Spark august 2013 final by Spark Editor

Spark

August 2013

Word. World. Wisdom 1

Sparkâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;August 2013 | India Decoded

Vol 4 Issue 8| August 2013 05 August 2013 Dear Reader, At Spark this month, we return to our favourite theme for August, ‘India Decoded’. Despite the fact that this is the fourth time we are featuring this theme, we have a new set of perspectives to showcase in the issue through a fine selection of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and photography. Additionally, we feature Dilip D’Souza, veteran journalist, as our Writer of the Month, through a special interview. We hope you enjoy this edition and as always, we look forward to hearing from you on what you thought about Spark this month. Do send us your comments at feedback@sparkthemagazine.com. Until we see you again next month, Goodbye and God bless!

Contributors Bakul Banerjee Deepa Padmanaban Gauri Trivedi Hari Krishnan S Parth Pandya Preeti Madhusudhan Priya Gopal P.R. Viswanathan Shreya Ramachandran

- Editorial team

Vani Viswanathan All rights of print edition reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Spark editorial team.

Vibha Sharma

Spark August 2013 © Spark 2013

Dilip D’Souza

Vinita Agrawal Yayaati Joshi Writer of the Month

Individual contributions © Author

Cover Page Art

CC licensed pictures attribution available at www.sparkthemagazine.com Published by Viswanathan

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Swati Sengupta Concept, Editing and Design

Krishnakumar/Vani

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editors@sparkthemagazine.com

Vani Viswanathan

Spark—August 2013 | India Decoded

Inside this Issue

POETRY Paradox India by Vinita Agrawal Seeds by Bakul Banerjee My India by Shreya Ramachandran FICTION An Unexpected Visitor by Parth Pandya Speaking Hindi by Vani Viswanathan NON-FICTION Maid of Honour by Gauri Trivedi Whispers from the Past by Priya Gopal Reading India Through Foreign Lens by Vibha Sharma India—In Search of an Identity by Preeti Madhusudhan India at 66—A Giant Centipede Marches On by P.R. Viswanathan WRITER OF THE MONTH “We Still Need Hard-nosed Journalism” : Dilip D’Souza, Veteran Journalist—Interview by Yayaati Joshi PHOTOGRAPHY Indian Quirks by Hari Krishnan S THE LOUNGE TURN OF THE PAGE| A Review of ‘The Hope Factory’ by Deepa Padmanaban

Spark—August 2013 | India Decoded

Poetry Paradox India India, as a nation, is often perceived as a bundle of contradictions. Vinita Agrawalâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s poem attempts to cite some of them.

by Vinita Agrawal

We have

mother tongues we do not speak a past, we do not heed a future, we do not seek roots we do not dig.

Songs we rarely sing dances we rarely dance art we rarely see literature we rarely read.

Cases pending for decades hurts begging to fade issues that must be slayed sentiments demanding attention be paid.

Sparkâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;August 2013 | India Decoded

Criminals for leaders Politicians who are money eaters Rapists, murderers and wife beaters and justice that often peters.

We are a nation caught in a net of deceit, lies and fraud so much to save, so much to applaud so much to work for, to make India proud.

Vinita Agrawal is a Delhibased writer and poet and has been published in international print and online journals.

Sparkâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;August 2013 | India Decoded

Non-fiction Maid of Honour Here’s an interesting conversation between a small girl who has been raised abroad and her mother who is from India. She can’t imagine someone else folding her laundry and surprisingly neither can her mother, now! Gauri Trivedi tells her story.

“Mom, who are servants?” This seemingly simple question put me at a loss of words. I could have told her they are the ones whose existence I took for granted since birth or that they are people whose presence or absence could turn the whole house upside down or that they were the backbone or life-support of many an ‘independent’ women who depended on them heavily to balance out responsibilities.

by Gauri Trivedi

mestic chores. That is, they help around the house doing dishes, our laundry, cleaning, sometimes babysitting and cooking too and we pay them in return of their services.”

“Hmmm, but why do people need somebody else to do their own work like laundry or dishes? Why can’t they do it themselves? And why are there servants only in India and not here?” For her, the actual world comprised of only two maBut these explanations would have made sense jor destinations, it was either here or India. The to someone like me, born and brought up in an rest of the places existed only on the map. Indian city, where servants are an essential part “Well, it is cheaper to hire people to do your of any household and ‘maids’ were to be honwork in India; I bet we would have had servants oured indeed, if you wanted to keep them anyhere too, if we could afford them! And by the ways! I would have said they are people not to way, there are maid services here, we call them be taken lightly. That they come and go as they and they come to clean our house for a fee,” I please, keeping the residents always on a leash. tried to make it sound convincing but in my That you dare not offend them or burden them heart I didn’t believe the first statement to be with extra work or else in a flash they will disaptrue anymore. pear! Yes, a couple of years back, fresh out of the Instead I opted to go the dictionary route. land of lip-smacking delicacies on the road and “They are people who are hired to do our doaffordable help at home, I grumbled every time 6

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I had to load the dishwasher or vacuum the floor. At every Indian get together, the topic of lack of domestic help would surface sooner or later (mostly after dinner when a kitchen full of grease and utensils awaited us) and the ladies would reminisce in unison that the one thing that they missed most about India was the ‘maid’. For once, the body presided over the heart and mind.

adopted them earlier. I realised that not everybody in the world thought that it was ok to let people do your work if you could afford to pay them. And when you grow up in that surrounding and with that mindset, you have an independent streak and a sense of freedom which is hard to acquire later in life and harder to even fathom that it was missing all along.

But today, her question did strike a chord. Today, I no longer wished I had someone to help at home. I was actually glad to be free of the wait and I certainly didn’t miss the stress of always thinking of a back-up plan in case the domestic help didn’t show up. And I couldn’t really blame her for being curious after a recent trip to her mom’s motherland. Why was it so difficult to do our daily chores by ourselves back in India? I asked myself. There were washing machines and vacuums and dishwashers now in India too. But of course, not everybody could afford them, I justified. Electricity consumption and water availability at all times for the use of these machines was another issue. Everyday life is also a lot harder than here in the US. We have guests visiting, elaborate cooking and men who do not help around the house. One by one the explanations kept coming to my mind. It is a different kind of social set-up, I concluded for myself, I should not be comparing the two; and what is wrong with hiring help, if one could afford to? The last question that I asked myself was the antithesis of what I actually felt.

I also observed that allowing or expecting or even relying heavily on others to do simple chores or your personal work is a matter not only of time and circumstance, but also of outlook and upbringing. There are some things you ought to do yourself and certain things you ought never to let anybody do for you if you are healthy and of sound mind, no matter how much money you have. Like how I, at the age of After staying amidst a different kind of society, I 18 and in perfect health used to sit in front of had come to admire certain things about it and the T.V. and ask for a glass of water from our wished (we in India as a society or at least I) had 7

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domestic help (with a little bit more of authority than necessary). Today, I think we carried the ‘master-servant’ arrangement too far and beyond ethical limits. Having people come and wash your clothes for you was probably needed but asking for a glass of water, from a person as old as your father, when you could very well just go and get it yourself was certainly being lazy and nothing else. Paying someone money to do chores does not give us the right to treat them poorly or make them do things that actually don’t fall within the purview of their line of duty.

understood that it was just a child’s curiosity working overtime to get to the bottom of things and how in instances beyond their comprehension, they come up with their own reasons and answers.

“Sweetie, it’s just the way things happen in one place and don’t in another. It does not make any set stronger than the other or better, it is how different people live in different places. But irrespective of wherever you stay, always remember that every person has a right to be treated with respect, whatever work they do. And it is certainly not a bad thing if you can take care of “I know why!” she said, breaking my inner your chores without help, it makes you more thoughts, “people here are strong, they do not independent! need any help to do their own work.” I wasn’t In this case, pointing out the difference and sure I liked the way this conversation was movteaching acceptance was way better than preaching. I didn’t want her to be pronounced and ing right or wrong, I figured. judgmental in her opinion but at the same time I

Gauri Trivedi is a former business law professional who makes the law at home these days. A Mom to two lovely daughters, her days are filled with constant learning and non - stop fun. All of her “mommy time” goes into writing and finds itself on her blog pages http://messyhomelovelykids.blogspot.com/ and http:// pastaandparatha.blogspot.com/ and if she is not writing she is definitely reading something!

Spark—August 2013 | India Decoded

Writer of the Month We Still Need Hard-nosed Journalism : Dilip D’Souza, Veteran Journalist Interview by Yayaati Joshi Dilip D’Souza, veteran journalist, discusses his switch from engineering to writing, and his views on writing about subjects as wide-ranging as mathematics to politics to travel to social issues. Yayaati Joshi asks the questions.

Dilip D Souza is an award-winning journalist based in Mumbai. He writes about subjects as diverse as politics, travel, social issues and mathematics. He has written for Hindustan Times, The Daily Beast, and The Caravan among other publications. His most recent book is The Curious Case of Binayak Sen (2012). A software engineerturned-journalist, D’Souza has also been active in several causes including the Narmada Bachao Andolan. He was recently awarded the Newsweek and The Daily Beast award for South Asian commentary. 9

Spark—August 2013 | India Decoded

You were an engineer by training. At what interests you, that you even have a passion for. point in time did you make a switch to jour- When those things are in place, the money will nalism/writing? Was it a planned move? follow. Actually, I trained in computer science after my engineering degree, and worked in software for a number of years (22, to be precise). About 8-9 years into that career, I tried my hand at writing, really just as a lark. But I got published and that was a kick, so I tried it again. And again. And at some point, somebody gave me a column. Then another. Then I won a fellowship. I wrote a book … and pretty soon, it was pretty clear that software had become the hobby and writing the career. And that’s where I am (well, the software company folded about 8 years ago, so now I’m a full-time writer). I can’t say it was planned. But at the point I tried writing – and as much as I found writing software stimulating – I was looking for something more in life than just that.

You write about two very different subjects: Politics and Mathematics. How easy or difficult is it to change the tone of your writing when dealing with these fundamentally different topics?

Actually I also do a fair amount of travel writing, but anyway. I don’t know that I consciously try to change the tone of my writing. In whatever I write, my effort first of all is to write simply, approachably. I try to write as if I’m actually sitting down in conversation with my reader. If I can manage that, I think the subject doesn’t change that kind of tone much. Yes, perhaps some subjects can do with a little more humour than others, or a little more detail. But those things are like gravy: important, but not a factor The reputation of journalism, as a profes- in the tone I use, in how the article turns out. sion, is that is does not pay well. And Regarding “Roadrunner”—travel books are amongst all the mediums, print media is plenty, and one could say that it’s a worn supposedly the least paying of them all. An out theme. Did you have troubles convincadage that I came across once was: ing the publisher of its merit? “Journalists get paid per word, or perhaps”. Did the knowledge of this attribute of the I cannot imagine that travel is a “worn out job effect your decision to become a writer theme”. There is always something new in travel, something more to explore and to write in any way? about. Done well, it is endlessly fascinating. For Can’t say it did! Of course we all want money me and “Roadrunner”, I saw it as a book I and I’m no exception. But I think it is selfwanted to and perhaps had to write. Getting a defeating and stupid to choose a profession publisher was almost secondary to that. I knew based on how much it pays you. To me, that’s a that my priority was simply to write the book, recipe for a disaster where you are stuck doing and if I did that well enough, it would be pubsomething you hate, stuck because you have lished. obligations for which you need money and it’s close to impossible to take the risk of switching In what ways, do you think, has reporting professions. Instead, choose a profession that politics in India changed over the years? 10

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I think there are more journalists who are willing to investigate issues in depth. I think too that much reporting is less deferential than it used to be, though there is still a fair amount of unquestioning hero-worship of major political figures (in which the journalists doing the worship more or less reflect tendencies in the wider population). I also think there are ways in which journalists find and explore different facets of their political stories, looking for connections and nuances. Most of this is encouraging. How is 'new' media - online channels, 'alternatives' to mainstream news, like a Firstpost, altering the Indian reporting landscape? The landscape has changed in the sense that there are now a whole lot more places to turn to for news. This process is opening up new opportunities for young journalists, and the competition means there are people trying to get their own stories out all the time. I don’t think we have had a chance to use Twitter as extensively and creatively as has happened in, say, the Turkey or Iran protests. But the fact remains that there are far more alternatives than there used to be. Though I don’t think any of this has changed the fundamentals of reporting much: there is still a need for diligent, hard-nosed jour-

nalism. Media of various kinds run series on many social causes these days - ranging from potholes in Mumbai rains to protesting against acid attacks to claiming the right to space to walk in the city - what is your opinion on these, and what kind of impact do you think they seek to achieve or do have? My opinion? They are absolutely necessary. They are often well done and I would like to think that they make people think. Clearly the people who run these campaigns hope to influence policy (potholes, pedestrian space) or attitudes (acid attacks), and that’s a good thing too. But my opinion about the impact they have had is considerably less bright. Potholes, for example: I remember campaigns about them every monsoon for the last several years. Yet we continue to have both potholes and campaigns, in more or less the same language every year. Clearly the campaigns have not been able to push the Municipality into actually fixing the problem. I’m even more pessimistic about changing attitudes, especially towards women. Something must change those attitudes, but it’s not going to happen with a series of newspaper articles alone.

Yayaati Joshi is a man with simple tastes and intense beliefs. Contrary to the bling associated with the capital city, he prefers the company of close friends, an engaging book or an Alfred Hitchcock movie. His placid demeanour is often mistaken for reticence; Yayaati is a self-proclaimed loner, whose recent pursuits include his foray as a budding writer. Yayaati blogs at http://rantingsofadelusionalmind.wordpress.com.

Spark—August 2013 | India Decoded

Poetry Seeds In a “transformation poem”, Bakul Banerjee addresses two grave social situations that plague India.

by Bakul Banerjee

The land is seared by last year’s prescribed prairie burn. We walk gently, braiding our footsteps on the muddy path, carved out of rusty green grass and grey ash, dotted with dandelions on patches disturbed by the last trampling. We avoid anthills unperturbed by the fire. It rained a little last night. A green snake, startled, slithers away from us.

Urged by the midday sun, moist steam rises beneath our feet. The mellow sun of spring, shines on us and on shooting star plants hiding under measured shades doled out by leafless trees above. Broken limbs of dead shrubs are strewn around like jumbled instruments resting on a table in an operating room, reminiscent of frantic attempts 12

Spark—August 2013 | India Decoded

to revive a patient. Black seedpods are suspended on stems, tall and burnt but still standing, pretending to be tiny birds. I flick one. It blooms like an instant flower spattering seeds in the air. On a far-away field, a farmer flicks rice seeds in ankle deep water. I step on an anthill. An army of ants carries me away, tunnelling through the soft dirt.

I surface thousands of miles away by the offerings to the goddess, many brass plates with mounds of sugar at the center dressed with flowers, candies, and dates. What a feast! The thought of beating the odds of being stomped I forget, as hymns to Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, soar around me. Farmers meditate and seek her blessings to protect their seeds and rice fields from possible blights.

Nearby, a baby girl wails in distress. I follow the sound to a dark corner. An old woman pushes a handful of rice seeds down her throat. Sharp edges of the seeds will shred her delicate insides. Sounds of conch shells and cymbals 13

Sparkâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;August 2013 | India Decoded

drown out her desperate cry for life.

Spring is the time to wait for slow

Like the earthen image of the goddess,

but final deaths. I relocate myself

I am a powerless witness to this crime.

as my friend touches my arm and points to a crystal blue dragonfly.

Scurrying away, I join the joyous crowd outside and hide under the clay wing of the white owl waiting to carry the goddess away at moment’s notice, but, out of bad habit of an ant, I bite the owl’s breast. In pain, he flies away before the goddess can give her blessings. The owl carries me and the goddess over many valleys Award-winning author and poet Bakul Banerjee, Ph.D. published her first volume of poems, titled “Synchronicity: Poems” in June 2010. Other poems and stories have been published in several literary maga z ine s a nd an t h ol o gies throughout the U.S. She received the international Gayatri Memorial Literary Award for her contribution to English literature. Bakul has been featured in multiple Chicago area poetry events and presented workshops including one titled “Inspirations from World Poetry” at the prestigious Chicago Poetry Fest 2012. Currently, she serves as the chair of Naperville Writers Group. She received her Ph.D. degree in computational geophysics from The Johns Hopkins University, Maryland.

and grey mountains. He is hungry.

In flight, I become a pesky mouse and his food. I wiggle out of his sharp beak and dive inside an empty barn hoping for a quiet feast of wheat, millet and peanuts. Only moldy cotton balls line four corners. Wailings warn me. A farmer lies dying on a stack of empty sacks of sterile cotton seeds with a half full glass of liquid pesticide nearby. “Freedom from Monsanto! Freedom! Freedom from “Terminator” seeds!” Thousands scream outside.

Spark—August 2013 | India Decoded

Fiction An Unexpected Visitor by Parth Pandya Eighteen-year-old Mayukh unexpectedly bumps into Rakesh Verma, an astronaut who has been missing since his space mission to the moon in 1989. Parth Pandya tells the story of how Mayukh familiarises the man from space on India as it is today. The thud on the ground was loud, but no one noticed the frame of a man squatting on the floor where nothing existed a moment ago. The man got up feeling dizzy and disoriented. He banged into a wall of vessels erected on the edge of the shop by the shopkeeper. The vessels tumbled onto the street. The incensed shopkeeper let out the choicest invectives for the man, who wasn’t focused enough to apologise either. He just stumbled along into a bylane, where the crowds seemed to recede. Haltingly, he made it to the end and slumped against a lamp post in the corner. A young man of eighteen, Mayukh, followed him with a mixture of fear and curiosity. He bent over to see the man, who lifted his head and stared at him with a quizzical look.

What happened to your spaceship?” “I must have forgotten to buy a return ticket”, said Rakesh, a dry sense of humour returning along with some colour to his cheeks. And then it occurred to him to ask the most obvious question. “What year is it?” “2013”. A moment of silence passed over them as each man contemplated which question to choose from among the many swirling in his head. Mayukh went first. “What happened? How did you get here?”

Rakesh said “We were on our way back to Earth, when something went wrong in the spaceship. The communication went down, then “You are Rakesh Verma, aren’t you?” the power. All the pieces started falling apart “How do you know about me?” one by one. Those damned cheap parts that we “I read about you in school. You were the first got from the Swiss company. Then, all went Indian man to land on moon. Every school kid blank, till today. knows your story. You went in space in 1989, “Twenty-four years I have been gone. I wonder touched down on moon and never came back. where they all are – my family, my friends. So 15

Spark—August 2013 | India Decoded

much has passed by.”

absurd.”

Rakesh was too dizzy to walk. He told Mayukh to be with him till he felt better, after which he would reach his family. “Tell me”, he said. “How did my story get so popular? How did they explain in textbooks to you what happened to me?”

“But it all seemed so real. Women cried buckets of tears when you let go of her hand. Of course, the director laughed all the way to the bank”

“Well, they spoke about your virtues of patriotism and heroism. You have streets named after you in Haridwar, where you were born. There was even a movie made on your story”

“How did it end?” “It ended up with you blowing up the ship with the aliens in them. I tell you, the scene where the Indian flag flies out of the spaceship, gets to earth and lands right in front of the feet of your blind mother was mindblowing!”

Stunned, Rakesh asked, “Is there more absurdity in “Yes, you went to the moon and were on the India that I should know about?” way back home. Then, the spaceship gets at“Well, we are richer as a nation since we opened tacked by aliens.” up to the world.” “Aliens?” “So poverty is gone…” “Yup, green coloured men ripping apart your “No, the poor are”, said Mayukh, trying to be spaceship” wise. “Truth be told, everything has gone up a “What happens then?” notch. The money, the expenses, the scams” “A movie?? On my story??”

“You do what a real hero would do in this situa- “More scams?” tion” “Yes. It is all about the G nowadays” “What? Kill the aliens?” “Who? Gandhi-ji?” “Yes, in the name of love. The love of your life “No. 2G. I’d be surprised if anyone could get Sanjana is on the flight. You eject her and the the number of zeroes right in the scam amount” other folks from the crew via parachute and trap “What else?” the aliens in your spaceship.” “A parachute ejecting folks from space. That’s “Well, the cars have gotten better and faster, 16

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but the roads are more congested. We have multi-nationals in the country now and our own companies are becoming multi-national. We are connected like never before with the rest of the world.” “Really?” “Yes, we like the rest of the world so much that we stay up talking to them in the night!” “How so?” “Call centres…” “But phones stay up all the time? It is so difficult to get a line!”

building and figure out. Unbeknownst to them, a rumour had spread in the market around the appearance of a ghost. A ten year old had spotted Rakesh appearing out of nowhere and had told her mother who in turn decided to call up a television channel. Her regular viewing of ‘Anokhi Ghatnayen’ had primed her to never ignore such comments. The mother and daughter had followed the two near Mayukh’s building, and in no time, the building was surrounded by television cameras and satellite vans. It had all the makings of a thriller. Reporters jumped over each other to build up an environment of suspense and fear. In lieu of anyone else, the befuddled watchman was asked how he was feeling at the moment.

“Ha ha. Life has changed. Everyone has a cell phone now. From your watchman to your vegetable seller. He can do the job over the phone Mayukh had held back a million questions in his itself” head. What happened to the other astronauts? Had he been abducted by aliens? Was he really “What, give you vegetables?!!” alive? The noises coming through the window “Not that, at least not yet.” caught his attention. He peeped out to see the “This century is unrecognizable to me. Is the big ruckus downstairs. Startled, he ran back and country peaceful at least?” turned on the television. It was national news, “Well, yes and no. No major wars, but there is broadcast live and he was in the middle of this. always something going on. People rip each oth- He was wondering what to do next. Should he er quite often, terrorists seem to like us so much shelter Rakesh? Or expose him? Would he be they keep showing up uninvited. Sometimes it is harmed if he did? It would be a matter of time a miracle the country continues to function nor- before the cameras and microphones would be stationed outside his door. Mayukh, the new mally!” adult, panicked in the absence of his parents. “I suppose that’s life. Can we find a phone to Mayukh had left Rakesh in his bedroom and call from?” asked him to lie down. He now approached the “You seemed to have forgotten – I told you that room readying himself to make a decision. He heard murmurs right then, whispers seeping out everyone has a cell phone now. Here you go.” of the room. He approached closer and peeped Rakesh’s memory however failed him and the through the keyhole. phone number eluded him. They decided they’d walk over to Mayukh’s home in the adjacent 17

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There was ‘Rakesh’, cell phone in hand, talking moustache. He withdrew from the door as he to someone, “Yes, I recorded everything. We heard the final words being uttered: “Story chal have a story. Come to the third floor now. Our jayegi. TRPs guaranteed. Yeh India hai boss.” exclusive is ready”. A disheartened Mayukh watched as the national hero adjusted his fake

Parth Pandya is a passionate Tendulkar fan, diligent minion of the ‘evil empire’, persistent writer at http://parthp.blogspot.com, self-confessed Hindi movie geek, avid quizzer, awesome husband (for lack of a humbler adjective) and a thrilled father of two. He grew up in Mumbai and spent the last eleven years really growing up in the U.S. and is always looking to brighten up his day through good coffee and great puns.

Do you own a copy of our anthology, ‘Sparkling Thoughts’?

Order it now at http://pothi.com/pothi/book/anupamakrishnakumar-sparkling-thoughts 18

Spark—August 2013 | India Decoded

Non-fiction Whispers from the Past by Priya Gopal As the nation turns 66, Priya Gopal wonders if our celebrations of the Indian spirit of freedom are becoming perfunctory; a trip to the Andamans convinces her that we have begun to take for granted our lives, that many people sacrificed their lives for. The beauty of nature and the cruelty of mankind – the Andaman Islands stand testimony to this juxtaposition. The calm seas that surround the islands hide in their hearts the tumultuous past of India’s freedom struggle. The white sands hide the red of the human blood. The quiet, clean place today is very deceptive: the innards of these peaceful islands hide years of torture, struggle and atrocities that can only make one wonder about the depths that man can sink to…and think if we are to be called mankind at all. The islands are proof that there was no kindness in man when he ruled these islands with a cruel heart and an iron fist.

court room and the hangman’s noose. Prisoners could escape only into the salty waters of the surrounding seas. These led to other islands like the Snake Island inhabited by the almost 80 different species of poisonous snakes. Though the Cellular Jail in Port Blair was constructed later, the Andaman Islands had been used as a jail right from the first war for Indian independence. The revolutionaries of the 1857 revolt (as the British called it) were sent to these islands. The islands acquired the dubious title of Kaalapani as they were a place of no return. No one survived these islands.

The prisoners of the first war of Indian independence were made to construct the Jail. The Cellular Jail in itself is an architectural masterpiece. Like an octopus, albeit with seven arms, the radial jail looks as if it its tentacles are spread across Port Blair. The arms were connected at the centre from where watchful guards would The Viper Island stands in mute testimony to keep a keen eye on the movement of all the pristhe many hangings that happened on the Is- oners. Each cell was a small room 4.5 x 2.7 melands. The Island has the remnants of an old tres or 13.5x7.5 feet in size with a ventilator loA visit to the Cellular Jail jolted me awake to how much we have taken our lives for granted. The freedom that we enjoy, the fact that we are self-governing and that we breathe in a free country is because there were so many who were ready to sacrifice their lives for us.

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cated at a height of three metres. There were 693 cells in all, spread over the seven wings. Each wing had three stories. The cells isolated the prisoners. They could not communicate to each other once they were inside the cells. Every cell of one arm faced the ventilator of cells of the previous arm. Each cell was locked in such a way that a human hand from within the cell could never reach the lock. The isolation of these cells was so severe that Veer Savarkar, who was imprisoned in the Cellular Jail, met his o w n brother only after almost two years of imprisonment. The cells were small, dark and dirty. The inmates were given a pot by the British to conduct their daily ablutions which were then to be discarded away. The pots were given to them at a time when the guards felt it convenient to do so! Solitary confinement was not the only torture used by the British. They had various other methods by which they tried to throttle the spirit of freedom in these people. There were workshops in between the arms where the prisoners were made to do very strenuous tasks. The Brit-

ish made them work on oil mills, where inmates would be yoked to an oil mill that weighed almost 150 kilograms. They were asked to crush the coconuts to wring out at least 3 pounds of oil each day. This was far more than what two bullocks could do. And woe be gone if the inmates did not accomplish the task! They would be subjected to further punishment. They were also made to wear a dress made of jute, which, given the hot and humid climate of the Andaman Islands, ensured that they felt itchy and s we aty throughout the day. The inmates were also asked to dehusk at least eight pounds of coconut shells everyday. These unreachable targets left them at the mercy of the British. They were given just two cups of water in a day as they struggled through these tasks. The inmates were also bound with heavy chains which ensured that they couldn’t move around with speed. The chains were actually rods that were straight and didn’t allow the body to bend. The inmates had to do all their work with these chains on their body. The torture chamber of the Cellular Jail also had a hangman’s cabin, where inmates were regularly hanged in order to scare the others.

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The divide and rule policy was used by the British here too. They used to appoint some hefty Indian criminals who were not into the Indian independence struggle as watch guards or jamadars .These people were used to monitor the political prisoners and whip them into doing their duty. Thus they used Indians against Indians. The aim was to break the spirit of freedom that was inherent to the lives of these people. But these fighters could not thus be crushed â&#x20AC;&#x201C; they inspired each other to survive and fight even without talking with each other. The inmates constantly sang patriotic songs to keep one another motivated.

As I went from cell to cell, along the long arms of the Cellular Jail, I could only think of the mad circus that is in play on the mainland. Was this what the people who lived and died here dreamed of? The mighty jail today seems to be sighing aloud, moaning at not what happened to it during the British regime, but on what is happening in our country today. Only three arms of the cellular jail survive today. The other arms came down in a storm and the bricks of these arms were used to build a hospital. The tyrannical jail was now converted into an institution of care and is the most technologically equipped hospital in the Andaman Islands.

Priya Gopal is the Section Head (CBSE) at the Curriculum Department of Kangaroo Kids Education Ltd., Mumbai. An educator by choice, teaching and interacting with kids is something that has enthused her over the last 16 years. Priya lives in Mumbai with her husband and two children. She blogs at http://keepsmilinginlife.blogspot.com

Sparkâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;August 2013 | India Decoded

Poetry My India by Shreya Ramachandran Shreya Ramachandran describes her various Indias through a poem.

I A hundred bare feet stand by the pump, Brown against the heated grey. From rusted creaky blue metal, Water slowly drips. The plastic buckets are lined up - closer - closer. Ready for their fill.

II The air smells of disinfectant and something lemon – maybe air freshener. He has been waiting by the conveyor belt for fifteen minutes. His cell-phone is new, black, bustling. Pronnita has set up a meeting with their interior decorator. “Pick a colour for the marble fountain.” His shirt is wrinkled from his turbulent sleep. (Seat belt securely fastened.)

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III Next to the roaring sea, where dreams die faster than sprayed insects, she waits for him. Ten thirty, there is still time. Eleven fifty-two, time passes. High tide always subsides. Twelve o’clock, she hides her face and collects the salty tears with her trembling finger.

IV Just one more sip, he whispers. Just another sip. The rum bottle is brown, with sunlight trapped from God knows how many years ago. Playing cards lie scattered on the cot, Crumpled money notes hidden beneath the floppy pillow. The game is over – none of them lost, none of them won – They forgot, or they didn’t particularly care.

V Three boys with their hands behind their backs watch from a corner as sparklers, flowerpots and rockets are slowly ignited. For each new yellow beam of soaring dust of fire, 23

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they clap and nudge and yell. Soon the field is filled with plastic covers, dead stubs, gold foil and lurid wrappers. But the boys are still seeing the shapes made by the magical fire in the endless black air.

Shreya Ramachandran is a 19-year-old writer, student and world traveller from Madras.

Sparkâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;August 2013 | India Decoded

Non-fiction Reading India Through Foreign Lens by Vibha Sharma Vibha Sharma lists five books written by non-Indian authors that she thinks come close to capturing the diversity and chaos that is inherent to India.

If there is one place on the face of earth where all dreams of living men have found home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India Romain Rolland

are without consciously registering as much. But if we actually watch India from afar, she is too intriguing, overwhelming and awe-inspiring and has been a complex topic for many people. The fact is, India is beyond all definitions and state“India is not, as people keep calling it, an underdevelments and that is precisely the uniqueness of oped country, but rather, in the context of its history and this country. cultural heritage, a highly developed one in an advanced state of decay.” – Shashi Tharoor Many foreign pens and lenses have tried to capture the essence of Indian-ness in their words or India is perhaps the only land that actually lives in their pictures since times immemorial. Here, I up to the definition of mysticism in its entirety. pick five books to see how foreign authors have This is the only place where if one thing exists, tried to present their interpretation of India to in all probability the exact opposite of the same the outside world. A special tribute to William thing also exists. Snake charmers and Ambanis, Dalrymple as three of his books make this list. Bollywood glitterati and abject poverty, steadfast He is one author who has explored India, studfaith and extreme irreverence – all have the ied India and has decided to make India his same country to name their own. home. Being Indians, we have seen such huge diversity William Dalrymple is an accomplished historian right from the moment we open our eyes that and a fine narrator who spent 25 years travelling we have always considered it as part of who we 25

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long and far from Rajasthan to Calcutta and follow his faith, takes up arms during the Chifrom Bihar to Kerala. nese invasion in Tibet despite having committed to follow the path of non-violence as preached He rightly points out that even though most by Buddha. Having opted for exile in India, he parts of India are aggressively running forward prays and hopes to breathe his last in his free in every field keeping pace with the rest of the homeland. A woman after having left her family world there are some parts which are still decepin Calcutta in search of the divine goddess – tively innocent and timeless. He Tara, now lives as a Tantric picks up nine stories of faith, conin a remote cremation viction and reliance in response to ground. She finds the love individual spiritual calling in his and satisfaction of her life in travelogue Nine Lives. Through one of the most unexpected these lives the world is made acplaces of all. quainted to parts of India which for many did not exist or could not ‘City of Djinns’ is Dalexist. rymple's tribute to the fascinating city Dilli or Delhi, The tales are diverse. One is of a which has innumerable stoJain nun who tries hard to come ries buried deep in the folds out of the shackles of attachment. of the centuries that it has She is committed to tread the ultistood witness to. Readers are mate detachment path which betaken on a retro journey to gins by first giving up home, then find the roots of the city worldly possessions and finally the body itself. which is believed to have been established by Another is of a prison warden, who feels proud Pandava brothers as Indraprastha, post the Kuto be a Theyyam dancer for two months in a rukshetra battle. Since that time, the city has year and keeps looking forward to these two witnessed much, endured much, has lost much months the rest of the year. During those Theyand transformed a lot. This is one city which has yam dance performances people take him to be displayed unmatched resilience, as beautifully an incarnate of deity and worship him. Then worded by the author here: "Though it had been there are the daughters of Goddess Yellamma, burned by invaders time and time again, millencalled Devdasis, who think they are only desnium after millennium, still the city was rebuilt, tined to be temple prostitutes. Dalrymple tells each time it rose like a phoenix from the fire." the story of one such Devdasi who was forcibly The city which bore testimony to the zenith and pushed into this profession but who is now donadir of great dynasties has a lot to tell about his ing the same to her daughters, as she feels it is past. Readers of this book would surely fall in the call of their sacred faith. A Tibetan Buddist love with two things – Dalrymple's writing and monk, who very early in his life saw the true the city of Delhi. purpose of his life and left everything behind to 26

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In ‘The Age of Kali’, William Dalrymple brings out the diversity in the faiths and beliefs of people. India is the land where various extremes coexist comfortably. Beauty is celebrated in the form of Khajuraho figurines, 'Sati Mata' is still revered in some parts, Shivalinga is one of the most sacred symbols in the temples and widows are left begging in the streets of Vrindavan. Every essay brings out the uniqueness of each grain of this vast nation. Besides this, he also opens a small window to peek inside the world of glamour and fame – the planet Bollywood. There are some essays on places like Lucknow, which bloomed culturally under the reigns of Mughal emperors and Nawabs, who were great connoisseurs of poetry, dances, books and numerous art forms, but which are now completely bankrupt after having endured the plunder by the British during its long rule and by corrupt politicians and mafia post independence. He then talks about the ‘Silicon Valley of India’ which symbolises how Indians are competing against the rest of the world in technology and many other spheres.

foot on this land again. But destiny brings her back after 11 years. This time she comes to India leaving her dream job in Sydney for the love of her life, who happens to be posted in New Delhi at that time. ‘Holy Cow’ is chronicle of her tryst with India the second time around.

Claiming to be an atheist, she finds herself in a totally alien territory where faith, belief and religion define a huge part of who people are. She embarks on a journey to unravel the mysteries of India and goes along as each day unfolds before her. To immerse herself deeply and to partake in all flavours, she first takes the calming Vipasana course in the small town of Dharamkot, pays a visit to the Vatican of Sikhs – the Golden Temple, travels to Kashmir and closely observes the Muslims and their ability to surrender and sacrifice. She spends some days in the Buddhist monastery at Dharamshala, marvels at the unbelievable simplicity and self-perfection of the Jain faith, gets awed by the orderly organisation of the Sathya Sai Baba ashram in Bangalore, appreciates Hinduism for showing innumerable ways to reach the divine and peeks into the lives of Indian Christians. After having gone through all Twenty-one–year-old Sarah MacDonald visits her sojourns, she realises that she has actually India and to say the least she hates her experi- made a start along the path to personal transfor ence in the country and vows never to step her 27

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mation and inner peace. While leaving India this time, she is glad â&#x20AC;&#x153;to be reborn as a better person, less reliant on others for her happiness and full of a desire to replace anger with love.â&#x20AC;? Oliver Balch, through India Rising, brings tales form a changing nation which was often ridiculed as the lumbering elephant of Asia. The largest democracy is awakening from its slumber and has fastened its pace now. After having travelled extensively through the length and breadth of the country, Balch paints a picture of a nation which is at the crossroads now. He follows the dreams and ambitions of Dr. Devi Shetty, Captain Gopinath, Naveen Tewari and their likes. Dr. Shetty works towards the goal of 'disassociating healthcare from affluence', while Captain Gopinath made air travel a reality for the middle class and Naveen Tewari dared to work on his big idea and founded

Vibha Sharma regularly literarysojourn.blogspot.com/

InMobi to sell ads for Internet-enabled phones. Balch also follows the story of Mohammad 'Babu' Sheikh, a Mumbai driver whose family migrated from Karnataka in the hope of better life and prospects. India Rising is Oliver Balch's tribute to the surging India which dwells in the high rises of metros and also in cramped houses and narrow streets of shanty towns. He observes that Indians work hard to make progress from where they are, whether it is an IT employee or a driver in Mumbai. He tries to capture the view from the eyes of people belonging to diverse backgrounds and strata. The author specifies in his introduction: "My overarching goal is a flavour of this place, New India", and he attempts to do that by listening to varied voices and their stories. The book is a commentary on how new opportunities are knocking at the doors of this country and how using these, people are trying to turn their dreams to reality. The unique reporting in 'Nine Lives', 'Age of Kali', 'City of Djinns', 'Holy Cow' and 'India Rising' are undoubtedly brilliant attempts of accomplished writers, but the truth is, India is much beyond the realms of any words, phrases or compositions.

reviews

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Sparkâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;August 2013 | India Decoded

Photography Indian Quirks by Hari Krishnan S Hari Krishnan S captures some uniquely Indian quirks with his camera.

Sparkâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;August 2013 | India Decoded

Hari Krishnan S enjoys reading memoirs, and spends a LOT of time trying to understand Foucault. Hari likes to believe F.R.I.E.N.D.S and Shantaram are real. He loves photography and travelling, and loves landscapes and sunsets.

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Non-fiction India—In Search of an Identity by Preeti Madhusudhan Preeti Madhusudan believes the architecture of Indian hill-stations need a radical revamp. Read on to know why.

India was considered the crown-jewel of the British Raj. The hill-towns or the “hill-stations” of the British Raj, be it Darjeeling, Simla, Ooty or the coffee plantations of the Coorg belt, are peaks of colonial decadence. In an effort to recreate their European environs in the tropical India, the British created what they thought were replicas of their cities, the result being India’s inheritance of a lumbering load of buildings and city centres. Such urban design reflects the oppressive intention of the conquerors. The pseudo-fascist structures were meant to impress the authority of the ruling British on the beholder. In modern terms, the Indians were meant to be awed at the contrast between a Gucci purse and a coir-woven purse as it were. So what we have now is a hilarious combination of a pantheon-look-alike cheek to jowl with a steel and glass Multi-national Corporation and a technocoloured temple tower, anomalies anywhere, but

more so in a country that is clearly, culturally at tangent with the thoughts behind a European town-square. The surge of economy-related expansion that any country experiences, renders one key aspect severely damaged – its anthropological heritage. Either in a bid to tap into historical associationrelated tourism as displayed in most of Europe, Egypt, China and even India, or as an assertion of some ideology which a landmark symbolises, the built heritage of any place is catalogued, conserved and exhibited to represent the collective identity of the place in question. But what about the people that inhabited, constructed and cherished the place? The Yosemite national park, California has a Native Indian centre, hardly any compensation for a race trod on and erased from their land and the collective memory of the modern world; but the centre is there, discreet yet present in Yosemite, Grand Canyon

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etc. Similar is the story of the native Aborigines of Australia. The quaint dots and dashes drawings, the quintessential boomerang and dijiridoo are everywhere as pop-art, totes, road signs – a classic case of over-compensation for an irreversible wrong. Now, this brings to question our own tribes. So, reverting to my original point about the global, economic tide of having pushed the passive, native dwellers of various nations against walls and literally up the hills. Anthropologists, historians and archaeolog i s t s acknowledge that there are tribes who even till a couple of centuries back thrived on the hills, speaking languages and celebrating rituals some of which are catalogued in the seals and pottery shards from the Saraswath basin, considered the fountainhead of civilisation in India. Where is their culture? Do we hear their tongues? Have their stories and wisdom been recorded? Are they goods to be haggled over by over-zealous missionaries seeking masses and right-wing politicians? Isn’t it true that the only time an average Indian in a metro or even a tier2, 3 cities hears of them is when an all-out war breaks out between the said factions over these tribes and the news manages to garner a 30second spot in prime time newscast?

bility of tea or coffee or spices, the hill stations still carry an uncanny resemblance to some obscure European town they were modelled after. It is shameful enough that all the Indian metros have to lumber ahead with the weight of their colonial inheritance, symbols of nation’s shame and another’s tyrannical dominance, but it is atrocious that the final strongholds of our ancients are also marred to this day with these warts. The city centre in all major cities, thankfully, have now shifted from the colonial ones owing to modern day commercial and transit hubs and the planned and unsupervised suburban sprawl. Chennai’s George Town, once the centre of the Madras Presidency, is now no more than the administrative centre, with commerce and transport centres being different parts of the city. But take Simla, the classic Indian hillstation, it boasts of a replica of London’s Gaiety theatre, a square around which are grouped the usual suspects – the ubiquitous library that hasn’t been updated since the turn of the century, a town hall and the standard church. The visiting masses are subjected to the bone-chilling Himalayan winds, no matter what the season, due to the fantastically vast open spaces of the square adapted from the European model-town.

Now, what is the identity of the average Indian hill-station? Apart from the climate, the availa33

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Why aren’t these towns re-modelled to complement and coalesce with the rightful guardians of the land? There are lessons to be learnt here from our Australian friends. In an attempt to right the centuries-old wrong, the government has successfully formulated policies to acknowledge, empathise and nurture the Aborigines of the land, not in mere material gains for the vote-bank but also in terms of emotional support and succour. No assembly of any kind in Australia begins without the acknowledging the rightful owners, the guardians of the land. While such a verbal affirmation is unnecessary in India, signs other than the paltry reservation in the education and job sector need to be shown that the average Indian represented by the democratic government acknowledges and works towards the emancipation of the most neglected of the Indian masses. A built environment is the symbol of an ideology .From the Egyptian pyramids, the Greek and Roman edifices and the renaissance and neoclassical structures that dot the world, to the modern nday sky-scrapers, buildings are perceived as an assertion of superiority, a form of declaration of the existence of that nation or the individual behind the construction of the structure – “I am here, to remain.” Though the big temple at Tanjore is dedicated to Lord Brihadeeswara, Rajaraja Chozha’s name is indelible to this day as the man behind the pinnacle of temple architecture in India. A country that has thousands of years of history, heritage and culture to solidify its position as a powerful nation in the eyes of the world need not scramble to preserve the brief 200-year history of its oppressors, who sought to undermine and demoralise an entire nation, the effects of which the an-

cient, tender and wise India is still suffering. While history need not be and cannot be rewritten by demolishing all the colonial construction in India (we are after all not fascist to imagine such monstrosity), as a people, as a nation that still wanders without a course, we desperately need an identity. We have developed an external locus of identity; we think we are that which has been projected by the western perception and popular understanding. India is more than yoga, curry, chicken 65, Taj Mahal, palaces turned to hotels, Bollywood, the largest slum in Asia, dysentery, poverty and dirty politics. It is the land, the race, the people that developed and lived by the Sanatana Dharma, the people who have tolerated intrusions, incursions and invasions, inviting them all in our fold, making them our own. We are more than the handful of indo-saracenic (a style of architecture which evolved as an amalgamation of the neoclassical forms from Europe and the Islamic architecture in India, a style that later spread to the other Asian colonies ) structures designed by the colonial overlords. We aren’t the mass of clerical staff ready to jump through the hoops held by our masters. We are a nation that believed in the Sanatana Dharma that preaches the equality of races, in the perfect equilibrium of life which is best achieved by each individual practising his dharma and looking at each entity of the universe as parts of a whole, where in each part shares all the qualities of the whole and each part co-exists in peace, harmony with the other parts. The suffering of each individual causes endless agony to each of the whole. Such is our perception, our existence, our ethos.

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Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t our cities need to reflect the magnanimity of our heritage; shouldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t they be the beacon lights of humanity? Our ancestors, the dwellers of the hill villages, deserve the rightful acknowledgement, a built environment that will promote greater regional development and improvement in the lifestyle of the people in that region. They do not seek the paltry goody bags in the form of seat allotments that the law-makers throw in their direction. What they need, and what the nation needs, is a sense of pride, an identity in the form of compassionate, humane development projects that reflect the personality of the ancient yet young and tender nation. What they need are regional development and rural renewal projects that empathise with and are beneficial

economically and more importantly emotionally to the ancients of the land, for that is where the true identity of our nation lies. We should redeem our faltering self-esteem by re-building our cities, towns and centres of our tribes. From the nation that was all about embracing change and progressing we have allowed ourselves to become a lethargic mass of chaotic development that has no sense of purpose. What the nation needs and deserves is a jolt in the right direction, pride in its true identity that can only stem from renewal projects in the form of empathetic built forms supported by requisite infrastructure that generate regional economy and promote harmony.

Preeti Madhusudhan is a freelance architect/ interior designer living in Sydney with her husband and six-year-old son. She is passionate about books and is an ardent admirer of P.G.Wodehouse. She inherited her love for books and storytelling from her father, a Tamil writer. Preeti is trying to publish her maiden novella in English.

Sparkâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;August 2013 | India Decoded

Fiction Speaking Hindi by Vani Viswanathan Ammu and her father have a candid conversation as they travel to Shimla, about why he never quite managed – or bothered – to learn Hindi. Vani Viswanathan pens a story that offers a peek into the life of a rebellious student during Madras State’s protests against Hindi as the official language of India.

I was sitting in the bus with my head between my knees, and my father was stroking my back in an effort to keep me from throwing up. My mother was sitting with my younger brother who was enjoying the view, his head dangerously dangling outside. I wished then that I hadn’t greedily gobbled up those aloo parathas that morning – at least not touched the generous dollop of butter that melted like magic on those steaming hot parathas. The conductor walked up to us and said something that I didn’t bother to listen to. My father nudged me. “Ammu, he’s telling us something in Hindi!”

bus stopped for a break, I greedily took in lungfuls of air and sat on the grassy slope on my knees, willing myself to throw up, but nothing happened. I then went up to my father, who was busy taking photographs on his grey Yashica.

“How come you never learnt Hindi, Appa?” I asked. I couldn’t understand how a man who idolised Kishore Kumar and R D Burman and apparently bought stacks of cassettes with his measly salary in the early 70s, and even sang with pure joy Hindi songs from the 60s and 70s, couldn’t even manage the basic Hindi we needed to get by on our trip to Delhi and the surI looked up. rounding hill stations. Our family of four was made up of my parents and my younger brother “Nimbu chahiye, didi?” and me, and except for my father, the rest of us I shook my head. “What did he want?” my fa- had learnt enough Hindi to get by. Never mind ther asked. the thick accents, the servers at restaurants could understand when we asked for chawal and “If I wanted lemon, Appa…” dahi when our throats went dry chewing chapatis. He went back to stroking my back. When the 36

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Appa, though, was at a clear loss. My brother taught him to say “Nahin maalum” if someone for some reason stopped to speak to my father in Hindi, and my father faithfully repeated the phrase to all and sundry, including men who solicited us to eat at their restaurants, thrust cheap handkerchiefs at our face or asked us to check out sweaters at their store.

“You got zero? Zero?!” I asked my father, laughing with disbelief. I knew my father’s Hindi skills came close to naught, but until today, I didn’t know that was literally applicable in his case. “But how could you possibly not know anything??”

So when the bus stopped on the way to Shimla, I asked him about his Hindi, for sheer lack of nothing else to say – throw a family together on countless bus journeys and you soon run out of everyday things to talk, and with our family, deep discussions often happened on vacations. “Didn’t you have to learn Hindi in school?” I asked. “Of course,” he said. “We were taught the subject, even in my tiny government school in Madurai. I still remember the teacher – dark as the night, bushy moustache, and eyes that glistened with sheer pride at being able to speak the language that so many of us couldn’t make head or tail of.”

“Of course I knew enough to write to pass, but I deliberately didn’t write anything,” my father said. “And why did you do that?” I asked. “There were protests all over the state against the imposition of Hindi as the official language, and I wanted to be a part of it.”

“So you learnt the language!”

Wow. My father once had a rebellious streak in “You could say so… although I should show him. you my SSLC grade book, and there will be a “So my way of protesting was to fail the subnumber or two you would be shocked to see.” ject!” My eyes lit up. My father, the Physics head of “But didn’t that affect your overall rank?” I redepartment at the university, got questionable membered my grandfather telling me that my scores in school? father had passed with distinction, there was an “What kind of numbers are we talking about?” I anecdote too: they had searched the newspapers high and low for his roll number, hadn’t found asked gleefully, grinning. it, my father had been yelled at by my grandfa“There was once a nine… and once a zero too, ther – the school headmaster then – about what if I remember correctly!” a shame it was that the headmaster’s son had 37

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failed, while my father had retreated to a corner of the house unable to understand what was happening, until my grandmother’s brother had pointed that they were searching only the second class column; my father had passed with first class, knowing which my grandfather had sheepishly bought him a toffee in appreciation and apology.

them – without your grandfather’s knowledge, of course. We were chanting slogans, burning effigies… I looked at awe as students, hardly a few years older, took the stage and made inspiring speeches. ‘Down with Hindi! Bring English!’ they said. Thinking back on it, it was irresponsible behaviour on my part, for riots broke out, the police were beating people up, people were hurling stones at each other… I remember run“Hindi was an ancillary subject; it didn’t affect ning back home at one point breathlessly, legs our SSLC ranks!” quivering like jelly, all my idealism having melted Of course, the studious man he was, he would with one lathi blow on my right leg… have thought about the consequences before taking such a drastic step. It was still hilarious, though, to imagine my father doing something like this. “So what did you do during the exam time?” “I used to copy every question verbatim into the answer sheet.”

“After that, I doubled up with laughter. This was unbelievathe only thing I could do was fail the exam, deble. liberately. My father could understand, but it “Do you ever feel bad you didn’t learn the lan- was always a matter of shame to him that his guage properly? I mean, you love Kishore Ku- own son was rebelling under his nose. Hindi mar but you don’t even know what he’s sing- annoyed me; I couldn’t care less about the difing!” ference between ba and bha. They were trying to force this down the throats of a populace where My father was thoughtful for a moment. “I Padma was often pronounced Bathma!” know I’m missing something, but those were different times. Here we were, a whole bunch of I laughed. True. To this day, my grandmother people with no connection to the language, and referred to my cousin, Rahul, as Raagul. Foreign they were going to impose it on all of us! At sounds. It puzzled me, though, that we didn’t least there was some Sanskrit doing the rounds have a problem picking up an equally foreign in our house… the language was completely language, English, while protesting against Hinalien to so many of us!” di. “Hmm… what did you do about it?”

“I think about that too,” my father said, “… although honestly I’m a little happier that Eng“There were protests in Madurai, and I joined lish, rather than Hindi, held sway. And I’ve 38

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never been in a situation where I’ve had to know Hindi. Besides, I’ve so enjoyed English and the access it gives us to so much from other parts of the world… an extension of colonialism, no doubt, but things have worked out, haven’t they?” “I don’t know, Appa… I’m just worried for those times when you’ve had to be away from us and you don’t know the language!” I wasn’t great guns at Hindi or didn’t have a particular affinity to the language, but it made me happy that I wasn’t at a loss when I stepped outside the borders of my state. Just then, the conductor asked us all to board. People rushed to take different seats, and Amma, my brother and I managed to get one, while Appa had to sit in the row behind us, with two burly Sikh men.

Out of sheer politeness and camaraderie that I began associating with Sikhs after that trip to the North, the two Sikhs struck a conversation with my father. Or should I say, they kept talking to him, asking him this and that, assuming that and this as his responses, while the three of us silently shook with laughter, all the while aware of Appa’s intense discomfort. After ten minutes, Appa finally mustered the courage to tell them “Nahin maalum,” at which my brother and I burst out laughing. We heard the two Sikhs muttering, puzzled, about why he couldn’t have said so earlier.

Vani Viswanathan is often lost in her world of books and A R Rahman, churning out lines in her head or humming a song. Her world is one of frivolity, optimism, quietude and general chilled-ness, where there is always place for outbursts of laughter, bouts of silence, chocolate, ice cream and lots of books and endless iTunes playlists from all over the world. She is now a CSR communications consultant, and has been blogging at http://chennaigalwrites.blogspot.com since 2005.

Spark—August 2013 | India Decoded

Non-fiction India at 66 : A Giant Centipede Marches On by P.R. Viswanathan P R Viswanathan believes that the idea of Indian unity is different from the European conception of the word. And devolution is the key to the Indian idea of unity, he writes.

There is the story of a Frenchman who wished to write a book on England. In three months of his sojourn in England, he was confident he knew all there was to know about the country but friends advised him to study a little more. He did so, delved deeper and in a year’s time, developed serious doubts about virtually every one of his earlier conclusions. Then after three years of detailed study, he abandoned the book altogether. That was about England – a country smaller than Maharashtra both in terms of land area and population. The chaos in our country is overwhelming and few of us find it in ourselves to stand back and reflect. We come to such facile and clichéd conclusions as: we lack discipline, we lack integrity, we do not work hard enough, we are a divisive people, we do not think of the nation first as Europeans and Americans are supposed to do etc. Logically following all this, many of us also

believe that we need not democracy but a dictator who will crack the whip and enforce discipline and unity. John Kenneth Galbraith, great economist and US ambassador to India (1961-63) made two significant statements about the country: •

India is a continent and not a country



India is a functioning anarchy

India is incomparably different from the nation states of Europe. It is time we understood this basic fact. The theme running through the nation-states of Europe is unity and uniformity. This political theme was only reinforced by the industrial revolution, the life-breath of which is standardization enabling mass production. In India, it is all about diversity and plurality but it is the diversity of the members of a family, of the five fingers of the hand, of the trunk and the

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leaves and flowers of a tree. When Europe talks of unity, it is political unity and so we compare two nations – Britain and India (instead of Britain and Maharashtra) and find India wanting in unity. Moreover, we fail to observe that even that small nation, Britain, is not entirely united. The Irish and the Scots have never felt one with England. Scotland even wants to become a separate country.

centuries, taxes were collected from people based on the crop output; in good harvest years, the farmers paid more and in bad years, less. The bulk of the taxes collected, about 70%, was retained locally and used for local welfare – maintenance of schools, temples, tanks etc. The balance was remitted to the central authority – the Rajah in whose jurisdiction the people lived. In one stroke, the British destroyed this fair and equitable system. The tax levied on the farmer became a fixed sum of money based on the size of the holdings regardless of the crops. Recall Champaran? Despite bad crops in successive years, the indigo farmers were required to pay this fixed sum, reducing them to starvation till Gandhiji came on the scene. Another change the British made was to reverse the proportions in which the tax revenues were shared. The bulk was thenceforth to be given to the Centre (the British Government) with only some 30% retained by the local authorities. As a result, the powers of the local authorities were greatly reduced and they became dependent on the Centre for finance.

On the other hand, the point about India is that even when it had 525 kingdoms, it was essentially – emotionally and culturally – one country. The great saint, Aadi Shankara walked from the tip of the subcontinent in Kerala through several different kingdoms to Kashi and Kashmir and conducted discourses with the learned. Many a pious Hindu retired to Kashi in old age to die in the Holy city or most certainly held at home a pot of water from the holy river. The Vedas, the Mahabharata, the Ramayana are the shared heritage of every Hindu from Manipur in the East to Gujarat in the West and Srinagar in the North to Kanyakumari in the South. The fact that there were a few hundred kingdoms in the land Apart from the cruelty of this system, it was mattered not one bit.

a big blow to the idea of a federation, of local government, of the rights of local people over their own resources. The reins of power were handed over to a distant centre with diverse priorities.

The last 250 years – since the battle of Plassey in 1757 – is the story of political action taken by the British based on a total misunderstanding of India. The British looked at India with the image of their own country. They superimposed a While at independence, the new rulers of India needless political unity on this wonderfully vardid recognize the bewildering variety of this iegated land. They took some actions which reland, almost without exception, they voted for a duced the vast majority to penury. In India, for strong centre in order to contain our fissiparous 41

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tendencies. At independence, these concerns were legitimate and justified particularly since the sub-continent was divided on the basis of religion. But as it happened, over the years, the federal spirit has asserted itself in no uncertain terms. Today, the regional parties and leaders in India have become much more powerful than the so-called national ones. Many an internal war has been fought – over language, over territory, over the use of river waters and so forth. But none of these has brought the nation to the brink, notwithstanding the doomsayers.

the first time is being replaced by another democratically elected government. Along the way as we progress on the path of industrial development with western democratic institutions, we must also look at our past for a better understanding of ourselves. We are not a people cut out for discipline and unity in the conventional sense. If the idea of India is to succeed, we must accept a much greater devolution of powers to the states and we must have smaller states; we must accept a centre with exclusive powers in a few areas – like defence and foreign affairs – and for the rest a centre that coordinates, reconciles and guides the states. Our bickerings will continue but democracy and economy will flourish, inclusive growth and people’s participation in the polity will have far better chances of success. Does this sound like a special status to all our states a la Kashmir, an extension of Article 370? One can hear many Indians crying out: sacrilege, do we want out other states to become like Kashmir?

Turning the searchlight on the maze of current events and the mist of history, some things become clear. We tend to judge ourselves far too harshly in the light of the last 66 years since independence. Let us not forget we are an ancient nation; we have gone through aeons. Sixty-six years are but a blip on the screen of our history. We are a nation in transition and various parts of the country are in different stages of transition. Pakistan is much worse than us and yet Far from it! I see in this, visions of a grand allithey too have progressed. For the first time in ance with Pakistan and Bangladesh, a grand the history of that country, a democratically coming together, a confederation of all the elected government completed its term and for states of the Indian sub-continents.

P.R.Viswanathan is a born and bred Mumbaikar, a career banker and now a consultant in microfinance. After retiring and setting up as a consultant working from home, he has indulged his passion – writing. The subjects that interest him are parochial politics, microfinance, terrorism and deficit financing and above all India.

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The Lounge

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Sparkâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;August 2013 | India Decoded

Turn of the Page

Review of Lavanya Sankaran’s ‘The Hope Factory’ by Deepa Padmanaban

In ‘The Hope Factory’, Lavanya Sankaran tells a poignant tale of modern urban India that juxtaposes modernity and tradition, affluence and poverty, but it lacks the punch that was delivered in her first anthology, says Deepa Padmanaban.

When progress and development flow through a city’s arteries, corruption and greed soon follow to clog its ebb. But there is hope in the form of its denizens whose fortitude and values ultimately triumph over the social evils. ‘The Hope Factory’ by Lavanya Sankaran is a poignant tale of modern urban India that juxtaposes modernity and tradition, affluence and poverty. Eight years ago, the ‘Red Carpet’, with its scintillating prose, humour and irony, giving an insightful look at the cultural clashes of a growing urban city, heralded Sankaran as a gifted storyteller on the shores of the Indian literary scene. Her much-awaited debut novel, set again in the author’s home town, Bangalore, one of the fast-

est growing cities in India, depicts a similar disquiet. There are two parallel plots that segue through the book alternately. The first narrative is of Anand Murthy, successful entrepreneur-owner of a car parts-manufacturing company, whose plans of acquiring land takes him through the by -lanes of corruption and goonda-ism. Anand, with a socialite wife and two kids, is a conscientious, caring employer who treats his employees fairly. He is on the verge of acquiring a Japanese car company client, his first international one and a major breakthrough for him, but it also means that he will need to expand the factory, for which he will require more land. He is assist-

Spark—August 2013 | India Decoded

ed in this endeavour by a raffish–looking real Kamala, a poor widow who migrates from her estate agent, referred village with an infant in tow by Anand’s friend, but after being rebuked by her whose comportment brother with whom she seems dubious. lived. Her determination to seek an independent existHis dogmatic but inence finds her a job as a fluential father-in-law, construction worker for a with his own axe to few years after which she grind, also tries to help ends up as a domestic workhim, despite Anand’s er in Anand’s home. Her life protests. The antagosoon revolves around the nistic relationship with quotidian events of running his father-in-law and the household, the occadiffering philosophy sional bonhomie and frewith his wife lead to a quent gibes with the other slow breakdown of his domestic helpers and the marriage, as summed tantrums of Anand’s wife up in these words, “… Vidya. He had never thought to quarrel with Vidya’s But just like Anand, Kamala choices or the prestoo is ambitious for her son, sured influences of her Narayan, a clever but easily parents, quelling his moments of marital rebel- impressionable boy. Her maternal throes strive lion in the interests of domestic peace. Now to give him a private-English medium education they were just who they were, destined, it and keep him away from the anti-social elements seemed, to continue as such until the end of lurking on the street. Just when things were time, when they would merge into one peculiar starting to go well (as Anand promises to sponand badly-constructed unit…” sor his education), trouble arrives in the form of land developers. The land on which her oneIt is Anand’s love for his children and his ambiroom tenement sits (that’s close to her worktion of building a state-of the art factory that place) is being taken over by the real-estate dekeep him going. His search for land leads him to velopers and soon she has to look for accomthe outskirts of the city to an assortment of modation (and a job) elsewhere. How Anand farms belonging to different farmers. But the and Kamala overcome their respective adversiwhiff of land and money attracts political goons ties form the rest of the story, told with the reqand just when he is on the brink of sealing the uisite twists and turns. land deal, it is mysteriously jeopardised. Woven though the story of Anand is that of 45

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Sankaran‘s characterisations are effective – depicted subtly through their personal choices, actions and principles. Interestingly, she makes no attempt to describe the main characters, but the supporting characters, especially the negative ones are etched out deliciously, such as the powerful Sankleshwar who is “a round, squat man remarkable only for his long sideburns, like a seventies movie actor, unmindful of the passage of time and beauty”.

the colloquial term for the f-word makes it jarring. Poverty, strained relationships, parental woes are all depicted in a manner that’s devoid of angst and exoticism. The commentary on the ills of modern society such as corruption or the murky alliance between real estate and politics are skimmed upon and could have been delved in further. The nuanced and lucid writing, though, makes it an easy and enjoyable read. Sankaran gives us an ambitious debut novel, but it lacks the punch that was delivered in her first The dialogue is peppy, though frequent use of collection of stories.

An ex-scientist and then a reluctant homemaker, Deepa found solace in writing at the onset of the mid-life crisis. She hopes that the writing will stay even after mid-life has passed - crisis or no crisis. Her work can be found at www.deepapadmanaban.com and perceptionsofareluctanthomemaker.wordpress.org

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Spark—August 2013 | India Decoded