Corridors of Organized Hate where Love Suffers

 

Jimi Hendrix  says: “When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.”

Well, it may appear too much to ask for. But aren’t the evil effects of love of power too evident to at least reconsider Jimi’s advice? More so because the corridors of power almost unerringly become the corridors of hate. The urge for power bears a directly proportional relation with breeding hate. Sadly, when hate becomes the mantra at the top, it is hardly possible to stop its cascade effect from creeping into the normal functioning of day to day life of the citizenry.

Deepak Chopra nails it completely: “Enlightened leadership is spiritual if we understand spirituality not as some kind of religious dogma or ideology but as the domain of awareness where we experience values like truth, goodness, beauty, love and compassion, and also intuition, creativity, insight and focused attention.”

Absolutely correct! Spiritually suffused leadership becomes a tool to work in the garden full of flowers for a fragrant humanity instead of stinking muck.

Cal Thomas maintains: “One of the reasons people hate politics is that truth is rarely a politician's objective, election and power are.”

Your humble brother thinks that is where the problem starts. By being power-centric you surrender a large portion of your compassionate self to feed the rapacious bug of ambition. The bigger problem is that you are able to let loose the waves of hate because you are in a position to influence.

Friedrich Nietzsche captures the grey shades of reality when he says: “All things are subject to interpretation and whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.”

So brothers and sisters, the functionaries of power end up suffering from a natural helplessness to fall in the trap of lies, conceit, falsification and what not.

Your humble brother is not inimically ill-willed against the agents of power-seeking brigade. You know there is a very thin line between one’s skill set and its honestly hardworked rewards on the one hand and the endeavor to use the same set of skills by using the disability and ignorance of the fellow human beings. The latter sadly turns an ambition into a profession called politics, which entitles the power hungry to climb the ladder for more and more glories. It’s never enough in the palace of power and politics. The misdirected self is ever dying to control the destinies of millions.

The leadership is churned out from a sleazy concoction of mudslinging, aspersion and whole lot of bull-shit. They have huffing and burning souls behind the smiling expression. It carries its momentum to the larger set of policies because more than what you are doing to make, you are focusing on breaking the opposition. You may think that by such broad generalization I am almost leaving the solution impossible. No. My only point of raising the issue of this typical political malady is to highlight the importance of more compassionate beings in leadership positions.

All we see in political systems world over is literally war-mongering among hateful brigades. Does violence and hate come so naturally to us? No, it doesn’t. It’s simply darkness in the absence of the lamp of love and compassion, which is facing furious winds as we raise storms with our stampede. In any case, I reserve my right to call a spade a spade and nurture my utopian dreams of an all-loving system because that is what we are destined for. So kindly allow me to crib over the spools of darkness formed due to the absence of the light of love!

Winning more than the Trophy

 

The Cricket world cup of 2019 will be known for many reasons that go beyond the prowess on the field. Real victories jump over the trophy, and there are many, just that one should have a humane heart to feel. My only congratulatory note to England cannot come out without this refrain: “How does it feel to be crowned champion when you actually know you haven't won?”

Well, even though New Zealand destroyed Indian march to the trophy, and thus earning the ire of millions of cricket-crazy fans, most of us supported New Zealand. The reason is simple: supporting the underdog comes instinctively to we humans. One more proof of our essentially loving self! Isn't it?

Destiny, silly cricketing rules and some umpiring goof-ups robbed New Zealand of a well deserved win. However, the heart’s domain is endless and here comes my verdict about the game: England wins trophy; New Zealand—more importantly—wins hearts!

Now the biggest take-away from the tournament! You need not be a rampaging bull, huffing and puffing with arrogance, to win at any cost. Nice guys can also win. The Kiwis played like gentleman. No hyperboles. Such composure is possible only if you take yourself to be a human first and a sports star later. They won the semifinals against one of the best teams in the world and went for a peaceful celebration with the people who matter to them. They are a product of a system that does not promote stardom over the basics of being good sportsperson. I salute their graceful walks and humble gestures as they moved back to the pavilion as the finalists. Imagine the rowdy show in case some other team had won the match!

Kane Williamson looks like a saint on hiatus from the hills, who has taken to sports for some time for the reasons best known to him only. A pleasant diversion, possibly. Whatever the reasons, it's but a treat to come across such graceful persona among hordes of mean machines designed to win at all costs. Grace in both winning and losing is what defines the basic framework of being a good sportsman, or being a good human, more importantly.

The New Zealand skipper is a saintly cricketer whose balanced demeanor teaches more than his terrific exploits both as a leader and player. His calm, bearded muse underplays the grit and dedication he brings in his boys. Winning is holistic. Apart from the trophy, we cannot ignore such gentlemanly gems. They are winsome trophies in their own regard. To me victory doesn't stop abruptly at the trophy. It's a big zone of marvelous takeaways, one such is Kane Williamson and his behavior on and off the field.

After the tragedy in the final, which will be retold time and again till cricketing eternity, the Kiwi skipper didn't try to garner laurels as a martyr, even though he had every right and most of us would have taken his bitter outpours with big bear-hugs of sympathy. The pinching tragedy could not produce even a single phrase of acrimony in him. Imagine how Indians, including our cricketing stars, would have reacted in a similar situation.

Dear Kane, you are the biggest star to all those whose eyes just don't look at the trophy only. Believe me, there are millions of such eyes that appreciate gentlemanly combat within the boundaries of grace and dignity. Better luck next time—if people can't still forget about the trophy. However, I am sure you are already past the temporary storm and walking on some lonely beach carrying that stoic, meditative muse.

So guys, Kane shows it's possible to win without flashy temper, angry tattoos, throwing abuses at the opponent even after hitting century and taking wickets, proud prowls like an extra terrestrial super-species, glitz, glamour, bla bla bla. His delicate smile pacifies many a storm.

Some ladoos for our team’s effort also. Don’t hate our cricketing team. If they go off the line sometimes, we should never forget that they are the product of the social system created by us. We make them starry-eyed Gods. So, of course, the poor guys slip sometimes, like the idiotic proclamations of womanizing exploits by two of them on a silly show hosted by a terribly chatty person.

Most importantly, give them the credit they deserve. Topping the table in a round robin league format, where each team plays against the rest of the participants, proves the meticulous level of performance. The knockout stage is basically dicey. You get some bad 45 minutes on the field and you are out. It doesn't tell anything about the team's ability. Just that New Zealand clicked at the right time. It was a great game of cricket. Well done India and congrats New Zealand! Oh, yea, well done England also!

Mining Gold from the Well-beaten Dust

 

Like he is looking for pomegranate seeds in a dung cake, he looks deep into the well of nostalgic memories. “What does August 15 mean to us? It only means that rains are almost over. A mark of change of seasons. Similarly, January 26 means the end of the real cold,” he gives his innocent, but immensely practical, interpretation of the Independence Day and the Republic Day.

And the anecdotes follow. His dim eyes are looking back to enliven some memories buried deep in the layers of his brain. Well, don’t most of the citizens of India feel that way, I wonder.

Nobody grew vegetables as a cash crop during those days. It was called dum kheti, named so after a caste legendarily popular for their leisure ways, who cringed away from physical labor and survived on singing folk ditties and smashing drums, and that too on rare occasions like when a son was born. In 1952, it was the old man’s family that sowed peas, and not just sowed the seeds but chartered a new path also.

They had a huge dung disposal pit, where they would dump basketfuls of dung taken out in the morning, as the buffaloes, bulls and cows defecated freely through the night, a faculty with the domesticated cattle in that they can continue eating through the night, letting out the waste from behind. And this faculty served as a manure factory during those simple times.

In the dung pit, they would pour bucketfuls of cattle urine. Over months and years, it turned into most fertile manure. There was hardly any artificial fertilizer during those days. As the pioneers of a new trend, they sowed peas. And not only introduced a new vegetable, they sowed the prospects of a new farming way.

“The pods grew this long!” he is indicating from the top of his middle finger to the lower half of the palm. It even comes as some crude gesture. Some peasants laugh. Even he himself gets conscious and makes it more polished. “The pods had 22 grains, can you believe it? I myself counted these! In fact, I learnt counting with those pod grains.”

“Sugarcane was as thick as this much,” he has sprawled his fingers and thumb in opposite directions to accommodate maximum girth. “And what did you need to grow the sweetest wonder? It was just human effort, manure from the dung pit, and sprinkling alkaline soil from the waste land outside the village. You just chew one sugarcane stick, drink water on the village well, take a bath in its cool water, and mind you, you had to run to your house to avoid dying of hunger.”        

He is then telling about the legendary wells in the farms. Their water was so sweet that you never missed sugar during those days. Then he is telling how everybody was so healthy, so healthy in fact, the healthiest of today would still fall short of the weakest of those times. He is telling of legendary strong bulls that pulled carts, which even a tractor would struggle with. He tells of buffaloes whose bursting udders would compete with a whole dairy’s output. He tells of mighty farmers who could pull a whole cartload by themselves, in case the bull went on its knees, and still pat the animal on its back as if it was their son who needed some help.

It seems the best is long past. Gone with the wind. Well, does it mean that we are on the path of regression? If not, why would every old man in each age die with such sweet, pining nostalgia?

The Times when almost everything was Pardoned

 

Old times had their own sweet sour charms. All it proves is that the world wasn’t too serious. Seriousness is the modern-day malady. Looking at the way things happened in the past, you just can’t afford to be judgmental. There might have been grossest wrongs. No justification for that of course. Nonetheless, the small takeaway was a casualness, a sort of relaxed attitude, which dispelled the clouds of seriousness. And mass hatred, the modern-day evil, institutionally instigated to reap benefits at a big scale, hardly found a place in such relaxed environments defined by the loose strands of casualness.

In the region where my parent state stands presently, there was this Nawab of Daulta near the present town of Beri. Well, the man was a religious enthusiast. He released even the murderers if they converted to Islam. So what do you say? Any lessons for the democratically crowned kings of the nationalist party? 

Then there was this communist chap, Prakash Singh Dujana. Even politics was simple during those bucolic days. He won’t think too much before proclaiming at the rally, “I need to convince only the Jat voters. The lower castes will come along by default like a street dogs comes with ticks on its ears.” Someone said, “You don’t have a single vote.” Our politician was one-eyed. Expertly and confidently, he pointed out someone in the audience similarly placed on the vision front, “There is my brother in half vision. He at least can’t ignore me through his single eye!” Then he realized another advantage and quipped, “Ten girls from my village have been married here. And they are very social and pleasing personalities. I have faith in them. They must be in a position to influence hundreds of men around!” Well, even with its sins, this politician appears less lethal than the modern-day avatars who rouse the rabble and fury of Knights on rampage. Is old always affable, almost to the extent of appearing gold, for every succeeding age?

There was then this old man. Travelling in his bullock cart at night, he would take long detours away from any type of light visible on the horizon. “This light attracts thugs, robbers and ruffians. This is not light. This is the path of sin,” he used to say. Well, he would have preferred to keep the whole world in darkness at nights. So cutely innocent! Isn’t it?

So those were the days, when the best to the worst were put in the same basket and weighed in the scale and valued at the same price. And nobody got unduly jittery. Those were the times of acceptance I suppose!

Not that I overlook the flaws lurking behind these crudely simplistic statements. There are hard, serrated edges of injustice as well. In hate and mockery it never was better or worse. It is the same world, just that older times appear more tolerant and forgiving than the present one in the simple fact that people then didn’t carry malice too deep in their hearts and quickly moved on with life. There were hardly any storms in tea cups over non-issues like present when minor things go out of control and shake our foundations. Well, in a forgiving society the risks are still less than a well-ordered, law-abiding, cynical, non-accepting and judgmental society. Old has always its lessons.

The Pregnant Baby

 

It’s an effort to pass it off as a mall in this town of Haryana, even though it is no more than a street urchin in front of a self-sustaining, mature, confident young man. Delhi isn’t too far, and almost everybody, to whom the issues like malls matter, especially the teenagers and young adults, has been, one time or the other, to the famed Ambience and Sahara in Gurugram and scores of other malls in the Delhi NCR.

However, you just cannot scamper away to those famous places every time your eyes burn with desire to watch the latest release; your tongue lets loose a stream of saliva to dab into something chatpata, some pizza burger sandwich chicken fry; your wallet appears too heavy and eager to shed some bucks to get some famous brand, some trousers, underwear, undergarments, jeans, shirts, tops, trackpants, sneakers, chappal, joota and more.

We get as much itchy to spend as we are eager to earn. That’s where the consumer culture draws its lifeblood from. And these days you don’t want to hunt around in a dusty, sweaty market to get your cravings fulfilled. There are too many shops and too many provisions. You need many items of many types within shortest time. You want it at one place. So a small town, with its inhabitants having tasted the luxury a mall offers, has to have a mall.

And here it comes taking the first tottering steps of a toddler.

The three-storeyed mall has come up to at least partially fulfill the shoppers’ and idlers’ dreams. It’s an adolescent town running to meet its mature city-self down the decade. One side on the ground floor has garments, footwear and a couple of saloons. The other side has struggled. Subway struggled there, so did pizza wallas, and so did the franchisee-less efforts at cuisine by enterprising dish-makers. The peda and lassi wallah left. They left with more enthusiasm than they opened.

A Patanjali store, sure of its brand, on the nationalistic upswing, has taken the space of three stores by removing the walls in between. It has more display cases and rows than the number of people at a time. Still we survive for future. The brand gives all indication of growing, growing and still growing. Let’s see how far it goes here.

On the second floor, one side is ready to take shoppers in. But it is all shuttered up, no takers so far. The other side is yet to have its separate blocks of shops. Even the floor tiles are missing. You just have the all-clear view across the glass front along the outer side.

We missed the basement part. It has a huge, stuffed to the gills, provision store. The rest is parking lot where hardly anyone parks, apart from those who have set up business here. The teenagers just try to get suddenly invisible, now standing here, now gone, and steal some kisses behind the pillars in the basement.

A boy and a girl kissing, though still a considerable scandal, is no longer the sin it used to be a decade back when it fetched honor killings as natural consequences. Now it fetches leering, jealous remarks and sniping hooting. That much is digestible for a goddamn kiss. Of course there are many, who don’t have a girl in their lives, even in this freeway decade, when many successful macho boys claim that girls are more easily available than even the brandless shirts in rundown stores. So these pining, girlless souls prowl around to catch it preferably on camera, and leave it in the endless stream of the social media.

Domino’s arrived with a bang, “Try all new Dominos”. They had the push of their brand. Unfortunately, not many takers. It closed. Displays are still there, waiting for a new player to relieve them of their wasted duty.

On the glass-fronted marketplace side of the mall, Looks Unisex Saloon is displayed in white letters on a tar black board. Its plush interiors and golden embellishments invite with a modern smirk. To surpass the rickety level of small town modesty, both males and females are welcome. Well, that makes it modern by default. It’s a humungous effort to catch up with modernity. The rate of change has lagged a bit in the society lynched by patriarchy.

By the salon’s side, New York Slice are gone. Unique Collection, the garmenters, look over the counters to spot some serious buyers. The staff at Giani’s since 1956 broom the not so stomped floor, trying to make it swanky clean. They are trying to look damn busy, thinking their up-to-the-mark seriousness will draw people. By its side, Satyam Medical Store sells condoms, I-pills, toffees, chocolates, napkins, but hardly any takers for medicines. They must be selling some headache pills and ENO to survive.

In the lobby on the ground floor, a very smartly fixed cubicle covered with flex-boards welcomes you. It’s Batra Lemon Corner, a red cubicle with price lists of nimbu lemon, jeera lemon, milk rose, pista rose and many more displayed all along the upper half of the set-up. The lower half of the cubicle still carries the signs of its past. The previous entrepreneur, Sip and Bite, tried to seduce young boys and girls with a group of patties, aloo patties, macrony patties, chilly patties and still more. The past that never was, it hardly began, and ended. It but still survives to remind some bored eyes that there are patties in this world.

On the ground floor some shutters are closed, but they have attractive displays. These are shops in making. Auram, by Nisha. No clue what it may mean or stand for. Only time will tell. It may remain anonymous, the entrepreneur may decide to call it quits at this stage only. A nail art saloon, D’nails, get any design on your nail. It seems progressive. Till a decade back those who look at the board didn’t even realize the importance of decking up face, forget about nails that got broken while dealing with buffaloes and bulls in the fields. Dollar, always on top, upcoming. These are rich red letters bordered with white on a pitch black board. An aggressive style statement for the undergarment brand. They have been around for some time, so may storm through the initial apathy of window-shoppers.

Like a dead, open-mouthed whale, the green Subway cubicle has been closed with more enthusiasm than it was started with. Or is it open forever? Sub in white and Way in yellow, in a white elliptical background. Metal chairs and plastic tables are neatly stacked inside. At least there is grace in closing down. The owner seems to be a diligent person. There is also a plastic room cooler and glassless display case. It was a world that saw its end coming even before it was born.

Nearby, Amazing Kids is yet to come with its collection of kids wear. The starter must be keeping a close watch over the kids loitering around holding the fingers of their parents. United Colors of Benetton is operational on full pace. The spacious interior has enough privacy for flirtation among the sales staff. Shopping wise there isn’t much of botheration.

Priya Retail Store, shop and save. The invitation is very sympathetic. But is there any saving after shopping? Ever? Anywhere? It’s about spending. Baker’s Hut has nice, suave, white, brown and grey tiles. Who cares? The attendant is yawning like he has just woken up, even though it’s almost lunch time. City Heart Restaurant has claustrophobic interiors. An LED blares as if in the musty backseats of a disc. Teenagers just sit around to watch some song, drink water, do their stuff under the tables and go out. In the garments store next to it, even the notice of 50% discount offer repels more people than it attracts.

Very few people take the lift, after all it’s a matter of just two flights of stairs. But its door has advertisement stickers arranged very nicely. These are city brandmakers: Family Dentist, Verma Pathology, Rawal Retina Centre, Bansal Health Square, City Computer Point, etc., etc. Small people with big dreams. Well, isn’t world made of such people only. Those who are no longer small, hardly live.

The third floor is the liveliest one. They have two screens of Max Cinema on the one side. Opposite is a long and spacious gym, running along the full length of the mall. You can see fat middle aged women, their children gone to schools, and husbands packed off to workplaces, sweating out on the treadmill to chuck out tummy and bum fat at noontime. It’s also about getting a bit of Godsent opportunity for some fling to bear up the sinisterly boring tide of the creepy mid-life crisis and boredom.

Max Cinema entry is a bit livelier. They do some business at least. Not that they play nice movies all the time. The business puller is the fact that they provide privacy and darkness. Icing on the cake. Couples with thudding hearts sneak in to get corner seats to hold hand and do a bit more as would not make them repent the cost of INR 300 for two seats.

Two teenagers are stopped by the guard who asks them to take the Centrefresh out of their pockets and deposit on the counter. “You stick it on the seats,” he is in a position to chide. Those who don’t have a girl actually do this, possibly as revenge and a sort of rebellion by their teenaged self.  

National anthem gets played before the movie starts. Nobody wants to court controversy, so all stand up willingly, unwillingly. They get down even before the last note is finished. Nobody wants to lose even a precious second in the cool darkness.  

In the national flag, saffron and green are separated by white. How symbolic! There has to be peace between them. But who will play white?    

It’s the cinema that really makes the story for this mall in its infancy. The heaviest footfall was when Dangal was screened. It was never livelier. What a crowed! The owners may have the first night of complete sleep during Dangal screening.

Cinema is pushing the revolution of bringing boys and girls together. The surrounding area is deeply conservative. Teenagers and adolescents don’t look forward to watch hit movies. They like those lean weeks when there is no super-hit spoiling their hideout by the surging crowds. They prefer flops, when hardly anyone comes for the show. The big, dark and cool hideout is the perfect bargain for 150 rupees. A lot of intimacies unfold, with just a few dozen couples busy with their expression of love and lust in far corners, in the middle of the rows, or anywhere the contriving self of a flushed adolescent deems it fit.

You may have the best of a girl with the worst of a guy, the best of a boy with a horribly thin girl, both good looking, both average, both funny, or many combinations probable in between. As many combos as you can ever think of. It’s an eclectic mix. It’s not about choice. The floodgates have recently been opened, so you cannot be choosy. It’s only about having a boyfriend or a girlfriend. On principle. Choices, what, when, how, where and why come later.

Girls come with their faces covered with headcloth. Well hooded for secrecy. The strains of patriarchy are still surviving. Honor killings are still not totally unheard off. It’s better to be cautious. The headcloth, which kept women in almost slavery for centuries, is now an instrument of freedom, of anonymity, of facelessness. With it you just become a girl, a generality, you lose your name. You cover your face and you lose your identity to become just a girl. So the scornful eyes of elders will just curse a girl generally, instead of you particularly.

The small town girls on the path of unshackling themselves from the chains of tradition and patriarchy wear jeans, suit and salwars, in awkward imitation of the world in the movies and the Delhi NCR. Some look terribly funny though. But it’s more important to assert your independence. It can come at the cost of sounding funny. A dignified slavery is worse. A funny independence is better. Somehow. Don’t have the logic for this. Just that it feels so.  

With hooded faces they loiter around, almost on tiptoes, keeping a strict watch with their eyes, lest they be recognized by some acquaintance. If they haven’t actually seen it, at least all of them have heard of honor killings that were rampant, as little back as 5 years ago, in each and every settlement in Haryana. So it’s about flying with the wings of age, of curiosity, of sex, intimacy, kissing and holding hands. The mall thus grows in operations; month after month more people come, making it less scandalous for the young ones. Let’s hope the theft becomes a routine affair of life, to draw it out from the illegal shadows of minds to turn it just a mere simple fact of life, to stop rape, to vanquish molestation.

Let’s hope freedom brings genuine love in people’s lives. Till now it appears like a mischief and theft. Things are changing slowly though. Let it be a vibrant society, which is engrossed in higher purposes of life, instead of people being forced to explore their sexuality almost till the end of their life. Where the virtual world, defined by the so called virtues, keeps on acquiring weirder and weirder shapes, taking the person further and further from the real potential he/she is born with.