election, the popularity of the current administration, and the amounts of little pieces of paper passed under tables, for example.

For something as important to the national image as the CommonWealth Games, however, it is occasionally pointed out that nobody actually listened to the order and an Enquiry Commission is set up to handle the enquiry. In special cases Commissions for Ordering Enquiries have also been set up to set up Commissions of Enquiry that can be ordered to institute said enquires.

Not much scientific progress, however, has been recorded as legions of Indian Civil Service men and women spend weeks, months and years pondering over the root causes of objects transitioning from high to low, up to down. The ever-present ghost of Newton, yelling, ‘It was gravity!’ in their ears goes unheard. That changed today as a bright young recruit turned in his report in response to an enquiry merely two months after it was ordered, beating the previous record by several decades.

The report, titled “Principia Incompetencia”, also has a subtitle, “Don’t Do It”. While the author freely admits deriving the title from Newton’s seminal research, he denied that the subtitle borrows from Nike’s motto. “They stole from us,” he said in a prepared statement. “The Indian Civil Service has been following Don’t Do It for centuries.”

The report, as always, is long and mostly incomprehensible, but in a startling departure from the norm; the prologue summarizes the thesis in nearly understandable language. Bureaucratic efforts, it says, follow three simple laws of stagnation.

The first law, “Work that is not done will continue to not get done even though unreasonable amounts of external force are being applied.”

The second law, “The material progress in any project is inversely proportional to the sum of the number of babus and their close relatives in the sub-contracting business. The financial cost, on the other hand is exponentially related to the same number.”

The third law, “All government action is a rumour.”

As the nation ponders this explanation of its affairs, the author of the report has been accused of circumventing the vetting process for commission reports and an enquiry has been instituted into the same.

The Fake But Possible News Network understands that reading beyond the subtitle of an official report violates journalistic codes of conduct. However, our editor is on leave and couldn’t correct the error before press time. We seek your understanding.

The Solitude of Emperors, by David Davidar

Anshul — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:54:07 +0000

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.

India: A History by John Keay

Anshul — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 11:05:18 +0000

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

Looking into it.

Anshul

FBPNN: Steve Bucknor to win Medal

Anshul — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 05:01:30 +0000

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.

Benazir Bhutto assassinated

Anshul — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 14:59:15 +0000

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.

Doing the dishes in Indian politics

Anshul — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:57:59 +0000

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.