Perspectives

Looking Through Glass

2009-09-15T10:19:00.000-07:00

Just finished reading a wonderful book called ‘Looking Through Glass’ by Mukul Kesavan. Kesavan is a historian and essayist, and I had previously read his articles in Outlook and Cricinfo. This is the only novel he has written so far.

In the book, the protagonist, who narrates the story in first person and whose name is never revealed (unless I missed it) falls out of a train while taking a photograph, and on awakening finds himself transported to the year 1942, in the weeks before the Quit India resolution is passed. The story then takes us through the years before independence and partition, and attempts to looks at those momentous years through the daily experiences of the people of that time.

The protagonist is witness to numerous tragic-comic happenings, and comes across a wide range of colourful characters - Masroor, the hot-headed youth who is bent upon sabotaging the Quit India movement as he believes that launching it without resolving the Hindu-Muslim dispute would lead to a fruition of Jinnah’s call for Pakistan; Haasan, the person who rescues our protagonist and guides him through life in the ‘40s, and who the protagonist realizes, quite a long time after meeting him, is not a Muslim but a Hebbar Iyengar from Haasan!; Gyanendra in Benaras, whose biggest dream is to make a photograph book of the Kamasutra; Ammi, Masroor’s mother, whose only desire is that, in those tumultuous times, things stay ‘just as they are’, and even went as far as to start a new political party called Anjuman Bara-i-Tahaffuz-i-Haal, or the Society for the Defense of the Present, and contested the elections in Lucknow, and many others.

The protagonist feigns amnesia to escape having to explain where he came from. He initially tries to figure out ways to get back to the present, but soon realizes that he is stuck in the past. Slowly, over the next few years, he builds lasting friendships and gets assimilated into the life of the ‘40s, while at the same time knowing that he can never really share their hopes and fears, as he already knows how history is going to turn out.

The defining part of the book for me is when the time is ticking down to August 1947 – to independence, but also to partition - and the protagonist, who is Hindu, desperately tries to think up arguments to persuade Masroor’s family to stay in India, when the inevitable decision making time comes. Losing the only people he really loves in the ‘40s to another country would shatter his heart, but he also knows that Muslims will be treated to second-class status by many Indians. So what is the ‘master argument‘, he asks himself? This is a vivid and colourful book with a simple and touching ending.

Time to bring one-day cricket to an end?

2009-07-27T13:27:00.000-07:00

I don’t think too many genuine cricket fans would disagree that nothing gives more joy than watching a high quality Test series. I am also certain that very few would disagree that if matters are left to take their own course, test cricket will soon be a thing of the past.

Twenty-20 cricket is here to stay. It is wonderfully entertaining, many games have nail-biting finishes, it has brought in new audiences to the game, it has ushered in innovations in game-play and captaincy. Furthermore, the IPL and other proposed T-20 leagues provide numerous domestic cricketers the chance to make a good living and earn recognition. Thus it’s introduction is a positive addition to the sport, and I certainly am not one of those who bemoan its arrival.

But there is no doubt in my mind that all the three forms of the games cannot co-exist successfully. The current schedule is a jam-packed mess, with IPL-memorable test series-nobody gives a damn test series-pointless ODI series-ICC tournaments-champions league… cluttering up the calendar and leaving the cricket-watcher with the sensation of having sat through 2 Bobby Deol movies back-to-back.

Eventually something will give, and it might well turn out to be Test cricket. I believe that the only possible course of action is for the ICC to step in before that happens, and put ODI cricket to sleep.

I have grown up watching great one-day cricket and would certainly miss its absence. But I think that the demise of Test cricket would be a bigger loss for cricket fans. One-day cricket played a valuable role over the last few decades – it provided entertainment, brought in TV viewership in unprecedented numbers and packed stadiums around the world. Test cricket, on the other hand, provides charms of a different variety. The success of T-20 cricket means that one-day cricket serves no unique role. Whereas test cricket continues to have its loyal followers, people are starting to ask themselves the point of a day-long contest when they can be watching a high-octane three hour T-20 match instead. ODIs have been left stranded neither here nor there.

The decision needs to be made whether the test game is worth preserving. I certainly believe so, and so do many other cricket lovers, but the pin-drop silences in stadiums around the world speak (so to say) for themselves. Except for England, Australia, and some cities in India, tests are played to virtually empty stadiums. Thus a clear-headed, no-place-for-starry-eyed-romantic-thinking approach might be to let the inevitable happen and let the test game fade away.

If on the other hand the consensus is that tests are worth fighting for, then decisive action must be taken. Here is what I propose –

1. Throw the existing Future Tours Program schedule into the nearest dust-bin.

2. Give full support to all the proposed T-20 leagues, including providing them
with permanent ‘windows’ in the cricketing calendar.

3. Market test cricket as the pinnacle of the sport, like the grand slams in
tennis. Reduce quantity, improve quality. Ensure that at least 3 tests are
played in a series. Advertise test series as landmark events, and cushion
them with ample doses of T-20 cricket.

4. Reduce the number of one-dayers being played as the first step towards
completely removing them from the schedule. Any loss in revenue will be more
than made up by the extra T-20 matches.

Sometimes you sow, sometimes you have to weed.

Crisis in the kitchen

2009-04-12T18:46:00.000-07:00

When the pampered Indian son or daughter leaves home to go study or work abroad, there are many things a parent worries about. How will she/he adjust to life in a different country? Will he be able to cope with the tough study or work schedule? Will the lazy so-and-so remember to pay all his bills on time? But the biggest of them all is – what is he going to do about food?

My parents didn’t exactly lose sleep over most of these questions when I left home last year to get a masters education. My dad’s attitude was – he’s big enough, he can manage on his own: “Kids in the US start living alone when they turn 18, so it’s time for you to get the hell out”. My mother shared my father’s sentiments, with one exception – feeding my brother and myself over the years, with our limitless appetites, had ensured that she was worried about what I was going to do about food.

So she gave me a one-month crash course on the art of cooking. And she filled a notebook with recipes. Thus I was pretty confident about my culinary prospects. How bad could it get?

Pretty bad.

My troubles started right in the first week. I had the pulses and spices from the Indian store, and the vegetables and rice from the general store. I had the recipe book open in front of me, and the day was bright and sunny. Everything was well.

I turned to page 10 – ‘sambar ’. The first few steps were easy enough – cook the dal, ..wash and cut the vegetables, ..roast the spices.. no problemo (ignoring the fact that my finger was cut in a few places). My problems began with the next instruction – take a large-lemon sized piece of tamarind, soak it in water, and squeeze out … Lemon-sized piece of tamarind? Sounds OK on paper, but when all you have is a jar of tamarind paste and a spoon, it can sound quite cryptic. But I was not to be deterred – I poured in 2 generous tablespoons of the paste, mixed it in for a while, and then added another spoonful ‘just in case’.

I am no connoisseur, but I do know that sambar is not meant to look pitch black and taste like tar.

Once the bar had been set so low, things could only get better right? Not quite. I followed that up with a vegetable-paneer subzi with an inhumanely large amount of salt, I managed to conjure up vegetable biriyani that had to be eaten with a fork and a knife (long story, lets not get into it…), and I cooked up some vethakozhumbu with sugar instead of salt. Its lucky that I only cook vegetarian food, isn’t it? Imagine the massacre if I were dealing with chicken and lambs.

These were the least of my worries though. The bigger problem was keeping my fridge stocked up so that I cook some of my questionable dishes whenever I needed to. When I felt like making some rasam, I would have no tomatoes. When I was in the mood for some potato curry, I would have just one piece of greenish-black potato. When I wanted to make some vegetable pulao I would not have any rice, vegetables or salt.

And eating out on a regular basis is not a viable option either. Even disregarding the cost (which is easier said than done, with the rupee marching confidently into the mid-fifties), there is a limit to how many Subway sandwiches and burritos that one can have.

So here I am again: it’s a sleepy Sunday night, and I don’t know what to eat. I have one and a half tomatoes, some ginger-garlic paste, lots of green chillies (I have no idea what made me buy so many of them) and some frozen vegetables. Maybe I can make some kind of gravy-stuff with the vegetables and have it with the rotis that I bought from the Pakistani/Indian store. Or maybe I could make some kichchdi (page 53). Or some delicious pongal, perhaps? Plenty of options…

OK, I’ve decided – Subway, here I come.

The lotus blooms

2009-02-04T13:05:00.000-08:00

On the 13th of January, many corporate big shots got together to give a gushing endorsement to Narendra Modi and his government during the Vibrant Gujarat Global Investors Summit. “Imagine what will happen to the nation ”, beamed Anil Ambani “ if he [Modi] were to lead it”. We don’t need to ‘imagine’, do we? We were given a sneek-peek in the year 2002.

Just a reminder, even though we don’t need one: On February-March 2002, more than 2000 people were killed in ‘riots’,the vast majority of the victims being Muslims. National Human Rights Commission reports and various testimonies indicated that what happened was in fact a systematic pogrom against the minority community by the state government, with the Vajpayee-led BJP central government looking on. Some eminent human rights groups have pointed out that the massacre qualifies to be termed a genocide(see coalitionagainstgenocide.org). Ahmedabad and few other cities were used as venues for ethnic cleansing.

What is even more disturbing is the massive support, sympathy even, that Indians outpour on Modi and the BJP. He of course won the re-election by a landslide, and seems to have since become the poster-boy among a huge number of urban Indians. People thrill to his aggressive style, his anti-Pakistan and anti-Muslim speeches, his "hard" right-wing stance on crime and terrorism and his claims of ushering in economic prosperity.

Are we as depraved as to support and cheer-on a murderer? Are young urban Indians as regressive as to subscribe to the RSS ideology of a Hindu-rashtra? Why do educated Indians try to change the topic when the discussion turns to the 2002 incident? Why do some people from Gujarat consider Modi to be ‘Gujaratis’ pride’, when one of the other people vying for that nomination is a bespectacled man from Porbandar?

Last year's state election in Karnataka was my first as a voter. Standing in line with my father, while my mother was in the adjacent women’s line, waiting to go into the local school to exercise our franchise, I felt proud and thrilled. For the first time I felt part of the system, a part of the country’s huge democracy. But if I had any illusions as to the competitiveness of the electoral contest, they were put to rest in a hurry. There were BJP volunteers all over the place. The other parties were nowhere to be seen. Obviously our constituency was one where everyone else had given up the race as a lost cause.

A young man who helped us get voting-slips with our number on it asked us to cast our vote for the BJP. He then moved onto the person waiting behind us, carrying along the message.

The BJP won a clear majority of course, and came to power with the help of a few pliable independents. About 100 days later violence was unleashed against Christians in various districts of the state by the Bajrang Dal and the Vishva Hindu Parishad. (Even worse atrocities against Christians were commited by the same groups in Orissa, where 59 people were killed).

It is important that we realize what we are voting for. If we help bring a party to power that rides on that mandate to kill and terrorize, then the blood is on our hands. Many first time voters get influenced by the views of their parents, or other people that they look up to. While we should listen to the opinions of the people we respect, it is our responsibility to read up and become aware of what we are voting for. Some other first time voters might even have been influenced by the repulsive chain of emails that many of us would have received, which intend to portray India as a land where the majority Hindus are held siege by the 15 percent Muslim and Christian population, and lots of similar tripe.

The world is reeling under religious terror. Islamic terror is wreaking havoc in numerous places including India. India bore a deadly brunt of Islamic terror attacks last year. But terror is terror – whether it is by people who carry it out in the name of a religion that you do not subscribe to, or by people who carry it out in the name of gods that you worship. There is one crucial difference, though, between the atrocities committed by the Islamic terrorists and incidents like Gujarat : the latter was carried out by the state against its own people. What can be more despicable and terrifying?

The Hindu right-wing in India akin is to the Taliban of Afghanistan, and last month’s assault on women in a Mangalore pub reinforces that comparison. Islamic extremist organizations like the SIMI have rightly been banned by the Indian government. Why then are the Hindu fundamentalists allowed to live and flourish?

Newspapers reported that on the 17th of January, the head of Sri Ram Sene, the organization that carried out the attacks in Mangalore, addressed an audience of over 2000 in a college stadium of the same city. He was one of the participants of the ‘Hindu Dharma Jagriti Sabhe’, others including the local BJP MLA. “The Malegaon incident is just a jhalak for similar events in the future" he said. He was referring to the bombing in mainly Muslim areas in Malegaon, Maharashtra by Hindu groups masterminded by sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur. “Imagine what we can achieve if every Hindu woman gives up the cooking ladle in favour of a bomb?” he asked.

There were counters displaying weapons where people could register to join the 'sene'. The crowd chanted along as the speaker held forth.

The lotus is blooming, and there is a chill running down my spine.

Hi!

2009-01-11T00:02:00.000-08:00

Was great spending time at home for the winter break - eating loads of food, without having to worry about cooking ( or the painful multiplication-by- 50 before eating out)-spending time with my family and friends, watching cricket and some movies. Soon it will be time to get back to the grueling work-load of another semester. The same 20 hour plane journey I took home will seem many times longer and drearier when it is in the other direction.

Hopefully I can get the time to blog . I always wanted to getting into the world of blogging, but had a good reason to keep putting it off (I was too lazy).

Let me take my first baby-steps into the blogosphere with a quick book recommendation - The WhiteTiger by debutant author Aravind Adiga. It is a no-holds-barred look at the the India beneath all the next-superpower, economic-superpower hype built up by our media. It’s the story of Balram Halwai, a rickshaw-puller’s son from a small village in northern India. We get to look at India through his eyes, and the view we get is not pretty. The book is purposefully written in a coarse, no-frills style, tinged with some dark-humour. The book was this year’s Man Booker Prize winner, and is a quick read. Those of you who haven’t read it as of yet should certainly try and do so.

Until next time….