Mayank Chhaya Daily

To pee or not to pee

Morarji Desai--MC

Not being a leap year, February has only 28 days this year and hence today is considered the 122nd birth anniversary of India’s former Prime Minister Morarji Desai, who was born on February 29, 1896. 2012 was a leap year and February had 29 days which prompted me to reminisce about him. I republish that piece.

Incidentally, the next leap year will be 2020.

February 29, 2012

A leap year always brings back the memories of the late Indian Prime Minister Morarji Desai. He was born on February 29, 1896 and died ten months short of 100 on April 10, 1995.

By the time I came to know him he was already 88 years old. That was in 1984 when I was 23. It was not a friendship by any measure but merely a passing acquaintance. For some reason he was rather indulgent towards me which was rare because Morarjibhai was anything but indulgent. He had the reputation of being crusty,brusque and dismissive. I think it was my age that seemed to soften him.

All my meetings with Morarjibhai took place in the aftermath of the explosive assertions by the American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who in his 1983 book ‘The Price of Power’ had claimed that the former Indian prime minister was an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the run-up to the 1971 war with Pakistan. Hersh said Desai was paid $20,000 a year by the CIA which regarded him as one of its most important assets. Desai was furious and eventually filed a $50 million libel suit against Hersh. The case came to trial at a time when Morajibhai was 93 and could not attend.

When I first met him at his Marine Drive residence in Bombay, he was dressed in blindingly white khadi kurta and dhoti and wore a boat cap. He was leaning against a large white bolster, also upholstered in khadi. He was reading The Times of India and chewing almonds, one of his favorite snacks kept in a plate next to him. No, he did not offer me any. He later told me that he consumed a specific number everyday and could not have shared.

He turned to me only after he finished reading the editorial and flashed a very slight smile. I am not even sure if it was a smile but let’s not quibble. I knew he did not particularly relish small talk or empty pleasantries. So I got on with my interview straight away. During the course of that conversation it inevitably came to his age, great health and some, shall we say, rather peculiar habits. As he warmed up at the prospect of discussing something he liked, he suddenly joked, “You know Mr. Chhaya, I am only 22 years old, a year younger than you. You see I was born during a leap year. My birthday comes every four years.” I could see that he had told that joke many times before because his smile at the end was rather well rehearsed.

I did ask him about Hersh’s allegations. I recall him inscrutably looking me and then saying in Gujarati, “Murkhao bolya kare. (The fools keep blabbering).”

After that meeting I met Morarjibhai a few more times, but one particular encounter remains etched in my mind after a quarter century. By 1985, I had joined the Associated press (AP) as its Bombay bureau chief. The AP, Delhi, sent me a request that I should interview Desai about his “self-urine therapy.” Morarjibhai was the most high profile champion of this practice. The AP also wanted a picture of him actually drinking his urine. I could predict Morarjibhai’s reaction about the photo request and told AP, Delhi as much. For want of a better word, I said he would be pissed. But I went ahead any way.

He was quite enthusiastic talking about the benefits of consuming one’s own urine and attributed his own great health to the practice as well as almonds. (I am battling my flippant impulses very hard here). After I finished my conversation I gently broke it to him that we needed a picture to go with the story. At first, it did not even register on Morarjibhai what I was saying. So I made it clearer. Here is how I remember the rest of the conversation proceeded:

“You want a photograph of me drinking urine,” Desai said trying to process the absurd request.

“If that is possible,” said I.

“Mr. Chhaya, I drink my urine at 4 in the morning in my bathroom without my clothes,” he said both amused and outraged. “Do you expect me to be photographed in that state?”

I said no, but suggested it might help if he posed with a glass in his hand. The reason why I felt he was indulgent towards me became obvious at that point. A former prime minister of the world’s largest democracy might have legitimately taken umbrage at the request. To his credit he did not and said, “I am not an actor who poses. For that, go to Dilip Kumar (widely regarded as one of India’s greatest actors).”

We both laughed. That day for some reason he had a couple of extra almonds in his plate. He promptly offered me precisely one. That’s where it ended.

The rise and rise of Xi Jinping

In terms of his total control over the destinies of 1.3 billion people at home and, by implication, his enormous political and economic consequence globally China’s President Xi Jinping is now the single most powerful man in the world. For all practical purposes he replaces the “leader of the free world”, namely the president of the United States, as the “leader of the conditionally free world.”  (Literary exaggeration.)

Xi’s “power grab” by ensuring that the clause in the Chinese constitution restricting the presidential term—his term, effectively—to two terms is removed in addition to controlling all major levers of power has reverberated around the world. If the incumbent in the White House has noticed it, it is not that obvious since he is more focused on how he would rush “unarmed” into a school in a shootout situation.

“Unless he’s deposed, we’ve got this guy for the rest of our functional lives,” Orville Schell, one of the most respected China scholars, has been quoted as saying by The Guardian’s Beijing correspondent Tom Phillips. I have had the pleasure of extensively engaging Dr. Schell for my biography of the Dalai Lama (Plugged it!) which will soon be reissued with some new material.

With President Donald Trump in retreat mode from the world stage, President Xi could enjoy global ascendancy, given that domestically he has secured his position. Read my post yesterday. Whether Xi wants to fill that vacuum is a separate question. I personally doubt whether he would step in on the world stage with the kind of Jeffersonian gusto displayed by America for decades. Of course, Xi’s idea of democracy is very different; let’s say it is the opposite of Jeffersonian democracy.

As Phillips reports today, there are those looking for some redeeming aspects for the world of a strongman becoming even stronger in the world’s most populous country, which is the second most powerful economy to boot after America. The fact that Xi is aggressively pursuing an eco-friendly path is considered encouraging for many.

As Dr. Schell points out, “If you postulate that the world needs leadership, that America is in disarray and that Europe is a dish of loose sand, then maybe Chinese leadership has some virtues, particularly in areas like nuclear proliferation, climate change [and] pandemics. Whatever you may think of his authoritarian kind of leadership, at least he can lead.”

“At least he can lead” is a pretty low bar coming from a distinguished citizen of the great Jeffersonian democracy. Not many are saying that about Trump here in America. “At least he can tweet” is more like it.

I am presuming that there is someone in the Trump administration who is seriously tracking the goings-on in Beijing because it has a direct consequence for America. Trump himself might approve of Xi’s move because by natural inclination is an authoritarian himself.

As for Chinese president, as Phillips points out, the move to consolidate power in his person so fully is equally about self-preservation. He writes, “But Xi’s resolve to remain may also be about self-preservation. He has purged, humiliated and jailed so many powerful foes that China’s best-known political prison is reportedly packed to the rafters. He may see everlasting power as the only way to prevent vengeful rivals one day condemning him to a similar fate.”

The onset of 21st century was supposed to be some fabled dawn where the world would be better than ever before, Instead, we see democracy coming under assault from authoritarian impulses in varying degrees around the world. That brings me back to my favorite explanation—our universe is a video game of a much more advanced civilization played by their versions of teenagers. When they are bored, they change the storyline. There is no other explanation.

Some thoughts about proposed removal of presidential term limit in China

The proposed removal of the two-term restriction for president from China’s constitution has ignited a fierce debate over whether Xi Jinping apprehends growing instability in the country.

The official Chinese news agency Xinhua on Sunday quoted an official announcement that said, “The Communist Party of China Central Committee (CC) proposed to remove the expression that the President and Vice-President of the People’s Republic of China “shall serve no more than two consecutive terms” from the country’s Constitution.”

The implication that the removal from the constitution of the clause imposing a two-term limit could mean that President Xi might never have to retire, at least in theory if not necessarily in practice, has many worried.

Reuters quoted one Weibo (a Chinese version of Twitter) user as saying, “Argh, we’re going to become North Korea.” “We’re following the example of our neighbor,” wrote another. Both the comments were later removed but not before exposing fears among many that Xi may be preparing to rule beyond 2023 when his second term ends. The idea that he could be president for life is an unsettling one and will obviously not sit well with many.

The proposed removal of the term-limit ought to be seen in the context of the outcome of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party in October last year when Xi was exalted to the level of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping to be in the communist pantheon of figures whose “thoughts” have been enshrined in the party’s constitution.

The proposed removal is expected to be passed by the party delegates during the annual session of parliament next month. It is a rubber stamp body not known to stand in the way of Xi’s leadership.

When you consider that Xi is the general secretary of the Communist Party, president of China and the chairman of the Central Military Commission you begin to understand how complete his control is over the state of affairs.

During the 19th National Congress, Xi had said this, “We should never entertain the idea of taking a breather or halting our steps. Instead, we must continue to rid ourselves of any virus that erodes the party’s fabric, make great efforts to foster a healthy political environment of integrity and generate waves of positive energy throughout our party which can build into a mighty nationwide force driving China’s development and progress.”

Some read in it apprehensions of political/cultural instability even though Xi remains very popular. The proposed removal of the term-limit is seen as one more step towards preempting any instability coming to pass with Xi as the main man empowered by the party take it.

In a country where symbolism matters a great deal, it is also to be noted that during Xi’s second term the Communist Party will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its founding in 2021. These are all great optics that feed into the mystique of strong, unassailed leadership.

All said and done, this is a matter for the people of China to decide. Outsiders like us have zero role or relevance.

Sridevi, 1963-2018

Sridevi--MC

It makes perfect sense that Sridevi, an otherwise achingly shy person, switched on her magic as soon as the camera was turned on. The camera was her constant companion for 50 out of her 54 years, having begun her spectacularly rich career at age 4 with the Tamil film Thanaivan.

The remarkable artist, who died in Dubai of heart complications, was unlike any female star in Indian cinema. In many ways, she was without an equal for the past three decades because of her hugely successful multilingual career in Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Hindi films.

She was barely 19 when she captured the popular imagination in the Tamil movie Moondram Pirai (1982), in which she played a girl who having suffered a head injury develops a second childhood. The hit was remade in Hindi as Sadma next year, bringing her natural gifts in front of the camera to a wider nationwide audience.

I watched Sadma as a “film critic”* and remember as having been enraptured by the consummate ease of Sridevi in front of the camera. It was evident to me instantly that I was watching someone who had a rare relationship with the camera. She was perhaps the only artist of her generation whose skills as an actor were ignited the instant the whirring of the camera began.

In the early 1980s I interviewed many Hindi movie stars to keep feeding a syndication service that I was a part of. For some inexplicable reason, I never sought an interview with Sridevi which was just as well because she was notoriously reticent with the media. She was often monosyllabic giving hardly any copy to the interviewer. She had reserved all her energies for her craft as an actor.

It is widely held by her admirers that one of the most compelling examples of the Sridevi-camera love affair was the song ‘Kate nahi kat te’ from her 1987 hit Mr. India, directed by Shekhar Kapur. In that song, Sridevi cavorted on hay stacks in a teal georgette or silk sari and blouse with breeze flowing through her hair and became a national obsession. That is how she came alive in front of the camera.

The actor had just begun a major revival of her career and seemed set to add to an already rich body of work with 300 films to her name. Her passing ends an artist-camera relationship perhaps unique in world cinema.

As soon as I learned of the news I felt prompted to do a quick painting which attempts to capture a scene from the 1989 movie Chandni directed by Yash Chopra.

* I used quotes around film critic because that was never my calling being a hard news journalist but strayed into it because of the demands of the day.

A smile in India is a complex medley of emotions

Let me enlighten Donald Trump Jr. why even the poor in India smile. A smile is not always a smile that necessarily denotes happiness in India. It is a complex medley of emotions such as resignation, incomprehension, defeat and happiness. It can be almost like a reflex rather than a consciously chosen response. At the risk of reaching a bit, I would say a smile in India frequently means acceptance of terrible injustices of life as they are handed to people. The point I am making is that a smile can mean any number of things, including joy.

During his visit to India this week Trump Jr. said this during a television interview and ignited considerable derision:

"I think there is something about the spirit of the Indian people that is unique here to other parts of the emerging world. You go through a town ... and, I don't want to be glib but you can see the poorest of the poor and there is still a smile on a face. ... I know some of the most successful people in the world and some of them are the most miserable people in the world."

He is certainly not the first foreigner to read great Indian spirit in the smiles on the street. Many before have done that in their own way.

If you were not told who made this observation, you might not react with the kind of rancid contempt that many have reacted with. There is certainly the factor of who said it that is behind the widespread derision.

His well-known douchebaggery (Not a word but coined here) and the name that he lumps all over him play a significant part in him being lashed for saying something that may at worst would have sounded disconnected from reality. There is nothing particularly exceptionable about his observation that Indians on the street smile easily, a feature not necessarily true as you go higher up on the economic ladder. I would grant you that there is a measure of well-meaning (in his mind) but unintended condescension here.

It is understandable that someone like Trump Jr. whose feet barely ever touch the grime on the ground, breezing past the Indian multitude toiling on the street may misinterpret their smiles as conveying a certain joyous spirit in the face of terrible odds. Like I said there is also some joy in some of those smiles but by and large they tend to be a rather complicated mixture of human emotions.

Trump Jr.’s problem is that his wealth is not just wealth but it comes across wealth deep fried in douchebaggery. What is ironic is that the people whose smiles evidently inspired him have no clue that they are being discussed in the media. They have even less clue about his existence. In reality, this is an absurd debate because the two parties are not connected even notionally and are never likely to connect in any meaningful way.

And yet I write a post about it.

Remembering Sanskar Kendra of Ahmedabad

Sanskar Kendra, Ahmedabad

For me, perhaps the only edification of going to the Diwan Ballubhai Madhyamik Shala (Diwan Ballubhai Middle School) in Ahmedabad was its location. It was right across Sanskar Kendra, a city museum designed by the great Le Corbusier.

It is a tribute to Corbusier that I looked forward much more to what I saw outside my classroom window—Sanskar Kendra—than what I heard inside—often drivel from insipid teachers.

Yesterday, in a remarkable surge fond memories of Sanskar Kendra came bursting out from the early 1970s when I went to this school for a few years. Naturally, I had to paint the building. I could have kept a photograph as a reference but instead decided to paint blind because that is how I remembered it and thought it would make an interesting impressionistic piece.

As a schoolboy I visited the the building quite often since it was just a hop across the road. The most enduring memory was the play of light in the building. Ahmedabad’s light can be pretty blinding during summers. It bleaches everything out. However, inside Sanskar Kendra, especially on the ground floor, the way Corbusier designed it, the light became so inviting. The use of the unfinished reinforced concrete to get around the scarcity of wood in the area works wonderfully well.

Since the building in the early 1970s—the days of my schooling—was still relatively new (It was commissioned in 1951 and partly completed in 1954), the reinforced concrete was still free from wear and tear. Its roof gardens were an extraordinary visual in the city then. It was only later that I discovered that Corbusier had used his signature pilotis that makes the ground level rather open. For me that was the attraction.

Ahmedabad has the distinction of Corbusier having designed a few individual homes and other institutional buildings. I have visited many of them and if there is a unifying feature to them, it is their openness. Despite the use of the heavy concrete, his buildings still feel rather light inside. That has everything to do with the way he used the flow of light.

Sanskar Kendra these days is in a state of disrepair which is a pity because it has the potential of becoming a world-class cultural center and museum. The famous architect resident of the city, Balkrishna Doshi, who worked with Corbusier on many Indian projects, including this one, has tried to restore some of its glory through his Vastu Shilpa Foundation but it still has not received the attention it so eminently deserves.

The best I can do personally is paint it.

Homo erectus and language

Humans, Homo sapiens to be precise, have always regarded language as their crowning achievement that separates them from its many apparent iterations among hominids spread over close to two million years. The implication is that we are superior to all those who came before us because we have language and they did not.

That hubris is now being challenged by Professor Daniel Everett, a linguist at Bentley University in Waltham, Massachusetts. According to media reports, Everett told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that Homo erectus, dating back to 1.8 million years, ought to have the ability to talk to one another because they were a sea-faring species.

“Oceans were never a barrier to the travels of Erectus,” Everett has been quoted as saying. “They sailed to the island of Crete and various other islands. It was intentional – they needed craft and they needed to take groups of 20 or so at least to get to those places.”

Originating in east Africa Homo erectus had to be able to communicate with some form of language to be mariners, according to Everett.

“Erectus needed language when they were sailing to the island of Flores. They couldn’t have simply caught a ride on a floating log because then they would have been washed out to sea when they hit the current,” he said.

“They needed to be able to paddle. And if they paddled they needed to be able to say ‘paddle there’ or ‘don’t paddle.’ You need communication with symbols, not just grunts,” he said.

This is a rather controversial theory which other experts are either rejecting or challenging. The origin of language, usually timed with the emergence of Homo sapiens some 200,000 years ago, has been considered the great differentiator between us and the rest of the hominids. If Everett’s theory comes to be widely accepted, it promises to significantly change the way we look at our evolution.

It is not Everett’s case that Homo erectus could have written this blog, for instance, as primal as it may often read. Notwithstanding that, it is quite a remarkable theory that a species that existed close to two million years ago had some form of language.

Those who do not accept Everett’s theory argue that Homo erectus could have traveled over waters without boats and instead used rafts of vegetation by taking advantage of tsunamis. The discovery of Homo erectus fossil in places as far as China and Indonesia is at the heart of the idea that in order for them to come so far they had to have boats, hence a form of intelligent communication—language.

I find Everett’s connection between Homo erectus sea-faring using boats and use of some form of language rather impeccably logical. The idea that a group of 10-15 people could have navigated through ocean waters without once communicating through some comprehensible sounds that everyone else understood to mean the same thing makes no sense.

There is, of course, the point about Homo erectus lacking FOXP2, a gene responsible for speech and language. Everett gets around that problem by arguing that just a couple of sounds that are commonly understood by a community of hominids are enough to be called language. Using the sophisticated power of language that we now have he has been quoted as saying, “Homo erectus spoke and invented the Model T Ford of language. We speak the Tesla form, but their Model T form was not a proto-language it was a real language.”

No headline required

Twin mounts--MC

Emulating masters

Mont Sainte-Victorie—a tribute to Cézanne—MC

Wheat Field—a Tribute to Van Gogh--MC

One runs the risk of becoming a derivative hack or just a plain mediocre  mimic  while emulating works by the great masters. Nevertheless, I do it occasionally to test whether I have any merit at all. In keeping with that continuing education I do produce my versions of painters such as Vincent van Gogh and Paul Cézanne. I find the exercise sharpens my skills.

Over the weekend I did two—one a version of Van Gogh’s Wheat Field and Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-Victorie. Quite strangely, my versions sit together rather well although Cézanne (1836-1906) and van Gogh (1853-1890) were very different kinds of painters.

Think of these versions as a fuel that propels my own way of painting. If you have looked at these works more that a couple of seconds they have achieved their purpose.

A few points about bank scandals in India

I have been reading with increasing amusement sections of the Indian media inferring a close relationship in Prime Minister Narendra Modi having referred to one of the possible suspects in the $1.77 billion Punjab National Bank (PNB) scandal with the suffix “bhai.”

The suspect in question is Mehul Choksi, chairman of jewelry retailer Gitanjali Group, was referred by Modi as “Mehulbhai” at a recent public event. The implication of the prime minister referring to Choksi as “bhai” being that the two enjoy a close relationship. That is an absurd and risible claim which, in fact, distracts from any serious friendship or acquaintance that two men may have actually enjoyed.

If the main clinching evidence of their friendship is that Modi called Choksi “Mehulbhai”, then we have a serious problem. In Gujarat, men generally have “bhai” as the suffix and women “ben”. Those by themselves are no evidence of a close relationship or even a relationship. Someone may forever call you “bhai” and yet stab you in the back. So while frequently pointing out the “Mehulbhai” reference may gain some sarcastic social media traction, its eventual effectiveness in establishing a legal argument is zero.

I would argue that even as an innuendo—which can be a powerful weapon in politics—the “bhai” reference is rather weak. I have seen Modi’s many detractors on Twitter using the reference to darkly imply a mutually beneficial friendship between the two men. That does a great disservice to the strength of any possible legal case against Choksi and others in connection with allegedly defrauding the bank to the tune of $1.77 billion. The main suspect, of course, is said to be Nirav Modi, the flashy billionaire jeweler and designer who owns Firestar Diamond. Modi is now said by the Indian media to have left India for New York under mysterious circumstances.

To be sure, the whole (PNB) imbroglio has a fairly familiar stench. India has a long history of hard-charging businessmen notching up massive credit lines from state-owned banks without any significant collateral and then deliberately failing to pay back. Senior level managers and often even low level clerks are co-opted in the scheme to pass massive loan applications on the strength of documents which would not get you even 1000 rupees from a neighborhood pawn shop. The modus operandi is pretty straightforward. Pliable bank officials, who have access to large sums of public money in these state-owned banks, get their own cuts to pass generally dubious and often downright fraudulent loan applications.

The main objective is not to pay back these hefty loans but merely to roll credit in perpetuity. More often than not, political dispensations of the day play a key role either by directly leaning on bank managements to release these loans or by indirectly suggesting their involvement as a device to mount pressure. It is not surprising that businessmen such as Modi and Choksi cultivate political proximity in a very public, high-profile way in order to build up their leverage with public sector banks.

It is possible that in a narrow context Modi calling Choksi “Mehulbhai” may have been useful to the latter to imply a relationship but, like I explained earlier, that by itself means nothing. The extent of the PNB scandal is still unraveling and the figure of $ 1.77 billion is loosely arrived at. It could well be that or could be much lower or even higher. We do not even know whether the money was just stolen or used to pay earlier outstanding credit; in other words rolling credit.

In any event, this is a potentially massive scandal with fairly serious political implications for Narendra Modi as he positions himself and his Bharatiya Janata Party for the 2019 parliamentary elections.

One of the keys to Modi’s success was his chest-thumping boast in Hindi “Na khaunga, na khane dunga” (I will neither be corrupt myself nor let others be so). If it is established that the PNB scandal occurred even notionally because of his government’s laxity, let alone connivance, then it could seriously dent his political fortunes. Scandals in a democracy, particularly as frenzied as India, have a way of devouring political fortunes even before their veracity is established. Modi’s predecessor, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh discovered that to his and his Congress Party’s chagrin in 2014.

Modi had called himself a “chowkidar” (security guard) to the country’s exchequer soon after he won in 2014. Like his many other sententious but ultimately hollow public commitments, “chowkidar” too has come to be severely tested by the PNB swindle. Irrespective of whether the two Gujarati men, Messrs Modi and Choksi, enjoyed a reasonably good friendship as mistakenly inferred from the “bhai” reference, the prime minister’s claim as the uncompromising custodian of public money has taken a beating.

There is a scramble by the Modi government and its proxies to establish that the PNB scandal originated well before 2014, meaning during the Singh administration, and therefore they should not be held accountable. That is an absurd argument because even if that were true, in keeping with his “chowkidar” claim he should have cracked down on it as the first order of business considering the amount involved. Instead, by all accounts, Choksi and Nirav Modi thrived during the past nearly four years of the current government.

This story has just begun.