Music and dance

I was going through some blogs the other day and I found this group of people who have this project where they record CD’s of their favourite songs and send it to each other. These people are all spread across the world. I think that is a lovely thing to do. Music instantly uplifts you, no matter what, and even if you’re sad or heartbroken, there are songs to keep you company that seem to touch your inner heart, as if they were written for you. My sister has a number of friends who do things like that for her – and there are others who get gifts like that as well – you know, for birthdays and things. I haven’t got any CD’s like that till date (sniff!) – so if anyone is ever interested :-), then here are some songs I will listen to again and again for life. 1. Absolutely everybody – Vanessa Amorosi 2. Time after time – Cyndi Lauper 3. Sexual healing – Marvin Gaye 4. Thank You – Dido 5. Inner Smile – Texas 6. Life – Des’ree 7. Out of reach – Gabrielle 8. Smooth operator – Sade 9. With or without you – U2 10. Come away with me – Norah Jones 11. Don’t know why – Norah Jones 12. Mrs. Robinson – Simon and Garfunkel 13. Over the Rainbow – Wizard of Oz film soundtrack 14. Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid film soundtrack 15. My favourite things – Sound of Music film soundtrack 16. Respect – Aretha Franklin 17. Stand by me – Ben King 18. Fields of gold – Sting 19. Every breath you take – The Police 20. Smooth – Santana feat. Rob Thomas 21. Ain’t no mountain high enough – Marvin Gaye, from Stepmom film soundtrack 22. Sweet home Alabama – Lynrd Skynrd 23. All the people of the world – Safri Duo 24. Aicha – Outlandish 25. Say a little prayer – Diana King from My Best Friend’s Wedding film soundtrack They’re mostly happy feel-good songs with tunes that will make your feet want to get out of your shoes and dance (yeah – even if you don’t ‘know how to’. I don’t understand how people can’t know how to dance. Dance is an expression of yourself. It doesn’t matter if you have two left feet or not. Unless you plan to give a stage performance or something!) You might be alone in a foreign country with the bleakest weather you have ever seen, or it might be bright and sunny and you’re around people you love – just dance. For yourself, for life!

'Yatha raja, tatha praja' (What the king does, the public does too)

For those who are interested in reading more about corruption levels in India - Admiral R H Tahiliani (Retd), architect of the largest ever corruption survey in India, speaks here.

Freedom

The concept of freedom has varied interpretations. I watched the long-awaited Aamir Khan starrer ‘Mangal Pandey’, fittingly, on India’s 58th Independence Day. There’s something to be said about the concept of freedom. And patriotism. How it awakens the hardworking-but-publicly insensitive citizen and apathetic resident alike. How the sacrifice of a life for the sake of an ideology can make you feel that you just have to get out of your seat and do something more meaningful with your own life. How you feel intense hatred for politicians today who have made these sacrifices seem nearly meaningless, because 90 years on they play with the freedom of others nonchalantly. I kept drawing parallels between ‘Braveheart’ and this movie as I was watching it. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I watched ‘Braveheart’ for the second time around very recently, and Mel Gibson as the Scotsman, William Wallace had a lot in common with Aamir Khan as the Indian, Mangal Pandey. Both fought for freedom. From tyranny, from oppression. For a chance to let the people rule. Both took years to achieve their objectives – objectives which were realized years after their deaths but which were ignited BY their deaths. ‘You may take our lives, but you can never take our freedom’. 58 years on, India has achieved a lot. But no matter how much I try to appreciate that fact, the Aruna Roys, the Baba Amte’s, the thousands of uncelebrated individuals who struggle relentlessly for the sake of the oppressed, I keep coming back to the fact that everyday you have reports of corruption, of bribery, of assault, murder, every single day in modern India – a lot of it that can be contained if only people did not abuse the power vested with them. And that is a murder as well. A murder of faith. They play with people’s freedom. And their lives. And when the government and the legal system prolong this murder of freedom, they are partners in crime. And that is not worth forgiving. Don’t talk about freedom if you can’t uphold it, dammit. That’s why I feel tears rolling slowly down my cheeks when I see these kind of sacrifices. Even in Bollywood movies. And I refuse to feel ashamed.

McLeodganj – A walk in the Tibetan woods

There comes a point in your life when you just get tired of your life being ruled by external factors – someone else’s daily schedule, or your work or concerns about what this person would think or that. Sometimes you just need a break, to be by yourself.

I took a Himachal Pradesh State Transport bus to Kangra on Friday night, and went up from there to Dharamshala and finally McLeodganj. History has it that Dharamshala so captured the imagination of the then Viceroy Lord Elgin that he wanted to make it the summer capital of India. However, fortunately for the small hill settlement, it was spared that fate – and it was Shimla which finally got that 'honour'. I can tell you that Shimla has none of the charm that Dharamshala has today, thanks to hordes of tourists and innumerable hotel constructions along the mountainside there.

McLeodganj, 10 kilometres uphill from Dharamshala, is today the abode of the Dalai Lama. Quaint and very Tibetan (though the troops of Israeli and French backpackers almost make it more foreign that Tibetan – can you imagine hotel menus in Hebrew?!), anyone who goes to the place will come back charmed. I met an Indian couple on the bus who were going to meditate in the hills there, and they were able to give me some valuable information – such as the fact that staying in McLeodganj makes much more sense than in Dharamshala because it is much more interesting with its little market lanes. I went to the Dalai Lama’s residence and walked around the Buddhist temple within (the Dalai Lama himself was away in Switzerland) on my first day there, then went to Norbulingka which is a centre for the preservation of Tibetan arts and crafts spread over a lovely campus near Sidhpur. To get there, simply take the local bus to Palampur and get off at Sidhpur (a ticket costs Rs.4), then walk the 15 minutes to Norbulingka. I spent a couple of hours in the lazy afternoon there, then went back to Dharamshala where I popped in at the Kangra Arts Museum. I suggest you give it a miss – the government enterprise is dark and gloomy. I sat on a sack of potatoes (truly an Indian experience!) during a crowded van trip back as mist began swirling around the valley, then ate Hotel Snow Lion’s famous lemon curd cake in McLeodganj as I watched the slow drizzle change to a steady downpour. Deciding that it was not going to stop for a while, I dashed to my hotel, getting thoroughly drenched in the process.

As a result of that rain soaking my running shoes, I had to traipse around Bhagsu and Dharamkot, both 2 km from McLeodganj, in – catch this – Bata slippers, the next day! It wasn’t such a bad thing as it started raining again during the day but it wasn’t so comfortable after a point! I met an Israeli girl on the way to Bhagsu (the place is known for its temple), and she accompanied me in rambling about the most wonderfully green and mysterious woods nearby. There are a number of meditation camps in Dharamkot, and during our exploring we found a stone hut which looked like it was something out of an ancient land, with a couple of French backpackers eating fruit calmly as the mist loomed up the hills yet again. We spent an hour sitting there peacefully as well.

I caught the bus for the long journey back that evening, but Monday morning and the honking of Delhi only made me wish for the peace of the hills once more.

The land of milk, honey and hardworking people?!

My cousin wanted to know why I hadn’t written about my first visit to the US of A last month so here I am – I can never resist the chance to needle people I think will take it sportingly :-) So, having lived in Europe, India and the Middle East at various points of time, what do I really think about the land of milk-and-honey? I didn’t have any bad experiences that I can describe in lurid detail, much the worse for those of you who thought there was some America-bashing coming up. I didn’t even see that much of the vast country – just a bit of the West coast. But I thought it was a relief to be amidst some order and cleanliness after the chaos of life in India. I also thought that many Americans are a paranoid lot who can exude some more warmth. I had to remove my shoes at numerous points for security checks at the airports. On the way back, I was taken out of line and had to stand in an enclosed space pod, a bit like those you see in science fiction movies, where three blasts of air whooshed around me. I asked an airport officer what that was about, and he said it was to check for drugs and explosives. It was ok, I don’t get offended very easily, but it’s scary to think what happens to people who have the tiniest bit of anything that the machine wrongly detects as harmful. I went for a global meet where there were many non-Americans, so I can’t say I had long interactions with many Americans. Those that I did speak to were quite courteous. Not overly friendly, but nice enough. The cities I visited, Portland and San Francisco, were rather pretty. San Francisco is gorgeous, to be fair. And the day I was there the weather was awesome. The city thrives on tourists and has some spectacular views. During the trip, my boss asked a colleague whether she would like to live abroad. She replied that while she might like to go overseas for a year or two, she’d rather be a first-class citizen in India than a second-class citizen in a country like the US. The US is a very entertaining place to visit, and I might even like to visit multiple times, but I wouldn’t want to live there. I think Europe is more friendly and cultural, and those are things that appeal to me about a place.

Oh G-d Help Me!

Hindered by a God-damnable virus (not the dreaded meningitis surfacing all over Delhi, you’ll be glad to know), sitting in a musty, dusty little room which in better days has seen brightness (can’t say the same about it ever having been non-dusty: in Delhi, dust is all-pervading at any time of the year – kind of like God), I am wondering what to do. And why not write something about God? Jews don’t like saying ‘God’ as in ‘God’. They call Him (or Her), “G-d”, or ‘Gd’. (When I was in school, ‘Gd’ was a short form for ‘good’, by the way. Teachers who had a stack of notebooks to correct often resorted to this, if I remember right) Anyway, the idea is that one shouldn’t invoke God’s name unnecessarily – it becomes a violation of one of the Ten Commandments . That is what a Jewish friend of mine said. I did further research on it and found here that: “the basic concept is actually that Jews do not write the name G-d in full in disposable media such as pieces of paper or more recently, online. Books are OK as these are not regarded as disposable. This is to avoid the possibility of disrespect being given to G-d by throwing the paper in the garbage etc. In fact, when Jewish prayer books etc. are no longer serviceable, they are first stored until there is a sufficient number of them, and then they are respectfully buried (rather than burned, thrown in the garbage etc.).” Interesting, huh?!

Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi

I’ve been wanting to write about Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi ever since I saw it, but dallied this long because I didn’t know quite what to say. I won’t gush about it, nor will I trash it. Readers of this blog may have observed that I prefer to stay in the safe grey area about most things rather than mark anything as outright black or white. The fact is, I don’t think it is possible in the case of art (this includes music, dance, theatre, and films) to label anything as ‘good’ or bad’. Because I didn’t go through the experience of being in it, and I don’t know what the director’s thought-process was at the time of making it. What I can say is whether I enjoyed a production or not. Having said all that, I would have loved to be a part of ‘Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi’. But ‘enjoyed’ is not the right term to use to describe ‘Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi’. It is, I think, not meant to be ‘enjoyed’. It is meant to wake you up. It is meant to make you think of what people in the early 70’s in India had to go through under the ruling government. It is meant to give you a ringside view of what it was like to be a student during the Emergency and pre-Emergency years of 1969-1975 in India. It is meant to touch you with its almost poetic presentation of emotions simultaneously so raw and pure – love, fear, hate, anger, evil. And politics. This movie winds around politics in such a way that you hate what went on in the name of the government. Custodial deaths, police atrocities, political fixing. The Naxalite movement came up as a response to these, and it was an extremely idealistic and passionate group of students and people who had the courage to become Naxalites - that much I did take home. I wonder if I would have had the guts to be one of them, much as I identified with them. New Delhi, 1969: Middle-class Vikram Malhotra loves Geeta Rao who loves rich kid Siddharth who is in love with his dream of a better India. After college, Siddharth becomes a Naxalite. Geeta marries Ram Kapoor, a British-educated IAS officer, but realizes her heart was always with Siddharth. She goes to join him in a village in Bihar. Vikram, determined to become rich, becomes a political fixer and never stops loving her, inspite of, for example, witnessing Geeta and Siddharth making love as a farewell party is in full swing in their last days of college. I won’t say more than this because it wouldn’t be fair. There are scenes which are brilliant in their ability to touch your inner, most hidden emotions. There are performances which are near-perfect. Though some of the cast has come in for criticism, I found nearly all performances in the film above par, including the vile policemen and politicians, and the aging father of Siddharth. Kay Kay Menon, Chitrangada Singh and Shiny Ahuja as the principal characters have made considerable impact, essaying their roles with conviction. My only grouse was the last few frames of the film, where (and perhaps this is my own fault as a viewer) the seriousness of the story lapsed in front of the mirth that Shiny’s character exudes prior to that. But watch the movie. To realize what kind of a country you live in. The political situation might have changed, but Indian politics is still much the same.

'Cleansing' sex in Africa in danger from AIDS

I don’t know which of the two is worse – women being raped in the biggest and richest cities of India in 2005 (different instances cited here, here and here) or the continuing practice of widows being forced to have sex with an in-law soon after their husbands die in Africa, again in this day and age. On the first topic, though I have much to say (a police constable is the accused in one instance – welcome to law in India, though I am not generalizing here), I do not trust myself to elaborate without getting overly emotional. Perhaps I need more blogging/writing experience, so I will stick to voicing my opinions on the second topic. However Amit Varma’s views capture the issue well here and here. The article on Africa in the New York Times profiles the backward tradition of widows having to have sex with an in-law, ostensibly to exorcise the evil spirits that will otherwise pervade the widow and the village. The rising incidence of HIV has now made political and tribal leaders sit up and take notice, citing this practice as a reason for 25 million sub-Saharan Africans being infected with the virus. Yet, change, as in any part of the world, will take time. In a village in Malawi, the headman still endorses the tradition, saying, “We cannot abandon this because it has been for generations.” In fact, some areas even use the services of one of several appointed village ‘cleansers’, selected by a headman as in one case, “ for his sexual prowess after he had impregnated three wives in quick succession”. Jokes are made about the ‘difficult’ job he has. What then of the widows, who are made to go through the practice without their consent – practically describing them, as the New York Times reporter who investigated the issue says, as rape?

Why I love ice-cream

Because it makes me happy. Indescribably, inexorably happy. I’m actually quite a sight to watch when I eat ice-cream – I act as if I’m on drugs or something. It’s a most harmless, fantastic high. And guess what – research has actually proved that ice-cream really does make you happy. You can read more about it here. The article says: Neuroscientists at the Institute of Psychiatry in London studied a group of people who ate vanilla ice cream. They found that ice cream affected the orbitofrontal cortex in the brain, known to be activated when people enjoy themselves. Research was also carried out by Unilever, using ice cream made by Walls, which it owns. Don Darling of Unilever said: "This is the first time that we've been able to show that ice cream makes you happy. Just one spoonful lights up the happy zones of the brain in clinical trials." So, everyone, go have a spoonful of ice-cream today. I’m so glad my wacky behaviour when I eat ice-cream has now got scientific sanction!!!

Cows Ahoy!

There is an article in today’s paper about the menace of cows on Indian roads – something which I thought fit to write about because it is actually an issue which has, at various points of time, taken up quite a bit of my thoughts. Which country in the world, other than India, would you see animals sitting square in the middle of the road, seemingly disinterested in the traffic chaos they are causing? If anyone has an answer, please let me know. I find it absolutely frustrating that a government actually prefers regular traffic jams and occasional accidents to getting rid of the cow menace. I mean, wouldn’t the cows themselves rather be happier in a safe dairy? When I was younger, I used to play ‘What if I was Prime Minister’ in my head, and one of the first things I decided I’d do was put all these wandering cows away where they should be. I mean, India has enough and more people to tend to cows, and if a bit of the money going to pay bribes could be usefully diverted to doing this, I think a lot of good would be done. First you’d be clearing the roads and making them safer, and second you would be generating employment for poor people who need them. In fact, a whole industry could be usefully tapped – you could have dairies producing milk which could generate income, and so on and so forth. But I suppose the government would typically have their own views on this – such as where would the land for such an enterprise come from? Oh, well. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has been given a deadline of one week by the High Court to clear city roads of the cattle menace. And the MCD Commissioner is not optimistic of achieving the target within the deadline. Is that surprising? Not to me. Anyway, to quote, ”Considering our experience with the police, we will be able to achieve the target only by the year-end. The court has asked us to submit an action plan within a week. I have called for an immediate meeting of officials from the veterinary department to discuss the matter.” Which basically means – too bad for the public. They are going to have to continue to put up with the cattle menace indefinitely. There is another rather funny angle to this, by the way - a rumour presumably because I didn’t find anything to support it on the globally accepted Source of All Knowledge (the internet of course!!) – apparently cows sit in the middle of the road because flies don’t irritate them there due to the constant flow of traffic. This has, according to the rumour, been found out by none other than the prestigious Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad!

Do Not Disturb

If anyone has ever had unsolicited calls from various companies asking if you are interested in their products, then you know how I feel. Yesterday I had FOUR calls (and I think I’ve hardly ever got any before that) from HDFC, Tata Indicom, Idea Cellular, and ICICI Prudential Life Insurance asking me whether I’m interested in their credit cards, phone connections, or insurance. I’ve worked with a market research company briefly and I know for a fact that they have a database of landline numbers whom they call to conduct research on various topics. But calling mobile numbers to sell products is another thing altogether and that is what I call complete invasion of privacy. In fact, where I used to work, the system did not permit mobile numbers to be called (but that of course was the UK and not India where privacy is almost non-existent). The first call I actually bothered to respond to because I was interested in what they had to say. I said I’d think about it and put the phone down. To the others I just kept parroting 'Not interested'. Now my theory is that there must be a central database where these people pass on all unsuspecting fools for other companies to harass, because somehow the other three all called the same day. Having been disturbed from my sleep (which is the worst time to call anyone, by the way), I angrily asked the fourth chap where he got my number from, and the answer was a ‘marketing research’ company. Someone should tell them that market research is very different from hard-selling products. India needs to get professional and follow a publicly accepted system.

Paradise on Earth

“If there is paradise on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here,” once exclaimed King Jehangir of Kashmir. The atmosphere is not as carefree as it was during his time, but I echoed his feelings when my eyes feasted upon the natural wealth of Kashmir for the first time. I was full of mixed emotions when I went – what was I to expect? The last two decades have seen Kashmir’s socio-political atmosphere disintegrate tragically, and even if one isn’t too keen on reading about the state of affairs there regularly, the Indian media won’t allow you to speculate. Bombs, suicide attacks – that’s all I ever read about. But things are improving, albeit slowly. On April 7th , the first Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus in recent times made a journey. The happy event was however clouded by a purported ‘militant’ attack on the Tourist Reception Centre in Srinagar a day prior to that. I say ‘purported’ beause the majority of educated Kashmiris in the city believe that it was a government plan to attract attention to the terrorism in the state – security in the area prior to the bus journey was so tight that even a fly couldn’t have flown by, and then a militant attack?, they noted skeptically. As my flight descended into the Valley, I was awestruck by the looming snow-capped mountains in the distance, and the yellow mustard fields dotting the landscape. The grey clouds in the sky seemed all at once mysterious and beautiful. Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir (or, as the BBC, politically correct as always says, ‘Indian Kashmir’) is nestled among the Karakoram range of mountains and has a population of 1.1 million. Muslims are the majority but Sikhs, despite the Anantnag massacre in 2001, still live here, as do many Hindus despite the ouster of the Kashmiri Pandit Hindus a while ago. Army men stand with guns or man bunkers on the roads every few feet, despite the relative peace in most areas where people go about their daily business, having got used to the presence of the military in the state. The supply of electricity is erratic, with regular power cuts, and life pretty much shuts down by 8 PM. Having said all this, I don’t think I can do justice to the beauty of the place. It is no wonder that India and Pakistan are fighting over Kashmir, because I’m pretty sure that tourism alone would bring in a lot of money if there was peace. I went to Gulmarg, literally meaning ‘Meadow of Flowers’, which was actually a meadow of snow when I was there! A white blanket dotted the mountainous area, and a ride by cable-car took me to the upper reaches of the area where the base of some peaks were within walking distance. Many old Hindi films have been shot in Gulmarg, and I even recognized some locations from my limited memory of a few I’ve seen (If anyone knows the Mumtaz-Rajesh Khanna song ‘Jai Jai Shiv Shankar’, it was shot here). Pahalgam is another pretty-as-a-picture place to visit. This one translates as ‘Valley of Shepherds’. A rushing river gushes through the region, called the Lidder Valley, as snow-laden peaks shine in the distance. It actually snowed briefly while I was there, and though summer is known as the best time to visit, the cold added its own touch to my memory of Pahalgam. Taking a ride in a shikara on Dal Lake, getting dressed up in Kashmiri get-up for a photo and begging the army men at security check-posts at the entry to the Mughal Gardens at Cheshmashahi to let us take a video-camera (which we finally did smuggle inside!) are some other enjoyable moments of my trip. One thought that repeatedly came to my mind during my stay was that this was truly a paradise on earth. Now if only someone could only make the region’s decision-makers and activitists understand that.

Education and literacy

They were all silent, even those who had not committed the sins I had attributed to them. I dismissed the class early, although the culprits and a few others stayed back to plead their case. They were docile even in their pleas: they wanted to be forgiven, they did not know any better, this was what most professors expected. Two were in tears. What could they do? They had never learned any better. From the first day they had set foot in elementary school, they had been told to memorize. They had been told that their own opinions counted for nothing. - Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi How does it feel when you have ideas and thoughts simmering inside you, but you never have the encouragement or the platform to give vent to them? I know what it feels like. In school, when I was mesmerized by the beauty of billowing clouds on a sun-drenched day, or the romance of the pearl-grey sky throwing forth pricks of happy moisture on a hot evening, I often felt privileged and lonely at the same time. Privileged because as anyone with the ‘heart of a poet’ will understand (as years later a friend from college put it), those fleeting moments when Nature is at her resplendent best are genuinely special, and lonely because at the time, poetry to most in my school meant unwelcome lines that you had to mug up to get extra marks in exams. We were never asked to comment on anything, argue or even paraphrase. It went to the extent that Maths – MATHS for heaven’s sake – was sometime learnt by rote. Today when my 16-year-old cousin tells me that mugging is the only way to get marks in exams – and marks are ultimately the deciding factor for admission to college – I start off arguing forcefully about the need for him to actually understand what he is learning, but slowly my energy peters out. Because he is right. I went through the rigmarole of Indian education and he is still at it, years later, and nothing has changed. I have nothing to support my point of view, apart from my passion for what I call ‘real’ education, as opposed to ‘engineered’ literacy. The Indian education system – and by that I mean primarily Indian state examination boards, because I don’t have the experience of anything else – are seriously flawed. I certainly don’t remember very much of what I studied in school, and I was a pretty good student all through. What is the point of this education then? It doesn’t teach confidence or encourage innovation or talent. It creates factory-moulded robots – and when you hear about the saffronisation of education, that is even scarier. George Orwell’s ‘1984’, anyone? Today the stress placed on students during exams leads them to take their lives, and nowadays parents are turning to that as a solution to their wards’ problems as well. Arjun Singh’s HRD Ministry convened a meeting with representatives from the IIM’s, IIT’s, NGO’s and other institutes last week in New Delhi to debate the issue. Lots of solutions are being bandied about – from doing away with exams till Class 8, to introducing a grading system. Whether mere discussions will translate into effective action remains to be seen, but till then ‘Ten thousand saw I at a glance’ could be written by Mark Twain for all anyone cared. And years down the lane, another person like me will feel forcefully angry and hopelessly sad at the same time, for growing years having gone un-nurtured.

Wah Wagah

I visited the Wagah border between India and Pakistan today. I’ve wanted to for a while, and it didn’t disappoint. Located on the straight Attari Road about 30 kilometres from Amritsar, the Wagah border consists of two huge walled gates, one on either side of the evocatively green, vast farmland of the state of Punjab. But wait – a description like that is simplifying the whole experience. The energy (of full-blooded Indians, especially Punjabis), curiosity (of a host of foreigners and NRIs, and then people born curious like me), excitement (of school children herded along by protective teachers, and everyone else in general) has to be seen to be believed. The ‘event’ as I call it, starts as soon as you step out of your car, as you wait in a crowd to start walking the half-kilometre to the gate. People young and old, of all colours and sizes, try to walk fast, jog and run to make sure they get a good place to view the goings-on. I got there about half an hour early, and we were strictly made to wait by the side of the road till we were let in at about 5 p.m. Anyone who is out of line is herded back by smartly-dressed Indian soldiers, with red and gold turbans sitting majestically on their heads.

The lowering-of-flags ceremony starts at 5.30 and till then the crowd on either side (the Pakistanis have filled up their viewing arena by then as well) shouts and cheers for their respective countries. An officious-looking gentleman warned the Indian crowd not to say anything against ‘them’. The only permitted slogans, apparently, were ‘Bharat Mata ki jai’, ‘Hindustan Zindabad’ and ‘Vande Mataram’. I don’t agree with the ‘Hindustan Zindabad’ part as I believe that India comprises of much more than just Hindus, but I got caught up in the atmosphere and shouted lustily with the rest of the crowd. It reminded me of my college days, but this was much better. I had a more heightened awareness of what was happening around me – and I think time plays a part in this. I hadn’t lost any of my ‘josh’ though, thankfully!

The parade itself is quite good to watch. On the Pakistani side of the gate, I could see the Pakistani soldiers in their navy-blue Pathani salwar kurtas and turbaned heads performing the same actions as their Indian counterparts. After a few minutes of ceremonious marching, the Indian and Pakistani flags, flying high on their masts till then, crossed as they were lowered. They were then folded perfectly (the Indian flag was chakra-side-up) and carried away in a line by their soldiers.

On one hand, it was a pretty simple event, but on the other, with its open-to-public viewing policy, hearty cheering and the lowering of flags in perfect tandem, there is something intensely patriotic about the whole experience.

I made a quick stop at Attari on the way back – its just a couple of kilometers away from the border. Having grown up on a diet of Hindi movies, I wanted to see where one of Bollywood’s latest blockbusters, Yash Chopra’s Veer-Zaara (and I haven’t even watched the complete movie) was shot. Attari is a small station through which the train from India to Pakistan passes. The station was dark and sleepy, apart from a few porters and watchmen hanging around. It was quite a change from the hustle-bustle of other Indian stations. I must have looked quite silly, taking pictures on the overbridge on which Preity Zinta and Shah Rukh Khan stood in a particular scene (not that I think they are luminaries of Indian cinema or anything!), and the porters were looking at me quite amused. A typical crazy Anjali-type thing to do, but it's my life after all, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience!

Thoughts on corruption

I was watching the news and there was a piece of what I call investigative journalism being profiled. You can read some more about it here. A reporter from a TV news channel had masqueraded as a member of the public and went to the Sales Tax office in Delhi to get some information. No less than 82 government officials were caught accepting bribes by a hidden camera somewhere on the reporter’s person. The Sales Tax office is bang next to the headquarters of – get this – the Delhi Police. Whether by chance or not, the names of the only two officers that blinked across the TV screen were of female officials. I don’t attach much significance to it but it certainly does away with any small idea I had that women are less corruptible (is there a word like that?) than men. Ironically, March 8th was International Women’s Day. A day to celebrate women and their achievements, a day to celebrate women achievers across the world and across work categories. Don’t get me wrong here. While a lot of people in the past have actually called me feminist in the past, I’m not, really. (I am reminded suddenly of Vivek Oberoi who I noticed on TV on March 8th, saying very poignantly that he does not believe men and women are equal, because women are simply much superior, and that’s why when God had to give the job of child-bearing to man or woman, he chose the woman, because she’s stronger. Go Vivek!) Anyway, so a) as a woman, b) as a conscientious resident of India, I was, to put in succinctly, flabbergasted at that piece of news. I shouldn’t have been – I mean – Tehelka is not really all that old yet, but something about the news made me feel very disheartened. I mean, these are educated people (forget the gender now), working for the government, the provider of facilities to the general public like you and me, and these people don’t think twice before accepting bribes. I think it was the manner in which they did it that got me down: Reporter: How much do I have to pay? Official: You know about these things, give me as much as you give others Reporter: I can give you Rs.2000 Official: 2000 is not enough, at least give me 3000 Reporter: But I had to pay someone else to get some other papers, this is all I can give now. (Official quietly takes the money) In the night, I was calculating how much these officials must have made over the years. Let’s say, at a conservative estimate, that they deal with 20 people in one day. If they take an average of Rs.5000 from each (I’m sure bigger concerns must be paying way more to bypass government tax rules, and there is a lot of money in sales), that’s Rs. 1,00,000 a day. For a 5-day working week, that’s Rs. 5 lakhs a week, which is Rs.20 lakhs a month. So we’re talking Rs.20 lakhs per person per month in BRIBES. Money hidden under the carpet. Don’t forget as government ‘servants’, these people get a regular salary also. Most of the 82 people who were caught have been suspended. But with some ridiculous sum of money stashed away in a multiple number of bank accounts, I don’t think they will need a job for the rest of their lives. Perhaps its not so untrue (though I keep trying to be optimistic because of some of my friends who call me a ‘foreigner’ living in India, when I comment on corruption in this country) that along with the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia, India, projected as a global super-power by 2020, is one of the most corrupt nations in the world.

Excerpts from 'Eleven Minutes'

I can choose to be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It’s all a question of how I view my life. _______ All my life, I thought of love as some kind of voluntary enslavement. Well, that’s a lie: freedom only exists when love is present. The person who gives him or herself wholly, the person who feels freest, is the person who loves most wholeheartedly. And the person who loves wholeheartedly feels free. ….in love, no one can harm anyone else; we are each of us responsible for our own feelings and cannot blame someone else for what we feel. - Eleven Minutes, Paulo Coelho

Life

The myriad colours of reflected light bouncing off a shining diamond.

The colour of her eyes

Writing is panacea for the soul. It is therapeutic – this is what I’ve always believed. It’s just that in this day and age, with SMS and e-mail making things so much more convenient – not to mention quick – writing often takes a backseat. Sitting in a train on the way from Calcutta to Kanpur, however, I took out my stationery and began to write. Its something I planned to do, and the absence of any irritating co-passengers helped. The continuous rocking motion of the train didn’t, but that’s another matter! _______ The colour of her eyes. Dark chocolate-brown. She looked unblinkingly at the two children begging opposite, a short distance away, as she waited for the bus. The younger boy was looking to the older girl for a signal on whether to touch the man’s feet for money or not. The girl, dirty and clad in a short polka-dotted dress, was standing passively, her hips thrust out in an almost disturbingly evocative manner for a child her age. She’d seen similar enough scenes enough times in the past, when she used to travel by train to go home from college. She’d wanted to work for the underprivileged then. But that was before she got accustomed to the coke at the parties. Her life spiralled out of control and she was on the verge of dying when she was pushed to the AA meetings by Varun, who finally discovered her ugly secret. He was so proud of her for coming back to his life the way he’d known her before it all happened. And she was going to marry him in a few months. She didn’t want to do social work anymore though. She believed there were people who could do that better than her. ‘Know your strengths’, someone had once told her. She wanted to be an author now. She went quietly back to reading her book. _______ The colour of her eyes. Soot black. She was tired of this rigmarole day after day. She longed to run and play in the fields she knew when she was younger in rural Bihar. She longed to study in school again and learn about planets and the moon and the pretty shiny lights in the sky. Moving to the city had made her life awful. Her family didn’t even earn enough money to have food three times a day, forget becoming rich like they said would happen. Papa hadn’t been able to get a good job as easily as they thought. The lady who lived next door to them in the slum had told her mother to instruct her to stand like that, jutting her hips out, so that they could get some money to ‘help the family expenses’. She hated it. She looked at the fair girl in the pants and long T-shirt reading a book nearby. She wanted to be like her. She decided with renewed determination that she would study. She would study at night and pay for it by doing something else during the day – not this horrible work. A bright smile played on her face as she had the idea. She shook her head to say ‘No’ to her little brother, who was looking for the signal.

The colour of my life

Silver blue Rippling through? Blood red Cursing through my head? Sunflower yellow Cheery bedfellow? Ornate pink A princess in mink? Awesome orange Unblinking courage? Lime green Shimmer and sheen? Pure white - Snow.....bright.

Designers and designer prices

There is no doubt about the class and superiority of Indian couture in the Western fashion industry today. Fashion houses like Armani get a lot of their embroidery and stitching done here, and cheap labour is not the only reason. The intricacy of the work on pieces by Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Ritu Beri, Tarun Tahiliani or Rohit Bal is faultless and extremely applealing, and the fall and feel of the material is classy and elegant. I have this to say about Indian haute couture - it is much more attractive than Western lines. We have our culture and rich textile heritage to thank for that. Ikat, zardozi, kantha, even basic tie-and-dye bandhni are all textile secrets that only Indians can draw on. Of course (how can one not talk about this), the price is another story altogether. Ranging from the thousands to even lakhs of rupees, a middle-class Indian would have to think twice before buying designer wear. I suppose that also, by default, is what makes it exclusive. I went to Ensemble, Kimaya and Carma today. Ran into Sabyasachi at one of them. Ah, the life of a Delhiite! A few more visits and I'd be on Page 3 automatically :-) In my old jeans and Nike jacket and backpack, I stood out like a sore thumb though! And yes, I did buy a couple of designer wear clothes. On discount :-)