When books break

A flaky torn bit of page crumbled in my hand as I opened the bookshelf. The remnant had left nothing to read. The collection is eclectic, but I would not call it my personal library. Along the years, I have stuffed too many things in there — photographs, a replica of a Swiss chalet, wooden toys reminiscent of a time I myself did not experience, fragrances, a chess set, knick-knacks that have lost their sheen and are not fit to be displayed in the more public living room.

My bookshelf is in the bedroom. Unless it is displayed without self-consciousness and intellectual arrogance, I dislike the idea of books becoming showpieces.

As the ash soiled my palm, it struck me that perhaps I was holding on to the books. Just holding on to them. I had read most, skimmed through a few again and again. But now they are old, leaning on one another like inmates at the home for the aged. At dusk, I can see the pallor on their faces, the pages like slightly loose dentures. I hear the mix of squishy-crackling sound. Afraid that they'd break, I have become afraid to open the shelf. Dust has gathered.

I think of burial. I doubt if they'd be hurt. Do books suffer from Alzheimer's? Then would they forget their own existence and make it simple for me? Can they see clearly, has cataract set in? Does the vision of the erudite get dimmed? If only books would talk, they might have asked to help them cross the street or order a warm muffin without nuts, so that chewing is easy. I can see them beneath an awning at a café out in the open with a cup of coffee ruminating over what they are.

Perhaps they might like to turn invisible, like old people often do. But that is because nobody notices them. I want those books to become invisible so that I don't have to watch them degenerating. I don't want those dog-eared pages to stand out stiffly like starchy skin that looks fossilised.

For the past month or so I have been going through this conflict. I want to just pack them up and give them away and yet I have resisted. While I cannot bear to see them falling apart, I think attachment is also an issue. As with most things, I want to break free. The possessiveness is harming, a trophy that rusts over a period of time. Books that I have read are not my achievement. I do not announce with any flourish that I have read a bestseller or the classics, or the book of the year, the decade.

It is a quiet symbiosis. Occasionally, the references may come up in my writing or in conversation. But, they are meant to be for me. I am not sharing the book with anyone, in the sense that reading it has been about me and those words. The joy, the grief, the tempestuous moments are embedded deep inside as well as the wounds inflicted by the mere flight into another world. When the wings scrape against something sharp, they render one immobile, only to later realise that there has been some blood-letting.

I don't want to get this close anymore. I promise myself, but it does not happen. The books that lie neglected are a good enough reason to wake me up, to pick up the courage and stop suffering from the dependency on something that rests inside a shelf and looks so fragile it can never help me.

Was it about help? Books heal. They have gone soggy with tears, sometimes laid by my side, often on my face, smothering me. They have travelled distances and watched the scenery as we drove past mountains and lakes.

We became each other's stories. They must leave if they care about me as much as I cared about them. Our journey is over and I shall not forget. But I want to be free. Free enough to browse again in a new bookshop where smart covers beguile and the pages look pert and smile without making a sound with dentures. They don't need me to hold them. They won't break apart at the seams. Their eyes are clear.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

No. I am already getting attached, my fingers aching to touch their supine bodies, our minds meshing as we tumble in bed and cry over each other's follies.

And we will begin again only to end.

© Farzana Versey

Sunday ka Funda

Bathing Boy

Pic: Mumbai Mirror

  

I see such pictures and cringe. It is not about colour. Or race. It is about how, even with the goodness of our hearts, we do not understand whether anybody wants our help. According to the caption that appeared in the paper, the lady (I shall not name her or reveal her nationality) is a “follower of Mother Teresa’s principles” and has been visiting India to bathe these children. If a charitable act has to be performed, why bathe him in the street where he probably finds ways to get through, anyway?  

Just look at the boy – his expression is a mixture of shame and awkwardness. He is held by a man, as though he is a convict.

There is no information about the boy. He is just a street-dweller, as though he does not have a name. How old is he? How did he get to be homeless? Does he have a family, where are they? Does he remember nothing? It is possible he was too young when he was cast off, but the city’s streets call you names. They give you fresh wounds, new identities.

Clothes and food must be welcome, though these kids manage to survive somehow. It is the bathing that puts me off. I have seen these children, agile of limb, jump into the sea off the Gateway of India. They play in muddied water. They do not avert their eyes and feel ashamed of bodies they keep alive as the souls struggle to breathe. 

I want to know more about this boy than his torso being attended to by a pair of hands holding him while another pair rubs soap on his body and then pours water even as his eyes smart from the slightly burning sensation of what dare not be tears. That is a luxury he can ill-afford.

The Reformist as Pacifist: Asghar Ali Engineer’s Islam

 

Let not the fact that they buried him in the Sunni graveyard, where his Leftist friends are interred, mislead anyone into believing that Asghar Ali Engineer was a Communist. It was a pragmatic wish upon which the decision was taken. He died on May 14. The Dawoodi Bohra community to which he belonged would not have accepted his last remains, much as they did not acknowledge him in life. He was excommunicated. However, he was much more than a nemesis of the Syedna, the spiritual head of the community.  

Engineer did not become as much of a name as he deserved to be simply because he was not a prototype moderate Muslim. The tag of “Islamic scholar” sat lightly on him. He was a believer who questioned many of the belief’s practices; a secularist who prayed regularly; a rationalist who did not lose touch with his emotions; an outcaste who did not suffer from the arrogance of an outsider, although he had every reason to. For speaking out against the stranglehold of the priesthood within his sect, he was abused, beaten up, his house and office were broken into and destroyed. Every utterance by him was used against him.

How would a person in this position feel?  Following is a collation of excerpts from some of my interviews with him:

FV: What does a lonely hunter contribute to society?

AE: “History is full of instances of people who challenged the mighty forces of evil and they were not only fighting a lonely battle but were left alone to die. If somebody asked me about achievement I would have to talk qualitatively because my forces have depleted. So what? People who were swearing by my values finally succumbed. I have been ex-communicated.”

FV: What does that mean?

AE: “You are declared a non-Bohra, you are not allowed to meet your parents, your children, your marriage gets dissolved, you cannot meet your friends, relatives, you cannot take part in any community activity, or enter any holy shrine, I lose all those rights. But my family has stood by me”

FV: But technically your marriage is invalid, your children illegitimate?

AE: “Yes.”

FV: Yet you believe in god?

AE: “Yes, because atheists blame religion when priests do wrong. Anything can be misused, whether it is nuclear power or a matchstick. So, how can I blame religion? Patriotism too can be misused, by misinforming others and eliminating people, so do we start hating the country? Religion helps you relate with the universe. Buddha was indifferent to the concept of god yet he gave us values.”

FV: When you were fighting the dogmas were you aware of the consequences?

AE: “Not to the extent that it could lead to such consequences. I was vaguely aware that I was going against the grain. I thought I would get people to respond because I was fighting for the truth, but people don’t respond just because you are fighting for the truth. They take their interests into account. I did not know I would suffer so much. But then I did not care.”

FV: What was the real suffering…being beaten up?

AE: “Not only that. You can bear such attacks because physical wounds heal, but those on the soul are difficult to heal. Weapons are less harmful than words. The psychological torture that I suffer is terrible. The kind of loose talk among the orthodox that I have sold myself, that I am an agent, that I am trying to destroy the community, I am an enemy of religion and the way some of my closest friends and relatives turned their faces away, that is more hurting.”

FV: Then did you not want to question yourself when those you loved moved away, did you not wonder whether your truth was what you thought it to be?

AE: “Self-examination goes on. I would not have continued had I not been convinced; it wasn’t just my ego.”

FV: What role does individualism play when it gives an identity but can take away from commitment to society?

AE: “I am not an individualist in the Western sense. Collectivism can become oppressive when it tries to dictate; the rights of the two should not clash. The individual cannot exist on his/her own and the collectivism should respect freedom of conscience, that is why the fight with the Bohra community. I do not deny its importance. My struggle is about the freedom of thought.”

FV: You talk about Islam in a modernist light. How valid is it to tamper with a whole body of work that has come through generations?

AE: “I am not taking away the historical legacy, but it should not become a burden. In a context it served a purpose at one time but times change and we should change and grow, and yet be proud of our legacy.”

FV: If you want religion to be dynamic you have to rationalise it. That can become dangerous.

AE: “What is religion? I want to remove the chaff from the grain. For me it is not what it is for the common people. If you take away certain social customs, they think you have taken away religion. For me it means purifying it. For example, women’s position includes so many pre-Islamic customs that have become an integral part of the Shariat. I am fighting that. Triple talaq is not mentioned in the Quran. Of course, there is a controversy; some maintain that the Prophet approved of it. Even if he did, maybe he had social constraints.”

FV: What about jihad?

AE: “Jihad is misused by fundamentalists. The Quranic meaning is not meant for war at all, in the sense of killing. Jihad is nothing but making efforts to realise goodness in life.”

FV: Who, then, is a kafir?

AE: “It is not one who believes in this form or that. Real ‘imaan’ is faith in humanity, so those who deny goodness are kafirs.”

FV: Islam has this macho image. I suspect it is because there is no idol worship. Without something tangible to submit to, can the gun not become a potent idol for some?

AE: “I would not agree with you at all. Those who take to guns could do so due to deprivation, suppression, or historical legacy. The Afghans have lived through violence for centuries, by the Mughals, the Russians, their own people, so they have always had to fight for freedom…we cannot take away the context. But they legitimised it by using jihad, a religious sanction, so they could be seen as mujahids, fighting for Allah. And you cannot say there is nothing concrete. Muslims going to mausoleums have created a concrete concept. An abstract god may be difficult so they found alternatives. My personal belief is we should not bow to any object. But Islam was aware of this human weakness and fulfilled that need through Haj to kiss a stone. A stone is a stone but the vacuum was filled and it became the holiest object. I have performed Haj and seen the devotion of people braving stampedes only to kiss that stone.”

FV: Then why is there a mental barrier against others practising idol worship?

AE: “It is not as much religious as political and cultural. That is because they have been taught. Quran says do not abuse others’ gods, they will abuse Allah. But most people do not believe in this…they feel their way is the only right one. This is to maintain religious hegemony.”

FV: But when maulvis were invited to perform ‘namaaz’ at a Ganpati pandal, some people said the place was desecrated.

AE: “That is narrow-minded people; you can pray where you want. You do not worship that idol there. Even here there are differences of opinion. The Sufi saint Mazhar Jaan Jana of 18th century Delhi believed that the Quran condemns bowing before deities because in pre-Islamic idol worship stones were considered god. But Hindus pray to god through that idol, which is a reflection of god. In Vedas god is nirguna and nirankara, that is, he has no attributes and no shape, that is the real belief of Hindus. As Muslims visit graves, so Hindus worship idols…”

FV: I don’t agree with that Sufi saint. Ganesha and Lakshmi and the rest do represent something.

AE: “We are talking about beliefs, not how people do it.”

FV: How people do it is what religion becomes. Culturally, what is the role of the minorities in a majority state where they have to retain their identity and yet be part of the mainstream?

AE: “This demand to merge in the mainstream is fascistic. Who will define what the mainstream is? Will the RSS chief define it or the people of India? If it is left to the people then all are part of the mainstream. To protect one’s identity is a Constitutional right.”

FV: Then why do Muslims form ghettoes – is it just insecurity?

AE: “If the communal riots had not taken place there would not be this ghetto feeling.”

FV: But Bhendi Bazaar and Chandni Chowk have always existed.

AE: “That is true, but it was not exclusivist with Muslims running away from Hindu areas, Hindus running away from Muslim areas. So Bhendi Bazaar is only a community living in one area. It is different from refusing to open out to others, which is real ghettoism. At the level of feeling, it did not exist before the riots.”

FV: Could it make them less assertive, maybe even stop believing in themselves as important elements of society?

AE: “Potency does not mean being unnecessarily aggressive; one has to be wise. I believe the minorities need to have a strategy of survival because needless aggression when you cannot change the situation does not help. Wisdom is more important than saving some cultural symbol.”

FV: Would that qualify then as some sort of intellectual slavery?

AE: “No, I am clear that the demolition was a violation of law and of a religious community. But if I cannot save it physically, it does not mean I have intellectually surrendered. We can assert that it was a condemnable act, but cannot come out on the roads and throw stones.”

FV: How can we expect one community to be wise in the face of an emotional onslaught from the other side?

AE: “It is very difficult. But somebody has to be restrained, that is also important. There should be someone to warn them of the perils of their behaviour. On Dec 7, 1993, it became a leaderless mob, no leader to provoke or restrain them…so the young people took to the streets, and had to suffer.”

FV: Have there been attempts to co-opt you by other religious forces?

AE: “Many people asked me to convert. I said my religious convictions remain. I am fighting the wrongs within my own community. And if I decide to convert I will lose the right to fight.”

On one of my visits to his house, his wife had seen me to the door. She said, “It is not easy,” referring to the isolation from the community. That one sentence uttered with a fading smile conveyed all the hidden battle scars of a man who fought silently.

© Farzana Versey

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PS: These are quotes exclusive to the interviews I conducted over a few years. Please do not use them without attribution. 

Is Rahul Gandhi worth 1000 bucks?

Would we have heard about Kaushal Shakya had Rahul Gandhi not handed him a Rs 1000 note?

If this is a PR exercise, then why is the media falling for it? Websites like Firstpost come out with supposedly weighty analysis, but fall in their own trap. It writes, beginning with the quote of the 11-year-old, who happens to be a news hawker:

“Akbar leejye. Aap hi ki khabar hai (Please buy the paper. It’s news about you in it)."

Now, if the PR was so good, it would not find a boy trying to sell a paper with news about Rahul Gandhi. This would be a dead giveaway. But, we are not done yet:

“It happened when Rahul’s motorcade was stopped at a traffic light in Bhopal (Really? The Rahul motorcade stops for lights? And a newspaper vendor is allowed to get that close to the crown prince?)"

Usually, it does not. Unless, the intention is to be 'one with the people', and since Firstpost has decided that this is “empty symbolism", anything can happen. So why are they surprised? Besides, this whole “crown prince" is getting to be a bit lame, just as referring to him as Rahul baba in op-ed pieces is. It reveals more about those writing than about him. And just a reminder: his father Rajiv Gandhi got killed when the junta was allowed to get close to him.

One may call this populism, but which leader does not resort to it?

Now let us return to the boy:

“Rahul asked him instead why he was not in school. Moved by the boy’s story about wanting to be a doctor but having to help out his family of five, Rahul offered him a 1000-rupee note."

Often, young kids who are peddling stuff insist you buy, and if you say you don't what or need it, they say, "Kuchch paisa de do, bhookh lagi hai (give me some money then, I am hungry)". This is the sad reality. And I know many people who do hand out money. This is not all. At the fancier hotels, the real babalog give big money to the durbans and the valets for parking their wheels.

The holier-than-thou attitude transposes another Congressman who said “If Rahulji could give the boy Rs 1000 from his wallet, I would be delighted to fund his education.”

For the news purveyors, it is just a story with the protagonist as “the master of the meaningless gesture".

Rahul Gandhi has money, and he knows that this amount won't take the boy far, but there are ridiculous suggestions elsewhere that he should have not assumed the kid would have change, or that others with him could have offered the money.

Does it matter? One boy went away with some cash that made him happy. "Now he has been offered a monthly stipend of Rs 1000 and a seat in a private medical college after he finishes school."

If you give Rahul publicity for it, then it is your problem. You want to discuss macro issues, then do so. Don't use a crutch for it. Kaushal did not grab the note, as much as some in the media grab opportunities, and in fact “demurred". That is when Rahul told him, “Please keep it. Become a doctor. Never let your dreams die.”

Even Rahul Gandhi would know that this amount won't take him far. What kind of asinine thinking is it to question someone who tells someone to dream?

I once gave a young beggar some money, a little more than the usual loose change, and asked him to buy a few things that he could sell. I did not know about his dreams, but I was hoping it would at least be a first step towards earning rather than begging. So, heck, yes. It was a gesture.

The barrage against Rahul continued:

“It’s an odd statement from a man whose own dreams seem so fuzzily and obstinately opaque even to the party that’s hitched its wagon to him. He is the posterchild for the man who is living someone else’s dream."

Indeed, the party has hitched its wagon to him. Let us recall other parties and their 'hopes' and their posterboys. And whose dream is he living? If he was, he would have already been the prime minister. These supposedly smart statements do not convey anything.

Pick on Rahul Gandhi for his political naïveté, and even his dinner with Dalits. But, getting personal is 'symbolic' of a lack of argument. As empty as that which is being critiqued.

© Farzana Versey

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Image: Faking News

Of Garbages and Kings: LBT

I called up the provision store to check if they will renew their strike tomorrow against the Local Body Tax. “We'll know by this evening." I decided to order a few things. Last week, many of us were caught unawares. There was some talk about LBT, but as it was restricted to Maharashtra and was not about FDI or any global issue, it did not make major news.

The traders were willing to take the losses to fight one more burden of tax. As one of them told DNA, “Everyone is aware that the more the number of tax-collecting government departments, the more the corruption. So now, with the introduction of LBT, most traders will end up giving indirect bribe to one more babu."

Who benefitted from the strike? The big players - malls. Reports mentioned the surge of footfalls in the supermarkets. Even those who are not regular supermarket shoppers might now be enticed into 'everything under one roof', where the trolley is an empowering force, and the sight of other shoppers with goods laden atop one another creates a subconscious demand.

The independent stores had understood this even before the strike. For example, I have several choices within just five minutes from where I live. My regular store walla knows it. His clientele is eclectic - from some famous names to the clerk in an office, and everyone in-between. He is a call away, and if the bags are heavy, one can trust the delivery guy to enter the house and deposit the goods.

What is his USP? Customer service. He has not yet tarted up his shop, for most people rely on home delivery. The daughter of an expat friend who visited recently was shocked when she discovered that some of her friends here could also get toilet paper at their doorstep. This is truly Mumbai where the consumer is king.

If the shop does not have something, he knows I'll call up someone else. So, he says, "I'll get it." It could be ice-cream, talcum powder, or fruits. He has never added a markup or service charge for any of these.

There was a bit of romanticisation of 'kirana' stores when the FDI discussion came up. That was just a reaction, for no one calls them kiranas anymore. The owners are mostly third generation slick guys, and in some cases women, who are computer savvy, and don't sit behind a cash counter all day. They are on the go, interested in trying to procure new goods, figuring out the new tastes that people are experimenting with.

One does not have to go to a speciality bakery to get multigrain bread or a variety of cheeses. The fancy organic outlets charge you for walking on granite tiles, but I can get my Indian diet bhel and homemade soya sticks instead of some Polish cracker that has the details of the packaging in Arabic! I can even return open packets, unlike some posh nature shops.

And the guy remembers exactly what our orders are like. So, if I say tissues, he knows which brand.

Last week, in an ironical twist, I ran out of garbage bags. According to the rules in my part of the city, the municipal truck comes every morning and all the waste should be in black bags. The person who regularly cleans the stairways and compound of the building collects it. This has made life infinitely easier for those who earlier had to take the waste bins and topple the contents into a huge drum-like container. Some people would not even care to put a lid on their garbage and it would spill over, only for the 'safai karmacharis' to have to manually pick it all up. The bags are infinitely more humane.

This digression is to highlight garbage. A strike will not stop people from generating waste — we eat, throw out old packages, bottles. Also, think about the wastage in the stores. What we read in the newspapers are huge numbers of so many crores lost in business (it also means loss to the government in prevalent taxes). But food grains and perishable dairy products and the like would need to be discarded.

Maharashtra is going through a drought and this seems like travesty. What about the poor who depend on rationed grains, oil, kerosene, sugar?

The government thinks that traders don't show their true sales figures. Traders say the government wants just more under-the-table money. It is likely that since traders operate on a cash basis, there could be some hidden assets, but most packaged goods anyway are sold at MRP rates. The traders have got their benefits, much like doctors/chemists get from pharmaceutical companies, prior to selling.

Some might think this is an elitist attitude. I am conscious of it, but that does not negate genuine concern. In fact, it made me aware that there is something called a handkerchief, which I had forgotten about due to my dependence on tissues. And for all the noise against plastic bags (quite legitimate given how people dispose them carelessly) the big one was cut at the top and fit in quite nicely into the garbage bin.

As I write this, I have not yet checked whether the strike will not begin again tomorrow. Why did they take a break? Because of Akshaya Trithi - an auspicious day in the Hindu calendar. There were ads in the papers enticing people to buy precious jewellery without any down payment.

If only the clerk and the domestic help could buy essentials in this manner.

© Farzana Versey

Naya vs Purana Pakistan?

Beep-beep. Early morning. Text message from a friend in Karachi. So, bleary-eyed, I read that “My party has won. It is 5 am here and I am going to sleep!" Big smile. But before that there was a swipe about the fate of Musharraf — he knows I do not dislike the former president, which is of course putting it subtly.


Since Pakistan broke my sleep, I jotted down a few quick thoughts on the election results:


1. For all talk of democracy, it boiled down to the Punjabi, Sindhi, Mohajir, Pathan votes, and Balochi, Ahmadi non-votes.


2. There is always talk about a sympathy wave. If that were the case then the ANP that lost quite a few members to murderous devils would not have been routed.


3. Imran Khan is now a leader, so it's time he behaved like one. And not a tribal chief, even though Khyber Pakhtunkwa gave his party the votes.


4. I can already see the gleam in a certain Indian anchor's eyes as his voice quivers while screaming, "The nation wants to know if Nawaz Sharif will take action against Pervez Musharraf for crossing over to Kargil during the war"!


5. Nawaz Sharif has inherited a huge problem - his brother, Shahbaz.


6. Asif Ali Zardari has too many opponents within the PPP, including his son Bilawal. One of them will grow up.


7. Pakistan will continue to be important to the United States, China, Afghanistan and India for the same reasons as it has been for many years.


8. Imran Khan's slogan of 'Naya Pakistan' was the most potent one. Good varnish job, as happens in almost every country.


Let me end with an appropriate couplet by Faiz Ahmed Faiz:


"har chaaraagar ko chaaraagari se gurez tha
varna humein jo dukh the bahut laa-davaa na the"

(The healer avoided healing, but my troubles were incurable anyway)


© Farzana Versey

Forrest Mum and Miracles

“Mama always said there's an awful lot you can tell about a person by their shoes. Where they're going, where they've been. I've worn lots of shoes. I bet if I think about it real hard, I could remember my first pair of shoes. Mama said they'd take me anywhere. She said they was my magic shoes."

This was Forrest Gump in the film. It was one of the most moving, intelligent, and profound experiences. Today I remember it from the point of view of how mothers, while protecting their children, can set them free. I know, and I have had such conversations with her.

I was not different in the sense Forrest was, but I spent a great deal of time by myself, thinking. I thought even while I read, and I did read a lot. Watched movies, too. No restrictions, except for adult content. And music. It was mainly old Hindi film songs, ghazals, bhajans, qawwalis, but in my teens I was also exposed to what was broadly termed 'western music'. She took a liking for Abba, and I was more than happy to sing. “Mother says I was a dancer before I could walk...she says I begin to sing long before I could talk...so I say thank you for the music..."

I transpose my experiences with the Forrest quote and I realise I figured out early in life about the magical properties of ordinary things. Forrest was probably being made to feel that his 'specialness' was special in a normal way. But, how normal are we the normal? As Mrs. Gump tells her son, "Don't ever let anybody tell you they're better than you, Forrest. If God intended everybody to be the same, he'd have given us all braces on our legs."

The premium placed on being like everyone else made me cringe, without even knowing that I was cringing. My magical world made me open the cage of the lovebirds that my uncle received as his wedding gift to let the birds free.

I did not think about shoes then, but I know I was told I could do anything I wanted, but not to hide it. Secrets were okay, but nothing that would deceive or get others worried. Was this freedom? Yes, freedom with responsibility. Freedom do make mistakes and then having someone to understand them, and not running away.

And I can tell a bit about people after seeing their shoes, and their bare feet.

It is delightful to recollect Forrest's words: “Now when I was a baby, Mama named me after the great Civil War hero General Nathan Bedford Forrest. She said we was related to him in some way. What he did was he started up this club called the Ku Klux Klan. They'd all dress up in their robes and their bed sheets and act like a bunch of ghosts or spooks or something'. They'd even put bed sheets on their horses and ride around. And anyway, that's how I got my name, Forrest Gump. Mama said the Forrest part was to remind me that sometimes we all do things that, well, just don't make no sense."

I missed out on this fantasy! But it did not stop me from imagining all sorts of ancestry. However, the point here is the last sentence. Why do we have to make sense? What is sense - the sensory, the perception, or merely of the senses? It makes perfect sense to me when I don't make sense. It does not mean nonsensical; it is more like an impulse, a spontaneous act without cogitation or concern about the consequences.

Like, “My mama always said, 'Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get'."

Does it matter when it is chocolates we want? If we cared, then we'd make a choice and know exactly what was in that box.

Sometimes, I do like the familiar, often I don't. Surprises make us believe in new things. And this has stayed with me as it has with her.

Or, as Forrest introspects, “My Mama always told me that miracles happen every day. Some people don't think so, but they do."

The best miracles are those that we are not even aware of. They happen and we may or may not discover about them later. In the soles of our shoes?

© Farzana Versey

Is a goat worth the news? The Bansal case

News stories often dumb down the very issues they are exposing. What goes 'viral' is not the news anymore, but every trivia associated with it. Does it act as some sort of cathartic nervous laughter at the end of a tragic tale, scam or mishap?

This would be fine if the main subject was kept in mind or the 'frills' were handled with some perspective.

Pawan Kumar Bansal, the Railways Minister, resigned after the CBI found that his kin ran a “cash-for-postings” racket. A day prior to this, a goat was spotted at his residence. This is what followed, according to a TOI report:

“Pretty soon, channels had astrologers and pundits analyzing the significance of feeding or sacrificing a goat in Hindu mythology, even though it was hardly clear that the goat was being fattened in order to be an offering to the God. There were panel discussions on the many TV channels about the significance of worshiping white goat and black goat in Hindu mythology. Many were of the view that the apparent appeasement of a white goat on an Amawasya day could change the fate of Bansal who was under fire..."

It does not take long before a joke becomes reason for sanctimonious offerings to propitiate our superiority. Every resignation is treated as drama, when it ought to be the done and proper thing, although neither stepping down nor a jail term has dissuaded politicians from resurfacing in a different garb, by their own party or the opponents. There are always loopholes in the morality scheme.

Bansal was not a visible neta, so news has to be exciting enough. The 'nephew' joke could only get this far and no further, for nepotism isn't new to our society in any field. That's where the goat came in and a newspaper report said that even after the sacrifice he could not be saved.

Animal sacrifice is fairly common, but are we really concerned about superstition? Every leader visits places of worship to appease the gods. What about the havans? Mannats at dargahs where so many flowers are 'slaughtered'? The temples where devotees shave off their hair as offering, which results in a business running into lakhs in export of the tresses for wigs and extensions? Does corruption dare to discuss the bribing of gods?

Not only will the bakra droppings take away the meat of the issue, we don't notice something even more vile just around the corner.

In Ranchi, two girls - aged six and four - were taken away for sacrifice.

Munnlal Ram is a constable with the Railway Protection Force (RPF); he is also a tantric.

The report states:

“The girls were found with their hands tied up. Ram was on the verge of sacrificing them on the altar. Dhanbad police station inspector Akhileshwar Chaubey said, 'Police found nine human skulls in Ram’s house'."

This practice continues in our country. But girls are not goats and don't offer scope for mirth. And that is what news looks for.

© Farzana Versey

Sex can be 'unnatural'

In August last year Geetika Sharma ended her life. In her suicide note, she blamed former Haryana minister Gopal Goyal Kanda and his aide and employee in his MDLR company, Aruna Chaddha for “harassment".

Later, Geetika's mother too committed suicide and left behind a note blaming the two. It reveals the tragedy of even a progressive society where women work but can't open up about the crime, and most certainly not when a powerful person is involved. The cops did not mention the real crime in the chargesheet.

The Delhi court has finally charged Kanda, and Chaddha for abetment:

"Relying on Geetika’s autopsy report, the court concluded that there is prima facie evidence that Kanda raped her and had unnatural sex with her."

Unnatural sex sounds like something from another era to those of us who are exposed to various forms of infotainment, and are 'modern' in outlook. It also reminds us of the earlier legal criminalisation of homosexuality due to this very proviso.

However - and I emphasise this - in many cases it is important to mention 'unnatural sex' because rape, as we understand it, may not have taken place. The girl or woman might instead be forced to perform acts that are perfectly natural between consenting adults, but not under duress.

I am not interested if the Bench has moral issues and uses what we may publicly call antiquated terms. (I refuse to believe that most Indians are comfortable even in private with sexual experimentation, although some would like to appear cool about it as a sound bite.) It is way more important that 'unnatural sex' is factored in to protect the victims who might not get justice if it is proved that there had been no penetration or bodily harm.

It is sad that certain recent cases of brutal rape have numbed us to the many others that are committed using other forms of force. Even in Geetika's case, it was an autopsy report that revealed the details. Think about the hundreds who are just silenced. Think about the children, infants too, who have no voice to begin with. Think about the 'bad touch' and the many other ways in which kids and adults are exploited, in familiar surroundings, in places where they are supposed to be protected, like remand homes, in the street and at posh parties too where a woman with a glass of tipple gives men the licence to grope. These are violations and a crime, and the people committing them get away because they did not manage or even want to 'go all the way'.

We forget that rape itself is unnatural sex. And anything remotely sexual that is not agreed to or has been got by force or deceit is.

© Farzana Versey