Main Bhi Sochun Tu Bhi Soch
Reading the column by Dr. Chidanandamurthy this morning in Vijaya Karnataka i was happy and also irritated. Happy because he was not elected as the president for this years Kannada Sahitya Sammelan and irritated for the thoughts he has voiced in his weekly column. He is of the opinion that India should follow the footsteps of Israel. Meaning India should decalre war on Pakistan. THe other messages he wants to send across are, do not trust the Muslims in INdia, keep them and the Communists under control and what not! But his main agenda is to inject the thought of need for war among the readers. It is irritating.
I was asking all my friends to read the article via SMS and as i was sending the message to my senior friend Siddangowda Patil, who currently is the State Secretary of CPI, i rememberd a poem he wrote a decade ago. The poem reads like this:
Tere Mere Beech Mein Pyaar Hai Toh
Hindustan Rahega Pakistan Rahega
Tere Mere Beech Mein
Mushraff Aur Vajpeeye Ka Bomb Rahega
Toh Hindustan Bhi Nahi Pakistan Bhi Nahi
Sirf Ek Kabrastaan Rahega
Following this poem i rememberd another poem which my another friend Neeraj Agarwal had recited to me a feew weeks ago. I dont remember the name of the poem, which reads:
Jab Tere Mere Sheeshe Ke Ghar
Main Bhi Sochun Tu Bhi Soch
Phir Kyun Hai Haath Main Paththar?
Main Bhi Sochun Tu Bhi Soch
Jab Tumko Pata Tha Lehre Aati Jaati Hai
Phir Kyun Likha Ret Per Naam
Main Bhi Sochun Tu Bhi Soch.
Jab Raam Aur Raheem Hai Tera Mera
Phir Kyun Mandir Masjid Banayaa?
Main Bhi Sochu Tu Bhi Soch.
*****
Last evening i was chatting with my friend Aditi Surendran who asked me to wish everyone not Happy New Year but Peaceful New Year. Makes a lot of sense!!!
Tujh Mein Rab Dikhta Hai
I came out of the theatre with two things. One: head ache, two: the song Tujh Mein Rab Dikhta Hai. The song had made an impression in my heart from the day my friend Siddarth made me listen to it. While coming out of the theatre i was humming the song.
That night i was chatting with Diana, my friend. As i was discussing the song, i rememberd a story which i narrated to Diana. Its a story of thr tryst of Maxim Gorky and Leo Tolstoy, which my senior friend Phaniraj had narrated to me two years ago, which i also used in my thesis.
The story goes like this:
Once Gorky went to meet Tolstoy. At the time of meeting Tolstoy was sitting on a rock in a barren land. Maxim walked towards him and stopped few steps away and stood silent. After few minutes Leo did notice Maxim’s arrival and asked “why couldn’t you call me?” Maxim said “something stopped me” Knowing that Gorky was an atheist, Tolstoy asks Gorky “What could have stopped an atheist like you?” for the reply of Gorky sounded as if some supernatural force stopped him. Gorky answered back Tolstoy saying “In the given environ you looked like a God”
Loving Machines…
“These are all mechanical clocks” he said. I was staring at all those clocks which were taller than me. The carvings on the frames of the clock and the designs on the pendulum and the dial captured my eyes. All the clocks run either by winding or by weight and drop mechanism.
Taking me through the entire exhibition Rakesh said “We are trying to rediscover the mechanic technique” and added to it saying “See, when you have to give key to the clock you tend to build a relationship with the clock which does not happen with the clock which is battery-run. You will love the clock when you are constantly in touch with it and it happens with these mechanical clocks”. I was touched and moved by what Rakesh, manager of the exhibition, told me.
The constant interaction with machines develops some emotional attachment with the machine also. Slowly, due to technological advancement are we moving away from all kind of attachment? This is what Ritwik Ghatak tried to say in his Ajantrik where he shows how people loving machine are called insane by the society. In one scene the protagonist, who loves his broken car, takes to a lonely place and says “People say i am a machine because i am attached to you, but why can’t they see you as a human being”. Ghatak who made such a film was also called insane by the society!
In the exhibition there was also the long forgotten pocket clocks or what is known as Gandhi watch. I was thrilled to see it. As i saw it with a preoccupation about building a relationship with clocks, i was reminded of A.V. Jacob.
He is undountedly one of the most interesting persons i have met. And i must admit that he has been instrumental in shaping my mind. He never used to wear a wrist watch. His favourite student my good friend Abid Misbah one day told me why Jacob Sir doesnt wear a wrist watch.
When Jacob Sir was a student in a college, all his classmates had a wrist watch except for him. The financial condition at his house wasnt so good that he could buy a wrist watch. But looking at other classmates he wished that he had a wrist watch. Once when he topped an exam in college his lecturer who was highly impressed by his paper asked him “Jacob ask for anything that you want and i will get it for you” and jacob asked for a wrist watch and he got it the next day. Then onwards Jacob Sir was so much in love with his watch that he used to keep looking at it all the time and not listen to the classes. This resulted in him getting low marks in the next exam. Realizing the reason behind the poor performance Jacob Sir threw away the watch that day. Since then he has never worn a wrist watch.
Jacob Sir threw away his watch because of the love he had for it. One has to see the fact that he did love it. Do we love our watches so much? Forget watched more than watches we are more associating with our mobile phones these days. Do we love our mobile phones? One day a friend of mine lost her mobile phone. Being a bit careless is in her blood, i know. but the fact that losing a mobile phone which is quite expensive was a bit too much for me to take. But what i could not take was what she said after losing her phone. She had said “Its ok, it was some nokia shit. I have already lost six phones. This is the seventh one”. I walked off without saying a word.
Like a gutarist loves his guitar, like a sculptor loves his chisel and hammer we have to love every machine that we use, i feel. For that we need to interact with it. Probably, Ghatak would say “We need to see it as a human being”.
On Love That Is Beyond My Understanding!
I was having my late lunch at the Taluk Office canteen and my cel vibrated. “My kitten died this morning” read the message by Madhura. I dint know how to react! Usually one knows not how to react to the news of death, for no words can comfort. I couldnt react not just because it was the news of death but because i have never been able to undderstand the attachment people have towards animals.
Madhura always spoke about her dog and her kitten very afectionately and i wondered as to how can someone like animals! One day a snake of some family came close to her kitten and Madura though scared that te snake would do something to her kitten, she took snaps of the snake and told me how cute the snake was! This love for animals is something which i have failed always to understand.
My dislike for animals is after the incident that took place while i was in class three. A dog chased me and i ran for my life! Since then i have been scared of dogs and other animals also. The fear being turned into dislike is common to human psychology, i feel.
Apart from this, being born in a family which never had a pet, i have never been in an animal friendly environ. This also, i feel, has a role in shaping my dislike for animals. Off late my dislike for animals has been nurtured by the mishap that took recently. My dear Daadi Ma (Deepanshi Tandon) was bitten by a dog badly and she couldnt walk for nearly two weeks. How horrible! Dirty dog!
Animals are so much a part of lives for so many, in this world! Once my student friend Dhiraj was saying that his grandfather’s eyes swelled with tears only twice, once when he lost his mother and the second time when his buffalloe died. I can understand such attachment but i cant feel it. For a person who is in the field of agriculture cow, buffalloe, dogs all are an integrate part of there lives. So much that in the novel Malegalalli Madumagalu of Ku.Vem.Pu set in the malnad region of Karnataka, the name of the dog is attached to the name of the protagonist and his name is attached to the name of the dog! Even Dyavanooru Mahadeva’s novel Odalaala shows how attached the protagonist Sakavva is to her rooster.
Mukund is another friend of mine who loves animals a lot. Five years ago, one day he came to my house wiping tears. When asked him what happened he told me that some dog had “murdered” his cat! I was surprised then because just a week ago then one of our friend had passed away and that day when i was broke completely, Mukund was consoling me being very strong then. But the “murder” of his cat shook his ground.
Once when asked Mukund about his love for animals he had told me “its better to love animals than loving human beings. Animals are faithful not human beings. They are lovable and not human beings” I dont know if its true! I fail to ‘feel’ the same way, so i fail to understand. May be it is true. I dont know.
Once Aravind had given me a cassette to listen. It was a discourse based on the celebrated work of Kannada Mankutimmana Kagga. The one giving the discourse at one point says “If you see a tiger coming towards you, you will know what it can do to you. If its a dog, even then you will know as to what it is capable of doing. But if a man comes you never know what he can do for he is capable of doing anything”
Sounds true at times. But still i am unable to understand the love of human beings for animals. I just cant love animals. I love human beings and this is what Mukund warned me always.
Off late witnessing many a betrayals and my encounter with many a ungrateful people i am losing my ability to love people also. But even at this point i am unable to love animals and understand the love of people for animals.
Recently i read an article in The Hindu by a non-resident Pakistani who says hating India for him is like hating his past. Now disliking animals must also be like disliking the past of human civilization, isnt it? We too belonged one ‘brand’ of animals. So does that mean i dislike human-beings too? I dont know!
Terror Attack On Mumbai
Terror: The Aftermath
The attack on Mumbai is over. Nearly 200 dead. And now, after heart-rending stories of bereavement, come the repercussions, the blame game and the “solutions”. Loud voices, amplified by saturation TV demanding: Why don’t we amend our Constitution and create new anti-terror laws? Why don’t we arm our police with AK 47s? Why don’t we do what Israel did after Munich or the USA did after 9/11 and hit terror camps across the border?
Solutions that can only lead us further into the abyss. For terror is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It thrives on reaction, polarization and militarization. The only thing that can undermine it is that which least occurs to those thirsting for revenge.
The External Terror
Those who invoke America need only to analyse whether their actions after 9/11 increased or decreased global terror. The neo-cons invaded oil-rich Iraq knowing fully well that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. The war on Iraq killed over 200,000 Iraqis and several thousand Americans and allowed a cornered Bin Laden to escape. It also recruited global support for Islamic militancy, which began to be seen as a just resistance against American mass murder. Which begs the question of who created Bin Laden in the first place, armed the madarsas of Pakistan and rejuvenated the concept of Islamic jehad? Remember that at the height of the Cold War it was Communism that was the enemy and Islamic jehad, the friend.
The Terror Within
India is for many reasons a quintessentially soft target. Our huge population and vast landmass and coastline are impossible to protect. The rich may build new barricades. The Taj and the Oberoi can be made safer. So can our airports and planes. Can our railway stations and trains, bus stops, busses, markets and lanes do the same?
Policing, Justice and the Media
As for draconian anti-terror laws, they too can only breed more terror as for the most part they are implemented by a State machinery that has imbibed the assumption that Muslims are the prime source of all terror. So in Narendra Modi’s Gujarat after the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in 2002, despite scores of confessions about rape and murder being captured on hidden camera, virtually no Hindu militants were punished by the State while thousands of Muslims rotted in jail under draconian laws. The same happened in Bombay despite the Shiv Sena being found guilty by the Justice Shrikrishna Commission. Under pressure a few such cases were finally brought to trial but everyone escaped with the lightest of knuckle raps. In stark contrast many Muslims accused in the 1993 bomb blasts were given death sentences.
The bulk of our media, policing and judicial systems swallows the canard that Muslims are by nature more prone to violence. Removing democratic safeguards guaranteed by the Constitution can only make this worse. Every act of wrongful imprisonment and torture that follows is likely then to turn innocents into material for future terrorists to draw upon. Already the double standards are visible for all to see. The Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) was banned on grounds that could not stand up to legal scrutiny. With far more evidence against them, predominantly Hindu outfits like the RSS, the VHP, the Bajrang Dal, the Shiv Sena and the MNS remain legal entities. The leader of the latter, Raj Thackeray openly spread such hatred that many north Indians were recently killed by lynch mobs. Amongst these were the Dubey brothers, doctors from Kalyan who treated the poor for a grand fee of Rs.10 per patient. Raj Thackeray like his uncle Bal before him, remains free after issuing public threats that Bombay would burn if anyone had the guts to arrest him. Narendra Modi remains free despite the pogroms of Gujarat. Congress party murderers of Sikhs in 1984 remain free. Justice in India is clearly not there for all. Increasing the powers of the police cannot solve this problem. Only the honest and unbiased implementation of laws that exist, can.
It is a tragedy of the highest proportions that one such honest policeman, ATS chief Hemant Karkare, who had begun to unravel the thread of Hindutva terror was himself gunned down, perhaps by Muslim terror. I say perhaps because I cannot automatically believe every story that emerges from the police or from the media, however convincing it may first sound. All I will say at the moment is that the evidence on record points to another historic irony. The people who had the most to gain from Hemant Karkare’s death were the Hindutva bomb makers, sponsors and planters, from Col. Purohit to Sadhvi Pragya. It is reported that these elements now in judicial custody actually celebrated the news of Karkare’s death. Until Karkare took charge, the Malegaon bomb blasts in which Muslims were killed and the Samjhauta Express blasts in which Pakistanis were killed were being blamed on Muslim terror. Karkare exposed a hitherto unknown Hindu outfit as masterminding a series of killer blasts across the country. For his pains Karkare came under attack not just from militant Hindus but from the mainstream BJP. Such was the viciousness of the attack that Karkare was under pressure to prove his patriotism. Was it this that led this senior officer to don helmet and ill-fitting bullet proof vest and rush into battle with a pistol? Or was it just his natural instinct, the same courage that had led him to expose Hindutva terror when popular sentiment was stacked against him?
Whatever it was, if indeed he was killed by Muslim terrorists, it only underlines the fact that jehadis of all kinds are actually allies of each other. So Bin Laden served George Bush and his neo-cons and vice-versa. So Islamic and Hindutva jehadis have served each other for years. Do they care who dies? Of the 200 people killed in the last few days by Islamic jehadis, a high number, specially at Shivaji Terminus, were Muslims. Many were waiting to board trains to celebrate Eid in their hometowns in UP and Bihar, when co-religionists gunned them down. Shockingly the media has not commented on this, nor for that matter has it focused at all on the tragedy at the railway station, choosing to concentrate almost entirely on tragedies that befell the more well-to-do. And shockingly it is the media that is leading the charge to turn us into a police state where we may lead lives with an illusion of safety, but with the certainty of joylessness.
I am not arguing that we do not need basic security at public places and at vulnerable sites. But real security will only come when it is accompanied by real justice, when the principles of democracy are extended to every part of the country, when the legitimate grievances of people are not crushed with an iron heel, when the arms race is replaced by a race for decency and humanity, when our children grow up in an atmosphere where religious faith is put to the test of reason. Until such time we will remain at the mercy of “patriots” and zealots.
Anand Patwardhan
Nover 2008
(Thanks to Anand Bhai for having allowed me to post the article)
Karachi Ek Maa Hai, Bambai Bichada Hua Beta…
Adaab
Accidentally i chanced upon a collection of Urdu poetry today. I bought the book and started reading some poems randomly and found this particular poem quite interesting. It is by Nida Fazli, whose poetry i have already shared with you all once earlier. Here is another one. The translation is by Kuldip Salil. Happy reading:
Karachi ek maa hai
Bambai bichada hua beta
yeh rishta pyar ka pakeezha rishta hai jise ab tak
na koi tod paaya hai
na koi tod paayega
na meri maa kabhi talwaar taane ran me aayi hai
na maine apni maa ke saamne bandook uthaayi hai
yeh kaisa shor-o-hangaama hai yeh kiski ladaayi hai
Karaachi ek maa hai.
(Karachi is a mother
And Mumbai a son seperated from her
This relation is a pious relation of affection
Which till date nobody has been able to break
And will never be broken.
Neither has my mother ever come for battle,
Holding sword in hand,
Nor have i ever trained a gun against her
Then, who is fighting whom
And what for this stir?
Karachi is a mother)
Peace,
Samvartha ‘Sahil’
“Love Has To Become Also Our Politics”
Reading the Kafkasque story of a couple in Orissa, recently in The Hindu by Harsh Mander (http://www.hindu.com/mag/2008/11/30/stories/2008113050060300.htm) I wrote a mail to Harsh Sir, voicing out that i doubted if Constitution and law can answer to all the social economical and political problems of this country. To my mail Sir’s reply was this:
Dear samvartha,
I believe deeply in the constitution of India. But to deal with my story of the child’s sale, i believe we need to go beyond, and reach into our compassion. Love has to become also our politics. But how i am not sure…
Regards,
Harsh
The sentence ‘LOVE HAS TO BECOME ALSO OUR POLITICS’ touched me, moved me. So here i have shared it with you.
Peace,
Samvartha ‘Sahil’
“How Good And Noble They Are! And How Base Am I!”
Adaab
Dear Sana a few months ago i had promised to tell you a story of Dostoyevsky’s first success and havent narrated it to you till this day. Today is the day.
I still remember messaging you that evening saying i broke down for the first time after having lost my job and you replied saying “Samvartha look around. There are so many people who love you and respect you. Be happy”. That was the first time i rememberd this story of Dostoyevsky and it was that day that i promised to narrate to you the story someday.
I was reminded of that story again when i was in Kolkatta. I was in my room and Sunil Sir called me. He was in Sagara with Jadhav Sir, Subraya Sir, Pattabhi Sir and Vrinda. Everyone spoke to me and Pattabhi told me “We were talking about you so we thought of talking to you” and said that they all felt i was a nice friend. Then again i rememberd the story of Dostoyevsky.
Few days ago (December 1) i was reminded of the story again when i was at Pattabhi Sir’s place with Sunil Sir. Pattabhi Sir holding me said “You are such a fine man. We all love you a lot. But dont feel pampered” and this reminded me of the Dostoyevsky story.
So today i decide to narrate the story to you after a long time after the prmoise was made.
I came across this story in one of the letters written by Franz Kafka to Milena. So in this letter of mine to you i directly quote Kafka from his letter to Milena. Here is the story, in the words of Kafka:
Its a story which embraces many things and i mention the great name only for the sake of convenience, for actually a story from next door or even nearer would haev the same meaning. Incidentally, I know the story only very waguely, especially the names. While Dostoyevsky was writing his first novel, Poor Folk, he was living with a literary man of his acquaintance called Grigoriev. Although for months on end the latter saw the many written pages on the table, he received the manuscript only when the novel was finished. He read it, was delighted and took it, without saying a word to D., to the then famous crtic Nekrassov. At 3 o’clock the following morning there was a ring at D.’s door. It was Gr. and N., they rush into the room, embrace and kiss D., Nekrassov who hadnt met him before calls him Russia’s hope, they spend one, two hours talking mainly about the novel, only toward dawn taking their leave. D., who always referred to this night as the happiest of his life, leans against the window, follows them with his eyes, is quite beside himself and begins to cry. Inso doing his basic feeling, which he has described I no longer know where was: “These wonderful people! How good and noble they are! And how base am I! Id they could only see into me! If i were merely to tell them they wouldnt believe it”.
This is the story Sana, which i had promised to tell you. I am being honest to you and to myself. I remember my good friend Govind telling me once “Dude, modesty is not the best policy, honesty is”.
“These wonderful people! How good and noble they are! And how base am I! Id they could only see into me! If i were merely to tell them they wouldnt believe it”.
Hope you are keeping good. Take Care.
Peace,
Samvartha ‘Sahil’
