Himalayas

                                        Nandadevi in the setting sun from Auli

Many of us may have wished that our childhood and growing-up years were different. Get into a time warp and relive it all, eliminating the bitter parts. But then how do we get back when we know time travel is still a scientific fantasy? We may then want to enjoy the childhood of our kids. See the beauty and fun in their growing up. Their exultation in all that we could provide them, all that we may not have had the fortune to know as children.

Let me be more candid. I mentioned in a few blog posts the not-so-pleasant relationship with my father. I remember having not felt or cared—I missed out on him when he was alive, when even we had those showdowns, and the autocracy he wielded only added to the distance; the chasm between the two of us grew. But the depth of the loss of having missed out on a vital aspect of human relationship began haunting me, more so when well into my later forties (I suppose it was also the case for him later in his life as well). Many of us who have been through that experience would resolve to be different with our kids, trying to give them an unforgettable and memorable childhood and growing up.

So I always wanted to provide my children, especially my son, with things and moments that eluded me while I grew up. Most of all, the father-son relationship. He, Aravind, was quite a temperamental fellow, even while he was little and also in his early teens. And taciturn too, like me. I decided to go on a trip with him. And it was the summer vacation in May five years ago. He was 15 then and had just finished his ICSE 10th exams. He was back home from boarding, and I planned the journey to the Himalayas—Kedarnath and Bhadari (inspired by stories of wilderness and mountains by a mountain-loving wild friend). I felt a trip with Aravind to a new part of India would be a learning experience for the boy and a source of gratification for me—experiencing the pleasure in a reverse way. I mean in giving something I could not get. The journey was only for the curiosity and pleasure of travel, togetherness, the mountains beckoning, and not an iota of spiritual bullshit. In any case, an agnostic like me and a boy whose mind was zealously left unblemished and unstained by religious mumbo jumbo.

He was initially a bit reluctant. But once we boarded the flight from Coimbatore to New Delhi, he became quite at ease. We stayed in New Delhi overnight and took the early morning Shatabdi to Haridwar. It was the second time he was in New Delhi. A few years prior, four of us (I, Christy, Aravind, & Radhika) together made a triangle tour of Agra, Jaipur, and New Delhi in winter. It was a good experience for the kids.

Haridwar was quite warm and sweltering in the May heat. For the boy it was the beginning of a dawn of realisation, something he could not have imagined or knew existed. A kind of cultural shock, a bolt. The dirt, the human excreta by the sides of the road, the muck, the disease, the penury, and the dust all around when we got off the train and walked to the bus station nearby to go to Rishikesh! He became silent and gloomy, quite confused! We checked in at the Rishikesh tourist lodge and went out in the late afternoon for a stroll down the Ganga and the joolas. There were lepers and ailing people waiting all around, begging for alms. All that, I suppose, made the little fellow very distressed that he refused to walk further and wanted to go back. I cajoled him to the ghat by the mighty river Ganga. He always trailed behind, very irritated, and kept saying we should go back home. Then, the argument began by the Ganga. He just walked away from me. I could not leave him. He frowned and fumed and wanted to know why I was following him. I felt miserable—very miserable! I sat by the ghat on the steps, and I could still remember me weeping; it ached within me. A dream was turning sour! Was it? Then I noticed suddenly that he was missing. In panic I ran around frantically and utterly distressed and at last found him sitting elsewhere further down by the ghats.

I felt that I might have to cancel the trip and get back to Delhi. I telephoned Christy that evening to tell her Aravind was upset about the whole thing. She suggested I change plans and travel elsewhere with him, where he wanted, or even get back home. I asked him what he wanted. He refused to answer. That night he slept without eating. The next morning, we had to take the bus well before dawn to Gowrikund. At three in the morning I coaxed him out of bed. He would not walk by my side and strayed behind. I was running out of patience, but yet I had to be patient and not be worn down by a very uncooperative, petulant, and obstinate young fellow. He was still moody, and till almost half of the nine-hour journey, he was not in his element. Then, just as the fickle weather in the Himalayan heights, he changed, became different, and a pleasant, gay boy. He was enjoying the journey.

                                       En route to Kedhar

En route to Kedhar

We had very good moments that evening in Gowrikund, a tiny mountain hamlet. To make matters rather unpredictable again, I suddenly began to feel chill and feverish. It seemed I was going to be bedeviled by fever. Fortunately, the next morning I was feeling fine. He was the first to wake and arise the next morning at 4 ’o'clock, and we set off on the long climb of 17 km to Kedarnath. It was a fascinating journey. Of course both of us were not at ease with the undisciplined pilgrims and their cacophony. They were missing the mountains and their gods! We drank from the mountain streams, ate chocolates for energy, and had a few encounters with Sadhus smoking bhang and marijuana in their rock lair by the wayside. I wished I could borrow their smoking chillums! It took us almost 9 hours to walk the serpentine, rocky mountain path.

When Kedhar welcomed us with its snow-clad, silvery, shining peaks resplendent in the rays of the sun, he was thrilled. I enjoyed his happiness. We went around the town. The temple where they have faithfully incarcerated Lord Kedhanath was too crowded. I wondered how God can be comfortable in that melee and the relentless petitions and lobbying from pilgrims and devotees. We empathised with God in his misery! I suppose he vanished from the shrine long ago and moved further up into the inaccessible, icy, wind-beaten mountains. Far from his maddening devotees.

                                            The peak at Kedhar

It was six in the evening and was fast getting dark. We devoured a good meal of roti, dal fry, and sabji. Now either we hang around the night and try our luck at getting space to sleep, or we must descend. But it was not so wise either way, and a storm was gathering. It was going to be risky walking back in the dark. We fixed a deal with two ghardwali men, and for Rs 500 per head, they agreed to give us two mules for the downhill journey. Aravind enjoyed the precarious ride on the mule in the heavy rain and over the tricky terrain. I was hollering the hell out in panic. And Aravind was smiling and laughing, all the while enjoying the ride on the mule. Even in my utter horrible fear, I could see his happiness. Then, I looked down into the deep valley below; I feared the awful thing to happen—the mules losing their footing and taking us down into the abyss below. The muleteers were irritated with my moaning and were laughing amongst themselves at my precarious perch on the mule. One said to the other, “Ye ladka teek hai. Wow, admi pagal hai." The other said to me, certainly not thoughtful of my knowledge of Hindi, “Arey, chillana math.”.

We reached back at Gowrikund by eight at night. Aravind asked me why I was throwing tantrums all the way down and shouting like a kid. He was laughing at the comic character I was perched on the mule and wailing.

I felt immensely happy that he was enjoying the travel, the togetherness at last!

                                              At Auli a moment

At Auli

The next morning we traveled by bus and broke our journey at the ski resort of Auli, where we stayed for a couple of days. Being the height of summer, the absence of snow was indeed disappointing for Aravind. On the journey to Auli we crossed a valley that came into view from nowhere—a mighty Himalayan peak suddenly coming into view as the bus negotiated a sharp bend in the road. God at his closest. Most of the passengers were either fast asleep or chanting gibberish, eyes closed. Only we both saw God. To me, an agnostic God presented himself as the massive, humbling might of the snow-clad mountain range. It was an awesome experience and mightily humbling, one's insignificance unequivocally felt, the beauty beyond explanation.

At Auli, late in the evening, we watched Nanda Devi at her golden best, vividly bathed in the rays of the setting sun, its peak resplendent and majestic - solid peak of gold from a far away star! Lucky are those who found God and bliss in the beauty and humbling majesty of the mountains. I thought of Spinoza's God and the depth of truth in that concept of God. The same idea that Einstein endorsed, that he found more tempting and wise than those gods humans created in their own form, ways, and manners.

We went to Bhadarinath from Auli before coming back to Joshi Math and then travelling back to New Delhi.The Alakananda was in full flow—its icy waters relentlessly gushing forth over rocky boulders—water colder than ice! Seldom did the river know that downhill by the plains she would be violated—raped and polluted beyond even the wildest imaginations of the evil demons Lord of Kedar and Badari guard us mortals from.

Something again began bothering him the little fellow at Badarinath, where, to my utter consternation, he again went missing in the crowd. He became moody and irritated. But there were quite a few moments to cherish for both, ordeals as well!

 

He now wants to redo the tour with me. I jestfully tell him, “Not me anymore with you.” Now he has grown out of his teens; he is twenty and went with a couple of friends of his to a remote mountainside in Uttarakhand. They even went to Rishikesh and set off on white-water river rafting. And elsewhere near Kasol, they were even caught unawares in a hailstorm in the forest. They lost their way and spent the night in the forest. He travelled second class “two way’’ from Thpuram. A fifty-two-hour journey one way, and he wanted it so. Journeying in second class (cattle class) on Indian Rail is the surest way of understanding and knowing the throb of India. He understood quite a bit of what life in India is all about, and he has many more miles to go to understand much. Perhaps I was a bit hasty in trying to show him outside the comparative safety of the cocoon he lived in as a little boy. Perhaps the real world was shell-shocking, incomprehensible, and cruelly disturbing, and I, his father, being the catalyst to peeling off without warning the protective armour around him, may have provoked him, made him feel let down, insecure, and he expressed rebellion.

He wants to plan another trip up north soon. He has begun to enjoy moments that eluded me while I was his age! I guess, at long last, I could also give something I could not experience, feel, or enjoy!

Koffe ,Tea or Me?

  

“Koffee with Karan”, a highly rated programme on international affairs, one would guess hearing the name and the viewership ratings. I happened to watch it by default once and a couple of times later. And I do not know why after those few watching I developed an allergy to coffee, a kind of anaphylactic shock if even I smell coffee. I presume that is being not in sync.

Nevertheless the damn programme is comical, an insipid one at that. The questions this man Karan Johar asks the giggling lass from Bollywood with high hem line and fascinating cleavage, who sits with one leg over the other adding to the attraction of the questions and the programme and sometimes the bloke who joins her, her boy friend or ex friend are apt for an orgy party. But goodness, a better selection of subjects and questions that are humorous and tasteful will be handled by a primary school kid. But then the guy is a gargantuan director of box office hits. And it is slated to be a programme in genre of “Breakfast with Frost”.

Questions generally asked tongue in cheek and with muted anticipation, for instance, “Tell me Amisha when and how you got over the crush for the little Kapoor?". Or,"Malika which part of Saif’s anatomy would you recommend”? Or still, “Abhishek do you think Salman was screwed up for life by his ex girlfriend”? And while the question is asked we have the beaming Aiswarya holding the still dyslexic Abhishek who grins agape, fumbles and then laughs, before heedfully autographing the coffee mug.

People love it, so people produce it and the Channel airs it. Fair democracy! If one watches it, it is because one likes it. And if I do not like it I should not watch it.

But what do you say about the most populated virtual realm in the world, the Face book?

 I’m a Face booker too. I realised a few months ago that the woman with whom I've been living with has suddenly decided to be my friend. I was aghast, wondered was it a kind of “one night stand”, that I was having for the past every night of the last twenty three years? That she was unfriendly and stranger to me, that she now is disillusioned with her vileness self and asked to be my friend. It was depressing and nauseating, a few Valium tablets would have alleviated the stress! But then it was funny to think of. "Face book" has revolutionised and recast the very definition of the word "friend”!

And today I found a post on my wall in the fb, “XYZ has answered the questions about Anilkumar”, i.e. me. Interesting I thought for a moment. It is always good to anticipate that someone has only good answers to questions about you. I patted my back before I began reading the questions and the answers.

And here are the questions and the answers about me. Mercifully some are rightly”Yes” and some are rightly “No”. I give the special ones that came close to making my life miserable ha!

1-              1-Do you think that Anilkumar will sleep with a teddy bear?

2-             2-  Do you think that Anilkumar has ever had a one night stand?

3-            3-  Do -  you think that Anilkumar can run a mile without stopping?

4-            4- Does Anilkumar sing in the shower?

5-            5-   Have you ever had a crush on Anilkumar?

6-            6-  Do you think Anilkumar has crush on you? The questions 5 & 6 are the most lewd questions if that                        

       is to be answered by a guy who is Gay. Ouch doomed I'm!

   7- Do you think Anilkumar is showered today?

   

The Road Not Taken

‘Delusion’, the dictionary says is a belief in an unfounded idea or opinion. And hallucination is described as an illusory perception or a mental disorder.

That probably points towards one direction many of us are afflicted by a grave mental disorder. We dream but we do not relinquish the dream as a dream, a fantasy, but get snowed under and ridden over by the idea, the opinion, and the illusory perception of it being real. We, late into the drama, finally cease to believe that it is an illusion. A mirage we have been after! Damn fools!

Bitter sweetness of the citrus turns sour inside out. The pod, the flesh all sour!

Reminds me of the proverbial story of the obstinate primate, who refuses to let go his purchase and continues to be held in the vice. The shackles, the chains that we let grow around our hands and feet, like the toxic creeper, entwine us, immobile, rooting us into illusion. And we still refuse. For they say have hope. But hope is when we let us be unbound by the shackles that tether us. Isn’t it?  

Relationships, burdens, commitments fostered by relationships, social etiquettes enforced by conditioning! What if we had refused to be cowed down by conventions and the orthodoxy, but embrace the vast horizons of being heterodox? Society may frown, may take pot-shots, snarl and dismiss us as pariah and incorrigible .So what. Must we care a hoot? Man, it’s our life and we have the right to use it the way we like. Or from the obverse point, abuse it the way we want. But trepidness  ruin  life that can never be regained, or redrawn! Paradise lost from being blind.

But alas, now, it is more than a trifle late for the dawn of realisation and enlightenment, for disillusion to eclipse the apparition.

It is no wonder, intelligent have observed that if there is Kingdom of Heaven and Paradise it is here in this life and within you. And it awaits only the ones who show the hubris, the courage to go beyond the boundaries of conventions. Isn’t it? And now there isn’t any common sense in crying over spilled milk and bygones.

It is not running away from life like 'The monk who sold his Ferrari', but living the life in full the way we feel. You fall dead at forty and if you have lived life that you wanted, there will be contentment for the soul than a life till the rickety eighties and squeeze inexorably into a ramshackle coffin (more often someone will have to carry you to put you in there), and lie like a goddamn fool  cold and shivering  in a damp subterranean pit looking into nowhere and dumb indeed dumb! And that, “shit I messed with a good chance of life”.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveller, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the under growth.

Then took the one just as fair

And having perhaps the better claim

Because it was grassy and wanted wear

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no steps trodden black

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way

I doubted if I should ever come back

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-

took the one less travelled by

And that made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Three options & Mine

There is much happening in India, which is my country and all Indians are not my brothers and sisters. Because the guy living next door is Christian and the fellow who sells me meat is Muslim. Then I have these swarms of low caste wiggles and moths around who are caste and many sub caste. It is a cauldron of discordant wiggles big and tiny, India. The bane or boon as you see fit, the legacies of the Hindu way of life.

And what am I? I’m pure blood, chaste( by birth something that is not determined by our volition) Hindu. But will I qualify among the elite class of socially upper caste among Hindus; the Aryan blooded (as claimed) Bhramnical species? Well that can be debated when we have dealt with the menace who sells meat and the proselytising nuisance next door.

The Pepperoni, Macaroni eating Italian lead Congress and their cahoots must cede power to the party who represent the majority of eighty percent plus Indians. That by now, they must have amassed their share of plunder and loot so mammoth since the Bofors which can dwarf the combined efforts of Muslim hordes and invaders from the times of Muhammad of Ghazni and Muhammad of Gowri.  It is time to give the rest of the cohorts a chance a fair one at that. Once the dynasty is gone ,the party  of Hindus, the BJP the pure Indian nationalist force , can then elect Mr Praveen Tagodia ( the Mullah Omar) of the VHP as the Prime minister and Mr Narendra Modi( the Adolf Hitler) of the BJP as the Minister of Home. Bajrang Dal can be the moral police. Because they all put together is combination of force having the trait, gumption to effectively cleanse, purify and Talibanise this land off foreign and defiled blood. Amnesty International, human rights the whimpering Court at The Hague, the UN – my foot!

A law that is said to be codified by Manu the law giver in ancient India , who is considered  the progenitor of mankind-his Smriti or “Manava Dharmashatra” was the codified laws of the ancient land. The Hindu militants want to provide authority to the text by insisting that they were codified as given by Bhrama, the creative genius of the pantheon .And then give it an aura that can rival or stand up to the some other codes that prophets in the orient who predated and came  after Manu lay claim to.It will be the official law book, the Sharia of modern India. Mercifully there is no account related to this ancient text, that Manu was given these treatise by God when he was incommunicado in some remote mountain cave. 

The History of India will be recast. Like Emperor Constantine who destroyed all pertinent documents relating to Christ and many other versions of the Bible to finally choose the one which he deemed fit for posterity and refurbish the life of Christ and the history of Christianity.The new dispensation in Indraprastha will redefine and sauté medieval Indian history in chaste hindutva,(what is chaste Hindu is still not defined and cannot be as there are no tyrannical  code of conduct  a Hindu must follow). The fact that Indians were not Hindus and there was no Hinduism in the land until after the Harappan Era and the Vedic age towards the 1500 BC is a matter that will be erased once and for all. May be India and the Hindu Indian will replace the cradle of mankind- the African continent.

Modern Indian history will be devoid of renegades and traitors such as Gandhi, Ghokale, Subash Bose, Tagore, and Nehru and so on. The ones who blasphemed Hindus and Hinduism, who gave away much to the ones left behind by alien cultures. And fittingly their names will be erased from Indian history.

Converts and those who were lured by foreign faiths may either reconvert or sail over to their promised lands. All places of alien faiths that are certainly built upon the real places of birth of Hindu legends and supermen will be demolished and rebuilt as temples of modern India.

A new India that is cleansed will be born. An India based on the hierarchy of caste, rules enforced by the Hindu Sharia.

That doesn’t augur well with the Vatican who has much stake in the country and has to care for its flock of the diasporas scattered across the sub-continent. Though, more so because the Vatican has serious threat from the revelations that it protected within its prelate core, sexually perverted and starved shenanigans. Its stock among faithful has plummeted. And the days of the Inquisitions are gone for Vatican to retrieve by means of terror, its lost ground. Also it has serious threats from inroads made into its fabric, its following, by the Neolithic evangelists. A bigger threat than when Martin Luther rebelled and broke away and formed the Protestant order.

That may ask for a Crusade of the Modern era. The Hindu Taliban would have banned   proselytisation that is akin to severing the life line of the Church. Morally repugnant too because the sole road to salvation and God’s will is only through the corridors and maze of winding passages the Church opens for its laity. So crusade it will be (It will need some imagination!). And this is the time to resurrect the dictums in the old version of the Lord’s Book-“an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”. As a prelude the laity will entrench a wooden crosses at every square , and send faithful scampering up mountain tops and rocky cliffs to paint the “Saviours” words in white enamel paint. It is time to go back to the belligerent version of the Lord's book.

We have now reached an interesting phase as to how the contemporary Indian history may be written. However the Armageddon has not arrived yet. It will in the name of the Merciful!

A caliphate extending from the Straits of Gibraltar, spanning across Eurasia and through the Indian sub-continent on to the shores of the pacific. The old dictum , so effectively practised in the middle ages , conversion by the sword, will be the official policy. A dream - the God’s will that must be made a reality, so much of the world is devoid and purified from infidels. As for the Americas they would be obliterated, their people and the factories, the skyscrapers, as already once proved.

Barbers, hair dressing saloons will be thrown out of business and forced to close shops. For, all men will have to keep their hair and whiskers. As for women it really will not matter if they do or do not  manicure or pedicure for they will be cocooned in chadors. Black as the Grim Reaper! Temples of the infidels and churches of the apostates  will be blasted into oblivion. The wealth hoarded within will be used to build schools that produces catamite’s .Revolutionaries  and suicide bombers will  unfortunately go jobless. No more necessary, as the planet will be cleansed of the big Satan and other infidels. Music, movies, dancing, revelry all will be outlawed and punished with death by severing the head or stoning. Firing squads will be avoided because the colour of blood of the infidel when it gushes out of the gaping hole in the torso is Gods will, a pleasure to watch! After all it must be understood all is in the name of the Supreme Providence, the merciful and the compassionate and for him the blood of the dogs are shed.  Canines will be electrocuted out of existence , for they are filthy creatures like the swine.

There will be no tax, no bank interests for loans and deposits and police will ensure that citizens pray prostrating  many times a day. Men would marry many, have concubines and catamites too. Education of women will be banned. And they, even  will not be allowed into the preparatory schools  for journey to paradise. They would be taught social acceptance of life within citadels and coexistence with other women inmates in the harems.

The new way of life , the life as decreed by the Supreme being will ensure that every citizen will be transported ( males) to heaven after death, where,  there in Paradise awaits  each of them a score of exotic voluptuous women and half dozen chubby catamites. All for the taking. Yes you may also  consume spirit in Paradise.

If suggested these options I would prefer an easy exit to paradise - explode a thermo nuclear device!

A Chat

Radhika , my daughter connected with me on the NET today and had a long chat. She presumably was on an outing from school and was accessing net from a Cafe.She is in twelfth doing her ISC at the "Pallikoodam" run by Mrs Mary Roy,( Arundati Roy's mother). Well that has nothing to do with my accolades or brick bats for Ms Roy ( junior).

The chat slid into the talk of the country , 'Anna Hazare" .And I felt  the excerpts would be some interesting light into an young mind. I did some editing to delete things concerning other matters and home .The rest are posted as it was typed out by us.

(Atcha is Mallayalam for Father).

Atchoooooooooo!!!!

Yes Radhu?

Hw R u?

Im ok , hw abt U?

Im fine too. I just gt over wth my exams. Hv 1 mor left, bt thats a stupid one.

Hw was the exams?

Was fine.. history was vry bad... literature wasn’t gr8 either, the rest were fine... gud ...can say.

Ummm ha ur usual answer!

But Cmon I did study properly

Oh im not denying that monkey

Hmnn, so hw is it there?

Pullin on

Whn r u cmn?

Cant say nw. Did u call Cabbage ( pseudonym fr C)and ur bro?

Nope I wl after this hv to search fr a phn booth. Atcha whts the blog u have and hw do I gt into?

Anilkurup59.blogspot.com or anilkurup musings search in Google

I thnk ha I got it . Ow u wrote on Amma in ur anniversary blog!! Well  I was just wondering, hv u heard abt this man Anna Hazare?and his issue?

Yes I did, my last post was abt that.

Do u support him?

Yes I support the cause.Its long overdue. But wht will com out of the struggle, I’m not quite sure.

Heheheh ...I thnk the man is mad... and  is drvng the country crazy too!!!

Why do u say so?

Bcoz ... initially I do agree thst he was fghtng against corruption!! But nw ..he is just getting too much into the media.and his fast is stupid.!!

He is not . the media is after TRIP ratings. They want to catch money frm viewership.

His demands ...cnt b accepted by any government bcos its stupid .

It is not . it is bcos the govt is hell bend upon supporting the looters and do no want any law to stop that.

Asking the judiciary to be under the Lokpal.not acceptable!!we hv an independent judiciary, and he cannot stop that curb!!

There are certain things in the janalokpal that I would say is impractical or need wider discussion.that dosen’t mean that u should trivialise the whole cause.and demands as stupid . The judiciary will be independent as it is supposed now. Only that the allegations of corruption against judicial officers will be dealt under Lokpal.Radhu, now u need permission  of the thief to investigate a case against the thief..

Atcha, the whole India, those lakhs of people supporting!!Him?? are hypocrites!!every single person

  there is corrupt and they themselves are voicing against corruption. See.. the whole procession.. is based on lies and hypocrisies!!  And on Arundati’s article ouch!!  Thats why Im against him.

Yes we all r corrupt. That is the sad thing abt the country. We support Hazare and his cause and at the same time will bribe an official to get something done fr us. Wht is the alternative ? thnk and tell me .

See thats why , - make truthful and conscientious  people fight... and he will have no hypocrits and supporters at all.stop corruption at all levels. May be corruption will decrease!! But there will always b corruption. Its inevitable . Cant shoo it away forever and clean.

U said that Radhika! Stop corruption at all levels, Can u do that in ur life time? Will U?

I will try.

Try. How great atry?”so..so”,medium, or sincere?

Every one shud do that sincere.

It shud not be a small time promise.May be if u could ur children wl hv abetter life!

Yes certainly.

Yes i thnk I will trust ur words.

Yes

But Imay not be around to see that. Its going to be a long while.

Thats sad atcha, sad thing.. but Ill make sure things will be more peaceful.oh u have written on Arundati’s article.

Yep that was the last one after the post on the anniversary.

Nice, fr the first time she is wth us... our opinion!! He hehe. Anyway.

No on the contrary u r not wth her opinion

No Im nw wth her on this.

Analyse her opinion dnt idolise someone whether Ms Roy or Mahatma Gandhi.

Hmmm..well let me tell u and one of the reason ..why I dnt like Anna ‘s movement...he has a picture of Gandhiji behind him..well terrible.. he cannot compare himself with  Gandhiji. And he used Gandhiji as a tool to get supporters.

If someone has the picture of Christ , Vishnu or Siva with them does that mean that they are comparing themselves wth the gods?

Well atcha everyone is comparing him wth Gandhi and so is he.

Yes he is doing wht Gandhi did- satyagraha fast and all.to taunt the government to take action against him or agree to the demands of the people.

Whn Kiran Bedi said ..that Anna is India .. I felt like he would come to power and rule over India.. and India would become a totalitarian stste. Gandhi and Anna wht a contrast!!

Kiran Bedis statement was an aberration al apse in the heat of excitement. She is different.

Well Gandhiji wasn’t a hypocrite. Atcha this man is ... didn’t u hear him threaten the government?He did hv the RSS link.. yes. ?

I gues yes. In his earlier days.But he has no links now.

Hmmmn..nobody can prove  that!!Anyway it is 11 th day into the fasr. Hw is he surviving?

You know Radhika, this guy called Bobby Sands , in the 1970’s , he was an IRISH Republican Army man in Northern Ireland. He fasted to protest the British policies in Northern Ireland. He died after more than a hundred day into his fast. He died of starvation and anemia. So 11 days is not great , though fr an old man like Anna it will take its toll.

Okay!!!U know Mrs Roy , the Principal. She is sometimes difficult lady. Why?

She never listens .. to others.. any1 against her opinion , she shoos them away!!

Some people r like that. I guess Arundati Roy too has got some of that.

But then she is the only sensible woman in school. But fr her the school would be a concentration camp.!!!

Ha ha!! As ususal u hv a problem wth women teachers .At the Laidlaw too u had the same difficulty.

Hehehe!!Oh atcha .. red the book ..”To Killa Mocking Bird” or seen the movie? Of Harper lee. Its noice the father charcter reminds me of u!!

Yes I did watch the movie who reminds u of me?

Atticus , the father

Idnt remember the character. What abt that and me?

His character, behaviour and the actor who did the role.. so much.. has a resemblance of u.

Behaviour, what did he do ?

OMG forget it atcha.Lol any way there ius this book Sonia Gandhi wrote abt Rajiv. I must read it

Ha u changed the subject.There is no great to read abt them. Honest!

Heheheh, why u so against them?Why?

I’m not against them. There iwas nothing really good or bad abt RajivGandhiOnly that he was stupid.

You mean visavis the tamil tigers?Who is not stupid according to u?every one is!nope Rajiv was affine PM uknowlol!!We’ll hv this debate later.

In all that he did while being PM he showed he was foolish, without ideas and even the Bofors he got stupidly implicated. He was silly.fella!!

OH that u. Im very much fr the Gandhis’cant help it.Oh atcha did u watch the TV show devils advocate?its so interesting!lol

U watched it Karan Thaper’s?

Yes Karn Thapers.

U have tbe well researched and knowledgeable to interview people like Thapar.

I know!! He intwd Aravind Kejerwal and PRasnth Bhushan... was so great.. we cud not study but watch lol  !!

Wht did u feel abt Prasanth Bhushan?

He is part of the tem Anna!!So hmm... nothng much abt him.

Yes but what is ur opinion abt him after watching the programme?Did he make any sense?

Wellwell ... it make me change my views no.

It made u change or not, wht is it abt Prasnath Bhushan?dod u see him honest?

I did see him on the show, he didn’t really say much . It was Aravind Kejerwal doing the talking. Maybe I can research on him and tell u

I see and abt Aravind Kejerwl?

I”M NOT FOR TEAM ANNA.......SO MY VIEWS AREAINST HIM MY DEAR FATHER!!!!got to go now . must call amma too bye atcha luvvuuuuuuuu

Ok da bye lvuuu

My Opinion

“

 

"I‘d rather not be Anna”. This was the caption of the article in The Hindu, published this week. It was Arundathi Roy the bewitching activist in her usual incensed self. For me, an admirer of Ms Roy both for her pretty looks and most of all the utter education she has on topics that she dwells upon, the passion that she articulates and exercises in her words and into issues that she hauls herself into, the candid, unafraid analysis and statements on matters that impact our everyday life and existence, issues that touches her heart.

But is it that a discerning and persistent fan following and appreciation has got into her? The article spots that state, I’m afraid. She seems to want to arrogate and have for her exclusive domain anything that has to do with society, the country and the world at large? She seems to be in the state of mind that if a cause, a fight does not include the cause of the tribal, the injustices in Kashmir, the Narmada basin oustees, then the cause is trivia?. And she seems to have picked up the paranoia of smelling rat in every corner, a nefarious intent behind any movement other than the ones she may be involved in.?

She has trivialised a movement spearheaded by Anna Hazare and supported wholesale by the citizenry. A movement that is not mere elite jamboree. It has been reported that many middle class employed among the gentry had abstained from work without pay for a day to be at the venue where the septuagenarian was lying fasting.

She smells designs of big business and big money behind the Anna crusade. She lambasts Anna and the activists for not taking up the fact that the government is fighting its own people in the central Indian heartland. She ridicules the media for eulogising Anna’s campaign and fast and being silent about the fast “Irom Sharmila” has been on now for ten years in Manipur protesting against the draconian Armed Personnel Act by which the Security forces  can kill anyone under mere suspicion..

She alleges that the oligarchy that we have now ,run by the government will be accompanied by another oligarchy of the civil society should the Lokpal Bill as demanded by the civil society come into force.

A cause is a cause. While Ms Roy has been focussed on the injustices meted out to the poorest of the poor- the Adivasis, the dispossessed and hapless of the Narmada basin, the Singur or by the POSCO from the Villages in Orissa for instance,or  the brazen hegemony of the imperialism of the US. Well truly impassioned she is in matters such as these.

By the very same token, one can also ask her why not corruption has taken its due place in her scheme of things. To ridicule the Anna movement is naiveté.

There is nothing unconstitutional in society demanding their rights be safe guarded, rights as enshrined in the constitution. Whatever one may disparage about Jawaharlal Nehru’s economic policies the beacon that glowed  in that man was his acceptance and humility towards dissent. He was unlike his daughter or like the cronies in the present government run by a geriatric senile Sardar.

Since  the allegations of corruption began to surface in India in the late 1960s and to this day, can we count even on our fingers the number of cases that have seen conviction ?While during the Nehru era even he was not spared by Feroz Gandhi his vigilante son in law. And Mr Nehru did not order his incarceration.

Whether the second freedom struggle as the Anna Hazare campaign is termed will reach a positive culmination is a moot question. Which even an ardent optimist will not answer! But the cause is worth pursuing in its present intensity. Because the government has in its means, the press, the turncoats and the array of political parties and big business who all are in cahoots and will want to see that the civil campaign whimper out.

So entrenched is sleaze, corruption and crime in the Indian democracy, that we are not represented in the law making bodies, be it the parliament or the State Assemblies. They are stuffed with criminals, murderers and looters. Funded by mafia of industrialists, political families and dynasties. Constitution is usurped. When such is the situation extreme steps like Anna Hazare’s which may border coercion, civil disobedience etc will have to be called for. Because all constitutional provisions are being sabotaged by the government so that it can with its battery of criminal lawyers and infamous legal minds in P. Chidambaram, Kapil Sibal. Veerapa Moily , Manish Tewari etc  scuttle any unionism and suggestions by the society.

Anna Hazare’s achievement is in evoking a country wide response against government abetted  loot and corruption, like Gandhi’s bringing together a subcontinent of diverse culture and opinions  under one cause “Freedom from Colonialism”.

If Gandhi’s Dandi march against the unjust Tax laws of the British was unconstitutional and unlawful , by the very same yard stick the Anna Hazzare campaign  against the official silence and abetment of corruption and loot of India is anti India too.

The Adivasis in Jharkhand and other Mao infested territories in Central India may not be paying bakshish to the beat cop but they have to pay the Maoist.  I guess Ms Roy will know that.

August 23,1988

We exchanged exactly one hundred letters each, by post, beginning the first of April 1988.We would not rest in comfort if a day passed by without the postman calling.  Telephone calls were an expensive alternative those days, nevertheless was also unremittingly used. And on July 31.1988 we mutually decided to restrain from writing or phoning any further. We were married on August 23, 1988 in Cochin. The letters are safely kept in (“brown paper packages....tied up with strings, and these are the few of our favourite things”)! I have not read any since, but she did a few times and when she read out, I felt shy of what was written. It was and was not sweet nothingness we exchanged, I can only tell that much.

We happened to spent one night in the same apartment in different rooms almost six years before we actually met .It was 1982 and I was   in Chennai. Those days were soon after I was employed. I was quite drunk after an official dinner and had to spend the night with her brother in her apartment. But knowing that women folk were there I slid out early in the morning as I was a trifle ashamed of the drunken ruckus I and her brother created the night before outside the apartment with a auto rickshaw driver. We later met, first while I was living in Cochin and she came over for a brief vacation to her brothers. The brief acquaintance evoked  mutual fondness, a “may be”, a “can be” feeling. She ensured that she came down to Cochin a few months later for the marriage of one of mine and her brothers’ close friend. She later confided that the trip was not ostensibly for participating in the wedding!

 And strangely indeed I always felt that she would not turn down if I proposed to her and she says she knew I would propose. Stupid cupid I was, that I even announced at home that I intend to marry her, the little sister of two fellows to whom fatefully I was near to. That was even before I proposed to her or gathered the courage to place my intent before her brothers’. But at home among my folks the seemingly ordinary choice was outrageous because she was catholic. An unimaginable ignominy for a clan that has not had to live with such audacity in living memory! It was a pleasant surprise to my friends and many others and took a while to settle.

But soon enough the end was pleasant as the Mills &Boon closing, “they married and walked happily hand in hand into the sun set”. Story ends. Good luck! 

Scene –II

And now musing over back into the years that went by with sighs,agony,ecstasy,torments,helplessness,courage,standoffs,   short lived minor emotional estrangements,contentment, besides tolerance and patience of Christy, we have now reached today the twenty third wedding day! And I guess this is our first anniversary that we are living apart by physical distance(!)

Was there dreams that were shattered? Yes. Hopes ploughed under? Yes. Moments and days of bliss and happiness? Many. It is quite true that the difficulty marriage burdens are because when in love one loves the personality, the facade, but in married life it is the character that looms large. Courtship dances and show-off are meant for avian and not man. I remember taking care in not displaying a contrived colourful personality of chivalrous, impeccable nobility. And as for Christy, she luckily for me has been a genre apart from her kin!

The adage “two bodies and one soul” is rubbish and misleading in every sense. It was two distinct individuals who lived together, two entities with sometimes disparate likings and dislikes. I’m not sure that she loved my tantrums and prankish behaviour or she put up with to begin loving it.

We had absolutely no difficulty in coping with surroundings of different family environs. Towards  her, my immediate kin was as affectionate as our conditioning and lineage was not meant to be different. And as for me, every one amongst Christy’s family understood, is amenable but may not appreciate insolence.

Did the intrusion of religion come in to play any part? Certainly not, even an iota! Christy is of different hue; she was equally at ease in matters of social and religious etiquette. Both of us are comfortable with any religious activity that is not frenzied. Though more than her, I'm a disbeliever who is convinced about the frivolity of believing..She is not a church goer in the conventional sense. She is convinced that God can be accessed not only within the confines of a church/temple or through organized hypocrisy and one can be in communion with  he or she even in one's home and perceive  in the good things around. I might sometimes have to virtually  push her on to the road to St Peters!  She has done more temple visits than one can count. Hilarious of which was her journey to the Guruvayoor temple where she went with a family friend and exclaimed loudly at something that amazed her, “Goodness Christ”. Knowing the bigotry practised there, fortunately no one over heard to create unpleasantness.

However there is one aspect in us both that is unhelpful  for gregarious living. We are not naturally disposed to creating social circles. The result is we both have a limited band of friends. In fact more than any of hers, it is my friends who are her as well.

Today, sitting alone, I can only more than anything be perplexed and  dismayed of  her character that bears no ill towards even the ones who hurt her, have been unkind and deceitful. Something I will never understand even if as the nonagenarian astrologer told my mother that  we are destined to be Man and wife for another six lives.