Book Review – A Strangeness in my Mind by Orhan Pamuk

Aakanksha SinghLeave a comment

Reminiscent of other novels by Orhan Pamuk and their lovely rendering of Istanbul, A Strangeness in my Mind, also pays homage to the city.

Seen mainly through the eyes of the character, Mevlut, who comes to Istanbul in 1969 at the age of 12, to live with his father, who sells yoghurt during the day and boza (a fermented drink) at night. He and his father are among the hundreds of villagers who migrated from remote villages to Istanbul in search of a better income and life.

Mevlut thoroughly enjoys it as a child there, looking wondrously into the city’s intricate streets and its inhabitants while accompanying his father on his rounds; picking up the nitty gritties of the job: the way to behave, the way to entice a customer to buy, the manner in which to extol your yoghurt or boza. Being in school presents a completely different set of challenges especially due to the class divide and him having to work after his school. Nonetheless, his time with his cousins and their mother, is something he looks forward to, particularly with Suleyman, who is always ready to give Mevlut the benefit of the doubt.

The novel weaves its way through the various main events that occur in Mevlut’s life such as him dropping out of school, or his marriage to Rayiha with its own twist, or his being robbed during one of his rounds selling boza among many others or his time selling ice cream or being a waiter.

A Strangeness in my Mind is a peculiar bildungsroman or a coming of age novel that traces Mevlut’s growth. Yet Pamuk plays with the narrative’s style deftly such that it is not a mere chronicler of life from birth to death.

Firstly, the narrative is not a straightforward first person narrative that Mevlut narrates rather different point of views of various colourful characters are interspersed together, giving the reader multiple perspectives.

Curiously, the novel does begin by typically noting Mevlut’s birth but then it jumps right into the middle by narrating the story of Mevlut’s tense elopement. It immediately puts the reader into the thick of things. And then once that is done, Pamuk slows it down and brings you to the present, describing Mevlut’s daily round of selling boza and how he is now a historic curiosity from the past. Then, the narrative whizzes back to his childhood and where his journey to Istanbul all started!

A Strangeness in my Mind is as much about Mevlut as it is about Istanbul. Through Mevlut, we view the city, how it was to his childlike eyes, and how he views it later, when it has mushroomed further into the hills, as more and more people swarm the city. Through his rounds while selling his yoghurt and boza and later only boza, we see the different sections of the city, its past and how people from different nationalities and sects live there or used to live there, now taken over by others. Particularly, the reader sees the magic and menace of Istanbul at night when the ‘strangeness’ in Mevlut’s mind is heightened, allowing him to indulge in his musings and letting his thoughts ramble unbridled. Perhaps this is the reason why he does not give up this fast fading and hence, quaint profession, refusing to (yet at times being attracted to) partake in the wealth and business that his cousins, Suleyman and Korkut, were able to accumulate; but that which always eluded him. Yet, Mevlut is content, happy to live among his own thoughts, with his beautiful Rahiya, his daughters and his beloved city.

The tone of the novel is tinged with unmistakable nostalgia for the days gone by, for the brisk business yoghurt and boza sellers could sustain in the city before the dairy and raki companies gained foothold, and for the city’s beauty itself.

Yet the story is not melancholic or wistful in its nostalgia. The narrative never condemns the city’s growth but merely states it as things that are inevitable since most cities have chosen a very capitalistic, vertical and the suspicious “development” route for their growth.

A Strangeness in my Mind thus captures the ephemerality of the idea of Istanbul and of human stability. The ending itself is a beautiful gift that Mevlut bestows onto the city that has nurtured him.

That being said, I couldn’t help but wonder if the story was told through a female perspective, how drastically different would it be? For one, the reader would not be able to see Istanbul’s public side and definitely not its streets at night since Istanbul’s norms would not allow girls to be in the boza selling profession or go out at “odd” hours. Though Mevlut’s eyes provide a subaltern glimpse into the city, which is vastly different to the more elite narrative of one of Pamuk’s other novels, The Museum of Innocence, the story still speaks from a privileged male perspective. We do see a different side of the city but that is very much based on gender and profession; unique as that may be, it makes for an interesting and creative topic of discussion among fellow readers.

Joe Sacco's Palestine Cover Image

Palestine by Joe Sacco

Himali KothariLeave a comment

For years cartoonist Joe Sacco had been watching and reading the news of the Palestinian uprising. Are all Palestinians terrorists or victims? He would ask himself as he saw the news flashing across his TV screen. What about the average guy with routine concerns like food on the table for his family and getting to work on time. Where was that guy? Dissatisfied with the media’s portrayal of the Israeli-Palestinian situation, Joe decided that he needed to see it for himself, from ground zero.

 

In the winter of 1991-1992, he made his way to the region and parked himself in Jerusalem. For two months, he crisscrossed across the borders between West Bank, Israel, and the Gaza Strip. He met labourers, refugees, ex-prisoners, soldiers, volunteers…all the different people who were a part of the fabric of this troubled region. He met children who had not seen any other way of life and geriatrics who had lived in peaceful times much before the 1948 Palestine War. His companion on this travel was his trusty notebook for his doodles, cartoons, and observations.

 

This notebook would later take the shape of Joe Sacco’s graphic memoir – Palestine.

 

The novel, both written and illustrated by Sacco, is divided into nine issues, each one divided into multiple chapters. The story is built through anecdotes that he gathers as he travels across the region. In towns like Nablus, Ramallah and Hebron in the West Bank, he visits market places, hospitals, schools and local homes. He meets Palestinians who have spent multiple terms in Ansar III, the largest detention centre in the world. He travels to the extreme west to the Gaza Strip where he spends a week in the Jabalia refugee camp and witnesses first-hand the living conditions.

 

While his witty remarks often elicit laughter, the underlying tone of empathy for the helpless situation is starkly evident. For instance, his visit to Nablus, where a milkman he encounters in the market insists on playing tour guide. He drags Joe to the local hospital and tows him from bed-to-bed, introducing him to the casualties and listing the details of their injuries. The patients are not all rebels. Many, including children, are wounded by army bullets that zipped into their homes or school compounds. The situation is grim, but the writer’s presentation of the hospital as a tourist spot and himself as a tourist makes one laugh out loud.

 

The author’s intent is not to trivialize the Palestinian situation. Sacco’s use of humour manages to evoke discomfort in the reader, engrossed in the story from the warmth and safety of her home.

A chapter on Sacco’s interaction with the detainees from Ansar III highlights the fact that incarceration was an accepted fate by Palestinian men at the time. The story of the prisoners brings out nuances of life inside a detention camp, many of which are astonishing. For instance, the formation of committees among the prisoners to oversee seemingly mundane tasks like the equitable distribution of tea. And, the organization of lectures by the prisoners on topics like Einstein, philosophy and split-up of the Soviet Union. As also, their strategies based on the careful study of the soldiers’ routines, such as planning contentious activities just before the weekend, when the officers are looking forward to heading home.

 

At the end of the two months, Sacco visits Tel Aviv, the capital of Israel, on the insistence of two tourists he meets in Jerusalem. They want him to see ‘their side of things’. During those few hours in Tel Aviv, the writer sees a different side of the region, meets people who remind him of people he meets in America and Europe. He concedes that yes there is an Israeli side of the story which he has neglected in this novel, but that calls for another trip. This trip was an exercise to uncover the Palestinian perspective, largely disregarded by popular media.

 

Sacco alternates between playing narrator and protagonist. As the narrator, he shares with the reader his reflections on the people, their situation and the policies that govern this region. He also includes nuggets from history to help understand how events have evolved to reach the current status quo. With regards to the other characters, he is matter-of-fact, presenting them without over-dramatization and allowing the reader to draw conclusions.

 

The illustrations are monochromatic, and Sacco strikes a balance between vacuity and busyness in every box. Some bits are filled with fine lines, squiggles and other patterns, which enhance the starkness to the blank bits in the box. His drawings acquaint the reader with a close-up view of a land that has primarily been seen only through the long-focus lenses of reporters.

 

‘Palestine’ drives home the power of stories – they engage and thus, affect. And they stay with the reader, much after the news has been relegated to the archives.

Image – Joe Sacco’s Palestine

An image of an audio cassette

Spools of Time

Aadya BaoniLeave a comment

“Hoshwaalon ko khabar kya, bekhudi kya cheez hai.
  Ishq kijiye, phir samajhiye, zindagi kya cheez hai.”

 

Jagjit Singh’s poignant baritone blares through the record player; his voice unwavering like the finely tuned strings of a sitar.

The tape recorder splutters and stops abruptly, as the spool manages to entangle itself in an infinite warp. Like that of one’s hair, which needs to be tugged on delicately to successfully untangle the mess without tearing it off your scalp.

 

“IT’S TANGLED!” I declared.

While simultaneously reaching out for a pen that seated itself on a niche carved out of oakwood. The rear end of the pen fit generously into the groove of the cassette after multiple attempts.

 

I meticulously started rotating the pen inside the grooves. A little to the right. While easing it on the left. The black magnetic spool unwinds itself effortlessly to go back to its former state of perfectly wrapped spool ready for insertion into the record player.

 

The index finger applies pressure on the play button and the music reels in with a click.

A gentle consistent hum accompanies it in the background.

 

Record Players were an integral part of Indian households. The gentle hum of music playing from the living rooms were a welcoming sound for bypassers. They would come inside whistling and clicking their fingers to the tune of the beat.

 

Cassettes could be personalized and recorded over. The sturdiness was unmatched. And the joy lied in the drudgery of flipping the cassette from Side A to Side B. 

 

There were no advertisements that interspersed the music, which modern forms of online platforms tend to do; in a conscious effort to make one indulge in consumables. It would be pushed down one’s throat like a spoon of bitter gourd being force fed to a child. In the assumption that it would perhaps make life a more pleasurable experience.

 

The plastic cover which encapsulated the spool would not shy away from scratches and dents. It would brave the torrential mood swings and bickering of the husband and wife, while the youngest offspring decided to teeth on it vigorously. 

 

And yet, the spool would roll seamlessly indifferent to the atrocities imposed on its exterior.

These seemingly ordinary pieces of plastic had worlds of music inside them. Music that had the ability to uplift one’s mood or be one’s companion on a lonely night. Choosing the right music to capture the essence of the living room was a herculean task. It involved sifting through covers of music with different layout. 

 

It was like a library that tempted you with book covers in various hues; adorned with illustrations. The back jacket of the book would provide one with a luring glimpse of the contents. 

 

The music emanating from the cassette would determine which song would be stuck in my head. It would refuse to go out of one’s mind, like a piece of gravel stuck in one’s shoes…reminding one of its constant presence while walking down a crowded street, and offering a sense of familiarity.

 

 

Image by Ståle Freyer from Pixabay

 

 

 

 

 

Krishn and Arjun at Kurukshetra Battlefield

The Heroes are Dead 

TheSeer TeamLeave a comment

Mythology and historical tales are an interesting part of the everyday life of inquisitive people. It always calls for inspiration and the power to bring about a change. The change is felt deep within but no effort is taken towards achieving it. Let alone the excuses one follows while being driven to the decision of not going all the way. Be it the inspiring Krishna or Rama, Arjun or Hanuman, or even the mighty heroes from Greece, all are momentary whose stories turn powerless once the reader comes to a point of action. Many of them have questions like, ‘Can I make a difference? How will I be able to conquer a problem that is huge and largely deemed impossible?’

‘Myth – a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events.’

All the heroes from the past are worshipped for their might, but are we willing to apply the learning from these mighty stories? The mythological tales give a perspective towards things that the audience should interpret and apply to contemporary times for their benefit.

 

The fear of judgement from society nags the masses. The stories narrated to us with a rising hope, often create a fascinating picture in the listener’s mind. The narrations of bravery and decisions made in times of trouble look wayward to the contemporary. Would you rather choose to slay your brothers in today’s world in choosing the right over wrong? In the event of a real-life circumstance, you need to quit pondering over the probabilities and take action by applying the lessons learnt out of these inspiring tales from times gone by.

 

The Kali Yuga is here, but how will you go further? We live in a world where everyone seems to be making excuses and there is no development towards cumulative betterment. Those who try to keep up the fighting spirit are being bogged down and diminished by the so-called virtuous ones in society. All those who had been applauded for their courage and mysterious outcomes are now dead. We need to look at it with some implication and application to the current scenario. The world is looking for new heroes, those who could switch the perception of the old into the new.

“कर्म करो, फल की चिंता मत करो” – श्रीमद भगवद गीता

This quote from the Bhagavad Gita translates to – ‘Set your heart upon your work but never its reward.’ By applying these lessons in everyday life, individuals who seek change can develop worthy future.

Straczynski has righty stated that the masses are going wayward and losing attention towards the contemporary – “the point of mythology or myth is to point to the horizon and to point back to ourselves: This is who we are; this is where we came from; and this is where we’re going. And a lot of Western society over the last hundred years – the last 50 years really – has lost that. We have become rather aimless and wandering.”

The modern-day heroes do exist, but they are few in number with a vast mission. Ones who will take righteous actions in everyday life need to be encouraged. Benevolence in this world full of atrocities is highly valuable. The society needs a warrior to fight the ethical devaluation and immoral activity with courageous wisdom, not swords and arrows. The outcomes of issues that have been plaguing the ethics and questioning sovereignty need acceptance. A passionate individual will drive many and create not one, but an army of societal heroes.


The quest for quick success is a myth and the war is larger than what meets the eye.

 

About the Author: Meetvan Thaker is a wordsmith with versatile interests inclined towards art with a social perspective. 

Rajagopal

More Lessons from Dosa King Rajagopal’s Death

Abhishek JhaLeave a comment

How dear is your reputation to you? If you are an individual who is reputed and well respected in the world, and if it comes to a situation where you get to keep either your life or your reputation, what would you choose? It is not a trivial question, you’ve heard stories of men and women who died for their honour! I would like you to take some time and ponder. You may reach a point in your reflections where you will want to remember your actions that took you there. Take one-step further and now think of this – you are not going to die, that is not your option now but you lose your reputation and you would need to live without the dignity you had earned with mountains of efforts. Would you feel relieved to have your life spared? A fine line separates the two situations. In one, your life choice is in your hands where as in another, someone makes that choice for you. You must have heard a lot many people say that an honorable death is better than an ignoble life, but are you sure you would not choose that life over a death that promises to cover your sins?

Shift some gears. How would you see the situation if the imminent death is as ignoble as your life would be? You are not sure about things that happen after death. However, in life, you know you can control a few things even if people do not like you. Does it become easier to live then? You believe in God, so, you make him a promise – “let me live, I won’t kill anyone again.” You also know that God does not operate in your currency. You do not get a reply. Nevertheless, he is ‘your’ God, you know him well enough to believe that he will forgive you because you have atoned. God has done his work. Now, you need to come out and manage a few things in a world that is up for sale. You have powerful friends; you have wealth that injects fuel into these powerful friends. You may not know the other world but you know your way out of the incarcerations of the world-of-the-living. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. You and your powerful friends make your ignoble life a comfortable one. Slowly, you make yourself forget the reasons for your fall and buying time becomes a contest for you. You have won all the games of the world before this one. You are confident you will win this one too. So, you keep buying time until one day, you have spent all your money. You realize you were buying time from your own store. Your storekeeper throws you onto a hospital bed and whispers in your ears – “of course, you will not kill anyone again”. Your heart stops beating.

Dosa King Rajagopal evaded jail-term for 15 years before being sentenced to life-term. He surrendered with an oxygen mask on his face, developed heart problems, and went to a hospital before he died. In the face of his life and actions, how should we define ‘justice’? Is it nature doing what the oft-fallible and corruptible humans could not do? Does that mean a life sentence was not enough for his actions and he needed to die? Or should we come from the opposite side to say that it became all too easy for him in the end? A life term might have perhaps put him in a situation closer to that of the Prince Santhakumar’s family.

It may take some time for our society to understand this phenomenon. We are so bored of seeing criminals dying their natural death before the courts are able make up their minds that it comes as no surprise any longer. To me, death is not justice. Death may wear the mask of poetic justice but poetic justice does not care for time and proportion. In effect, poetic justice is not justice at all. It is the consolation prize of the losing side.

Rajagopal did not serve his sentence. He was never going to be living behind the bars but he has died with all his dignity crushed and ground to dust. The winds of the coastline that carried his fame to far-off lands have now drowned themselves in the sea. The chaos of renown has turned into a lull of condemnation. Saravana Bhavan’s story will always carry the blandness of vanity and the vapidity of overcooked lust. Its success tale will always carry the rancid odour of the ghost and that might remain our only consolation.

Junior doctors at NRS Medical College and Hospital demonstrate against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata.(ANI)

O Doctor! My Doctor! Our Fearful Trip is Done?

Shilpita BiswasLeave a comment

When I was a child, my mother always used to say that doctors are the living embodiment of God. I never understood what she meant by that but nevertheless, I believed her. I have grown up watching people obey and respect doctors, place them on the highest pedestals of our society and worship them – and then, I have seen people curse them, beat them and if need be, kill them! Gradually, I started asking myself, is this how we worship Gods? Is this what we do—repay humanity with vengeance? Are doctors truly gods in the first place?

I write this article a few weeks after a heinous incident shook the core of our nation. On 10th June, 2019, two on-duty intern doctors, Dr. Paribaha Mukhopadhyay and Dr. Yash Tekwani of Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College & Hospital (NRSMCH), Kolkata, West Bengal were attacked by a mob of 200 goons, all claiming to be relatives and well-wishers of a 75-year old patient who had passed away in the evening after a major heart attack. While Paribaha suffered a deep dent on the frontal bone of the skull and was admitted in an ICU at The Institute of Neurosciences, Kolkata, Yash also had a serious head injury. What ensued thereafter, were a political melodrama, harassments caused to thousands of patients, more attacks on doctors all over the state, mass resignation of doctors and medical professors all over the country and most importantly, a nationwide protest of a magnitude not witnessed in India for a long time.

The NRS incident was neither the first nor the last attack on doctors. On one hand, when the nationwide protest was going on demanding the safety of the medical fraternity and proper infrastructure in government hospitals, on 14th June, 2019, a doctor in Gaya district in Bihar was tied to a tree, while goons gang-raped his wife and robbed him. On that same day, the owners of a dog in Kerala assaulted a veterinary doctor. The list goes on!

As I kept pondering over the grave situation, the question that kept on haunting me was why would people feel the need to take up arms against doctors in the first place! Of course, the answer to this question brought me to the dark side of the medical fraternity. Often, people complain about doctors refusing to treat poor patients in government hospitals and instead, forcing them to make appointments in their private chambers. People who cannot afford to make such appointments are forced to undergo treatments in government hospitals under extremely poor conditions, which often leads to medical negligence and imminent death of the patient. In addition to this, India remains an easy market for illegal organ trade where avaricious doctors trick and coerce financially unstable and illiterate people in donating their kidneys, liver etc. and sell them for lakhs of money.

I also dug out certain facts on the other side from some of my friends who are ex-students of NRSMCH and had participated in this movement. In our country, the situation is such that around four doctors are operating the emergency of a government hospital with the help of nurses and other staff. Adding to this, the OPD ticket cost is as low as 2 rupees per patient, which is even less than the one-way bus fare of the patient. Even with minimum infrastructure and unchecked patient load, doctors manage to perform their duties in these adverse conditions, sacrificing their own family lives. Under such circumstances, when a patient is brought to the emergency in a delicate condition, even after all necessary measures required to resuscitate him are taken, he might succumb to the natural consequences. However, when truckloads of goons attack a doctor or assault him, the only defense he has is his knowledge – not a gun, not a stick, not an iron rod, not a brick – only knowledge! It seems though, that lately, knowledge is falling short and the saviors of the world are quickly becoming the victims while the government and the police authorities stand aside without uttering a word, witnessing these events as silent spectators.

As I pause to conclude this outpour, I realize with a heavy heart that I am writing this on 1st July, 2019—the day celebrated as National Doctor’s Day all over India in memory of Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy on his birthday. He was a man who believed in People – irrespective of religion, caste, creed, or political views. He believed in humanity! I wonder if this is the India he dreamt of freeing from the British stronghold – a world where innocent doctors pay for the sins of money-mongering doctors who use their knowledge for some sinister business. Or a world where a mob is ready to assault doctors whenever it is discontented! It is true that if a patient feels that his doctor is at fault, he has the right to question him but as patients and caretakers, it also becomes our responsibility to opt for the right recourse.

The act of hooliganism witnessed by Bengal on the night of 10th June, 2019 must be condemned with the severest of measures taken against the perpetrators. The whole nation stood by Bengal in this time of distress because it was the right thing to do. However, it is high time that we start addressing the real issues haunting the lives of millions of people in our country and uproot them root and stem, that we start asking questions more often without waiting for a Paribaha or a Yash to get attacked while serving the people of this country!

लिंच होने से बचने का रामबाण

Abhishek JhaLeave a comment

कल जब घर से निकलना तो कुछ मत बोलना, सच तो बिल्कुल नहीं। ये पुराना वाला इंडिया ही है, इसे सच से एलर्जी है। इसके लिए सच वो कीड़ा है जो एक दिन अजगर बन कर तुमको ही निगल लेगा। ये नया इंडिया भी है, यहाँ सच का डेमोनेटाइज़ेशन हो चुका है। सच लीगल टेंडर नहीं रहा। यहाँ झूठ के अलग अलग ठेकेदार हैं, सबका अपना अपना यू.पी.आई. है। किसी के साथ भी खाता खोलो और झूठ के लेन-देन में शुरू हो जाओ। महफूज़ रहो।

कल जब घर से निकलना तो चुप रहना। कल जब बाज़ार में कोई जेब काट ले, दो गालियाँ परोस दे, धक्का दे दे, या सामने से आकर घूँसा ही बरसा दे, चुप रहना। ये वही पुराना इंडिया है, ये घर में घुसकर मुसलमानों को मारता है, ये बाहर निकलकर हिंदुओं को जलाता है। यहाँ आज भी वो सब मुमकिन है जो पहले मुमकिन था। ये नया इंडिया भी है, ये अब मारते वक़्त रिकॉर्डिंग भी करता है और 4जी स्पीड पर लाइव स्ट्रीमिंग भी क्योंकि ये इंडिया एक भीड़ है, कभी हिंदुओं की भीड़ तो कभी मुसलमानों की भीड़। इस भीड़ का कोई चेहरा नहीं, सिर्फ मज़हब और जात होता है। इस भीड़ को सबूत होते हुए भी गिरफ्तार नहीं किया जा सकता। भेड़ियों की भीड़ में तुम जज़्बाती मेमने – चुप रहना। आज ज़्यादा मिमियाओगे तो फिर कभी नहीं मिमिया पाओगे। शाम को घर वापस आ जाना, बिना कोई नयी दुश्मनी मोल लिये। समाज को ठीक करने की ज़िम्मेदारी जिसे दी थी वो बैट लेकर समाज को पीट रहा है। तुम कौन से समाज-सुधारक बनने निकले हो? चुप रहना सीखो, आदत डालो, आईने के सामने ख़ामोशी की प्रैक्टिस करो।

ये सब इसलिए बता रहा हूँ कि कल जब घर से निकलो तो लिंच न हो जाओ। हो सके तो भीड़ का साथ दे देना, उसमें सेफ्टी है। लिंच करने वालों में शामिल हो जाना, लिंच होने वाले तो कमज़ोर होते हैं। असली इंडियन लिंच करता है, होता नहीं। इससे पहले कि कल किसी लिंच मॉब के हाथों तुम्हारा फ्री एकाउंट खत्म कर दिया जाए, आज किसी लिंच मॉब के पेड सब्सक्राइबर बन जाओ। ये नया इंडिया है, पुराने इंडिया वाले अपने बाप वाली गलती को मत दोहराना। वो मेम्बरशिप टालता रहा, इसलिए लिंच हो गया।

और तुम – जो आज अपने घर वापस नहीं जा पाओगे, कहीं किसी चौराहे पर लिंच कर दिए जाओगे, मुझे माफ कर देना। मुझे ये हिदायतें आज सूझीं, वरना शायद तुम्हारी मदद कर सकता। पर ये सिर्फ हिदायतें हैं, इनसे किसी की जान बच जाये, ये ज़रूरी नहीं। वैधानिक चेतावनियाँ जारी करने का अधिकार सिर्फ सरकार को है, उसी सरकार को जो वैधानिक शराब का ठेका चलाती है। मेरी बातों को कौन मानेगा? मैंने तो कभी एक पान भी नहीं बेचा। सो तुम चिंता मत करो, ये नया इंडिया है। तुम कोई आखिरी लिंच होने वाले इंसान नहीं हो। लिंचिंग वायरल हो चुका है। वो भी ऑर्गनिकली। बस ऊपर जाकर न्यू इंडिया वाले चैनल को सब्सक्राइब कर लेना। सारे लिंच अप्डेट्स मिलते रहेंगे।

अल्लाहू अकबर। जय श्री राम।

More Lessons from John Allen Chau’s Death

Abhishek JhaLeave a comment

Last year, the members of the Sentinelese tribe killed John Allen Chau, an American missionary. Apparently, John wanted to take his religion to the tribe to bring them peace and harmony. A few months later, as I take one more look at the unfortunate incident, I am compelled to wonder – in the death of this adventure blogger and the messenger of Christianity, do human beings have a few more lessons than originally understood?

 

Instead of going to the Sentinelese, what if John had come to me? I have never killed anyone, so this is a difficult thought to entertain. Of course, the constitution gives me the right to practice my religion and if John had come to me to proselytize, my first reaction would have been to ignore him. If John had persevered, I would have indulged him in a debate. Had I turned out to be a tough nut to crack, John would have perhaps quit accosting me. That would be the end of the meeting with John. I would have continued the chaotic life I had been living. However, John would not have stopped. John had a mission. He would have knocked on the doors of my neighbor. The neighbor, if gullible or genuinely impressed, would have converted to Christianity, or would have tried what I did. If this hypothetical neighbor were my friend, he would have called me to help with John. You would think John would have given up here and gone back to his home. However, John knocks on the third house. At this point, the entire community gets to understand John’s motives and they come together to drive John away. John goes back. Where? A different city. John is a committed missionary. He does not stop!

 

So, where does John stop? Sadly, John stops only where the Sentinelese stopped him. In a world where evangelism is not a crime, it might become difficult for some people to draw red lines for themselves. It is terrifying to see the scale of power the church wields over these promising young men who could have done anything else in their lives but chose to civilize the world and bring Jesus to ‘Satan’s last stronghold’. The Sentinelese people perhaps do not engage in debates with people they do not know and are smart enough to understand the dangers posed by such attempts to ‘civilize’ them. They fear obliteration of their race. They perhaps know that the meeting with Christ does not end with meeting with the Christ. They know that Jesus Christ will bring in a lot of not-so-Christ-like Christians to their land. Sentinelese might not have a Penguin or a HarperCollins but they remember their history well.

 

If I had killed John, I would have been, according to Indian law, sentenced to death or life imprisonment. This would be so because I am part of the civilized world and I had other means at my disposal to stop John. John, like me, was also part of the civilized world. In the civilized world, John has the freedom of speech and expression and I have the ability to forgive and forget. In our civilized world, John also has the responsibility to understand that people like their own kind of ‘peace’ and ‘civilization’, Satan is at best a philosophical idea, and if at all a Satan exists, he lives in and off the church.

 
John was just an innocent face of a much deeper crusade to create a world order controlled by the church. This order has the money and muscle power to allure people who are not ‘tribal’ enough to resist violently and not ‘civilized’ enough to resist peacefully? Fortunately for us, the ‘Satan’s last stronghold’ is still intact. But the church has an army of Johns operating to civilize the lesser Sentinelese of the world who do not kill at first contact. John Allen Chau has left us but the church lives to fight another day.

Reading Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh

Shilpita BiswasLeave a comment

Good books often give wings to the imagination of young writers, thus helping them to transport their readers to a world very different from the real, brutal world we live in. But sometimes, some stories, some real stories are pushed beneath the facts and informative pages of a history book—lost and hidden from the generations to come. Though we learn about these events and score good marks in a history paper, we fail to delve into the depths of the pages and dig out the dust-ridden, true stories still haunting the past of many such families who fell victim to those massacres.

Khushwant Singh was one such survivor of the horrendous Partition of India, 1947, born in Hadali, now in Pakistan. Not only an author, he was a lawyer, a diplomat, a journalist as well as a member of Parliament from 1980 to 1986. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 1974, which he returned as a sign of protest against the siege of Golden Temple by the Indian Army. He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 2007. Singh died in 2014 at the age of ninety-nine years.

In his book “Train to Pakistan”, he weaves his own experience beautifully, into a story set in Mano Majra, a fictional village on the border of India and Pakistan, harbouring both Sikhs & Muslims peacefully for hundreds of generations. Then, with the murder of the local Hindu moneylender and the arrival of a train from Pakistan carrying the dead bodies of Sikhs, years and years of brotherhood falls apart and hostility brews between the Hindus and Muslims; forcing the latter to leave their lands, homes, cattle, and everything else behind and board a train to Pakistan.

Singh builds up all his characters with finesse and perfect detailing, sometimes using ordinary events of day-to-day lives to reflect the inner conflicts of his characters’ minds. For example, when the District Magistrate Hukum Chand notices two geckos fighting each other and falling on the bed, metaphorically representing the Hindus and Muslims at loggerheads, he jumps out of bed in fear and disgust; thus reflecting his guilt and moral conflict of not taking a stand for the good of the people even with so much power in hand. On the other hand, while the well-educated, social worker Iqbal Singh keeps on pondering whether to lay down his life for the greater good, the uneducated, rogue, gangster Juggut Singh, who has fallen in love with Nooran, a local Muslim girl, tries to redeem himself for all his past actions by sacrificing his own life and saving his fellow Muslim villagers from dreadful deaths; thus exposing another moral paradox of our society— Are learned men truly educated or do they always fall short of action in times of need?


Singh refuses to take any political side and instead, presents us the stark reality of the horrors of partition from a humane point of view. As we flip page after page, we realise that neither Sikhs nor Muslims were innocent! Men were killed on both sides, women were raped on both sides and children were orphaned on both sides. From the many gruesome & explicit accounts of murder, death, rape and torture, we, as readers realise with a heavy heart that it has always been the common people who have suffered and paid the price for the actions and decisions of those in power.

Train to Pakistan is a historical book which does not fail to impress the readers with its detailed and beautiful illustration of a dark age in our Indian History, while at the same time questions our religious bigotry, our society as well as the principles and morals of the decision-makers of our country.

Why Kejriwal Wants a Free Ride to the CM Office?

Abhishek JhaLeave a comment

A lot of how our life shapes up depends on how we are born. One of the more defining birth factors for quality of our future life is the financial health of the parents. There are more factors of course but I have picked finance and put it aside to start with because it is, in my opinion, one of the most difficult to get rid of. To the financial mess, add a mix of caste and gender, and things become a lot more complicated. I do not mention the hierarchy of caste or gender here because we are living in an age where any permutation and combination of this set has its own disadvantages. A poor and discriminated-caste born individual has to tide over his social suffering in addition to the wealth crisis. A meritorious upper caste but poor individual has no advantage over the reserved category candidate (financial status notwithstanding) who is inferior to him in intelligence and effort. Add gender here and we get into a whirlpool of problems.

 

Now take out all other factors and see the female case exclusively, women face discrimination for being born a woman in many social spaces. Now, here lies their problem. While you can still outgrow your caste or migrate to a more egalitarian society, you cannot get away from your gender. As gender is a biological truth, the discrimination takes a more hideous turn and can affect a woman of upper caste as severely as it can affect someone from the lower caste. From the first challenge of not getting sacrificed for a male child and ‘getting a safe birth’ to do everything that comes a tad easier for men, in our present society, women have to battle hundred things to earn a livelihood and lead an independent life. This becomes even more challenging if she is born to poor or discriminated-caste parents. Some do not try, some try but fail, some do not want to try, and then some try and succeed. During this struggle, these women ask many difficult questions to the society. They make themselves aware of their rights and then demand that their rights be protected.

The answers are more difficult than they seem to be at first sight. Therefore, our leaders promise many CCTVs to see the problem more clearly. Then, they realize that the metro fare hike has hit women the worst.  They throw a free bus and metro ride pass at them – “please take this free bus pass, you are safer now in Delhi buses. I am hereby buying your vote!”

Arvind Kejriwal is not the problem. He is just another politician who has mastered the art of milking the rotten ecosystem of bribing the electorate before every election. If our politicians had the integrity of thought, there would have been more and better buses on roads, panic buttons and GPS tracking on all buses. There would be more street lighting and better last mile connectivity for commuters, male or female. There could have been free public transport systems for all Indians without burdening the exchequer. Mr. Arvind Kejriwal likes to tell his voters to take the money other parties offer them and still vote for the broom, his party’s election symbol. Times can change quickly. Sadly, he is the one offering that money now. The voters will keep it, just the way he prefers. It remains to be seen whom they vote for next year. A party’s rhetorics and manifesto for the upcoming elections can easily posit themselves as the report card of its manifesto from the previous elections. A dropped promise means that the promise couldn’t be delivered as the Government was busy begging alliances and fighting other elections in the country.  A promise added with freebies means that the promise fetched votes last time around but couldn’t be implemented because they were never supposed to be implemented but have the potential to work again if made with some free gifts.  A promise finding a place again without any progress or addition means that the party is waiting for a majority in the Rajya Sabha.

 

The 2015 manifesto of AAP speaks about CCTVs in all buses. Delhi is going to vote again in 2020. AAP has promised to install CCTVs again. Of course, just CCTVs will not be safe enough for the AAP to secure their seats this time. They need some free passes to ride their luck in 2020.

What to Expect from Namo2.0?

Abhishek JhaLeave a comment

Elections are over. The new government is set to arrive. As the Congress party keeps itself frozen on the cusp of change from where it can choose to advance into an acceptance of the changed realities to progress or just fall back into the pit of regression, the postmortem of election results will perhaps be an unending process. While the media and political pundits can spend all their time and efforts in this operation, the Government cannot afford to venture there. After the 2014 victory, the Prime Minister had shared his vision of ‘Minimum Government, Maximum Governance’; the 2019 victory should be a reason for renewed focus on deliverance of this aspirational vision. Keeping this in mind, I have a list of preliminary expectations from my government of 2019. This is not exhaustive and I might add to it as we move ahead in the year.

 

A separate budget for the agriculture sector

This can help in better allocation of resources for the necessary reforms in agriculture and help improve the implementation of government projects. Agriculture is the primary source of livelihood for about 58 per cent of India’s population. Gross Value Added by agriculture, forestry and fishing is estimated at INR 18.53 trillion (US$ 271.00 billion) in FY18. Considering that and the kind of loan waivers each party has to announce every election season, the demand for a separate budget holds ground.

 

Reward good citizens

Rewarding good citizens can encourage a change in how citizens contribute to nation building. Citizens, who segregate waste, pay their loans in time, do not use plastic, follow traffic rules should get incentives with better interest rates on loans, better benefits on retirement, subsidized payments on insurance schemes etc. This can bring about a big shift in how we engage the electorate post the election season.

 

Invest in government schools and higher education institutions

A major failure of independent India has been its unwillingness and inability to bring up the standard of education in government schools. It is time that these schools accept the competition from their private counterparts and deliver the best in class education to their students. This competition will also substantially bring down the cost of quality education for Indian students. The monopoly of private players on cost of education will break.

 

Invest in government hospitals

Most of the patients wanting admission in a hospital of AIIMS have to wait for a good number of months, in some cases, a year to get their turn. Not having any way, patients take to private hospitals and clinics. In additional to the disease itself, the high costs break the patients and their families, both financially and psychologically. The government needs to invest big in structural reforms for its hospitals. Once again, the government must accept the challenge posed by the private counterparts. If that is not possible, a public-private partnership should be explored.

 

Establish better centers of education and healthcare in industrial belts and other neglected areas

While such areas earn huge revenues for the country, the state of most of these places remains miserable when it comes to education and healthcare. The industrial belts of India need their favor returned so that while citizens brave the not-so-comfortable lives, they can at least avail better healthcare services and send their kids to schools that are on par with any school from the urban centers of the country. All aspirants should have access to a benchmarked quality of education.

 

Encourage cancer research in the country through better facilities, improved funding, and enactment of research friendly laws

While celebrities and politicians can afford to skip levels and travel to other countries for their treatment, the common mass of the country has to make do with whatever is available in our country. While we have some good centers for cancer in the country, the waiting queues at such centers paint a gloomy picture of our patient to doctor ratio. Official data only corroborates this picture. By 2014, we had only about 1000 trained oncologists in the country and the ratio of oncologist to patient stood at 1:2000. This ratio in US is 1:100. Modi 2.0 should understand what creates this stark and disappointing difference and work towards better cancer research and training in our country. (Source)

 

Curb corruption in government institutions

Why should a Member of Parliament get priority over a common citizen for admission to the AIIMS? Why should the street hawkers must pay daily hafta to the Police to keep running their business? Why must the village mukhiya be paid INR 500 for the LPG cylinder which is coming free of cost from the government? There are a lot of low hanging fruits to pluck when it comes to corruption in government institutions. My government must be up to the task without losing any time.

 

Judicial reforms to deliver justice, in time

Indian courts have about three crore cases pending between them. Case AST/1/1800 of the Calcutta High Court was filed in the year 1800. The last hearing date was 20 November 2018. Appointment of Judges, insufficient number of courts, archaic laws are the areas I would like my government to look into.

 

Resettle Kashmiri Hindus in Kashmir valley

The ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus carried out in the valley remains a blot on the democratic ethos of independent India. The government must carry out this task with the seriousness it deserves.

 

Societal harmony as pet project

No blame games here. The law must take its own course but I believe that much like Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, societal harmony should become a pet project of our Prime Minister. He should avail all the platforms available to drive the message of unity, harmony, and peace throughout the country. It may not deter the criminals as such but might just prevent the conversion of an otherwise reasonable individual into a hate machine.

Oral Democracy: Deliberation in Indian Villages

Monica KamathLeave a comment

The timing of this book launch & panel discussion could not have been better. While the people of our country don’t even need a cue to begin a political discussion, imagine the situation when it is right in the middle of the most awaited elections. Vijayendra Rao’s sneak peek into the rural socio-political setting to us urbanites was nothing less than an eye opener and if I might point out also lead to some amount of shame.

His research and study only validate how literacy, education and belonging to a more “privileged” section of the society have no role in ensuring higher participation and engagement in one’s civic and political life. Vijayendra through his book discussion attempts to build a case to portray the strength, awareness and willpower, the people in villages bring to collectively solve a given problem. He dramatically read out the many conversations verbatim from various meetings presided by the Gram Sabha of various parts of South India ranging from Bidar to Dharmapuri and Kasargod.

It was fascinating to understand how the effects of colonisation, state policy, local political influences and linguistics contributed to unique functioning and characterisation of the gram sabhas of different states. For example he spoke about how Kerala grama sabhas have a bureaucratic approach where they plan things to the T, while sabhas of Karnataka and Tamil nadu are lot more dynamic and often chaotic but still end up redressing issues and finding solutions. Nevertheless, what Rao truly wants to bring out through his book is how decentralising administrative capabilities  will only help in furthering the interests of the country’s majority and contrary to popular belief how democratic ethos is strongly pursued and passed on as an oral tradition even amidst the least literate of our society.

This definitely poses a question to us city dwellers who have so much more infrastructure at our disposal but what are we doing? Krishna Byre Gowda – Minister for Rural Development and Panchayat Raj, Law & Parliamentary Affairs in Karnataka, highlighted the losing relevance of the panchayat and gram sabhas and the overall shift in focus from the Gandhian philosophy of decentralisation of political administration. He believes this model needs to be replicated in the urban circles as well and poses a question to citizens, municipalities and the amount of interest urban folks are taking in these matters.

The disparity in voter turnout itself can be considered as a superficial indicator to understand the engagement level of rural and urban Indians when it comes to civic participation. The very fact that the 74th Amendment mandates ward committee meetings to be conducted in a more regular and timely fashion in Bangalore is an indication that state policy intervention can help support and give voice to citizens and hopefully improve participation with a quid pro quo arrangement where citizens and state can hold each other accountable.

 

Image Courtesy – bangaloreinternationalcentre