South Asia Daily

In case greatness is thrust upon me

Mayank Chhaya--Waiting for greatness (Pic: Mayank Chhaya)

It is almost certain now that I was not born great. If it was not evident by the time I turned 25, it does not really matter any more because 25 more years have passed since. I believe life ends at 25. If you have not cracked the mysteries of the universe by then, you should regard your life as a failure. Everything that follows is a bogus reassertion of delusion.

It is equally certain that I did not become great in the mean time. And the prospect of greatness being thrust upon me seems remote at this stage of life.

However, being an optimist I am fully prepared, having kept all the trimmings in place, in case greatness does come upon me. All the backstories have been neatly arranged, although not altered one tiny bit. They unfold at opportune intervals of my life in a compelling fashion. There are friends who would have quirky and charming anecdotes ready to illustrate and accentuate certain aspects of my personality. There are as many critics as there are admirers, six of each. It is just that oftentimes it is hard to distinguish one from the other. But the point is they are there, eager to hold forth on me in case someone asked.

For instance, if a hagiographer (I insist on a hagiographer) wants stories that highlight my directness irrespective of who is at the rough end of it, I have friends who would supply numerous instances.

I have prepared a list of people who have unique insights into my life and works. Admittedly, I am long on life and short on works. If I am to be judged as a journalist, there is a sizable enough body of writings which has accumulated over the past three decades. I am not yet a writer by the benchmark of a minimum of ten books that I believe one must have before being called one. I have four so far. So we will wait for that to happen. As for being judged as a human being, there is a slight hitch in the sense that I am now more convinced than ever before that I am human only in form. My processes are entirely alien. Let’s just say that I fake human effectively.

Realistically, there is next to no chance of greatness being thrust upon me. My friend Ashok Easwaran and I have this standard exchange where he would ask me, “So what is happening about greatness, fame and money?” and I would respond saying, “I would prefer to reverse the order of your question—money, fame, greatness.” With money the other two are not that hard to buy or generate.

It is paradoxical that I live in a country where everyone and everything is great and yet greatness has eluded me. I would like to believe that in a country where shoes are “great” just as sex is “great” or burger is “great”, I have a fairly good shot at greatness. Evidently, I have been wrong so far.

It is relevant here to mention what I think defines greatness. Unless I have created this universe and I relish black holes as my afternoon snack, everything else is stamp collecting. (Apologies to Earnest Rutherford who said “All science is either physics or stamp collecting”).

P.S.: This is one of those posts I keep in store for a rainy day. It is raining where I live.

P.P.S.: The discerning among you would have read the pic caption and felt embarrassed by its self-absorption.

India, Russia and the Gita

Krishna

Some of the most vocal proponents of banning books in India are ironically discovering what it feels like to be at the receiving end. A news story first reported by the IANS wire about an ongoing court case in Tomsk, Siberia, over banning the Gita on grounds that it is extremist literature has set off a political and diplomatic firestorm.

At the vanguard of the protest are some of the very people who have in the past proudly demanded the banning of the books that challenge or run counter to their own ideas. Both the ruling Congress Party and the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and some of its extreme fringe allies are no stranger to the practice of demanding and enforcing bans on books they do not like. Now that someone in Russia is paying back in the same coin and that too against a book they regard as the distillation of Indian philosophy, they are irate.

In a laughable, albeit predictable, response the BJP’s senior leader Sushma Swaraj is even demanding the Gita, which is the philosophical backbone of the much larger epic poem Mahabharat, be declared a “national book.” The controversy has unlocked the floodgates of grandiosity as evident in the remarks by Tarun Vijay, a member of the Rajya Sabha or the Upper House of Indian parliament. He has been quoted as saying, “Can (the) sun be banned, Himalayas be banned...?” implying that the Gita is piece of cosmic or geologic eternity.

Political leaders cutting across party lines have expressed their outrage at the possibility that the Gita may be banned in Russia. To pacify the anger India’s Foreign Minister S M Krishna has said the court complaint "appears to be the work of some ignorant and misdirected or motivated individuals".

"While this complaint is patently absurd, we have treated this matter seriously and the embassy of India (in Russia) is closely monitoring this legal case," he told Indian parliament.

Krishna said the government was "confident that our Russian friends, who understand our civilizational values and cultural sensitivities, will resolve this matter appropriately".

He also counseled that not much attention should be paid to the issue as "we do not want to dignify some misdirected individuals who have filed an absurd complaint".

Sensing that the issue could have an impact on India-Russia relations, the Russian ambassador to India Alexander Kadakin condemned the "madmen" seeking the ban. "Russia is a secular and democratic country where all religions enjoy equal respect… Even more applicable it is to the holy scriptures of various faiths -- whether it is the Bible, the Holy Quran, Torah, Avesta and, of course, Bhagvad Gita -- the great source of wisdom for the people of India and the world.

"I consider it categorically inadmissible when any holy scripture is taken to the courts. For all believers these texts are sacred," he said.

The timing of the Gita case is particularly inopportune as it has been taking place against the backdrop of a series of visits by Indian government ministers in recent weeks, culminating with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s summit visit on December 15-17.

The fundamental lesson here for all concerned, especially those who reflexively make such demands, that no books should be banned. Period.

Asif Ali Zardari returns home

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari

Defying skeptics and belying speculations Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari has returned home amid fast deteriorating relations between the military and civilian leaderships. At the core of the tensions are the allegations that the civilian government sent an unsigned memo urging the Obama administration to lean over the military and prevent a possible coup.

The allegations are now before Pakistan’s Supreme Court which is investigating the veracity of the memo which the Zardari government has denied having anything to do with. Pakistan’s power equilibrium has been rudely upended ever since the American raid killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden earlier this year.

When Zardari rushed to Dubai on December 6 after suffering from what now has been described as a mild stroke, there were speculations that he had in fact gone into exile over the memo controversy under pressure from the military. As it turns out the reality is a little more complicated than that.

Zardari’s return means any number of things, including that he has become resolute in meeting the memo challenge head-on and assert civilian authority over the country or that he has struck a backroom deal where the military might gain even greater say in the affairs of the state than it already enjoys. Given Pakistan’s record so far either of these is eminently possible.

What might be at work here is Zardari’s much reviled wheeling and dealing talents to carve out a corner for himself in what seems like an increasingly narrowing civilian space at the top of the country’s control structure. I have frequently written about how Pakistan is a country where the elite seems to be permanently striking deals within itself to exclusion of the rest of the country. It is possible that that is what is going on. Either that or Zardari has behind him some powerful support that is encouraging him to return. One can never say with any degree of certainty.

People must not forget that here is a man who married up, earned lucrative notoriety, spent 11 years in prison, and emerged triumphant politically in the aftermath of his wife and former prime minister and would-be prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination. The point is if there is one thing that Zardari does well is reinvent himself. He is not a transcendental figure. He is a transactional figure.

The next few days would be interesting to watch as the Supreme Court hears the memo case.

Stop perpetuating this non-sense of caste

Sam Pitroda (Pic: www.sampitroda.com)

Indian politicians have mastered the art of perpetuating and mining the politics of sordid caste consciousness even while simultaneously pretending to be rejecting it. The latest case in point is none other than India’s prime minister-in-waiting and Congress Party general secretary Rahul Gandhi.

At an election rally in Akbarpur area of Ramabai Nagar in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state that is getting ready for assembly elections, Gandhi was quoted as saying, “Twenty years back Rajiv Gandhi thought of bringing mobile phones to India. Do you know who brought them? Sam Pitroda, who is a Vishkarma, “Barahi” (carpenter). He brought mobile phones to your houses.”

Gandhi's use of Pitroda's caste is not only gratuitously insulting of someone has never let it enter any aspect of his life and work, it is also embarrassingly expedient. The worst part is Rahul's presumption in using it so unselfconsciously.The whole picture of a seemingly modern, presumptive prime minister choosing to yield to the temptation of crass caste politics is indeed sordid. The sheer condescension of that construct ought to be rejected.

What worries me is that in his mind Rahul must have thought of its use as an inspirational device. I am not privy to how the young politician’s mind works but his logic in saying what he did may have worked something like this. Winning the state elections in Uttar Pradesh would be the signature accomplishment of my political career so far. One of the most effective ways to do it is to beat Chief Minister Mayawati at her own game of tapping into the caste-based electorate. Now let’s see whom do I have as an ace in my pack of caste cards? Boom! Why not Sam Pitroda? 

It is entirely possible that Rahul was trying to offer the electorate of the particular constituency a role model in Pitroda, someone whose story they feel inspired by to rise above narrow social divides. His intentions may have been entirely honorable but the outcome is anything but.

What I find particularly galling about this is that Gandhi is invoking the name of a public figure not in the least burdened with the baggage of his birth and lineage. Having known Pitroda for over 20 years, I can tell you from deep personal experience that rarely have I met a public figure so utterly detached from India’s oppressive social stratification. And that’s what makes Gandhi’s assertion so ironic.

It would be in character for Pitroda not to pay particular attention to his political projection because the attribute that detaches him from the non-sense of caste is the same attribute that would make him dismissive of how he is being cashed.

As for Rahul, precisely because he commands a powerful political platform not just because of who he is but who he could be, it behooves him to consciously eschew the use of caste as a political tool.

Madam, zara zyada oomph lao?

Pic: Narendra Bisht, Outlook magazine

Sex sells. So let me sell some this Saturday morning.

The Outlook magazine of India has done along with Durex, the makers of a popular range of condoms (both ribbed and flavored, I think), a survey on sex among middle-aged urban Indians.

I do not know the sample size (The size does not matter or does it?) but it seems over 90% says sex is just as good, if not better than when they were younger. A little over a third of those surveyed say they have sex between 11 and 20 times a month. Nearly 94% says they are between satisfied and very satisfied with sex.

Surveys about sex do not mean much other than giving those surveyed a chance to often live out their fantasies. I am sure there is a kernel of truth in there somewhere but largely they help sell the magazine that is carrying out the survey. It also offers the publication a chance to publish some racy photos, not that anyone needs an excuse to do that anymore. What’s not to like in soft porn images of a fully lit young couple sort of dry humping?

I saw the picture above and quickly went into my overdrive deconstruction (ODD—I just made that up) mode. The first question is—Is she in the throes of an orgasm or in anticipation of it? Why is her luxurious hair so meticulously fanned out?  And why does he look as if he is asking are we done yet? And why does she look that his presence underneath is entirely incidental? What was the brief from the cameraman? Did he say, “Madam, zara zyada oomph lao? (Madam, turn on more oomph).” The brief for the man had to be simple—just lie down and don’t get really aroused. Such profound questions came flooding without any answers on seeing the picture.

On a side note, the men surveyed were asked to name the person they find most attractive. A full 3.2 % named Hillary Rodham Clinton. So there are urban men in India fantasizing about Hillary Clinton.  In contrast, none of the women named Bill Clinton. Pakistan’s young Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar polled marginally above Hillary Clinton at 3.5%. Interestingly, Pakistani actress Veena Malik who allegedly posed for the Indian edition of the men’s magazine FHM with nothing on other than an ‘ISI’ tattoo figured nowhere.

There is a reason why the survey was confined to the middle-aged urban Indian demographic because that’s who reads the magazine. Also, there is next to no prospect of a middle-aged rural couple doing in front of the camera what the couple above is doing. That does not mean rural folks do not dry-hump or toss their heads in uncontrolled ecstasy. It only means they do not read Outlook.

Christopher Hitchens 1949-2011

Christopher Hitchens (Pic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Christopher_Hitchens_crop.jpg)

 

Christopher Hitchens lived life as if he was doing it a favor. In the end, he did “do” death the way he said he would.

“I personally want to ‘do’ death in the active and not the passive,” he wrote, “and to be there to look it in the eye and be doing something when it comes for me.”

These were the words of someone of immense self-belief and someone with a gigantic appetite for and talent to produce an astonishingly wide variety of writings and philosophical constructs. As I suspected, many of his obits mention his flaming atheism as a central attribute of his life as if the belief in the non-existence of god is somehow a belief system.

Hitchens wrote with such feverish profligacy that it is hard to keep up with his vast output of essays, columns and reportage. However, from whatever little one has read it was obvious that writing was the ultimate act of regeneration for him. Somewhere in his mind he was perhaps thinking that if he wrote enough he might overcome his esophageal cancer.

“Writing is what’s important to me, and anything that helps me do that — or enhances and prolongs and deepens and sometimes intensifies argument and conversation — is worth it to me,” he told Charlie Rose in an interview in 2010.

As if wanting to prove that even in the final year of his life he produced “Arguably: Essays”, a best-seller hailed as one of the ten most important books of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review.

In what is likely his final piece of writing, Hitchens wrote in Vanity Fair’s January, 2012 issue, about the philosophy around the popular maxim “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” Of course, in keeping with his acerbic contrarianism he ridiculed it.

I was particularly struck by this passage.

“During my next hospital stay, in Washington D.C., the institution gifted me with a vicious staph pneumonia (and sent me home twice with it) that almost snuffed me out. The annihilating fatigue that came over me in consequence also contained the deadly threat of surrender to the inescapable: I would often find fatalism and resignation washing drearily over me as I failed to battle my general inanition. Only two things rescued me from betraying myself and letting go: a wife who would not hear of me talking in this boring and useless way, and various friends who also spoke freely. Oh, and the regular painkiller. How happily I measured off my day as I saw the injection being readied. It counted as a real event. With some analgesics, if you are lucky, you can actually “feel” the hit as it goes in: a sort of warming tingle with an idiotic bliss to it. To have come to this—like the sad goons who raid pharmacies for OxyContin. But it was an alleviation of boredom, and a guilty pleasure (not many of those in Tumortown), and not least a relief from pain.”

For a bon vivant of Hitchens’s particular disposition having to consider an injection being prepared as a “real event” must have been quite an experience. In the end, it seems, the pneumonia took his life.

Hitchens took it upon himself to invigorate the global human discourse and succeeded frequently.

What the fukhoormajalmaamada..

What Charlie Chaplin’s ‘The Great Dictator’ was to Adolf Hitler, Sacha Baron Cohen’s ‘The Dictator’ promises to be to Mohammad Qaddafi. It is funny how raw cruelty, terror and despotism lend themselves so perfectly to humor and satire.

No one else could have played an over-the-top, flamboyant and cruel narcissist, inspired by Qaddafi, with as much conviction as Cohen. Unfortunately, and I use unfortunately in an ironic way, Qaddafi is not alive to watch the movie. In all likelihood he might have secretly enjoyed the characterization unlike Hitler, who was apoplectic with rage at Chaplin’s take on him.

Cohen is an enormous talent, not yet quite in the league of Chaplin but for the times he exists in he fills that slot rather effectively.

I have watched everything that Cohen has done, including most episodes of The Ali G Show and Borat as well as the movie versions, not to mention his other films. Cohen just cannot contain himself and that’s his talent and calling.

In this particular trailer, there is almost nothing that does not make one laugh. I suppose that is the intention of any trailer. However, it is safe to say that the whole movie too is unlikely to disappoint.

Jay Z’s “Mundiya tu bachke rahi’ was a pleasant, if appropriate, surprise.

Cohen’s take on WTF as “what the fukhoormajalmaamada..” is as hilarious as his sprint where he shoots the fellow sprinters and brings the ribbon closer. The bit about Megan Fox, hairiness and the Kardashians is easy pickings too.

I apologize for taking the lazy way out for the second consecutive day by writing about a movie trailer.

I always thought Cohen would be perfect casting as Qaddafi in a wild spoof on an utterly cruel and whimsical dictator.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Some movies should be made only as as a trailer. I do not know yet but going by its trailer “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel’, directed by John Madden (‘Shakespeare in Love’), does not feel like one such movie.

On the face of it, it is a compelling plot to have a bunch of “self-deluding” English “fossils traipsing around” in India in their golden years lured by a false promise. Some words are in quotation marks because they are taken from the lines in the trailer.

I generally keep the benchmark for any creative work extremely low. That way the creator becomes redeemed rather easily. As a rule I root for the creator not fail abjectly. In a book, for instance, I look for one or two effective lines. In a movie, I look for one or two compelling frames and a moment or two of competent performance. Anything more is bonus.

This particular movie seems to have quite a few effective lines and some charming frames, not to mention well-oiled performances. The one that has stayed with me is spoken by Dev Patel who tells one of the English guests demanding a refund because the hotel is a disaster, “Everything will be alright in the end. So if it is not alright, it is not yet the end.”

The sheer artistic weight of the cast of this movie should make it a worthwhile experience. Maggie Smith, Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson and Bill Nighy add up to something eminently watchable, although I suspect the plot may have some lazy Indian stereotypes. There is no excuse for stereotyping a people but there is even less for doing it lazily. I hope that fear is belied.

This morning I wanted to write more about “tantalizing” possibility the Higgs boson does indeed exist and dwell in the subatomic world. But then I saw this trailer and was happily distracted because, unlike the Higgs boson, I could actually see the trailer.

On a separate note, I am beginning to resent the fact that Western film units so predictably go to Rajasthan to look for a signature Indian experience. No one can deny Rajasthan’s irresistible cinematic appeal and how it so effortlessly lives up to a Western filmmaker’s conception of the exotic India. But still, there is a little more to India than just Rajasthan.

Waiting for the Higgs boson

Illustration: Mayank Chhaya

I did not expect the CERN particle physicists to come with a jarful of the Higgs boson like fireflies, but even with a low benchmark it appears that the so-called “God particle” remains elusive.

I watched the first 40 minutes or so of the live webcast of what was billed to be an important announcement by the scientists at the Large Hadron Collider. The expectation was that they would probably say they saw the ever elusive Higgs boson. From what Fabiola Gianotti of the ATLAS team has said so far, it is not conclusive that the Higgs boson has been seen.

Those who know the subject well (and that automatically excludes me and a vast majority of humanity) believe that the presentation indicates good progress towards finding it but we are not there yet. There are signs that the scientists have seen some signs of the particle’s existence but they are not yet jarful of fireflies.

It could be said with some literary liberty that if the Higgs field, which is somewhat like an energy field that pervades the entire universe, did not exist life as we know it would not. Without this invisible field inhibiting them all particles would zip around the universe at the speed of light which in turn would mean that atoms as we know it would not have formed and hence eventually everything else, including you and I, would have remained unrealized. The invisible energy field imparts these particles weight as they pass through the field. It also slows them down. That is the simplest way I can put this search in.

The CERN presentation this afternoon in Europe was more like a peer review which was webcast for anyone interested in the subject. Gianotti had no choice but to densely pack it with pure facts that most of us would not understand. Of course, her words were all English but together they made sense only to particle physicists and science writers. I understand physics in the broadest possible sense but that means nothing.

The conclusion seems to be that we are approaching the Higgs boson. "We are homing in on the Higgs. We have had hints today of what its mass might be and the excitement of scientists is palpable. Whether this is ultimately confirmed or we finally rule out a low mass Higgs boson, we are on the verge of a major change in our understanding of the fundamental nature of matter,” Dr. Claire Shepherd-Themistocleus, head of the CMS group at the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, has been quoted as saying by The Guardian.

Part 2 of “We don’t know WTF happened?”

Flood control units are on standby in New Delhi as fears mount over the rising levels of anchor drool in the newsrooms of the capital’s television news channels.

The return of anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare to the political center stage has sent anchors into unprecedented slobbering frenzy. I have this wild vision of anchors drowning in their own particularly viscous drool before eventually being rescued.

Dozens of dinghies and rafts have been requisitioned in the likely event that newsrooms get submerged in knee-deep drool. Some of the channels have elevated the anchor chair by several feet to give the anchor a bird’s eye view of Part 2 of Part 1 of  the “We don’t know what the fuck happened?” show.

Television news is already full of shots of Hazare angrily pointing the accusatory finger at the rest of the world even as his lips curl in defiant disdain. “I am here. Can a moral revolution be far behind?” is what he seems to be saying.

There is a general feeling that the whole kerfuffle over India’s Telecom and Information Technology Minister Kapil Sibal demanding the screening of incendiary content on social networking sites is aimed at preempting the supporters of Hazare going viral all over again.

For television news they would love the reality to be something like this -- Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi and her son and prime minister-in-waiting Rahul Gandhi called Sibal and said, “Hey Kapil, do you know what they are saying about us on Facebook? Turn Facebook into Effacebook. And while you are it install a camera in Hazare’s topi so we know what he is up to.”

Speaking of Sibal and screening content, The New York Times’ India Ink blog has its own little version of slobbering going on. The Times’ New Delhi correspondent Heather Timmons broke the original story about Sibal meeting with executives of  internet service providers such as Facebook and Google over screening inflammatory content. Sibal went on CNN-IBN’s “The Devil’s Advocate” show hosted by Karan Thapar to essentially say that the Times pulled it out of its ass. (Not quite in those precise terms but that was the implication).

“I’m a little surprised, we never talked to them (the Times), they never talked to us, they never sought my response, and they attributed all this to personalities in the Congress Party which is far from the truth.,” Sibal said.

The Times' clarified saying, “Mr. Sibal’s office confirmed that he would meet with Internet service providers Monday but did not provide more information about the content of the meeting.’’ India Ink called three people in his office before posting the article: Mamta Verma and S. Prakash, spokespersons who said they had little information about the issue, and Ranjan Khanna, a secretary who was unavailable.  The article attributes no information to Congress Party personalities.”

Then there is this exchange:

Thapar: Have you drawn the attention to The New York Times to the fact that they have published a story which you believe is inaccurate?

Sibal: Well, someone from The New York Times said we want to keep you on your toes.

The paper concedes that Timmons did say to the minister “just trying to keep you on your toes” but qualified it by saying, “It was intended as a friendly nod to the fact that he may not have liked the story, but that nothing personal was meant by it.”