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31 March 2005
Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour
Last night, Abhishek, Tejaswi and I were at the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour Pasadena stop. Every year during the first week of November, Banff plays host to a bevy of filmmakers/adventurers who showcase their films in the annual Banff Mountain Film Festival. This year, as many as 330 films from around 90-odd countries were entered into the competition. In addition to the film festival at Banff, there is also a "world tour" where some of these movies are taken on the road and shown in different places in North America and a few other countries. Thanks to the efforts of the Caltech Alpine Club and the local Patagonia store in Pasadena, the film festival has been making a regular stop in Caltech over the past few years. Initially, I was not too keen on attending the film festival since the idea of viewing a series of short films in one sitting did not appeal to me. I am glad I followed my dictum of overriding first impulses.The series opened with a breathtaking 13-minute film titled Psicobloc. It documents a very bizarre form of pure rock-climbing where climbers climb up angular faces of cliffs by the side of the sea but with no belay or rope. So, one misstep and off they go splashing into the sea having to start all over again like the spider in the cave in the tale of Robert the Bruce of Scotland. One scene where the lead climber must make a sharp upward lunge to grab hold of two small pockets drew gasps and wheezes from the audience when at the first attempt he had fingers crying out for purchase on one of the pockets while the rest of him was leaning over backwards to take the plunge into the waters. Of course, there was a huge round of cheering when he tried for a second time and dramatically grabbed onto the rock and did not let go. At that point I knew the wait to get one of the seven remaining tickets for the show and collecting by Ramo Auditorium a full 40 minutes before the show was scheduled to begin was worth it. Of course, had I known from the beginning what lie in store following Psicobloc I would have merely shrugged all through those 13 minutes.
The show continued after Psicobloc to a movie on mountain-biking which shone the spotlight on a group of veteran biking enthusiasts and filmmakers as the bikers careered and swung in and out of hiking trails and city sidewalks, using bridges, pine trees and bike rails as props for their dazzling array of stunts.
Note: *Spoilers*
This was followed by 51 minutes of magical, powerful and visceral self-discovery. Alone across Australia tells of the harrowing exploits of Jon Muir who trekked nearly 2500 kilometres from the South-Eastern coast of Australia upto Burketown in the North. Jon Muir dropped out of school early in order to realise his ambition of climbing Mt Everest. A brief look at his exploits will tell you that between his first successful ascent of Everest in 1988 and his 2001 odyssey, he seldom put his feet up to read the papers. In 2001, he alongwith his Jack Russell terrier Seraphine embarked on what ultimately ended up being a 128-day journey through the Aboriginal history of Australia, through its dingo country, through its vanishing salt lakes, through the rabbit-proof fence, through ghost-towns and abandoned cars, through the heaviest rainfall in 14 years and through hundreds of kilometres with water to drink from a quickly parching puddle of brown, slaked water. In his own words, his journey taught him to live as a simple creature, off the soil of his homeland and her wildly uneven bounty. Watching scene after scene after this great man and his great companion trudge with their sleigh of tent, sleeping bag, gun, stove and first-aid amongst other miscellany I witnessed that humbling, belittling goosepimple feeling of insignificance when I look above on a cloudless night full of stars. Slowly, as his reserves were being gnawed at by the flies buzzing by him and by the elements he had given himself to, we see him beginning to doubt himself and question his purpose in life. Those moments when these convictions rise high enough to sway his intellect into insanity and caprice but are quelled by his cockiness, belief in his destiny and his phenomenal persistence are sadly edited out but are sensed from his smiling visage and mirth. At one point, he breaks down completely and weeps uncontrollably at the loss of Seraphine who succumbs to the rigours and harsh impositions of their voyage. Was he then at his weakest and needed only the slightest of nudges to convince him of the futility of his mission? Did his 'enormous sense of responsibility to his companions' ring hollow to his ears? We never know, for as unnerving as his ambition is, his sense of right and wrong is even more brutally rugged and utilitarian. When Jon Muir finally made it to Burketown at the end of 128 days through 2500 kilometres of Australia's remote, less-travelled innards the whole length of which by his own admission was peopled by at most a hundred, he had lost a third of his body weight, he had travelled ignorant of two planes crashing into some tall buildings in America, had lost his gun while whacking a pig after having failed to kill it with a single bullet shot, and had suffered abrasions on his caving stomach from the churning of the leather-belt and the crusts of mud and rock that infiltrated onto his person. All this only to be accosted by Channel Nine and asked how it felt.The film show continued but could never retain the force and raw, gutting emotion of Alone Across Australia. Some of the subsequent films which not just paled but completely faded into nothingness would otherwise have been good productions in their own right. A documentary -- Ouray Ice -- on the Ouray Ice Climbing competition in Ouray, Colorado depicting the contrasting and contorting styles of ice and rock-climbing of two Europeans and the final piece -- At the Ends of the Earth -- a delectable cartoon short evocative of The Triplets of Belleville were the only savoury redeemers.
27 March 2005
The Nostalgic Eighties
It has become a pastime of ours to label and subdivide history. This is perhaps necessary because of our limited imagination and inability to think of events and people beyond one line that captures their essence. In the age of precis and epithets, there were the Roaring Twenties, the Fabulous Forties, the Swinging Sixties and the Naughty Nineties. They captured the cultural milieu of their time and worded the imagination of its people but they were at best wholesale generalisations -- lopsided in favour of men and women at the outer envelope of society who made the news and set its trends. A better sense of history is that of the personal kind. I was born at the turn of the decade, and that gives me special leave to sketch and shade the Eighties as I lived through it in India which I shall do so returning to the device of the one-word zeitgeist. These are brandnames, ad slogans, places, people, television serials, movies -- just about anything that defined the images I saw, the sounds I heard, the propaganda I was fed, the news that was censored from me, the maps we were taught, the religion I followed, the comics I read.Sharjah, Utterly Butterly Delicious -- Amul, Amol Palekar, Amritsar, Prudence, Reliance, Ved Lipak, Rubber/Lover, Palmolive da Jawaab Nahin, Bussesir and Hum Log, Buniyaad, Golden Temple, Natraj HB2 pencil, Doordarshan, Sutta Mutta, Munnota, Crazy Colonel, Bisilu Kudre, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, Mala-D, Hum Do Hamaare Do, Emami Natural Gold, Vicco Vajradanti, Aakaash Ganga Surya Chand Taara, All Indians are my brothers and sisters, Polio vaccine, Ek Chidiya Anek Chidiya Daana Chugne Baith Rahi Hai, Jammu & Kashmir, Khalistan, Cold War, Star Wars, Glasnost & Perestroika -- Openness and Restructuring, Gorbachev/Reagan, Congress (I), Curfew, Confinement, Pawara pataani (Power of Attorney), Galat Family (Galat Vehmi), Sholay, Amitabh Bachchan, Golu, Navaratri, Diwali, Hundred-walah, Atom bomb, Chacha Chowdhury & Sabu, Billoo, Champak, Richie Rich -- The poor little rich kid, Reggie Van Dough, Archie Andrews Betty & Veronica Jughead Jones Reggie Mantle Moose Mason Chuck Clayton, Hardy Boys, Hot Stuff/Stumbo...
25 March 2005
Two more inches
Southern California now has a deadline to meet. It is remarkable in itself that this winter has been the "wettest" in a hundred and fifteen years but what makes all the rain we have been treated to so far more worthwhile is that we are only about two inches shy of the "wettest winter" of 1883-84 since meteorological records started to be maintained in 1877. It is an interesting fact that the two wettest seasons in Southern California before this year were both within 6 years of each other and in the late nineteenth century. I wonder if this means that since 1890 there has been an irreversible trend towards drier conditions and if this is indeed the case what could have been the factors that led to it?* * * * *
BBC humour
The BBC reports that:Workers at a walnut processing plant in California ended their 13-year strike after ratifying a five-year contract, clearing the way for their return to work. "Nobody ever thought it would take this long," said Lucio Reyes, the union's secretary-treasurer.
Police in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh have been told to befriend stray dogs to aid their battle against Maoist rebels. The Andhra Pradesh police chief sent instructions calling on officers to share their food with strays and keep them in police stations during the day. The dogs would then be let out at night so that their barking could alert police to a rebel attack. He has also instructed his men to get in shape in an image-building exercise.Obviously, a slow news day.
* * * * *
Feels great to be back
As I write these lines in front of a silent television screen listening to a beautiful rendition of the timeless Mirza Ghalib ghazal "Dil Dhoondta Hai, Phir Wahi Fursat Ke Raat Din", Sehwag has hit 82 "chancy" runs in 102 deliveries; India has lost one wicket in its first innings reply to Pakistan's mammoth 570. Ever since Australia trounced India at home, cricket dropped off from the top of my watchlist to be replaced with American football. After having followed the agonising loss of NFL's very own James Stewart, Peyton Manning and his Indianapolis Colts to the mighty Patriots and then being in the airport at Philadelphia boarding a flight with only twenty-odd other passengers the day the Eagles played and lost to the Patriots in Superbowl, it feels great to be back home watching with bated breath, hoping against hope that Sehwag will chill his nerves and opt for gumption over his usual manic aggression, praying that Dravid will not fall prey to excessive caution and attempt to pad the ball while Bucknor in a fit of exasperation decides to raise his pointy finger of doom.13 March 2005
A day at the races
Last Sunday, Chaitanya ran the Los Angeles marathon in downtown Los Angeles. A couple of us chose to meet him at the finishing stage and to take him to lunch. At least 25,000 people started that morning with nearly 20,000 completing it finally. Amongst the many noteworthy ones were a group of high-school students, one of the sportscasters on ABC who was fit enough to run the marathon between 8.15am and 11.30am and host the sportscast in the afternoon, dozens of middle-aged men who were eagerly waited on by their wives, and of course Chaitanya. Unfortunately for us though, we could not get to watch at the finishing line and so only got to see his haggard figure coming past the green scaffoldings. There was a festive atmosphere around Los Angeles and it was perhaps the only time I could possibly have enjoyed being in the vicinity of the city. I was nonetheless quite impressed with the surrounding architecture and the many landmarks -- most notably the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Los Angeles Times building. Soon after the marathon finished, we headed over to El Paseo, a Mexican restaurant and amongst the oldest buildings in Los Angeles. Our waiter was blown away by Chaitanya's feat so much so that he made our case for a special discount to the manager in vain. We did however get treated to a second helping of dessert.11 March 2005
A hazy shade of spring
In what is now increasingly becoming an unusual year weather-wise, for the last few days Pasadena has been under a thick screen of fog at dawn and after dusk. While the cover of mist certainly does not compare with the fascination of snow on the mountain ramparts, walking through it brings back nostalgic memories of the early morning fog in Bangalore through which the milkman would walk his buffalo, the filthy-looking groggy newspaper delivery boy would do his rounds and three-and-a-half-feet tall six-year olds would walk with running noses, a kerchief stapled to their navy-blue sweaters and a ragged jute schoolbag on their backs.5 March 2005
Walter Mosley at Caltech
Walter Mosley delivered the Michelin Lecture at the Beckman Auditorium yesterday. He is a renowned writer of mystery novels and has invented many memorable characters, notably Easy Rawlins -- a unique fictional character in the history of American literature. Ezekiel Rawlins is -- almost by accident -- an African-American private investigator in a fictitious time in America when most private "eyes" were white Caucasians (Dick Tracy, Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe); he is embodied with all the desirable traits characteristic of his white counterparts -- he owns a house, is attractive and draws pretty women towards him.Mr. Mosley's talk began in proselytical tones as he ranted about the "crimes of capitalism" and racial discrimination but subsequently picked up pace. While he was slated to talk about the literary life he chose instead to lecture us on bearing witness -- his interpretation of himself as an African-American writer who wrote of his people and their tribulations. He exhorted us to "tell the truth at least once a day". From an awkward seemingly out of place opening wherein he spoke of having to opt out of his lunch engagement on Thursdays with a female acquaintance, he soon delved into his literary life -- how he enjoyed writing fiction more than he did non-fiction because there was no responsibility to "sway the reader" nor a commitment to influence his thinking in the former. His ordeals with his first publisher -- W W Norton -- centred on his use of the daring motif of Easy Rawlins. He dryly referred to the dialogue that ensued with his publisher:
"White men don't read about black heroes, black women love white men, and black men don't read". Moreover, as his publisher said to him, "there already was a black detective" (I wonder who that referred to). No matter that there were several "white detectives".
Mr. Mosley's contention was that since racial discrimination no longer had an identifiable face, as it were, it was difficult for people to fight it. As an example, he cited South Africa where Apartheid as a single word signified both the social stigma and a call to arms to help eliminate it but after Apartheid, South Africa continues to be plagued with a seething, latent disharmony. This theme of an underground racial tension in American culture even after the Civil Rights movement was also touched upon at the Eyes on the Prize screening sessions last month. After this brief sojourn into what was supposed to have been the pièce du jour, Mr. Mosley returned to the theme of bearing witness -- how does one bear witness and make a living? He called this an essential conundrum of our lives. He subsequently touched upon his foray into science fiction and nonfiction the latter of which was monetarily not very rewarding. An anecdote he related that formed the theme of one of his books was particularly amusing. A group of scientists from the United States had hit upon a toxin that would wipe out the entire "black race" but an eccentric genius into whose hands the formula falls, manages to reverse-engineer the formula and modify it so as to ensure the elimination of any "white" man who was not one-eighth of "black" descent. As a result, "white" men all over the world started to perish -- all, except the white Caucasians in America. Mr. Mosley called attention to his own mixed upbringing -- his father was African-American while his mother was Jewish and while he claimed that his Jewish family did not expressly consider themselves "white" they never wished to be treated otherwise. One of his many remarks that stayed with me was that one needs a history to bear witness to, and his was rich and full of pathos.Having pointed out his shortcomings as a speaker, and yet managing to hold us thoroughly enthralled for a good part of the hour, Walter Mosley took questions. Why had he moved to New York after having written almost all his books based on characters in Los Angeles? To this, his tart reply was that for all the charms that Los Angeles provided the one evil he could never live with was the driving, and in substantiation of this, he pointed out that from his home in New York both the hospital and the cemetery were within walking distance. As a testimony to how things have changed and how they continue to remain the same, Mr. Mosley mentioned that "there now is a Starbucks in Harlem. And it got robbed. Of course." The audience was a distinctly literate one with many of his admirers queuing up to ask him questions about Easy Rawlins and Socrates Fortlow. Had he ever faced "negative reviews" to Rawlins' character in light of his many seemingly unusually "white" traits? He pointed out that he got more grief from Fortlow's character than he did from Rawlins'. Fortlow was somebody who killed a man, raped his wife and killed her, went to prison, was discharged and was now seeking redemption. Many "white, male reporters" would often point to him that they thought they would never have forgiven Fortlow for what he did, and Mr. Mosley almost always had fun replying that "Fortlow doesn't care for what you think. He does what pleases him".
4 March 2005
Wet, wet, wet
With this week's rainfall, Southern California is now officially just 4 inches shy of having been through the wettest season in 120 years. While most around me are peeved and frustrated at Pasadena being the new Seattle, I for one am pleased no end to be part of history. Harish tells me that just a couple of years ago, Pasadena had 250 days of continuous sunshine and now this. Today was particularly distinctive because most weather sites forecast rain with a 30% probability but by afternoon, it was pouring down hard with increased chances of rainfall later on in the evening. Thunderstorms and "cyclonic conditions" are predicted for over the weekend but the sky had cleared up over the mountains by five in the evening with little spotlights of white light on the greyish green satin furls. It was almost as if the rains had decided to come down on a lark. Any other time and any other year, those clouds would have simply stared over us and passed on but today they let down.As a pleasant concomitant, the rains this year have brought on an early and extended spring. As the water table rises constantly underneath it, the well-manicured foliage around campus is flourishing luxuriously and this cheer is spread around Southern California.
27 February 2005
Memes in Indian politics
The just concluded assembly elections in Haryana, Bihar and Jharkhand offer interesting studies in the shape and current trends of Indian politics. Ever since the Babri Masjid demolition, the Bharatiya Janata Party has boxed itself into a corner -- namely the party of communal politics. Its open embracing of Hindutva 12 years ago was perhaps in strategic terms its single biggest misstep and no measure of regret or corrective actions will ever be enough to redeem it of that folly. Names and labels stick in politics as we have much too often found both in Indian as well as American politics. In the Hindi belt though, this black-and-white taxonomy of parties is raised to an entirely new level and this is made apparent at the conclusion of any election. For instance, in Bihar going by current results yet another hung assembly is in sight with the BJP and Janata Dal (U) winning a combined 94 seats, 28 seats shy of a simple majority in a legislature 243 seats strong. Laloo Prasad Yadav's Rashtriya Janata Dal won 66 seats, Congress 10 seats, the Communist parties just above 10 seats and the independents accounted for a small but significant portion of the remainder. Interestingly though, Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janashakti Party won 31 seats and is needless to say in a position to influence the formation of the next government. This is where it gets interesting.Mr. Paswan has in the past had serious issues with Mr. Yadav principally arising from their differing origins of caste, most recently with the latter being considered for the Railway ministry portfolio over the former. While his dislike for the RJD can be put down to this, his reluctance to enter into an alliance with BJP is more in keeping with the divide between "secular" and "communal" parties. While all concerned including the CPI-M, RJD and Congress have crowed aloud about the victory of "secular" forces over "communal" forces, the fact of the matter is that none is in any better shape than the BJD-JD(U) combine is to take the reins of government. The Left is trying to force Mr. Paswan to forget conveniently his personal animosity for Mr. Yadav and support his government but this is easier said than done -- perhaps ironically Mr. Paswan possibly may have no personal issues whatsoever in supporting BJP except that doing so would mean crossing the hardened "ideological" divide that he has gloated about in the past. It hardly needs mentioning though that there is no such thing as an ideology that is more hallow than being in power and it will be interesting to see when push comes to shove, which will survive -- the "communal"/"secular" meme or the casteist meme.
Finally though, this brings to the forefront once more the perils of coalition politics as it is now open season for fierce dealmaking and lobbying and while in the United States this would mean compromising on issues and principles, in Bihar it automatically translates to money and influence. Which of the two is a lesser evil is a question that shall continue to taunt us forever and on.
24 February 2005
The boy from Ballia
Newspapers and weblogs alike are abuzz with reports of the NASA hoax foisted by an ingenious family in Uttar Pradesh. The boy, Saurabh Singh claimed to have passed the International Scientist Discovery Examination organised by NASA. At first the story was played around on local media. Soon afterwards, papers nationwide picked it up and Saurabh Singh was a rock star overnight. A couple of days following the story, a Rediff reporter decided perhaps to glean more information about the examination itself and contacted NASA and found NASA denying the existence of such an examination. Of course, that was enough time for the packdogs at Indian Express and Times of India to churn out their publicity blitz about the boy. The Indian Express did it best with a blow-by-blow account of the boy's exploits. It starts off with a sneak preview:But Saurabh is still upset that he missed out on a world record. His result speaks for itself: Aeronautics-A++; Physical Chemistry-A++; Organic Chemistry-A++; Magnetism-A++. Then the horror. He scored a mere A+ for Electronics and he is furious with himself. (Emphasis added)and follows it up with a melodramatic opening:
It is a compelling tale that must, of course, begin with a brilliant boy, just five feet four inches tall, who is still working out physics formulae under the dim bulb and who thought nothing of studying 16 to 18 hours a day for months.By this time, the creative juices are in flow and the spin doctor begins to sound like Nirmal Shekhar when he writes about Federer (and wrote about Sampras) -- "the story is incomplete without his father... it cannot ignore a certain Reena Singh" who "herself made sure that she sharpened Saurabh's English language skills." Says she: "The children here are oozing with talent and just require some motivation". Yes sir, in Ballia. There is the pinch of authenticity and jingoistic appeal: "when NASA chief Sean O'Keefe asked Saurabh a question on English grammar, he gave the right answer - even though replied in Hindi and conveyed it through an interpreter. "The NASA chief applauded," says Saurabh". The icing on the cake though comes from the real facts, "Each member of the UP Legislative Council has now promised to donate a day's salary to help Saurabh. His own idol, President Kalam, has expressed a desire to meet him." Times of India was no worse, though less muted and more attuned to sticking to the facts they covered the story from the UP Legislative Assembly angle. The Assembly had decided to "honour" the boy during session -- something reserved only for the rarest occasion, with an immediate compensation of Rs. 300,000 announced and an additional Rs. 1000 coming from a Samajwadi Party leader.
Then, the bubble burst. Following the Rediff story, and to the credit of the Indian media, the downfall was equally spectacular. Rediff in particular was not to be outdone. Rather sadistically, they quoted anybody who spoke to them and wildly asserted to the authenticity of the examination. This brings back to the table the low and fallen standards of journalism in India. Granted that the incident was good fodder for local newspapers in and around Ballia to pipe, it defies comprehension how the system of checks and balances crumbles when it comes to the national media. But then again, with the sometimes notable exception of The Hindu most have given in to running cheap, tabloidal material and stories of gargantuan accomplishments like excelling in a NASA-conducted examination in rather trying circumstances like living in an unknown cranny in a state that is only marginally shy of its neighbour in the east when it comes to criminalised politics automatically get a thumbs up -- lay on all the hyperbole, forget all the fact-checking, serve it in dollops to the teeming crowds that fulfil their commitment to the country by gloating, congratulating and snubbing. And why not? For is it not in the same vein, that cricket in India also derives its existence -- in the delusional sense of achievement and nationalism of its many patrons? It makes perfect business sense then to pander to these as therein lies your market -- the anxious parents who will sign their wards up for yet more coaching classes as more mushroom under the International Scientist Discovery Examination umbrella, the unthinking twenty-somethings huddled in call centres who find an outlet to vent their spite at their employers and callers alike and no doubt the politicians who would have canvassed the boy's feat as a mirror of their own promises.
What needs to change is the lack of accountability. The absence of peer pressure and the absence of true competition as each newspaper magnate carves a geographical sector of its own where it dominates have instilled a sense of complacency in the Indian media. To eliminate this cavalier anything-goes attitude, I am now increasingly led to believe that it needs to be instilled with a dose of strong free-market principles -- clamp down on the monopolies, bring in more players (domestic or foreign) and impose stiff penalties on flagrant violations of a basic code of journalistic ethics.
23 February 2005
California Green
Presumably, the last of the "winterstorms" played out over the weekend. This time, there seemed to be more ferocity in the winds and intensity in the rains. But none of that would matter to the nascent little buds of green around the campus yawning into spring. The clouds after a busy weekend gather in large white furries around the hills, lying in wait for the next signal to empty their woes.18 February 2005
Old faces, new hats and a rant on the Indian left-wing
The last time Congress was the ruling party, I was sixteen years old -- unconcerned with and ignorant of Indian politics. I do not claim to be in any better shape now but the appointment of Girija Vyas as the new chairperson of the National Commission for Women did bring back memories of those days and is yet again a strong reminder of how important fealty is in politics. The same old faces are back again -- Pranab Mukherjee, Kamal Nath, Girija Vyas, Jagdish Tytler and Arjun Singh, some rebelled and fell from grace -- N D Tiwari while some rebelled and fell from the face of the earth -- Rajesh Pilot and Madhavrao Scindia.The one thing that is relatively new to Indian politics is the heft the left-wing carries with the government. It has supported governments from outside in the past but this is truly the first time I can recollect when it has weighed in so influentially from time to time to determine the course of actions the government takes, especially in regards to the economic reforms the government is keen on pushing. Leaving aside the politics of being outside the government so as not to be liable for its actions, and its claims that it is the government's "conscience-keeper" I am increasingly inclined to believe that the Left is using its newfound stronghold to experiment with its archaic, quack philosophies of socialism and Marxism that it claims foster equitable growth. To this end, the Left has been increasingly edgy and critical of policies of disinvestment and foreign direct investment into many sectors of the Indian economy. Take for instance its opposition to the original proposal to hike FDI in the telecom and civil aviation sectors, to disinvestment in 35 public sector units and to the scrapping of Press Note 18. Fortunately, the government has prevailed and has succeeded in raising the FDI cap to 49% in civil aviation and Press Note 18 was indeed scrapped.
There has been much soul searching about whether as a Nehruvian socialist state, India has failed in its goals or has succeeded albeit moderately. While proponents of either sides will continue to hash it out in the open for generations to come, within the context of an increasingly globalised economy and a rising prominence accorded to both India and China the role of continuing state involvement in industry has become moot. For instance, for all the former prestige and glory they have accorded the country Air India and Indian Airlines no longer are economically viable and continue to thrive only due to the benefices the government accords them. While it is understandable that the government must continue to maintain a presence in some of the essential sectors like oil exploration -- where it is doing admirably well, and perhaps insurance I fail to see how it can explain running airports or cleaning up the garbage. In fact, the recent decision to curtail independent courier companies from carrying minimum-weight packages seemingly to protect the monopoly the Indian Postal Services once had is a regressive step.
To the government's credit though, the recent policy to ensure minimum employment for the poor for hundred days is a promising start towards the manifesto proposal of equitable growth. However, who is to define "poor" and how does one demonstrate that? Questions like these will attack any scheme that is more politically motivated than it is economically viable.
13 February 2005
Some sundry happenings on in the past few weeks
A lot many things have happened in the few weeks I stayed away from these pages. To start with: it amazes me how much foresight must have gone into the design of a belt. I noticed for instance that the length between loops shortens the further away they are from the centre and until a few days ago this would have merited no attention had I not noticed that the belt I use never has a wagging tail. California released a quarter in honour of John Muir as part of the statehood quarter release which stands to generate $1.5 billion in profits for the U.S. Treasury which intrigues me because this is the first time I have heard of a governmental agency talking of profits. Students from Stanford stripped naked to raise funds for tsunami relief. They plan to sell calendars costing $10, only $5 of which go towards relief efforts and the remaining as Tejaswi surmised is probably going towards clothing the students. And while on subjects generally titillating in nature, the esteemed Court of Appeal for British Columbia reflected and weighed in on whether physical self-gratification in "an illuminated room before an uncovered window while unknowingly being observed by neighbours is an indecent act in a public place". A mysterious doodler doodled away on British prime minister Tony Blair's desk at the World Economic Summit and all of the British media eager to pounce on the beleaguered man had lots of egg on its face when it was found to their collective dismay that their choicest epithets of "not a natural leader" and "struggling to concentrate" should instead have been addressed to Bill Gates. The BBC of course sanctimoniously reported the entire thread of events making liberal use of the quotes.
Meanwhile, Blair's transatlantic counterpart having made his second inaugural address appeared exuberant and optimistic in the first press conference of his second term. In the transcript of the press conference, I could count at least 26 usages of various forms of the infinitive "to look forward to" in the 47-minute press conference. It is a fair assumption that at least a third of this time is spent in asking questions and in the U.S. president taking shots at his press entourage. So out of approximately 30 minutes of actual serious talk, there were 26 references to look forward to. Some were acutely funny:
I'm looking forward to the work ahead. And now I'm looking forward to answering some of your questions.
Dr. Rice and I look forward to moving forward.
And that's what you're seeing with Chairman Thomas. And I appreciate that. I'm looking forward to my visit with him this afternoon.
When I've talked with people, I feel like people are looking forward to working with us.
And I'm looking forward to working with as many members as we can. Condi Rice is a fine, fine public servant, greatly admired here in America, and greatly admired around the world. And she will make a great Secretary of State. And I'm looking forward to working with her.
31 January 2005
The lengthening day
It is an annual occurrence and yet it is truly one of the most miraculous sights I have beheld -- the gradual onset of spring. The skies begin to unlock their colour-chests and frolic in pastels of hazy purple and chocks of dulcet orange. The twilight moment stretches every advancing day into March and that extra few seconds of daylight afforded at the margin of the evening are quite easily the most liberating.* * * * *
The Wal-Mart experience
Last evening, after the regular meal at India Sweets and Spices, Tejaswi and I headed over to Wal-Mart -- Tejaswi to look for dishwasher cleaning fluid and I to look for bean bag chairs. Much as I cherished my reluctance to add furniture, a bean bag chair seemed to me as the only solution for an aching back as I lay on the floor with my laptop on me. The bean bag chairs over at Amazon seemed like the ones I was eyeing. After completing our purchase of the dishwasher fluid, we headed over to the Furniture section of the store and asked for bean bag chairs. They were stocked at the very top of the racks in cardboard cartons. They came in all sizes and shapes of footballs, basketballs and baseballs. A helpful Wal-Mart employee came over, positioned a ladder and fished out the first bean bag he could reach. It was the football flavour and it was rather comfortable and precisely what I imagined. Although a price of $18.77 was mentioned at the side, neither the Wal-Mart employee nor I had noticed it and so we headed over to one of the price-scan booths. That was when the Wal-Mart effect kicked in. To our pleasant surprise, the bean bag was marked down to a paltry $5. A huge mass of PVC pellets and styrofoam -- as the remarkable Wikipedia tells me -- modeled into the shape of a brown football and all it cost was $5. Now, it is quite possible this had nothing to do with Wal-Mart's retailing mojo but it is not for nothing that people like Rick Kuhlman should depend so heavily on Wal-Mart and its sister agencies when they need to start pinching pennies (I will not be too surprised to see a cheap paperback from Mr. Kuhlman in the near future stocked to the brim on Wal-Mart racks). Amidst great controversy, litigation, much trade union angst Wal-Mart continues to thrive, flourish, dictate conventional tastes and preferences and finally even influence corporate boardroom strategies. This has to be the ultimate triumph (vindication?) for free markets and consumerism. Tejaswi and I both walked away with bean bag chairs for $5.41-a-piece including tax, pleased as punch with our bargains.24 January 2005
The last on the Caltech Tsunami Relief Effort
With the conclusion of the dance concert this Sunday at the Beckman Auditorium, the Caltech Tsunami Relief Effort has concluded the fundraising half of its objective. Lahari, the classical Indian dance concert featured three Bharatnatyam performers and their schools -- Ramya Harishankar and the Arpana Dance Company, Ramaa and Swetha Bharadvaj and Viji Prakash and the Shakti Dance Company and was compered by Ramesh Srinivasan. The turnout was over four hundred.Personally, it was a very satisfying experience for me to be in the thick of it all. There will be a point somewhere down the road when I will want to look back at these past few weeks and though there are enough records strewn here and there that shall present as good a picture of it all as I can get, there is nothing like placing on print my own recollections. With that in mind, I intend to write a little note on how the last few weeks played out and this public memo shall be a constant reminder for me to get it done as quickly as possible.
* * * * *
The headlines, the same old headlines
With all the attention on Caltech Tsunami Relief Effort, there has been very little time to devote on other important happenings-on over the last couple of days. In a very chilly reference to a previous entry I had written on the Kumbakonam fire tragedy, there was a stampede at a religious pilgrimage in Maharashtra. Two yesteryear Hindi film stars died. A president renewed his oath of office. Another got sworn in amidst great fanfare and much angst in the past. I discovered the wonderful world of Wikipedia, Wikimedia and Wikiquote. The inbox feature in del.icio.us is back, and I am now a part-time del.icio.us evangelist. Technorati has cottoned on to "folksonomy" and now provides an invaluable resource for those who think of the Web in terms of tags. And, to end this post rather abruptly, either the media is misquoting Federer or Federer is hyping himself no end.16 January 2005
More on the Caltech Tsunami Relief Effort
The Caltech Tsunami Relief Effort has managed to raise $6079 as of 14 January from table events and collection sites set up around campus. The table events were held from Wednesdays through Fridays the last two weeks between 11am and 2pm. In addition, a special table event was held at the U.S. Geological Survey talk this Wednesday where $835 was raised in the three hours through the talk. There have been singular acts of generosity of all kinds -- Caltech president Dr David Baltimore responded touchingly to the disaster in a message to the entire community and donated $20,000 to American Red Cross on behalf of Caltech, a person donated $1000 at the table outside the Red Door Café to volunteers who were grumbling until then that they were not seeing any action, an Indian restaurant in Pasadena offered to include a flyer about the cultural event slated for 23 January as part of the check folder presented to all its customers, the Graphic Resources and Media Services division of Caltech printed out A3-size posters of the event free of charge, the group has received wide publicity within campus by way of the campus newsletters, the U.S. Geological Survey prominently featured the Caltech Tsunami Relief Effort as part of their talk (the Skeptics Society on the other hand, and perhaps quite in keeping with their beliefs or the lack thereof, did not wish to promote the cause as part of their talk in Caltech). The response to the call for volunteers has been nothing short of stellar with many lining up to offer their services and time in spite of the blustery winds and incessant rain all of last week.With only one more week to go before the final fundraising event, all focus is on publicising the event as widely as possible. Tickets ($20 adults, $10 students and children, $5 Caltech students) are on sale at the Ticket Office who can be reached at 626-395-4652 or 1-888-222-5832. In addition, efforts are on to set up a similar table event at JPL which has so far been oblivious to any of the group's ongoing activities.
7 January 2005
Caltech Tsunami Relief Effort
Over the past few days, many student groups at Caltech have come together and cobbled up an ad-hoc umbrella group called the Caltech Tsunami Relief Effort. This group comprises of members from the OASIS (Organization of Associated Students of the Indian Subcontinent), Caltech Y, ISP (International Student Programs), Health Education, Caltech Dems, Building Bridges, Caltech Christian Fellowship and Graphic Arts and Mailing Services. Over the week, three table events were held and the group managed to collect approximately $1900 in addition to distributing flyers and hosting posters/banners and increasing general visibility of the event around the Caltech campus. In addition, a few more table events are slated for the next couple of weeks. The group is co-ordinating with the US Geological Survey which is giving a talk on the tsunami and its aftermath the coming Wednesday. The effort will be capped by a cultural event at the Beckman Auditorium on the 23rd of January that will feature a number of dancers from South Asia.2 January 2005
The cost of life
Massive international relief operations in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Thailand are under way. With every passing day, the amount of private donations to charities and relief organisations focusing on the Asian tsunami disaster has been overwhelming. Some have remarked that the amount collected so far has already surpassed those collected in the aftermath of previous disasters. The previous record for the largest relief purse ever collected was during the Ethiopian famine in 1984 as the New York Times tells us and the current welling of generosity the world over will soon result in surpassing it. Countries too have been bidding in a competitive auction much as Colin Powell would like to deny it. The United States initially started with $15 million in response to the European Union's approximately $50 million and Australia's $28 million, then upped it marginally to $35 million, to which Democrat senator Patrick Leahy responded rather tartly that $35 million is what the United States spends every day before breakfast in Iraq, and finally raised the ante significantly to $350 million almost sure not to be surpassed in this final response to stinging criticism. However, Japan saw off the $350 million today and raised $500 million in return. As for corporate donations, Amazon did away with its elaborate and intrusive Welcome page and put up a simple appeal for donations to the American Red Cross with the guarantee that 100% of the donation would be channeled to Red Cross and 100% of that would go towards tsunami relief. Apple too abandoned its cutesy webpage and has instead posted a typically chic appeal and links to various prospective receiving organisations. Various other high-traffic sites like Yahoo and eBay filed away their tsunami relief contribution in harder-to-see places.Coverage on the tsunami disaster has continued to dominate the front pages of most media sources and remains a sticky headline on most online news sites and with George Bush declaring that the United States flag fly at high-mast through this week interest will sustain for at least till then. But soon afterwards, by the natural law of diminishing returns media coverage will reach saturation and start to wane and no doubt the donations will start to abate. Amazon will go back to its suggestions and recommendations and Apple to its iPods and iTunes. While in the first few days since its solicitation was put up Amazon collected nearly $10 million in the last two days that figure has edged up only by about $2 million. By no means does it make the sympathy expressed any less heartfelt but as the brown bodies from India and Indonesia start to recede into their own mainlands from the television screens of millions over the world, it is possible that their plight might be forgotten. While many now are of the opinion that the monetary response has been more than adequate I continue to believe that it is impossible to put a price tag on the thousands of futures lost and the millions of futures severely imperiled. It goes back to the same incredulity with which we may regard the Union Carbide settlement. The $475 million deal that the Indian government struck was merely an act of bargaining; a market equilibrium where both parties stayed satisfied. It was not and could not have been a satisfactory answer to the lost hopes of Bhopal.
While preliminary estimates for the reconstruction expenses put it at $14 billion there is nothing to account for the lost revenue in tourism -- one can safely assume that it will be years or decades before Phuket becomes the holidaying destination it was before last Sunday. How many of the surviving fishermen in Madras, Nagappattinam and Cuddalore will ever again ride their boats into the sea in anticipation of earning their morsels of grain? As their fears and destinies turn away from the sea and towards land, they must be apprehensive and skeptical of any chance of survival.
31 December 2004
An ode to Madras
We are into day five of the tsunami tragedy. What started as a phone call from my mother on Christmas evening about tremors in Madras has transcended into what many have called a glimpse of the Apocalypse.Even though I spent nine years in Bangalore and six years in Madras I have come to think of Madras as the town I truly come from. Of course, this label automatically sticks to any Tamil Brahmin irrespective of where he comes from in India. The "Madrasi" as our lot is referred to, sometimes pejoratively, in the northern parts of the country has been typecast in many a Hindi movie starting with Mehmood in Padosan whose guttural self-inflicted affectation of the accent was perhaps one of the most effective caricatures imitated over and over again in a thousand-odd movies since that necessitated a counterbalance South Indian sidekick to the North Indian male protagonist. This has been so deeply embedded in the psyche that people in the north have simply refused to accept anything contradictory.
In my own case, this projection has been harder to justify given my schooling in a bilingual English and Hindi medium school that was opaque to regional influences. Consequently I have come to brand myself as a mish-mash of a secular, largely forgiving Hindi culture, a dull and sombre Kannada environment and a religious though predominantly tolerant Tamil heritage. I have felt equally disadvantaged and relieved at times because of my peculiar upbringing. In the first few months in Madras nearly ten years ago, it was hard to accept that there was a place so close to Bangalore that had none of its aura and languid eloquence -- the foliage, the immaculately mown golf courts whose rotating sprinklers never failed to excite me in anticipation of water pirouetting out in helical symmetry and the rainwater that anointed large BDA granite slabs on the sidewalk and ran parallel to sloping roads skipping across pebbles and grass toupees. In their place, Madras had petulant auto-drivers, 37 degrees Celsius in March, no rain during the Monsoons, celebrity worship and a beach that was as infamous for its sand as it was dubious for its trysts with two-bit couples and nocturnal improprieties.
After nine formative years in relative idyll, Madras was merely a nuisance. School in Bangalore was minutes away by bicycle; in Madras we had to change two buses. It was humiliating enough that my brother was given conditional admission upon his performance in mathematics and Sanskrit in the fifth standard but in addition we had to suffer an authoritarian regime of polished shoes, belts that better not have skipped loops, neatly pressed uniforms and notoriously long prayer sessions that included transcendental meditation. The bank quarters in Kilpauk were obtrusively large neighbouring a hotel that partied hard every night. Nobody was on speaking terms with us, as everybody else in the apartment complex stayed in sequestered short-lease apartments and was either Gujarati or Marvadi. It resembled a frightening lunatic asylum and its proximity to the Institute of Mental Health at Kilpauk did not do it any good.
We shifted from Kilpauk into T. Nagar and that made all the difference. Even though it was a substantial climb-down from the Kilpauk quarters for us to live in a two-bedroom apartment with the occasional use of a third, we were amidst familiar strangers once again. It was in Raman street that my love affair with Madras began in right earnest. The neighbours were an elderly Iyengar couple with no children; the wife wore her saree a full three inches above her ankle and never subsided from gossip and the husband was an accommodating and reserved cricket fanatic. Owing to my academic compulsions, there was an embargo on cable television at our place and so it was at his house that we had to watch Tendulkar's historic double act in Sharjah. Those two days of unbridled exhilaration was enough for his wife to think of me as family. School was once again within bicycling distance though I had learnt enough of it to realise how big a travesty its disciplinarianism was and took the occasional Friday off to skip those long hours of pins and needles during meditation.
T. Nagar symbolised the middle-class Tamil Brahmin. There were large doses of Iyers and Iyengars littered throughout its many little alleyways in flats that were almost always called Kala Co-operative Society. There was a one-stop temple behind the busy Pondy Bazaar road that housed every imaginable deity that needed worshipping by the Iyers. For the Iyengars, there was the TTD temple on Venkatnarayana Road whose deity idol was an acceptable verisimile of the one in Tirumala and whose large hoarding of Tulasi leaves I never failed to raid upon my visits there. Pondy Bazaar was itself a dream destination for the bored housewives who would leave the confines of their scorching homes once their wards had been packed off in multi-colour uniforms into the seat-rims and front rows of diesel autorickshaws. Thyagaraya Road had the fancy hosieries that stocked labcoats and lingerie, Ambika Appalam Depot's branch office that charged ransom for its reputation, Balaji Bhavan whose meals were both sumptuous and affordable, Ratna Stores whose barefeet ruffian boys and salesmen in sky-blue shirts and khaki pants marauded passers-by into visiting them and purchasing from them. At the confluence of Usman road, Venkatnarayana road and Thyagaraya road were the sultans of T. Nagar's business establishment -- the silk stores, Nalli's, Kumaran's, Pothy's, Jeyachandran's and the jewellers -- Prince, Banu and Fatima. They were what drew hundreds and thousands of bargain-hunters, leery husbands, dazzled wives and bored children. Nalli's stores maintained an upmarket clientele of the rich and opulent whose drivers would park cars on intersections or have them jut out into main roads obstructing traffic and run roughshod over the pedestrians and those deprived of their temporary elevation in rank.
Then began my stint at the other fashionable part of Madras -- Besantnagar and Adyar. The 633 acres of untrammelled space in IIT in Adyar would rate as the best real estate anytime in the entire country. In the four years that I spent there, I learnt not only to love it but also to guard it fiercely. The real estate also came with a new set of acquaintances in college, a new set of role models in professors and senior students and new ideals to aspire to. I cherished my associations with my friends, learnt and imbibed from them, made sport of them and was made sport of. We harboured great and lofty aspirations, low and dirty yearnings, mean-spirited diatribes and fawning adulations. I went through course-corrections, political awakenings, nationalist invective, globalist self-advancement but ultimately sought comfort to stay in the pack. And then I was re-introduced to music. With the music came the company of its preachers and artisans and with that was sealed my permanent affection for Madras -- its glorious and unswerving conviction in its roots, its celebration of history and culture of the highest and purest form, its addiction to nobility, its patronage of the virtuous and the virtuosos and its reaffirmation of the true moorings of Indian society. I have no doubt that my beliefs in this regard are largely fashioned by my own fortunate cultivation of the right minds and the right men but I nonetheless owe it to the spirit of Madras itself for cultivating them in her turn.
I felt this nostalgic throwback was necessary in light of how Sunday's tragedy may have permanently altered Madras as a city. It is certainly true that Madras may have suffered minimally in terms of human lives lost when one were to look at the scale of this horrific disaster but it is also undeniable that those waves have somehow changed forever how Madras shall be looked upon. It is unfortunate that I no longer have to suffer the ignominy of claiming to hail from a city a few hundred miles east of Bangalore but can rather shamelessly boast of coming from a city that was devastated by the Asian tsunamis. This tribute is for those that love this city as dearly or more so than I do, for those who lived in it, played in its hot sands, romanced under the early moonlight with inverted paper cones of groundnuts and sundal instead of serenades and love-letters, for those who sought to breath its air when it was least besmirched by the fumes from Cooum in the wee hours of the morn, for those who perished for their intransigence of setting huts and shacks by the shores as they had no place else to go to and for those who shall continue to live bravely in the lurking shadows of its coastline.
28 December 2004
The call of the sea
We are in for a week of winterstorms in Pasadena. It has been raining nearly incessantly since yesterday. The system as our weathercocks on network television are wont to put it was widely anticipated and well advertised in all major newscasts, newspapers and news sites. Besides, it is here to stay for a full week.Somewhere else and a few days ago, there was another water dynamic in play. A couple odd hundred kilometres of earth dipped a little under an ocean. The system moved in to restore the balance and water moved from higher elevation to lower elevation. A simple inevitability from physics as that was enough to cost, at last count, 68000 lives.
The water came to the coast with calm, reflective and deliberate might. It journeyed 600 kilometres an hour to reach far lands that were wedded to the ocean. There was this unwritten alliance pact in observance: a line that both sides had agreed not to cross. On one side lay the water and on the other humanity that thrived on it. Granted that it was the unlikeliest of marriages but the water with all its insuperable might has always acted with restraint. But for that one hour on Sunday, the truce was broken. The sea with irrepressible power and oppression swallowed its meek, unsuspecting brides and spat them out. It mocked at our presumption and gullibility as it flicked boats off its salty breeches, laughed trains out of their destiny, filled through every open door and broke through every closed one. It gave in exaggeration what many sought in parts and took away their whole. The fisherman got his morning catch at the doorstep but lost his door, his boats, his need to fish and his meaning for life. The tourist got his share of the sun and the turquoise shimmer of shallow, glistening water but forever lost his pining to seek them. The mothers got pails of water to cook two meals but lost the children that would eat them. It was an uneasy and unequal transaction at best. And it was all over in minutes.
* * * * *
The tsunami brings news in its wake
For the past three days, I have spent the major portion of my time in thought and in voracious consumption of what little news comes my way of the tsunami disaster. It started out with patient explanations of what a tsunami really was for the benefit of those who lived fortuitously and those who lived in the death of others. The Times of India even paused to reflect on why the word was so familiar to us from before. But as the death toll kept rising meteorically such levity gave way to a state of shock and a sudden cognisance of its responsibilities as the bearer of bad news. Still, the Times of India and Rediff never shirked from indulging in a little sensationalism now and then which I think was condonable given that the need was to keep the spotlight of the world fixated on South Asia. There were tragic personal accounts which were all the more stirring for the emotion and trauma that they never failed to convey even though those narratives passed through filters of a reporter, his editor and the black and white symbols that muted the wailings, the sound of broken bangles, the smudging of vermillion, the banshee cries of a man beating his breasts by affixing periods, apostrophes and necessary punctuation. I read of chilling tales of balance-sheet arithmetic where the survivors stoically and dispassionately weighed the death of a son with the life of a daughter, the death of an aged mother with the life of a husband and the death of a brother with their own life.Within a day of the disaster, there were heartfelt outpourings of sympathy and fraternity that transcended national and regional borders. A ceasefire was announced in the Aceh province of Northern Indonesia, the LTTE agreed to cooperate with the Sri Lankan government while Pakistan issued a clarion call to all "rich countries" to do their utmost to help alleviate the suffering. In a disaster as sweeping as this that consumed as many as six countries in Asia alone, there was bound to be sensitive political manoeuvring. Without a doubt, within the region India is the dominant player and claimed the moral ascendancy by also being one of the stricken parties. To Sri Lanka, India showed especial munificence. Soon after the tsunamis abated five warships packed with food packages and other relief material were deployed to Sri Lanka. In addition, Indian warships combed its own ocean territory for bodies. So far, the Indian government has sanctioned approximately $24 million for relief operations in Sri Lanka. Operations in India alone are expected to cross $120 million easily. By and large, the central government has been very swift in responding to the broad exigencies of disaster relief although some inefficiencies are inevitable when it comes to actual ground zero execution. The friction between Jayalalitha's Tamil Nadu ADMK-run government and the central government of which the DMK is a part was nonetheless played out in the open with Dayanidhi Maran quick to defame the state government for inadequate efforts within a day of the disaster and Jayalalitha equally vindictive in ascribing ulterior motives to Karunanidhi's sudden sickness.
As usual however, the NGOs are perhaps going to play the most significant role in co-ordinating relief efforts and mobilising funds. As it has been throughout this year and the years past, the medium of weblogs which is being heralded as the Fourth Estate of the Fourth Estate came through spectacularly not just with stark depictions of scenes in Sri Lanka, Thailand, India and Indonesia but also with reinforcing much-needed global focus on the disaster, disseminating live updates on the long list of missing and the presumed-dead and directing all the sympathy into real contribution before it dissipated with time and distance. The photographs posted on these weblogs catalogue both the ferocity of the sea's siege as well as the ghastly aftermath in mind-numbing and dispiriting detail.
Within the American media, the online sources at least have completely switched off American post-Christmas paraphernalia and have given the relief efforts and the present conditions a lot of coverage. Amongst the mainstream US media, I found the Wall Street Journal's and the Washington Post's coverage particularly compelling. While the former had typically cynical and perverse thank-God-they-were-poor coverage laced with smart editorials, leading personal-item stories and science articles on the quake efforts, Washington Post's coverage was a little more, shall we say, compassionate and much more exhorting of Americans to respond. But nobody could possibly have trumped BBC's and the Hindu's coverage. The former was easily the richest source of news, most of it grim, and reactions while the latter being on-location eschewed fiction and fictionalisation and delivered news that was most purposeful.
Within the two hours that it took me to write this, the death toll rose from a shy above 65000 to a feared estimate of 100000. The damage is being estimated at close to $13 billion. There seems no better way to conclude than to hope that those who survived make it past this difficult passage of time and that those who died will have forgiven the folly of the sea.
22 December 2004
Persepolis
I finished reading in one stretch the delectable comicbook-autobiography of Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis. It tells in a very personable and affectionate voice the story of a young girl who grows up through the Revolution in Iran. The autobiography, as someone mentions in a review, is indeed a trendsetting piece as in a single swipe it is both a splendid work of illustration as well as a searing, unforgiving and yet proud look into Iran's history. I look forward to reading Persepolis 2.20 December 2004
Swades
Having burned my fingers long ago by watching Shahrukh Khan in Kal Ho Na Ho, I was wary of another Shahrukh Khan movie. Also, I was not excessively fond of Lagaan as others were and there was no special fascination to follow Gowariker's repertoire. What drew me to watching the movie however was the plot -- that of an Indian native living and working in the United States faced with the dilemma of staying back or returning to India. Since college, this has been a tricky hand-grenade lobbed at most of us rather nonchalantly and most often we have had to contend with giving non-committal responses.Swades very articulately captures this dilemma. It gives it broad perspective from both points of view although, and this should not be surprising, generally favouring the argument to return. Hey, the movie is Indian after all. A NASA scientist returns to India to look for and bring home to the United States his mother-like guardian. The guardian is now in a village tending to a strong and principled female protagonist who runs a school. The two sides of the argument now are effortlessly projected onto the male and female lead and a love story follows as an inevitable and rather nice concomitant. The movie does not, as others have done and as Lagaan itself did, pander to sentimentality although this is a minority opinion. Others have wondered why it needed to be so sanctimonious. This is understandable -- the movie as seen by a villager in India or someone who has lived all his life there can hardly be appreciated. It makes points and highlights circumstances that are only too well-acquainted with to that segment of the audience. It takes the idealistic high road and that can be a bit off-putting to those who come to a theatre to be regaled with conjurer's tricks and flights of fancy. It is as the cliché might go a thinking man's movie and people seldom come to the theatre ready to think.
But that is what is so appreciable about Swades. It does not degenerate into the morass of commercial viability. It makes its points very cogently and very persistently. The movie's highlights -- that of the scientist motivating the village to build a hydel power plant harnessing a little stream, his earnest efforts at trying to overcome still lingering caste differences and exhorting villagers to send more children to the school and his genuine and heartfelt commiseration with a weaver-turned-farmer who finds it increasingly hard to make ends meet to feed his family needing to overcome the social ostracisation for having changed professions -- are all based on the harsh realities of rural India. These points need to be made, these tales need to be publicised. This is what the ruling government is referring to as the need for an equitable and socially viable growth agenda. Particularly perceptive was the incident when the scientist confronts the village heads who speak contemptuously of the so-called decadence of American society and lack of values and heritage in the United States. The scientist rightly opines that it is a sham and a sorry state of affairs that we as a nation resort to a facade of cultural values and heritage in order to claim supremacy (of the moral kind at least) amongst nations. There were many such flashpoints where the movie reveals a very gentle Gandhian aura to it and that impressed me a lot. In the end though, one suspects that the scientist's decision to return to his fold was more generally based on purely personal reasons (that is what the movie gives us to understand) than on moral grounds.
The movie does have Shahrukh Khan giving a very understated, restrained performance as a pensive individual who is shaken and emotionally stirred by what he sees around him. It was clearly the best performance I have seen of his since Yes Boss. Gayatri Joshi's essay has been labelled competent by most movie reviews. That is perhaps shorthand for not bad for a newcomer. I could not agree more. Her facial expressions were spot-on but her dialogue delivery left a lot to be desired. The rest of the cast does a splendid job in propping up the two leads, in particular the actor who played the weaver-farmer.
Finally, the movie's colours are astounding especially in regard to the earthy village imagery. I have rarely seen such a brilliant composition of the blue sky, the brown soil and the lush green foliage. The music is an A-plus match and the background score is particularly a treat. This was easily one of the best Hindi movies I have ever seen.
17 December 2004
Just the blue sky above us
If I have written of the clouds that have clothed the mountains and the winds that have fanned the trees I must also write of the naked blue sky that hangs above us today with nary a fleck of mist to steal glances and nary an imp to meddle with its equanimity save for a ball of effulgent fire that radiates a cataclysm every passing second into the yonder. But the ball hides well behind the trees and the concrete towering above them, subdued and embedded in the impassive blue cheeks of an indifferent, empty and inclusive sky.14 December 2004
The Confederate capital
I returned from a delightful trip to Richmond, VA visiting my cousins. I had made it a point to start on a book concerning the American Civil War at about the same time I embarked on the trip and that made my Richmond experience all the richer. The book titled Reelecting Lincoln: The Battle for the 1864 Presidency is an intriguing look into the 1864 Lincoln re-election campaign. While I have not ploughed through much of the book I have read enough to observe of Lincoln as an astute and principled man fully meriting mention amongst the greatest to have lived. The Richmond trip also included a visit to Washington, D.C and perhaps it was because I had not seen its downtown yet but I thought it easily the most beautiful major city I have visited in the United States. I do have to grant that I have yet to see much of San Francisco which I have heard has often been described equally gratifyingly but what appealed to me about Washington, D.C was its rich historic charisma. We had parked our car in Potomac Park and had decided to walk through the points of interest in the city. Our first stop was at the Lincoln memorial -- a rather grand construction comprising of an imposing statue of the president looking beyond towards the Washington monument and further towards the Congress. The walls were engraved with the Gettysburg address and Lincoln's second inaugural speech both of which were very moving. I had read of the speech in the book as comprising of 271 words and finished in two minutes in sharp contrast to the two hour grand speech prepared and read out by distinguished orator Edward Everett who later remarked, rather perceptively and against the tide of heavy editorial criticisms, to Lincoln that he could not have captured the occasion better with his two-hour saga than how Lincoln had with his two-minute note modestly referred to as a few appropriate remarks.From the Lincoln memorial, away from the Reflecting Pool we headed on to stroll past the White House. There was a huge influx of "delegates" of neatly attired boys and girls as part of the National Young Leaders Conference that was staring at and walking past the White House at the same time. The lawns were neatly manicured and the fountains looked good. After the White House we went across the many letter streets over to the Holocaust museum going past the Treasury building, the Commerce building and the Agriculture building.
We were frisked at the entrance and I was even asked to drink some of the water I had taken with me by a large, imperious African-American woman. This was security not even practised at the airports but I realised its necessity once I went past the initial exhibits. Not being very fond of museums, I was skeptical as to what I was going to see at the museum. The permanent exhibits at the museum were chronologically organised into three levels starting from the third floor whose theme was the rise of Nazism. In it were an array of exhibits from a number of events that marked the rise of Nazism in a post-war barren Germany. Along with charting the rise of Hitler himself through the ranks of corporal to chancellor, the exhibits portrayed the fast deteriorating plight of the Jews and rising anti-Semitism. There were replicas of books that were burned during the Nazi ethnic cleansing, edicts and written proclamations of laws curbing their liberties and basic freedoms and passports with the necessary J insignia. One of those laws required Jews with names not "sounding Jewish enough" to maintain a middle name of Israel or Sara. There were relics of the one-day boycott of Jewish stores, the Kristallnacht and the uniform of a typical SA (Secret Service) soldier.
On the second level was an excruciatingly elaborate reconstruction of the methods of Jewish persecution that included shoes retrieved from concentration camps left behind from those that went into gas chambers and never returned, a complete assembly of a coach from one of the trains used to transport Jews and prisoners of war from various parts of Europe to concentration camps and collages of personal pictures and family photos retrieved from Jews who either had survived to tell their tale or had been persecuted in the Holocaust. Throughout the second level, there were tales told of the vast Jewish refugee crisis and how no nation was willing to step up their own immigration quotas to meet with the sudden inflow of refugees from the occupied parts of Europe. The first floor embodied the fall of Nazism, the liberation of mainland Europe by the Allied forces and the emancipation of what remained of the Jews in the concentration camps. The level had stories and biographies of many of the survivors and the brave civilian souls that risked their relative security to help rescue the Jews from going into concentration camps. One such entity was Raoul Wallenberg whose mysterious disappearance intrigued me. Mr. Wallenberg was a Swede and a representative of the War Refugees Board which was a commission set up by the United States in 1944 as an eventual acknowledgment of Hitler's intentions concerning the Jews. He was credited with having saved the lives of nearly 100,000 Jews and prisoners of war in Hungary by preparing Swedish fake passports and according them "diplomatic immunity" by constructing houses that he declared were part of Swedish territory. Soon after Hungary was liberated by Soviet troops however, Mr. Wallenberg went missing. It is believed that he was taken prisoner by the Soviet troops and ultimately died in Russia.
Something else that piqued my curiosity was how Sweden and Switzerland managed to maintain their neutrality through the war. Upon a little investigation, I found that Sweden's and Switzerland's policies of neutrality were differently ordained. There are varying views about the role and culpability of each in what transpired in Europe more than sixty years ago.
My first trip to D.C, and I hope there are many others, ended on that note. I do hope that on my next visit I get to see the National Archives and the Library of Congress. From one epic war, we moved to the centrestage of another. At Richmond, I had the splendid opportunity to visit the Hollywood Cemetery which has the (unique?) distinction of being the site of two presidential graves -- those of James Monroe and John Tyler and one Confederate presidential grave, that of Jefferson Davis. The cemetery is spectacularly situated atop a hillock overlooking the James river which looked rather grand with its steady currents flowing eastwards. All in all, it was a fascinating trip that also included treats from HBO, yet another viewing of Michael Madana Kama Rajan and finally an episode of Desperate Housewives that somewhat stole perspective from the museums and the cemeteries or perhaps lent it.
8 December 2004
US Foreign Policy: An enlightening speech
The bombastically appellated Caltech Great Decisions Foreign Policy Discussion group hosted Stanley J. Michalak, professor of government at the Franklin and Marshall College who delivered a very insightful speech on United States foreign policy. Prof. Michalak characterised the different classes and beliefs prevalent in the history of United States foreign policy. There are the liberal internationalists, comprising mainly of the Democrats like Bill Clinton, John Kerry etc. who swear by collective security and multilateralism. The problem with liberal internationalism is that of conflicts between justice and power -- take for instance the hypothetical scenario when China or North Korea indulged in an act of aggression. In such a case, it is impossible to launch an attack at either country keeping in mind the balance of power both countries have brought about by way of a nuclear deterrent. Similarly, there are problems related to conflicts between justice and costs. The liberal internationalists are however guided by some moral values and universal principles whereas the political realists comprising of George Kennan, Henry Kissinger, George H. W. Bush are more pragmatic of the situation and believe more in tact and diplomacy than in explicit theosophical preferences. They seek to avoid the crusading spirit (e.g. typifying the Muslim nations so blanketedly) and empathise with their enemy. Political realism suffers from the plight of being branded as unAmericanism. There are those who believe in intervention and pre-emption but are not averse to unilateral action. This includes George W. Bush, Richard Perle, John Bolton etc. There are also the neo-isolationists like Pat Buchanan and others who believe in no intervention at all. The flaws with this however pertain to increased nuclear proliferation and uncertainty in involving the United States back into the picture once it opts out.Prof. Michalak combined a thorough grasp of facts with his quick wit and without revealing his own preferences and favourite foreign policy philosophy regaled us all with his most enjoyable speech.
3 December 2004
Twenty years onwards after the Bhopal episode
Today marks the twentieth anniversary of the Bhopal/Union Carbide gas tragedy episode. On the night of 2 December, 1984 on account of some carelessness of one of the workers at Union Carbide, methyl iso-cyanate gas leaked and wreaked havoc on the city's residents. From that day onwards, Bhopal has always been associated to the world with the ghastly maladies and hazards attending mankind that are the undesirable concomitant of our aggressive avowal of the cause of industrial growth and economic development. The Union Carbide India Limited plant in Bhopal manufactured pesticide and was a joint venture between Union Carbide, a now-defunct American firm purchased by Dow Chemicals, and the Government of India. In the year 1984, when the License Raj was in its heyday such joint ventures were the order of the day. What this meant was that companies from outside India could establish joint ventures within the country so long as domestic firms owned a majority stake in the Indian holding. In UCIL's case, the Government of India was one of the domestic owners. To set up such ventures, all that was required was the right kind of connections and the right kind of money to appease all the middlemen in the massive bureaucratic jumble that began with purchasing land and capital equipment to registering the company to procuring cheap labour. Also, in the year 1984 -- though it has not significantly improved since -- standards on industrial equipment were lax and scarcely enforced. We were and continue to be a happy-go-lucky people who are scarcely aware of such trifling details as minimal safety guarantees or emergency routines as was also recently evidenced in the Kumbakonam fire episode. Our third-world nonchalance, averseness or perhaps apathy to the value of life with there being such a preternatural abundance of it amidst us and hard-nosed preference for self-advancement must have been godsends to UCIL and many other companies similarly engaged in India's past. Labour was cheap and illiterate, so there probably was no point in educating it of the heavy responsibility that lay in the hands of the workers who operated the valves and storage-tanks in the deep underground entrails of UCIL's corpus. The valves themselves were probably substandard and given to easy coercion by its gaseous constituents but then the company was blessed by the government and did not have to abide by the strict and severe regulations it would have faced elsewhere in Europe or the United States when it came to purchasing equipment and ensuring proper safeguards.Some may think and have consistently argued so that the tragedy in Bhopal was a result of blind capitalism on Union Carbide's part. The government however, being an agent and instrument of the people's power, has rarely been reprimanded for having allowed this to pass. The fault does not lie entirely in what transpired on that fateful day on the 2nd of December in 1984; it goes back a long way. It is rooted in our insensitivity, in our corrupt living, in our reconciliation with having to be ruled and administered by mediocrity. It does not behove us to be apportioning all the blame with Union Carbide unless we consider introspection into how and whether Bhopal really changed anything in India. Sure, there have been no major industrial tragedies on the scale of Bhopal's in the twenty years to date but our callousness can hardly be claimed to have died. Once again, I look to Kumbakonam to make my case but there have been incidents much more severe, much more damning -- take for instance the by-now regular stampedes at the Kumbh Melas, hooch tragedies, building collapses, fire accidents in cinema-halls, railway accidents. Ultimately, while it is all well and good to take offence when we are called Third World unless we seek to rescue ourselves from the rut of contempt for life and a parochial world-view that the so-called First World thinks we are inured to, we hardly deserve a better epithet.
But let us stay a while longer on the Bhopal episode. What happened in the years that have passed? Union Carbide folded up and was purchased by Dow Chemicals. India took Union Carbide to court and won damages worth $475 million which were deposited by Dow Chemicals as part of its having acquired Union Carbide's liability. Dow subsequently promptly averred that they took no further responsibility for the episode. Let us set aside the question of how the monetary damage was estimated -- it is an unfathomable conundrum to estimate the loss to property and life over a period of twenty years and surely the foreseeable future on account of the incompetence of a few in 1984. What begs asking is if there is any point in trying to hold Dow Chemicals accountable for further compensation once the monetary damages have already been settled? Surely, the argument cannot have any ethical underpinnings for that is going to be hard to demonstrate in a court of law and even if it did one can hardly expect a publicly-owned company to act in deference to the moral inclinations of a few. It is my belief that once the damages had been settled on, Dow was not required to owe up to any wrongdoing (and that too merely for acquiring a company that sinned in the past). The second issue which is hardly of any consequence but is being pursued upon only perhaps to bring psychological succour to those that continue to suffer is that of India pursuing the extradition of Warren Anderson, Union Carbide's CEO at the time of the disaster and unfortunately for the government, a United States citizen.
The twentieth anniversary of the Bhopal gas tragedy is not one to be spent in futile clamouring for a fair ear -- even though that is perhaps the sole profession of and spotlight opportunity for a few rabid "social activists"; it ought to be spent in contemplating how best to correct our moral compasses and to reinstil in ourselves some regard for our fellow being while he still lives. It is futile to rail against the spread of globalisation and industrialisation -- we must instead be more pragmatic and focus on how to cope and curb industry where there is real conflict of interest with issues that we hold dearer. I guess with that, I have used up my ration of moralising for this year.
