Indian Skill Tricks

     Note:

 "We never laugh at ourselves; We are Indians"  has always been the caase with us.

Hence this article may raise the hackles of many, yet I dare to send it because there are times when we do need a good hearty laugh

                                                           

                                                             Indian Skill Tricks

PM Modi has been giving a clarion call for one thing or the other-almost one a week to keep both himself and his Indian dreams alive in the people’s minds.  He has demonstrated how  “holding a broom a day keeps the dirt away” ; he has invited the world to come to India and manufacture with the label “Make in India”;  he has started the Skill India Movement under the banner of NETAP(National Employability Through Apprentice Programme) – all these in addition to making clarion calls  from AIR to reach out to the rurban population in the country, from Madison Square  to express his grateful appreciation of the NRIs and PIOs  for their contribution to US economy, from Doordarshan studios to school children who will be his future clientele to exhort them to aim high as he had done from the chai shop to 7,Race Course Road, from different platforms to scientists, doctors, soldiers  and industrialists exhorting them to delve into Hindu mythologies and learn about genetics and plastic surgery without aping the Western inventions. The list is endless and by simply listening to Modiloquence is enough to make one feel good that “ache din” is around the corner. One does not have to actually experience “ache din” or a clean India or “make in India” products by foreign firms, but simply delight in his words that had earlier promised us the Moon and the Mars  before elections and continues to offer hope post elections. . We have responded admirably to PM’s call for Swachh Bharat and wielded the broom just for a day on Gandhi Jayanthi and presented ourselves at the photo-ops that revealed  spanking clean roads as they  had already been cleaned and re-cleaned for the launch of Swachh Bharat. PM’s “Make in India” invitation with the promise of catapulting India as a major industrial hub is yet to take off, but we are ready to wait in anticipation of goods labeled “make in India/Made by Japan, China etc”.

But in my humble opinion, PM has not taken full cognizance of the inherent genetic quality of We, the Indians. The real problem is his passionate commitment to skill development among the youth of India. It seems as though the PM has ignored the indigenous jugaad that can circumvent all conventional and scientific ways of doing things by innovative methods -uniquely Indian to create new things with minimum or meager resources.  PM has not stopped to wonder how foreign firms and technology can survive the innovative Indian skills that gives short shrift to complicated technology based machines. The technological advancement of the West pales in comparison to our jugaad contraptions that you see specially on the rural roads. The erstwhile “phat-phati” ,famous on Delhi roads ( the large contraption of a motorcycle into a three wheeler that was designed to seat six to eight passengers in relative dignity, but more often than not crammed with at least 10, and another two - if size permitted - sharing the seat of the driver, who would  deftly manoeuvre the somewhat ponderous machine down the crowded roads)  is a testimony to the engineering genius  of the nation. The current e- rickshaws, however unsteady and unsafe they may be are again another example of Indian innovative brilliance.

But PM in his hurry to propose new programmes every day announced skill development programme within days of becoming the PM. In that tearing hurry, he has given a royal ignore to our Indian skills-(which in the past had been limited to the Indian rope trick) by focussing on new skill training as a means to develop the youth force in India to build the nation and also to make these trained young men and women the toast of the world by displaying their skill and talent and ability. But we Indians are already skilled in ways that no one can even imagine, let aside practice. What we do, we alone can do. Let me list out a few of the many skills that should have been (but unfortunately not)featured in the Guinness book of records. Just a look at our Indian roads will give us enough examples of the wonderful skills that are uniquely Indian.

1. Our Mo-bikers and our autowallahs are highly skilled in vrooming their two and three wheelers between a bus and a truck at an amazing speed. While driving in any part of India, if ypu are  not alert to the zoom on your left, the zoom on your right, the zoom behind and the zoom ahead, you will land up in a hospital. It is indeed a credit to Indian ears that we still have a reasonably good auditory faculty despite being subjected to the vrooming sounds all through the day and also through the major part of the night.

2. The Indian spit through the middle and index finger without soiling either of the fingers is a well practiced and consummate art. It hardly matters to the spitters that PM has given a call for Swachh Bharat, for these gallant heroes while riding on a bus or even a three wheeler has the knack of colouring red any vehicle or object that comes near them by this skill of spitting through the fingers.

3. It seems the PM has not watched our cyclists, who in the midst of heavy traffic, pedal right and left with no indication of which direction they wish to proceed and at the same time while on their unsteady bicycles, they open a small pouch of pan masala with the help of their teeth and empty the contents  into their mouth.  This skill is not only dare devilish, but it is done to such perfection that not a mite of that substance is left in the pouch. The cycle turns zig zag, but he pedals it faster and faster holding the pan masala pouch deftly between his thumb and middle  fingers far above his open mouth.

4. It is a wonder to watch pedestrians crossing the road as vehicles move fast on the roads. The speed with which s/he moves makes one’s jaw drop. I recall an incident in US where I had gone. The six lane traffic on either side was choc-o-block with high speeding cars. An Indian gentleman whose car was parked on the right parking lane suddenly zipped from the right lane to the extreme lane on the left, unmindful of the cars on either side. It was not just a marvel but a miracle as he zigzagged his way to the other side.  He reminded me of the little mouse in our homes peeking out and disappearing in a flash within the wink of an eye. This daring skill is typically Indian.

5. The art of littering the roads while moving, the swerving of cars at a crossing from extreme left to extreme right and vice versa, the split second hooting from cars lined behind on the sight of the red light turning amber, the nonchalant way of defecating on the walls with the face averted, the jaywalking on busy roads are Indian skills that cannot be duplicated by anyone in the world.

6. The skill of the vegetable vendor and the kabbadiwallah (one who buys old newspapers) in short-changing the buyer is a double skill of weighing less and charging more.  The art of holding the balance to achieve his end is astounding. This is true of many shopkeepers and traders. The balance is always held in such a way that the pan with weights is always higher than the pan with the vegetables or newspapers.

7. When it comes to skills of the literate group, the best example is the bank clerk who does the entries in the passbooks of the clients. What a skill he displays when none of the figures is  aligned on the debit and credit columns so that it needs specialized skills on the part of the client to read them correctly.  The incongruous positioning of figures and words is a highly skilled job of the bank clerks. If the client questions about it, it is all hell let loose.

8. The petrol bunk attendants are another class who with a sleight of hand can squeeze you of at least a litre or two of petrol even when you are staring at the reading. Every time we fill petrol, we are down by at least 60 rupees in today’s rate of a litre of petrol.

9.The phenomenon of Lord Ganesh idol drinking milk  in 1995and 1996 was skillfully exploited by the ingenious temple attendants to coax unsuspecting Hindus to believe in it till such time when scientific explanation of capillary action  disproved it as a miracle.

10. The sudden sprouting of idols  in the late hours of the evening or nights is yet another  instance of  the Indian inventive mind to raise small platforms and temples overnight to make everyone believe that the Lord had decided to descend from heaven and make the place a holy place for him to rest.  I have seen the rise of such sacred spaces on open grounds  with the installation of a statue  that will be immediately labeled “pracheen Hanuman / ganesh” etc (ancient heritage Hanuman). The ingenuity of the Indian mind can be best seen in the mushrooming of small temples at different street corners in the cities.

There are many more skills apart from the ever fertile jugaad constructions that are patently Indian. I am sure PM will be astounded to see God’s plenty in Indian skills and therefore he may have to tweak the skills development programme to match the Indian inventive skills in quotidian practice.

                                                      

                                                                 

Seasons and Flowers

India has six seasons- two more than the four( spring, summer, autumn and winter) observed in the West. The additional two seasons are Varsha(Monsoon) and Hemanta(Fall Winter). Varsha gives us relief from the scorching Summer months and Hemanta heralds the onset of Winter. This seasonal classification is truer of the North than the South that has neither Spring nor Autumn nor Winter.  The seasons in the South are broadly Summer, Monsoon and Fall Winter, bringing in the weather changes from hot to hotter to hottest  all through the year.

The hot summer months and the cold winter months of Delhi are tough seasons and that too specially for the aged, despite the capital city enjoying the privilege of uninterrupted power supply to keep the ACs and heaters running and  protecting us from the climatic rigour. Delhi is full of neighbourhood parks - a boon for walkers to stretch themselves in the early mornings of the Summer months and in the late afternoons of the Winter months.

Delhi is relatively green in spite of the concrete jungles that have dotted the landscape of the city. Even in dry summer, the trees provide the shade though the green leaves look brown with the hot winds blowing the dust from Rajasthan. The trees wait for the rains to wash away the dust and add green luster to the leaves. The dry heat of the summer months from May to July vanishes with the first droplets of rain. The walk around the open park in the scalding Summer months provides great relief after being cooped up in the heated walls of the house. The coming of the rains during the Monsoon months from July to September puts an end to the  scorching heat of the previous three months (May to July) though the weather continues to be hot and humid. It is amazing to see the arrival of seasons with a clock-like precision(marginally delayed by a week or two) despite all the human meddling with the environment. The change in seasons is well matched by the change in the colours of Nature. For the Delhi-ites, this is an additional bonus as colorful flowers of myriad shades bloom at different seasons. The hibiscus that remains dormant during the winter months loves warm weather and blooms from mid to late summer.  Hibiscus gladdens our minds with its lovely red colour symbolic of courage, life and growth. But as summer grinds to a halt allowing autumn to take its place, we see geranium, gardenia and little white flowers sprinkled over small green shrubs that resemble jasmine but without its scent. Roses bloom from Fall winter (November) to Spring (March). There are about 150 varieties of roses. Whatever be their colour, size and  fragrance , a rose is a rose is a rose. The white rose is symbolic of purity while the red rose stands for love. The red and white striped rose stands for togetherness or unity, the pink with elegance, the yellow with friendship and so on and so forth.

What is astonishing is different flowers bloom at different times of the year and they follow a cyclical pattern in keeping with the seasons. There is no rivalry among the flowers , there is no attempt by any species to prolong its pride of place in the park and on the shrubs . With systematic precision, one group of flowers disappears to be replaced by another. Nature has many lessons to teach and the most significant of them is to know when to arrive and when to depart. Nature’s life is marked by punctuality, discipline, order and justness. It gives every species its right to appear, but appear only at the assigned time. The species also band together as a unit and bloom together and retreat after its work is over. While we keep talking about human rights- the rights of individuals to liberty and justice, we never realize the wonderful rights that Nature has bestowed on the flowers.

India has no drastic seasonal variation as is seen in the West. In UK, not a single flower is seen during winter months and the arrival of spring is heralded by tiny flowers emerging out of the grass. In India flowers are for all seasons and this is indeed a great blessing. We have to learn from Nature about equal rights- not to try one-upmanship and attempt to hold on to our positions without yielding them to others in waiting. The Government has fixed 60 years as the age of retirement and many senior bureaucrats and senior military personnel wait for positions of power as Governors, ministers and -if nothing else – as Rajya Sabha members (members of the Upper House). There is a highly competitive edge to every human activity even after enjoying a long innings of being in the limelight. We have forgotten the ancient Hindu philosophy that has given us the guidance to go through an orderly four stages of life. The strict discipline of the first stage with a focus on learning has considerably been diluted  to yield to more pleasurable and sensual activities. Learning and storing the knowledge for the future is no longer in vogue as it calls for a strict discipline that the young people resent. The second stage of enjoying family life and carrying out one’s duties by the family and society is becoming increasingly stressed and difficult due to a high degree of competition and rivalry. Enjoyment is on the decline and work has become tedious. The Third relates to gradual withdrawal from the world in preparation for the total renunciation in the next and final stage of life. As stated above, we are finding it difficult to accept retirement from jobs and withdraw from family life. We cling to the family and seek the position of an elder to advise and direct family affairs. There is a constant clash as the youngsters  now desire to occupy the space that the elders had held while the elders resent being relegated to asubsidiary role in the family. The last stage is no longer evident as in this material world the pursuit of the spiritual is more in theory than in practice.

Thank God, Nature has her schedule intact and has put in place the rights of every flower not in any hierarchical and vertical order but on a equal and horizontal plane. As Professor Higgins despaired in My Fair Lady “ why can’t the woman be like a  man” , we may have to ask ourselves “why cant humans be like Nature?”.

Vanshvaad

The zeal of the new convert is today less true of religious beliefs and truer of newly held political affiliations. This is because there are fewer religious converts in action as most of those who tend to act(and kill)  on behalf of religious faiths are not converts but mercenaries. In the case of political converts, there may be a few who do wait for the crumbs to fall from the top, but by and large their zeal is more passionate and emotional and to that extent of high voltage than out of any reasoned conclusion. A lot of Modi acolytes belong to  the order of the newly converted and their passionate panegyrics of Modi are sure to make him blush if not in public, in private at least.  One of the Sunday issues of a leading Newspaper speaks about the strikingly handsome 41inch waisted Modi because he is from handsome Gujarati male community ( Gujarati females,what aboutyou?) while another leading columnist hails him as the destructor of Vanshvaad to make the road to ‘parivartan’ easier( making poor Mamta  see ‘red’, being denied her share of  ‘paribortan politics’ despite not having a Vansh of her own a la Modi).

Vanshvaad as I understand is ‘dynastic tradition’- or in a much broader sense ‘family tradition’. There is no one born in this world that cannot claim to a family or ‘vansh’. The journalist’s praise of Modi for his battle to destroy  ‘vanshvaad’ is doing injustice to the idea of a family. But what baffles me is that we are ready to applaud destruction of ‘vansh’ because it is something undesirable and therefore to be rooted out. Dynastic tradition is a continuation of the family tradition. The Journalist seems to be myopic to limit  ‘vanshvaad’ to  Indian politics, choosing to turn a blind eye to Kennedy clan, Bush clan, Clinton clan who have carried the political torch of the family  in American politics. In fact, the destroyer of Vanshvaad had just met the Clintons who are aspiring for the Whitehouse in the next elections.

Vanshvaad in politics faces greater hurdles than in any other occupation.  It is easy for a carpenter’s son to wield the chisel with aplomb as it is for the tailor’s son to use the scissors. It is easy for the doctor’s progeny to join the father or the mother or the parents in their clinic; so is it easy for the lawyer to have his/her offspring to be called to the Bar. We have a number of great scholars and academics whose sons and daughters have made sure that their parents’ footprints are left in tact by carrying  their legacy in the university circles. Infact the journalist I have referred to has her own son followingthe mother's profession as writer-cum-journalist. There is nothing wrong to follow in the footsteps of the parents and proclaim proudly to the world that I am my father’s/mother’s son/daughter. In fact the phrase ‘a chip off the old block’ refers to someone who is similar in character, talent and skill to his father or mother.

Vanshvaad might have gained notoriety as a result of the caste system that had come to the society from the ancient days. Again this is also a partially understood concept as the original idea behind it was known as the ‘ Varna’ system in ancient India. Then the term ‘Varna’ was used for four different groups and not based on occupations and hierarchical ranking as it came to be  in the medieval period. The concept of dharma evolved in ancient India dealt with the duties assigned to each ‘Varna’  and the health of the society depended on each individual contributing in full measure to the duties and responsibilities given to him/her. But the  effect of binding some communities to inherit power, wealth  and status while denying the same to other communities resulted in the heinous caste system that had plagued and continues to plague our society, making Vanshvaad a disreputable term.

In India, this has been used ad nauseam to target some families whose scions have used to pitchfork them centrestage in the National politics. To be born of political parents is now made out to be a cardinal sin and to destroy dynasty politics is denial of democratic right to a politician’s progeny to enter politics. This is a misconceived approach because democracy provides the best safeguard by throwing out those who seek their goodwill at the hustings on the basis of inherited family reputation  without possessing merit or character.

 So to hail Modi not for his articulation nor for his honesty nor for his ideology- (one can differ from it but that does not mean there is no ideology)-but for his single minded determination to demolish vanshvaad is doing gross injustice to him. It is a pity that the Modi acolytes seem to be chanting in the same breath

All hail Modi, hail to thee

The PM of India

All hail Modi, hail to thee

The one and only face of the BJP

All hail Modi, hail to thee

 The destroyer of Vanshvaad.

Let us hope that our journalists learn to package sociology into their political discourse and not package politics into their newfound zeal for the PM.