The decent thing to do

My cook didn't come on Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday, he came in, with a sprain in his right hand. Apparently, he'd collided with a Splendor and had a, possible, hairline fracture in the hand. I told him not to cook and take a break but he was adamant: he would be cooking for the rest of the households he serves, so why punish me? He even kneaded the flour with the sprained hand. I had gone to sleep in the meantime and just saw him massaging the hand as I closed the door on him.

Needless to say, I feel like a sinner now. I fell for the classic argument of this is what the Smiths and the Jones do and closed my eyes to cruelty.

Indian society is a hierarchy of power and patronage. Dipankar Gupta, prof. sociologist in JNU, argues that the biggest threat to Indian modernity (merit, baseline equality, respect for dignity of otherrs and work) are the rich themselves. Being placed in India is a euphemism for the cheap labor that you can extract from the poor and the patrons that you can find to flout laws for you behlaf. Classic examples would be the Nandas and their BMWs and the pathetic conditions of millions of child servants in "decent" middle-class households.

Sasthi Brata, author of the brilliant autobiography "My god(emphasis on absence of Capital G from my end) died young" also puzzles over the "unconscious hypocricy"(author's own words) of his mother who would be excessively genereous towards relatives but exceptionally cruel to the servants. The reason, the author drily and pithily suggests, for her actions derived from a strange social need for apporbation from people who could and thereby raise her platform and not to waste it on people who couldn't. This reminds me of my own grandmother, remembered sometimes by some as the kindest lady that ever lived; but who strangely brings to memory the scene of her violently caning Mallu, the man servant, for some minor demeanours.

Whenever I have brought to life this daily hypocricy that the middle class practices, I have also been surprised by the surrounding unconsciousness of it and the violent protestations have met my statements.

Hence, I prefer to stay silent and aloof.

This might be the way things work in our country, but that is not an excuse.

CPI-M on retail

The Red brigade has come up with a masterplan to "regulate" retail. Defiant and obstinate in the face of overwhelming evidence from the brief economic history that India has bore, they actually have the chutzpah to suggest going back to the licence raj regime: a regime which set back development by decades and deliberately shortsupplied generations of consumers.
Another point to note is the smug and naive belief that the very thought of breathing life into a dysfunctional governement entity suffices; the abracadabra too trivial to bother about. Contrast this with the frantic sops being offered in private retail these days to acquire and retain even talent.
Where is the "new" PSU going to get the people to create an entity that can give the Tescos and the Walmarts a run for their money? The present flock, clearly, is too incapacitated to effect that. The answer is obvious, analogous as it is to the "post-liberalization" oil sector. Sops, blatant taxpayers' money-backed sops in the form of subsidies and favored access to distribution: in the face of the PSU's inability to manage half the efficieny in supply chain and distribution of the private-sector competitors; even at twice the cost and thrice the manpower.
Hoping (more foolishly, I feel, as each day passes) that with the dawn of the age of reason, mankind is in the path of slow and steady progress in thought and lifestyle, with a few hiccups here and there, I believe that in a few centuries, when we have finally disposed off these ignoramous, wasteful and self-defeating idealogies, such policies will be viewed in the same rueful light as the inquisitions. Doing irreversible damage to humanity and the cause of reason for the sake of petty politics, miseducated charity and obstinacy to change.

NEW DELHI, MAY 30: After its opposition to FDI in retail trade, the CPI(M) has now prepared the ground for regulating the entry of corporates in the sector by suggesting a system of licensing for organised retail. It has also called for the Government’s intervention to prevent “private monopolies” from developing by asking the Government marketing agencies to compete with large private retailers. It even suggested ways to create big public sector retail chains. Building on the argument that small retailers need policy support to fight organised retail in the light of their falling numbers and the use of monopoly buying power by organised retailers, the party’s framework for regulating organised retail includes a system of licencing in cases where retail outlets went over the “appropriate minimum floor area”. According to the National Policy on Regulation of Organised Sector in Retail Trade: A Proposal, which the CPI(M) has evidently aimed at private players and plans to circulate among political parties for a full-fledged discussion, corporate entities should not be allowed to operate retail outlets below a minimum floor area. Party General Secretary Prakash Karat said the proposals came against the backdrop of the growing retail trade network since the UPA came to power. “We are writing to all political parties. We feel we have made a case for stringent regulations in this and have argued for a licensing system for the entry of the organised sector in retail trade,” Karat said. The proposal says steps should be taken to prevent single large format retailers from entering the market and framing of guidelines to prevent predatory pricing. It suggests ways in which “decaying” government marketing agencies can be revived to compete with the private retailers. “Consolidation of several government marketing agencies in order to create a few public sector retail chains should be seriously considered, which can also invest in developing modern supply chain infrastructure,” the proposal says, while including suggestions for safeguarding farmers interests. Red retail • Authority to grant licences should be with the urban local bodies and there should be transparency in granting licences • A process of open bids to be considered • Separate licences for each format for organised retail based on floor area • Slabs for different retail formats, like discount stores, supermarkets, hypermarkets and shopping malls, also based on floor area • A cap on number of licences that can be given in an area, using the population criterion • Larger retail outlets to be kept out of existing commercial zones and where they are not, the retail outlets should share space at concessional rate with small retailers

Questions I am facing currently

1. Is there any way to get off the downward spiral of mediocirty that we all are in?
2. Was Bogart the coolest/sexiest man to grace the screen?
3. How do I rewrite the goddamn book?
4. What do I read next?
5. Which road do I take?

Compensation for what?

The news of the blasts at Mecca Masjid streamed in with the additional nugget that the state governement had announced a compensation of 5 Lakhs for the victims; barely minutes after the blast.
A few months ago, I heard about the Shramjivi blasts in a similar fashion.

Have we really become so insensitive to tragedy?
Is political damage control more expedient than the ground-zero one?

Contrast this with the aftermath - immediate and medium-term - in terrorist attacks in the US and UK.

The issue of compensation arises in two situations -

1.Terrorist strikes - As these are targeted towards every citizen of India, we have to bear the joint ownership of the damage. Hence, any compensation in this regard is meaningless; the only answer is action against the perpetrators.

2.Accidents/mishaps - Instead of letting the possible culprits fix the cost of life immediately and absolve themselves at the cost of taxpayers' money, the concerned departments/ministers should be brought to court. Compensation, and punitive measures, should be fixed likewise.

Let's stop this nonsense immediately.

Bangalore Blog.

This is a nice blog on Bangalore -

http://bangalore.metblogs.com/

Birth of a Nation

I can't believe what I am seeing!

Buffalo soliders with the monomania of defiling the purity of celestially virgin white damsels (Posed, of course, by white men with badly-applied polish on their Nordic faces), a congress of the newly-freed slaves being portrayed as a bunch of chimps mulling on relativity, a nation misgoverned because the man in charge is in the vice like grip of a mulatto mistress.

Birth of a nation is a good argument for political correctness. Such trash stereotyping can have devastating effects. As it did indeed. Leading to the revival of Klu Klux Klan and fifty years of unmitigated barbarity against the American Blacks with the infamous milestones of several lynchings, Scottoboro and Mississippi Burning trials, and the assassinations of several reformists from Luther King to Malcolm X to, possibly, Rob Kennedy.

As the story justifies the terror tactics of the Klan, I would like to see a new version of it - justifying the Islamic terrorrism.

A disgruntled Iraqi soldier as the Southern hero - Cameron.
Gus - the negro who tries to violate his sister - transforms to Lynndie England.
The new congress - the "Alliance against Evil".

You get my drift.


How funny. Hundred years on, despite its blatant and strident black/white portrayal of history - in fact, because of it - the movie justfies the need for stridency in the very liberalism and equality it shrieks to denounce.

PS - In the next few posts, I will talk about the lynch era a bit more.

The answers within

This is a nice post on the meaning of success - short and simple
http://salvagepoint.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html

Her point is "...no matter how far we go or how successful we get, there are so many aspects that remain unfulfilled, so many bones of contention, so many unhappy moments and so many desires that die without being realised."

In my comment, I have proposed Pareekh's Venn Diagram theory of life. To repeat, in this venn box there are lots of circles denoting personal space, relationships, career, art, etc. You can expand these circles to occupy the max space (as good time managers do) but ultimately if you want to expand a circle, you have to reduce some other. This is what balance is - how big a circle you want all these different aspects to be.

Ultimately, every decision is a sacrifice. It's up to you what you want to sacrifice.

Happiness is not defined by a hierarchy in the peer-pressure network, but comes from a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment from within. The strong know it, the weak take a lifetime to discover thiss.

The elements within

I am writing this as the idea is forming in my head (where else)...

Lately I have been passionately doing portraits... esp. on the street.
Mostly, when I approach subjects I know, the best portraits come out of moments I never planned. But, somehow, I do have a blurry premonition of the final output even as I start clicking. I was trying to think through this feeling. Moreover, I was planning some future portraits of friends/relatives and, still, I have some idea of what I want.

The idea is this - each of us are defined by a peak in the various elements that make our personality. I liken it to the five elements - water, fire, earth, air and ether(the unknown). A portrait that captures us in our basic element is the one that captures the essence.

I would like to work upon this idea more but my knowledge of history of the elements and their connatations in the human context are hazy at best. But the thought came to me when I was trying to figure out the best portrait for one of my sisters who is as elemental in her fire state as anything can be. The reason that I have not been able to do a good portrait of hers so far is that whenever I try to do so, she is too serene and calm to be her essence. So what finally comes out is not essentially "she". On the other hand (in case one thinks that anyone in the heat of passion would be a great portrait), a picture I remember of my grandmother captures the essence of the earth in her in her almost sad peace.

I will think on this a little more.

I also wonder what my essence is.

Here is a list of the elements I would associate with some people I know-

Sarovar - Earth
Kholu - Air
Prachi - Water
Meen - Fire
Tarun - Earth
Pareekh - Earth
Riju - Ether(?)

Apocalypto

There might be historical inaccuracies here and there, there might be leaps of faith - but this is amazing.

After Passion of Christ, Mel does it again. He's actually showing history the way it happened and making it heard in the tongues it was spoken in.

I am surprised, if not shocked, at the lack of publicity taht this film got. Along with "Little Children", I think this has been grossly under-served at the Oscars - thanks, I reckon, to Mel's drunk Anti-Semitic rant.

If overblown, historical dramas like Dance with the Wolves, done-to-death Holocaust movies (Schindler's list, Pianist), atrocious fare (Titanic) could get the Oscars, why not herald this superhuman effort? Creating a piece of history about men, languages; all but lost and forgotten.

Consider the effort reqd. in recreating the Mayans (and that too the dark side) before the Conquistadors instead of Cowboys and Indians, The Holocaust (with only a million books and a thousand tons of documents to refer to) and an ocean liner over-hyped for the sole reason that the men it drowned were vvverrry rich.

Even Mel's Braveheart is, to some extent, Hollywood cliche in a new exotic Scot legend (though the signs of breakaway are already appearing in this good production).

If you thought Passion for the Christ was refreshing (tho' I still hold the Monty affair of Brian to be a more actual depiction :) ), try Apocalypto.

To quote a review in imdb - Clearly Hollywood is incapable of even conceiving of such a movie, much less bringing it brilliantly to life. Hollywood has an agenda and very narrow perspectives. It's agenda has no room for illuminating the humanity of non-Westerners, and there's too much relying on the same old set of sensibilities and intuition. I think if Hollywood is up in arms it ought to be because Gibson is making them look inept.

Metroland and How I read

I bought this book on a whim around a year ago from Blossoms.

My reading is dictated more by my guts than grapevine for the simple reason that I started doing some serious reading only after college. In college, we exchanged the odd copies of Ayn Rand and Godfather and rarely went beyond that. I dabbled with Tushdie, Marquez but that was it.

The eyeopener was a course I undertook on modern literature under Neelkanthan that introduced me to Joyce, Woolf, Fitzgerald and Saul Bellow.

But the real push came from Tarun; if a mighty heave off the cliff of ignorance can be called that.

But still as work separated us and even our tastes started diverging just that very little bit, I have had to rely more and more on my instincts and the odd reviews. I had the phase where I read everything I could lay my hands on about Holocaust, the Ishigoru omnibus and anything in the top10 of either the NY or NDelhi. The only cases of indigestion have been the Chetan Bhagats and the (Very) Mediocre but (very) arrogant.

So coming back to Metroland, isn't it wonderful how books like apples just ripen for you at the right time? One year ago, I tried to read the book by force but couldn't go beyond 3-4 pages in an hour of the struggle of the will against timing. yesterday, I picked the book again and reall all but the last 30 odd pages in the space of 3 hours.

Metroland is a delightful discovery: delving into the childhood and adoloscence of an intelligent being. Intelligence to the point of insolence. I think that's why I disliked the book at first attempt - my own insecure, underachieving and far-from-satisfying childhood made me resent the smugness of the author and Toni.

Nishith loves to say "You can either be meaningful or relevant"

To explore this phrase, Chetan Bhagat is relevant, Upamanyu Chatterji is meaningful. The greatest work spans both - Catcher in the Rye, To killing a Mocking Bird, Shame, Midnight's Children, Tin Drum...

Further, Pawan says that a book should have quotable quotes. More than literally, he means that there should be that odd line that catapults your reading experience to a catharsis or epiphany or, at least, a happy sigh.

Metroland does that while remaining incredibly funny.

It does not have the emotional pull of Of Human Bondage or even a Dickensian childhood, but it is full of clever insights nevertheless. In fact ,a portion of the text where the author tries his first "position" actually brought tears to my eyes from laughter (I think the first author to do taht to me since Thurber).

Sample one of those- I just turn to a random page and quote -
"Still, the larger the question, more the naive it always sounds"
and the SST measure of the desirability for a girl - Soul Suffering... Tits


I think ultimately why I still won't classify this as a great book is this - this is not an out and out humor like Thurber. Hence, though it makes me laugh, want to salute the author for passages of clever insights and an overall crisp style, It does not make me empathize that much.