An Indian Fulbright Commission

“The Fulbright Commission aims to bring a little more knowledge, a little more reason, and a little more compassion into world affairs and thereby increase the chance that nations will learn at last to live in peace and friendship.”
- Senator J William Fulbright

Fulbright Commission is a fabulous experiment… it provides study grants to students for pursuing studies in different social and cultural settings. Thus it is helping US students to study in- say Egypt, India, China or even Ethiopia… and is also helping students of other countries of- say India, Spain, Turkey or even Mozambique... to study in the US.

What the program does in turn is something very revolutionary… it promotes a strong cross-cultural understanding… it helps in promoting the idea of the United States all around the globe… and helps the US in learning from other socio-politico and cultural milieus.

Till date I have met three Fulbright scholars… two were from the US studying in Egypt… and one was a Spanish who is studying in the US. I am yet to meet an Indian Fulbright scholar… but I am told that there are lots of luminaries who have been Fulbright scholars… one name that comes to my mind is that of former CM of Karnataka S M Krishna.

Great initiative, one might say.

What the Fulbright does not do, however, is to give opportunity to Indians to travel to other places than the US… to study. So if an Indian wants to study in Tanzania, Columbia or Vietnam… he will have to look for other avenues than Fulbright. Thus… Fulbright is very US centric initiative. It provides opportunity for the Americans to learn from others experiences… and also propagates the idea of the US to others… and if other countries benefit from the initiative… then it is purely incidental.

One may argue… that why would anyone from India like to go and study in God forsaken places- like Ethiopia, Columbia or Vietnam... and what is its utility. I don’t have answers… as of now… but as I always say… different societies are doing different things, successfully… countering different problems in different way, successfully- and some, if not all… such learnings can be utilized in India with some modifications. If we don’t study such models, such initiatives, such efforts… we are shutting ourselves from a vast amount of vicarious learning and probably are going to re-invent the wheel.

A few decades from now, may be just two… when we will really be big, economically and may be politically… playing important role in International forums… we will need to enact our bigness. And mind you, there will be no escape. We will need to formulate opinions on all the world issues… not from an outsider's perspective but from a perspective of those who are deeply involved and deeply concerned. One channel of developing it would be diplomatic missions… another would be business and trade relations… but we will still need to have people to people contact. And for that we will need our scholars to travel to these countries and their scholars to come to our countries. Thereby, and only thereby, will we be able to seize our moment of greatness.

This brings me to my original hypothesis… on the need to create similar such institution for India… an Indian Fulbright Commission. That will sponsor Indians to study in US, Europe and above all... other God forsaken places… so as to have a direct experiential learning from what different societies are doing or have done in different circumstances… and what can India learn from them.

Similarly, it would invite nationals from different countries to come and study in India and share their experiences with Indian students… (Though this would be the second step that will come after the success of the first step).

There are a few more things that I need to clarify…

People may ask why we should have such a body… why can't people just take study loan and go to study… the reason is that often study loan are too steep and repaying them becomes a big headache… thus the candidate who has to repay it… starts dancing to the tune of market forces in order to get the best monetary returns for his studies. Sometimes you just don’t get study loans for such studies… going for MBA, Engineering sounds saleable to banks… but the moment you say Cultural Anthropology or Vietnamese Language… the bank wouldn’t even have a second look at your proposal.

Why only that, one of my friends who was going to study International Studies in Georgetown University had to run pillar to post for getting these loans. Also, studying abroad is not one of the easiest things to do… it involves a lot of forward and backward linkages… say if you want to study in Vietnam… it may involve learning Vietnamese… therefore it is an entire value chain that needs to be catered… and not just the academic fees…

Others might say that there are government scholarships to do such courses abroad... and why not utilize them. Well the only reason is that there are far fewer than required by our country... and are often having strict academic parameter to judge the candidates... little stress is given to life experiences... that is the suitability of candidate to absorb from cross cultural situations.

People will also ask as to how one will fund such a commission… well funding is the least of the problems… Government, of course, can be one such source… but to keep government and political ideologies out of the play, one should tap corporate resource or venture capital for this initiative… the returns for them wouldn’t of course be tangible but if the initiative is successful… then such a philanthropy will earn them vast amount of goodwill. Anyway this initiative doesn’t need much of a capital to start its operation… an initial corpus of say INR 10 crore or USD 2.5 million might be enough… and surely with a booming economy, Indian corporate or some visionary venture capitalist can spare this much.

The process of this initiative however doesn’t stop here… it goes further… it will sponsor Indians to travel and do projects in different countries and communities without any binding of academic courses. It will help Indian graduate students to spend their gap years in different social milieus etc. etc.

This idea is both possible and plausible… it is a vision for the future… of creating a group of scholars who are able to understand cross cultural nuances and set an agenda for India. And if we start today, we might not have to take a knee jerk decision in future towards it.

The idea is open for anybody to work upon, refine and adopt… or else who knows… you might see me with a few like minded people in front of a venture capitalist's office or outside the board room of a high flying corporate entity… armed with a burning desire to shape India of future…

On Policing… and on Moral Policing.

Policing in India is a non-planned and non-developmental expenditure, lamented a very senior Indian Police Service Officer when recently I was interacting with him.

Today evening I decided to watch a controversial Egyptian movie "Hena Maysara"… the movie had generated a lot of debates due to some explicit scenes on lesbianism. Some conservative civil groups have asked the government to ban this movie.

Even though I have studied Arabic for two years… I am yet to reach a position where I can understand the dialogues of a movie. Yet, in last few weeks I have seen a lot of Arabic films. I can pick up a few dialogues here and there… and am able to understand the broad narrative of the movie, which suffices while seeing it.

Hena Maysara narrates a promising story, the execution, however, is shabby… there are few very strong moments in the film… they, however, do not make the entire film. It is a movie of two lovers who live in a slum… they are separated due to poverty and circumstances… the girl gives birth to a boy, who is donated to a couple due to the stigma of being an unmarried mother.

The three people chart their own destinies… their stories are told in a non linear fashion… the hero becomes a terrorist, the heroine becomes a prostitute… and the son becomes a street urchin, he falls in love with a girl and they have a kid of their own. However their destinies are tied… in the climax, they are in each other's vicinity and yet oblivious to each others existence… and then the son kills three other street urchins to save his girlfriend… the last shot shows an expression on his face that resembles the expression of his father… when he was helplessly sucked into the vortex of underworld.

Another wonderful experiment which the director does with this movie… is to base this story in the backdrop of Gulf War 1 and 2… from 1990 to the present day. These are strong similes… and show director's fertile mind… yet somehow the execution is flawed. The final shot is both negative and positive… it is about a young boy being sucked into the world of crime and also of a young man protecting his lover from the ruthless world, something his father failed to do.

The much controversial lesbian scene is merely of two minutes… and yet it has raised a lot of brouhaha. So much so, that a very powerful movie was being debunked and banned… this is the extreme form of moral policing. In Egypt, by and by, this trend is growing… every week I see another girl, leaving her earlier carefree way, and adorning Hijab… things are changing at a furious pace… somebody who came to Egypt five year ago told me that the number of girls who wore Hijabs at that point of time was merely one out of four… whereas today it is about nine out of ten.

The proponents of Hijab profess by its virtue… and as to how it would save the women from dishonour... but on ground, there is absolutely no change… day in and day out I see eve-teasing happening on the roads… people fail to understand that the lowest common denominator between the urge to behave in a pervert manner and the amount of clothing on women's body- is zero… so no amount of "graceful" dress would be able to stop a pervert from salivating over the sight of girls… he would find pointers to drool over... even in a women covered by a body cloak. Eventually what matters is women empowerment, social consciousness and sensitivity of law enforcement agencies on the issue.

This brings me to similar situation in India… yesterday I checked out M F Hussain's so called obscene paintings on Hindu deities… and after seeing them… I wondered what is obscene about them. There are people who will disagree with me… but before they choose to do so, I would ask them to see these images before reaching any conclusion. We are witnessing worse form of moral policing in the name of Valentine's Day, Fashion Shows… and what not. What do we want to make India… another Taliban?

This brings me to the opening statement of this blog.

When I was buying my ticket at 11 pm… there sat a girl on the ticket window. Inside the hall I saw a group of three girls seeing the movie, all alone. When I came out at 1 am… almost half the market was open… people were moving around. And then inadvertently I compared all this to India… our capital city Delhi…which closes down at 8 pm… where no girl can roam freely after 10 pm, even with a family. Why is it so? I asked.

It is because the poor law and order situation in India… which is a natural corollary of poor policing. We are a country that believes that good policing is a luxury and spending in the strengthening of policing as an activity is profligacy. Our policy makers think that it would be more sensible to spend the amount that is to be spent on up gradation of policing…on developmental works. On the face of it, the argument sounds fine… but it does something terrible.

The markets that can remain open well past after midnight close down at 8 pm… thus eating away the revenue that could have been generated from that space. The cinema halls have their last show at 10 pm… unlike Egypt that has its last show at 1 am. The nightlife is absolutely minimal… thereby negating means of employment that can be generated due to a night life… and a big chunk of labour force (that is women) is not able to find gainful employment due to this lack of law and order… if we were to calculate the revenue losses and opportunity losses… I think we will find that we can upgrade our police force ten folds, and still break even.

Law and order is a sine-qua-non of development… without it no development will ever take place…and therefore I think its time to move the expenditure on policing from the non-planned and non-developmental head to developmental and priority head.

One movie… one evening and two realizations… not a bad deal at all.

A folkloric night

Humongous Wael is first and foremost a friend… he is also a subordinate at my work place… but I reiterate, he is first and foremost a friend.

And not because he takes a good care of me, and is extra-affectionate towards me. But because there is a streak of absolute innocence in him, almost child-like… that would refrain us from thinking anything otherwise for him. And who can be a better friend than an unbridled child?

So yesterday when I received a call from him telling me about the Reda folkloric troupe performing in Balloony Theatre in Agouza… I could not help thanking him and telling him to find about a Baladi Hammam (going to an Egyptian bath is one of my last wishes). He promised that he will find it for me.

Folklore, according to Wikipedia, is the body of expressive culture, including tales, music, dance, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, customs, and so forth within a particular population comprising the traditions (including oral traditions) of that culture, subculture, or group. And if that is the case… then I must attend this show, I said to myself.

Reda Folkloric group is one of the most accomplished folkloric groups of Egypt. Wael professed by their excellence. This group has been formed by the great artist Mahmoud Reda. It has performed in many countries and has won a lot of national and international acclaim.

Balloony seems to be a rather funny name for a theatre… the name actually is Balloon theatre… and one look at it and I knew why it is called so. The theatre is in a shape of hemisphere and thus comes the name Balloon. It houses the National Folklore Troupe that has teamed with Reda's troupe to produce a two-hour extravaganza at the Balloon Theatre.

I placed an offer before Amit and Brahma, my colleagues to accompany me at the show… Brahma responded positively, albeit a bit skeptically.

We walked down to Agouza from our residence… it takes hardly 10 minutes to reach the Balloony Theatre from my residence. A couple of yards away from the Balloony theatre is the Egypt's National Circus… I have been here… kitschy, but not tasteless, it can be a wonderful evening for kids. Pity that I couldn’t take my son to the circus.

A kilometer away from the theatre is Neima Fast Food Joint. I had accidentally discovered it, a fortnight ago. It is an absolute gem… and if one wants to taste the best of Egyptian ready to eat cuisine… the Fuul and Tammaiyya and Koshri… I bet that there cannot be a better place than Neima. Pity that not many are aware of the joint, and go on believing that Felfela and Gad is the best on offer. So if you are really serious about tasting Egyptian take away food at its best… head for Neima.

Tickets worth 10, 20, 30, and 40 Egyptian Pound were available for the show. We decided to buy a 20 Pound ticket… arguing that the show might not be what we expect… and therefore minimize our risks. Towards the end, we discovered that it was worth even more than 40 Pounds (if only there was someway of sitting nearest to the performing artists… and have an eyeful of beautiful dancer girls)

During the interval of the show we met an Egyptian gentleman… he teaches in Helwan University… has been in the US for five years. He told us some fine pointers about the Egyptian folklore… like that the first item presented during the program on Luxor was actually from a film of 50s and had assumed iconic proportions in Egypt. It was a pleasure meeting him.

The program started with an item on Luxor… the singer sang a melodious song… and though I have studied Arabic for last two years… yet I could make only a few words here and there. His voice was coupled by a wonderful live orchestra. It was pleasure to hear a live orchestra.

The art of live orchestra is dying at an alarming rate in India. It is being replaced by a ubiquitous Keyboard that can imitate all the sounds and play more than 100 tracks at a time… of course it reduces the human labour… but does it make the music more melodious. I have my doubts… the sound of original instruments have a fallibility, of going astray at times… this fallibility is desirable- for it reminds that humans are playing it…. If it were not to be so… then the human element would have gone missing. After all what are musicians… humans who play those instrument… and not robots who robotically follow the fed musical notes. And what is music… but an expression of human emotions that can be improvised and altered at the last moment… unlike those sacrosanct notes that robots follow.

And with every item that followed the colours became brighter… costumes of the female dancers became… ahem, skimpy & a sight to watch and the music became faster… we waited with abated breath for the next item… time flew at a furious pace…

And then there was a magical Tanoura dance… it is an Egyptian Sufi dance patterned on the lines of Whirling dervishes of Turkey… and even though I have seen them performing many a times… the more I see it, the more I want to see it.

By the time the program ended it was 11:30 pm… two hours of pure entertainment. What else we could have asked for… we entered the hall with skepticism and exited as die hard fans… vowing to return again and cursing ourselves for not bringing a camera to take good photographs of the proceedings.

In midst of the program… I called up Wael and thanked him for informing me about this wonderful place and program. Thanks Wael.

Aimless wanderings in the Egyptian heartland. Part Two- The sweet Oasis.

The road to Siwa is tightly hugged by the desert on both its sides… miles and miles, and you see nothing but vast wastelands. It casts a terror in your heart… what if you were to get lost in it and what if this road was never to end.

Therefore the first signs of vegetation rekindle a hope and snuggle a warm feeling in your heart. We were nearing the sweet oasis of Siwa. It is one of those few places that I will genuinely miss being at, when I get back to India. Siwa has a magic that cannot be replicated elsewhere… not even in a microcosm of culture, as in India.

A day ago when we started from Cairo… we saw a lot of festivities on the streets of Cairo. Drooling at the all decked up Cairo girls… we almost forgot to have our dinners and couldn’t find a bite even in the chilling pre-dawn hours of Marsa Matrouh. We were feeling hungry, despite a couple of biscuits that we ate at a road side coffee shop, on our way to Siwa. Our first priority, therefore, was to get a room and head for the closest place to eat.

On disembarking from the bus we met a chubby local boy Suleiman. He was the driver of one of the Siwi taxis. Siwi taxis are nothing but donkey carts. And yet they represent something profound. They represent the donkey-slow pace life of this place… things move slowly in Siwa… a far cry from the rustle and bustle of Cairo… one sight of the donkey carts, and you know you are at the right place… and this is your moment to unwind.

During my journey to Siwa… Juno gave me his I-pod. And I saw two movies… it was a time well spent… I always wanted to see Kingdom (a movie based on Al-Qaeda network in Saudi) and Dhol (another funny flick from the production house of Priyadarshan). As an avid traveler I would give thumbs up to I-pod.

Suleiman guided us to a string of hotels that suited our budget… we settled for Hotel Al Kilany… it took 80 Egyptian Pound for a small room… with a small balcony. We told Suleiman to come again after two hours, so that we may go for a touring around the place on his donkey cart.
We were lucky to find an extremely good restaurant just in front of the hotel- Abdu's Restaurant. The atmosphere of the hotel is extremely welcoming, informal and relaxing… food is good, actually great and service seems to be personal. Juno and I ate more than our regular diet… were we enjoying!!!!

After an hour of nap… we were ready to go for some exploring in the mesmerizing oasis of Siwa. I hade been in Siwa with the AUC last year... the trip was wonderful, but I had realized that AUC trips are very artificial and curtail one's instinct to explore of his or her own. This to me is a very big impediment. Not that I didn’t enjoy them, but that I could have enjoyed all the more minus these impediments. And to give devil it's due… I met Khveh Niazi in AUC's Siwa trip last year… and what a wonderful person was he.

Suleiman offered us to take to Gebel Maut (literally, the hill of dead), the temple of oracle, the temple of Amun and then to Cleopatra bath. All these places as it turned out are wonderful and wondrous… picture perfect. But the real magic lies somewhere else.

The route to and fro and in between these sites meanders through the by-lanes of the villages, the palm groves… the canal, and a pinch of wilderness. Everybody in Siwa knows everybody… and whenever you meet anybody, he exudes warmth that nourishes your soul. If we hadn’t seen any of the above sites… then also a drive through this place would have been a serendipity.

Last time around when I visited this place with AUC, we were herded into buses and taken to these places… and were lectured on the historical importance of the places being visited. Sounds nice and enriching… but what is lost in the cacophony of the historical facts is a human story that cannot be captured by a carefully crafted chronology. Humans have often created monuments not to be showcased in the annals of history but to express themselves… and when pedestrianized by a deluge of historical facts… these monuments are de-coupled from this human expression.

No amount of historical data can replace… the melancholy and loneliness that Shahjahan must have felt after losing Mumtaz… and if that is not felt or understood, then all the informed visit to the Taj goes in vain. After all what is a Taj but a heap of white marbles without this expression of an emotion?

While visiting Gebel Maut, therefore one must imagine… the yesteryears when people used to bury their near and dear ones in the vicinity… and how sacred a place that would have been to them. While standing atop the Gebel… one can see a bird eye view of the entire oasis… was it an attempt to perch up our elders in a place from where they are able to cast their benevolent eyes upon the posterity? These ponderings unlock the intangible uniqueness of the place.

The temple of Oracle is another such spot. The mighty Alexander visited this temple before starting towards the east, for his conquest… the conquest that brought him to India… fight with Puru and cross the Sutlej. I shuddered to think that somehow… in this distant land, so far away… our destinies were written. And that I today stand atop the ruins of one of the most powerful Oracles in the history of mankind… whose prophecies destroyed the armies of Cambyses and sub served Alexander.

And then the Temple of Amun… a magnificent temple that was decimated by the greed of an Ottoman General who wanted some stones to build his castle. Had his greed not overtaken him… a grand temple would have been in place. It actually made me ponder over the evolution of morality… of consciousness. Today we would like to bludgeon that General… but what about us. The way we go about cutting forests, exploiting nature… and polluting mother earth… wouldn’t our posterity call us imbecile and uncouth? Sure it will.

Such ponderings, I think is the essence of traveling. And without them... traveling is soul-less...

The Great Travelers: Part One- Rahul Sankritayan

"The best thing in life is to be a globetrotter. Nothing can be more beneficial to an individual and the society."
Rahul Sankritayan

I am starting a new 20 part series on the 20 great travelers of the world… they have been a source of inspiration and awe for me, ever since I knew about them. They include luminaries like Ibn Batuta and Sir Richard Francis Burton… to lesser known Pundit Nain Singh and Rahul Sankritayan. I will begin with a lesser known person called Rahul Sankritayan.

Before I begin… I would like to state that a lot of information on these people is from internet and readings… I don’t have any primary information on these great people, but I have punctuated this information with my thoughts on the achievements of the individuals in question. The idea was to present the scattered information in place.

I have a lot of ideological differences with my father. Not that his ideologies in life are wrong… I think his ideologies are warped by time. He used to be a leftist in his initial years… gradually turned rightist- around the same time I toyed with a lot of ideas… was much influenced with Marx… then with Ambedkar… but today I believe that only Gandhi has solutions for the ills of entire humanity.

Despite the differences… I owe to my father… an initiation into the world of intellectual enquiry… of reading and forming opinions… of questioning the written words and deriving new theories.

More than that, I owe him an introduction to the microcosm of wanderers.

The very first wanderer that I read about (upon his initiation) - was Rahul Sankritayan. And though I had read about Ibn Batuta, Magellan, Columbus, Vasco Da Gama et al… in my school text books, they failed to entice me. Reading about Rahul Sankritayan and his journeys was an eye opener. I was mesmerized by Volga se Ganga Tak… learning the basics of wandering from his book "Ghummakad Shastra" (The Science of Wandering).

It’s a pity that today nobody knows about this great man. He was the person who not only initiated me into Traveling but also into the greatness of Communism as a socio-political philosophy… and Buddhism as a spiritual philosophy. Much of what I am today is due to this great man.

I take the liberty of reproducing parts of an essay written by Hiren Bose (www.hirenbose.blogspot.com) on this great wanderer. I couldn’t have produced anything better.

“Rahul Sankritayan was India's greatest traveler and a nomad. After traveling on the Earth, he went on a voyage to the other world, I am confident there too he will not rest in peace,” wrote his friend, photographer Phani Mukherjee, paying tribute to Rahul Sankritayan.

Rahul Sankritayan visited Tibet, crossing the mountains on a horse and on a foot, at a time when there were no flights and the forbidden land was inaccessible. An inveterate traveler and a globetrotter, this incessant gypsy visited Tibet, France, Germany, Finland, China, Korea, Manchuria and Russia between 1907 and 1963. He said of globetrotting: "the best thing in life is to be a globetrotter. Nothing can be more beneficial to an individual and the society."

He never attended college and yet was invited to teach Buddhist philosophy in Soviet Russia's Leningrad University. That was Rahul Sankritayan-litterateur, linguist, philosopher, historian, theologist, lexicographer, Gandhian, Buddhist monk and Marxist. A renaissance man, though proficient in 16 languages, he preferred to write in Hindi, as "it is the language of the masses." Russian academist F E Schebrosky who invited him to Leningrad University said about Rahul, “He is the only man in the world who entered Tibet surreptitiously, a place barred to outsiders. Stayed in a Buddhist muth, learnt the language and had the courage to bring back to India manuscripts which the country had lost.”

Born on April 9, 1893 at Pandha village in Azamgarh district of Uttar Pradesh, Rahul was sent to a local madrasa where he familiarized himself with Urdu, Sanskrit, Nepali and Marathi. Married at the tender age of 11, he fled to Calcutta when 14 with an urge to see the world. Though bitter experiences made him return home, two years later he went back to Calcutta. From here he walked all the way to Ayodhaya to study the Vedas.

His quest to see different places took him to Haridwar, Deoprayag, Tehri, Jamnotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and the southern States. In 1912 he reached Benaras and became the disciple of a mahant. After accepting mudra and the mantra, he became Sadhu Damodardas. This phase of his life did not last long. Disillusioned with the life of a sadhu, he shed the saffron robes to become an Arya Samaji. He was not happy with this role either for long. In 1927, during his trip to Sri Lanka, he became a Buddhist monk and assumed the name, which stuck to him till his death--Rahul Sankritayan.

He was unable to recognize his ‘childhood wife’ when he came back home some 34 years later. In fact, he had never accepted his alliance since he considered it as a child marriage. While in Russia he married a Mongol intellectual lady, Yelena Novretona- Kozroboskya in December 1937. Within months he had to leave Soviet Russia as his visa expired and returned to India. It was in 1947 that Rahul got the opportunity to meet Yelena and his son, Igor when he visited Russia. After a stay of couple of months he had return to his homeland as India was going through cataclysmic phase, the country in the process of achieving freedom from two century of British rule. That was last he could set his eye on his wife and son. Repeated attempts by Yelena to visit her husband in India were frustrated by the Soviet authorities. Writes Rahul’s son, Igor, whose memoir originally published in Russia and translated for Hans (July 2003), “Mother appealed to the authorities that she be allowed to write letters to father but was rewarded with meaningless official replies. My father through his friends in Leningrad University and those who visited Soviet Russia tried to contact my mother but she was kept engaged in her chores day and night and not allowed to meet anyone. This ended in 1953 by when no one was trying to trace us.” At the age of 51, Rahul married Dr Kamla and remained a householder until his death in 1963.

Born in an orthodox Hindu family, Rahul went on to become an Arya Samajist, Buddhist and a Communist, accepting scientific humanism as his creed.

His autobiography, his collection of stories ‘Volga Se Ganga Tak’, his research oriented works like ‘Darshan-Digdrashan’, ‘Buddha Charya’ and ‘Dohakosh’; ‘Sashan Sabdakosh’, the 16,000 word English-Hindi dictionary; ‘Madhya Asia Ka Itihas’, a historical work in two volumes; his work on the Hindi dialectics like Bhojpuri, Maithili and Maghi; and collection and compilation of folk literature is a seminal contribution which is unlikely to be excelled by others in the near future. For his seminal work ‘Madhya Asia Ka Itihas’ (History of Central Asia) on which he worked for 18 long years, including the two years he spent in Leningrad University was, awarded the Sahitya Akademi award.

His greatest contribution was in the field of travel writing, a totally different genre, which stands unexcelled even today, at least in Hindi. Like travelers of yore (Marco Polo, Huen Tsang, Fa Hien and others), Rahul used transport only when necessary and made it a point to travel on foot. Like a social scientist, he searched the genesis of customs, questioned the traditions and causes, and all along providing answers to the intriguing readers.

He tried his hand in every genre of writing-biography, profile, history, archaeology, theology, sociology, political propaganda, logistics, literary criticism, research of ancient texts, lexicography, journalism and even translation. He translated from Sanskrit, Pali, Tibetan, Prakrit, English, Urdu and Russian rendering them into Hindi. He left some 138 books and many of his manuscripts still remain unpublished. Sadly, most Indians remain unaware of the vast repository of Rahul’s works. Only handful of his books has been rendered in Bangla and Malayalam.

Recognition from the country came very late. He was awarded the Padma Bhushan, when his mental powers had deteriorated to the extent that he had completely lost his memory, and remained in this state till the last years of his life. Reminisced journalist Prabhakar Machwe: “He spent the last four years of his life in great pain, for he had lost his memory. The man who accumulated so much treasure of knowledge in the last years of his life he could neither write his name nor read. A strange curse a progressive individual and a creator of new paths of knowledge had to bear.”

AAA se OSO tak... rise of new AB: Part Two

Around the same time when I was writing the first part of this blog… one of my close friends, Juno was watching OSO… a few scene into the film, he scratched his head and sent me this sms…

"Watching Om Shanti Om, Did you really like it???"

I smiled upon receiving the sms… and refrained from replying anything to him. A few days ago, while watching OSO for the first time… I would have sent a similar sms to an OSO fan.

It is strange… but if somebody asks me my favorite actor… I won't even bat my eyelid before saying AB. And if somebody asks SRK's favorite movie… I again won't bat my eyelid before saying "Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa". And yet, if somebody asks me the most entertaining movie… I will reply- OSO…. Quite paradoxical, isn’t it.

A few days prior to OSO… I had seen a marvelous Chak De India and I just fell in love with it. Around the same time when I was seeing OSO for the first time, I also saw another entertainer Jab We Met (and was mesmerized by effortless and fabulous performance of Kareena Kapoor)… a few days after seeing OSO, I saw a tear-jerker Taare Zameen Par.

To excel in such a company is a hopeless situation.

First screening of OSO and I felt that this movie is forgettable… I saw Jab We Met almost 3-4 times… Chak De almost a dozen times… and actually cried while seeing Taare. Nothing for OSO.

The magic of OSO started when I picked up OSO again… after almost a lapse of two weeks… and in next few days saw it day after day… many times a day. Every scene was enjoyed, thoroughly… from the funny interaction between SRK and Pappu Master & Dress Kaka in the first scene... or the second half melodrama between Deepika Padukone and SRK, when he first tells him about the reincarnation business. Every moment was relished, when SRK says "All wells" & "Yanna Rascala, Mind it" and fights "Bad Cat- Fat Cat tiger"… or dances to the tune of "Dard-e-Disco" and plays "Mohabbat Man".

OSO never pretends… it never pretends that it is vying to become a classic or even a cult movie… it has no compunction about being what it is- an entertainer. It has no remorse for tossing away lessons from the art and science of film making, and establishing its new school of film making- heavily borrowed from Manmohan Desai, Prakash Mehra and Subhash Ghai.

If AAA had lost and found masala… OSO had reincarnation masala. If OSO packaged AB and AAA with Vinod Khanna, Rishi Kapoor for a just in case scenario… OSO went a step ahead… it presented SRK in a double role and then elicited support from nearly everybody who matters in film industry. If AAA celebrated the stardom and crowd-pulling status of AB… then OSO betted on SRK ability to replicate the AB's phenomena.

I know puritans are going to be critical about the movie… about the lack of finesse in the narration of movie… of drawing humour out of melodrama and hamming. But remember that more than a movie- OSO is a package to test the superstar status of SRK… and a very severe test at that. He couldn’t have undergone a more severe test… absolutely no storyline, mindless screenplay, a new heroine… not the best of the music… not even recognizable villain. Mortals would have wilted under the expectations, and that wilting would have been a proof that SRK is no AB. But he did not… he proved the oft-repeated axiom of Bollywood, that SRK is the new AB.

Some words about Farah Khan… it might seem from this piece that I don’t approve the way OSO was made. But no… I commend Farah Khan for making such a movie… This amount of autonomy while directing a movie, requires a tremendous amount of faith in the ingredients of the movie. She was willing to take a huge risk in making such a movie… she trusted SRK's star power, like Manmohan Desai trusted AB's star power. She actually must be commended for what she did. I bet that the mightiest of the mighty in our film industry can't do this… in Hollywood for instance I have seen this ability in Quentin Tarantino… I have always reserved special place for Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill… (For Reservoir Dogs also, to an extent)… he also has this huge ability to leave his actors free… believe in the concept of his movie and only macro-manage the proceedings in the shop-floor. (Although of course his genre is too different)... Another good comparison can be Steven Soderbergh... who also gives a lot of autonomy to George Clooney... (I have loved him in Ocean Eleven and Ocean Twelve, though am yet to see Ocean Thirteen... he also gave a lot of artist autonomy to Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich... he had faith in the greatness of both George Clooney and Julia Roberts)

OSO is to SRK, what AAA was to AB… it established that SRK can make a wafer thin plot, entertaining… effective and saleable. It showed to the world that SRK can pull off an autonomously produced pack of scenes- presented in a form of a tale. It announced the advent of the new AB.

And to answer your question Juno… did I really like OSO.

Well the answer is… borrowed from the film… Sachhi Muchhi.

AAA se OSO tak... rise of new AB: Part One

Admittedly… the Indian film industry (especially Bollywood) is lean in terms of talent.

Whenever I look at movies made in the US, I am overwhelmed at the number of talented actors, actresses, directors, music directors, screenplay writers, they have… and the fact that sometimes… only being nominated for the Academy Awards is a hallmark of greatness.

Compare it to India… the best movies often are casting the same set of actors and actresses. And they may be counted on fingers. Same set of doyens in film direction, music and screenplay writing. And same set of awardees and nominees year after year for our version of Academy Awards. No wonder, our movies do entice people… for their uniqueness of genre, but hardly win critical acclaim. (And when I say critical acclaim- I don’t say that you have to make a parallel cinema to attain critical acclaim- films like Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, Godfather, When Harry met Sally, Gladiator were hardly realistic and largely fictional or romantic in approach and yet they won a lot of critical acclaim because of great performances and execution)

Thus… willy-nilly, we live in a world where we have stars… whose mere presence assures a film- huge collections. In yesteryears it was Dileep Kumar, Raj Kapoor, and then Rajesh Khanna… till came a tall, gawky man from the dusty town of Allahabad and changed rules of the game. His name was Amitabh Bachchan (AB). He became, arguably, the first superstar of Indian cinema. Somebody who couldn’t be competed with, somebody whose fan following pygmies everybody else's.

There is absolutely no doubt about the fact that AB was talented… so talented that he pulverized the ruling heart-throb Rajesh Khanna in films like "Anand" and "Namak Haram", despite a lack of author backed role and footage. His angst, his emotiveness and his catharsis were reflected film after films in "Zanzeer", "Deewar", "Trishul", "Muqaddar ka Sikander", "Agneepath"… his dialogue delivery, his mannerism, his bat of an eyelid, his hand gestures, his anger… everything was unique.

I remember him… Challenging Pran in his own backyard in "Zanzeer"- Refusing to enter a temple in "Deewar"- Making a deal of 30 million when he didn’t have a single penny in his pocket in "Trishul"- Displaying the angst of a spurned lover in "MKS"- or Portraying the vengeful heart with a bat of his eyelids in "Agneepath"… these scenes are imprinted in my mind. He was the superstar and will remain the sole superstar, or so I thought. You don’t get bigger than this.

This was not all… one of the most magical things that this man did was creating a new genre of movies.

AB shared excellent working relationships with two great directors (sic) Prakash Mehra… and Manmohan Desai. Between three of them they created a genre of Masala movies… wafer thin plot with a lot of melodrama, a heavy dose of comic situation- utilizing AB's superstar charisma to the hilt.

The trio created films like Namak Halal, Lawaris, Sharabi (Prakash Mehra's) and Parvarish, Suhag, Naseeb, Desh Premi, Coolie, Mard (Man Mohan Desai's)… Manmohan Desai, however, made one more movie… that will go in the annals of film-making as one of the most entertaining yet logic less movies of Indian film-making. It was the epitome of Masala film making. It was Amar Akbar Anthony (AAA).

Puritans will snigger… but if one has to teach film making or film appreciation… one cannot afford to leave AAA out of the pedagogy. It represented the most perfect balance of melodrama, music, comedy, dialogue delivery, villainy and chivalry… the Indian film making has ever seen. "Sholay" (the most celebrated Indian movie ever made) comes close, but not quite… Sholay was not even one tenth as mindless as AAA was… in Sholay, characterization was almost perfect… not like AAA; where there was no characterization… everybody was left on its own to perform fuzzily. The direction was minimal… as if director was exhorting the individuals to perform an actor in his or her own way, regardless of any characterization. This to me was the strength of AAA. It was the best Masala movie ever made, till a few days ago.

Post-AB… there was a rise of few good actors- Mithun Chakraborty, Anil Kapoor, Govinda, Salman Khan… but none could reach the heights of AB. They didn’t have the wherewithal to create a genre of their own and needed a good director, scripting to click (Govinda came close, but not quite… unlike AB, he was not able to perform beyond a particular genre)… till SRK happened.

Shahrukh Khan comes very close… he is a great actor (One just needs to see Chak De India and Swades to realize his effortless performance)… giving hits after hits (was Koyla his last flop???)… He started a new genre of soft romantic musicals (helped by Yash Chopra and Karan Johar)… but all his movies in this genre were first and foremost good movies… with good script and direction. He can’t gather all the accolades for the success. He needed to do something drastically more and different to transcend the boundaries of being an star (to make matters clear, even Salman Khan was doing well in this genre on and off… and SRK needed to de-couple himself from Salman to establish himself as the next superstar)

To make matters worse… AB was on the rise again… he had delivered almost breath-taking and effortless performances in a lot of movies… "Sarkar", "Bunty aur Bubli", "Khakee" et al. Also, SRK had tried and faltered in taking on the shoes of AB in the most famous game show on Indian television- Kaun Banega Crorepati.

And then Farah Khan happened to him.

She was to SRK- what Manmohan Desai was to AB. She revived the genre of Masala film making… around the star power of SRK… and if SRK had to succeed in establishing himself as Superstar… he had to set the box office on fire with these mindless, logic-less entertainers that Farah Khan dared to make with him.

The first was Main Hoon Naa. A saga of an Indian commando, who fights a deadly terrorist for the sake of nation… albeit the circumstances in which he does so… are typically out of some crazy imagination. It clicked… but Main Hoon Naa… wasn’t devoid of a good story line… some credit went to this story line, some to taut editing, but largely to SRK… and then it could had been a fluke.

And then came- Om Shanti Om… OSO, lovingly called.

SRK was never to be same again….

Thoughts on Spiritual Wisdom

Yesterday, I was talking to my friend… one of my closest friend.

Saurabh Dwivedy is one of the most talented human beings I have ever met or hope to meet, in future. And yet he is an epitome of underachievement. He was most well poised among us all, to make it to the hallowed portals of IITs- but he couldn’t. He had the most promising future- which he couldn’t actualize. He could had easily made it to any of the IIMs- but he didn’t ever try. He himself is to be blamed for this great waste of talent… with a dose of ill luck.

Talent is not a gift, it’s a responsibility- a very dangerous responsibilities… that needs to be actualized… it is a double edged sword, which if not actualized- backfires… kills your self confidence and self worth. I have often seen… people with normal dose of talent and ability succeeding in life… lack of talent actually is a virtue and not the other way round.

We were planning to take a 10 days off from our schedules and go for a vacation somewhere… crystallize our thoughts on future and things that matter to us. He told me that he wanted to go to Auroville in Pondicherry and Kailash Mansarovar.

A word about the two places.

Auroville is an ashram based on the philosophy and teachings of Sri Aurobindo Ghosh. A township, dedicated to humanity, it has inhabitants from all over the world… living in a peaceful harmony. I went there in 2003, and visited the township… I stayed there for about 3-4 hours… and that is a very little time to form any opinion about the place. So rather than being judgemental, I would plainly state that from whatever little interaction I had over there, I found the place to be quite elitist. And I didn’t had any spiritual experience of any sorts, over there.

Kailash Mansarovar is in Tibet. If Hindus were to deconstruct the mythology around their religion and point out 3-4 most sacred places in their religion… then Kailash Mansarovar will be up there with Varanasi. It is the abode of Lord Shiva. The route to Kailash Mansarovar, however, is arduous. One has to go through a series of landslide prone zones, flash flood prone areas and two week long difficult trek to reach there. There are other easy routes to the place, but due to lack of trust between the Indian and the Chinese government… they are not being opened for the Indian pilgrims. For a more gentle way of reaching Kailash Mansarovar… one should head to Nepal and can do a Jeep trek to the place.

Saurabh said that he wants to go to these places for spiritual reasons. Personally for me, an ardent devotee of Lord Shiva, Kailash Mansarovar is the ultimate Shangri-La of wandering… reaching there would be like reaching the laps of my benevolent father, my God. But it can wait… till I complete my worldly duties.

While chatting, I said something very profound… which set me thinking… I said- you need not go to these places to have an spiritual experience… India is replete with places where one can have spiritual experience… in fact the spiritual wisdom is scattered all over our civilization. And that I had my most enduring and endearing spiritual experiences in small villages and hamlets… where I knew nobody and nobody knew me… and yet they loved me for what I was, just a weary traveler wandering aimlessly.

And for this very reason… India is unlike any other country.

I still remember all those experiences very vividly...

I still remember, when I was in Somnath- during the darkest hour of my life… and a man came to me out of the blue and told me- Don’t worry, God is with you- and then was never to be seen. Before the Somnath experience… I was a non-believer… part Marxist, part Buddhist. But after that Lord Shiva has always been with me… in my heart and my prayers.

I still remember while trekking downhill from Bhimashankar… I saw a place called Nagphani point and strange looking caves… it was a rainy morning, the trek was difficult, slippery, lonely and dangerous… and yet I trekked towards it- I saw the caves and the magnificent views from the Nagphani point… and while coming down I lost my way… I was at my wits end and suddenly I saw a hermit coming from nowhere… he guided me to a place to the dirt track and then vanished behind some bushes… never to be seen again.

I remember when I was going on a bus from Dapoli to Dabhol… I was very sleepy… and accidentally I put my weary head over the shoulders of an old woman. And she, like my mother, sat still, all the while to let me have a good sleep. When I woke up… I saw in her, a strange resemblance to my mother.

Or the time when I met Rohidas Gaekwad in a place where I could had least expected to meet a person like him… or that night spent in the confines of Gangadevasthanam.

All these experience (and lot more) can be explained by theory of coincidences and auto-suggestion. No amount of logic can explain these experiences… it has to be some kind of coincidence of self suggestion. I saw what I wanted to see. But spiritual experiences have their own patterns… they help you, guide you, and show their being ness… when you least expect them.

Whenever somebody comes to me and shares his state of despair… I always tell him to pack his bags and go and spend a week in small villages, hamlets… they are the repository of the spiritual wisdom that our civilization has gathered over last 5000 years of existence… they have the ability to show us the way; they have the ability to initiate us into the realms of self-exploration. And no amount of pilgrimage, spiritual tour and meditation will ever be able to replace it.

And some times, I think that it is not unusual for India… I have had my best experiences in Syria in a small village near Aleppo in Syria- in a village house having figs and tea with a group of small kids… or in Al Qasr village in Egypt…

My friend needs that bout of rejuvenation… ability to look deeper into life and its meaning… may be my therapy works for him… I hope it does… Inshallah.

From the Archives- My 125th post

The following post (part 2 of a 3 part blog) was written by me when I had just started blogging... it was on the phenomena of blogging in general... not very erudite, still, I think there a a few points to be taken home

Why blog?(And why not just relax and chill out in life, after all typing hurts)Part 2
Posted on 31 May 2006


Medium is the Message –

Marshall McLuhan
(I believe he wanted to say message and not massage)

Why humans need to communicate?

This question had enticed me for some time. Of course there are theories and theories about communication and every two theory, synthesized, gives another theory. My question, though, pertinently relates itself to something more pedestrian. Why do I and you need to communicate?

I will try to answer the question. But, this time I will refrain from building any theory and would like to speak for myself. Of course, from thereon, I can derive a few derivations and generalizations. But first how do I communicate and even before I answer that, I must answer who I communicate with.

To answer my last question first, I communicate with my family members and that would include my mother and father and their family of orientation, my siblings and their family of procreation. I also communicate with my friends and at times their families of orientation and procreation. I have also been communicating with my colleagues during my education, profession or hobby pursuits. Beyond this a few neighbours, and few occasional communication with strangers for sporadic and non-repetitive reasons. That sums up the list of people I communicate with, ever.

And really as to how do I communicate with them- its easy, mostly interpersonally- through spoken words and written and at times even non-verbally. The idea here is that I hardly use any non interpersonal medium to communicate with the majority of our subjects of communication.

And that brings me to my original question as to why do we communicate. (Over here I deliberately chose "we" over "I", simply because as a person no one is homogeneous in his behavioral patterns). This one is really difficult, its changes with cultural and temporal settings, but then it is not impossible to find a lowest common denominator at that too. I believe that we communicate because its one of our most basic psychological need, quite akin to food and water being our physiological ones. We need to communicate because we being a thinking animal interpret our world based on our thinking, and because all of us do think differently, our interpretations are more often than not, different from each other- and there is a dire need to renegotiate our interpretations with respect to those, who matter to us. Let's take a very small example, say in a market when you haggle over price of an item to be purchased, you arrive at a cost at which the deal has to be clinched based on your interpretation, whereas the other side does the same and you need to communicate (here in form of negotiations) to arrive at a common interpretation (here, a price). This postulate of communication works wonderfully well in a lot of empirical situations, even in acutely emotional situations (Read this book, Eric Berne's Games People Play, a psychological masterpiece, to actually see the basis of my postulate. It’s a book on transactional analysis and tells the patterns a person behaves in, while entering into a communication)

So the geographical and temporal separation (See Part 1) which LPG brought around with it, struck at the root of this communication- in a sense that earlier we knew who we were communicating with and therefore could understand the way that person would be interpreting things and so it was easier for us to negotiate with him or her, but now that person had changed and so our understanding of his patterns of interpretations were lost (Say for example we know how a shopkeeper in Karolbagh market of New Delhi will behave and it would be easier for us to communicate with him, as against to a shopkeeper in Khan-e Khalili market of Cairo will, and therefore it would be difficult for us to interact with him.) And yet we have to communicate, despite the constraints, we are placed under.

And therefore we have turned to newer models of communication. These other models were, definitely an antidote to the geographical and temporal separations. Now it's anybody's guess that the only antidote for geographical and temporal separation is brought around by technology.

Technology has always tried to outpace the flux of this separation, so as to avert a constituency against this geographical and temporal separation, as it would harm the very basis of economic growth, by questioning it. A very simple and yet a very powerful question which has always been thrown towards proponents of growth is- whether a man needs to be happy or rich, everybody knows the answer, but nobody likes to topple the apple-cart. Leeching a man from his natural habitat, often community based and pushing him into cities of mass production may make him affluent, but certainly not happier. (I am sorry if I sound like one of those Marxist thinkers, I am not even distantly Marxist). Therefore not only the market forces have invested a lot in creating new communication tools, but also have always tried to make them pedestrianly cheaper. A postal system, telegraph, telegram, mobile technology all of them fall under the same category- but none of them could come even closer to the masterpiece called INTERNET. Efforts are afoot to further push the limits by convergence technology and fit this connectivity into one's pocket.

Internet had one advantage over the intermediate technology, being its degree of involvement. So while a telegraph or a telephone served a big purpose, they could involve only one sense of a human being- hearing. They were highly inadequate to display a range of emotions. In contrast the postal system did exactly this, but was pathetically slow and the geographical separation was growing exponentially. Internet was a masterpiece as it combined the goodness of this anachronistic medium with state of the art technology and created a model of communication, where geographical separation became meaningless and the temporal separation became negotiable.

A night with a treasure hunter.

For the last few days, I am unable to sleep… and whenever I try to- flashes of my childhood and a small courtyard in which I run- bother me. I have to undergo this painful process, I guess. Written words are my only refuge…

In the evening… I was feeling very lonely. I didn’t have the courage of staying alone in my flat. I was missing my family…. Perhaps- in the smile of my son and gentle caress of my soul mate, I could have found some sanity. But even they are very far away.

I tried breaking the embryonic grief- by trying to have people around… but everybody has his or her own life… I can't always find a support in them and with them. No complaints.

Sitting alone in my room, I struck upon an idea… why not go and see a movie. I always wanted to check out this new flick- National Treasure: The Book of Secrets. This was my chance.

There was one show at 1a.m in the Cosmos Theatre in Downtown Cairo… and right now it was about 11p.m… I loaded my purse with a couple of hundred pound notes and took a taxi to the place. I was there in a couple of minutes.

This was the first time I was coming to this theatre… While on taxi, I tried following the route… I knew I am somewhere close to Talaat Harb Square and Supreme Court. It wasn’t very far away from the landmarks I knew and was comfortable with.

The man at the ticket window told me that I can enter into the hall only at 12:30 am. This sounded fine with me… I needed to do some reconnaissance of the Neighbourhood I was in. For last few days… I have been trying to walk down from different places to my house, in the dark of the night. A week ago- after seeing AVP2 in Ramses Hilton… and a couple of days ago after seeing Arabic flick in Metro. But both Ramses Hilton and Metro cinema halls are well known landmarks for me, and therefore charting my way back was easy. Cosmos was not.

I tried three different routes for my reconnaissance… the first two led to places that seemed to be further away from my home. The last one led me to the building of Supreme Court. Now I was in comfortable coordinates.

I looked at the time; it was still some 40 odd minutes to go…

Bang opposite the cinema hall was a Café… and it was a bit chilly outside…. What could have been a better idea than having a cup of tea and may be a Shisha. I stepped inside… and saw a pretty girl sitting with her boyfriend, and having some coffee… There were a few elderly people… who were having Shisha and playing Black Gammon… then there were a couple of youngsters chatting and laughing. I strategically selected a place from where I could see the television and the beautiful girl. What can be a better time spent than seeing glamorous images of Arabic pop music and a beautiful girl right in front?

I ordered a tea and an apple flavoured Shisha. The tobacco used in the Shisha was quite raw… as within minutes of having it, my senses were overwhelmed. I felt numb and relaxed.

The couple, though, left after a few minutes. A few minutes later, a family entered the café. A couple, with a cute little son… of the same age as my son. The father ordered a Shisha for himself and a Milk shake for his wife. And then this amusing thing happened.

The son on seeing his father smoking a Shisha, started asking for it… everybody who saw him started laughing… a waiter rushed in with a mock-Shisha (a Shisha without fire and tobacco) for the kid… After laying his hands on a Shisha… the kid smiled and chuckled.

After a while, I entered the cinema hall…

The movie is good… slightly better than its first part… the visuals are better, so is the pace of story- perhaps because it doesn’t require to waste any footage in establishing the characters… there is only one new character in the second part and that is the mother of Benjamin Franklin Gates… who is an expert in Pre-Columbian history and scripts (and that is vital to the treasure hunt this time around). There is a wonderful scene, where the Benjamin- Riley- Abigail and Wilkinson (a gray character in the film) are stranded on a wooden plank and need to balance it by standing at four corners to save themselves from an inevitable death. Wonderfully conceptualized and picturised.

One of the dialogues that really struck me… was when Gates tells Riley that some people are behind the treasure, he quips- Axiom of treasure hunting is that some people are always behind the treasure. (A derivation- if there is something worth pursuing, there will most certainly be some people pursuing it)

The film is good. It might actually catapult Gates to the same heights and fan-following as Indiana Jones… Indiana Jones used to find his way by his instincts and chivalry… Gates however is different- he conjures up a wonderful team (Gates is amazing at puzzle solving, Riley is a tech geek, Abigail is expert in history and Gates father has always been a devil's advocate offering wisdom to his pursuits)… he seems to be more possible and plausible.

There is a reference of Page 47 in the book of secrets…(a book of secrets is a book which is compiled by President of USA and handed over to next President… it is only for the eyes of President of USA)… Gates, who knows the content of Page 47, refers to the secret as "Life Altering"… this I think will warrant a next sequel to the movie. Area 51, who knows.

After seeing the movie, I walked down towards my house… met a couple of people who were warming themselves with a bonfire. They invited me for a cup of tea… I joined in and chatted for a while… then it was time to go…

It was a night well spent… not that it makes me sleepy.

Reminiscence from the Levant: Part Twenty Five – City of Faith

If going from the Israeli side to the Palestinian side was difficult… coming back was more so… the security check grew almost exponentially.

Security is a touchy issue… therefore I will not be judgmental… Israel has been suffering from a worse form of terrorism, so is India… but in its fight against terrorism, we cannot lose sanity… it is just not an option. Countering terrorism is not a battle of bullets, but a matter of building bridges… sometimes, if not always.

The stern voice at the security check point told me to take out my belt, shoes, waist bag, spectacles, and purse… it ordered me to place everything on a crate that was subsequently x-rayed. I could have flashed my identity and slipped away rather unperturbed… but I wanted to see how far the game goes. What I was doing… upon instructions, was quite normal for an average Palestinian… almost automatic. They were subjected to these security checks everyday. My inability to do the same, sans instruction… was my bane. The security officer was sterner.

When I was through the security check… he ordered me to collect all the crates and place them at their original position. The Palestinians are supposed to do this chore for the security guards… I didn’t quite agree- it was his job, not mine- and if he wanted an assistance, he needed some politeness for it. I refused and said- it's your job. He roared, almost trying to browbeat me… I didn’t blink and said enough is enough- out popped my "special identity"… and he was zapped, he said sorry, profusely and mellowed his voice. He had never expected a "somebody" walking past him, this way. I escaped his wrath… because I was somebody, what about those who are not.

Back in New Palm hostel… I sat down with the owner of the Hostel and started talking about his life in general… he told me that he was from a place called Hebron and that people from the place are often considered ill-mannered and ill-tempered and he wants to change this opinion. He was doing a nice job at that, I must say.

While we were talking, a girl joined us… she was a Japanese (I couldn’t quite gather or understand her name… it was perhaps Eeka or something). She has been living in this hostel for last 6-7 months… learning Hebrew on her own… she knew very good Arabic. Upon knowing that I also knew Arabic, she advised that I should try to pick up Hebrew… as much of the linguistic styling of the two languages are same. And then she told me the most magical way to explore the Old City.

She told me to first wander in the old city without any aid or information for three four hours… and feel the transition happening from one zone to another… and then I can reserve a more informed wandering in the old city for the next day. It didn’t make sense, but as it turned out- it is the best way to explore the old city.

The old city is divided in four quarters- the Islamic, the Jewish, the Christian and the Armenian. And the difference in the day to day life is absolutely profound in all these quarters. The dress, the language, the architecture, the attitude, the security… everything changes remarkably. All this happens within a span of a couple of steps. Couple of steps you are in the Islamic heartland… with veils, medieval markets, mosques and Arabic as the language of communication… and a few steps more you are in the Armenian heartland… modern dresses, cafes, beautiful churches, posters of Armenian genocide and some different language being spoken. The only announced transition happens when one tries to go from Islamic part to the Jewish part… security is much stricter.

The Eastern part of Jerusalem has a certain vivacity… which apparently other parts of Jerusalem lack… meandering through the lanes and bylanes of Eastern part was sometimes serendipity. Eeka told me not to miss that in the evening.

After having my lunch, I set out to explore the Old city… this was the first time I was entering the Old city… during this journey… while exploring the old parts of Aleppo, I had seen places which were out of this world… old Hammams, churches, heritage building… I was fascinated with it. Little did I know, that Jerusalem offers something, which nothing can compare or come close to, no place can even think of offering.

Negotiating my way through the busy thoroughfare just outside the Damascus Gate… I entered the Old City.

When I was about to enter… I shivered. I was entering a place that has been the holiest piece of land for three prominent religions of the world. A place that has some 3000 years of history… a place that has been the root cause for continual dog fight between sections of humanity for last 2000 years. The palette does not get bigger than this…

Jerusalem was the last halt of my travels in Levant. The journey that started in the Syrian town of Aleppo, and took me to the Syrian and Jordanian heartland… was culminating at Jerusalem. In different places, I saw monuments replete… all for the cause of Jerusalem… people who fought, who captured, who were vanquished, and who silently suffered for the cause of this city.

When I used to read about Damascus… it was a city of History personified, when I used to read about Cairo… it was a civilization personified… and when I used to read about Jerusalem… it was faith personified.

I was now completing my trilogy.

I stepped inside the Damascus Gate.

Nani... I love you.... and always will

"Nani… when you will be gone… you know what… you will continue to live with us, guide us… love us, rebuke us… and whisper in my ears… Honey!!!!!"

My Nani has passed away.

When I first heard the news… I didn’t know how to react. A while later, I realized that I have lost a part of my life. A part of life… that would never come back to me.

When I was partying a week ago… I didn’t realize that she was going through a painful effort to live… her brain tumour had deteriorated and she was suffering from fits… my mother was watching her die every moment… praying that the pain ceases with her heart beats. It is hard to forsake the womb that gives you birth… but my mother was trying to do the same.

Hearing my mother crying crushed my soul. And when I was trying to console her… I broke down… I cried. I realized how dear a part of life… I have lost. I have lost my childhood. I have lost lullabies. I have lost morning prayers. I have lost fairy tales. I have lost everything that was buried somewhere deep within me as memories of childhood. With one stroke… I ceased to be a child. I am not a child anymore and I will never be a child ever again. I have lost that embrace that made me feel like a child, made me feel loved and cared.

I have very faded memories… some told by my mother and some haunting me as jumbled flashbacks… I was a little more than two… when I fell into a pit of firewood… my Nani carried me to the hospital… and for two months, she nursed me day and night… when I look at my right foot… I see a patch of burnt skin… and feel her hands on them… reassuring me of her presence in my life.

If I live today… it's because of her.

I can go on and on… but a profound grief grips me… written words cannot reflect the pain of my teardrops… my forlorn heart… they cannot capture the magic of the lullabies that I still remember verbatim… they cannot bring back my childhood. For the first time I am disappointed by the written words…

They cannot even exonerate me from not being there by her side when she took her last breath.

Nor can they say… I love you Nani.

Aimless wanderings in the Egyptian heartland. Part One- The beginning

This is what I always said…

A week in wandering and I am not tired… I feel youthful, energetic, and alive all over again. I am speaking with an élan, my ideas are flowing in a more fluent manner… a few days ago, I partied hard and actually flirted after so many years… I completed a book called "Ascent of Man" in three straight sessions… I am loving music, feeling happy, seeing movies… taking long walks in the streets of Cairo well past the midnight and most importantly sleeping well.

Just one week of wandering.

The idea of the visit germinated in my mind a few months ago… the idea was to visit all the places that I had not visited in last two years of my stay in Egypt… and despite the wanderings that punctuated my listless existence in this antique land… there were quite a few places like these… El Arish, Port Said, Assiyut, Sohag, Abu Simble etc.

When I was planning these wanderings… I got a request from a friend of mine… if he can join me on this trip. I was confused… not because I didn’t like the idea… but because… I wondered whether he would like my idea of traveling. Traveling shoestring, traveling without a plan… sleeping in backpackers' joints… and sometimes public benches… it is not everybody's cup of tea. He, however, proved to be more than a game.

So one eventful night, we started for a place called Marsa Matrouh… I and Juno.

Cairo has been very nice to me… in giving me friends for life.

Almost accidentally, I bumped into Raja Karthikeya… an IIFT graduate working for I-Flex. Almost prophetically, I quipped- meeting you is serendipity. And it turned out to be one. Amazingly well read, intelligent, informed… Raja's hallmark was his spontaneity. I was impressed with him… and catalyzed his dream to look beyond the world of Corporate glitter… he enrolled himself for International Studies course in one of the finest Universities of the US… we have this nascent plan to start something on our own, one day.

Then Amit Mishra… a budding diplomat. Amazingly intelligent… nobody comes even close. And amazingly simple… it has always been pleasure talking to him… More about him later… he deserves more than a passing reference in my blog…and I promise to give him his due.

Juno Srivastava is one of them… he works for an Indian software firm… and is an unpretentious human being. The hallmark of this man is his humility… mind you being humble is one of the most difficult things in life. He loves to talk… he loves to compliment when it is due… and more importantly, he loves to take care and admit mistakes when there is any. I am his fan.

We reached Matrouh at around 5 in the morning… the bus to Siwa was at 7, after two hours… Matrouh is a Mediterranean town. The winters in Mediterranean towns are chillier than usual. When we reached there… cold winds were blowing… and it was important to find a refuge.

We did find a refuge in a roadside Ahwa… Matrouh, in this time of the year, is a ghost town… without any tourists… in summers Matrouh attracts hordes and hordes of tourists… it has few of the most beautiful beaches in Egypt… when I came here last year, I was mesmerized by the Aguiba beach. The town has been a witness of one of the most defining moments of World War 2. It was a German stronghold… before the offensive of Al Alamein begun… the single most decisive battle in the WW2. It was said by English war historian- "Before Alamein we never had a victory. After Alamein we never had a defeat"… many Indians lost their lives in that war… last time around, while doing some tomb searching… I found a lot of Indians on the western side of the commonwealth cemetery… the Marathas, the Tamils, The Rajputs, the Balochs, and The Pathans.

In Matrouh… we had also seen the place where General Rommel, the desert fox had his base… the cave of General Rommel was surrounded by one of the finest piece of sea… blue, tranquil and soothing… nothing can be more ironical that the plan to launch one of the bloodiest offensive of WW2 was hatched over here.

This time around… I was doing an experiment… I chose not to carry a lonely planet with me… there were two reasons for it. One, I wanted to experience the joy of traveling without any plans… and two I wanted to interact and find out things from the locals instead of the book. Lonely planet is a nice idea if one needs to make his life easier while traveling but certainly not a good idea if one wants to make his life more enriching while traveling. Towards the end of it all, I realized that Lonely Planet comes for one big help… that is finding a place to stay in the night. Beyond it… interacting with locals is a far better idea.

We boarded the bus to Siwa at 7 in the morning and set out for this magical place… more than me, Juno was excited.

Reminiscence from the Levant: Part Twenty Four – A road to Truth

The Nativity Church is magical… it is the oldest church in the world… and the very fact that you are in the vicinity of a place where Jesus was born… captivates your imagination and mesmerizes you beyond words…

Birth place of Jesus, the apostle of peace… is however marked with unusual amount of violence… the first church made by Constantine was destroyed… the second church was all but destroyed by Persians… the church has been a testimony to a tumultuous history. In recent times, it has been a mute witness to the longest drawn human struggle on the face of earth. As late as in year 2002… the town of Bethlehem was seized by the Israeli forces to flush out the "militants". The ironies of history cannot be more ironical.

Traditions say that Jesus was born in a cave…

"In Bethlehem the cave is pointed out where He was born, and the manger in the cave where He was wrapped in swaddling clothes. And the rumor is in those places, and among foreigners of the Faith, that indeed Jesus was born in this cave who is worshipped and reverenced by the Christians."

The Grotto of Nativity was built around this cave… a flight of staircases and alleyways takes you to the spot where Jesus was born… however; when I went there… the door leading to that spot was closed… I covered all the way to that sacred spot, all but a couple of steps. When I was born in the distant land of India… I never did imagine that I will visit this place… one, it never occurred to me… after all I wasn’t a Christian… two, it was too distant… and three Bethlehem-Palestine-Israel always evoked an unpleasant picture… of dead corpses, of flying bullets and lives threatened. Today when I was visiting this place… I was numb with a sense of achievement.

Above this grotto there are two churches… the Greek Orthodox Church of Nativity and the Roman Catholic Church of Saint Catherine. And it is an amazing contrast. One look at the two churches and it seems that we are seeing shrines of two different religions.

Until I came to this region, I used to consider Christianity as a monolithic religion. Only the Roman Catholic version existed for me. But then my perception started changing… there were two Christmases on 25 December and 7 January. There were two different views on the holiness of Christ, two ways to reach Christ the Lord… I came to know of a history of bloodshed between Orthodoxy and Catholics (well I always knew about the clashes between the Catholics and Protestants and how they fought a hundred year war in Europe… but I didn’t know much about the Orthodox Church)

The Greek Orthodox Church is beautiful… a hallway with huge pillars leading to a beautifully decorated sanctuary… this was the original church. With time came up the Roman Catholic Church… which is more contemporary in styling… much more activity happens in the precincts of this church. I saw a group of Koreans being sermonized by an Indian priest. I met this Indian Priest… he was from a place in southern Karnataka. He was happy to see me and blessed me.

One of the more thought-provoking books that I have read is a book called "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran. Kahlil Gibran was a Lebanese Maronite Christian, who migrated to USA and wrote beautiful pieces in Arabic… he introduced the Arabic, Arabic culture and oriental philosophy to the Americans. In one of the chapter called Self Knowledge (I am not sure, I read it about 10 years ago)… the Prophet tells his disciples- Don’t say, you have found the way to truth… say you have found a way to truth… truth is not reached through a line… but it unfolds like a lotus with countless petals… Today when we flip through the painful pages of history… this church provides a fine example of peace, and of portending dangers.

A word more about Kahlil Gibran and "The Prophet"… Kahlil was a Christian, he used to write in language which is the spiritual language of Muslims… but his teachings were essentially Bahai in nature. When I first read the book, I was drawn towards Bahai teaching… I went to Lotus Temple in New Delhi to enquire more about the religion… though, what turned me off was the aggressive nature of the proponents of Bahai in convincing me that IT was the true religion!!!!

A couple of steps ahead from the Church of Nativity is the Grotto of the Milk. It is a very beautiful church. According to the traditions… when Mary and infant Jesus were hiding from Herod's soldier in this cave… then a drop of milk from Mary's breast fell on the walls of the cave… the entire cave turned white… and the scrapings of the wall acquired magical properties. Even today, people come from places far and wide to see the place and take some scraping from the wall to cure illnesses. I was lucky to see a prayer session being done by a group of nuns in the Church.

The entire experience in Bethlehem was ethereal. I started wondering… if its so for me… then how it would be for a Christian. Upon realizing this… I bought some memoirs from Bethlehem for some Christian friends of mine back in Cairo, both Copt and Catholic. I still remember the rush of joy I saw in each one's eyes when I handed over those small gifts, from their holy land…

Copts in Egypt suffer the most from this ongoing standoff between Arab and Israel. They are not allowed to visit the holiest place for them… sometime voluntarily and sometime forcefully. Same goes for some Muslims, who have a strong desire to visit the third holiest mosque and yet they are not able to visit it. Faith is the biggest sufferer in this battle of faith. And this suffering echoes the past, and affects the future.
I returned to the separating wall after seeing the place… I crossed over and was in a state of stupor… till a harsh voice said something to me.

Comics that shaped me!!!!! Part two.

When I was a kid… I was a dreamer, like everybody else… Comics used to provide me a wing or two to dream more. And once the stream of comics died up, I did something unusual. I tried making my own comics… by my own hands… I created characters like Aloo, Ajay Vijay, among several others. (They, however remained a part of my scrap book and memories only)

Ajay and Vijay were wonderful characters… their story go back to a war between Surs and Asurs (the good and the bad guys of Hindu mythology). In one such war Lord Shiva was also participating from the Sur side, the Asur king used a Brahmastra (the most potent arrow that is impossible to defend) on Lord Shiva. To save the lord, one of his faithful servants came in the way and sacrificed himself. This infuriated Lord Shiva… he killed the Asur king and told the Surs to bring the mutilated bodies of both his faithful servant, so that he may bring him back to life.

However the sides of Sur had a Trojan in between them… he fooled the Sur side and placed the head of Asur King and body of the faithful servant together… and Lord Shiva accidentally brought him back to life… Now this Frankenstein was controlled by Asur king's mind… and armed with Lord Shiva blessings, he became invincible. Upon realizing his mistake… Lord Shiva brought back to life the body of Asur King and head of his faithful servant to counter the Frankenstein. And then started an eternal war between the two entities… who were nearly equal in power. The evil part was called Ajay and the good was Vijay.

Confusing, isn’t it. But what it highlights is a fertile mind of kid, catalyzed by comic books.

My comics had a captive reader… my younger brother. One day he picked up a fight with me… and I stopped showing my scrap book to him… Insulted, he bought a scrap book and started drawing his own comic strip…Tamatar. When he picked up the pen… we all were amazed at the ease with which he drew… rest as they say, is history. He grew up graduated from an Art College, became a Graphic artist and now dabbling with film-making.

Coming back to Tintin… I read him for the first time when I was in class 8th, 13 year old. The first comic that I read was "Prisoners of the Sun"; this was the first time I was introduced to Peru, Incas, and Llama… I was mesmerized. My eyes started dreaming about being there and doing that. (Funny thing, do you know what does a Llama do when he is angry… he spits on the person or thing with which he is angry!!!! I still remember one of them spitting on Captain Haddock and he cursing the Llama in his funny style- Billions of blue blistering barnacles in the ten thousand thundering typhoons)

Very first comic and I knew I have a friend for life in Tintin, Snowy, Captain Haddock, Professor Calculus, Bianca Castafiore, and finally Thomson & Thompson. Life was never same again.

There was however one problem… Tintin was prohibitively expensive a comic… and I had to wait for months to see a new title of his… I read Tintin in Tibet, Destination Moon, and Seven Crystal Ball. And then when I was in Jamnagar… I stumbled up and entire collection of the Tintin comic books in a library. My childhood wish was fulfilled when I was 23.

Tintin did something magical to me… it introduced me to places all around the world… places about which I wouldn’t had ever studied. Peru, Red Sea, Congo, Mexico, Tibet, Egypt etc. It didn’t only introduced me to all these places… it coaxed me to dream visiting them… locate them in map… play an armchair globe-trotter. He set the foundation of one of the most compelling traits of my character.

If there is one legacy, I want to leave for my sons… then it is the wanderlust that I have in my eyes… I couldn’t actualize myself… suffering as I was with the proverbial "middle class morality" and the middle class thirst for social security. I want him to feel that magic, to wander, to tread where no one had ever… to break barriers… and to love Tintin the way I did.

Thank you Herge, for giving me Tintin.

Remembering Madhav

First few shots into "Taare Zameen Pe"… and I felt numb.

Taare Zameen Pe is a movie made by one of the finest actors in Indian cinema… Aamir Khan. I have loved his performances in a wide array of movies… from "Dil Hai ki Manta Nahi", "Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander", "Ghulam", "Lagaan", "Dil Chahta Hai" and more lately "Rang De Basanti"…. Good actors are often accused of having limited understanding of Cinema as a media… and often mediocre actors, having a keen eye on the subtleties of the media, outperform the good actors… when it comes to narrating a narrative. Aamir violates this oft repeated generalization.

The movie tells you a story of a small boy Ishan… who is a dismal failure in academics… he suffers from Dyslexia, though nobody including his own parents understand him… he is a butt of laughter, an object of ridicule and abuse by others… and remains so… till comes a teacher who understands him. A teacher who discovers that Ishan may not compete with his fellow mates in reading a passage… but surpasses them by miles in creativity.

That reminded me of something… rather someone.

Indian society suffers from an acute sense of denial when it comes to acknowledging such learning disabilities. Seldom will you see that special facilities are offered by normal schools to such students. Even seldom you will see that parents or teachers will be able to realize and acknowledge that a student suffers from some learning disabilities. What happens more often is that… such a kid is forced into a system which doesn’t understands his needs and forced to compete in an inherently unjust atmosphere… and when he does not performs… he is dubbed as lazy, idiot, and often even mentally retarded.

This in turn creates a sense of inferiority complex in the student and he is sucked into a vortex of never ending downward spiral. He was born normal… with a small extra need… and ends up as being bracketed as a mentally retard. And the system chugs along… because a few cogs falling apart in this giant system… doesn’t make a shit of a difference to the system.

Even today I remember the face of Madhav… very very distinctly… I met him first in Class 1st in St. Joseph's College. He was normal…played normally with the same child like enthusiasm as we did. He used to feel happy at the end of school… loved rains, and rainy days… felt terrified by Mrs. Mukherji (who had only one USP… thrashing students black and blue)… he was one among us.

Till… it was exam eve… when he turned sheepish. Sheepish and even more sheepish, when the results came…he used to fail badly…

He however kept pace with us in terms of classes, due to the liberal policy of promotion adopted by our school… but sooner or later the inevitable was to take place. He started being detained. We moved ahead and he was out of sight. But not out of mind.

He was being cruelly tagged as a lazy, retarded nut of the school… he was fastly becoming a butt of laughter; object of ridicule and most importantly of abuse. And everybody participated in that orgy because that was the easiest thing to do.

I wasn’t particularly a central part of that orgy… admittedly, because I myself was very timid… was bullied by different set of guys at different timings till the fag end of my schooling… my transformation into an assertive person started when the hostels happened to me. Today I take my past in my stride… being simple and innocent is not a bad thing… being a bully actually is a bad thing… it shows the hollowness of your values, and value system… it actually disrobes and rapes one's own upbringing and parentage. And howsoever big and successful you may become… it doesn’t change the fact that you had an obscene parentage, a mutilated upbringing.

But, nevertheless, I enjoyed the orgy… I laughed at his torment. He continued skipping classes… studied with my younger brother and even younger cousin… till he was lost into oblivion.

A non-performer was got rid of… by the system.

Then nobody told me that the orgy was wrong… I give a benefit of doubt to my parents… for they did not know that such an orgy existed. But never did my teachers suggest me the immorality of such an orgy… nor did the society…

But we were wrong… Madhav was not a retard… he had an amazing memory… he knew all the names of all the students who studied with him, ever… He saw my younger brother for the first time… and without tallying our surnames said –are you younger brother of Pranav. He was gifted… only our scale of measuring his talent were wrong.

We owe an apology to Madhav… I owe an apology to him… but the system had sent him to such a dense oblivion that nobody can find him…

But I promise Madhav… I will teach my son the value system that I never inherited… I will teach him a sense of morality… and God forbid if my son is another Madhav… I will take care of him… I wouldn’t let him be an object of abuse…

This would be my apology. Sorry Madhav