Crazyfinger

Our Draupadi

Something I wrote about Draupadi over at Pustakam.net site.

Translating Gorati Venkanna

After this conversation over at Kufr blog, I got to thinking about translating this song.  Here it is.  It is not at all how the original in Telugu is.  I won't go into details of why such a loss is the most difficult thing to recover.  I am leaving the comments section open just in case someone has a better result or a corrective suggestion. 

How many more years...!
[Missing two lines]
This bloodshed, this violence, still how many more years...!

Lords, ruling chiefs, elders...!
O, well-armed ring leaders
O lord Samaranagireddi... you,
Do be cozy my lord, do be in comfort

Bharatavirareddi... you, shall
Hand out the bombs
Our people... shall 
Tread that path

Narasimha nayudu, you... shall   
Snap your fingers
And all these people... shall 
Jiggy in ringers

Narasimha nayudu lord, you,
Narasimha nayudu lord, you... shall   
Bristle your moustache in pride
We shall rush with our incensed anger

Indrasenareddi...!  Indrasenareddi shall 
Cast high as moon, shall  
Sit on heaven's throne

The umbrellas over your head we are
The soles under your feet we are
The machetes in your fists we are

Hound dogs, that chase
At your roil, ruffle and hiss, are we

Sons, who slaughter
Even a blood-brother at your wrath, are we
Do be cozy my lord, do be in comfort

O, well-armed lordly lords
O, well-armed ring leaders
O, faction leaders
Do be cozy my lords, do be in comfort

May your last born be,
May your last born be
Given the visa for America
Be happy There

May your first born, be an SP and
May your first born, be an SP and
Swing the truncheon
Look after you
In a manner with no cases

Collector, like a son-in-law, shall 
Bear your feet's burden
Authority, like a dog, shall
Watch over you

Our cow herding son
Shall lift up your hatchet
Shall decapitate as many heads
As the morsels from you 
Do be cozy my lords, do be in comfort

Your thousand-noter
We shall receive with humility
Sever the arm
Of whomever you show,
And show you

Your five thousand-noter
We shall receive with joy
Cut off the two legs of one of them
And show you

At your call for tender
We shall raise working heads
If the work stalls,
If the work stalls we shall be
Bones of your contention

When we gave you bombs
You fed us your expensive whisky
Your delicious food

And so if harm's your way,
Though our little one shivers
With cold and fever,
We shall go even at night,

And though the month-old bride
Is alone at home we shall
Seize our hunting knives,
At your times of trouble

If you give us bombs
We shall hurl, as play balls
For your sake
On our own heads
Do be cozy my lords, do be in comfort

As hired guns, we shall bear the blame
As country's leaders, you shall gain merit
What do you say...!

Playing your part, heroes shall strike a hit
Seeing that cinema, our folks shall whistle

Next to Gandhi, Nehru shall be your pictures
In police stations shall be our photos
Do be cozy my lords, do be in comfort

Major Tammy Duckworth

 

Note: I had originally written a variation of this essay as a blogpost for a now-defunct blog of mine.  Major Tammy Duckworth's story never loses its shine for me.  Re-reading it, re-posting it under a different title each time...is how I stay connected.  Major Tammy's photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons License.

How does a person develop dogmatic beliefs?  I have a notion.

Most of us, when overcome by feelings of disconnectedness from our surroundings, experience a sense of inner agitation.  When human affairs are pressed beyond the ordinary, such as when at war, these moments of disconnectedness steer us to identify things that are “right” or “wrong.”   Soon these moments turn into beliefs.  Then we become emphatic about these beliefs.  Then we suddenly find it easy to relate our normal day-to-day occurrences to these beliefs. 

But this disconnect, the inner agitation, doesn't go away.  It seems to persist despite our emphatic beliefs of right and wrong.  This feeling, instead of getting resolved, dissolved, disappear and reassure us in the staunch positions we take on the issues of political importance, seems to go right past our ordinary day-to-day beliefs and is still left dangling, in search of home.

Where is the home for this feeling, for this disconnect? 

Those who saw “Conversations with Soldiers Wounded in Iraq” on C-SPAN (originally aired March 10, 2005, with subsequent repeat broadcasts) would likely have experienced a glimpse of the very such home.  When this happens, when that metaphysical home is found for this disconnected feeling, one can't help but feel how pallid the exhortations of globalization, and of the "world citizen" are, compared to the experience of this home. 

You don't have to see that C-SPAN show to relate to what I write here.  I am writing here of what I saw: a celebration of life at its most intense and its most fullest reach.  There you watch how the soldiers have very nearly died in the mess and blood of war, but who brought a renewal of life into our experience without the ugly melodrama and narcissism that a more self-conscious narrator of the drama, for example a modern day blogger, would bring.

To see what I mean, let's start with a simple question: “Where were we on Nov 12, 2004?”

Because on that day Major Tammy Duckworth, of Illinois Army National Guard, was on a free fall, her Blackhawk helicopter shot over the skies of Iraq.  From her own narrative of the events of that day, “It was actually end of the day, we've been flying missions across Baghdad, mostly transportation of equipment.  Had a great lunch, bought some christmas ornaments from the post exchange (it was middle of November).  We were ten minutes from getting back to the base when an RPG shot by the insurgents hit the chin bubble (a Plexiglas window under the pilot seat of the Blackhawk.)”

She sat next to her husband with the C-SPAN interviewer.  Her infectious smile, dark beautiful eyes and a gentle face would have you believe she may have just escaped with minor bruises, what's the big deal and wouldn’t "those army folks" be prepared for these sorts of things anyway?

Initial charge exploded between her knees and nicked one of the Blackhawk's blades.  Instantly they lost the electronics, and the Blackhawk started to descent.  Tammy immediately attempted to land the aircraft, little realizing that she lost the foot pedals and her legs.  The control panels were gone.  When she woke up in the emergency room the right hand was broken.  The last thing she remembered was that she saw that the grass on the fields, coming through the chin bubble as they landed, was about 6 ft tall and she remembered thinking, "Wow, that's really beautiful green grass" before she passed out.  Tammy lost her right leg.  Lost her left leg below the knee to amputation.  Her right arm bones were crushed and broken the moment the Blackhawk hit the ground.  Doctors at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where this C-SPAN interview was taped, rebuilt the arm using metal pins and screws and grafted the tissue taken from her stomach.

And then there is Cpl. Michael Oreskovic - US Army, 23 years’ of age at the time of this interview.  Lost his left arm from shoulder on: "Flopping around somewhere like a chewed up hamburger."  He went through eleven surgeries and now uses a bio-electric arm. 

This is a group of people who describe things that happen to them such as ripped arms, detonations in front of their faces, warm blood pouring down their faces, soaking their clothes, with a gentle smile on their faces.  Not a hint of self-pity, not a hint of a loss, just a strange serenity in their faces, a jaded tiredness but a permanent light in their eyes: "Tough situations brings you closer.”  He waits until the question is asked: "Was anybody else injured at all?" "Yeah, my squad leader died instantly"

The casual approach, the self-effacing manner in which these soldiers speak is maddening: "Tying the shoes and pulling the zipper are the hardest things to do."

    Q: "What do you do when you get frustrated?"
    A: "Go work out"

"I wanted to go back to my unit, but everyone says no."  He describes the possibility of not being in the army in the words of, "They probably won't toss you out the window if you are a special force." 

This phrase, "toss you out the window,"  speaks volumes of the loyalty they feel towards their unit.  I cannot help but feel that this phrase is exactly that longing to find a home for that disconnected feeling, to find a home where a human being involuntarily experiences a whole body of emotions such as love, sacrifice and looking out for each other.  It appears to me that this is what prompts a soldier to go back to serve. 

There is not a hint of wasted thought, wasted emotion, in these soldiers' thinking.  Perhaps it comes from being so close to life and death.  Here there is no room for thoughts that scrape the bottom of the "about-ness," no room for the worlds of you and I where we build protective edifices of opinions and ideas of what is right and what is wrong, protecting from the action-at-a-distance. 

After all, isn’t this distance, this disconnect, this tragedy-less tin-box of clutter in our minds, is what we are all searching to find a home for?

Sid Caesar (The German General)

This week's been one of those when you remember once again that the most important ingredient to living life fully is sense of urgency.  To finish what one started, to keep the focus, to keep the discipline...for some reason I am remembering an old Sid Ceaser comedy routine.  When I first saw it, way back when, I was shocked at how brilliant the routine was and how much discipline it must have taken Sid Ceaser to master it to this level of perfection.  It is comedy sure, but watch the ending, it'll surprise you...

 

"Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell"

Some days this song comes in on the radio around 5:30am in the morning, just when my alarm goes off and I am wide awake, transfixed, no, mesmerized by the magnetic power of this song.  Some days I feel everything that I am is rolled into this song and delivered in a most touching rendition.  And there is more than one version.  Can't say which one I like the best, they are all good.  Here is a list of them, so I can come back to them whenever I want.

1. Bing Crosby version
2. Al Jolson verson
3. Charlie Palloy & His Orchestra version
4. Judy Collins version
5. Tom Waits version

Here are the lyrics.  The Judy Collins version will melt you.  Makes you wonder why Greg Lake never recorded this song.  Push comes to shove, I think I'd pick Bing Crosby version. 

Dear Lalita, would you talk to her for just a bit...?

11th day today.  Soon it'll be 13th day.  Soon they will pick their bags quietly and leave without telling, as the custom requires.  Soon they will begin to pack her things and put them away.  Soon a body will rise from the living room chair with a sigh, see the computer turned off and turned away, go into kitchen for some more tea and experience an inexplicable tug of emotion.  You see, there is one way we can reconcile: that the pain and hurt no longer toils her.  The sadness of her passing belongs entirely to us but this sadness never touches her even a bit.  Isn't that a beautiful thing?  There is a William Maxwell's poignant story called "The half-crazy woman."  Dear Lalita, when you meet this woman, would you talk to her for a few minutes? 

P.S.  You can read William Maxwell's story here.  

Larking Lalita

It's been a while we had spoken so I sent her an email, saying "Are you well?"  Not that I was her friend or anything.  In fact I was not a regular reader of her blog.  Really her preoccupation with cryptics was a bit turn off.  I guess that's because I went through a similar phase when I was younger and gradually developed an aversion to this old skill.  Moreover I never feel comfortable staying too long on other people's blogs.  Feels like I am intruding.  Feels like I am eavesdropping.  An intense feeling of strangeness comes over me on this internet space. 

In the beginning was a quibble between her and me when she picked on my translation of "davvula" as "tender shoots."   

"It's an interesting interpretation, but it isn't correct translation," she said. 

Then we agreed that translation is a bit like cryptic crossword. 
"True," I thought. 
"May be I can make stuff up and send them to her...," I thought. 

"Rusty," I said.  "But still try these...," knowing I didn't exactly stick to the cryptic rules.

1) You can get it in Los Angeles and Louisiana (6)
2) ATI now acquired, found next to everyone, is confused.  Like you! (6)

"How lovely," she replied almost instantly.  "Lalita of course," perhaps smiling, "Geez these *are* rusty really..."

Then, on that day, broken and sitting alone on the bed, I think she was the first one I sent an email to speak to *someone* in the sadness that overtook me.  I was overwhelmed with a feeling that I am being selfish reaching out to people I love, because I was convinced they didn't love me.  Feeling guilty to reach out to others but didn't feel guilty to reach out to Lalita.  Others simply replied back, saying they are sorry and saying "they knew how fond I was of her..."  Lalita too replied back.  But she spoke to me.  I didn't feel I was imposing on her, or putting a burden on her.  Though drowned in that sadness, it occurred to me that there was a quiet space that she gives.  Space where conversation, while not ceasing, stops short of.  Space where you felt you are no longer drowned in that intense feeling of strangeness. 

It means a lot to me, that morsel of a moment when you drove away that strangeness.  For that and much more, thank you Lalita.  Done your time friend, now watch over us...please?

Tagore and Noguchi

"The cripple, shorn of his power to strike, may collapse, but to ask him to forget the memory of his mutilation as easily as you want me to, I must expect him to be an angel."

Pakeezah - 1

This surely is one of the most subdued choreography....it is amazing how brilliantly the whole song sequence is filmed.   First time we bought a "smuggled tape recorder" from Shahran hotel, it came with a cassette tape of, what else, Pakeezah.  This too was his favorite...

Maa Bhoomi - 1

Skipping through directory menu of downstairs phone, I stopped at the entry: "DAD 0119140..."  At once I felt as if an entirely separate being in me became awoke.  Which phone would ring if I call that number?  Why am I still here?  Something should've changed...Then I remembered this song, sung by Gaddar (Gummadi Vittal Rao) that he used to like.  Haven't heard this one in a loooooooong while, but here it is, with my transliteration.  Someday when I have time I will try my hand at translating it...   

Bundenka bundigattaay...!
Padahaaru bundlugattaay...!
Yey bandley vastavukoduko?
Naizaamu sarkaroda...!

Bundenka bundigatti, padahaaru bundlugatti,
Yey bandley vastavukoduko, Naizaamu sarkaroda...!
Nazeela nilchinavuro, naizaamu sarkaroda...!

Bundenka bundigatti, padahaaru bundlugatti,
Yey bandley vastavukoduko, Naizaamu sarkaroda...!
Nazeela minchinavuro, naizaamu sarkaroda...!

Poleesu miltry rondu

Poleesu miltry rondu

Balavantulaanukonee

Balavantulaanukonee

Nuvu pallelu dostivi koduko

Oho pallelu dostivi koduko

Aha pallelu dostivi koduko, Naizaamu sarkaroda...!

Bundenka bundigatti, padahaaru bundlugatti,
Yey bandley vastavukoduko, Naizaamu sarkaroda...!
Nazeela minchinavuro, naizaamu sarkaroda...!

Jageerudaarulanta,

Jageerudaarulanta

Jameenudaarulanta

Jameenudaarulanta

Nee Yandaajeriri koduko

Nee Yandaajeriri koduko

Nee Yandaajeriri koduko...! Naizaamu sarkaroda...!

Bundenka bundigatti, padahaaru bundlugatti,
Yey bandley vastavukoduko, Naizaamu sarkaroda...!
Nazeela minchinavuro, naizaamu sarkaroda...!

Stree purushulantagalisi

Pillaalamantagalisi

Stree purushulantagalisi

Pillaalamantagalisi

Vadisela raallu nimpee, vadivadiga gottitenoo

Vadisela raallu nimpee, vadivadiga gottitenu

Karaapu neelludechhi, kandlalla jallitenoo

Karaapu neelludechhi, kandlalla jallitenoo

Nee miltry baaripoyero...!

Nee miltry baaripoyero...!

Nee miltry baaripoyero...! Naizaamu sarkaroda...!

Bundenka bundigatti, padahaaru bundlugatti,
Yey bandley vastavukoduko, Naizaamu sarkaroda...!
Nazeela minchinavuro, Naizaamu sarkaroda...!

Chuttumuttoo suryapeta,

Nattanaduma nallagonda,

Chuttumuttoo suryapeta,

Nattanaduma nallagonda,

Nuvvendedaidrabaadoo,

Daani pakkaa golukonda,

Nuvvendedaidrabaadoo,

Daani pakkaa golukonda,

Golukondaa kilakinda
Golukondaa kilakinda
    -
    -
Nee Gori kadtamukoduko, Naizaamu sarkaroda...!
Nee Gori kadtamukoduko, Naizaamu sarkaroda...!
Nee Gori kadtamukoduko, Naizaamu sarkaroda...!
Nee Gori kadtamukoduko, Naizaamu sarkaroda...!
Nee Gori kadtamukoduko, Naizaamu sarkaroda...!
Nee Gori kadtamukoduko, Naizaamu sarkaroda...!
-
-
-
Nee Gori kadtamukoduko, Naizaamu sarkaroda...!
Nee Gori kadtamukoduko, Naizaamu sarkaroda...!

Bhanumathi - II

Couldn't resist going back to one more song...This time I absolutely had to try translating this song into English.

At last...!
Jasmine festoons began swaying in the heart
Moonlight began swinging in the eyes

How sublime comfort fills this night...!
How long's hence...bloom fills this life...!

When doves whispered "Ohuroo roo" on the branch
When wind rustle breathed sighs on the sprig
Or even when rivulets just tinkled in the lake
At the faintest sounds of soft wind in tender shoots...!
Thinking you are here at last, hearing only your voice
Eyes moist with tears, at once I looked all over

Even for a moment now, don't leave, hear?
This whimpering heart, don't let it break, hear?

How long's hence...bloom fills this life...!
How sublime comfort fills this night...!

Bhanumati - 1

Earlier this afternoon I was out and about and out of nowhere began thinking of stories of Bhanumati I used to read when I was about fifteen. Here is a song, sung and performed by her, one of my favorites:

Here is a rough and tumble translation of the song (in Telugu in the above video):

What haughtiness you put on...!
When beautiful belle unasked
Come calling
Really...!

Way to go, Prince...!

When this suave, this svelte
This tender youth
I put out for you
And come calling
What haughtiness you put on...!

On winds wafted, intense longing
Aroused, blue shadows of dark evening

Again and again
As the agitations of resounding anklets
Hasten and come calling, you handsome
What haughtiness you put on...!

Chengoona Ala Meeda...

From this Old Telugu Songs site, (thanks, Swarup for the link and for kuffir and Swarup for stoking this translation idea) here is my transcription of the song "Chengoona Ala Meeda..." sung by M.S. Rama Rao.  Telugu diacritics have always eluded me with their non-intuitive and computer-unfriendly styles, so I am not employing them in this below transcription. 

chengoona ala meeda midisee potadi meenu
chengoona ala meeda midisee potadi meenu
chinnavaadu edaraite' marachee potavu me'nu
kaadantaava?  kaadantaava chinnadaana neevu, kaadantaava chinnadaana

vallaamaalina mamata kamma timme'ra laaga
vallamaalina mamata kamma timme'ra laaga
kammukunnadi ninnoo, chinnadanaa
sammasaina vaadu sarasane' vunnado
pallakunta ve' le' chinnadaanaa neevu, pallakunta ve' le' chinnadaana

My translation:

Suddenly in the net, the fish leaps insolently
    suddenly in the net, the fish leaps insolently
Seeing in front the young lad, you forget yourself

Do you deny it,
    do you deny it, young lass,
Would you deny it young lass?

Overflowing affection, like an irresistible numbness,
    overflowing affection, like an irresistible numbness,
Overwhelms you, young lass

That who matches you is nearer, perhaps
Soon you'll be on a palanquin, young lass,
    you'll be on a palanquin soon, young lass

See?  How pallid and lifeless the translation reads?  Those who can read Telugu will know what I mean.  Click below to see more of this post with further updates, perhaps with a transliteration of the poem, soon.

(C) "a problem with authority"

My rough and tumble translation of this telugu poem by Varavara Rao.  My comment on "kufr" blog reproduced below, entirely for my own reading pleasure:-)

~

My language has rusted quite, but I thought I'd take a shot at the translation, just for kicks. Here it is. The column width is messing up the display but nevertheless...

Regards,
Crazyfinger 

True, the rains fell
And streams bent this year,
But there were no seasons since ten years,
Surprised am I, soon as stepped into the prison,
By the cuckoo's welcome song,
"Has the Spring arrived, already?"

Walls, of Nizam's eon; barbed wires,
Endings, electrified for death,
Guarded bastions,
Walls surrounding walls,
Gates inside gates,
Locks to open,
Locks to close,

Lush green,
Trapped between the guard watches,
Flightless pigeons,
Sky, looking as though wholly trapped
And imprisoned in the yard

The "Allaho Akbar", the prayer call in the lazy noon,
Wind, shivering in the cold from wet ground,
In here are imprisoned all the seasons, all this time,
The Mango bud and the Neem blossom, taste one and same,
The prison cuckoo sings on, and on,
Like a coaxing cheer,
The fettered, the chained song

That may be for my arrival,
Or may be that, friend Kanakachari is not here

Update #1:  Click below to see a transliteration and a word-by-word annotation with English words.

Tammy Duckworth: "A Really Beautiful Green Grass"

Most of us, when overcome by those unmistakable feelings of disconnectedness from our surroundings, experience a sense of inner agitation of a peculiar kind.  When human affairs are pressed beyond the ordinary, such as when at war, these moments of disconnectedness steer us to identify things that are “right” or “wrong.”   Soon these moments turn into beliefs.  Then we become emphatic about these beliefs.  Then we suddenly find it easy to relate our normal day-to-day occurrences to these beliefs. 

But this disconnect, the inner agitation, doesn't go away.  It seems to persist despite our emphatic beliefs of right and wrong.  This feeling, instead of getting resolved, dissolved, disappear and reassure us in the staunch positions we take on the issues of political importance, seems to go right past our ordinary day-to-day beliefs and is still left dangling, in search of home.

Where is the home for this feeling, for this disconnect? 

Those who saw “Conversations with Soldiers Wounded in Iraq” on C-SPAN (originally aired March 10, 2005, with subsequent repeat broadcasts) would likely have experienced a glimpse of the very such home.  When this happens, when that metaphysical home is found for this disconnected feeling, one can't help but feel how pallid the exhortations of globalization, and of the "world citizen" are, compared to the experience of this home. 

You don't have to see that C-SPAN show to relate to what I write here.  I am writing here of what I saw: a celebration of life at its most intense and its most fullest reach.  There you watch how the soldiers have very nearly died in the mess and blood of war, but who brought a renewal of life into our experience without the ugly melodrama and narcissism that a more self-conscious narrator of the drama, for example a modern day blogger, would bring.

To see what I mean, let's start with a simple question: “Where were we on Nov 12, 2004?”

Because on that day Major Tammy Duckworth, of Illinois Army National Guard, was on a free fall, her Blackhawk helicopter shot over the skies of Iraq.  From her own narrative of the events of that day, “It was actually end of the day, we've been flying missions across Baghdad, mostly transportation of equipment.  Had a great lunch, bought some christmas ornaments from the post exchange (it was middle of November).  We were ten minutes from getting back to the base when an RPG shot by the insurgents hit the chin bubble (a Plexiglas window under the pilot seat of the Blackhawk.)”

She sat next to her husband with the C-SPAN interviewer.  Her infectious smile, dark beautiful eyes and a gentle face would have you believe she may have just escaped with minor bruises, what's the big deal and wouldn’t "those army folks" be prepared for these sorts of things anyway?

Initial charge exploded between her knees and nicked one of the Blackhawk's blades.  Instantly they lost the electronics, and the Blackhawk started to descent.  Tammy immediately attempted to land the aircraft, little realizing that she lost the foot pedals and her legs.  The control panels were gone.  When she woke up in the emergency room the right hand was broken.  The last thing she remembered was that she saw that the grass on the fields, coming through the chin bubble as they landed, was about 6 ft tall and she remembered thinking, "Wow, that's really beautiful green grass" before she passed out.  Tammy lost her right leg.  Lost her left leg below the knee to amputation.  Her right arm bones were crushed and broken the moment the Blackhawk hit the ground.  Doctors at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where this C-SPAN interview was taped, rebuilt the arm using metal pins and screws and grafted the tissue taken from her stomach.

In the show she said the only thing she wants is to go back to flying.  Her hope is she can start with the civilian sector and eventually gain flight status with the army.  She is doing more than that.   In March 2006 she announced her entry into politics, as a Democratic nominee for a House seat.

And then there is Cpl. Michael Oreskovic - US Army, 23 years’ of age at the time of this interview.  Lost his left arm from shoulder on: "Flopping around somewhere like a chewed up hamburger."  He went through eleven surgeries and now uses a bio-electric arm. 

This is a group of people who describe things that happen to them such as ripped arms, detonations in front of their faces, warm blood pouring down their faces, soaking their clothes, with a gentle smile on their faces.  Not a hint of self-pity, not a hint of a loss, just a strange serenity in their faces, a jaded tiredness but a permanent light in their eyes: "Tough situations brings you closer.”  He waits until the question is asked: "Was anybody else injured at all?" "Yeah, my squad leader died instantly"

When Oreskovic says: "You have to put mission first" it really needs us laymen to think before we understand what he really means.  It means that there is another life that is directly in the line of danger and putting mission first means protecting this next life is the immediate priority.  It is a mistaken perception that putting mission first means forgetting the life that just left us, in some kind of war-mongering fashion.

The casual approach, the self-effacing manner in which these soldiers speak is maddening: "Tying the shoes and pulling the zipper are the hardest things to do."

    Q: "What do you do when you get frustrated?"
    A: "Go work out"

"I wanted to go back to my unit, but everyone says no."  He describes the possibility of not being in the army in the words of, "They probably won't toss you out the window if you are a special force." 

This phrase, "toss you out the window,"  speaks volumes of the loyalty they feel towards their unit.  I cannot help but feel that this phrase is exactly that longing to find a home for that disconnected feeling, to find a home where a human being can experience a whole body of higher emotions such as love, sacrifice and looking out for each other, when you are in their company.  That's why a soldier wants to go back to serve.

There is not a hint of wasted thought, wasted emotion, in these soldiers' thinking.  Perhaps it comes from being so close to life and death. 

Here there is no room for thoughts that scrape the bottom of the "about-ness," no room for the worlds of you and I where we build protective edifices of opinions and ideas of what is right and what is wrong, protecting from the action-at-a-distance. 

After all, isn’t this distance, this disconnect, this tragedy-less tin-box of clutter in our minds, is what we are all searching to find a home for?

Note: I had originally written a variation of this essay as a blogpost for a now-defunct blog of mine.

It’s the Law, Not the Economy, Stupid!

Update: See also the Comments section of "Be There or Be Square" post.

Those who champion the cause for “the other half” are unconvinced yet that this thing called the free-market economy is really the panacea that it is made out to be. When the “India Shining” blew up on our faces, an average person like me looking from outside toward India got the impression that it was all left vs. right politics that caused it. But now, with a bit more economic and private enterprise activity in play, it seems to me that a large variety of “free-market failures” are really failures of the law. But then, for many economists in India, including those who blog, this is old news.

Be that as it may, it appears to me that, while our eye is on the ball for the impressive economic growth in the years to come, nothing noteworthy is happening on the law front. I haven’t read a single article or a news report that seriously talked about legal reforms, commensurate with economic reforms. Why is that? We occasionally read business community (international) complaining about the legal impediments to establishing scale businesses in India, but no response is reported. How is it that we embrace with so much enthusiasm our own economic boom while riding on the coattails of U.S. business world, but show no interest in the supreme U.S. legal system? If push comes to shove, I’d take the boom in legal reform anyday, over the boom in the economic reform. Puzzling. So I wanted to dig into history and try to figure out what is our legal tradition, what is its status now, and why is it that legal professionals don’t seem to participate in the social commentary.

All that and more I found in a gem called “Professor Kingsfield Goes to Delhi: American Academics, the Ford Foundation, and the Development of Legal Education in India” by Professor Jayanth Krishnan of William Mitchell College of Law (free download). Once in a while, when you are looking for something, it feels like all the answers are hidden in plain view already, lurking and springing forward as soon as you form the right question in the right way. This paper feels like one of those springing forward answers, if you are looking to understand what is happening to the state of legal education in India.

Writing with simple clarity is a hard-earned skill - a long and arduous labor before it becomes “natural” (or “intuitive”) - and deserves a premium appreciation by itself. Not only this approximately 55-page document written with an illuminating clarity, but it also reads like a Dashiell Hammett page-turner.

Professor Krishnan sets it up well.  In the aftermath of 1950, when “the Constitution of India came into effect,”

“Many American observers, in particular, looked upon with awe as this economically poor, yet fiercely independent nation sought to embrace political and legal principles that had long been valued within the United States. The Ford Foundation – one of the world’s leading philanthropic institutions based in the U.S. – soon also became infatuated with the promise and overall “idea of India” and it “began to take a serious interest in India.”

“One area that Ford especially focused on involved the development of legal education. Policymakers at Ford Headquarters in New York as well as at Ford’s New Delhi office believed that for Indian democracy to succeed, the country needed to have well-established, rule-based institutions administered by those educated in the legal principles of equity, due process, and individual rights. These officials consulted with a number of Indian legal elites, several of whom had studied in the United States, and together these Americans and Indians concluded that law schools in India would be the ideal place to promote such legal principles. After all, having Indians educated in Western legal doctrine was critical for maintaining Weberian, democratic institutions; and the hope was that this in turn would lead to greater public respect for the rule of law.”

“Given that many of India’s elite had routinely praised the American law school model, Ford worked under the reasonable assumption that U.S. academics would be in the best position to advise their Indian counterparts.”

But then, something unexpected happened. Not only was “this assumption proved at best to be questionable,” but, “To date, no work has presented the views of the academic consultants hired by Ford. For decades these reports were confidential and the consultants were equally reluctant to talk about their opinions.”

After reading this highly informative and thoroughly researched narrative, which culminates in a detailed account of the formation of the National Law School of India University one cannot but feel that legal reform is not just the we-need-to-do-it now but the most compellingly urgent requirement for the betterment of “the other half” in our Indian society.

What to do with Desi chikan (groper)?

This post is a way of participating in Blank Noise Project’s Blog-a-thon on the issue of street harassment.

In Japan, where the problem of groping in subway trains is a rampant one, these gropers are called  chikan.  I am using this term to refer broadly to perverts who harass girls, women on streets in India.  Among men who habitually and perversely commit these acts (and many more who merely think but have not yet acted in these perverse impluses):

1. Some respond (i.e., stop harassing/molesting) to just being confronted on a one-on-one basis,
2. Some others respond if they are convinced that their own family members will be divulged of the perversity,
3. Some others respond when outed publicly right then and there, the ensuing embarrassment may lead them to realize what they’ve been doing, and
4. Some others respond to fear, the plain old physical beating.

That means any effective combating strategy here would have to take into account all these different types of beasts - yes the devil is in the details as always. But here is the reality. Any solution that we come up with, against the above four groups, are still only tactical. Meaning, they will only lead to remedies after “that” happens, at the scene of the crime. Not only we need such tactical, on-the-spot solutions, but we also need to keep working in the background at a larger, social level. This I think is a type of problem which isn’t just amenable to a shotgun approach to solve it, unfortunately. Several strategies should be put in motion simultaneously.

Perhaps a few years ago we had no other recourse but to rely on the stale and ineffective government law enforcement to get us to nowhere. But now it is time to make use of some of the great tools the private multinational companies, in the IT, in advertizing, and in the consumer space, have developed over many tens of years for effective and real change in consumer behavior. Why can’t we take the same marketing, advertizing tools that companies like Proctor and Gamble, or a GE, employ to create a massive awareness and help solve this problem?

Here we have a real problem in the society that could’ve used effective law enforcement from the officials and they continue to fail miserably. I’d say it’s time to look to the superiority, to the effectiveness and the results-oriented approach of these corporate “mass communication” techniques and as a society we take the ownership of the problem.

Here’s one way. Companies, firms, that you work for can be a great tool and one just have to reel them into action to help. You can make a case, a strong corporate case, that helping to eradicate some of these ailments from the society can only help the business prospects of the company.

Create a massive advertizing campaign with a very careful selection of messaging. Messages (captions) saying it is wrong to harass girls or which appeal to the moralistic sense of right and wrong are too simplistic, are too preachy and fall on deaf ears (or tin ears). They don’t work.

What is needed is a combo type messaging, a point and shoot rifle shot approach, that takes into account the varieties of such perverse behavior. A lot of us do work in creative art, ad agencies, copywriting etc., so coming up with this sort of effective messaging should not be an issue.

Here’s one approach. For starters, start with the above 4 groups of perverse men as your “target market.” We know the desired end result. What we need is a messaging strategy and captions that evoke the specific feelings of shame, that equate harassment to impotency, that create and attach a strong stigma around this behaviour. Convince the companies to lend some of their tools, form session groups, figure out what are the embarrassment points of these perverse groups and push these buttons. It can be done. Over time we’ll see changes.

In Japan groping in trains is a big problem and one measure they’ve taken is to have a women-only cars in subway trains. But that was not really a “solution.” I’ve been on Japan subway trains many times and the problem is real and is as stark as you read in the news, just as bad as in India. Punch in the phrase, “groping problems in japan trains” on Google.com and you’ll read all about Japanese men reading sex comic strips openly on the trains, the women-only cars, how women/girls don’t speak out about the rampant groping they are subjected to etc. There’s not a one silver bullet that other societies found helpful to this problem.

More blogs about blog-a-thon 2006

Blogging: What Should It Mean for Us?

In the short time, less than 2 months, that I’ve been perusing the Indian blogosphere (also going over the archives), it seems to me that among all the blogs, it is particularly those blogs that have overcome eschewed the initial awe and fascination of the bloggers of the West (mainly of the US) that offer a discussion of great interest and value to its readers. I think the group blog, theotherindia.org is one such blog, and I know there are other blogs that fit this description. I mention this particular blog only because I’ve been commenting on it rather profusely these days.

Regardless of how popular or “top-rated” they are, socio-political blogs in US are by and large centered on a phenomenon of an internecine battle between media, media-wannabes and ex-media, and (a big AND) technology. This phenomenon is unique to the culture, the history, the makings of this community and this (i.e., the US) society. No doubt a lot of good is coming out of it - there’s a lot more writing about freedom, injustice etc. - which people can read, reconfirm their own ideas, reassert, recalibrate themselves and feel empowered by the enhanced sense of communal feeling.

Nevertheless, when one looks at the webpage of one of these blogs, one should not make the mistake of thinking that everything that’s written there applies to, or can be transliterated to the context of a reader in India.

Contrary to the popular perception, India is now going through only a slightly-more exciting period compared to its past. But it is a vastly more interesting and important phase compared to happenings in the US. At the same time, the Indian media itself is incongruous with its times (perhaps with exceptions that occur as often as a monkey hitting a bulls-eye on a dart board): it is decades behind where it should be. Even refrigerators and manhole covers seemed to have changed/improved more often. And so such internecine battles are irrelevant for the Indian scene, no matter how many Indian bloggers conjure it up for the sake of a me-too argument. And oh by the way, there is another institution in India that is even more infested with the decay of stagnation: the legal institution (another story for another day).

Perhaps this is an idiosyncratic viewpoint, but to me, by and large the online presence of Indian blogosphere is filled with a strange feeling of acute self-consciousness. We come across as if we don’t know what other people think of us, or as if confronting what we think is our image in the eyes of the other, this “other” being anything that is Western/US, perhaps strongly American or even an Indian-American. This has to change.

To continue to stay under the shadow (or in the penumbra) of US blogging phenomenon is a rather uninteresting place to be for an India-based blog. Not only it is uninteresting, but for readers (ahem, for “English-speaking people with internet connection”) whether they are more or less experienced in life abroad, it comes across as shallow.

In US blogs, the blogging is more about playing out the “politics without power” - there’s a rally without a revolution feel to it - and life moves on. But, for a blog like “theotherindia.org,” there’s a hope that it could be different, in the sense that, perhaps here for the first time (hopefully not the only time), readers can go beyond the “…the boredom of argument without action.” I am not recasting “theotherindia.org” is into some kind of an NGO. But the very fact that the blog has set out to talk about real people is itself a refreshing change. To draw an analogy, in IT field, a similar sense is starting to come about, rightly so. A sense that the real growth, the real interesting stuff will happen when IT products and services are built, marketed and sold in and for the Indian market (small-to-medium business segment, for example.) That would be one hell of a maturation for the industry.

In a similar vein, here is an opportunity for a blog to explore what it means to, and to figure out if it can, go beyond the argument into the action. That is not a bad transition. That would be a real coming of age for the Indian blogosphere. That would be a terrific example of Indian ingenuity, of taking an instrument called blog - a hollow tin box of sloshing opinions that is - and putting it to a good use. Then you’d all be free-market capitalists!

Speaking beyond “theotherindia.org,” in the realm of the arguments, in general, I believe we are starting to see that blogging (and other internet ways of open access to one another’s thoughts) is having two diametrically opposing effects: between people of “same culture” (or between people of “same cause”) it can lead to a unifying, self-examining, in the end positive effect. On the contrary, between people of “different cultures,” I suspect, I am afraid, it is only having a divisive effect (although I wish it otherwise.) I know this runs counter to the established and well-hyped promise of “one world” that internet will bring to bear.

People from same culture are used to the consistency of beliefs and thoughts built from a sense of history, literature, and the oscillations of right and wrong, the very basic stuff behind our impulse to reach out to like-minded others. I think blogging (and reading a blog written thousands of miles away in a different context) puts a strain on this consistency, and the oscillations of right and wrong vibrate without any resonance. That’s what we are seeing today, an increasing sense of division and discord.

We all have to watch out for this divisive phenomenon, not just between people of “differing cultures,” but between people of differing opinions and views. In the current India, it doesn’t amount to anything if one wades through blogs without directly taking on such issues, even if it takes force-feeding new ideas, new ways of looking at issues and new ways of shedding old thinking.