Where The Wild Things Are (Not)

I read Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are only in 1996 or so. My brother-in-law, Tom, had sent it for my son, Rituraj, who was four or five. But it was only a few years later that I really got engrossed in the book and story. I had been in Jerusalem on work, and in the end of my stay, had visited the Holocaust Museum. There I learnt about Dr Janusz Korczak, in the Warsaw ghetto, and then read about him in the book The King of Children. Talking about my visit to the museum with colleagues in my office, the idea of a film took shape in my mind, a musical, an animated musical, on Dr Korczak. Refusing to abandon the children who were his wards in his orphanage, he had walked along with them, all singing in chorus, to the gas chambers in Treblinka. For me, that would be the climax of the film, an expression of the indomitable, indefatigable human spirit, through which he rises from this mortal world, and temporal enemies, and becomes immortal. Yes, it was a terrifying, tragic moment, but also one of heroism, and hence a moment to celebrate, and thus honour. My colleagues wondered whether people could accept a celebratory musical on the holocaust, and referred to Life is Beautiful, which was then running in the cinema hall.

After my return to Calcutta and Talimi Haq School, in Howrah, Janusz Korczak was always on my mind. The idea of a drama production by the children of our school arose in my mind, from reading about such things done by Korszak. Somehow, in this context, the idea of doing a drama production of Where The Wild Things Are took root. For that is one heck of a book and story!

Written in 1963, it is about a naughty boy, Max, who is sent up to his room, as punishment, by his mother. And there begins his fantasy, this angry naughty boy's fantasy ... of being wild. And so he voyages, to where the wild things are, and has himself a wild, wild time, with the wild things, before returning home, and ... (I won't say more).

Where The Wild Things Are is one of the world's most read, most loved and most sold children's books.

The images in the book, of the wild characters, spurred within me the project of making costumes and stage props to bring the book to life with exactness, in a production titled "Jidhar Jangli Cheez Hain". All to be done by the children and their teachers. So, for several weeks I was in a world of my own, immersed in thinking about and planning the production and the fund-raising means to support all this.

Anyway, nothing happened. Life went on.

So, when some months ago, I learnt through television about a film version of Where the Wild Things Are, notwithstanding the general impassiveness with which I tend to relate to most things nowadays, it did evoke a feeling of interest and happy expectation. I got the film some days ago, and watched it yesterday.

One could say the film is based on the book. But it's NOT the book. Its much more, with all kinds of impositions to the very short, very simple story. In fact the story is so short, and so threadbare, while being so explosively full of fun and mischief and innocence, that it poses a challenge to any dramatiser or film-maker. While seeking to add substance to the original story so as to give something for the film to stand upon, it actually diminishes the original story. And that takes the cake. The film is something else altogether. As if driven by the logic of the unnecessary impositions, it goes on and on, and goes ... to some places ... which are not wild, just ... gimme a break, who wants to see this rubbish.

The whole point of the film is its name, which is the name of THE BOOK. So to see a film of that name and find something else - after one has invested goodwill to watch, and want to like it - is disapponting, annoying. Soon one begins to dislike it, and watches it probably only out of inertia, or out of academic interest, to see where else it goes. It drags, it hangs, it's unconvincing. As if the entire assembled cast have to somehow do something or the other to fill the time alotted for the film.

The little boy, Max, the central character of the story - tries his best, but he has no chance, given the mish-mash mess the screenplay is. So it ends up being a mis-cast.

Perhaps someone who has never read or SEEN the book may like things about the film. It is a lavish production, with an evidently generous budget, enough to see that no efforts were spared, in terms of locale, costumes, effects etc. Money, technology, expertise and creativity all came together under the name. The music and songs - are okay, but not great. That would anyway be another big challenge for any production. In this film, the music and songs do not really take up that challenge.

The film is too long, and needlessly so. Why could it not have been a much, much shorter film? One could do justice to it through animation. But there is also the short film medium. I have no doubt all the lovers of the book would have tried to see and obtain the short film. It could have been a classic. But to decide upon a long film format, a priori, and then alter the story till it is almost unrecognizable in terms of its essentials ... is inexcusable.

In the end, when the credits appear, one learns that the film was co-produced by Maurice Sendak himself. That seems unbelievable. If he allowed the film to appear with his title and his name, one assumes he stands by the film. One wonders how he could have done that. It is also co-produced by, surprise, Tom Hanks! I wonder what he thinks about the film. Is there something I missed? Did they have no idea what a let-down the film is, how it devalues Sendak's brilliant work, and how it diminishes one's goodwill towards him?

One wonders while watching the film - is there something helplessly unstoppable in Hollywood whereby this happens? Whereby what is poor at core, in conception, is wrapped in very expensive trappings? Just because money is there? I had wanted just a small amount of money, to devote specifically to celebrating that book, but that was not to be. Now one understands why JD Salinger never allowed his Catcher in the Rye to be made into a film. I hope this film marks the final burial of Hollywood in my consciousness.

Maurice Sendak has sold himself terribly short.

Thankfully the book remains, and shall remain, long after the film is well-forgotten. Or perhaps it should not be forgotten. It should be a classic How Not To Make film. Maurice Sendak will thankfully continue to be known as the book's creator, despite his error of judgement with the film. The film being forgotten - will also protect the goodwill he enjoys from his readers.

Where The Wild Things Are will continue to inspire creative artists to bring it alive in a fitting manner, so that the viewers love and celebrate that rendition. It poses a terrific creative challenge. But few productions can have the benefit of a name as powerful as that.

Perhaps the best rendition of Where The Wild Things Are would be a musical stage production, by, of and for children, undertaken by oneself. Where producing it as as wild as the book.

I wait, and meanwhile I imagine. There, where perfection is possible, where wild things are.

The Boy, the Slum, and the Pan's Lids

Thanks to the Kalpanirjhar Short Films Festival held annually in Calcutta, a few years ago I was fortunate to see the film The Boy, the Slum, and the Pan's Lids (1995), directed by Cao Hamburger, of Brazil.

Just five minutes in duration, this is an amazing, awsome and uplifting little film, simply brilliant in conception and crafting. Little wonder then, that it has received many awards from across the world.

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I just discovered that one can watch it online.

See the film here.

Sangam

Herbie Hancock and Lang Lang play Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue at the Classical Brit Awards, London, 13 May 2009.

Year

Its been quite a year.

In January, I travelled to Pune and then Mumbai, for public policy and academic conferences, and then to Delhi, for a business meeting.

In February I visited my son Rishiraj at the Rishi Valley School, in south India, together with my older son Rituraj.

I was unwell and convalescing during February-April. Nonetheless, I managed to complete a writing assignment, on urban protest in Calcutta. I also completed the translation into English of my colleague Amina's articles on the theme "See the City from Here", about slums.

In May, I was in the capital again, to join a friend in his business development. Having decided that I should leave Calcutta and begin a new livelihood, I corresponded with some schools. So I visited the Sahyadri School, near Pune. Shortly after that I visited the Sholai School, near Kodaikanal, in south India. Sholai had an immense impact on me. A school in a forest in a mountain. A haven of peace and solace, far away from the ugly city. The school was started about 20 years ago by an Englishman, Brian Jenkins. He was keen that I join and help to start a teacher training college there, among other things.

In June, on the invitation of a friend, I joined a rural governance study in the northern districts of West Bengal. That was indeed a strenuous and hectic affair. But also one that was very educative, rewarding and reinvigorating, as it afforded a vision of a new Bengal in the making in the grassroots.

I had to submit the manuscript of my translated stories of the Bengali writer Subimal Misra. I managed to extract the time to complete it in great haste and sent that off in early July.

Shortly after that, I travelled to Assisi in Italy. I was invited to join a week-long international children's camp there, organised by two Italian foundations, on the theme of 'Time of Rights'. I accompanied two children from our Talimi Haq School in Howrah. 28 children from India, Italy and Peru participated in the campus, together with teachers and workshop animators. That was like a continuing epiphany. I was in Ancona and Roma briefly before returning to Calcutta.

A few days latter I went to London. I stayed at the International Students House, at Regents Park, where I had lived as a student during 1982-84. I tramped through my old and favourite haunts. I spent a long time, and a small fortune, in bookshops, indulging my penchant for outstanding specimens of graphic literature, to enlarge the mental horizons of my sons.

I attended my friend Mark's wedding, at the Kings College chapel in Cambridge. I was in Cambridge again after 25 years. How I had wanted nothing more than to be immersed lifelong in study in Cambridge! But that was not to be. But now I sang at the chapel as part of Mark's wedding service. The acoustics in the chapel - quite awesome indeed. Yes, I was an a capella singer alright.

In London, I realised that this was the city I could truly and zestfully call my own, and profess love for. After all, it was where I was born again, where I came to light, where I became a man. And in London, this truly international city, I also became aware, for the first time, of the peculiar circumstance of my life, me, an Indian, in faraway Calcutta, being defined so profoundly by the English language.

I then went to Hannover, in Germany, to initiate a business collaboration with a small German electronics company. They have developed tools and technologies for early child learning and for language learning. I intend to bring that to India. I made a close new friendship, with Ralph, the CEO of the company. A powerful business opportunity, a new chapter in my life, a means for enormous wealth creation. Which would enable public good, with the Talimi Haq School as a small sapling to help grow an enormous Right to Education movement for the country's disprivileged children.

Meanwhile, in the small manufacturing enterprise which I have been managing on behalf of my family, we are at a challenging stage. Much to be done, but through that there is the strong potential of becoming a leading manufacturer in the world in the tiny niche we operate in.

Its still only August. I have some more important trips and journeys to make in the coming months. So far, and especially since June, I have been made, unmade and remade during and through the travels, leaving me feeling like a whirling dervish. Patterns and circles, cycles and symmetries, and synchronicities... life clad in epic raiment, humbling one to silent labour.

Bengal

I had been travelling in some of the districts of north Bengal (Murshidabad, Dakshin Dinajpur and Koch Bihar). That was a most humbling, educative and inspiring experience. Living in Calcutta, life can be bleak. But my travels through rural Bengal filled me with cheer and hope, as I witnessed the promise of a new dawn for the people in the land of Bengal. A watershed in my life, self-discovery, roots, renewal...

Here are some images from my travels. See the complete set of images here.

As children shine

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Nelson Mandela, in his inauguration speech, 1994, quoting from Marianne Williamson's Return to Love.

Pina Bausch in Calcutta

Pina Bausch and the Tanztheater Wuppertal are in Calcutta for their production Bamboo Blues, inspired by India.

I had the opportunity to see the dress rehearsal of the production yesterday evening, at the Rabindra Sadan.


Damiano Ottavio Bigi and Clementine Deluy.
Photo: © Gert Weigelt


Thusnelda Mercy and Pablo Aran Gimeno.
Photo: © Gert Weigelt

It was spectacular and exquisite, an uplifting aesthetic experience.

See pictures from the performance here.



After the performance, Pina and her troupe interacted with the staff and children of Talimi Haq School, Howrah where they had visited during their research trip in 2006.



I was moved to tears to see the warmth of the reception.

Also at the performance was Martin Waelde, who was the Director at the Max Mueller Bhavan (Goethe Institut) in Calcutta during 2004-07. Martin organised a major international conference (on "Does Culture Matter") in 2004. He also brought the German-Swiss theatre group Rimini Protokol to Calcutta, and Rimini's live / interactive production Call Cutta was played in Calcutta in 2005. Martin also brought Gunter Grass to Calcutta again, in 2005. And in 2006, he brought Pina Bausch and the Tanztheater Wuppertal to Calcutta. Martin's stint in Calcutta was completed last year. So it was great that he was able to be present here to see the spectacular result of his inititiave. Bravo!

Teachers' Day

Today, 5 September, is observed as Teachers' Day in India (after the birthday of former President S Radhakrishnan).

Here's the song To Sir With Love, sung by Lulu, from the film of the same title.

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Those schoolgirl days of telling tales and biting nails are gone
But in my mind I know they will still live on and on
But how do you thank someone who has taken you from crayons to perfume?
It isn't easy, but I'll try

If you wanted the sky I would write across the sky in letters
That would soar a thousand feet high 'To Sir, With Love'

The time has come for closing books and long last looks must end
And as I leave I know that I am leaving my best friend
A friend who taught me right from wrong and weak from strong
That's a lot to learn, but what can I give you in return?

If you wanted the moon I would try to make a start
But I would rather you let me give my heart 'To Sir, With Love'

Learning Poetry

I was pleasantly surprised yesterday to stumble upon (on the net) a publication by the UNESCO, gathering the views of poets from across the world on the subject of the teaching of poetry to school students.

Reading and Writing Poetry: The Recommendations of Noted Poets from Many Lands on the Teaching of Poetry in Secondary Schools. Editor Richard W. Halperin, UNESCO, Paris, 2005, in English, French and Spanish. The English version is accessible here (1.3 MB).

44 important poets, from 25 countries, in 5 continents, were asked about the best ways to present poetry to secondary school students. The poets were asked 5 questions:

How would you like to see the purpose of poetry presented to adolescents?

How would you want teachers to differentiate poetic language from prosaic language? Are there teaching methods to stimulate the use of poetry by adolescents to express or understand thematically or emotionally difficult subjects?

How might teachers help motivate young people to visualise images created by poetic texts and cultivate attention to the use of imagery in poetic expression?

How can teachers help students at the secondary school level use poetry to sharpen the understanding of the difference between subjective and objective perception?

Are there any methods used in your country of birth or residence which you personally find effective for the teaching of poetry to secondary school learners which could be used equally well in other parts of the world?

This has ramifications that go beyond “poetry”. How can one help to bring out, like a gardener, all kinds of faculties and sensibilities in a child?

There was no one from Bangladesh, or from Bengal in India, in the UNESCO report’s list of poets – I think Bengali-speaking people must have the largest ppm (poets per million) in the world. But there was Ishfaque Ahmad of Pakistan, who are also a people quite in the sway of poetry, in Urdu and Punjabi, and with towering poet-sage giants from the distant to recent past.

The late Ishfaque Ahmad, authored several plays, novels and short stories in Urdu. I have felt that poetry is a mass phenomenon in the Urdu language, that is unmatched even in Bengali. So it was indeed edifying to read what he had to say. He begins his response by noting:

“For centuries, the poetry in my part of the world (Pakistan) has been a teacher of basic human values and a source of inspiration.”

I am looking forward to studying this report. Though quite a voracious reader, I had never been interested in poetry. But I could not help being susceptible to quite a few phrases, lines or verses, resounding or poignant, entering and staying in my consciousness. And then with the opening of my inner life I found myself subject to poetic imagination and expression. If I remember correctly, Ramana Maharishi had said that the mystic is one who dwells in mythic poetry.

The same inner life that awakened my poetic consciousness also led me to working in Priya Manna Basti, a slum in Howrah, among poor, Urdu-speaking Muslims. I felt that the community here proved that Urdu poetry and literature is not an elite pastime, it is part of the life and thinking of large numbers of people from very humble, labouring backgrounds. And this is not something involving merely passive appreciation, but rather connotes a process of nurturing of certain superior sensibilities, values and attitudes - a bent of spirit, a bearing - on the part of the genuine lover of Urdu poetry and language. Poetry is not a specialised, exotic fancy of some, but part of the mental universe of many.

Through the poetic imagination are the fundamental questions of life, society and the universe sought to be understood. For today’s world, mired in unending conflict and despair, and throwing up fundamental questions, about survival, peace, dignity and justice, it is only through the imagination, i.e. poetry, that the answers can be found.

Dignity of labour in our times

Who discovered the first detergent soap in India?

Who created scripts as they crafted pots?

Who selected and standardised most of the food items we eat today?

How did cotton come to be spun into cloth?

Who originated the science of making leather out of animal skin?

In the book for children Turning the Pot, Tilling the Land: Dignity of Labour in Our Times (published by Navayana), Kancha Ilaiah throws light on the science, art and skill of adivasis (indigenous people), cattle-rearers, leatherworkers, potters, farmers, weavers, dhobis (washermen) and barbers. The book documents the contributions to the betterment of human life by castes and communities despised as 'lowly' and 'backward'.

Recently, students opposed to reservation in affirmative action in India's educational institutions expressed protest by polishing shoes, sweeping the roads and selling vegetables. Why such resentment against labour? Could these students make shoes or till the land? Could they make a pot? This book, with stunning illustrations by Durgabai Vyam, is the first ever attempt to inculcate a sense of dignity of labour among India's children.

Reviewing this book in Tehelka, Vatsala Kaul writes:

The cavernous divide between those who 'labour' and those who 'work' in India has always inhabited the shaky bedrock of our social system. Labour is work that leads to no accumulation of wealth, though it often perpetuates its own impoverished struggles. Its devaluation, as scripted in Hindu religious texts and fostered by years of selfish conditioning, has only worsened, aggravating the disengagement between the historically privileged and those banished to the fringes as 'lower castes', 'Backward Classes', 'Scheduled Tribes' and 'untouchables'.

Flung into such compartments without escape, millions of Indians — adivasis, potters, weavers, dhobis, farmers, cobblers and domestic workers — are regarded as a lobotomised, unskilled mass, providing 'services' it seems they have no choice but to perform. As Ilaiah points out, the modern education system — in continuance of an ideology that considers physical labour undignified — anoints mental endeavour but is derisive and disparaging of physical work. Basic productive services are neither valued nor well-paid. It is to this work and to those who perform it that Ilaiah seeks to restore a core of long deserved respect.

The book is presented as a possible course book for children of classes 7-10, their teachers and parents. Of the book's 11 'lessons', eight deal with the scientific temper, artistic abilities, knowledge pool and many skills of adivasis, cattle-rearers, farmers, weavers and barbers. There is enough to grip the imagination — how the adivasis discovered and standardised most of the foods we eat; how leather workers used the tangedu plant for eco-friendly tannin; how tillers use traditional knowledge in planning their harvests; how potters improve their clay with smooth ash and charcoal; how dhobis use fuller's earth to remove stains and kill germs; how dais — largely the women of the barber community — are able to turn breach babies in the womb without ultrasounds or other costly techniques.

There are interesting asides, and inventive exercises readers are encouraged to try —they work as well for adults as for kids.

What do you know about CK Janu? Ever tried composting? Or protesting against manual scavenging? How much does a farmer earn on a crop?

Grownups who fret over whether to let their domestic help use the AC are advised to resolve their own conflicts before handing this book to their children. The book was sparked off by Ilaiah's shock at students from the IITs and IIMs protesting against reservations by going out to sweep roads and polish shoes, clearly demonstrating what little dignity they associated with such labour. Through lucid, logical text, Ilaiah places this work in socio-historical perspective, impressing upon the reader how entire categories of usually marginalised people have learnt, invented, discovered and created products we use but take for granted, and how they are as capable as others — often more so — of becoming teachers, software engineers, doctors, nuclear physicists or anything else.

This wonderfully designed book is a much-needed resource for both parents and teachers and anyone else who wants to educate themselves — teeming with interesting information, yet spacious and uncrowded. It is also beautifully embellished — one can't use so neutral a term as 'illustrated' — by Durgabai Vyam of Bhopal, whose Gond-style black-and-white drawings are feisty works of art.

In times when children think cows eat garbage and not grass, and that flower pots grow one on top of the other on roadsides, Turning the Pot, Tilling the Land will prove vital in empowering our children to respect all kinds of peoples and their work, and to understand, and hopefully work against, the atrocious machinations of the caste system. Class 7 is too late to start, though; it would be best to share the contents of this book as soon as kids are old enough to understand the words 'play' — and 'work'.

The hidden violence at the heart of middle-class existence

Tumpa Manna’s mother with
her daughter’s photo.

by Bhaswati Chakravorty

Malda is very cold in winter. Sixteen-year-old Rimpi Datta shivers in the early morning dark, as she gets ready in her little darma hut on the banks of the Mahananda to run the freezing route to her employer’s house. She has to ring the bell exactly at six. It would not have been so bad if she could enter after that. But the lady of the house, after noting the time of Rimpi’s bell, sleeps for another half- an-hour or forty minutes. But she turns into a wide-awake fury if Rimpi is late.

For the last two years, Rimpi has been having weeping fits, her mother told me. She does not want to work in that house any more. But jobs for a growing girl in the ‘safety’ of a woman-only household are not easy to come by. And without Rimpi’s contribution to the wages her mother earns by working as domestic help too, the younger daughter cannot go to school and the little family, with a disabled older boy, cannot eat.

Not one of the women domestic workers I spoke to that day could explain why employers revel in cruelty. But Rimpi is lucky. She is paid wages, however meagre, and she does have a home to return to. The little ones who are trapped in their employers’ houses far away from home are immensely more vulnerable. Earlier this month in Durgapur, 12-year-old Gobardhan Mahato managed to escape the torture of his mistress and was taken to the police station. He used to be beaten up with serving spoons and sharp objects, often denied food and water, and never paid the Rs 400 promised him as wages. His home is in Purulia. His employer is a senior manager at the Durgapur Steel Plant. Towards the end of May in Howrah, 11-year-old Sumita Oraon was rescued from the clutches of her employers. They assaulted her and locked her up.

The torture on Sumita is of a familiar type. In 2004, Rashida Khatoon, 11 years old, ran away when her mistress, a lawyer’s wife, kicked her face to wake her one morning, and then scratched her till she bled. Rashida had been regularly beaten and her back repeatedly cut with a knife for the eight months she had been employed. The same year, 9-year-old Guria was rescued from her employers, a WHO officer and his teacher wife, by neighbours, after they had been beating and kicking her regularly for two years. They also attacked her with a knife. Eleven-year-old Sonia Khatoon was rescued from her employers in Garden Reach, Calcutta, miles away from her village in North 24 Parganas, with 11 wounds in her head, burns with a hot metal spatula on her face and neck, bruises on her back and stripes from a belt all over her body. She was no longer quite sane.

The list could go on. The weapons of torture provide a fascinating glimpse into the violent criminality that nestles behind the most respectable veneers, and which expresses itself innovatively when it is ‘safe’. Total vulnerability offers this sense of security. Torture is often sexual too, but in some perverse way, that is more explicable. Pure physical torture is usually the secret addiction of the woman of the house. It is only the child washing the clothes and scouring the pots who can hold a mirror up to the hidden soul of middle-class existence.

Just having a tiny, illiterate, half-starved child completely in one’s power within closed doors is not enough to create the sense of security. Part of it comes from a silent but active complicity of equals. I accompanied a member of an NGO to the home of Tumpa Manna, a 14-year-old who was supposed to have hanged herself in her employer’s flat a stone’s throw away from her parents’ slum. Two nights before her death, the girl told her mother that she would not work there anymore. Her mother promised to collect her in three days’ time. The police suddenly picked up Tumpa’s family in the middle of the second night, whisked them to the flat, allowed them a glimpse of the girl’s body laid out — not hanging — with her face undistorted, and then pushed them out. Her father was taken away by the police, locked up for the night and made to sign on a piece of blank paper. A TV channel later showed that the paper said, “My daughter has committed suicide.”

We met only the grandmother, who gave us these details. Tumpa’s parents, who had two younger children, had apparently left for their home in the Sunderbans. But the neighbours had more to say. At three in the morning, the weekly haat was being set up close to the flat. Hearing screams, some people rushed to the door, where they were told that someone was delivering a baby inside. The police came for Tumpa’s family an hour after that.

The police seemed very cooperative, but we made no headway in spite of repeated visits. Until a member of the family complained, there was nothing we could do. Tumpa’s employers had said they found her hanging when they went to check on her. The women in the slum asked us why they should suddenly go to the girl’s room in the middle of the night.

Perhaps because of such unanswerable questions, a crowd from the slum protested in front of the housing estate, threw stones and broke a few windshields. When we talked to other members of the estate, we found that the attitude towards Tumpa’s neighbours in the slum ranged from irritation to hostility. The class lines were nakedly drawn.

Ultimately, this is the security on which the violence-loving housewife and her sexually inclined male kin depend most. There is no other way to explain the string of “suicides” of domestic help that the media keep reporting. There is no deterrent. Cases, if poor people do dare to file them, go very slowly. And there is always money to silence them.

The employers of Sumita and Gobardhan have been arrested. It would be interesting to see what follows. That would show whether things are changing.

Grand Sumo Tournament

From little acorns ... A little girl (above) and a little boy (below) line up against professional sumo wrestlers during an exhibition before the start of the Grand Sumo Tournament 2007, in Honolulu, Hawaii.

See the tournament photo gallery here.

Photos: AFP.

Rimcollians, Dehradun 2007

I am a Rimcollian, which is the name for an Old Boy of the Rashtriya Indian Military College (formerly the Prince of Wales Royal Indian Military College), in Dehradun in the Himalayan foothills. Earlier this week I was in Dehradun to attend the school reunion, which is held on the Foundation Day, 13 March.

The Rimcollian bond is very strong. In the 85 years since the school was established, less than 5,000 students have studied here. So its a very small and exclusive fraternity. The unique and demanding military ethos of the school also bonds all the Old Boys. Rimcollians have been at the forefront of military valour and leadership of the Indian army and armed forces for 7 decades. Many Rimcollians also led the armed forces of Pakistan after 1947.

This year marks the centenary of Mr Hugh Catchpole, an Englishman, who came to teach at the RIMC in 1928. He became the Principal of the school in 1948, and in 1953 went to Pakistan where he established and taught in 3 schools - until his death in 1997. The RIMC and the 3 schools in Pakistan, and the Old Boys of all these schools, are jointly observing and celebrating the Catchpole Centenary with a diverse programme of events spread across the schools in India and Pakistan.

I studied at the RIMC during 1972-76. And during 1998-2003 I did a second stint in the school, this time as a visiting Master. RIMC is one place that I shall always feel is my home. I can never have enough of the verdant splendour of the campus and the exceptional sensibility of the cadets fashioned by the daily routine and culture of the school.

Amrit, in the picture above, joined RIMC in 2003. I was seeing him after 4 years. As I told him, he was a complete mess then; he's a fine young man now!

Pictures from the RIMC reunion of 2007 are accessible here.

Young people's voices on Singur

Voices, the school students' supplement of The Statesman, today carries two articles by school students in Calcutta on the Singur issue, under the title "Simmerging Singur".

I am reproducing these below.

See also Aseem Shrivastava's article in ZNet here.

Photo: J. Adam Huggins, for The New York Times.

The children take a beating

West Bengal is rife with a huge debate. The event: Building of the Tata Motors factory on viable cropland in Singur.

The conflict: Snatching away of land from farmers and their rehabilitation.

The opponents: Trinamul Congress led by the ever aggressive Mamata Banerjee for the farmers’ rights and CPIM, led by dignified CM Buddhadeb for industrialisation.

That’s the political side of it. Now let us look at what is actually happening: people are being dragged from their houses, beaten up, abused, and those who want to protect them are being persecuted. And somewhere, in the midst of all this chaos, a lone child wails at the top of its voice… Nobody spares a thought for the children of Singur in this political and ideological mess.

In course of acquiring of land forcefully the police arrested nearly more than 60 people comprising women and even children on 2.12.2006. Among them, Jhuma Patra, daughter of Ashok Patra of village Ghaser Veri, Singur, 12-years-old and a student of Class V in Naraharipara Primary School and Soma Dhara daughter of Sanyasi Dhara of same village, a minor were also arrested.

The children arrested were kept in police lock-up with other inmates and were released on the next day on furnishing personal bonds under the total violation of the procedure of Juvenile Justice Act.

At Singur, the attendance of students in the primary schools has drastically reduced in the past four months because of the farmers’ movement against land acquisition. A district primary school board official said the students in the five affected villages were unable to concentrate on their studies. The situation in Singur has created the psychological pressure on students, harming their studies.

More than 2,000 students go to 17 primary schools in the villages. Sontu Kolay studies in Class III of Bajemelia Uttar Primary School. His mother, Ms Sabitri Kolay, an active member of the Singur Krishi Jomi Raksha Committee (Agricultural Land Protection), believes her son fared badly in his examinations last month as there was no one to take care of his studies and they are too poor to afford private tutors. Another member, Ms Jharna Langal, of Bajemelia, said that despite being a meritorious student, her daughter, Hoimonti, failed in her half-yearly tests this year. Ms Protima Dey, of Bajemelia, cannot recall the last time her son, Subhadeep, went to school. The Integrated Children Development Scheme (ICDS) too has suffered. Only a few nursery students show up at the ICDS centres in the affected villages.

Two girls, aged 11 and 13, have been put behind bars by local police authorities. According to a Bengali human rights activist, every week there are reports of molestation, rape and murder from the local prison at Chandranagar.

Some of the farmers will get job in the factories. Others will come to Kolkata for a livelihood along with their families. What will happen to their wards then? Will they be able to go to school again? Is this the future for the unfortunate brilliant students of Singur? Or will smiles return to their sad faces again?

The Government taking away land, protests... whatever has happened - and continues to happen - in the Narmada Valley is almost in the same vein as what is happening in Singur. The only difference is that, in case of the Narmada Valley project, protests snowballed into an internationally famous movement after it was found that resettlement and rehabilitation (R&R) of the displaced people was insufficient, and that the increasing height of the SSP (Sardar Sarovar Project) started causing environmental degradation. We, Indians often boast of having the lengthiest and one of the best Constitutions in the world - the largest - a democracy where people enjoy certain rights, people have the right to vote and they form the key to constitutional power. The controversy was heightened even more when Medha Patkar, leader of the famous ‘Narmada Bachao Andolan’ (NBA) was denied entry into Singur through the ‘Durgapur Expressway’. Medha however reached Singur, where the villagers complained to her about the barbarity of the police. Forces were sent to Singur to bring back Medha to Kolkata after this incident.

The protests in Singur have attained a political colour. Initially the Congress affirmed their support to the TMC but the moment the BJP stepped into the arena, the Congress declined to continue the agitation. During the British rule, the Indians were never been able to raise a united appeal against the foreign aggressors which mainly resulted due to the presence of so many communities in India. Now also, they are not united enough to raise their voice. It is clear from this fact that the opposition parties are very much concerned about their own selves. They do not care for the betterment of the common people. Mr Ratan Tata has commented he will not retrace his steps and that the Tata Motors factory will come up in Singur. The fight between Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and Ms Mamata Banerjee will continue. And poor peasants will have to pay the price. Police will continue to do their ‘duties’. It’s a fight - so let’s see who wins in the end - industries or agriculture, people or the government, and lastly Mamata or Buddhadeb?

In all this, the children take a beating. They are out of the priority list of these people who are in a virtual tug-of-war. The children don’t get to play or study, and unfortunately have to grow up well ahead of their time. Isn’t this unfair and unjustified?

Mamata has flatly refused all public talks with either Tatas or the government. This is unusual. Why not make her problems known to the opposing side? She has threatened boycott of Tata goods and has only budged from her long-running hunger strike after letters from the Prime Minister and the President.

We can only draw our own conclusions. Is industrialisation the only way out or are rights being snatched? The Trinamul has used violence but the Left has been constitutional. Also, what about the children? Will this needless wrangling help them? So many are being harassed daily as pawns in daily altercations between Naxalites and policemen. When will they get peace? Alas, at the moment it seems to be an ever raging war. Questions are many and answers are unknown. We keep wondering what happens to the core of humanity when there is a crisis like Singur. It will go down in history as a time when the adults were so involved in their own egos and unnecessary feuds that the children had to throw away their toys and books and assume seriousness to the extreme. Like the 18-year-old who was raped, then burnt alive.

India is a democracy, the largest democracy in the world, after all.

Sunrita Sen, La Martiniere for Girls
Soham Saha, Mansur Habibullah Memorial School
Anuvab Chattopadhyay,The Heritage School
Esha Pandit, Bidhannagar Municipal School
Aparajita Bhattacharya, The Future Foundation School
Compiled by: Shreya Sanghani, The Cambridge School

Not Indian

I renounce my Indian identity.

In the last couple of days, the remains of over 25 children have been found in a house in Noida, near Delhi. Those of many more are expected to be found. Most of the children are from poor labourers' families, from Nithari, a migrant workers’ hamlet. Almost a hundred children have gone missing in the last couple of years from Nithari and other nearby places. Children whose parents had pleaded in abject misery to the police to help, only to be spat upon.

This is my India.

The killers will be hanged soon. But what of the whole society, its institutions, its ethos and its mores, its joys and comforts, its preoccupations - which enabled and allowed this to happen, to be condoned?

I wish I could be extinguished.

The mythic hero had only to kill the monstrous beast under whose shadow suffering folk lived in nightmare, delivering a virgin to be sacrificed every full moon. But we have to live with such a monster, and transform it peacefully.

I cannot think of a sadder day for India. I am haunted by the cries and grief of the parents of the children. I cannot stop weeping my gut out; unless I become a stone. Life has no meaning or purpose. To be alive is to be accursed. Why am I alive?

But as long as I am alive, I must stand apart.

If the USA were to walk into this country and wreak havoc, like they have done in Afghanistan and Iraq, then that assault on this nation's sovereignty would not matter a whit to me if this precious freedom means what happened in Noida can take place; if the anthem of the nation is the deafening silence to habitual inhumanity.

Criminalisation by the Justice System

I received this message from my friend Enakshi, who is a member of HAQ - Centre for Child Rights, in New Delhi.

This is the story of two poor young boys from the slums of Delhi, the treatment meted out to them in the hands of the Police, and their journey in search of justice.

On the night of 5th December three police officials in uniform “picked” up two brothers, Surjeet[1] (17 years) and Manjeet[2] (15 years) from there home. When the mother Radha (name changed) asked where they were taking her children, she was simply told that they were being taken for questioning in relation to a case against a local ‘criminal’ named Chotu. They would be sent back “soon” she was promised.

When there was no sign of her children the next morning, Radha was frantic. She knew nothing of their whereabouts. That is when she approached HAQ: Centre for Child Rights, New Delhi. HAQ visited two local police stations and contacted a third, but could not locate the boys. With no news of her children for 24 hours, their mother was then forced to file a habeas corpus petition on 6th December in the Delhi High Court in order to find her sons. However, on 7th December when the matter appeared before the High Court, the court decided to grant the police three days to produce the boys instead of the standard 24 hours usually given to find a missing person, leaving the mother distraught and frightened for her children.

When the children were eventually found, it turned out that they had spent these days in a police lock-up for adults in direct contravention to the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Amendment Act 2006 which requires a juvenile in conflict with law is apprehended by police to be produced before the juvenile Board within a period of twenty-four hours of his/her apprehension. The law clearly states that in no case, a juvenile in conflict with law shall be placed in a police lock-up or lodged in a jail.[3]

And this was not all. In the course of the habeas corpus hearing it emerged that the same police officials have filed a false First Information Report (F.I.R) on December 6,2006, even while Surjeet was in their “safe custody”, claiming that he had been found lurking near Lady Sri Ram College, and was in illegal possession of a loaded country-made pistol. Based on this FIR he had been produced before the Metropolitan Magistrate on December and remanded to 20 days judicial custody, and was currently in Tihar Jail. The younger boy was let off with a warning. But not before he had seen the country made revolver being implanted on his brother after being taken from an adult man who was in the same lock-up, and in possession of the said revolver.

Confining itself strictly to the plea of habeas corpus, the Honourable High Court on 11th of December, chose to not to reprimand the police over their conduct in this case in which every act of theirs had been against the juvenile justice law. It also chose to keep silent on the matter of the illegal detention of the children and has not issued an order for Surjeet to be moved from Tihar Jail to an appropriate institution for children. The Judge asked the lawyers to move fresh applications on all these counts.

While the case was pending, the mother Radha was sent a warning that her enmity with the police “would be at her cost”. Members of the HAQ team have received visits from the police “requesting for withdrawal of the case”.

Surely, this incident raises serious questions about the whole justice system in this country? What is the purpose of having a comprehensive juvenile justice system laid out on paper if none of this is implemented in practice and police are given powers to do as they please? Such actions only marginalize and criminalise the poor –children such as Surjeet and Manjeet will grow up feeling disillusioned and disenfranchised by society and because of this. Can we blame them if they finally take recourse to a life of crime?

The message clearly is: “if you are poor, the system can beat you. There is no one to stand by you. And if someone dares to, they do so at their own peril. And if you fight for justice, the system will wear you, frighten you and beat you down…”

Is this a reality that we want our children to grow up with?
......................................
[1] Name changed to protect identity

[2] Name changed to protect identity

[3] Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Amendment Act, 2006, New Delhi, 23rd August 2006, section 9.

Farewell Fr Beckers

Yesterday evening, while on the internet, I clicked some link and came upon this picture. It is, of course, a familiar image. I had this as the wallpaper on my computer for a time. My friend KT Ravindran, architect and professor, had once told me that this was Jesus the revolutionary, the image preferred by the liberation theologists.

It is an image that is dear to me. I can go on gazing at it, and become immersed in thoughts, feelings and awarenesses. Yesterday, once again, I looked at this image for a while. I remembered Fr G Beckers, sj.

Today morning, I read in the newspaper that Fr Beckers passed away yesterday evening. He was 82.

I am filled with sadness, and flooded with memories.

Gerard Beckers, a Belgian Jesuit, had been a lecturer in chemistry at St Xavier’s College, Calcutta, since 1960. He joined the Jesuits in 1944. He obtained his DSc in Chemistry in 1953, and came to India in 1954. He was ordained a priest in 1958. He became an Indian citizen in 1978.

I first saw him in August 1976, when he let my mother and me into the college when we had gone to check the college admissions list on a Sunday morning. I joined the college as an undergraduate. You couldn’t miss Fr Beckers. Tall, well-built, erect, rugged face, aquiline features, a sharp beard, always dressed in white khadi kurta-pyjama, and rubber flip-flops, often on his bicycle. Speaking perfect Bangla, albeit with a slight accent, in his deep, rasping, lilting voice, and his ever warm, kindly, caring bearing, and the twinkle in his eyes. It was difficult not to be drawn to him, like a puppy, and simply look up to and love him.

Besides his classroom chemistry teaching, Fr Beckers was a towering figure in social service in Calcutta, West Bengal and eastern India. He had helped to found, and was associated with, several social and activist organisations and initiatives. As coordinator of the college’s National Service Scheme, he organised numerous flood relief, rural reconstruction, literacy and blood donation programmes. When I was a college student, we had blood donation camps in college every few months. Learning that Fr Beckers had donated blood over 200 times, we too made it a point to donate blood every time. Out of the money given by the Central Blood Bank for the donated blood was the Students' Health Home in Calcutta built and supported.

He was affectionately called "Babu" Beckers, meaning "dear one". He was a source of inspiration for thousands of boys, over several generations of students. He brought many into the fold of social concern and action, moulding committed and thinking activists at an early age. (I just spoke on the phone to Meghnath, in Ranchi. He was my contemporary, and a shishya of Fr Beckers. He is a grassroots activist, working for the rights of the indigenous peoples in the Chhotanagpur region of eastern India.) Fr Beckers had been a source of succour and support to many very poor students from humble backgrounds, whom he helped in various ways to complete their education and stand on their own feet with dignity. He was friend-confidant-counsellor to so many students in their troubles and confusions. Fr Beckers was adored. A giant of a man in every respect, and a most gentle one.

If Jesus Christ needed a living example, an ambassador, Babu Beckers was one.

Calcutta, West Bengal and India were privileged to have been home to Fr Beckers. He was another in a long line of European Jesuits who made themselves one with the soil of India and served the people of this land, a land where the gospel of Christ was first brought by St Thomas himself, two millenia ago, where Jesus Christ himself is believed to have come and lived and travelled. How rich one is simply to have passed through the portals of St Xavier's! He was another of the legendary, awe-inspiring figures of this college. (Fr Goreaux, a mathematician and associate of Einstein, was also a beloved professor here when I was in college.)

I taught (economics) at St Xavier’s College for a while (in 1984-85). So now I became acquainted with Fr Beckers as an adult, as an activist and intellectual, as a colleague. After I quit the job, contact with Fr Beckers came to a close. But I would run into people from time to time, to whom he had been a guru.

A few years ago, I began visiting Fr Beckers once in a while, at his room in St Xavier’s College. I was urged to do so by Fr Huart (another Belgian-Indian-Bengali, who was the Vice Principal during my college years) when I bumped into him during an out-of-the-blue visit with my sons to Outram Park, near the college, a special haunt of mine.

Fr Beckers was long retired. We would chat, we shared books and articles. We talked about so many things! I remember telling him about my travels in the Holy Land, and my favourite place, the Dormition church in Jerusalem (where Mother Mary is supposed to have gone into her final sleep).

Fr Beckers was old and frail, afflicted with Parkinson’s disease, and almost blind. But his fire and spirit, though mellow, was still very much alive. He could still think, talk, joke, laugh, reflect. And he was full of his natural loving kindness. How glad I am that I also took my son Rituraj with me once.

Fr Beckers told me about his student Najes Afroz, now a BBC journalist, my contemporary, who had stayed in touch with him. His wife is singer Moushumi Bhowmick. Living in London, Najes and Moushumi's son Arjaan had written an essay in school, on something like "the person who has inspired you the most", about Fr Beckers. He had learnt about Fr Beckers from his father. Arjaan's teacher had been very moved by reading his account, and had written a comment in the note-book lauding such positive parental upbringing. Najes had given Fr Beckers a copy of Arjaan's essay pages, and he shared this to me.

In early 2004, Fr Beckers' 80th birthday was celebrated in Asha Niketan, a mentally challenged persons’ home in Calcutta, an institution he had long been a mentor to. I was there, with photographer Achinto, who had lived and worked in Asha Niketan in his youth. My son Rishiraj was also there. What a beautiful, happy occasion that was!

Being fixed in a groove of daily routine and various preoccupations, I had not visited Fr Beckers for a long time. But I remembered him off and on. Like I did yesterday evening.

Fr Beckers suffered a fall in January and had become bed-ridden after that, his condition progressively worsening. His end came peacefully yesterday evening. His suffering comes to an end, he leaves us to meet his Maker. That is something joyous, yet we grieve his departure. But he will live forever, in the hearts and minds, and through the work and lives, of all those whom he touched.

Fr Beckers had donated his eyes and also pledged his body for medical research. His body will be kept in the college chapel from 7 to 10 am tomorrow morning. A prayer service for him will be held at St Xavier's College at 10 am tomorrow.

I am reminded of the tribute paid to another great guru, Patrick Geddes, by one of his students at Bombay University (where Geddes taught in the 1920s):

"He inspired you; he brought the best out of you; he re-kindled the creative spark in you. It is as a Teacher that he will live in our hearts and memories.

Assuredly there have been very few like him - they hardly come once a century. He just set you on fire with love of this earth and with desire to cleanse it, to beautify and re-beautify it, to build and rebuild it.

What was the secret of his amazing activity? What was his inspiration? It was, we believe, an unbounded love for the humankind with all its faults. No poet, prophet or theologian has regarded man as veritably created in the image of God with a clearer perception, with more absolute certainty of conviction than him."

Farewell, beloved Fr Beckers. Our very grief will once again inspire us to devote ourselves, completely and endlessly, to the service of the people.

“Thy people bless and praise that he may feast in Paradise with Thee.”

Singur students under pressure

The Statesman News Service

The attendance of students in the primary schools of Singur has gone down in the past four months because of the farmers’ movement against land acquisition. A district primary school board official said the students in the five affected villages were unable to concentrate on their studies. “They’re under psychological pressure,” said Mr Khitish Patra, chairman, district primary school board.

More than 2,000 students go to 17 primary schools in the villages. Sontu Kolay studies in Class III of Bajemelia Uttar Primary School. His mother, Ms Sabitri Kolay, an active member of the Singur Krishi Jomi Raksha Committee (Agricultural Land Protection), told The Statesman: “My son fared badly in his examinations last month. I can’t blame him as there’s no one to take care of his studies. We’re busy with our meetings and too poor to be able to afford private tutors.”

Another member, Ms Jharna Langal, of Bajemelia, said: “Despite being a meritorious student, my daughter, Hoimonti, failed in her half-yearly tests this year as we’d been negligent. She’s scared as the government has decided to strip us of our livelihood”

Ms Protima Dey, of Bajemelia, cannot recall the last time her son, Subhadeep, went to school.

The Integrated Children Development Scheme too has suffered. Only a few nursery students show up at the ICDS centres in the affected villages, said an official.

Mr Patra said: “The situation in Singur has created the psychological pressure on students, harming their studies.”

Lullaby contest, Malaysia

A family that sings together, stays together. Or so a Malaysian state would try to establish in a lullaby singing contest to find the best crooners among 42 couples to have put in their names.

The contest in Kelantan, believed to be the first of its kind, aims to promote “family love” and togetherness and improve mothering skills of young wives. “It shows that the family comes first in the lives of everyone here,” State Women Committee chairperson Abdul Fatah Mahmud was quoted as saying by The Star newspaper. He added that it was part of the state’s commitment to promote the healthy and harmonious family institution with religious elements.

I had written and set to melody a lullaby, in Bangla, in 1998. I had been inspired by observing the fierce protective love of a mother in Priya Manna Basti for her children. I would be happy to offer this to any of the contestants in Malaysia!

Here is the song, together with a translation.

Khoka Khuki

Khoka khuki shikh-tey hobey
Khat-tey hobey tomaarkey
Mayer aador kaboch hoyey
Shongey tomaar thakbey

Nayan moni nijer payey
Haanthtey hobey tomaarkey
Shoja pothey maatha tuley
Choltey hobey tomaarkey

Lekha poda shikley tumi
Maanush hotey paarbey
Aloye eshey alo tomaar,
Alo diteyi thakbey

Podtey shekho jiban keyo
Podtey tumi paarbey
Likhtey giyey nijer jiban
Nijeyi tumi likhbey

Parichanna rakhbey tumi
Sharir aar montakey
Shusto shastyo money praney
Maanush okei koyey

Haanthtey geley aachad kheyey
Baetha hobey manjhey manjhey
Mayer koboch pratikhoney
Thakbey tomaar shoney


Little boy, little girl

Little boy, little girl, you must learn
You have to work hard
Your mother’s love, like armour
Will be with you

Jewel of my eye, on your own feet
Must you stand
On the straight path, head held high
So must you walk

If you learn to read and write
You will become human
Coming to light, your light
Will keep giving light

Learn to read, you will be able
To read life
By writing, your own life
Shall you write

Clean must you keep
Your body and mind
A healthy body, mind and life
Is what’s called human

When you try to walk, you will stumble
You will get hurt from time to time
But your mother’s armour
Shall be with you every moment