Mayank Chhaya Daily

Rest in Joy Funeral Home

By Mayank Chhaya

I am 85 and precariously close to needing the services of my own funeral home myself. But until such time as I do, I offer it to those who indeed need them.

I am a lifelong bachelor and a celibate to boot. I have no family. From what I was told, I was left as an infant outside an orphanage wrapped in the Sunday edition of The Morning Star. Ironically, the newspaper had a lead feature about how a remarkably humane role the orphanage played in our small town.

I have a name but there is no point telling you that because we are unlikely to meet after you have read this story. This is a one-off encounter.

Like all mornings, I came to my funeral home that Friday morning at 7.08 a.m. There is no particular significance to that specific time. When I opened the funeral home 50 years ago the time was 7.08 a.m. I made it a practice since to open at that time.

I have noticed that in the last couple of months, the business has come to a dead halt. I have barely sold two cascades and one cremation; not enough to get by. I need more deaths but I cannot say that publicly because, you know…

I cleaned the reception counter with a musk-flavored glass cleaner and replaced yesterday’s flowers with a fresh bunch. Just as I was about to turn on the music, the door opened. An immaculately dressed man, apparently in his 60s, walked in. He wore a dark grey tweed coat, light blue shirt, aqua blue tie with a yellow flower in the center and dark blue corduroy. His rust brown shoes were sharply polished. His silver fox hair was slicked back on the sides and somewhat windblown on top.

He wore a fragrance that intrigued me.

“What cologne are you wearing?” I asked.

He smiled and said, “Oh, that’s sandalwood.”

“It is lovely,” I said.

“I smell musk in the air,” he said waving his right hand as if he were painting that fragrance.

“Yes, that’s the cleaner for my glass,” I said.

“Aah,” he responded with a dazzling smile.

“What can I do for you, young man?” I asked.

“How much are your cremation services?” he asked in a manner that was so completely shorn of emotions that for a moment I thought he might as well be asking the price of the expensive shoes he was wearing.

I was thrown off a bit by the question even though funeral services are something I have dealt with for 50 years now. It was something in the way he spoke that unsettled me a bit.

“Oh, let’s see. That depends on a few details such as what kind of casket, whether there will be a memorial service before the cremation and so on,” I said regaining my composure.

“There will be no memorial service. Just an ordinary casket, your cheapest one, and straight into the crematorium. There will be a couple of people in attendance but they will stay until the cremation starts. There is nothing else needed,” he said.

Those details unsettled me even more. I began to think that there was something amiss. However, it was not my place to say anything.

“Our primary package is $3200, all inclusive,” I said.

“Alright,” he said even as he reached for his wallet.

He took out his debit card. The swiftness with which he did that added to my discomfiture. Remember, I have done this for 50 years and there is not much that makes me uncomfortable. He did even though he was perfectly civil and calm.

“I will need the paperwork, including the death certificate for the deceased before I process a payment,” I said.

He thought for a bit and said, “I understand but I am merely paying for a friend. The two people who will accompany the deceased will bring the paperwork. I am going out of town directly from here. I will not be back.”

This was out of the ordinary; something I had never done before but like I said the business had been slow and I needed the money. I decided to go ahead with the payment.

We shook hands and, as he was leaving, he said, “Valentino. That’s me. It was a pleasure meeting you.”

He walked away with next to no effort, almost as if he glided.

I got on with the normal business of the day such as finalizing fliers to be mailed to those households with people in a certain age group. Funeral services can be costly and I always encourage people to prepare for them.

It was around 6 p.m. that I received a call.

“Mr. Garcia, I am calling with reference from Valentino,” the caller said.

“Oh yes, how can I be of assistance?” I asked.

“We will need your cremation services tomorrow morning. Valentino might have told you that there will be no memorial service,” the caller said.

“Yes, he did indeed,” I said.

With no other appointment for the day, I decided to close the home.

Next morning, I was back at 7.08 a.m. The cremation was scheduled for 10.30 a.m. I prepared the casket that was part of the package Valentino had paid for.

Around 10 a.m. a hearse pulled in followed by a car and a police cruiser. A body bag was wheeled in on a gurney by the hearse operator who was followed by a woman police officer and a young couple.

The police officer said, “The paperwork is in order. It was death by a single gunshot to the chest.”

“May I see the body?” I asked the officer who said, “Of course, of course.”

I unzipped the bag and was stunned to see what I saw. It was an immaculately dressed man. He wore a dark grey tweed coat, light blue shirt, aqua blue tie with a yellow flower in the center and dark blue corduroy. His rust brown shoes were sharply polished. His silver fox hair was slicked back on the sides and somewhat windblown on top.

Th only difference was his shirt had been changed to white and tie to olive green with “Valentino”  embroidered on it in golden thread. The fragrance was still that of sandalwood.

On an impulse, I decided to close down the funeral home business after that cremation.

Next morning, The Morning Star reported that a 65-year-old man named Valentino had taken his own life, leaving behind a note that said, “I would like to leave my last two bottles of sandalwood cologne for the owner of ‘Rest in Joy Funeral Home’.

Copyright Mayank Chhaya, 2023

Here is to Balkrishna Doshi, 26 August 1927 – 24 January 2023

Balkrishna Doshi 

There were two recurring names that embodied great architecture in my formative years—Le Corbusier and Balkrishna Doshi. Both were courtesy of my architect brother Trilochan, who first studied under and then worked with Doshi for years. In fact, Trilochan was one of Doshi’s favorite students.

Ahmedabad has had the distinction of being home to some remarkable works by Corbusier and Doshi, for whom it is his hometown. When I heard the news yesterday that the prestigious Pritzker Prize for 2018 had been awarded to Doshi my reaction was somewhat similar to Trilochan’s who said Doshi had recognized Pritzker.

At 90 and with a glorious architectural  design and planning career spanning 70 years, for Doshi the Pritzker probably meant a mild sense of joy. Given his standing as a great architect and design thinker I think it was the prize that became him rather than the other way around. I thought Doshi had outgrown honors a long time ago. Nevertheless, it was a good thing that the Pritzker jury finally chose to honor him.

In so much as the prize brings attention to larger existential issues of people and their organic surroundings it serves an important purpose. For as long as I remember Doshi spoke of architecture in the context of life and community and never as just buildings. He defined architecture as “a living organism”, something that “evolves.” It is necessarily a very different view of a profession that often gets lost in form rather than function.

Of course, the aesthetics of the form is essential but it is so in order to serve the larger objective of those who live in and around it. For someone who conceives life visually I have a weakness for form for the sake of form but I see Doshi’s deeper philosophical take.

Since I grew up in Ahmedabad I was always exposed to some truly remarkable designs without fully realizing. For instance, one occasionally went to the School of Architecture (now CEPT University) which Doshi founded and whose buildings he designed. My brother studied there and I remember those visits rather vividly because of Doshi’s design. Every time I visited I wanted to be part of the institution as a student . I have never felt that about my own schools. The other day, I briefly wrote about Sanskar Kendra, the city museum that Corbusier designed, and which happened to be right in front of one of the schools I went to. I went to school often because it was in front of Sanskar Kendra. Doshi was Corbusier’s chief assistant on that building completed in 1954.

Doshi was also Corbusier’s chief assistant on Chandigarh, a project on which he played a significant design role as well.

“More than practicing architecture I am constantly learning about life and behavior of people and places,” Doshi said. “For me architecture is not a single building but a complex of habitations,” he said.

I met Balkrishnabhai a few times over the years but never as a professional journalist. I did seek an interview with him after the Pritzker but for some reason it did not work out. 

Sometime in the mid 1990s, Snehlata, my mother, and I were traveling from Mumbai to Delhi. We bumped into Balkrishnabhai at the Mumbai airport. He was a wearing lovely bottle green shirt that was gently starched. "You wear lovely shirts. They are understated like your architecture," I said. He guffawed and said, "That's a first. No one has compared my shirts with my buildings."

He greeted my mother warmly and said in Gujarati, "Chhaya majama? Tajetar ma malyo nathi (How is Trilochan? I have not met him recently)." 

Mother responded saying, "Ha tamne pan ghanaa vakhte joya. (Yes, I am meeting you after a long time.) Ekvar jamva avo gher. (Come home for a meal someday.)" 

"Chokkas (Definitely)," he replied.

He and I talked a bit about this, that and the other. I mentioned my visit to the (M F) Husain-Doshi Gufa in Ahmedabad and said, "Entering it made me feel as I was returning to my birth." 

He seemed touched by my observation, saying, "That is because one living organism entered another." 

We shook hands and went our separate ways, Doshi to Ahmedabad and us to Delhi. I never met him after that. 

 

Shehbaz Sharif's peace overture unlikely to move Narendra Modi much

Perhaps no Pakistani leader has ever said "Pakistan has learnt its lesson" in the context of the three wars with India like Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has done. That is an extraordinary comment whose motivation could stem from a combination of factors.

His comments during an interview with Al-Arabiya TV are quite remarkable considering that they go against the country's militaristic pride which has never quite reconciled with the defeats after they started the wars.

“Pakistan has learnt its lesson. We had three wars with India and the consequences of those wars were more miseries, more unemployment and poverty. Millions were demoted from their level of satisfaction to a low level of satisfaction," Sharif said. 

It is hard to offer a definite analysis on why Sharif felt the need to say something so extraordinary other than saying that it could be a combination of factors, the predominant being his country's battered economy. It has all but collapsed and is not showing any signs of revival anytime soon other than getting by on international aid. Perhaps there is recognition in his mind about the huge chasm between his country and India when it comes to their economies. According to the World Bank, India's 2021 economy was $3.18 trillion with GDP per capita of $2256. Contrast that with Pakistan's GDP of $348.28 billion and per capita of $1505 for the same year. This is a clearly unequal relationship. It has always been.

Rapidly depleting foreign exchange reserves, galloping inflation in the prices of food items, especially wheat, coupled with climate disasters have pushed the Sharif government into a tight corner. As if all this was not bad enough the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has delayed its $1.1 billion aid until the next fiscal. For now they have managed to secure $3 billion  in handout from the United Arab Emirates but there is already disenchantment among Pakistan's Islamic benefactors over its handling of its domestic affairs, particularly the economy. 

As India is on course to becoming the world's most populous country any time now, replacing China, and with its economy still largely sound, New Delhi does not need anything in particular from Pakistan but the reverse is not necessarily true. Notwithstanding its historic animus against India Islamabad is aware that a good working relationship with New Delhi has some long-term economic benefits once they open up their economies to each other. Unlike China, whose approach is to only fuel sovereign debts of the countries it does business with, especially Pakistan, India is more focused on bilateral trade as a strategy for economic cooperation. It is obvious that in the long-term Pakistan stands to gain through the Indian way of bilateral relations.

However, and there is always a however when it comes to Pakistan, Sharif caveated his conciliatory tone by saying this: "My message to the Indian leadership and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is let's sit down at the table and have serious and sincere talks to resolve our burning issues, like Kashmir." 

Perhaps realizing that Sharif might have gone a bit too far in saying Pakistan has learnt its lesson, his office later said after the interview that talks with India would only be possible if New Delhi restored the autonomous status. That was in reference to the Modi government the August, 2019 revocation of Kashmir's special status guaranteed under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution. "Without India's revocation of this step, negotiations are not possible," the statement by Sharif's office said. That effectively shuts the door on any breakthrough.

That was clearly necessitated by wanting to placate Pakistan's omnipotent military without whose blessings its governments cannot make any meaningful progress with India. Since much of the Pakistani military's predominance in their country's polity comes from the bugbear of India, any dilution of that whipped up threat goes against their interests.

In so much as Sharif chose to say his country having learnt its lesson, he has opened at least left the door ajar for a revival of bilateral talks. From Modi's standpoint it may not mean much because he is doing just fine domestically without actively pursuing peace with Pakistan. In fact, with the 2024 general election on the horizon, he has no particular incentive to change the equation of indifference that his government has maintained for quite sometime now. Unless he sees a real possibility of a major breakthrough that does not involve the status of Kashmir in any significant way, he has next to no reason to respond to Sharif's overtures. 

In geological sense, has Earth already entered the Anthropocene Age, or the age of humans?

Professor Jan Zalasiewicz (Photo courtesy of the University of Leicester.)

The following first appeared in Indica News. 

By Mayank Chhaya

Has Earth already entered the Anthropocene Age, or the age of humans?

It is more than likely that it has, and it has done so faster than any geological age so far. At the heart of this global transformation is human activity since the mid-20^th century.

For geologists to declare a new epoch takes a great deal of time because geological epochs take thousands of years or even millions of years to make in order for them to identifiably alter Earth’s surface.

However, the Anthropocene seems to have unfolded disturbingly fast and propelling its advent goes to the very heart of the raging climate crisis debate. That is because several markers which are considered evidence in the way Earth’s surface has changed since the mid-20th century are direct consequences of human activity.

Professor Jan Zalasiewicz, a geologist at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom and a former chairman of the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG), tasked with determining the rise of the new age, listed them in a conversation with the online show Mayank Chhaya reports (MCR).

“There is a whole range of what you call stratigraphic proxies, that is markers of some kind of environmental change and which are trapped within sediments. One kind is simply physical (such as) plastic particles, microplastics, fibers which are washed into lakes and seas. They are found worldwide in sedimentary layers, and they begin to appear about the mid-20^th century,” he said.

Being a global surface impact is the primary condition for a period to be classified as a distinct geological period.

Other markers that Professor Zalasiewicz listed are different types of new chemicals such as pesticides and DDT in trace amounts found in sediments, chemistry of carbon because of the largescale burning of coal, oil and gas that has changed the isotopic chemistry, proportion of light Carbon12, heavy Carbon13, fly ash as well as radioactive particles unleashed by hydrogen bomb tests in the early 1950s. All of these show upsurge around the mid-20^th century, a period which is now beginning to seem most likely when the rise of the Anthropocene may be pegged. As pointed out by Zalasiewicz, all these markers are found globally.

Of course, whether there will be a scientific consensus over the advent of the Anthropocene Age is a subject of voting by the members of the AWG that is currently ongoing. There are expectations that the process will be over by end of this year and new age declared where for the first time in Earth’s 4.54 billion history a single species, namely humans, would have impacted the planet so dramatically.

According to Professor Zalasiewicz, the early 1950s seem to be the “sharpest most applicable time marker to mark the beginning of a unit of time.”  That would seem to indicate that the beginning of the new epoch, the age of humans, would be likely fixed in the early 1950s.

There are nine sites worldwide which are being examined to establish changes in sedimentary layers which could be directly attributed to human activity. According to the AWG, the nine sites are in Beppu Bay near Kyushu Island, Japan, Flinders Reef, Coral Sea, Australia, Gotland Basi, Baltic Sea, Palmer ice core, Atlantic Peninsula, Searsville Lake, California, U.S., Sihailongwan Lake, Jilin Province, China, Śnieżka peat bog, Sudetes Mountains, Poland and West Flower Garden Bank, Gulf of Mexic.

If the 1950s-time marker is indeed confirmed, then it would mark the end of the Meghalayan Age, named after the northeastern Indian state of Meghalaya. Geologically, we currently live in what is known as the Meghalayan Age named after the northeastern Indian state. It began some 4200 years ago, and its onset saw widespread droughts across the world that disrupted civilizations in Egypt, Greece, Syria, Palestine, Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and the Yangtze River Valley.

For a period to be called an Age on a geologic timescale its climatic impact has to be as global as possible and has to be associated with a rock or sediment type. In the specific case of the Meghlayan Age, it was about a spike as evident in perturbation of oxygen atoms present in the layers of a stalagmite rising from the floor of Mawmluh Cave in Meghalaya.

The Meghalayan Age itself is part of the 12000-year-long Holocene Age.

One of the controversies about the Anthropocene Age is that many geologists do not yet accept it to be an epoch. As Zalasiewicz pointed out, they find it “disturbingly short, lasting a human lifetime” compared to other ages which were thousands of years and even millions in the making.  The formalization of the new epoch depends first on the AWG voting followed by several other rounds of back and forth within the scientific community.

Zalasiewicz acknowledged that the Anthropocene condition, the planetary state, will be very long-lived. He said it is hard to see how the climatic consequences “will not last many tens of thousands of years.” He also said it is already the beginning of a “different kind of planet” given that the course of biological evolution is already changing and therefore Earth’s future paleontological evolution will also change.

The rapidity of the likely emergence of the new epoch from the mid-20^th century can only be compared, according to Zalasiewicz, to the meteor strike that wiped out dinosaurs and ended the Cretaceous Period some 65 million years ago. He said that is the only boundary on Earth that is sharper than what we are experiencing now in terms of geological transformation. “It is a hammer blow,” he said.

Taken together, the recognition of a new epoch has global political, economic and sociocultural consequences and that may make the debate more difficult.

Tintinnabulation

Reupping a slightly rewritten post that I had written on the 89th anniversary of Tintin's creation. He turns 94 today. He was born as a cartoon character in 1929 on the pages of a children's supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle.

Here is what I like the most about Tintin who turns 94 today. He is a journalist with an unlimited expense account, gets to travel the world in search of stories which he never files for a newspaper that does not exist and whose editor he never gets in touch with. Naturally, he has no deadlines. I want that job.

Tintin, created by the late Belgian writer and artist Georges Prosper Remi better known by his penname Hergé, first appeared on January 10, 1929 in a Belgian newspaper. Since then he has remained one of the most popular cartoon characters in the world, a favorite with the filmmaker Steven Spielberg who made a brilliantly animated/motion captured version ‘The Adventure of Tintin’ in 2011. There are reports that Spielberg along with fellow filmmaker Peter Jackson, who collaborated on the first one, are making a sequel.

I read/watch Tintin in various avatars fairly regularly as a relaxing distraction from the daily grind. After watching Spielberg’s version I wrote, “I have also found a place where I want to be posted. It is called Bagghar, somewhere in Morocco. It is a North African sultanate by what looks like the sparkling blue Mediterranean Sea. There are other fringe benefits to being Tintin. Although he is 94, he does not look a day over 18. He has a perfect quiff that never collapses. Also, he does not seem to have a bank account or a credit card. He receives no threatening letters from the income tax or internal revenue authorities. And finally, he does not ever have to shave.”

While as a boy I loved the thrill of Tintin’s adventures depicted by Hergé through his brilliant drawings, in my more mature years the attraction has been to his career as a carefree journalist. I also like his sartorial choices. If I were to locate myself between two fictional characters it would be Tintin and Sherlock Holmes.

If we have to live in a fictional world, we might as well live in the one created by Hergé.

In my case, the wisdom came first , The age is coming only now

No caption needed for narcissism 

I turn 62 today which in America qualifies one as "senior" and is considered retirement age eligible to receive Social Security benefits. But then journalists do not retire. They work until the deadline or until such time as they are dead, whichever comes first.

The idea that I was not "senior" less than 12 hours ago and am one now is hilarious. In my mind I do not feel any markedly different at 62 than what I felt at 26, which can mean only one of the two things. Even at 26, I was too old in my spirit to be young or at 62, I am too young in my spirit to be old. These are just glib aphorisms. Speaking of aphorisms, in my close circles I have a minor reputation for producing pithy, quotable lines.

For instance, I have been re-reading Oscar Wilde of whom I had said this over 35 years ago: "Some of his lines are so good they could have been written by me." 

I think it may be an interesting idea to offer you some of my lines chosen from the last four decades, starting with when I was 22 in 1983. This is just a random sampling. I have hundreds of such lines. 

• Don't dust your conscience here. I suffer from moral asthma. 
• Price cannot become value by wearing a couple of diamond rings, mink and mascara.
• Every time I jumped over the wall of my conscience, I landed on the same side. Either there is no wall or no sides or no conscience.
• Who know where zephyr (morning breeze) has through that it carries the fragrances of so many beloveds.
• What is life

  but forever

  a transit

  to a destination

  like a simmering mirage

  in a desert

  There is no

  getting there

  but ours is

  to merely chase it

• In my case, the wisdom came first

  The age is coming only now

• With age wisdom does not come.

  What comes is a greater tolerance for the lack of it.

• We all hide our share of guilt

  In a sheer shroud of conscience

  That tears at the slightest prodding

  Of scrutiny

• Let my pretenses be friends with your pretenses

  And spare us the burden of revealing ourselves

 

 

 

 

 

Breezily charismatic romance of 'Likha hai teri aankhon mein'

The man is breezily charismatic and the woman unaffectedly fetching. Both are in a corn field under a big sky. A farmer in tattered clothes hands them both corns, shakes a leg or two with them and leaves as the the lovers sing.

"Whose saga is written in your eyes?" asks the woman, Nanda.

"If you figure it out, let me know," answers the man, Dev Anand.

One yearns for charming and uncomplicated joys of romance and one unfailingly finds it in Hindi cinema. Perhaps no one does effusive, frothy and yet pristine romancing better than Dev Anand. 

Since the morning I have been playing in loop this lovely song from the 1965 film 'Teen Deviyan' (Three Beauties), written by Majrooh Sultanpuri, sung by Lata Mangeshkar and Kishore Kumar and composed by Sachin Dev Burman.

I don't know about you but nothing unlocks exultant happiness in me like a lovely Hindi cinema song. Hindi cinema audiences take such things for granted but I am sure it took some special skills for Dev Anand and Nanda to exude such lightness of romance.

There are a couple moments in the song which I find particularly charming. At cue 1.51 when Anand has stuck Nanda's stole/shawl/dupatta in his back pocket which also has a couple of corns. The other end of the dupatta is held by Nanda over her shoulder. Both are nibbling away at their corns even as they sing. Nanda then wraps the stole around Anand. Such a lovely intimate gesture of familiarity bred by love!

Another moment is at cue 3.23 when Anand flings his hat in the air and then catches it back like a frisbee. 

Applause for the film's director Amarjeet, cinematographer Pratap Sinha, editor Pran Mehra and everyone else involved in the movie.