Show me the money

For over ten days now, all of India is talking about money. A nation where over 32 per cent people live below the poverty line, and where some have not even seen big denomination currency notes, this itself seems like dark comedy. Dark comedy becomes a reality when the demonetisation move ostensibly introduced to get rid of black money mocks itself with a bureaucrat seeking and getting a bribe in the new currency notes.

On November 8, Prime Minister Modi decided that all ₹500 and ₹1000 notes were not to be legal tender from midnight onwards. This pushed even those who did not have black money to rush and offload these stacks.

A lot has been said and discussed on the subject, and it is rather obvious that the PM's populist move, and the false premise of how such money is used for terror funding, is not going to work this time.

What the overnight tamasha has done, though, is to challenge the social dynamics of class. Suddenly, anybody not categorised as poor is assumed to be rich.

I did not suffer because I did not have too many old notes with me. Just ₹15,000. The just is deliberate when you consider that four people in India would survive on this much for one month. As though this is not humbling enough, there have been stories of deaths, violence, illness, quarrels, hunger, of marriages postponed, of empty markets, half-stocked stores...people are affected.

I thought I was the affected, too. On the first day, I landed up at the bank. This was most unusual for me. I suspect I wanted to experience the moment. A friend I bumped into said, "Why do you need money? I thought you lived on ideas."

"Yes. But what if right now that idea is money?"

In the queue I did not see any poverty. In keeping with its international reputation, the bank was plying us with tea and coffee. We, the few people ahead and behind, were jokey and relaxed. We were more concerned about Americans under Donald Trump. But live jokes can't be played in a loop. After an hour and a bit, I gave up.

My banking is these days restricted to using the ATM. One is in control there and not waiting before a teller who will scrutinise your cheque to authenticate whether your money is indeed yours.

***

The doctor did not have a credit card swiping machine. His secretary pointed at a bundle of notes that were used to return as change. I didn't have the cash and I had got this appointment after a month. "You stay quite nearby, don't you? Then you can issue a cheque."

"Oh, that would be nice. I'll be back soon."

"We have that much trust in you."

I wondered why I was trusted. This was my first visit, we did not know each other. Trust in social situations is based on class factors - I wore a fragrance, was reasonable dressed, seems educated, and spoke in English. Would this courtesy have been extended to a person who would speak in Hindi or Marathi, who would be shabbily dressed?

We, all of us, judge people on superficial aspects. It isn't always wrong to do so, but is it a foolproof yardstick?

***

Eight days later when I managed to get the new notes, I had my first encounter with the streets. At a small store where I made some purchases, I told the seller that I had the ₹2000 notes and he would have to get me the change and, no, I would not accept the old currency. In the next ten minutes he had tapped people around his store and brought me the change, some in ₹10 denomination. 

He was accepting old money because he had no choice. "I wait in the bank for 4 hours to exchange and then come here. Can't afford to lose clients."

"But there is a limit to the amount changed..."

"We try all sources...different banks, different people."

***

At the signal, a eunuch approached me. "Dus, bees rupaiyya de do, sab achcha hoga..."

For 10-20 bucks I was being promised utopia. I had no change and said so.

"To phir 500 de do, saree khareed loongi aur tumko yaad karoongi..."

For 500 bucks, I'd be remembered by a eunuch. 

This was an unusual barter, especially since I have an inbuilt need to be forgotten. 

***

Any such upheaval brings forth genuine sympathy, and then there is a segment that will ride on it. On public fora, such displays reek of opportunism where this becomes one more chance to build up a samaritan profile. 

Manufacturing the Greatest Indian

Do we know about who is the greatest Indian before Mahatma Gandhi?

It does not matter. We live in iconic times with iconic figure who did iconic things and deserve iconic status through iconic surveys. So, the question for a survey (TGI) “Based on an internationally acclaimed format by BBC held in 22 countries” is “Who is the greatest Indian after Mahatma Gandhi?” It is no surprise that it is a media-propped poll and “the initiative is to select that one great Indian after Mahatma Gandhi who is the most influential, iconic & inspirational and has impacted your life”.

There could be quite a few or perhaps none of the fifty names mentioned. But why is Gandhiji the cut-off date? I can understand the use of a term like “post-Independence”. If he is the benchmark, then what are the variables by which we are to judge industrialists, sportspersons, actors, scientists, musicians, activists or even politicians? Do they have to be ‘Gandhian’? If not, then does it not nullify the yardstick of the chosen iconoclasm?

Besides, how do we define an Indian as great? Due to their origin or their contribution to what is the ‘essential’ India, and that may be far removed from those featured here?

Indira Gandhi

It is ironical that Indira Gandhi, who had declared Emergency, shares the space with Jayprakash Narayan, who bitterly opposed it and suffered for it? The acquisitive business people stand along with the ones who gave it all up.

Vinoba Bhave

How do we judge? Will the general pool reflect how people feel, and I am not taking into account those that cannot vote by giving a missed call.

The media partners will have a good time. They will be in charge of the decision-making process. Primetime and newsprint will bring you the ‘news’, and then there will be analyses. As for the token of the title, there will be comparisons and whoever makes it will in some way be given a Gandhian rubdown.

The India that existed and flourished in the past does not exist. The India where discoveries were made, art and literature flourished, and political strategy was as crucial as swordsmanship, that India does not exist in the finger-wagging and tapping world. How can they say your vote counts, when they have already decided on the broad spectrum of who matters?

The luminaries are pretty much great in their fields, but what was relevant in say the 50s does not apply to those who came in later. Is there no difference between scoring a hundred tons and working among lepers? Is there no qualitative difference between a Dr. B. R. Ambedkar and a Kanshi Ram? How does Atal Bihari Vajyapee feature for being loved by both admirers and opponents, when that is how politics works?

Achievements are now propped up by commercial interests as they were probably ideologically exaggerated in the old days. Today’s greatness rests on success; yesterday’s on making inroads.

Is Mahatma Gandhi in any way a unifying force? The symbolism of the name is, of course, canny marketing. But it leaves one wondering as to whether the greatest Indian – whoever she or he may be – will also be one who has been truly great for India. If so, then what aspect of India? Ask no questions. A pedestal awaits. Your vote will give you a chance to be part of the icon factory.

(c) Farzana Versey

The Impersonators

Why would anyone want to be me when I sometimes have a problem being me?


I am not on Facebook, but I was there. An impersonator did it. I had no idea until I got a casual call from an acquaintance regarding something else and he asked, “Why don’t you reply to any messages on FB?”

“But I don’t have an account.”

“Rubbish. It is there. Go look it up.”

I did. Sure enough I was there. The profile was hidden but the links linking to ‘me’, who was not me, were all about my sites. I complained. Facebook acted promptly and removed the profile.

It is an interesting phenomenon. Why would a person want to impersonate another? Either there is a vicious motive or the person wants to be in your shoes. I have experienced both in the past when I was impersonated, before networking sites came into the picture. The level of malice is amazing. People who know jackshit about you try to malign you, create discord and, since one’s writings are public, it is easy to pick them up and appear authentic.

The Facebook impersonator would not have been terribly lucky for I often announce that I am not on any social networking sites, so those who know me or of me are aware. The acquaintance who alerted me is not a regular himself nor was he aware of my ‘unavailability’ in the cyber social world.

One can only imagine how visible celebrities become easy targets. It is inexcusable, but it happens quite regularly and can have a damaging effect. I guess that is the reason many have signed up to avoid any confusion.

Just yesterday, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen recounted his experience. “I do not have any Facebook site of my own, and do not intend to open one…the site referred to there, where someone pretending to be me answered questions, had nothing whatsoever to do with me.” Someone was, in fact, responding to queries from readers that contradicted his views. He is understandably upset: “The managers of the Facebook system are not helpful in monitoring the veracity of the sites and communications. I got no help from them...”

I am surprised at this as well as the audacity of the person running the account. It does not seem to be a harmless fan for he was providing skewed ideas. This ought to have alerted the Professor’s fans; they don’t seem to be a smart bunch! The only good thing is that it is in the open. For a less visible person, as in my case, one does not know what happens behind the scenes.

I can only conjecture about the dynamics here. There is some admiration mixed with envy and quite a bit of low self-esteem. The person will publicly praise you, and then there will be private communication that veers from desperate accusations to even more desperate regret. It astounds me to read bits of my life being replicated by a couple of these people. I know about coincidence and serendipity, but please don’t tell me that almost everything I do has been done by another person, when I know the person.

The impersonator personality can, on rare occasion, be truly someone appreciative and wants you to notice her/him. It is a weird way to do so. Then there are ‘plants’ that have been set up to kick up a storm. It is quite pathetic, for they forget that the steaming hot tea cup will scald their own lips.

I have concluded that, given the experiences I have had, being me is not such a bad idea after all.

Kashmir's Inner Demons

The People’s War
Kashmir's Inner Demons
by Farzana Versey
Counterpunch, July 9-11

Talking in terms of when the situation normalises in Kashmir amounts to living in a fool’s paradise. That the person saying so happens to be the chief minister of the state reveals the paucity of any real incentive to find solutions. Situations do not normalise as a matter of course when people in a place have been fighting a battle within.

A nine-year-old’s death during this tense-filled month clearly shows that no one is in control. While the home minister, P. Chidambaram, has insinuated the role of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, it is akin to playing to the gallery. After a while, it stops being a popcorn moment of watching the skirmishes in celluloid fashion. The government intercepted a conversation between hardliner separatists discussing the possibility of causing causalities in a procession on the outskirts of Srinagar. One office-bearer said, “At least 15 people should be martyred today." This was a 20,000 crowd. Nothing happened because the cops dispersed the mob with a cane charge. So much for the hardline terrorist plan and the sleuthing by the intelligence agencies.

The real dramatis personae this time are within the state. There is the ruling party leader Omar Abdullah, Mehbooba Mufti of the People’s Democratic Party and the separatist Hurriyat’s Mirwaiz Omar Farooq.

The Centre plays a guest appearance.

Abdullah states that the Kashmir crisis is not because of bad governance. It is most certainly not the only reason if he means during his tenure, but it has been bad governance all along. His silence for the most part has not helped and when he does speak it exposes his lack of political will and sensitivity. Commenting on the loss of civilian lives, he said, “Being a father, I can feel the pain of those parents who have lost their child, I appeal all of the parents to counsel their children to not go outside their homes during the violence or in curfew and don’t indulge themselves in anti-national activities.”

Is good governance all about imprisoning children inside their homes? Isn’t good governance about trying to put a stop to such violence that is at least within manageable limits? Are the young people who are coming out in the streets and pelting stones indulging in anti-national activities? Has he not seen that the police have begun carrying little bricks too? This is not the voice of terrorism but of frustration.

Worse, there have been attacks on media persons. The Press Guild of Kashmir issued a statement saying, “Not allowing media persons to move and cover the situation tantamount to banning the media and that is what the state government has done indirectly.”

Abdullah can therefore reach his own conclusions because he is indulging in suppression of information. He alludes to the youth being used by vested interests. Why does he not name them? Everyone is a vested interest in Kashmir because each life is in danger and each human being there is living on the razor’s edge for two decades.

It is naïve of him to suggest that vested interests and anti-national forces are working together. Most local separatist groups can be broadly referred to as anti-Centre, not anti-national. Several issues need to be resolved, and that they are not is the problem of the government of India and not the extremist factions. What kind of a society is it where the ruling party leader says that normalcy will return if people obey the curfew? The people of the state are not sheep that they can be herded together to obey such diktats. Besides, are curfews the answer to the problems in the Valley? Will they assuage the disaffection of the people, bring back economic prosperity, prevent the influx of outside forces, and end the demands of separatist groups?

In what appears to be a case of ‘he has lost it’, at a press conference Abdullah appealed to senior citizens and religious preachers to spread the message of peace and help to bring normalcy in the affected areas.

Senior citizens have lost their children in the years of insurgency in the state and the peace process is not about homilies. As for religious preachers, he is transforming a political issue into a seminary dialogue and buffering the image of it as a jihad, which is playing into the hands of certain elements that have been pushing this agenda to justify their own religious idea.

He then went on a completely different track by holding out for the actions of the young people by bringing in the heavy-handedness of security forces that beat up locals and this could as a consequence be seen as retaliation. Excesses by security personnel are not unknown and have been going on for quite some time. This is not reprisal against that. He is using a simplistic yardstick because this is what he is comfortable with.

Undertrial prisoners and civilian casualties have another dimension. This time the youth movement seems to have been activated at the ground level, in many ways outside the purview of separatist or establishment movements. They are in effect protesting against bad governance, whether or not he wishes to admit it.

Mehbooba Mufti has blamed both the central and state governments. "Law and order is directly controlled by New Delhi. Now the governor has passed an order asking all departments to submit a monthly progress report on development activities to him directly. So, what does Abdullah do?” It is a relevant query. The elected representative has little power and therefore cannot hold forth on governance. However, surprisingly, Mirwaiz Omar Farooq believes, “She is a politician, so she blames the state government. But the current movement has nothing to do with governance issues. It is totally related to the cause of the Kashmiris and the political solution of the larger Kashmir issue."

This is word-play. The Hurriyat leaders are politicians too, although not elected by the people. The larger Kashmir issue and the cause of the Kashmiris cannot exist in a vacuum and are related to governance. If they were not, why would the leaders rant against the Centre’s apathy or the State’s lack of initiative? Security is a matter of governance. Autonomy and other demands may be the macro issues, but their demand has sprung forth from the attitude of the Centre, the infiltration from across the border and infighting amongst the various militant outfits.

If a basic aspect like governance is resulting in such convergent views then there is little hope of there being any whiff of the real thing. If Mirwaiz says, "The situation is quite violent. The administration and New Delhi is trying to showcase it as a few cases of sporadic violence. But that's certainly not the case. New Delhi has always tried to manage the Kashmir issue; never tried to find a solution", then he must not speak with a forked tongue and absolve the Centre and the state only to take to task other political parties. He must not forget that during every elections heads roll and almost never of the political leaders who find different portfolios in different parties. It is the person going out to vote who has his head on the chopping block.

It does not need to be reiterated that the Kashmir issue is a complex one, but when the armed forces fight civilians, it is also not a matter of separatist aspirations. It is about a badly-administered state that is not providing basic infrastructure and opportunities to the citizens.

The youth pelting stones represent themselves. It is precious irony that in a state that wants to fight for freedom, the freedom of individuals to express their own anger is being manipulated by various power centres – of the government and the separatists.

The larger Kashmir issue is this – peace for the people by the people and of the people.

3 Readers in Search of a Writer

X, Y, Z belong to three nationalities and do not live in their homelands. We first ‘met’ on the page and the monitor screen. I was a byline. There was communication beyond that, but I remained a Person Who Wrote (PWW).

One day I met them in person. It was not the first time I was meeting readers, but the first time I was meeting such disparate people within a span of days in one city.

X and I had the longest correspondence and talks and he knew quite a bit about me; he also knew what was not there. In effect, I came away feeling like a curiosity that had been satiated. I was still the writer, the metaphor for a person. I was familiar but that sense of familiarity was black on white. I never became grey or blue or red or pink…and if I did it was as a ‘colourful’ character. The writer became a character. If my blood had been drunk it would have only congealed into ink.

Y is a new recruit! We exchanged only two notes; the first time he was ticking me off because I had written something about his area of expertise and he felt I was wrong. I said I was right about my right to be wrong, and he agreed. So, we were okay. Then, we met. It was nearing sunset and I was dying to look at the sky in all its flaming brilliance. I sipped iced tea; he stuck to Earl Grey. It was an amazing chat, completely metaphysical, and he did what I often do – drew various patterns with his hands on the table: pyramids, squares, other shapes to highlight a point. I don’t know when exactly, but he mentioned a personal incident from my life in passing. I immediately reacted, “How do you know?” He laughed, “You wrote about it!” I did not expect that as someone new he would have read this. More importantly, those pyramids and squares, so meaningful in our debate, now became me. I was also an atom, a molecule, something you brought to the table. I was a PWW.

Z knew me from my book, primarily. He had written a few times, and had got fairly acquainted with my work. He invited me home and I would have met his wife and child, but it was too short a notice. So it was dinner at a club without them. Fun insights about his life, about the diaspora. He asked little. Towards the end of the meeting, he said, “The moment I saw you, I said this is F. Frankly, if you were not what I had imagined, I would have been devastated.” Again, I was the writer, except that he had imbued me with the flesh and blood of his imagination. Yet, the imagination was about what I wrote. During the conversation he had said, “I see you as completely liberated…” I paused. I knew what he meant. As an Indian woman writing on certain subjects I am seen as a bit of a rarity, especially the language I use. In fact, I am told it has little to do with my nationality. I am bold and far too upfront even by normal western standards. Z was, like many others, projecting that onto me as a person.
The parting shot, just before I left, was most amusing and interesting. “But, you can also be quite frightening. There is a divinity about you that seems to go contrary to that other image.”

I chortled. I began to think of a halo around me, but again it was either as a writer or as an imagined person going a bit against that which he said he had also thought about.

It has made me contemplate about whether I want to be seen as just that. Recently, I did not write for a while. One of the reasons was, as I mentioned in Who moved my bubble?, to unwrite myself.

From being a curiosity, a pattern made on the table, an imagined entity, a bagful of words seeping out on the sand, leaving small little imprints and occasionally metamorphosing into crabs clinging to what will be washed away.

Even more importantly, in this supposed bonfire of the vanities I was in fact trying to reclaim my person. I realised only later that although I knew all along that these three people are hugely accomplished in their fields, have interesting experiences – professional and personal – by seeing them see me as only a writer, was I not seeing them only as readers? The difference is that I know them from what they say or do; they know me from what I write.

What sort of synergy is possible in such sharing? It also makes me wonder whether there can be any equitable understanding. Different perceptions aside, does the reader not have the upper hand? S/he can see you as you are, as you could be, as you may not be, as they think you are, as they want you to be, as they hear you are. There is no room for factual analysis at all. Strangely, the subjective makes you into an object.

I used to crave the company of people who had not read me. One friend would boast that she had met me without having read a word and wanted to stay away from my writing as much as possible to see the real me.

As the friendship evolved, she often remarked, “You are so transparent. I can read you like a book.”

Violent Dance

What were they thinking? Does this picture make you cringe? Does reading the copy make you feel better? Would you enroll for dance classes because it says doing the cha-cha-cha or samba can be violent unless you are under the kind and trained care of a choreographer-teacher and you join the academy?

You might do so because you want to learn or you think the person in charge is worth it. But I doubt it would be for the reasons mentioned: “In a month’s time you’ll move swiftly (not to mention non-violently)”.

Since when has dance become associated with violence? There are passionate forms with some level of aggressiveness, but they are not meant to physically hurt. By using images such as these, the truly demonic aspects of domestic and social violence are reduced to nothing; in fact, they are shown as accepted facets of life.

The character in the photograph does not look like she was on the dance floor just before getting hurt. Her expression does not seem nonchalant about accidental wounds. The use of the word 'victim' is revealing. These are photographs that denote real violence and the ad is using a negative message to lure the readers to notice. As I said, people will not sign up for the classes because of this, but there will be an internalisation of what they see, whether they dance or not.

Violence has become a marketable commodity. And you need to buy it to protect yourself because danger lurks – at the borders, in the street, at home and by a process of reductionism on the dance floor.

- - -

This is another ad for the same. Look at the bruise. Is this about jiving? Damn, why am I so angry?

Character Assassination

I scrolled through the list of contacts on my cellphone. Tried first name, last name, middle name, nickname. Nothing. I could not find him. He was gone. Did he disappear or was he deleted? A gentle soul, I recall. He had shown me his city, taken me home, made me feel at home. Put up with my whims. We had sat in the muddy lanes on rickety charpoys and he took pictures of me with a bunch of kids. I saw the child in him, the man in him.

Salim was not there in my contacts. I wanted to get in touch. Call him up.

After days and days of feeling frustrated, I realised that I had forgotten his name. His name was not Salim. I had to change it to protect him. My guide in Peshawar had become a character in my book. And we don’t have real details of characters, do we? Often, we don’t have real details of people, too.

Sometimes, details give us too much meat and make us forget the bones, the stuff that flesh clings to.

The Eye and Eyes

That week in England, just before I was to leave for home, I decided I had to see the London Eye. Although it was unashamedly touristy, I felt this urge. On reaching there I was told there was a technical problem and it might open only at noon; it was 10.30.

I walked towards the Dali exhibition, then sat on a bench and starting writing something morbid, my pen twisted at an angle as though reluctant to commit. A few people hesitated before asking me to take their group pictures. I felt like taking back a digital memory as well. I managed half a smile and returned to my place.



An old woman came and sat next to me and unpeeled a sandwich wrapped in plastic; it looked stale as dry crumbs fell. She remained expressionless, looking nowhere but at the target of her hunger. There was so much desolation in those few minutes – was that her lifetime?

So lost in thought was I that I decided to walk back towards the gate. There was already a queue. I had not bothered to exchange my counterfoil for a ticket. I ran quickly and was being ushered into one capsule. After the metal detector and the rummaging of the bag, the security person asked, “Anything sharp?” I had already moved ahead but I called out to him, “Yes…”

He arched his eyebrows in a query…what??

“My mind!”

I did not wait to see his reaction.

Inside the capsule we were told to take precautions since we would be going very high and could feel dizzy or get sick. I started clicking – the sky, the river, the Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, buildings, others in the capsules, people below – tiny figures. We all look like crumbs from stale sandwiches.

As we were descending, an announcement was made that our pictures would be taken by a remote camera and we should all move to the North-east side. Everyone stood…well, most did. A bit diffidently, I felt I too needed a souvenir. I ambled to a spot. When I went to collect the picture, there were several flashing on the monitor.

I was there with the thick line that ran across the capsule dividing me into two. The girl at the counter apologised, “Sorry about that.”

“Not at all. That’s me, all right.”

Two men and a flight

I had been delayed, or so I thought. Spent too much time at the counter buying chocolates; I had gone to pick up a packet of face tissues. I thought I heard the flight announcement. I was carrying little. Turned out that there was still time. Bought a Diet Coke. I hate cans. Got a Styrofoam glass. Took small sips. And watched. Nothing.

Was snapped out by a voice saying, “Madam, madam…”

He smiled and showed me a piece of paper. He wants a donation? No. He was showing me his name. Then he said, “I want to use your phone.”

He lived in China. In this sea of people he could only find me? I am often stupid enough to permit such usage. This time, since I had been watching nothing, I was blank and fresh. So, I said, “Ask the men.”

“Oh, nothing like that. I wanted to give a missed call to my wife.”

Fine. Ask the men.

As happens almost always, I began thinking about the scenarios. The call could be made to a drug dealer, some gangster. Or the wife. The deadliest scenario.

Wife calls back. Asks, who are you? I tell her who I am. Where are you? I tell her where I am. Do you know who called me? I would tell her who called her. Then why is he with you? I would tell her we are flying the same flight. And why are you flying together?

Bloody hell. Because there are over a hundred others doing the same and we are all planning an orgy in the air.

Mr. Shanghai shrugged when I said no and went on his way…

Another fellow sitting across with a thick book was smiling. More to himself. We said nothing, got into the van to take us to the aircraft. I heard a voice, “Madam, madam…”

It was Mr Thick Book. “I think I have seen you somewhere? Where you from?”

“Here.”

“Oh…but I have seen you…”

“Maybe…”

After the flight on the van at our destination, he stood near me. He had a nice watch. “Nice flight,” he said.

“Maybe.”

“So, where are you putting up?”

“Don’t know.”

I looked at his book. It appeared like something on art. He turned the pages. There were women draped in all kinds of dressy clothes.

“I am into fashion,” he said.

Instinctively I looked at my crushed cotton kurta, stretch churidar and crumpled dupatta.

“You are doing business?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Export-import?”

“Only export. I write.”

“Oh, we are so same field. Fashion and writing!”

“Indeed.”

I think I write quite stylishly, I told myself, as I swung my dupatta and walked towards the exit.

Sunday ka Funda

“. . . judiciously show a cat milk, if you wish her to thirst for it. Judiciously show a dog his natural prey, if you wish him to bring it down one day.”

- Charles Dickens, A tale of Two Cities

The Pakistani and the Indian

…and my not-so-pleasant exchanges with both

It needs to be let out. I seethe everyday.

He told me, “Even Yahoo was wishing people Happy Diwali”. I did not get the dig until he later said, “Did you put anything on your blog for Eid?”

Oh, so it was that picture of a diya on the sidebar with the words ‘Happy Diwali’ that made him taunt me.

I do not have to justify anything. I had in fact written a post on Eid; I had nothing to say about Diwali this time so I had the picture.

This gentleman is a US based Pakistani. He cooks pork, eats pork and has married a woman who was brought up on that diet, and he has had affairs with porcine woman. He clearly believes as you sow, so shall you reap...

That song I put up had deities, but the beauty of the words and music behind the superficial divinity was lost on him. All he could say was that it made me a “complete Hindu”. He claims to be an atheist. He does not even celebrate Eid and his wife will not socialise with Pakistanis. The only reason firangs may find him appealing is because he can dish out recipes and stories from back home. He becomes a willing slave then, accepting their empty compliments as a stamp of approval.

His constant refrain to me is, “You must be a foreskin muncher”, a “lingam worshipper”.

Is he the exception? I find that those who do not claim to be liberal are in fact less judgmental. I met several so-called religious conservatives in Pakistan and they did not ever make such comments or even imply them.

At the book launch in Mumbai, my co-panellists were clearly of the peacenik variety. I knew that, so it got interesting and even a bit heated when a person in the audience asked why I had mentioned the animosity of some Pakistanis. Because I am not a Kuldip Nayar who will go on an intellectual sanitised trip or a harking back to nostalgia. I gave the version that I experienced, and there were fine examples of many wonderful people as well.

Mahesh Bhatt said something about how the girls at the Kara Film Festival were so helpful and warm. Sure, so were my friends from TV and films, and even otherwise.

Ritu Dewan, who is involved in several human rights projects and Indo-Pak issues, said at one point, “I’d like to take Farzana with me on my next trip and show her how these youngsters interact.”

Again, these are exchange students who go wide-eyed on both sides.

This is not the island I wished to portray. And the person who has commended me is a Pakistani writer who was jailed and has also suffered at the hands of the progressives. He knows both sides.

Are we saying that this animus does not exist? The state in any society can easily brainwash people.

We have our own cuckoo cases. You see them here calling me an Islamic apologist, a covert jihadi, someone who should be sent to her ‘homeland’ that they imagine is Pakistan. I have got comments that I should marry a sheikh and become a part of his harem or move to Saudi Arabia.

These people will never ask me – although they don’t have any bloody right, anyway – to move to a western country although they do mention my elitist lifestyle. Why? Because it will prick their hot air balloon.

With all this it is easy to get cynical. Or angry.

But there have been wonderful moments. There have been Pakistanis who feel that there are few people who as steadfastly believe in India as I do.

And there is a truly wonderful example I wish to cite from the Indian Abusers Clique. One gentleman used to be quite offensive whenever he responded to my writings. One day his tone altered. He addressed me by name, something he had never done, calling me several other things, and greeted me. It was a dramatic overnight change. I asked him what had happened. It appears that he read my online journals, the personal ones. This is what he said, “I suddenly realised you were human”!

I understood the sentiment, but being human is also about being alert and sensitive to things around you, that affect large sections of people, and to be open about your opinion. I do not hide behind the skirt of political correctness or even a ‘balanced’ picture. Readers are not morons; they have minds and can reach their own conclusions.

As regards being a lingam worshipper, let me re-educate those who do not know. It has a longer history and in essence is about concentration. Never mind. Let us stick to basics as they are commonly understood. The worshipped linga (phallus) is always accompanied by the yoni (vagina).

That the comment has come from someone who knows me and claims to think well of me was distressing initially. Now, I have realised that we all have prejudices; those who use their fantasies to buffer them perhaps need more of those.

What can I do? Just sit back and relax? Or watch the film unspool…ah, pass me some munchies please…