Mayank Chhaya Daily

Coitus on Cloud 9

Unknown by MC

Coitus on Cloud 9 by MC

Let’s just do with these two new works today, shall we?

Black holes are nothing but wear and tear in the fabric of spacetime

‘Starry Scream’ --MC

My fusion version of Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ and Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream’ has become a bit of a weird obsession. It is not for me to divine what Van Gogh and Munch might have felt respectively while painting them. Mine is a terribly derivative exercise and does not require an original experience.

To that extent whatever I have in terms of my ongoing response to its many avatars is contrived. However, as with any contrivance if you keep it long enough it begins to mimic reality. This morning, for instance, while touching up and creating a new version of it (See above) I also wrote the following rhyme. I get the sense the rhyme fits the vision above. If it does not, just too bad.

There is no purpose to all this other than putting out in the open what is inside.

Black holes are nothing

but wear and tear

in the fabric

of spacetime 

They can’t be mended

either by darning

or by something

more sublime

--Mayank Chhaya

Here is to Le Corbusier

My tribute to Le Corbusier’s iconic chapel of Notre Dame du Haut in Ronchamp, France

Seventeen works of the master architect Le Corbusier have made UNESCO’s World Heritage List. It is an honor, of course, but there are gifted people such as Corbusier whose craft draws no particular vindication from such acknowledgement. However, to the extent that the inscription as a World Heritage Site comes with specific advantages in terms of the buildings’ upkeep and preservation this is a remarkable honor.

UNESCO, which stands for United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, says this in choosing Corbusier’s works.

“Chosen from the work of Le Corbusier, the 17 sites comprising this transnational serial property are spread over seven countries and are a testimonial to the invention of a new architectural language that made a break with the past. They were built over a period of a half-century, in the course of what Le Corbusier described as “patient research”. The Complexe du Capitole in Chandigarh (India), the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo (Japan), the House of Dr Curutchet in La Plata (Argentina) and the Unité d’habitation in Marseille (France) reflect the solutions that the Modern Movement sought to apply during the 20th century to the challenges of inventing new architectural techniques to respond to the needs of society. These masterpieces of creative genius also attest to the internationalization of architectural practice across the planet.”

It is good to know that the government secretariat building in Chandigarh, India, a city that he designed at the instance of India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, is one of those 17 sites.

Like most of my connections I also have a tangential connection with Corbusier’s works having been born and raised in Ahmedabad where he created some remarkable individual projects. I have written about him before and it may not be out of place to republish it today. This one is from June 21, 2013.

Like many things in life, I have a tangential connection to Corbusier’s career in the sense that I come from a city, Ahmedabad, which has the distinction of having the most number of individual homes and buildings designed by him. Corbusier designed four buildings in Ahmedabad. They include two private residences called Villa Sarabhai and Villa Shodhan, a now decrepit museum called Sanskar Kendra and the Ahmedabad Textile Mill Association (ATMA) House. These were all designed in 1951.

Sanskar Kendra was a great getaway for me as a child since my school Diwan Ballubhai Madhyamik Shala was right opposite the museum. I know there are many who detest Corbusier’s emphasis on concrete but his buildings in Ahmedabad never failed to lift my spirits. I know Sanskar Kendra intimately. I have also visited Villa Sarabhai and the ATMA House several times.

Sanskar Kendra now seems to be in a state of disrepair. I have seen pieces of concrete missing from some parts of the structure with rusted iron bars being exposed. In contrast to the stuffy environs of my school,Sanskar Kendra’s open plan was such a refreshing distraction for me. I used to imagine one day owning a building like that. It is poetic justice that I ended up in an unfinished basement with unpainted concrete walls.

Corbusier had a particularly productive relationship with India as the country’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru commissioned him to design an entire city called Chandigarh. The two men struck up a great friendship. It is tragic that many Chandigarh buildings, particularly government offices, suffer from neglect and apathy. I have seen smears of the red gunk spit out by tobacco and paan chewing bureaucrats and visitors alike on the walls of Chandigarh’s secretariat. It is not that different at Sanskar Kendra either.

Over the mountains of ifs and into the valley of buts…

Some of you might have noticed that these days I consciously stay away from offering any observation on contentious Indian conflicts such as Kashmir. Other than the overarching futility of venturing an opinion there is no reason for that. I can as legitimately hold forth on Kashmir as just about any Indian journalist since I reported the original insurgency from its very inception in 1989 for over seven years. In those seven years there were many events which were said to have the potential of hiving Kashmir off from India.

The recent killing of Burhan Wani, the so-called commander of the Kashmiri militant group Hizbul Mujahideen, has revived those visions all over again. The 22-year-old Wani was widely seen as having reinvigorated insurgency against the Indian state and brought fresh new blood into the flagging separatist movement. He was killed on July 8 in a gun battle with the Indian security forces triggering a fresh wave of violence. Once again we hear how Kashmir is on the verge of spinning out of India’s control.

Wani’s death and its aftermath have taken me back to one particular incident on October 22, 1993, when similar dangers faced the Indian state. I was reporting for the IANS wire the Indian army siege of Hazrat Bal mosque in Srinagar after the shrine was taken over by heavily armed separatists, pretty much of the kind that Wani was. The shrine was said to house a single hair of the Prophet Mohammed’s beard and is regarded as the holiest place in the Kahsmir valley. The siege led to scores of deaths and many more wounded. I remember at that point the media had said that Kashmir’s fate depended on how the siege turned out and it turned out to be particularly bloody.

Twenty three years hence when I read similar concerns I find it depressing to hear the same complaints about a woeful lack of basic amenities that I heard then. As part of that assignment I had visited Anantnag, which the locals called Islamabad, a town not too far from the capital Srinagar. During that visit in the shadow of the Hazrat Bal incident I had an opportunity to speak to a group of furious young men, some of whom were discreetly armed. They took me inside what looked like a bombed out building and made me hear them vent their anger for close to two hours. Almost nothing they were angry about had anything to do with religious or cultural paranoia but basic survival issues such as not having decent schools.

It was pointed out somewhat dramatically to me by one of the young men after he locked the door of the room we were sitting inside that this ramshackle building was indeed a school. “Yehan kya taalim hogi? (What kid of education can take place in a place like this?” he asked me pointing at the broken down school and even dared me to report this part of my assignment. I did indeed write about it.

Now sitting some 7,000 miles away from Srinagar and reading about the whole new wave of panic in the valley after Wani’s death, one cannot but wonder about the state of affairs with an overpowering sense of futility. If the passage of 23 years has done nothing to change the narrative on both sides of the divide, how is one to be optimistic or pessimistic? The only perceptible change since then is that in 1993 Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao was facing a growing nationalist movement pushed by the Hindu right and now that movement has been voted with a sound parliamentary majority. And yet, the narrative remains largely unchanged. What has changed are the articulators of the profound anger on both sides. The Indian army, which was then in firm control of the region, remains so today as well. Militancy, which came in waves, continues to do so now too.

I have no intention of resolving this terribly intractable conflict in this blog this morning but it might be useful to point out to those outside the Kashmir valley how viscerally stifling it is to live under such a relentless military and paramilitary presence. Generations of Kashmiris have grown up without knowing what it means to have streets free of heavily armed and often intimidating soldiers. Of course, the Indian army too is saddled with a terribly thankless task of preserving India’s sense of nationhood in its most volatile region where it is brutally tested every single day.

I vividly remember my very first visit to Kashmir sometime in April or May or 1989. As I came out of the Srinagar airport looking for a cab to my hotel, a boy, probably 13 or 14, approached me with some flowers to sell. He asked me pointing generally in the direction of what he thought was India, “Aap us mulk se aaye hain…India se?” (Have you come from that country…from India?) In his mind, India was already a separate country. He had no conception that where he was standing was vehemently regarded to be an intrinsic part of that very “us mulk.”  I am curious to know what that boy has grown up into.

One of my dispatches began with the introduction “Over the mountains of ifs and into the valley of buts…” How has that changed at all, I must visit soon to find out.

Fractofusus misrai and UNESCO World Heritage

Dr. Shiva Balak Misra

In 1967, an unassuming geology graduate student from India was studying at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. While surveying a crag pounded by sea waves the student, Shiva Balak Misra began to discover and document fossils which would turn out to be between 575 and 542 million years old, the oldest found complex life anywhere in the world.

The soft-bodied fossils at what is called Mistaken Point at the south-eastern tip of Newfoundland make the site truly remarkable because it is home to creatures from a time when all life was in the sea. It took 40 years for Dr. Misra to be credited with the discovery. One of the fossils was named after him in 2007 as Fractofusus misrai. Being meticulous, Dr. Misra sorted the fossils in five groups even as he created a geological map of the region.

That Mistaken Point is now being recommended to be recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site close to 50 years after Dr. Misra’s work could be quite a denouement for him as he oversees two significant rural projects in Uttar Pradesh, India. He gave up a potentially groundbreaking career in the West to set up a rural school named Bharatiya Gramin Vidyalaya in a village called Kunaura. Apart from that, he is also the editor-in-chief of India’s first professionally produced rural daily Gaon Connection which his journalist son Neelesh founded.

I am not much for these symbolic honors such as UNESCO World Heritage Site, especially for natural phenomena such as Mistaken Point, except that they concentrate people’s minds and help preserve them. To that extent , it would be useful for UNESCO to recognize it. As for Nature and Dr. Misra, well, both have moved on.

A TV news anchor and blistering baseline shots from a tennis pro

Indian tennis star Sania Mirza

The other day Indian television news anchor Rajdeep Sardesai offered an ideal example of how to first dump a steaming pile of patriarchy and then step right into it. During an interview with the country’s most celebrated tennis player, Sania Mirza, who is also the world’s number one doubles player, Sardesai did not seem to realize that the stench of such casual patriarchy and sexism had hit the studio. Mirza, 29, was there to promote her autobiography ‘Ace Against Odds’.

It was a perfectly lovely conversation until Sardesai, as much of an archetypal TV studio creature as there can be, asked this: “Amidst all the celebrityhood, when is Sania going to settle down? Is it going to be in Dubai? Is it going to be in any other country? What about motherhood… building a family… I don’t see all that in the book, it seems like you don’t want to retire just yet to settle down.”

That was the steaming pile of patriarchy that I was talking about. He dropped it first, nicely curled up, soft and gooey. He then casually stepped into it.

Mirza used to facing blistering serves on various courts was quick with a come back: “You don’t think I’m settled?”

Then the exchange went like the following even as Sardesai paid one more visit to the pile he had just left behind.

RS: You don’t talk about retirement, about raising a family, about motherhood, what’s life beyond tennis is going to be…

SM: You sound disappointed that I’m not choosing motherhood over being number one in the world at this point of time. But I’ll answer your question anyway, that’s the question I face all the time as a woman, that all women have to face — the first is marriage and then it’s motherhood.

Unfortunately, that’s when we’re settled, and no matter how many Wimbledons we win or number ones in the world we become, we don’t become settled. But eventually it will happen, not right now. And when it does happen I’ll be the first one to tell everybody when I plan to do that.

Realizing that the studio was smeared with a peculiar kind of sexist foulness Sardesai seemed to correct the mess.

RS: I must apologize, I framed that question very badly. I promise you, you’re right, I would never ask this question to a male athlete.

SM: I’m so glad, you’re the first journalist to apologize to me on national television.

You could see that Mirza was not going let Sardesai off the hook that easily. For a player not particularly distinguished for baseline shots was offered an opportunity to play a verbal one when Sardesai softballed her about how she would like to be remembered. Mirza said she hoped that “no girl is asked at the age of 29 as to when she is going to have a child when she’s number one in the world.” And as a final twist of the knife she said, “That’s no settling in.”

I am told by reliable sources that Sardesai had to be helped out of the studio as he staggered from the on-air assault and with his shoes still smeared. (It’s a joke, people). I am also told that later that night when he reached home his wife and fellow journalist Sagarika Ghose had his dinner served right outside the gate of their bungalow with a note “Sort that patriarchal shit out before you are allowed in.” (It’s a joke, people.)

Clearly, Sardesai messed up. It is not for me to say that he messed up because he merely externalized what he believes in his subconscious or he did so in the heat of the TV news. The latter is quite possible but it is not for me to make that assertion. It was gracious of him to apologize but then these days it is never enough to apologize. One needs to grovel until the knees start bleeding. His patriarchy and sexism were so casual that one is left wondering whether they reside deep inside his mind. It could also be that as a TV news anchor he was faithfully representing the widespread societal patriarchy. In either case it is none of anybody’s business.

Mohammed Rafi: A willingness to submit his soul to music

If India sang only in two voices, they would be Mohammed Rafi and Lata Mangeshkar’s. While Mangeshkar has become one of the most celebrated symbols of the Indian nationhood, Rafi remains somewhat eclipsed notwithstanding his preternatural talent as a playback singer.

That may have something to do with his death at the relatively young age of 56 in 1980. However, as a singer who straddled an astonishingly eclectic range of songs Rafi’s mystic keeps rejuvenating despite the passage of decades. Notwithstanding his early passing on July 31, 1980, by the time of his death Rafi had already been installed as the first among equals in the pantheon Indian playback singing. With 7,000 songs to his credit in a career spanning over four decades Rafi’s range has been so wide that there is not a mood that he did not capture with unparalleled brilliance.

Although there has been a fair amount of chronicling of Rafi’s life and career, a new book titled “Mohammed Rafi: God’s Own Voice”* by Raju Korti and Dhirendra Jain brings a special scholarly weight of the authors to bear on the subject. Korti, a veteran Mumbai-based journalist and editor as well as a professor of engineering, has been a passionate follower of Rafi’s career for more than four decades. Over the years, he has frequently engaged with a virtual who’s who of Hindi cinema music on what propelled Rafi’s craft. With a vast amount of research accumulated with him and his co-author, including a good many number of detailed conversations with the grandees of Hindi cinema music, Korti’s book offers a remarkable perspective of someone who by any measure was a world-class singer.

In a written interview Korti, who happens to be a friend of mine, answered questions. Excerpts:

Author and Journalist Raju Korti

• Your book is perhaps the first such comprehensive account of someone who is a national treasure. How hard was it to piece together a cohesive narrative in an industry notorious for not preserving anything worthwhile?

A: It took me almost four months to put the biography in black and white. As a fan, I had been closely monitoring Rafi as a person and professional since 1962. In my school days, which was long before I met him, I would make it a point to read and hear every minute thing about him, not necessarily believing everything. The consolidation came after meeting the person and many people in the music industry. Thereafter, it was just a matter of stitching those details together. The easiest part was to write about the man since most of it boiled down to his humility and magnanimity. I agree the film industry is not known to have preserved anything worthwhile but in case of Rafi, his charisma has endured like no one else’s has. The trickiest part was to make sure that no aspect of his professional career was left out. I avoided getting into needless details because that would have made the narrative repetitive. Yet, I don’t believe I have done full justice to the theme because I keep hearing new stories and anecdotes about him regularly. Some come from believable quarters, some from unverifiable quarters. I suppose that is bound to happen when someone has died more than 35 years back but his popularity, if anything, keeps multiplying by the day.

• How did you go about gathering aspects of Rafi’s personal life which underscore his vague reputation as an utterly humble and kind man?

A: I started gathering aspects of Rafi’s life since early sixties, much before I went on to become a professional journalist. First as a music lover and then as a journalist, I was able to collect authentic details from a lot of people including Naushad, Ravi, Shankar-Jaikishen , Jaidev, Salil Choudhury, O P Nayyar, Usha Khanna, RD Burman, Usha Timothy, Manna Dey, Mukesh, Kishore, Talat to name a few. Of course some of the people I have mentioned are lost in the footprints of time but I also spoke to the people who were close to them. I also have in my possession video and audio clips of many of them which I collected painstakingly for 35-40 years.

• One gets the sense that although Rafi ruled the commercially defined film world, he himself lacked the instinct to go for the kill. How do you think he reconciled the two?

A: From my research I have deduced that Rafi didn’t have to go for the kill. He was supremely confident of his craft. Even a cursory look at his career will show that he grafted his way to the top through hard work and exceptional talent. No one lasts in a fickle industry for four decades by fluke - that too at a time when all his contemporaries were no pushovers. Of course, success didn’t come to him overnight. It was some time before he made it to national consciousness. In the forties, he had Talat Mehmood and Mukesh to reckon with. Interestingly, they came after Rafi but were better acknowledged in the forties. Although he never said it, I believe Rafi knew he was the best. Commercial success followed.

• The title of the book “God’s Own Voice” in a way suggests that there may not be much room for a critical appraisal of the man. Was that your apprehension?

A: The title is metaphorical. The book makes no comparison of Rafi with other singers. I could have done that by I didn’t want to ruffle feathers. In any case I didn’t have to. It is a success story that says everything on its own steam. But I do admit that comparisons, though odious, become inevitable especially when the race involves the best. The question of apprehension didn’t arise. There was no one critical in his/her appraisal of the man. Even as a fan, I was objective enough to be matter-of-fact in some of the chapters.

• How do you critically approach a singer whose genius is so universally acknowledged?

A: I agree that people tend to exaggerate about a person who they hero-worship. I met some people who have great admiration for Rafi but believe he was the greatest salesman of the century. That is charitable or uncharitable depending on how you look at it. Of course, he had an ego but he never allowed it to cloud his professional commitments. It was his willingness to submit his soul to music and his peers that made him stand out. That is the reason why you will find very little in his criticism.

•How do you explain Mohammad Rafi’s ever rejuvenating popularity three and half decades after his death?

A: True talent never dies. In Rafi’s case, it came without an expiry date. Two generations have gone after his death, yet, new singers have to sing his songs to make their mark. Let’s see if any other person manages to be as popular more than three decades after his/her death. We all tend to glorify people after their death but to me the amazing aspect here is if anything, Rafi’s popularity keeps multiplying by the day.

• Although there are many registers in male voices in India, Rafi’s feels like the archetypal, defining one. It is as if his was the voice against which all else should be tested. Why do you think that is?

A: To say that his voice was archetypal is not enough. It was complete, equipped to take on all the notes. His versatility was beyond compare. Many people believe that his voice was his ultimate blessing. And it was tinged with the magic guaranteed to get the heart-strings. Perhaps that is why he became a benchmark. There was near unanimity on other singers during his time being good too but they didn’t have the multi-dimensional merit of Rafi. This is, of course, my personal opinion.

• Why do you think Rafi’s voice has traveled so well despite the passage of decades? It is a voice that never feels dated.

A: You answered your own question. His voice is ageless. Just imagine, he died at a young age of 56. But of those, 44 belonged to a stupendous career. I think there are only a handful of examples where one man has dominated a profession this long.

• Is it your sense that Rafi did not just sing songs with all his craft and artistry but, in fact, became a sort of voice actor who got to the very essence of the words, mood and nuance?

A: Initial pages of the book talk precisely about that. In the profession he was in, merely a good voice was not enough. It was his ability to mold it and make it compatible from heroes and zeroes that gave him a universal appeal. They always talk of his voice sitting pretty on all actors, but at the end of the day, it was a Rafi song. Music directors were convinced that his voice would do justice to all songs, any genre. They also conceded that his ability to tap the exact mood of the song was phenomenal. He let his voice do all the talking and didn’t have the necessity to indulge in petty maneuverings to run down or edge past his peers.

• It is extraordinarily rare that when you hear a singer you can tell their quintessential humanity. Rafi was one of those rare names whose singing alone would tell you that he was even a better human being. Did you during your research get that sense?

A: Yes, it was evident from the conversations I had with the people named in the book (also those not named). There are no two opinions that his voice had certain humility to it even when he sang the frothy and zany ones. His singing elevated the song manifold. As a person he was grounded but his song went to the skies in every sense.

• In terms of gathering a diversity of views what were your biggest challenge?

A: In case of Rafi there was almost no diversity of views. Whatever they were, I have mentioned them all in the book. While writing, I have kept my personal fancies aside and tried to portray the picture of a man as he was universally known and also from the prism of few of his detractors. It is the inability of his detractors to prove their point that makes their views as prejudiced. To that extent, let me be honest in admitting that there might be very few things not mentioned in the books of that fans don’t know. It is more of a personal chronicler than a biography. I have only compiled those and pieced them together.

• In at least one review I read that attribution of some of Rafi’s quotes is not entirely verifiable. How do you counter a view like that?

A: We must understand that Rafi died 36 years back. A lot many people are not on the scene anymore. Many of the interviews that I have done happened in the late 70s and later. There was no system of recording interviews at that time. Seniors often told us that good journalists write from good memory without misquoting anybody or cooking up quotes. As a journalist I interviewed and spoke informally to many people from the music fraternity. Not one was contradicted or claimed that I had cooked up my stories. I know of many stories and anecdotes that are not entirely verifiable. Your better instincts tell you which are cooked up or exaggerated. If verifiability is the only yardstick, you cannot write a book at all. There has to be certain dependability on people speaking the truth or being privy to something. If you see, the attributions are not inconsistent with the narrative. Rafi himself was a man of few words. He would, as many journalists say, make a bad copy because his answers would be usually monosyllabic. He never spoke about controversies or ill about his contemporaries. Besides, there are people who did not want to be named for reasons I can only guess. Unverifiable attributions do not necessarily mean they cannot be the truth. Even the people I have quoted are no more. One can always say “what is the authenticity of this?” I can only say that let anyone prove something to the contrary.

• Rafi had worthy male contemporaries, in particular Manna Dey. There are those who might argue that Dey was classically more sound than Rafi although Dey himself has frequently rated Rafi far above himself. How did you approach themes like that?

A: I spoke to Manna Dey twice for more than two hours in 1985-86. In my book I have quoted some composers who believed that Manna was classically better trained. But the singer himself admitted to me how, from day one, Rafi was better than him. If what I wrote was not authentic, there are any number of video clips on YouTube where he says it in flesh and blood. Manna was vocal but a few others were not so vocal. That is even if you make peace with the fact that one singer would normally always concede the other as a better one out of sheer grace, but don’t forget the competition was stiff and the stakes were high even in those days.

• Do you think that a phenomenon like Rafi, or for that matter some of his male and female contemporaries, may no longer be possible given the evolution of Hindi cinema as well as technology?

A: My personal opinion is that time has gone. The fifties and sixties are still considered as the golden era of music. Technological advances have killed the craft of singing. And what can you expect with revenge and fighting as themes of today’s films? Naushad would often tell me that Hindustani music was forever and the golden period would come back later than sooner. I disagreed with him and knew he was speaking out of hopeless optimism.

• Is it possible now to have a voice that pretty much defines the nation?

A: May be, but I don’t think so.

(* Hardcover: 364 pages, Publisher: Niyogi Books (March 8, 2016), Language: English, ISBN-10: 9385285165, ISBN-13: 978-9385285165)

Do you see any dash lines here?

The moon crossing Earth. Photo by a NASA camera aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite on July 5.

The first thing that struck me about the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague over the South China Sea is the mention of the “nine-dash line.” My intuitive response to reading about the nine-dash line was that it must be nine lines drawn on a map in dashes. Well, what do you know? It is. It used to be an eleven-dash line drawn by the Republic of China in 1947 on the map of the South China Sea.

The eleven-dash line demarcated the area within the South China Sea which China make claims over it. After 1949 when the Communist Party of China took control of mainland China the eleven-dash line was reduced to nine-dash line. These lines that nation-states draw on maps are often arbitrary and in keeping with their sense of self. China has historically had a grand sense of self and that partly explains its irate response to the Hague ruling over its claims to the various assets of the South China Sea.

As is to be expected in such matters involving conflicting territorial claims, where parties at dispute draw dash-lines to assert their control on some arbitrary maps, the award of the court is rather complex. Had it not had real world consequences the dispute and the award would be rather ridiculous. The case before the court was between the Philippines and China that began in January, 2013. At the outset China rejected any notions of dispute and even refused to participate in the court proceedings.

While Beijing has maintained “it will neither accept nor participate in the arbitration unilaterally initiated by the Philippines”, the court went ahead adjudicating over it in China’s absence. It cited Annex VII of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, ironically known as UNCLOS, to say that it provides that the “absence of a party or failure of a party to defend its case shall not constitute a bar to the proceedings.” The court also cited Annex VII which also provides that, in the event that a party does not participate in the proceedings, a tribunal “must satisfy itself not only that it has jurisdiction over the dispute but also that the claim is well founded in fact and law.”

Did I tell you that this is going to be so dense and boring? Well, I am telling you now. What the dispute underscores for me at a philosophical level—incidentally that is the only level I operate on—is how the human race goes to absurd lengths to territorialize Nature which functions as a whole and not in parts. I am told ordinary Chinese people are pissed at the court ruling because in their simplistic formulation, fueled by nationalist impulses, they see it as diminishing their country’s civilizational greatness. The nine-dash line claim in the South China Sea is as much about its strategic and maritime importance as about the ocean’s resources.

However, the Hague verdict said this: “The Tribunal found that it has jurisdiction to consider the Parties’ dispute concerning historic rights and the source of maritime entitlements in the South China Sea. On the merits, the Tribunal concluded that the Convention comprehensively allocates rights to maritime areas and that protections for pre-existing rights to resources were considered, but not adopted in the Convention. Accordingly, the Tribunal concluded that, to the extent China had historic rights to resources in the waters of the South China Sea, such rights were extinguished to the extent they were incompatible with the exclusive economic zones provided for in the Convention. The Tribunal also noted that, although Chinese navigators and fishermen, as well as those of other States, had historically made use of the islands in the South China Sea, there was no evidence that China had historically exercised exclusive control over the waters or their resources. The Tribunal concluded that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within the sea areas falling within the ‘nine-dash line’.”

It is the rejection of China’s claim of exclusive control within the nine-dash line that rankles for the country which has claimed historical validity there. So much national pride and sense of self, not to mention cultural vindication, gets tied to geographical territory. This is, of course, not unique to China. All nation-states get anal about it as if that is how Nature originally ordained what must be theirs. It might do well to those small minds trapped in a weird intellectual runtishness across the world to occasionally see an image like the one above released by NASA of the moon crossing Earth. Let me know if you see any dash lines.

The 70s cooked in the low simmer of polyester

From left (In the back row) Mayank, Hitarth, Manoj (In front) Dharmesh, Kinnari, Urvashi, Tushar, Hiren and Ketan (Photo: Trilochan Chhaya)

I have just begun reading the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at the Hague which said China has no legal basis for its claims over the South China Sea. Beijing makes overlapping claims to reefs and islands in the South China Sea along with other states. This is a highly contentious issue with potential for serious tensions in the region. I wanted to write about it this morning but then an overload of cuteness from 1975 in the form of the picture above upended that plan. Hence, the more serious business of territorial claims over something which Nature never makes any claims on has to wait for a day more. In the meantime, enjoy the post I wrote about the picture on March 8, 2013.

This photograph was taken nearly 40 years ago, 38 to be precise. (Now it is 41 years.) What the world now celebrates with forgiving nostalgia as the quirky 70s were in their prime then.

The year was 1975. I was 14. The “Bondtex” collars were high and oversized. The clothes were practically made of plastic, by which I mean polyester. They were a clear fire hazard. Not only did the fabric not breathe but even those inside of it could not. In Ahmedabad’s mean heat its wearers smelled like a steak on a slow simmer. I am surprised there were no cases of spontaneous combustion.

Like all old photographs, this one too has acquired a certain quaint innocence with the passage of time. Except Manoj, the tallest boy with a forehead large enough eclipse the sun who is my real brother, the rest are my cousins. Hitarth to my immediate left is technically my nephew because his mother Aruna is my first cousin on account of my grandfather having married twice. If that did not make sense to you, what do you care?

When my daughter Hayaa saw this picture her reflexive but affectionate comment was “Nerds!” She is right. While the rest of the cousins at least have the mitigating factor of cuteness, look at Manoj, Hitarth and I. We look like the earliest prototypes of “The Big Bang Theory.” In many ways, all three of us have inherited our respective father’s sense of humor and skills as raconteurs.

They did not make spectacles for children in those days. They did not make anything for children in those days. Children were adults, only shorter and smaller. Children were forcibly made to wear adult frames. It was as if the punishment for having a weak eyesight was that you were made to skip childhood altogether. Hitarth’s frame was so big that he could have developed hernia lugging it around. But he wore it with such effusive cheer as evidenced by this picture. The occasion on which this picture was taken was the ‘janoi’ ceremony for Tushar and Hiren.

I vividly remember the color of my shirt and shorts. In today’s definition they would be called short shorts of the kind sexy girls wear. Manoj and I detested those unwieldy, puffed up shorts, which were high on comfort and short on elegance. We were for high style and low comfort. The color of my shirt was between beige and fawn. My shorts were blue and white checks made from knitted and stretchable yarn. The front pockets looked like the back pockets. There were no back pockets. The belt loops were broad as was the belt.

I remember having worn this pair of shorts once to school, mistakenly believing that it was a no-uniform day. My class teacher, Panubhai, promptly sent me home for the day as punishment for the sacrilegious defiance of the uniform code. He told me in a surly, teacherly tone, “Chal, gharey ja. (Go home).” It is amusing how out of all that happened in school, I remember being banished by Panubhai the most. With some literary exaggeration I would even say that he had that expression of smug authority on his face when he said that.

Coming back to the photograph, as can be seen from our rather infectious smiles we were all inordinately happy. From the angle of the sunlight it seems like the time was around 11 a.m. The quality of the light suggests winter time as does the joy on our faces. But then we were all very young. Joy never really left us. When you are young joy is when anything happens to you. When you are older joy is looking at what you think happened to you when you were young.

P.S.: Thank you Dipti for putting up the photo.

My window opens on twilight

Shafaq by MC

शफक पे खुलता है दरीचा मेरा

मुझे लालीमा की लत है पड़ी

(Shafq pe khulta hai daricha mera

Mujhe lalima ki lat hai padi)

My window opens on twilight

For I am addicted to mauve

That’s all for the day.