Irfan Pathan haazir ho

Dear Irfan:

I am sure you are doing great. Your Ammi is doing great, telling the world that Shoaib Malik had no business to talk about Muslims as though he owns them. Your Abu prayed the namaaz, they told us on television. That used to be his job, too, at one time.

You deserve the rewards that will come your way. But, I have a small request. Do not accept the Rs. 5 lakh award announced for you and your brother Yusuf by Narendra Modi. Please do not. You were part of India XI, not the Gujarat team.

I know it will be a tough decision. You are not an artiste like Aditi Mangaldas, the renowned dancer, who refused to accept the Gujarat government's Gaurav Puraskar saying that art cannot be recognised through oppression.

Can you celebrate the sporting spirit by accepting accolades from one who has abused power? You are part of a team and you represent the country. However, I do believe this message should be sent out to the chief minister of Gujarat. He has blood on his hands. And he still hasn’t awarded compensation money to the riot victims. Let him hand that over first.

Yours with hope,

An ordinary Indian citizen

Is this how the cookie crumbles?

I cannot remember who said it or even the exact words, but it was about how the bricks flung at one can be made to create a foundation.

That thought trails me. For a strange reason I think about it as I bite into biscuits. I have never tasted bricks – not any that memory allows – but biscuits have been a part of my life.

My school tuck box would be filled with them. Later in life, I gave them identities.

The smooth sandwich ones with creamy fillings were Passion. On days when one could fling politesse away, I’d open the ‘sandwich’ and lick the orange/chocolate/caramel centre (although vanilla has remained a favourite) and as it slathered my tongue I’d take little bites of the ‘cover’. They meshed so beautifully in my mouth.

Then there were cheeslings, always a handful on the ready. They were my Moments. Even before I could feel them, they were gone…yet, they left a lingering cheesy taste.

At the local stores run by City or Venus Bakery, there would be fresh off-the-oven ones, sweet and shapely. I would eye them and devour them not due to hunger but a sense of devotion. They became Faith.

How can I forget the sturdy Glucose-Marie combo that stayed with me? I have sometimes made a meal of them, dunked a few in cold milk and, just before they turn squishy, I spoon them. They are wet and white, my shining Knights.

I love biscuits, sweet, salted, or even the bland and nutty ones, the latter often serving as dessert.

I am discovering how innovative one can be with these humble munchies. I put in strips of cheese between them; I make a mélange with yoghurt; I warm them; I freeze them.

They do not let me down even once. I have had them in the morning for breakfast and later for lunch and then dinner again.

It fortifies my belief that there is always a lot to discover about just one thing. As those brown flakes fall on my t-shirt, I do not have the heart to brush them away. I gather them in a paper napkin and fold it into a cone. Tilting my mouth the crumbs fall in and are gone.

Or so I think. I go to wash my hands and as I glance into the mirror, a few stray bits remain. Biscuit on my collar...

"...jis tarah sookhe hue phool
kitaabon mein milein."

Outside...

The door was locked. But I could hear sounds coming from inside.

I recalled the eerie incident of a person just a lane away from where I live; he died and his body was discovered after six months. And his door was not even locked from outside.

Why should I think about it now? Would a corpse make any noise? Why does one expect that last gasp of breath until the very last?

The door was locked. There was a small chit of paper that said, "We've moved."

We? He was alone. Did he imagine that by talking in the plural he had suddenly managed to gather people around him, as though he were part of a caravan?

What had he moved from? More importantly, what had he moved towards?

Nothing. He was still there. The padlock disappeared before my eyes as I heard the shuffling of feet inside. I did not knock. I scribbled a note instead...a song that I heard often…

“hazaaroun meel lambe raaste tujhko bulaate
yahaan dukhade sahane ke vaaste tujhko bulaate
hai kaun sa woh insaan yahaan pe jis ne dukh na jhelaa

Chal akela, chal akela, chal akela
tera mela peechhe chhootaa raahee chal akela

tera koi saath na de to tu khud se preet jod le
bichhaunaa dharti ko karake are aakaash odh le
pooraa khel abhi jeevan ka tune kahaan hai khelaa

Chal akela, chal akela, chal akela
tera mela peechhe chhootaa raahee chal akela”

(Lyrics: Pradeep; Film: Sambandh)

Cat and wool

I often hear scratch sounds outside my window, I do espy nails against the glass...to me they remain meows and blurred paws; they will not transform into voices nor feet that can stomp in my space or walk along with me or even take a different path with dignity.

I knit a sweater, sometimes in one shade, sometimes in different colours. I have taken time over it, there is a reason for it...and I know not all will like it. What I do know are cats, gender immaterial. They will pull at it until they have got a ball of wool to run after.

They play with it, but for how long? Often, their little legs get caught in the tangle they have made of it...and then they try to extricate themselves, with louder meows. If they come out of it, or are helped out, they either scratch whatever surface they can find or they fall in a little heap of regret and start purring.

I still have patterns to knit. There will be another sweater. It is a beautiful afternoon and am ready for a ...catnap.

I curl up with the thought of having created and of being able to create again. And again. Wool is not so easily destroyed. I reach out and feel the furry threads.

Self-obsession: Ten poems

Strip those clothes
I tell the salesman
Now I am dressed like a mannequin
~~
I lather the soap
Little bubbles form on skin
A rainbow visible in each of them
~~
Beads of sweat gather
Across the brow
Like waves on a still ocean
~~
I clasp my hands together
Fingers form
A flower that won’t wither
~~
Dancing before the mirror
There is stunned silence
I have a forgiving audience
~~
The mosquito feeds on me
And falls
It has chosen to die well
~~
Looking straight into the sun
Tears well up in my eyes
I have brought the showers as respite
~~
I am glad you left
After slashing my wrists
It is only blood that congeals
~~
I run my pen
Over the lines of destiny
Writing the fate I wish
~~
I feel a permanent moistness
On my lips
Thirst will never go thirsty

~FV

Absent while present

There are times when I get really absent-minded. I have taken wrong medicines, forgotten to change my shoes when stepping out, have sat in the wrong car…yes…after a spot of shopping at the Cottage Industries Emporium, I had opened the door of the car, put my packets on the seat and told the driver, “Chalo...” He had turned to look at me, completely surprised. It wasn’t the car and in fact the cellphone of the owner was on the seat. I could see my driver motioning to me from the window. I hastily apologised. The funny thing is except for the colour, nothing else about the car was the same.

Once, during a family wedding, there had been a small accident and the car had swerved. A few goons decided this was an opportunity to blackmail us. A relative who was with me asked me to quickly remove the jewellery as she had done; I did and stretched my hand out to give it to those guys. She pushed it away, “Don’t be stupid, I asked you to remove it so it is safe in your purse!”

Well, I don’t know if there is any virtue in all this except that I have spoken with ‘wrong numbers’ for 15 minutes, often thinking they are someone I know.

An incident that happened a while ago is worth recounting. We had gone for the film Parineeta. It was raining and by the time we got there, the film had begun. I brought out the crumpled tickets from my wallet. The doorman looked at it and said, “Yeh kaunsi film ke liye hai?” (What film’s tickets are these?)

“Parineeta…aaj ka show, ab ka show….” (Parineeta, today’s show, this show.)

“Yeh January 24th ki ticket hai!” (This is the ticket for January 24 – we were in June.)

How could it be? I looked into my purse again and found the other crispy light blue tickets, the valid ones. We reached when Lolita was being confronted by Shekhar, who was telling her that she had no shame… as a married woman she wanted him to touch her. Her face registered confusion. As the film unfolded, it became clear that she had retained what they had.

Why had I retained those old yellow tickets? The date does not seem significant. I cannot even recollect what film that was…perhaps it was just there, like so many things in my life.

On the way out I did something uncharacteristic. I don’t ever throw things on the road, but I took out both the blue and yellow tickets, scrunched them in my palms, dropped them on the ground and then I stamped on them. The streets were wet and parts water-logged. The tickets swam away. The bottoms of my trousers got even soggier.

My feet had ended up hitting nothing at all.

You can't drift apart

“We just drifted apart…”

Familiar? This is a huge lie. Trust me. I know. I have used it. Just once. Because it sounded rather becoming; it was better than saying that our relationship was off because some things were really wrong, and that something did mess it up. I was saying it to make myself feel better. That was once. After that, I refused to use this phrase.

People do not drift apart. They could be spouses, lovers, friends, family. There is always a defining moment. That moment may be a build-up of several things that have gone awry.

It may not appear so, but I have tremendous patience. It isn’t that I am giving someone else a chance, but myself. I feel responsible as a part of that relationship. If two people are deeply involved in any manner, how can they drift apart? Isn’t there a bond based on trust, understanding and an unspoken need to be together?

If that trust breaks, it breaks. If you cease to understand motives and behaviour, you stop comprehending. When the unspoken need is not a need anymore, then it is not. As simple as that. There is no drifting or dithering…the latter may happen if you wish to drag it or feel a strong sense of commitment towards an ideal that you have created. It is your creation; it is not a joint creation.

I repeat, you cannot drift apart. We use this phrase because it is civilised. As I did. I hated myself for it. Just as I do not believe that there is anything like mutual consent in a divorce. Two people cannot mutually want to be away from each other with the same intensity at the same time for the same reason. Bullshit. Again, I know what I am talking about.

But we are such civilised morons that we go along with this nonsensical charade, “Oh, you know how it is, we just drifted apart…” when all you want to say is that there was no way you could be together.

That is the reason I find these post-divorce friendships quite fake. There are very few genuine cases and that is when the two people have sorted out one aspect of their relationship completely and buried it, killed it. This jump is tough. I don’t know how they manage it.

As I said, it does not always apply to spouses/lovers. It is equally applicable to friends and relatives. I am sorry but I like to say it as it is. So, when I wrote to someone saying that she had no business to say what she did and she had better learn to behave, I did it privately…just the two of us. Yet, the message was clear. I did not want us to ‘drift apart’. I wanted her to know how she had hurt me and I wanted to know what made her do it.

She had no answer. I was happy I had at least conveyed how I felt. There was no room for conjecture and possibilities. No room for betrayal. The betrayal was the act; to prolong the agony with forced smiles and socially-sanctioned camaraderie would amount to a form of back-stabbing in my eyes.

With every close bond you are tied. You have to untie it. With time, the grip can loosen, but you have to disentangle yourself. It is a conscious act. This does not just happen.

Two

Two years. Fly. Dust settles. No milestones. Continuous journey…sharp sun, shading trees, cobbled pathways, mud and dry leaves. Zebra crossings, hesitant walking.

Two faces. Poetry, politics. Soft, hard. Sentimentalism, sarcasm. Reason, ridicule. Belief, cynicism. Hope, despair.

Two years ago. This was meant to be a place where I could unburden my thoughts, open my pores, expose my warts, and be taken for what I am.

I did not know you. I still don’t know most. Sometimes I do get curious. Where do you live, what do you do, why do you meet me here? I want to occasionally feel your pain and hear your laughter. I want to get inside your mind and listen to its whispers. I want to be there for you just as you have been there for me.

More than even some of my relatives, it is you who know about my health, my visits to the pathology labs, my falls, my scraped knees, my mistakes, my anger, my melancholy, my moments of ecstasy.

You know me enough that if we were to ever meet it would not be like you are meeting a stranger. You will recognise me for chances are I will have scraped knees or will be angry about something…

There are times when you do not agree with my views, there are times when I talk about such trivial things that you perhaps yawn in the privacy of your rooms or wherever you are that you read me, there are times when you wish I said more…or less!

When I say I have nothing to hide, it means that whatever is here reveals me. If someone thinks I am all that bad, then obviously it is based on what is out in the open. However, there are parts of me that are embedded deep within, waiting to come out and breathe. I do feel the suffocation sometimes and hope I knew what it was.

Is it a pebble that I swallowed or a bitter pill I want to forget about? Or is it something magical that found its way into me and filled me with warmth…what is it?

I have no moorings, no anchor, but this is my tent…mostly it is beautiful, swaying as I hold the bamboo sticks. Sometimes a typhoon does shake the structure, the winds howl and specks of sand find their way in my eyes. I blink and watch as the colourful cloth that was my ceiling lies in a heap on the floor, the bamboos prostrate.

It makes me smile. That is the good thing about tents. They are designed to be overhauled and temporary. What lasts is the feeling we experience as our hands are freed and raised towards the sky, asking for nothing.

Thank you for giving me a bit of yourself.

“Ab jis ke ji mein aaye wohi paaye raushni
Hum ne to dil jalaa ke sar-e-aam rakh diya”

- Qateel Shifai

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Am trying to give myself a new look, but not touching the template. Let us see how this poll thing in the sidebar goes. Will come up with fresh interesting ones of social, political and human interest, and am open to ideas from you if I find takers. The blogger picture has been taken in mid-June, 2006; it isn’t yesterday, okay? And I worked real hard at the "loony" art-work.

Am working on some blog-art…let me see…

Updated at 8.00 pm IST: The watercolours are old. I owe these to J, my friend who is no more. I have already mentioned it I think that we had run out of paper and he cut up his larger paintings and these were done behind his art. He did it before I could stop him and he did it without any sense of nobility. He did it because he was a friend and knew I was one too.

This is the first ever time I am putting them up anywhere. J, wherever you are, I can take the potshots on my chin. And I do remember what you said when I first held the brush in my hand after a long break. You shook your head and smiled, "Your confidence seems to exceed your competence here!"

I am saying it publicly because I did not believe I even had confidence. Had you not ticked me off, I might have been far worse than I am...

How would I know: Humein kya maalum

Humein kya maalum
Log humse khafaa kyon hote hai

Shama jalaane nikalte hai
Tau aag lag jaati hai
Moti pirote hai
Tau aansoon beh jaate hai

Phoolon ko bichhaya tha
Baadalon ki chhaon mein
Achanak aisi dhoop nikal aayee
Ke jalkar raakh ho gaye

Woh paaon iss galee mein
Aate hi kyon ruk gaye
Jab darwaaze par ab bhi
Aahat sunayee deti hai

Kyon itne khafaa hokar log
Meri khidki par patthar pheinkte hai
Jin ko panaah di hai ghar mein
Woh bhi kaanch ki tarah chubhte hai

Humein kya maalum
Log humse khafaa kyon hote hai

~FV

Aiy-aiy-yo, a Hindu fatwa now...

No comments!

(From the Times of India, print edition)

Karuna pooh-poohs sadhus’ ‘fatwa’
Ayodhya Mahant Offers Gold To Man Who Can Behead CM For ‘Ram Insult’


Lucknow: Tamil Nadu chief minister Karunanidhi’s anti-Ram tirade has generated holy rage in Ayodhya. First, sadhus from different sects joined hands to launch a campaign against the ‘Ramdrohi’ and then took to the streets. Now, a powerful lobby of mahants has taken a leaf out of the book of fatwa-happy maulvis and former UP minister Yaqoob Qureshi, who had announced a bounty for the killing of a Danish cartoonist who lampooned the Prophet.



They have publicly issued a “dharmadesh” (religious diktat) to behead the CM for calling Ram a “piyakkad” (drunkard). Quoting from religious scriptures, a Shri Ram Janmabhoomi Nyas member Ram Vilasdas Vedanti, also a former BJP MP, made an offer “to weigh in gold any person who brings Karunanidhi’s head to Ayodhya”. The diktat, he said, had been issued after “due deliberation from the saint community of the temple town”.

Anybody there?

I am increasingly finding that however much I may believe in something, there is tremendous amount of discomfort that I cannot quite fathom. It has to do with other people’s perceptions. I feel I am on the defensive.

A few months ago, we were having an interesting conversation – this group of enlightened people and I, the not-so-enlightened one. A gentleman some of them knew joined us. He was a Kashmiri Pandit. Pleasant, intelligent, dignified. Since the rest had to leave, the two of us were left to continue. Later he asked me if I’d like to go to the lounge for coffee. Matter-of-fact. Nothing to it. But, I have a history, remember? So, I decided to tell him what I had written about KPs, and he might not like what I said. I could see a smile playing around his mouth. He said, “It’s just coffee I am asking you out for!”

I felt quite stupid.

That does not stop me. I must unburden myself. I must announce that this is what I am…it is getting to be a constant problem.

If I were to go by what I have written, I will have to cancel out all possibilities, for coffee or otherwise. Pandits, Jews, Catholics, most of the Westerners, NRIs, rabid Hindus, rabid Muslims, moderate Hindus who are ‘tolerant’, moderate Muslims who want to sit on the fence, men in general because they think I am too upfront…macho men because I am not docile, liberal men because I am not ‘free’ enough, nice guys who squirm because I see through their facade; bad guys because instead of getting me angry they make me feel pity for them; gay men because I don’t go along with their belief that the world is homophobic and I ask them to go slow on the eye-shadow, older men who mistake my enthusiasm and wickedness for immaturity, and younger men who think that I have an attitude problem.

Women too…feminists who have a standardised bookish knowledge of feminism think that I have to fight everything to prove I belong to this sistah-hood, women who think you can be intelligent only if you look and feel like a rag, really elite women who believe that I don’t flash it well enough, homemakers who feel that anything that comes in their territory – even by invitation – is a threat, fun women who find me too propah, gay women who think I am too bloody straight, straight women who wonder…

My only hope seems to be Eskimos. Besides, I like the idea of rubbing cold noses.

- - -

"zindagi yoon hui basar tanha
qaafila saath aur safar tanha"

(Gulzar)

- - -

If interested, have started updating the travel blog Ibaadat India.

News meeows - 9

Sallu witness on last legs

Ravindra Patil, 30, Salman’s police bodyguard, was with the actor in his Land Cruiser when he ploughed into people sleeping in front of the Amercian Express Bakery in Bandra on September 28, 2002, killing one and injuring four.

Today, Patil, dismissed from police service, “abandoned” by family, homeless in Mumbai and hit by the deadly Bilateral Tuberculosis, lies on bed number 189 of ward number four on the fourth-floor of Sewri TB Municipal Hospital, a poor shadow of his former self and desperately in need of help.

“The accident destroyed my life as I lost my job. I don’t think I will live many more days. My body is destroyed. Nobody comes to see me. The food at the hospital is so bad, I cannot eat it. I need money to improve my diet. My family has abandoned me, and even friends who used to inquire about my health have stopped dropping by,” Patil said.

However, he had good words for Salman. “He is a nice person but his father isn’t so nice,” he said.

Patil, a key eyewitness in the Salman case, went missing at the time of his deposition in court. He alleged that the actor’s relatives threatened him thrice against deposing. He reappeared in June 2005 and deposed in March 2006. During his deposition, he was lodged in Arthur Road jail for four days because of his earlier “vanishing act.”

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This is a indeed a heartrending incident reported by Mumbai Mirror. Why has Salman’s family or the actor himself not bothered about him? And yet why is Patil calling him a nice person?

Now, we come to the police. Isn’t it the duty of the cops not to lose such important evidence? He has not been given his service benefits, he says.

Salman is the one who has committed a crime, and he will have an excuse. What about the police force?

- - -

Does Sallu deserve a fatwa?

A Bareilly-based Islamic body has issued a fatwa against Salman Khan for taking part in Ganeshotsav celebrations.

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Such cloying names being used for stars, that too when a serious issue is discussed, gives me the creeps. What do the papers mean by “deserve”? Who are they to even decide? And what is this Bareilly-based Islamic body?

In all these years Mr. Khan was never shown doing any Ganesh puja. It is a known and admirable fact of his family that it has people of almost all faiths; his mother is a Maharashtrian and does in fact observe the festival. He has said that religion is a private affair. Why did he agree to become part of a silly display?

The Ganeshotsav in Mumbai has had interesting times – we have seen underworld dons like Varadarjan and Chhota Rajan sponsoring them and then we have the very poor out their little murtis for immersion, the latter is truly an elevating sight as they take them in taxis and buses and trains and dance in the streets as they move towards the sea.

Now the big ‘respectable’ guys have got into the act. They have taken over all religious festivals. A media group had this ceremony, and they took over the biggest Ganesha of Lalbaug. They invited Salman Khan for the puja and Sonu Nigam to sing hymns. I can understand the latter, not because of his religion, but because he is a singer. What was Salman doing? Isn’t he just out on bail? How do these newspapers explain their double standards? They will write reports on his prison term and the hows and whys and then they ask him to inaugurate what is sacred to a whole lot of people. Why the hell does no one complain about their hypocrisy?

Should people not be concerned about how even criminals are used to capitalise on their market value and religiosity be damned?

And before jumping on the useless Bareilly group, may I remind readers that some years ago a few maulvis were invited to a Ganesh pandal to offer namaaz there. Later, there was a hue and cry that they had contaminated the pandal.

Why was there no fatwa issued against them? And how did they contaminate it? A pandal is a makeshift structure created to house the deity temporarily. If they had problems they should not have invited those maulvis at all. Now, would they say Salman has contaminated the pandal? He is Muslim and just out of prison, right?

You can bet your last sound-byte they will not.

PS: Wonder why no one invited some Bishnoi leader. Isn’t there a tribe that worships the elephant instead of the black buck?

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Sunita lands in Gujarat to a hero’s welcome

The astronaut, who stayed a record 195 days in space, arrived on an Air India flight on Thursday morning. This is her second visit to Gujarat; the first was in 1998.

Sunita was scheduled to visit the Gandhi Ashram at Sabarmati at 4 pm and then pay homage at the statue of her cousin Haren Pandya, a former home minister of the state.

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Her achievements notwithstanding, I only hope she stays away from the state government. Haren Pandya was Narendra Modi’s rival in the BJP and a known moderate who opposed him. After he was shot down, his father refused to let Modi garland his body. "Why have you come here with your security and gunmen? You could not even protect my son. We don't need your sympathy. If you couldn't protect my son, what security are you going to provide the rest of Gujarat?"

It is commendable that she is openly going to pay homage to him. This is more important than how she made samosas popular by taking them to outer space, as though we are planning to set up stalls there.

- - -

In a massive snub to Chief Minister Narendra Modi, renowned dancer Aditi Mangaldas has refused to accept the Gujarat government's Gaurav Puraskar saying it had "violated, degraded and dishonoured" the humanity and essence of "Indiannesss and art".

In a sharp indictment of the Gujarat government, which has been blamed for the communal polarisation of the state where at least 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed in the 2002 sectarian violence, the Delhi-based artist asked: "Can one celebrate true art through violence? Can one recognise art through oppression? Can one award art through narrow-minded blinkers?"

=

She is The woman and person of the moment. For all moments.

Some necking

A few weeks ago I had been asked to wear a cervical collar. It made me feel important. Whenever I used to see people walking around, looking straight ahead with this salmon-pink thing around their necks, there was an air of hauteur about them. At one point in time, it became a small ambition.

So when I went to purchase mine at the chemists, the guy asked, “Small, medium, large?”

“Medium,” I said with much anticipation.

He brought it out of the pack and let me try it. My doctor is next-door, so I asked her if it was the right one. I tried it on by propping up the foamy bit behind and strapping the Velcro in front.

“Not this way,” she said. “Look here...” and she showed me the curve where I had to rest my chin. I had attempted to wear it the other way. I could not even get this right.

“Just see this picture,” she said, pointing to the woman on the cover.

I did as I was told and felt like I would choke.

“The idea is that your neck should stay in one position.”

I don’t like such ideas that save my neck only to suffocate me. I wish all parts of one could live together. I wish life was not about the straight and narrow.

Anyhow, as it turned out, I did not wear it. Then I left to ‘hibernate’ and, although I was doing even more sitting for long hours in one position, the pain disappeared.

Is this a lesson about change? That just a little shift – in location, in thinking – and some things can get transformed? Was it the mere existence of the collar before my eyes that worked, as in silently telling me it will be there when I need it but I should reach out only when absolutely necessary? Was that choking sensation also a hint that one ought not to be too dependent on anything for nothing cures us as well as we ourselves do?

Every morning I would touch the collar, as though to assure it of my presence and feel reassured too. Yesterday, I brought out a bag and put it away. Am I preserving it for the future? Am I anticipating a neck problem? Why don’t I give it away?

It is there to tell me that there are some things I do not really require. For the few moments when there is a deep pain, I think I may need it. I am fooling myself. The cervical collar industry survives on a lot of us. We assume we want it. If my neck hurts, I shall let it. As long as I walk straight why should I let something stifle me, that too by appearing so deceptively soft?

If I must be deceived then perhaps I can do so by betraying myself into believing that pain is an illusion.

I touch the back of my neck. A few strands of hair have escaped from the clip. The sensation is of feathers on skin.

Runaway raindrops

There were showers yesterday. It started with a drizzle and then there were sheets of water. I could not capture that amazing 'fall', but I managed to transfix the raindrops. From two angles, two ways of seeing something that would not even stay long enough...now that I have them, can they ever escape?

jab ghunghroo si bajati hai boonde
armaan hamaare palake na moonde
kaise dekhe sapane nayan

sulag sulag jaae man

rim-jhim gire saawan, sulag sulag jaae man
bheege aaj is mausam mein, lagi kaisi ye agan

(From: 'Manzil', music R.D.Burman)

Equations

+

-

x

/

<

>

%

=

= to what?

Sometimes it becomes necessary to add, subtract, multiply, divide, decide what is greater and lesser…sometimes it becomes necessary to realise that all things being equal nothing is quite equal.

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My message in the pop-up comment window:

Hello: I have nothing to hide. This blog is open to all who care to visit or chance upon it. I respect your feedback and views. May I hope for it to be reciprocated? FV

Soldiers on parade

I don't like this. It is about the World Military Games; we might have liked a peek into other aspects, not what our soldiers will be wearing. Fashion show? It is a demeaning term. Fashion shows are not demeaning by themselves; but each profession has a context. Here, it is wrong.

To make matters worse, the caption starts by saying, "Warriors all dressed up". And nowhere to go?

Sting Operations: Beyond reproach?

Maverick: Stings that stink
by Farzana Versey
The Asian Age, Op-ed, Sept. 18, 2007

Have sting operations changed anything? Have people stopped having their palms greased? Is there more awareness about wrongdoing? Are the culprits shunned by society?

You know the answers. They have, on the contrary, become even more important. Isn’t the woman politician who was "stung" a perennial commentator on panel discussions? Hasn’t the out-of-work villain, whose claim to fame was a string hanging from his pyjamas, now become a huge draw?

Let us not forget that the Antulay cement scandal and Bofors issues were brought to light long before sting operations became fashionable. These are perhaps the worst form of voyeurism because they come garbed in designer morality.

This has been brought out in the open rather swiftly in the recent case where a reporter of a Delhi television channel tried to expose a teacher for forcing her students into prostitution. It turned out to be fake. It was done on the prodding of a businessman as a planned strategy to hit out at the teacher for owing him Rs 100,000. He called up a reporter who we are told harangued her to make a few quick bucks by getting into the flesh trade and supply women. It is said she fell for this bait. A colleague of the reporter was sent as a potential girl ready for the job.

The whole story sounds bizarre. Would a woman in a respectable profession be so gullible as to get into criminal activity? If there is any truth, then why has it been labelled fake? This is not a big channel. Had it been one of those fancy ones, do you imagine anyone would have made such a noise about its lack of authenticity? The reporter has been arrested. I would like to know what is being done to the channel owners. This isn’t just a sensational story. It is about an issue that concerns women and any sensible person. Sting operators cannot get away with it.

Why do you think the new reporters are taking up snoopy journalism? To ensure that in future they can enter bedrooms and closets for their low-level scoops.

Is this about vigilantism at all? Two years ago, there was an exposé where 11 Members of Parliament were bribed to pose questions in the House. The website carried tape recorders and cameras to catch them red-handed and a TV channel aired what they thought was a complete travesty. These clippings were later shown in Parliament. Newspaper reports were dramatic: "Parliament was stunned into shamed silence."

Does Parliament feel no shame when elected members throw slippers and chairs at each other? Has no ministry ever been shamed for taking kickbacks by giving a contract to an undeserving company?

That sting operation in fact gave political parties a halo — they got the offending MPs to resign. They started talking about ethics. Senior politicians who have been corrupt and booked for scams were holding forth on the "indefensible" acts. The "exposé" did nothing except to buffer a few egos.

And who were the MPs who were paid Rs 15,000 to just over a lakh for asking questions? Were they important enough names? These nobodies suddenly got notorious fame as "the dirty eleven." I can lay a bet that even if they were not bribed and were told they would be given some media coverage, they would still have done what they did. The sting operation only helped make scapegoats of a few unknowns to let the real sharks march around like saints. A whitewash job has never been simpler.

The real scoop was this, and it had been reported in this newspaper: The television channel gave the sting operators about Rs 58 lakhs. Less than Rs 10 lakhs was spent on the entire operation. The bribe amount was less than Rs 3 lakhs. Other expenses were about Rs 5 lakhs. The equipment was available on loan. Was the balance money returned to the TV channel? Does anyone know?

There should be transparency regarding sting operations too. Jaya Jaitly, who ought to know, had made an interesting comment, that it would be honest if a person went to these sting operators and told them that someone was taking money for asking questions or getting things done; the snoops could then accompany the person and catch the culprit in the act.

Journalists and TV channels use soft targets. Politicians, film stars, gangsters are already in the public eye and no one assumes them to be aboveboard, anyway.

There is the myopic notion that only political pressure plays a major role. Politics is easy game if you want to camouflage the bigger scourge — commercial considerations. Would these brave-hearts do a sting operation on industrial houses, many of which are run purely on the ability to bribe their way for licences, prime land, modifying export-import policies to suit them?

Would they do a sting operation on cultural organisations or famous "respectable" artistes who get special privileges? What about nominated MPs from the "world of arts" who use their position to further their personal causes? What about NGOs that misuse foreign funds? What about media houses that take money from socialites to promote them?

Are these sting operations themselves unbiased? Who is sponsoring them? It is facile to believe that the market decides who calls the shots. Do you have any say in what you get to watch? We are being told that truth can only be reached through a spy camera. The public is a victim of such auto-suggestion. They are all faking it, honey, for only bees really know how to sting.

Life beyond life

Some friends are planning an adventure trip – river rafting, rock climbing stuff. “Come along,” they chirp like youngsters. How I love the enthusiasm. “I need to write,” I say, aware that it is a weak excuse. Or is it? Writing for me is as adventurous. The rush of water frothing and the sheer steepness of a climb work for me…as I wrote once a while ago…

I have never gone bungee-jumping, and I don't think I will.

I did, however, go para-sailing. This was in Nice. The water was clear, but having walked a bit into it, there was no smooth and silky sand beneath; there were pebbles and you could not go in barefoot. The flip-flops would make squishy sounds.

It was wonderful watching people turn into slight figures in the air with a parachute opening out and a speed boat propelling them. The sight was beguiling.

Once strapped to the harness, I had an ache in my belly.

"Run," was the instruction, and run I did till I felt I was being dragged and within a few seconds I was up in the air. Suddenly, neither the sky nor the sand mattered. One could hear the sounds of the men in the boat as they tried their tricks of tugging the rope that connected us.

This was supposed to add even more to the excitement of being pushed and pulled. For a while the wind against my face felt different, almost like I was being whipped. Soon enough it would change its stance and I would be enveloped in its arms, and it seemed to have many arms.

I had been told that they would signal and that was when I’d have to steer the pulley and I would be gently brought down into the water close to the shore.

I pulled, kept pulling, and the next thing I knew I was gasping for breath. The harness felt heavy, there was water filling my mouth. Two life-guards rushed to bring me out. I tasted too much saline. My eyes were stinging. They patted me on the back and then they shook their heads in anger. They had forgotten to ask me the most important question, “Do you swim?”

I don’t. I knew it was crucial. But the thought of being airborne made all questions and answers redundant.

I just don’t care. I suffer from spells of vertigo, from motion sickness, but I often take the risky rides. I do not need to prove it to anyone, for no one is there when I am doing it. I just feel like there is a life beyond the one I live.

That day when I was almost drowning happened to be my birthday. I suppose some would see it as another birth. I see so many births of myself. Each day.

Did I feel close to death? No. The only time I feel close to death is when someone else dies.

Steak

Pierce the skewer into me
Place me whole
In the barbeque pit
Turn me over
To sizzle
Veins rupture
Glow a deep pink
As fire burns
Browns me
Bring me out
Juices intact
A smoky scent
Rents the air
Pour the sauce
Over my body
Carve out large chunks
With a serrated knife
Slice a piece
Eat
Lips
Turn crimson with me
You chew slow
And hard
They ask why
It takes so long
I like it rare
You say
Well done, my dear
Half-raw
In your entrails
Though still
I live
It is a price
I have to pay
To be like
Nothing else
You ever ate
Or felt

~FV

Trivial pursuit - 3

The average single man is one inch shorter than the average married man.

I am aware that the influence of women is capable of turning boys into men…not really, not really. They in fact turn infantile. Gurgle-gurgle, gripe, goo-goo, grrr…However, according to very peck-able sources, they supposedly become responsible. They are told they are bread-winners, as though it is some contest to win bagels. They are told they are settled, so they lounge around in hammocks with a drink in hand and settle down to read the newspapers. They walk the dog, but won’t talk. They find imaginary specks of dust while they throw garbage wherever they are.

Nah, I am not hitting out at men. They are rather handy to have around.

To return to that one-inch they add to their height, I have no clue how it could happen. For me the operative word is ‘average’. Average people are prone to be easily influenced. The married man, given the task of bringing down crockery or other household things from shelves that are way up, begins to stretch quite a bit. Or, he gets into the habit of craning his neck to look over his spouse’s head to see what she is looking at. Or, he realises that women do not like cracked soles, so he sort of stands on his toes. Or, he just puffs his chest out, pulls his tummy in. Or, he gets his hair blow-dried. Or, he just feels taller because he is referred to as “my better half” by his partner when she is suffering from PMS.

Why only one inch? Well, most married men try and stick to the figure one for public consumption. It is a part of the monogamy deal that will add inches (hah!) to their character CVs, they are told.

Single men need not rush into matrimony only to add that crucial length. Just follow the steps above and save some woman from an additional inch-long purgatory.

Good boy.

The world's richest Muslim tycoon

What Makes Premji a ‘Muslim tycoon’?
By Farzana Versey
September 14, 2007, Counterpunch

Is Azim Premji really the world’s richest Muslim entrepreneur? Is there a list which mentions the richest Hindu, Jew, Buddhist, Christian, Scientologist, atheist, Rastafarian?

Unlikely. At least nothing that would make the Wall Street Journal want to give it front page legitimacy. Talking of legitimacy, surely we are talking about legitimate enterprise, for the underworld and the mafia, Muslim or otherwise, are flush with money. In all likelihood, they are investors in the big companies.

Mr. Premji heads Wipro, India's third-largest IT exporter. Its fortune rests at $17 billion. I like rich people. But this gentleman is not just rich; he has been saddled with baggage. And the newspaper goes out of its way to prise it open by saying that he defies all conventional wisdom about Islamic tycoons - he does not hail from the Persian Gulf and does not wear his faith on his sleeve.

Where did the term ‘Islamic tycoon’ come from? What is unconventional about not wearing your faith on your sleeve? Is it even important to discuss?

Of course, it is. Imagine the world we are living in. Azim Premji has to be displayed as the nice guy – no beard, well-fitted suit, an amiable demeanor, likeable. He might have been a crass bore with filthy lucre, the Tom Cruise type who had to jump on an Oprah Winfrey sofa to declare his love for a Kate to become interesting. Mr. Premji has been given a moment quite unlike that cheesy one. He has been profiled (and do pardon the pun) in an article titled, “How a Muslim Billionaire Thrives in Hindu India”.

I am an Indian and have always lived in the country of my birth. It is not a Hindu nation. It may have a majority of Hindus, but then it has a majority of illiterates. Why wasn’t the report called, “How a literate billionaire thrives in illiterate India”? There are many such potential headlines I may offer, but I should hope the point has been made.

This ‘Muslim billionaire’ has thrived because he had a family business to start with. He had money to get a decent education and he had the spirit of enterprise. Hindu India did not contribute to these, neither did Muslims. It is an individual achievement.

It is unfortunate that Muslims are being made accountable for aspects of life that would under normal circumstances not identity them with religion.

Yaroslav Trofimov, the writer of the article, says, “Yet, to many in India's Muslim community, Mr. Premji's enormous wealth, far from being inspiring, shows that success comes at a price the truly faithful cannot accept. They resent that Mr. Premji plays down his religious roots and declines to embrace Muslim causes – in a nation where people are pegged by their religion and where Hindus freely flaunt theirs.”

What price has Mr. Premji had to pay? He has quietly gone and made a success of his business. There is no resentment against his hesitation to talk about his Muslim identity, and no Muslim social organisations are dependent on his largesse.

What is resented is the fact that in a country where most of the 150 million people of the community are ghettoized, the likes of Premji are touted as examples of Hindu tolerance. This just does not wash. It is most patronizing, and a huge insult to those who do make a decent living but are tagged in ways that are negative simply because they lack the visibility of a high-profile profession. On any given day there will be a handful of Muslims taken out of the celebrity closet to reveal the mothballed magnanimity of the majority community.

No one wants Premji to stand up and be counted. But there is no reason for him to play along with this secular sham, and he has been doing so for a while. He said in an interview to the paper, “We have always seen ourselves as Indian. We've never seen ourselves as Hindus, or Muslims, or Christians or Buddhists.”

The report further states, “Mr. Premji has mentioned his Muslim background so rarely in public that many Indian Muslims don't even know he shares their heritage. None of Wipro's senior managers aside from Mr. Premji himself are Muslims. The company maintains normal working hours on Islamic high holidays.”

This does not sound like a report in a respected newspaper but something straight out of a pamphlet. What heritage are we talking about? Is there one Muslim heritage? His last name could well be Hindu as his roots are in Gujarat. What is so heart-warming and significant about not working on Islamic holidays? Does it become news when many Hindu-owned companies celebrate religious festivals with a puja (prayer) and in fact during Diwali (that is an unabashed ode to the goddess of wealth) people even offer prayers to account books? Is it news that this includes Muslim entrepreneurs? What is the purpose behind such a statement? And why is it surprising considering that most of the 70,000 employees of Premji’s company are non-Muslim?

These are devious little tricks. No one mentions good old Adnan Khashoggi and his cruise liners in which the international high and mighty had fun vacations.

Isn’t there a mean between riding the Islamophobia and secular waves? The latter is as ridiculous as Mohamed al Fayed screaming about being discriminated against by British society because of his religion.

Azim Premji is a thriving businessman in the globalized world he keeps talking about. A globalized world that is unwilling to dignify him as just another wealthy guy and has to mention his religion not just in passing but as the very crux of his defiance – a defiance that is as imaginary as other stereotypes.

He says with what appears to be an element of arrogance, “All our hiring staff are trained to interview in English. They're trained to look for Westernized segments because we deal with global customers.”

Indeed. The Chinese, the Japanese, the Russians are doing rather well for themselves, and they don’t go around kowtowing to some colonial mentality that talks about English in such a fashion. He mentions that most Muslims are educated in Urdu. Perhaps he might like to check the statistics that say Urdu is a dying language. Perhaps he might like to sponsor some schools for Muslim children; he can do so incognito so that his secular credentials are safe. Perhaps he might like to know that even madrassas these days use his computers, so it is entirely possible they are cracking codes on them. Perhaps he might like to not even entertain questions about his Muslim identity. He is rich enough to afford to say, “No comments”. That is true liberation.

However, being called a Muslim tycoon is like being addressed as a hot Eskimo. And who doesn’t like a touch of oxymoron?