New shoots on the old tree of patriarchy

 We still have pretty solid patriarchal roots in our social soil depriving women of their well justified position in various spheres of life. Take the case of football for example. Despite the best of facilities, fat pay cheques, world-class infrastructure, promotional tours, global level support staffs, the Indian men’s football team is ranked 107 in global ranking. Now consider the Indian women’s football team. Nobody talks about them because they hardly get any priority in the gaming scheme. In comparison to the men’s football team they get maybe just five percent attention, resources and focus. Still they are ranked far higher than the men’s team. The Indian women’s team is ranked 60 in the world. They have been twice runners up in Asian championship. The men’s ISL league matches are played under glaring floodlights, while the women footballers struggle in their league under merciless hot sun as their matches would start at 8:30 AM and 4 in the afternoon. Who would spend extra money by lighting floodlights for women’s football game? Let them play under the sun. It hardly matters to the organizers.

Recently Kerala Blasters men’s football team walked off the field during a match. The club was heavily fined for this breach of sports’ ethics. Who suffered the consequences? Will you be able to believe it? To offset their financial loss the club suspended their women’s team. The women pay for the men’s folly and unwarranted conduct! Isn’t it hilarious? Patriarchy is so deeply entrenched in our system that directly or indirectly women and girls have to pay when their interests clash with the males.

Take the ongoing wrestling saga where the champion daughters are fighting for justice. They are pitted against a powerful man. There are allegations of sexual harassment and severe breach of professional conduct on his part. But the system seems to be protecting him. In fact, there are thousands who are questioning the girl wrestlers themselves, asking for the proofs of molestation. As if a girl is always walking with a spy camera to present in the court as evidence. Very sad and disappointing.

A slim sliver of hope

It’s an angrier world than ever. There are wars, violence, blood and gore. A very insecure world it is. Trust is falling apart. Faith lies sidelined and charlatans misuse trust and faith for parochial motives. The states are arming themselves with more and more deadly weaponry. There is a stampede for supremacy and one-upmanship.

Violence has been deeply institutionalized in the society. The states, intelligence agencies, shadowy players, business mafias, cartels, religious fanatics and many other actors have been covertly and overtly using institutionalized violence to further their interests.

Its effects can be seen in the society. Relationships are falling apart. The people are lonely and depressed. It’s a very unhappy world. And a very dangerous spin off surfaces: the individualization of violence. The stand-alone shooter mired in his lonely, unrelated world. Someone marooned on the island of pain. He too launches war, goes out with a sophisticated weapon and shoots innocent people out there for mundane activities of life.

There is so much of collective mistrust, hate, insecurity around. The lonely individual absorbs his share of fear, phobias and suffering from the air around. Then he goes for a blast. It’s a culture of arms. Imagine sophisticated weapons in the hands of lonely, anguished, depressed individuals. An unarmed depressed man might go for verbal assaults or fist-work at the most. If you are equipping him with sophisticated armory, you are providing predatory talons to his lonely suffering and anger. Isn’t it an aid in crime? Give him back his faith and love in humanity that he has lost, not arms.

The arms industry is running the world. They are the ones who finally decide which country gets bombarded or what innocent blood is shed in which part of the world. They are very dangerous people. The lethal-most traders they are. To them an ant squashed or a human murdered hardly makes any difference. They are sadistically addicted to blood and gore. It’s simply business. Commerce. To sell more grains you need more hungry bellies. To sell more weapons you need more wars and murders. And a violent society serves their purpose well. A violent society will have more violent leadership. There will be more wars, more blood, more butchering. So they are happy with the scenario of lonely, depressed human hunters.

Ironically, we started as hunters of other species. Now hardly anything is left to hunt in the jungles. So we are hunting our fellow humans—just for the sheer mad fun of it. Nobody is safe anywhere on earth. Anyone can be killed by anybody over anything in any part of earth.

Is there any chance of redemption? The scenario is very bleak but there is a slim chance. Almost hundred out of hundred mass shooters, bloodthirsty dictators, warmongering leaders, fanatical religious heads, mafias and other evil incarnate are men. The statistical truth is we ‘men’ have failed in managing earth. So let’s try with ‘women’ for a change. Let’s have more and more women in leadership positions. Yes, it will be a far more chatty and gossipy world but that is still better than blood and gore that we see around.

Some Random Non-offensive Brain-farts

 

A sneeze shakes me and the mucus of opinionated truth dribbles out. Haa Haa…I run to wipe my nose and be presentable.

***

Ah peace, the redundant wish! Worldwide peace and harmony doesn't need authority, power centers and hegemony to sustain. But the latter—authority, power centers and hegemony—surely need strife, wars, violence and bloodbath to sustain them. Peace has never been the focal point of geo-strategists. If it was, most of the issues we are fighting about become redundant by default.

***

Don't write with hate in your heart, even against the most hateful. If good writers write with a bit more sense of equanimity, they do more justice to the art. Falling off the fine line of balance turns them cynical, and it affects their art. The only problem with "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness" is that it's written with too much "hate" for "religious hatred". It somehow taints the soul of the artist. Hate, even for a good cause, easily creeps up to turn to cynicism. The latter sours the spirit, which in turn smiles a degree lesser than in its unadulterated version. But it's human to have our prejudices, even if they come at the cost of losing our balance a bit. Otherwise the book is poignant and moving beyond words.

***

Learn to smile big from your small corner. It's the smallest plant in my garden but it beats most of others in bigness of flowers, in numbers and beauty also. It appears so happy to be just itself. No wonder, in a world obsessed with larger and bigger things, it attracts you from its little corner with big bouquet of beauty. It's so tiny and fragile but has a huge blooming spirit. No matter where you are, in whatever circumstances, at whatever ladder in the scheme of things, you can bloom at your own level to the fullest. And when you are true to your own being, your own self, you attract bigger eyes by default.

***

Shut your mind's eyes and hypothetical projections cease to be. Well, nothing exists as long as I choose to ignore it. And who are you? My colors are my own unlike yours. 

***

A moment drops from the endless sea of existence. Childish bud, youth in full bloom and dead decaying petals of an old flower. I see them on a jasmine leaf arranged as a big lesson. I decide to read. Nature accepts fluidity and transition. Spot impermanence and grab your moment now, this very moment. Mystical handover of the baton: little bud to full bloom to crumpled petals. Accept the change because that's what keeps nature alive.

***

A small leaf holds its drops of rain and proclaims, “My water! There may be seven seas around abounding with endless waters. But I reserve my right to hold the raindrops because those clouds rained for me only.”

Farts of a Village Frog

 

There is an independent will pervading the universe, expanding with the cosmic extension it elopes with the infinity. Its particles sneak into our subconscious mind, leading us in directions where we won't go consciously. No wonder our minds are such restless, unchecked horses. Thoughts just float around. It’s a chaos, disorderly mess. The mind is the sea in constant upheaval. There are storms of thoughts, ideas and emotions. The challenge lies in taming the self, in building strong ramparts against the meteoritic onslaught of the rampaging soldiers of the universal free-will. The citadel of the self has to be strong to withstand the barrage. Once the meteoritic showers stop their random crash-landings in our brain, it will turn a cool, tranquil, peaceful and calm pond where one can see the real self reflected in crystal clear waters.

***

One minute of hate and anger comes at the cost of one hour deducted from life. Hate is the choice of the worst; love is the smilingly picked up gift of the best. The journey from the worst to the best doesn’t cross seven seas. It’s just an arms-length endeavor. You just let go hate from one hand and hold love delicately in the other. It simply requires this much for the biggest transformation, from the worst to the best. Choose to be the best.

***

In the farthest fathoms of my being, a steady lamp is aglow with its soft mystical rays. I but kept on looking heavenwards for light and guidance, ignorant of the tiny torch carrying the cosmic flame within. Blinded by the worldly blaze outside, I fell headlong. Even the tiny lamp inside toppled and put heart on fire. Don’t worry guys, it gives just acidity. A bit of heartburn. Maya mili na ram—the end result!  

***

Two honeybees drowning in the water bucket. I take them out and they fly. Apart from saving two lives, I create the possibility of an extra honey drop for this bitter world. Goodness is complete in itself. It doesn't need the outcome to qualify it quantitatively. Do your good deed. It might be almost invisible, but it carries a positive outcome in some corner of the universe.  

***

Strong lies are better than weak truths. Sounds quizzical? Well, it’s no more than the support and confidence in your truth that draws the lot in its favor. Your truth is truth as long as it survives on the life-force of your trust in it. Strong lies are nothing but the tombstones and graves built on the dead truths buried safely for convenience.

***

After socialism you have to build capitalism. Ever saw anything more contradictory? Look at all the socialist societies. After the class wars and purging, and decades of torture and robbing people of their free-will and independent choices, they plant the seeds of capitalism again. Why? Because there is simply no other way. Efforts at socialism are all like burning down the previous harvest, weeding out endlessly, tilling, breaking clods, preparing the seed-bed, only to plant the previous seeds again. Damn funny and tragic. If all this ends at the same point then why all this blood-bathing?

***

At least be a living-room dissident. It saves the soul against the evil. This is a bit of practical advice to those struggling against undemocratic governments, for example, democracy supporters in Hong Kong. It keeps the flame alive for more appropriate times.

***

Imagine a philosophy student working in a boiler-plant, or a pianist working on radio circuits. Such wonders are possible only in a communist society. It’s only about killing the freedom of mind and choking the spirit to mass produce zombies who don’t understand much about what human life is all about. Left-leaning Indian intelligentsia ought to be put to some manual labor to get the rust off their ideology-clogged brains.

***

"A communist is someone who's read Marx, an anti-communist is someone who's understood him."
Svetlana Alexievich

***

When it rains in Haryana, the most chilled out people are the electricity board staff for they cool their heels and bless us with 24 hour power cuts, always everywhere in the villages at least. Possibly the belief is that once blessed with rains, the farmers don't need anything else in life. Anyway, it doesn't pinch too much because even on the finest day we have at least 14-16 hours of power cut. Our CMs have changed but they are all comfortable with the power cuts in the countryside at least. A very suitable agreement on certain policies, I see. It was the same under Chautala, Hooda and remains the same under Khattar. Possibly some things are better left unchanged.

***

Second-Hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich is elegantly fat, white, hardbound and seductive. Lose yourself to its charms. It will open up the communist-time horrors of stifled emotions, imprisonment of the individual soul and loss of the natural ability to even make sense of what freedom is. Hope the caricatured Indian version of communism does some soul-searching after such revelations.

***

 

That which is best, the universe conspires to preserve it. Same is the case with Taoism. Uprooted from China, it will survive in India. Buddhism was India's best export. Taoism can be our best import.

***

Watch your words, your sentences and speech. If you take a stock of the overall pitfalls of your life, your words, not the real bloody punches you gave out, might be the spoiler. It’s not usual to have a war. Real fights and bloody noses are exceptions. These come rarely. In between, most of the time, we are blabbering. So buddy it’s the words that carry the risk to land us in testing, awkward and painful situations. And of course words take us to the best moments of our lives also. 

The New-age Democracy

 

Democracy, by modern day consensus, is the best—among others—form of governance. With some skepticism, it is agreed that it is best among the worst. It even appears so. But that doesn’t mean all is well with democracy. No system is perfect. Perfection is just a mirage. However, like all political systems democracy also can be better.

My main issue with democracy is with its propensity to rake up divisions to breed social disharmony, fanning the smoldering smoke to build-up a fire and then with a suave smile offer the solution on paper only and thus allowing the issue to stretch till eternity. Pitted against each other at numerous fronts, social cohesiveness, a must for collective compassion for humanity’s greater good, takes a backseat.   

My other reservation about democracy is the principle of same voting weight carried by all individuals as voters. The best and the worst carry the same political weight, at least as voters, when it comes to contributing to the process of selecting the most suitable representatives and hence the best government. Isn’t it ironical that in election as voters, the people who have been fatal to society carry the same political weight as the ones who have been of real help to the society? Shouldn’t the weightage of votes vary as per the contribution or potential of individual voters?

Under the present system of voting, Hitler, Stalin and Edi Amin, responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent lives, carry the same vote weightage as the healers of humanity like Gandhi, Vivekananda, Buddha, Jesus and Mohammad. Shouldn’t the people with proven records of being better human beings, having more understanding of the issues of common interests, have more voting power than the criminals, social degenerates and blood-shedders.

Common people, busy in the small domain of life to survive, carrying the good and bad in them, can have the value of one to their vote. The criminals, terrorists, law breakers and hate-mongers can have fraction of one in proportion to their crimes. And achievers and contributors in academics, sports, spirituality, arts, science and culture can have the multiple of one to their vote. The latter with their better selves, more awareness and more constructive nature will turn the game of democracy far more dynamic and vibrant than it is now.

Since the best and the worst just occupy a few minor edges on the fringe of society in terms of numbers, it will not shake the present system’s foundations immediately. But it will act as a system of reward and punishment for the majority to maintain and improve their political ratings. Who doesn’t want to grow? And certified more so. A better political rating on the basis of standing and achievement in life will look good on anybody’s CV. It will be as good as holding doctorate degrees, gold medals and mushy citations. A cut in the voting right, and the rating coming to a fraction of one, will add to scores of other deterrents that stop a person from going to the wrong side to be lesser of a human being in all its forms.

A voting right cannot be static. It cannot be frozen for all times irrespective of best and worst deeds of the holders. In case a person comes out worst, it should be abrogated altogether. In case of glorious achievement, the person should have multiple of one. It is a suitable political reward. It’s better to have a Hitler without any voting right and still more suitable to have Mother Teresa with multiple of one voting right.

The Election Commission has to make the voting right a bit dynamic with the possibilities of upgrade and degrade and even outright abrogation. It will save democracy from being the puppet of poor choices where masses, hardly knowing what they are voting for, barely knowing the issues involved, get swayed by selfish rhetoric and emotional rabble-rousing to elect pitiable leaders to power.

The differential voting rights will carry democracy to its next stage. The elected representatives will be better and people will have one more incentive to be better.

It will stop the politicians from digging into the foundations of society with their tools of hate and division. I just want a voter with a proven record of his loving compassionate self to carry multiple of one voting right. Shouldn’t a person, who has been planting trees for decades and has ensured that at least hundred trees survive to grow mature and big, be given at least two voting rights? This is just one example. There are scores of other small time feats that have a huge impact on the health of our main home, mother earth. Isn’t it high time that democracy now turns new-age to help build vibrant, robust, open-minded societies?   

The Boss must have been Watching Indian Elections

 

The dust and rabble of the Indian general elections definitely rose to get into many anxious eyes abroad. India after all is a massively crowded democracy, cramming the world with its people, culture and issues.  

Starting from the caves to the plans for settlement colonies on Moon and Mars, the evolution of human systems has been in synchronism with the evolution and nature of leaderships. Leaders, leadership and their functional support systems have changed over the ages at all levels beginning from family, village, state, province and international levels. Leadership is followed both through unwritten norms as well as duly established systems of governance and administration.

When you land up at an alien place, the US dollar in your pocket is the most assuring factor for your safety and upkeep. If the US dollar in every nook and corner of the world gives you a feeling of protection as a world citizen possessing some purchasing rights, then does not it speak about America as a world leader in more ways than one? Nothing wrong with that! The fight for the topmost-sayer in world affairs has not been assigned to the Americans by their constitution makers. They have managed and earned it.

America possesses a deep knowledge of the internal affairs of the nations whom it wants to manage in a broad spectrum of policies chosen to keep its position as the most influential player in the world affairs. By default this policy would not like too powerful nations to manage under its foreign affairs department. The American policy through its brilliant network of hundreds of thousand CIA operatives is based on the basic parameter of finding the contrasting shades prevailing in the world at all levels ranging from nationalities, religion, geographies, histories and many more. These antagonistic parts jutted against in an issue are the two fronts that can be made to keep staring into each other’s eyes at the cost of larger issues of peace, progress and prosperity. The American policy is to pick up these opposite elements in all issues across the world and keep them engaged in confrontation by either supporting one or suppressing the other.

When the divisions can be maintained, it stops the emergence of strong nation states. For example a violent South Asia with India and Pakistan as staunch enemies is a safer bet for the aspirant world leader than a peaceful region with both countries using their money and resources to become more stable and prosperous societies. Similarly India and China throwing pot-shots at each other is a better scenario for the world leader. For example, to stop an escapist approach by India regarding China, America may support India to give it a semblance of confidence against the Dragon. When the weaker opponent finds some support in the form of the superpower, it will definitely be less compelled to go to the negotiation table. It keeps the issues alive. That friction between the neighbours works as a sort of drag on their feet on the path of further peace and stability and consequent rise in the national power.

The same world leadership theory would also require creating hurdles in path of the emergence of strong, stable governments in countries across the world. China emerged to challenge America on account of the fact that they managed a very strong and stabilised system of governance over decades. State energy was used just in developing infrastructure, weaponry and industries. Consider it in relation to India’s tottering efforts with democracy. It has won us more praise in books for democratic values and less in terms of the results in implementation. Obviously we have been wasting too many resources on unnecessary issues.  

A vibrant India under a secure government run by a strong leader cannot fit well with the global theory of leadership that is presently being operated by America (simply because they are able to play it). Given the American efforts to manage the world in ways that are more suitable to them for the next coming decades, it is unthinkable that they would have been just uninterested spectators at a distance while the biggest democracy went for elections. Of course the Americans had, have and will have their set of priorities. Like any other country, they have certain things in their scheme that will keep them in a brighter position regarding India. And of course they do it subtly indirectly with the help of their vast networks at various levels. So crux of the matter is: A confident India under a stable BJP government under Modi is not a safer bet for America. As the world super cop it will any day prefer an India struggling politically under a motley mix of governing alliance run by some consensus choice. Whenever India had third party alternative governments, we had weakest short-term prime ministers.

Modi is now clearly running to the dawn of glory. After the UPA disaster it was just expected that the BJP might come to power with a comfortable majority. A strong nationalist leader having comfortable majority is always in a position to bring about major shifts in the plans and policies through constitutional provisions. To begin with, it is disastrous for the Congress whose old system of catching onto its deprived vote bank will become outdated. At the international level it may push India on a path taken by China under a strong stable government where it started even retorting America. So obviously a weaker India always needing American help to beat the Chinese nightmares is a safer bet for the Americans. Nothing exceptional! It is just fitting with the world theory of leadership!

 

Nehru Vs. Advani

 

It had become clear that Advani’s dream to lead India will of course remain a dream. The octogenarian having failed twice before Sonia’s inexplicable charisma was being asked to step down from his claim to the throne and facilitate somebody still better to wage the next parliamentary battle. Political pundits might very well analyse it as a symbol of the democratic prospects in the BJP.

Nearly all political parties in India bear the same foul-smelling tricks and strategies in their secret books. However, in one democratic aspect the BJP scores over the Congress. We can call it intra-party democracy. The BJP can very well look above even those who literally shaped its rise. The Congress on the other hand is bound by its definition to only one particular legacy inherited by a specific family.

Let us start with their respective fortune turners in independent India—JL Nehru and LK Advani.

Nehru was a great statesman. Inevitably the legacy left behind by such impressive personalities cannot be expected to say a quiet bye to this world as soon as the holy flames kiss the body. It lingers on for a long period of time. In third world countries where the masses stay almost in animal state due to poverty and illiteracy such memories are carried over generations. After all they need a guiding light to their deprived selves; simply, because the masses have accepted to be the good followers of the God-ordained authority at the higher levels! There is paucity of charismatic and dynamic new leaders who can help the masses forget the past and move on with the times. So nothing wrong if the legacy escaping from the pyre of Nehru decides to stay back to serve his progenies!

Consolidation of the Nehruvian grasp over the very meaning of the Congress (and the consequent credit for winning the freedom for the country) was a natural corollary to the fact that much-obliged and jubilant masses as well as the second-tier leaders within the Congress clapped inapprehensively while the lighthouse of the Nehruvian legacy was slowly built up in the excitingly languid waters of free India during the initial decades. It overshadowed many a capable Congress leaders.

If we analyse Advani's efforts in taking a party having just two seats in the Parliament to the apostle of power within two decades, we can say that it somehow matched or even surpassed Nehruvian endeavour to turn Congress literally a family institution. But within the BJP the patriarch has been struggling to maintain his position amongst a fantastic crop of career-oriented politicians. The man who almost single-handedly took it to power has not been allowed to set it up as a sort of family institution. On this account, the BJP appears as a far more democratic set-up given the freedom of choice of leadership among its ranks.

On the other hand, when highly capable and very senior Congressmen line up to pay homage and kiss the Yuvraj's hands (the heir apparent), it unfortunately smacks of the typical Indian medieval mentality of treating rulers as the symbols of divinity. If Congress is a democratic party and believes in its rituals then it is high time we see its great leaders taking the centre-stage irrespective of the family they are born in. If Indians still accept Rahul Gandhi (the young man whose calibre and skills can be matched by many of the young Congress leaders) as their natural leader, it just tells that we are very God-abiding people and just would go behind anybody lucky to be born in the first political family of the country.

The Dragon may Burn Out itself

 

There is every possibility that China may go the old Soviet way. Its impressive strides at the economic, scientific and military levels are being relentlessly fuelled by a collective national hoopla about mythical-level enemies in the outside world. It thrives on the mass hysteria of the nationhood and prevails over the shadowy undercurrent of well-managed antagonism to the prevalent system of powers in the world. Education is used to legitimise the collective insecurities against the backdrop of colonial facts of exploitation. Under such environment people get ready to sacrifice individual freedoms and profits to bask in the glory of more sophisticated weapons, more medals at international sports meets, more upswings in the graph of economy and trade, etc. But sorry to say, it cannot be sustained for a decent amount of decades. 


The power of such a dazzling rocket may impressively blind the eyes of supposed antagonistic outsiders, but the fuel in such a policy is not sufficient to land you in the stable geosynchronous orbit where the nation and its people will just effortlessly swim in peace and contentment. Hyper-specified distinctions as a race, as a nation cannot thrive unchallenged for too long in the ultramodern society. It somehow comes into conflict with the natural process of globalisation and integration. America is comfortably enjoying the superpower status for a long time. The reason is that the stormy drive towards massive achievements in different domains was not at the cost of individual freedom. Unlike China here the river of basic human freedoms was not tamed through check-dams of politburo to harness the human energy. Here it has always been allowed to flow decently free. The collective paranoia required to boost the rocket of superpower status was provided by the Soviet rivalry.

The Soviet rocket, on the other hand, fell a bit short of the desired orbit of stability and crashed. In technology they matched each other shoulder to shoulder, step in step. The extra fuel in the American rocket was provided by the deep murmurs of individual freedom in the common hearts of common Americans. It somehow provides stability; creates a sort of pedestal on which the results of super-rivalry can be enjoyed for a relatively longer period of time. China's rapidly rising balloon may also crashland. How can we ignore that behind the firm statistics in its achievement book, there are many statutes that strictly curtail basic human freedom. People will digest this as long as they are overfed with the diet of hate against a common, much vilified enemy. As the participants in this slowly smouldering cold war they think that they play a part by sacrificing a bit more due to more and more stringent rules. But after basking in the collective glory for decades, they will turn their heads back and analyse the sacrifices across generations.

It turns counterproductive. The sea of collective victory cannot sustain unless it is fed through the sinewy rivulets of small-small basic freedoms and enjoyments that create outlets for the common individuals to shine and feel victorious at the individual level as well. So this rising disparity between the verticals of its national glories at the international level on the one hand and the stagnant graph of political reforms may turn the table upside down, like it did in the case of the former USSR.

Why Americans will Remain the Lions of the Jungle in the Present Century?

 

Do you think the chances to succeed and be a leader over the fellow humans depend on somebody being good or bad? Most moralist theoreticians will cast their dye in favour of ‘being good’. Just look at all those who occupy the front ranks of society in terms of power, influence and money, you will soon realize being ‘good’ or ‘bad’ hardly matters when it comes to these successful social lions. What matters is the degree of fear, apprehensions, constrictions and restrictions all combining in an individual uniquely to make him/her weaker or stronger in both mind and body. Physical wellness runs a step ahead to make an individual stronger at other levels like in mind, attitude, confidence, etc. We can even summarize that less fearful means being stronger at various interpretational levels. So those who course away to distant glories are the ones who fear less, because they are stronger physically (foremost) and better mentally (mental interpretations of strength are just a subset of overall physical strength).

Learn from nature. It has all the clues. It holds all of its secrets in the open. It does not promote one species over others on the basis of being good or bad. It is just about the self-evolving scenario of the stronger surpassing and suppressing the weaker. Weakest species are the most in numbers. But these are also very limited in their level of participation in the whole drama. Mere numbers does not mean a larger role in the game. Had it been so, the ants would have ruled the roost in a forest, not the lion! The weaker a species is, the more apprehensive is its each and every step under the cold, impartial glare of the mother nature. Take for example a mouse. The moment it steps out of its hole, its heart pounding with uncertainty and fear, its nose twitching to sense danger, its cowering paws keeping it on tenterhooks! Where is strength; where is surety; where is determination; where is confidence; where is relaxation? It fears most, because it is primarily weak at the physical level. In proportion to its weak, fearful existence, it leads a limited life among the few bushes and rat holes. If we move up, we get dogs, deer, jackals, wolves, etc., all of them having a larger role in proportion to their degrees of being less or more fearful decided by their physical strength. Look at the lion! Watch its carefree gait, its confidence, its sure steps, its relaxing persona under the shade of a tree! All these are the derivatives of its fearlessness, of it being strong physically. Have a look at the majestic ‘I care a damn’ gait of an elephant and compare it with thousand deaths a mouse dies the moment it comes out of its hole. We have the same human variants in social jungle, the social lions, elephants, mouse, etc., depending on their degree of being less or more fearful!

Asians are producing more offspring, Indians and Chinese are doing it, Islamists are also adding to their stock like anything! Does it mean that with more numbers in their category, they will dominate! No it cannot be! From what we observe in nature, it does not look so. Poultry production compromises quality, instils fear, procreates weaklings, booms and bangs confidence, limits motivation. If it is not so, deer in larger hordes will roam freely in the jungle. Ever wonder why Americans, or for that matter Westerners, are hardy bothered about adding to their numbers. It is about maintaining a standard pedigree. Limited procreation has maintained a stable, strong, confident stock. And they rule the roost. Someone might say that with billions of numbers on their side, Indians and Chinese are acquiring a larger role and significance. They are but they are scampering to crowded glory only in the grasslands. At a level where they can just be suitable paper crowned kings in the thoroughfare set by the top honchos. American system instils fearlessness in an individual by making them follow free paths beyond the compulsions of conventions and socialized shit. The chronic compulsions and conventions in the oriental world tame down an individual under forced priorities of education, careers, peer expectations, marriage, children, leaving an inheritance, etc. All these priorities take the individual to the backseat, demand many sacrifices, and force him/her to live for the future at the cost of the present. Under such an assault, of course they are more inclined to be weaker physically and consequently weaker at many other variants of individuality and persona.

In comparison, for Westerners generally and Americans particularly the top priority is staying physically fit, follow own path, stay independent and fearless. They are not bothered about wearing out body and mind just for future generations like Asians do and have no present at all. They do not have to carry the burden of conventionalised expectations to lose their present by being yoked in tiny duties and responsibilities at more common levels. The former breeds leaders, the latter just numerous followers. With technological advancement of a few decades and choice-limited lion-type maintained pedigree, Americans will continue to run worldly affairs throughout the current century. The rest of the populous world will have its noisy crowded share of glories in a subordinate world. 

Chaudhary Devi Lal: The Apolitical Politician

 

Politicians are smart outwitters. They outwit we smaller fish in whatever we assume, presume or think. This chicken-hearted Indian feels like diving into a ditch every time the mighty caravan of an influential politician zooms on the road. Here was I coming on the road just occupying a foot on the road’s edge carrying my small self on a stiller smaller motor bike. And there he was coming, the Congress Chief Minister of Haryana, occupying 99 per cent of the road, carrying his large self in a still larger motorcade. Black hooded commandoes in open escort jeeps in the front found my one foot encroachment on the road too risky for the Honoured Lion King in the state. So they brandished their weapons, ordering me to abandon my encroachment on the road. Boss, it was scary. I would have straightaway jumped into a ditch to clear the way if not for this big acacia foliage to my left. So there I tucked up, like a dog holding its tail down, thorny acacia branches crowning my dispossessed head as the common man, in utter submission, still guilty that I could not clear the road completely. Meanwhile, the motorcade zoomed past with God knows how many departments ranging from security, police, hospital, fire service, cranes, and endless trail of hyenas who survive on the bones thrown by the Lion after his masterful catches.

 

Brothers and sisters, I am too common a man, and thus get jittery when I come across a typical politician with his predatory aura. I just cannot manage to stand anywhere around the place where a politician stamps his authority by gracing the earth with his footfall. My fear of the political class would have been unbreakable and unsurpassable if not for some comforting images from childhood drawing me near a huge white dhoti kurta clad patronising figure. A politician, but an apolitical one. A figure who was into politics, who thundered affably from political stages, but never appeared daunting and intimidating to the masses. This figure still holds me back from dispensing whole of the political class as predatory sharks. It is the maker of modern Haryana, Ch. Devi Lal – our Tauji – the Jan Nayak; the spirited non-conformist against the shadowy overtures of lopsided development at the cost of countryside; the man crowned with the unadulterated halo of farmers' interests. My liking for him is not borne of any political favour directly indirectly to anybody in my or even extended family across a few generations. Just that he did not make us feel intimidated. Simple. He towered over the surroundings, but appeared looking down with supportive gaze, not the typical hawkish gaze of a politician, prying into your eyes with nefarious motives, or just looking at you simply as a faceless, identityless another vote.

 

The basic proof of his apolitical approach is his saying ‘no’ to the most coveted political seat in the country, the prime ministership. The third front had chosen him to be the leader, but selflessly realising his worth as a farmer leader, he chose to be the agriculture minister and chose V P Singh for the highest post. It clearly proves that ambition, the famous bug biting the politicians, had not been successful in biting him, thus leaving him apolitically humane.

 

It is a matter of pleasure and pride to write something positive about somebody from the contemporary politics in modern India. I feel it is a Godly intercession in my little literary journey that I have been provided the opportunity to hitch my tiny literary cart to the strong and swift horses of his legacy to get some moments of positive thoughts about politics and politicians. There is voluminous testimony to the impressiveness of Ch. Devi Lal's calmly commanding personality. And if a son of Haryana – the karmabhoomi of the farmers' messiah – entails himself to the fag end of Tauji's enormously elderly aura and legacy, it should be forgiven and appreciated. We have our inexplicable extremes of likes and dislikes. From the glimpses of my childhood when Haryana was all about agriculture, villages, struggling farmers and buffalos, all I muster up is genuine appreciation for this son of the soil.

 

The Jan Nayak's overriding benevolence shining through the rack and ruin of time beckons to the time when we ran after some lone vehicle plying on the dusty road, loudspeaker blaring and we children competing with each other to get some election campaign leaflet. The leaflet, the printed words and the symbol on low quality mossy colour paper appeared more charming than any toy to the countryside lampoons. It was a small world. The leaflet and the persona too big. Now when my mature brain cudgels up memories of this unblemished character and analyse his works for the country's downtrodden, those childhood luminous memories become firmly fadeless. Lustrous whirls of the extravagant green decorated so proudly in the agricultural fabric of this country will continue to inspire generations to come. His work, worry and weariness for the cause of rural India make him outstandingly standout amongst the rag-tag parliamentary disorder.

 

The old age pension, the small offering to the elderly and the neglected as a token, as a salute for their life-long struggles and sacrifices. When a frail hand, not able to earn anymore, not having any supportive hand to hold it, pockets a few hundred rupees as the old age pension, it appears miraculous support to the fragile body, more supportive than any kith or kin. This humane touch from Ch. Devi Lal’s caring heart, this spin off of his sympathising self, today serves as a lifeline to the millions of neglected elders in India in the form of old age pension scheme.

 

Despite achieving so much at the highest level of Indian politics, he was uncommonly sobered; his simple, stout spirit, merry and mellow elderly aura made him immensely approachable to the people from the lowest rung of life. Where else would you find a Chief Minister, who dropped in by a poor hutment and heartily enjoyed the frugals offered like he had been served with the choicest delicacies from the costliest restaurant? Every settlement in Haryana happily cradles scores of such sweet memories. He would arrive at the scene mired in heartbreaks and dejection. And lo! An encouragingly buzzing transformation would take place. His mere presence would sprinkle new life. His malleable sensitivity, kind and condescending behaviour, subtle and strong physique dispelled the disharmony and dispassion from the scene.

 

We grew up in our village taking him the single synonym of all that 'politics' means to the children. Such has been the sweeping scope of his charisma across the length and breadth of Haryana! That casual flightiness of flickering childhood can still clearly recall the grand impressiveness of his hold over the rural psyche. While I was 13-year-old, finding me unconcernedly lost in the slow grandeur of childhood, my grandfather – a devout farmer follower of the Jana Nayak – scolded me:

 

‘You haven't yet learnt how to talk like a youth. At your age, Ch. Devi Lal not only spoke like a fiery youth, but acted like one also. At such a tender age of 13, he raised the flag of revolt against the Britishers and courted arrest for the cause of mother India!’

 

It was then I got to realise the real force of his selfless valour, courage and conviction.

 

Generic sacredness of his socially prominent policies--for which he life-long lugged it out and lugged it in--made him the favourite son of Haryana's destiny. The Jan Nayak was compulsively attached to the cause of the sons of the soil. Throughout his life, he apolitically slogged ahead, shouldering the responsibilities of those whose interests – up to that time – were politically sterile. And this cherished goal of his would never get off his uncomplaining shoulders till he left this world. Even during his last days, his feeble, old eyes envisioned a golden future for the deprived and dispossessed masses in the state. A very-very old farmer whom I met in a bus broke down while he narrated the dreamy moments he shared with the farmers' messiah when the latter had been bedridden by the inevitable and cruel hand of age.

 

‘His eyes were peacefully closed,’ the farmer told me about his life-long hero. ‘When I touched his feet, slowly but with sudden urgency his eyes opened. He had energy just enough to say few words and asked, “How is it with the crops?’ And then those big, passionate eyes were closed again, as if he was praying for me and the crops.’

 

Tauji's all-fired urgency had blossomed fresh morning's verve in the sublime stillness of the traditional hinterland of Haryana. Yes! We as children have been the first hand witness to this silent revolution of 'coming of age of the rural Haryana.' His name connoted all that leadership, politics, elections and statesmanship meant to us. Far away from the hoot and holler, and flimsy vanities of 'utilitarian politics', ‘the leader of the common man’ was selflessly busy in his mission. And later when his benevolently beaming imagery shone at the national level, perhaps for the first time this country came to understand and realise the real worth of the Jats, who have been the bread earners of this big country, and who in return were uncomplainingly scraping a living — ‘barely’ — for their impoverished and almost famished families.

 

It is a pungent irony that the mountainously big legacy and stature of this great son of Haryana has proved to be too broad and comprehensive for the local literature to accommodate in its pages. May be it is due to the fact that literature is in its nascent stage in this traditional land of agricultural community. Still the myth and aura spreads through the mouths of the old generation who saw him at their peak. Many hollow cheeks lit up with life around hookah in chaupals as they recall their experiences with this apolitical politician. His political legacy is still encashed for political gains by his sons and grandsons. I have nothing to say in favour or against these endeavours. All I say is that my admiration is limited to the source of the legacy, Ch. Devi Lal. I just cannot help admiring this peasant leader’s exceptional simplicity, magnificent profusion of forthrightness, unflinching righteousness and fierce possessiveness about the cause of downtrodden and deprived.

 

In Haryana the people of every caste, class and political spectrum treat his memories as common legacy and he draws all encompassing reverence, gratitude and hearty salutation from each and every one of us.

 

 

The Artist

 

The most distinguished, defining and branding commonality among the artistic people is their lives predominantly over-arched with sorrow, suffering and hardness at the hands of the contemporary society. Mere mention of the word is sufficient to make one envision a life full of destitution, impracticality bordering foolishness, and self-absorbed persona taking the occupant to a cornered reality where he stands in muted aloofness.

 

Now the question arises why have such artistic people suffered all along the march of civilization. Simple! It is their affliction with this germ of creativity that ever lynches them to create something subtle, nuanced and an everlasting symbol of their calibre that will continue to fight against the swiping sand of time, to keep shining forever as an interminable legacy. This creative urge to leave an artistic progeny--which is so powerful among all natural objects that it results in sexual procreation willy-nilly in all species--in case of artists this ‘will to life’ strives to leave a creative legacy. They do not strive for a biological legacy; they slog out off-stream to leave an undying object of their artistry. In a way, it is an effort to move towards immortality in some artistic form, to leave a trace of this self-absorbed self in some form because it is not possible to achieve mortality in the physical form. At the common level, people are so inclined to leave their genes in the form of kids; it is just an effort to ward off mortality’s hammer-work that will see us lying in dust at the end of our journey. So we have elaborate social system of inheritance, matriarchy and patriarchy. An artist’s sense of survival is through his body of work that will stand solid against the cycle of life that does not allow anything or anybody to stand on the stage forever.

 

The artistic target being so noble and high, spanning so much time in the future, holding relatively longer moments in public memory; the investment of the soul’s blood and toil is also of the same Herculean scale. It includes devotion; worship; virtual surrender to the utmost urge to create the masterpiece. Aah, so much for this urge to immortalize the self! It requires penance, solitude, loneliness during those long spread out hours, while the world around walks smarty with immediate gains to still highlight the artist’s fruitless work. Kudos to this common man’s safe rut where so many move uncreatively, safely, smartly, efficiently, practically gathering puny perks and profits falling on the way as a result of tiny efforts and Lilliputian endeavours. So the rutted, beaten path of convention, of sheep-sleep-walking masses following the same path involves littlest risks, almost assured returns, monotonous efforts, repetitive patterns of life resulting in ever so expectable bits of money and the status of a similar mass-coloured sheep.

 

By following the path of convention, a man just puts in a very small, short term investment. It can be very easily followed, for you need not be an exception in any regard; need not take any risk whatsoever; need not put up any type of experimentation. You just imitate others; you just do what other hundreds of thousands are doing; you can even do it like a donkey yoked in its little cart going for miles of its own without using even a chit of its dull brain and the carter happily asleep dropping his reins and lines lose. The wheels trapped in deep furrows themselves guide the beast. To walk on this dusty, smooth, defined, clear pair of ruts it needs no special effort or creativity. Here just above-average skilled fake combatants run ahead to grab the lumps of tiny gains lying in the ruts, followed by the average skilled laggards trying to reach the front part of the mob, and at the end trail the less skilled struggling to defeat the tag of failure. So the pack train lurches ahead with its saddle bags full of little trophies and tiny rewards.

 

Fortunately or unfortunately, the artists do not toe this line of man-mules. They revolt and resist this mechanic soulless movement from nowhere to nowhere. The creativity in them enables them to see mammoth rewards at distant off-rut, off route places. However, the muleteers jostling around force the artist to move at the mass mobbed pace; filled with artistic fury, the creative soul revolts and steps out of the rut to move on fresh earth to reach its own set of rewards and bounties. Meanwhile, boonfully jesting and shouting train of human mules jeers at the artist’s first steps on the solitary path; they brandish their tiny trophies at him; try their best to distract and dislodge him from the unconventional path; bait him with Lilliputian trophies glittering under the conventional sun of their pack train. Not having anything else to distract him, they discard and condemn him as unfit for the mobbed completion in the dusty safe ruts. They shout ‘escapist’. But he just laughs them away, soulfully drenched in the drudgery of his soul’s creative instinct. He is fully immersed in the divine purpose of creating something unique, having a totally new version of reality. In revulsion they punish him with pauperization and ostracizing.

 

Hundreds and thousands of artist revolutionaries die an unknown and unsung death on the freezing cold slopes after moving away or parting ways from the normal path. Some of course reach the distant cave of their destination and carve out a masterpiece that is visible from the common rutted path and the commoners tired and bored throw praise and coins at him. From the craggy ridges its rays even entertain the streaming mass and they even sometimes praise his achievement after all the excommunication and call his self-imposed exile even a fruitful endeavour. The real artist is but still exiled in soul even though physically shoved by the hustle and bustle of common rutted brains.

 

There is a very simple reason why artistry is judged along very poor lines. It is all about money-making principles. We judge the effort in proportion to its money-making prospects. Since most of money-making is institutionalized within the parameters of the rutted path, the tools of artistry are redundant in the common thoroughfare. So the mob constantly yells failure at the artist while he sweats it out to leave his name written shiningly on the time’s fabric. The undifferentiated mass snubs the artistic revolt like a master pokes an errant slave, meanwhile the sun of ignominy and poverty shines on the bent artistic head absorbed in soul-work on the anvil of his creativity. For each word of praise, the poor artist has withstood uncountable number of chidings, snubs, hooting, lampooning puns and mocking looks. He but silently bears it like a strike from the ramrod of fate. Silently he just chips away the stones of adversities to reach the ever-shining gem of creativity, whose hook has been fastened to his heart, and the unrelenting line ever keeps pulling. He is helpless in the grasp of this passion-encrusted cord that would not let him go, even if they try against it.

 

He is the helpless moth, ever attracted to the fire of his creative passion. He just cannot help it even if that continuous fluttering around the glow means a final dive into the flames to be charred to ashes. Whatever might be the end, the artistic soul lives triumphantly, victoriously in the glory of its artistic passion. He sets his own goals and gets his own self-derived rewards, so societal acceptance or non-acceptance does not matter. Every little creative streak taken to its completion brings him own set of adulations and salutations. His stomach might starve; but his soul is ever satiated with big draughts drawn from the fathomless pool of his creative urge. Society may dub him as a failure but his ever sweating out conscience is perpetually vouchsafing and singing eulogies for his diehard spirit and really, really genuine efforts.     

 

Sukh Ram’s Nightmare

 

Sukh Ram, involving ‘comfort’ and ‘Lord Ram’ in his name, is not feeling as comfortable as he should given his otherwise fine-going life. He has been bitten by the bug of insecurity; a psychologically exaggerated thing possibly. But every person’s haunts are as real as anyone else. One just cannot put these into the dustbin without reflecting over them. 

 

Sukh Ram wants to stay happy, feel safe and operate freely in a far better world than the present one. Of the many scaring bits of facts that stop this world from being a better one, the wrong interpretations of Islam just stab him like a poor kafir, slaying his peace, robbing him of his right to believe that we have indeed made some progress in the 21^st century. He just cannot sit comfortably in the confines of his living room and watch the horrible scenes of massacres perpetrated by the blinded souls of extremist Islamists. Massacres of innocent students, beastly cut-downs on women’s already almost nonexistent freedom, live slayings of media men like they are just chicken, pumping poison in soft childhood to make them killing machines in future: the images are killing. It’s just not possible to believe that he is safe in this world, wherever on earth he is and whatever religion he is following. 

 

More to keep himself safe, and a bit less to help the humanity, he wants a better world by helping his Muslim brothers to redefine themselves in the ways parallel to the world involving blending of cultures and openness to beliefs and lifestyles. More than anything, it will save non-Muslims like him from the hair-raising problems at many levels in the future.

 

With his scared guts and his pants almost wet with cowardliness, he wishes these secular theorists to be gagged for some time and allow some real practical talk and do some reality check. He is praying for those who can find ways to gradually melt paranoid apprehension in the Muslim minds regarding anything non-Muslim, be it dress, places of worship, mode of prayer, food, relationships and what not!

 

He can even give a significant portion of his earnings to anybody who can ensure that the next generation of Muslims is more tolerant of those beyond the Muslim walls having their own distinct ways of life. He will embrace anybody who can tell the educated next generation of Muslims that touching a Hindu temple’s walls from outside does not mean they have lost their Muslimhood. As a Hindu he feels very lenient in what he accommodates regarding the multiple realities linked to inter-religious strains. He hardly has any qualms about entering and even offering prayers in darghas and mosques. But he has a doubt whether his best effort to take a single Muslim into the shrine of his faith will meet some success. Guys, again he cribs with a wounded judgement that Muslims from childhood are conditioned to take any such bravado into others’ shrines as blasphemous. With burning heart and sad spirit he recalls an ultra-modern, educated Muslim colleague of his in the corporate who used to openly throw Tuesday prashada into the dustbin. Well it was just a simple ritual by God-abiding Hindu employees to collect money on Tuesday and distribute prashada on the floor. ‘If the educated lot behaves that way, imagine the situation in crammed slum-type Muslim neighbourhoods!’ the ‘Ram’ portion of his name gets jittery.

 

The ‘Sukh’ portion of his name wants Islam has to be fundamentally redefined to inculcate mercy at its core philosophy like other world religions. A lady colleague of Sukh Ram still gets palpitations when she recalls an incident from her childhood in an African country. Her father had taken her to visit his Muslim friend’s house. All went well till she saw the host’s small kid catching a mouse and scooping out its eyes with playful relish. The proud father just looked droolingly. Highly educated and unbelievably soft, she still gets disturbed and says, ‘The fundamental philosophy is to kill the softer side in the young ones to make them less tolerant, less humane, aggressive and merciless so as to annihilate the kafirs and non-believers.’ Sukh Ram’s 7-year-old son softly mollycoddles a baby doll and serves her eatables hoping that she will grow to be his wife sometime in future. Sukh Ram shudders; takes his eyes away from his son. He has seen the documentaries portraying the consequences of this fundamental Islamic approach in war-torn and strife-lorn Islamic states where kid jehadis commit heinous crimes against humanity with the ease of performing something holy.

 

He wants to look far into a prosperous future, but how can he do that if he has millions around him who are looking back and crying all sorts of distractions. ‘They get antagonistic to me. My crime: I look ahead while they look back. By sticking to the rigid medieval line, my Muslims brothers think that they are surrounded by enemies like me and they have to stay and act like a pack of wolves to ward off the danger,’ he feels a painful stab in his heart. It’s evening time and the melodious azaan call blares from a minaret in ‘that’ section of the city. It draws him apprehensively to the crammed, unhygienic, slumish Muslim neighbourhood where the age-old lifestyles had been forced to stay alive in semi dark behind closed walls overlooking narrow streets. He wants them to open up; to come into the multi-religious playground and enjoy the fun the current age has to offer. He does not want this as a pious being. He does it as a scared person; scared because the volcanic eruptions from the suppressed neighbourhoods might erupt to cover his poor head with soot and ash. He counts the names of those well-to-do Muslims who can afford to shift to better social environment but still prefer to stay in narrow confines. In fact there had been a reverse trend. Upper class Muslim families had shifted to congested predominantly Muslim colonies from the earlier secular kafir-infested locations having better facilities. He becomes more insecure because it does not augur well for a cosmopolitan society. It does not augur well for him either.

 

He wants to have happy, safe, smiling Muslim families in his neighbourhood. He wants them to be normal people around him just like any other religioner. Following the azaan call, he spreads his palms to beg some favour. ‘The governments world over please contrive, devise direct and indirect, covert and overt ways and means to break this fear psychosis in Muslim minds to draw them out of the wolfish packs behind closed walls and redistribute and relocate them as prosperous neighbours of tolerant culture involving people of different religions,’ he finds himself praying to the governments world over instead of 320 million Hindu Gods and Goddesses and the sole supreme entity, the Almighty.

 

 

Now he pins all his hopes on the Governments and their institutions to bring about subtle fundamental changes in the ways Islamists lead their lives so that at least the next generation of Muslims would not look stealthily, apprehensively over the Islamic walls and peer at the world outside including him as an alien entity. If this is not done, he gets goosebumps at this realisation, the world inside Muslim neighbourhoods and outside will become so different that it will have sky and earth differentials. ‘Such differentials never allow stability,’ he bangs his rolled up newspaper on a flea that is distracting him and now resting on the table. He misses the aim, ‘How I wish there were many modern maulvis who keep the Koran and computer together!’