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Came across this poem in a novel by Alan Titchmarsh and I simply cannot resist quoting this in my post. I will not be cremated but I do want loved ones to remember these lines while remembering me at my funeral. Here goes…
‘Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry:
I am not there. I did not die.’

HOW THE AUTHORS OF 'OPAL MEHTA'-S GET FAMOUS, GET INFAMOUS AND GET OSTRACISED FOR LIFE

Wining and dining at S.D.’s was the fun stuff that it always is—a lot of good food with alchohol and conversation, both of which just ceased to flow. Darby and I met A.di for the first time and I have to say this. I have never seen anyone wear such a crisp white shirt before. I would even a few days ago take pride in mine but I abdicate the throne. Moving away from such frivolous sartorial details, let me type my impression of A.di, someone I’d love to be in touch with. She is one vocal, feisty and fun woman. She is an ex-colleague of S.D.’s and we had already heard so many good things about her. S.D. had told us in detail the effort and vigour that A.di would put in everything she did at the hell-hole of a university they both taught in. But she just ‘had to’ leave the place the moment she had the opportunity for it seems she couldn’t have survived there. And I don’t blame her. One might ask “why not stay there and fight the system?” but the survivors there who make any sense confess that with the ‘crab mentality’ abounding there, no decent or honest work gets done. And that has been the case for over 15 years. A.di now stays in New Zealand with her husband and son. She has successfully completed a creative writing course, one of the best in that country and plans to devote herself to full-time writing. She seems to be indebted to her former workplace for two reasons—1)one because it has taught her that good people are the same all over the world and bad people are the same all over the world, too, and 2) had it not been for her terrifying work experience there, she wouldn’t have discovered the writer in her. Incidentally, it has left such an indelible impression on her creative mind that her dissertation is an impish campus novel. She is currently working on getting her work published in India and I hope she tastes success.

Our free flowing discussion that day covered as diverse topics as the current absurd questioning by Heathrow Airport officials of Indians they presumably think might tell them something about the Mumbai terror attacks(guffaw!), the increasingly democratic tendency seen in the selection of Rhodes Scholars in the recent years, a Jewish friend of A.D.’s who is a devout believer and a homosexual simultaneously, how he tries reconciling these contraries in his life, and plagiarism. I learned a couple of things. Supposedly, Indians and Koreans are the most notorious when it comes to plagiarising. I am not surprised that Indians make it somewhere to the top of that list because poor us! We do not even understand the concept of plagisrising and how serious its implications can be, precisely because a majority of us go through the entire grind of education in our country (even higher education) through the tried and tested method of ‘rote and mug’. Koreans, I was informed, apparently take the cake. Whereas tutorials in India often ensure that the same material is produced by all their beneficiaries in examinations, where even university professors are guilty of writing lectures where they ‘harmlessly’ lift from other sources, in Korea, the best essay adjudged by a teacher in a language class is copied by all the students as per the instructions of the teacher!!! This, my friends, is the norm there. I don’t know which is worse. And then we talk about brain drain and how the best are leaving India for greener pastures. Have we ever pondered over the fact that may be not all, but so many leave their own homeland because their efforts are wasted in the by lanes of redtapism and because their best work goes unappreciated in their own land? People are too busy celebrating mediocrity and accepting lack of originality time and again in almost all spheres of life to bother about the ones we lose to foreign shores.Brain drain is happening every day all around us in our country—in our homes, in seats of learning, at workplaces, in election booths. And I call it brain drain because I find all around me a culture that ingrains in its followers a tendency not to question, a perverse desire to nip doubts in their buds without letting them grow, without quashing them with reason and convincing logic. I feel responsible as a teacher to ask my students to think, to analyse, to question and not accept anything or anyone at face value. And if I have failed in fulfilling this moral duty, I have failed to do my job.
P.S. I must make one point clear about this post. I do not think at all that Kaavya Vishwanathan was oblivious to the fact that hers was a case of blatant plagiarism. What I was referring to is academic plagiarism in classroom notes and answers found in tests. Students in India find framing answers by lifting passages from critics a completely innocuous exercise.

Darby has ruined any hope that I had left of a cozy luncheon this Tuesday with two rather erudite Professors of Philosophy who seem to inhabit two opposite poles, and a famous Italian novelist. What would have been really interesting is that the novelist happens to be a high school teacher. It seems Darby's chronic tummy troubles need to be addressed and resolved first. However, I have something else to look forward to - a rather interesting wining-and-dining experience at S.D.'s tomorrow evening. We will also have the pleasure of meeting an ex-colleague of S.D.'s who, as trusted sources inform me, has something in common with me. We both cherish teasing S.D. Can't wait for sunset tomorrow.
Spent yesterday morning watching 'Savage Grace' and spent the afternoon wondering what is it that attracts me to troubled, dysfunctional characters. I still have no clue, but will come up shortly with a personal review of the film.

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Somehow I feel so proud to be an average Indian today. I learned a little while ago that Major Unnikrishnan's father refused to let the Kerala Chief Minister inside his house. And yesterday, Karkare's wife refused Narendra Modi's offer of a crore. The average Indian needs to stand up for his/her dignity as a human being, even if that means merely humiliating the representatives they had chosen to electoral power and who have repeatedly failed them.

CITIZENSPEAK

I feel sorry for the Congress pre-elections. I feel sorry for Ratan Tata post-Nandigram-Singur. 2008 has been unkind to them. But, though down, they are not quite out.

What about the 183 who have died? What about their families? What about the hundreds of others who will recover from their injuries but suffer from the trauma for the rest of their lives? What about the millions in a nation who will feel helplessness and fear every time they step out of their homes or lock their doors at night? What about our security forces that will have to expend time, effort and money to replace the 14 who have laid down their lives in the line of duty? What about them? What about you and me—the Bihari, the Mumbaikar, the Bangalorean, the Delhite—who waited 60 long hours for a nightmare to end and who are living with a lurking fear that it may begin again any day?

You and me—we are no intelligence experts, we are no ministers deciding on the defence budget. We are merely India’s citizens who can speak up and demand our right to feel empowered. I want to feel empowered with the knowledge that my India gives me the right to be safe in any place of the country, with the knowledge that I can have Muslim friends visiting my home without being suspected, with the knowledge that no Chief Minister will offer my family a measly crore for the loss of a dear one, with the knowledge that 25 misguided, crazed young men at a time will never again make life come to a standstill.

I do not know for sure where that power will come from. I may sound naïve when I say that I have a nebulous hope that the power might just come from you and me…from our shedding our deceiving belief that it cannot happen to us, from our shedding our apathy to take the time to look around, stay alert and reach out to all who may need us to stand by them, from our decision never, just never to let go.

Sanjana Kapoor was right when she said that this is not a war for in a war you know who you are up against. Here we are in the dark, groping for answers that will hardly help. It just might be impossible to win this battle but we need to pledge our solidarity against these forces of the dark. The sad truth is that, after all, it is a reality we will have to learn to grapple with. It is a matter of our survival—yours, mine and every Indian’s.

BLOWIN' IN THE WIND

It has been impossible to watch television in the last two days and not wonder what is real and what virtual. For it is playing out like a video game in Mumbai, even as we try and fail to really comprehend the enormity of it all.

Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesen't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Yes, and how many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, and how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, and how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

SEPULCHRAL

As terror rips apart Mumbai, I cannot help but recall a scene from the movie ‘Match Point’ where a murdered woman returns to haunt the murderer, asking him why she had to be killed when the target was someone else. The accused nonchalantly says something to the effect that when the cause is important, innocent bystanders are killed as history has shown us so many times. Innocent bystanders—Mumbaikars—no longer need to show their resilience. It is time not to move on but to fight back. Don’t be resilient. Break down to become whole again. Even as I say this, my words ring hollow. Only when our own suffer, do we realize what it means to be innocent bystanders. I feel anger and helplessness, and yet hopeful as I recall Shelley:

PROMETHEUS UNBOUND(Act IV)
Demogorgon:
This the day, which down the void abysm
At the Earth-born’s spell yawns for heaven’s despotism,
And conquest is dragged captive through the deep;
Love, from its awful throne of patient power
In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour
Of dread endurance, from the slippery steep,
And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs
And folds over the world its healing wings
Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance,
These are the seals of that most firm assurance
Which bars the pit over Destruction’s strength;
And if with infirm hand, Eternity,
Mother of many acts and hours, should free
The serpent that would clasp her with his length,
These are the spells by which to reassume
An empire o’er the disentangled doom.
To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan! Is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory!

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun
Is moving in slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

-W.B.Yeats

I hope everyone goes to sleep safe tonight and wakes up to a safer morning.

Could not get a ticket to the Jethro Tull-Anoushka Shankar concert to be held at Science City tomorrow.
God's surely in Heaven, coz he wasn't here- helping me.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING SEXY

Let me begin by saying that I am not apologetic about the title of this post. It might sound a trifle decadent, but read on. This post comes after some newspaper reading and televiewing this November. I am referring to an article in ‘Grazia’, two articles in ‘The Telegraph’ supplementaries and last Sunday’s ‘Ghosh and Co.’ on Star Jalshaa. All of them have compelled me to embark on this agenda — to speak up for women who are more than a sum of the trite and stereotypical notions that men have of them. And why the need for such an agenda? Nothing more than to put up a small albeit desperately required fight against popular ideas that are basically a lot of hogwash.

I have nothing against the articles or the television programme in question because finally all of them have raised pertinent questions. Well, no more beating about the bush.

The October issue of ‘Grazia’ informed me about something I have observed for quite some time now. Men do not ‘fancy’ funny women. According to the results of a research led by Dr. Rod Martin, a psychologist at the University of Western Ontario, along with several academics from the University of Massachusetts and McMaster University, Ontario, while men like the odd joke coming from a woman, the do not ‘fancy’ women who are proficient at tickling their ribs (literal meaning to be ignored). They’d rather that the women they date or wed form an adoring audience when the men choose to be humorous. But women delivering clever witticisms and impromptu punch lines are a big no. Men think of comedy as a male prerogative. So, while there are stand-up comediennes who are quite popular, they are often perceived as ‘mannish’ and therefore, not sexually desirable. The research revealed that some men even perceive such women to be lesbians. Ellen DeGeneres has conclusively solved the problem for herself (of course, assuming that she faced any) by being an out-of-the-closet lesbian. I wonder whether, in turn, her being gay and in the media glare have not aided such perceptions to take root in the minds of many. And I cannot help but feel sorry for all those comediennes who are funny and straight. If finding Mr. Right is anywhere on their to-do list, they could be rueing the day they chose their profession.

Speaking of lesbians leads me to refer to an article in yesterday’s ‘The Telegraph’(7 Days). Supposedly mainstream Hindi cinema has finally had the guts to portray a gay relationship—in ‘Dostana’. Let us not forget that it is a sham one portrayed by two ‘macho’ men from filmdom who are confirmed heterosexuals in real life. Good for them. Precisely because, therefore, I do not see brickbats flying towards them from our moral and cultural police. However, while gay relationships could be gaining acceptance on the big screen in India, portrayal of women in same-sex relationships in mainstram Hindi films have more to do with sleaze and titillation than with reality. ‘Girlfriend’ and ‘Men Not Allowed’ are case in points and ‘Fire’, released in 1998, had to die an untimely death after protests from anti-gay activists. Lesson to be learnt—a majority of the women in India are still sexually oppressed and so, doubly marginalized lesbians cannot suddenly find their place under the sun. Can they? They are at best—not to be spoken of, and at worst—hussies.

What about men who are androgynous, who flutter eyelids and move their hands in the air while talking as only women are expected to do? They are the butts of incessant ridicule and objects of ‘tamasha’—all stemming from years of social conditioning and a deep-seated belief that boys just don’t cry. And hence Rituparno Ghosh’s OTT lashing out at the mimic in radio jockey Mir. A learned colleague I have is given the same treatment behind his back by his own co-workers. No wonder he refuses to share the same lounge with them. A point to be noted is that when it comes to tomboyish girls and ‘mannish’ women, they are not so much the objects of laughter as they are women who need to be taught to get in touch with their feminine side in order to become more acceptable and thus sexually desirable to men. Real life abounds with many such cases and so can literature or reel life be far behind? Think Aparna Sen’s character in Ray’s ‘Shamaapti’(adapted from Tagore), think Konkona Sen Sharma’s character in ‘Aaja Nachle’, think Amrita Arora’s character in ‘Main Hoon Na’(way more recent examples)—all reminiscent of girl novels of yore that harped on the importance of femininity in women as a means to their success in domestic and social life.It is still about pandering to men and their idea of the ideal wife, mother and whore. And yet we say, the times…they are a changing!

Finally, coming to the article that was published in ‘The Telegraph’(T2) sometime early this month, I realize that the idea it had tried to put forth reflects India today and the way the country has reawakened to sex. The article was about how impressionable children and adolescents in India, because of easy access to television programmes like ‘Splitsvilla’ and ‘The Big Boss’ with quite an undeniable amount of sexual content in them, are no longer children in the true sense. I could not have agreed more. My experience as a teacher reinforces this view day in and day out. I do not just deal with raging hormones, I deal with youngsters, especially girls, who have not yet learned to quell a spasm of nerves before an insignificant class assessment and yet who won’t bat an eyelid before unbuttoning a button or two in class or on their way to tuitions to grab the attention of older boys because, if you are not sexually attractive and wily from twelve or thirteen, you are very likely to grow up into undesirable ‘behenjis’ and then wouldn’t life become quite meaningless?

In the day and age where youth and physical beauty are celebrated more than merit and intellect, where the Priyanka Chopras and Lindsay Lohans are regarded as role models for girls rather than the Marie Curies and Margaret Thatchers, girls in a largely patriarchal world learn at quite a tender age the importance of being sexy.

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Recently overheard during lunchtime at an academic seminar:
Getting a PhD these days is like wearing a pair of trousers. If you don’t wear/get one, you are noticed and if you wear/get one, you are not.

A FEW OF MY FAVOURITES

I have been alone for more than half the week and I did not for once feel lonely. I made every use of the opportunity—reconnecting with a few of my favourites.

Playing some cherished music early in the morning and believing that the day ahead will be great.

Buying flowers for myself, arranging them all over the house and leaving one carnation on a window sill for the mottled sunshine to play with.

Rearranging books in my study and feeling the years gone by wash over me…all over again.

Reading fiction and obstinately imagining that in each case I am the one the authors chose to write about.

While reading, laughing, smirking, snorting, sobbing, crying—whatever the occasion demanded—all of it (un)selfconsciously.

Going out each day for that much-needed walk, wrapping a stole around myself, enjoying the ever-so-slight nip in the evening air and congratulating myself on a hard day’s work done well.

Lighting scented candles and in the flickering light dreaming of opening a children’s bookstore someday.

Thanking God and Bocelli’s genes for his magical voice.

Waiting every evening for a certain phone call from someone far away.

Burning incense, contemplating, giving free rein to inchoate ideas and letting them flourish.

Catching up on eight hours of sleep every night and while feeling cosy, tucked up in bed, looking forward to all my tomorrows.

Reading myself some more to sleep.

Basically, ‘living each day from the crack of dawn until I closed my eyes’. (James Patterson)

Discovered two things today. Watching the gritty, gut-wrenching ‘Requiem for a Dream’ (Aronofsky) is an emotionally draining way to begin a weekend. After a hectic overnighter, listening to Paco De Lucia, Al Di Meola and John McLaughlin is a divine way to begin a morning. Here’s to getting wiser!

THE OLD FAMILIAR FACES

Don’t be deceived into imagining that this post has anything to do with Charles Lamb’s poem of the same name or with nostalgia as such. In fact, I do not intend to romanticize the ‘characters’ I met on 10th November—members of the audience at the Second Nobel Laureates’ Lecture, delivered by the South African writer Nadine Gordimer at Town Hall. The event was organised by the Union Ministry for External Affairs (scope for enough entertainment there—what with Pranab Mukherjee’s done-to-death English accent). Gordimer was to deliver a talk on Witness Literature—‘Witness: The Inward Journey’.

I will not dwell on the lecture, because that is not my intention in the first place and because Gordimer’s lecture was thought-provoking only in the lamest way possible, if at all. It did not move or provoke a thought in me and I will type the reason soon enough. It was not even insightful. She spoke on the social responsibility of the writer and although relevant, it was hackneyed to my ears (YAWN!). Three years of preparing for the dreaded ‘essay’ at the undergrads (English) will do that to anyone. From Czeslaw Milosz to Sartre and Heidegger, she mentioned all kinds of writers and philosophers but the lecture was not, I am sorry to say, Nobel Laureate material.

Having said this, I have to concede that public lectures are not designed to be too cerebral or obscure and why should they be? They are meant for even the average man and not just hard-nosed, armchair intellectuals. In this case, a lecture by a nobel laureate did ensure the presence of the usual bespectacled academics, students, bureaucrats and the ‘halo-ed’, enthusiastic, ‘aantel’ Calcuttans, those self-imposed and self-appointed denizens of ‘Intelligentsia’ who always manage to gatecrash at all such public lectures and gatherings.

In fact, they do a good job of hopping from such lectures and seminars to film and theatre festivals. Their happy hunting grounds include The Academy of Fine Arts, Nandan, Rabindra Sadan and the Kolkata Book Fair. (I am sure there are other such hallowed grounds that I cannot think of at this point.). They are vocal—nay, vociferous. God help us! Give them a microphone and they will be heard. They are chronic sufferers of ‘mike-itis’—a psychosomatic disorder they share with both small-time and big-time politicians and self-important Malvolios of the society. Speaking of Malvolio, I feel compelled to think that ‘mike-itis’ stems from a poor sense of self, from years of knowledge the sufferer has that perhaps he will never quite make the cut. Numerous such specimens graced the occasion I have mentioned and as usual provided me with ample entertainment.

At the end of the lecture Gordimer took five questions, three of them coming from the ‘specimens’ whom I have described. Predictably, all three questions from them left the more discerning audience speechless or annoyed or in various stages of trying to suppress laughter. One had chosen to ask Gordimer whether the 31-year domination of the ruling party in West Bengal was not similar to apartheid? There was a not-so-veiled reference to the Singur-Nandigram issue and ‘atrocities in the name of development'. Gordimer’s quip, only apparently nonchalant: ‘That is your problem’. Isn’t it just a bit too much to expect someone from South Africa, albeit a well-read and much-travelled nobel laureate to know about the political cacophony of a state in India, let alone give pat answers?

And it was not just for the questions that were out of context, it was in the manner of grabbing the microphone, in not letting go of an opportunity to speak aloud and in shouting ‘Madam, Madam, Madam…’ incessantly until heard that the Calcutta ‘aantel’ cut a sorry figure. The ‘cultural capital’ of India must have made a dismal impression on the State guest. I want to make my stand clear. I have nothing against ‘aantels’ but an elitist at heart, I have a problem with anyone who tries too hard to prove what one can never be. ‘Aantlami’ is an art that the French and the Bengalis have had quite a reputation for. But what now goes by the name of ‘aantlami’ in Bengal today does not have that touch of class, that refinement which most intellectuals of yore cared for. Counter culture attacks shock me and I do not care for them any longer for 1) I am way past my rebellious teens and 2) I am too opinionated at 32.

I seem to have repeatedly digressed—in fact, I have rambled on in this post. Perhaps I am still reeling under the effect of that evening which has left me at a loss for precision. I will make two more observations before I conclude. The discerning audience choose never to ask questions in any public lecture. I really do not know why but it is a safer stance than asking foolish questions, I suppose. And as for their faces being familiar, I’ll say that is was the nth number of time that I bumped into them and vice versa—at such places and for such reasons. The same goes for the poor ‘aantels’.

I have seen all these people—the ‘old familiar faces’—as many times as they have seen me. That leaves me wondering—if they have given me as much thought as I have given them, how do they categorize me? Ugh!

A NICE MAN TO KNOW

I have not been keeping well for the past four days - what with a temperature and a running nose. My body is my antagonist even as I am typing this. Last evening (in particular) I felt like a fire dragon. Oh yes, I could do with some serious fire-spitting if only to bring down the fever. There is hardly anything that delights me at such a time. But I’ll admit that yesterday I had some serious fun with two of my favourite people in the world. This post is dedicated to one of them.

S.D. has multiple identities—like we all do. He has spent a major part of his life teaching at a university and bringing up his daughter, A.D., reining her back when required, more significantly letting her go when she grew up and for the most part letting her be her bright and independent self. He is one of the biggest bibliophiles I know, and like me, absolutely paranoid about lending books, one of the two tendencies both of us share. He is a great cook. His soups, sandwiches and dips are culinary wonders. Sumit and I have tasted these thundering triumphs on numerous occasions and even the sight of them has left us salivating. Were I to have half his gastronomic skills, I would be on the way to salvation.

He can keep us entertained with his mammoth collection of anecdotes involving people famous, infamous and not so famous but most certainly personally known and cherished by him. His ideas about morality are far from antediluvian. In fact, he is quite a maverick, leaving even us, half his age, quite gobsmacked at times.

I share a very special bond with him and here I’ll mention the other shared tendency. We tease each other to ‘destruction’. On one occasion poet Joy Goswami (an old friend of S.D.’s) seeing us getting on each other’s nerves, couldn’t help but quip—‘Wee ar indurer dekho byabohar’.

Jokes apart, S.D. is a man Sumit and I love and respect a lot. We love him because he is the best friend one can have—someone you can discuss politics, history, anthropology, literature, booze, drugs and sexuality with—all in the same breath and without his sitting in judgement on you. He is like a priest in a confessional but with a difference—you can tell him your not-so-nice views about pesky relatives and annoying colleagues and he’ll listen without making you feel guilty or recite the rosary a couple of hundred times a day. We respect him because he respects us, values our opinions, and understands our sense of privacy. In fact, he’ll never ask you a question that might make you feel uncomfortable. He’ll never show any inclination to probe into your personal matters like all the 'kakimas' and 'mashimas' I know, and even a few 'kakus' and 'meshomoshais' perhaps. He’ll only listen with just the right amount of interest to the information you are willing to volunteer. Most of all, we respect him because he is the only man we know who has the ability to befriend without prejudice people from various backgrounds and age groups—teens and octogenarians, poets and plebeians, cats, cat-lovers, cat-haters, employed, unemployed, superannuated, loved, unloved, misunderstood, gay, straight, polygamous, monogamous, conventional and unconventional. To everyone on whom he bestows the honour of ‘friend’, he is dearest ‘S….da’ whose first floor 'thek' at his house evokes images of adda and merry-making.

S.D. will always find a willing audience in us (now that he has retired Sumit and I are among his new students) and I hope and pray that we continue to enjoy fun-filled evenings of whiskey, chicken rolls and adda with our dear S.D.

p.s. and if he ever discovers my blog, he will find the adjectives a tad too many.

POSTCARDS...COURTESY BHUTAN

Perhaps this is coming rather late in the day or perhaps this could not have come at a more appropriate time. The coronation of Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck as Bhutan’s fifth king on November 6, has prompted me to reminisce about my visit to Bhutan in May this year. The recollections will obviously prompt certain observations about the land and its people. Some could be contradictory or/and confusing but then which nation at the crossroads is without its fair share of binaries and contradictions?

On the morning after our reaching Thimphu, my more-than-eager-for-some-exercise friend, Kajari, decided to explore the hillside on foot. And so while I slept till 7.30, Kajari went on a walking tour of the winding roads. The Jambayang Resort at which we had put up is situated almost atop a hill and below it—about 10 minutes down the hill—she stumbled upon a timber factory. Kajari was more than happy to be interrupted by a friendly 18-year old, a worker at the factory, with whom she promptly struck up a conversation. The boy it seemed worked at the factory to assist his mother and support his family. But he had other plans. A Bhutanese friend who had landed a job at a call centre in New Delhi was urging him endlessly to try his luck in India. When Kajari asked him why he was not eager to try someplace closer home—maybe in Thimphu itself—he came up with an answer that might have orbited her off the planet! ‘Thimphu is phar(far) phrom(from) here’ (only a fifteen minute walk down the hill!!!). Thimphu—phasth(fast) life.’ Kajari stood stumped. For a teenager who was aspiring for a comparatively ‘good life’, his destination was far-off Delhi. This was not surprising but what was pretty inexplicable was his referring to the Bhutanese capital as fast and far-away. We had to check that out! We concluded that he must be a lazybone, a lackadaisical and worthless dud who will continue to daydream (Delhi is not far,eh?) and lazily chat up tourists while his mother will slog through 12-hour schedules at the factory.

But lo and behold! Most ‘enterprising’ young men we observed at Thimphu were laidback and apparently unambitious, looking after small businesses. Even our driver-cum-tour guide showed similar traits. Mind you, they can work very efficiently if need be. These youths want to earn money and keep pace with the world but cannot quite seem to do much about it. Funnily enough, they do not seem to regret much either (pardon me- I admit that exceptions do prove the rule). So was this phenomenon typical of Bhutan which has just one college/university, a lack of employment opportunities and extreme weather conditions? Not so really. Recalling an earlier post I will say that Bhutan is a proven classic example of a country that thrives on Gross Domestic Happiness rather than Gross Domestic Product. They are a happy people who love their benevolent king and would rather have a monarchy than a democracy (I was given two postcards featuring the then king-elect for free at a roadside shop in Paro because I had shown some touristy curiosity about him). Thimphu is ‘phasth’ enough for them and honestly I cannot imagine many of them in big metropolises around the globe, calling the shots. (Don’t get me wrong) Not that it would undermine their value in the scheme of life or that they deserve to remain where they are. I will give concession to the fact that the modern world is still new to Bhutan which works at a pace all its own. Therein lies the charm of this nation. Perhaps its people have an instinctive wisdom or an innate knack for being happy with little which mortals like me can only crave for and envy in a cut-throat world.

Going back to the question of monarchy, the new king’s father, Jigme Singye Wangchuck has been loved and obeyed since 1972 when he ascended the throne. And he has shown a rare wisdom which has stood his country in good stead. He, along with his Oxford-educated son, has introduced democracy to a country that just adores its monarch. So while two political parties—the ruling Druk Phuensum Tshogpa (DPT) and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP)—have contested in elections in April-May this year, they have time and again pledged their undying support to Bhutan’s royal family. I can safely presume that in my lifetime there will not be a bloodbath in the Wangchuck dynasty—like that which rocked the foundation of Nepal a few years back. For they know an easy way out. Slowly but surely, cautiously and seamlessly transfer power to the people of the land and their cup of love for you will brimmeth over. Of course, there have been rumours of underlying differences as to the choice of the new king (Jigme Singye Wangchuck has many wives and more than one son) but the people seem unaffected by this. To them their king is their God. And hell…why not? Over the last 10 years Singye Wangchuck has wisely and gradually led his country to modernization. Bhutan is just waking up to globalisation. Television viewing was unheard of until a few years back. In fact, for the use of television and the internet, official permission still needs to be sought and they are still seen in use in commercial and public spaces in Thimphu than in the privacy of homes. I recall a Saturday evening that we spent at Paro’s local shopping enclave. Kajari was busy shopping and, as usual, I was busy photographing. I chanced upon a tiny diner filled with amused lamas, checking out some bogus Ekta Kapoor serial on the telly. The moment they discovered that an intruder was clicking away gleefully to capture this unique scene, they just got up and left the diner after paying, giving me a scowl that I still recall with a shudder. Today’s Kolkata edition of ‘The Telegraph’ informs me that mobile phones and internet is catching on in Bhutan and youths wearing Nike footwear ‘are not an uncommon sight’. I cannot help but feel a tinge of sadness.

One of the things that I could not help notice and admire during my visit was the sight of men, women and children wearing their national costumes—men in ‘gho’ and women in ‘kira’. They have to wear these as a rule for all official purposes (no moral policing this, mind you!) I found them wearing the ‘gho’ and ‘kira’ both for work and for pleasure. I concluded that they comply with a law not for fear of penalty but because they do not know how to be any different. If Nike and denim are becoming popular in Bhutan, the day is not far when Thimphu will look like any other city in the world—a willing victim of a synthetic American culture, of US imperialism and softpower (as international relations expert Joseph Nye might have put it).

Bhutan, you are gracious, hospitable, simple, pristine and distinctive. Don’t change. Not so soon. Not now. The rest of the world needs to learn from you.

TO BOOKS, BIBLIOPHILES AND BONDING

I picked up an old issue of Reader's Digest while sorting out a bookshelf this morning. The very first article I chose to read was about a family's immense love for books- so much so that they were facing severe space crunches,trying to accommodate a few hundred new books (they actually love reading their books). Though I do not relate to their problem, as of now, I can identify with their fondness for books which they lovingly refer to as 'family'.



My earliest memory of books is of big, fat, musty volumes filling up the bookshelves in my parents' modest apartment - the standard RABINDRA RACHANABALI, SHARAT RACHANABALI, BANKIM RACHANABALI,SHARADINDU-S AND SUNIL GANGOPADHYAY-S, with a few English classics (old Penguin editions) thrown in for good measure. What amazed me as a child was the huge number of gargantuan medical texts (my father and brother are doctors) that lay piled up on my brother's bed and on our living room couch during weekdays when my brother would be away. This meant that when guests visited, I had to jump into action, pronto, taking the books off the couch and onto my bed. There were strict instructions not to keep the books on the floor for that would mean heresy, tantamount to a violation of the House of God.



I do not remember the first book I read all by myself for pleasure but by age ten, I got used to the fact that they would be the only kind of gifts my father would buy for me. Soon I became a voracious reader, only too willing to wolf down a smorgasboard of delectable tales, whenever served. From AAM AANTIR BHEPUand CHAANDER PAANHAR to FAMOUS FIVEs and LITTLE WOMEN, it was a journey undertaken for sheer delight. Without my realizing, Apu, Durga, Julian, George, Jo and Beth had become my best friends, my only friends. Don't feel sorry for me on this account for I feel a bond with them that has lasted over the years, a bond that, I am not sorry to say, has outdone many others in loyalty. It would be unfair if I do not mention here a certain Mr. D. Sen, bookseller, who gave me new books on the sly, not taking a penny but only the promise that I would return them in impeccable condition after having read them. Or my high school English teacher, Mrs. Una Jones who catered to my unusually large appetite for books from her personal collection. From my adolescence to adulthood, books have found new friends for me. Happy exchanges of books with classmates during recesses at school left me enlightened and richer without my having to spend a rupee. I recall how intensely and desperately we kept looking for Heathcliff in real life for years and how it crushed our souls to know that Heathcliff and we were better off in our separate worlds. I recall how we discussed our waiting to lay our hands on 'Lolita' - a forbidden fruit in our teens. I remember raging debates in college over the aptness of the decision to give Arundhati Roy the Booker, debates about who was the better writer -Saramago or Coetzee, about who had more enduring appeal - Holmes, Poirot or Feluda. I have lost touch with so many of my friends from those years but I feel connected whenever I go through the books that had brought us together.


During my final year in college, a very dear Professor had invited some of us to her house. The lasting impression of that visit that I brought back home was of her huge library, overflowing with hardbound classics and paperbound pulp. I made a decision that day. I didn't know who I would eventually become or what I would do in life but I would most certainly and lovingly set up a personal library at home. I have managed to do that, buying, reading and preserving books over the years with a gusto that I rarely show for any other activity.I too love my books like 'family', I get paranoid when I have to lend them, I leaf through them ever so delicately, they act as touch-therapists when I am under the weather and I promise them ever so often that they will have new companions in new bookshelves. I have revisited many of them a number of times and I am happy to say that they have not tired me. No wonder then that I have not taken to e-books that don't quite seem made for personal use and collection.



Meanwhile, my father continues to buy books for me and I can never thank him enough for the best gifts ever.

BACK TO THE VEDIC AGE

This is going to be a long one. Leafing through the October issue of GRAZIA (famed to be Europe's number one style magazine), I came across features as 'varied' (guffaw!) as 'The Grazia Best Dressed List 2008', 'The Big Bag Blowout', '10 Ways to Long Locks','Which Desperate Housewife Are you',etc.,etc.,and could not help wondering how far, far removed from all this is the cocooned world I just visited in Mayapur, Nadia, supposed birthplace of Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, the once living reincarnation of Lord Krishna (as legend has it).

I returned yesterday after a three day trip to ISKCON, Mayapur, not exactly reformed but definitely questioning a lot of the 'reality' that I am fed with everyday.

Krishna conscious Vaishnavs lead an almost sur'real' existence there, beginning and ending conversations with a soft, lilting 'Hare Krishna', surviving on vegan appetites, worshipping Lord Krishna at least twice daily and chanting the 'mahamantra' countless times a day. It is a fairly convenient lifestyle (I will not get into the economic and socio-political dynamics of the place)-as in there are no rulings against sex (although not illicit), conjugal life, love or dancing in spiritual ecstasy (the only rigorous form of physical exercise).

Boys live in the 'Gurukul' and study in a co-ed school within the premises. Being a high school teacher, I could not resist the temptation of visiting the gurukul. What I found there reminded me of my history text at school with chapters devoted to the Vedic way of life in the Aryan Age. The gurukul here is built against an Arcadian backdrop, the only 'modern' touches in the place being a small football field, a basketball court, tubewells and electricity.Premananda Das, the man in charge of the gurukul is a soft-spoken South indian who came all the way from South Africa in 2004 and decided to settle in this sylvan heaven-on-earth to teach boys from far-flung places in the world what he knew best - woodwork. He showed me a mud hut where four boys have been chosen to live because they have shown a greater inclination towards leading a simple,pray...austere, Vedic life.Their weekends are spent cleaning the mud hut and reading the scriptures. Well, how far is that from the life of the boys I teach who will not bother to keep their almost futuristic rooms in order just because paid domestic helps have been for long the order of the day! Of course, I am not exactly in favour of advocating regular reading of the scriptures,but I did realize the value of performing certain rituals daily. If not for anything, it taught me that rituals, religious or otherwise, offer man a centre to hold on to, a sense of belonging and kinship to a community of like-minded people and hence a sense of security.

While returning I could not help but recall a scene from Aparna Sen's 'Yuganta' where the male protagonist, a bohemian creative head in an ad agency (played by Anjan Dutta) realizes that his wife, a disciplined classical dancer (played by Roopa Ganguly) is the stronger, sounder and more rooted of the two because her days are bound by simple rituals, worship and faith.

IT'S DD TIME AGAIN!

durga pujo came and went this year without creating much of a ripple in Joan's world.shopping had been completed long ago,keeping in mind a lazy pre-pujo trip rather than the pujo itself.meeting friends during the festive days was an impossibility, what with most of them out of town.so the four days were reserved for some really quiet time spent at home, catching up on good ol' Doordarshan.the ironic part was that Joan planned to revisit Doordarshan on a DVD player.so she did, watching eight vcds filled with deliciously simple televised episodes of R.K. Narayan's 'MALGUDI DAYS'-simple indian life at its best!depicting an imaginary everyman's land where humour and pathos play hand in hand, a postman is as rich as an advocate is as rich as a schoolboy in matters of the heart,where wisdom comes from a life lived rather than places visited and books read, where sambhar-rice,chhach and nimbu ka aachar are good enough for a feast and Gross Domestic Happiness is of greater significance than Gross Domestic Product. if only globalisation did not bombard our lives..! how would it affect the average indian? gucci hobo bags in shopping malls would lack import or not register instant recognition and instead grandma's tales would continue to colour quiet nights.would it be all that undesirable?
times have changed. people have moved on. Doordarshan has given way, in the collective indian imagination, to dozens of private channels telecasting blingy tearjerkers, glitz and glamour.Joan hasn't changed much. in a quiet neighbourhood of kolkata she still yearns for HUMLOG, HONI-ANHONI,KATHA SAGAR, YEH JO HAI ZINDAGI and UDAAN.

VANITY!

i realized something today. i am vain. or why else would i wish to create a blog of my own and share my posts with others? it stems from a deep-rooted sense of vanity, my friends! one could argue that blogging is a technologically savvy way of maintaining a diary. i don't buy that. people don't maintain diaries to let other people peep into their private/personal worlds. they do that more often for self-introspection, as a matter of habit or even for practising handwriting (lame as this sounds), if you please...not because they are vain. i am blogging because i feel important enough to myself to let my thoughts and opinions be known. so i'm vain. there, i've said it. clip my wings if you will.