Sadanand Dhume, author of My Friend the Fanatic had an article in the Wall Street Journal a few days ago that I thought needed a response. After thinking about it a while, I wrote one. It's up on Kafila: The Definition Shortchanges India.
Comments welcome, as always.
December 27, 2010
Should alarm us all
I don't know whether to be flattered or otherwise by the comments (50+ already) the essay already has, having gone up just today. Whatever it is, it makes for interesting reading. The same point about the mention of the word "Maoist" that I made in my previous post here holds. The sometimes incoherent anger in a lot of people is something to behold.
I refer to an essay I did as a part-response to the conviction of Binayak Sen, up on rediff.com here.
Your comments welcome, as always.
I refer to an essay I did as a part-response to the conviction of Binayak Sen, up on rediff.com here.
Your comments welcome, as always.
December 25, 2010
Remembering scepticism
What gets me most about the conviction of Binayak Sen is not the conviction itself. Not the sentence. Not the fact I can see no evidence for what he has been accused of.
What gets me most are the reactions. The people who immediately pronounce that the "antinational" has been punished. That the "traitor" should be taken out and shot. That the "jholawallas" have finally got their "come-uppance".
So here's a random grab-bag of things I believe about this case, and I believe there's going to be no come-uppance about them.
1) On appeal, a higher court will overturn this judgement. That's how flimsy I think the evidence against Sen is. This is the silver lining I see in the case.
2) Those who easily label others "antinational" are in truly exalted company. Thus did people brand Nelson Mandela for 25+ yrs. And Aung San Suu Kyi.
3) People who work among the poorest Indians are promptly branded "leftist" and "communist" and the like. The only reason I can imagine for this is that the branders feel an inexplicable guilt that they don't have the balls, substance or interest to work like that themselves. So they seek to denigrate those who do, and these words are the worst denigration they can imagine.
4) A lot of people are ordinarily sceptical of governments, and rightly so. But too many of them only need to hear the same governments use the word "Maoist" to forget their own scepticism.
Or let me put it this way: Our political establishment's complicity in 2G, or Adarsh, or the Kargil coffin scam, or you name it, is the reason I'm sceptical about their pursuit of Sen. It's baffling that others who recognize and deplore that same complicity become believers as soon as Sen's accusers say "Maoist" in the same breath as his name.
5) Sen's case is a litmus test for us for this reason: it asks us to think about what's going on in this country. I think the Maoists are a menace to us all; but I am forced to face the fact that they have a lot of support in the areas in which they operate. Why? What are the circumstances for those people that makes them support Maoists? That's what Sen's case makes us ask.
Therefore: Remember your scepticism and ask.
What gets me most are the reactions. The people who immediately pronounce that the "antinational" has been punished. That the "traitor" should be taken out and shot. That the "jholawallas" have finally got their "come-uppance".
So here's a random grab-bag of things I believe about this case, and I believe there's going to be no come-uppance about them.
1) On appeal, a higher court will overturn this judgement. That's how flimsy I think the evidence against Sen is. This is the silver lining I see in the case.
2) Those who easily label others "antinational" are in truly exalted company. Thus did people brand Nelson Mandela for 25+ yrs. And Aung San Suu Kyi.
3) People who work among the poorest Indians are promptly branded "leftist" and "communist" and the like. The only reason I can imagine for this is that the branders feel an inexplicable guilt that they don't have the balls, substance or interest to work like that themselves. So they seek to denigrate those who do, and these words are the worst denigration they can imagine.
4) A lot of people are ordinarily sceptical of governments, and rightly so. But too many of them only need to hear the same governments use the word "Maoist" to forget their own scepticism.
Or let me put it this way: Our political establishment's complicity in 2G, or Adarsh, or the Kargil coffin scam, or you name it, is the reason I'm sceptical about their pursuit of Sen. It's baffling that others who recognize and deplore that same complicity become believers as soon as Sen's accusers say "Maoist" in the same breath as his name.
5) Sen's case is a litmus test for us for this reason: it asks us to think about what's going on in this country. I think the Maoists are a menace to us all; but I am forced to face the fact that they have a lot of support in the areas in which they operate. Why? What are the circumstances for those people that makes them support Maoists? That's what Sen's case makes us ask.
Therefore: Remember your scepticism and ask.
December 24, 2010
Sale, averted
I'm going to a children's court in a few minutes. Here's why.
A couple I know well took a train from Chhattisgarh, where they work, to Bombay 3 days ago. On the platform in Bilaspur before the train left, they found a man waiting for the train too, with two girls, perhaps 6 and 3. He was calling the younger girl Muskaan, which is a name the woman I know likes, so she spoke to him, remarking on the name.
Turns out he's from a village outside Bilaspur, but works as a security guard in Kalyan. Had four kids -- oldest a boy, then these two girls, then a boy again. They stayed with his wife in the village while he worked in Kalyan. A while ago, the wife absconded with another man and their youngest son. He asked his brother, back in the village, to take care of the kids. Brother said he didn't want the girls, took the oldest and has gone to Gujarat to work making bricks.
This man had no choice but to bring the girls to Bombay. But he lives in a shed with 12 other men, which is not a place for two little girls to live. Some "madam" in Bombay had offered to take the girls from him and pay him Rs 1 lakh. This is what he was planning to do.
The couple was aghast. Don't do this, they said. Get to Bombay and we'll see what we can do there.
They got off the train two nights ago, unsure if the man would call. In the meantime, they got in touch with a shelter we know well, where they take in homeless or street kids. The person in charge said they could take in the girls. But would the man call.
The next morning, he did call. That evening, the couple went to Thane, met him and brought him and the girls to the shelter, in Andheri. The rules are that he has to appear with them in front of a children's court and make his case for why the girls can't stay with him. If the court issues an order in his favour, they can move into this shelter, and he will come visit them once a week or so.
I haven't yet met the man and the girls. Now I will, as I go with them to the children's court with fingers crossed.
A couple I know well took a train from Chhattisgarh, where they work, to Bombay 3 days ago. On the platform in Bilaspur before the train left, they found a man waiting for the train too, with two girls, perhaps 6 and 3. He was calling the younger girl Muskaan, which is a name the woman I know likes, so she spoke to him, remarking on the name.
Turns out he's from a village outside Bilaspur, but works as a security guard in Kalyan. Had four kids -- oldest a boy, then these two girls, then a boy again. They stayed with his wife in the village while he worked in Kalyan. A while ago, the wife absconded with another man and their youngest son. He asked his brother, back in the village, to take care of the kids. Brother said he didn't want the girls, took the oldest and has gone to Gujarat to work making bricks.
This man had no choice but to bring the girls to Bombay. But he lives in a shed with 12 other men, which is not a place for two little girls to live. Some "madam" in Bombay had offered to take the girls from him and pay him Rs 1 lakh. This is what he was planning to do.
The couple was aghast. Don't do this, they said. Get to Bombay and we'll see what we can do there.
They got off the train two nights ago, unsure if the man would call. In the meantime, they got in touch with a shelter we know well, where they take in homeless or street kids. The person in charge said they could take in the girls. But would the man call.
The next morning, he did call. That evening, the couple went to Thane, met him and brought him and the girls to the shelter, in Andheri. The rules are that he has to appear with them in front of a children's court and make his case for why the girls can't stay with him. If the court issues an order in his favour, they can move into this shelter, and he will come visit them once a week or so.
I haven't yet met the man and the girls. Now I will, as I go with them to the children's court with fingers crossed.
December 21, 2010
Hope, dashed
In the just-concluded first Test against South Africa, India came into the fifth day in a fairly hopeless situation. Having scored 454, the team needed 30 more runs just to make South Africa bat again. But they had only two wickets left.
But as has been the case for the best part of two decades, India could hope because India had the greatest modern batsman, Sachin Tendulkar, still batting. He had just scored his 50th Test century, looking as solid and serene as always. With him there, India could legitimately hope, first of all, to score those 30 runs. After that, who knows? With Tendulkar batting as soundly as he had been, perhaps he could shield the tailenders and put a large enough score on the board and take enough time doing so that a draw became possible. Winning was likely too much to hope for, but after the first innings 136 debacle, a hard-fought draw would have been a tremendous achievement.
That's the hope that Indian fans like me held on to as the fifth day came around. Slender, but real.
After all there was that famous and electric performance by that other great modern master, Brian Lara, to inspire hope. Playing Australia in March 1999, WI were 248 for 8, needing another 60 runs to win. But Lara was still batting. With only two modern batting incompetents, Ambrose and Walsh, for company, Lara systematically took most of the strike and shepherded his team to one of Test cricket's great triumphs.
So we hoped for India. So how did that fifth morning, so filled with hope, pan out?
SA's fastest bowler, Steyn, started the day. He had to bowl four balls, to complete his over that had been interrupted by bad light the previous evening.
Off his second ball, Tendulkar took a single. That left Sreesanth to face the last two balls. Great, we thought, Tendulkar is farming the strike. Sreesanth survived the two balls.
Morkel bowled the next over to Tendulkar, a maiden. As far as I can tell there was no attempt made to score, especially not off the last couple of balls.
Steyn had six balls next, to go after Sreesanth. Sreesanth survived. As far as I can tell, there was no attempt made to score, especially not off the first couple of balls so that Tendulkar could take strike.
Morkel bowled the next over. Off the third ball, Tendulkar scored a single, leaving Sreesanth to face three balls. He was out off the second of those.
The new batsman, Jaydev Unadkat, played out the last ball of Morkel's over.
Steyn up again, to bowl the next over, Tendulkar on strike. Off the first ball, Tendulkar scores a single. Unadkat is left with the rest of the over -- five balls -- to negotiate, which he does with some unease. After the last ball, Cricinfo's commentary team has this to say: "Not sure if Tendulkar would want to give him the strike first ball."
Morkel bowls next, Tendulkar on strike. Off the second ball, he takes a single, leaving Unadkat to face four balls. The fifth ball of the over, Unadkat defends and "Tendulkar calls to take the single" (Cricinfo again). Tendulkar plays out the last ball with no attempt to score.
Steyn now has a full over to target Unadkat. He needs only one ball to take him out. SA wins the Test.
Far from 30 runs, India scored just five on the fifth morning. Of 35 balls bowled, Tendulkar faced 15, and six of those were in one Morkel over in which he seemed uninterested in scoring at all. (Compare with Lara, who fronted up for 74 of the final 118 balls -- after the fall of the 8th wicket -- of that 1999 Test).
And Indian fans like me were left to wonder: just what was Sachin Tendulkar doing on that fifth morning?
But as has been the case for the best part of two decades, India could hope because India had the greatest modern batsman, Sachin Tendulkar, still batting. He had just scored his 50th Test century, looking as solid and serene as always. With him there, India could legitimately hope, first of all, to score those 30 runs. After that, who knows? With Tendulkar batting as soundly as he had been, perhaps he could shield the tailenders and put a large enough score on the board and take enough time doing so that a draw became possible. Winning was likely too much to hope for, but after the first innings 136 debacle, a hard-fought draw would have been a tremendous achievement.
That's the hope that Indian fans like me held on to as the fifth day came around. Slender, but real.
After all there was that famous and electric performance by that other great modern master, Brian Lara, to inspire hope. Playing Australia in March 1999, WI were 248 for 8, needing another 60 runs to win. But Lara was still batting. With only two modern batting incompetents, Ambrose and Walsh, for company, Lara systematically took most of the strike and shepherded his team to one of Test cricket's great triumphs.
So we hoped for India. So how did that fifth morning, so filled with hope, pan out?
SA's fastest bowler, Steyn, started the day. He had to bowl four balls, to complete his over that had been interrupted by bad light the previous evening.
Off his second ball, Tendulkar took a single. That left Sreesanth to face the last two balls. Great, we thought, Tendulkar is farming the strike. Sreesanth survived the two balls.
Morkel bowled the next over to Tendulkar, a maiden. As far as I can tell there was no attempt made to score, especially not off the last couple of balls.
Steyn had six balls next, to go after Sreesanth. Sreesanth survived. As far as I can tell, there was no attempt made to score, especially not off the first couple of balls so that Tendulkar could take strike.
Morkel bowled the next over. Off the third ball, Tendulkar scored a single, leaving Sreesanth to face three balls. He was out off the second of those.
The new batsman, Jaydev Unadkat, played out the last ball of Morkel's over.
Steyn up again, to bowl the next over, Tendulkar on strike. Off the first ball, Tendulkar scores a single. Unadkat is left with the rest of the over -- five balls -- to negotiate, which he does with some unease. After the last ball, Cricinfo's commentary team has this to say: "Not sure if Tendulkar would want to give him the strike first ball."
Morkel bowls next, Tendulkar on strike. Off the second ball, he takes a single, leaving Unadkat to face four balls. The fifth ball of the over, Unadkat defends and "Tendulkar calls to take the single" (Cricinfo again). Tendulkar plays out the last ball with no attempt to score.
Steyn now has a full over to target Unadkat. He needs only one ball to take him out. SA wins the Test.
Far from 30 runs, India scored just five on the fifth morning. Of 35 balls bowled, Tendulkar faced 15, and six of those were in one Morkel over in which he seemed uninterested in scoring at all. (Compare with Lara, who fronted up for 74 of the final 118 balls -- after the fall of the 8th wicket -- of that 1999 Test).
And Indian fans like me were left to wonder: just what was Sachin Tendulkar doing on that fifth morning?
December 20, 2010
About irresponsibility
By far the most revealing thing about the recent uproar about Rahul Gandhi's statements is the reaction from the BJP and its stable-mates.
To begin with, Uma Bharti and others say it was an "irresponsible" statement for RG to make. Why? Is it irresponsible to have opinions? (In the end, what else was what RG said but an opinion?) Is it irresponsible to have opinions that differ from theirs? Is it irresponsible to merely open your eyes?
I'm hardly interested in comparing atrocities: to me, 26/11 was every bit as egregious and horrific a crime as, let's say, the massacres of 2002. I mean, I mourn the 200 Indians killed in that November of 2008 just as much as I mourn the 3000 killed in November 1984, or the 250 killed in July 2006, or the 2000 killed in February-March 2002, or the 260 killed in March 1993, or the 1000 killed three months before, or the 58 killed in December 1997 …
As ever, I could go on: This is by no means an exhaustive list. Some people look at it and conclude that extremist scum coming across the border, professing Islam, are the greatest threat to India. Fine with me. That's their opinion, after all. But in exactly the same way, why should other people not look at it and conclude that extremist scum lodged very much inside this country, professing Hinduism, are the greatest threat to India?
Why is this second automatically an "irresponsible" opinion?
And if the BJP tells us that RG's statement only "dilutes" our fight against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, what's the message that party is giving us? It goes something like this: please don't look at the terrorism fomented, great crimes committed, by Indians within India, because we want to divert your attention to the terrorists from outside. We don't want you to pay attention to homegrown terrorists.
What's more irresponsible than to suggest that we actually ignore some, but only some, great crimes?
And then we have Narendra Modi telling us that after hearing RG, he knows where the US got its pro-Pakistan policies from. Consider the issues this raises:
* the presumption that a country will base its foreign policy on unrelated stuff a greenhorn politician in another country says. ("Hey Dick," I have to imagine George Bush saying in the Oval Office, "that guy Rahul says Hindu extremists are a greater threat to India than the LeT. How about we tilt towards Pakistan?")
* the presumption that a US tilt towards Pakistan, something we have accused the US of maintaining for the better part of 63 years, has its roots in what that greenhorn politician said in 2007, three years ago.
I think Rahul Gandhi has a point. Not that I'm interested in what is or isn't the "greatest" threat to India -- that's a matter of opinion and your mileage may vary.
No, I think he has a point for this reason: too many of us are unwilling to face the reality that's in our midst. That's worth thinking about.
To begin with, Uma Bharti and others say it was an "irresponsible" statement for RG to make. Why? Is it irresponsible to have opinions? (In the end, what else was what RG said but an opinion?) Is it irresponsible to have opinions that differ from theirs? Is it irresponsible to merely open your eyes?
I'm hardly interested in comparing atrocities: to me, 26/11 was every bit as egregious and horrific a crime as, let's say, the massacres of 2002. I mean, I mourn the 200 Indians killed in that November of 2008 just as much as I mourn the 3000 killed in November 1984, or the 250 killed in July 2006, or the 2000 killed in February-March 2002, or the 260 killed in March 1993, or the 1000 killed three months before, or the 58 killed in December 1997 …
As ever, I could go on: This is by no means an exhaustive list. Some people look at it and conclude that extremist scum coming across the border, professing Islam, are the greatest threat to India. Fine with me. That's their opinion, after all. But in exactly the same way, why should other people not look at it and conclude that extremist scum lodged very much inside this country, professing Hinduism, are the greatest threat to India?
Why is this second automatically an "irresponsible" opinion?
And if the BJP tells us that RG's statement only "dilutes" our fight against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, what's the message that party is giving us? It goes something like this: please don't look at the terrorism fomented, great crimes committed, by Indians within India, because we want to divert your attention to the terrorists from outside. We don't want you to pay attention to homegrown terrorists.
What's more irresponsible than to suggest that we actually ignore some, but only some, great crimes?
And then we have Narendra Modi telling us that after hearing RG, he knows where the US got its pro-Pakistan policies from. Consider the issues this raises:
* the presumption that a country will base its foreign policy on unrelated stuff a greenhorn politician in another country says. ("Hey Dick," I have to imagine George Bush saying in the Oval Office, "that guy Rahul says Hindu extremists are a greater threat to India than the LeT. How about we tilt towards Pakistan?")
* the presumption that a US tilt towards Pakistan, something we have accused the US of maintaining for the better part of 63 years, has its roots in what that greenhorn politician said in 2007, three years ago.
I think Rahul Gandhi has a point. Not that I'm interested in what is or isn't the "greatest" threat to India -- that's a matter of opinion and your mileage may vary.
No, I think he has a point for this reason: too many of us are unwilling to face the reality that's in our midst. That's worth thinking about.
December 16, 2010
Memory avenue
With China's Wen Jiabao visiting our country, the Tibetan activist Tenzin Tsundue has an open letter to him in the Hindustan Times today. Take a look.
(Don't miss the irony of the banner across the top of that page, "THEWENVISIT", yes without spaces).
Reading Tenzin's letter, I thought it would be a good time to wander down memory avenue (for that's what it is, an avenue) and remember why I think he's an example to us all in India.
* One of the first times I wrote about Tenzin is here: Climb Every Crane. I wrote it soon after he climbed the Oberoi hotel at Nariman Point to unfurl a FREE TIBET flag. Most of it, and especially the last few lines, could have been written today for THEWENVISIT.
* This essay was written a week after Tenzin climbed a building at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore to make much the same point as at the Oberoi: His kind of exile.
* Cry freedom was a response to what the police did to Tenzin just before Hu Jintao came to visit in 2006.
* The contortions of "realpolitik" aficionados always intrigues me. There was the time they contorted over China. (And the torch and games). Yet the aficionados lose no chance to hail Tenzin as well, today's HT letter no exception.
* Tenzin's profile on the Friends of Tibet site is here. It's a source of pride for me that it starts with some lines I wrote.
* Finally, here's a conversation between two people I am not permitted to identify, on the occasion of that 2006 visit of Hu Jintao: Who's coming tomorrow.
(Don't miss the irony of the banner across the top of that page, "THEWENVISIT", yes without spaces).
Reading Tenzin's letter, I thought it would be a good time to wander down memory avenue (for that's what it is, an avenue) and remember why I think he's an example to us all in India.
* One of the first times I wrote about Tenzin is here: Climb Every Crane. I wrote it soon after he climbed the Oberoi hotel at Nariman Point to unfurl a FREE TIBET flag. Most of it, and especially the last few lines, could have been written today for THEWENVISIT.
* This essay was written a week after Tenzin climbed a building at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore to make much the same point as at the Oberoi: His kind of exile.
* Cry freedom was a response to what the police did to Tenzin just before Hu Jintao came to visit in 2006.
* The contortions of "realpolitik" aficionados always intrigues me. There was the time they contorted over China. (And the torch and games). Yet the aficionados lose no chance to hail Tenzin as well, today's HT letter no exception.
* Tenzin's profile on the Friends of Tibet site is here. It's a source of pride for me that it starts with some lines I wrote.
* Finally, here's a conversation between two people I am not permitted to identify, on the occasion of that 2006 visit of Hu Jintao: Who's coming tomorrow.
December 13, 2010
Armpitted against the world
I always enjoy reading the Goa newspapers. Here's one reason. Here's another.
But today I might just have stumbled on the mother of all reasons I enjoy reading the Goa newspapers. This was an article in the Navhind Times titled "The Bright New Side of Advertising", and it is really an ode to ... armpits.
This is true.
It starts by telling us how there are ads on TV in which "a woman is seen thrusting her extra clean underarm at unsuspecting fellow male passengers with a super confident demeanour."
I assure you this is not easy. All day today, I've been going up to people and thrusting my underarm at them. By way of response, they tell me: "Your demeanour is not super confident." (They also wrinkle their noses, but let that be).
Then I learn that "traditionally the marketing discourse had been about making people feel inadequate. It was almost the flag bearer of the cruelty of capitalism." Apparently capitalism was intent on making everyone's "self-image extremely low", and in that endeavour, "armpits … had an important role to play."
That's right. It's why some of the world's most fervent capitalists -- your Gateses, your Buffetts, your Ambanis, your Nooyis -- have been known to flash their armpits in the hope of selling their products, and in the process make you feel crappy about yourself.
But all this has changed in India. Why? "What led to the unabashed flaunting of great-looking armpits"?
Comes the answer: India has "started believing in a euphoria called 'our time has come'".
Got that? India has arrived, complete with armpits. The world better take note.
(The article is here, though for some reason the second half has been sliced off).
But today I might just have stumbled on the mother of all reasons I enjoy reading the Goa newspapers. This was an article in the Navhind Times titled "The Bright New Side of Advertising", and it is really an ode to ... armpits.
This is true.
It starts by telling us how there are ads on TV in which "a woman is seen thrusting her extra clean underarm at unsuspecting fellow male passengers with a super confident demeanour."
I assure you this is not easy. All day today, I've been going up to people and thrusting my underarm at them. By way of response, they tell me: "Your demeanour is not super confident." (They also wrinkle their noses, but let that be).
Then I learn that "traditionally the marketing discourse had been about making people feel inadequate. It was almost the flag bearer of the cruelty of capitalism." Apparently capitalism was intent on making everyone's "self-image extremely low", and in that endeavour, "armpits … had an important role to play."
That's right. It's why some of the world's most fervent capitalists -- your Gateses, your Buffetts, your Ambanis, your Nooyis -- have been known to flash their armpits in the hope of selling their products, and in the process make you feel crappy about yourself.
But all this has changed in India. Why? "What led to the unabashed flaunting of great-looking armpits"?
Comes the answer: India has "started believing in a euphoria called 'our time has come'".
Got that? India has arrived, complete with armpits. The world better take note.
(The article is here, though for some reason the second half has been sliced off).
December 11, 2010
Goa festival
In an hour or two, I leave for Goa, where the first Goa Arts & Literary Festival kicks off tomorrow. I'll be participating to the best of my ability: readings from my Roadrunner with Samanth Subramanian, winner of the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize for 2010 for his Following Fish. I'm also on a panel discussing media ethics, which should be interesting.
Here's the festival programme.
If you're in Goa, please come. If you're not in Goa, please come as well. If you're in Tahiti, well, please come.
Here's the festival programme.
If you're in Goa, please come. If you're not in Goa, please come as well. If you're in Tahiti, well, please come.
December 09, 2010
Taunt-surfing
On Wednesday morning, two bits of news caught my eye, and neither of them had anything to do with 2G or Wikileaks or the Ashes.
One was about a man who got into an argument with another man over a seat in a train, and suddenly picked up the other man's 4 year-old daughter and threw her off the train.
The other was about a bomb blast on the Dashashwamedh Ghat in Varanasi, which killed a 2 year-old girl and injured about two dozen others.
Both items left me nauseated. What kind of sickos set off bombs in public places, intent on killing innocent people? What kind of sicko would throw a little girl off a train, no matter what his argument with her father?
My assumption is that others out there feel just as nauseated. My assumption, equally, is that others out there will assume that much about me.
Yet such assumptions founder on comments of the kind I invariably get when such events happen, like these that I got that refer to the Varanasi tragedy:
"any plans for disaster tourism in Varanasi? I guess no.. and we all know why.."
"I can bet Rs. 100 that you will never try to visit the parents of the 2 year old who died.. and will never ever write about it."
"Khush ho gaye DD Boss? now that their is a blast in Varanasi.. claiming to celebrate the 18th.."
We have here a person whose first reaction -- absolutely the first -- to this atrocity is, "let me get on DD's blog and taunt him."
We have here a person who actually thinks I am happy about this murder. I cannot begin to understand how any sane person would think this way. Except for this: he himself is glad about other atrocities, and seeks to project this inhumanity on those whose thinking he disagrees with.
I have visited Kashmiri Pandit camps, and relief camps in Gujarat and Bombay. I have spoken to bomb-blast and riot victims in Bombay and Delhi hospitals, families of victims of that fire on the train in Godhra. I have travelled sometimes long distances to spend time with families of soldiers who were killed on our borders (one the morning I wrote this). I have got to know the wives and children of men killed in police custody in West Bengal and in Maharashtra, of farmers who committed suicide in Vidarbha.
Yet I can always be sure that there will be people who will say, "You must be happy about the death of that two year-old."
And it makes me wonder, what has happened to our country that people like this have lost some basic, essential humanity?
One was about a man who got into an argument with another man over a seat in a train, and suddenly picked up the other man's 4 year-old daughter and threw her off the train.
The other was about a bomb blast on the Dashashwamedh Ghat in Varanasi, which killed a 2 year-old girl and injured about two dozen others.
Both items left me nauseated. What kind of sickos set off bombs in public places, intent on killing innocent people? What kind of sicko would throw a little girl off a train, no matter what his argument with her father?
My assumption is that others out there feel just as nauseated. My assumption, equally, is that others out there will assume that much about me.
Yet such assumptions founder on comments of the kind I invariably get when such events happen, like these that I got that refer to the Varanasi tragedy:
"any plans for disaster tourism in Varanasi? I guess no.. and we all know why.."
"I can bet Rs. 100 that you will never try to visit the parents of the 2 year old who died.. and will never ever write about it."
"Khush ho gaye DD Boss? now that their is a blast in Varanasi.. claiming to celebrate the 18th.."
We have here a person whose first reaction -- absolutely the first -- to this atrocity is, "let me get on DD's blog and taunt him."
We have here a person who actually thinks I am happy about this murder. I cannot begin to understand how any sane person would think this way. Except for this: he himself is glad about other atrocities, and seeks to project this inhumanity on those whose thinking he disagrees with.
I have visited Kashmiri Pandit camps, and relief camps in Gujarat and Bombay. I have spoken to bomb-blast and riot victims in Bombay and Delhi hospitals, families of victims of that fire on the train in Godhra. I have travelled sometimes long distances to spend time with families of soldiers who were killed on our borders (one the morning I wrote this). I have got to know the wives and children of men killed in police custody in West Bengal and in Maharashtra, of farmers who committed suicide in Vidarbha.
Yet I can always be sure that there will be people who will say, "You must be happy about the death of that two year-old."
And it makes me wonder, what has happened to our country that people like this have lost some basic, essential humanity?
December 06, 2010
18 years
Today is 18 years since a mob tore down the Babri Masjid. That set off weeks of rioting in Bombay (and elsewhere), killing about a thousand Indians, and eventually the March 12 1993 bomb blasts, killing another 250 Indians.
Through those weeks, I roamed various areas of my city, speaking to people about what had happened. From my notes of the time, some memories are gathered in a guest post I did for Kafila: City in terror.
There are more memories. I'll post them below.
***
More:
* Met a milk seller on Reay Road. A mob robbed his house and took his clothes and vessels. Later a gang of thugs came and beat him, told him to leave the area.
* An 18 year-old and his younger brother ran a raddi business. A mob broke into the shop and beat the brother. They stole Rs 300 and also the shop board, which read "GAMRA METAL & PAPER MART."
* 36 families in huts on one stretch of Reay Road had been given copies of 1) a police statement about the riots by Police Sub Inspector Atmaram Mane; and 2) a panchnama (witness statement) by a Vasant Raghunath Rokde (these years later, the last name is not clear in my notes, could be Rotide). Nobody in the families knew why.
* A woman in Kalachowkie was away from her hut washing clothes. When she returned, a mob had burned it down. For days afterward, gangs came to assault her family and neighbours.
* Met a man from Uttar Pradesh who had lived in Kalachowkie for 11 yrs. He had two kids. He ran a raddi-paper shop. 300-400 people came and burned it down, looted all his vessels.
* In Nagpada, a 20 year-old woman in her TYBCom at the Akbar Peerbhoy College lost her brother in police firing. Two days later, as she stood on the street, a police bullet hit her in the head. She was not badly hurt, but her vision was affected.
* In Bhendi Bazar, a 29 yr-old woman and her daughter left their home at 3pm one afternoon to get rid of their garbage. Both were hit in the back by bullets.
* One injured victim I met at JJ Hospital could remember only this about his four attackers: two wore long pants, two wore shorts. He also said a hotel owner came to the hospital and distributed Rs 100 each to patients like him, injured in the violence.
* A man I met was buying cigarettes at a paanwala in Byculla at 930am one morning. Forty or fifty men surrounded him suddenly and attacked him with knives. A friend rescued him.
* Another man I met in JJ Hospital was there because he had been surrounded by a dozen men and attacked with swords. He had wounds on his head, arm, chest and back. He had no idea how he had survived.
* From a building terrace, a man pointed to a "bunker" and "firing range" in the neighbouring slum. What he meant was 3 sandbags lying on a broken roof far below us.
* When a mob set Dalal Estate in Bombay Central on fire, an elderly couple, avid stamp collectors, was trapped in their flat. They died.
* Near Reay Road one day, a handcart puller ran to escape from a violent mob. When he returned, his handcart was burned and he had no way left to earn a living.
* In the ash-covered remains of a burned-down set of homes somewhere -- I think near Bombay Central -- I found several half-burned scraps of explicit pornographic photographs.
* Reay Road: a couple with four girls and a boy was saving money in a box for dowry for when they married off the girls. A mob burned their hut and stole the dowry money, Rs 5000.
* A timber merchant had been running his business near Currey Road station since 1951. He lost his entire stock when it was set on fire during the violence. He went to the police station to file a complaint, only to find that a complaint had been registered against him for burning a rival's stock, and for selling liquor.
* The man who delivered milk to my uncle every morning also drove a riksha. There was no milk delivered for several days. Later my uncle found out that the man had been pulled from his riksha and killed.
* At the office one evening, I was waiting for a late meeting. An old family friend called. He urged me to leave and go home right away. "The Muslims are going to attack from the sea!" he said.
* I took the train back from town late another evening. Found no rikshas at the station when I alighted, apparently no buses, nearly nobody around at all. So I began walking home in fear. A man driving a Maruti Omni stopped and offered me a ride home.
* A young journalist I knew called in tears one morning. The family had woken to find a prominent "X" painted outside their front door. They have since emigrated.
***
Just a few more:
* The residents of slum that I trudged through one morning during the violence told me that they saw the residents of a nearby building throwing bags filled with petrol at them. By the fistful, shoveling them over the side, dozens raining down, followed by bombs to set off fires.
* I asked a man I met in a building: who dropped the bombs on the community toilet in the slum directly below us? How did its roof break? He said the slum residents broke the roof themselves.
* Then I asked him about the pockets in the slum, again more or less below us, where the huts were burned to the ground. How had that happened? He said the slum residents did that too. They do it frequently, he said.
***
Given the memories I have from that time 18 years ago, I measure claims that December 6 1992 was a "day of honour" by the yardstick of these vignettes above. The claims don't score so well. Nor do the claimants. I mean, I don't think the guy who was thrown off a bridge onto the railway tracks found much honour or redemption in the events of December 6 1992. Nor the fellow who had boarded up his windows in fear for his life. Nor the journalist who found the mark painted outside her door one morning; in fact, probably not the painters either.
How tall does a country stand when it stands on the rubble of a mosque?
December 6 1992: I don't really care if others, or the younger generation, don't remember. Or if they want to move on.
Because I remember.
Through those weeks, I roamed various areas of my city, speaking to people about what had happened. From my notes of the time, some memories are gathered in a guest post I did for Kafila: City in terror.
There are more memories. I'll post them below.
More:
* Met a milk seller on Reay Road. A mob robbed his house and took his clothes and vessels. Later a gang of thugs came and beat him, told him to leave the area.
* An 18 year-old and his younger brother ran a raddi business. A mob broke into the shop and beat the brother. They stole Rs 300 and also the shop board, which read "GAMRA METAL & PAPER MART."
* 36 families in huts on one stretch of Reay Road had been given copies of 1) a police statement about the riots by Police Sub Inspector Atmaram Mane; and 2) a panchnama (witness statement) by a Vasant Raghunath Rokde (these years later, the last name is not clear in my notes, could be Rotide). Nobody in the families knew why.
* A woman in Kalachowkie was away from her hut washing clothes. When she returned, a mob had burned it down. For days afterward, gangs came to assault her family and neighbours.
* Met a man from Uttar Pradesh who had lived in Kalachowkie for 11 yrs. He had two kids. He ran a raddi-paper shop. 300-400 people came and burned it down, looted all his vessels.
* In Nagpada, a 20 year-old woman in her TYBCom at the Akbar Peerbhoy College lost her brother in police firing. Two days later, as she stood on the street, a police bullet hit her in the head. She was not badly hurt, but her vision was affected.
* In Bhendi Bazar, a 29 yr-old woman and her daughter left their home at 3pm one afternoon to get rid of their garbage. Both were hit in the back by bullets.
* One injured victim I met at JJ Hospital could remember only this about his four attackers: two wore long pants, two wore shorts. He also said a hotel owner came to the hospital and distributed Rs 100 each to patients like him, injured in the violence.
* A man I met was buying cigarettes at a paanwala in Byculla at 930am one morning. Forty or fifty men surrounded him suddenly and attacked him with knives. A friend rescued him.
* Another man I met in JJ Hospital was there because he had been surrounded by a dozen men and attacked with swords. He had wounds on his head, arm, chest and back. He had no idea how he had survived.
* From a building terrace, a man pointed to a "bunker" and "firing range" in the neighbouring slum. What he meant was 3 sandbags lying on a broken roof far below us.
* When a mob set Dalal Estate in Bombay Central on fire, an elderly couple, avid stamp collectors, was trapped in their flat. They died.
* Near Reay Road one day, a handcart puller ran to escape from a violent mob. When he returned, his handcart was burned and he had no way left to earn a living.
* In the ash-covered remains of a burned-down set of homes somewhere -- I think near Bombay Central -- I found several half-burned scraps of explicit pornographic photographs.
* Reay Road: a couple with four girls and a boy was saving money in a box for dowry for when they married off the girls. A mob burned their hut and stole the dowry money, Rs 5000.
* A timber merchant had been running his business near Currey Road station since 1951. He lost his entire stock when it was set on fire during the violence. He went to the police station to file a complaint, only to find that a complaint had been registered against him for burning a rival's stock, and for selling liquor.
* The man who delivered milk to my uncle every morning also drove a riksha. There was no milk delivered for several days. Later my uncle found out that the man had been pulled from his riksha and killed.
* At the office one evening, I was waiting for a late meeting. An old family friend called. He urged me to leave and go home right away. "The Muslims are going to attack from the sea!" he said.
* I took the train back from town late another evening. Found no rikshas at the station when I alighted, apparently no buses, nearly nobody around at all. So I began walking home in fear. A man driving a Maruti Omni stopped and offered me a ride home.
* A young journalist I knew called in tears one morning. The family had woken to find a prominent "X" painted outside their front door. They have since emigrated.
Just a few more:
* The residents of slum that I trudged through one morning during the violence told me that they saw the residents of a nearby building throwing bags filled with petrol at them. By the fistful, shoveling them over the side, dozens raining down, followed by bombs to set off fires.
* I asked a man I met in a building: who dropped the bombs on the community toilet in the slum directly below us? How did its roof break? He said the slum residents broke the roof themselves.
* Then I asked him about the pockets in the slum, again more or less below us, where the huts were burned to the ground. How had that happened? He said the slum residents did that too. They do it frequently, he said.
Given the memories I have from that time 18 years ago, I measure claims that December 6 1992 was a "day of honour" by the yardstick of these vignettes above. The claims don't score so well. Nor do the claimants. I mean, I don't think the guy who was thrown off a bridge onto the railway tracks found much honour or redemption in the events of December 6 1992. Nor the fellow who had boarded up his windows in fear for his life. Nor the journalist who found the mark painted outside her door one morning; in fact, probably not the painters either.
How tall does a country stand when it stands on the rubble of a mosque?
December 6 1992: I don't really care if others, or the younger generation, don't remember. Or if they want to move on.
Because I remember.
December 05, 2010
Blanket
77 year-old lady I know flew from Bom to the US a couple of months ago. She was in the middle seat of one of those three-seat sets, in between two young men. When the flight took off, she felt cold, so she wrapped herself in the blanket the airline provided and dropped off to sleep.
She woke some hours later. She took off the blanket, left it on her middle seat and went to the toilet.
When she returned, her blanket was no longer on her seat. She thought perhaps it had slipped off onto the floor. No. Between the seats? No. Behind? No. Nowhere.
Then she noticed that the young man in the window seat to her right was now wrapped in a blanket, which he had not been before she got up from her seat. She asked him if he had taken her blanket by mistake. He muttered a hasty "No", turned away and closed his eyes.
She pulled her shawl from her handbag and wrapped herself in that. Before she fell asleep again, she noticed that the young man in the window seat to her right was actually wrapped in two blankets.
She woke some hours later. She took off the blanket, left it on her middle seat and went to the toilet.
When she returned, her blanket was no longer on her seat. She thought perhaps it had slipped off onto the floor. No. Between the seats? No. Behind? No. Nowhere.
Then she noticed that the young man in the window seat to her right was now wrapped in a blanket, which he had not been before she got up from her seat. She asked him if he had taken her blanket by mistake. He muttered a hasty "No", turned away and closed his eyes.
She pulled her shawl from her handbag and wrapped herself in that. Before she fell asleep again, she noticed that the young man in the window seat to her right was actually wrapped in two blankets.
December 03, 2010
Did you?
Shouldn't the Radia tapes open a wider debate not just on media ethics, but on ethics and values among all of us, journalists or otherwise? Or is it easier to rant and rave at Barkha Dutt et al than to face up to the bribes we pay, the taxes we evade, the crimes we wink at, the behaviour we both indulge in ourselves and condone?
Consider:
Did you drive the wrong way on a one-way street today?
Did you buy something and not insist on a bill for it today?
Did you use the services today of the local store that puts together kids' school projects?
Did you let another day pass today without being even slightly bothered that men who killed several hundred of your fellow Indians in 2002 have not been punished?
Did you think to yourself today that somebody you disagree with profoundly on something must therefore be a publicity-seeker, or corrupt, or a traitor?
Did you beat up someone today?
Did a child come home today to clean your floors?
Did you continue to think today that you "worship" some political leader, or cricketer, or film star?
Did you let another day pass today without stopping to let people on foot cross the road in front of your car?
Did you slip a cop a currency note when he stopped you as you drove through a red light today?
There's plenty more where those questions came from, but I'll leave them for you to think about. But here's my point (just mine): if you answered "yes" to one or more of those, please don't be shocked by Ms Radia's now public conversations.
Consider:
Did you drive the wrong way on a one-way street today?
Did you buy something and not insist on a bill for it today?
Did you use the services today of the local store that puts together kids' school projects?
Did you let another day pass today without being even slightly bothered that men who killed several hundred of your fellow Indians in 2002 have not been punished?
Did you think to yourself today that somebody you disagree with profoundly on something must therefore be a publicity-seeker, or corrupt, or a traitor?
Did you beat up someone today?
Did a child come home today to clean your floors?
Did you continue to think today that you "worship" some political leader, or cricketer, or film star?
Did you let another day pass today without stopping to let people on foot cross the road in front of your car?
Did you slip a cop a currency note when he stopped you as you drove through a red light today?
There's plenty more where those questions came from, but I'll leave them for you to think about. But here's my point (just mine): if you answered "yes" to one or more of those, please don't be shocked by Ms Radia's now public conversations.
Through a flood, hope
The November 2010 issue of the magazine TerraGreen carries the last of my writing on visiting Ladakh after the flood disaster there in August. This is a longer essay that was their cover story. Appended below. Any comments welcome.
***
Through a Flood, Hope
Voices from Ladakh, August 2010
Colonel Anil Beniwal of the Ladakh Scouts rises from behind his desk as I enter his room, and comes around to shake my hand. For no sensible reason, I'm always primed to be a little stiff when I meet people from the Army, thinking I need to be that way to match their ethos of structure and hierarchy. But Col Beniwal doesn't fit that naive notion. A tall, almost slender man with an easy smile, his manner puts me immediately at ease.
On the back wall is a large red banner commemorating the Scouts' valour during the Kargil war. On either side of it is a green Ladakh Scouts banner with an ibex in the middle. A large trophy sits below the right green banner, won in some sports event in 1999. Various other insignia and mementos are everywhere, and facing me on Col Beniwal's desk is a smart little sign saying "Please be Seated".
His men are deferential and obedient, as Army men always are with ranks higher than them. But when Col Beniwal begins telling me what happened to a few of his men a couple of weeks earlier, when the flood came down from the Ladakh hills, I get a sense of the bonds there are between these soldiers.
The Ladakh Scouts Regimental Centre, where I met Col Beniwal, sprawls over a gentle slope above a stream, Phyang Nallah, surrounded by some of Ladakh's majestic but barren mountains. The main road to the Centre branches off from the Srinagar-Leh highway, some 15 km west of Leh, at a point where a bridge on the highway crosses the same stream. At that fork in the road, there was a splendid yellow Tibetan-style arch to welcome visitors to the Centre, and a small concrete cabin to house the men on duty there. This post was called RP Gate.
The night of the flood, Col Beniwal tells me, seven of his "boys" were stationed at RP Gate. As was normally the case, three were outside actually on duty, and the other four were in the cabin, sleeping until their duty hours came around. Somewhere past midnight, a burst of intense heavy rain turned Phyang Nallah into a monster. Water in unimaginable amounts roared from the hills behind the centre, bringing mud and rocks and uprooted trees. When it reached the guardpost, Col Beniwal says, it "swept away our boys."
He says it phlegmatically, and I know well how Army officers often refer to their men as "boys". Yet something about the way this Colonel says that phrase grabs me. There's a hint in that "our boys" of what he must have felt, when he heard the tragic news.
The flood tore down the welcome arch, depositing its yellow top about 30 metres away and leaving hardly a trace of the rest. It washed away the bridge across the highway, effectively cutting Leh off from Srinagar. Seen from across the stream, the road looks like the bitten-off edge of a biscuit. The river inundated the cabin with several feet of mud. The four Ladakh Scouts who were sleeping inside were suddenly overwhelmed with water and mud; when they got up from their beds, it was quickly up to their shoulders. Only when the rain abated were they able to make their way to the Centre and report what had happened. Their three colleagues on duty outside had no chance. The water took Col Beniwal's "boys" as it took rocks and trees, washing them downstream and probably into the swollen Indus.
Over the next two weeks, the Ladakh Scouts carried out a massive search for their missing "boys", involving dogs, a helicopter and hundreds of men. A day after the tragedy, they found Naik Padma Dorje's dead body. They never did find the other two.
The nearby village of Phyang also suffered in the flood. While mourning their own losses, the Ladakh Scouts also reached out to the villagers there. The same night, said a report they later prepared, they "rescued a 12 year-old girl who was badly injured and had suffered head injuries". They also took nine other injured villagers to an Army hospital, besides providing first aid to many more victims. Over the next several days, they distributed food and water to about two thousand people, as well as relief material like tents and sleeping bags.
I learn much of all this in Col Beniwal's office. It is my first full day in Ladakh, and this is my first close look at what happened here when the flood came. So I'm paying close attention to Col Beniwal, looking at the photographs he shows me on a large screen, taking plenty of notes.
Through it all, though, I can't stop thinking about the way Col Beniwal refers to the men he lost as his "boys".
***
The next day I visit Choglamsar, a neighbourhood of closely-packed houses about 5 km east of Leh. I should really say "once-closely-packed". For when I walk through the area now, it consists of a several badly damaged houses, some with mud piled high inside, and a rocky almost-dry river-bed running between them, stretching back several kilometres to the distant hills. Some of the rocks are half the size of cars. There are also piles of rubble, smashed cars, books, broken TVs and several miserable-looking dogs picking their way about. There are almost no people.
What I know about Choglamsar is that nearly 150 of its residents died, swept away by the water. I'm trying to imagine the scene that night, trying to reconstruct it from the desolation I see around me. What I think must have happened is that the river overflowed out of its bed and smashed houses on either side. Broadly, that's true. But there's an important detail that I cannot guess by looking at Choglamsar today, that I learn from Tsering Sandrup, a soldier on leave who is digging mud out of a house nearby. It's his brother's home, I find out, and Tsering is helping him retrieve what they can out of it.
He explains to me that before August 5th, there was no river-bed running down the middle of Choglamsar. There were just houses, plenty of them, and yes, they were indeed closely-packed throughout this area. What happened was that the flash flood came barreling out of the hills and smashed straight into Choglamsar, tearing a path through the houses. In other words, where there are now only rocks in what I see as the river-bed, there used to be houses, and the flood simply obliterated those houses. I mean, there is absolutely no sign of any of those structures now. Nothing.
To make himself clear, Tsering points to a small remnant of a verandah of his brother's house. "It used to be much larger", he says, and steps about 10-15 feet into the "river-bed" to show me how far the verandah used to extend. "And there were other houses just beyond. All gone."
I try hard to imagine the power unleashed here that night, the power in a wall of water that carries enormous rocks and quantities of mud and tears a path through a town. It's a job that's been done so completely, so thoroughly, that I actually ask Tsering: "Are you sure?"
He nods his head. He is sure.
Tsering is only one of many Ladakhis who tell me a story about ancient wisdom. It goes like this. Earlier, meaning until a generation or so ago, Ladakhis knew not to build anything in certain areas. This was because their elders used to pass on the knowledge that was handed down to them by their parents, going back into history: that these places were known to be vulnerable to flooding, being in the path that water would take as it flowed from the hills. Flash floods were not unknown in Ladakh, but they rarely caused the kind of destruction that happened this year, because there was little to destroy.
But with more money and rising aspirations in more recent times -- the story continues -- people have given up listening to their elders. They now build indiscriminately, wherever there is empty land. Case in point: Choglamsar. Had I come here 25 years ago, says Tsering, I would have found nothing here. Because while it's true that there really wasn't a river running through this space, it was nevertheless known as a place where water would flow, if there was a flood. So nobody built anything here. Until 25 years ago, when people started doing so, started disregarding the warnings of old.
The result is the calamity of August 5th.
Tsering is also one of many Ladakhis who portray this story in almost cosmic terms. "We got greedy," he says, "and we were punished for that." For me, this cuts a little too close to divine retribution, which doesn't do much for me. But I do understand it in this sense: there was earlier wisdom that people paid attention to, they stopped doing so at some point, and now there's massive destruction where there need not have been much at all.
As I absorb all this, as Tsering and I talk quietly, it turns steadily darker. There are ominous clouds to the west, over Leh, and they are moving swiftly towards where we stand. A few minutes later, heavy drops begin to fall on us. It turns out to be just a passing shower. But Tsering gives me perspective on it when he looks up and says, seconds before the rain: "Baarish ke naam se bahut dar hai." ("We are frightened of even the mention of rain.")
***
Most of the residents of Choglamsar, driven from their homes by the flood, are housed temporarily in two tent camps. One is on a broad empty space next to the hills, on grounds belonging to an Army encampment. There are over 50 tents here, and immediately above them, in huge letters on the slope, are these two signs: "THE MOUNTAIN TAMERS" and "PROJECT HIMANK". These are Army regimental inscriptions, and this is why this particular tent camp is known to all as the Himank camp.
It is mid-morning when I walk in. Not too many people about. There are three low tables, small heaps of rotting cabbage and peas on them. Nearby are several sacks of onions and bhendi hidden under a tarpaulin, with two boys jumping about on the pile. To my left, a large Army truck pulls up and several jawans emerge. They are from the Ladakh Scouts, and they have brought some relief material for the camp. About a dozen people emerge from the tents and walk over to the truck. The jawans distribute to them bottles of orange marmalade and mixed fruit jam, bags of atta and salt, and boxes of Indoserve tea complete with detailed instructions on the side about "How to Make a Perfect Cup of Tea". They also have a few blankets and sleeping bags. Not enough of those to give everyone, so they ask each person who asks for one, "Do you really need it?" One man, wearing a "UW Lacrosse" sweatshirt and cap, thinks about it and says "No". He walks back to his tent carrying tea and marmalade.
Standing outside her tent a few metres away and watching all this is a young woman in a blue t-shirt. She is Jigmat Yangchan, 22 years old. She is studying Arts at a college in Leh and taking computer classes in the evenings. She tells me she is actually from a village called Koyul, quite far away. When she was admitted to college last year, she came to stay with an aunt in Choglamsar. Then catastrophe reached out to touch her.
That night, Jigmat had gone to visit a cousin, and decided to spend the night there. This is why, she tells me, she is alive today. The aunt, Padma, and her 20 year-old daughter Rigzen were sleeping in their home when the water came, carrying rocks and destruction. Their roof fell on them. Rigzen must have died almost immediately, but Padma was alive till the morning. Somebody took her to the hospital in Leh, but by the time they reached the petrol pump 200 metres short of the hospital where the road from Choglamsar comes into town, Padma was also dead.
Jigmat had to identify their bodies. Padma was recognizable, she says, but Rigzen -- Jigmat pauses, collects herself, sighs once and says "Her whole face was changed." It was only from Rigzen's bracelet, shirt and an old burn mark on her elbow that Jigmat could identify her.
There was more tragedy to come. Later that day, Jigmat heard the news of another aunt, Sangdub. That family was also asleep in their house when the water came. Sangdub, her husband and one of their two children were wounded badly, but survived. The other child, a 13 year-old, was swept away and was never found.
Jigmat is astonishingly composed as she tells me all this. I mean, how would I have reacted if I was asked to identify a close young cousin whose face was mutilated in death? Jigmat is matter-of-fact about it, except for that noticeable pause before she told me about Rigzen's face. Is she calm because it has been two weeks since it happened? Is it the enormity of her loss that she is still coming to terms with? Is it the sheer scale of destruction in Choglamsar, so that nearly everyone in the Himank camp is touched in one way or another and perhaps that makes it easier to cope?
I don't know.
***
After the immediate work of relief was done, people in Ladakh started to look at the longer-term concerns, one of which is housing. When I am in Ladakh, the fierce winter is only weeks in the future. What would all these people who were driven out of Choglamsar into tents do then? Surely they cannot remain in tents?
Jigmat has been thinking about this. Some "big people", she tells me without being clear on exactly who they are, have promised the Himank camp residents that they will get new homes in two months. According to her, they were offered two choices for where these houses will be built. The first is a sloping plateau, typical of Ladakh, that she points to -- due east of where we stand. The second is an area called Kharnaklink, behind a hill she also points to, near the Mahabodhi school there.
"The final site hasn't been chosen," she says.
And who will make the choice, and when?
Jigmat shrugs. "Big people", she says again. "Big big people. Not us small people."
Yet why should it not be small people who decide?
I sincerely hope those homes are indeed built in two months, for all these people must be gone from the tents when the weather turns cold. Yet I cannot shake the profound pessimism I feel about this. I know of no housing project anywhere in this country, at any time, in which a few hundred houses were built that quickly. And yet that's exactly what they'll have to at least try to accomplish in Ladakh.
One morning, I stop at the office of the Ladakh Ecological Development Group (LEDeG) to meet their Director, Mohammad Hasnain. As early as August 16, ten days after the flood, LEDeG had begun focusing on the issue of housing. "We are now trying to gear up to the real challenge of reconstructing houses," said an email appeal I received from them that day, "for those whose houses have been entirely washed away, before the onset of the harsh winters in two months (that is the biggest concern and need from all groups at the moment)."
Hasnain underlines this urgency when we speak. But he says LEDeG is also firmly opposed to the suggestion other NGOs have made, that pre-fabricated units be brought in and erected in large numbers. This would be a waste of resources, as prefab housing is very expensive and will not last beyond the first winter. It also does not fit the cultural and ecological context in Ladakh.
What LEDeG is pushing for, Hasnain says, is to build "one room sets", called "core shelters", and hand those over to those who need them. These will be energy-efficient (using solar energy extensively), disaster-resistant units that are built from local materials. "These one room sets," I read in a later appeal from LEDeG, "would see [their owners] through this winter and then they could add on more rooms in the future as and when they could."
There is much more, and LEDeG has a "Shelter Strategy" document that spells it out in detail. Admittedly I remain pessimistic that enough of even these core shelters will be built by the time winter arrives. But it's gratifying to know that at least some people are putting thought into the issue of housing, to understand that they treat this calamity as an opportunity to build in better ways than has been done in the past. (Maybe they will pay attention again to the wisdom of older Ladakhis, about the path of floods). And Hasnain says the feeling of community is strong here in Ladakh. If there are people without a house for the winter, they can count on relatives and friends to take them in.
***
Another longer-term concern is over tourism. Tourism is the backbone of Ladakh's economy, a living for everyone from taxi-drivers to guest-house owners to the old women who sell apricots and cauliflowers in Leh's market area. But it's a living that must be made in the five or six warmer months, about May to October. The harsh winter keeps tourists away for the rest of the year.
But this year, the flood happened in early August, just about halfway through the tourist season. Starting on August 6, tourists in Ladakh began going home, and others who had planned to come to Ladakh cancelled their plans. Overnight, the tourist bonanza dried up.
This is not immediately apparent to someone new to Ladakh, like me. There are still plenty of tourists, plenty of traffic in Leh. Yet from all I hear, this is just a pale imitation of what it would have been like had there been no flood.
Stanzin Lamo is one of the partners of an elegant eatery, Bon Appetit. At lunch there two days in a row, I'm the only customer, and this is a place with a capacity for 92 people. She tells me that on good nights before the flood, they have had as many as 150, the excess sitting on the parapet in the open as they waited for a table. Now they are lucky if they get 10 for dinner. There's a sign of what has happened to tourism in Ladakh, that drop from 150 to 10.
Did it have to be this way? Plenty of Ladakhis wonder.
The damage the flood caused, fierce though it was, happened in very limited areas: Choglamsar, one part of Leh, and several smaller villages. The rest of Ladakh was untouched. In fact, this is an almost surreal disconnect, and especially so in Leh. The whole lower section of Leh, going out to the airport, looks like a war zone. The water poured from the hills and through that section, destroying building after building on either side of the road. Yet you walk above that section, and its immediately as if nothing had happened. Upper Leh is green and completely intact, completely normal.
Why then, people ask me, did journalists file reports saying Leh had been "flattened", that there was no drinking water available, that there were epidemics breaking out? "The truth was bad enough", says Stanzin, "so why exaggerate it?"
The result, of course, is the steep fall in tourism. Several Western countries issued travel advisories cautioning people against travel to Leh. As Chewang Montup, proprietor of a respected adventure travel company, tells me, this means travel agencies in those countries will likely excise Ladakh from their 2011 brochures. So tourist numbers will be lower next year too, unwittingly carrying forward the impact of the flood.
In some ways, this is a looming second disaster. Or, depending on how you look at it, the second disaster has already visited Ladakh, in the huge tourism slowdown this year. Next year will just deepen that. Whatever it is, plenty of Ladakhis blame the media for it. "The media played a negative role," says Montup, "because really, most of Ladakh is not affected."
And yet, a journalist who comes to Ladakh to report on the flood is hardly likely to focus on places that were "not affected", areas that have remained untouched. The immediate story is destruction and death, and naturally that will dominate any coverage of the disaster, at least in the first few days. Perhaps the coverage will end up exaggerating the scale of the disaster for people outside Ladakh. But maybe that's the way it goes. Or is it?
***
Catalin Constantin Morariu came to Ladakh from Romania. He was an accomplished mountaineer who had climbed Shisha-Pangma, the 14th-tallest peak in the world. With his Danish girlfriend Henrietta, he travelled to the village of Sku to go hiking in the spectacular Ladakh wilderness.
On August 5th, they erected their tents and went for a hike with two other Romanian couples. The rains came, then the flood, and they were caught in it. The other two couples managed to cling to some rocks and saved themselves that way. Catalin was seen holding on to a tree for a while, but then Henrietta and he were swept away. The friends found Henrietta's dead body when the flood receded, and managed to take her to a monastery nearby. Eventually they took her home to Denmark.
Catalin? Unfortunately, they could not find him.
There must have been several sad stories like this about missing hikers. I know this much about Catalin because one of the other guests where I was staying in Leh was a German woman who works with disabled children in Ladakh and maintains a website about her efforts. Someone from Catalin's family in Romania, frantic for some news, any news, about him, stumbled on her website and wrote her a note asking if she could help track him down.
We found no mention of him at either the hospital or the morgue. But then Chewang Montup, the adventure travel expert, mentioned that a few European embassies had got in touch with him for help in finding their citizens who had vanished in Ladakh. One such, a Frenchwoman, took them 7 days of searching. The police, unable to identify her body, had buried her in the village where she was found. By boat and raft and then by truck, Chewang's team brought her out from her hilly grave.
Anyone from Romania that you found like that, I ask, and quickly tell him what I know about Catalin.
"No," says Chewang. "But now that you mention it, I've heard of a body that was found near Sku after the flood, a Romanian man. Tall and well-built. Nobody could identify him, so they buried him there."
Unfortunately, this conversation happens on my last day in Ladakh. While I would have liked to, I cannot participate in any effort to retrieve this body. Though when I returned to Bombay, I did pass on to Catalin's family in Romania this small nugget of information that's possibly about him.
Over two weeks later, and thus nearly six weeks after the calamity in Ladakh, Catalin's cousin wrote to me from Romania. "The family decided to bring home the body which supposedly belongs to Catalin", she wrote. But clearly under the impression I was still in Ladakh, she went on: "In this area [of Sku] there could be a person with amnesia. Maybe you can find out [if] such a person has been found in that area."
I never knew this young climber. But I was unaccountably saddened by his death, then by this note from his cousin. Hope, it always springs eternal.
Through a Flood, Hope
Voices from Ladakh, August 2010
Colonel Anil Beniwal of the Ladakh Scouts rises from behind his desk as I enter his room, and comes around to shake my hand. For no sensible reason, I'm always primed to be a little stiff when I meet people from the Army, thinking I need to be that way to match their ethos of structure and hierarchy. But Col Beniwal doesn't fit that naive notion. A tall, almost slender man with an easy smile, his manner puts me immediately at ease.
On the back wall is a large red banner commemorating the Scouts' valour during the Kargil war. On either side of it is a green Ladakh Scouts banner with an ibex in the middle. A large trophy sits below the right green banner, won in some sports event in 1999. Various other insignia and mementos are everywhere, and facing me on Col Beniwal's desk is a smart little sign saying "Please be Seated".
His men are deferential and obedient, as Army men always are with ranks higher than them. But when Col Beniwal begins telling me what happened to a few of his men a couple of weeks earlier, when the flood came down from the Ladakh hills, I get a sense of the bonds there are between these soldiers.
The Ladakh Scouts Regimental Centre, where I met Col Beniwal, sprawls over a gentle slope above a stream, Phyang Nallah, surrounded by some of Ladakh's majestic but barren mountains. The main road to the Centre branches off from the Srinagar-Leh highway, some 15 km west of Leh, at a point where a bridge on the highway crosses the same stream. At that fork in the road, there was a splendid yellow Tibetan-style arch to welcome visitors to the Centre, and a small concrete cabin to house the men on duty there. This post was called RP Gate.
The night of the flood, Col Beniwal tells me, seven of his "boys" were stationed at RP Gate. As was normally the case, three were outside actually on duty, and the other four were in the cabin, sleeping until their duty hours came around. Somewhere past midnight, a burst of intense heavy rain turned Phyang Nallah into a monster. Water in unimaginable amounts roared from the hills behind the centre, bringing mud and rocks and uprooted trees. When it reached the guardpost, Col Beniwal says, it "swept away our boys."
He says it phlegmatically, and I know well how Army officers often refer to their men as "boys". Yet something about the way this Colonel says that phrase grabs me. There's a hint in that "our boys" of what he must have felt, when he heard the tragic news.
The flood tore down the welcome arch, depositing its yellow top about 30 metres away and leaving hardly a trace of the rest. It washed away the bridge across the highway, effectively cutting Leh off from Srinagar. Seen from across the stream, the road looks like the bitten-off edge of a biscuit. The river inundated the cabin with several feet of mud. The four Ladakh Scouts who were sleeping inside were suddenly overwhelmed with water and mud; when they got up from their beds, it was quickly up to their shoulders. Only when the rain abated were they able to make their way to the Centre and report what had happened. Their three colleagues on duty outside had no chance. The water took Col Beniwal's "boys" as it took rocks and trees, washing them downstream and probably into the swollen Indus.
Over the next two weeks, the Ladakh Scouts carried out a massive search for their missing "boys", involving dogs, a helicopter and hundreds of men. A day after the tragedy, they found Naik Padma Dorje's dead body. They never did find the other two.
The nearby village of Phyang also suffered in the flood. While mourning their own losses, the Ladakh Scouts also reached out to the villagers there. The same night, said a report they later prepared, they "rescued a 12 year-old girl who was badly injured and had suffered head injuries". They also took nine other injured villagers to an Army hospital, besides providing first aid to many more victims. Over the next several days, they distributed food and water to about two thousand people, as well as relief material like tents and sleeping bags.
I learn much of all this in Col Beniwal's office. It is my first full day in Ladakh, and this is my first close look at what happened here when the flood came. So I'm paying close attention to Col Beniwal, looking at the photographs he shows me on a large screen, taking plenty of notes.
Through it all, though, I can't stop thinking about the way Col Beniwal refers to the men he lost as his "boys".
***
The next day I visit Choglamsar, a neighbourhood of closely-packed houses about 5 km east of Leh. I should really say "once-closely-packed". For when I walk through the area now, it consists of a several badly damaged houses, some with mud piled high inside, and a rocky almost-dry river-bed running between them, stretching back several kilometres to the distant hills. Some of the rocks are half the size of cars. There are also piles of rubble, smashed cars, books, broken TVs and several miserable-looking dogs picking their way about. There are almost no people.
What I know about Choglamsar is that nearly 150 of its residents died, swept away by the water. I'm trying to imagine the scene that night, trying to reconstruct it from the desolation I see around me. What I think must have happened is that the river overflowed out of its bed and smashed houses on either side. Broadly, that's true. But there's an important detail that I cannot guess by looking at Choglamsar today, that I learn from Tsering Sandrup, a soldier on leave who is digging mud out of a house nearby. It's his brother's home, I find out, and Tsering is helping him retrieve what they can out of it.
He explains to me that before August 5th, there was no river-bed running down the middle of Choglamsar. There were just houses, plenty of them, and yes, they were indeed closely-packed throughout this area. What happened was that the flash flood came barreling out of the hills and smashed straight into Choglamsar, tearing a path through the houses. In other words, where there are now only rocks in what I see as the river-bed, there used to be houses, and the flood simply obliterated those houses. I mean, there is absolutely no sign of any of those structures now. Nothing.
To make himself clear, Tsering points to a small remnant of a verandah of his brother's house. "It used to be much larger", he says, and steps about 10-15 feet into the "river-bed" to show me how far the verandah used to extend. "And there were other houses just beyond. All gone."
I try hard to imagine the power unleashed here that night, the power in a wall of water that carries enormous rocks and quantities of mud and tears a path through a town. It's a job that's been done so completely, so thoroughly, that I actually ask Tsering: "Are you sure?"
He nods his head. He is sure.
Tsering is only one of many Ladakhis who tell me a story about ancient wisdom. It goes like this. Earlier, meaning until a generation or so ago, Ladakhis knew not to build anything in certain areas. This was because their elders used to pass on the knowledge that was handed down to them by their parents, going back into history: that these places were known to be vulnerable to flooding, being in the path that water would take as it flowed from the hills. Flash floods were not unknown in Ladakh, but they rarely caused the kind of destruction that happened this year, because there was little to destroy.
But with more money and rising aspirations in more recent times -- the story continues -- people have given up listening to their elders. They now build indiscriminately, wherever there is empty land. Case in point: Choglamsar. Had I come here 25 years ago, says Tsering, I would have found nothing here. Because while it's true that there really wasn't a river running through this space, it was nevertheless known as a place where water would flow, if there was a flood. So nobody built anything here. Until 25 years ago, when people started doing so, started disregarding the warnings of old.
The result is the calamity of August 5th.
Tsering is also one of many Ladakhis who portray this story in almost cosmic terms. "We got greedy," he says, "and we were punished for that." For me, this cuts a little too close to divine retribution, which doesn't do much for me. But I do understand it in this sense: there was earlier wisdom that people paid attention to, they stopped doing so at some point, and now there's massive destruction where there need not have been much at all.
As I absorb all this, as Tsering and I talk quietly, it turns steadily darker. There are ominous clouds to the west, over Leh, and they are moving swiftly towards where we stand. A few minutes later, heavy drops begin to fall on us. It turns out to be just a passing shower. But Tsering gives me perspective on it when he looks up and says, seconds before the rain: "Baarish ke naam se bahut dar hai." ("We are frightened of even the mention of rain.")
***
Most of the residents of Choglamsar, driven from their homes by the flood, are housed temporarily in two tent camps. One is on a broad empty space next to the hills, on grounds belonging to an Army encampment. There are over 50 tents here, and immediately above them, in huge letters on the slope, are these two signs: "THE MOUNTAIN TAMERS" and "PROJECT HIMANK". These are Army regimental inscriptions, and this is why this particular tent camp is known to all as the Himank camp.
It is mid-morning when I walk in. Not too many people about. There are three low tables, small heaps of rotting cabbage and peas on them. Nearby are several sacks of onions and bhendi hidden under a tarpaulin, with two boys jumping about on the pile. To my left, a large Army truck pulls up and several jawans emerge. They are from the Ladakh Scouts, and they have brought some relief material for the camp. About a dozen people emerge from the tents and walk over to the truck. The jawans distribute to them bottles of orange marmalade and mixed fruit jam, bags of atta and salt, and boxes of Indoserve tea complete with detailed instructions on the side about "How to Make a Perfect Cup of Tea". They also have a few blankets and sleeping bags. Not enough of those to give everyone, so they ask each person who asks for one, "Do you really need it?" One man, wearing a "UW Lacrosse" sweatshirt and cap, thinks about it and says "No". He walks back to his tent carrying tea and marmalade.
Standing outside her tent a few metres away and watching all this is a young woman in a blue t-shirt. She is Jigmat Yangchan, 22 years old. She is studying Arts at a college in Leh and taking computer classes in the evenings. She tells me she is actually from a village called Koyul, quite far away. When she was admitted to college last year, she came to stay with an aunt in Choglamsar. Then catastrophe reached out to touch her.
That night, Jigmat had gone to visit a cousin, and decided to spend the night there. This is why, she tells me, she is alive today. The aunt, Padma, and her 20 year-old daughter Rigzen were sleeping in their home when the water came, carrying rocks and destruction. Their roof fell on them. Rigzen must have died almost immediately, but Padma was alive till the morning. Somebody took her to the hospital in Leh, but by the time they reached the petrol pump 200 metres short of the hospital where the road from Choglamsar comes into town, Padma was also dead.
Jigmat had to identify their bodies. Padma was recognizable, she says, but Rigzen -- Jigmat pauses, collects herself, sighs once and says "Her whole face was changed." It was only from Rigzen's bracelet, shirt and an old burn mark on her elbow that Jigmat could identify her.
There was more tragedy to come. Later that day, Jigmat heard the news of another aunt, Sangdub. That family was also asleep in their house when the water came. Sangdub, her husband and one of their two children were wounded badly, but survived. The other child, a 13 year-old, was swept away and was never found.
Jigmat is astonishingly composed as she tells me all this. I mean, how would I have reacted if I was asked to identify a close young cousin whose face was mutilated in death? Jigmat is matter-of-fact about it, except for that noticeable pause before she told me about Rigzen's face. Is she calm because it has been two weeks since it happened? Is it the enormity of her loss that she is still coming to terms with? Is it the sheer scale of destruction in Choglamsar, so that nearly everyone in the Himank camp is touched in one way or another and perhaps that makes it easier to cope?
I don't know.
***
After the immediate work of relief was done, people in Ladakh started to look at the longer-term concerns, one of which is housing. When I am in Ladakh, the fierce winter is only weeks in the future. What would all these people who were driven out of Choglamsar into tents do then? Surely they cannot remain in tents?
Jigmat has been thinking about this. Some "big people", she tells me without being clear on exactly who they are, have promised the Himank camp residents that they will get new homes in two months. According to her, they were offered two choices for where these houses will be built. The first is a sloping plateau, typical of Ladakh, that she points to -- due east of where we stand. The second is an area called Kharnaklink, behind a hill she also points to, near the Mahabodhi school there.
"The final site hasn't been chosen," she says.
And who will make the choice, and when?
Jigmat shrugs. "Big people", she says again. "Big big people. Not us small people."
Yet why should it not be small people who decide?
I sincerely hope those homes are indeed built in two months, for all these people must be gone from the tents when the weather turns cold. Yet I cannot shake the profound pessimism I feel about this. I know of no housing project anywhere in this country, at any time, in which a few hundred houses were built that quickly. And yet that's exactly what they'll have to at least try to accomplish in Ladakh.
One morning, I stop at the office of the Ladakh Ecological Development Group (LEDeG) to meet their Director, Mohammad Hasnain. As early as August 16, ten days after the flood, LEDeG had begun focusing on the issue of housing. "We are now trying to gear up to the real challenge of reconstructing houses," said an email appeal I received from them that day, "for those whose houses have been entirely washed away, before the onset of the harsh winters in two months (that is the biggest concern and need from all groups at the moment)."
Hasnain underlines this urgency when we speak. But he says LEDeG is also firmly opposed to the suggestion other NGOs have made, that pre-fabricated units be brought in and erected in large numbers. This would be a waste of resources, as prefab housing is very expensive and will not last beyond the first winter. It also does not fit the cultural and ecological context in Ladakh.
What LEDeG is pushing for, Hasnain says, is to build "one room sets", called "core shelters", and hand those over to those who need them. These will be energy-efficient (using solar energy extensively), disaster-resistant units that are built from local materials. "These one room sets," I read in a later appeal from LEDeG, "would see [their owners] through this winter and then they could add on more rooms in the future as and when they could."
There is much more, and LEDeG has a "Shelter Strategy" document that spells it out in detail. Admittedly I remain pessimistic that enough of even these core shelters will be built by the time winter arrives. But it's gratifying to know that at least some people are putting thought into the issue of housing, to understand that they treat this calamity as an opportunity to build in better ways than has been done in the past. (Maybe they will pay attention again to the wisdom of older Ladakhis, about the path of floods). And Hasnain says the feeling of community is strong here in Ladakh. If there are people without a house for the winter, they can count on relatives and friends to take them in.
***
Another longer-term concern is over tourism. Tourism is the backbone of Ladakh's economy, a living for everyone from taxi-drivers to guest-house owners to the old women who sell apricots and cauliflowers in Leh's market area. But it's a living that must be made in the five or six warmer months, about May to October. The harsh winter keeps tourists away for the rest of the year.
But this year, the flood happened in early August, just about halfway through the tourist season. Starting on August 6, tourists in Ladakh began going home, and others who had planned to come to Ladakh cancelled their plans. Overnight, the tourist bonanza dried up.
This is not immediately apparent to someone new to Ladakh, like me. There are still plenty of tourists, plenty of traffic in Leh. Yet from all I hear, this is just a pale imitation of what it would have been like had there been no flood.
Stanzin Lamo is one of the partners of an elegant eatery, Bon Appetit. At lunch there two days in a row, I'm the only customer, and this is a place with a capacity for 92 people. She tells me that on good nights before the flood, they have had as many as 150, the excess sitting on the parapet in the open as they waited for a table. Now they are lucky if they get 10 for dinner. There's a sign of what has happened to tourism in Ladakh, that drop from 150 to 10.
Did it have to be this way? Plenty of Ladakhis wonder.
The damage the flood caused, fierce though it was, happened in very limited areas: Choglamsar, one part of Leh, and several smaller villages. The rest of Ladakh was untouched. In fact, this is an almost surreal disconnect, and especially so in Leh. The whole lower section of Leh, going out to the airport, looks like a war zone. The water poured from the hills and through that section, destroying building after building on either side of the road. Yet you walk above that section, and its immediately as if nothing had happened. Upper Leh is green and completely intact, completely normal.
Why then, people ask me, did journalists file reports saying Leh had been "flattened", that there was no drinking water available, that there were epidemics breaking out? "The truth was bad enough", says Stanzin, "so why exaggerate it?"
The result, of course, is the steep fall in tourism. Several Western countries issued travel advisories cautioning people against travel to Leh. As Chewang Montup, proprietor of a respected adventure travel company, tells me, this means travel agencies in those countries will likely excise Ladakh from their 2011 brochures. So tourist numbers will be lower next year too, unwittingly carrying forward the impact of the flood.
In some ways, this is a looming second disaster. Or, depending on how you look at it, the second disaster has already visited Ladakh, in the huge tourism slowdown this year. Next year will just deepen that. Whatever it is, plenty of Ladakhis blame the media for it. "The media played a negative role," says Montup, "because really, most of Ladakh is not affected."
And yet, a journalist who comes to Ladakh to report on the flood is hardly likely to focus on places that were "not affected", areas that have remained untouched. The immediate story is destruction and death, and naturally that will dominate any coverage of the disaster, at least in the first few days. Perhaps the coverage will end up exaggerating the scale of the disaster for people outside Ladakh. But maybe that's the way it goes. Or is it?
***
Catalin Constantin Morariu came to Ladakh from Romania. He was an accomplished mountaineer who had climbed Shisha-Pangma, the 14th-tallest peak in the world. With his Danish girlfriend Henrietta, he travelled to the village of Sku to go hiking in the spectacular Ladakh wilderness.
On August 5th, they erected their tents and went for a hike with two other Romanian couples. The rains came, then the flood, and they were caught in it. The other two couples managed to cling to some rocks and saved themselves that way. Catalin was seen holding on to a tree for a while, but then Henrietta and he were swept away. The friends found Henrietta's dead body when the flood receded, and managed to take her to a monastery nearby. Eventually they took her home to Denmark.
Catalin? Unfortunately, they could not find him.
There must have been several sad stories like this about missing hikers. I know this much about Catalin because one of the other guests where I was staying in Leh was a German woman who works with disabled children in Ladakh and maintains a website about her efforts. Someone from Catalin's family in Romania, frantic for some news, any news, about him, stumbled on her website and wrote her a note asking if she could help track him down.
We found no mention of him at either the hospital or the morgue. But then Chewang Montup, the adventure travel expert, mentioned that a few European embassies had got in touch with him for help in finding their citizens who had vanished in Ladakh. One such, a Frenchwoman, took them 7 days of searching. The police, unable to identify her body, had buried her in the village where she was found. By boat and raft and then by truck, Chewang's team brought her out from her hilly grave.
Anyone from Romania that you found like that, I ask, and quickly tell him what I know about Catalin.
"No," says Chewang. "But now that you mention it, I've heard of a body that was found near Sku after the flood, a Romanian man. Tall and well-built. Nobody could identify him, so they buried him there."
Unfortunately, this conversation happens on my last day in Ladakh. While I would have liked to, I cannot participate in any effort to retrieve this body. Though when I returned to Bombay, I did pass on to Catalin's family in Romania this small nugget of information that's possibly about him.
Over two weeks later, and thus nearly six weeks after the calamity in Ladakh, Catalin's cousin wrote to me from Romania. "The family decided to bring home the body which supposedly belongs to Catalin", she wrote. But clearly under the impression I was still in Ladakh, she went on: "In this area [of Sku] there could be a person with amnesia. Maybe you can find out [if] such a person has been found in that area."
I never knew this young climber. But I was unaccountably saddened by his death, then by this note from his cousin. Hope, it always springs eternal.
December 02, 2010
Radially speaking, take 2
I keep returning to thoughts about the tapes. THE tapes.
Yes, I think Barkha Dutt did a good job defending herself the other day on NDTV. No, I don't think the tapes show any evidence of corruption, in the sense of money exchanging hands, in the sense of paid news. Yes, as I said before in this space, ethics are sliding in every respect in every sphere, journalism no exception. When we wink at plagiarism, for example, when it is not even grounds to pull up a perpetrator, well, that's the slide I'm talking about.
Yet, despite what I said in that earlier post, something gnaws at me. What?
In the end, I think it is this. However political journalism works, however close you get to your sources, however influential and famous you become, in the end you are a journalist. Period. Your job is to sniff out what's news and report it. If you're not up for that, you should look for another career.
My own nose tells me that a PR professional making calls and negotiating political matters is news. It's something I would want to write about, if I found out about it.
Of course individual perceptions about what is and isn't newsworthy may vary. After all, I think that the marriage of two film stars is no kind of news. Yet clearly a lot of people think quite the opposite.
But I cannot imagine any journalist, seasoned or not, politically clued in or not, thinking that what Radia was doing -- from talking to journalists to discussing the use of the Shiv Sena to attack business rivals -- was not worth reporting. Sources must be protected, sure, so if that's the issue, report what she was doing while keeping her anonymous. But report it.
That's what's gnawing at me. That some eminent, experienced journalists apparently did not think this was a story worth reporting.
At least from where I look out on the world, this is the question the Sanghvis and Chawlas and Dutts must, at some point, answer. Because this is a question about ethical and professional standards, nothing less.
(A previous essay prompted by something Barkha Dutt did is here: The outrage-mongers).
***
Postscript: The more I think about this, the more tangled up I get. I've also been worried about the legality of this taping in the first place. Gautam Patel addresses that issue and continues into several other themes that are troubling too: All We Hear is Radia Gaga.
***
Postscript #2: Dammit I have to admit this is the most conflicted I've felt for a long time, about something in the news.
Is an error in judgement -- about what constitutes news, about who you speak to -- grounds for the loud campaign against Barkha Dutt? Because in the end, that's the substance of her involvement in this whole business. It may serve to underline your particular grievances against her, but the more I think about it, the surer I am that there's nothing more serious than this that these tapes say about her.
Why isn't there more of an uproar about the tape where Radia speaks about using the Shiv Sena against business rivals? (Let me remind you, she uses the phrase "go after"). Why doesn't this set off alarm bells among corporate types, among journalists, among bloggers/tweeters, even among the Sena's faithful? Is Dutt an easier target?
Yes, I think Barkha Dutt did a good job defending herself the other day on NDTV. No, I don't think the tapes show any evidence of corruption, in the sense of money exchanging hands, in the sense of paid news. Yes, as I said before in this space, ethics are sliding in every respect in every sphere, journalism no exception. When we wink at plagiarism, for example, when it is not even grounds to pull up a perpetrator, well, that's the slide I'm talking about.
Yet, despite what I said in that earlier post, something gnaws at me. What?
In the end, I think it is this. However political journalism works, however close you get to your sources, however influential and famous you become, in the end you are a journalist. Period. Your job is to sniff out what's news and report it. If you're not up for that, you should look for another career.
My own nose tells me that a PR professional making calls and negotiating political matters is news. It's something I would want to write about, if I found out about it.
Of course individual perceptions about what is and isn't newsworthy may vary. After all, I think that the marriage of two film stars is no kind of news. Yet clearly a lot of people think quite the opposite.
But I cannot imagine any journalist, seasoned or not, politically clued in or not, thinking that what Radia was doing -- from talking to journalists to discussing the use of the Shiv Sena to attack business rivals -- was not worth reporting. Sources must be protected, sure, so if that's the issue, report what she was doing while keeping her anonymous. But report it.
That's what's gnawing at me. That some eminent, experienced journalists apparently did not think this was a story worth reporting.
At least from where I look out on the world, this is the question the Sanghvis and Chawlas and Dutts must, at some point, answer. Because this is a question about ethical and professional standards, nothing less.
(A previous essay prompted by something Barkha Dutt did is here: The outrage-mongers).
Postscript: The more I think about this, the more tangled up I get. I've also been worried about the legality of this taping in the first place. Gautam Patel addresses that issue and continues into several other themes that are troubling too: All We Hear is Radia Gaga.
Postscript #2: Dammit I have to admit this is the most conflicted I've felt for a long time, about something in the news.
Is an error in judgement -- about what constitutes news, about who you speak to -- grounds for the loud campaign against Barkha Dutt? Because in the end, that's the substance of her involvement in this whole business. It may serve to underline your particular grievances against her, but the more I think about it, the surer I am that there's nothing more serious than this that these tapes say about her.
Why isn't there more of an uproar about the tape where Radia speaks about using the Shiv Sena against business rivals? (Let me remind you, she uses the phrase "go after"). Why doesn't this set off alarm bells among corporate types, among journalists, among bloggers/tweeters, even among the Sena's faithful? Is Dutt an easier target?
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