Seminar for journalism students on adoption, I was asked to speak as an "adoptive parent". Here's what I said.
The first thing I should do, I think, is make a confession. I've been an "adoptive parent" for less than two months. So I'm hardly speaking to you from great experience. But what I'd like to do here is give you some idea of why we adopted our little Surabhi, and what it has meant to us.
I've always wanted to adopt a child, as long I've thought about having children. I think the reason, in the end, has to do with the kind of country we live in.
It has to do with seeing tiny kids with no clothes on at every signal, begging for a coin. With kids who clean the floor of the train compartment, often with the shirt off their backs. With kids who work in a million little industries, from sewing in Dharavi to fireworks in Sivakasi, when they should instead be in school. It has to do with watching my son Sahir watching a little boy his age come to our rickshaw and ask for food with that sad pecking gesture, knowing helplessly that Sahir will learn to live with it as I have learned, as all us Indians have learned, so much so that it is so profoundly part of being Indian.
And it has to do, I think every Independence Day, with the flags we buy from a barebodied kid shivering in the monsoon rains. Something about that urchin, that forgotten child of India, selling me my token of being Indian.
At some level, these are thoughts I think every day, and have been thinking for years. Decades. I'm not trying to prove anything, make any statement, by saying this. I'm just stating a fact about myself. And with these thoughts comes the always agonizing question, what can I do? What can I do about these kids, about the poverty that seems to me our greatest national shame? It's a question that leaves me helpless, because I really don't know what I can do.
Except, possibly, adopt a child. If there's one abandoned child whom we can raise as our own, offering her the love and care we would to any child we had, that's one less child to roam our streets, doing that pecking motion at the signals. And I think, this one thing, I can do. This is how I've always felt about adoption: that it is the minimum I can do.
Of course there are other factors in the equation. If we offer a child a home, we have to feel confident and secure about our home. What kind of relationships do we have in our family, are they strong and nurturing enough that a new child will feel safe and secure too? At a very deep level, I knew I had to have the right answer to that question before bringing a child into our home. And I think that applies doubly to an adopted child.
In answering that question, adopting has taught us something about ourselves too.
So it is with all this on our minds that we adopted Surabhi two months ago. I occasionally find myself wondering, do I feel differently about her than I do about Sahir? Not in the least, not one little bit. She is our child as he is, that's it. And in an odd way, that answers again some of those questions about the relationships in our home.
What of the future? I can't say I know how this will turn out, I can't say I'm unaware of or unworried about the likely emotional turmoil that lies ahead. I know of adopted kids who eventually begin asking questions and searching for their own answers. If it happens to Surabhi, I hope she will know that adoption is just another, perfectly normal, way to have a child, and it is with that knowledge that she goes on her search. I hope we will have given her the love and security that she will need to count on then.
And with all that said, I should also say that now that Surabhi is home with us, adoption seems less and less like an unusual thing to do. I mean this in the best possible way: to us, it now seems every bit as normal as having Sahir, yet at the same time every bit as special. If you know what I mean.
I'm glad it has turned out like that. Because we've had people ask us why we adopted; whereas "why did you give birth to your child?" is rarely asked. I'd like both questions to be equally rarely asked. But if asked, I'd like to have the same answer either way: "Because we wanted a child."
We wanted Sahir. We wanted Surabhi. Now we have them.
November 25, 2004
November 20, 2004
For the Benefit of Mr Fly
All over again, there's consternation over something a soldier did during a war. This time, the Kevin Sites video showing a US Marine pumping bullets into a man lying on the ground. And all over again, I'm scratching my head in wonder. Exactly what is so surprising about this?
If there's any lesson from war, it is that the men we send to fight will do some ghastly things. Rules and training and the Geneva Convention be damned: under that kind of pressure, in the filthy, brutal, nerve-wrenching conditions of war, men will definitely do ghastly things. The real surprise is that the rest of us get so surprised.
Oh yes, we all like to believe our particular countries' armies are what we call "professional". By which we apparently mean that our soldiers are uniquely well-behaved and would never indulge in atrocities, in complete contrast to the brutal half-human behaviour of our opponents' soldiers.
It's a nice little fiction to carry around, but as a once-Governor of Texas used to say, "that dog don't hunt."
In India we were roused to terrible fury by the six bodies of our soldiers Pakistan returned, mutilated, at the start of the 1999 Kargil war. A horrible crime, and it confirmed for us what we always believed about Pakistan and India: "Pakistan is venal", an otherwise mild friend told me. "Our soldiers would never do something like that."
Yet here's Sankarshan Thakur writing in Guns and Yellow Roses about his experiences reporting from the front:
[M]uch the same was happening on this side. Troops of the Naga and Jat regiments told us quite plainly they had killed a few intruders they had captured alive ... 'It was rage, just rage,' one Naga soldier said. 'They had killed many of our mates, we were angry. When we got them, we butchered them.' ... [W]hen they brought bodies of intruders back from the heights, they tied them with ropes and dragged them down. ... There was no sense of guilt or remorse there ... it was as if a fire of emotion had cleansed the act of murder.
As for the US, have you read Eugene Sledge? You should. Sledge was a Marine who fought the Japanese in WW2. After the war ended, he wrote one of the finest war memoirs in existence, With the Old Breed: not literature, but just honest writing from a decent, ordinary man; and that makes it a searing record of war. Here's one episode from it.
After a battle on Peleliu island, a Marine came up dragging what Sledge assumed was a Japanese corpse. Only, the man wasn't dead. He "had been wounded severely in the back", writes Sledge, "and couldn't move his arms." The Marine sat down with his wounded Jap. Took out his kabar, his Marine knife. Here, in full, are Sledge's own words about this incident:
The Japanese's mouth glowed with huge gold-crowned teeth, and his captor wanted them. He put the point of his kabar on the base of a tooth and hit the handle with the palm of his hand. Because the Japanese was kicking his feet and thrashing about, the knife point glanced off the tooth and sank deeply into the victim's mouth. The Marine cursed him and with a slash cut his cheeks open to each ear. He put his foot on the sufferer's lower jaw and tried again. Blood poured out of the soldier's mouth. He made a gurgling noise and thrashed wildly. I shouted, "Put the man out of his misery." All I got for an answer was a cussing out. Another Marine ran up, put a bullet in the enemy soldier's brain and ended his agony. The scavenger grumbled and continued extracting his prizes undisturbed.
Such was the incredible cruelty that decent men could commit when reduced to a brutish existence in their fight for survival amid the violent death, terror, tension, fatigue and filth that was the infantryman's war.
The lesson from all this? When men go to war, we had better expect atrocities. Peleliu, Kargil, My Lai, Falluja, Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, American -- whoever, wherever, whichever the war. Decent men, whom it hardly makes sense to blame.
The real crime is not the atrocities, but war itself. Not that we will ever be rid of war; but with every man we send to fight, with every death in war, we must ask hard questions. And even more so when we invest war with those precious words: the "glory of war" and the like.
Here's Sledge again, after one more brutal battle:
I recalled some of the eloquent phrases of politicians and newsmen about how "gallant" it is for a man to "shed his blood for his country" and "to give his life's blood as a sacrifice," and so on. The words seemed so ridiculous. Only the flies benefitted.
The rules of war, the glory of war. Tell it to the flies.
If there's any lesson from war, it is that the men we send to fight will do some ghastly things. Rules and training and the Geneva Convention be damned: under that kind of pressure, in the filthy, brutal, nerve-wrenching conditions of war, men will definitely do ghastly things. The real surprise is that the rest of us get so surprised.
Oh yes, we all like to believe our particular countries' armies are what we call "professional". By which we apparently mean that our soldiers are uniquely well-behaved and would never indulge in atrocities, in complete contrast to the brutal half-human behaviour of our opponents' soldiers.
It's a nice little fiction to carry around, but as a once-Governor of Texas used to say, "that dog don't hunt."
In India we were roused to terrible fury by the six bodies of our soldiers Pakistan returned, mutilated, at the start of the 1999 Kargil war. A horrible crime, and it confirmed for us what we always believed about Pakistan and India: "Pakistan is venal", an otherwise mild friend told me. "Our soldiers would never do something like that."
Yet here's Sankarshan Thakur writing in Guns and Yellow Roses about his experiences reporting from the front:
[M]uch the same was happening on this side. Troops of the Naga and Jat regiments told us quite plainly they had killed a few intruders they had captured alive ... 'It was rage, just rage,' one Naga soldier said. 'They had killed many of our mates, we were angry. When we got them, we butchered them.' ... [W]hen they brought bodies of intruders back from the heights, they tied them with ropes and dragged them down. ... There was no sense of guilt or remorse there ... it was as if a fire of emotion had cleansed the act of murder.
As for the US, have you read Eugene Sledge? You should. Sledge was a Marine who fought the Japanese in WW2. After the war ended, he wrote one of the finest war memoirs in existence, With the Old Breed: not literature, but just honest writing from a decent, ordinary man; and that makes it a searing record of war. Here's one episode from it.
After a battle on Peleliu island, a Marine came up dragging what Sledge assumed was a Japanese corpse. Only, the man wasn't dead. He "had been wounded severely in the back", writes Sledge, "and couldn't move his arms." The Marine sat down with his wounded Jap. Took out his kabar, his Marine knife. Here, in full, are Sledge's own words about this incident:
The Japanese's mouth glowed with huge gold-crowned teeth, and his captor wanted them. He put the point of his kabar on the base of a tooth and hit the handle with the palm of his hand. Because the Japanese was kicking his feet and thrashing about, the knife point glanced off the tooth and sank deeply into the victim's mouth. The Marine cursed him and with a slash cut his cheeks open to each ear. He put his foot on the sufferer's lower jaw and tried again. Blood poured out of the soldier's mouth. He made a gurgling noise and thrashed wildly. I shouted, "Put the man out of his misery." All I got for an answer was a cussing out. Another Marine ran up, put a bullet in the enemy soldier's brain and ended his agony. The scavenger grumbled and continued extracting his prizes undisturbed.
Such was the incredible cruelty that decent men could commit when reduced to a brutish existence in their fight for survival amid the violent death, terror, tension, fatigue and filth that was the infantryman's war.
The lesson from all this? When men go to war, we had better expect atrocities. Peleliu, Kargil, My Lai, Falluja, Indian, Pakistani, Chinese, American -- whoever, wherever, whichever the war. Decent men, whom it hardly makes sense to blame.
The real crime is not the atrocities, but war itself. Not that we will ever be rid of war; but with every man we send to fight, with every death in war, we must ask hard questions. And even more so when we invest war with those precious words: the "glory of war" and the like.
Here's Sledge again, after one more brutal battle:
I recalled some of the eloquent phrases of politicians and newsmen about how "gallant" it is for a man to "shed his blood for his country" and "to give his life's blood as a sacrifice," and so on. The words seemed so ridiculous. Only the flies benefitted.
The rules of war, the glory of war. Tell it to the flies.
November 15, 2004
Double A for the patriot
One more rumination on patriotism. This one was set off by this column I read after the US election. In it, one Mike Thompson spells out a modest proposal he has. He wants to expel from the United States those systematically troublesome states that constitute a cancer that continues to threaten our body politic and are trending rapidly toward anti-American, if not outright subversive, behavior.
The twelve states, he means, that voted for Kerry.
Now if we're talking about subversive behaviour, it seems to me hard to find a better example of it than proposing to dismember your country, to expel half its population. But let's leave that discussion for another day. What I find amusing -- except that this guy is so serious -- is his easy assumption of patriotism and anti-nationalism. You don't agree with me -- in this case, because you didn't vote for the guy I voted for -- so you're anti-American. So I want to push you out of my country.
What is it about patriotism that stimulates such easy equations? Such empty vapidities as "my country right or wrong" or "love your country or leave it"? After all, Mike Thompson's thoughts tell me, in no vague terms, that he certainly does not love his country as it is today. Quite the contrary: he wants to rip whole sections of it out! By his own logic therefore, should he not be on the next boat leaving, preferably one with oars that he has to row himself?
Yet this is the singular characteristic of all dudes who want it easily assumed that they are patriots -- they believe they can pronounce who else is a traitor. And that's invariably the guys they disagree with. I remember always what one Lalji Tandon, BJP leader, said after India's 1998 nuclear explosions: Everybody who opposed or criticized the nuclear tests conducted by India was in fact a traitor.
Our homegrown Mike Thompson, the honourable Lalji.
And of course, some of you will remember the same honourable Lalji's more recent claim to fame: his birthday party last April in which his supporters flung saris into a crowd of 5000 destitute women crammed into a small park. Yes, this is what this patriot thought of these 5000 humans -- they are poor, so I'll celebrate my birthday by throwing saris at them.
The result: a stampede that left 21 of my fellow Indians dead.
But how dare I criticize the man? He's patriotic enough to tell me I'm a traitor!
More reasons patriotism makes me sick. The patriotism sported by the Thompsons and Laljis, at any rate.
Finally, there's one more amusing -- this time, really amusing -- link on Mike Thompson's page. It's titled "Patriotic Products." Naturally, I clicked. That took me here.
Here is a sample of the fine products you can buy off this page, though please stop wondering how many of them are made in China:
* 1984 Reagan/Bush campaign poster
* Bush-Cheney '04 cap
* Republican "Party Animal" Christmas ornament
* George W Bush Christmas ornament
* 2005 Republican Freedom calendar
* Ronald Reagan, Ann Coulter, Don Rumsfeld, George W Bush talking action figures. Four -- count 'em, four -- different George W Bush talking action figures.
and (drum roll please) this final patriotic product:
* talking action figures replacement batteries.
Note that patriotism, as represented on this page, is firmly Republican. Note too that patriotism, as also represented on this page, evidently needs replacement batteries.
The twelve states, he means, that voted for Kerry.
Now if we're talking about subversive behaviour, it seems to me hard to find a better example of it than proposing to dismember your country, to expel half its population. But let's leave that discussion for another day. What I find amusing -- except that this guy is so serious -- is his easy assumption of patriotism and anti-nationalism. You don't agree with me -- in this case, because you didn't vote for the guy I voted for -- so you're anti-American. So I want to push you out of my country.
What is it about patriotism that stimulates such easy equations? Such empty vapidities as "my country right or wrong" or "love your country or leave it"? After all, Mike Thompson's thoughts tell me, in no vague terms, that he certainly does not love his country as it is today. Quite the contrary: he wants to rip whole sections of it out! By his own logic therefore, should he not be on the next boat leaving, preferably one with oars that he has to row himself?
Yet this is the singular characteristic of all dudes who want it easily assumed that they are patriots -- they believe they can pronounce who else is a traitor. And that's invariably the guys they disagree with. I remember always what one Lalji Tandon, BJP leader, said after India's 1998 nuclear explosions: Everybody who opposed or criticized the nuclear tests conducted by India was in fact a traitor.
Our homegrown Mike Thompson, the honourable Lalji.
And of course, some of you will remember the same honourable Lalji's more recent claim to fame: his birthday party last April in which his supporters flung saris into a crowd of 5000 destitute women crammed into a small park. Yes, this is what this patriot thought of these 5000 humans -- they are poor, so I'll celebrate my birthday by throwing saris at them.
The result: a stampede that left 21 of my fellow Indians dead.
But how dare I criticize the man? He's patriotic enough to tell me I'm a traitor!
More reasons patriotism makes me sick. The patriotism sported by the Thompsons and Laljis, at any rate.
Finally, there's one more amusing -- this time, really amusing -- link on Mike Thompson's page. It's titled "Patriotic Products." Naturally, I clicked. That took me here.
Here is a sample of the fine products you can buy off this page, though please stop wondering how many of them are made in China:
* 1984 Reagan/Bush campaign poster
* Bush-Cheney '04 cap
* Republican "Party Animal" Christmas ornament
* George W Bush Christmas ornament
* 2005 Republican Freedom calendar
* Ronald Reagan, Ann Coulter, Don Rumsfeld, George W Bush talking action figures. Four -- count 'em, four -- different George W Bush talking action figures.
and (drum roll please) this final patriotic product:
* talking action figures replacement batteries.
Note that patriotism, as represented on this page, is firmly Republican. Note too that patriotism, as also represented on this page, evidently needs replacement batteries.
November 11, 2004
It's Mine, It's Merry
In 1996, the then Chief Minister of Maharashtra, one Manohar Joshi, celebrated what he called his "greatest achievement" in his first year as CM. Yes, he used precisely those two words. After all, he was ecstatic about an addition to his CV that rapidly elevated Joshi to Minister of Heavy Industries in Prime Minister Vajpayee's government in Delhi, and later Lok Sabha Speaker.
Yes indeed: he got Bombay renamed to Mumbai.
Deafening applause all around. God, mine is a perverse city! And yet, and because it is, a thoroughly fascinating one. I mean, it's like this: if there's a single other city in the world where a top elected official trumpets name change as not just an achievement, but his greatest achievement, and the man is hailed for this instead of being laughed at, I'd like to know about it. About him.
Scratch that. I don't want to know about it.
In recent months, there have been two books published about Bombay. One is Bombay Meri Jaan, an anthology of writings about the city edited by Naresh Fernandes and Jerry Pinto. If you've long wanted to read what people as diverse as Duke Ellington, Pico Iyer, Paromita Vohra, Kiran Nagarkar and Uma Pocha and Chorus with Mina Kava and his Music Makers have to say about this city, this is the book for you. If you never have wanted to read them, this is still the book for you even though you didn't know it. It's a delectable collection, down to a recipe for one of earth's true delights: Bombay Duck. Which, as you no doubt know, is not particularly native to Bombay and is not a duck but a fish.
In fact, the "duck" is a British corruption of "dak", Hindi for "mail". Which, I'm sure, makes about as little sense to you as the name of a fish as "duck", but read the book to find out more. And while you're about it, give a thought to other delightful Britishisms that have roots in Indian words: mulligatawny soup, Old Blighty, tickety-boo, going doolally ...
But I see I've come a ways from Bombay and renaming, though you could make a case that those who go gaga over renaming are going doolally.
The other book is Suketu Mehta's "Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found". At 600 pages, this is not something you cart around to read in the trains -- though then again, that's how I read most of it and as I write this, the train strikes me as an utterly fitting place to read Mehta's book.
In many ways, Bombay has got to be the most exasperating, frustrating, potboiling, fascinating city on the planet -- I imagine NYC runs it close -- and this book gives you an idea why. Read it, among many other reasons, to comprehend what kind of lala land Joshi's (above) boss lives in, which may be a contributory reason to Joshi's own state of mind.
But read it too to get a sense of the complex rhythms of this city. People speak of Mehta's book with a touch of pride, as if to say, look at this fantastic city we live in! Join me as I gape in wonder at it! It is a fantastic city, but it's also got plenty of sordid, venal sides to it, and while I would never live anywhere else, I can't make sense of this pride bit. Then again, that kind of pride -- in such an intangible as where you live -- has never made much sense to me anyway, but that's a story for another time.
Mehta tells Bombay like it is, though you'll have to see for yourself how you react to that telling. For now, here's my review of "Maximum City" for "The Hindu."
And Uma Pocha and Chorus with Mina Kava and his Music Makers ... who are they? The dudes who wrote and sang Bombay Meri Hai:
Come from England, come from Scotland, come from Ire-land
Come from Holland, come from Poland, come from any land ...
Ladies are nice, gents are full of spice,
Come to Bombay, come to Bombay, Bombay meri hai.
Bombay: both mine ("meri") and merry, get it? Rename that!
Yes indeed: he got Bombay renamed to Mumbai.
Deafening applause all around. God, mine is a perverse city! And yet, and because it is, a thoroughly fascinating one. I mean, it's like this: if there's a single other city in the world where a top elected official trumpets name change as not just an achievement, but his greatest achievement, and the man is hailed for this instead of being laughed at, I'd like to know about it. About him.
Scratch that. I don't want to know about it.
In recent months, there have been two books published about Bombay. One is Bombay Meri Jaan, an anthology of writings about the city edited by Naresh Fernandes and Jerry Pinto. If you've long wanted to read what people as diverse as Duke Ellington, Pico Iyer, Paromita Vohra, Kiran Nagarkar and Uma Pocha and Chorus with Mina Kava and his Music Makers have to say about this city, this is the book for you. If you never have wanted to read them, this is still the book for you even though you didn't know it. It's a delectable collection, down to a recipe for one of earth's true delights: Bombay Duck. Which, as you no doubt know, is not particularly native to Bombay and is not a duck but a fish.
In fact, the "duck" is a British corruption of "dak", Hindi for "mail". Which, I'm sure, makes about as little sense to you as the name of a fish as "duck", but read the book to find out more. And while you're about it, give a thought to other delightful Britishisms that have roots in Indian words: mulligatawny soup, Old Blighty, tickety-boo, going doolally ...
But I see I've come a ways from Bombay and renaming, though you could make a case that those who go gaga over renaming are going doolally.
The other book is Suketu Mehta's "Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found". At 600 pages, this is not something you cart around to read in the trains -- though then again, that's how I read most of it and as I write this, the train strikes me as an utterly fitting place to read Mehta's book.
In many ways, Bombay has got to be the most exasperating, frustrating, potboiling, fascinating city on the planet -- I imagine NYC runs it close -- and this book gives you an idea why. Read it, among many other reasons, to comprehend what kind of lala land Joshi's (above) boss lives in, which may be a contributory reason to Joshi's own state of mind.
But read it too to get a sense of the complex rhythms of this city. People speak of Mehta's book with a touch of pride, as if to say, look at this fantastic city we live in! Join me as I gape in wonder at it! It is a fantastic city, but it's also got plenty of sordid, venal sides to it, and while I would never live anywhere else, I can't make sense of this pride bit. Then again, that kind of pride -- in such an intangible as where you live -- has never made much sense to me anyway, but that's a story for another time.
Mehta tells Bombay like it is, though you'll have to see for yourself how you react to that telling. For now, here's my review of "Maximum City" for "The Hindu."
And Uma Pocha and Chorus with Mina Kava and his Music Makers ... who are they? The dudes who wrote and sang Bombay Meri Hai:
Come from England, come from Scotland, come from Ire-land
Come from Holland, come from Poland, come from any land ...
Ladies are nice, gents are full of spice,
Come to Bombay, come to Bombay, Bombay meri hai.
Bombay: both mine ("meri") and merry, get it? Rename that!
November 06, 2004
You're Swine, I'm Fine
After the defeat of the BJP in last May's Indian election, fans of that party wore out their fingers typing up mournful post-mortems. Nearly without exception, they had three common threads: one, these guys who won the election are scum; two, we who lost are the good guys, and good for the country; three, we lost despite, or because of, the first two things. Because this country is full of idiots who will not see how good we are and how bad they are.
Here's an excerpt from one such jeremiad: All of us need to keep fighting the good fight. We who care about that great nation, we who understand the greatness of that civilisation, we whose hearts are as one, like red earth and pouring rain, with the very soil of that Holy Land.
From another: By voting out a government that had given back to India some pride, some stability, some recognition in the world, I feel Indians do not really know what they want. ... the new government boasts of many members who have only their selfish interests at heart and will pull India down without thinking for a second of the harm they are doing to their country. ... maybe Indians need to go through this painful process, maybe they need to be faced with a government that will show its selfish and ineffective face openly, maybe they need to experience the confusion and greed of their politicians with full force, before they realise that they had a good government going before that.
I read this, and more like this, and I was thrilled. Because if BJP supporters see their defeat in such terms, they will never introspect about that defeat. They will certainly lose again, thank you very much.
But I write this today because there's been the same kind of reaction in some commentaries I've seen after Bush's Presidential win: from Kerry's and the Democratic party's supporters. One spoke of the arrogance, short-sightedness and plain vindictiveness and greed of Bush's men. Another decided that much of the nation still insists in living in a giant vat of utter blind faith, still insists on believing the man in the White House couldn't possibly be treating them like a dog treats a fire hydrant.
Not too different, in tone at any rate, from the cross-eyed fans of the BJP I quoted. And that worries me, because I don't want them to fall into the easy trap those two tumbled into: I'm right, even righteous; everyone who disagrees with me is wrong and an idiot as well.
Because that's no way to introspect.
OK, I'm not happy that Bush won. But if Kerry and/or the Dems are to win in '08, they had better buckle down to understanding what went wrong in '04. They had better view these next four years as a huge opportunity to hold Bush accountable, to craft an attractive vision for their country.
Why is this party unable to appeal to that huge chunk of the USA -- West Virginia to Arizona, Florida to Montana -- that turned Bush red on our screens last Tuesday? What are the concerns in these places, and why won't people trust Democrats with them? What can Democrats do to bridge the divide that runs through their country? If Bush has promised to take the US in a particular direction, what is the direction, the plan, the vision, that Democrats have to offer?
Questions to ask. Introspection to be done. It won't happen if they write off the other guys as less than human.
After all, 59+ million people voted for Bush, 51% of the electorate. Not all of them are arrogant bastards. Nor are they persuaded that the guy they voted for is an arrogant bastard. On the contrary, many of them are persuaded that the Dems have missed their particular bus, whatever it is.
There's more going on here than loonies running away with an election. That lesson must be learned. Or let's chalk up '08 as one more Republican victory.
Writing in The Nation, Katha Pollitt came closest (of the pieces I've seen) to the spirit I'm trying to get at here, while still sorrowful over Kerry's defeat. She says: Maybe this time the voters chose what they actually want: Nationalism, pre-emptive war, order not justice, "safety" through torture, backlash against women and gays, a gulf between haves and have-nots, government largesse for their churches and a my-way-or-the-highway President. Where, I wonder, does that leave us?
It leaves "us" in a place that's not so bad, really. Somewhere where "we" need not moan and throw abuse about, but work towards winning next time. I'll take that, every time.
Here's an excerpt from one such jeremiad: All of us need to keep fighting the good fight. We who care about that great nation, we who understand the greatness of that civilisation, we whose hearts are as one, like red earth and pouring rain, with the very soil of that Holy Land.
From another: By voting out a government that had given back to India some pride, some stability, some recognition in the world, I feel Indians do not really know what they want. ... the new government boasts of many members who have only their selfish interests at heart and will pull India down without thinking for a second of the harm they are doing to their country. ... maybe Indians need to go through this painful process, maybe they need to be faced with a government that will show its selfish and ineffective face openly, maybe they need to experience the confusion and greed of their politicians with full force, before they realise that they had a good government going before that.
I read this, and more like this, and I was thrilled. Because if BJP supporters see their defeat in such terms, they will never introspect about that defeat. They will certainly lose again, thank you very much.
But I write this today because there's been the same kind of reaction in some commentaries I've seen after Bush's Presidential win: from Kerry's and the Democratic party's supporters. One spoke of the arrogance, short-sightedness and plain vindictiveness and greed of Bush's men. Another decided that much of the nation still insists in living in a giant vat of utter blind faith, still insists on believing the man in the White House couldn't possibly be treating them like a dog treats a fire hydrant.
Not too different, in tone at any rate, from the cross-eyed fans of the BJP I quoted. And that worries me, because I don't want them to fall into the easy trap those two tumbled into: I'm right, even righteous; everyone who disagrees with me is wrong and an idiot as well.
Because that's no way to introspect.
OK, I'm not happy that Bush won. But if Kerry and/or the Dems are to win in '08, they had better buckle down to understanding what went wrong in '04. They had better view these next four years as a huge opportunity to hold Bush accountable, to craft an attractive vision for their country.
Why is this party unable to appeal to that huge chunk of the USA -- West Virginia to Arizona, Florida to Montana -- that turned Bush red on our screens last Tuesday? What are the concerns in these places, and why won't people trust Democrats with them? What can Democrats do to bridge the divide that runs through their country? If Bush has promised to take the US in a particular direction, what is the direction, the plan, the vision, that Democrats have to offer?
Questions to ask. Introspection to be done. It won't happen if they write off the other guys as less than human.
After all, 59+ million people voted for Bush, 51% of the electorate. Not all of them are arrogant bastards. Nor are they persuaded that the guy they voted for is an arrogant bastard. On the contrary, many of them are persuaded that the Dems have missed their particular bus, whatever it is.
There's more going on here than loonies running away with an election. That lesson must be learned. Or let's chalk up '08 as one more Republican victory.
Writing in The Nation, Katha Pollitt came closest (of the pieces I've seen) to the spirit I'm trying to get at here, while still sorrowful over Kerry's defeat. She says: Maybe this time the voters chose what they actually want: Nationalism, pre-emptive war, order not justice, "safety" through torture, backlash against women and gays, a gulf between haves and have-nots, government largesse for their churches and a my-way-or-the-highway President. Where, I wonder, does that leave us?
It leaves "us" in a place that's not so bad, really. Somewhere where "we" need not moan and throw abuse about, but work towards winning next time. I'll take that, every time.
November 02, 2004
Said the Thug to the Traitor
Met the New Delhi-based Kashmiri journalist Iftikhar Gilani a month ago. Gilani spent several months in Delhi's Tihar jail in 2002, charged under the Official Secrets Act. What produced these charges is a story in itself. Benighted authorities who raided his house stumbled on documents on his PC on Indian troop deployments in Kashmir, and used that to accuse him of spying for Pakistan. Of being a terrorist.
Never mind that these were publicly available documents that Gilani had downloaded off the Internet, as you can. Never mind that the Director General of Military Intelligence told the Government the documents had "no security value." And anyway, all that's a story for another time.
In January 2003, Gilani was finally released because there was simply no substance in the charges against him. Not even a government venal enough to make empty accusations against the man -- the then BJP-led Indian government, good riddance to that shambling gang -- could find, or manufacture, evidence to substantiate their charges.
But if his release told us some things, Gilani's experience in jail told us some others. In interviews (one's here, don't miss learning why the Bible is popular in Tihar), he described how he was beaten and abused by fellow prisoners, because they saw him as a terrorist. A traitor.
He was denounced as a traitor, that is, by criminals. One of his attackers is serving a 80 year sentence for three murders, if you please.
Something about a murderous criminal calling someone else a traitor and a terrorist -- quite apart from Gilani's innocence -- strikes me as perverse. You?
Well, you say, but that's just thugs in Tihar. But consider that we are surrounded by leaders who have multiple cases against them for everything from murder to rape to cheating to rioting; who have been named in innumerable inquiries for their parts in some of our country's darkest moments of terror. In other words, we are surrounded by leaders who in every way, except a presence behind bars, are indistinguishable from Gilani's once-compatriots in Tihar jail.
Yet these leaders regularly trumpet their own patriotism, pronounce that others are traitorous, even lead us in saluting that proudly fluttering symbol of patriotism, the Indian tricolour. Now if an inmate of Tihar did those things, we would scoff at the scoundrel. But somehow we are willing to swallow it all from other scoundrels who are just as venal, but who have turned to politics, and patriotism, instead. Their sure route to evading justice, of course. Their last refuge, naturally.
And so when I think about Iftikhar Gilani, two things come to mind. First, I can't decide which is worse. His treatment by murderers in jail? Or his treatment by the vile government that sent him there?
Or maybe I can decide which is worse. I have decided.
Second, all this is why patriotism turns my stomach. I'm obsessed with it, but it turns my stomach.
Never mind that these were publicly available documents that Gilani had downloaded off the Internet, as you can. Never mind that the Director General of Military Intelligence told the Government the documents had "no security value." And anyway, all that's a story for another time.
In January 2003, Gilani was finally released because there was simply no substance in the charges against him. Not even a government venal enough to make empty accusations against the man -- the then BJP-led Indian government, good riddance to that shambling gang -- could find, or manufacture, evidence to substantiate their charges.
But if his release told us some things, Gilani's experience in jail told us some others. In interviews (one's here, don't miss learning why the Bible is popular in Tihar), he described how he was beaten and abused by fellow prisoners, because they saw him as a terrorist. A traitor.
He was denounced as a traitor, that is, by criminals. One of his attackers is serving a 80 year sentence for three murders, if you please.
Something about a murderous criminal calling someone else a traitor and a terrorist -- quite apart from Gilani's innocence -- strikes me as perverse. You?
Well, you say, but that's just thugs in Tihar. But consider that we are surrounded by leaders who have multiple cases against them for everything from murder to rape to cheating to rioting; who have been named in innumerable inquiries for their parts in some of our country's darkest moments of terror. In other words, we are surrounded by leaders who in every way, except a presence behind bars, are indistinguishable from Gilani's once-compatriots in Tihar jail.
Yet these leaders regularly trumpet their own patriotism, pronounce that others are traitorous, even lead us in saluting that proudly fluttering symbol of patriotism, the Indian tricolour. Now if an inmate of Tihar did those things, we would scoff at the scoundrel. But somehow we are willing to swallow it all from other scoundrels who are just as venal, but who have turned to politics, and patriotism, instead. Their sure route to evading justice, of course. Their last refuge, naturally.
And so when I think about Iftikhar Gilani, two things come to mind. First, I can't decide which is worse. His treatment by murderers in jail? Or his treatment by the vile government that sent him there?
Or maybe I can decide which is worse. I have decided.
Second, all this is why patriotism turns my stomach. I'm obsessed with it, but it turns my stomach.
October 29, 2004
Worms Away
Join me, won't you? I'm paying tribute to the prowess of heroic Indians who bring recognition to the country. Indians who perform record breaking feats that earn them, not piffling Olympic medals, but something more precious by far.
Mention in the Guinness Book of World Records.
So hail Milind Deshmukh, who walked his way to a record some years ago. No ordinary walk, though. He did 104 km. With a milk bottle balanced on his head.
Deshmukh smashed the previous record, a mere 98 km by a twit of an American woman. (No, the bottle wasn't smashed). And in his hometown, Pune, besides this milk bottle walker, you will find a man who has grown his fingernails for most of his life, clawing into the Book that way. Once in, he announced that the nails were for sale. Asking price: ten thousand dollars.
I understand that the line to buy what is clearly the world's most desirable living room showpiece -- perhaps a record by itself -- was almost as long as the nails themselves.
One KR Bheel has been furiously cultivating his facial hair, trying to regain the record for the longest moustache in the world. A Swede took it away. (The record, you understand. Not the moustache). The Swede's record stands at 10-odd feet. Ten very odd, probably pretty damned smelly, feet. Bheel is closing in on it, though I will not mention here the rumour that he has been frustrated by his moustache's inability, so far, to outgrow his wife's.
Then there's two-year-old Hemadri Patel. One December morning not long ago, her parents lowered her into the mucky waters off downtown Bombay. There, she "swam" for one hour and 20 minutes in an attempt to set a Guinness record. Don't know about you, but when I saw a picture of this toddler paddling away, only one world record came to mind. That's for the Highest Number of Tight Slaps Delivered to Idiot Parents, and I am itching to set it.
Though Prof (Dr) S Ramesh Babu, PhD, an accomplished record-artist, might beat me to it. In Bangalore a few years ago, I watched this man's latest record attempt. He was playing "nonstop solo carrom" for 24 hours.
I had no doubts about his resolve. Because I took time to read his posted accounts of several previous assaults on the Book, especially this one: On April 5 1998, he set an Inaugural World Record in Vegetable Cutting. Oh yes. Believe it. He picked up a "Single Cucumber Weighing 1070 g and 28 cm in length." 2 hours, 52 minutes and 21 seconds later, he had sliced it into 120,060 pieces.
And the Indian who once ran across the US of A. Backwards. I don't know if he had a milk bottle on his head. But my guess is, he was fleeing. Possibly from fingernail sales in Pune. Possibly from a slimy mess of chopped cucumber. But more likely, from the fair city of Chennai. That's where a 26-year-old called C. Manoharan ("Snake Manu") swallowed 200 live earthworms, each four inches long, in 20 seconds last November.
When Guinness recognized Manoharan, one Mark Hogg's 15 minutes of fame were up. Hogg had downed just 94 squirmy little beasts in 30 seconds.
Worms swallowed, a proud Manoharan told the press: "I have not only improved the timing but also the number of worms."
Have there ever been more inspiring worms, sorry, words?
Mention in the Guinness Book of World Records.
So hail Milind Deshmukh, who walked his way to a record some years ago. No ordinary walk, though. He did 104 km. With a milk bottle balanced on his head.
Deshmukh smashed the previous record, a mere 98 km by a twit of an American woman. (No, the bottle wasn't smashed). And in his hometown, Pune, besides this milk bottle walker, you will find a man who has grown his fingernails for most of his life, clawing into the Book that way. Once in, he announced that the nails were for sale. Asking price: ten thousand dollars.
I understand that the line to buy what is clearly the world's most desirable living room showpiece -- perhaps a record by itself -- was almost as long as the nails themselves.
One KR Bheel has been furiously cultivating his facial hair, trying to regain the record for the longest moustache in the world. A Swede took it away. (The record, you understand. Not the moustache). The Swede's record stands at 10-odd feet. Ten very odd, probably pretty damned smelly, feet. Bheel is closing in on it, though I will not mention here the rumour that he has been frustrated by his moustache's inability, so far, to outgrow his wife's.
Then there's two-year-old Hemadri Patel. One December morning not long ago, her parents lowered her into the mucky waters off downtown Bombay. There, she "swam" for one hour and 20 minutes in an attempt to set a Guinness record. Don't know about you, but when I saw a picture of this toddler paddling away, only one world record came to mind. That's for the Highest Number of Tight Slaps Delivered to Idiot Parents, and I am itching to set it.
Though Prof (Dr) S Ramesh Babu, PhD, an accomplished record-artist, might beat me to it. In Bangalore a few years ago, I watched this man's latest record attempt. He was playing "nonstop solo carrom" for 24 hours.
I had no doubts about his resolve. Because I took time to read his posted accounts of several previous assaults on the Book, especially this one: On April 5 1998, he set an Inaugural World Record in Vegetable Cutting. Oh yes. Believe it. He picked up a "Single Cucumber Weighing 1070 g and 28 cm in length." 2 hours, 52 minutes and 21 seconds later, he had sliced it into 120,060 pieces.
And the Indian who once ran across the US of A. Backwards. I don't know if he had a milk bottle on his head. But my guess is, he was fleeing. Possibly from fingernail sales in Pune. Possibly from a slimy mess of chopped cucumber. But more likely, from the fair city of Chennai. That's where a 26-year-old called C. Manoharan ("Snake Manu") swallowed 200 live earthworms, each four inches long, in 20 seconds last November.
When Guinness recognized Manoharan, one Mark Hogg's 15 minutes of fame were up. Hogg had downed just 94 squirmy little beasts in 30 seconds.
Worms swallowed, a proud Manoharan told the press: "I have not only improved the timing but also the number of worms."
Have there ever been more inspiring worms, sorry, words?
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