SriGobbledygook

As we celebrate another anniversary of our securing freedom from the English, the picketing and propaganda so effectively used by our freedom fighters is being remembered and reprised. No, not in the token acts on school campuses, but in our public spaces and mass media. Today's adversary is English. Recently, purported civil service aspirants protested against the preliminary test that decides their eligibility. The Hindi hackles raised over the basic English familiarity desired of prospective civil servants, the Government of India excluded the English section of the test from being a factor in determining the merit of the examinees. The section comprised of eight or nine questions on English comprehension, testing language skills at the class 10 level. The protesters argued that it was a section biased against those who had not studied in English medium schools, even if they had sat through English classes and examinations. Now, applicants for the civil service must have...

It is but natural to seek an escape from trauma and turmoil. And as you keep trying to flee, the tribulation keeps trying you. At times, this is what it all feels like: your boat is wrecked and you must keep paddling to survive, looking out for the craft that might prove to be your ark, while even the sun, moon, and stars act swiftly and purposefully, striving toward a goal that is more than nebulous hope. How can you not feel powerless? What could be more frustrating and more threatening than a scenario where you cannot do anything to affect your own life? Suddenly, a quick escape is even more exigent, and there is only one way to fashion it: redefine the problem, simplify it to a point where a solution seems feasible and control is restored to you. Could anything possibly trump the vicarious trauma from hearing and reading about the two teens who had been raped, killed, and strung from a mango tree? Summoned by the ghastly deed and sat, stood, and hunched round the tree were the ...

Although an imminent naming ceremony does not necessarily follow a wedding, some brave souls do take that stride and cross the crevice between a married couple and a family. The hesitation and reluctance of the majority may be rooted in an awareness of the rising human population that threatens to soon be verminous, the financial costs and insecure incomes, or the gamble that procreation is. In the spacious corridor outside the labour wards, two men sat in the opposite rows of seats. Both would occasionally acknowledge the other's presence with a smile when they looked up from their smartphones, waiting for data to download, or when they occasionally paced the hallway and nearly bumped into each other because they weren't looking up. With their wives in labour, they had opted to be alone in their anticipation, only to be anxiously lonely. A nurse emerged from the ward and invited one of them, Shiv, in, so that he could cut the umbilical cord. He went in grinning, dabb...

A foreign couple  –  of course, they're white!  –  arrive at the airport exit gate, having just got off an airplane. As they board a car that is waiting for them, an Indian boarding the car parked next to them spits out paan. The spit barely misses Mr. Tourist. The Indian raises a perfunctory half-apologetic hand before driving away. Not long after, the couple, in their car, are riding the Bandra-Worli sea link, and our eager Ms.Tourist is sticking her head out of the rear passenger window, trying to soak in India's sights and sounds. Unsurprisingly, she is also taking pictures with a camera. Suddenly, disaster strikes. A school bus overtakes their car, and as the bus goes past them, someone tosses out a banana peel from one of the bus's windows. As rotten luck would have it, the peel lands right on the photography enthusiast. Then, a car that moments ago had rashly sped past them has pulled over. As the tourists pass the once rogue but now stationary ve...

If you lived in the same city through your school and college days, you might be able to relate to this more readily. I got all my formal education in Mysore. Most of my fellow students from primary and higher primary school went to the very high school I did; then, many of us attended the same Pre-University college; quite a few of us pursued our Bachelor of Engineering degrees on the same campus. When you grow up with someone, you trust you know them. Then, you discover some traits that threaten your surety, and often go on to confront aspects so radical that you're convinced that you never knew them. Much of this experience is, of course, mutual, and in keeping with the evolution of individuals. You do, in fact, go through a similar course of recognition, realization, and repudiation while considering your own evolution. And, while the circumstances you find yourself in fuel this evolution, some happenings catalyze and rapidly crystallize your worldview. Admission to educati...

Thinking twice or thrice about picking up that ticket online, not because it was exorbitantly priced, but because other expenses had 'eaten into' your savings; cringing at the cost of the nibbles you'd have to buy during a five to six hour stay at the stadium; taking the bus to the office for a week to make up for the fuel consumed by the long trip to the stadium, because the bus fares aren't as low as they used to be; choosing to watch the games from home instead, only to flip channels in between to find the programming on the news channels more amusing and compelling. The 2014 edition of the IPL is in its final week, and most of us barely noticed.  Although IPL had been diagnosed with an insidious sclerosis ever since symptoms of betting and match-fixing became visible to the world, few would've anticipated the tournament's being confined to the apolitical small talk space of conversations. But, drama on the field is only interesting when there is an unc...

Leaders of several political parties have cautioned us of two Modi traits: an inadequately masked majoritarianism and an autocratic abuse of authority. Intending to be incisive, some have evoked the epitome of ethnic imperialism - the German who caused the death of tens of millions of people before killing himself in his bunker. Independent India, of course, has experienced emergency, and the woman who threatened her, it is well documented, had ambitions of being an empress, if only one elected endlessly by the voters as per her will. Now, I am not sure if Modi has such ambitions, but I only intend to make the case that he will mostly be foiled if he pursues them. The unity that we see in the BJP, notwithstanding the piqued proclamations of leaders who have been political deadwood for a while, is perhaps expedient and inadvertent and not an enthusiastic endorsement of the Gujarat CM. The BJP is devoid of leadership, and given the similarity of its manifesto to that of the Congres...

Every election campaign despite being barren of hope is creatively fertile as far as conjectural discourses go. Parties offer misty visions of material prosperity that will have us all residing in penthouses cloaked by the clouds, and as we picture ourselves taking in the vista from our unique vantage point, we aren't worried about the foundations and the floors between us and the ground. The truly pessimistic will surely notice a fallacy: if everyone is living in a penthouse, will we have a panoramic view?  Among the enduring strains of electoral speech is the exhortation to save the country from communal forces and preserve its secular nature. As persuasive, divisive, and fear-mongering as this line of thought is, it does dissipate under the slightest scrutiny. A party that prefers the traditionally Hindu hue of saffron, if elected into government, will never the less have to abide by the Constitution. I am no Constitutional maven, but the Preamble while delineating the ide...

Having bought their way in as soon as the schedule was out, there was no other place they would rather be at. They'd watched him on the small screen, and then on much larger LED screens. But, what's larger than life needs to be experienced in person to be fully realized, and so they waited for him, chanting his name, wearing masks and other merchandise, waving scarfs and posters. Though he offers a new soundbite every time he speaks, they know the catch phrase, and show their adoration for him by voicing their own variations of it. The anticipation would have been a spectacle in itself but for its being reminiscent of the atmosphere everywhere he has been.  Finally, he arrives, cheered all the way to the spotlight of thousands of eyes. He waves acknowledging the waves that have flown in at his feet. He has the microphone in hand, but before speaking, he decides to soak in the energy in the air and surveys the field of view. The applause and adulation amplify till he draws...

I am not sure that there is a Modi wave, and, in truth, neither is Mr. Modi. Hence, despite the optimism of his backers having breached rarefied realms of fantasy, Mr. Modi remains cautious and pragmatic. He is contesting from two constituencies, one adventurous and one safe. He also continues to welcome people back into the BJP fold, people who had been forced out of the party as part of its anti-corruption and more moderate posturing. The objective is to assuage opposition and add more votes to the party tally. Of course, the most egregious inductions have had to be rescinded to avoid a loss of face and, more importantly, a loss of votes. I can, however, confirm a strong support for Mr. Modi among my fellow passengers on the evening cab from office to home. As one of them pointed out, we are already at the nadir, so Mr. Modi cannot really drag the country any lower. As such, why not give him a chance? He, after all, has greater governance credentials than his opponent. That is pret...

Perhaps it is time to ban opinion polls after all. Every poll till now has predicted the UPA being upended by a tsunami. Yes, some pollsters have been shown in dim light, and not solely because of the low-res cameras used in the sting operations or the shady rendezvouses; though there is no proof that agencies are angling numbers as apt for one alliance. But, even the seemingly scrupulous and sincere surveys have issued alerts of a wave, at the least. And it is perhaps these numbers that led the BJP to believe in an urban legend that its PM candidate has been steadfastly sowing across the length and breadth of the country over the past few months. Could it be that the fields, tilled and fertilized by unforeseen hands, had caused the seeds to swiftly sprout? The power of positive thinking, after all, lies in its ability to delude one out of the dread of defeat. Positive thinking and electoral calculations must have vaulted Modi to vie from Varanasi, till he set foot on the banks of th...

Imagine being feted on a grand stage for your efforts. You are escorted on to the stage, even as the applause for you renders the carefully chosen music for the occasion a mere feeble drone. You bow to the dignitary gracing the event with folded hands, before he reaches out to clasp hands with you. You begin to wonder if there's  a word to describe a feeling beyond the most awesome rhapsody that grips you as he grips your hand. You are shown to the exquisite chair at the centre of the stage and requested to take your seat. The clapping of hands has gone on uninterrupted. You sit down and try to glimpse the audience, as you thank them with a bow, but your tears only let you see blobs in place of the individuals. The dignitary wraps an elegant shawl round your shoulders. Then, he garlands you with a necklace of wood shavings that have the scent of sandalwood. He hands you a bouquet, then the memento - a well-crafted wooden carving also wafting the scent of sandalwood, and joins the...

Having got home from work, I switched the TV on and tuned into a news channel. I could only laugh when I learnt an MP had used pepper spray in the Lok Sabha. I assume most of you burst out laughing too. Our representatives are ridiculed regularly for their antics and absurd averments that, though inimitable, can be reconciled with the locus of legislative rot. We grumble as our expectations tumble to a new nadir. Yet, at times, we are faced with warps that stretch our intellect to inutility, calling on our heroic humor to save our sanity by chucking out our outrage in chuckles. And, with sanity's survival and reason's revival, we are bound to ask questions. I have one on the anti-defection law and party whips.  The turmoil around Telangana's creation was caused majorly by MPs belonging to the ruling party. They had expressed their concerns and disapproval on dividing Andhra at the party fora, only to be ignored by those who decree. The bill for Telangana's creatio...

To begin with, let me explain my understanding of the rationale behind the death penalty. A convict, I believe, is condemned to death by a court of law only after the conscience of the court is convinced that she is beyond the reach of repentance and the reformation measures in our prison system, and therefore, not suitable to be restored into the society someday. It is, in that sense, an eternal banishment from society, the threat of which, it is hoped, will deter others from taking to the same or a similarly repugnant criminal course. The death penalty, surely, is not an act of retribution, aimed at avenging the aggrieved person.   Based on this premise, you may be flummoxed by the Supreme Court's recent decision to commute the death sentences of a few convicts sat in the anteroom to the gallows, their mercy petitions having been rejected by the executive after an inordinately and inexplicably long delay. The Court reasoned that the psychological torment they had to endure,...

Mr. Kejriwal had made it clear that he did not wish to govern with the support of his bugbear, the Congress. He had hoped the winds of change would uproot and carry away the old, well-entrenched trees, leaving him to only sweep aside the leaves that might fall during the exercise. Chopping down the timber with broomsticks was mission impossible. That his constituents, through an SMS referendum, thrust him into the forest, entrusting him with this unenviable task might well have shaken his own faith in the supremacy of collective wisdom over the consensus forged by a statesman's counsel. But, true to his word, he did march on, albeit after including a convenient escape clause in his covenant with his constituents: if the Congress were to oppose his any act, whimsical or wise, he would come back to them to seek a mandate of majority. We know the Congress is ticklish and temperamental, and he began to prod, prick and poke them with his broomstick, hoping they'd fail to remain st...

I was at my alma mater, SJCE last Sunday afternoon to try and play devil's advocate with the debaters at the annual literary fest Shabd. I have been told, often with a sneer, that argument is the only form of conversation I know. The jibe, though, transforms into a confidence boosting cheer when I am expected to dissect and dispute claims.  After the first two rounds, I felt it would help everyone remain involved in the debate if a controversial topic was thrown at the participants. From the list that the organizers had put together and publicized earlier, I chose to ask our debaters if the time had come to revisit the reservation laws. There were two teams of three folks arguing for and against the idea, their positions determined by a toss of the coin. The event is called Sansad, and I thought it might help them appreciate ideas better if they had to randomly oppose or defend them, combing for, as needed, the good and the bad aspects inherent to an idea.  This part...

I find myself in a suddenly awakened whirl of thoughts about women’s empowerment. I must confess that the whirl is mostly murky with my ignorance, but there is one question guiding the whirl’s turns, the question about a woman’s identification with her body. Time and again, we are urged to transform our society into Rama Rajya. Apart from my misgivings about the genetic choice of the ruler and division of people, I remain unconvinced of the triumphalism about a society that clamored for Rama to disown Sita for no fault of hers even after an unsavory examination of her chastity by fire for the sake of the masses. She had not chosen to be abducted by Ravana; and even if her bodily integrity had been violated by her demonic captor, was Sita merely her body and nothing more? The paragon of virtue that he was, what sort of example was Rama setting by giving into the credo that a woman is but her body? (This is especially troubling because we have no inkling of his own suspicion of her...

Dear Rahul, Congratulations on your first solo TV interview. I am, however, convinced that you weren't alone in that studio with the notoriously vicious Arnab Goswami. That he didn't yell at you in frustration, having failed  to elicit relevant responses to the questions he must have chosen based on meticulous research, and broke into laughter only once, perhaps unconsciously, give credence to my belief that you had much more than your privileged battery of Z-category security escorting you. You were right when you said anyone who challenges the status quo is bound to be under threat!    You might have seemed digressive, even incoherent, but I'm sure that it was just a case of bits of your next electoral speech, which you probably learnt to read through the many recent sleepless nights, butting into your extempore exposition of your ideals and solutions to the problems that face the Congress, which you also believe are the problems that face this country.  ...

If you do sense a slant in this write-up, it is only an expression of my long-held skepticism. While it was refreshing to have concerns smoldering within our minds articulated at last, the discourse of the anti-corruption movement that metamorphosed into a 'people's party' was soon stained by a surety about the sole solution to all our problems. Surety, for within it lurks the phantom of presumptuousness, is a threat to the supple discernment necessary to fully appreciate the subtleties of the problems facing us. To buttress this surety, once in power, with selflessness - one that seeks the constituents to determine the leader's actions by means of majoritarian preference - is to roll in the smugness of righteousness, while simultaneously abdicating the dutiful responsibility of remedying exigencies.   With due respect to Mr. Kejriwal and his coterie of cavaliers against corruption, he needs to pause and reflect on why laws were made. We would all like to beli...

That the cosmopolitan commoner considers combating corruption as the need of the day was confirmed by the celebration across capitals of AAP's electoral reap. While this does reassure you of the societal ethos still holding venality a vice, you cannot but wonder if we would be satisfied with an administrative agency that was financially upright yet inherently inept in fulfilling its brief. I may be well off the mark with this presumption, but would most of us mind tipping someone who tips his hat after he has delivered on his promise, or paying upfront a person who is proven to make good his pledge of being the bridge to the forces who can beam you into the promised land? My presumption isn't born solely of the accounts of the interaction between the hapless layman and the esteemed official, who is ironically called a public servant.  In fact, tucking in a note for tea into the hands of the delivery guy who brings the gas cylinder to your doorstep, or that of the muni...