Where did our dignity go?

Where did our dignity go?

I saw it once in an Englishman’s movie, so it must be true

that once we were noble and driven.

Perhaps it is hidden under a lump of complacence

rotting on our streets with the garbage

your maid threw there this morning
so that your house could start the day clean.

Perhaps it made it down the rubble that we call a pavement,

hesitating on the corner, too scared to cross

like the old man waiting for someone to slow down

and give him enough time to hobble over to the other side of the road.

Perhaps the price was too high

and it couldn’t pay, so it couldn’t get admission.

Perhaps it was the wrong caste, or no caste at all,
or perhaps it came barefoot,

and a young mother told it to get off the swings

that are meant for better-dressed children.

Perhaps it lost hope and drank itself into oblivion

like the middle-aged daily-wager passed out on the median

under a statue of Dr Ambedkar.

Perhaps it is low on a to-do list

and will always be set aside for tomorrow.

Perhaps it was a New Year’s resolution,

and we all know what happens to them.

Perhaps it is asleep,
or pretending to be asleep,

safe under the covers
so that the monsters cannot come out to get it.

Perhaps it does not know its own potential

like a woman kept indoors for her own safety.

Perhaps it cannot survive on its own,

like a child who needs a caring parent.

Perhaps the parent is us.

Perhaps it died, but 

we are a nation fond of reincarnation, so

perhaps it is wombed in our skulls,

waiting to be born.

By Nazu Tonse

I saw Gandhiji yesterday.

I saw Gandhiji yesterday.

He was tall. He wore torn jeans.

He was dressed for office, and over his buttoned-up cuffs a steel kada gleamed at his wrist.

His bangles were red, and his bindi was blue, and the Lion King roared on his t-shirt.

He was in hijab, and he had just come from the temple, I could tell:  his tika was fresh.

He had a bright yellow turban, a white topi, and white hair in a neat bun.

He was clean-shaven, and had a sharp goatee, and glasses - but not those round ones. He was just about eight years old, and well over eighty.

He was wrapped up against the bitter cold, and stood sweating in the sun.

He carried a rose, he carried a sign, he carried our hope and dignity and constitution.

Every time I looked, there he stood, at Town Hall and Azad Maidan and Shaheen Bagh, and he looked back at me and smiled. Smiled like he knew me, like he recognised me, although we had never met before.

When I went home, I discovered why.

I bent at the tap to wash the dust off my face, and when I straightened up, there he was again in the mirror, still smiling at me.

I saw Gandhiji yesterday.

I slept better last night, knowing he's around.

Rabindranath Revisited

Where minorities fear

and farmers hang high

Where criminals run free, and sometimes for election

Where our land has been stripped and poisoned

and then fertilised with the blood of little girls

Where lies are so loud

they muffle the truth

Where a tired hungry child

stretches its arm towards an air-conditioned car at the traffic light

Where the clear stream of reason

Is clogged with the bullet-ridden corpses of those who dared

to speak up against dead habit

Where minds are held tight by theologies and mythologies

that divide one nation into us and them

Out of this hell of hypocrisy, my People,

let our country awake.

By Nazu Tonse

Several thousand words.

Not much I need to say about these, except to tell you that this is where my father was born - the island of Thimmanna Kudru, on the River Suvarna, near Kemmanu, in southwest coastal India. Pretty much unchanged from what I remember as a child, over 40 years ago. A picture's worth a thousand words, it's said, so I'll let them do the talking, and just interrupt here and there with a caption.

View from the tip of the island

Punting down the river Suvarna in a "hodi"

Perfect place to just stand and breathe.

Hanging bridge to Thimmanna Kudru

Interracial harmony .. these girls were still hanging out together when I returned several hours later

Coconut tree

Collecting firewood

Someone's got a lovely bunch of coconuts (my cousin, apparently).

Garden well

Things change: heart motifs, a satellite dish and utility lines ..
also this used to be a thatched hut.

Cashew tree - unripe fruit

Illegal sand dredging - a heavy load

Dr Jekyll, Driver Hyde.

Ashraf and Luqman on the beach at Byndoor

Don't be deceived by this gentle soul, quietly making sandcastles on the beach with his son. Put him behind the steering wheel and point him in the direction of the highway, and he turns into a force to be reckoned with! I recall at least five or six close reckonings from our first drive together. I don't recall any from the subsequent drives, largely because I kept my eyes shut!


I was later reassured by my cousin and his brother (henceforth referred to as the Schumacher Brothers) that this style of driving is de rigeur on the national highways of India and that "everyone drives like this here". It is, apparently, the done thing if you want to arrive sooner rather than later. (The way I drive, I would probably have taken a whole day to make the one-and-a-half hour journey). I think the point is to arrive while it is still light. Or at the speed of light. Or something like that.

Drivers break the monotony of their long drive by playing frequent car games. Their favourite is one that I call "chicken", but in the local dialect is referred to as "overtaking". It is most often played against large lorries who seem to operate in pairs:  one alongside our car, trying to prevent us from passing, and the other roaring towards us from the opposite direction. The highlight of this game is when your car miraculously slips into the little gap between the two lorries, and carries on going. I simply cannot describe how my heart leapt each time we were blessed enough to experience one of these special moments.

An anti-anxiety pill slipped under the tongue (of the passenger, not the driver) helps a bit, because it makes it easier to close one's eyes and resign oneself to one's fate. Having said that, this one survived several such highway drives, and returned home to Bangalore unscathed. So perhaps the Schumacher Brothers are right after all!

From Bangalore to Byndoor

The beach at Sai Vishram Beach Resort, Byndoor

It was supposed to be the worst of times, but it ended up being the best of times. It was neither the spring of hope, nor the winter of despair:  it was late January, and to those of us who flew in from Bangalore, it was hot as hell. But it felt like heaven.

Last week, I took my first flight in fourteen years, to Mangalore, on the west coast of southern India. My final destination was a seaside resort at Byndoor, about 120 km by road.

This was also my first trip to Mangalore and its neighbouring districts in twenty years. This trip was special for me, not just for breaking my non-travelling jinx, but mainly because my father was born here, and I have many relatives living in the region.

The last time I flew in an aeroplane was back in 2002, when I left my advertising career in Bahrain and came to "retire" in India and be nearer my parents. Full of my usual and quite unnecessary fears, I had been dreading the flight. There was an emotional departure from the safe walls of my little Bangalore flat (well, emotional on my part:  the flat remained quite unmoved). I went armed with half a pharmacy, and left my Will prominently on my desk back at home.

The flight was just an hour long, and although it was one of those small propeller-driven planes that had to be landed on one of the world's tougher runways (Mangalore's airport at Bajpe has what is called a "table top" runway), it was a smooth and easy journey.

Then we got into my cousin's car to make the long drive to Udupi. That journey was a whole other story! My fear of flying has now been replaced by a more tangible fear of national highways.

Come back for more tales of this not-so-intrepid traveller's adventures tomorrow!

Is as does.

Bangalore Mirror, 18 January 2016, page 1

(Note: please see the post-script for a happier ending!)

It takes a special kind of stupid, I thought, after reading this article about a new luxury tax on hospital Intensive Care Units.

No, I'm not trying to insult the politicians who came up with this novel idea to fill coffers (and coffins). All they are guilty of is a large helping of greed, no doubt, sprinkled liberally with India's favourite condiment, corruption.

Stupid is out here, among all of us -- who will read news like this, tut over it for a while, and then at election time, do what we always do:  simply hand back the keys to people whom we know will do little more than drive our city/state/country into the same old rut, again and again.

Bangalore Mirror, a couple days later (forgot the date!)

A Happier Post-Script!

An angry Chief Minister makes me happy - was glad to see in the news a few days later, that our Siddu lost his cool when he heard about the new tax, and ensured that it was thrown out! Good for him.

Happy Independence Day!

I love this drawing I found in my friend's daughter's Hindi language
notebook. I'm not sure which daughter (she has several,
and most of the time I can't tell them apart! They're triplets.)

I love the fact that in Hindi class, you are actually encouraged
to draw in your notebooks. I love the way she tries out different
stars and finally settles on the Star of David. And I love
her interpretation of Gandhiji in his dhoti.

At first, I thought she had drawn him larger than life, towering
over the trees, until I took a closer look while she explained that
those were hands waving up at him. So I was only half wrong,
about the trees, not about the "larger than life". She turned him
into a rock star, with his fans reaching up to him. I can easily
imagine little disposable lighters in those hands! And she's
absolutely right:  Gandhiji rocks.

Finding yourself.

India is the destination of choice for this. People always talk
about going to India to find themselves.  I was always quite chuffed
that, being Indian, I had a head start on all the other nationalities.
India really is a magical place. I'm not sure why. It's also a very
dirty, infuriating and corrupt place. But the magic is still there,
you just have to find it.

So yes, I packed my bags and came  home a decade ago. I had had enough of corporate life, and I had started looking within. If I was going to find me, India was the place to do it.

I've been here over ten years now, and it's only just dawned on me that in order to find yourself, you first have to get really really lost. Desperately, horribly, painfully, unfairly lost. (India's the place for that, too).

You don't just show up at Bombay airport and start anew. India hits you in the face - eyes, ears, skin and nose - upon arrival, and will keep on hitting for quite a while. In retrospect, I think it's supposed to be that way. You can't be found without
first being broken and scattered.

Don't worry. It will be worth it.

What makes Dr Ambedkar "untouchable"?

Yesterday was also the death anniversary of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, who devoted much of his life to fighting against the concept of caste and untouchability.  I myself haven’t read much of his writing (yet!) but I am already in awe of his prolific output, his obvious intellect and the impressive range of careers he appears to have had in his lifetime.

How on earth anyone can still believe that caste determines worth is beyond me. They have only to read this wiki on him to know they’ve already been proven wrong. 

I would think the only way this man can be considered "untouchable" is because he reached such heights of self-awareness, knowledge and service, that most of us cannot even hope to touch.

Here are some quotations of his that struck a chord with me:

"Democracy is not merely a form of Government. It is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. It is essentially an attitude of respect and reverence towards fellowmen."

"It is true that man cannot get on with his fellows. But it is also true that he cannot do without them."

"History shows that where ethics and economics come in conflict, victory is always with economics. Vested interests have never been known to have willingly divested themselves unless there was sufficient force to compel them."

"Hero-worship in the sense of expressing our unbound admiration is one thing. To obey the hero is a totally different kind of worship. There is nothing wrong in the former while the latter is no doubt a most pernicious thing. The former is man's respect for which is noble and of which the great men are only an embodiment. The latter is the serf's fealty to his lord. The former is consistent with respect, but the latter is a sign of debasement. The former does not take away one's intelligence to think and independence to act. The latter makes one a perfect fool. The former involves no disaster to the state. The latter is a source of positive danger to it." 

"I feel that the constitution is workable. it is flexible and it is strong enough to hold the country together both in peacetime and in wartime. Indeed, if I may say so, if things go wrong under the new Constitution, the reason will not be that we had a bad Constitution. What we will have to say is that Man was vile."

 

-Dr B.R. Ambedkar

14 April 1891 - 6 December 1956 

(Indian jurist, political leader, philosopher, anthropologist, historian, orator, economist, author, teacher, and editor; chairman of the Indian Constitution drafting committee; )

Freedom at midnight?

While the city sleeps
the sky weeps. Independence
creeps in, unnoticed.

We often wonder, don't we, what would Mahatma Gandhi make of India if he could see it now. Mostly, we think he would look at us with despair and disappointment.

Because we've not just forgotten. We simply don't get it. We are like the rich children of poor fathers. We cannot understand the price of tomatoes, let alone that of freedom.

And like the best fathers, Gandhiji might very well feel some despair and disappointment. But he would still be looking at us with love and hope.

#

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was given the title "Mahatma" (great soul) and is also called the Father of the Nation for his unique role in the quest for Indian independence from British rule. Today is the anniversary of his birth. It is a national holiday, Gandhi Jayanti, and it is now also celebrated as the International Day of Non-Violence.


(I originally wrote the haiku some years ago on August 15th, at the start of a silent and rainy Independence Day.)

Goddess

This is an odd sort of poem. I'm not quite sure what to make of it.  I'm also finding it very hard to process the fact that I wrote this twenty years ago! I feel very mortal! Old. And somewhat disoriented. Is the past really so far away?

I remember that I wrote it after attending a Bharatnatyam recital in Bahrain. The dancer's name was Kalyani, and she was brilliant. She was not a young woman, I recall, and when she danced she gave off this incredibly sexual, sensual aura. (Perhaps I am her age now, but I think the resemblance ends there!)

It's not a personal poem:  the words didn't reflect my feelings for this dancer. I suppose her performance inspired me to dream up this little story and put it in words. I find the jagged flow and breaks in the wrong places interesting, because they seem to bring out the crazed angst this man feels.

#

Goddess

I didn't want her to dance.
Her sari was green and gold,
the curve of her body
clear to me beneath its
heavy folds.

Don't dance, I said. Dance
Only for me.
Isn't that enough?
No, she said,
and picked up her make-up
again.

I hate red lipstick.
I despise black eye-liner.
I would rip the flowers
from her hair
if she would let me.

The lights dimmed and
the curtain quivered.
I stood at the end of the
hall watching
the scent of anticipation
rising from the backs
of their oily heads.

They applauded,
they joined their palms
in namastes or bowed
into adaabs.
They did not dare touch
her, I knew
the power of the deftness
and the softness of her fingers
the invitation in her eyes
her lips, her every move.

I would crush her
(for this is love)
burn her in my flames
cut her to pieces if she'd let me.

Afterwards, she cast
aside the bells from her
ankles
and gave the rest to me.
The paint that stained
her palms and soles
remained to taunt me.
I washed the dust off her
feet, and kissed them.

#

I wonder who this man is supposed to be, this obsessed, tortured chap. And I wonder how this poem related to me, as it must have in some way, but I can't find the connection. Can you?

(written way back in 1992, first posted here in 2008, edited and re-posted today)

Blown away.

As I typed this title, I was already worrying that in today's crazy
world, people might think this post is about a bomb. Actually,
in more ways than one, it's quite the opposite. Bombs destroy.
This creates and connects.

I went to an exhibit at my favourite art gallery and was absolutely
blown away by it. It was the most creative, clever, endearing and
picturesque exhibit I've seen in a long time. It was beautiful and
simple and it wasn't only art, it was literally "art, earth, ink and soul"!
How could I not love it?

The artist is Chang Yoong Chia of Malaysia. Sadly, I didn't get
a chance to meet him, but am so grateful that I got a chance
to see his work, and just in time too. I managed to catch his
exhibit, The Botany of Desire, just an hour before it closed!

I walked in to the gallery and this is what I first saw. That's
my friend Suresh, leaning against the wall. We went to art
college together. For a year, anyway. Then I dropped out
(refer my darkest poems) while he went on to finish, and later
even became the principal. He was a very principled principal.
The gallery is his, and part of his NGO that supports and
encourages young and upcoming artists - local, national
and international; rural, tribal and urban. He has residencies
and so we get to see the most wonderful variety of art, and meet
the most wonderful variety of creative people.

The photographs I've taken don't really do Chang's work justice
(took them with the camera on my phone!). I couldn't resist
taking a picture of each and every leaf, and I wanted you to
see them all.

Chang blended Malaysian shadow-work with his experience of
Bangalore - those are actual leaves both on the screen and the floor,
from Lalbagh Botanical Gardens - and created a whimsical fairy tale
of sorts, from what he learned from his early morning walks there.

These are close-ups of two of the leaves. What you see is the silhouette
of the cut-out leaf, backlit. I thought they were quite lovely enough
as they were, but then Suresh walked me behind the screen. That's
when I got blown away - here is Chang's story, in pictures, in words,
on leaves. Enjoy!

by Chang Yoong Chia

 by Chang Yoong Chia

by Chang Yoong Chia

by Chang Yoong Chia

by Chang Yoong Chia

by Chang Yoong Chia

by Chang Yoong Chia

by Chang Yoong Chia

by Chang Yoong Chia

by Chang Yoong Chia

by Chang Yoong Chia

by Chang Yoong Chia

by Chang Yoong Chia

by Chang Yoong Chia

by Chang Yoong Chia

by Chang Yoong Chia

 Aren't they lovely? Everything about them enchants me. The skill
of the cut-work on the leaves, the style of the illustrations, the story.
I love the way Chang brings in little nuances of Bangalore
life  - early mornings in Lalbagh (the gates open at 5 a.m.
for walkers, joggers, and yoga enthusiasts) - parents going
for broke over the obscenely lavish Indian wedding - the history
of the tree - the call centre - the squirrel and the Brahmani kite.

My favourite leaves are the squirrel, the queen and the call centre.
Which are yours?

My favourite part of the story, though, is the last leaf. I can't wait
for Chang to come back and tell us more.