THE ANDAMANS- A must visit

Our mind begins to weave a portrait of the unknown, whether it be a person, place or any other random event or thought. However, more often than not, when confronted with reality, this random caricature appears far from reality.

My impression of the Andamans as a lonely place with exotic people was pleasantly jolted when I had an opportunity to visit them about a month ago. Not only are the islands teeming with tourists, the locals speak and understand anything from Hindi, English to Bengali and Tamil.

The flight from Kolkata to Port Blair over the Bay of Bengal takes around two hours. The view around is unwinding, though the climate remains a little humid.

Cellular Jail, known as KAALA PANI in common parlance is the most sought after destination in Port Blair. Veer Savarkar, Batukeshwar Dutt and many other freedom fighters spent many years of their lives here. It is now a National Memorial Monument and the light and sound show in the evening relives the gory treatment meted out to the prisoners here.

The Anthropological Survey of India Museum is also worth a stop. It is enriching to know about the tribes of Andaman and Nicobar islands and their living patterns.

Havelock island is famous for water sports and pristine beaches. A Government ferry takes about two and a half hours while the Makruzz takes one and a half hours, from Port Blair to the Havelock island. If you are lucky, you might spot a dolphin from the deck of the government ferry.

Havelock is dotted with resorts, the most famous being BAREFOOT, the upcoming TAJ resort and the government owned Dolphin resort.

The Radhanagar beach is voted as the best beach in Asia by some. And it is not without reason. The white sand, gushing waves and dense mangroves make for a sight to behold.

The KALAPATTHAR beach derives its name from the black rocks present. The sunrise at Kalapatthar is very famous with tourists arriving early to catch a glimpse of the morning sun.

Elephanta beach is famous for water sports. These range from scuba diving, snorkeling, boating to canoeing. One can reach the beach through a streamer or by an hour of trekking through the forests.

One can easily get a bike on rent. Driving through the lush green cover and tall trees is an adventure in itself. Sea food is another experience to watch out for. Fresh fish, lobsters and crabs are popular among sea food lovers.

Neil island is another of those serene islands with pristine beaches, good accommodation and water sports. It is a one hour drive by ferry.

The people are friendly. Sea shells and tribal handicrafts are things to buy. Overall, I found Andamans a very good destination when compared to many mainland crowded sea shores.

Go to Andamans to experience the diverse geography of India, and how people across the country are so similar despite visible differences in language, attire and outlook.

Young India- Old Leaders

 The 1991 restructuring of Indian economy unleashed unprecedented entrepreneurial energy. Last twenty years mirror hope and change. From business to social services, the young have taken the mantle and changed the face of the country. It is natural, given the ‘demographic dividend, we enjoy.

But politics offers a strange paradox. State or centre, leaders in their seventies and eighties hold sway. Those in their thirties and forties can be counted on fingertips. And majority of them are ‘lineage politicians’, having ‘inherited’ their position. The average age of the Union Cabinet today is 64 years and 5 months while that of the Council of Ministers is 58.6 years. In the 1^st Parliament, only 20 per cent of MPs were 56 years or older. In the 15^th Parliament, this figure has increased to 43 per cent.In the 1st Lok Sabha, there was no MP over the age of 70. This number has risen to 7 per cent in the current Lok Sabha. This does not, in any way, reflect truly a country with 65% of its population below 35 years of age.

Political parties seem averse to investing in young leaders. They try to garner votes of the young by election promises, but give tickets to the established with solid vote banks. Politics, people say, is a game of numbers. Only when we see us as one, as a force, will situation change on ground. We need to move beyond caste and communal divisions and find commonality in age. The psyche about politics as the ‘last refuge of the scoundrels’ will have to make way for viewing it as an ‘agent of change’.

The infusion of young blood will act as a ‘demographic lens’ to better articulate the needs and aspirations of the young generation. We also need out of the box thinking on issues of poverty, unemployment, environment and corruption. The young do not carry the burden of yesteryears. Nor are they bogged down by stereotypes. ’Crossing the Rubicon’ comes naturally to them. Inexperienced and overzealous we might be, we are willing to commit mistakes and learn from them. We are ready to abandon the ‘ivory tower’ and mingle with the greater whole. A young set of leaders will send out a positive signal to the world and substantiate our ‘Young India’ image. Outstanding issues with other countries can also be visited with a fresh frame of mind and I am confident that they can be resolved. If Barack Obama at 51 and David Cameroon at 46 can lead their ‘not-so-young’ countries, why can’t we? Given a chance the young leaders have shown  their capability. A ‘Jyotiraditya Sindhia or ‘Sachin Pilot’at the centre or ‘ Akhilesh Yadav’ or ‘Shivraj Singh Chauhan’ in the states are second to none. Seeing young leaders at the helm will enthuse people to join in the change, to embrace politics.

Introduction of new does not in any way mean the rejection of the old. We need their experience, their guidance, their advice. But our participation needs to increase. Watching from the fringes cannot give us experience. We need a role in decision making.

 Having said that, we will have to force our way rather than wait for others to make way. Winds of change are already sweeping the lower echelons where a lot of young men and women, from all walks of life, have entered the grass root government organizations and non-governmental organizations and are doing wonderfully well. One hopes this change is infectious and affects the whole political gamut to produce a more democratic, representative and responsive system.

Sixty-five years since India made its ‘tryst with destiny’; we have come a long way. Our leaders have lead us well. Today we stand at time’s great precipice. Dynamic, young and decisive leadership is the need of the hour. To all my friends here I would like to say-the time to take the plunge has come.

The business of God-making

Humans are believers by nature. When we say that we do not believe, we infact have a belief that we don’t believe. Thus not believing is also a form of belief. This trait eventually manifests itself as religion. It is a common chord running through all cultures and across generations, testimony to us having evolved but from a common ancestor. The physical emblems of religion ooze out as Gods, deities, mythologies and customs. They are perhaps an attempt to gauge the unknown and allay fears, we are so vulnerable to.

The most primitive Gods emerged out of the fear of the unknown. Worship and complete surrender were thought of as methods to keep them benevolent. Floods, lightening, forest fires, earthquakes are examples. They were all personified in the course of time.

The second type emerged from all that within nature which benefited us. Banyian, Neem and other trees, animals such as cow were all given reverential status. What it did was encrypt in the psyche of the community and future generations, not to harm these beneficial gifts of nature under any circumstances. Confucianism, Taoism and Shintoism were all erected on this belief system. Overtime relationships developed have been so intimate that people value it more than their lives. In every Hindu home Tulsi and other trees, cow, snake and other organisms are still worshipped. Tribal communities stand up in arms against any attempt to harm their ‘Nature Deities’, never mind the compensations. We saw recent examples in Gujrat and Orissa where people refused to leave their surroundings for multipurpose projects and dams in spite of attractive rehabilitation packages.

The third type of ‘Gods’ emerged from within the man-made society. They were those who did something extraordinary for the community. Tales were weaved around them and transcended from one generation to the next, as oral tradition. As was inevitable, they underwent considerable modifications. The personality of the story teller played a gargantuan part. Some portions were truncated while others were extrapolated. The same tale got transported in different regions and thus underwent regional modifications, in addition to generational modifications. They were ultimately penned down thus creating innumerable versions of the same story. The recent controversy surrounding the essay ‘300 Ramayanas’ was precisely over this issue. Tales not suitable to the psyche of the larger community or to the dominant group were also sidelined. We find little mention of Charvaka and his philosophy in ancient texts because it was opposed to Brahmins. Kings, being dominant were often raised to the pedestal of God. They were thought of being the ‘avatara’ of God on earth. This also provided legitimacy to their rule.

Another type of deities emerged from the personification of our requirements which stem because we live in a society. For example ‘Goddess Laxmi’ became the goddess of wealth and ‘Goddess Saraswati’, the goddess of knowledge. All these categories of Gods were subsequently blended and we find tales encompassing all these in the same canvas.

‘Rama’ seems to have been immortalized by the same phenomenon. A charismatic King, probably of a time of which no written records are available, stories of his valor would have gone down through generations orally. The fact that ‘The Ramayana’ was composed in twenty four hundred years (8th Century B.C.-16^th Century A.D.) bears testimony to the aberrations the original tale would have undergone. The fact is further corroborated by other examples. ‘Buddha’ and ‘Mahavira’ spent all their lives fighting against the ritualistic interpretation of Vedas. Never once did they portray themselves as Gods. But after their death, they began to be worshipped. Temples were constructed in their honour. ’Mahayana’, a sect of Buddhism separated out for this reason. ’Vajrayan’, another Buddhist sect, believes in ‘tantras’ and ‘mantras’ for attaining salvation. Brahminism adopted ‘Buddha’ as an avatara. This is what we reduced them to. This has always been the ‘modus oprendi’ of man. But we were more fortunate in their case. We have written records of their times. We know what they actually preached. Had they existed a couple of hundred years earlier, they would have suffered the same fate as ‘Lord Rama.’

The same cycle is repeating itself today. Sai Baba became ‘God’ in the twentieth century.  ‘Satya Sai’ has become our youngest deity. Many others will follow.

The whole business of God-making is logical in a sense. Those from between us who gave something to this cosmos, through service of the animate or to mankind were raised to the status of ‘Gods’. The idea was to portray their work and character as ideal and set forth their example before the society to emulate. They were thus to give direction to our society. We were to absorb them by worship and try to live them through our deeds.  But we faulted. We overlooked the basic criteria and instead gave importance to charisma. We started choosing the wrong people. We infused mysticism. The distance between mortals and immortal increased so much that they became objects of fear.

If God-making is in our blood, so be it. There is nothing wrong. But we must be rational in whom we choose to bestow our love upon. ’Mahatma Gandhi’ and ‘Mother Teresa’ will make much better Gods than ‘Satya Sais’ and ‘Nirmal Babas’. Their message of love and non-violence will work better for our society.

The South Effect..

Characteristic vacation day. Comatose summer afternoon. Even the animate imitates the inanimate. Lying prostrate, you start the television, desultory gliding through the news channels, music programmes and reality shows, showing utter disregard. Life seems to have lost meaning. Then all of a sudden you stop at a channel, pupils dilate. This is it! NIRVANA! Magic happens to the moribund entourage. Throwing the remote with apathy, you rise, eyes glued, confident that you have finally escaped the vicious cycle of channel hobbling. This vitalizing force is the sight of a man, well a superman, beating the hell out of an army of ghastly looking men, armed with glistening daggers and all (and you thought that the man was ‘BUDDHA’, the Enlightened one!). These are the mainstream South Indian masala dubbed flicks. THE MEN ARE BACK!
So popular have they become that in the last year or so that every movie channel telecasts them. Their Bollywood remakes have set the cash counters ringing. What is it in them that catches the eye, encompasses our imagination? The actors? Actresses? Or the locations? Certainly not. The lyrics of songs come across as having been distastefully squeezed into the music beats. Bollywood beats them on all these counts. The secret is the unadulterated, high voltage action. Storyline is simple and mostly runs along chartered territory. The good, innocent hero is harassed by the goon until it is his turn to seek revenge. You can actually tell when the movie meanders from a purely hilarious scene to an emotional one and then to action. It reminds me of the South Indian plate served in restaurants. Sambhar, chutney, rasam, Idli and vada neatly confined to their compartments on a platter, opposed to the ‘Khichdi’ we often eat.
The psychological aspect which attracts us to these movies is worth inspecting. Even seeing the hero mercilessly butchering men, breaking every law in the book, we sympathize with him. Does it tickle our beastly instincts; we long abandoned to settle down as a society but which still spills out sometimes? Will we still like to have an eye for an eye if given a chance? Doesn’t the evolution of our laws reflect what we are in reality? I don’t think so. For me, the reason for this attraction is a creation of society itself. We see injustices occurring all around us. Many a times we are a party too. Seeing no way to stop these, we become insensitive. We protect our minds by an elaborate system of abstractions, ambiguities, metaphors and similes from the reality we do not wish to know too clearly; we lie to ourselves, in order that we may still have the excuse of ignorance, alibi of stupidity and incomprehension, possessing which we can continue with a good conscience to commit and tolerate the most monstrous crimes. But somewhere deep down, in the darkest caverns of our heart, we still nurse the desire to spring forth and bring a change. When we see these over the top films in which the good stands up against injustice, our moribund desires are incentivized. We feel related. Our pent up frustration oozes out. This relaxes us. For once, we end up on the winning side.
The evil is polarized in the villain and the good in the hero, much unlike in real life where it is impossible to classify good and bad. This adds to the vigour. We know it is surreal but so be it.
 Watching the climax of these films one cannot help but compare it to the height of the ‘Anna Hazare agitation’. We felt we had gheroed ‘CORRUPTION’ .It seemed we won. But reality is different. Change happens when we act. We act when we are filled to the brim with the desire for change.Buying these over-simplistic and impossible solutions to very complicated problems, our angst and our potential for change all flow down the drain. Our ability to craft a revolution is consumed. Far better are movies which expose the underbelly of the ill without becoming prescriptive. They force us to think and increase our uneasiness, our desire to unleash a change.
But no matter how much I criticize these films, I am abruptly ending this piece because it is 2:00 p.m.(one of THOSE AFTERNOONS I mentioned in the beginning) and I am sure I haven’t missed much of the latest ‘Nagarjun’ starrer flick, slated to be broadcast today.

The walking story

Keeping in shape seems to be high on priority with the Allahabadis. It is not for nothing that ‘Company Garden’ has become the toast of the city. Spread over many acres in the heart of Allahabad, this sprawling green patch was a witness to the martyrdom of Chandrashekhar Azad, one of the greatest sons of Mother India. But today the park is recognized by its colourful, avid walkers who throng it all day long. Early morning and evening is peak time.

The entire hullabaloo surrounding the spate of publicized diseases has propelled the denizens to take to walking. It has in fact contributed to a Domino effect where more and more are taking to it. The portraits of obese men and women with tummies ballooning out beyond the perimeter of their trousers, sick men coughing their lungs out and frustrated people with head in hands, depicted outside clinics, on hoardings, behind buses and taxis, in newspapers and on television, asking you to care about your health   have certainly played their part in pulling people to the park. Walking and caring about your body has become a status symbol and people like to flaunt it like an achievement in bold on a CV .You have relatives, neighbors and friends professing the benefits of walking and the magical makeover they went through within a few days. There is no escape. No matter how ambivalent your thoughts, how hard you try to ignore all warnings, you will one day find yourself in the park with sports shoes on, ready to reverse the cycle of ageing, ready to achieve the pink of health, ready to live once again. The conjure of the garden will do the rest. You won’t realize when you were sucked up in the scenery and became part of the ‘walking family’, the greater whole. So encompassing will be the effect that within a few days it will become the centre around which your rest of day would revolve. Soon faces will become familiar, the distances known and the breeze, a companion.

The garden presents a microcosm of the city in transition that we live in. Men and women, young and old, fat and thin all flock the garden. Especially occupied is the outer walking track along the garden’s perimeter. Hordes of women, chatting away (sometimes you overhear some crap), walking briskly is the staple site. Matching them are men meandering on the track, some panting, others taking it easy. Youngsters with headphones, detached from reality, tread harmlessly. There are couples too who mostly like to keep to themselves.  Once in a while comes a committed soul exuding   a sense of purpose, taking determined steps as if chasing some obscure goal. Seeing such individuals, others automatically make way facilitating him towards his eluding destination. Then there are the professional runners in congruence, overtaking others, from left and the right, not for a moment slowing down, having no time for the lovely vista. They remind you of a brand new car overtaking snail paced trucks on a highway. The most peculiar site is of the high ranking government officials with gunners behind them plodding cautiously as if on an official visit. Serene pride overflows from their faces. The gunner keeps all ordinary mortals at arm’s length from his deity. You will find students lying prostrate, books in front blending so well with the surrounding greenery that they become inseparable from logs of wood. Another is the romantic type. Generally in two (common sense), they search for the most obscure benches in the park. Smiling faces, hand in hand they tend to get alarmed at the fall of a leaf (You know why!).If you walk past them they look at you as if you were a wanted criminal with posters all over the city. A group of people laughing out loud, in the midst of the park, deserve special attention. There are children playing all sorts of games.

I will now tell you about my motivation to walk. A friend had taken me to the garden. After running for half a kilometer I slowed down to catch some breath. A man, in his late fifties (that is old) crossed me. After moving a few paces ahead he turned back and gave such a contemptuous look that I remember it even to this day. The look was potent than a million abusive words. He seemed to convey his haughtiness at having won an imaginary race .He challenged my youth, my manliness. A million volcanoes erupted in me. I wanted to show him who was the boss. I ran full throttle. But before I could cross him he exited from the closest gate. Poor me. I felt cheated. It seemed like after having bowled under the hot sun all day long, it had started to rain when it was my turn to bat. Every day I watch out for that man in the park but have not found him since. Perhaps he is too busy basking in the glory of his self-styled win. But I continue to run hoping that someday I will get my shot at glory.

The Dog and his Master..

Everyone craves for power. You may not accept but in the deepest caverns of the heart resides the intuitive desire to direct and regulate others’ lives and destiny.
The same propensity in me came to the fore when I adopted a dog. I felt elated but there was also a sense of responsibility for I was his master and controlled his life. He slowly became one with the family. I fed him, took him for walks and sometimes bathed him. That was all I had to do for him. He was least demanding and always looked happy.
He justified his presence by catching and killing house rats. One day he also saved me from a mad dog that unprovokedly pounced on me. Had he not been there, I surely would have had to get countless injections drilled down my tummy. He acted as a guard and no one had the courage to enter the house without invitation. Moreover, just seeing him run or play with the ball gave me immense pleasure.
Time rolled by. Slackness set in. By now I had taken it for granted that he was mine and would serve me, come what may. I would now many a times not bring his dogfood, intentionally, and instead utilize the allotted money on my own self. I would now give him bread crumbs or a couple of chapattis instead. But he never complained. A little caressing and lovingly enchantment of his name a couple of times was enough to spur him up. He would be immediately alert and prepared to lay his life in my service.
More water flowed under the bridge. My ways became worse and I turned even more complacent. The dog became weak but his faithfulness was intact. He would now go hungry for many days but all he did was whine once in a while. This was never enough to penetrate my conscience or even unwillingly force me to look after him .I had perhaps forgotten that dogs could bite.
One morning I found him unusually quiet. His nose was dry. I immediately understood that he was ill. He kept staring at me with those bulging eyes of his, but did not move. However his tail wagged which was indication enough that the faithfulness had still not gone. The thought of doctor’s fees and medicine bill turned me off. I could instead use the money on myself and my friends. Without giving him a second look I left the house.
When I returned I found him lying outside, near the gate, in supine position. He was dead. I did not feel bad because he was just a dog, a faithful servant. And moreover dogs have miserable deaths. He died an easy one. I had now to get rid of the body. Someone suggested having him buried near the river. But that would involve carrying the stinking mass in the car and paying for the digging and subsequent filling of the soil. I came up with a better idea instead. I phoned the Municipality and told them that an orphan dog had unfortunately died in front of my house and that they have him removed at the earliest. That was the end of him.
I felt sure that I could adopt any pup and elicit out the same faithfulness and servitude from him, without even having to care for him because it was engraved in their systems to serve without complaining.
What had the dog demanded? Nothing. And what had he given in return? Everything he possibly could. His faithfulness was abused. He was exploited to the brim.
The problem lay in the fact that he did not or could not complain. I sometimes wonder what his fate would have been, could he speak. If he only could resent, I would never have been allowed to get so complacent. Had he known that I owed him proper food my actions towards him would have been dramatically different. Had there been fear that he would lose his faithfulness, or leave me or bite me given my behavior, I surely would have been on my toes and then the relation between us would have been of reciprocity. In fact I owed him a lot more than just feeding him given he had once saved me from a dog, provided safety to the whole house and always produced happiness by his very presence. But due to the lack of ability to understand that he was being exploited and stand up for his cause was he a dog.
But we are born humans with the sharpest intellect among all animals. It is beyond reason why we are relegating ourselves by not protesting against injustice meted out to us. Our political masters, exploit our emotions, trust and faithfulness, and when the question for fulfilling our needs arises, they turn a blind eye as if we don’t exist. They know that we can at the most whine but never growl, forget about biting. We are as much responsible for the current scenario as they are. We get satiated by ‘bread crumbs’ or a little caressing. It’s time we showed our canines and growled, and if need be even bite, but at any cost made our importance felt.
If we don’t act now, we will die a silent death, like the faithful dog, without the surety of getting even a proper cremation.

Twist in the relations

The recent act of obduracy on Pakistan's part by not granting diplomatic immunity to an American diplomat has definitely severed U.S.-Pak relationship.By offending her Big Brother she has again shown that the country does not run on policies and diplomacy but on spontaneous outbursts and an attitude of megalomania.Pakistan has been offending America big time.Her increasing closeness to China and obstinate attitude towards American interests has certainly deteriorated the close relationship they shared not so long ago.Moreover after 26/11, Pakistan's henious acts and government enterprise terriorist networks have been unveiled.Trying to defend Pakistan now and continuing the cosy relationship they once shared would not be possible for U.S., though this would mean decline of U.S. control in the region.It will be interesting to see for how long the 'GOOD FRIENDS' tag remains given America's requirement of Pakistan's territory for conducting operations in Afganistan but I have a very strong feeling that something has got to give.