Mayank Chhaya Daily

A sense of weary absurdity about existence

‘Spooks’ by MC *

Not that one has read a great deal of him but Albert Camus came surging out of my memory bank from some 30 years ago. Somewhat predictably, what came out was his splendid, if characteristically austere, opening line from his 1942 masterpiece ‘L'Etranger’ or ‘The Ousider’ that I read in English.

In that translation by Joseph Laredo the opening line reads, "Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know." I remember not wanting to read beyond that extraordinary line so clinical, detached and so utterly shorn of any overt feeling. I was done with the novel with the very first line.

The original in French goes,"Aujourd'hui, maman est morte. Ou peut-être hier, je ne sais pas."

A new translation of ‘The Outsider’ by Sandra Smith in 2012 subtly but very significantly altered the line saying, "My mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know." The addition of the possessive pronoun “My” does considerably change the emotional quotient of the sentence by making it more personal, intimate. Given my temperament, I prefer the one without the possessive pronoun. I am not qualified to say whether the original French had enough in it to add “My” but I am told not.

The reason why Camus came to mind is because I came across a reconstructed conversation with him on the current issue of Nautilus. The theme of the conversation is “the absurd” which seems rather appropriate given the current climate here in America, there in India and in many countries. Of course, the absurd has always unfolded throughout human history but it appears to be heightened these days because the proliferation of tools—namely social media—to carry it around the globe. I can refer to the tyranny of tweets but that is not my purpose this morning. I am more interested in the idea of the absurd.

The “reconstructed” conversation with Camus by Kevin Burger is of some interest to me. Camus’ “answers” in the “interview” as, Burger points out in Footnotes, “are drawn from his writings.” I have tried this inventive format a couple of times in different contexts before. It is always fun.

As if as an accompaniment to what I was thinking about I was also watching ‘Morning Joe’ on MSNBC where the hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brezinski were responding to a particularly vicious tweettack (My coinage for tweet attack) by President Donald Trump. I would not like to go into details of what they said other than summing up to say that they were deeply worried about the president’s mental state. It was an expansion on what they wrote in The Washington Post this morning .

I look at such developments, as I do the rest of existence, with a sense of detachment. It was perhaps in that context that I thought of Camus’ "Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know." It is while searching for an online version of ‘The Outsider’ that I came across the Nautilus piece. So there. That’s all there is to it.

***

* The painting of mine titled ‘Spooks’ which illustrates the post was done sometime ago. I like many of the faces in it and their bewilderment. I had no particular emotional state of mind in mind when I did it but looking at it this morning all of those faces are an amalgamation of what I feel now—a sense of weary absurdity about existence.

LinkedIn, salt and I

I am sure LinkedIn has its own unique algorithmic logic to alert me to a possible career with a major salt maker. (See the tip above). It is beyond me why it thought that I would consider exploring “relevant opportunities” with Morton Salt. Perhaps it knows that I consider salt to be as important to life as oxygen and water. I really do.

I think it was Cervantes who said, ‘Salt is the sauce of the poor’ or something close to that. While that is true, salt is also essential to the entire humanity irrespective of their wealth. One can safely say with some permissible hyperbole that there is salt in everything. So at a philosophical level one understands why LinkedIn would suggest a career in salt for me.

My affinity to salt could also be explained by the fact that I come from Gujarat, which produces 76 percent India’s salt. Gujarat is salt. Incidentally, in Saurashtra, a region in Gujarat most known for salt and where my family hails from, salt is called “sabras” which means Omnitaste because it is used so widely. Could that be the reason why LinkedIn tipped me off about a career at Morton salt? I do not know.

By the way, after China and the United States India is the third largest producer of salt. By implication, Gujarat would be the single largest producer of salt in the world in terms of its area.

Curious to see what LinkedIn thought Morton Salt offered me as a prospective career I went through the job openings. They were all technical and marketing jobs, none of which would have worked for me. If there was a job to write about salt in a manner that attracts a following for Morton Salt I might have considered it.

On a side note, it was no accident that Mohandas Gandhi launched his historic Salt March in Gujarat as an act of defining defiance against the colonial British rule which had imposed a debilitating tax on salt-making. Gandhi knew Gujarat’s millennial salt connection and what a powerful symbol it was for over 300 million Indians.

Since I am just rambling, I might as well finish with a watercolor-crayon piece titled ‘Dandi’ that I had done to commemorate the Salt March.

Dandi by Mayank Chhaya

Some observations about India-US joint statement

In so much as joint bilateral statements mean anything at all, the one that came at the conclusion of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day visit to Washington is quite sanguine.

It followed President Donald Trump’s description of India as a “very, very incredible nation.” I don’t quite know what that means. Incredible has many meanings and in and of itself is a strong enough superlative. Why add very—and that too two of it—before it as if he is really trying to sell it to that very, very country’s leader who lives in that “very, very incredible nation”? I wanted to get that out of my system very, very urgently.

What jumped out at me—I mentioned that in my Facebook update yesterday—was the use of the term “Indo-Pacific Region” and describing America and India as “democratic stalwarts” in a less than subtle reminder to China. Indo-Pacific has a ring to it that is bound to deeply please India.

The statement says:

As responsible stewards in the Indo-Pacific region, President Trump and Prime Minister Modi agreed that a close partnership between the United States and India is central to peace and stability in the region.  Recognizing the significant progress achieved in these endeavors, the leaders agreed to take further measures to strengthen their partnership.  In accordance with the tenets outlined in the U.N. Charter, they committed to a set of common principles for the region, according to which sovereignty and international law are respected and every country can prosper.  To this end, the leaders: 

• reiterate the importance of respecting freedom of navigation, overflight, and commerce throughout the region;
• call upon all nations to resolve territorial and maritime disputes peacefully and in accordance with international law;
• support bolstering regional economic connectivity through the transparent development of infrastructure and the use of responsible debt financing practices, while ensuring respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, the rule of law, and the environment; and
• call on other nations in the region to adhere to these principles.  

The term Indo-Pacific has been used thrice and, significantly, in the context of “promoting stability” across it. Although during his April visit, President Xi Jinping of China was described by President Trump in comparably enthusiastic tones, New Delhi can be forgiven for thinking that the joint statement is remarkably pro-India.

The use of Indo-Pacific lends India at least an identifiable sense of consequential role beyond just South Asia. Of course, it might seem largely notional but like said it has a nice ring to it. Beijing would have noticed that. Within South Asia the statement makes two specific references of some considerable interest—about Pakistan and Afghanistan.

On the heels of Washington designating Syed Salahuddin, the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen leader as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, much to India’s approval, the statement says:

They committed to strengthen cooperation against terrorist threats from groups including Al-Qa’ida, ISIS, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, D-Company, and their affiliates.  India appreciated the United States designation of the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen leader as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist as evidence of the commitment of the United States to end terror in all its forms.  In this spirit, the leaders welcomed a new consultation mechanism on domestic and international terrorist designations listing proposals.

The leaders called on Pakistan to ensure that its territory is not used to launch terrorist attacks on other countries.  They further called on Pakistan to expeditiously bring to justice the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai, Pathankot, and other cross-border terrorist attacks perpetrated by Pakistan-based groups.

To make it even sharper for Islamabad, the statement mentions India’s role in Afghanistan thus:

“President Trump welcomed further Indian contributions to promote Afghanistan’s democracy, stability, prosperity, and security.  Recognizing the importance of their respective strategic partnerships with Afghanistan, the leaders committed to continue close consultations and cooperation in support of Afghanistan’s future.”

There were several other favorable references and expressions of support for India in the statement but the two which have some popular resonance among India’s political constituency relate to its membership of the United Nations security Council and the Nuclear Suppliers Group. The statement endorses both saying, “As global nonproliferation partners, the United States expressed strong support for India’s early membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Wassenaar Arrangement, and the Australia Group.  President Trump reaffirmed the support of the United States for India’s permanent membership on a reformed U.N. Security Council.”

Beyond the diplomatic effusion, one has to be conscious that similar statements have been issued in the recent past about India-US relations. They feel great in the moment before the hard realities take over. However, at the very least they do underscore the intent and to that extent they are to be welcomed.

A brilliant analysis of hugs and handshakes

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi (left) and U.S. President Donald Trump in the Rose Garden at the White House on June 26. (Photo: Jay Mandal/On Assignment)

I have always enjoyed analyzing major diplomatic visits from peripheral, even ridiculous standpoints. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s first visit to Washington under the Trump administration during the last two days offered me that opportunity.

Right off the bat, I was looking for two body language markers in the visit—the handshake and the hug, something the Indian prime minister has become known for globally often to the chagrin of his detractors. I bring no emotion to the subject other than gentle mocking. Modi’s handshakes and hugs are a thing in global diplomacy because he does both with some gusto, the former sometimes to the pain of his interlocutors and the latter to their visible awkwardness. But the prime minister presses on.

I was curious to see that if Modi would introduce President Donald Trump to his famous hugs. There was some speculation in the grapevine that he might drop it because Trump is not said to be much of a hugger when it comes to other men. That speculation was unfounded as Modi showed twice in a span of 20 minutes during their public interaction in the Rose Garden.

The first hug occurred after Trump finished his statement and when Modi walked up to him. It was decidedly awkward and almost unreciprocated by Trump. The second occurred after Modi had finished his statement. That hug was equally fulsome from Modi’s side but painfully hesitant from Trump’s. “Oh, a hug again!? Alright, why not?” seemed to be what was on Trump’s mind. (See the picture above.) It was more in the realm of Seinfeldian hug with Trump being Seinfeld and Modi perhaps Kramer.

Of course, it is unfair to comment on a brief moment of awkwardness but I am going to do it anyway. I have studied the photo taken by my dear friend, the omnipresent photo journalist Jay Mandal, rather closely. Modi’s arms are fully wrapped around Trump’s considerable girth, almost like an accomplished tailor taking a measurement. There is no hesitation on his part because that’s what he does routinely. Trump on the other hand appears to be a reluctant hugger. “Alright, that’s enough. Let it go now,” could have been what he might have been saying were it not considered impolitic.

There was at least one more willing hug between the two men before the day ended.

Now to the handshake. I have closely studied the grip, pressure, angle, position of the thumb and index finger as well as creases in the skin to conclude that the handshakes were even between the two. There was some expectation that between the cruncher (Modi) and the puller (Trump) the former might win but going by the photograph below it seems to be even even though Trump had a slight edge.

For a final call I must see the back of Trump's hand and count the number of creases in his skin. Modi has four full creases, suggesting that Trump really went for it before Modi did.I think in Trump, Modi has met his hand-crushing match.

My instant bogus analysis is that Trump established the grip before Modi could, putting the latter at a disadvantage. Both their index fingers touch each other's early wrists clearly showing an equality of purpose and self-assurance, not to mention the will to dominate.

I have also compared the thumbs of the two men and whether and how they curve outward. Look at Trump’s thumb and how it curves up, outward (see the picture below). That suggests an extremely outgoing person given to glad-handing.

Now compared that Modi’s thumb below. It is relatively straight indicating a person who is not by natural inclination friendly.

With that bogus analysis complete, I will give you a more substantive piece tomorrow. I think I give you readers enough without charging anything.

17 Sharda Kunj

17, Sharda Kunj, Ahmedabad, The house where I spent my formative years in the 1970s. (Photo: Paresh Pandya)

Nostalgia needs a physical context even if it is as rundown as the house above where I grew up in the 1970s. Although over the decades I have lived in close to two dozen houses, it is only when I see this particular one that I feel I am looking at home. That is despite the fact that we did not own it but rented the front two rooms and a kitchen . There is another portion behind it which was rented by my dear childhood friend Jayendra Thakkar and his family.

To the picture’s right, unseen in this frame, is another house owned by another dear childhood friend Paresh Pandya. He is the one who took this picture and uploaded it on Facebook this morning. While this place is full of mostly happy memories, the very first two things that came to my mind when I saw the picture was me skating on the terrazzo-tiled front porch inside the cage-like structure as well as my grandmother Shobhaben sitting on a traditional “Hinchka” or swing and fanning herself with a handcrafted bamboo fan.

The skates were brought by my eldest brother Trilochan when he returned from America in 1972 after finishing his Master’s in Architecture from Harvard as a Fulbright scholar. We were the only people in the neighborhood to have skates as far as I can remember and I was the only one who skated regularly in that small place with considerable facility.  

 

The cage-like structure that became a source of amusement and consternation in the neighborhood for sometime was designed by Trilochan as a way to extend the living space for a family of six in that single bedroom place. We do not see it now but originally the edge of the extension was filled with soil and it had a lovely garden. There were also some climbing vines which had begun to wrap around the cage.

During Ahmedabad’s obscenely hot summers we used to hang thick curtains called “khas ni tatti” made of fragrant dry grass soaked in water. Khas ni tatti would cool the temperature down by several degrees because of the simple principle of water evaporation. One had to keep sprinkling water on the curtains. For someone with a strong olfactory I would consider the fragrance from khas ni tatti among the finest natural smells. I can smell it now.

There is a lot that happened here in this home during the nearly ten years that we lived here. The most enduring for me apart from lifelong friendships were my poetry and passion for physics, both of which struck roots here.

Another somewhat gross memory is my having suffered a terrible attack of chickenpox that covered my entire body, including the tongue, for several days. There are a couple of chickenpox marks on my face, including one in the middle of my forehead. Come to think of it, the attack of chickenpox would be my third instant recall about this house apart from the skates and my grandmother. Of course, those are followed by a whole flood of memories, including the 1971 India-Pakistan war during which we covered the glass panels at the top of the wooden windows with newspapers to block the light at night in the event that Pakistani fighter jets chose to bomb Ahmedabad.

Finally to wrap up, another memory that is vivid today is my no longer existent problem of waking up in the middle of the night utterly terrified several times a week. We used to sleep on the terrace during the summer and the nocturnal fright attacks happened rather frequently. In that weird state I used to see real family members, woken up by my fright, without their heads. That only added to my scare.

If I ever become famous—prospects for which are negligent now—remember to including this home as a place I was significantly formed and deformed, both.

Some reminiscence about Emergency

Thick in the midst of it, as a 14-year-old I did not immediately sense the political and cultural disaster that was the declaration of a National Emergency by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on this day 42 years ago.

The most it meant for us in that ballpark age group was that buses and trains ran on time which by itself had no personal impact either because when you are in your teens what did matter whether anything was on time?

The most enduring, almost Orwellian slogan that I remember even today from the time was the Gujarati version of the possibly original in Hindi that said, “Athaag parishram no koi vikalp nathi.” (There is no alternative to hard (relentless) work.) It was somewhat reminiscent of Jawaharlal Nehru’s user-friendly “Aram haram hai” (Leisure is abhorrent). Of course, Nehru’s exhortation had a noble context considering that it was his way to inspire a recently freedom country.

The emergency as a political menace, intimidation and imprisonment was not something that reached the teenage shores. One vaguely remembers adults discussing in its implications in dark tones but, like I said, it had no personal consequence for me and others of my age.

It was only a little later that one began to get a measure of what a terrible development it was in India’s early history that a leader drunk on power and paranoia had chosen to suspend basic civil liberties and jail opponents. If the declaration of a national emergency was one bookend, for me the second bookend came five years almost to the day later when on June 23, 1980 Sanjay Gandhi, the embodiment of all that was terrible in the emergency, died in a plane crash after an aerobatic maneuver. I distinctly remember I was in a shop in Ahmedabad with my uncle Bhaskerray and brother Manoj when a radio announcement came. Bhaskerray was asking the shop-owner whether the “sopari’ (betel nut) he was offering was “genuine Sevardhani”, which was apparently the best variety. Before the shop-owner could answer the broadcast interrupted the flow of that rather banal conversation.

It strikes me how extreme political actions such as an Emergency can be age and demographic-specific in terms of their importance and impact. The adults then were deeply worried about its implications while teenagers like me were only marginally affected, if at all. Snatches of conversations about how bank clerks scrambled to show up at sharp 9 a.m. were a source of much amusement for us even though one never went to a bank. It was only in retrospect that one paid attention to what a sinister turn it represented in India’s modern history. Buses and trains running on time and bank clerks showing up sharp at 9 a.m. and behaving with unprecedented politeness were just misleading manifestations of the broader and deeper motive of the leadership.

Even as I was concluding this little post, I remembered having written one two years ago to mark the 40th anniversary of Emergency. I might as well republish it even though it contains much of the same thing as today.

The Emergency in India happened so long ago that some people now remember it with fond nostalgia. It was yesterday, 40 years ago (June 25, 1975) that then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, feeling besieged by perceived and real threats to her power, imposed it.

I was 14 then and remember it vividly albeit mostly as billboards full of lofty big brotherly exhortations. One of them, which I remember even now, was in the Gujarati language and went “Athaag parishram no koi vikalp nathi. (There is no alternative to hard (relentless) work.”

The effects of Gandhi’s brazen political excess on the ground were rather useful. Although I had no bank account then because I had no money (I have a bank account now but still no money), I remember that the otherwise lazy bank employees came to work at sharp 9 a.m. and actually worked. I also remember the local post office and its staff in Sharda Nagar, Ahmedabad, becoming courteous to the point of being obsequious. Buses and trains were cleaner and ran on time and bus conductors returned precise change while train ticket black marketers disappeared.

If one uses only these trivial and unintended consequences, then the Emergency was a good thing and deserves to cherished with fondness. The problem is it was not and it never is. It was the response of a deeply paranoid leader who thought the rest of the country was ganging up against her. Political opponents were jailed, dissent ruthlessly stifled, newspapers shockingly censored and political power grabbed and concentrated in a handful of, well, hands of those close to Prime Minister Gandhi, predominantly her out-of-control son, Sanjay. Sanjay Gandhi became a notorious symbol of a mass and forced sterilization campaign. “Nasbandhi”  (Vasectomy) became the most widely understood and dreaded word of the era across India. Coercive vasectomies became the order of the day. The imposition the Emergency seemed to resoundingly prove Western doomsayers that India was incapable of and undeserving of democracy.

Tragically and as it inevitably happens during such times, large sections of the Indian middle class seemed to have taken to the Emergency rather well because in their limited world things appeared to have improved dramatically. So what if a few politicians were picked up during midnight raids and dumped in prison and newspapers were censored as long buses and train ran on time and police constables stopped asking for bribes? I am speculating here but I think Indira Gandhi sensed that the Emergency would work well, even if it for a limited period, within the middle class.

For Indians of my age then, the Emergency meant something distant and of next to no consequence. I sensed things were wrong but couldn’t quite put my finger on it. The billboards, or hoardings are they are called, in Ahmedabad that carried portraits of Sanjay Gandhi and Indira Gandhi did not seem particularly ominous. I vaguely recall some neighbor using the declaration of the Emergency as an effective child-disciplining tactic. It was a version of “Tofan karish to Sanjay Gandhi pakdi jashe (If you misbehave, Sanjay Gandhi will arrest you).” The Emergency came handy for the middle class parents and as if getting arrested by Sanjay Gandhi’s goons was a picnic.

To mark the anniversary there has been a debate in India whether an emergency can be declared again. Lal Krishna Advani, the deeply slighted grandee of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), who was a prominent opponent of the Emergency and was in fact jailed, thinks so. Of course, it is always possible that a power-drunk paranoid leader might do so but I think it would be infinitely more difficult to make it effective even if someone was a dick enough to impose it.

For the record there is nothing even remotely redeeming about such an imposition even if it means buses and trains run on time because all it means that you are reaching on time a place where there is no freedom and civil liberties are severely curtailed. So stop looking for ways to mitigate it. There are none.

Failure leaves no doubt while success has room for skepticism

‘MC in Pain’ by MC

There is an embarrassment of pain choice this morning--stomachache, headache and knee ache. These are warning signals of an impending doom. Perhaps.

So what better time to republish a short rumination about failure than now? I first wrote the following on October 27, 2012.

I am an advocate of broken relationships that mend occasionally rather than good relationships that go sour frequently.

Broken relationships are unambiguous and easy to grasp. They are in high definition (HD). In contrast, good relationships have unexpected layers of ambiguities and one can never tell when they might come apart. They are in standard definition (SD). I suspect broken relationships have a much higher pixel density than good relationships.

Since I conceive life, including relationships, visually it makes sense that I naturally prefer the visual clarity of relationships broken in HD to relationships intact in SD.

These may sound like ridiculous ruminations of an idle mind on a Sunday (It was Sunday then) morning but they do genuinely sum up how I approach life. Let me conflate and extrapolate to even claim that failure has much greater clarity than success. Failure leaves no doubt while success has room for skepticism.

Failure is liberating while success is shackling. Success raises benchmarks for future performances and heightens expectations. Failure, on the other hand, erases benchmarks and removes expectations. Failure has the potential to pleasantly surprise you. Success carries the risk of disappointment.

I can assure you I have neither drunk nor inhaled anything mood altering in the last 24 hours or anytime ever before that. This post has practically written itself. I can feel that after reaching this point it has begun to groan, the surest sign that it has run its course. So, so like that.

Beyond bone crunching and muscle pulling handshakes

As India’s prime minister prepares for his first meeting with America’s president, this much is clear. Narendra Modi will not address him as Donald and Donald Trump will not address him as Narendra. In a somewhat dubious claim Prime Minister Modi had said he was on first name basis with former President Barack Obama and did in fact use his first name in the former’s presence rather unconvincingly. I do not recall Obama having reciprocated. But why quibble over such detail in the so-called post-truth era?

On balance though, there is a greater prospect of Trump eventually calling Modi by his first name. “Narrendraa, right, great name, right?” he might say. Levity aside, I am curious to know about the focus of the maiden meeting between the two. There are obvious issues, the least of which is how they address each other. Before I write about some of them, I am equally curious to see their handshake. Both are known for their peculiar handshakes, Modi for his bone-crunching one and Trump for his muscle-pulling one. Whether Modi crunches first or Trump pulls first will decide who might win. Enough levity for now.

There was considerable effusiveness among the lunatic cultural-political fringe of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party when President Trump won and assumed office. Their main source of exultation was his anti-Muslim tirade that these groups also thrive on. The profoundly embarrassing photos of some ridiculous men feeding a Trump poster a piece of cake in Delhi were widely published in newspapers. That excitement appears to have died down as realpolitik has taken over with Trump being critical of New Delhi’s approach toward the Paris Agreement over global climate. He explicitly suggested that India made its participation contingent on extracting billions of dollars in reward, an assertion New Delhi was rather upset about.

There was general expectation that given his somewhat unhinged rhetoric against China during his presidential campaign, his presidency might pivot around India in Asia and beyond. That does not seem to have happened at all. In fact, he has repeatedly expressed rather sanguine view of China and its President Xi Jinping, with whom he has spoken of having “great chemistry” and “great relationship.” The two men met in April, early in the Trump presidency and notwithstanding the Trumpian hype about such things they appeared to have got along reasonably well. That relationship is considerably defined by the wayward North Korea and its leader Kim Jong-Un.

It is not a zero sum game when it comes to Washington’s relationship with Beijing and New Delhi but the Modi government ought to have taken note of the confected bonhomie between Trump and Xi, perhaps more in the former’s mind than the latter’s. It is possible that the Indian prime minister would try to position India in the larger Asian context even while reminding the president of the strategic partnership between the two countries. Given Trump’s temperament defense-related cooperation might find some primacy in their talks.

Friend and fellow journalist Lalit K Jha of the Press Trust of India (PTI), who is a credentialed White House correspondent, reports that “the US State Department has approved the sale of 22 predator Guardian drones to India.” “The deal, which is estimated to be worth around $3 bn is being termed as a “game changer” by governmental sources,” Lalit reported today. That decision is in keeping with the defense focus of the Trump administration.

Pakistan and Afghanistan too are expected to figure, the former more so than the latter, although so much of the oxygen in Washington has been consumed by the Trump-Russia debate. Washington’s approach to Pakistan is still a matter of conjecture.

Of course, there is the relatively minor issue of Trump’s severe criticism of the H1B professional visas on which Indian technology professionals depend in an inordinately large manner. These visas attract more than fair share of attraction because they concern a traditional darling of the media—the information technology industry. I am certain it will find a mention during their talks but I will be surprised if will rise to a very high level.

There could have been some reference to cooperation in clean energy but it is not a subject a coal-obsessed Trump appears to relish much.

By and large, the meeting is expected to be exploratory because the two have not met before in their official capacity. I am not sure if they have ever met at all. Their meeting on June 26 is expected to establish a personal connection.

Fencing

Let’s do with this quick work titled ‘Fencing’ for today. It is somewhat illustrative of what I have to do with myself metaphorically to get by. In this case both the fencers are me. So far both are losing.

On summer solstice, yoga and I

Solstice Yoga by MC

These days my days are too long even without there being the summer solstice when the day is at its longest. That is today.

Although I am a lifelong morning and day person by temperament, these days the dawn of a new day mostly means the onset of mundane annoyances. Days also mean constant reminders that survival costs money with which one has had an adversarial relationship.

June 21 happens to be the International Yoga Day as declared by the United Nations under promptings from India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 27, 2014. I was in the United Nations General Assembly that day when the prime minister suggested it during his maiden speech. Just as Modi said it, I wrote on a scrap of paper “This will go through”.

In less than three months after that the United Nations did indeed declare June 21 to be the International Day of Yoga on a resolution moved by the Indian delegation. It was remarkable that 175 countries supported the Resolution A/69/L.17  that was moved by India’s Permanent Representative Asoke Kumar Mukerji. The resolution was adopted on December 11 which by the standards of the UN time was lightening fast.

It bears repeating what I had reported then.

In moving the resolution Mukerji said, “It is a matter of great satisfaction to all of us in this Assembly that today, less than 90 days after the proposal for an International Yoga Day was made, we have the honor to introduce before you a very forward looking, simple, yet substantive, draft Resolution calling for establishing the International Day of Yoga.”

The resolution was finalized after just two rounds of informal consultations with all member states. “The Resolution fully addresses the concern of some of our colleagues, notably from the European Union, that this proposal does not entail any additional budgetary implications for the UN system. All activities held in connection with this Day would be resourced solely through voluntary contributions,” Mukerji said.

Sam K. Kutesa, president of the 69th session of the UNGA said, “Today’s adoption of a resolution on the International Day of Yoga with overwhelming support, as shown by the more than 170 member States that have co-sponsored it, demonstrates how both the tangible and the unseen benefits of yoga appeal to people around the world.

For centuries, people from all walks of life have practiced yoga, recognizing its unique embodiment of unity between mind and body. Yoga brings thought and action together in harmony, while demonstrating a holistic approach to health and well-being.”

I was going through the list of 175 countries that co-sponsored the resolution and found that Saudi Arabia was missing from it, which was no surprise. However, what was more heartening was that major Islamic countries such as Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates were among the co-sponsors. Evidently, they could make a distinction between Yoga and Hinduism.

Since its declaration and its conscious coincidence with the summer solstice, I am yet to start doing yoga. The idea of doing yoga seems far more fascinating than actually doing it. I did try once to learn it at a local yoga class in a Hindu temple nearby. It was not a joyous experience for me because I kept stepping out of my body and visualizing how awkward I looked. It is me and not yoga that is the problem. Some day soon I may overcome that and actually begin doing it. Until then it is easier to write about it than to actually do it.

As for the summer solstice, it is all about the sun, a subject I have written about frequently. I have also painted the sun frequently. One is constantly aware that we are what we are because we have the sun. There is a reason why all physical yoga begins with Surya Namaskar or Sun Salutation. The summer solstice offers one the longest window to salute it.

My sun salutation is almost daily but it is not yogic. I step out soon after waking between 4.30 and 5 a.m. look eastward at breaking dawn and nod as if I am greeting a friend. Yoga thus done, I start my day which I no longer look forward to these days. It brings mundane annoyances.