Tryst with Mole-ji

                                                                         Tryst with Mole-ji

Today is the birthday of Lord Ganesha, the remover of all obstacles. The birth of the elephant- headed god, son of Parvati was one of immaculate conception. When we visualize Ganeshji, he appears as a cute baby, cherubic, pot bellied and forever sporting an innocent smile. Sitting or standing, dancing or playing or gorging on rice dumplings with jaggery at the centre, he looks cuddly and adorable. It is a widely followed Indian tradition to seek Ganeshji’s blessings before embarking on any new activity. Among all the Gods worshipped by the Hindus, Ganeshji shares his loveable image with baby Krishna, though he, unlike the latter is not known to play pranks.

It has been an annual feature in my home to see a mole making his entry close on to Ganesh Chaturthi. I am fond of the Mole though he creates enough damages all round, nibbling at books and clothes not to leave out any tidbits that come in his way. Maybe my liking is linked to my love for Ganeshji who uses the mole as his mount. Any how the fact is the mole is also cute and flits through from point to point at jet speed. One can even succeed in catching a leviathan on a fish net, but catching the mole is a maddening impossibility. I don’t think even Usain Bolt can keep pace with the mole.

I recall having seen the English series on the Mole by the Czech director animator Zdenek Miler and the 1993 Charles Grosvenor’s film Once Upon a Forest featuring a young mouse, mole and hedgehog risking their lives to find a cure for their badger friend who had been poisoned by men. Then there is the all popular Tom and Jerry film centering on a rivalry between Tom Cat and Jerry Mouse. Tom rarely succeeds in catching Jerry because of Jerry’s cleverness, exceptional abilities and luck. Similarly when the mole makes its surprise and split second entry, I am at a loss to keep track of his movements. I bolt all the windows and doors but even through the tiniest crevice he flashes through in less than a blink of the eye.

He is so cute that one does not have the heart to kill the mole or even hurt him. The best way is to entice him with buttered bread placed in a mousetrap so that he  eats and gets trapped and one can release him  far away from home. But most of our local makes are not contraptions but  con-traptions. Before one can place the tiny buttered bread or chapati in the hook, the spring loaded metal bar gets released to trap our fingers that are at least half a centimeter thicker than the breadth of the mole. But what is most embarrassing is that after all the cautious and gingerly efforts at placing the temptation in the trap, we soon find the bread piece missing, with no sign of the culprit. The bars of the trap are teeny-weeny wide for the mole to flit in and flit out.

Having failed with the mousetrap, I asked my kirana shop owner to provide me with some device to trap but  not to kill moleji.  For the first time, he was quick to respond and said that the fertile jugaad invention of the Indian mind has made a new device out of card boards bound like a book. The inside of this book, he said, is coated with glue and when this is placed on the mole’s track, it will get glued to it. I was delighted and proud of the raw Indian ingenuity and paid a whopping hundred rupees and returned home. I could not wait to open the book-alike invention but just as I wrenched open the book-trap I got my hand stuck to the glue, and as I tried to release my hand with the other that also got stuck in it. I had to shout for help to be released from the book-trap, not before getting my dress also glued to it. My neighbours helped me by pulling me away as though they were playing the tug-of war game and I was finally released from the book trap after being pulled apart from all sides. I shyly gave a lengthy explanation to them paying myself a compliment that I was overflowing with milk of kindness towards moleji and hence this book trap was bought to catch him and release him without killing him. There was quite a bit of smirk on their faces as they took leave, leaving me to find the right place to keep the trap on. It was late in the evening and I switched off the kitchen light and placed the trap near the kitchen door.

Before I retired to bed, I peeped into the kitchen to see a small creature wriggling to get out of the book trap. I switched on the lights and to my horror of horrors it was not moleji but a lizard. I have like many others the lizard phobia. How on earth am I going to throw the lizard out? All my family members said that it was my idea to get a book trap and so I had to find a way out to release the lizard. I decided to take the lizard call in the morning and went to bed. I could not get to sleep and on those rare few minutes when fatigue overpowered me, I dreamt abou  the lizard jumping all over me while I attempted the good Samaritan work of releasing it. I recalled the famous Tamil proverb that speaks of the clay moulder’s attempt at making Ganesh and ending with making a monkey. Here I was with a lizard on hand in place of the moleji.

As the first rays of the dawn broke in, I went tip-toed into the kitchen to see the mole and the lizard glued to the trap  and struggling to free themselves. They squired themselves round and round the square trap, as though they were at a merry- go-round. I was now caught in a trap of my own making. I understood the smirk on the neighbours’ faces the previous night. Everyone was asleep and I carefully caught the booktrap by the ends and went out to find a place to leave it. I found a place near a drain pipe and left the trap patting myself for my heroism.

Two hours later I had a cop and two burly men at my door. They asked me to go out with them and I found a large number of my neighbours and their families near the drain pipe watching a crow and a cat ensnared along with moleji and the lizard. I was asked to pay fine for defiling the drain pipe and a hefty sum to the burly fellows to release the foursome from the book trap. “What about the book-trap? Do you want it back?” asked the cop.  I shrieked “No! Never!, even as my neighbours mumbled crocodile commiseration for my 100 plus another 1000 rupees down the drain. I came home to see Ganeshji with his impish smile waiting for his jaggery dumplings.

P.S.

I have reliably learnt( not through any mole) that PM Modi has pleased Lord Ganesha to such an extent that not a mole is allowed to enter his office and poor media is thus starved of breaking news.

Intellectual Interpretation of Mundane Reality.

                                     Intellectual Interpretation of Mundane Reality.

In 1917, Marcel Duchamp created the piece Fountain which was a scandalous work, a porcelain urinal and submitted it to the Society of Independent Artists. It was rejected by the Society as it regarded it as a scatological work. But Duchamp described that his intent in creating the piece was to shift the focus of art from physical craft to intellectual interpretation. Though the experience of such art is not exciting and ennobling and leaves one with a sense of distaste, Duchamp adamantly asserted that he wanted to "de-deify" the artist.

I may be charged with calumny/ slander/defamation etc even if I vaguely suggest a veiled comparison between Marcel Duchamp’s conceptual art and PM Modi’s maiden Independence day address, but  I seek my readers’ objective assessment  that will reveal similarity of intent in Duchamp and Modi. Modi’s references to toilet and cleanliness, rape and foeticide  from the ramparts of the Red Fort was probably intended as a shock therapy to old world people like me who expected an ennobling  and exalting speech which in present times is  looked at with derision as an elitist affectation. The acolytes of Modi have the tendency to frown upon anyone who dares to critique his speech even though the same group hailed their leader last year when he belittled  the then PM’s Red Fort address  by making disparaging remarks when he unfurled the Indian flag from Ahmedabad.  Today they praise Modi for being extempore, for doing away with the bullet proof screen and for his paternalistic advice as signs of his oratorical skills, courage, direct contact with his audience  and his fatherly concern for his  unruly, erratic people –so different from all the previous PMs’ staid addresses from the Red Fort.

It is difficult to accept all these effusive praise in toto despite the panegyric chorus of  the Modituva brigade, the fawning Media and the few select discussants on TV channels claiming their views as representative of all Indians in and outside the country. The PM’s homilies like cleanliness is godliness, rein your sons  and not your daughters – (as though all daughters are  of Florence Nightingale’s descent and all sons are  descendants of Ravan and Duryodana)  sounded like moralizing sermons from classroom or from the pulpit and seemed at odds with an inspiring Independence Day address from the Red Fort. While the Modi votaries gush eloquently on their leader speaking from the heart and connecting with the audience( they say “not for your kind of elitists”), I wondered whether Modi did not remember that among the audiences were 144 members from various diplomatic missions( it is said that the Ministry of External Affairs could not oblige all the 150 diplomatic missions who had requested for passes to listen to the PM’s maiden speech) who could not be provided with accurate translation of the PM’s speech delivered in Hindi as it was extempore. The flipside of the non availability of the PM’s speech to the diplomats was that the PM’s broadside on filth and rape, on his countrymen’s patriarchal love for sons and detestation for daughters and their crime against women went unheeded and unnoticed by them at least for the moment. While hygiene and toilet are important issues, they have to be tackled not from the Red Fort but from classrooms and municipal offices. Independence Day address is meant to give a sneak peek into his vision and plans on issues that concern India and the world.  But strangely the PM  did not touch upon inflation- a key to unveiling his economic policy, on defence that includes India’s troublesome  relationship with Pakistan and China and on all the major ‘T’s(talent, tourism, trade and technology)  and ‘C’s (cooperation, connectivity, culture and constitution) that he had earlier made the cornerstone of his internal and international policies.

The removal of bulletproof glass pane was done in the early hours of the 15^th August after a security shield had already been laid for his Red Fort visit as the PM of the nation. This is more an act of bravado( for which Rajiv Gandhi paid with his life) and why should the PM seek such pseudo glory when he has risen to the highest office of the country?  There is no doubt that he is fluent with words in Hindi speeches but these speeches  are good for elections to touch the sensitive chord of every Indian. But this is post election period and he is now the PM of the whole of India. Should not this occasion be used for bringing the nation together by an address from the Red Fort to reach the listeners in Tamilnadu and Kerala, Andamanand Nicobar islands and non-Hindi speakers in other parts of the nation. Is his audience limited to the northern states only that he had to deliver his maiden address from Red Fort in Hindi?

This is not to criticize the PM’s efforts to galvanize people to rise up to a new India. But what was needed and was disappointingly missing in his speech was a clear  roadmap towards establishing a new India. He could have roused his countrymen telling them what and how they should make citizen-government partnership effective rather than confining to chiding them for their omissions and commissions. In the act of governance, he can no longer  say that he is an outsider and the insiders are in the bureaucracy who like the rats are chewing away good governance. 

The most unfortunate development of the last few weeks since Modi took charge is the sycophancy of the BJP men and women- especially  their spokespersons with their  attempt to eulogize the PM even if he sneezed and criticize all those who dare to be objective and not be obsequious. Imitation, it is said, is the best form of flattery. But flattery is the worst form of insincerity and all PM’s men and women should be wary of indulging in insincere and excessive praise. It is time they give up deifying a person who has been given the huge responsibility of governing a country that has in recent times become undisciplined and unmanageable.

Modi is now the Prime Minister of India at a time when the nation is in transition to a new age of modernity. He has the unenviable opportunity to mould the nation to a glorious future. To do that he has to rise above trivial issues and talk and act like a world statesman. Like Duchamp, he has to shift the focus of his speeches from rhetoric on mundane reality to higher echelons of intellectual  engagement.

The Apparel Oft proclaimeth the Man

                                                 The Apparel Oft proclaimeth the Man.

Tamilnadu Chief Minister Jayalalitha has introduced a bill barring recreation clubs, associations, trusts, companies and societies from imposing restrictions on any person wearing the veshti(dhoti.) All parties –allied as well as  opposed to the AIADMK supremo have hailed the Puratchithalavi “Amma’s” diktat as a landmark decree paying reverential tribute to the humble veshti(dhoti). I wonder whether this includes “Kaili”/ “Lungi”/ “Saaram-chaaram”–the coloured and striped version of the dhoti, usually worn by labourers and also the half cylinder which is the Madrasi male’s preferred and   fancied style of wearing the veshti/kaili  folded up till the knee( it will not be even a centimeter above the knee as Madrasis love exhibiting their prudery in public.)

The reason for the Tamilnadu Assembly- whose presiding deity is “Amma”- to bring up this diktat is to pay homage to Tamil culture. No doubt, it is indeed a very laudable chauvinistic pride of the Tamils in their culture. But why has Amma restricted the no-ban on veshti wear only to clubs, societies, associations etc and not extended it to all offices, colleges, schools, theatres and all other public institutions? If veshti is the pride of Tamil culture, why don’t the schools and colleges insist on making veshti the uniform for boys and men? Why do they allow jeans, shorts, slacks, trousers and even  and kurta pyjamas(an export from the North) that smack of western and northern influence on the purity and pristine glory of Tamil culture wrapped around the four/eight yards of the veshti? Why should schools insist on uniforms designed on the western wear of shirts and shorts or trousers and not adopt veshti as the uniform that is synonymous with Tamil culture? Why can’t all offices- in particular the government offices of Tamilnadu have the Veshti uniform that will preserve the age old tradition of the  Tamils?  I am sure if the software companies and BPOs decree veshti wear for their top CEOs and executives , their parent organizations in US will  at once borrow the veshti design from Tamilnadu and make special  branded veshtis by MNCs   not only for their executives, but export  them to India. If  “Amma” veshti is  introduced in all institutions of Tamilnadu ,  the entry of large scale multinational branded veshtis  of Allan Soleys et al can be stopped. I have reliably learnt that the Chinese have in their agenda when Sushma Swaraj visits China to request  Prime Minister Modi to rein in Amma as the Veshti has started giving strong competition to the blue jeans that originated from China as a common wear for all people-from the top executive to the bottom employee barring the military officers and jawans. I have no doubt that with their pride in veshti, the ingenious Tamil brains will design veshti uniforms that can be worn in the high altitudes of the Siachen glacier.

Amma has to extend this decree to the theatres, cinema halls and concert venues in order to preserve Tamil culture. Veshti is now acquired  the pride of place along with Carnatic music, Conjeevaram silk, Coffee(filter) and Idli-Dosa-vada as the pride of Tamilnadu. All these except Veshti have acquired their status without any fiat from the government. In fact, Amma has not noticed that the new generation with their faith in YOLO(You live only once)  has replaced coffee by cococola, idli-dosa-vada by Mcburger and pizza, Carnatic music by rap and pop music and Conjeevaram silk by jeans and trousers of all kinds. Probably and rightly so, she must have accepted  these generational changes in taste and wear as they have not diminished the Tamil passion for their four Cs- Coffee, Conjeevaram silks, Carnatic music and exclusive rice based Cuisine;  Tamil culture has survived  in today’s jean age. Come December, and the whole city of Chennai will reverberate to Carnatic music, interspersed with the aroma of filter coffee and mouth watering hot vadas . Men sporting the double bordered Conjeevaram Veshti and women  the pure zari bordered silk sarees will be in all the sabhas listening to vintage Carnatic music. Life moves on a routin  pace in Chennai. Nothing really changes In Chennai. The two things that excite them are the sight of a Kollywood star and an imagined/perceived slur to Tamil culture. Amma has ensured that there shall be no slight to Veshti in exclusive clubs and societies which insist on dress codes that do not include the humble veshti. Her decree rides roughshod over the apprehension of club owners about the possibility of their exclusive members breaking into lungi dance. She has put paid to their fears of the shocking possibility of half cylinders intruding into and peeking out of the hallowed space of their elitist societies. These clubs can no longer have the autonomy of imposing sartorial codes for their members. Amma in one sweep has bridled the freedom of these clubs even though in a recent judgement on Aamir’s nude poster, the Supreme court said: “If you don't like the nudity in the movie, don’t watch it. “ But the Tamilnadu clubs cannot hold a similar view that if you don’t follow our codes, don’t come here. That is a privilege given only to temple authorities who feel any dress other than Veshti without the covering of the upper torso will pollute the sanctity of the temples as Gods do not like to see anyone clad in jeans or trousers. Amma has given us the poor mortals the privilege to see the lower torso in veshti that was denied by the clubs till now. Amma’s veshti decree has ensured her the loyalty of the Tamil voters for another five years –if not for eternity.

No country, Yes Country

                                                                          No country, Yes Country

I set foot for the first time on the English soil when I went as a British Council scholar to the University of East Anglia. I was 33 at that time. I had left my husband and my eight year old daughter in Delhi. The stay there was for just two years. Though I did not set the Thames on fire, the English stay set my soul on fire.  I loved England, the English summer with its tropical sunshine interspersed with rains and temperatures plummeting down to just about 20 degrees Celsius, its theatres, its vast green meadows, its universities of great repute, its museums and art galleries, and above all the pristine English spoken by the university dons and academicians. I loved my anonymity and the freedom that goes with it. I enjoyed walking for hours inhaling the fresh air or returning to my digs late at night after watching a play or listening to a concert. All through my stay I kept mumbling to myself Wordsworth’s famous lines  Bliss (is) it in this dawn to be alive/ But to be young is very heaven!—

 My attraction for England was the same as Wordsworth’s attraction for France,  a country in

 romance, at the time of the French revolution. Like Wordsworth, I looked upon my English

 sojourn as a period of freedom and liberty. It provided a great stimulus to my intellectual and

 emotional life because I saw in the civilized world of England hope and joy to live life as a true

 human being. There were times I wished I made England my home. I was glad to lose my Indian

 identity and willing to search for a new life. The idea of being a world citizen was too novel and

 fascinating to resist. I felt a sense of being connected to the world and was  willing to abandon

 my identity, my country, my past life and give myself a new identity as a world citizen. The stiff

 upper lip of the British did not bother me because I gave them the same identity that I had given

  myself- the identity of a world Citizen. I could be in my saree that was for me the most

 comfortable wear though it was far different from the Western wear but I was never subjected

 to any jeering comment. I was accepted as I was and I there were no signs of  racial hostility

 against me for being what I was. I did not feel the need to change  because I felt impelled to

 accept that  I belonged to “no country” ,  replace it with “yes Country” and derive my identity

 from all the countries of the world. I enjoyed the company of fellow students from Europe,

 North and South America, Iran, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Srilanka, Japan and Phillipines and

 learnt about their culture and identity and could discern the identical human culture that

 bonded all of us.

 I returned home at the expiry of my student visa. I had my family waiting for me and I came 

home as a reluctant Indian. India was at that time on the throes of emergency and there was 

  anger, fear, frustration and a frenetic throw -back to cultural nationalism focussing on national

 identity shaped by cultural, religious and linguistic traditions as opposed to liberal nationalism

, “the non-xenophobic form of nationalism compatible with values of freedom, tolerance,

 equality, and individual rights.” It was difficult for me to adjust to the new found enthusiasm for

 all that was Indian and non-Western as I feared that cultural nationalism was likely to end up as

 cultural atavism with modern India  regressing and reverting to the ways of thinking and acting

 of a distant past. Fortunately this lasted  for a short period and India headed once again towards

 globalization and liberalization in the 1990s. I did not feel suffocated and looked forward to the

 time when India will be as progressive as the West.

That was forty years back.   I visited England ten years later and followed this with two more visits in the next five years. England had changed including its weather. There were a lot more Asians and Africans than they were in the 1970s. English language had changed and it was no longer the Queens English one listened to except on the BBC. My saree clad presence did not invite curiosity as England had got used to the presence of Indians and Bangladeshis. But I sensed a change in the English spirit. The friendly camaraderie was replaced by distinct hostility against the non-British race, especially from the South Asian continent. I felt ill at ease during these visits and longed to return home almost with a cry “Yes country” that I was coming back to.

These last few years – since the turn of the 21^st century, we have been witness to religious fundamentalism, racial fanaticism and pseudo patriotic jingoism. The chauvinistic cry “Yes, country’ is  the new form of extreme nationalism and it has become an accepted, honoured and venerated norm to parade one’s identity in terms of nation, religion and language. India is also currently moving towards this nationalistic ideal, to feel proud and superior as the root and source of all knowledge and wisdom. The concept of Sarva Dharma Sambhava,  that all Dharmas (truths) are equal to or harmonious with each other and all religions are the same, showing  different paths to God or the same spiritual goal -which in English translation can be succinctly phrased as Cultivating Humanity – is slowly getting eroded.  It certainly requires a great leap of courage, imagination and faith to leave one’s narrow identity and embrace the wider  global identity and say “No country” and “Yes Country”  just as we say “The king is dead, Long live the King”. To accept the geographical displacement and feel a sense of belonging to humanity calls for a new mindset. Kalyan Ray speaking about his new novel, No Country says: “Anyone who has done something like that – well, I would say we are all heroes, all part of this great story of diaspora.”

It is time we stand up and start a new chorus “No country, Yes Country” and embrace humanity transcending shadow lines of the mind that erect barriers between man and man, woman and woman. It is only by adopting a common human identity that we can restore peace and harmony to our contemporary world that prefers a clash of civilizations to a co-existence of civilizations. The sun shines on all of us irrespective of what colour, creed or race  we are born into. The Ganges rises in the western Himalayas in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, and flows south and east through the Gangetic Plain of North India into Bangladesh, where it empties into the Bay of Bengal. Does it discriminate people on the basis of religion or geographical boundary?  So does the Indus river. It  originates in the Tibetan Plateau in the vicinity of Lake Mansarovar,  runs a course through the Ladakh region of Jammu and Kashmir, towards Gilgit and Baltistan and then flows in a southerly direction along the entire length of Pakistan to merge into the Arabian Sea near the port city of Karachi in Sindh. It is the same all over the world. The rivers flow through distinct lands, inhabited by people belonging to divergent civilizations, cultures and religions. But the perennial flow of the rivers sees only the face of humanity as a single identity and sustains all of it with the essential source of life. If the sun and the stars and the moon, the sea and the rivers, land, air and sky are available for every human being, it behoves us to reflect on a single human identity that is embedded in the phrase: No country, Yes Country.  Can we make this leap with courage and conviction and embrace our one and only human identity? Can we have the courage and the passion to cultivate humanity? I pause for your reply.