Horse's Ass

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number.

Why was that gauge used?

Because that's the way they built them in England, and English expatriates built the US Railroads.

Why did the English build them like that?

Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used.

Why did "they" use that gauge then?

Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing!

Okay! Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?

Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.

So who built those old rutted roads?

Imperial Rome built the fi rst long distance roads in Europe (and England) for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.

And the ruts in the roads?

Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman war chariot.

And may the bureaucracies live forever.

So the next time you are handed a spec and told we have always done it that way and wonder what horse's ass came up with that, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommo date the back ends of two war horses.

Now the twist to the story...

When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster r ockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or SRBs. The SRBs are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah.

The engineers who designed the SRBs would have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site. The railroad line from the factory happens to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The SRBs had to fit through that tunnel.

The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses' behinds.

So, a major Space Shuttle design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a Horse's Ass.

And you thought that being a Horse's Ass was not important??

More on "Horse's Ass".

More on Horse's Ass

I had received the e-mail about "Horse's Ass" from a young friend. Here's my reply to him.

You asked:

"And you thought that being a Horse's Ass was not important?"

No one ever thought that a horse's ass was unimportant! In fact there is a lot of evidence to point to the importance with which the horse's ass has been regarded. Your mail about everything being traceable to the HA is only further evidence.

In many languages, across the world, the expression for something utterly value-less is "horse-dung". Why?

In mystic language in diverse cultures (sandhyabhasha in India) , there is a tradition of speaking in riddles, or using a word to mean its opposite. Thus, horse-dung could be a term to denote the ultimate treasure i.e. knowledge i.e. self-knowledge i.e. knowledge of God.

The same knowledge that was realised by young Nachiket in the story in the Katha Upanishad.

Talking of behinds - it is a fact that the horse has perhaps the most exquisitely-sculpted behind. And it has perhaps the most beautiful tail of all creatures; placed there just to conceal - or adorn - the horse's ass?? The source of that most value-less dung??

In Bangla, every child learns the mischievious expression:

"Shodh bodh ghodar pondh"

Which is like saying: "even-steven, horse's ass".

Some years back, it occurred to me that vulgar expressions are mediums for transmission of precious wisdom, like coded messages to future generations. Such messages are hidden in expressions that are sure to be in common currency, heard by and embedded in the minds of nearly everyone, so that some time someone, somewhere may also reach through to and grasp the inner meaning.

So, the expression "shodh bodh ghodar pondh" could be unravelled, like a puzzle, to discover hidden wisdom.

To me, it seemed to mean:

"searching, and feeling, to attain blissful self-realisation" (or enlightenment, or self-knowledge, or divine vision).

It seemed to be simply the message of Lord Buddha. I was overwhelmed to find the imprint of the greatest teacher on even everyday vulgar expressions!

The horse has often symbolised the mind. Like a wild horse the mind races uncontrollably. Controlling the mind yields a very good vehicle to journey through life. And in that journey, searching for TRUTH, and never failing to FEEL - the light of TRUTH is eventually attained.

Hindu religious mythology refers to the present time as Kali-yuga, or the age of Kali, a period of darkness, ignorance and corruption. Vishnu, the sustainer of Life would incarnate as Kalki, 'the avenger', riding a white horse (seated backwards), to destroy the present world and to take humanity to a different, higher plane.

So my young friend, it appears you are off to a very good start indeed with your interest in the Horse's Ass!

Taking out ...

We are all familiar with the “war against terrorism”.

Some days ago I read this story about Snipers in Afghanistan:

A British sniper waging war on the Taliban, is so deadly he has earned a chilling nickname — The Man Who Never Misses. The unerring Army sharpshooter has killed 39 rebel fighters single-handedly. He works with a partner called a spotter, who locates the target and helps judge wind speed and distance so the bullet travels accurately. The British Army is creating an elite force of almost 700 snipers, with all 38 infantry battalions required to have an 18-man platoon of sharpshooters by 2008. The decision follows the success of British and US sniper teams who have killed dozens of terrorists on recent operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In today’s newspaper I read that the West Bengal government will deploy additional manpower to ensure faster acquisition of land for the Tata small car project in Singur. The hearing of complaints, which was to have been conducted over two years, will now have to be done in 15 days. (Farmers have protested against this land acquisition.)

All this makes me wonder: Why is there no war against poverty? War against hunger? War against thirst?

Why are the terrifying scourges of poverty, illiteracy, sickness not “taken out”?

Why are additional staff not deployed to ensure basic education to all?

Another aspect of Kali-yuga, this age of corruption, is that everything is turned upside down. Lunacy is now sanity.

Flitzy posted this quote in her blog:

"If you aren't part of the solution, there is good money to be made prolonging the problem."

Poetry on-line

Dear Friends

I am very happy to announce that I have put up a collection of my poems on the internet. This is titled Inheritance: Poesy for Oneness and Well-being.

Its accessible at: http://inheritance-poesy.blogspot.com/

I would like to invite you all to visit this site. I would be very happy to read your comments / critique.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Best regards

rama

Rights, like a dream

Childhood is like a dream.

Childhood, like a dream, is evanescent. Children grow up into adults. Dreams fade away when we awaken. But childhood does not end with a child’s growing up. Neither does dreaming end with one’s awakening. Childhood remains, to remind us of our humanity. We continue to dream too, and sometimes someone may try to turn a dream of a better world into reality.

Ensuring the human rights of children is like granting humanity the right to dream.

Do we have the right to dream?

Painting: Dream of my Childhood, by Lela Maharobeli.

Childhood dream

Artist: AleSSandra

Inner religion

We are not one coherent homogenous single unit called 'I'. There are a number of parallel selves within us, all working simultaneously, and often pulling us in different directions. Becoming aware of this condition within us - as no one but we ourselves can really know; discovering the source, nature and impulsions of these various selves; severing our identification with these involuntary selves; finding a single undeniable real self hidden within this multiplicity; connecting to this and ultimately becoming one with this, and thus one with the whole of humanity, the earth and the cosmos - this is a journey within one's inner world, through which the human creature becomes truly alive, as Human.

Religion is concerned with this journey, and may be understood as a means to enable people to successfully make this journey through the course of their life.

The inner worldly religious imperative is quite removed from everyday, worldly concerns, aspirations and pursuits.

The essence of any religion is the celebration of and adoration of God, the act of worship, which for the realised being, is one with his very breath, every moment of his life is a sacrament to the Divine. The effacement of one's sensory and socially constructed self, an utter humility in the face of the Absolute and the Infinite, and tender love for all beings, who are all so many witnesses to the glory of God - this is the essence of the religious personality.

Genuine religion is something quiet, heroically compassionate; not for it the grandeur and trappings of earthly wealth, power and conquest. The association of worldly, political concerns with a particular religion, tells us about historical circumstances related to political power, and testifies only to the desire even among the profane to have ultimate moral and divine sanction for their possibly ignoble ends.

For any genuinely religious person, social life as it presently exists and has always existed, is akin to a web of ignorance and delusion. A person who has realised God cannot but seek to share his treasure with the whole of humanity. To continue to live in society, among all others, with one's faith intact and growing richer, is something that also calls for reinforcing and supportive means, processes, structures.

Besides, a community of those who have realised God would also like to ensure that their own struggles and learning make things easier for others, and more fundamentally, have the realisation of God as the basic principle of the community, its principal aim and object, which gives meaning to all other concerns and pursuits.

In such a view, Religions cannot, by definition, be in conflict with each other. Such conflict, wherever and whenever it exists, must be viewed not as something concerning the tenets or truths espoused by the respective religions, but as something arising out of historical events and ongoing geo-political considerations.

The symbology of religious ideas

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Zirat represents a mystical awakening, experienced through working upon oneself, freeing the mind from unwanted thoughts and regrets which, like weeds, present a hindrance on the path of inner culture. The word Zirat means agriculture, referring in this context to the symbolic work of the farmer digging out old roots to prepare the soil for the new crop, and watching over the various stages in the cultivation of the precious seed.

The wise have given lessons to the world in different forms suited to the evolution of the people at a particular time, and the first and most original form of education that the wise gave to the world was symbolical. This method of teaching has been valued in all ages, and will always have its importance. That is not beauty which is not veiled. In the veiling and unveiling of beauty is the purpose of life. Beauty is that which is always out of reach. You see it and you do not see it. You touch it and you cannot touch it. It is seen and yet veiled; it is known and yet unknown. And therefore words are often inadequate to express the beauty of Truth. Therefore symbolism is adopted by the wise.

The religions of the ancient Egyptians, of the Greeks, of the Hindus, and of the Parsis, all have symbols which express the essential truth hidden under each of them. There is symbolism in Christianity and in many other religions. Man has often rebelled against symbolism, but this is natural, as man has always revolted against things he cannot understand. There has been a wave of opposition to symbolism in both the East and the West. In the East it came in the period of Islam, and in the West it re-echoed in the Reformation. No doubt when the sacred symbols are made into patents by the religions which want to monopolize the whole truth for themselves, it encourages that tendency in human nature which is always ready either to accept or to reject things. However, one can say without exaggeration that symbology has served to keep the ancient wisdom intact for ages. There are many ideas relating to human nature, to the nature of life, to God and His many attributes, and to the path towards the goal, which can be and have been expressed in symbols.

To a person who sees only the surface of life, symbols mean nothing. The secret of symbols is revealed to souls who can see through life, whose glance penetrates through objects. Verily, the things of the world disclose themselves to the seer and in this uncovering beauty is hidden. There is a great joy in understanding, especially in understanding things which mean nothing to most people. It requires intuition to read symbols, even something deeper than intuition, namely insight. To the one to whom symbols speak of their nature and of their secret, each symbol is in itself a living manuscript. Symbology is the best means of learning the mysteries of life, and also one of the best ways of passing on ideas which will continue to live after the teacher has passed away. It is speaking without speaking; it is writing without writing. The symbol may be said to be an ocean in a drop.

The symbol of the dove

Hazrat Inayat Khan

The bird represents the wayfarer of the sky, and at the same time it represents a being who though it belongs to the earth is capable of dwelling in the skies. The former explanation of the bird represents the idea of a soul whose dwelling place is heaven, and the latter represents the dweller on earth being able to move about in the higher spheres; and both these explanations give the idea that the spiritual man, dwelling on the earth, is from heaven. They also explain that the spiritual man is the inhabitant of the heavens and is only dwelling on earth for a while.

The pigeon is used as a messenger, to carry a message from one place to another, and therefore the symbol of the dove is a natural one to represent the messenger from above. Spiritual bliss is such a wonderful experience that if a bird or an animal were to have it, it would never return to its own kind. But it is to man's credit that after touching that point of great happiness and bliss he comes back into the world of sorrows and disappointments and delivers his message.

This quality can also be seen in the pigeon: when the pigeon is sent it goes, but it faithfully comes back to its master. The spiritual man performs this duty doubly: he reaches higher than the human plane, touches the divine plane, and brings the message from the divine to the human plane. In this way, instead of remaining on the divine plane, he returns to be among his fellowmen for their welfare, which is no small sacrifice. Besides he performs a duty to God, from whom he brings the message which he delivers to humanity. He lives as a human being, subject to love, hate, praise, and blame; he passes his life in the world of attachment and the life that binds him with a thousand ties on all sides; and yet he does not forget the place whence he has come, and he constantly and eagerly looks forward to reaching the goal for which he is bound. Therefore in both these journeys, from earth to heaven and from heaven to earth, the idea of the dove proves to be the most appropriate of all.

Krishna's Flute

Hazrat Inayat Khan

Krishna is pictured in Hindu symbology with a crown of peacock's feathers, playing the flute. Krishna is the ideal of divine love, the God of love. And the divine love expresses itself by entering into man and filling his whole being. Therefore the flute is the human heart, and a heart which is made hollow will become a flute for the God of love to play upon. When the heart is not empty, in other words, when there is not scope in the heart, there is no place for love.

Rumi, the great poet of Persia, explains this idea more clearly. He says the pains and sorrows the soul experiences through life, are like holes made in a reed flute, and it is by making these holes that a player makes the flute out of a reed. This means that the heart of man is first a reed, and the sufferings and pains it goes through make it a flute, which can then be used by God as the instrument for the music that He constantly wishes to produce. But as every reed is not a flute, so every heart is not His instrument. As the reed can be made into a flute, so the human heart can be turned into an instrument, and can be offered to the God of love.

It is the human heart which becomes the harp of the angels; it is the human heart which is known as the lute of Orpheus. It was on the model of the heart of man that the first instrument of music was made, and no earthly instrument can produce that music which the heart produces, raising the mortal soul to immortality.

The crown of peacock's feathers leads to a further revelation: that it is the music of the heart which can be expressed through the head; it is the knowledge of the head and the love of the heart that together fully express the divine message. The peacock's feather in all ages has been considered as a sign of beauty and knowledge; beauty because it is beautiful, knowledge because it is in the form of an eye. It is by keen observation that man acquires knowledge. Knowledge without love is lifeless. So, with the flute, the crown of peacock's feathers makes the symbol complete.

Making love

Let’s make love
through looks and smiles,
signs and gestures,
words and terms
of endearment,
and share intimacy
through kind thoughts
speech
and deeds.

Photo: Achinto

Save India

Here’s something I came upon, written 7 years ago. Some things have changed in India, making life very upbeat for some. But the situation remains much the same for all others.

A nation rooted in corruption, inefficiency and injustice, institutionalised by its predominantly decadent Hindu upper caste political rulers, through a cynical, divisive political system of living off vote-banks, in return for appeasing crumbs thrown to cruel leaders thriving on the ignorance, poverty, powerlessness and marginalisation of the masses. A colonial system of power continuing unchanged, with a centralised, authoritarian state apparatus, breeding a parasitical self-serving politico-administrative class, living off the fat of the land and the blood of the people.

Almost half of the country struggling for survival, and most others grimly trying to hold on to whatever little they have, in a 'globalising' environment that has taken economy, society and culture for a giant wheel spin. The benefits of fifty years of the republic having been appropriated in full measure by a tiny layer of elites, living in utter comfort, privilege and power, at the expense of everybody and everything else. The prevailing ethos, 'each one for himself, by hook or by crook, and the devil take the hindmost'. The nation, for the elites, if it has any meaning at all, is limited to the very limited social, cultural, linguistic, symbolic and human universe that they inhabit, and the colonial status they occupy in free India. This is a rootless world, buoyed up the blood money extracted from India by the world economic system through the middleman-ship of her own rapacious parasites.

The land, forests, rivers, water resources, hills and mountains severely ravaged in environmental terms. Institutions run to the dogs. Mediocrity and incompetence rules. Social consciousness, integration and service a rare species. Power commanded by money and brute force. Citizens ignorant, apathetic, listless, cynical. Compromised. Animal passions, ancient hatreds, prejudice, contempt, violence on the ascendant. A society riven with discontent, among its minorities, backward and formerly untouchable castes, indigenous groups and less-developed, far-flung regions. Attacks on minorities. Separatist violence and anti-insurgency operations in distant boundaries, and crime at the grassroot. A legacy of the 'communal question' of colonial times, the continuing tragic saga of Hindu-Muslim antipathy in the subcontinent, itself an outcome of the more fundamental historically unaddressed question of the structures of governance, nationhood and identity in the context of social, cultural and ethnic pluralism in South Asia, in this day and age.

Communal riots and disruptions from time to time stoked by small and big players - politicians, hoodlums, real estate promoters, feeding upon and in turn feeding communal divisions. The legacy of colonial rule and partition continuing to haunt Kashmir, a state claimed by both India and Pakistan. Separatist militancy, terrorism, mujahideen fighters, ethnic cleansing, army operations, a war-like situation, human rights violations. Kashmir, a perpetual imbroglio, bleeding the country and keeping alive the fire of Hindu-Muslim communalism.

A nation steeped in inefficiency, injustice, indecency, indignity, indiscipline. Elections, coalition government formation and functioning fuelled by the ever-growing desire, of ever-growing numbers of the most cynically corrupt politicians, to make it to the centre to share the loot of office, using money, or violent force, or communal fires to come to office. Political parties deeply compromised in corruption and incapability during office, synonymous with opportunism, distortion of the legal machinery, divisive vote-bank politics and its ping-pong repercussions, alienated from substantive engagement with different sections of the common people, ideologically bankrupt and consisting almost entirely of professional politicians lacking in any merit whatsoever, except a manic ego, a lust for power and the loaves of office to be fulfilled by any means whatsoever. The basest motives and purposes drive political activity. A political party coming to legislative significance through willfully stoking upper-caste Hindu chauvinism, and aimed against minorities, backward castes and indigenous peoples.

Villages and slums remain in darkness. Unlettered women live out the gruelling ordeal of life. Children die for lack of clean drinking water.

Painting: Grief Revisited, watercolor © Melanie Weidner 2005.

Dear friend, enemy

I am encouraged by Gaelin's appreciation of my recently posted poem "Awareness" to share another poem, written in 1997.


Ode to an Enemy

Dear friend, enemy,
doubly am I beholden to you:
for it was your ceaseless attack that drove me
to the depths of my being
to find my true self -
responsible, inviolable, precious.
But more than that,
it is through trying to find
your most compassionate and protective core
within the mist of your supposed enmity
that I am plunged
grieving, sobbing, breathless,
into intimate love for you
from which I emerge
unvanquishable,
having drunk of the elixir of life.
How then can I but be utterly at your mercy?
I shall suffer in silence -
not your slings and slander,
which were merely phantasms
of my own creation;
nor for missing your friendship,
for I have been and am one with you;
but this futile loss of precious life
flung cheaply into the bog of sloth
to be compacted and thrown into the flames of purification.
There shall you be, friend, friendless
while I, your enemy, grieve your absence.
For only in the fullness of all
lies my own.

Elephant empathy

A couple of days ago, I wrote about evolution of the human personality, study of animal behaviour and social life, and Lord Buddha's Jataka Tales. Here’s an arresting report from The Economist (July 27th 2006).

Elephants, proverbially, never forget. This photograph suggests that they may even remember their dead. It comes from a paper about to be published in Applied Animal Behaviour Science by Iain Douglas-Hamilton, a Kenyan zoologist, and his colleagues. The question of whether intelligent mammals such as elephants have similar emotional reactions to those of people is much debated in zoological circles. Mr Douglas-Hamilton's researchers were able to observe the reaction of other elephants to the death of Eleanor, the matriarch of a group called the First Ladies. The picture shows an elephant from a neighbouring group pulling at her body. On several occasions before she died, other elephants had tried to help her stand up. Such behaviour is in contrast to that shown by most animals to sick or dead individuals. They just ignore them.

The Elephant, from The Dhammapada

Let me share with friends the (23rd) chapter from The Dhammapada (the Buddha's Path of Wisdom), titled "The Elephant".


As an elephant in the battlefield withstands
arrows shot from bows all around, even so shall
I endure abuse. There are many, indeed,
who lack morality.

Tamed elephants can be led into a crowd,
and the king mounts a tamed elephant. So too,
best among people is the subdued one who
endures abuse.

Excellent are well-trained mules,
thoroughbred Sindhu horses and noble tusker
elephants. But better still is the person
who has subdued oneself.

Not by these mounts, however, can
one go to the Untrodden Land (Nirvana), as one
who is self-tamed goes by one's own tamed and
well-controlled mind.

In must during rut, the tusker named
Dhanapalaka is uncontrollable. Held in captivity,
the tusker does not touch a morsel, but only
longingly calls to mind the elephant forest.

When a person is sluggish and gluttonous,
lazy, rolling around in bed like a fat pig--that
sluggard undergoes rebirth again and again.

Formerly this mind wandered about as
it liked, where it wished, according to its pleasure,
but now I shall thoroughly master it with wisdom,
as a mahout controls an elephant in rut.

Delight in heedfulness! Guard well your
thoughts! Draw yourself out of this bog of evil,
even as an elephant draws oneself out of the mud.

If for company you find a wise and
prudent friend, one who leads a good life, you should
overcome all impediments and keep this person's
company, joyously and mindfully.

But if for company you cannot find a wise
and prudent friend, one who leads a good life,
then, like a king who leaves behind a conquered
kingdom or a lone elephant in the elephant forest,
you should go your own way alone.

Better it is to live alone, there is no
fellowship with a fool. Live alone and do no evil;
be carefree like an elephant in the elephant forest.

Good are friends when need arises; good
is contentment with just what one has; good is
merit when life is at an end; and good is the
abandoning of all suffering (through enlightenment).

Good it is to serve one's mother; good
it is to serve one's father; good it is to serve
the Sangha; and good it is to serve the holy people.

Good is virtue until life's end; good is
faith that is steadfast; good is the acquisition
of wisdom; and good is the avoidance of evil.

The Elephant and the Dog

There are several stories in the Jataka Tales (stories of the Buddha’ former lives) about elephants. Here's a happy tale!

Once upon a time a Dog used to go into the stable where the king’s Elephant lived. At first the Dog went there to get the food that was left after the Elephant had finished eating.

Day after day the Dog went to the stable, waiting around for bits to eat. But by and by the Elephant and the Dog came to be great friends. Then the Elephant began to share his food with the Dog, and they ate together. When the Elephant slept, his friend the Dog slept beside him. When the Elephant felt like playing, he would catch the Dog in his trunk and swing him to and fro. Neither the Dog nor the Elephant was quite happy unless the other was nearby.

One day a farmer saw the Dog and said to the Elephant-keeper: “I will buy that Dog. He looks good-tempered, and I see that he is smart. How much do you want for the Dog?”

The Elephant-keeper did not care for the Dog, and he did want some money just then. So he asked a fair price, and the farmer paid it and took the Dog away to the countryside.

The king’s Elephant missed the Dog and did not care to eat when his friend was not there to share the food. When the time came for the Elephant to bathe, he would not bathe. The next day again the Elephant would not eat, and he would not bathe. The third day, when the Elephant would neither eat nor bathe, the king was told about it.

The king sent for his chief servant, saying, “Go to the stable and find out why the Elephant is acting in this way.”

The chief servant went to the stable and looked the Elephant all over. Then he said to the Elephant-keeper: “There seems to be nothing the matter with this Elephant’s body, but why does he look so sad? Has he lost a playmate?”

“Yes,” said the keeper, “there was a Dog who ate and slept and played with the Elephant. The Dog went away three days ago.”

“Do you know where the Dog is now?” asked the chief servant.

“No, I do not,” said the keeper.

Then the chief servant went back to the king and said, “The Elephant is not sick, but he is lonely without his friend, the Dog.”

“Where is the Dog?” asked the king.

“A farmer took him away, so the Elephant-keeper says,” said the chief servant. “No one knows where the farmer lives.”

“Very well,” said the king. “I will send word all over the country, asking the man who bought this Dog to turn him loose. I will give him back as much as he paid for the Dog.”

When the farmer who had bought the Dog heard this, he turned him loose. The Dog ran back as fast as ever he could go to the Elephant’s stable. The Elephant was so glad to see the Dog that he picked him up with his trunk and put him on his head. Then he put him down again.

When the Elephant-keeper brought food, the Elephant watched the Dog as he ate, and then took his own food.

All the rest of their lives the Elephant and the Dog lived together.

Garage Marriage

Like you have garage sales, I had a garage marriage. That was 21 years ago today. Like today, it was raining that evening.

Rajashi and I had decided to get married. My father wanted me get my grandmother’s approval and blessings, and since she was away it had to wait for her return to Calcutta. After she returned, I asked her to decide on the date. She looked up the Hindu almanac and settled on 2nd August.

We decided to have a simple civil ceremony, without any religious rituals. The marriage registrar had been informed. We didn't want any gala affair. We did'nt want any wasteful expenditure. There was no invitation card. We went and invited relatives and friends. We asked them not to bring any gifts, only their good wishes.

The ceremony and gathering was to take place in the garage space of the apartment building Rajashi lived in.

There were about 10 people from my immediate and near family, and I had invited a couple of college friends. A group of my activist friends/colleagues came down after a meeting of theirs nearby. Rajashi’s being a large and sociable family, there were over 200 people, relatives and close family friends.

I arrived there in the evening with my parents and sisters. A table and chairs had been arranged where the marriage register signing would take place. And chairs had been laid for guests to sit. We were the first to arrive. I sat down in the guest seating area. After some time, Rajashi’s teenage cousins – who had been assigned the task of “receiving the groom” in the traditional manner – appeared, looking flustered and embarassed. Take it easy, I told them.

Everything went off smoothly and happily. The three mandatory witness signatories were three special old ladies: Rajashi’s grandmother (about whom I wrote recently); my grandmother; and Rajashi’s father’s friend’s mother, who had been like a mother to him during his college years in Calcutta.

My friend George was the photographer. He caught me giving Rajashi a sermon after she came down, for being decked in ornaments, her head hung dolefully. And also grimacing in displeasure when sindur was applied to her forehead, on her mother’s insistence.

Guests were served snacks and a cold drink. I think it cost Rupees 5 or 7 per head.

It was a different kind of marriage. We’ve never attended a marriage like ours. And some people have also told us our wedding was unique, and complimented us.

I left my office early this evening, and went to pick up Rajashi from her office. I thought we might catch an evening show at a cinema. But she had some work to complete, so that was not possible. So I sat in her office and wrote this account.

Half moon over Gaya

In early 1997, I met a writer whose book I had read and been hugely inspired by.

The blurb on the back-cover described the author in powerful, resonant, awe-inspiring terms. The writer came to aquire the aura of an awesome sage in my consciousness. His address too was in the book, he lived in Dehradun. I was going to Dehradun to attend my school's platinum jubilee, so I met him just before returning home.

As it turned out, he was a small man - literally, and figuratively. And the things he told me - all of which which I listened to courteously, without protest or argument, as I was there with an attitude of reverence - were most apalling, reactionary, hateful and bigoted. So that was a big let-down and disappointment! It also left me quite disturbed.

Before I took his leave, he gave me a novel of his in Hindi, which he described as his magnum opus, called Bin udgam ke srot (The source-less streams), and wrote inside, in Hindi: "for Rama, who has given me the conviction that my work has meaning for the people of my country".

Taking the train back home that evening - I immediately struck up a friendship with two boys from a Dehradun school who were returning home after their ICSE examination. After they got off at Varanasi the next evening - I was left with a terrible sense of loneliness and sadness. I took out the Hindi novel and began reading.

I was struck by the lyrical, sensitive quality of the writing. As I remembered the author and my conversation with him, dismay and sadness grew inside me. The train stopped at Gaya, and I put down the book and walked down the compartment to the door, and standing there looked at the platform and then up at the night sky visible over the end of the platform shed. There was a half moon in the sky. I walked back rapidly to my seat and taking out my notebook began writing:

"A half-moon over Gaya ..."

Thus began an awakening in poetry. I had no interest in poetry before that. The following days, weeks and months saw me write many poems, many of them simply as if I was noting down or transcribing something dictated from within me, fully formed. This poetry was an expression from deep within my inner world, within an intensive context of personal experience, work and circumstances.

The poems are in Sandhyabhasha (twilight language), or mystic communication!

P.S.: I didn't read any more of that Hindi novel! Several years later I donated it to the library of my school in Dehradun.

The poem

Here’s what eventually became of that particular poem:


Lost and Found

Sensibility and the search begat awakening.
Sensibility lost - and thence the darkness of ignorance
In the black, black night of dispossession
Of the children of the forest.
Awareness - lost. Memory - lost. Knowledge - lost.

The Compassionate One blesses forever the seeker of forgotten knowledge.
Witness and reaper, through aeons of drought and bounty,
Planting seeds on earth and in spirit,
Irrigated through channels dug to the pure waters of life,
Fertilised with nutriment showered like pearldrops, petaldrops,
Guarded against foe and pest by angels and saints,
Ripened by eternal warmth.

Remembrance and reflection reveals a full moon of clear light,
Timeless mind, protector, through forest and conflagration, of purity and innocence,
Aloft a magical white steed coursing eternally through the heavens,
Illumining forever, seeker and sleeper alike.

The Piper, come to reassemble,
Boatman, come to ferry,
The children of the cave
From the shores of plague and deluge
To futures anew.

Creation and life,
Time and the universe,
Gods and their vehicles -
Like the Bo tree, all springing from roots
And in turn returning to source,
Nourishing and renewing Earth and life,
Nurturing Creation.

Another poem

Here's another poem from that period.


The Forest Aflame

Place and pulse. Night.
Deep in this forest of signs, in a clearing,
Beneath a fruit-laden fig tree
Surrounded by the lattice of its aerial roots
Formed like time and earth's trails,
Is laid a lotus blossom:
the Forest Queen's blessing.

Gathered here, a strange assembly:
A serpent, black, a mongoose, in two colours,
Both weary,
And a duckling, woebegone.
Having journeyed long and far on their own
And heard the tale of the egg and the chrysalis made of gold,
They made their way, separately, alone,
To this sacred grove
Propelled -- they know not how --
There to await -- they know not what --
But assembled nonetheless
In shared silence and deep obeisance
Before the magic blossom.

The golden egg:
laid by the Hen of Sustenance,
A shell-bound realm of astonishing distraction,
From which would break forth
A Rooster of dazzling plumage
To herald the dawn of awakening.
The golden chrysalis:
woven by the Worm of Being
Out of the fabric of the universe and sewn with the thread of time,
From which would take wing
A divinely-hued Butterfly
To multiply the Garden of Life.

Suddenly, a ray of the new morn pierces the foliage
And a shaft of gold descends upon this gathering.
Strange transformations then ensue.
A ruby of deepest red appears on the crown of the serpent
As she waits, coiled, beneath the tree, head raised to light.
The mongoose, awash in rays of red and gold, looks at himself
To find a fully gilded coat to protect him from the deepest cold.
And the duckling too gets his due of amazing grace
As his wings spread with majestic ease to reveal - a celestial swan.

The light of the new dawn now bathes the grove in flames of gold and red
As the serpent, the mongoose and the swan embrace, rapt in joy.
Bidding farewell to one another, they depart,
To make their way through water, land and sky
To the four corners of the earth
To tell their tale to eternity.

But there's a post-script, or a further twist to this curious tale.
At the very moment of the optical elusion
Two other wanderers reached, separately,
An edge of the forest clearing
And were witness to the whole episode.
A flea-bitten mongrel, a raggedy bag of skin and bone,
And an adolescent youth, lean and gaunt, humbly clad, in tattered garb.
Why were they here, what brought them there -- is not really known.

Stunned, entranced, they watched, boy and dog
In paralysed stupefaction.
Before they knew it the moment was over, the spell was cast.
The serpent, the mongoose and the swan had gone their separate ways
And simply vanished without a trace.
Back to real life, enraptured by it all, bewildered by what they saw,
Joyous beyond words and grieving for having missed some boat
But empowered even by remembrance,
They too dispersed.

Having been companion in witness
To what could possibly never bloom again,
Or even be believed by anybody else,
A bond was formed between boy and dog.
Both had sensed, even if they could not communicate in words,
The import of what they saw, and what life was all about.
Besides, the boy had found one true friend.
And as for the hapless beast, he knew he had found his master at last.

Now whether there were any further witnesses to all this --
Observing, comprehending, communicating --
Any person or animal, bird or bee, insect or tree,
Or any invisible sprite, or a flying unicorn just passing by --
Who would know?
And if there were, would one know?

Stop the killing!

When will this hate-filled calculas cease?
Will the slaughter of innocents bring you release?
Can the blood of babies secure peace?

Names

One of my early memories is of the first dilemma I felt and grappled with, when I was about 4. Every morning, I stood in front of the bathroom sink to brush my teeth, to get ready for school. That was always an unhappy prospect, making me sad. I would pick up my father’s dhoti lying on the wash-pile and hold it to my face and breathe in a feeling of security and belonging. In this routine, one day I wondered why there was such a profusion of things and names, and why the names of things were what they were. Why was a duck called a “duck”, and so on?

I was perplexed, and I wanted to know the answer. For several days, the time in front of the sink brought to mind the same dilemma, and I would ponder over this in my mind.

Then one day the answer came to me. Yes, it was so clear, I could now understand the whole matter. I was filled with satisfaction and contentment.

Its difficult to put that intuitive understanding into words - that each creature originally lived with and was part of God's family, and bore that name; later, they all came to form individual species bearing that name.

Soils

I was born in a Tamil family. And I grew up and have lived all my life in Bengal.

10 years ago, on a holiday in the Nilgiri hills in south India, through a sequence of melodic encounters and experiences, one after another - I felt that the Tamils were essentially a race of bards, and had been so through centuries of history and circumstance, right through to the present day, expressing their unstoppable melodic urge in religion after religion. And I felt that blood running through my own veins. I could understand anew the lyrics of the beautiful song "Putham pudhu bhumi" that I'd been captivated by (from the Tamil film Thiruda Thiruda, set to melody by AR Rehman) :

"Want a fresh new land,
Want one meal every day,
Golden rain must shower,
And the cuckoo must sing Tamil."

Here's a video clip of that song.



A couple of years later, I made a chance visit to Bangladesh, spending two days in Dhaka. I spent some time at a seminar organised by the Department of Sanskrit & Pali at the university. I came upon the Charyagiti, the earliest extant Bangla poems, and the songs of Lalan Fakir. I learnt about the Tantrik, Buddhist and Islamic heritage of the folk of east Bengal. I felt the unique sensibility of that soil, that has endured through millenia, and which has moulded folk devotion. If one wants to see the highest kind of human being, the most refined sensibility, the most lofty, sweetest and child-like face of humanity - it is the golden soil of Bangla that produces this. The national anthem of Bangladesh begins:

My Bangla of gold, I love you!

If my Tamil blood makes me sing - it is of Bengal that I sing, and the humble Bengali Muslim peasant's rare sensibility that I venerate. I am supremely fortunate indeed, and doubly blessed, by these two precious soils.

Here's the Bengali folk songs group Dohar's song offering to the soil of Bengal.

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Special breed

Speaking of soils - my friend JP recently wrote a very interesting piece on his blog, about planting seeds and tending plants with love and care and devotion.

Reading this reminded me of my visit to Smith College in Northampton, Mass, in 1992. There I saw the last surviving specimen of an original “dawn redwood” tree. I was awed. I collected a couple of cones of the dawn redwood. (On that trip to the US, I also visited Walden pond, in Concorde, Mass, where Thoreau had lived; and collected some souvenirs, like leaves etc).

Over the years, when I want to give a very special gift to a very special friend - I give them a seed from the dawn redwood cone. To signify that the person is invaluable, a single survivor, of a special breed!

When I shared this with JP, he said:

"I think every one of us is a single survivor of a special breed…".

Religion

For a long time now, I have been studying and reflecting on Religion (i.e. all religions), sensing the awesome, profound truths and edifying content of the scriptures of Judaism and Buddhism, the Gospel of Christ, Islam. Not as a 'scholar' but as a seeker. My attitude was to implicitly accept what I was reading, without question or critique, and to try to understand what was written.

Also the sacred texts of the faith I was born into, 'Hindu', like The Upanishads. Thus, for instance, I felt the Srimad Bhagavat - was a scientific treatise on the origin, creation and evolution of the universe.

Advanced human life (of the mind, of spirit) is far more ancient than the western world believes, much has happened which is entirely unknown today, but with clues lying around for those who wish to know and observe.

Exchanges - commerce of soul - have taken place between peoples and cultures from ancient times, exhibiting a sweetness of intercourse incomparable to anything in contemporary life. So much of the wealth of 'secular' (i.e. non-religious) life - is the fruit of spiritual fabrication over millenia. Ordinary life is impregnated with the sacred. Everything around us - is sacred.

I don't like to use the terms 'Hindu' or 'Hinduism' - since that is etymologically and otherwise meaningless. Just like harmonising the 'scientific' and 'spiritual', there is the challenge of harmonising the spiritual and social aspects, retaining spiritual inspiration while working to analyse social mores (with their pseudo-religious trappings).

'Reading Temples', for instance, or 'Reading Ritual' - could be themes for projects, to prepare curricula and learning modules for school students.

Karl Marx wrote: "I hate the whole pack of gods in their heavens..." That was perhaps a more fundamentally spiritual articulation, than all the pious hypocrisies of the so-called religious-minded! If only Dr Marx had actually visited India and lived and travelled here - its interesting to imagine the transformations he might have undergone, from the over-conditioning of Europe. Extraordinary scrutiniser that he was - unfortunately he did not get down to scrutinising the very notion of what is human, which he simply received and swallowed lock, stock and barrel, from his culture, overemphasising the 'material', the 'rational' and the 'economic'.

Bringing up, 'educating' and sensitising future generations properly – is the simple solution to all the sufferings plaguing the world. And here, its as much a question of what not to do, as of what to do. What needs to be done – is simply to follow nature, and the human being's fundamental nature. But centuries of obfuscation have taken their toll...

I had written earlier about Sri Aurobindo's view that "all problems of existence are essentially problems of harmony". And the primary means for achieving harmony is the human personality.

Thinking about Darwin - some years ago, it struck me that while he had worked on the Evolution of the Species - what about the evolution of the human personality (in the image of the Maker)? Study of animal BEHAVIOUR and social life would give powerful leads. Lord Buddha's Jataka Tales - may be seen as a study of evolution of the human personality. In human form and guise, the world is actually full of animals of different kinds. But where is MAN?! The purpose of life on earth - is the realisation of the human personality. Love, knowledge and action (in their most profound sense) – are the three means for the perfection of personality.

In glory and grandeur, in struggle and survival

In response to my recent post on the enforcement of a "Hindu-only" zone around Tirupati in south India, Mr IK Shukla from USA has sent this response. Thank you very much Shukla-saab.

Let me hope that there emerge several blogs preaching amity, bringing people closer, enhancing our awareness, exploring our potential, and improving our prospects. We in the subcontinent have so much in common to keep us bound together in glory and grandeur, in struggle and survival, beyond the vicissitudes of history and accidents of nation-state contingencies...

The fine art of friendship

One of my dearest friends on this planet is Lou. He is an architect-planner, from Bucharest and Jerusalem. We met at a seminar-course in Salzburg in 1992. Through the two weeks that we were together in Salzburg, we grew closer and closer. We were naturally drawn to one another, intellectually, emotionally and in terms of temperament and sensibility. Mutual empathy. Amazing intimacy.

We stayed in touch intermittently after the seminar, through letters and then e-mail. In late 1996, Lou invited me to join him in his work on neighbourhood renewal in Jerusalem. I was thrilled beyond words, and this inspired and empowered me immensely in my own difficult work in Howrah slums which I had just begun. I became immersed in my slum work and in the all-India urban poverty research study I subsequently joined. In late-1998, after I had started working full-time in the Priya Manna Basti slum, in the midst of the acute despondency I was suffering on account of all the setbacks we were facing, I wrote to Lou after a long time. He re-iterated his invitation – and so in December 1998, I went to Jerusalem.

I stayed and worked with Lou for 2 months, and then I had to return to my family in Calcutta. Lou and I were together almost all day and every day during this period. A lot of work was completed by us. And I was in that awesome, unique city of yore, going about a regular daily routine of life, as well as social, intellectual, emotional and spiritual engagements, and taking in all the resonances of that place, which my work there also required me to study and fathom in essence very quickly. As if I had always lived there, as if that was my city, and I belonged there.

It is difficult to put into words my experience in Jerusalem, each day rich and intense with seeing, feeling, thinking, learning, self-realising. Some of this I recorded in my daily diary. And all this was enabled by Lou.

How a person can give so much to another! How can two people - from completely different backgrounds and cultures - be so close to one another?! It defies imagination and belief. That is how Lou and I feel. In Jerusalem, we met a friend of Lou’s for lunch. She told me: Rama, Lou is in love. Is it you?!

In the midst of serious work, Lou would wink at me. Or out of the blue we would just face each other and smile and hug one another, kiss each other’s cheeks, and say “Oh how I love you.” As if one is an extension of the other, the two flow as one.

Since that unforgettable visit to Jerusalem, I have been there again and again! In my first visit, I met someone who then invited me to speak at a workshop on environmental awareness in Israel-Palestine in January 2000. I was there for a fortnight. During this visit I became acquainted with Jean Claude, a gifted jazz musician and bassist. JC and I, two strangers to each other - yet we became very close. JC is afflicted with multiple sclerosis. The second intifada started later that year; so far, it had been “the peace process”. In February 2003, I went to Jerusalem again, on Jean Claude’s invitation, to sing with his bass accompaniment. I was there for 10 days. We did 3 public performances in Jerusalem, and also a recording.

Each time I was in Jerusalem, I was living with Lou, and felt I was part of the city. Each visit built upon the earlier one, my circle of friends and independent engagement with the city growing, my inner self opening up and finding increasing expression - the whole Jerusalem experience becoming richer and deeper. Lou enabled all that, like a doting father, a loving brother, an inseparable friend – as if seating me on his shoulder, so I could look far. He laid out, explained and shared his adopted city Jerusalem, and country, Israel.

Through JC, I met his friend Judith. In February 2003, I was really fortunate to enjoy her hospitality. Her house, the amazing accoustics of the space (as I discovered through my singing), the awesome spiritual experience I had there, Judith's refined sensibility, her erudition, eloquence, versatility and fun-filled personality, warmth, generosity of spirit ... I gave Judith a personal name, Tara Lakshmi, to express how I saw and felt towards her.

In between, in May 2002, Lou and I met again, at a city planning congress in Salzburg. I went because Lou urged me to join him there. That was indeed fortuitous. I made some new friends in Salzburg, like Einat, also an architect, and a university lecturer, from Haifa, whom I visited in 2003. She showed and shared her beautiful city with me, making me feel every city should have someone like her who was the heart-head-conscience of the city. So the reports of rocket attacks on Haifa - make me very sad indeed.

As I was in Europe in 2002 after 10 years, I was really hit by the meaning and implications of globalisation. Having recently taken the reins of a small manufacturing enterprise started by my father – this gave me the jolt and boost that made me think about the future of this enterprise, and work on export promotion. A lot has happened in the last 4 years. A tiny unit in Calcutta is sending its critical-care precision instruments to the five continents. But its a difficult job, and a long haul.

Lou’s daughter, Avigail, is also an architect. Seeing her just cheers one’s soul, she is simply a delight. And Lou has a 7-year old son Nimrod, whom I adore. Lou named our trio in one of our child-plays (perhaps inspired by Shrek which Nimrod loved to watch): Lou – Zulu-bulu, Nimrod – Zulu-trulu, Rama – Rama-bulu. That was so symmetric!

Much has happened in the last 3 years in that part of the world. And of course right now, we are in the midst of another violent crisis in Israel-Lebanon. I also have Palestinian friends, in Jerusalem and the West Bank, and am aware of how they see things and feel. So I despair, whether I shall return to Jerusalem, and be with Lou again. But thankfully, Lou and I can meet elsewhere. I’m eagerly looking forward to that.

Lou started his blog recently and sent me the link. That pushed me to start my blog. Now we are at least in regular contact through our blogs. His blog is also a good source of information and analysis about the "Middle East".

Life is essentially about the fine art of friendship, its what makes life worth living, and its what uplifts one from all the miseries and dismal realities of life.

The cracked pot

A water bearer in China had two large pots, each hung on each end of a pole which he carried across his neck.

One of the pots had a crack in it, and while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master's house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water in his master's house.

Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfections, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.

After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream.

"I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you." "Why?" asked the bearer. "What are you ashamed of?"

"I have been able, for these past two years, to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your master's house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work and you don't get full value for your efforts," the pot said.

The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot and in his compassion he said, "As we return to the master's house I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path."

Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun warming the beautiful wild flowers on the side of the path, and this cheered it some.

But at the end of the trail, it still felt bad because it had leaked out half its load, and so again it apologized to the bearer for its failure.

The bearer said to the pot, "Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of the path but not on the other pot's side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it. I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you've watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master's table. Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house."

Each of us has our own unique flaws. We're all cracked pots. But it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. You've just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them. Don't be afraid of your flaws. Acknowledge them and allow them to be taken advantage of, and you too can be the cause of beauty in a pathway. Go out boldly, knowing that in our weakness we can find strength.

Author unknown

Tirupati Hindu zone

I read with great alarm and dismay in today's The Telegraph (Calcutta) about the "Hindu-only" zone that is going to be enforced around Tirupati, the place in south India where the Venkateswara (Balaji) temple is located. Tirupati is one of the most important pilgrimage sites for Hindus.

As an Indian, and as someone born in a Hindu family, whose family deity is the one in whose name this is purportedly being done - I am shocked and shamed. This also violates everything that I have understood the sacred deity (whose name my family bears) to signify.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna tells Arjuna: “... whenever a decline of dharma occurs, and an uprising of adharma, I then manifest My Self. To deliver the saintly and vanquish the evil-doers, to re-establish dharma, I appear in every age.”


Tirupati Hindu zone
G.S. Radhakrishna

Hyderabad, July 28: The constitutional guarantee of free religious expression will now be suspended across a 322.68-sq-km (80,628-acre) area around Tirupati's Balaji temple.

No other religion can be preached - and no mosques or churches built - in this area spread across seven hills, the Tirumala Tirupati Dewasthanam said yesterday. The Dewasthanam till now controlled a 6,600-acre area that includes Tirumala - the small temple town housing 10,000-15,000 people, mostly temple workers - and the ban applied there. The Andhra government has now handedover to the Dewasthanam the rights to an additional 74,000 acres of surrounding hilly land, mostly a reserved forest. The move followed a report by a panel of religious heads and retired judges that Christian missionaries were distributing pamphlets and cassettes in and around Tirumala.

A.P.V.N. Sharma, temple executive officer, said the entire area will be declared a religious and autonomous township. "Non-Hindus will no longer be employed in the service of Balaji," he added. The committee reported that 42 non-Hindus, living just outside Tirumala, were now engaged in peripheral temple-related services, such as transport and accommodation.

Non-Hindu visitors will virtually be barred from the temple. "Even VIPs of other religions will have to sign a declaration that they have faith in Hinduism to gain entry," a spokesman said. The Dewasthanam took control of the earlier 6,600 acres six years ago by getting the state to forcibly resettle Tirumala town's 2,000 hereditary residents. Their properties have been converted into lease land for the temple.

Appeal to the President of India

I sent an appeal to the President of India, through his website. His e-mail id is: presidentofindia@rb.nic.in


Respected Shri Kalam-ji

I read with great alarm in today's The Telegraph (Kolkata) about the Hindu-only zone that is going to be enforced in Tirupati.

As a citizen of India, I am shocked and shamed that this can happen in a secular democratic country. This is definitely utterly unconstitutional, violating Indians' right to life (livelihood), equality, residence and freedom of worship.

It is an insult to non-Hindu Indians. And it is a sullying of the sacred names of Tirupati and Lord Balaji, by using them as the reason for this trampling on Indians' constitutional rights.

As you are the custodian of our precious constitution, I have no recourse but to write to you to ensure that our invaluable secular heritage is protected.

Yours respectfully

World Map of Happiness

A world map of happiness prepared by Adrian White, analytic social psychologist at the University of Leicester (U.K.), ranks Denmark as the happiest country and Burundi as the most unhappy of 178 countries.

Switzerland is 2nd, Austria 3rd, Iceland 4th and Bahamas 5th.

Canada is 10th, Ireland 11th, USA 23rd, Germany 35th, UK 41st, Spain 46th, Italy 50th, France 62nd, China 82nd, Japan 90th and India 125th.

According to the study, happiness is found to be closely associated with health, followed by wealth and education

Health is more important than wealth or education. Further analysis was performed to examine the links between satisfaction with life and measures of life expectancy (health), wealth (GDP per capita) and education (access to secondary level education). It was found that satisfaction with life correlated most closely with health, followed by wealth and then education.

Adrian White said “The concept of happiness, or satisfaction with life, is currently a major area of research in economics and psychology, most closely associated with new developments in positive psychology. There is increasing political interest in using measures of happiness as a national indicator in conjunction with measures of wealth."

"The three predictor variables of health, wealth and education were also very closely associated with each other, illustrating the interdependence of these factors."

“There is a belief that capitalism leads to unhappy people. However, when people are asked if they are happy with their lives, people in countries with good healthcare, a higher GDP per capita, and access to education were much more likely to report being happy.”

“The frustrations of modern life, and the anxieties of the age, seem to be much less significant compared to the health, financial and educational needs in other parts of the World."

"Uplift them before they rise in revolt"

The Statesman (Calcutta) today carries an interview with the Vice President of India, Mr Bhairon Singh Shekhawat.

Mr Shekhawat makes some strong comments. That he says this after long years of holding high public office - should make one think.

"A vast segment of our population, more than 26o million, are living below the poverty line. They constitute the fifth pillar of our democracy ~ rather the most important pillar of democracy. The other four pillars ~ legislature, executive, judiciary and media ~ cannot harm each other, but if the fifth pillar gets organised and rises in revolt due to protracted poverty and distress, then not only the four pillars but also the very foundations of our democratic system can be jeopardised."

"The stark reality is that about 26o million people are living below the poverty line, about 25 % men and 47 % women are still illiterate. Our country, which was self-reliant in the production of food grain till some time ago, is compelled to import food grain, pulses and oil seeds. Farmers commit suicide because of indebtedness. We have acknowledged primary education as a fundamental right, but about 30 % children are deprived of basic education even today. The drop-out rate before reaching 8th standard is 53 % and by 10th it is about 63 %. Can we deny the fact that despite having more than 300 universities and about 12,000 colleges, only about 8 % are able to get higher education? In many developing countries this figure is as high as 25 %. It is my firm opinion that we may secure high levels of GDP to whatever extent we want, we may add to our foreign exchange reserve as many millions of dollars we want, we may attain dominance in the fields of technical knowledge, industry and trade, but unless we improve the living standards of the fifth pillar of our society or provide them the right to live with dignity we cannot have all-inclusive development."

"Despite having higher education, children belonging to poor families attain a low level of employment with marginal salaries whereas children belonging to affluent families with similar educational attainment get lucrative employment opportunities with handsome salaries. Here comes the role of the state. We need to establish a system in which poverty should not be a hindrance to one’s development and everyone gets equal opportunities to ensure there’s no sense of dissatisfaction among poor children."

"While the edifice of democracy rests on its four estates, the key pillar of strength of democracy is people’s welfare. In my view, this pillar ~ the fifth pillar ~ needs to be nurtured and strengthened by everyone because the actual strength of democracy lies in it. Uplift them before they rise in revolt."

Read the full interview here.

28 July

Today’s date, 28 July, and this combination of numbers, 28 & 7, are mnemonics of conscience for me.

They connote loss, as opposed to possession, and sacrifice, as opposed to indulgence.

This day, several years ago, was a very sad one for me, full of grief, pain and darkness. And I had brought all this on myself, with my desire, craving and grasping, despite knowing everything.

Ravaged and devastated with intimations of loss as I woke up that day, I willed everything I cherished to be taken away from me, and accepted living with that loss.

But I could not bear the pain. I wrestled with it, and sobbed and wept – and before the day ended, I found solace and I saw light. It was not rage or vanity but trust, compassion and love that brought light.

Through my folly, I had been haunted by some lines from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet. After I emerged from my ordeal of 28 July, I still did not learn. And hence the teaching of this date, on transcending craving and embracing sacrifice, had to be grievously re-learnt anew. Now I can understand and accept Gibran, when he tells us:

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

Our moments of extreme helplessness are the very moments we are actually lifted to the bosom of Life, and our experience of pain is actually the searing heat of that protective embrace. Dispossession and loss also bring safe deliverance.

Picture: Untitled Grief, by Shane Moore

One month of this blog

I started this blog one month ago. I installed a sitemeter a week later. I had e-mailed and sms-ed my friends to take a look. I also started learning about blog-sphere by going through various kinds of blogs, making searches by some key terms related to my interests. I left comments on others’ blogs.

Over 1,000 visitors have come so far. On average, over 40 people visit each day, spending about 6 minutes here. The lowest no. of visitors on a day was 24, and the highest 149. The visitors so far have been from 39 countries, from the 5 continents.

A few people leave their comments. A few people are regular visitors. A few people have carried some of my posts on their blogs. A few people have put me on their blog-roll.

But most importantly, through my engagement with blog-sphere and through my blog – I have re-connected with an old college friend (after 26 years), as well as with another college friend I had lost touch with, and also found some new friends with whom I feel a close commonality of sensibility, through reading their blogs and then exchanging e-mails with.

Who is visiting? Who is reading? Why? How do they feel about what they read? How does it affect them? And is all this at all significant in any sense?

For at least 15 years now, I have wanted to be a (full-time) writer, of fiction and non-fiction, publishing book after book. Though that hasn’t happened, and nothing has been published, I have written a lot, especially over the last 9 years.

Self-publishing, through a blog – can be a writer’s ultimate dream, and shorn of all the attendant things which have nothing to do with writing per se. You write, you want people to read this and respond, people from all over the world read what you write, immediately as well as later, they respond, you share a relationship with your readers, all your writing is available for anyone to read, anywhere, at any time, for ever – what more can one ask for?!

In one of my first posts (on 27 June 2006), I wrote about the name of my blog, inspired by the book The Prince who became a Cuckoo, by Lo-Dro, one of Tibet’s most cherished tales, illustrative of Buddhist teachings. That was a split second choice, at the moment of filling up the blogger registration template. I felt as if that tale - and its elaboration of journey, enlightenment and song - was all that mattered.

A new journey has begun through this blog, something new has started in my life, and even in just one month it has been personally enriching. I hope readers have got something out of it as well. The future is pregnant with possibility.

The cuckoo looks forward to every new day, of journey, enlightenment and song!

Cyclone strikes

Orissa, a state along India’s eastern seaboard, adjoining the Bay of Bengal, was hit by an extreme cyclonic storm, in late-October 1999. Coastal Orissa was devastated by the combined action of storm surge, high speed cyclonic winds and local flooding.

An estimated 15 million people were directly affected. About 15,000 people perished. Over 10 million people were rendered homeless, over half a million cattle were lost, and most of the standing crops were destroyed.

Orissa is one of India’s poorest states. The levels of living and power of vulnerable populations in coastal Orissa are low, even though this is a relatively prosperous area of the state.

3 weeks after the super-cyclone, I visited the affected area as a member of the TARU team undertaking a rapid assessment of damage to housing and lifeline infrastructure. I reproduce below my field notes from our visit to Sahadabedi village, in Erasama Block of Jagatsinghpur District, Orissa.


One of the first things that strikes the visitor to this village - which is at least 10 kms inland - is the many shaven heads of small boys and young men. Many in this village, which lies within the worst affected belt, had perished.

The hamlet of Sahadabedi (under Jirailo village panchayat) had a pre-cyclone population of about 350, or 46 households. The adjacent Bengali Para hamlet consisted on 24 households. All the familes lived in mud (cob) houses with thatch roofs. The Bengali households (from Mednipur district in West Bengal) do not own any agricultural land, and they derived their livelihood from agricultural labour. Relations between the people of Sahadabedi and Bengali Para are said to be harmonious, with inter-community marriages also taking place.

78 people from this village were killed in the cyclone, 42 adult males, 22 children, and 14 women. 24 families in all lost their members. One entire family was killed, save a young son who was away attending a tailoring course. In another family, all were killed except an old woman and two young children.

This is a single paddy crop village, with a subsequent minor mung dal (lentil) crop. Because of inflow of sea-water into the Tibriya river adjacent to the village, farmers are unable to plant another crop. The village is flanked on the other side by the Hansua river. About 150 acres of agricultural land in all is owned by the villagers.

The villagers had been fore-warned about the cyclone, as early as on Tuesday 26 October 1999. But people thought there would only be strong winds and heavy rain, and that they would have to remain indoors. Rain and wind started on Thursday 28 October 1999. On Friday morning, at 4 am, very strong winds, from the N-NE direction started blowing. At 11 am, the surge of sea-water from the east hit the village: a huge wave of water, advancing with a roaring sound and topped by a smoke-like cloud of spray. Those who saw this were left speechless and paralysed in terror. The roofs collapsed over the houses and the water broke down the earth walls and destroyed the houses. People clutched at the roof and tree-tops in a bid to survive. Many were washed away. Tree braches broke in the fierce wind and those clutching these were carried away. Livestock were swept away.

People stayed in their perches on roof-tops, in the rain and wind, for 5 days, without any food or water. On the sixth day the government relief team arrived and provided relief supplies and materials. Many people sought shelter in a brick-RCC building in the adjacent hamlet of Ekghoria. They remained clutching one another in waist-deep water for 3 days, without any food or water, praying for succour.

Those with large houses, with a large, high roof, were able to save themselves by holding on to the roof. The only public building in the village, the Harwali Thakurani temple, also a mud-thatch structure, was also washed away. Only the image of the goddess remained.

About 450 heads of livestock were lost in Sahadabedi. Only 11 animals are left. All household assets, belongings, foodgrain and seed stocks, agricultural implements etc were lost. Because of inundation by sea water, the standing paddy crop has been entirely destroyed. Land productivity is expected to be significantly affected. People hope the next June crop will be realised, but expect a much lower yield. Restoring agricultural operations without livestock or implements or seeds has cast a pall of anxiety over the minds of farmers.

Riverbank embankments have been partially breached. Village paths have been buried under earth, debris and felled trees. A hand-pump served as the source of drinking water in Sahadabedi. This is being used again now.

The main road approach to the hamlet had been damaged and the approach paths to the hamlet were under water for several days after the cyclone.

Villagers together with outside rescue and relief workers and volunteers cleared and cremated the dead bodies. The villagers are in a kind of daze, numbed and in a state of shock, yet to fully digest that they have survived when so many, including close kin of many, had perished. They are just living on the little relief they have obtained and are beginning to realise the gravity of their plight and all that confronts them. “Our brain is not functioning”, they say. Their situation is dire, and they are unable to think out what they should do. Their immediate priority is to rebuild their house somehow. Restoring agriculture and ensuring next year’s crop is their next concern.

The revenue inspector was here 8-10 days ago to enquire about deaths and to list the damage to houses and loss of livestock. No intimation has been given yet on any financial assistance.

Making some arrangement to prevent the saline water inflow into the adjacent river Tigiriya is an issue the farmers are very concerned about. However, there has been no formal initiative on this from the government or panchayat side. Some 15-20 villages could benefit from such a scheme, through improved agriculture.

Having learnt from this cyclone, the next time there is a cyclone warning, people will take the matter more seriously. If arrangements are made to evacuate them, the villagers will readily leave. They realise the importance of building a cyclone shelter and say they are willing to contribute their voluntary labour to build a shelter at a suitable site that could cater to a number of villages and hamlets. This place can also serve as a school or a community hall, or a kirtan-bhajan (devotional singing) hall at other times.

There are no social or voluntary organisations working in this village. The people hope some food-for-work programme will be started. Because of loss of livestock, they are now thinking of using power-tillers and want assistance in this regard. They also want assistance for seeds and fertilisers.

Having seen and interacted with villagers across virtually the entire region affected by the cyclone, surge and related flood, there is clearly a tangible, qualitative difference, in the attitude and thinking of people in the isolated small villages in the worst-hit areas, who have personally experienced the death of many and been lucky to survive – in comparison to people in villages less affected. Though wanting assistance to rebuild their lives, they have a largely self-reliant demeanour. The people of Sahadabedi possess this spirit.

Disasters – natural & man-made

Natural disasters may strike a people, but its impact depends upon the existing situation within society. In that sense, the fundamental causes of the resultant devastation have to be found within the functioning of society, government and institutions, and in social relations.

Rehabilitation is therefore essentially a process of awakening to the critical necessities for building a humane, just, and sustainable society. A natural disaster could serve to initiate a process to address long-neglected matters. Rehabilitation could act as a means for renewal of a moribund society.

Read the full essay here.

Photo: © Raghu Rai / Magnum Photos

A poem to commemorate new beginning

In 2002, I wrote to my friend James: “It looks like a long, difficult, sad period of depression has lifted and a new, energetic beginning is being made, in a new direction.”

James replied with a poem “to commemorate new beginning”.


The Lifting of the Dread (for Rama)

James Christopher Aboud

Here's to the lifting of the dread, to the ball of hair
choking us without strangulation
that is spat out suddenly without explanation;

Here's to the unnoticeable things that once noticed
unlock the doors that lead us back

that remind us that everything is temporary
including this day, this beautiful day,
this moment of lightness seeping through the heavy sky

O let us memorize this moment as a prayer is memorized.

Painting: New Beginning, by David Miller.

The algebra of infinite expansion

"The very crudities of the first attack on a significant problem... are more illuminating than all the pretty elegance of the standard texts which has been won at the cost of perhaps centuries of finicky polishing."

Eric Temple Bell, about Mathematics

Thank you Peter!

Earth-shattering

In August 1997, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of India’s independence, I felt that the best way to commemorate this, to pay homage to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation, was to work to eliminate service latrines from the slums of Howrah.

A ‘service latrine’ is a toilet that has to be manually cleaned out, by lowly sweepers. This is an arrangement that was widespread in old towns and cities across India. The image of a person carrying a basket of excreta on his / her head – had been the subject of a call to conscience by Mahatma Gandhi. But it was only in 1986 that the govt. of India finally enacted a law banning such ‘manual scavenging’. Local bodies had to ensure the implementation of this and a programme was subsequently initiated to provide a subsidy for the conversion of service latrines into sanitary toilets.

We had found and demonstrated through a pilot project the solution to this apparently insoluble problem, which affected thousands of people, and was responsible for severe environmental health risks. The lives of hundreds of people had been positively transformed. And very foul spots, in the midst of the metropolis, were rehabilitated.

And now, we had researched and developed a community-based programme for the complete elimination of service latrines from Howrah’s slums. We had surveyed slum households and learnt about their situation and the willingness to pay for the toilets. We had engaged with a leading housing finance company and got them to give loans for building toilets. We had got the approval of the metropolitan development authority, who also agreed to advance the govt subsidy component up-front, for 10 toilet units at a time.

I felt like a scientist who has made an earth-shattering new discovery, expanding the frontiers of knowledge and transforming human life. (As a 11-year old, I had read with rapt awe Eve Curie's biography of Madame Curie which my mother had presented on new year's day in 1972, with the inscribed exhortation: "Go through this book like a book worm & may it inspire you to great deeds.")

Read the full essay here.

Mirror of awareness

When we see through our eyes – what we see is only a resultant of our own mental projections. Rather like Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty …

So everything we see – can be taken as a mirror, to know more about oneself.

Especially people, and our thoughts and feelings in response to them. An unpleasant situation with two colleagues at work helped me to see this.

In late 1996, I wrote a poem about this, called “Awareness”.


Through your appearance friend, I learnt to recognise myself,
Your inward is in my outward, I am the inward in your outward.
If I am ever right, that is only because of you
And mine the evil that poisons you.
You are only a figment of my imagination,
While I know myself only through your blessing.
My place is at your feet, by your side, and in your embrace
May you be the body through which I realise myself.
Through failure and betrayal, I struggle to uphold your love and compassion,
Disconsolate shame my constant reward.
The world is my mirror, I look and see myself;
May I be able to be yours, and help you to see yourself.
In gratitude for your kindness, through which I am,
May I be able to help you know who you are.

Image: from the website The Mirror of Galadriel.

Morning with the boys

I spent today morning with my sons Rituraj & Rishiraj.

But they are far away, in their school in Rishi Valley in south India, while I'm in Calcutta!

For a long time, I'd been deferring the termite elimination at my family house. A few days ago, I saw that there had been a new termite invasion in one of the rooms. So I immediately called the pest control company and gave the go-ahead for the elaborate treatment. The work began today, and so I stayed at home to attend to that.

I had to move all the things in all the rooms, away from the walls. In my sons' bedroom, moving their desk, I came upon their footprints on the wall.

And in my bedroom, behind the large mirror-dressing table unit - hanging from a cross-piece, like a victory flag, was a T-shirt of Rishiraj's. I visualised a no-holds-barred brawl between the boys, with someone having hurled the T-shirt at the other, with decimatory intent. I know the path of a projectile in a vacuum is parabolic. So allowing for the change in parameters, the T-shirt-missile had taken some kind of path and slipped through the crack of space behind the un-moveable mirror unit - and stayed there, who knows for how long.

Also behind the mirror unit - the mystery of the once missing chocolates was partially solved. Strewn there, away from anyone's sight, were the chocolate wrappers, conveniently chucked behind the mirror to ensure certain non-discovery.

"Don't dirty the wall!"

"Stop this fighting this instant!"

"Who's gobbled the chocolates?"

But when I came upon the footprints, and the suspended T-shirt and the hidden chocolate wrappers - my boys kept me company as I plodded on dejectedly with the arduous business of moving things.

Did I miss them!

So I sat down and wrote a letter to Rituraj and Rishiraj - telling them how they had given me company through a morning's hapless work, with the telltale signs of everything they should'nt have done. And that I was glad for that.

Grandma’s eyes

One afternoon in December 1991, I got a phone call at work from my father-in-law, to tell me that my wife’s grandmother – his mother-in-law – had passed away. He asked me to come down to her house when I could. Grandma was over 80, she’d had a long, eventful life, with many years of hardship and struggle as a young widow with 8 children, as well as several more nieces and nephews she brought up. But she had lived to see all her offspring, and several of her many grandchildren, all do very well in life in every way. My wife was close to her and so I too became acquainted with her through accompanying my wife on visits to her house and to family functions and get-togethers. Grandma had been ailing, and had been in hospital for a few days.

I wound up my work at office and went to her house. My office, Grandma’s house, my in-laws house, as well as the rented apartment I lived in until recently, were all very close to one another, around Gariahat in south Calcutta. When I reached the house in Dover Lane, my wife’s uncles were there. Her body arrived from the hospital. Then eldest uncle told me that Grandma had donated her eyes and instructed her family to see to this. She had passed away around noon. The corneas had to be removed within a few hours. It was already late afternoon. Could I do what was necessary?

I accepted the task and immediately set off, taking a taxi. A friend of mine had been involved in mounting a campaign for body and organ donation, and had managed to get the govt’s support through an order that all the 4 medical college hospitals in Calcutta would receive bodies and collect organs for transplant. I had assisted and participated in his work off and on. So it was just a question of going to the nearest medical college and arranging the collection of the corneas.

I headed towards the National Medical College, near Park Circus. In the usual slow moving traffic, it took a while to get there. I kept the taxi waiting and went into the hospital complex. I had never been here before Any public hospital in Calcutta – a scene of chaos and crowds. Its difficult to make any sense of what is where. No one to ask for help. One is always directed somewhere else. I finally reached the ophthalmology department and found someone to enquire from, only to learn that there was no arrangement for receiving corneas here.

Time was ticking away. The corneas had to be removed quickly otherwise it would be futile. Back to my taxi. I headed towards the Nilratan Sarkar Medical College. I had been there once, for an investitgation by the head of ENT, thanks to my landlady's grandson who was a medical student there. It was not so far off, in Entally. But the traffic was bad now, as it was the beginning of the evening office rush. I reached the hospital complex and kept the taxi waiting. Another scene of even more chaos and crowds. These were supposed to be hospitals, but it was anything but a sterile, hygienic, organised, quiet atmosphere. Again multiple enquiries, again the same frustration, and finally again to a doctor in the ophthalmology department, again only to learn that this hospital too did not receive corneas. I vented my frustration, asserting the govt’s announcement that all the medical college hospitals would receive this. I was told that the reality was that there were no arrangements for this, and that I should go to the Calcutta Medical College, which was the only place with the set-up.

Back again to my taxi. The Calcutta Medical College was a huge complex, it was going to be even more chaotic there. I remembered visiting my university professor many years ago, when he was there for surgery. I had gone to the hospital unit close to the Central Avenue entrance. That had been somewhat more sane and organised. So I headed towards that place.

The Calcutta Medical College was spoken about in reverential terms in my home as I was growing up, with my two aunts and an uncle having studied there before going to England where they settled down and practiced. On one of his visits to Calcutta during my university days, my uncle had taken me on a tour of the college where he had studied and shown me around. I felt the awesome grandeur and gravity of the institution that I had grown up hearing so much about.

It was the peak of the office rush, and I was now in the heart of the city. The traffic was terrible, the vehicles barely moving, just crawling along between long periods of waiting at traffic signals and unending hold-ups. Time was ticking away. I was on the edge, in a rage. That was it. Grandma’s eyes were going to be lost. And I was not going to be able to do anything about it. I went into a panic. I was trembling. Terror seized my heart. My breath broke into sobs and gasps, my voice a distraught bleat, my eyes brimming over and my face melting in grief. No! No! This cannot happen. I have to do it. I just had to flinch and wince and grimace and grit and go on and do it. I accepted the worst. But I was going to see this thing through.

The taxi eventually reached the Central Avenue entrance of Calcutta Medical College. I rushed and ran into the hospital, running from one place and person to another. Things seemed a bit better here. I was directed to an RMO, he was in his room. I ran there, he was not there, I found someone. Shouting and speaking at machine-gun speed I communicated the urgency of the matter. Hearing the shouting, the RMO appeared from somewhere. I said someone’s eyes had to be removed, very quickly, it was almost too late, I had gone from place to place and only been turned away. I shouted out all my anger and frustration. The RMO immediately took control of the situation. He asked me to calm down and said he would do what was necessary. He said there was still time to collect the corneas. He asked me for the address and said the people who would collect Grandma’s eyes would go there at once. He said I could leave and I should not worry.

I was immediately calmed and reassured. I went back to my waiting taxi and the driver who had accompanied me through the whole ordeal. After all the rushing and running and rage and edginess and panic and terror – I felt drained, giddy and exhausted. I collapsed into the seat. It took a while for gladness and satisfaction to sink in. I was pleased. I felt a deep sense of contentment. I returned to Grandma’s house in Dover Lane.

I reported to the people there that it had been more difficult than I had anticipated and that it had looked like I was going to fail, but I was eventually able to do what was necessary. The eyes would be collected soon. And sure enough, soon thereafter, a team arrived in an ambulance, with the special container for the eyes. We were impressed by their serious, brisk and efficient manner. They asked us to vacate the room where Grandma lay. They emerged after a few minutes, with their precious booty. And Grandma’s eyes were covered over with cotton wool.

If I’m not wrong, I think I did later learn that Grandma’s corneas had been put to use for two people.

Several years later, I was narrating this incident to my friend Achinto, acting out the whole thing, re-living that experience. And I concluded by saying: I did it! Because of me, two blind people got sight. Who can give sight to the blind? Only God. So I was God! But what exactly happened? It was Grandma’s pledging of her eyes. It was her family’s desire to fulfil her wish. It was their entrusting me with the responsibility. It was my fierce determination to do this, come what may. It was my persistence, despite all the hindrances and frustrations. It was my having stared at the face of failure and swallowed the terror and pressed on. And it was because of one person, who finally owned up to the responsibility and arranged for the eyes to be taken. All this together - that is God. That is what is immensely powerful, capable of working miracles.

When my life is over, I can go with the small satisfaction that whatever else I might have done or not done in life - I did try my very best to fulfil Grandma’s wish to give sight to others, and I was fortunate to succeed. And so my life would not have been entirely worthless.

Grandma was always knitting something for somebody. She had made me a soft, thin flesh-coloured sweater. And I had always worn that at home in winter, and also as an inner vest whenever I visited any cold place. I’ve worn it for almost 20 years now. Some years ago, it was washed improperly and became stretched, mis-shapen, faded and somewhat coarse. But I still wore it. I was recently searching for it and couldn’t find it. Becoming absent-minded with age, I wasn’t certain whether I hadn’t given this away – maybe to the gardener or someone like that. Then I found it, hidden from sight among a pile of things in a cupboard. Was I was relieved and glad! It would be a terrible thing if I lost it. For me that sweater made by Grandma is like chain mail, something to protect me.

Rickshaws: brief lease of life

The vain, callous and inhumane move to ban hand-pulled rickshaws in Calcutta, initiated by West Bengal chief minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee, has been put on hold.

The Telegraph, Calcutta, reports:

Moments after the Calcutta Hackney-Carriage (Amendment) Bill, 2006, which seeks to enforce the ban, was tabled in the state legislative assembly yesterday, it was referred to a select committee for further discussion. There is little chance of the bill — contested by sections within the ruling Left Front as well as the Opposition — being passed in this session of the Assembly.

The chief minister later told reporters that he would ensure that the House approves the piece of legislation in the next session. “The plying of hand-pulled rickshaws has to be stopped. Since the Opposition wanted more time for discussion, I have relented for now. But it will be passed in the next session,” he asserted.

Speaker H.A. Halim said the bill has been referred to the select committee in an attempt to reach a consensus on the issue. “The Geneva convention speaks against man-drawn rickshaws. But many are opposed to the ban, as it will affect the livelihood of the rickshaw-pullers, mostly poor migrants from UP and Bihar.”

The bill stresses the need “to eradicate the inhuman practice of plying man-drawn rickshaws” and to “ease... traffic congestion caused by such slow-moving vehicles”.

Perhaps the wise and dynamic CM will now also similarly "ban" poverty, disease, slums, illiteracy, child labour, unemployment etc etc? Now that he has suddenly woken up to the Geneva convention, perhaps he he will invoke all the other international conventions, covenants and declarations and seek to follow those as well, to make his state a haven of humanity?

I hope the assembly members who opposed the bill will ensure that a proper rehabilitation package is prepared, so that the rickshaw-pullers' loss of legal livelihood is taken care of. But I am not optimistic. It is the rickshaw owners who are somewhat organised, and they may be able to extract something for themselves from the govt. Many of the rickshaws are also actually owned by police personnel. But will the pullers be simply left to fend for themselves?

There has been mention of replacing the rickshaws with auto-rickshaws. I cannot see the rickshaw pullers getting the auto permits, or driving them; if anything the owners may get this.

But auto-rickshaws are entirely unwholesome and undesirable. A prime instrument of air and noise pollution. They are a menace to traffic. Unsafe, severely harmful in every way. Part of a noxious lumpen under-life of the city. Most autos are illegal. Permits are given to party cadres. No civilised city should have auto-rickshaws - of the kind now used in Calcutta. I read a news report some days ago about tuk-tuks being introduced in the UK (I think it was in Brighton). But the report also mentioned the stringent pollution and safety norms that the vehicle would have to satisfy.

Rickshaw pulling does not really disrupt traffic. It is a meaningful mode of transport in particular localities, for particular functions, for both passengers and freight. The ergonomics of the hand rickshaw are superior to that of the cycle rickshaw (the model used in Calcutta). The health profile of the typical cycle-puller is far worse than that of the hand-puller.

Perhaps the matter can be taken to court through a public interest litigation, under Art. 226 of the Constitution. Through a change in a law, a livelihood that is legal is made illegal. The right to life is vitally tied to the right to livelihood. When a farmer's land is acquired by the state, he is compensated. Similarly, when a person's profession is taken away, he is entitled to compensation. Given the numbers of pullers involved, and given their poor socio-economic condition, it must be ensured that this move - on the ostensible pretext of humanity - does not drive the pullers to destitution.

The pretext of freeing roads for cars - traffic flow is also severely impeded by hawking, markets and shops on pavements and roadsides, which are organised and profited from by political cadres. Public transport is in a shambles. There has to be a long-term plan, of expanding roads as well as promoting good quality public transport and pedestrian-only spaces. This also raises the question of how long the unchecked growth of private cars will continue. Car drivers race through lanes at full speed blaring their horns at the highest volume. It is becoming impossible to keep one's sanity in the city streets. Private vehicular transport must be checked.

But who am I talking to, in this heap of skulls that is Calcutta?

Its raining, its pouring

Calcutta, on Wednesday.

Photo: Bijoy Sengupta, The Statesman.

A dark day for Calcutta

Today, the West Bengal government will table the Calcutta Hackney-Carriage Amendment Bill, 2006 in the state legislative assembly. Given the size of the Opposition, this bill is likely to be passed.

The amendment to the original Calcutta Hackney-Carriage Act of 1919, calls for a complete ban on man-drawn rickshaws. The Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadev Bhattacharjee had made clear his intention to ban rickshaws on 15 August last year. "This is so inhuman. How can we tolerate such modes of transportation in the 21st Century?" asked Mr Bhattacharjee.

Ironically, the yeoman services of the rickshaw to city-dwellers was once again in full view on Calcutta's flooded streets yesterday, as they ferried stranded women, children and the elderly.

The CM wants to get rid of the image - of man's inhumanity to man - rather than the reality, of an inhumane society, with inhuman living conditions for the labouring poor. There is actually no humanity in the CM or his party or his govt, for that would have meant working out a proper rehabilitation programme for the rickshaw pullers. Only inhumanity, and vanity. Banning rickshaws without successfully arranging alternatives for the pullers means actually inflicting cruelty on the pullers.

The govt is also displaying its parochialism - the pullers are predominantly Bihari. They are insecure, unorganised. Hence they are an easy target to pick on.

Shame on you CM!

Money money money

This morning I went to our slum project in Howrah. I had taken along money for:

3 ceiling fans for our community centre /school;
7 umbrellas for our volunteer community oganisers & teachers; and
printing cost for 500 pass-books for the women's thrift cooperative

Where will the money come from? - I wondered. I had simply drawn the money from my bank account.

Early last year, I had been in despair over how we would find the money to pay the hefty additional deposit for our new premises. Then I simply wrote an appeal and e-mailed it to all my friends and relatives. It was the first time I had done that. Very soon, we had the money we needed for the deposit, as well as something over and above that. I was overwhelmed!

We moved into our new premises in November. The number of children studying in our Talimi Haq School increased, from about 60 to over 125.

For the last year or so we have been running on the surplus. Now that is running out. Where will the money come from? One can't go on asking one's friends and relatives.

Surely something will materialise ... Until then I will just have to go on making withdrawals from my account. Thankfully, somehow there's always sufficient cover.

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

I enrolled as a student of economics 30 years ago. I studied economics for 5 years, and later also taught economics for 6 years. Consequently, I found this mail I received this morning very interesting. I recall talking about blue-eyed young Indian MBAs doing stupendous jobs based in commodity trading houses in New York, earning astronomical sums, and through their meritorious work driving to destruction poor farmers in Africa. Or right now, in cities and towns in India, young graduates who are unable to get any other jobs work as salesmen for agencies contracted to credit card companies, pushing easy loans to whoever is in "need". There is also a whole sector specialised in loan recovery, using strong-arm techniques.


John Perkins is a former respected member of the international banking community. He describes himself as a former economic hit man. In his book Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, he describes how as a highly paid professional, he helped the U.S. cheat poor countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars by lending them more money than they could possibly repay and then take over their economies.

From 1971 to 1981 Perkins worked for the international consulting firm of Chas T. Main. 20 years ago Perkins began writing a book with the working title, "Conscience of an Economic Hit Man."

Perkins writes, "The book was to be dedicated to the presidents of two countries, men who had been my clients, whom I respected and thought of as kindred spirits - Jaime Roldós, president of Ecuador, and Omar Torrijos, president of Panama. Both had just died in fiery crashes. Their deaths were not accidental. They were assassinated because they opposed that fraternity of corporate, government, and banking heads whose goal is global empire. We Economic Hit Men failed to bring Roldós and Torrijos around, and the other type of hit men, the CIA-sanctioned jackals who were always right behind us, stepped in."

John Perkins goes on to write: "I was persuaded to stop writing that book. I started it four more times during the next twenty years. On each occasion, my decision to begin again was influenced by current world events: the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1980, the first Gulf War, Somalia, and the rise of Osama bin Laden. However, threats or bribes always convinced me to stop."

But now Perkins has finally published his story.

Shame

Our consciousness is agitated by all the troubles and problems surrounding us. We may even feel that perhaps never before was India laid so low as she is today. The corruption, dishonesty, strife, disparity, ignorance, poverty, exploitation, degradation of the soil, water and air, unemployment, frustration, crime, violence … The list could be endless.

Thinking about others, where this at all happens, has itself become something parochial, defined in oppositional terms to others, camouflaging the deep fissures within. We think from our petty rather than our enlightened self. It has become something provoking cynicism among most people, thanks to the poor example set by the so-called leaders in all sectors of society. For many, being concerned about others is something irrelevant, unnecessary, unjustified. The predominant urge is to look out for oneself, to try one’s best to fulfill one’s own aspirations, often without worrying too much about the means adopted. Then there are those whose professed concern for others only reflects their own vanity, arrogance, quest for power and domination over others.

Amidst all the competition, the sky-rocketing cost of living, the media images projecting superior life-styles, rising aspirations - little else concerns us other than ourselves and our own well-being. And so we blind ourselves to what is happening around us. When we are troubled or disturbed by something that we see or hear which we find offensive, or unjust, or shameful, we suffer doubly for our sense of impotence and ineffectuality against forces that appear too large, too abstract, too powerful for us to be able to do anything. This gives rise to a destructive rage within us, that is ultimately only self-destructive. Or we swallow this unease, maybe even vengefully seeking to become one with what offends us.

Meanwhile, much as we are full of ourselves within the country, the fact is that in the international arena, India is still a marginal entity. It would be difficult for any Indian to walk with his head erect in front of the world community. Things happen here that do not, would not, happen anywhere else. But they can happen here, with no difficulty.

Nowhere else is such illiteracy, disparity, injustice, apathy, impoverishment, suffering, wanton destruction of human potential and false arrogance to be found.

Not that this really matters to most people. We are all so full of ourselves, our own goals and targets, our thoughts and rationalisations, justifications and explanations. But for any outsider, we are irrevocably Indian. And for them, India is ultimately a land of poverty, destitution, ignorance, superstition, over-population, disease; a nation teetering on the edge of catastrophe.

Such views offend us. We want to have a positive feeling about ourselves – but without doing anything to really deserve that. We are satisfied with a false sense of achievement, superiority, pride. In fact, today it is truly difficult for any person of integrity to speak of our civilisational values, our ancient wisdom – our reality is too shameful to permit us to wax eloquent on this.

The sense of shame is also something basic to our make-up. Our need to feel upright, to be free from shame, in others’ and one’s own eyes, is perhaps our most fundamental urge as humans, as social beings, as thinking and feeling beings.

Manifesto for Youth

I came upon an article “Youth power in India's resurgence”. That prompted me to post something I wrote long ago.


Only the youth of today can do something. Because only they have the innocence, the ideals, the indignation, the integrity and the energy that is needed to re-weave our tattered moral, ethical, spiritual fabric. Upon them does the future depend. No heroes of the past have been as heroic as what is now called for.

Youth need a positive message. Begin some good work. This should be with a vision, a vigour, a purpose and a commitment – above all, for oneself. Life is too valuable, too full of promise, too rich, to be frittered away. Nothing short of the full attainment of human potential should be the goal for the youth of India. And in this shall be India’s liberation.

We have much to be thankful for today, which we simply take for granted while lamenting this or that unpleasant fact. We are truly in a fortunate situation today compared to other periods in our long history as a civilisation, as a society, a people, a culture. But that is not what we are aware of.

Satyameva jayate

Satyameva jayate: India’s national motto, emblazoned on our national standard, the Asokan lions over the Dharma chakra. Truth alone triumphs. Truth shall prevail. Truth is ever victorious.

After almost 60 years years of Independence, that motto seems like a bizarre joke. But it wasn’t like that for those who suffered and sacrificed for India’s freedom. For they had only the power of Right in their arsenal, and for them this was something unvanquishable. India was for them a slumbering civilisation, that was now awakening to its destiny. The attainment of political independence was part of this awakening, a corroboration of the credo, Truth shall prevail.

There is so much hypocrisy, deceit, pretension, arrogance and smugness, that any truthful person would rather seek silence and solitude than join the cacophony of untruth. When someone knows what is really happening, and why, and really wants positive change, there is very little to be said. Because something has to be done, rather than said. He would rather shun company and recognition, and do his utmost, alone if necessary.

There needs to be a calm, level-headed introspection on the situation. Most importantly, such an assessment cannot be divorced from an assessment of oneself. If we are honest enough to recognise within ourselves the things that offend us when we encounter them in others – then we must admit that this is both the effect and the cause of the larger problem. What one can do is decide to take control of oneself, to make oneself in an image that is sound.

In short, the solution to all our immense problems is straightforward: there has to be such an inner transformation, in all people. This is no more or less difficult than the transformation in a single person. This one event has to be experienced by all, individually.

We need such an inner transformation. We all carry a deep-rooted sense of right and wrong, regardless of our social background or circumstances. Everyone has a fundamental urge for integrity, cleanliness, goodness, no matter how compromised they might be. Everyone has a conscience. Who does not want to be happy, successful, fulfilled, recognised and respected by others? Who does not want to be justifiably proud of himself? But this seems to elude us. All our attainments – for those who are still able to attain something – seem incomplete, flawed, insignificant, distorted, in the face of the larger problems. So there is an inherent tendency to cut oneself off from the society around us. Thus the problems only get worse.

See also: Source of Satyameva Jayate

Where do I begin?

When we try to think about the difficulties surrounding us, we are overwhelmed. Where do we begin? And when so many experts and specialists are unable to do anything, to what avail one’s own efforts?

But are the problems really so complex as to elude personal comprehension? Perhaps we have continued to repose faith in others, the authorities, the leaders. The government, the experts, the knowledgeable people … And when we are confronted with all the immense problems, we automatically tend to think of these as inevitable, or insoluble, and something within us closes, or even dies.

Therefore we should seek to look, think and understand for ourselves, using our own intelligence, good sense and life experience to guide us. Things would then appear much simpler.

The analysis would be quite simple, almost too simple to be true. But that is what leads to the discernment of the true complexity we are locked within, which the explanations of specialists only serve to obscure and obfuscate. Certain things should happen, but are just not happening. Certain things should not happen, but they just go on happening. And at an immense scale. People are responsible. Ordinary people. The same people who at other times would complain about this or that. We lack any accountability. Anything can pass here – something that is inconceivable in most households and families. Its as if there is a great scandal happening, only no one is concerned, everybody goes about acting out their own role in this gigantic scandal.

In such a context, self-integrity and self-accountability have to be sown in the soil of people’s sensibility.

Things cannot just continue as they are. This can only lead to the most devastating, catastrophic outcomes. And there are signs that this devastation has already begun. So there is an urgent need for all those who cherish a humane future, for themselves, to act now to enable that possibility to remain alive.

The children of this ancient, exhausted, grieving land - their elders have failed them. So they have to awaken, separate themselves in spirit from the degradation and corruption all around them, ascend to conscience – even as they continue to live and function amidst their squalid surroundings – and assemble, join together and work together to save their land for its future generations. They must be fired by high ideals and infinite compassion. And it will be a long haul, so they have to be outstandingly strong, tenacious and resilient.

Image: Brick Clamp, courtesy Cultural Resource Analysts, Inc.

Love is ...

Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.

Peter Ustinov

Two Indias

With the initiation of market-based economic reforms a decade and a half ago, India, a country hitherto perceived as “poor”, is emerging as a significant player in trade globalisation and is seen as a future economic powerhouse and global economic leader.

In spite of this performance, India is home to very large numbers of poor and deprived people. Ancient inequities and conflict continue to overshadow the modern nation. Economic reforms and impressive economic and export growth have been accompanied by widening disparities, and continuing marginalisation of the poor and vulnerable.

The state, from its commanding and almost-singular role in fostering social equity and eliminating poverty, has in practice retreated from such a concern and responsibility. Instead, there has been a growth in NGOs, working for the poor and vulnerable in rural and urban areas. But in terms of their numbers and spread over the vast country, and their impact on poverty as well as public policy and action, NGOs are as yet a largely insignificant force in society.

(From a collaborative research proposal on upgrading slum-based manufacturing in Calcutta.)

Photo: courtesy Janmeja Johl

Poverty in India

Today I can see that India is firmly bound and held back in every way by poverty. Those who are free of such bonds try to advance by pushing down and pushing away the poor. They feel threatened and demeaned by any exposure to or contact with poverty. They assume and wish the state will take care of all that. They also feel the state must assist in continuously enhancing their own quality of life. The state, however, has only proven its incapability in making a dent on the poverty and acute inequity.

But most importantly, poverty is also something sustained and perpetuated by the thoughts, attitudes and conduct of the affluent sections. They have been born into and socialised in this. A complete transformation in society and culture is therefore needed if every Indian is to live a life of dignity. This is not something any affluent person wants. Civil society’s selfless and enlightened initiative and leadership in poverty eradication – is still largely absent from the horizon.

In its obsession with economic growth and foreign investment, the state has retreated from poverty eradication. But dehumanising poverty, shocking disparities and institutional and public apathy continue to exist. In the poverty-ridden environments, the horizon is bereft of any hope.

Crisis of civil society

Globalisation and economic growth has actually contributed to new attitudes of disregard for the poor. India faces a vacuum in civil society ownership of concerns such as poverty, social inclusion, social justice, peace & tolerance, and good governance.

The current situation in the country is quite telling. Thus, for example, there was a crisis regarding a major dam project, because those who have been ousted from their traditional lands have not yet been adequately compensated and rehabilitated. Demanding urgent attention to their resettlement is seen as heretical and destructive. Elite schools in the metropolitan centres rejected proposals for including measures to open their doors to the urban poor. The mass media and the middle class reacted strongly against a proposal for increasing reservation of seats for historically underprivileged and disempowered groups in elite technical education institutes. The private corporate sector strongly negated proposals for job reservations, while never seriously considering the issue of affirmative action in favour of historically disenfranchised communities, for advancing what are simply national goals of distributive justice.

And yet this crisis was occurring even as stock markets sizzle and indices boom to ever higher levels. The fact is that India, as a society defined and socialised by historically entrenched social inequities, is yet to assert itself as a democracy of free and equal co-citizens. Or assume the responsibilities for advancing that goal. On the contrary, disparities and perceived injustices continue to breed violent conflict and polarisation. Against this backdrop of the social exclusion accompanying economic growth, there has been a spurt of extremist violence against the state in some of the most backward areas of the country. The Prime Minister has also described the Naxalite (i.e. Maoist extremist) threat as the most serious threat ever to India’s national security.

But there are some signs of hope. Business groups and leaders have begun to speak of the responsibility to the population that is not industrialised and is living in rural areas. They say in a country like India with a large disadvantaged population, one cannot create great wealth without making an effort to spread the wealth. The Prime Minister of India, who is also a senior public economist and had been the architect of India’s economic reforms, has urged civil servants to ensure that growth is equitable, inclusive and not unduly harsh. It may be recalled that through the 2004 national election verdict, people had angrily rejected the previous govt’s “India Shining” publicity campaign, which touted the new prosperous India, when things like farmer suicides were afflicting the countryside.

(From a collaborative research proposal on upgrading slum-based manufacturing in Calcutta.)

Painting: Harmony in Blue and Silver, by James McNeil Whistler

Renewing public action

If Indians are concerned about poverty and indignity in the country, they must question the planning and development process which excludes and marginalises the poor and vulnerable, which creates acute disparities. They must envision and advocate alternatives. They must fight for transparent and good governance. They must be the living means of civic participation and action.

Activists must think about systemic factors, see through to the “political” at the heart of everything, and thus develop appropriate strategies of action.

Activists must work in the “public domain”. They must reach out to people, and try to be part of a public process. They must build public organisations, processes and movements.

Activists’ relations with the poor must be a means for empowering the poor to seek and sustain improvements in their stakes.

Finally, there must be thinking about the future. Voluntarism must be nurtured. And sustained. We have to think about how this can be meaningfully institutionalised, without killing the voluntary spirit. Voluntarism also has to be transferred to subsequent generations. Civic activity and capabilities must enter into the formal education of children and youth.

Seriously reflecting on such questions and addressing them through one’s work - could help to bring a much-needed spark of life to the currently blighted domain of public action in India.

Image: courtesy Navgati

Talimi Haq School

Talimi Haq - means right to education in Urdu. But it also means learning is Truth, as being. Al-Haq is one of the names of Allah.

Started by Howrah Pilot Project on 1 June 1998, this is a non-formal learning centre for poor and working children in Priya Manna Basti, a 100 year old jute workers’ settlement on the Grand Trunk Road, in the Shibpur locality of Howrah.

Posted below is a letter I wrote to a friend in March 2005 about the school reunion.

Photo: Jean Cassagne

Reunion

Yesterday afternoon we had an old students' reunion at the Talimi Haq School in Howrah. I had thought about this for a long time, and also spoken to Amina and Binod who run the school. I had visited Howrah a few days ago after almost 4 months. The school reunion was planned, and it took place on Sunday, 20 March 2005.

It is difficult to express all the feelings from looking, as an observer, at all that had happened since I started working in Howrah in 1996-97. I had been at the Howrah office-centre virtually everyday, 6 days a week, from 1998 to 2000. In mid-2000, after I joined the CALMANAC website assignment, my visits became infrequent. After this assignment was over, for a month or so I again went there everyday. But then I began getting more and more into my new duty / responsibility, the family business. Through 2001 and 2002, I went about once a week. In 2003 and 2004, this became even less frequent. I went only for specific purposes. But I had remained in close and regular contact, with Prodyut, Amina and Binod, and earlier Ranjit and Anguri. And of course I worried about the funds to keep the school running.

To my surprise I learnt that since its inception in June 1998, over 400 children had studied here for some length of time. I was particularly keen that a group of boys who had studied in the very first year attend. I had taught them myself - arithmetic, singing - and developed a close rapport with them.

Some 30-40 ex-students came for the reunion, and together with a good number of the small children currently studying - there was quite a crowd in our school room. It was hot and sweaty inside the room, but that did not affect anybody's enthusiasm. Some boys who had been studying here until quite recently, were now strapping lads. Some girls from a few years ago were now very pretty adolescents. Among them a girl living across the lane who had joined after I had asked her father to send her to our school.

Photographs taken over the years were displayed on a wall - a school function on Independence Day, a picnic to the Botanical Gardens, a visit to the Science Museum, visitors from Britain. Looking at some of the pictures, I felt a lump in my throat and my eyes clouded over. Some of the tiny kids in the pictures were big boys and girls now.

The programme began with a short welcome address by me. I said like every school and college, Talimi Haq School too should have a reunion of the ex-students. They should feel happy and proud to have belonged to a special school, which set them off on their journey in education and life. Where they learnt something, and can remember a time of happiness, fun and frolic. For the current students, it will give them a feeling that they are studying in a special school, which is looked up to and with which ex-students feel an attachment. This a special school as its name proclaims. Education is a right of all, so this is a school for that. So many children have come here and then gone on to other schools, where they are now studying, or have even graduated from. And thus is the stream of education in this locality advancing. The students learn Urdu, English, Arithmetic, cleanliness, good behaviour, correct values. But at root, the teachers here give love and affection to the children. Boys and girls who were unable to continue with their schooling - learnt at least something here. All ex-students should know that this is their place, like their home. And we at the school consider you all as our own. You have a right to this place, it is yours. You can come whenever you want, when you are happy come and share your happiness with us. When you are feeling sad and burdened, come here and find a shoulder to rest on. And you will always be in our thoughts, and we hope you will drop in every now and then. We remember all those who are unable to come today. We remember in particular all the teachers who have taught here over the years and we miss their presence very much. I hope there will be a lot of happiness today, a lot of fun, jokes and anecdotes, remembering of joy and mischief, songs, recollection of old times.

There was a juice break. Several of the small children were given their juice and coaxed to go home to make space for the ex-students. Some of the boys and girls came to chat with me and I enquired about their studies.

A number of skits and songs were then presented by ex-students, which had the audience in splits. A group of boys sang a song I had composed, "PM Basti ke ham sab sachhey Mussalmaan hain" (“we are all true Muslims, from PM Basti”). A video recording of a women and children's rally on International Literacy Day in 1998 was played.

Amina and another new teacher asked me to sing. I sang three songs, including my composition "Hari aur Ali galey miley jab" ("When Hari and Ali embrace"). Finally there was an hour-long antakshari session, between boys and girls, with a male teacher, Binod, and a lady teacher, Rehana as the referees. The competition was fierce, and the enthusiasm quite explosive. The boys exulted in singing out love songs teasingly, but the girls were not going to be outdone in knowledge of songs and singing.

Packets of savouries and sweets had been prepared, to give to everyone - but because many more than estimated had turned up, everyone had to share. Two boys asked me to share their sweets.

The CPI(M) was organising an Anti-Imperialism Human Chain in the evening. I had invited the local councillor to attend a meeting with a group of visiting architecture students and faculty from Sweden next week. She had requested that the school teachers and older children join the human chain. So we all proceeded to the Grand Trunk Road, and stood in the chain for 10 minutes. Returning to the office, I bid them goodbye and said I really enjoyed myself.

The programme was shadowed for me by sadness and uncertainty, as I got the news that the building was going to be pulled down after 10 days and a new construction put up. This had been in the offing but nothing concrete had materialised. But yesterday morning my colleague Prodyut had been called by the landlord for a meeting. I remembered when we moved to this office, in early 1998, exactly 7 years ago. Every tiny detail in the office had been visualised and rendered with so much thought and feeling. And the school had been started shortly after that. So much had happened here, so much of me had been formed in this space. The bitter irony of the reunion happening right now was difficult to swallow. Where would we go? Would the school have to close down? Where will we keep all the things in the room? Maybe something will work out, everything will turn out alright - but something was over, a chapter had come to an end. I shouldn’t feel burdened by sadness over the past that's coming to a close, one should look forward practically to the new.

At home later in the evening, I spoke to Prodyut over the phone and he assured me that there was no cause for concern. After all we had a proper deed of occupation and payment of deposit. A new agreement deed for premises in the new construction would have to be prepared. The landlord was also going to find us an alternative temporary accommodation. And until all this was sorted out there was no question of vacating our centre.

At night, Rajashi, my wife, who had also attended the school reunion, told me that from being at the reunion I should be proud and happy about the school. She referred to something I had told her once, that everyone should have the right to failure. She said a lot of successful people would not have done something like this.

Cosmopolitanism

Mr IK Shukla, from San Pedro, USA just sent me this mail. Thank you Shukla-saab!


Reinforcing your write-up on “Culture as Disability”, coincidentally, comes up another book that I just finished reading: Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers, by Kwame Anthony Appiah (W.W.Norton, New York, 2006). Appiah is Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University, USA.

Among the leading philosopher of the world today, he "challenges us to redraw these imaginary boundaries, reminding us of the powerful ties that connect people across regions, cultures, and nations..."

This brief quote from the blurb can only skimpily convey the richness of his scholarship and his passionate plea for a universalism that does not deny or denigrate localisms. The book is a delightful read. No abstruse jargon, no utopian daydreams. Idealistic, yes, but humanely realistic for sure. Cosmopolitanism is no cage or constraint, it is an open vista of far-ranging possibilities, enhancements and embrace of magnificent diversities that enrich us all.

Borders?

Shukla-saab’s mail reminded of a quote from Thor Heyerdahl, the celebrated Norwegian voyager. This was on a poster, of the icon on the sail of the Kon Tiki craft, that I bought at the Kon Tiki Museum in Oslo. Heyerdahl (who had traversed vast parts of the earth's surface) said:

“Borders? I have never seen one but I have heard they exist in the minds of most people."

(I just google-searched to get the exact quote and I found it in this blog!)

I got this Kon Tiki poster mounted and gave it for display in the RIMC library in Dehradun. The boys there are trained to become officers in the Indian armed forces, to protect the country’s borders. I thought it was important that they also imbibe a wider perspective during their schooling.

Upside down, downside up

I also subsequently gave to the RIMC library another poster, this was a map of Southasia brought out by the magazine Himal (published from Kathmandu).

This map was shown with south on the top, and north on the bottom.

On one of my RIMC visits, a boy turned the map upside down, to correspond to what he knew and perceived as correct. So I had the opportunity to put it south side up again, and tell him that this was how it should be in this case, that we should think about the relative-ness of all that we know and accept uncritically, that things could appear very different from another frame of reference, and that the purpose of this different map in the school library was to remind him of this.

Majora Carter

In response to JP Rangaswami’s reflection on women as multi-taskers, a discussant responded:

"...Talking about women and multitasking and adding in another trait, nothing beats the sheer passion of Majora Carter's talk."

What a delightful coincidence! I threw a stone and the ripple comes back to me!

Majora Carter is a friend and fellow activist. We met at the conference on “Creativity & the City” in Amsterdam in 2003, where both of us were speakers, on the theme of social and enironmental justice.

Majora is the founder of Sustainable South Bronx in New York, an organization dedicated to community development and sustainable projects that create jobs, protect the environment and bring green spaces to the inner city. She is a 2005 MacArthur Fellow and a 2002 Open Society Institute Community Fellow.

In this lecture, Majora explains her commitment to environmental justice and her vision for a renewed South Bronx.

All strength to you Majora!

Thinking about multitasking

A few days ago I wrote about JP Rangaswami, who works in the information sector. I asked him for his thoughts about Attention Deficit Trait (ADT) which my blog reported on. ADT is a condition afflicting office workers that's worrying medical researchers.

JP has discussed this in his blog. I reproduce his piece , and would only like to add: we must never stop learning, from everyone and everywhere. And this reflection of yours is also very thought-provoking and educative JP. Thanks!


In that serendipitous flow that blogs excel at, Chukti made contact with me after a quarter of a century. (Great connecting up, Chutki!) And as we conversed he brought up Attention Deficit Trait (as defined by Edward Hallowell) and wondered what I thought of it.

A few days later I found Tim Hindle's article in The Economist's Intelligent Life, Summer 2006 issue. I quote : "Mr Hallowell says that people who work in physical isolation are more likely to suffer from ADT than those who share a lively office".

When I see statements like that I start thinking about popes and catholicism and bears and woods and faeces.

But what do I know?

So I continue to do what I do, and learn from my wife and my children. It’s strange, my wife does not do e-mail. She wants to, and we keep putting off “the lesson”. It will happen. Soon.

But in the meantime. Watching her deal with her daily routine, and (when and where possible) participating in it, teaches me more about multitasking and dealing with distractions than I could learn in an “office” environment. Let me draw out some themes, briefly.

1. Some of her tasks are regular and inflexible in terms of time. School runs and mealtimes are classic examples.

2. Some are regular but more flexible in the context of precisely when she does them. Shopping and laundry and meal preparation are examples of these.

3. Some are regular and low-flexibility in terms of time, but she outsources them. Cleaning and ironing and dry-cleaning come to mind.

4. Most of this is done while I am at work and the children are at school, so she does them largely on her own. But she interacts a lot with people while she does them. And she has many interruptions, some welcome, some not. Phones and doorbells ringing. “Outsourced” task handlers needing answers to questions in order to continue. Things to follow up, things to organise.

5. And somewhere within all this, she finds time for herself, to rest, to relax, to read the Bible, to pray. And motivate and spur and cajole and support the rest of us. And stay contented and patient.

Yes, I can learn a lot about multitasking from her. And I try to. Especially since she has all this without e-mail and IM and RSS, and has learnt how to deal with it all.

This mix of must-do and may-do, of time-inflexible and time-flexible, interspersed with personal and household recharging, this mix tells me a lot about how 21st century management could be. Not assembly line but networked household. With adults and children and friends and service providers. I learn a lot about prioritisation and pragmatism from my wife.

The city in crisis

I had posted a piece a few days ago called "Who owns the city". Some of the questions raised there were from an essay I wrote in 2000, after attending a meeting of evironmentalists concerned about the impact of the Metro rail extension work on the Tolly's Nullah (canal) in Calcutta. I reproduce that essay here. This may help people to start viewing the city differently, understanding it better and becoming conscious of their own engagement with their city.


THE CITY IN CRISIS: A QUESTION OF OWNERSHIP

The Metro Rail authorities have clarified that the proposed track extension from Tollygunge to Garia would be over the Tolly’s Nullah, with twin sets of concrete posts being erected over the canal. Environmental activists had expressed serious concern over this matter, as this would mean the dying of the water channel that is believed to be the Adi Ganga. Besides its spiritual and cultural connotations, there is the vital matter of drainage. The Tolly’s Nullah is the principal surface water drainage channel for a large part of southern Calcutta and the suburbs. If it dries up, the city would face severe flooding. The possibility of re-introducing navigation on this canal, as part of a city-wide water-based transportation system, would also forever be ruled out.

The Metro authorities have said that they have obtained all the requisite clearances for this and are about to begin the work on the ground. The extension project has received a handsome budgetary allocation, thanks to the city-based Railway Minister, who has asked for the work to be completed very fast. However, the National Rivers Authority under the Ministry of Environment and Forests in New Delhi, has now woken up to the matter. There is also a legal case in process, in the Calcutta High Court, seeking re-excavation of the city canals. The court had ordered for the work to be taken up and funds were made available by the central government for this. But the progress of the work is very slow. A major factor impeding the de-silting work is the presence of dwellings beside the canals. The question of rehabilitation of these dwellers has not yet been substantively addressed.

The stage seems to be set for a confrontation. Not simply between the Metro Rail and environmentalists, but between the different vital aspects of city development. While everyone strongly supports the Metro extension, the severe environmental consequences of the current plan make it non-negotiable. That this is unfortunately labelled as being ‘anti-development’ is only on account of the ‘development’ plan having been entirely inappropriate in the first place.

To be fair to the Metro authorities, once the extension project had been cleared they had approached the state government for land. With the state government having indicated its inability in this respect, the canal itself was chosen to erect the elevated track upon. To the extent possible, the Metro had sought to take other measures, for instance through design parameters of the posts, widening of the canal etc. Regarding the latter, the state government declined to accept the funds offered by the Railways for canal widening, asking for the Metro work to be completed first and saying that they would take up the widening at a later stage.

But the common observer and by-stander to the controversy, the citizen of Calcutta, will only be left more cynical, more bewildered, and feeling more helpless. At root is the whole question of land in Calcutta. This is caught up in a time warp that completely undermines any prospect of wholesome renewal, to become a healthy and thriving metropolis in the twenty-first century world.

If the Metro extension has to now wait for land to be acquired, compensation to be paid, likely litigation to be completed and so on, that would drag on for years. The Lake Gardens fly-over had been held up like this. Completion of the Circular Rail is also held up because of this. So one can understand the pragmatic attitude of the Railways. The land question seems to make the present plan for Metro extension irrefutable. And there lies the rub. This is not something that will be solved with the Metro extension. It is something that is going to haunt and hurt the city increasingly in the coming days.

A huge amount of land in the city is under inappropriate use. About 50 % of the city’s population resides in bastis. These are dense, low-rise settlements, poorly serviced, with people living in cramped shelters. They are spread all over the city. There are closed factories and warehouses in different areas. There are sick and polluting units, over large tracts of land, which are subsidised by the low land rent and wages they pay. There are refugee colonies along infrastructure routes such as highways, canals, rail-tracks. And there are squatters along canals and rail-tracks, whose numbers have only grown over the years. They themselves represent the non-existence of a land and shelter policy; the marginalised poor having no access to legal shelter in the city where they work, squat along canals. But there is also the business of land grabbing, occupation, rental and even sale, by various individuals and groups. While squatters were summarily evicted through the 1980s, now the issue of resettlement is being raised by the authorities. Land-grabbers also often have political backing.

Unless the city’s canals are de-silted, the city will face severe flooding, in its own sewage. The canals cannot be dredged as long as the dwellers are there. There is no land within the city where they can be resettled. Land could be provided outside the city, but at present there is no capability within the city to take up the work of community rehabilitation. The canals have to be constantly maintained. Hence, it would not do for squatters to return once one round of de-silting is completed. But where would the tens of thousands of labouring people, who service the city in various ways, live? Where under present circumstances would the growing numbers in the city’s bastis go?

For any kind of development in the city land is needed. And in the absence of large tracts of vacant land in the city, and the undesirability of city sprawl and appropriation of green land – it is current land use in the city that has to be transformed. Given the large amount of land under bastis and blighted industry, Calcutta has a self-renewal potential that few other cities anywhere in the world have. But let alone the large range of institutional capabilities this entails, there is no basic vision yet in any official quarter of the city’s future. In the meanwhile, illegal constructions come up on basti plots, worsening living conditions there, and eliminating the potential of wholesome renewal.

A vision of the future would also serve to indicate the requisite capabilities for realising the vision. That is not something that can simply be assumed. It is something that has to be built up first. For instance, planned re-use of basti land requires social rehabilitation and community development of a scale and capability that is presently completely non-existent in the city system, within government and within NGOs. That has to be brought into existence first.

Operation Sunshine (to remove hawkers, in 1996) and its aftermath affords a study in the city’s dilemma. It is the lower middle class of the city that needs the hawkers, to buy things at affordable prices. The consequences of congestion, traffic, pollution and so on do not directly enter this citizen’s consciousness. A car-using citizen would have another perspective. But he or she may also be patronising hawkers.

Municipal finance is another matter that nobody pays much attention to, as everyone is involved in protecting their personal interests. Properties are undervalued. It is in the interests of the property owner to keep this low. Due property taxes are not paid. When the amounts in question are large, arrears only benefit the property owner. It may be recalled that a posh city club had its large Corporation tax arrears forcibly recovered. The club’s management committee must surely have included several otherwise upright citizens, corporate and professional leaders. Whither civic sense?

The Corporation is financially crippled. It spends more than it earns. It does not get, from property taxes, what it should. It does not recover costs or charge for its services like water supply or sewage and garbage disposal. It employs a large number of people, engineers, officers, clerical staff and workmen. For all of them, the Corporation is a stable employer. With productivity and probity in question, their personal interests and that of the city system are at loggerheads. Employees are unionised and have in place a means to pursue their sectional interest.

When the question of user charges is raised, the citizen immediately thinks of his pocket and instinctively seeks to resist this. Politicians seek to resist this, distanced as they are from the citizenry, and with no confidence in explaining civic matters to people, collecting user charges and thereafter guaranteeing proper services. Hence, services suffer. And typically, those with least clout in the city, suffer the most. Public health, quality of life, is the casualty.

The city system is linked to ‘politics’. Elite citizens see political parties as catering to their vote banks, who comprise of large numbers of poor and ignorant people, including those involved in criminal activities. They see this as appropriating increasing space in everyday life. A mentality of antagonism, hostility and conflict exists. But the same political machine, cannot be entirely insensitive to the interests of the affluent and business classes either. Thus, when it comes to the crunch, civic amenities in the better-off parts of the city would be sustained at the cost of services to the poorer sections. For the poor and lower-income groups, the city seems to be polarised, with everything stacked against them. Denied rights as citizens, they are compelled to seek ‘political’ strategies to obtain their basic needs. The ‘political’ sphere has to mediate between conflicting interests and is increasingly unable to cope. The reality of the system, akin to a civil war, is becoming exposed.

A number of major city improvement projects are in line. The World Bank and the Asian Development Bank have given large loans for infrastructure improvement, and assistance has been provided by the French and British. The opportunity has therefore arisen of a concerted drive for city improvement. But in the context of all the fault lines running through the city system one may be very skeptical about the outcome. The loans from the World Bank and the ADB come with stringent conditionalities, relating to reform of the Corporation, introduction of user charges, increasing the tax base etc. These go entirely against the city ethos and one may wonder about what will eventually happen. In the context of the overall economic decline in the city, these project funds will ensure that some sustenance continues for some people for some time.

So with all the protection of self-interest, who cares about the city? Who represents the city, in its plurality? Little wonder then, that there seems to be a complete absence of any positive vision, since polarisation has come to be in the nature of things.

The city can be renewed. It can break from its colonial legacy and build itself anew, and become a means for the development of the bio-region around it. The current problems – whether of slums, or of choked canals – could become the key means for renewal. But for any of that to be realised, the question of civic ownership has to be confronted. Who owns the city? Is there a critical mass of people, rooted in the city, aware of its wealth and poverty, who are competent, diligent and honest, who can act, with a sense of urgency and mission, to further the public interest, whose personal interest is this public interest? Who can understand and communicate, in substance, with diverse interests? Who can do justice to all, and be equally fair and stringent to diverse sections? Who have a clear vision of the future that is not a gimmicky formula, but is something that challenges the whole system to rise to it? It is upon the answer to such questions that the future of Calcutta rests.

“The day is short, the work abundant, the labourers inactive, the reward great, and the master of the house urges on”: a Hebrew saying.

Photo: Achinto

Culture as Disability

A few months ago, I stumbled upon the essay "Culture as Disability", by Ray McDermott & Hervé Varenne (written in 1995). This was in the middle of a heated exchange I was having, with a friend, which made this essay particularly pertinent.

For the first time in my life, I felt that I was – simply a human, rather than an Indian. Hence, if I identified with anyone, this was with all humans rather than just my fellow-Indians.

I had in the past been intrigued by such a view, when I encountered it in, say, literature of enlightened teachers. I was rooted in my Indian life, languages, culture, concerns and bonds, and so I felt entirely defined by my Indian-ness, awareness, attachments. Of course someone who has no roots, who is self-focussed, is entirely unconcerned about his fellow citizens, and so can glibly profess a “global” identity. But to be rooted, and yet universal – I could not understand that from my experience.

And then I had this heated e-mail exchange over a few days – which drove me to just such a position. I could see how a narrow, blind, parochial / tribal attitude could look to an outsider: horribly narcissistic. And the essence of the things I believed in and cared for – had nothing to do with anything so lowly. It could just as well bypass the whole association with national or geographic identity. That is only circumstantial, but once there one can become rooted and be nourished and grow from the richness of the local soil, the history, the culture, the people, the religion. That will define, distinctively, the people of that soil, just as their individual personalities will. But that need not be accompanied by a hard "us versus them" identity, or a prickly sensitivity to an outsider’s perception.

For the first time I awakened to the notion that culture might be a disability or a debilitation or affliction, that binds us to set ways, fundamentally curtails our freedom, reduces us to passive entities instead of active, conscientious, ethical, aesthetic choice-exercising agents.

To much of the world, a lot of our concerns can appear really idiotic, insular, narcissistic, obsessive, paranoid, and at odds with the world and the times. And all that may be the national ideology of one’s country, ingested like mother's milk by all citizens! But can that attitude prevail indefinitely? Just because a mindset is there doesn’t mean its a good thing! It should be flushed down the toilet (along with so many other mindsets prevailing in the world)!

Regression to tribalism - is what flag-waving patriotism strikes me as. I don't hold people responsible for their nation, nor am I responsible for mine. In fact I strongly oppose my nation on most counts. I would like people to be free of any flag-waving tendencies; their patriotism should be expressed differently, through their personality, their way of life, their work. It should be implicit, in the uniqueness and richness of their personality, rather than explicit, in statements and slogans.

Speaking for myself - this tribal / narcissistic attitude is also to be found in so many (Hindu like me) Indians. But I can see how pathetic this appears to an outsider. I am not affected by others' attitudes and perceptions. I do not suffer from a need to embrace a national or religious identity because I lack any other self-definition. And I don't feel traumatised to discard parochial thinking and a tribal identity in favour of a universal human identity, and be concerned about "human rights", "social justice" etc. I am reminded of the lines by our national poet Rabindranath Tagore:

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Can we not be equal human beings on the face of the earth, entirely alike, yet each unqiue by virtue of the little patch of soil we grew in? Can we not cast aside our little obsessions and attend to larger, common problems of all humanity?

Several years ago I had written about "development as cultural rape". I realise there is no basic contradiction between defending culture and denying it as I now did. Each view has its place in its context. The (rare) individual who can discard his cultural garment, and the individual (like most people) who abides unconsciously in implicit ways defined by the culture - are different persons altogether, at different levels of evolution. Interestingly, one can find the rare individual even in very humble settings (like Kabir the Southasian weaver / poet / sage). Only someone who is culturally rich, steeped in his / her culture, who does not have to even think or talk about his / her culture, can confidently discard a garment. Someone who sees his / her culture only as something to grasp will keep it on. That rare individual who is able to transcend his / her culture - would also, I expect, not trample upon others' sensibilities and sensitivities.

I continued thinking on this subject of voluntary embrace of tribalism with much agitation for a long time. Finally, I let it lie, preferring silence to pointless argument. And then I came upon the "Culture as Disability" essay!

I was particularly struck by the concluding lines in the essay:

“… the withering scorn of Balzac's slave boy, the ways they resist being made into less than they could be, or less than they are. Anthropological work must begin with, but not stop with a celebration of their resistance. For their resistance to what they cannot ignore also reveals the hegemony of all the institutions that originally constructed their problems. …”

I would add: being bound in following set ways, even of resistance, we ensure that THE act of resistance, the mother of all such acts - never ever happens. And hence the culture and the hegemony lives happily ever after.

The Enemy

A long time ago I came upon a poem by the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, called “The Enemy”. I hope I can find that soon! It said something like:

“the enemy is not a person, if you kill people then with whom shall you live, the enemy’s name is greed, falsehood, hatred, violence…”

I was haunted by that. I was in the middle of a protracted, ugly conflict with a colleague. I was consumed by anger and a sense of self-righteousness. But I was not entirely convinced about my own motivations. Thich Nhat Hanh’s poem struck a deep chord in me, and made me see that it was I who needed to become a better person.

Since then I have been fortunate to know more about Thich Nhat Hanh and his work, and read some of his writings. I am reproducing below some inspiring pieces by him.

Working for peace

In Plum Village in France, we receive many letters from the refugee camps in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, hundreds each week. It is very painful to read them, but we have to do it, we have to be in contact. We try our best to help, but the suffering is enormous, and sometimes we are discouraged. It is said that half the boat people die in the ocean; only half arrive at the shores in Southeast Asia.

There are many young girls, boat people, who are raped by sea pirates. Even though the United Nations and many countries try to help the government of Thailand prevent that kind of piracy, sea pirates continue to inflict much suffering on the refugees. One day we received a letter telling us about a young girl on a small boat who was raped by a Thai pirate.

She was only twelve, and she jumped into the ocean and drowned herself. When you first learn of something like that, you get angry at the pirate. You naturally take the side of the girl. As you look more deeply you will see it differently. If you take the side of the little girl, then it is easy. You only have to take a gun and shoot the pirate. But we cannot do that.

In my meditation I saw that if I had been born in the village of the pirate and raised in the same conditions as he was, I am now the pirate. There is a great likelihood that I would become a pirate. I cannot condemn myself so easily. In my meditation, I saw that many babies are born along the Gulf of Siam, hundreds every day, and if we educators, social workers, politicians, and others do not do something about the situation, in twenty-five years a number of them will become sea pirates. That is certain. If you or I were born today in those fishing villages, we might become sea pirates in twenty-five years. If you take a gun and shoot the pirate, you shoot all of us, because all of us are to some extent responsible for this state of affairs.

After a long meditation, I wrote this poem. In it, there are three people: the twelve-year-old girl, the pirate, and me. Can we look at each other and recognize ourselves in each other? The title of the poem is "Please Call Me By My True Names," because I have so many names. When I hear one of these names, I have to say, "Yes."

From: Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh

Please call me by my true names

Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow because even today I still arrive.

Look deeply: I arrive in every second to be a bud on a spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, in order to fear and to hope, the rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that are alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river, and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time to eat the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond, and I am also the grass-snake who, approaching in silence, feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks, and I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate, and I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands, and I am the man who has to pay his "debt of blood" to my people, dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all walks of life. My pain is like a river of tears, so full it fills up the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and my laughs at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up, and so the door of my heart can be left open, the door of compassion.

From: Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh

How to die nonviolently

I wrote a poem for my young brothers and sisters on how to die nonviolently, without hatred. It is called "Recommendation".

Promise me,
promise me this day,
promise me now,
while the sun is overhead
exactly at the zenith,
promise me:

Even as they
strike you down
with a mountain of hatred and violence;
even as they step on you and crush you
like a worm,
even as they dismember and disembowel you,
remember, brother,
remember:
man is not our enemy.

The only thing worthy of you is compassion- invincible, limitless, unconditional. Hatred will never let you face the beast in man.

One day, when you face this beast alone, with your courage intact, your eyes kind, untroubled (even as no one sees them), out of your smile will bloom a flower. And those who love you will behold you across ten thousand worlds of birth and dying.

Alone again, I will go on with bent head, knowing that love has become eternal. On the long, rough road, the sun and the moon will continue to shine.

To practice meditation is to be aware of the existence of suffering. The first Dharma talk that the Buddha gave was about suffering, and the way out of suffering. In South Africa, the black people suffer enormously, but the white people also suffer. If we take one side, we cannot fulfill our task of reconciliation in order to bring about peace.

Are there people who can be in touch with both the black community and the white community in South Africa? If there are not many of them, the situation is bad. There must be people who can get in touch with both sides, understanding the suffering of each, and telling each side about the other.

Are there people doing that kind of understanding and mediation and reconciliation between the two major political blocs on the earth? Can you be more than Americans? Can you be people who understand deeply the suffering of both sides? Can you bring the message of reconciliation?

From: Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh

Plea to a Communal Rioter

In 1997, I attended a meeting on communal harmony in Hyderabad. In the course of the discussion I wrote and shared this poem.

O Rioter!
Come flay your sword! Behead me!
Thrust your dagger! Pierce my heart!
Plunge your trident! Disembowel me!
And spill my blood upon this land,
so that from every drop shall bloom
a crop of meek humanity,
laden with golden grain,
to feed the hungry in spirit,
a sea of stalks
swaying
in the gentle breeze of eternal love,
trembling
with yearning
for the joyous embrace
of brotherhood, goodwill and mutual celebration.

West Bengal scenario

The "machinery" with which the CPI(M) was able to win elections in the past was completely stymied this time around. All this came as a great shock to local grassroots party workers. No one could imagine that this could actually happen. CPM activists were saying that if these arrangements had been made in 2001, the CPM / Left Front would have lost that election.

But given the lack of any viable alternative, and out of a kind of pauper’s dependence on the one who throws coins to him, the people voted the party back into power.

Party's and governments are ultimately about winning elections. With election victories being delivered through money and muscle power, politics was necessarily criminalised. The party was hostage to its criminal-lumpen section and their overlords.

Now the party is realising that this section has become redundant. They cannot do anything on election day. It is the people who will vote you in or out, so one better work for and with the people.

As the criminal-lumpen section is redundant and thus unnecessary, they can also be dispensed with, and the deep toll taken by this nexus can be cast out.

Something else has also emerged quite strongly. The real struggle is within the CPM, between the old guard and the new generation, the latter led by Buddhadev Bhattacharya. The old guard and the CPM led by Jyoti Basu till 2000 (and with continuing but waning influence) - is basically an enemy of the people and of pro-poor development, utterly bankrupt, incompetent, corrupt. And Buddhadev is an enemy of this, for his own reasons. Even if one is totally against all his current policies - e.g. land of poor farmers for foreign and local real estate developers and industries, out and out embrace of foreign capital etc - he has to be seen as someone doing something, anything, rather than nothing.

The CPM headquarters has no option but to support him. They cannot afford to lose their bastion of West Bengal. They have realized that the state and its people cannot be taken for granted any longer. They may vote for them, in the absence of any credible and organized opposition, but the party can sense the dismay and anger against their failure to deliver in real and tangible terms. The danger is not so much from any political opposition, but from itself, in terms of its utter incapability to deliver, anything to anybody.

West Bengal has also seen a surge of new Maoist violence against the state, in some of the most backward tribal areas.

West Bengal was / is in danger of becoming a completely redundant backwater of the Indian and global economy. That would be disastrous for pro-poor concerns too. Through Buddhadev, the state is being brought back to the global capitalist economic fold. Such things are also rather easier to do, compared to addressing fundamental and long term issues of poverty and social justice. And someone or the other must be there, in power, to do all that.

There was almost a conspiracy of media / big bourgeoisie to ensure that the Buddhadev-led CPM came back to power. There being no organised credible, reliable political opposition in WB, the alternative would be disastrous, chaotic and anarchic, and especially so for the promoter lobby that has been the first to benefit hugely from Buddhadev. Even party workers were surprised by the extent of “bourgeoisie” and media support to the CPI(M)!

In Howrah, there was a dramatic turnaround in the Urdu-speaking labouring Muslim pockets. The CPM has failed this poor section completely, even while getting re-elected by them. But this time the Samajwadi Party entered this niche (anti-CPM, anti-BJP) and worked hard and steadily. Opposition party workers and even some CPM supporters joined the Samajwadi band. Voter turnout was immense, in some pockets 100%, and without any false representation. As if there was a mass movement within the Muslim section to vote for Samajwadi, i.e. against the CPM. As a result of this swing, the CPM legislator won marginally, because of the non-Muslim votes. This was a CPM stronghold area, earlier represented by a powerful member, who was also a criminal don; he passed away a few years ago.

People have to awaken to the new situation of "free and fair elections" and evolve appropriate means to ensure public debate, which is the essence of democracy and elections. The focus has shifted to media, and the media has been dominated by the big bourgeoisie's shrill support for Buddhadev.

With the civil society and intelligentsia of the state completely compromised, co-opted and bankrupt, progressive anti-establishment and pro-poor forces in the state - have now to engage with Buddhadev, and explore the scope for strong pro-poor policies and ongoing steady, diligent work for long-term ends, in livelihood, education, healthcare, housing and infrastructure.

The forceful exit of Muslim support would also be an assertion of the acute poverty and hardship Muslims in West Bengal are facing (which is only in line with the situation faced by the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes), and a rude warning to deliver.

If that space is there, if he is open to such engagement to integrate equity and social justice concerns into his reform and economic drive, so as to build a wide popular support base for himself and his team, then it brings a positive new opportunity for progressive civil society.

If that space is not there - then Buddhadev can be seen for what he is, a promoters’ lackey. And people will have to ponder over how and through whom the real issues can be taken up. Maybe its time for a new political party in WB, a progressive, democratic, secular, development-oriented front.

But whatever the case, it must be conceded that Buddhadev has come into his own now, and I for one have been surprised that he had it in him to take on the corrupt party. He may not know how to or have the wherewithal to improve the quality of life of the poor in West Bengal; but being an old party hack, he would know how to fight and manoeuvre and manipulate. In an institutional and systemic sense, change was needed, and he is bringing change.

There is hope!

People's Development Front

In the end of May I attended a a seminar in Calcutta on the occasion of the release of a World Bank report on public services reforms in India. There was an interesting discussion among the erudite participants there.

A significant point raised was the criticality of political leadership, and the importance of "political competition", for effective state action on public services. Political competition is lacking, and the people of Bengal have a right to an opposition political party, just as conscientious citizens also have a duty to provide that political opposition in various forms and means.

At this moment, I believe there is an opportunity for a "People's Development Front" to be built, which talks specifically about the basic issues of people, in a mature and responsible manner, and educates everyone and helps to raise the quality and maturity of political awareness of the populace. This Front could be merely a civic forum, it could have members within and across existing political parties, and it could also become a political party in itself.

I think, at this stage of my life, and in the present situation, this is an important thing to try to do. Just as I believe some people must also continue to work anonymously with the common people, helping to awaken individuals to conscience and dutiful action. With the new govt in place, we need to try to meet the CM as a delegation of progressive ("left-supporting") intellectuals and activists, presenting the key issues and means for state action towards social inclusion and social justice in West Bengal. As a means of empowering the govt in its work towards eliminating poverty and discrimination. There can be a quick preparatory process to write a document, and enlist members.

That will be a challenge thrown to the govt / party; if they do not respond substantively, then that would only clarify that now people like us have to place such matters and the state's apathy before the people.

How can we build a culture of democratic civic and grassroot participation of citizens in becoming aware of national, regional and local issues and their rational, meaningful resolution, the choices and actions underlying that etc? The State will have to be the principal agency of social transformation in India. There will over time come radical electoral reforms. But can citizens have a parallel organisation / network of their own, based in each municipal ward of the city, of individuals who are engaged in reaching out to people, discussing the issues that matter, in informed, transparent, and honest terms, promoting awareness and participation in civic engagement and actions?

Sanitation

I had learnt from my friend Carolyn Stephens, of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, that it is by looking at the disaggregated health statistics of cities that one begins to understand the nature of inequalities and inequities characterising the city, and their impact on the poor.

The principal environmental problem of Calcutta arises from the lack of access of the poor and vulnerable sections to adequate supplies of safe drinking water, which is, in turn, compounded by highly inadequate sanitation.

I was privy to a recent study of about 1,600 slum households spread across nine municipal areas of metropolitan Calcutta. It was found that:

• about 95 percent of the households depend on public standpipes or public handpumps for drinking water. Concerns relating to quality of drinking water and maintenance of existing infrastructure were also reported.

• about a sixth of the population defecates in the open. This proportion is higher in migrant and peri-urban slum settlements on account of poor sanitation infrastructure and availability of open spaces. However, the most common arrangement is shared latrines - reported by about half of the households. These are typically shared between 3-6 households. Only around 23 percent of the households had individual toilets.

• solid waste disposal and collection arrangements were inadequate in most of the study settlements. No arrangements for solid waste disposal and collection were reported in seven of the nine study locations.

• drainage conditions were poor in most study locations and wastewater often flows into the streets. In areas where drains have been made, most are in poor repair and / or overflowing owing to disposal of solid waste into them and infrequent clearance. The drainage concerns are more serious in low-lying settlements where they may lead to flooding inside houses during the rainy season, restricting mobility in most cases (and resultant loss of work) and necessitating relocation in extreme cases.
  

The Statesman yesterday carried an editorial from 100 years ago on the subject of sanitation. It could just as well have been written today. Sadly, today no editorials are written about water and sanitation for the urban poor.

100 Years Ago

Editorial in The Statesman:

The Report of the Sanitary Commissioner on the health of Bengal during 1905 is not a record on which medical science can reflect with much satisfaction. In the improvement of the conditions of life in India slow progress appears to be achieved for a period of years; but, just as we are beginning to congratulate ourselves upon an advance which, though very gradual, is sure, we are suddenly thrust back to the death-rate of twenty years ago. We doubt some allowance must be made for the peculiar weather of 1905. The winter was cold and wet. The heat of June surpassed the recollection of the oldest inhabitant, and the subsequent monsoon was disappointing. But it is a fair inference that, when the death-rate depends so largely on weather conditions, sanitation has scarcely begun to take its proper share in promoting health of the population. This view is confirmed by a survey of the chief causes of the increase in mortality returns. Preventable diseases play an important part in producing this melancholy result. We are told, for example, that the mortality from cholera was the highest recorded since 1901. It can scarcely be disputed that for the practical extinction of this scourge the spread of sanitation would suffice. The large towns of England were periodically attacked by epidemics of cholera until an efficient system of drainage was introduced, about sixty years ago, but since that time the disease has become almost unknown. We are therefore entitled to ask whether in Bengal sanitary measures are being pushed forward with the energy and public spirit which the occasion demands.

The great WAT-SAN mafia

Many, many children die each day in India at a very young age, succumbing to entirely avoidable gastrointestinal and waterborne diseases because of lack of availability of clean water and basic sanitation. Each of their lives is too precious to be insulted by putting large numbers to this, which only serves to deaden one's sensitivity. But the numbers are indeed very large.

However urban water-sanitation is a very big business globally. Beginning with agencies such as the World Bank, ADB, DFID etc, there is a long chain of vested interests, including consultancy companies, engineering companies, research agencies, developing country politicians, bureaucrats, contractors, NGOs - who are all well-nourished by the water-sanitation largesse. Such projects originate with the goal of ensuring basic water availability and sanitation to all. However, once completed, though the project is deemed to be successful, and everyone in the chain is happy (and paid) - the basic goal of the projects - water + sanitation to the poor - continues to remain as elusive as ever.

The inherent structure, design and way of functioning of this chain of water-sanitation 'beneficiaries' - ensures that the basic goal will never be fulfilled. And the people for whom all this effort is directed - do not figure anywhere. Simple low-cost and tertiary-level solutions and initiatives, requiring an attitudinal shift - do not have any hope of materialising, because the expensive, beneficiary chain-gratifying solutions are so much more attractive in every way.

In 1992, following the critique of the Narmada Valley Dams Project, the World Bank had appointed the Morse Committee, and also initiated another review of its loan disbursement procedures. These reports severely critiqued the World Bank's loan-related decision-making and processes. Eventually the World Bank stopped its funding of the Narmada project.

Water-sanitation (WAT-SAN) - is a magic mantra for World Bank and other institutions. Huge amounts of money are spent on this - and at the end of the day everybody goes home happy, World Bank officers, politicians, bureaucrats, consultants, contractors (NGOs too) - but the poor children continue to die. A huge international scam. "Everybody is justified, nobody is just..."

An expose of the whole water-sanitation scam is awaited.

In West Bengal and Calcutta, we also have the wonderful Left Front rulers, whose actual practice of corruption, illegal transfer of public resources, and public fraud - must surely be unrivalled in India. Life here for the labouring poor - is very harsh, and the prognosis is only bleak. And nobody gives a damn. Voluntary civic activism - virtually non-existent, feeble, crushed.

Since 1996 I have been working in Muslim slums of Howrah. The key issue in such an environment is water-sanitation, owing to the absence of which the incidence of infant mortality and gastrointestinal diseases is very high. It did occur to me to write a book, called "Why the children die", giving a kind of X-ray / ultra-sound / MRI image, a sort of forensic flowchart, of how and why this happens; and how exactly it can stop and what must be done, at various levels, from institutions, to people.

Anyway, that book didn’t get written. I tried and I tried to make a difference, but failed completely, whether because of my own incapability or the sheer enormity and deep-rootedness of the problem, or serious systemic failures and widespread apathy - I don't know. I got completely burnt out in the process. But the effort continues in small ways, and surely big things take their own time to be cooked. A lot has been learned, a huge amount of rich experience has been gained.

I once told an activist friend in Oslo that when you work on the ground - you become silent.

Shattered world

A woman cries after identifying the body of a relative at Bhabha Hospital in Mumbai on Wednesday. (AFP)

Outrage

Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949), Indian freedom fighter and poet, wrote this poem after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre in Amritsar in 1919. She depicts Punjab or India as the wronged Draupadi, a principal character in the Sankrit epic Mahabharata. The poet equates the five rivers of Punjab with the five Pandava brothers, Draupadi's husbands, who avenged her dishonour at the hands of the Kauravas.

Panjab 1919

Sarojini Naidu

How shall our love console thee or assuage
Thy piteous wounds? How shall our grief requite
The hate that scourges and the hands that smite
Thy loneliness with rods of bitter rage?
Lo! Let thine anguish be our battle-gage
To wreck the terror of the tyrant’s might
That mocks with ruthless scorn thy tragic plight,
And mars with shame thine ancient heritage:
O beautiful! O broken and betrayed!
Endure thou still, unconquered, unafraid,
O mournful queen! O martyred Draupadi!
The sacred rivers of thy stricken blood
Shall prove the five-fold stream of Freedom’s flood
And guard the watch-towers of our Liberty!

National bird

India achieved independence in 1947. But was freedom really won? Here’s a commentary on the Indian republic by the Tamil poet R Parthasarathy.

The peacock is the national bird of India.

National Bird

R Parthasarathy

(translated from Tamil)

Having spelt it out in blood,
they were determined
to rouse the nation,
put an end
to the oppression and bungling.
Going to the forest
once, for game
a hyena ran into them
like a storm;
a viper, a whip-snake and a python,
their mouths close to the ground,
fed themselves without stirring;
a lion’s tumultous roar
shattered to bits the four corners
of the world.
Returning, they staggered along,
hands trembling, legs faltering;
saw peacocks, and were thrilled.
Thinking, ‘Its pointless begging,
one must trespass;
its no good asking, one must grab’;
a few plucked the tail
with its thousand eyes
and returned overjoyed,
shooing off, with feathers,
poverty, disease, sorcery, witchcraft,
exclaiming, ‘Begone, go away.’
Others pulled its tongue out,
thinking it to be a specific.
And still others, ‘The peacock’s neck is ours’,
broke it and hurried off.
The rest tore its body to shreds,
claiming, ‘Its ours too’,
roasted it and ate it.
As they turned homewards,
hunger assuaged,
the inarticulate land
groaned aloud.

The black plague of the 21st century

From an article in The Independent:

Attention Deficit Trait (ADT) is a newly recognised workplace disorder caused by the pressure of modern office life. When the pressure gets too great, fear takes over as the driving force, and the result, it’s suggested, can be ADT, a perpetual state of low-level panic, guilt and fear, with difficulty in organising, setting priorities and managing time. The article reports on research on this at Manchester University and Imperial College, London.

As many as one in three employees, especially managers, may have some symptoms of the disorder, but it’s claimed whole organisations can be engulfed by it. It’s a response to the hyperkinetic environment in which we live, say psychiatrists. ADT joins a growing list of workplace health problems that now include stress, anxiety, burnout, bullying, workaholism, alcoholism and post-traumatic stress. With one in five managers at risk of depression, 12 per cent of them having a major depression and more than 6.5 million working days lost in Britain each year due to stress alone, mental ill-health has become a significant problem.

In six years, the number of mental illness problems being seen by occupational physicians has trebled. The physicians are seeing three times as many new cases of people with stress and mental illness as they were six years ago ~ 36.7 per cent compared with 11.4 per cent.

Illness rates, especially anxiety and depression, were higher than expected among managers, secretaries and clerks, and people employed in the financial industry and in education.

Dr Hallowell, who runs the Centre for Cognitive and Emotional Health in Massachusetts, says that new technologies like e-mail, voicemail and instant messaging are contributing to the problem.

Professor Cary Cooper, professor of organisational psychology and health at Lancaster University, says the problem of mental ill health in the workplace is reaching epidemic proportions. “We all know there is a big problem going on. It is the new disease ~ the black plague of the 21st century.” He says there are a number of causes: “Change, and change over which people feel they have no control, is a significant cause of stress. Twenty years ago, we had a nine-to-five culture with an hour off for lunch. We did not have the new technology that overloads us. Jobs were also relatively secure, while now they are intrinsically insecure."

The peace of wild things

I had the good fortune to discover the American writer Wendell Berry in the late 1980s. He is indeed a wise man in this troubled age. His poems, essays, and works of fiction have won him numerous honours and a wide following. He lives and farms in his native Kentucky.

"In wildness is the preservation of the world."

Henry David Thoreau

The Peace of Wild Things

by Wendell Berry

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

World eBook Fair

A World eBook Fair is now on.

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The World eBook Fair, Project Gutenberg, and World eBook Library, along with our other participants, join together to encourage you to assist in bringing many entire libraries to the general public and to encourage ever increasing levels of literacy and reading. We hope the invention of eBooks will advance the world as much as did the invention of The Gutenberg Press, and look forward to the Neo-Industrial Revolution following the advent of eBooks, just as the invention of The Gutenberg Press undoubtedly led to the first Industrial Revolution, and your participation can help bring this new revolution in reading and libraries to the world."

World eBook Fair is on for free access to the public from 4th July to 4th August 2006, in celebration of Project Gutenberg's 35th Birthday.

• Full Text Search of 330,000+ PDF eBook Titles in 100+ Languages.

Harmony

On Shakespeare Sarani in Calcutta, opposite where the British Council was earlier located, is the Sri Aurobindo centre. A large sign-board over the pavement in front of the centre displays a quote from Sri Aurobindo. For a long time, this said:

All problems of existence are essentially problems of harmony.

I don’t suppose one could get any deeper or more profound than that! As if, if there was just one thing to say to about life, then this is it.

Harmony – ultimately it’s a question of whether one wishes for harmony; so that, whatever else may happen or not happen, one can go on putting the onus of harmony on oneself. Harmony within, and harmony externally, until one’s whole being is simply harmony.

And of course there are those who choose to remain content with disharmony. This morning I received a mail from a gentlemen who wrote:

“Lack of freedom (and consequently lack of markets) is (a) policy that impedes development and causes poverty. The other is uncontrolled breeding - the balance between resources and people is what causes poverty. Until markets and a more sane attitude towards uncontrolled breeding is taken, I am afraid that all efforts towards poverty alleviation would be futzing around in the margins.”

It saddened me to read this. Because my study, work, experience and relations with those in poverty all say something else; and because the statement also says a lot about the person saying it – about his disharmony, which never fails to make me shudder and despair.

I have learnt the value of silence, and so instead of engaging in an argument, I prefer to remain quiet. What one thinks or says – really does not make any difference to the truth. The question is whether one has an aspiration for truth – rather than a desire to assert oneself, unmindful of what is obscured in one’s perception. The question is whether one reaches truth, as being. And when one does know truth, then one becomes silent, and the heart beats quietly, with compassion.

Painting: Harmony, abstract art hexagon oil painting, by Curtis Verdun

Hari + Ali = Hariyali

In 1997, I wrote a song in Hindusthani called Hariyali, which means spring or verdure.

For some days the words / names Hari and Ali, and their compound Hariyali, were playing in my mind. I was really struck that Hari + Ali = Hariyali. Hari is a common Hindu name, it is a name of Vishnu / Krishna, it means green. Ali is a common Muslim name, and it is the name of Imam Ali, the son-in-law of Prophet Mohammed, and a pillar of mystic Islam.

Mystic Islam refers to an entity called Khizr, the mysterious green gardener, the protector of rivers, streams, lakes, forests and fields. Khizr shall remain on earth until the Day of Judgement, and then his work is done. He sustains green-ness on earth, he keeps the clear, unsullied stream of the water of love alive in the human heart.

Hari – Krishna – is of course the adorable child with the beautiful tresses, the melody of whose divine flute drew the creatures of the forest, the child so cruelly sought to be killed by the evil king …, the inextinguishable source of inspiration of folk devotion or bhakti in India for centuries.

I wanted to share Krishna with Muslims and Khizr with Hindus, so that they become one in the heart of compassion.

Such meditations led me to writing the song Hariyali. Here are three stanzas of the song.

Hari aur Ali galey miley jab, mulkh mey aayi Hariyaali tab
Barsey baadal, dharti shyaamal, Hari aur Ali jab pakdengey hal

Khil uthey phal phool har disha, khushbu sey mehekey hawa
Saath mein jab ho shyaam vanmaali, paudha-paani hongey nyaari

Jheel nadi khet bageechey, hriday ke hi srot se jaagey
Saath mein jab ho shyaam vanmaali, paudha-paani hongey nyaari

In my translation:

When Hari and Ali embrace
The nation is blessed with verdant grace
Rain showers, earth blooms now
When Hari and Ali together plough

Flower and fruit sprout everywhere
Fragrant perfume fills the air
When there’s with us the Green Forester
Divine all sprouts and all water

Lake, river, field and garden
Hearts’ stream does awaken
When there’s with us the Green Forester
Divine all sprouts and all water

Verdure

The Hariyali meditations also lead to a poem. It struck me that it is through the poetic imagination that the most fundamental questions of life, society and the universe must be sought to be understood. In today’s city, which throws up the most critical questions, of dignity and justice, it is only through the imagination, i.e. poetry, that the answers can be known.

Verdure,
As the sap of love and devotion
Courses anew
Through the thirsty capillaries
Beneath earth's parched crust
That run through the frozen hearts of men
But in whose depths
Swirl
The cool sweet waters
Of meek humanity.

Sri Aurobindo & Savitri

Thinker, spiritual leader, mystic, poet and nationalist, Sri Aurobindo (1872-1950) was perhaps modern India’s most fascinating and enigmatic leader. Educated in Cambridge, where he was a brilliant Classics scholar, he refused a career in the civil service and returned home to India to become a fiery revolutionary. In jail, where he was imprisoned for sedition, Sri Aurobindo turned to meditation and, finding refuge in the French enclave of Pondicherry, perfected there the practice of yoga. His ashram in Pondicherry continues today, with a large international following.

Sri Aurobindo was a prolific writer in English, and his writings cover spiritual discourse, philosophy, cultural history, poetry, linguistics and literary criticism.”

In 1915, he began work on an epic poem, that would occupy him for the remaining thirty five years of his life. The subject of the poem was the love story of Savitri and Satyavan. Eventually, Savitri became a poetic chronicle of his yoga, of equal importance in the corpus of his works to The Life Divine, or The Synthesis of Yoga. It was, moreover, not merely a record of his sadhana (quest), but a part of it. “I used Savitri as a means of ascension”, he wrote in a letter in 1936. “In fact Savitri has not been regarded by me as a poem to be written and finished, but as a field of experimentation to see how far poetry could be written from one’s own yogic consciousness and how that could be made creative.”

The composition of Savitri was an endeavour to come in contact with the ‘overhead planes’ that are the native home of the mantra, and to give body to the language and vision of those planes in revelatory speech.

In its final form, published in two volumes in 1950 and (posthumously) in 1951, Savitri extends to almost 24,000 lines. In Sri Aurobindo’s telling of the story, the girl Savitri, granted as a boon to the childless sage Aswapathy, is regarded as an incarnation of the Divine Mother. Aswapathy is a yogin aspiring ‘for a universal realisation and a new creation’. His upward quest is a metaphor for the process of ‘ascent’ in yoga. Sri Aurobindo’s poetical description of the realms through which Aswapathy must pass constitutes his most detailed account of the geography of the inner worlds.

But he did not create Savitri simply as a chart for the use of future explorers. He meant it as a rhythmical embodiment of his experiences that could awaken sympathetic vibrations in those who read it.

Extracted from Peter Heehs, Sri Aurobindo: A Brief Biography.

Earth’s aspiration

Sri Aurobindo remained hopeful about a poetry that would be more than merely literary output, even though his own work was often criticised.

Here's an extract from Savitri (Book 1, Canto 4). I have titled it "Earth’s aspiration".


… An aspiration in the Night’s profound,
Seed of a perishing body and half-lit mind,
Uplifts its lonely tongue of conscious fire
Towards an undying Light forever lost.
Only it hears, sole echo of its call,
The dim reply in man’s unknowing heart
And meets, not understanding why it came
Or for what reason is the suffering here,
God’s sanction to the paradox of life
And the riddle of the immortal birth in Time.
Along a path of aeons serpentine
In the coiled blackness of her nescient course
The Earth-Goddess toils across the sands of Time.
A Being is in her whom she hopes to know,
A Word speaks to her heart she cannot hear,
A Fate compels whose form she cannot see.
In her unconscious orbit through the Void
Out of her mindless depths she strives to rise,
A perilous life her gain, a struggling joy;
A Thought that can conceive but hardly knows
Arises slowly in her and creates
The idea, the speech that labels more than it lights;
A trembling gladness that is less than bliss
Invades from all this beauty that must die.
Alarmed by the sorrow dragging at her feet
And conscious of the high things not yet won,
Ever she nurses in her sleepless breast
An inward urge that takes from her rest and peace.
Ignorant and weary and invincible
She seeks through the soul’s war and quivering pain
The pure perfection her marred nature needs,
A breath of Godhead on her stone and mire.
A faith she craves that can survive defeat,
The sureness of a love that knows not death,
The radiance of a truth for ever sure.
A light grows in her, she assumes a voice,
Her state she learns to read and the act she has done,
But the one needed truth eludes her grasp,
Herself and all of which she is the sign.
An inarticulate whisper drives her steps
Óf which she feels the force but not the sense;
A few rare intimations come as guides,
Immense divining flashes cleave her brain,
And sometimes in her hours of dream and muse
The truth that she has missed looks out on her
As if far off and yet within her soul.
A change comes near that flees from her surmise
And, ever postponed, compels attempt and hope,
Yet seems too great for mortal hope to dare.
A vision meets her of supernal Powers
That draw her as if mighty kinsmen lost
Approaching with estranged great luminous gaze.
Then is she moved to all that she is not
And stretches arms to what was never hers.
Outstretching arms to the unconscious Void,
Passionate she prays to invisible forms of Gods
Soliciting from dumb Fate and toiling Time
What most she needs, what most exceeds her scope,
A Mind unvisited by illusion’s gleams,
A Will expressive of soul’s deity,
A Strength not forced to stumble by its speed,
A Joy that drags not sorrow as its shade.
For these she yearns and feels them destined hers:
Heaven’s privilege she claims as her own right.
Just is her claim the all-witnessing Gods approve,
Clear in a greater light than reason owns:
Our intuitions are its title deeds;
Our souls accept what our blind thoughts refuse.
Earth’s winged chimeras are Truth’s steeds in Heaven,
The impossible God’s sign of things to be.

Rumi and poetry

Sri Aurobindo’s optimism about poetry may be contrasted with the scepticism of Maulana Jalaludddin Rumi (1207-73), the great Persian poet, philosopher, sage, mystic and Sufi master. And the reaction of ‘literary critics’ to Aurobindo’s work may help us to understand Rumi’s attitude.

The Mathnawi-i- Manawi (Spiritual Couplets) is considered Rumi’s masterwork – six books of poetry and imagery of such power in the original that, according to Sufi writers, its recitation produces a strangely complex exaltation of the hearer’s consciousness. Prof Arberry calls Rumi the greatest mystical poet in the history of mankind. But while excelling in literary and poetic ability beyond all his contemporaries, Rumi constantly affirmed that such an attainment was a minor one compared with Sufihood. He often claimed not to be a poet at all.

What is poetry that I should boast of it,
I possess an art other than the art of the poets.
Poetry is like a black cloud; I am like the moon hidden behind its veil.
Do not call the black cloud the luminous moon in the sky.

Poetry was only a secondary product. He did not regard it as any more than a reflection of the enormous inner reality which was truth, and which he calls love. The greatest love, as he says, is silent and cannot be expressed in words. Although his poetry was to affect men’s minds in a way that can only be called magical, he was never carried away by it to the extent of identifying it with the far greater being of which it was a lesser expression. At the same time, he recognised it as something which could form a bridge between what he ‘really felt’ and what he could do for others.

Rumi assumed the role of critic of poetry. People come to him, he says, and he loves them. In order to give them something to understand, he gives them poetry. But poetry is for them, not for him, however great a poet he may be – “What, after all, is my concern with poetry?” He states categorically that in comparison with the true reality, he has no time for poetry. This is the only nutrition, he says, that his visitors can accept, “so like a good host he provides it.”

The Sufi must never allow anything to stand as a barrier between what he is teaching and those who are learning it. Hence Rumi’s insistence upon the subsidiary role of poetry in the perspective of the real quest. What he had to communicate was beyond poetry. To a mind conditioned to the belief that there is nothing more sublime than poetic expression, such a feeling might produce a sense of shock. It is just this application of impact that is necessary to the Sufi cause, in the freeing of the mind from attachment to secondary phenomena, “idols”.


Ref: Idries Shah, The Sufis, and S H Nasr, Islamic Art and Spirituality.

Miniature painting of Rumi by Hossein Behzad