Kashmir...the Lost World

Riven.Angry.Frustrated.Anguished.Pained.Hurt.Despondent.Hopeless.

 

All these words sum up the condition of Kashmir and Kashmiris at the moment.During my extensive travel the only word I heard was ,"Siyasat".Politics.I couldn't agree more.

 

I had stones thrown with murderus intensity by  groups of 14-15year old kids.I waded through a curfew in Srinagar when the state capital was locked down by security forces after an encouter the day before,to reach the airport.

 

Everytime my car passed a group of locals I ducked in expectation of a few more pigeon egg sized stones coming my way.I looked at them suspiciously and they looked at me with sad eyed frustation.

 

Kashmir is still as beautiful as shown in movies and eulogised in poems.The people just as hospitable and caring.The Dal Lake with its shikharas and houseboats still picture perfect.The Nigeen Lake secluded and serene.

 

 

 

Yet the wounds go deep that I wonder if they will ever heal?The current Government seems to have given up the fight to win over the people's mind.The sound of azaan from mosques was a constant reminder of the power of the mullahs.Whatever is spoken from the pulpit becomes the truth and it gets repeated...remember Goebbels and his..."Repeat a lie a hundred times and it becomes the truth" remark!

 

 

I did a straw poll of as many people in the street as I could reach...cab drivers,travel agents,stewards,waiters,shikhara rowers,houseboat owners and I was shocked that not a SINGLE person had a SINGLE positive thing to say about the politicians in the Government or the opposition.

 

There seems to be a vacuum and the UPA Government prefers to sweep things under the carpet,make pronouncements in parliament and then forget Kashmir.The media so forthright about issues is silent too for reasons best known to them?Ms Dutt and Mr Pranoy Roy have given it the go by.

 

Until I stepped into the freezing march air outside Srinagar airport,I had no idea of the level of disenchantment.Afzal Guru has definitely become a symbol of how the rest of India doesn't care about Kashmiri sentiment....put the guy into prison for 12 years,hanged him and finally did not even honour to return his dead body to his family.They feel he was punished in Three ways for a single crime.

 

Sitting in the safety of your home it is easy to pass judgment and condemn an entire people for the act of a few.As I sat in the Houseboat a couple of kilometres away from where 5 CRPF men armed with bamboo canes where killed by AK 47 wielding militants,I watched the news channel and other than the statistics there was nothing else.

 

Kashmir,caught between the security forces and the militants,its a difficult life for people on the street,without industry,growth and the travel trade falling into a downturn,things can only get worse.

 

I am struck by the attitude of the rest of India-IGNORE.

 

The Union Government neither tries to crush Kashmir the way the Chinese have Tibet,neither does it attempt to win the hearts and minds of Kashmiris and assure them that this great country that we call India is made up of diverse and imposing cultures that can live together.

 

On a day of curfew I really worried whether the dream that our founding fathers had would remain a reality?The maoists battling for rights in Chattisgarh,Jharkhand and Bengal.The Northeast in Assam,Manipur,Meghalaya,Nagaland marginalized.Sikh separatists in Punjab.Marathi 'manus'agitating to keep Maharashtra for marathis?

 

Never in the History of this country have we had such poor leadership,such paucity of empathy and such unparalleled greed.In the meantime a beautiful paradise is slowly dieing.The Sufi traditions replaced by strict sharia and once where Kashmiri women had gender equality today young kids are wearing headscarfs if not burkhas.The mullahs who from Mughal times waged a battle for power with such enlightened rulers like Akhbar are finally winning.Those who really love this country should at least once visit Kashmir and try to see their point of view.And show them that WE CARE FOR KASHMIRIS.

 

Gar Firdaus bar rooh-e-zaminast                   If there is a heaven on earth

haminasto,                                                          it is here

haminasto                                                          it is here

Haminast.                                                          it is Here. 

 

Alas Firdaus is dead and this heaven on earth gone to dust!

Culture goes the Vulture Way!

According to reseach by The National Geographic ONE language is lost every FOURTEEN days.By the next century nearly half of the 7,000 odd languages spoken in the world will vanish.

Its simply not the language that dies but the culture,the tradition,superstitions,beliefs,ideas and finally the people who spoke that language.This world has seen wars that were not only for politics,land or natural resources.They were also about people and culture that was alien to invaders.

The Navajos driven into reservations in Arizona by the whites,their fertile lands seized,their sheep and cattle butchered or the aborigines of Australia where the Government in the 1930s started a controversial program to raise aborigine babies with white foster families are but a poignant reminder that today's superpower nations who champion human rights are no less guilty.

I was born in Calcutta and I remember visiting my ancestral village with my grandmother in Punjab.The mile wide wheat fields,the blooming yellow and green mustard flowers and the dense as jungle sugarcane plantations left me spellbound because I had never seen so much open space in my life.It made me fall in love with a culture that was never part of my everyday existence.Everbody needs a catalyst and my grand parents were mine!

Yet my cousins who did not have the benefit of visits to the village have never related to the life there as its far removed from their Bershire home and their plum puddings.All it takes is one generation to lose what evolution and human civilization created over thousands of years.

Today India is excited about Taco Bell,Mcdonalds,KFCs etc .From a business standpoint the economics makes sense but its playing havoc with our traditional cuisine.Obesity,Diabetes were inherent Indian diseases which have got a huge fillip with the junk food culture that has just started to appear on our shores.

For typical Indian families these are baby killers - junk food,lack of open spaces for excercise,lack of time from studies to ensure a healthy lifestyle and a lack of awareness insofar what we eat.

Yet culture when imposed is a crown of thorns.But the feelings that are lost make us forget where we came from?The vulture embodies that final connection between Life and heaven for the Parsis and pesticide has destroyed 95% of the vultures in India.A lot of indigenous identities are set to follow.

On This Our Republic Day 26th January 2013

Another day of posturing and 1970s patriotic songs.Another day of parades.If Mahatma Gandhi was responsible for India's independence from the British,then he was responsible for the adamant elevation of Pandit Nehru to Prime ministership,consequent alienation of Jinnah and the shadow cast by Pakistan that has stayed more or less menacing for 60 years.

 

Disappointing are statements by the RSS chief regarding rights of women and just shows how 18th century the self appointed keepers of the nation's religious morality are be they Hindu or Muslim.I always believed that the RSS with their morning exercises and the reading of patriotic literature were providing a good framework to the youth but alas the thoughts have killed all the hope.

 

 

 

The BJP till yesterday insisted on making Gadkari the chief despite allegations of financial skullduggery.Just goes to show that the country has a political choice between the corrupt and the corrupt...!!The same party when in government released terrorists,the Defence minister flew with them to Kabul to ensure they reached safely!Its the same Masood Azhar and Zargar who killed more indian Soldiers.Today they talk of a head for a head?Let every young Indian serve 2 years in the Army to understand what its like to not only love ones country but to prove it as well.

 

I feel proud that despite the dirty streets,indisciplined traffic etc we are being talked about as a new power nation.Yet there is no belief....most people would immigrate to any of the western countries if given a chance.Many die taking illegal routes and the ones who survive end up being 3rd class citizens of a country that they have no links to.

 

The Irish brothers of the Order of St.Mary's who taught me in the school of the same name knew more about India and gave more to the country than a lot of Indians.We talk of selflessness yet dont mind jumping the queue if that gives us an advantage.The hypocrisy has become inherent.And that truly is immoral.

 

I am proud because I am sure the US or Europe would not be able to provide social security if they had One Billion citizens?Our government and our systems are robust but until the average guy in the street starts believing in the country,we do not have a chance of being a great country.

 

The resources are there and so is the intellect.But a strange lethargy pervades the thinking,a lacunae so vast that it has the potential to derail growth,GDP what have you.

The British did us a service(Nirad C Chadhuri has put it succintly)by uniting a land riven by Rajas and protectorates.Sixty years on regional parochialism is creeping back.Let us remember the stirring tales of sacrifice in the successive war of independence,China,Pakistan and Bangladesh, the wars of 1962,1965 and 1971 where casteism and religion were discarded for Nationalism.Right now we need a young Atal Behari Vajpayee or a young Manmohan Singh to lead the country's rapidlily discredited politicians.

 

But most Indians would know thats an oxymoron!

Ash Wednesday...reflections of Self

Because I do not hope to turn again

Because I do not hope

Because I do not hope to turn

Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope

I no longer strive to strive towards such things

(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)

Why should I mourn

The vanished power of the usual reign?

Because I do not hope to know again

The infirm glory of the positive hour

Because I do not think

Because I know I shall not know

The one veritable transitory power

Because I cannot drink

There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there

Is nothing again

Because I know that time is always time

And place is always and only place

And what is actual is actual only for one time

And only for one place

I rejoice that things are as they are and

I renounce the blessed face

And renounce the voice

Because I cannot hope to turn again

Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something

Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us

And I pray that I may forget

These matters that with myself I too much discuss

Too much explain

Because I do not hope to turn again

Let these words answer

For what is done, not to be done again

May the judgment not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly

But merely vans to beat the air

The air which is now thoroughly small and dry

Smaller and dryer than the will

Teach us to care and to not care

Teach us to sit still

 

Each one of us has our 'Ash Wednesday' moments in life....sometimes in the singular and sometimes plural.In 40 imperious lines the incomparable T S Elliot skimmed off the essence of what we live for.How much value have we created for others?how much space have we given them?And in giving space to others have we created any for ourselves?

 

Somewhere in our everyday actions lies the answer,but we are too busy to try and grasp.I hear talk of working to ones strength,of maintaining a status,self esteem,ego.

 

I dont hear talk of just working upon our weakness,our faults.The education system is in the grip of the "Alpha" image.Do not show your softness or others will take advantage.Do not be nice lest you be mistaken for weakness.

 

Don't you as the reader feel an immense pressure when you wake up in the morning to having to live up to your image?I have seen ruthless bastards cry...so I know that it takes more effort to appear strong than to show your real self with its multiple frailities?

 

I do.

 

In this obsession to create and maintain an image we lose so much of who we really are that we forget the simple pleasures of life,of the minute things in Life that give Joy!!Happiness is not a pursuit.And it never will be.

 

The Celebrities and filmstars are not different but a mere reflection of our own self.Yet we criticise them without bothering to see the man in the mirror.That is deja vu`.

 

In the end the guilt gets some.I do not say that you should share your deepest,darkest fears(though I dont see any harm)but do SHARE.It wont make you  different,yes,it might take a little burden of your conscience!In the cosmic whole of things...our individual existence is of the minutest example.Do you remember what you were doing on this particular day a decade back??And if you are still not convinced,ask your neighbour!!!!Listen to the gist behind the platitudes...and you will find a hollow echo.

 

Trust me YOU WILL NOT LIKE IT!

What is right in my Life?

The other day I was reading an article by the venerable Tony Schwartz,author of 'Be Excellent at Anything' and his contention was that after Superstorm Sandy when Americans had to live without electricity,drinking water and other amenities,he realised the value of each once he had the heater back on!

 

Now in India we live through scarcity almost everyday in a million myriad ways.It makes us fatalists and turn to God because we dont have a psychiatrist to share our angst(India has 1 shrink per 10,00,000 people) and we believe that 'whatever will happen,will happen'.

 

It has been the secret of success of a million Americans,Canadians,British,Australian citizens of Indian descent who left villages without electricity,who could not dream of affording to fly in an aeroplane and some whose land was in hock to moneylenders.Farmers who saw their crop rot after the harvest due to lack of storage facilities.

 

They found paradise in the western social welfare states where citizens where valued rather than being treated as a pack of rats and the contribution by these NRIs is now legendary.

 

Alas in India not much has changed for those at the bottom of the ladder,the every day race for resources,food,shelter.The endemic systemic corruption.

 

Yet at times we ask ourselves...'What is Right in my life?We are joyous for what we have rather than what we don't when we pass the beggar in the street,the person with physical handicap trying to board a train etc and we thank god for blessing us with vitality.Indians do a lot of charity...urorganised...on the street...that is sometimes the only social security to the beggars,lepers etc

 

Yes, We can be self-involved and self-serving, but that's not all of whom We are. Our imperfections are part of us, but they don't define me. It's not a zero sum, either-or game, which we've often assumed it is!

Jumper

 

 

 

India is in festival mode.The bazaars are full of shoppers looking for the best bargain.Lights are begining to appear on the balconies of individual houses.Yet,amidst all this I was witness to a tragic event.A person jumped under the wheels of the subway train I was riding one early autumn morning recently.

 

As the train lurched to a stop and everyone got off with a macabre sense of curiousity,all I could see was a hand and bits of mangled flesh clinging to the wheels.It took seconds for the person to dive under the wheels like a swimmer diving into the pool.A jerk,some seconds of distraught silence and a Life was over.

 

I do not know who the person was and why and after a few minutes I resumed my journey but with such a feeling of emptiness that i cannot explain.In the papers the next day was a small paragraph saying it was a 24 year old.

 

Each age,each Generation has its own rage,logic and stress.When i was in high school i remember some of my less academic classmates on failing an exam were more occupied with avoiding their parent's beating than any real preoccupation with a longer term view or a take on their entire life.

 

Having seen this incident close-up I can relate to the daily news of suicides et all that fills the pages or our TV screens.

 

What can we do to try and sensitize ourselves to those less fortunate or not mentally strong enough to carry the burden of failure.I have read the Guru's say that failure teaches you to be brave,to try new things,learn etc etc

 

How many have reached that point and been able to pull themselves back?A very Few.A very few number.If I was ever pushed to that brink what wold I do?I truly do not know.

What can we do to reach out to strangers who we feel are not having the best of times in Life?I have started with my neighbours and acquaintances and sometimes it difficult to reach out to those we barely know.

 

We used to talk in disparaging terms of life in the west with its loneliness,cold impersonability and lack of sympathy-at least the Governments of the welfare states stepped in to fill a void.yet in India the same stresses have arrived quietly unannounced and we do not have a safety net!We lack EMPATHY and we have taken this rat-race too seriously.

Reminds me of a Sudarshan Faakir ghazal...

Kisi Ranjish Ko Hawa Do Ke Mein Zinda Hoo Abhi
Mujhkoi Ahsaas Dila Do Ke Mein Zinda Hoon Abhi

Mere Rukane Se Meri Saanse Bhi Ruk Jaayegi
Fasale Aur Badha Do Ke Mein Zinda Hoon Abhi

Zehar Peene Ki Toh Aadat Thi Zamanewalo
Ab Koi Aur Dava Do Ke Mein Zinda Hoon Abhi

Chalti Raho Mein Yuhi Aankh Lagi Hai ‘Faakir’
Bheed Logo Ki Hata Do Ke Mein zinda Hoon Abhi

Offcourse it might also mean that I am growing a lot older than I look on my Facebook pics...!!

What We Live For?

"Don't have career or academic goals!!Set goals to give you a balanced,successful Life.I use the word balanced BEFORE successful.Balanced means ensuing your health,relationships,mental peace are all in good order.
There is no point in getting a promotion on the day you breakup.There is no point in driving a fancy car if your back hurts.Shopping is not enjoyable if your mind is tense.Life is one of those races in kindergarten where you run with a marble in a spoon kept in your mouth!If the marble falls there is no point in coming first!!Same is with life where health and relationships are that marble.
Your striving is only worth it if there is harmony in your life,else you may achieve success,but this spark,this feeling of being excited and alive,will start to die.
One thing about nurturing the spark -  don't take Life seriously.Life is not meant to be taken seriously,as we are really tem.porary here!Like a prepaid card with limited validity!If we are lucky we may last another 50 years.And 50 years is just 2,500 weekends.Do we really need to get so worked up?
Its OK to bunk a few classes,goof up a few interviews,take leave from work,fall in love,fight with the spouse.We are people not programmed devices...DONT BE SERIOUS...BE SINCERE!!"
- a quote from a speech by an Indian author(whose works I dont read!!)

In a nutshell,brilliantly diluted unadulterated essense on life.We dont need a Deepak Chopra to expostulate on this and the advise is absolutely free!

 

I am sure we at some point in life think exactly like its been put above but somewhere during the ratrace we are unable to hold onto this fact.We rage,fight,get into petty jealousies.......and all for what?

For years I dreamt of going to my ancestral home in Punjab,a house lying shuttered and closed for almost two decades....I see my cousins living in London,San Francisco and I know they will never know the joys of a simple Indian village ever in their lives.For them a pub in James Street is all they need to de-stress.

I,who have gone there on and off over my growing years find it difficult to give it more than a week and its only alive in what I remember of my grandmother's tales.That is also Life.....the place where you live envelopes you in its culture and its almost impossible to be a gypsy.....travel or live in  unknown places because they dont give you that joi d'vivre.

So the walk on misty winter evenings amidst the lush wheat or mustard fields,bathing in the ice cold water of the irrigation canals and riding lazy buffalo carts remains matrix like in a closed part of my mind....that I let out to air at times and it makes me feel happy.Finito.