Whose Common Wealth?

There are a dozen and a half reasons out there for which hate is piled up on CWG2010. I have my problems that go beyond beauracratic corruption. My reason is a simpler one. Whose Common wealth is being spent on the games? Is it unpatriotic to raise such a question; for I really don't feel like spending a budget that has been overshot at least a dozen times on a city that does not need the specific event to put it on the map. This is my problem; why Delhi. Why Always DELHI; when the games could have been some other Indian city's ticket to the international map?

Let us consider something; the very first Asian Games was conducted in 1951 in India to massage the egos of some national figures who wanted to claim international status when the economy of the nation was nowhere in the zone of hosting such an event. However, Delhi was India's biggest city then and if any city could pull it off, it was the capital city. Then like father like daughter; in 1982, we hosted another Asian games and it was not the post-liberalization India which would have had money pumped in from India Inc, but an India where the Games are state sponsored. So yet again, the decision to Delhi does not seem like a decision where there were many options. We pulled through that one. But in 2010, for the CWG, why does a place which claims to be a WORLDCLASS CITY, needs be the destination, yet again? Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai were on the historical and political map for a long time and with the advent of IT, Bengalooru and Hyderabad have made it to the big league. However, the CWG could have been just the right opportunity to elevate a second tier city, like Lucknow, Ahmedavad, Nagpur, Cochin, Madurai, Vishakapatinam, Cuttak, Jaipur and the list goes on. Does this sound like an unrealistic idea? Let us consider International precedents. CWG was conducted thrice in Australia and each time, it was in a different city, viz, Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne. England had the CWG twice, in London and Manchester. The only nation which had the games twice in the same place was a one-city country, New Zealand. But with India's size and population, is it not a crime to return to the same city for an event of such a scale? This mentality comes from a miscomprehension of Atithi Devo Bhava [Thankyou Sangeetha]; as the only concern is promoting a desirable view of the nation in a microcosm called Delhi while everything is swept under a blindspot. I this what a major sports meet is all about?

Sports is the highest form of human interaction for it lacks no compulsion except for the one of the excellence of self. You know that you are getting better everytime you engage in sports. That is why it is considered to be the ultimate mode of dialogue; when two kids from completely different linguistic, cultural, socio-economic backgrounds push about a ball - progress is made. However when an event becomes about political muscle flexing and corporate swindling, sports loses lustre like a paper flower. Sports does not get better when money is spent in bigger buildings. Automatically, more medals will not start flowing when there are more swimming pools and shooting ranges. Sports and sportspeople have always succeeded despite the odds and sometimes because of it. How many true sportspeople will get to use the facilities once the Games are over? Probably the same number of sportspeople who used the facilities after the Asian Games 1982. Let us keep concentrating the COMMON's wealth to one city which has no other merit except being the capital city. Let us silence voices as unpatriotic that raise questions the order of things. Let us have a a great Games @ Delhi.

The Final Word

Give me freedom
Give me fire
Give me reason
Take me higher

And for the reason that I was naive enough to believe this to be the spirit of the FIFA Football World Cup 2010, I am a disappointed man today. 12th July 2010 (11th for those who chronologically "happen" after India), is a black day in all of Sports and Sporting events. Spain, the Champions from Euro 2008, the team with heavyweights like Casillas, Fabregas, Villa and Torres, the team who's dominance in possession of the football in the semi-finals sent home the Mighty Germans, became WORLD CHAMPIONS. As my friend painfully reminded me, history does not record HOW but just WHAT happened. For this reason, I want to pen this down, that Spain won the match and the championship; but they behaved not in the least like a champion side.

Today; Spain may have won the greatest prize in the football world; but the football world lost something - Honor.

There are not many occasions where one would usually consider using a sentence which has both "spaniards" and "cowards" in the same line; but when playing negative football for a good two hours is the only way of winning, the sentence forms itself. It was a big stage. People were nervy. The anxiety rushes out often as aggression. But the teams that made it to the very top of the best of the best in the footballing world, they are expected to know beyond pushing the next guy down to get possession of the ball.

Oranje; was a color that neutralized the Spanish advances and launched a few good attacks of their own during the course of the match. However, when one team gets showered with Yellow cards and free-kicks being awarded to the poorest actor swooning to the ground from the other team, one starts thinking. What about winning with dignity? After posing around with piss-poor on-field attitude the Spanish team managed every dirty trick in the book. However, one wonders how much of their attitude won the game for them; for the Hollanders despite holding fair-play as a virtue, managed to survive 118 minutes with their heads above the water. What a ridiculous moment it was, when the coach kept signaling demanding a penalty kick just as three of the Spanish players just fell faking consecutively. Incidentally, the man who scored the only and winning goal for Spain was someone who faked a fall just to promptly get up and push another player deliberately to the ground. He deserved a Red card for that. But he has become Spain's biggest hero.

Of course, there was Arjen Robben; on the other hand. He who knew that something had been set irrevocably on its path when he blinked and shot a moment too late. It must have been a sinking feeling to know that between him and Casillas, he would have won. That was the turning point of this match. Not the second such attempt where Puyol was dragging Robben by his waist to the ground and was not even awarded a free kick. Oh wait; Robben was awarded something immediately after - a Yellow Card.

The sheer number of Yellow Cards is an indicator of how surprisingly one-sided the tough-justice of the referee seems to be. While the Spainiards seem to be excellent negotiators talking their way out of offenses; any hint of dissent from the Dutch got them booked. And the unkindest cut of all, there was a red-card as well; again for an excellent piece of acting from a good Spanish actor. I was transported to 2006; where another Red Card brought about an abrupt unfair end to a great career that deserved a second World Title that year. Down to Ten-men, the Neds showed courage and it was no Dutch Courage; for one of the best plays where the Spaniards could not do anything about the passes in place for nearly a minute. They looked strong and seemed to suggest that if any team can come back from a man down and win the match; it was them. But history takes a different course; again.

My friend pointed out that I always have the problem of saying that some other team deserved the victory when they had lost. It was Kahn's Germany in 2002, Zizou's France in 2006 and Oranje in 2010. However, this year is different from the others. The Italian side that won the title last time was a champion side to boot with some of the best players in the world. They could have won the title any given day and nobody would have been surprised. I have a problem with the way France was deprived of an opportunity to have a level playing field; but Italians flexed their strength. But tonight's final is different for the best player on the field was someone who was constantly being hit, kicked, elbowed, crotched, pushed and shoved by different members from the other side. The better team looked down and cried; knowing that history would see them as a statistical anomaly and nothing more. That they would be the only team to have reached the finals thrice without winning even a single title. And that is what will become of them.

However, I saw something else happen too. When we started watching the match, there were three people out of the four in the group supporting the Spanish team and I was a sore Oranje thumb. By the end of the match, there were three who were supporting Holland and the fourth was apologetic for the way that Spain won. It is definitely not a freak incident. I am sure that there are a lot of fans across the globe who "turned" on the guys that they were told they should be supporting. And that is something that the generation that we belong to will remember, silently, of course; but it shall not be forgotten. Future will look back at this fact as a minor footnote. For I said, history only cares about things that did happen. And we will carry this tangible, organic, perishable information that greatness was denied to a team when they had deemed perfectly worthy of it. A few million fans richer, Holland will have to look at their strategies. The Spanish team, the world Champions, will have to look into their souls; if they have any.

I end this post here; hoping that four years down the line in Brazil; things are done in a different way. In a way where true sportsmanship and skill is meted out with its due reward and success.

Until then,
it is I, Hoping.
saravanan mani

Whose history does the sad goddess sing about?

In the poem Colonial Girl’s School, Olive Senior writes about how her school, in Jamaica taught her the language of Shakespeare and declensions in Latin but “Told us nothing about ourselves, There was nothing about us at all.” A land ruled by another race is distinctly different from its past. There are erasures and continuity is compromised in this subordinated life. However their products still have deep-rooted connection to what can be called home; like the Lhamo, for instance. The Tibetan opera is a form that has found strength in its identity as a displaced art. Not long ago, it was an unchanging tradition that was passed down over centuries in the strictest discipline. It has, however, now found new strength by drawing attention to itself as a rootless tradition. Lhamo has transformed itself into a window to the historic and cultural past of the Tibetan people. The form itself is quite different from the Peking Opera not only in its style but also due to its highly Classical (Sanskrit) structure. It also gives a much more important position to women due its origins which trace the first performers as women (the word Lhamo which means Goddess, comes from a phrase that they look like dancing Goddesses). The significance of this art form was so high in Tibetan culture, that when his Holiness, Dalai Lama came to India in 1959, one of the first institutions he established was the Tibetan Institute of Performance Arts. It was under his efforts that there has been a recent attempt to revive the Shoton festival, to encourage Lhamo performances. Traditionally, this festival was held for a week at Norbolinga, in Tibet, the summer palace of his Holiness with performances by the four district troupes of Tibet. In India, the troupes come from different settlements across the country, though the main performances are from TIPA itself.

As encouraging as it sounds, we must pay attention to the deteriorating interest in the Lhamo. The length of the plays (they are originally seven hours long) too discourages many from taking an active interest in it. Even though modern versions are brought down to the usual two-hour traffic, the apathy towards Lhamo continues. With stylized dance moves and high-pitched singing, it has taken up a ceremonious role in the society as opposed to its traditional role as an entertainment for the masses. Some say that the reason behind this lack of interest is due to the lack of quality Lhamo. Students these days are more interested in training themselves in dance and music and the Lhamo becomes a routine feature of their annual activities. Since it is easy for a good musician or a good dancer to get cast in chief parts of Lhamo, specially trained actors have become a rarity in this craft.

If one digs deeper considering the attrition as a symptom rather than a cause in itself, we can see that the chief reason is that despite its captivating ritual-nature, the Lhamo falls short due to its limited canon. Outside the dozen or so traditional works inspired from Sanskrit, there have been a few original plays written for performance. Most of them are invariably weak as the new plots are framed in the same structure with similar characters, as well as borrowing heavily from dance sequences from traditional plays. Most importantly, no songs are originally written but used from the traditional repertoire. This presents with very little scope for innovation and driven many students away from the theatrical side of things. Interestingly, a form which has survived and thrived without any formal structure has fallen on hard times despite organized support in the form of TIPA. What could be the reason?

The answer is a little anti-climactic for its obvious nature. It is the structure that has changed the fortunes of the Lhamo. Well, the structure that has been brought upon by the displacement. What was once a tradition that was home-grown in each district with its own regional flavor, was now a composite cultured in a forced environment of the Institute. The voice of the oppressed never finds the same pitch if it is silenced once, for there has been a change. This change in the state of life has sadly never been addressed by TIPA. Instead of forming a powerful that could speak aloud bravely of the tragic tale of their homeland, TIPA has manufactured the perfect Cultural-Historical sample piece which makes no effort to developing into an organic, contemporary form. Rather than focusing on turning the Lhamo into a vehicle for the future which focuses on contemporary problems of this displaced society, it has become a mere spectacle which commands little attention even from its own people. As a people who were forced to find homes in an alien land, the Tibetan public could not make a connection with the folk tales whose meaning have only an ironic value today. Disconnect, however, does not occur in isolation.

Since it is easier to ignore that which is politically uncomfortable, the refugee becomes the biggest blot on the clean chit of diplomacy. How can we get investors from China when those who fled the country are treated with dignity within the boundaries of our nation? We change our stand. The unconditional welcome to the fleeing thousands is cast outside the discourse of politics. We give them shelter, like we give shelter to dogs in the rain. But we really do not care much about the politics of why they are here. We do not want to find out. What drove them? Oh, Lhasa is a very cold place; so they wanted to move somewhere warmer. It is easier to believe that. So continues our hand-wringing, apologetic explanations of the embarrassment that our guests have become. India is a nation without a middle class. The top five percent of the nation controls its majority resources. When the picture of India needs some shining, all the remaining 95% is brushed under the carpet. Minorities, tribal peoples, refugees; they are the same. They are the collective shame of a nation which is fast trying to be developed nation. How do we do that? We will them into a collective non-existence. We change our past. They are there but we pretend they are not; like cockroaches.
Indians have an obsession with history. Like any other country in the world, we have books on history in school, compulsorily read till class ten. But unlike any other country in the world, our history books are dialogues of a total, singular Indian identity with the rest of the world. We are so involved in our pasts that we have developed an ingenious system of filtering, which selects which history is non-offensive to a certain national character we are supposed to accept and be proud of. The event which has had the highest impact on the modern Indian nation is not liberalization as the World-Indian-Citizens would like one to believe, but the Emergency. And still, it is reduced to a paragraph with three lines in it, mentioning the start of it, the end date and what its constitutional position is. Nobody is willing to tackle the emergency in its own terms. Once we are willing to assume a purpose and a position, there is nothing that we are not willing to compromise to achieve it. Education is always the first victim to this sense of purpose. So has it been the case in a place like TIPA.

The students are selected, almost at random, when they are as young as seven or eight years of age. They are isolated and trained in an academy which also gives them a regular school education. However, the question of choice is totally eliminated. This might have produced great actors in the past where children are simply hypothecated to performance groups. It does not, however, work in a world where they have been displaced from what was once their home. They are not just performers but are loaded with the double responsibility of representing their nation-in-exile as well as being artistes. This is where we realize that a specific system of education has hurt them enough for many students to not want to pursue the course they are supposed to follow. It is tragic, particularly when a form which could be a protest in its sheer performance, becomes an archaic, out-dated and inaccessible element in the minds of the people who are supposed to take it forward.

What could be done? For all the good work TIPA has done in the past years, it has also secluded itself from the rest of the town and townsfolk. To re-integrate itself with its people is the only way to allay any hostility towards “the tourist-like attitude of the people from TIPA”. Any sense of resistance must first come from within. For this very reason, the Lhamo needs to not only find new tales to tell but also find new music and expression to give life to those new tales. The double consciousness of being an individual as well as a refugee must not be compromised in following a system of art. In essence, a shift from an eclectic towards the popular will create new avenues for this otherwise captivating art form.

And from this, a form will spring forth, which can reach its audience while demonstrating contemporary concerns. Children would learn from songs, about the past and their futures for statistics can explain only so much. For not just what we learn, but the way we learn it has a role to play in what we retain and what we let go.

An Enemy in My State of Being

Bharat Bandh

Bandh - to close/stop/nullify.

"Is this how you raise a protest? By coercing people?" "Anyone who says that a protest is raised in any other way, is a liar - a big fat one."

Enough has been said. But nothing happens.

My head is hung low and my hand raised high; I am a slave in this soverign, socialist, secular, democratic, republic of India.

Visuals of a man slapping another into submission when he tries getting into a train. We don't slap back. Andheri, one of the most crowded railway stations in the world, is empty. Today is not a Monday. As the French call it, we like "faire le point" - to make an extension. It's Monday; a convenient day to call a bandh. We have three days of a weekend instead of two. What is the price of this convenience? Shame. We don't give a fuck. We are happy being slaves.

Practically, who bears the brunt of this grand gesture? Who pays the price tomorrow for the vegetables and meat rotting in the godowns today? Who has to meet impossible deadlines at work? Who has to lose a job? Who has to lose his life? Not you - that pretend that standing on top a train and posing for cameras is protest. I have to. My father, my mother, my neighbors, my friends. We pay twice the amount of things because of your tyranny.

If this state, which has so vocally called everything to stand-still, really cares for its people that it wants the prices of feul to come down; why does it not bear a loss and take a cut on taxes from its share of the price? Which one of these spineless snails came out to say, we shall work one day extra without a pay, for the govt has cut ten rupees from the overall fuel prices in India. Then too, petrol was still two rupees dearer in Kolkata than any other city. Madras, which has to bear additional transportation costs for fuel still stood at 42, when I shelled out 44 here in the City of Joy. What right does this hypocritical government have to "enforce" an illegal bandh?

You want a bandh. I will tell you how to really get that done. If your problem is with the Lawmakers, Block them in a room; without allowing the margin space to get up and stretch their hands. Twelve hours; refuse use of toilet or access to food and medicines. You want to hurt someone, try starting from the top. You motherfuckers will not dare to. Just like the cry for rebellion will always start and end with gutting of the police constable who has no reason to think he is an "Other"; this so-called excercise on democracy will piss on only those who will open their mouths wide and smile. Mark my words, one of these days, someone is going to do something about this. One random day, one of these people who are so happy to call a bandh as a right to protest will be protested against. Twelve-hours/twenty four, it doesn't matter. They will be shamed when they faint from hunger and collapse in the middle of an unforgiving crowd of self-respecting individuals. Shitting themselves to their real disgusting selves; they will never recover the respect that they pretend they command.

78 BEST buses have been reported to have been damaged in Mumbai. Reported. How many others, we do not know. Throwing stones at a bus is not protest. It is violence against public property. Why should I abstain from throwing a bigger stone back at he who cast the first stone? He has broken the law. Why should I be a better citizen? Why should I stop with stones; what about bullets? Why can I not just set fire to him as he sets fire to the bus that has been bought with the money that my father could have used to buy our household any comfort that we would have enjoyed; but rather paid as taxes.? You break a law and I break your bone. Protest that. I will break your bone again. This is not tyranny. This is a need for justice. If you choose to live under a system, you have to accept its laws. If you want to change them, you have to do that in its own terms. Take to the streets and make a circus; that is because you are not qualified to know any better. Do you not have your best friends in the media to give a full day ego massage to your misdemeanors? The next time you lie down on a railway track, the train will run over you and make you into a faceless pulp that is useless for anything except feeding vultures. At least, those vultures wait until one is dead. You bastards; you eat my liver when I am taking a nap.

My head hung low and hand raised high; I am a slave. Because I do nothing about it.

Dogs in a Ghost Town

Last evening, the weather was turning pleasant anticipating the cooling storm that later came that night. I was at the gate of my good friend Diya and we were chatting about how oppressive the term papers and the tests were getting and how good it would be to just take a break from all this for a while. Our topics drifted from immediate murder of certain members (cough, one) the faculty to future endeavors to friends and eventually landing on the city itself. Of how great the place was... How simpler and open the people... How lively and how inclusive... How unpretentious the people, so much so that being pseudo-intellectual-pretentious is not exactly an abuse... How great the living in Calcutta was... In general... That is a pet topic of mine; a little thanksgiving, a little retrospection and a little celebration. Perhaps it was not the city but the part of it that I interact most with, Jadavpur university. But I chose not to believe in that option. Anyone who has been here during the Pujo would agree with me when I say, that it is Calcutta, who is life herself.

Cut 2 today. Not a single person from my apartment complex has stepped out of their flats. Forget going to work; there are no buses. The metro is probably facing a blockade at the gates. Taxis are all lined up at their stands. People have now, a Government sanctioned unofficial holiday. Say hello to the Bharat Bandh. Interesting choice of words I would say. For it means, Shutting down India. That is exactly what they are doing. I am not going to talk about how it is an unlawful activity. It is an illegal one as well. A Bandh is "enforced", i.e. quite literal to its word-meaning, it is forced. How ridiculous is it when Bandhs are planned to make a long-weekend? We laugh at our shame and have a nice day off away from the hot scorching sun. When you choose to protest, go ahead, shut your shops. By forcing a common trader/employee/student to forsake their work for a whole working day, how is it still not ruled that a Bandh is both a human-rights violation and a transgression against the fundamental rights of an individual? Calcutta is a city with a proud history of dissent. And still, we have not voiced our dissent against these fake-holiday-makers.

Why the fuck are we allowing ourselves to sit at home, castrated and defiled by our social inferiors? These second-rate citizens who violate the meaning of the word protest by forcing it on others deserve to whipped in roads by commoners. Of course it is an outrage in a democratic nation. So is a Bandh. Let us burn a bus. A PIL will be filed and nothing will be heard of. Of course, a bus is only a few lakh rupees of public money. Let it go to waste. Party-workers and leaders never pay tax anyway. We must make them sweat. Anyone burning a bus or causing damage to a public property should be made to pay a penalty of twice the cost of the damage they have caused. Jail terms are irrelevant to people who have little respect to the world around them.

What a villain is (s)he who uses societal norms and rules only to protect his/her interests while violating them when it profits him/her? I address this section to those bastard children of a perverted sense of universal ownership. Any protest has to be a voluntary one. Advertise your cause. Cry for justice. Let those who choose to support your cause at the cost of their one day's salary and livelihood come forward to join your protest. You will not do that because you are afraid. You are a spineless, useless, cankerous growth on the society which rots the bone. When protest becomes the order of the day, it is not protest at all. Only when there is a choice of not protesting along with the forum of protest, is there any real meaning to the protest at all.

Today when I was out on the streets to see ordinary people gritting their teeth in the sun, hauling some baggage at times, walking in the middle of one the busiest roads erstwhile, I was overpowered by a feeling that I do not experience often in Calcutta. I had it last Christmas when all my friends had scattered away in different parts of the world. I felt it when my best friend's sister got married and I was not there. And I experienced it today when we were all reduced to being dogs in a ghost town... I wish I was in Madras, because something like this would never happen there... Are the people braver or the police more efficient or the parties weaker? I do not know what the combination is. There is a decided lack of seriousness towards the policies of the parties when it interferes with everyday life. Maybe Calcutta should take a leaf from that book. I have often looked on with admiration when I note how few two-wheelers ply in Calcutta and how the public vehicles outnumber the private ones. Maybe it is time to bring out all those cars and bikes that are collecting dust in a garage. It is time to send a message. It has to be loud and clear. It simply says,

SHUT THE FUCK UP!