Choose

ManiOctober 9, 2023October 9, 2023 5 Comments

Warning: violence; no political correctness here

This is one of half a dozen short stories I wrote back in mid-1993: soon after I quit my job as a banker of 13 years’ vintage to don the lifelong disguise of writer… …and soon after Bombay, and India, plunged into a bloodfest organized by an unholy alliance of religious and temporal kooks, primarily Muslim and Hindu; a bloodfest that polarized India, lasted nearly 10 years and still erupts from time to time. The stories explored different manifestations of violence; the themes were all largely drawn from reality…and often, as in this case, built around personal experience.

I thought I’d wipe 30 years’ dust off this story and post it now…at a time when we feel pressurized to Choose every second of our lives in every aspect of our lives between This extreme and That extreme in a world that’s become Binary, a time when Russians and Ukrainians are slaughtering one another, when Hamas has achieved spectacular new depths of mass butchery of men, women and children in Israel and Israel is reducing Gaza and the bones of its residents to rubble…

I’d welcome your comments, Gentle Reader, as always.

I could see the highway as I descended the steep lane from my hill-top colony. It was awash with rain water, twin ribbons of glistening, rippling grey-black macadam stretching away in both directions, deserted at this early hour. The narrow mud-and-rubble divider that ran in between was as black as the ominous cloud-layer above. It was cold, and I shivered as the moisture-laden wind from the west tugged at my shawl.It was a good half-a-kilometre down to the 24/7 medical store on the road that led to the railway station. I had a terrible migraine, and needed to buy an inhaler and tablets.

I crossed the little bridge that gave on to the highway and waded across the flooded road till I reached the divider. Stepping on to it, I turned and began to walk along its length, picking my way carefully through the jumble of stones and clumps of rain-drenched grass. Walking along the divider would be slow and slippery, yet far preferable to wading along the verge where the water was deepest. And on the divider, at least I could be confident that no hidden brimming-over potholes waited, open-mouthed and hungry, to swallow me whole.

I saw movement to my left. In the darkness, two—no, three black shapes materialized on the verge and began to cross the road ahead of me. The men must have come up from the sprawling shanty-town that lay to the left, below the highway. I watched as they ascended the divider and walked towards me. One of them, I saw, carried a shapeless black bundle upon his shoulder.

They stopped, all of a sudden, about fifty feet ahead of me, and went into a huddle, heads close together. Something about their manner, some faint, inexplicable sense of uneasiness, made me slow down and come to a standstill. They hadn’t seen me yet. I watched as the tallest figure—the one with the bundle—brought his arms up and swung the bundle off his shoulder. It landed in the mud with a soggy thump.

The three figures stood, motionless, as though waiting for something.

I glanced at my watch. 05:20.

In another ten minutes, the great convoys of Bombay-bound trucks would be released from their shackles at the toll-tax gates a kilometre up the highway to the north, and soon the three lanes to the left would be filled with countless tonnes of hurtling metal and the air would reverberate with the triumphant roar of the trucks as they sped towards the wholesale markets and industrial belts of the great city.

As yet, though, the silence was disturbed only by the bubbling and chuckling of the flooded drains and sewage canals on either side of the highway. A light drizzle began, but I just stood there and watched the three figures as they hulked over the dark bundle at their feet. After a moment, the tall one—obviously the leader—squatted down and began to work at the top of the bundle. Curiosity overcame apprehension; I crept forward till I was barely twenty feet away from them, and now I could clearly see what was happening. The bundle was a jute sack, the kind used to pack grain or sugar in; the tall man was undoing the tight knots that bound the sack’s neck, with what seemed to be extraordinary caution.

He worked away silently, and his companions stood about him, watching his busy fingers as intently as I was. A pale, watery-grey light broke out over the dark hills to the east, just as the tall man undid the final knot and sprang back.

For a few seconds nothing happened. And then…the sack moved. One of the men laughed softly, but was shushed by the tall man. Their eyes were on the sack; if they’d seen me, they showed no signs of it.

Again, the sack moved…as though, deep within its rough, sodden folds, something was wriggling about, struggling to emerge.

A hum reached my ears, and deepened and grew steadily till it pulsed and throbbed in the thick atmosphere. The trucks were on the move, and approaching rapidly.

The three men had apparently been waiting for this; for, each one stepped back a pace and reached into his shawl. Their hands emerged, and now each hand bore a weapon. Strange weapons they were, too. The tall one held a long metal rod with a vicious hook at the end; one of his companions gently, almost lovingly, swung a bicycle chain; and the third man had a chipped cricket bat in his grip. Heart thudding, I watched and waited; not knowing what to expect beyond the conviction that, whatever it was, it was going to be violent.

The hum became a roar, and the first of the trucks passed by an instant later in a welter of noise, tyres hissing in the water and leaving a great filthy brown spray in its wake. It was followed a few seconds later by another, and then another, until the vehicles were thundering past in a continuous stream and the very earth trembled beneath their weight. The spray from the tyres rose ten feet into the air, and added its muddy weight to the drizzle; but I was oblivious to anything but the drama unfolding on the divider.

The tall man stared at the passing trucks for a moment, nodded to his companions as if satisfied, and then kicked the sack viciously. The sack shifted a foot, and from within it emerged shrill shrieks that made my skin crawl and my hair stand on end. It was the sound made by rodents in anger and in pain…

Now, something moved along the neck of the sack: a large lump, moving up slowly, followed by a smaller lump. The small lump suddenly shot forward until it collided with the large one; the neck of the sack twisted and turned, there came a squeal of agony from its interior; and then the larger lump disappeared and only the smaller lump moved, closer and closer to the mouth of the sack where it lay in the mud.

I held my breath as the lump reached the mouth of the sack. I darted a glance at the three men. They stood about the sack, tension in their stiff, motionless limbs, their silhouetted weapons infinitely threatening.

The mouth of the sack widened, and something emerged. At first, only a pair of long, dark whiskers; trembling, sniffing the air for threat and danger. The men stood like rocks while the whiskers twitched for an interminable period…and then, with shocking suddenness, a lithe, grey-black form leaped from the mouth of the sack and bounded straight across the divider—towards the deserted road on the right side.

The three men were faster. Like striking cobras, their arms rose and descended, again and again. One terrible shriek, quickly cut off…and the rat lay, broken and bloody, in the muck.

Even as my mind struggled to make sense out of what I’d just seen, the sack moved again. Horrified, yet fascinated, I watched as another pair of whiskers emerged from the mouth of the sack and tested the air. This time, one of the men expedited things by tapping the sack cloth behind the lump. The rat—it was a larger, rangier specimen than its unfortunate predecessor—shot out and headed straight down the divider. Towards me! I yelled involuntarily and leaped several feet into the air, but it was unnecessary; the bicycle chain cut the rat nearly in two, and for a horrible moment both segments quivered perceptibly in the mud.

Someone hissed. I looked up and saw all three men staring at me. Their faces were completely expressionless, but there was something about the glittering eyes in their dark sockets that sent a thrill of terror down my spine. I felt as though I were an intruder…yes, an intruder…at some dark, secret ritual being practiced there, in the middle of the highway.

This is ridiculous, I told myself. I’m in the suburbs of Mumbai, this is the twentieth century, neither the place nor time to imagine things…

The tall man took a single step towards me, and suddenly the impulse to run seized me. Run, the voice in my mind screamed. This is something you don’t understand, you can’t understand. Get away! Run!

But just then, a frenzied squealing from the sack diverted our attention. Turning my head, I saw no less than three rats fall out of the sack in a writhing lump.

A strange, feral cry rose from the men’s lips, the weapons rose even as the rats scrambled to their feet. Two scuttled to the right, and were butchered before they reached even halfway towards the deserted road. The third, however, headed for the road to the left. Towards the river of trucks, and their churning, grinding wheels.

And now a strange thing happened. The three men paused, weapons poised in mid-strike, and their eyes followed the rat as it crawled painfully towards the edge of the divider. One leg trailed behind it, apparently injured in the scuffles within the sack. The men made no move to hinder its progress.

The rat reached the edge of the divider, hesitated and made as if to turn about and crawl along the divider instead. The tall man reached out and flipped it around with the hooked rod in his hand. The rat staggered, fell over and landed on the road, whiskers twitching nervously as giant wheels passed within inches of its nose.

The tall man prodded it behind the tail…and the rat ran. With what little strength it had left, it ran across the road in an awful three-legged gait.

The three men hunkered down on their heels to watch its progress, and their eyes were wide and glittering, mouths half-open, eager…I couldn’t look, didn’t want to look, and yet I strained my eyes and peered beneath the passing wheels. I couldn’t see anything, but the three men obviously could. A simultaneous cry rose from them, savage triumph in its tone. The tall one raised his face to the sky and chanted aloud, almost as would a priest invoking celestial powers. His words cut through the rain; they were in rich rural dialect, they were weird…and they froze the blood in my veins.

Behold, the beast Chose its path through the Blaze

It Chose the Path of Pain; by its own Choice has been slain

So shall we treat Bearers of Misfortune in coming days

Faced with the Fire of our Wrath they will Choose…and be cut in twain

I felt my knees tremble. I willed myself to move, to leave that terrible scene, but I just couldn’t. The sack was full of frantic movement now, as if its occupants were aware of their doom; as if, somehow, they knew that an awful ritual of Choice awaited them outside the sack.

I stood there and watched while two more rats emerged from the sack, turned right and were promptly beaten to death. A third one emerged, a young one; small and thin, with a piercing high squeak. This one opted for the river of trucks, and was ground into the slush by a speeding sixteen-wheeler. The three men cheered.

But now, the sack did a little flip; and then a huge shape distended the neck of the sack, crept closer to its mouth, and the three men tensed and held their weapons at the ready.

A giant sigh went up from them as a large, grey-whiskered snout appeared at the mouth of the sack. Small, crafty eyes peered this way and that; pointed ears twitched; and then the rodent crawled out onto the mud and sat down on its haunches as if absolutely nothing untoward was going on.

Rajah, I heard one of the men whisper in awe.

Rajah. The King.

I saw what he meant. The Rajah was easily the biggest field-rat I’d ever seen. He must have been all of thirty inches from weathered snout to leathery tail, with a lean, muscular body and a certain look about him, a battle-scarred, war-veteran look. Cats would have had second thoughts about tangling with such an adversary.

The tall man raised his hand and the thin steel rod whistled as it scythed down. The Rajah was faster. He sat there till the very last moment…and then, in one fluid motion, he sprang into the air, slashed at the tall man’s bony ankle with long, yellowed teeth, landed in the mud with a thump and then ran straight for the divider’s edge. To the left, where the endless procession of trucks roared and churned the flooded waters of the road.

The tall man yelled in fury and pain, dropped his weapon and hopped about on one foot, holding his ankle. His companions, after one quick glance at him, turned and followed the Rajah’s progress. I saw the great rodent reach the edge of the divider, and suddenly madness took hold of me. I wanted this rat to cross safely, wanted it so badly that I yelled aloud. I wanted the Rajah to reach the other side and turn around and thumb his hoary nose at these murderers. I yelled encouragement as the Rajah stepped off the divider and scampered across the road. I squatted down on my heels and watched him go.

And how the Rajah went! Like a bullet he raced across the foaming surface; a huge set of wheels swished past, and for a few seconds all I could see was a sea of frothing brown water; but then I spotted him again, already halfway across, snout in air, tail waving about furiously. For a moment it seemed certain that he would be hit by an approaching petrol-tanker. The giant truck bore down upon the Rajah, the scene disappeared in a brown waterfall…and then the Rajah was scampering along on the other side, unscathed. He didn’t turn around to thumb his nose, he just vanished over the verge, but I was too elated to care. Hoarse, near-hysterical cheering reached my ears, and it was a while before I realized, with a start, that it came from my own throat.

I stopped short, then, and looked around at the three men. They stood there, staring back at me, and there was hatred, pure hatred, in their eyes. The tall one hissed something, and all three started to move towards me.

No, this can’t be happening to me, I remember thinking as I squatted there, paralysed by the look in their eyes. But then I saw the steel rod rise, and I leaped to my feet and I ran, dear God how I ran. I ran back towards home, and I kept seeing their faces as I ran, especially their cold, glittering eyes. I reached the point where I had crossed over from the bridge, and now the screaming torrent of trucks lay between the bridge and where I was, but I heard the pounding of feet behind me and I just ran out onto the road, screaming myself, and dodged and twisted and shut my eyes and kept going, and the screeching of brakes filled my ears and I fetched up with a great thump against something hard and waited for oblivion.

I opened my eyes and found myself in the grip of a policeman: a very large, very annoyed policeman. Even now I remember the smell of stale sweat from him, the crumpled uniform, the dark circles under his eyes from tiredness or lack of sleep; he must have been a night shift constable returning home from duty. He stared at me, breathing hard, as I gasped out my tale of violence and terror. From time to time I twisted my neck to peer towards the divider, to see if I could spot my pursuers between the passing trucks. But there was no sign of the men. A new fear grew in me as I babbled my incoherent tale: the policeman wouldn’t believe me; he would think I was stoned on drugs, or drunk, or insane.

At length, he released his iron grip on my shoulders. He stepped back a pace, surveyed me from head to toe, and then spat to one side.

“So these men scared you, did they?” He went on without waiting for a reply. `Ah…well, I understand your fear. What they did must have seemed a little strange to someone like you, an Angrezi-wallah city-dweller…especially someone who doesn’t understand our local culture, doesn’t even belong to our province…”

I gaped at him. “I was terrified,” I mumbled. “They were madmen, the way they killed those rats…they might well have killed me if I hadn’t fled!”

He waved a thick wrist and laughed indulgently. “Now, now, stay calm. Yes, what they did was certainly unusual, quite different from tradition, from the conventional ritual…”

“What! I don’t understand…”

He went on as if I hadn’t spoken. “…But then this is a big city, you see, things cannot be done the same way here as in our villages. And so naturally such things can’t be done in the traditional, proper ways…”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “What do you mean…”

“These men…they made do with what they had,” the policeman went on, his voice a little dreamy, “Back in our villages, we traditionally catch the rats and put them in a pot—a matka—rather than a sack. And we place the matka in a bamboo trap, and light a slow charcoal fire below it.” His eyes shone as he warmed to his theme. “This bamboo trap is just like a maze, you see, there’s only one winding way out of it. The rats have to find this way out – or they’ll burn. At every turn they have to make a choice. A choice! And even the rats that make the right choices, as they go, have to pass through a series of bamboo gates before they can get out. Each gate is delicately balanced, it is a gate of Death. If the rat so much as touches the gate it falls, and its finely sharpened bamboo splints impale…”

But I didn’t wait to hear anymore. I fled for home.

All this was last Tuesday. I haven’t been out since.

My neighbours, my friends and office colleagues, think I’m unwell. That’ll do for now. I can’t tell them the truth, can I? I can’t tell anybody the truth. No-one would believe me; they’d laugh at me, they’d think I’ve gone crazy.

There’s plenty of food and stuff; I have home delivery from the kirana store halfway down the hill, certainly I’m not going to starve to death. But for how long can I shut myself in here? How long can I keep up this pretense, how long can I go on like this?

I can’t sleep; I dare not sleep, the nightmares are so bad now, the migraine like a fire consuming my senses. I need to go see a doctor!

Hell, I’ve got to go to work! I’ve got to ‘phone people.

But to do all that, to do anything, I’ll have to go down to the highway. And I can’t do that.

But I’m not safe here, either.

They saw me flee across the road, they know now that I live here.

Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow; but sooner or later, when bad luck, when some misfortune strikes them, they’ll think back and they’ll remember the Rajah. The One That Got Away.

And then they’ll remember me.

I, Bearer of their Misfortune. I, their enemy.

And the highway’s where they’ll be waiting for me, with their weapons. Or else, they’ll come for me, here, at home.

Sooner or later, I’ll have to choose. between going out and just cowering here in terror.

Like the rats, I have to choose…

Musings, Potshots

Sex, Bhagavad Gita, Oppenheimer…

ManiJuly 26, 2023July 26, 2023 8 Comments

[circa 16:15, 25th July] In a few hours I hope to be sitting at a movie theatre watching Christopher Nolan’s film ‘Oppenheimer’.

I’m writing this about a ‘sex scene’ in the film – and larger issues – even before watching the film. It’s a risky endeavour that I willingly undertake in the interests of underlining the invincibility of the Bhagavad Gita – a book that I enjoy reading over and over again, as did Robert Oppenheimer, as did and still do a host of many other utterly rational, utterly atheistic men and women of science, Indian and non-Indian, Hindu and non-Hindu, since the Gita was composed.

I write this because a big hullabaloo has broken out in main-scream, social and anti-social media that this ‘sex scene’ disrespects ‘Hindus’ and ‘Hinduism’.

I write this because (1) I believe the hullabaloo is absurd and pointless, born of ignorance and compounded by narrow-mindedness; and (2) the hullabaloo is being amplified to kiloton levels by our Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting Anurag Thakur, who is reportedly accusing Nolan et al of ‘religious insensitivity’ and insulting the ‘Holy Book of Hindus’ because a scene in the film depicts a woman quoting the Gita while enjoying sex with Oppenheimer. (Oh, and half-a-cheer to you, Minister, for being a spoiler among other things).

Most alarmingly, Minister Thakur is threatening the Film & Censor Board of strict action unless they edit out the ‘controversial ‘ sex scene that has ‘hurt’ those ‘Hindus’ that he claims to represent.

I write this because the Minister has, by his comments and stance, deeply offended MY individual sentiments as a ‘Hindu’ who loves this universal philosophy that is ‘Hinduism’ and is captured so well in the Bhagavad Gita.

I do believe the Minister has got his argument wrong, utterly wrong. Out of ignorance—which is not a crime but a tragedy—but quite possibly, compounded by a sub-critical mass of narrow-mindedness.

I would urge the Minister to reflect on the truth that among all the great philosophies of the world, there is no other philosophy that celebrates the joys of sex more than this vast, insanely yet joyously complex collection of thoughts, writings, poetry, art, sculpture, dance and what-have-you that shelter under this nebulous, ever-changing (and therefore ALIVE) Umbrella Philosophy that we loosely call ‘Hinduism’… and which he so bravely sets out to defend.

What is sex, at its supreme level of enjoyment, but a meeting, a merging, an utter and true union, not merely of physical bodies but of minds and of hearts powered by desires melting into one another and becoming infinitely greater than the parts, when pleasure becomes ecstasy, a union of seemingly separate Selves that, now united, blend as ‘One’, and in that indescribable timeless eternal moment of infinite bonded bliss, awaken, together, to the realization that this ‘One’ that they have become is the same, was never separated, from the One whence springs all ‘creation’, all ‘reality’, all ‘life’, all ‘thought’, all ‘Self’…that in truth Time itself is an illusion, as is this cycle of Birth and Death?

Sex is natural. Sex brings great pleasure at its most physical ‘base’ level; sex between partners who adore, respect, love one another, can be an experience that is akin – nay, IS – as supremely ecstatic as the union of the Self with the Cosmic Self.

There are many paths to experience this oneness. Sex CAN be one, as the great explorers of Tantra know. As lovers know.

What, then, is there to be ashamed of in sex, Mr Minister? What wrong, what ‘evil’, can there be in reflecting upon the One and Its attributes – so brilliantly described in the Vishwarupa of the Gita – while deep in sex? Can you, should you, even try and hide sexual desire, sexual enjoyment, ecstasy, from ‘God’?

I ask this of the Minister without the slightest intent of disrespect or frivolity: Is it any surprise, is it any wonder that lovers, in their moments of sexual bliss, commonly cry out “Oh my God” and other terms of endearment involving deity – in every human language known, or in words unknown yet too well understood? Surely the Minister and the flock he claims to represent must know this, and therefore should not, must not, be shocked or offended by this ?

All this and much more, about sex, ‘Hinduism’ understands. All this, the great sages have taught us and counselled us.

Hindusism does not associate sex with shame, guilt, furtiveness, ‘sin’, the way many other philosophies – that we call ‘religions’ – do.

That is why I love Hinduism—as do so many hundreds of millions, whether they are labelled ‘Hindu’ or anything else.

As one exactly twenty years older than Minister Thakur, I would urge him with all respect and affection to learn more about the meaning and the role of sex in Life as taught and portrayed in Hindu philosophy—perhaps with guidance from great teachers, perhaps in satsang. He could read about Krishna’s life and the layers of meaning that wait to be uncovered by the explorer in Krishna’s sexual frolicking with the Gopikas— Kamala Subramanian’s translation of the Srimad Bhagavatam is an absolutely brilliant introduction. He could explore the passionate writings of Kalidasa, Vatsyayana, a hundred others, in so many languages…he could read Pawan Varma’s superb book ‘The Great Hindu Civilization—achievement, neglect, bias, and the way forward’ to clarify questions and doubts he might have on Hinduism in a larger framework. [I will be happy to loan the Minister my copies of these – and other – books in case the Minister has difficulty in procuring them.]

Surely the Minister will understand, then, that neither ‘Hinduism’ nor the Bhagavad Gita needs ‘protection’ nor any ‘Defenders of the Faith’! Because the One, according to Hinduism, IS everywhere, the One is in the neutron and proton and electron, in all matter and energy, in the orgasm and in the organism, in the ever-changing lattices of electron exchanges that we call ‘thought’ and ‘idea’ and ‘memory’, the One is beyond Life and Death and Thought itself. To quote the Gita:

nainam chhindanti shastraani nainam dahati paavakah
na chainam kledayantyaapo na shoshayati maarutah

Weapons cannot cut It, nor can fire burn It; water cannot wet It, nor can wind dry It.

[I thank http://www.esamskriti.com for this nice, blithely ‘borrowed’ verse]

Last, I would urge the Minister not to allow ignorant, narrow-minded followers wearing ‘Hinduism’ T-shirts to coerce him into taking actions that might, in today’s social-media-driven society, reduce this wonderful, all-embracing, eternal philosophy that we call Hinduism into just another blind, soulless, ritualistic ‘religion’. To diminish this wonderful, all-embracing way of living and reflecting so that it becomes a travesty, to be obeyed without question by terrorized, brain-numbed, trembling, ‘God-fearing’ followers; a travesty presided over by heartless, cruel, greedy, moralistic, paternalistic and patronizing Interpreters, Lawmakers and Priests who rule by Fear, who see only sin in joy, shame in nature, crime in innocence.

And a last thought: I urge the Chairperson of CBFC Prasoon Joshi – a man of deep wisdom – and his colleagues to stand firm against any attempts by anybody to censor this film – that I now rush off to see.

[26^th July, 10:41. And now, 18 hours later, O dear Reader, having seen and delighted in this powerful film including the much-maligned ‘sex scene’, I urge Minister Thakur and his indignant followers to go and see the film. And, with my solemn declaration that I stand by every word I have written above, I post this herewith.]

Jai Hind.

General ravings, Musings

A lament for Civil Uniform Code

ManiFebruary 14, 2022February 16, 2022 5 Comments

I wept when they told me he was dead.

I wept all the more bitterly, because I’d never known he’d lived.

With these words – whose source has vanished from memory and is untraceable even by her exalted Holiness Google Devi – I dedicate this mercifully short ramble to the eternal spirit of one of the greatest spiritual teachers humankind has ever been cursed with: Alfred E Neuman, mascot of the long-deceased and bitterly mourned MAD Magazine, USA.

It is with the angst in these words, O Most Noble Reader, that I lament… because I’d never known how important the Uniform was, or is, to college students.

I lament as I behold the Great Non-Issue Over Uniform that started in Karnataka a couple of weeks ago and is now exciting and inflaming passions among people across India—young and old, infants and geriatrics, irrespective of our castes, classes, religions, races, sexes and all the other important and puerile characteristics that make us all human, inhuman, sub-human and uniquely Indian.

I weep in empathy with today’s youngsters, who are devoting so much of their time and creative energies in agitating for what they hold as their ‘religious freedoms’ to wear Hijabs and Scarves and Burqas and Shawls of assorted hues to their colleges and railing against the directives of their educational institutions and the Karnataka government that disallow them to do so.

But I also weep in remembered joy, at the realization that I and others of my age had experienced and practised much more genuine liberalism, enjoyed much more genuine freedom—of thought, of belief, of choice, of action— in our seemingly backward colleges in our seemingly primitive times, 50 years ago, than the agitated and agitating youngsters who inhabit today’s so-called Modern Mainstream India.

I studied in Shillong, Meghalaya from the early 1960s to the mid-1970s.

First, at a missionary-run boys’ school where we were taught, pretty early on, what the Uniform meant.

It meant just that: Uniformity.

Wearing the Uniform meant shedding all our conceits, all the egoistic notions we had about ourselves— our homes, our privileges, our outside lives and identities. We left all this baggage in a heap outside the school gate. In school, wearing the Uniform, we students were all the same and we were all treated the same.

We were learners, expected to learn what we’d come to learn. We were all expected to obey the school rules.

And no rule was stricter than the rule about wearing the proper Uniform…which meant complying with the strict norms regarding design, quality, pattern, and hue prescribed for everything from shoes to sweater, socks to shirt, trousers to tie to blazer.

Corporal punishment, progressing in intensity from a resounding slap to a severe caning, was the standard punishment for breaking the rules including the Uniform rule. The canes were chosen with care by the Executioner from an array of options, ranging from stout local bamboo to the incredibly flexible, excruciatingly painful Malacca cane that occupied a special place of honour in the Principal’s Office (and whose ministrations I am glad to say I escaped). The caning was administered, if you were lucky, on the palms of your hand…or else on the seat of your trousers as you helpfully if unwillingly bent over a chair.

But here’s the interesting thing: back in our time, in that school run by the strictest and most wonderful Irish Catholic missionaries, you could wear anything you felt like wearing that announced your religion or identity (or lack thereof) so long as it didn’t obscure the Uniform…and so long as you were prepared and capable of tackling the not-so-loving attentions and ragging of your colleagues.

So, in school you would see the occasional kufi caps, vibhuti marks, kadas, threads round wrists, crosses round necks, turbans, and so on…all these were just fine. The Authorities really didn’t give a damn about what religion or social stratum or whatever any of us belonged to. And because of that, all of us too very early on learned not to give a fig about what religion or social stratum or whatever any one belonged to. We studied, we played, we ate and drank, argued, raged, fought, got caned, mourned and celebrated together and as equals. Because we were taught so, we discovered and knew we were at our core all the same.

Well…that was school.

In the missionary-run college too, the Authorities were very strict about certain things: like punctuality, attendance records, class discipline, performance in the quarterly tests, and suchlike.

But we had NO UNIFORM CODE in college. Nothing was disallowed in attire; nothing was compulsory in attire.

For the simple reason that, all of us having crossed the age of 16, the Authorities treated us as reasonably sane adults, and therefore expected us to behave as reasonably sane adults in all matters including attire.

And I do believe we students kept our side of the bargain. We wore what we liked to college; I personally chose the habit of an advanced derelict (and behaved as one), which has since then become my lifestyle.

And to the best of my recollection none of us ever roamed around naked on the campus – at least not during class hours and/or when sober.

Coming back to today’s lunacy playing out over Uniform…

I am all in favour of a Strict Uniform Code in schools. Because the Uniform is an important part of creating a ‘level playing field’ in school, as it is in the military services. It helps kids shed egos and pre-conceived notions about themselves and about others, it helps them make friends and engenders team spirit, it gives them courage and wisdom to fight and win their individual and often lonely battles against prejudices and discrimination outside the campus, throughout life.

But I believe it is utter madness, sheer stupidity, for the Authorities in Karnataka or anywhere else to dictate what teenaged college students (young men and women!) should wear or not wear to campus.

For the simple reason that youngsters aged 16 years or more are maturing or fully matured; they will be opinionated and contrarian, they will be cussed, they will revel in their new-found freedom and test the boundaries of the law and the rules, they will routinely do precisely the opposite of what the Authorities in their misbegotten wisdom tell them to do.

It is Nature’s way for young adults to be like this.

To the Authorities and to the youngsters I respectfully offer a namaskaaram and a couple of suggestions that I believe will satisfy all.

To the youngsters I murmur: wear your hijabs and scarves and whatever else you like if you insist on exercising your freedom to wear your religious or secular identities on your sleeves —and on your heads and necks and shoulders and anywhere else you choose.

Only… make sure you retain the freedom to take these things off when you choose to.

To the Authorities, I say: Let these young adults be. Let them wear what they like.

But if you want them not to wear something to college, don’t ban it – instead make it compulsory to wear.

And if you want them to wear something to college, don’t make it compulsory – instead ban it.

Maybe, maybe then, the Authorities can get back to doing what they ought to be doing: improving curricula and faculty and infrastructure.

Maybe, maybe then, the youngsters can get back to doing what youngsters naturally love to do: running wild, breaking bounds, perhaps learning something in the interim, and driving each other and us crazy while taking charge of the future…which is their birthright.

Jai Hind.

[1] Alfred image from https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/2019/07/04/mad-magazine-quits-newstands-after-67-years/1650759001/

General ravings, Potshots

Municipal Kosher

ManiJanuary 22, 2021 11 Comments

The Municipal Corporation of Delhi has provoked this beef.

A few days ago, the MCD ordered that all meat-vendors and all restaurants in the Capital must forthwith declare whether the meats they serve come from animals that have been slaughtered by halal or jhatka.

Why is the MCD so concerned about our diet?

Well, the MCD says that this rule is important because for religious reasons, Hindus and Sikhs are not supposed to eat halal meat but eat only jhatka meat; whereas for religious reasons Muslims are not supposed to eat jhatka meat but eat only halal meat.

The execrable sketch below—created from elements I’ve stolen from the usual (quoted) sources and embellished to suit the context—expresses my views on this subject of paramount municipal importance and notional nutritional significance.

[Thanks to: wwww.vecteezy.com (hen); drawingtutorials101.com (buffalo; depositphotos.com (pig); kindpng.com (goat)]

As diet—especially anything that is said or written about things like beef or pork or halal or jhatka or non-veg or veg—is also an area of paramount national sensitivity, and I don’t wish anyone to take offence at this cartoon and chase me through the streets with long sharp weapons with intent to deprive me of my sacred, albeit ageing, secular organs (whether by jhatka or halal or both), I hereby hastily and solemnly swear and declare as follows:

That I have eaten, eat and shall eat anything at all that is served with affection and love.
That I have enthusiastically and of my own free will been non-vegetarian since the age of four, when my dear lifelong friend and sister Ranjana (then five) fed me on regular basis with an assortment of beetles, bugs, ants, and miscellaneous fauna painstakingly gathered from our garden in Shillong (they were quite tasty, I recall…though I’m not sure whether they were halal’ed or jhatka’ed).
That I have cooked, do cook, and will cook food— vegetarian mainly but also non-vegetarian—for my own survival and for friends (who have so far survived my cooking)
That I make utmost efforts to be gentle, humane and cause minimal pain when I cut, chop, break, crack open, peel, or otherwise assassinate the raw materials – be they cabbages or coconuts, eggs or eggplants.
That I count, among the greatest honours I’ve received in life, the privilege to hold the halal knife on the occasion of Bakr Id, when a lamb was sacrificed at the home of my dear lifelong friend and brother Nisar (the ceremony was profound; the lamb was delicious).
That I still do believe and hold true the principle that my vegetarian parents taught me as a child—that what a person chooses to eat or not eat is entirely his or her personal business, just as what religion a person believes in or does not believe in is entirely his or her personal business.

In conclusion, may I offer the following haiku to the Officialdom of the MCD:

Free thy Municipal brains

From rank abattoir strayings…

‘Stead, clean the choked drains!

Musings, Potshots, Remembering

Harvesting Human Riots?

ManiDecember 11, 2020March 26, 2023 2 Comments

This one is especially for my dear, tolerant and genuinely Communist friends – who I believe are as different from today’s ‘Left Liberals’ as Indrajit Gupta was from Lavrentiy Beria

I’ve been filled with a sense of foreboding since yesterday, December 10^th. Filled with memories of January – February 2020.

On 31^st January, 2020, after two months’ mixed feelings and foreboding about the nature and direction of the anti-CAA protests at Shaheen Bagh and elsewhere, after two months’ of being buffeted and thoroughly addled by conflicting high-decibel media messages all purporting to present truth, I took a train down to Shaheen Bagh to see and judge for myself what was going on there. I spent half a day wandering around in Shaheen Bagh and its neighbourhood. I was appalled and disgusted at what I saw and learned from that visit; I wrote that the so-called anti-CAA protest in Shaheen Bagh was in fact a brilliantly conceived Pilot Project for Mass Murder, a plot to spark off countrywide Hindu-Muslim riots. I also pointed out who I believed were the primary organizers of this diabolic Project: assorted self-proclaimed Left-oriented riffraff, including university students’ unions, rabble-rousing university faculty, and their obedient faculty-challenged followers.

I was also convinced, and wrote so, that besides the Left, every other political formation in India—including the ruling BJP —supported the Pilot Project for Mass Murder in Shaheen Bagh, overtly or covertly.

Because, with the Ayodhya–Babri Masjid case resolved once and for all thanks to the Supreme Court of India, all politicians and their hangers-on, Left and Right and Communal and Casteist, were desperate to find a lasting inflammable issue that could keep the fires of communal division burning between Hindu and Muslim, to be conveniently fanned at will in future election campaigns.

And what better long-lived inflammable issue than a good old-fashioned communal riot?

It didn’t take long after my visit for the Pilot Project to be implemented.

Communal riots began on 23^rd February in Delhi and raged for the next five days. Officially, 53 people were killed.

The organizational skills of the street-smart Left had proved their mettle yet again.

Of course, there’s no evidence that the Left were behind it all. There never is.

For the simple, time-tested reason, that when the forest fire finally dies after raging for days, no one really cares about or looks for the little matchstick that started it in the first place.

No one really cares or looks…especially when all political parties and their captive media houses have benefited from the fire.

And so, 53 murders and nine months later, there are still hundreds of families in grief and pain in Delhi…and no one is responsible.

I declare without shame that even in my horror at the carnage, I was relieved the toll in the riots was ‘only’ 53 and not 530, or 53,000.

Because, gentle reader, I do believe that that was what the politicians would have liked: to see thousands dead, tens of thousands maimed, lakhs displaced.

Especially, the politicians of the Left and the Congress.

Because, for these two formations, BJP leader Narendra Modi’s greatest crime is that under his watch as Prime Minister since 2014, there has not been a single major riot comparable to the great riots of yore: Gujarat 2002, Bombay 1992-93 (oh…no one talks about that anymore, because the murderous Muslim-hating Shiv Sena is today Secular), Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Meerut 1989, Bhagalpur 1989, Delhi 1984 …and so on ad nauseum back to Partition 1947.

For Modi’s rule to be without riots goes against the Left—Congress Narrative, you see.

According to the Left–Congress Narrative, the advent of Modi Sarkar should have heralded the murder of Muslims and other minorities on a scale that would make Comrade Stalin appear to be Mother Teresa.

By the Grace of Allah and Krishna and Marx large-scale communal rioting hasn’t happened yet…despite the best efforts of gau rakshaks, Shri Ram Sene and other fanatical Hindu groups.

But the fear-mongers of the Left and Congress haven’t stopped trying. They just love their Narrative about Modi.

So much so, they will alter Reality to suit their Narrative; they will use Fear, and its dread sibling-twins Hatred and Rage, to push innocent people to the brink of unreason.

And that’s why again I am troubled and filled with foreboding.

I fear that where they failed in pitting Hindus against Muslims, the Left Liberals now seek opportunity in pitting Farmers against Government.

It’s the 11th of December. It’s three days since the Bharat Bandh that was called by Congress, CPI(M), and affiliated political riffraff on December 8^th to express their ‘solidarity’ with the farmers of Punjab and Haryana who are camping peacefully on the borders of Delhi and seeking repeal of the recently passed laws that they believe will threaten their (farmers’) interests and livelihoods.

I’ve been filled with admiration for the farmers and their collectives, for stoutly refusing to allow any political parties or political voices to hijack their own peaceful movement.

I was filled with joy on 10^th December: because the Bharat Bandh had arrived and departed like an autumn cloud, with much noise but no rain; with much Opposition chest-thumping but without any major violence or loss of life.

But today, December 11^th, I see the unholy Left groups gathered alongside farmers belonging to the Left-backed Bhartiya Kisan Union (Ekta-Ugrahan) at Tikri, on Delhi’s borders.

I see the same people and hear the same voices that whipped up paranoia and anger over CAA among the bewildered Muslims of Shaheen Bagh during prime-time hours. They wave posters of their heroes—among them well-known Gandhians such as Sharjeel Islam, Varavara Rao, Sudha Bharadwaj, Gautam Navlakha, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira—and demand their release from jail where they currently await trial for planning or instigating large-scale social discord including riots.

Photo: courtesy The Wire; https://thewire.in/rights/farmer-protests-arrested-activists-academics

Asked what their heroes or indeed they themselves have to do with the farmers’ movement, the Left supporters declare that they are simply observing ‘Human Rights Day’.

I wonder: do the Comrades actually mean ‘Human Riots Day’?

To them I say – foolishly and wistfully hoping they might listen to counsel from a 64-year-old fossil who hath seen much death, much pain:

Anarchy’s Romance rebounds as Terror, tears reason asunder

Hymns of Peace will not then calm thee to slumber

Beware, Truth’s Bell will not rouse thee, from pretended sleep

Deceit’s Seed thou soweth; a Violent Harvest shalt thou reap

General ravings, Musings

Shaheen Bagh: a Pilot Project for Mass Murder

ManiFebruary 3, 2020 7 Comments

This is about the ongoing anti-CAA protests at Shaheen Bagh, New Delhi.

I visited Shaheen Bagh on Friday the 31^st January 2020 between 10:00 and 14:30. I wanted to find out, for myself, whether the anti-CAA protest going on here is indeed ‘spontaneous’ as claimed by Left-leaning media and their cohorts; or whether it is ‘manufactured’ as claimed by the Right-leaning media and their cohorts.

What I learned and experienced confirms my worst fears about what’s going on in Shaheen Bagh and where it will lead us—fears that I summarized in this photo (apologies: I might have already posted this to some of you on 31^st January via WhatsApp and Instagram).

Shaheen Bagh - The Morning After

I firmly believe the Shaheen Bagh protest is as spontaneous as a forest fire started by ‘tourists’ who first doused the helpless trees with petrol, then set the trees ablaze starting with the young ones … and now visit the fire every evening during Prime Time TV hours with fresh supplies of petrol and other inflammatory materials to make sure the fires don’t die out.

I expected to find a sea of protesters, singing and chanting slogans of Peace, Harmony, Patriotism, Insaaniyat. I found barely 70 to 80 people in all. About a dozen women were in their tent, near the makeshift stage; the men stood around outside in little clusters, tense, conversing in low murmurs. Barring a couple of Mentors and one Minder who stood out by their suspicious glances towards me, their confident, persuasive tones and carefully careless attire, all were locals. My few conversations with the local men were short, their nods were brief, smiles strained. They were courteous, I wandered around and took a few photos unhindered. But there was fear in their eyes, in the air. The fear fear that took me back to Bombay, 1992, when men turned into monsters and the stench of blood and burning human hair and death hung over Dharavi and Mahim and Jogeshwari…

I joined one group; they were anxiously discussing the young Muslim man who had been shot at by another, a Hindu, outside the Jamia Millia the previous day. “It might happen here!” was their refrain. A Mentor reassured them that it wouldn’t; urged them to remain courageous and continue their ‘andolan‘.

Aside of the Mentors and Minder, there was only one other non-local like me: a middle-aged bearded man wandering around with a camera. Where are the crowds, the speeches and shows? he asked a little plaintively. The Minder, who was built like a mini-truck, was gruff: “Sham ko ao…tabhi log aate hain.”

Come in the evening: that’s when the crowds are here.

Shaheen Bagh is designed for Prime Time.

I reiterate what I voiced in an earlier post: that each and every political group in India—Left or Right, AAP or non-existent Centre—is yearning for large-scale communal violence to divide the masses along Hindu vs. Muslim lines. Because the Ayodhya issue that has sustained all of them for over 30 years has finally been resolved honourably by the Supreme Court, much to their chagrin; henceforth, Babri Masjid and Ram Janmabhoomi can no longer be flogged by them for votes.

And so, all political parties are doing their best—and their worst—to create a new long-term issue for Hindu vs. Muslim polarization. They all hope to gain by sparking off communal violence in Shaheen Bagh. And they are being aided and abetted in their efforts by their respective captive media and ‘intellectuals’.

I firmly believe the locals of Shaheen Bagh and of nearby Abu Fazal Enclave – the majority of them hapless working class Muslims —have been terrorized by Evil Teachers into believing that because of CAA it is only a matter of time before they, and all other Muslims in India, will be identified as ‘illegals’, carted off to detention camps by the police, and then ‘deported’ – if not murdered by RSS-led Hindu mobs.

I now know for sure who these Evil Visiting Teachers of Shaheen Bagh are, too. I think you too won’t find it hard to identify them even without visiting Shaheen Bagh – some of the posters are a dead giveaway (see below).

No words can convey my rage and sadness at what is being done at Shaheen Bagh…at the venality of those who have made its impoverished people scapegoats in a Pilot Project for scaling up to nation-wide violence.

The Shaheen Bagh Project is already showing signs of success. Anti-CAA has already morphed into anti-NRC, anti-NPR, anti-Census. Young women and men undertaking routine social indicator surveys in rural areas – Bengal and U.P come to mind – have been severely assaulted because of the Project’s most effective and toxic CAA Awareness Programs.

The Right to Citizenship has already morphed into the Right as a Citizen to Remain Anonymous and Invisible – without of course surrendering any Rights to receive state largess due to caste, religion, and so forth.

The first guns have emerged. The protests against the Shaheen Bagh protests are getting more edgy…even as Delhi’s Assembly elections are days away.

The secondary fires from Shaheen Bagh now spread across India – even as Assam, the only state where the presence of about 2 million Bangladeshis is not disputed by any but the chronically insane, remains tense but calm.

Thereby hangs a tale.

20200131_120355