Burning the Soul

 

He was a timid, shaped by forces beyond his control. How could he be otherwise, dwarfed by self-absorbed adults who scripted his every step? Their judgments loomed, dictating who he should become, what was expected of him. Was he not lucky to escape darker fates—to avoid losing himself entirely or rebelling in ways that might have broken him? He came close. What a fractured, fleeting childhood.

Even now, decades later, the scent of books from the British Council Library lingers. Rainy evenings, with their ceaseless downpours, offered a perfect excuse to delay returning home. Often the library was his refuge. James Leasor, Maurice Proctor, Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, and James Herriot spun tales that carried him far from his reality. Books on cricket, brimming with timeless photographs, whisked him to the pitches of Old Blighty, Australia, and the Caribbean. Later, he found solace in the Brontës and Dickens. Then came Bertrand Russell –the irresistible, perhaps fortuitously at the most opportune time – late adolescence- and mid-teen. The junior subscription cost just five rupees, yet the tyrants at home argued fiercely over whether he should have such liberty. What if he fell in with the wrong sort? They already suspected he had.

In fifth or sixth standard, Enid Blyton’s stories opened a new world. Her English and enchanting tales sparked reading, an urge for knowledge, and curiosity. The Secret Seven and The Famous Five captivated young readers, while older girls drifted toward Mallory Towers or the romantic allure of Barbara Cartland and Mills & Boon. Blyton’s books, though, were rarely on the library shelves—always borrowed. This scarcity fueled a desire not just to read them but to possess them, a fixation that consumed him.

Each day, Bhaskara Books, the shop on his school route, beckoned. Enid Blyton’s titles glowed from the shelves. Asking the despots at home for money was out of the question—why invite their disdain? A book at Rs 1.50 was a luxury, a frivolity. He should stick to schoolbooks—social studies—or his abysmal mathematics. Yet The Famous Five and The Secret Seven were irresistible. In the early 1970s, whispers of Naxalite ideas—taking from the haves what the have-nots needed—offered a perilous solution. So, he filched. From one of the despots, he pinched Rs 1.50 and, with a mix of pride and thrill, bought his first Famous Five. Like an addiction, Blyton’s world enveloped him. Again and again, each Rs 1.50 fueled another purchase. Soon, all 21 Famous Five and nine Secret Seven books were hidden in a secret corner of the house. He devoured them, pressing his face into their pages, inhaling the scent of fresh paper, lost in their magic.

But the fear of discovery gnawed at him that was a dire possibility. Each day, he opened the wooden box where they were concealed, touching the covers, smelling the pages, escaping to Blyton’s vivid English countryside. He yearned to belong there, far from his cold, oppressive world—a place more suffocating than a garrote.

Ill-gotten treasures, though, rarely endure. The books were discovered, their pristine pages betraying their newness. Questions mounted. How had he acquired such a collection? His excuses and alibis crumbled, and the despots demanded answers. The Great Dictator’s return loomed, promising an inquisition.

In desperation, he acted. One afternoon, he crept to the terrace, books in hand, doused them with kerosene, and struck a match. Tears burned his eyes—not from the billowing smoke—as the pages curled and blackened. Each character seemed to sprout wings, escaping from the stifling place -soaring in the dry afternoon breeze. Soon, only a handful of ash remained. No funeral pyre could have wounded more deeply.

I'm a Farmer

 

From a commoner's perspective, one can see that perhaps the Supreme Court did not delve into the constitutional validity of the farm laws because, prima facie, they may not have identified anything ultra vires of the Constitution and could not strike down the farm laws, hence opted to stay them till further orders.

But at the same time, on what grounds did the Court stay the farm laws? And if they did so to facilitate the committee they proposed, which would examine the issue, why not then ask the government to repeal them instead? Staying the implementation of the laws in itself reflects the Court’s acknowledgement of their obnoxious and egregious nature.

When the Court observed that the government did not hold consultations on the bills with all stakeholders before ramming them through Parliament, does it not indicate that the bills are bad in law? Why then is the decision to stay them and not to order their repeal?

Is it beginning to suggest that something is "rotten in the State of Denmark"?

The Chief Justice timidly observed yesterday that the farmers may not trust them, but they are the Supreme Court. If the Court finds itself in such an unenviable position, where the trust deficit in the Court is at its nadir, there is no one to blame but the Court itself and the men in robes who occupy the hallowed seats.

The Chief Justice's suggestion that the elderly and women participating in the protest must go back may be, as some say, a ruse to prepare the ground for the government to flex its muscles on the protesting farmers.

Never, in post-independent India, and not even during Indira's reign leading up to the Emergency infamy, have we looked at the courts with such sceptical eyes as we now do. Court decisions and subterfuges over the past three to four years do not inspire any trust in the judiciary either. A sad state indeed!

What is astonishing is the Court's insistence that the farmers' unions should participate in the deliberations of the committee. The farmers rightly fear that they would be led up the garden path by a Supreme Court-nominated expert committee, and once they commit to it, they may have no recourse when some alibi is used to vacate the stay on the farm bills, albeit with some cosmetic changes.

I think we are in for a long haul, which may either end unpleasantly and sound the knell for the Modi government, or result in the complete bludgeoning of the farmers by the government, where we may see the Supreme Court, like Pontius Pilate, washing its hands of the blood of India’s food givers.

If this sounds cynical, I cannot help it, but I earnestly wish I am wrong.

Hanuman Pandaram

 

 As a child, I was fed tales of a bogeyman. Recalcitrant, noisy, and demanding children were warned of a certain "Hanuman Pandaram," who would appear from nowhere, perform bizarre dance moves, then snatch you away and vanish forever. The fear was palpable when we were told that the distant sound of a gong heralded his arrival. Eventually, he did appear one day—and many times thereafter—revealing himself to be a harmless, hunched mendicant who performed a monkey dance, wearing a grotesque mask resembling the primate god Hanuman. He would quietly retreat after collecting alms.

Reflecting on those days, I can still feel the fright that the story of Hanuman Pandaram aroused in us. Yet, it must have been a boon for parents, helping them to rein in and control their children.

I liken that childhood fear of Hanuman Pandaram to the scaremongering of the Modi-led narrative about Muslims and minorities. Just as those tales once served to subdue children, today, populations and societies have been effectively divided, with suspicions writ large. The Hindutva agenda has been smoothly accomplished.

Now, more than halfway through my life, I cannot recall a single instance where I was hounded or discriminated against solely for being born Hindu. It amuses me to hear people parrot the notion that Hindus are under threat in their own country. I challenge anyone of my age, or even younger, to come forward and specify what tangible threat they have faced.

As a child, I visited temples, vying to be at the forefront of jostling devotees, eager to ring the temple bells when the priests opened the doors of the sanctum sanctorum. I would also wander into the school chapel, observing nuns kneeling piously in prayer, gazing with pity at the crucified Christ and marvelling at the saints and frescoes adorning the walls. No one forced me to attend catechism classes. In my teens, out of my own volition, I began to question the futility of supplicating to gods and eventually ceased visiting temples as a devotee. To grow up exercising free will, thought, and decision-making—albeit as something of a rebel—was a unique experience that required a touch of resolve. Fortunately, I had that in abundance. I saw no need to question or worry about my church-going friends or Abdul Harris, a schoolmate who, to our amusement and wonder, once showed us his circumcised penis. That did not make us see him as different. We eagerly awaited the Christmas cake from a friend of my grandfather, which arrived unfailingly every Christmas Eve.

Where was the threat to me? Later, there was none for my children, who spent their entire schooling as boarders at St. George’s Homes in Ooty. It was our decision to inform the school principal that we had no objection to our children attending Holy Mass on Sundays at the school chapel. Mercifully, notions of “love jihad” or “holy crusades” had not yet reached Kerala when I broke ranks and married a Catholic—32 years ago to this day, 23 August.

My Hindu identity, whatever that may be, has neither worn out nor diminished. By not fretting over its definition or feeling the need to safeguard that mirage, I have found immense peace that no gods or places of worship could ever provide.

Twice in my life, both times in my early teens, I was approached and cajoled to convert. First, by the local RSS shakha leaders, whose advances I found strangely abhorrent even then. Later, by a neighbourhood senior, accompanied by the then-SFI leader, who appeared at my gate to recruit me as an active SFI member—an offer that failed to inspire.