When I sent it in to Open magazine in July '09 -- 11 months ago -- I called it "Hair Slicked Back". Last week, it appeared in print in the magazine, titled "Cruisin' in the Park". You will find it here.
Comments welcome.
June 30, 2010
June 28, 2010
Comments about shoes
If you've noticed ... sorry for comment moderation being switched back on. I'm being inundated by comments about buying shoes, seems like 60 or so over the last hour and they're still coming in.
Someone out there is desperate for me to buy those shoes. I have taken a vow to hold out.
Someone out there is desperate for me to buy those shoes. I have taken a vow to hold out.
Belfast, Kashmir, Sunday
I have an essay about a bloody Sunday in 1972 and some contemporary implications, on the edit page of the Hindustan Times today (June 28 '10): Where Belfast ends and Kashmir begins.
Comments welcome.
Comments welcome.
Conversations, #14
As usual, my scatter-brained state means I didn't pout up a post about the 14th instalment of the conversation between the Pakistani journalist Beena Sarwar and myself. Here it is: Joint narratives, common ground.
Your thoughts welcome. I'll post the 15th and final instalment soon.
Earlier instalments: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13.
Your thoughts welcome. I'll post the 15th and final instalment soon.
Earlier instalments: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13.
Rubber ring championship
And to get a new week started in style ... Friend visiting Hyderabad on work sent me this message this morning, reproduced verbatim.
btw, last night, i was channel surfing after the argentina game. i was hoping DD sports will carry some sania or saina matches. instead they were showing the national sub-junior tenny coit championships - pondy vs. orissa. the latter won in an exciting finish when the 8yr old did a backhand toss to the far corner.
i used to play it at as a tiny tot (for those in the dark, you toss a rubber ring over a net. no fancy gear, rackets, shoes needed. any rubber ring would work) and had forgotten what the game was called. i gave it up to take up badminton and soccer. what a shame, to think i might have tried out for the nationals.
wonder if there is a gilli danda national championship. the fun continues.
Tennycoit, yes. The charms of DD. I'm looking to dye my hair greyer than it is, pull a few teeth, grab a crutch and wander over to enter the tennycoit over-85 national championships. I figure it's my best chance to both be a national champ at something and appear on national television.
All in all it reminds me of one late night that I was watching the women's marathon event at the Barcelona Olympics (1992). On DD of course, because this was before the days of wall-to-wall coverage on 5621 different channels. It was an exciting event, came down over the last few km to a race between two women, Valentina Yegorova representing the "Unified Team" of former Soviet bloc states, and Yuko Arimori of Japan.
They kept exchanging the lead and it was hard to say either lady held an advantage and they exchanged the lead again, and this was edge-of-the-seat stuff, the way these two were giving their all to get ahead, and then the camera showed them disappearing into the tunnel leading into the Olympic stadium. The last leg of the marathon was one lap around the stadium, and the two women would now battle it out over that lap till the finish line ...
... and just as they were about to emerge from the tunnel, the image gently faded to a woman in a sari with her hands folded. "Namaste", she said, and informed us that it was midnight and DD's broadcast day was over. It would have been no more than another minute before the marathon was done, but hey, perish the thought of DD extending its broadcast day one more minute!
No internet. My shortwave radio was then on the blink. Papers next morning did not carry the result. You can imagine my frustration. "This hard-fought race," says the wikipedia page on Arimori, "was the closest finishing time in Olympic history for men or women at that time."
So you see, I'm glad DD now broadcasts after midnight as well, ensuring that we shall never miss a single moment of the subjunior tennycoit championships.
btw, last night, i was channel surfing after the argentina game. i was hoping DD sports will carry some sania or saina matches. instead they were showing the national sub-junior tenny coit championships - pondy vs. orissa. the latter won in an exciting finish when the 8yr old did a backhand toss to the far corner.
i used to play it at as a tiny tot (for those in the dark, you toss a rubber ring over a net. no fancy gear, rackets, shoes needed. any rubber ring would work) and had forgotten what the game was called. i gave it up to take up badminton and soccer. what a shame, to think i might have tried out for the nationals.
wonder if there is a gilli danda national championship. the fun continues.
Tennycoit, yes. The charms of DD. I'm looking to dye my hair greyer than it is, pull a few teeth, grab a crutch and wander over to enter the tennycoit over-85 national championships. I figure it's my best chance to both be a national champ at something and appear on national television.
All in all it reminds me of one late night that I was watching the women's marathon event at the Barcelona Olympics (1992). On DD of course, because this was before the days of wall-to-wall coverage on 5621 different channels. It was an exciting event, came down over the last few km to a race between two women, Valentina Yegorova representing the "Unified Team" of former Soviet bloc states, and Yuko Arimori of Japan.
They kept exchanging the lead and it was hard to say either lady held an advantage and they exchanged the lead again, and this was edge-of-the-seat stuff, the way these two were giving their all to get ahead, and then the camera showed them disappearing into the tunnel leading into the Olympic stadium. The last leg of the marathon was one lap around the stadium, and the two women would now battle it out over that lap till the finish line ...
... and just as they were about to emerge from the tunnel, the image gently faded to a woman in a sari with her hands folded. "Namaste", she said, and informed us that it was midnight and DD's broadcast day was over. It would have been no more than another minute before the marathon was done, but hey, perish the thought of DD extending its broadcast day one more minute!
No internet. My shortwave radio was then on the blink. Papers next morning did not carry the result. You can imagine my frustration. "This hard-fought race," says the wikipedia page on Arimori, "was the closest finishing time in Olympic history for men or women at that time."
So you see, I'm glad DD now broadcasts after midnight as well, ensuring that we shall never miss a single moment of the subjunior tennycoit championships.
June 24, 2010
59 all
What else is there today in the world of sports except the anticipation of Mahut and Isner resuming their hostilities? A piffling triviality by the name "World Cup", you say? Tell you what, you give me a call when a World Cup game gets to 59-59, and they call a halt to it saying it will be resumed the next day.
Do give me a call, because that's a football game I want to see. 90 minutes, 59-59: if my mathematics abilities are still firing on all cylinders, that's better than a goal a minute. That, I want to see. A pox on these games that end 1-0, or even 0-0.
Mahut's career highlight was probably at the Queen's Club tournament in '07, when he made a run to the final and lost a tight match to Andy Roddick, 4-6, 7-6, 7-6. Lucky they had tiebreaks there, otherwise who knows? He and Roddick might still be on those other grass courts in London, flailing away at the ball.
This year, he had to come through the qualifying tournament at Wimbledon. In the second round there, he took four hours to beat a Briton, 24-22 in the third set. In the final, he went two sets down before coming back to beat Stefan Koubek, an Austrian now best known in tennis circles as another kind of choker.
Having done all that, he runs into John Isner in the first round at Wimbledon, and neither of them is willing to go quietly, or at all. If not quite yet the next great American hope, Isner is no slouch with the racket. At the US Open last year, he knocked out Andy Roddick in five sets.
So both players have tough matches with Roddick in their resumes. Perhaps that's some kind of prerequisite to battling to 59-59 in the fifth.
Far more eloquent words than mine have been written since they stopped play last night, so I'll leave you to find them. But I urge you only to consider the full meaning of what these two have put together in this match, captured for posterity in the caption for this picture.
Do give me a call, because that's a football game I want to see. 90 minutes, 59-59: if my mathematics abilities are still firing on all cylinders, that's better than a goal a minute. That, I want to see. A pox on these games that end 1-0, or even 0-0.
Mahut's career highlight was probably at the Queen's Club tournament in '07, when he made a run to the final and lost a tight match to Andy Roddick, 4-6, 7-6, 7-6. Lucky they had tiebreaks there, otherwise who knows? He and Roddick might still be on those other grass courts in London, flailing away at the ball.
This year, he had to come through the qualifying tournament at Wimbledon. In the second round there, he took four hours to beat a Briton, 24-22 in the third set. In the final, he went two sets down before coming back to beat Stefan Koubek, an Austrian now best known in tennis circles as another kind of choker.
Having done all that, he runs into John Isner in the first round at Wimbledon, and neither of them is willing to go quietly, or at all. If not quite yet the next great American hope, Isner is no slouch with the racket. At the US Open last year, he knocked out Andy Roddick in five sets.
So both players have tough matches with Roddick in their resumes. Perhaps that's some kind of prerequisite to battling to 59-59 in the fifth.
Far more eloquent words than mine have been written since they stopped play last night, so I'll leave you to find them. But I urge you only to consider the full meaning of what these two have put together in this match, captured for posterity in the caption for this picture.
June 21, 2010
In Kashmir
In Srinagar yesterday (June 20), CRPF men shot dead a young man, Javaid.
This young man was part of a crowd protesting a killing by CRPF men -- another young man, Rafiq, whom they beat so badly on June 12 that he died in hospital on Saturday night (June 19). In fact it was Rafiq's funeral that turned into the protest in which Javaid was shot and killed.
In turn, Rafiq was beaten during a wave of protests in Srinagar that erupted out of the funeral procession of still another young man, Tufail. Tufail was killed by a teargas shell fired by security personnel on June 11.
Tufail is killed by our security forces. During his funeral procession and the accompanying protests, Rafiq is beaten by our security forces and dies some days later. During his funeral procession and the accompanying protests, Javaid is shot dead by our security forces.
Not for the first time, and undoubtedly not for the last, I ask myself: what on earth is going on in Kashmir?
(Some reports: Javaid, Rafiq/Tufail, Tufail).
***
One answer to that last question is here: thousands of Kashmiri Pandits travelled to Kashmir to pray at the Kheer Bhavani temple there on Saturday.
It reminds me of a conversation I had with a close Pandit friend on returning from one of my trips to Srinagar a few years ago.
"Next time you go," he said, "why don't you stay at my brother's hotel?"
I was surprised, because the last time I had heard of the brother, he was a bank executive in Bombay.
"Right, but last year he decided to go back and run this hotel. He just felt like the time had come for Pandits to try to return."
And he's OK? I asked.
"He's fine! He could use a little business, which is why I'm telling you to go. But he feels completely at home there."
I haven't returned to Srinagar since, so I haven't managed to give the man some business. But his determination, and now this Kheer Bhavani news, encourages me no end. This is what will eventually defeat the terrorists, the naysayers, the hate-mongers.
So maybe it is time I went to that hotel.
This young man was part of a crowd protesting a killing by CRPF men -- another young man, Rafiq, whom they beat so badly on June 12 that he died in hospital on Saturday night (June 19). In fact it was Rafiq's funeral that turned into the protest in which Javaid was shot and killed.
In turn, Rafiq was beaten during a wave of protests in Srinagar that erupted out of the funeral procession of still another young man, Tufail. Tufail was killed by a teargas shell fired by security personnel on June 11.
Tufail is killed by our security forces. During his funeral procession and the accompanying protests, Rafiq is beaten by our security forces and dies some days later. During his funeral procession and the accompanying protests, Javaid is shot dead by our security forces.
Not for the first time, and undoubtedly not for the last, I ask myself: what on earth is going on in Kashmir?
(Some reports: Javaid, Rafiq/Tufail, Tufail).
One answer to that last question is here: thousands of Kashmiri Pandits travelled to Kashmir to pray at the Kheer Bhavani temple there on Saturday.
It reminds me of a conversation I had with a close Pandit friend on returning from one of my trips to Srinagar a few years ago.
"Next time you go," he said, "why don't you stay at my brother's hotel?"
I was surprised, because the last time I had heard of the brother, he was a bank executive in Bombay.
"Right, but last year he decided to go back and run this hotel. He just felt like the time had come for Pandits to try to return."
And he's OK? I asked.
"He's fine! He could use a little business, which is why I'm telling you to go. But he feels completely at home there."
I haven't returned to Srinagar since, so I haven't managed to give the man some business. But his determination, and now this Kheer Bhavani news, encourages me no end. This is what will eventually defeat the terrorists, the naysayers, the hate-mongers.
So maybe it is time I went to that hotel.
June 20, 2010
Taste for mobbing
While yet again struggling with putting up reasonable posts here reasonably regularly, let me offer these lines:
"Those who savage me and my article from behind anonymous Internet tags emulate the cowardice, dishonesty, and taste for mobbing of the Nazi thinker they revere. It has often been that way with dupes who defend Heidegger - an abysmal thinker and writer, an immoral monster, and a disgrace to the historic enterprise of philosophy."
That's Carlin Romano, responding to anonymous criticism of an article he wrote criticising Martin Heidegger. He's quoted by Jeffrey R. Di Leo here: In Praise of Tough Criticism.
Di Leo continues:
Whether or not one agrees with Romano's views of Heidegger, his take on anonymity is worth thinking about. Anonymity has more in common with cowardice than with courage—and is antithetical to critical dialogue.
Food for thought, perhaps, for various anonymouses on these pages. Or maybe not. With anonymouses, who can tell?
(Thanks, N, for the link to Di Leo's article).
"Those who savage me and my article from behind anonymous Internet tags emulate the cowardice, dishonesty, and taste for mobbing of the Nazi thinker they revere. It has often been that way with dupes who defend Heidegger - an abysmal thinker and writer, an immoral monster, and a disgrace to the historic enterprise of philosophy."
That's Carlin Romano, responding to anonymous criticism of an article he wrote criticising Martin Heidegger. He's quoted by Jeffrey R. Di Leo here: In Praise of Tough Criticism.
Di Leo continues:
Whether or not one agrees with Romano's views of Heidegger, his take on anonymity is worth thinking about. Anonymity has more in common with cowardice than with courage—and is antithetical to critical dialogue.
Food for thought, perhaps, for various anonymouses on these pages. Or maybe not. With anonymouses, who can tell?
(Thanks, N, for the link to Di Leo's article).
Annie Zaidi: Known Turf
Tomorrow June 21 at The Hub in Bandra, the intrepid journalist Annie Zaidi and I will be sitting down (I trust) to discuss her new book, Known Turf. More details in this invitation.
Be there. No excuses. (But RSVP as indicated in the invitation).
Be there. No excuses. (But RSVP as indicated in the invitation).
The indefensible
"You do not defend the British Army by defending the indefensible. We do not honor all those who have served with distinction in keeping the peace and upholding the rule of law in Northern Ireland by hiding from the truth."
- Prime Minister of Britain, David Cameron, reacting to the just-released report of the inquiry into the events of "Bloody Sunday", January 30 1972.
- Prime Minister of Britain, David Cameron, reacting to the just-released report of the inquiry into the events of "Bloody Sunday", January 30 1972.
June 18, 2010
Janhavi, Chandrahas, me
Tomorrow in Thane: Janhavi Acharekar (author of Window Seat: Rush-hour Stories from the City), Chandrahas Choudhury (author of Arzee the Dwarf) and I will be on a panel together talking about writing and books and people and places and who knows what else.
Please come. Alternatively, please come anyway.
Reliance TimeOut, 2nd floor, Korum Mall, Thane West. 630pm.
Please come. Alternatively, please come anyway.
Reliance TimeOut, 2nd floor, Korum Mall, Thane West. 630pm.
Myth grows
Meanwhile, I'm making an attempt to revive my travel blog, Our Judgement Free. Just on air over there is Myth grows in Baracoa.
Check it out. Or check it out.
Check it out. Or check it out.
Conversations, #13
One measure of the effect of this conversation with Beena Sarwar over the last few months is the anger in some who react to it. (There are other measures, but this is one). Lesson: there should be more of this stuff, not less.
Here's the 13th installment (we're going to 15 and stopping): Meeting point.
Comments welcome. Measures may be taken.
Earlier instalments: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12.
Here's the 13th installment (we're going to 15 and stopping): Meeting point.
Comments welcome. Measures may be taken.
Earlier instalments: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12.
June 13, 2010
Bird on treadmill with bag
A few gleanings from recent issues of my morning newspaper, offered with titular comment.
***
Try the cop outside, maybe?
From an agony aunt column in HT Cafe, May 31 2010:
I'm 18 and my girlfriend is of the same age. We don't meet because she is under house arrest … Please help.
***
What if I look like a bag?
You should "take your body type into account when buying a bag", according to a feature in HT Cafe (June 13 2010) that comes complete with pix of svelte ladies like Deepika Padukone and Shilpa Shetty. The excellent advice should definitely help you choose between small, medium, big and oversized bags. Excerpts:
If you are Petite: "Rounded handbags in small and medium sizes … A small person can even carry a big tote."
If you are Curvaceous: "Small and big totes and even the oversized ones look just fine … [You] should try a medium-sized handbag."
If you are Tall and slim: "All shapes look great".
If you are Plump: "[You] should carry oversized bags … Go for the petite bags."
***
Unless they come from Bihar and UP
From a news item about activities planned for Raj Thackeray's birthday, one of which is a tree plantation drive (Hindustan Times, June 12 2010):
"Birds are migrating from the city due to depleting green cover and we want them to come back," said Manoj Chavan, president, MNS labour wing.
***
Your little Ankita is 2 and you haven't put her on a treadmill yet?
From "Surface Matter", a feature about running (Hindustan Times, June 12 2010):
For most people, the treadmill is their first initiation into running.
From an agony aunt column in HT Cafe, May 31 2010:
I'm 18 and my girlfriend is of the same age. We don't meet because she is under house arrest … Please help.
You should "take your body type into account when buying a bag", according to a feature in HT Cafe (June 13 2010) that comes complete with pix of svelte ladies like Deepika Padukone and Shilpa Shetty. The excellent advice should definitely help you choose between small, medium, big and oversized bags. Excerpts:
If you are Petite: "Rounded handbags in small and medium sizes … A small person can even carry a big tote."
If you are Curvaceous: "Small and big totes and even the oversized ones look just fine … [You] should try a medium-sized handbag."
If you are Tall and slim: "All shapes look great".
If you are Plump: "[You] should carry oversized bags … Go for the petite bags."
From a news item about activities planned for Raj Thackeray's birthday, one of which is a tree plantation drive (Hindustan Times, June 12 2010):
"Birds are migrating from the city due to depleting green cover and we want them to come back," said Manoj Chavan, president, MNS labour wing.
From "Surface Matter", a feature about running (Hindustan Times, June 12 2010):
For most people, the treadmill is their first initiation into running.
June 12, 2010
Better in ... Azamgarh?
Narendra Modi is about to visit Bihar. To prepare the ground, his government puts out full-page ads in local dailies saying that "Muslims in Gujarat enjoy better education, and employment opportunities, financial stability, health facilities and infrastructure."
Questions: Better than what? What about Hindus in Gujarat, do they enjoy the same better facilities? If so, is there such an ad too that refers to them? Why would a government issue an ad referring to one particular religion?
Questions apart. You can see the ad in the link above, but you can see it more clearly at the top of the report on this page. Note the three photographs (besides Modi's face) in the ad; note especially the top right one. You'd assume that since they appear in an ad saying Muslims enjoy better things in Gujarat, those photos were shot in Gujarat, right?
Wrong. As the same report indicates, that particular shot was shot in Azamgarh, UP. It was part of a report published last November (see last photo there).
Question: Why would the Gujarat government support a claim about how things are better for Muslims in Gujarat with a photo shot in UP?
Questions: Better than what? What about Hindus in Gujarat, do they enjoy the same better facilities? If so, is there such an ad too that refers to them? Why would a government issue an ad referring to one particular religion?
Questions apart. You can see the ad in the link above, but you can see it more clearly at the top of the report on this page. Note the three photographs (besides Modi's face) in the ad; note especially the top right one. You'd assume that since they appear in an ad saying Muslims enjoy better things in Gujarat, those photos were shot in Gujarat, right?
Wrong. As the same report indicates, that particular shot was shot in Azamgarh, UP. It was part of a report published last November (see last photo there).
Question: Why would the Gujarat government support a claim about how things are better for Muslims in Gujarat with a photo shot in UP?
June 10, 2010
Canadian visa
With my recent travel and subsequent computer hassles, there's a large backlog of things I want to write about. Not that I think I will get to them all, but I'm conscious of the backlog, is all.
One of those things is the recent uproar about a Canadian visa. As I'm sure I don't need to tell you, that country refused a visa to a once-BSF member because some Canadian official noted that he and/or the BSF has a record of violence.
I don't at all understand the uproar. After all, is there an Indian who doesn't believe that our security personnel indulge in excesses of violence? From Kashmir to the Northeast to everywhere we've seen massacres of innocent Indians -- in all those places, Indian police and paramilitary and army people are accused of serious crimes and brutality. I know of enough cases of police brutality -- in Bombay, in Satara, in West Bengal, in Tamil Nadu. In Manipur a few years ago, a whole lot of women actually marched naked in public to protest their treatment by Indian security forces. What would drive women to make such a protest? And then there are the regular times when we hear of men in one or the other uniform misbehaving in trains, pushing people around and often enough off the train.
Violence? I mean, be honest: would you be sanguine about your wife or sister or daughter visiting an Indian police station on her own?
This is not to say there are no men in Indian uniform who are different. No, there are plenty, and I know plenty of them, and I've even seen them in action. Exemplary in their conduct, they'd be a credit to their uniform anywhere in the world.
And yet that's just the point. The ones who resort to violence tarnish by association even the ones who try to uphold standards of professional and personal conduct. Which is one more reason the former must be identified and stopped. That we don't do that enough is one more sign justice means so little that, for example, we are yet to punish the horrific killings of November 1984.
Thing is, we know all this. If any of us pointed it out, nobody would claim some great sullying of national honour. Yet when a Canadian points it out, it is suddenly an insult to us all, besides being a slur on the fair name of the BSF. Why? What's more, the reactions to all this invariably point to crimes by Canadian forces, or other Western forces. Why? Of what possible relevance is that?
Delivering justice must mean, first of all, the courage to identify those who commit crimes. Let's find that courage, regardless of what Canada does about its visas.
One of those things is the recent uproar about a Canadian visa. As I'm sure I don't need to tell you, that country refused a visa to a once-BSF member because some Canadian official noted that he and/or the BSF has a record of violence.
I don't at all understand the uproar. After all, is there an Indian who doesn't believe that our security personnel indulge in excesses of violence? From Kashmir to the Northeast to everywhere we've seen massacres of innocent Indians -- in all those places, Indian police and paramilitary and army people are accused of serious crimes and brutality. I know of enough cases of police brutality -- in Bombay, in Satara, in West Bengal, in Tamil Nadu. In Manipur a few years ago, a whole lot of women actually marched naked in public to protest their treatment by Indian security forces. What would drive women to make such a protest? And then there are the regular times when we hear of men in one or the other uniform misbehaving in trains, pushing people around and often enough off the train.
Violence? I mean, be honest: would you be sanguine about your wife or sister or daughter visiting an Indian police station on her own?
This is not to say there are no men in Indian uniform who are different. No, there are plenty, and I know plenty of them, and I've even seen them in action. Exemplary in their conduct, they'd be a credit to their uniform anywhere in the world.
And yet that's just the point. The ones who resort to violence tarnish by association even the ones who try to uphold standards of professional and personal conduct. Which is one more reason the former must be identified and stopped. That we don't do that enough is one more sign justice means so little that, for example, we are yet to punish the horrific killings of November 1984.
Thing is, we know all this. If any of us pointed it out, nobody would claim some great sullying of national honour. Yet when a Canadian points it out, it is suddenly an insult to us all, besides being a slur on the fair name of the BSF. Why? What's more, the reactions to all this invariably point to crimes by Canadian forces, or other Western forces. Why? Of what possible relevance is that?
Delivering justice must mean, first of all, the courage to identify those who commit crimes. Let's find that courage, regardless of what Canada does about its visas.
SS Tinaikar
The former municipal commissioner of this city, SS Tinaikar, died on May 22. (I was travelling at the time, and missed reading the news). He was a good friend of my father, JB D'Souza, also a former municipal commissioner. I got to know and like him too, besides hearing his gravelly voice on the telephone often. He was a fearless man, of absolute integrity; and as men like that in public service tend to do, he stepped on some loud political toes. To me, that itself spoke of the man he was.
You were a great credit to this city, Mr Tinaikar. Too bad they don't make them like you any more.
You were a great credit to this city, Mr Tinaikar. Too bad they don't make them like you any more.
June 09, 2010
Gas that whispers
I've been spluttering in bewilderment at some of the reactions to yesterday's Bhopal gas verdict.
For one example, here we learn that "America's reaction to the sentence in the Bhopal gas tragedy seemed tactless, even insulting." Well, give me a break: 25+ years to come to this judgement seems to me somewhat more tactless and insulting than pretty much anything else about the Bhopal tragedy. The way Bhopal has come to matter not at all to most of us Indians -- the way plenty of comment over the years has suggested that the victims should "move on" -- seems to me tactless and insulting.
It's hardly my case that America has been that proverbial paragon of virtue in this or anything else. But it's definitely my case that the blame for this travesty of justice for a quarter century lies at very Indian feet. In that way, and in the way the anger gets diverted to America, this episode reminds me of the whole Enron mess. Of that, another time.
For another example, here we learn that the Government of India proposes a "new law" with "stiffer punishment" for future Bhopal-like disasters. Well, give me a break again: knowing my India as I do, a future Bhopal-like disaster will set in motion a future court wrangle that will take a future 25 years to come to a future frustrating judgement. I know as you know: it isn't the law to blame, it's the lack of interest in applying the law. And therefore a new law will change zip-all.
Some years ago, I went to Bhopal to meet some of the people affected by the 1984 tragedy, to get a sense of it all for myself. Below is an article I wrote at the time. It is discouraging to know that had I visited now, I would have probably written much the same article.
***
The Gas Also Whispered Liability
As the crow flies, or as the gas leaks, the Union Carbide plant is no more than a hundred metres from Tulsabai's one-room home in the shantytown of JP Nagar in Bhopal. When I arrive there one afternoon, she is asleep on a mat. Much as she must have been, I think to myself, that dark night in 1984. Seventeen years and change later, there in that one room, Tulsabai and I sit to chat. And I am disconcerted to find I am listening to her only intermittently.
For I'm very conscious of that plant. Of its dilapidated, weed-surrounded bulk: a brooding presence, right there across the street. Much as it must have been in 1984. Only a hundred metres away as the crow flies. As the gas whispers death.
Apologies, Tulsabai. But I hear you. I hear the pain and sorrow in your quavering voice, the hurt that has not gone all these years later. And I understand how much is wrong, unjust, about how the tragedy of Bhopal has played itself out.
The bare bones, first. Nearing midnight on Sunday, December 2 1984, a cloud of deadly gas erupted from a storage tank in the arbide plant. Reams have been written about what the cloud contained, how it was formed and how it leaked. Suffice it to say, here, that over the next few hours, it spread some 27 tonnes of poison -- think of it, 27 tonnes wafting through the air -- over a sleeping city.
The wind carried it the hundred metres to Tulsabai's home and over JP Nagar, first and worst affected. Thousands of people woke with their eyes burning, unable to breathe. "It was like somebody was roasting chillies," says Partap, Tulsabai's half-blind son -- a comparison that many others echo. They began to run for their lives. Began to drop dead as they ran. One description of that night:
That is the legacy of Union Carbide.
But there's more, and it compounds tragedy.
First, the notorious figure everyone knows like they know a cavity. After demanding several billion dollars in compensation from Carbide, the Government of India suddenly settled for $470 million in 1989. As many have pointed out, that's less than a tenth -- a tenth -- of Exxon's fine for the Valdez oil spill in Alaska, which killed nobody.
Second, the way even that money was distributed. While their claims were investigated over several years, victims were paid Rs 200 a month. Then they got their "final" amount: in most cases, about Rs 30,000 minus the total of the monthly payments. For too many victims, this wasn't even enough to cover medical expenses they had already incurred.
Third, more is left of that settlement than there was to begin with. In 1989, $470 million translated to Rs 7.15 billion. After paying thousands of claims, over Rs 10 billion remains. This is explained, of course, by a decade of accumulated interest and an appreciating dollar. Still, people who waited years for compensation ask why they should not be paid interest as well. That Rs 10 billion, they believe, is rightfully theirs.
Fourth, innumerable and familiar tales of chicanery, apathy, corruption and pig-headedness in the Government claims machinery. In a typical case, Abdul Wahid's mother died "directly of the adverse effects of the [Carbide] gas on the 15th June, 1985." Abdul was granted an ex-gratia payment of Rs 10,000, a monthly pension of Rs 750, and filed a claim for Rs 500,000. The official concerned "rejected [the] claim on the grounds that it was not proved that she was in Bhopal on [that] night." Abdul appealed. In October 1994 -- nine years after his mother died -- the claims Tribunal overturned the rejection and awarded Abdul his money (though the amount was reduced to Rs 150,000). [Quotes from the Tribunal's order].
42 year-old Anwar Khan, an unemployed victim, sums up the frustration that such struggles have produced: "What is the role of magistrates and lawyers in all this?" he asks. "We didn't commit any crime!"
Fifth, the still palpable resentment directed at Union Carbide. One reason is the amount of the settlement; another is the neglect that caused the leak; an unexpected one is that Carbide handed the compensation to the Government instead of distributing it itself. Many feel this would have meant far less delay and corruption. (What does it say that the victims of Carbide believe that Carbide would have been quicker and less corrupt in distributing compensation than their own Government?)
Above all, victims believe Carbide -- or Dow Chemical, that now owns Carbide -- is still liable for the leak. They think Dow must, at least, run an employment scheme for gas victims and families.
So I asked Ravi Muthukrishnan, MD of Dow Chemical India Private Limited (DCIPL) what he thought about liability. He replied by bland email: "Dow Chemical [is not] accountable legally or otherwise for the Bhopal accident. As a shareholder, Dow Chemical is not liable for Union Carbide obligations, if any."
He did acknowledge that Dow is in a "dialogue" with victims about "extending some form of humanitarian assistance to the people of Bhopal", though he would not say more. Whatever this means, survivors' organizations insist that Dow liabilities can only be a package: criminal liability for the leak, environmental cleanup of the area, economic and medical rehabilitation. "Humanitarian assistance" by itself, they maintain, amounts to mere PR.
Take that cleanup. Much evidence has accumulated that the factory has contaminated the soil and water in the area. A security guard at the complex told me I could not enter because large quantities of chemicals were still stored in the plant. "The soil itself is now poisonous," he said. In JP Nagar, I visited three wells whose water is too tainted to drink. One was in Govandi Lal's house: the irony of having a well at home but walking to a municipal tap for drinking water is startling and sad.
In The Bhopal Legacy (1999), Greenpeace writes that their researchers found:
Muthukrishnan wrote: "[T]here are differing views on the science surrounding the extent and source of any contamination." He cited studies by the Madhya Pradesh Pollution Control Board (MPCB) and the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI). MPCB concluded that contamination could not be connected to any "chemicals formerly used at the [factory] or the wastes there"; NEERI added that no wells had been contaminated by "past disposal activities at the plant."
Notice that these studies -- at least as cited by Muthukrishnan -- carefully sidestep the question of contamination from chemicals still stored at the plant. Chemicals even a security guard at the plant warned me about.
Still, higher authorities are inclined to at least examine liability arising from contamination. Several Bhopal groups are fighting a battle in US courts on this very issue. Among other things, they seek recovery from Carbide and its then CEO, Warren Anderson, for environmental damage. Judge John Keenan of a New York District Court dismissed the case in August 2000 "without specifically addressing the ... environmental claims." On appeal, a superior Court returned the case to Keenan in November 2001, asking him to examine these claims. "We would benefit", the Justices wrote, "from [Keenan's] consideration of these issues in the first instance. ... We therefore remand the case to permit him to do so." [Quotes from their order].
Now legal liability is one thing. But in Bhopal, you can't miss the signs of the devastation 27 tonnes of gas caused. Seventeen years on, while intricate legal battles drag on, that devastation says something to me about moral liability. Ordinary humanity. Seems to me even companies can feel it. Must feel it.
For one example, here we learn that "America's reaction to the sentence in the Bhopal gas tragedy seemed tactless, even insulting." Well, give me a break: 25+ years to come to this judgement seems to me somewhat more tactless and insulting than pretty much anything else about the Bhopal tragedy. The way Bhopal has come to matter not at all to most of us Indians -- the way plenty of comment over the years has suggested that the victims should "move on" -- seems to me tactless and insulting.
It's hardly my case that America has been that proverbial paragon of virtue in this or anything else. But it's definitely my case that the blame for this travesty of justice for a quarter century lies at very Indian feet. In that way, and in the way the anger gets diverted to America, this episode reminds me of the whole Enron mess. Of that, another time.
For another example, here we learn that the Government of India proposes a "new law" with "stiffer punishment" for future Bhopal-like disasters. Well, give me a break again: knowing my India as I do, a future Bhopal-like disaster will set in motion a future court wrangle that will take a future 25 years to come to a future frustrating judgement. I know as you know: it isn't the law to blame, it's the lack of interest in applying the law. And therefore a new law will change zip-all.
Some years ago, I went to Bhopal to meet some of the people affected by the 1984 tragedy, to get a sense of it all for myself. Below is an article I wrote at the time. It is discouraging to know that had I visited now, I would have probably written much the same article.
The Gas Also Whispered Liability
As the crow flies, or as the gas leaks, the Union Carbide plant is no more than a hundred metres from Tulsabai's one-room home in the shantytown of JP Nagar in Bhopal. When I arrive there one afternoon, she is asleep on a mat. Much as she must have been, I think to myself, that dark night in 1984. Seventeen years and change later, there in that one room, Tulsabai and I sit to chat. And I am disconcerted to find I am listening to her only intermittently.
For I'm very conscious of that plant. Of its dilapidated, weed-surrounded bulk: a brooding presence, right there across the street. Much as it must have been in 1984. Only a hundred metres away as the crow flies. As the gas whispers death.
Apologies, Tulsabai. But I hear you. I hear the pain and sorrow in your quavering voice, the hurt that has not gone all these years later. And I understand how much is wrong, unjust, about how the tragedy of Bhopal has played itself out.
The bare bones, first. Nearing midnight on Sunday, December 2 1984, a cloud of deadly gas erupted from a storage tank in the arbide plant. Reams have been written about what the cloud contained, how it was formed and how it leaked. Suffice it to say, here, that over the next few hours, it spread some 27 tonnes of poison -- think of it, 27 tonnes wafting through the air -- over a sleeping city.
The wind carried it the hundred metres to Tulsabai's home and over JP Nagar, first and worst affected. Thousands of people woke with their eyes burning, unable to breathe. "It was like somebody was roasting chillies," says Partap, Tulsabai's half-blind son -- a comparison that many others echo. They began to run for their lives. Began to drop dead as they ran. One description of that night:
People lost control of their bodies. Urine and faeces ran down their legs. Some began vomiting uncontrollably. Others were wracked with seizures and fell dead. The gases irritated people's lungs into producing so much fluid that their lungs were filled with it, "drowning" them in their own body fluids.Officially, some 1600 people were dead by morning, though unofficial estimates were much higher. And yet, the precise number that night is sadly irrelevant today. For in a decade-and-a-half, the toll has risen beyond ten times that official figure. If the gas whispered widespread death that night, it has whispered it to thousands more in the years since. It has left still more thousands blind, asthmatic, depressed, ill in myriad ways, robbed of the will to live. All these years later, upwards of 4000 gas victims seek outpatient treatment in Bhopal clinics for their symptoms every day; something like 20,000 are actually admitted to hospital every year.
That is the legacy of Union Carbide.
But there's more, and it compounds tragedy.
First, the notorious figure everyone knows like they know a cavity. After demanding several billion dollars in compensation from Carbide, the Government of India suddenly settled for $470 million in 1989. As many have pointed out, that's less than a tenth -- a tenth -- of Exxon's fine for the Valdez oil spill in Alaska, which killed nobody.
Second, the way even that money was distributed. While their claims were investigated over several years, victims were paid Rs 200 a month. Then they got their "final" amount: in most cases, about Rs 30,000 minus the total of the monthly payments. For too many victims, this wasn't even enough to cover medical expenses they had already incurred.
Third, more is left of that settlement than there was to begin with. In 1989, $470 million translated to Rs 7.15 billion. After paying thousands of claims, over Rs 10 billion remains. This is explained, of course, by a decade of accumulated interest and an appreciating dollar. Still, people who waited years for compensation ask why they should not be paid interest as well. That Rs 10 billion, they believe, is rightfully theirs.
Fourth, innumerable and familiar tales of chicanery, apathy, corruption and pig-headedness in the Government claims machinery. In a typical case, Abdul Wahid's mother died "directly of the adverse effects of the [Carbide] gas on the 15th June, 1985." Abdul was granted an ex-gratia payment of Rs 10,000, a monthly pension of Rs 750, and filed a claim for Rs 500,000. The official concerned "rejected [the] claim on the grounds that it was not proved that she was in Bhopal on [that] night." Abdul appealed. In October 1994 -- nine years after his mother died -- the claims Tribunal overturned the rejection and awarded Abdul his money (though the amount was reduced to Rs 150,000). [Quotes from the Tribunal's order].
42 year-old Anwar Khan, an unemployed victim, sums up the frustration that such struggles have produced: "What is the role of magistrates and lawyers in all this?" he asks. "We didn't commit any crime!"
Fifth, the still palpable resentment directed at Union Carbide. One reason is the amount of the settlement; another is the neglect that caused the leak; an unexpected one is that Carbide handed the compensation to the Government instead of distributing it itself. Many feel this would have meant far less delay and corruption. (What does it say that the victims of Carbide believe that Carbide would have been quicker and less corrupt in distributing compensation than their own Government?)
Above all, victims believe Carbide -- or Dow Chemical, that now owns Carbide -- is still liable for the leak. They think Dow must, at least, run an employment scheme for gas victims and families.
So I asked Ravi Muthukrishnan, MD of Dow Chemical India Private Limited (DCIPL) what he thought about liability. He replied by bland email: "Dow Chemical [is not] accountable legally or otherwise for the Bhopal accident. As a shareholder, Dow Chemical is not liable for Union Carbide obligations, if any."
He did acknowledge that Dow is in a "dialogue" with victims about "extending some form of humanitarian assistance to the people of Bhopal", though he would not say more. Whatever this means, survivors' organizations insist that Dow liabilities can only be a package: criminal liability for the leak, environmental cleanup of the area, economic and medical rehabilitation. "Humanitarian assistance" by itself, they maintain, amounts to mere PR.
Take that cleanup. Much evidence has accumulated that the factory has contaminated the soil and water in the area. A security guard at the complex told me I could not enter because large quantities of chemicals were still stored in the plant. "The soil itself is now poisonous," he said. In JP Nagar, I visited three wells whose water is too tainted to drink. One was in Govandi Lal's house: the irony of having a well at home but walking to a municipal tap for drinking water is startling and sad.
In The Bhopal Legacy (1999), Greenpeace writes that their researchers found:
general contamination of the site and immediate surroundings with chemicals arising either from [plant operation or] ongoing release of chemicals from materials ... dumped or stored on site. ... The financial and legal responsibility for the clean-up operation must be borne by the former and/or current owners of [the Carbide plant] and the Government of India.How does Dow react to this?
Muthukrishnan wrote: "[T]here are differing views on the science surrounding the extent and source of any contamination." He cited studies by the Madhya Pradesh Pollution Control Board (MPCB) and the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI). MPCB concluded that contamination could not be connected to any "chemicals formerly used at the [factory] or the wastes there"; NEERI added that no wells had been contaminated by "past disposal activities at the plant."
Notice that these studies -- at least as cited by Muthukrishnan -- carefully sidestep the question of contamination from chemicals still stored at the plant. Chemicals even a security guard at the plant warned me about.
Still, higher authorities are inclined to at least examine liability arising from contamination. Several Bhopal groups are fighting a battle in US courts on this very issue. Among other things, they seek recovery from Carbide and its then CEO, Warren Anderson, for environmental damage. Judge John Keenan of a New York District Court dismissed the case in August 2000 "without specifically addressing the ... environmental claims." On appeal, a superior Court returned the case to Keenan in November 2001, asking him to examine these claims. "We would benefit", the Justices wrote, "from [Keenan's] consideration of these issues in the first instance. ... We therefore remand the case to permit him to do so." [Quotes from their order].
Now legal liability is one thing. But in Bhopal, you can't miss the signs of the devastation 27 tonnes of gas caused. Seventeen years on, while intricate legal battles drag on, that devastation says something to me about moral liability. Ordinary humanity. Seems to me even companies can feel it. Must feel it.
June 08, 2010
Roadrunner in The Book Review
The May 2010 issue of The Book Review carried the following review of my Roadrunner, by Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr. Comments welcome. And many pats on the back if you can decode the blog address at the end, reproduced verbatim. (I managed it.)
***
Sounds, Smells and Voices
There are not many Indian authors who had the courage and confidence to write about the United States of American despite the fact that many young and not-so-young men, and young and not-so-young women in post-Independent India -- especially from the 1950s and 1960s onwards -- have literally grown up loving American popular fiction, popular music and popular cinema (Hollywood). When satellite television came in the 1990s, the America-hungry folk in our cities just grabbed every bit of the jaded soap operas like "The Bold and The Beautiful" and "Santa Barbara". In the last few years, a much younger generation got hooked on to "Baywatch", "Friends" and even "Ally McBeal". It was in many ways a passive absorption of everything American. This did not however find expression in books, essays, stories from the Indian side. From Bharati Mukherjee to Jhumpa Lahiri, the stories were mostly about Indians settled over there. The only exception but in the non-fiction genre was Allan Sealy's "From Yukon to Yucatan", a travelogue from the northernmost point of the north American landmass to its southernmost tip. Sealy set out to break the silence and barrier of an Indian writing knowingly about the land, but he admitted that the book did not sell in India of in the US. Sealy's however was a literary undertaking and perhaps he did not desire it to be a popular work.
Dilip D'Souza's attempt to write on the US is in the popular, journalistic mode is both interesting and refreshing. "Roadrunner" is indeed a travelogue but an intimate one, where places, sounds, smells, people, voices come alive. D'Souza's writing does not have a serious and even tone. He is in turn enthusiastic, naive, banal, yes banal, sentimental, serious, critical, provocative. It can be said that he would have been able to achieve lyrical peaks which he does at some points if he was afraid to touch the bathetic lows. The book starts off an irritating note, of an outsider who has too much of knowledge of an insider and who brazenly exhibits it as well. But the reader will have to persist through these irritating moments before he or she reaches the finer and even finest moments of the narrative.
He travels to smaller towns, disaster spots, big cities as well and collects the voices, sets down his impressions. What he has to say are not always well thought out. He is aiming more at the natural flow and not allowing himself to become serious or pompous. Throughout the journey across the length and breadth of the country he does not lose sight of the fact that he is an Indian and that he is looking at Americans through Indian eyes in spite of his deep familiarity with the country because he had lived there for 10 years between 1982 and 1992 before returning to India. He admits that his perception of India has been coloured by his American sojourn. He does not however judge America from the Indian viewpoint. He tries to see Americans as naturally as it is possible for an Indian who knows his America well can do. He succeeds because he is affectionate and critical, does not impose other value criteria and he does not pretend that he is an American though he could very well pass off for one.
There are two points in the book where D'Souza shows his mastery through sheer honesty. The first is when he meets his longtime pen-friend -- she came to visit him in India -- when he moves to America for his Master's degree. By this time she has got converted to Christianity, and D'Souza who confesses to his agnosticism finds it difficult to understand. More so, her blind and simplistic faith. He notes that she later went back to Judaism. Their friendship ended and he counts it as a "melancholy episode" in his life. He however gets into introspective mode and asks himself as to why he, who was proud of being open-minded, could not accept the religious faith of his friend. He writes: "Here I was, smugly proud that I was myself open-minded about everything, liberal in the best sense. Agnostic, but self-assured about my respect for religion. Yet face-to-face for the first time with a friend so profoundly religious -- yes, even fanatically religious, so what? -- my open-mindedness failed me." (p 78).
The other point is where he describes the place where planes are put away after they are decommissioned in the chapter aptly titled "Flight". Here is one of the many thoughtful, heartfelt passages from this chapter: "Mojave is one answer to a question every flight enthusiast eventually wonders about: what happens to old planes? Sure, Zeros and P-51 Mustangs get shot down in wars. But what about the ones that survive? What about other military aircraft that simply grow obsolete? What about civilian Caravelles and Dakotas, Avros and 707s, yesteryear workhorses of airlines the world over? Where do they go when past their sell-by date? … At least some of them end up in the American Southwest, which is dotted with several aircraft graveyards." (p 230).
This book should be given as a present to all the American and British journalists living in New Delhi, for long and short periods, and who write about India with such amazing ignorance, indelicate arrogance and with the affectation of an enlightened benefactor who is moved by the benighted land and its people. D'Souza shows what it is to write about another land and other people, however well you know them. He shows what it is to respect the other person while at the same time not appropriating the position of an authoritative outsider/insider. He avoids all the follies that Americans and the English commit when they write on India.
D'Souza succeeds because he lets himself go, dares to be foolish and melodramatic but he is always careful to observe the people and the places where he is a foreigner with respect and affection. This is not something that can be achieved through a plan. What it needs is emotional and intellectual honesty and humility. There is plenty of it in D'Souza and it spills over into what he writes.
***
Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr is with the DNA, New Delhi. He also blogs at (orsareoirtvkigsoit,cin).
Sounds, Smells and Voices
There are not many Indian authors who had the courage and confidence to write about the United States of American despite the fact that many young and not-so-young men, and young and not-so-young women in post-Independent India -- especially from the 1950s and 1960s onwards -- have literally grown up loving American popular fiction, popular music and popular cinema (Hollywood). When satellite television came in the 1990s, the America-hungry folk in our cities just grabbed every bit of the jaded soap operas like "The Bold and The Beautiful" and "Santa Barbara". In the last few years, a much younger generation got hooked on to "Baywatch", "Friends" and even "Ally McBeal". It was in many ways a passive absorption of everything American. This did not however find expression in books, essays, stories from the Indian side. From Bharati Mukherjee to Jhumpa Lahiri, the stories were mostly about Indians settled over there. The only exception but in the non-fiction genre was Allan Sealy's "From Yukon to Yucatan", a travelogue from the northernmost point of the north American landmass to its southernmost tip. Sealy set out to break the silence and barrier of an Indian writing knowingly about the land, but he admitted that the book did not sell in India of in the US. Sealy's however was a literary undertaking and perhaps he did not desire it to be a popular work.
Dilip D'Souza's attempt to write on the US is in the popular, journalistic mode is both interesting and refreshing. "Roadrunner" is indeed a travelogue but an intimate one, where places, sounds, smells, people, voices come alive. D'Souza's writing does not have a serious and even tone. He is in turn enthusiastic, naive, banal, yes banal, sentimental, serious, critical, provocative. It can be said that he would have been able to achieve lyrical peaks which he does at some points if he was afraid to touch the bathetic lows. The book starts off an irritating note, of an outsider who has too much of knowledge of an insider and who brazenly exhibits it as well. But the reader will have to persist through these irritating moments before he or she reaches the finer and even finest moments of the narrative.
He travels to smaller towns, disaster spots, big cities as well and collects the voices, sets down his impressions. What he has to say are not always well thought out. He is aiming more at the natural flow and not allowing himself to become serious or pompous. Throughout the journey across the length and breadth of the country he does not lose sight of the fact that he is an Indian and that he is looking at Americans through Indian eyes in spite of his deep familiarity with the country because he had lived there for 10 years between 1982 and 1992 before returning to India. He admits that his perception of India has been coloured by his American sojourn. He does not however judge America from the Indian viewpoint. He tries to see Americans as naturally as it is possible for an Indian who knows his America well can do. He succeeds because he is affectionate and critical, does not impose other value criteria and he does not pretend that he is an American though he could very well pass off for one.
There are two points in the book where D'Souza shows his mastery through sheer honesty. The first is when he meets his longtime pen-friend -- she came to visit him in India -- when he moves to America for his Master's degree. By this time she has got converted to Christianity, and D'Souza who confesses to his agnosticism finds it difficult to understand. More so, her blind and simplistic faith. He notes that she later went back to Judaism. Their friendship ended and he counts it as a "melancholy episode" in his life. He however gets into introspective mode and asks himself as to why he, who was proud of being open-minded, could not accept the religious faith of his friend. He writes: "Here I was, smugly proud that I was myself open-minded about everything, liberal in the best sense. Agnostic, but self-assured about my respect for religion. Yet face-to-face for the first time with a friend so profoundly religious -- yes, even fanatically religious, so what? -- my open-mindedness failed me." (p 78).
The other point is where he describes the place where planes are put away after they are decommissioned in the chapter aptly titled "Flight". Here is one of the many thoughtful, heartfelt passages from this chapter: "Mojave is one answer to a question every flight enthusiast eventually wonders about: what happens to old planes? Sure, Zeros and P-51 Mustangs get shot down in wars. But what about the ones that survive? What about other military aircraft that simply grow obsolete? What about civilian Caravelles and Dakotas, Avros and 707s, yesteryear workhorses of airlines the world over? Where do they go when past their sell-by date? … At least some of them end up in the American Southwest, which is dotted with several aircraft graveyards." (p 230).
This book should be given as a present to all the American and British journalists living in New Delhi, for long and short periods, and who write about India with such amazing ignorance, indelicate arrogance and with the affectation of an enlightened benefactor who is moved by the benighted land and its people. D'Souza shows what it is to write about another land and other people, however well you know them. He shows what it is to respect the other person while at the same time not appropriating the position of an authoritative outsider/insider. He avoids all the follies that Americans and the English commit when they write on India.
D'Souza succeeds because he lets himself go, dares to be foolish and melodramatic but he is always careful to observe the people and the places where he is a foreigner with respect and affection. This is not something that can be achieved through a plan. What it needs is emotional and intellectual honesty and humility. There is plenty of it in D'Souza and it spills over into what he writes.
***
Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr is with the DNA, New Delhi. He also blogs at (orsareoirtvkigsoit,cin).
June 03, 2010
Roadrunner in BAM
The May-June 2010 issue of the Brown Alumni Magazine (Brown University being where I got a MS degree in Computer Science) carries a feature on my book Roadrunner by Beth Schwartzapfel. Beth and I had a phone conversation earlier this year, based on which she wrote this essay: What is Patriotism?.
Your thoughts welcome.
PS: The photograph on that page is one of my favourites from the weeks I spent roaming the US for this book.
PS #2: I trust you can figure out which photograph on that page I mean.
Your thoughts welcome.
PS: The photograph on that page is one of my favourites from the weeks I spent roaming the US for this book.
PS #2: I trust you can figure out which photograph on that page I mean.
Roadrunner in Khabar
Khabar is an Indian-American magazine published from Atlanta, GA. The June 2010 issue carries a cover story around my recent book Roadrunner. There's an essay I wrote, part of which is an excerpt from the book. There is also a long review of the book by Girija Sankar. (Thank you, Girija).
Both here: Audacity: The Spirit of a Nation.
Please take a look; your comments welcome.
Both here: Audacity: The Spirit of a Nation.
Please take a look; your comments welcome.
Conversations, #11
Still struggling to cope with the absence of my computer that's being repaired. Under warranty, luckily, but it's taking frustratingly forever. Behind on work and a whole lot else, I'm cadging time on another machine to do a little catching up. (Never enough, as always).
One item: my ongoing conversation with Beena Sarwar in Pakistan. The 11th installment went on air a while ago, and here it is: There is more than one truth.
Previous: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10.
One item: my ongoing conversation with Beena Sarwar in Pakistan. The 11th installment went on air a while ago, and here it is: There is more than one truth.
Previous: #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10.
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