To Mrs Modi, the First Lady

Jashodaben goes to vote

Dear Jashodaben:

I hear you are in Tirupati to offer thanksgiving. Your prayers have been answered. Your husband has been rewarded, and may well head the next government.

You will, therefore, become the First Lady. There will be SPG guards protecting you. This can be extremely intrusive for somebody who led an ‘invisible’ existence for decades.

Do excuse my intrusion into this space, but now you are public property too. I desisted joining the chorus when you were flashed before the public on April 9. It was unnecessary to drag your name in, even though your name legitimised your husband in ways you may never imagine.

After 40 years, he publicly accepted you for the first time by adding your name in the spouse column in the affidavit when he filed his nomination papers. Clearly, he was aware that this time there would be more questions. You appeared as silently as you had probably disappeared. Your brother said you had gone off on a pilgrimage, as you promised you would the moment he accepted you:

“Jashodaben never stayed with Narendrakumar (Modi) after marriage and has led a life alone dedicated to spiritualism. But by heart she still considers Narendrakumar (Modi) as her husband. She had taken a pledge of not eating rice or any preparation made out of it till he (Modi) becomes a prime minister. She still considers committed to Narendrakumar (Modi) and is ready to go with him only if he calls her back.”

Why were you rejected? We tend to romanticise abstinence and asceticism. He was joining the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), where familial relationships are not encouraged. But, is not abstinence also about being above the perks of power? If anybody followed the vows, it was you.

Modi with his mother: isn't this family ties?

Your need for acceptance has been well-expressed by mythological figures and saints like Sita and Meera. But you were on banwaas and you had to give agni pariksha. Is this fair? You committed yourself to an idol, but what did the idol do?

Meera was strong. She said to those who taunted her, “Family honour, words of scorn? /I care not for these one jot, /For my Krishna’s bewitching form/Is etched forever on my heart.”

What did Lord Krishna do? He intervened in her dream to advise her, “If the gopikas could do their duty to their husbands, tend their families and above all be totally devoted to me all the time, you can do the same thing. Do your duty. I shall not leave you any time”?

For you he was both husband and deity, it would seem. You deserve more than a namesake relationship.

As the First Lady, will you have any influence? I am not suggesting that you should be doing the ribbon-cutting at inauguration for ‘ladies’ type projects. Your husband has promised many things to the women of India. It would make a lot of difference if you helped initiate schemes for ‘women’s empowerment’. Your husband keeps mentioning 'Nirbhaya'. There are many victims of sexual abuse who will never get media attention. They might not even want it. There are the widows of Vrindavan; they need more than an opportunity to spray colours during Holi. There is abuse at the workplace. There is domestic violence – a subject that causes a great deal of anguish and anger, because few want to go into what is considered a ‘private matter’, and a question of rights.

Do you believe in ownership in a relationship? Given your example, you gave up any claims not only to property or possessions, but also to the man you married at a young age. You made peace with your situation, but what about the many who lead lives of utter despair because they have been abandoned by some uncouth man in a fit of rage or for a higher purpose? Does the fact that the woman may not share that purpose count for nothing? Not everybody has the backing of a family they can return to. It is to the credit of your parents and siblings that you were not considered any less, which as you know happens often even among the urbanised, supposedly modern lot. You got an education, started earning, and became self-sufficient. You did not sell tea, and perhaps that will not bring a gleam to the eyes of people who get pleasure from hype.

Many women are illiterate and poor, and are often sold off into brothels. You are already aware of all this, and I am merely emphasising the points that are ignored when empowering women.

Now, I wish to touch upon a subject that is sensitive. You might have read about Snoopgate. A woman was being trailed and stalked by what a sting operation revealed to be the Gujarat government. The then Home Minister has been exonerated for keeping tabs for some ‘Saheb’. If we let this pass for the purpose of this note, then we still have the statement of the young architect’s father saying that the government had his permission to do so. It was to protect them. The woman is an adult. Is a father permitted to get in touch with the chief minister or other senior persons in the government to spy on his daughter? Is the state machinery meant for such purposes? Why has the father sought to quash a probe?

I was not and am not interested in salacious details, so I ask these queries because they can have serious implications. Women are stalked, and anybody can come forward to be a protector. With so many communication channels this can prove to be a means for blackmail, not to speak of an end to their reputation and future.

You have a right to a future, too. A future where you get the respect due to a partner. It may be difficult for you to transform from a Meera to a Radha, but no one worships Meera as a consort. Or will you stay in the background again – a name on a nomination paper, a prayer at a temple, footprints on a pilgrimage?

Your silence will be reflective of the silence of many women in a society where machismo takes different forms, sometimes even as abstinence.

Uth meri jaan...


© Farzana Versey

Return to light...

Lights greeted him upon his return after a 14-year exile. If we do not see the symbolism of epics and mythology, then what use are they?

Diwali surely is not only about a well-lit Ayodhya welcoming Lord Rama.

The light conveys coming out of darkness, of the warmth from diyas, of flames dancing in the wind, conveying evanescence. And the oil and the wick that stay in the background to light up things and are then burned out themselves.

Yet, light is never far away.

It is said that some raagas are so potent they can create and destroy. Legend has it that when Tansen used to sing in the emperor's court, the room would be filled with light. I think the power of such light is within us.

"Curving back within myself I create again & again."
- Bhagvad Gita

A Happy Diwali!

Burning Evil

How interesting evil is. It makes all else look good in comparison. Without evil, there would be no concept of good. But can evil exist without good? It is like this: evil does not need something to compare itself with. You can see a wrong as an independent entity, as intent too. The right comes with an inbuilt halo, and there is a tendency to assume that a right thing is also the ultimate truth.

Today, on Dussehra, as the effigy of Ravana is burned, it is seen as a triumph of good over evil. I have attended one Ramlila at Mumbai's Chowpatty beach where the story of Lord Rama's battle with the king of demons is enacted. The costumes are garish, the swords covered with shiny foil. The actors are usually from the villages, and the audience is made up of a largely immigrant population from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. After casting curious glances our way, they were totally focused on what was so obviously over-the-top performances and looked fake, including crowns falling from heads, silky dhotis causing a few falls.

They guffawed not at this, but at the loud monologues, designed to produce just such an effect. For them, it was all believable. Even though the seats were plastic and so were the emotions. Even though they were munching peanuts and hollering out to old acquaintances from their hometowns. Even though they would return to the one-room tenements they shared with ten others and would report next morning to work in houses, from palatial to modest, or drive cars that cost a fortune or were bought on easy monthly installments.

They did not even want to think about how Ravana was quite a scholar, had the strength to move mountains, and that in some ways by kidnapping Sita he was only avenging the honour of his sister Surpanakha whose nose was cut by Rama's brother Lakshmana.

All this was inconsequential to this audience, as it is to most devotees. For those few hours, they believed what they had been brought up to believe. My understanding is that these people would not be communal. They were happy in their pragmatic devotion, their idols, their calendar with a photo of a deity on a peeling wall. They would not feel the compulsion to compare. They had seen the good and the evil within what was theirs. They owned and owned up to it.

I do not think the burning of the Ravana effigy is imperative for them. As a finalé, yes. Nothing more. As a sidelight, I might add that fire is a cleanser, and is used in certain cultures as such. Therefore, would it not amount to purifying evil? But that does not seem to be the purpose. It is an aggressive act. If we do it year after year, does it not reveal that evil does not die...it does not even get burned to toast? What we do is to beat an assumed-to-be-dead horse.

It is a cosmetic moral victory. The evil within, and the struggle to overcome our shortcomings, is sorely lacking. It is a vicarious thrill to watch a gargantuan ten-headed monster, a caricature of all that is bad, afire and turning to ash. Then we return to other caricatures and stereotypes in our heads.

Our walls have no mirrors. Nothing will burn. There will be no flame. No light.

© Farzana Versey

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Image: Painting of Ravana's abduction of Sita, and the bird Jatayu coming to the rescue.

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Venus and the Penis

The purists are puking. Venus has got a hand job and Mars can now boast of a nice little phallus. These ancient statues did not have the relevant body parts and had lived without them since 175 AD. Come end of 2010 and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has got them ‘restored’. This is not restoration. Any art work that had been altered from the way it was created is tampered with; restoration is a skill that stays pretty much loyal to the original.

The Italian PM is not known to be prudish, therefore these cosmetic additions seem surprising. Perhaps it has to do with the human idea of completeness. If he has to walk into his courtyard everyday, where the works are placed, and see a beautiful couple – the woman handless, the man penisless – perhaps it bothers him.

This raises the question about the perception of art in reality. What might be considered handicaps in life are often metaphorical or aesthetic statements in art. The license to distort is endemic in creativity. Unfortunately, such distortions in creation are looked down upon and rebuked.

Would the connoisseurs of such cut-off parts look upon people born with such disabilities as ‘complete’? I doubt it. I can claim to have an ‘eye’ and I understand at least to some degree the value of symbolism. My own conjecture about the handless Venus is to emphasise her beauty, exemplified especially in her other statue where she is lying in repose, curves accentuated, to concentrate on the feminine and only the feminine. A hand is genderless, so to speak. Regarding Mars, the god of war is probably considered so powerful that he can fight without a sword; his potency is not dependent on specific weapons.

Berlusconi has meddled with a work of art, but it is not unusual if we see it from the perspective of how art is perceived. The manner in which certain goddess figures have been decorously draped in our own temple sculptures, there has always been a progression-regression battle as to what is considered timely and timeless. What about the attempts to destroy certain works, maim them? Aren’t ruins a testimony to it?

There is in the realm of art also the question of how the real are portrayed. It is different from mythological figures. Do portraits of royalty necessarily reveal them as they were? What about the many ‘subjects’ that get iconoclastic status simply because they have been given a buildup over the years? Who were the people in Picasso’s distorted images?

Isn’t truth fabricated when famous works are replicated? Why, when a canvas is put behind fortified glass it loses much of its texture and becomes a mere desirable object. So, the purists need to ask and answer a few such queries. Meanwhile, since these parts that Silvio has ordered to be added are detachable, is there any scope of them being enhanced or inflated? Just wondering…

How the media desecrates

We talk about desecration in such linear terms. It is only the vile people who do it, the intolerant bunch. The liberal media is rarely pulled up. Watch this:

We know some media houses have commercialised religion and festivals and taken over virtually every such space that is available. But, how can they use their front page to audaciously claim ‘The Times of India Presents’ and make Ganesha into a tacky film character? The insidious message of fighting evil is of course not to be missed, especially since the good lord is placed prominently in the foreground of the memorable monuments of November 26, 2008 attacks.

Interestingly, there is no rat as the deity’s mode of transport; instead, he is poised in the air, Hanuman-like, with a mace. While Ganesha is worshipped for auspicious beginnings and to remove obstacles, this sort of pugnacity is not quite in character. The ‘film’ is ‘coming soon at a mandal near you’. The fiction lies not in the mythology but the autosuggestion and the conniving method in the innocence of celebration.

To further whet the aggressive credo, there is competitiveness. The godly pantheon for all its variety does not clash. Here, one deity is clashing against himself by those who have created different versions of him. It is not about how spiritual the version is but how well-sculpted, how much money has been spent, how many devotees it can gather, and how many celebrities. God has not only become a commodity but a way to create fissures among people.

The poor man’s feast has now become a Page 3 phenomenon.

Krishna and some innocence...

I can hear the drums. A bunch of young people will form a human pyramid and break a clay pot filled with curd and lots of money. Gods don’t come cheap anymore. The stakes are up. Because devotees are full of greed.

Today is Janmashtmi, the birth of Lord Krishna. As a young boy he survived attempts to kill him because of divine intervention. He was like most boys and was raised by a cowherd and his wife. That surrogate mother, in fact, was the principal influence on his life. Yashodha. He would rob the churned milk and return to her, his mouth speckled with white residue.

That made him human.

He was surrounded by gopis and would steal their clothes as they bathed in the river and demand more butter to return their garments. That butter did not add any cholesterol to his system nor lard to his girth. Krishna has always been pictorially depicted as lean, often playing the flute.

On Janmashtmi day, that human pyramid forming takes place. As a child I recall there used to be one right outside our building, in the lane. They used the window bars of an apartment to tie the rope from one end and the other end was secured in the building across. At the centre would be the pot. The fellows who climbed up were children of the labourers, tailors, maids, cooks, drivers in the locality. We would egg them on as they tripped. Finally, the smallest one would reach the top, break the handi and they’d share the money. It wasn’t much. Sometimes, they would come round offering us prasad (holy offerings). We took it without a care about how it was made and where.

Childhood hungers are different.

I would still look wide-eyed if everything had remained the same. But they don’t. Things change. We change. One transforming the other in a cycle that spins out of shape. Now those soiled and creased currency notes are replaced by money that can be in hundreds of thousands. The celebrations are held in designated areas sponsored by companies and attended by celebrities.

The pot is higher, many more tiers of people climbing and breaking limbs to reach it.

Yet, I keep my queries aside. For, it is only during these festivals that the poor become important. They are needed to fracture bones. To dance shamelessly in the streets. To stuff their faces with unhygienic colours. To get indelicately drunk. To snivel before the gods of today, Mammons in their limousines throwing big moolah to feel they have earned their place in heaven.

The gods have given up. Their myths that spoke of sagacity have been sold to the highest bidders. Their images come in forms that are ostentatious. Oh, I said, I would not raise a quizzical eyebrow, I said I won’t…

So, this morning I added an extra dollop of butter on toast in memory of the lord. The grease that stayed on my lips reflected a childhood I was born to lose.

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Pop secularism?

Images:
Top - painting of Krishna and Mother by Raja Ravi Verma
Bottom - photograph in TOI

The Myth of Manmohan Singh

The Myth of Manmohan Singh

The Follower as Leader
by Farzana Versey
Counterpunch, May 22-24, 2009

History is often about a play of words. The man of the moment who has taken the oath of office for the second term is an actor in search of ‘no character’. It is the invisibility of the persona that is his trump card.

It works in a situation where we are robotising the human. Indian democracy has promoted a standard iconisation of the middle-class. This is not the middle-class of dissent but of consumerism. Our Prime Minister is not the brand; he is the franchisee. Dr. Manmohan Singh, the genial, the educated, the decent man, has power without responsibility.

He will probably go down in history as a bureaucrat being promoted as a great politician. Dr. Singh does not deserve many of the accolades he has got. So, where's the catch?

The catch is to have canny people to back you. No one realises that the real force behind the liberalisation policies was former Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao. As finance minister, Singh became the hero of the industrialists. They did not mind some wealth percolating down to the middle-class as long as it was called the middle-class. Therefore, India’s power is still in the hands of the business tycoons. The swelling belly has not given birth to any major financial power centre; it could well have been a mere bubble.

Manmohan Singh’s role is to showcase a country that exists in the imagination of a few.

That is his version of India. He has never contested an election; he has no grassroots experience. It shows up glaringly when he decides to go rural in his talks. When the Left Parties were opposing the nuclear deal, he tried explaining his stand to the then President George Bush by stressing that it was important to take care of the vulnerability of two-thirds of the population, namely 650 million people, dependent on agriculture for sustenance. "That meant that India needed some degree of protection through special products and safeguards, on which we need greater clarity."

In his enthusiasm to play Santa Claus he did not notice all those farmers committing suicide or that India was importing wheat. What happened to the great Green Revolution?

The caucus of industrialists supported the deal, not the ordinary citizen or the villager who is supposed to benefit. It was also a major diplomatic sell-out. India already generates hundred thousand mega watts of energy; with this deal we would get 20,000 MW more by the year 2020.

This is what showcasing the prioritised India means. He is no strategist, but he walked away with all the credit for something that amounts to nothing.

In the crass world of politics where wily forces rule, Singh’s asset is that he is a vacillator. His being a phenomenon has more to do with serendipity than statesmanship. The Congress has wisely used his name as their calling card. But it is not true that every wrong move by the party and the onus of it would be on him. Quite the contrary. He is in the enviable position to get away with anything and attribute it to helplessness, because he is not considered rabid, rigid, or regressive. And he is answerable to the dynasty.

It would be no revelation to state that Sonia Gandhi is propping up Dr. Manmohan Singh; the more pertinent point is that he chooses to be propped up.

In the epic Mahabharata, the low-caste archer Eklavya is asked to offer his right thumb as guru dakshina as he could prove to be a threat to the royal Pandava Arjuna. Although he has not been tutored by the guru Dronacharya, he has been inspired enough to practise before his clay idol. The disciple readily offers him his thumb.

In the contemporary context, would it be considered a sacrifice or a measure to please? In the epic, the reason the guru is completely awestruck by the humble archer's skills is that on being disturbed by a barking stray he aims an arrow and seals the mouth of the dog without apparent injury or loss of blood.

Dr. Singh’s has been a bloodless coup. He has added that dreaded word dignity to the lexicon of Machiavellian manoeuvres. What we see of him today is an elderly patriarch trying to appear upright while promoting a liberal market lifestyle. It must be noted that the liberalism is confined to the market.

He is protecting the brand. The brand comes with the baggage of Bofors. Of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. He looks the other way and pushes forward the Rahul Doctrine. No one quite knows what it is. Dr. Singh is probably unaware about it too. Rahul Gandhi has been called the political scion, and there is no need for us to be chary about it, for we have watched this and encouraged it for six decades. Today’s pretence and talk against monarchy are essentially hollow dictums to appear as dissenters.

Rahul Gandhi famously said that his party is proud of the poor in India. The romanticisation of poverty is primarily non-rational. So when we talk about equality it is a legal expression. All legal systems have been brought by force. This suits democracies rather well; you do not have to ensure uniformity because it goes against the egalitarian principle of fairplay.

The Doctrine may have gained some ground in Uttar Pradesh, but that state is not in the big stakes financially. It is good to let the political iron remain hot there while the big businesses thrive elsewhere and keep their saviours in power happy.

One might be prompted to make the rather wicked comment that this is a caretaker government. As Pythagoras said, with the advent of the intelligent man, there is no honest man.

Manmohan Singh has been given a pedestal; the pillar is the Family. Today’s cult figure is ensured tomorrow’s cartoon strip.

Diwali for dudes

Got this in the mail :)

Diwali through the eyes of NRI kids

A young second generation Indian in the US was asked by his mother to explain the significance of Diwali to his younger brother; this is how he went about it...

"So, like this dude had, like, a big cool kingdom and people liked him. But, like, his step-mom, or something, was kind of a bitch, and she forced her husband to, like, send this cool-dude, he was Ram, to some national forest or something... Since he was going, for like, something like more than 10 years or so… he decided to get his wife and his bro along... you know... so that they could all chill out together. But Dude, the forest was reeeeal scary shit... really man... they had monkeys and devils and shit like that. But this dude, Ram, kicked ass with darts and bows and arrows... so it was fine. But then some bad gangsta boys, some jerk called Ravan, picks up his babe (Sita) and lures her away to his hood. And boy, was our man, and also his bro, Laxman, pissed... And you don't piss this son-of-a-gun cuz, he just kicks ass and like... all the gods were with him... So anyways, you don't mess with gods. So, Ram, and his bro get an army of monkeys... Dude, don't ask me how they trained the damn monkeys... just go along with me, ok...

So, Ram, Lax and their monkeys whip this gangsta's ass in his own hood. Anyways, by this time, their time's up in the forest... and anyways... it gets kinda boring, you know... no TV or malls or shit like that. So,they decided to hitch a ride back home... and when the people realize that our dude, his bro and the wife are back home... they thought, well, you know, at least they deserve something nice... and they didn't have any bars or clubs in those days... so they couldn't take them out for a drink, so they, like, decided to smoke and shit... and since they also had some lamps, they lit the lamps also... so it was pretty cooool... you know with all those fireworks... Really, they even had some local band play along with the fireworks... and you know, what, dude, that was the very first, no kidding... that was the very first music-synchronized fireworks... you know, like the 4th of July stuff, but just, more cooler and stuff, you know. And, so dude, that was how, like, this festival started."

They're talkin' 'bout me...phew...

In one of those sessions where they discuss me, someone asked, “Who is Farzana Versey?” (Why are people so blah and blah about her and so forth…)

My take:

She is Nobody. I mean, she does not appear in any tangible form all that often. Therefore, she could be deemed a ghost. How do people react to ghosts? They get spooked out, or they are fascinated, or they create stories.

I shall talk about the last…

The story begins often with a straight narration of the person who was. The words she spoke/wrote…in the course of the retelling, people add their own bits. A mythology is created around stray sentences. Mythologies are not based on context; they need not be. Now, without a context, the ghost can appear really evil.

The advantage when you create such a spook is you can give it several nuances and accuse it of double standards. This is precious. The ‘subject’ has said clearly what she believes in, she has provided her version of facts, she has not gone back on anything. Where are the double standards? And on what grounds do those making the accusations believe that their versions of the facts are right? They assume she has created ‘villains’. It is really adding Bollywood masala to a good ole ghost story.

The spectre needs that whistling wind sound, flickering candles…it also needs a ‘hook’.

This is where the other issue of elitism comes in. That is really difficult to digest. It makes even a joke attempt ‘humour’. So the ghost appears in her outsize Chanel shades. Anyone with a quarter of a brain will know that if one is to portray someone as posh, then you do not place her standing near a paanwalla asking for tambakoo. But, and this is the crucial BUT, this is the paradigm the individuals concerned are accustomed to. They probably pronounced Chanel as “Channel”, which was earlier enunciated as “Chaa-null” during the times they got excited when some aunt brought home “Chaa-null number paanch” (Chanel No.5), which is where they get to the paanwalla… “arre bhai, jaraa choona-tambakoo maarna paanch sau bees par”.

These people are now settled in the US, have done well, and are lauded for their lifestyle (which means Shaan masala sprinkled over the Brie)…they are investment bankers, software engineers. They first learned to knot their ties like salesmen; then they got to the US where they whistled at anyone with freckles imagining she was a gori.

Can you blame them if they are stuck in the groove?

News Meeows - 11

One of Congress’ babalogs has come up with a new idea to revive the party’s fortunes in Uttar Pradesh. To counter the influence of caste politics — to be read as Mayawati and Mulayam — the plan is to spring Shah Rukh Khan as the chief ministerial candidate for the state.

Utterly shocking. I should hope this is just some tittle-tattle. The argument dished out is that film stars have been elevated to the top slot in the South, so it can be done in the North.

We have only the example of Jayalalitha and she had done a good deal of work with MGR. Irrespective of what anyone thinks of her policies and politics, this cannot be ignored. Shahrukh has no such exposure. And the reason itself is vile. Everyone knows about his run-in with Amar Singh and the simmering rivalry with Amitabh Bachchan. We cannot have leaders only on the strength of these.

Besides, only recently I read an article where the actor said he was too good-looking to be in politics. It is of course a casual comment, supposed to raise a few laughs. I only hope he continues to have such vanity and stays away from the field. ‘Capturing the imagination’ is not how the largest state, or any state or even tehsil, can be run.

It is also disturbing that the report comments, “It is to be seen if the idea finds favour with Rahul Gandhi. If the Prince gives his nod, then the party will go all out to chuck old style politics and King Khan might be seen in a new role.”

Prince? King? Where are we – in some principality being ruled by a monarchy? And whose Prince is Rahul? He has indeed been traversing through the UP landscape and has got the flavour of the state, but he still appears rather distanced. On what basis will he decide on the chief ministerial candidate? This is eerily reminiscent of the late Sanjay Gandhi. Fortunately, Rahul does not have the reputation of being a roughneck. That still does not permit him or whoever is trying to project him to make such important decisions.

Mellowing his stand against Muslims for the first time, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray trained his guns against Christians and attacked Congress leaders for cosying up to the US.

While I have opposed the nuclear deal, his other comments are pretty disgusting. He thinks Sonia Gandhi is fond of “Christian leaders like Margaret Alva, Union ministers like Oscar Fernandes and her son-in-law Robert Vadera”. He managed only three names and none of them is important enough in Indian politics, unless in Robert’s case (half Christian) keeping the daughter of India, Priyanka, happy in a marriage qualifies as leadership.

Margaret Alva is only a fairly regular TV face. Oscar Fernandes is rarely mentioned. I have no idea how Sonia Gandhi is expressing her fondness for them and how Balasaheb is privy to such affections.

Of course, his keeping quiet about Muslims seems rather worrying. Is it a diverting tactic?

In an interaction with her fans at New York, J K Rowling claimed wizard Albus Dumbledore was gay.

I have watched only one Potter film and quite enjoyed it. I like the magic stuff though this post is no place to analyse it. It would not have mattered what the wizard’s secual orientation was unless he did something really gay to earn his stripes.

Rowling is probably already bored that her last book on the subject is done with and she needs to keep that memory alive. The millions she made is not enough; money cannot buy you people’s recollection of what you produce. She is a canny businesswoman. During this year’s Durga Puja one tableau in Kolkata used the Harry Potter theme, including the castle. Rowling sent them a notice about breach of copyright and they had to dismantle it.

Come now, she could have just let it pass…her fans in India as elsewhere were queuing up to buy the book, part of the herd mentality zombies suffer from everywhere. (Ouch, it really wasn’t a swipe…) So urban kids stood in line like obedient students and shelled out the big bucks. Wonder if they would do it for our Panchtantra or Amar Chitra Katha stories (though again I think mythology isn’t the only way to learn) or even if someone brings out a really interesting children’s book.

No. I am quite certain. We just don’t have it in us to appreciate our own creativity.

Imran Khan on Ms. Bhutto

“Given the way that she has undermined democracy by siding with Musharraf, I don't know how Benazir has the nerve to say that the 130 people killed in those bomb blasts sacrificed their lives for democracy in Pakistan.”

Oh, she can, after all she referred to the tragedy as “inevitable”. Reminds me of the Rajiv Gandhi comment when the 1984 riots broke our and Sikhs were being killed, he had said, “there is a shaking of the earth whenever a big tree falls”

Potent pictorial comment

Caption states: Unable to take the strain of standing at attention for many hours, a constable falls in a dead faint at at Naigaon Police Hutatma Ground on Sunday. The constables and police officials had gathered at the ground to pay tribute to colleagues who died in the line of duty.

News meeows - 7

Alistair Pereira, the Bandra man who killed seven persons due to rash driving was sentenced to three years rigorous imprisonment, under Sec. 304(2) of the IPC.

In November 2006, Pereira had been found guilty for rash and negligent driving at Carter Road, Bandra, in a drunken state which had resulted in death of seven people and injury of eight others, who were sleeping on the footpath. He was later convicted by the additional sessions court judge to a term of six months of simple imprisonment and a fine of Rs 5 lakhs under Sec. 304(A) of the IPC, for causing death by negligence. Periera had further paid Rs 35 lakhs as compensation to the victims.

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I have written about this - reproduced here.

As always, discussions are now veering towards Salman Khan. So, what do I have to say about it? I have at no point in time condoned Salman’s act of rash driving that led to the death of one person. If the law as applied to Alistair is followed, then Salman should get less than six months RI, if it is three years for seven dead and 8 injured.

And someone might like to recollect the case of Puru Raaj Kumar, son of the late actor, who ran his vehicle over six people. CRPF men were witness to the crime, yet he got out on bail immediately.

We need more stringent laws, not three years in prison. And it must apply to anyone who commits the crime. Anyone.

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The VHP in Kerala has said it will not allow the Kerala government to confer the Ravi Varma award on renowned painter M.F. Husain as "it will be a national shame to honour a person who has depicted Hindu Gods in the nude."

They plan to prevent him from landing anywhere near the airport and will hold rallies to protest the honour.

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I do have a problem with the Husain persona and his blatant playing-to-the-gallery tricks. Again, it has been stated and the whole art tamasha thing has been explicated in another column.

I might only like to point out here that Raja Ravi Verma himself made paintings of gods and goddesses that lacked any ethereal quality; there was a buxom siren-like depiction. Perhaps the VHP might like to protest against him and make sure his soul does not rest in peace? And then they might like to visit temples again and see what is on the walls?

And please take Husain somewhere. He really irritates me. The problem is that unlike us poor ‘wannabe jihadis’ who never get liberal empathy, the likes of him do precisely because they are seen as secular. Why? They paint Hindu gods. Heck, will it do if I tell them that I have a cute Ganesha on my shelf?

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Angry Buddhist monks in central Burma have released all of the 20 hostages they seized on Thursday, ending a tense confrontation with the nation’s military government, residents said.

The monks had set four of the officials’ cars on fire. Young monks flipped over their two remaining cars and forced the officials to leave on foot through a back door, residents said.

"It’s good the monks did this. The monks are showing the reality of what’s happening here to the world," one resident said by telephone.

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The reason for this move has been the locking of a monastery and the police beating the monks with bamboo sticks. The monks wanted to handle it themselves.

Great? Will there be a cheep of protest as to how men of god are turning violent? No. Because Buddhism is such a peaceful religion. Visit their monasteries. No sermons, no call to rubbish the infidels. They are only going round and round turning the wheels. And they look seriously cute, most of them.

But, it is time we realised that violence is not restricted to certain groups. Everyone wants a piece of the pie.

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The Wills Lifestyle Fashion Week is on. I don’t know what is going on, except for a quick look at some pages in the newspaper. It is covered like some Saarc Summit. The discussions, the trends, the goof-ups, the people-to-people contact, the high-profile versus the lowly…and then there are the models. Okay, the ramp requires a certain walk, so with their pencil heels in a narrow space they have to knock knees and pull their stomachs in, jut their bony butts out and strut. What I notice most are the faces. Is there any particular reason these women must not smile? Will the clothes come apart or will it take away from the couturier’s reputation? Are the models angry about something? Have their lips been glued to their teeth?

If that silly pout is meant to look sexy, it doesn’t work. They look like they are sucking on a lemon to prevent from barfing.

Trial by fire

Maverick: Ram’s Agni Pariksha
by Farzana Versey
The Asian Age, Op-ed, Aug 21, 2007

Is Ram Gopal Verma doing a Rushdie? Should we see the film Ramgopal Verma Ki Aag, a remake of Sholay, as analogous to Salman’s Satanic Verses? Are they not both about interpretation or re-invention?

I have never regarded Sholay as a cult film. It merely packaged the tried-and-tested with aplomb. Caricatures were camouflaged as characters. It was the triumph of hype. Verma may end up doing a Spiderman, as he said; he has to say something to justify a “tribute”. Purists, however, don’t like it. This is amusing. For, pop culture is only dignifying pop culture. What Andy Warhol did to Marilyn Monroe is considered hugely flattering.

Whether it is satire or black humour, there is the egotistical belief that the mindless millions must be given some cud to chew on while they are petting their holy cows. Which is where sweet justice steps in for it is the so-called moronic masses who cannot understand the nuances that are the first to pronounce a verdict. They don’t have time to indulge indulgences.

In a strange twist, those who want to do away with holy cows become the holy cows themselves. Salman Rushdie blasphemes religion and cultural liberals rush to uphold his freedom to express himself. Campaigns are organised to garner support for what they insist is an attempt to not let minds turn mouldy. Years before the Mumbai underworld and Uttar Pradesh hinterlands had become chic enough to have Macbeth and Othello transposed on them, some cultural czars had got pretty uptight when stylistic changes were made to the Bard in a theatre production. Today, in his own country young students will be given a “dumbed down quick text” version of his works in comic-strip format. Would Naseeruddin Shah still ask, as he had done then in a biting essay, “Why the hell can’t we change Shakespeare?”

The same query cannot be posed in the case of religious texts simply because we are dealing not with one person’s creativity but the very foundation on which a section of people base their concept of society. It is not about a playwright, a novelist or a filmmaker believing in that particular belief system but whether s/he has an alternative.

No one knows what to defend anymore. The creative world by its very nature is meant to be in flux, dynamic in the face of stodgy status quoism. But when can it be said that going against the tide has gone overboard? At every point in history there have been heretics. Even the messiahs and prophets immortalised in holy books have gone against the established norms prevalent in their days. Then, why is it that we cannot accept our latter-day heathens?

There are several reasons for it but by far the most important one is that the compulsions behind the creative person are not to change society’s outlook but to provoke. The motive is to use the licence rather than to work on a crusade. At a time when religion, myth, history and its geographical position are having a field day, one wonders how sanctified any stand can be. Synthetic attempts are justified as having universal appeal.

This is far from the truth for in the late Eighties we were being told that for a woman to prove her virtue she would have to jump into her husband’s funeral pyre, as happened with Roop Kanwar. Isn’t this itself blasphemy when we consider the world we live in and how outdated and reprehensible such ideas are? Must we not then give credence to those who are keeping their heads above such beliefs? This is a tricky situation.

Many attempts have been made to upset Valmiki’s applecart. In one, Sita gets quite incensed when Rama meekly agrees to renounce his throne. Accustomed to the good things of life, when Ravana makes an offer to elope, she jumps at it. When Rama traces and captures her, she shows no signs of repentance. She is ordered to be buried alive. A lot of people think of these interpretations as brave attempts, but do they really turn the tables? The Sita of this world could exercise her choice only within a clichéd circumference. Did she have to use Ravana as a crutch? She defied Rama by letting him bury her alive. It may have become a revolutionary statement but there is a cop-out and she is conveniently packaged as a patriarchal puppet in a glamorous wrapper to hide the warts.

To what purpose are such efforts when they strive to be solely a defiance of formula, not essence?

Dr. Laleh Bakhtiar, an Iranian-American professor, has recently come out with a new English-language interpretation of the Quran challenging terms that feminists say have been used to justify the abuse of Islamic women. “Why choose to interpret the word (idrib) as ‘to beat’ when it can also mean ‘to go away’,” she wrote in the introduction about one such expression.

While I am all for changing with the times, why is it important to re-interpret religious texts? None of them are applicable in their original forms today. It is also a bit far-fetched to assume that several unlettered men who beat their wives are relying on the Quran to do so.

Now that we have a feminist version, someone may want a version palatable to the West, another group may ask for an Oriental one, yet another may demand a Sufi take on it. And there will be disputes regarding each.

Will Verma’s Basanti be asked, “Kitney aadmi the” and get away without being accused of nymphomania? No. That is the point. Poetic licence cannot ensure a parallel consciousness.