An Ode to Nalsar

That the Nalsar bubble would not last for ever was known pretty well. That it would burst (relatively) so soon was rather unexpected. Unlike many others, I have never had a reason to curse this place. I loved my time here and enjoyed doing whatever little I did. Having changed cities and schools way too often for my own good, it was a welcome change to hang around a place for this long. What is really surprising however is the amount of mush that is being displayed by people you would not expect it from. Most say it is because they will miss their friends here. I think the reason is something else. In Nalsar, your life followed a set pattern. Way back in 2008 I could predict with a reasonable amount of certainty what my life would be like half a decade down the line. How much variation could you bring into a routine of classes, internships, trips back home and the occasional party anyway? Say what you may about change being exciting, people generally prefer to just relax and let things continue the way they are. This will not be the case for many of us now. It is this disruption in routine that makes people wear batch t shirts, cry after flash mobs and upload emo pictures.

Equally saddening for me is the move away from Hyderabad. Over the last decade, I had grown to love the city and can claim with a reasonable amount of truth to have become a Hyderabadi. All that must change now.

I must confess. I am really going to miss college for all that it has given me. The person who leaves in a couple of days is very different from the chap who came here five years ago. Many years down the line, I shall hopefully remember a place 2.8 km from Shamirpet village as what educated me and changed my life forever. 

Oh Monsoon

The Indian seasons are just like the country. They always overwhelm you. The long dusty days of summer get almost unbearable by June. Monsoon watch becomes the country’s national pastime as the IMD trots out wildly erratic and almost always wrong predictions with a +/-4% error range.

Meanwhile way down south over the Indian Ocean, winds are being whipped into a frenzy. Attracted by the hot low pressure zone created over North India by the unforgiving sun, these winds blow northwards, picking up tons of moisture along the way. While India sizzles, these winds shower their munificence over the Indian Ocean islands as well as the Andamans. The imperious Arabian Sea branch, laden with water vapour, breaks upon the West Coast in spectacular fashion with a deep rumbling thunder and frothy sea waves providing the special effects. It however runs straight into the mighty Western Ghats. Pregnant with moisture, it deposits most of it over the Konkan and Malabar coasts before it can overcome the hills. The more sedate Eastern branch sneaks its way through the narrow Bay of Bengal as it approaches the Coromandal coast. Coastal Andhra and Orissa are drenched and so is Gangetic West Bengal. Blowing across the plains of Bangladesh, it gets channeled into Meghalaya hills where Cherrapunji and Mawsynram receive record breaking rainfall year after year. The two branches meet over Central India and proceed to take on the Indian heartland.

There is more drama yet. The Monsoon is preceded by a couple of dusty sand storms that remind Delhi-ites of just how close the ever expanding Thar Desert is. There is hardly any rain but servants and housewives are sent scurrying to pick up the drying laundry lest the wind blow the briefs and vests away. The humid nights only serve to further piss off the already half-crazy Northies. This is short lived however. Thunder and lightning accompany the rain as towns, villages and cities are drenched for days. The trees heave under the force of the rain as people negotiate huge traffic snarls, overflowing gutters and washed off roads. As the winds reach the Himalayas, the mighty Indian rivers breach their banks and cause untold misery to millions.

Monsoon holds many lovely memories for me. The joy of munching pakoras as you watch the rain. The “rainy-days” in schools across the country. The paths that the flowing water cuts through your garden. The fresh smell as the rain unlocks a thousand pores on what was till a week ago,  a patch of yellowing grass. The wet patch that appears after a lengthy downpour on your ceiling. The countless chirping insects that create a racket all night. The stars that look ever more numerous as the rain cleans up the atmospheric dust. The occasional hailstorm. The howling wind that beats on the window shutters and carries the rain into every nook and crevice.

The Monsoons fill one with a zest for life. They give life to a country that just cannot do without them. And cannot be imagined without them.

Into the Cauldron

My relatives decided that I must be mad, or atleast slightly cracked in the head, for deciding to go to Titlagarh in the month of May. For those unaware, Titlagarh in Western Orissa is widely considered to be one of the contenders for the hottest inhabited places in the country. Summer temperatures above 50 degree celsius are frequently reached and the blazing loo makes sure that it feels much more. But I have lived in the 46 degree heat of Delhi and the 44 degrees of Hyderabad. I have even managed a 45 with 90% humidity in Bhubaneswar (an astounding 162 on the Discomfort Index). How bad could then Titlagarh be? There was only one way to find out.

Arrival, at 5 30 in the morning, was normal-even slightly pleasant. In the east, the sun is out early; especially in summer. This was no different. Even the concrete hulk that the railway station was, looked (and felt) fine. I decided to go get some shuteye before taking on Father Heat himself in the afternoon.

The first inkling of trouble was the knock on the door of my comfortable airconditioned room. “Abhi se naha lijiye..dopahar mein paani boil ho jaata hai”. Ridiculous I said. Of course the water gets pretty darned hot during the summer, but all you need to do is to leave the tap on for 10 mins and then all is well. There was no way I was letting go of my lovely sleep by having a bath at this non-bath-like hour.

Soon, it was 11. My plan was the check out the heat at this hour and then again around 2 when the sun would be at its merciless best. Attired normally in cotton clothes and having drunk plenty of water, I ventured out onto the road. The first thing that hits you, even before the heat, is the utter loneliness. Titlagarh is no village. It has a population of close to a lakh. But not a single soul was to be seen anywhere. No birds, no animals and certainly no humans. The next thing you realise is that the back of your neck is on fire. While you cover it up quickly with the collar, suddenly the full blast of the loo is in your face. Dry and dusty, it feels like being slapped around with the hot bottom of a frying pan. There is little humidity, so you do not sweat (actually you do, but you never feel it as it just evaporates within milliseconds). Sun stroke is possible in 10 mins, likely around 30 mins and almost certain in less than an hour. The head warms up to an extent that you can feel the heat radiating out of your crown. One cannot keep his eyes open. The strong glare makes it impossible. I had had enough. I was soon gulping down another bottle of water. Time spent outside: 13 minutes.

This was certainly no common Delhi-heatwave. Why though? There is little substantial vegetation around Titlagarh, partly due to the soil and partly due to deforestation. In addition, the town is surrounded on almost all sides by bare, smooth hills-almost like giant pebbles. There is no substantial body of water anywhere close by, nor is the river really a river. As the wind blows in from all sides, the hills block its path and funnel it through their gaps and crevices. The hot rock increases the temperature of the already warm wind many notches. The air temperature may be around 50 but the wind makes sure that it feels around 70. The terrain is excellent for retaining heat and one could feel the earth just letting out steam till midnight.

I never did my post noon trip. The bath did not work out either. Apparently, the man was serious about the boiling water business.

Calcutta Golpo-I

Amitav Ghosh acts as a trigger for long forgotten Calcutta memories. Inspite of my great love for the city, I can hardly claim to be a resident. The two years that my family did live there, I was far away in Hyderabad. There were the occasional vacations and the visits of course but little else. It is a testament to the City’s almost magnetic hold on me (and most East Indians in general) that I still consider it almost-home. It is the Eldorado of my subconscious.

The first thing that hits you in Calcutta are the crowds. There are just an awful too many people. You step out from the grand red Howrah Station and there they are, milling about. Very few of them are Bengalis. Mostly dirt poor migrants from Poorvanchal, they come in droves to their promised land. You can see them pulling their trolleys along, sweat dripping down their face as they race through the twenty odd platforms of the station. Yet there is an element of order in this chaos. Stroll across to the vegetable market in the subway leading upto the ferry (“launch”) ghats and you’ll see a mass of people going one way or the other depending on the time of the day. There is no pushing or shoving. I spent an hour walking in the opposite direction and not once was I yelled at or cursed. The violence that one associates with a crowd in North India is oddly missing in Calcutta.

For a kid nothing could be more fascinating than Calcutta’s modes of public transport. The buses are unlike anything in Delhi or Bombay. Painted in garish colours, with a wooden floor and with seats that would gladden a Spartan Utilitarian, these buses rule the Calcutta roads. The fuel guzzling old monsters belch out thick black smoke that hangs over the Maidan on wintry mornings. It is impossible to imagine any of them as new-ever! Then there are the ferries. A bit out of favour after the opening of the second Hooghly bridge, the launches (as they are called) were for close to a century the lifeline between Calcutta and its twin across the Hooghly. The overcrowded boats and the Colonial ghats (Armenian, Princep, Outram) saved thousands of Calcuttans from the long jaunt across the Howrah Bridge. One of my happiest childhood memories is of taking the launch to Garden Reach or Babughat from the Howrah Station Jetty. The view as the launch took on the curve after Vidyasagar Setu was wonderful, especially in the evenings with the sun shining brilliantly over the river.

My favourites are however the trams. Much maligned and now almost condemned to extinction, the trams were a wonderful thing to all of us non-Calcuttans. There was a day (till 1993) when you could hitch one right opposite the Howrah Station and have it take you all the way up to Kidderpore for nothing more than 25 paise. Slow and very noisy, especially over cobbled streets, the trams are almost always full. Their distinctive clanging bell can be heard before they are visible in the maze of vehicles. Taxis reluctantly abandon the track as the ancient machines rumble on, swaying and lurching all the way to Park Circus, Esplanade or Dharamtala. Even today, one can take the Kidderpore-Dharamtala service and watch the tram as it passes through the crowded streets, crosses the Adi Ganga bridge, moves on to the Maidan (providing arguably the best view of it) and finally negotiates the crush of Esplanade with the Ochterlony Monument looming in the background.

More Calcutta reminiscences to follow some other day.

Trip Report: The Falaknuma

It has been a while since I blogged about trains. But then I have not really blogged as much recently. So here is a distinct genre of the same. A train trip report. Nothing exceptional really, considering I have not done much train backpacking recently. But here it goes all the same.

My personal favourite is the 12703/12704 Falaknuma Express. People who travel to East India from Hyderabad sure know all about this. It was started in the late 80s to complement the super-slow East Coast Express which at last count stopped at no less than 70 odd stations. The Falaknuma on the other hand is a super-fast (Indian Railways speak for trains that stop at relatively few stations and which maintain an average of atleast 55 km/h). The Falaknuma (named after the famous palace in Hyderabad, it literally translates to ‘like the Sky’) starts its journey from Platform No. 20 at Howrah Junction at around 7 30 in the morning. These are the South Eastern Railway platforms that cater to trains towards Jharkhand and Orissa. Heavily patronised, it has the full complement of 24-26 coaches and the general compartments see a crowd to rival any of the Delhi-Bihar trains.

The Falaknuma starts off slowly as it negotiates the points and early morning local train rush. Soon, it picks up speed as it cruises through the suburban Howrah stations like Santragachi, Uluberia, Bagnan and the likes. Halfway to Kharagpur, it crosses the rather wide Rupnarayan River, some distance from its mouth. One can see the towering spires of the Kolaghat Thermal Power Plant towards the right here. Mecheda and Panskura pass in quick succession and soon the train slows down again as it approaches Kharagpur, of the longest platform in the world fame. Kharagpur is a long-ish halt and primarily caters to the railway-wallahs and the IITians. The passengers however are mostly sound asleep, tired from the early morning jaunt from Calcutta.

The train takes the southbound track here and one can see the Bombay and Purulia lines diverge just after the station. Crossing Hijli, it again picks up speed as it whizzes through the South Bengal countryside. The vegetation and landscape change dramatically from the lush green of the Bengal countryside to the yellow-green mottled Orissa coast vegetation. Balasore and Bhadrak follow an hour or two apart as the Falaknuma rumbles over the many fingers of the Mahanadi river system that vivisect this part of Orissa. These include rivers like Baitarni and the Brahmani. The line executes a series of tight twisted curves as it skirts through the Eastern Ghats and hugs National Highway-5. The Birupa, a distributary of the Mahanadi is crossed around 1 PM and the line takes a left hand curve before straightening out to cross the Mahanadi. At around 2 km, the bridge is one among the longest in India. After trundling on for close to 5 minutes, the train finally rolls into Cuttack. There is a rather slow jaunt of 30 odd km before Bhubaneswar is reached. The two cities are separated by two other distributaries of the Mahanadi-the Kathjori and  the Kuakhai. Immediately after the latter bridge is one of the tightest curves on Indian Railways. Bhubaneswar, just like Cuttack, is a rather small station for a State capital. Another 30 km brings the train to Khurda Road Junction, a great railway hub since its earliest days in this part of the world.

The vegetation changes again after Khurda Road as the soil too takes on a reddish hue. The sea is not too far away and as the trains pulls away from Balugaon in the early evening, the Chilika Lake makes a dramatic appearance to the left. The line is squeezed in between the Lake and the Ghats as it treads gingerly through the narrow corridor separating the two. Some of my most memorable rail-fanning moments are at this stretch during the Monsoon as the lush green hills and the brilliant blue waters combine with the strong breeze to create an ethereal atmosphere. It is almost dark by the time the train pulls into Andhra Pradesh at Ichchapuram and chugs into Palasa, of cashew-nut fame. The last station before people turn in for the night is Vishakhapatnam where the train reverses directions and people step out for a late night cup of tea and snacks. Insomniacs like me can only hear the Falaknuma rumble over the mighty Godavari bridge late at night and barely discern the blur of the many towns that dot Coastal Andhra as they whiz past.

Early morning sees the train, with a diesel locomotive now, thundering over the Krishna just after Nadikudi. Its almost a different world here. Isolated hillocks, the green-brown vegetation of the Deccan and the many rocky outcrops that dot the countryside. Villages are few and far in between and the Falaknuma ignores all of them till it reaches Nalgonda. The Musi is crossed some distance later, a barely-there nullah of pitch black industrial waste, a reminder of the fact that Hyderabad is not too far away. The train joins the mainline to Kazipet at Pagidipalli and makes a brief stop at Bibinagar while waiting for the all clear. It is a pretty steep gradient after Bibinagar as the line climbs close to a hundred metres in 30 km. All in all the Falaknuma moves from sea level near Guntur to 520 m above MSL at Secunderabad. A few unscheduled halts at Hyderabad’s suburban stations follow as it finally enters Secunderabad Junction, usually at Platform no 4 or 5.

The Falaknuma has none of the glorious history of the Deccan Queen or the Punjab Mail. There is none of the Rajdhani speeds too. Yet in its own way over the 1500 odd km that it traverses, it is the unchallenged King. While the snooty Madras bound trains thunder down the mainline, it takes on the little used Guntur route and emerges trumps every single time.

Summer is Icumin

The Indian Summer is a season unlike any other. The sun is out rather early, but the atmosphere is quite comfortable, pleasant even. It stays that way till around 8 30 AM. Birds coo, cicadas chirp and the night dew glistens on the grass. There is absolutely no inkling of what is to follow.

By 10 AM, it is a furnace. The heat is intense and the glare of the sunlight makes it painful to even look out. The birds stop their twittering and the only sound one can hear is of the harsh loo rustling through the trees. I have often spent these afternoons gazing idly at my ceiling fan and thought of a million things, the warm breeze outside gently unsettling the curtains in the room. It’s as dull as it can get and time seems to expand in order to accommodate the lonely hours. Late afternoon sees clandestine lovers clog the parks for a few hours of solitude as the moral police, lacking any incentive to stir out on a hot day, stays put in their shakhas and police stations. Naughty kids, having waged an impossible battle against the never ending afternoons, finally come to their mothers’ arms and sail away to the land of sleep.

Summer is also the time for business. The Ice cream wallah makes umpteen rounds trying to tempt the not-sleeping children with his wares. The soda wallah and the gola-wallah follow close behind. Impatient kids who insist on playing gully cricket at 4 in the evening are their main clients. Worried mothers ply these kids with cold water, juices and even Electral to ensure that the malignant loo gives their kids the miss. Parks across North and East India are full of mango trees groaning under the weight of blossoms and unripe fruits. It is also lychee and bel season throughout Purvanchal and the ever blowing Purabiya breeze carries the sweet smell of the flowers to distant places.

The evening too shows many colours. The western sky turns a deep orange in North India as the dust settles after its day long dervish dance. In Hyderabad, it is rather sudden considering there isn’t much of a loo. The most dramatic has to be Calcutta. By four o clock, there are dark clouds to be seen. The breeze stops and it is suddenly very warm and sticky. A steady breeze picks up after an hour. This is the famous Kaal Baisakh. Lightning and thunder follow soon after and by seven, it is raining. Gusts of wind carry the rain through closed doors and bolted windows. The rain makes a pitter patter noise as the Kaal Baisakh howls through the alleyways. All is calm after 8 as people step out to shop, gingerly treading their way through the many puddles that dot Calcutta after the rains.

Summer nights are beautiful. The moon trails across a clear sky like a spent silver coin while you lie back and observe the stars and the constellations (and the occasional satellite). Those unfortunate enough to sleep indoors strip down to their shorts and pray that the load shedding babus spare them for the night. Tomorrow shall be another hot and unforgiving day.

Civis Britannicus Sum

To the memory of the British Empire in India,

Which conferred subjecthood upon us,
But withheld citizenship.
To which yet every one of us threw out the challenge:
“Civis Britannicus sum”
Because all that was good and living within us
Was made, shaped and quickened
By the same British rule.

I am an unabashed Imperialist. Not of the Glory to the Empire kind, but more of the there-was-some-good-in-the-Empire sort. Nothing in history is more tantalizing than What-if. And nowhere is it truer in Indian history than in relation to the Raj. What if Nawab Siraj ud Daula had taken precautions to cover his artillery from rain at Plassey? What if the French Governor who succeeded Dupleix had even half of his enterprise? What if the Napoleon-Tipu alliance had materialised? What if the Maratha wars had ended the other way? And what if the rag tag sepoys of 1857 had been helped by the Nizam and the Sikhs? Ultimately however, the Company Bahadur and its successor, the Raj did come to stay in India for close to two hundred years and for good or for bad changed us irrevocably.

Nirad Chaudhuri’s dedication sums up the British experience in India pithily. They gave us the notion of an Indian State. They gave us the English language. They gave us (a rather illusory) idea of equality before law and they laid out 50,000 km of the Indian Railways that for the first time in this nation’s history acquainted the Punjabi with the Malayali and the Ahom with the Gujarati. But as Civis Britannicus Sum, that anguished Sicilian cry against Roman brutality, conveys; there was also a deep sense of rage against the Raj. It denied Indians citizenship, its colonial economy brutalized the Indian peasantry and broke the back of an already primitive agricultural setup, famines frequently carried away millions and for the vast majority of Britishers in India the kaalas were an inferior race-to be ruled and subjugated.

The nuance with which the Empire ought to be treated is missing in contemporary Indian readings of the Raj. Good administration and the overbrooding presence of the State in what was, atleast in the 18th century, a subcontinent in ferment did a lot to make what we call the Modern Indian State. Men of the calibre of Charles Metcalfe, Montstuart Elphinstone, Thoman Munro and Lord Macaulay were simultaneously genuine well wishers of India as well as unabashed flagbearers of the Company Bahadur’s divine right to rule. The Raj era had its own such ambiguous figures. Curzon, Hardinge, Hume and their ilk. This explains why the Indians never felt the sort of resentment against the Britishers that has been the experience of other Post Colonial societies around the world. The Sahibs who stayed back were treated with awe and reverence before the sweeping changes of the 60s convinced them that it was time to pack up and leave.

History seldom has any black and white. It would be hard to find a better example than the Raj.

The Postmortem Tuning Fork

Social networks are a wonderful place to see anthropology in practice. The idea that an online community is a close group of people who influence each other’s real lives is obviously a trifle farfetched, but it would not be a stretch to say that such communities have, or are in the process of, substituting real life peer groups.

An illustration of such would be the mass hysteria that follows the death of somebody (in)famous. In the modern day, this trend probably started with the mass grief orgy that accompanied Diana’s death in a Paris tunnel. It was hailed by sociologists and observers as ‘identification’, the ‘focusing of pent up grief’ and other fancy things. In reality, it was little more than mindless mob hysteria fuelled by the two penny English Press that painted Tony Blair (of all people!) as the conscience of the Nation and the Queen and her husband as anachronistic dinosaurs for wanting to mourn her death in private. ‘Show us you have a heart’ went the popular headline. The redoubtable Christopher Hitchens acidly remarked that it was all too much fuss over ‘a talentless tart who just happened to be thrust into the public eye’.

That was in 1997. Things have gotten worse, much worse, in the years since. When Amy Winehouse, a rather ordinary drug junkie, ended up where most of her ilk do, it led to hundreds of people assembling outside her house and toasting her with booze. The irony in the deceased being a chronic alcoholic was lost on, or conveniently ignored, by all. Michael Jackson was pilloried incessantly by the media for his alleged fondness for young boys. When the same Michael Jackson died, the reaction would have convinced a neutral observer that far from being a child molester, he was a second Messiah. The sordid procession continues what with Steve Jobs and Whitney Houston being the latest additions to this list of  great souls prematurely dead.

This is by no means a phenomenon confined to the Western World. People who had never heard a Jagjit Singh ghazal or seen a Dev Anand movie joined the online breast beating that followed their deaths with gusto as if the rhythmic siyaapa would somehow convince the world that their grief was genuine. The funniest bit was a post I saw lamenting the ‘premature’ passing away of ‘Mehandi Hassan’. Oh for fuckssake! If you have to be a wannabe, you may as well back it up with some basic Wiki research.

The Why So question begs to be answered here. Is it because in an increasingly interconnected world, inherent human empathy and grief just needs an outlet to be displayed? So one need not know a person to feel bad about his conking off. You can feel vicariously sad about the whole deal because, what with six degrees of separation, he was probably closer to you than you think! Balder and dash. Wannabe-ness (I love the Yankees for these words) needs no reason. In an increasingly dumbed down world, there is an Orwellian classification of human emotions. To put it in facebook language:

Post about soldiers/patriots: Like.

Post against government: Like plus an abusive comment

Death of a notable: RIP, you will be missed.

Death of Kim Kardashian: Condescending line followed by a heartfelt RIP

One need not think on his own. This ready chart to express facebook emotions, while limited, factors in most eventualities. The straw brained nincompoops who anyway have an attention span of a mayfly are incapable of processing anything else. It also helps that this shows them as well informed people up to date with breaking news of the Shahrukh-punches-Kunder kind. Now a “Greek vote saves EU” post would not only require some thinking but is also unlikely to appeal to the fellow nitwits who frequent their profiles. GK is the new sexy alright, but it has to be sexed up too! I miss the 1990s.

In Praise of the Indian

Considering we spend atleast 100 hours a year in the loo, it never ceases to amaze me how so little of it makes its way into the popular discourse. Of course there are expressions like ‘Shit!’ that are a part of everyday language, but in the abruptness of that word there is an element of sanitation that takes away much of the impact that the word would otherwise carry. Hypocritical mockingbirds that we are, we need to shed this duplicity and stare the shit right in the face.

In such a noble aim we are aided by possibly the greatest invention in mankind’s long and torturous history. The Squat Toilet (or the Indian style as we refer to it) is humble, unassuming and basic. Yet at the same time it is the most underappreciated wonder of our age. I have never fallen for the charms of the Evil WC (Western Commode as Indians call it).  It is just too comfortable for what is essentially an act that requires great strain, effort and planning. Rare would be the soul who ventures out on a day trip without having had his morning bowel movement. This is a universal trait that is all the more pronounced in the Indians, the Chinese and the Jews. I think it has to do with the spicy food that these communities eat and the consequent obsession with ‘badhazmi’ and ‘pressure’.

I digress however. The Westerners, those masters of deceit, prefer the WC because it is allegedly cleaner and less messy. What tosh! All the scientific evidence in the world cannot convince me that using toilet paper for the ‘act’ is as hygienic as  using water. Imagine, in a public toilet, sitting right where somebody had plonked his naked arse a few minutes ago. Cleanliness anybody? To add to that, some barbarians prefer to read the newspaper in the loo! Only a people who have no concept of the Devi Saraswati can ever abuse the written word in such an indecent manner. Little wonder then that the dumbing down of the Western world dates from the widespread adoption of the ‘Commode’.

The Indian is much more honourable. For starters, it makes no effort to hide your deed or mask its smell. Unlike a WC, there is no escaping your karma (or your dinner last night). People actually make an effort to maintain a proper ‘hazma’, so that they are not reproached by their peers for screwing up the loo. Again, the inherent discomfort in the Act means that one does not appropriate the toilet for private ruminations. Chew the cud outside for godssake, let the loo be for people who need it. Even Indians otherwise starry eyed about the shiny WC, would concede that “pressure to Indian mein hi sahi aata hai.” That is the primary function of the loo and the Indian does it like nothing else.

Why this growing love for the WC then? It is mostly imitation. Just like M.N Srinivas’ theory about Sanskritisation, people with a low estimate of themselves try to adopt what they perceive are the ways of a superior race. When the Angrez use it, it has to be good! This is Colonial Era Inferiority Complex, and it is invading our toilets as well.

A postscript about that wonderful contraption. The WC with a pedestal for feet. The best of both worlds? Hardly! This monstrous anomaly has always made me squeamish. It is not hard to see why. Imagine dropping a heavy mass into still water while you stand a few feet away. It can be very fucked up.

So let the brown sahibs drool over their spic and span Chair-cum-toilet. We, the sons of the soil, shall keep straining ourselves over the sandaas that would make even a Soviet utilitarian proud.

The So-What

A friend had sent me a rather interesting link a week or so ago. It was nothing exceptional. One of those half-fantasy, half-questionable fact forwards that have taken over India related forums on facebook. They are so ubiquitous now that it is possible to predict who their targets would be without so much so as reading them once. Generally it is the Nehru-Gandhi family, with frequent references to their supposedly Muslim origins (or to the alleged Muslim origins of their son in law, Feroze). Occasionally the Mahatma too is made a target. These generally end with a postscript praising ‘real’ heroes like Bhagat Singh and Sardar Patel and exhort all ‘true’ Indians to remember and honour them.

There is no truth in these of course. The Nehru family’s origins and migration are well documented. At no point were they anything but pure bred Kashmiri Hindu Brahmins. In-fact Nehru’s sisters were the first people in the family to marry outside their caste.This owed much to the enlightened attitude of both Jawaharlal and Motilal. Feroze too was a Parsi from Allahabad, a city that had a large Parsi community owing to its position as a centre of commerce and its High Court. The old Parsi Cemetery in Allahabad has generations of Feroze’s ancestors buried there.

What is interesting in this, and similar pamphlets going around, is the unspoken belief that because the Nehru-Gandhi family had alleged Muslim origins, it somehow disqualified them from ruling India. They do not say so in so many words, but the implication is clear to anybody who reads them. It is not enough that these Muslims are Indian citizens whose ancestors have lived and died on this land. They are either ‘traitors who left Hinduism under coercion’ or ‘foreign invaders’ (Sardar Patel preferred the latter kind of Muslim over the former. Atleast they ‘did not sell their faith’). And therein lies a tale that exposes many of the canards that are spread about Indian Muslims by the right wing loonies.

This is of course nothing new. The crucible of violence from which India emerged ensured that the Establishment remained virulently anti Muslim for a whole generation. There was that infamous Home Ministry communique that commented on the ‘unsuitability’ of Muslims for certain positions, including the Commander in Chief of the Indian Army. Brig Muhammad Usman’s death in the Kashmir conflict at the age of 36 ensured that they would never have to put it in practice. The Intelligence Agencies of the State maintain one of the worst proportions of Muslims serving in any government agency. Pt. Nehru did his utmost to ensure that this did not happen and Muslims, in common with the rest of the Indian citizens, were given an equal chance. So much so that when Jafar Imam, J. was superseded and Gajendragadkar was appointed as the CJI instead, owing to the former’s ill health, Nehru voiced his reservations about how it would send out a bad signal to the world regarding how India treated its Muslims. His was a lone voice though. Both Patel and GB Pant were quite clear that while a Muslim havildar or sepoy was fine, they did not want a four star Muslim general or a Muslim Director General of Police.

This also brings into sharp focus another fact about Muslim empowerment in India. The Sangh never shies away from referring to how India treats its minorities so well that we have had no less than three Muslim Presidents and an equal number of Muslim CJIs. This symbolism hides a much more malignant truth. The President’s position maybe an exalted one, but he enjoys no real power. Even his discretionary powers have been slowly stripped away to leave him as a strict figurehead, even more so than HM the Queen. So while President Kalam may have inspired millions to ‘ignite their minds’ there was precious little he could do to impact the Indian polity. As far as the CJIs are concerned, their elevation is solely due to the judiciary’s jealously guarded independence. Infact one of the Muslim CJIs owed his premature rise to the top solely because his ‘essay’ impressed Prime Minister Indira Gandhi the most. That was an aberration however and the Indian judiciary has never been more independent in its history than it is today.

The real test of inclusive democracy would be when a Muslim would be projected as the Prime Ministerial face of a major political party. Or as the Chief Ministerial candidate in a major heartland state. So far we have had no such instance. A Muslim handpicked CM in Bihar had a blink and you miss it tenure in the 70s. This is not solely the fault of the political class. There is a widespread belief that a Muslim leader would not be acceptable to the bulk of Upper Caste Hindu voters. The veracity of this belief cannot be challenged till somebody does take the plunge. Mulayam and Lalu somewhat confirmed this when the Yadav voters demonstrated that while they were fine with an M-Y alliance, it had to be headed by one of their own. Hence the confinement of major Muslim leaders to ‘safe’ seats like Rampur, Moradabad or Amroha. The only exception seems to be Bengal where Adhir Ranjan can win from 70% Muslim Murshidabad and a Mohammad Salim from 75% Hindu North Calcutta. I however am still waiting for the day when somebody shall comment on one of those Psst-He-is-a-secret-Muslim posts with a “So what?”.