Tryst with What

FIRST PUBLISHED ON MAY 27 2012

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After three centuries of colonial rule she was free, mistress of her own destiny. The planners grew busy, making plans for a mixed economy where the core industries would be in the government sector. Our leaders called them “modern temples”. The countryside was populated with peasants who broke their backs on a landowners field, for pittance that kept their family in precarious health. There was generally no scope for obtaining reasonable standard of education, health, etc. for them.

While the planners, politicians and economists waxed eloquent on the path India was taking, a few who dared to raise their voice in dissent, were silenced by branding them as “imperialists”. The Soviet inspired model, ignored the countryside, we are now facing the consequences of our foolhardiness. There was no effort made to strengthen the agriculture sector. There was no effort made to modernise the rural areas. Whatever was done lacked depth and consistency. There were a large number of peasants who were shackled to the landlords. The small and marginal farmers had no way of obtaining loans for private and productive purposes. The economists blamed these small and marginal farmers for their plight.

The small and fragmented holdings that the economists blamed them for was a result of political appeasement of landowners, the official responsible for keeping land records was the most devious individual ever devised by nature. He pandered to the landlords; the small farmers were illiterate and were cowed down by their economic instability. It is a well-known fact that when these farmers approached the landlords for petty loans, they fell into a bottom less pit of indebtedness from which generations found difficult to come out. Meanwhile, even if the farmers were able to grow one or two crops, a small amount of water was made available to them and even this was not regular. There was no question of regulated water supply. Leave alone water for the fields, drinking water was difficult as they could not obtain water from the village well if the farmer’s family happened to be Dalits. Many instances exist of atrocities committed on Dalits, who in an act of desperation accessed the village well.

The governments get a bout of amnesia when they pat themselves on their backs. Planning Commission thinks sums like Rupees 30.00 are adequate for the poor to get by a day. I would love to believe that, but I seem to be always overtaken by reality. Even Rs. 50 seems to become ether, but then I am not a poor farmer, Mr. Planning Commission even a desperately poor man would think it is a joke if you tell him his family can get by in that amount.

In one of my blogs, Radio to Television I had said how the government painted a rosy picture of the countryside. The Green Revolution put food on the middle class table, but did nothing for the poor and marginal farmer. The economists rolled out excuses, the farmers fell into debt traps as crops failed, they committed suicide – choosing to use the pesticides on themselves. The media woke up the government woke up, there was sabre rattling, more farmers died.

While the leading political parties bicker over who is best suited to send a candidate to become PM, they should reflect on where the nation stands and can they make any difference to the countryside.

It’s an agony, Dear Aunt

I can’t live without seeing him at least once, Dear Aunt. Yet we can’t meet, his family insists on eating beef. Mine is puritanical and goes through the day with greens and other non root vegetables! Oh how shall I meet him without alerting my parents and the vigilantes. The vigilantes are real badmash you know they have actually beaten him up on suspicion of carrying beef, when actually he was carrying a blouse stitched by the neighborhood tailor for his mother, wrapped as he always does in a newspaper.

The parent’s of the boy are agreeable, my parents are not. My mother won’t hear of it, not to say about my father, he will beat me up. I am writing in considerable agony dear Aunt. We exchange missives through a reliable intermediary. The missives are very small and can’t be mistaken for beef.

Oh how can I resolve this. He is willing to give up meat, yet it would be uphill task to make my parents understand that the boy is free from beef. In my colony a beef eating couple were beaten up and paraded through the street, in full view of the police. They did nothing, just chatted among themselves, smoking beedi on the sly.

We have often thought of jumping off the roof of our homes, but onlookers would just think we fell off while hanging clothes on the clothesline. I am sure you will resolve my problem and bring us together, you have done such wonders for others.

 

I beg to differ

India is at it its old game again, trying to isolate Pakistan and tarring it. With India deciding not to participate in the SAARC summit it has silently communicated its wishes to other SAARC members to stay away, and stay away they did: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan decided to not attend the meet. India has been crying out loud that Pakistan exports terrorism, that it cannot fight a conventional battle.

India is sowing clouds of war. India is trying to paint everything black – terror black. The latest bid to fiddle with the Indus Water Treaty can have catastrophic consequences for the south Asian region. So also the Most Favored Nation status in trade for Pakistan.

He [Modi] even threatens to use water as a weapon in the conflict. He feels that by deepening India’s strategic collaboration with Afghanistan and other regional countries, he could have Islamabad on its knees.ZAHID HUSSAIN in the Dawn, Pakistan.

It seems quite contrary to what India says in the international summits that it believes in dialogue. The reality is that that since the Congress government could not get Pakistan to take punitive action against the Mumbai bombers, the present dispensation wants to show that it can take proactive steps in dealing with the problem of “cross border terrorism,” and avenge the killing of 18 soldiers in Uri.

Life within India’s borders has become restive. There are clashes in many parts of India, so it does what it has been doing since Mrs. Gandhi’s days, point a finger at the nearest neighbor which anyway has been viewed, thanks to social-political engineering as an enemy by the average Indian. India ignited the Baloch issue, it nurses the Baloch rebels. And then it foments trouble in the region.

Then it becomes Holier than thou, a sacred cow.

Things go better…

My Camel, my Jeep and coke, what else could you want. Back then brands completed your ensemble. They still do. One needs to accessorize to be counted. In the past that I have recreated in the first line, the man would have been wearing Levi’s jeans. He could have been wearing a Rolex, or whatever was advised for such occasions. Coke was one brand that went with everything…Big Macs or french fries, Kentucky fried chicken, school canteen, snack bar of an express train, or on your seat on a transcontinental flight.

Then came the epidemic of obesity among children. The cause: sugar content of proprietary products. Kellogs was another product that seemed to be a constant on the breakfast tables across the world. The ads boasted the wholesomeness of the product, each spoonful of cornflakes contained the required amount of goodness that put junior on the top of his class. Except, junior was bursting out of his pants. His buttons broke at strategic points.

However, nothing drastic was done to curb foods that made junior look out of shape (ship-shape?). Then came the order banning certain products from being sold to minors; according to the Daily mail dated January 23 2015, Russia banned western fizzy drinks from Coke to Pepsi and Mountain Dew and a domestic product Baikal. Restrictions did not apply to tea or coffee. The items were banned to minors in the Vologda region of Russia. The decision was taken by the regional legislature. The ban included such places as schools, sports centers, centers of cultural activities, etc.

The Gujarat government banned the aerated drinks from sale in the canteens of the government schools. This applied to the urban schools. The rationale was that the drinks contained high amounts of pesticides. The colleges were also part of the ban. Parliament of India also banned the drinks from their canteens for the same reason.

But the products are available in India. Although their value as a product is almost non existent, its chief selling point is that it is non alcoholic and acceptable as a beverage in a family gathering. Kellogg’s also continues to be sold and it splashes its healthy and wholesome properties although nothing has been proved independently.

Therefore, it is safe to assume that these products act as accessories to whatever occasion that they are ordered in. They are like bread, butter and jam. The breakfast table would look quite empty without them, the party at the canteen would loose its celebratory value without the fizzy drinks. One would go to the MacDonald’s and order the Mac Burger and Coke and french fries would come in huge quantities.

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All brand names are owned by their respective owners

Annoying ad report

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The newspaper websites are putting barriers around articles and opinions pieces. The barrier is in the shape of a rectangle with a write up and pictures of happy customers who are using their services or products. The one who is unhappy is the person who is trying to figure out how to read the article. He is not going to jump into his car and buy the house or whatever the ad is offering; he has plenty of other things to do once he has finished with the newspaper website (all this applies to “she” too, please be accommodating, si vous plait, merci!).

In a person’s agenda of life, the ads play an insignificant role, unless he is in the market for a particular product or service he is going to regard the constantly popping ad as a hindrance. No matter how slick the ad is or how persuasive the copy, there is the factor of emergencies of life beckoning a person: everyone has something prioritized for the day. Anything else becomes superfluous. Given these circumstances the companies who give the ads to newspapers are wasting their money and the reader’s time.

I remember the ads that appeared on the television during a Sunday movie, people would take time off to check if the dinner they were preparing hadn’t burnt, went to the loo, gossiped with the neighbor who had popped in for the movie. Exchanged office gossip (this was applicable to those who were living in company township). I have rarely heard people discussing the product that was being advertised or paying attention to them.

The newspaper ads sometimes caught the eyes of the homemakers who persued the matter with their neighbors who told them about so and so who was using it and then they would have discussion over a cup of tea or coffee (this may have been the precursor to ‘chai pe charcha’). Usually it was the shopkeepers whom the people trusted, became their guides on product matters. In our home rare was the occasion when my parents became excited about an ad and bought the product.

Well that is how ads work, from among the millions of readers there would be say 3-5% who would get animated over a radio or new kind of soap, that was enough.

Pakistan Russia in defense ties

There was a time when the slogan was Hindi Russi bhai bahi (India, Russia are brothers). For defense hardware India would look to Soviet Union, Pakistan was closely aligned to the US for defense and economic cooperation. During the 1971 war Pakistan looked up to the US. The tables have turned. Now Russia is in Pakistan with their mechanized infantry unit for the first ever military exercise between the two countries. As India joins hands with the US, and intensifies its defense cooperation with that country, the alignments have seen a sea change.

“A contingent of Russian ground forces arrived in Pakistan for first ever Pak—Russian joint exercise from September 24 to October 10,” army spokesman Lt—Gen Asim Bajwa tweeted along with some photographs of the Russian and Pakistan troops.

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“The joint military drills are aimed at bolstering and building military cooperation between the two countries,” the statement said ahead of the opening ceremony on Saturday

THE HINDU

The objective of deepening military cooperation is a major departure from the past; Pakistan is coming to terms with a new ally and the world is witnessing changing patterns on the geo-political map, wherein China, Russia, Pakistan are defining a new world order. As India gets closer to the western powers, China, Pakistan’s old ally has remained a constant, now Pakistan is building bridges with Russia.

The south east Asian countries look to their old ally US as China flexes its muscle in the region. North Korea remains a threat to peace in south east Asia. North Korea sees China as its ally, although the former has angered China recently.

What final shape would emerge on the geo political map remains to be seen. These are times of rapid changes and nothing is cut and dried.

Beamed from radio station….a wealth of emotions

Ameen Sayani

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On the highway of frequency waves the tuning needle flitted from one station to the other…either you remembered the frequency on which your program was broadcast, or the position of the tuning “needle”, approximately, told you whether you were on the right place to hear your favorite program, then all that was left for you to do was to check the clock or your wrist watch.

Ceylon Radio broadcast Hindi film music…Ameen Sayani bacame a household name. The program known as Binaca Geetmala is remembered by the older generation most vividly. You can hear the programs on YouTube. The program has been lovingly preserved in crystal clarity. It was because All India Radio broadcast only classical music, which could be appreciated by only a few people, Ceylon Radio became popular.

If people wanted entertainment then they had to have a radio that was good enough to receive the broadcast from Radio Ceylon. To get the program was a chore, because the station could be found only after considerable fiddling of the tuning knob. Those days the radios were huge sets that occupied the pride of place. The older generation would need to displace the younger ones when they wanted to listen to the news.

Entertainment, otherwise, meant either going to the cinema or the theater. In the really old days before the advent of moving pictures the only way one could get some entertainment was by visiting the theater. The theater would advertise a stage play or a musical performance. But that was much before my time, perhaps even before my father’s time. Or the circus would visit the town where you lived.

Much depended on one’s own initiative…someone may have been a good singer and could entertain their audience of friends and family, or they could have been good at playing the piano. However, financial considerations forced the hands of the bureaucrats and commercial program began on All India Radio. It was during the prime listening time that a chatty voice would take away your attention from more immediate concerns. However, the die hard listeners of Radio Ceylon never gave up.

Ameen Sayani’s voice could be heard on All India Radio. He used to present film music based programs. His style of presentation and voice modulation was exactly like it was on Radio Ceylon. AFS Talyarkhan was a well known cricket commentator, he had a sponsored program whose name I could not find in Google and have forgotten it. Even people who had nothing to do with cricket would listen to his end of the day talk on the day’s play.It was in English but was hugely popular.

The cinema held sway over All India Radio, soundtrack of a movie used to be played on Sunday before DoorDarshan the government owned TV put an end to it by telecasting movies every Sunday.

India’s romance with the TV began in the early ’80’s when color telecast began as a result of Asian Games being hosted by India. For me who liked radio, TV was almost a nightmare, because you would be called to watch boring people do stupid things in front of the TV cameras under blazing light. It wasn’t all gloom or doom there were some very interesting programs too, but they were so few.

Now even BBC radio does not have the charm of those days when the famous signature tune told you that it was time for the BBC World Service News from London. The news would broadcast world events. My interest in global politics can be traced to this beginning. Reporters would present news stories from various locations around the globe! Whereas All India Radio read news that was vetted by India’s “Kremlin.” I wanted to be the person who sat at the 24 channel console ensuring that what was broadcast was heard on various radios in crystal fashion; but here I am a blogger who thinks he is a broadcasting guru.

If things could be set right…

I still don’t understand, why Japan had to be bombed with the most powerful bomb known to mankind. Was it in retaliation for the Pearl Harbor bombing? Was it in retaliation for the all crimes committed by the Japanese during the war? In that case shouldn’t America face reprisal for what it did in Vietnam, Lagos and Korea, in the name of stopping the spread of communism?

Americans have created the monster called Taliban and now the ISIS. Terrorism unleashed in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria etc has made normal life impossible in these countries. There hasn’t been any positive outcome from the Allied intervention in the middle east, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Should not the global cop be facing trial in the international court of justice!

Oh the Good Lord…!

The US government has adopted “In God We Trust” as the official motto since 1956. The great seal of the United States also carries these words. The Muslims say, Insha Allah, God Willing. The Hindus invoke the elephant deity Ganesh before beginning a venture. The Pakistan TV begins its news telecast with the words, “Bismillah Rehman-e-Rahim.” The Muslims and Americans in general abhor communism, which invokes the three deities: Marx, Engels and Stalin (at least they did when I was growing up) who are all inimical to religion.

Hinduism also believes in the trinity, Brahma, Vishnu Mahesh. However, in India invoking religion in matters of government is not done. India likes to present itself as a secular, Hindu majority nation. There are countries in the world that are theocratic states. India, God Willing is, thus far, not a state that invokes the majoritarian religion.

There are some people, in the US, who from such exalted “ramparts” as the Presidential primaries want to banish the Muslims from their land. Would their god forgive them if they banish people because of their faith? The Americans and French fought the British colonialists on the slogan of liberty, equality and fraternity. Nevertheless, in America slavery was abolished quite late, America got independence in 1776, slavery was officially abolished on January 31 1865. By the 13th Amendment to the US constitution. Slavery, however, could not be abolished from the minds of some people. Racism continues in the minds of many lighter colored humans in America.

Racism exists in India, where the darker skinned people from the African continent are treated like they are less than human. The people from the north-east of India are treated as if they are some aliens from another planet. Dalits are treated even worse. They are expected the clean the excrement of the upper castes.Oh where then is your God when you treat his creatures in such fashion.

To all those who invoke god, and treat His creation in such degrading fashion: when you speak of human rights abuse, are you able to look at yourselves in he mirror!

East is east and west is west, never the twain shall meet…! They did meet in a manner of speaking

The British tried to “civilize” the natives, eventually they had to beat a hasty retreat…no I am lying it did not work quite like that. The British laid the railways, strung telegraph wires around the sub-continent, and set up a postal system which according to some statistics is still one of the largest. They gave us a system of education which is maligned by one and all. However, this post is about the things like railways, telegraphs, etc. Some of those things were used by everyone till the advent of the last decade of 20th century. The telephones were also established by the British. All these things hastened the end of the empire, somewhere in the middle of the twentieth century.

To the railways of the time, it was vital that there was a means of communication that was faster than the postal service, the telegraph sent messages in Morse code, it was used by the station master to inform the next station if there was a problem on the line. The single line sections required the use of tokens…the locomotive driver holding the token had the right of way and any other train on the line had to wait on the siding, called passing loop. Then there was the track side telephone, if there was a problem on the  line drivers could inform the next station about it or some other designated authority.

How beautifully everything came together and worked together was an amazing feat of engineering excellence. Telecommunications working with railway systems for traffic management fault detection and communication to all those using the affected section. This kind of synergy helped to make possible not just train travel, but air travel as well. In the context of air travel, communication is the foundation on which the whole thing works…the pilots are in constant touch with the air traffic controllers. They are handed from one ATC to another as they pass the territories miles high in the sky.

The high speed trains of today which try to mimic air transport in speed and efficiency are a result of evolution in the field of communication. From the basic semaphore signals of yore to today’s state of the art signaling systems there has been a sea change in the use of technology. Now it is all digital electronics, computers computing at the speed of light and monitoring the location of various trains. Not just trains and airlines, even buses are now being monitored to provide efficient service to the commuters.

From simple wires strung over telegraph poles to state of the art communications that fetches data for the convenient use of the passenger on his smart phone, communications are in a state of continuous development. Twain shall meet, or have they already.

Just a thought

If only for a day our politicians would allow themselves to be garlanded with old, dirty shoes, and showered with rotten tomatoes it would make everyone think highly of them. The PM should inaugurate the event and be garlanded with rotten onions, rotten cauliflower; this would highlight the plight of the common man who is facing shortage of commodities like vegetables.

I have periodically brought out the fact that our leaders are cossetted to such an extent that they fume at the slightest inconvenience. The three letter abbreviation has come to mean Very Inconvenient Person (VIP). The public-VIP interaction takes place at such venues as conferences, inauguration, etc. Mantriji launches a diatribe against the opposition. They wax eloquent about how the people are upper most in their minds forgetting how much disruption their arrival created.

In this respect the organizers of the event are also at fault they forget the futility of calling a politician. I remember a news story in one of the national dailies about how a minister was invited to IIT Delhi, to inaugurate a conference on tribology. The minister launched a speech on how tribal people were important and what the government was doing for their welfare. Tribology is a study of friction, wear and design of bearings. The minister was not at fault as he was in-charge of tribal welfare.  The organizers may have thought it would be good prank…who knows!

In the aircraft the leaders show their true colors. There have innumerable incidents where drunken VIPs have indulged in indecent behavior with the cabin staff. If I was the captain of the airline I would require them to be put under restraint so that the passengers who have paid the fare have a peaceful journey. This is another thing, the mantriji does not think how poor we are as a nation and how much his trip is costing the people. he still demands the he be treated as a maharajah or better still like a Mughal emperor.

Imagine the plight of an elderly cart puller, struggling to take the load to its destination for a pittance and a mantriji making a useless trip at cost to the public exchequer. Most such journeys are futile and unnecessary. It is not just the mantrji but a whole paraphernalia that goes with him.

Social media and world

The social media, like Facebook and twitter have become sources of information…out there there is bad information and information from recognized sources. There is also information from people who sensationalize trivial occurrences and ask the users of Facebook to forward the same to as many people as they can. Graffiti steers clear of Facebook as a news source.

I have been a user of Facebook since 2009. However, my interest in it has waned, except for the fact that Graffiti has a page there and hopes to act as a small candle to guide people to good information. This page is a result of Facebook’s tools, and attracts readers who access Facebook.

Twitter on the other hand has spawned revolutions that overthrew regimes, from Egypt, Syria, Libya. In India twitter has become an alternative media…media houses, both electronic and print follow twitter. PMs and Presidents have their twitter handle, so also the tinsel stars who parade their intimate affairs. From Bollywood to Hollywood and other off springs of these two giants, we come to know what the Page 3 is doing by following the tweets. I do not.

There are other social sites that are not as popular as Facebook and twitter. Tumblr has the largest number of “Graffiti” readers. It is a very interesting site. Here I can discover old automobile ads, facts that are less known etc from good sources. It is very colorful indeed, quite unlike Facebook and twitter their is stress on aesthetics. One could say that one needs an anesthetic to browse the pages of Facebook, as the content creates patches of ugliness – it isn’t Facebook’s fault. Twitter on the other hand manages to disseminate reader content in a sober presentation. Despite the fact that over the years it has become a powerful media, it is not loud and proclaiming.

Gone are the days when twitter meant exchanges in whispers, and Facebook meant a family album or holiday album. Tape recorders were also used to record precious moments…a baby’s first words, etc. 8 mm and later 16 mm video recordings also charted someone’s life. Now it is all done on smartphones…at Villa Food court or some such with a picture of the food. Then there will admiring write ups known as comments, some people in a hurry click on “like,” and the number of likes would record the popularity of the person.

Something tells me that we would soon be going back to the world when there were no gadgets. It wasn’t primitive life by any account. The simple things are missing now, like the times when I liked ads.

 

 

Then and now

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Chai and samosa, pan and bidi, fish and chips, bacon and eggs – defined the contours of the empire. Post the empire, tea and biscuits were part of the social graces of Indian middle classes. The colonial breakfast tables were heavy with silver tea service…and the tea was either Assam, Darjeeling, Typhoo or Oolong. The empire would have been shaken to the foundations if any of those were missing.

The dark skinned servants were trained to be properly dressed in the correct livery. Officers post independence continued the practice of having servants in their official residences as civil service paraphernalia. The police officers of Superintendent, Inspector General ranks and above, also had sepoys working as servants. A number of trained policemen were deployed at the residences of the officers, the more there were the higher the rank of the officer.

This practice still continues. As Maja Daruwala has said in her column today (Indian Express, September 09 2016), public servants are deployed at the residences of the police officers. They are paid by the government to maintain law and order, but they maintain the official homes of the senior officers. They make use of the official vehicles for personal use.

Bharat sarkar or Indian government is in many ways a continuance of the empire. Yet the very same men and women would quickly point to the Raj for all that ails India.

All those things that make up life

In villages and in an urban slum, the men usually wear white, it is the women who add color to the community. Gathered near a water tap collecting water, laughing and teasing they can be spotted from far. It is more pronounced in the northern villages, as well as the villages in the western parts of India. The men wear white, dhoti and a shirt. The women on the other hand wear bright red, yellow or other colors.

The color of the sky is taboo for anyone in certain parts in the north of the country, I have heard customers at cloth merchant’s (the places I have been to are a source of bewilderment to me), saying it is taboo to wear blue that matches the sky. I have not been able to ascertain why. The doors of most house in rural and semi rural India are sky blue, so are the windows.

The other facet of life in the rural areas and also the semi rural areas is that clothes are bought on special occasions and they are worn till the next event takes place…people wear them to work, they wash their clothes at night and put them out to dry and then put them on again in the morning. Whereas the uber classes in urban areas wear clothes to define the time of the day…office, school, college, party etc the men in the villages don’t want to stand out and be a subject of comments and perhaps jibes about new clothes or change of clothes since the person was last seen during the day…in the villages every one is under some sort of “surveillance.”

Down south in Kerala, a well dressed man would become a subject of someone’s comment, he would perhaps be compared to a prince or some such person…or there would be inquiries whether that person was getting married, with derisive laughter accompanying the remark. I must confess that all my observations may be dated…India has changed in many respects. Consumerism has permeated the peri-urban, semi-rural, rural communities.

Oh that Oops moment again!

Dear Readers,

In “Bits from here and there,” the post cites The News Today saying that the Chinese authorities could not make up their mind about which ladder to allow for the President to disembark from Air Force One. However, cited post did not even mention this occurrence, the error is regretted.The New York Times shed light on the matter saying the incident hadn’t been reported correctly by the world media.

I wonder who to blame for the error…climate change? Balance of power? Or is it just me…let us settle for this one.

Take care.