WHO WANTS A HINDU RASHTRA?

Whenever the tide turns you can see a different landscape, at the peak of high tide water takes over and drowns every life form while at the peak of low tide you get to see the dirty debris at the bottom. Neither is very pleasing to watch, neither complete by its own and neither very long lasting because slowly and definitely the tide has to turn. This metaphor also applies to the return of the apparently pseudo but mighty Hindutva sentiments of intolerance, insecurity, impatience and violence. Political, philosophical or religious turmoil is commonplace all over the world and my country cannot claim exception to this universal phenomenon. Such troublesome occurrences are not new to this land and its people. If I may dare say so, its old hat really! I risk being considered or bracketed as far too simplistic in my approach but never the less, so be it.

Sporadic incidences of communal abuse, fights, violence, bloodshed has been happening in this land from time to time since ages. Every new thought, new philosophy or a new religion has always had a uphill task in establishing itself and thereafter in maintaining. According to recorded history since some 2500 years ago, since the time of Gautama, the acts and words of these pro Hindutva groups against that great man were legendary. Again since some 700 hundred years ago when Islam militarily took command and started handling the political reins of this land, such incidences have surfaced time and again, all over the place, decades after decades. We can very safely proclaim that Islam is some kind of a friendly enemy, someone whom we know now since many births. That says a lot about their resilience and also about the tolerance of the Hindus. Then again since some 250 years ago when the East India Trading Company took over the political management of this land such sentiments could be seen in pockets, at that time we used to call them freedom fighters, and the funny part was that they also fought our own countrymen because not everyone liked their methods. Going back to before 2500 years during the time when history was not recorded, when the people of Indus and Saraswati river civilization migrated to the Gangetic belt, we can only imagine the huge problems this would have created.

If I would chose to be critical of this pro Hindutva group’s method, I would wonder why they no more rake up the Hindu superiority on subjects like the four caste segregation, second grade treatment to women and the insistence on child marriage, older men marrying young girls and the more infamous one of no remarriage of widow. Somehow for reasons better left silent these topics no more interest them today. However to their credit they still carry that big ancient canon which still smokes fire and has never been silenced, the cow mother. Listening to their words and its shrill pitch I probably would dare to assume that these groups most certainly must eat, sleep and breathe the Vedas and the Gita, follow all its teachings, lead a life of purity in thoughts, words and action and ofcourse regularly sacrificing animals on a ritual pyre to appease the powerful one above and garner favors. Hope I never am disappointed here. Speaking in a tongue in cheek manner, a very interesting thought occurs to me, which is that since Hindus strongly believe in rebirth and also since as an unborn soul I cannot choose my parents, what if I in the next cycle am born to a Muslim couple or a Christian couple or a Dalit couple. Would I not suddenly become the victim, suddenly be sitting on the other side of the fence and suddenly be called beef eaters! Who would then protect me from my own friends with whom today I rub shoulders! Strangely not a single Hindu raises this question. Maybe our faith in rebirth is not so real after all. Just a stray crazy thought of this monkey mind.

But coming to the point, what I would like to register here is that such robotic-warrior elements have been in existence in society since donkey years and yet the Hindu society has survived. These are old arguments, old methods, of certain thinking processes which are also an integral part of the Hindu society. These people won’t let up and neither will they accept that the Hindu culture survived till date inspite of them and not because of them. Then why do we all need to point fingers at them today, why do we need to make them more fierce than they actually are, I fail to understand.

Taking the discussion forward, it brings us to another interesting question, what makes a Hindu and has it really remained unchanged since Vedic times? This is important because time and again, we hear that the past was glorious, and that old traditions are being abandoned. This is a subject fit for discussion by scholars and I am not one. My thoughts on this are far too simple. Primarily Hindu was a generic term referring to the people who live on and beyond the River Indus, which sounded quite logical. However as time proceeded the term went on to include the culture of the people, their philosophy, their ways of living, their science, their art, their mathematics, their warfare, their economic theories, their kings, their spirituality, their religion, their rituals, their food, clothes, physical structure, language and what have you. The term Hindu had taken gigantic proportions and we are now talking about a very huge subject. We claim that Ram walked the earth some 9000 years ago, but can we also say with the same confidence that all the above aspects of the Hindu lifestyle have been the same since the time of Ram. Factually speaking none of its distinctive parts of the Hindu way of life has remained consistently similar over ages, and what to speak about time, it has not even remained consistent beyond geography of 100 sq km. During the times of Ram, he was yet another ordinary guy, Vishnu was unknown amongst the Gods, a few intelligent folks owned flying machines, and the Bhagwat Gita wasn’t uttered. We have been constantly changing over time, improving on some matters and degrading on other fronts. New scientific discoveries were made, new philosophies were explained and some of them became a new religion, new ways of commerce were exchanged, new food items were introduced into the culinary, new materialistic things were created and used, new diseases are happening and coupled with new medicines being discovered. The Hindu individual has changed too, his desires changed, his needs changed, his style of living changed. How could anybody have stopped these changes from happening? If change is inevitable then why do we now wish to glorify the past?   

I am neither on the side of the pro Hindutva so called conservative group to the right nor on the side of the so called modernist and progressive left and center. I am simply amused to find that there in a mismatch in their present stance and the common experienced history till date. The inherent confusion in all the noise about intolerance that is created today is hilarious. This is purely a political struggle, a misguided one-upmanship. Each side is accusing the other about being intolerant. The conservative right, who have just recently got the whiff of nonrestrictive power, want to create in a few months what they couldn’t for six decades, while the modernist left and center who had unbridled access to authority till date are unhappy suddenly finding themselves being displaced and extinguished. Both want to adopt the moral high ground as their principle argument. Few from the remaining society are taking sides but the majority is just watching.

They are just watching because fundamentally there is a deep rooted fallacy in the argument on both sides. They realize that while religion and community strength is important to maintain a good life however it is not sufficient to create a happy life in the very first place. To create that you need modern development and age old traditions cannot bring new developments. Development in the world always comes with risk-taking, risk-taking needs finance and financing needs a peaceful environment. Thus more the unrest, less the development. The Hindus would be happy if their traditions alone are considered sacrosanct and their beliefs alone are upheld and respected as the supreme word in this country. But this can’t be acceptable to the Muslims, Christians and Dalit, who also happen to be the natives of the soil, at the cost of their fundamental rights and privileges promised by the Constitution.  My guess is that majority of the Hindus are keenly aware of this duality and it is playing in their mind. The Hindus have to make their stand clear; whether they want Ram mandir or they want development. Both cannot happen simultaneously. The whole fiasco, if potrayed as an emotional issue can get out of hand, but  if rightfully seen  as a struggle between politics and economics, then the solution becomes clear.

Life at crossroad

How does one describe the feeling of having reached the end of one journey which is not really the end of the road. The last journey was good. The next one is unknown. For some time there is not even the realisation whether there is a next journey at all. Such moments do appear when a distinct chapter is turned, a milestone is reached. I am going through such a phase currently and facing intense unanswerable questioning. This is a period without purpose, period of void, a vacuum without any gravitational pull. This is a time in one’s life to either recoup, or to learn a new trick, or to go berserk in being lost.

This is also a time to take stock of life so far, both in qualitative and quantitative terms. What has the sum total of all the journeys been like. How has life treated you and how have you treated life till date. Have you earned friends and goodwill, have you merited love and compassion. Could you respect and accept the multiple shades of emotions and behaviour patterns in fellow beings. Did you see the morning sun escaping out of the clenched fist of darkness or getting trapped and losing itself in the evening. Have you noticed the diverse world of birds, insects and animal, on a tree, dependent and yet at peace with its environment. Have you contributed selflessly towards a smile on a strangers face. Do people contort their faces at the sight of you, wishing they had never met you. Are you going to leave any worthwhile remembrance behind. Or are the people who would remember you after your death only the inheritors of your monetary assets.

This is also a time for introspection. How well do you know your own self. Can you predict your own reaction to every circumstance accompanied with the true reason. Can you predict what is going to happen to you in the times to come. Do you know your own bandwidth, the limits of your capability. Can you commit to restrict your activities and your desires within your own limits. Do you know your own passions, given it a chance to flower. Or do you still continue to keep the self under wrap, afraid to touch and unravel this grey area believing that the devil alone knows what surprise it could spring.

This is also an excellent opportunity to evaluate one’s work. Is it wholesome and honest. Are you doing something which makes everyone smile with approval, though not necessarily ecstatic or contented. Or does it bring an unhappy frown, a worrying crease on the forehead of some. Can you go to bed with an admission that you have done the best possible or does the conscience make you sleepless. Does your work permit you to balance a healthy personal life or is it decreasing your age. Are you too busy making a living that you forego to make a life.

How does one answer such difficult questions without a sense of failure. How does one keep the spirits flying through this when the soul expresses distress signs of flagging. How does one make course corrections in the midst of speeding wheels without the fear of imminent accident and collapse. How does one secure a release from this trap.

This phase does offer such a wonderful window of opportunity to change, to make amends. Yet it would take a brave and trusting heart to seize it and a shipload of luck to see it through.  

MA and BABUJI

I am not a successful man who owes it all to his parents and so sets out to thank them publicly. Nor have I inherited great wealth which since the inheritor obviously doesn’t help create and so there is cause to be grateful, in material terms so to say. So why would I want to write about my parents; the question had been propping up in my mind since the time I wanted to write this piece. Well, I have not found any obvious answer to that yet but since the subject won’t go out of my head I have decided to throw reason out. As a matter of fact this is not a great story. So please do not be misled into believing that I am going to disclose certain hitherto hidden feats of endurance or lessons on spiritual accomplishments. Sorry. This could most likely turn out to be a boring rambling on a lazy Sunday afternoon by a mediocre guy who vainly imagines that he has something worthwhile to say. So those of you who have something better to do, please proceed. Don’t waste your time and that’s a request. Finally this is not a judgmental piece about my parents. I have no rights whatsoever to judge them even though I am their son. However I wish I had known more about the childhood of both my parents. What were the circumstances and events that shaped their behavior, what kind of life did they live as youngsters and as they grew up. That would have given me a better handle to understand the how and why about their manner of coping with the mishaps during their adult life.

Babuji was from erstwhile East Bengal. Their family finally chose to give up their native land after witnessing senseless bloodshed. Having seen sectarian killings during his childhood, needless to say he grew up hating them. I have seen him make uncomfortable sounds in sleep and sometimes wake up with a frightening shriek. I have also heard him tell about how as a kid he used to move with his friends with knifes in their procession. Apparently to kill if the need arose, such was his mindset. But since he never mentioned, presumably he never did; kill. His brothers however vouch for the fact that he was a lively, fun loving and a jovial guy, a far cry from the person I grew up knowing. Babuji often was very bitter about his father. I heard from him that my grandfather was a freedom fighter and had to go into hiding often away from home and so could neither make for himself a career nor provide for his children. My grandmother died when Babuji was hardly about five or six years of age. Such a childhood devoid of parental love and support would have been disastrous for any boy had it not been for all the uncles and aunts and brothers and sisters. Theirs was a huge joint family. Inspite of such a troubled phase in his life he grew up to be sufficiently balanced in his views. He was reserved, yet fiercely independent and forthright; sadly tactfulness was not his forte. Partition and migration into West Bengal seems to have affected him badly. All the needs of the entire family were looked after by his eldest uncle. Not wanting to be an additional burden Babuji opted to forego higher education and straight away launched into a job, to become self-reliant. Initially it seemed worthwhile but in the long run he paid the price for lack of a college degree when all his brothers moved ahead in their lives while he remained blocked in his small job. The love hate relationship with his own family left him a sad and lonely man. He loved his brothers, hated his father, distanced himself with a job at a faraway place and yet occasionally tried to maintain contacts through letters, his was an unhappy existence. The absence of reciprocity in belongingness, love and support which he craved for from his family rendered him confused, bitter, afraid and short tempered, strongly self-protective and a stand-alone.  Very soon he took to alcohol to drown his sorrows. Money was wasted, emotions were not shared, feelings were suppressed, anger ruled, misunderstanding and confusion ruled, and every bit of this affected us. Ma was from a similar yet better placed family. Similar because her parents and grandparents had moved in to West Bengal a shade earlier and so could settle down better. Her father was educated and employed in a government job. She too had a number of brothers and sisters and it was a happy and loving household where the fancies of the children were entertained. I personally vouch for this fact because I have been a major beneficiary of their love and pampering. Ma was rather too simple, wasn’t sharp at all and so did not pursue education. She grew up to be fun loving, playful, very talkative and extremely friendly. She had no inhibitions and was not afraid of anything or anyone. She had an amazing ability to get friendly with new faces; she could liven up a conversation, she was gregarious, and also loving and caring. There was yet another thing about her and I don’t know from where she got it from but she has a phenomenal capacity to bear physical punishment as I came to realize later on. As was the custom girls were married off earlier and so Ma got married when she had touched early twenties while Babuji was about thirty three years old. There is a story here; because of his difficult nature all the elders in his family were not very certain whether he would be keen to get married and so did not broach the topic, until he himself questioned them whether they were interested in seeing him settle down in life. Only then did the search for a girl for Babuji really start. The difference in age was not alarming in those times but with the aid of on hindsight which I have today the difference in individual psychology was tremendous or rather tragic. 

Their marriage did not have the tiniest speck of a chance. It was a cruel joke by fate on them. They were two very different personalities, not emotionally equipped to support and nurture each other and as was inevitable, they destroyed each other. The marriage not taking off was understandable and yet they could not give up. They repeatedly made efforts towards picking up broken threads and to locate common grounds. It was funny as well as painful because they never succeeded. When too much bad mouthing happens, when the desire to emotionally hurt the other reigns, when the past cannot be forgotten or forgiven and when egos do not bend, then the same lousy story gets frequently re-telecasted and life at home becomes a loud torture cell for everyone living in it. Babuji was a minimalist while Ma was extravagant. Babuji was an introvert while Ma was an extrovert.  Babuji lived in his own agonizing world unable to walk out of his mental prison. Ma could never relate to this because for her to talk, to be transparent and to simply ask for help were very ordinary things. Babuji felt that she taunted him and which added to his pains. He retaliated in excessive anger which left her numb and confused. She retorted too but childishly. Actually they both very deeply craved for acceptance, love and understanding, while all that they could give each other was fear, pain and sorrow. They were both very capable adults and rising above circumstances could have done them a world of good, but that was not the plan which providence had for them. However without doubt both of them were absolutely passionate people. As it is often seen with such people, they physically wound themselves rather than abuse their partner. Babuji took to alcohol while Ma took to not eating. Both suffered immensely. The other things about which they both were equally passionate were their three children.

Babuji had joined a British company selling and maintaining heavy mining industry machinery. He was a trained maintenance mechanic. The company was very soon acquired by the Birla group. When I was born, Babuji was posted in West Bengal. But since he was constantly on the move I was born in Mas’ parent’s place and spent a considerable part of my initial three years with them. Being the first grandchild I was spoilt silly. Soma my sister arrived in two years and when she was hardly a year old, Babuji was transferred to Goa. I wouldn’t go and made a lot of fuss. As I was pampered and very obstinate, I didn’t want anybody else except Didama my grandmother. But to Goa, we went. Both Babuji and Ma tried their best to turn me around, to forget my Didama, sometimes with kind words and sometimes with sharp ones accompanied with slaps on the face and back. I guess my inner sadness began in those days. I couldn’t understand why I had to be uprooted and thrown into a strange place with people without my Didama. I used to cry a lot and I still remember those lonely moments. Soma had no such hassles and soon she became the darling of Babuji. She developed asthma and needed extra care and attention. I apparently lost out during this bargain. Somehow Ma managed to befriend me and I reciprocated but I could never regain the lost grounds with Babuji. The distance between us continued to widen. Bikram my brother arrived after a long time. We were still in Goa at that time. Once again when he was hardly a year old Babuji was transferred to Chennai. We moved again.

Initially in Goa Babuji was relatively relaxed, was young and felt that he had a future to look forward to in the organisation. Over the years a lot of this changed after he felt being discriminated when younger qualified engineers were promoted and he got superseded. His frustrations increased and so did his drinking. There were several such bouts but on one occasion I have seen him at home; stone drunk, talking loudly to himself, cursing everyone, and on seeing me he started crying and pleading. I was too small to understand but Ma held me back tightly, not allowing me to go near him, as I wanted to hold and console him. To be fair to him, Babuji was an exceptional father during our Goa days. He loved cooking and eating and he most certainly was an exceptional cook. The taste of his non-veg preparations refuses to leave my tongue even today because I have never ever smelt such aroma nor tasted such a fare. Being Bengalis both my parents were partial towards fish, but Babuji could do magic even with dry fish. Once a month he took me along to watch an English movie. I remember watching movies like Tarzan, War of the Worlds, Hercules, Enter the Dragon along with him, just the two of us. On a couple of occasions he took me to restaurants for good food. He encouraged me to play football and cricket with the village boys. He took me along for the weekly shopping into the sunday town market. He taught me to distinguish between fresh and stale fish, to choose vegetables. Once at the weekly market I encountered huge strange creatures, he explained that they were tortoise and were being sold for meat. I was introduced to the ‘Illustrated weekly Of India’ by him. He used to buy various comic books exclusively for me. He inculcated the reading habit in me. However over time he became short tempered and I slowly started to avoid him.  He was promised a promotion along with a training stint in America provided he shifted to Chennai. He grabbed it with both hands, and things improved slightly for him at the office, but then slightly. Babuji’s oft repeated declaration was “I can give my children only two things, good health and good education”. On numerous evenings after dinner he used to lecture the three of us about life in general. Those were not conversations and we just had to listen. Biki (my brother Bikram) took a heavy brunt of his dosages being the youngest and hopelessly without reasons to escape. After about nine years at Chennai, we shifted to Nagpur where he finally got a table job away from field duty but he was nearing his retirement. After his superannuation, Soma got married. Thankfully she chose her life partner because he would never have been able to. His life ended a bit early due to high blood pressure, liver cirrhosis and severe diabetes. He developed gangrene on one leg. The end of his life was lonely and painful.

Ma was a mixed bag. She had several great as well as weak qualities. At times she would soar with the eagles high in the sky and then on another moment you could find her crying in anguish at all her troubles. Over the twenty-five odd years that I had come to know her, I developed love and respect for an amazing woman. Finally I saw her disintegrate in front of my eyes. Language was never a barrier with her. She knew Bengali well, and a few words of Hindi but that much was enough for her to strike friendship with the local women folk in Konkani Goa, Tamil Chennai and Marathi Nagpur. She could talk for hours at a stretch, understand and make herself understood, with gestures and other means. Astonishingly the local ladies would always meet up with her and liked to talk to her.  The initial years in Goa were her best years. Atleast twice a week in the evenings she took Soma and me to the only garden in Margao by bus. Once a week she had to run along with Neela didi with us in tow to the movie theatre. The rest of the week was reserved for visiting some Bengali friends place or they would come over. After the initial years the difficulty of living with Babuji got to her. She started to sink inside. She started to skip food, she would remain unhappy and tense, she lost her sleep and moved on to sleeping with the aid of pills which later turned into an addiction, she took to chewing betel-nut leaf with zarda (tobacco) so as to induce a sleepy state, slowly she progressed into chronic depression. The shift to Chennai brought out the best in her. Babuji dropped us off and proceeded to America for the initial few months. I remember moving with Ma from school to school for mine and Soma’s admission. The three of us did not know Tamil, but we travelled by local city bus or just walked kilometers after kilometer with Biki in her arms. Ma learnt to operate the Bank account, got to learn the Tamil equivalent names of essential commodities, to shop and cook and take care of all three children on her own. When Babuji came back home, Ma relapsed into depression. At Chennai Babuji suffered his first heart attack on the eve of the day when we all were supposed to leave for Ranigang (Ma’s maternal place). He simply accused her of poisoning him. She fought back vehemently against the accusation but ultimately gave up. Chennai was a huge city and the cost of living was high, so she had to give up her love of Hindi movies. Ma taught me to laugh at mistakes, to accept things as they are, to cook, to sew, to wash and clean. She also took a lot of anger and frustration from me, without a murmur of complaint, when infact they were directed at Babuji. She was the person by my side when I shaved for the first time just to appreciate the clean after shave look. She was the one who arranged cash to buy my first bicycle by asking her father to send it. She was the one who every year without fail organized the Bhai-Phota celebrations between us siblings, which we still continue. Ma was a shadow of herself when we moved into Nagpur.  She wanted me to grow up fast and become self-dependent, so that she could stay with me and away from Babuji. She was at her breaking point when I decided that I wanted to take up the CA course and study for another three years. I never realized this but she saw her only chance of survival evaporate in thin air. One day soon after, she simply set herself on fire, to put an end to her agony. I continue to remain with the guilt that I lost Ma because of my selfish reasons.

I end this piece here. It has been a story of ordinary human beings, of their tearful memories, of my paradise lost.  It has been an attempt to shed some load of my chest. It does not matter whether anybody reads this, nor does it matter if anybody mocks. I have gained by writing this, some insights and some more space to absorb.

A MATTER OF MIND

After a fairly long time, a topic had struck me to be worth writing about and then again after a long period of dilly-dallying I could muster the interest to sit down to write. Please don’t question me about this time of hiatus, as it has mostly to do with my feeling about being some sort of good-for-nothing and of course some minor distractions like work.

Now-a-days whenever I look at any adult face, I try to locate the face of the child within. What would have this man or woman looked like when they were a school going kid, in their pre-teens. Then I correlate their present face, their present behavior, to their child face and thereby deduct their child behavior. It has kind of become a game for me. The genesis of this game has been my own awareness about what I was during my school days. Try it, you will never be bored irrespective of whether you are sitting and waiting for a scheduled appointment or you are in a bus, train or plane journey or just sitting in a park.

I realized two interesting things about myself one fine day. First one is that I am a very different character or person today from the one I was during school. The second one is that though this new person calls all the shots in my life, the initial person, mutilated, disfigured and ignored, still lives inside. I had successfully fooled myself into thinking that I had evolved, had grown up, turned mature and have started behaving in tune with my responsibilities vis-à-vis the expectations of family and society. The truth is that this second person, whom I didn’t know till then, simply jumped into my life and took over the reins.   I just morphed from being one person to another. The fact that this new person was acceptable to everyone including my father, helped. Yet sadly this change wasn’t organic. Woes upon me, it was a crime of snuffing of identity which I didn’t even protest but rather tacitly supported. However inspite of all these years, thankfully the first person is not dead but yet alive. It takes a bit of introspection to distinguish and identify these two personalities. The first one still is a child while the second one is the so called worldly wise adult.

At times I am blank, smiling for no reason, sitting and staring without a thought at the horizon, trusting someone to arrive and love and take care for me, wondering with amazement about events around me, without any notion about etiquettes and cunning, engrossed in a song or a comic or story book and satisfied with its most intriguing and rather more interesting world, and remembering the laughter and fun times with friends. This character is the child, the first me. The kid has not grown up; it still lives for the moment, the same as it always was, even though life has changed.

Then again at times I am worried, critical of self and others, temperamental when it comes to mistakes, planning, thinking about the future with expectations, thinking about the past with discontent, rolling from one thought to another without concentration or focus, never satisfied even if something remarkable happens as it dwarfs in comparison to the expectations, living and exercising and generally taking care of self. This character is the second me, the hard working adult. This commercially fretting person is the one who chose my profession albeit the wrong one for me.   

The thought did cross my mind that would I be able to pin point the exact time when this usurping took place. I guess, and it’s just a guess, that when I was in the 11^th standard, after having secured some low second class marks in the 10^th Board exams, when I realized that I am at the threshold of adulthood and was not going anywhere, the child in me gave up and passively withdrew for this new alter-ego to take charge. I was sixteen years of age and pretty much a dumb wit. But from there onwards a sense of responsibility crept in. In the 12^th standard I joined a Mathematics coaching class and my world changed thereafter.

Even a blind bat can sense that both these persons are not exactly compatible. The child didn’t grow up while the adult didn’t have any childhood. While one is meek the other is pretentious nonetheless both are cowards. If you ask which one is the true me, I would most certainly be at a loss to answer honestly. The child appears on the surface with some very close people and generally stays in the shadows. The adult takes most of the decisions. I am the union of a divine mix-up; together both these characters have come to represent me. They are both ruled by my life’s bandwidth. They are both the cause and the victims of everything that has happened in my life. Today whatever I am for x, y, and z reasons, it gives me some satisfaction to be able to place events and their aftermath in the right perspective, and to understand the how and why of it, with some amount of humility and gratefulness. I recognise and reclaimed the child inside and am proud of it. I recognise and know the adult too and hope and pray that it can take me to my destination.