Baubles, but no trouble

Notes from a sojourn in South Africa, drawn at random. Maybe more to come.

For a town with a huge hole in its middle, Kimberley does a fine job of keeping it hidden. Wherever we drove, we'd run into signs that said "Big Hole 2km" with an arrow. And we'd follow that arrow to the next sign that said the same thing, though one time the "2" had morphed into "3". Finally we rolled down the passenger-side window and asked a slender man on the pavement.

"Two kilometres that way", he said, pointing to our right.

All right, I made that up. He said to go to the next "robot" -- the common way to refer to a set of lights in this country -- and turn right, and there it would be.

There it indeed was. But first we were waved into a parking lot by a woman in a blue uniform whose only work appeared to be such waving. Then we were waved into a parking spot by a man in a blue uniform whose only work appeared to be such waving. Then we were asked to pay what seemed an unseemly sum to merely peer into a hole. Then we walked up a ramp, and there it was.

The world's largest man-made hole. Evidence of humankind's inexplicable appetite for eminently useless shiny baubles. You know, those things called diamonds.

Me, I prefer the baubles I nearly snagged in New Orleans once, recounted here, not least for the lead up to nearly snagging them.

***
Driving out of Cape Town in our Daihatsu (yes, the make is relevant to this story), we stopped by the side of the highway to take a picture I wanted. It was an overcast, windy day, thus pretty cold outside. I didn't feel like exiting the car, so I rolled the window down and aimed the camera.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a car zipping past us, a little too close, and then coming to a stop about 50m ahead of us. A cop? But it had no lights on top. I ignored it and went back to my camera.

Then a man in blue shirtsleeves emerged from it and, visibly shivering, started running back towards us. As he did so, I noticed that the car was also a Daihatsu, and in fact had "Imperial Daihatsu" painted on the back. He arrived at my window and asked, "Is everything all right? Are you in trouble?"

Yes, I said, in surprise. Why do you ask?

"Oh, you know we never see Daihatsus stopped on the roadside, so I saw you and just thought I'd stop to ask if you were OK. I'm with the company."

An amazingly thoughtful gesture, and also excellent PR for Daihatsu. I thanked him, we shook hands and he ran back, still shivering, to his car. So if I ever have to buy a car, and if Daihatsus are then available in India, this one incident alone will make me seriously consider their models.

Collective complexity

Been on the road so much here in South Africa that I've not had time to keep my usual trip diary up to date, let alone blog about the experience. Perhaps I'll catch up once I'm back in India next week. That's a threat.

But meantime, my column on mathematical thingamajigs in Mint is on air for this fortnight, and it speaks of cormorants in Cape Town. Take a look: Collective complexity.

Comments, as always, welcome.

Indian abroad

Many more Indians on this sojourn in South Africa than I've seen on previous trips to other places. I don't mean the local Indians, most of whom are from Durban. I mean the Indian tourist, now appearing in tourist destinations everywhere.

Thus it was that I heard the distinctive twang of Goan Konkani on top of Table Mountain in Cape Town, and then in other places around the city. A whole group of Goans, on a package tour. Another group spoke Gujarati as they raced camera-first through the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. Another still warbled among themselves in Hindi.

A middle-aged couple got talking to us at the lighthouse on Cape Point. "Where have you come from?" they asked.

Bombay, I said.

"Bombay?!" they exclaimed, noticeably excited by the mention of the name. Then: "Which tour agency?"

On our own, I said, which set off some quick worried muttering in Tamil. When I interjected something in the language, they grew noticeably even more excited. "From Matunga?" she asked.

At Kirstenbosch, that group of Indians -- kids to grandparents, it looked like -- followed a guide about. But only one or two seemed to be paying any attention to what he was saying. The rest were gambolling along, bouncing off on and off steps, getting photographed against a railing, looking everywhere except at the plants and flowers.

No, but it's really, really good to see so many Indians out touring the world. For all kinds of reasons.

Though not always so good. Also at Cape Point was a large family: apparently most of the wives of six brothers, assorted kids and a few of the six brothers too. They had a guide who was valiantly explaining various things. Like at Kirstenbosch, nobody paid him much mind. Maybe because of the rush their trip was: they had been at Table Mountain in the morning, and were now here at the Cape by 230pm. Took our breath away: each of those two had been an entire day's outing for us.

Done with their visit, the family started piling into their big Volvo bus. Two kids, a fat one about 17 and a thin one about 9, loitered about near me. The younger one took something from his mouth, rolled it into a handful of paper and started looking around for somewhere to fling the whole mess.

Came the loud instructions from their father, halfway to the bus and anxious to round everyone up. "Garden mein pheko," he said, pointing to a patch of green lined elegantly with flowers. "Chalo, chalo, garden mein pheko!" ("Come on, throw it in the garden!")

And the older kid lined up to fling whatever it was into the garden.

I had to say something. "Please, yahan itne saare dustbin hain! Usme kyon nahin?"

The father gave me a long black look, then silently directed his son to the closest dustbin. Not six paces from where they stood.

Good hope

So we arrive at the Cape of Good Hope two days ago. There's a wooden sign there, English and Afrikaans, telling you where we are. (At the Cape of GH, in case you're not paying attention). We emerge from the car, get our jackets on, gasp at the deep blue sea. Seconds behind us are a couple of enormous tour buses that disgorge hordes of Korean or Malaysian or Japanese folks. They are enormously excited and leap about with whoops of delight.

Then they all run to the wooden sign and line up behind it, some stretching their arms out in what I surmise is relief. ("Hoo boy! that bus journey from Seoul has got me exhausted!")

Someone produces a long banner which they drape over the sign so completely that you can no longer see where you are. The sign says "2010 Supremacy Summit Excellence Award". A woman braces to take a photograph of the gang. I notice that nearly all the women, but nearly none of the men, are wearing sunglasses.

Three thoughts occur to me. No, four. No, five.

* 2010 is over.

* If a "Supremacy Summit Excellence" is 5 months late with its date, how excellent is it anyway?

* What is a Supremacy Summit?

* Someday these Supremacy Summit guys are going to look at this photo and say to themselves: "Hey, where the hell were we when we took this shot?" That's when they'll remember the benefits of not covering up signposts.

* What's with the gender divided sunglasses?

Incidentally, it's not just one photo. I notice that the photographer is festooned with cameras, must be easily two dozen around her neck with more in her hands. Clearly, every single member of the Supremacy Summit has given her her/his camera to shoot the scene. (The usual bane of the digital camera age).

She looks a mite bent over, so much so that I fear she might topple on her face. But bravely, she soldiers on, taking photo after photo of the whooping Supremacy gang. Pretty soon, I understand that it is going to be a long time, possibly weeks, before she is finished and the sign is removed and the world can once more read the wooden sign to know what this particular spot is. So we give up our hopes for such a shot and set out on a trek to the top of the craggy hills behind.

Half an hour later we stop to catch our breath and take in the magnificent view. Far below, like frantic ants, the Supremacy Summit folks are still whooping and waving from behind the banner-obscured "C of GH" sign.

A few good doctors: Ink

Ink is a new magazine that will showcase long-format journalism. That's something that I find immediately attractive, because I'm always searching for ways to write at greater length, to explore a theme to greater depths, than an oped article allows.

The inaugural issue (May 2011) is out. The cover story is an essay I wrote. Its impact is immeasurably enhanced by photographs my good friend Tom Pietrasik took. This was on a trip we did together to Chhattisgarh.

It being early days still, the magazine is not yet widely available on the stands. But you can see the e-version here. The essay is called "A Few Good Doctors". Note Tom's photograph on the cover and navigate to page 24 to read it and see his other photographs.

Room at the Lodge

I have just started a new fortnightly column for Mint, titled "A Matter of Numbers". This is a place where I hope to explore the wonders of mathematics and science. It will be a challenge to write, but a challenge I thoroughly look forward to. It should be a whole lot of fun.

The column will run on alternate Fridays. Given that it has to do with numbers, I'm absolutely delighted that it kicked off yesterday, Friday the 13th.

Take a look: Room at the Lodge.

What is strange

The Supreme Court has just stayed the Allahabad High Court Ayodhya verdict from last September, calling it "a strange and surprising order".

Wonder if LK Advani will agree. Rhetorical question, I realize.

Like the Judges of the Supreme Court, I thought it was a strange verdict as well. Here are some lines from what the judges on that Allahabad bench wrote that make me think so.

* "[T]he court has 'to uphold a faith which continued for time immemorial' … 'belief' and 'supposition' are perfectly legal and acceptable states." [Justice S. Agarwal]

* "The only thing which can be guessed … is that a very large area was considered to be the birthplace of Lord Ram by general Hindus." [Justice S.U. Khan]

* "[F]or a very long time till the construction of the mosque it was believed by Hindus that somewhere in [the] premises in dispute is [the] birth place of Lord Ram. … [B]efore 1855 Ram Chabutra and Seeta Rasoi had come into existence and Hindus were worshipping [there]. … [I]nside the boundary wall and compound of the mosque Hindu religious places ... were actually being worshipped along with offerings of Namaz by Muslims in the mosque. … [I]n view of the above ... both the parties Muslims as well as Hindus are held to be in joint possession of the entire premises in dispute." [Justice Khan]

* "The disputed site is the birth place of Lord Ram. Place of birth is a juristic person and is a deity. It is personified as the spirit of divine worshipped as birth place of Lord Rama as a child." [Justice D.V. Sharma]

* "It is declared that the area covered by the central dome ... being the deity of Bhagwan Ram Janamsthan and place of birth of Lord Rama as per faith and belief of the Hindus, belong to [the Hindu] plaintiffs." [Justice Agarwal]

* "The whole world knows that Lord Ram was born in Ayodhya where the temple Ram Janama Bhumi stands." [Justice Sharma]

In case it is not clear, I have no argument with these observations. They only repeat what I know already: that it is the faith and belief of a lot of Hindus that Ram was born there.

My problem with these excerpts is instead this: that this faith and belief was used to decide a court case.

That is strange.

On self-deception

On another post about the death of Osama, I got a comment which is excerpted here:

Drawing false equivalences between India and Pakistan to appease them is part of the routine. If you are bad, we are also bad. If you have extremists we also have extremists. If you kill people we also kill people. If you have Shahid Afridi, we have Gautam Gambhir. Nothing wrong with your Islam at all, our Hinduism is worse. And so on the charade goes. The point of the game is not to talk blunt and deliver a reality check to our darling estranged brothers and sisters but to force the idea that they are just "people like us" down *our* throats. D'Souza deserves to be commended for not yet scaling the heights of of discussing "shared" cultural attributes like butter naan and sufi music, but he cannot be accused of not trying to push the envelope.

Pakistan is so far down the road of self-deception that this make-believe is superfluous. They don't need our assurance that their state and society are not particularly evil. Join the game if it makes you feel virtuous to claim that we are the ones who are equally evil.

I wrote a response as a comment there, but on some reflection it seemed to me this little exchange deserved to be a post by itself. So here we are. My response is in the following paragraphs.

The self-deception, it seems to me, is in those who are content in trying to show that India is superior to Pakistan, and who bristle at anything that frays that effort.

That bristling alone tells its tale.

I couldn't care less who is "superior". But I know some truths about Indians and India, some offered at random below:

* Gambhir's remark, off-the-cuff as it might have been, was offensive by itself.

* There are people I have visited in this country, without any huge effort to go to especially remote areas, who cannot buy rice at the government programme's price of Rs 3/kg; this has prompted the government to institute a sub-programme to sell them rice at Rs 1/kg.

* Pretty much the same number of people were slaughtered in Delhi in November 1984 as were slaughtered in NYC in September 2011. Ten years later, a measure of justice caught up with Osama. 27 years later, no measure of justice has caught up with any of those who led the Delhi slaughter.

* There are news reports of dishonour (forgive me, I will not use the word "honour") killings in different parts of India all the time (about three every day according to this report).

* The amount of money mentioned in our 2G corruption scam (Rs 60000 crore) is pretty much the GDP of Iceland ($12bn).

To those who draw conclusions about the state of Pakistan's "state and society" and their "self-deception" from various truths from Pakistan, I'd like to ask: what conclusions do you draw about India's "state and society" and our "self-deception" from truths like the ones listed here?

Knows the breed

Whirlwind trip to Raipur, arranged at nearly the last minute, to meet and chat with one of the country's better-known faces. First see him when I stand outside a gate garded by barking but friendly-looking dogs (you can tell when they're friendly), and suddenly he looks out from under a low roof, then comes to open the gate. He looks tired and a little stooped, but otherwise healthy.

We sit on a nearby parapet and talk for a few minutes. Then we walk over to a nearby building under construction and climb a rickety bamboo ladder onto its roof. Apparently a crack has developed up there and he wants to take a look at it. The roof is an arch, covered with tiles. We walk along it to a man who's on his haunches, and there's the crack, it stretches right across the structure. The two men discuss repairs for a few minutes, then we climb back down the rickety ladder.

Back to the parapet, then he suggests coffee and toast inside the house. We enter and he sits me down, then toasts two large brown slices and makes me a cup of absurdly strong coffee. His wife produces some cheese to go with the toast. I pick out one of several squares of Amul and am about to peel off the foil wrap when he points to a triangle that's also in the container. "Try that," he says, "it's softer and tastes better."

He's right.

We talk some more, over this breakfast. When we finish, he takes my plate and cup and washes them with his, refusing point-blank to let me do it, or even to help. I say, "I'm good at washing dishes," a fact those who know me may or may not agree with. He says, "So am I," and carries on washing.

"I used to have a dog too," I say.

"What kind?" he asks.

"Rhodesian Ridgeback," I say, getting ready to describe this relatively less-known dog as I usually have to. But not this time. He nods in recognition; he knows the breed.

Later in the day, he will make two more cups of coffee for me. We chat over lunch, then he clears a bed so I can take a nap -- I had three hours of sleep last night before a 630am flight to get here, so I'm fading fast after lunch. We chat some more in the evening. This time, I take notes.

There are occasional interruptions in our conversation, once for nearly ten minutes that he has to attend to someone visiting. But each time, he returns to the room and immediately to the precise point in our conversation where we were interrupted, the place I remember only because I'm taking notes. Him, it seems effortless.

When I leave for the airport for my flight back, one of the country's better-known faces stands on the landing as I descend the two flights, waving slowly, almost shyly.

At the airport, my flight is inordinately delayed. While we wait, the woman beside me and I strike up a conversation. She works for a NGO that works in education in a rural part of this state.

She asks me why I'm here. I mention the better-known face, assuming she'll know the name.

"Who?" she asks. She's never heard of him. So much for assumptions.

Unbearded

About now (the morning of May 2 2011) might be a good time to inflict this on you. It's something I wrote as an entry to a "flash fiction" (I think that's the name) contest, one of those things in which you have to write a story in exactly 50 words.

That's how long this story is, exactly 50 words. I wrote it when a certain President visited India, late last year. I changed one word before posting it here: pat on the back to the person who guesses which that word is.

Enjoy, or not.

PS: It won me nothing.

***
Unbearded

One letter separates your names, said the acolytes, but you must become him. Practicing in my Pakistani hideaway, I perfected every mannerism, that thousand-watt smile. Today they dance to welcome me, these fatuous, intoxicated Indians. Not even this Michelle, elegant beside me, knows. Wise the advice to shave my beard!

... and the Big Questions

Caravan carries an article I wrote after the Supreme Court granted bail to Binayak Sen a couple of weeks ago. Take a look: Binayak and the Big Questions.

Comments welcome.