Walking is the Perfect Form of Amusement!

Some days I am up with the lark! Days that are rare, I concede, but once I am up, I go for an invigorating walk. The breeze blows gently and the world sparkles at that hour. I soon find myself surrounded by walkers of all sizes, shapes and ages. An Olympic- style walker whizzes around the block at the speed of light, arms akimbo, staring ahead in fierce concentration. There are no short cuts in his book, and by the end of his marathon, he is puffing like a chimney, sweat pouring profusely off his brow. A rotund old gentleman waddles ahead of me, with a strangely jerky walk. At one point he stops, looks around furtively, and takes out a plastic cover from within the recesses of his shirt. He proceeds to pluck flowers that grow strategically under a board that states baldly, 'Please do not pluck flowers!' A young girl jogs past, headphones and an attitude cutting her off from the rest of the world, as she goes by! She does not believe in niceties, not even deigning to wave to the world around her. She turns corners abruptly, scaring birds and little tots alike. Another failed Olympian walks by with athletic steps, and suddenly beats his tummy rapidly, giving persons strolling behind the shock of their lives! This African dance movement is followed by a hop, skip and a jump, and then all is normal again! Till the next bout, that is! The lady with a cell phone talks incessantly, sari pallu tucked into her waist, walking shoes on. She is evidently killing two birds with one stone. She gets her daily dose of exercise, plus a roundup of all the gossip that enlivens her mundane life, judging by her avid expression. A loud series of honks cut through the air, startling me almost out of my wits. I turn hurriedly to look for the road roller that seems to be dogging my footsteps, only to find that it is an aspiring singer, plugged into his IPod, singing with the ease that comes from an indifference to lesser mortals around, who suddenly feel caught up in a nightmarish musical movie! The most colourful are a host of older women, resplendent in their Kanjivaram saris and diamond nose pins, who amble along in twos and threes, exchanging notes on religion, cookery and their daughters in law, all in the same breath! A harassed housewife gallops by, angry at her husband/child/ the world in general, needing to make a statement to prove her mettle. She strides on - militant, stern- faced and strong-jawed, probably thinking of how to win her next battle at home. Next to appear is the in-style walker, the style freak, in his Reebok head band, Nike shoes and designer togs, grooving to a different drummer, as he sports his attire. He revels in the looks thrown at him, and the actual walk comes only a poor second! The walkie- talkies are interesting. They talk as they walk, stop at junctions without missing a word, and pause every ten yards to chat with acquaintances - anything to stop walking, a activity forced on them due to peer pressure, and burgeoning weight! And finally one gets to see those denizens who actually need their walks desperately, as they heave about, body parts appearing round corners before they do, with nary a smile as they walk seriously! It is another matter that they go back home, relax with a cup of sugar-laden tea and oily samosas/ vadas, and muse soporifically about dinner ahead. Walking is the perfect form of amusement, isn't it? Open Page, The Hindu

Putting Price Tags on Humans!

The nation has the right to be disgusted! How can the Chief Minister of a state stand up in front of a large crowd and talk disparagingly about the wife of a fellow minister, calling her a 50 crore girlfriend, the snide note in his voice and the sneer on his face giving out the same message... "I am invincible! Hence, I can talk rubbish and get away with impunity!" Maybe a new commandment needs to be tagged on within political circles - Thou shalt not insult thy fellow politician's wife! And this is not the first time the man has shot his mouth off. Earlier when a journalist asked him about why women in his state were malnourished, he aimed another salvo that bordered on idiocy, expounding on how girls were beauty conscious and not health conscious, and hence, resorted to dieting, by refusing to drink milk. What he forgot to add was the very same girls had no food to eat in the first place! Much akin to Marie Antoinette’s “Let them eat cake!” retort! The aforesaid lady's suave husband reacted saying that his wife was priceless, and that only people who had love in their hearts could understand that. Promptly came a response from other quarters as another politician created a ruckus by hinting at a Ministry of Love Affairs to be headed by an international love guru so that the nation could gain from his experience! As Ben Franklin put it so succinctly, “The worst wheel of a cart makes the most noise.” Belittling women seems to be the trend of the day! One prominent actress turned MP was cautioned against giving her viewpoint with the derogatory comment that the subject under discussion was a serious issue, and not the subject of a film. Yet another politician sniggered as he spoke of wives losing charm over time, a remark that not only raised Cain, but also made many people wonder how such an unattractive man had the temerity to make such a disgusting and sexist remark! And whether his wife hauled him over the coals when he got home! Why do such ridiculous comments get thrown around in the first place? There is only one answer. The men who speak in this fashion have zero respect for women, an attitude that has been prevalent in a patriarchal society where women are only meant to bow down, breed children, and have no minds of their own. These male specimens do not realize that their breed is fast disappearing, especially now that women are standing shoulder to shoulder with their male counterparts. When we were young, the law used to be laid down very firmly by our parents. If we talked rudely or used bad words, we had to wash our mouths out with soap, which quickly put an end to the habit! Unfortunately, no such remedy seems to be forthcoming in the case of many of our politicians, as the filth is deep within their minds. Besides, it is patently clear that nation building and character moulding are nowhere in their minds, as all they are concerned about is how well they can grab the eyeballs to win the populist vote. Which makes the following quote so relevant: “The difference is that a statesman thinks he belongs to the State, and a politician thinks the State belongs to him.” Open Page, The Hindu Nov 27th, 2012

Toughen your daughter, sensitise your son!

“If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble, “the law is a ass — a idiot.” Dickens made one of his characters mouth this in Oliver Twist, and he was not far wrong! Especially in today’s scenario when self-styled Khap panchayats in Haryana make irresponsible statements, intoxicated with an unhealthy dose of male chauvinism, making one wonder if the 21 century is in regression, all set to scurry into the Middle Ages. Sube Singh, a Khap member, kicked up a storm when he said: “I think that girls should be married at the age of 16 to curb the instances of rape in the State.” According to him, girls themselves were responsible for their rapes, and adding insult to injury, he blamed television and movies for the incidents. “Boys and girls should be married by the time they turn 16, so that they do not stray... this will decrease the incidents of rape.” The former Chief Minister, Om Prakash Chautala, echoed similar sentiments when he suggested that the marriageable age of girls should be lowered to 16 to ward off crime against them. Sadly, no one has any suggestion to turn negatives into positives, to try to change the mindset of these men. They try to mask misdeeds by offering a shoddy, downright stupid solution — one which goes against the philosophy of an ancient culture which looked upon women with reverence. Just imagine the plight of a young girl, who has been brought up like a flower by her adoring parents and who suddenly gets married off to a strange man, who, by the rule of wedlock, vows to protect and take care of her. She is obviously not yet ready for marriage, and if she has to give in to her new husband against her wishes, isn’t that ‘sanctioned rape’? Is that how our girls are to be protected? The spate of gang rapes in Haryana over the past one month has provoked National Commission for Protection of Child Rights Chairperson Shanta Sinha to demand exemplary punishment for the rapists, after a teenaged Dalit girl immolated herself following rape. “There should also be a fear amongst those who indulge in such activities. They should be punished so that the girls are safe.” Aye, that’s the rub! Murder and robbery are law and order problems. Rape, apparently, is not. So rapists parade around, heads held high after their heinous deeds, while their victims cower, faces covered, self-confidence shattered as though they are the ones who are the criminals, a travesty of justice? Why does a victim have to prove her victimisation? Hasn’t she suffered enough, both physically and mentally? Especially when a local party head from Haryana, Dharambir Goyat, tells reporters that 90% of rape cases are a case of consensual sex between the boy and the girl. The solution lies in the hands of these girls, who will later be women. It lies in the hands of all parents who have daughters, and need to instil strength in them by teaching them to protect themselves from an early age. Self-defence classes should be made a must in every school, along with the three Rs and mental strength and fortitude imparted to them in their curriculum. Parents of boys have an even tougher role. They need to rid themselves of age-old prejudices and bring up their boys to treat the opposite sex with respect and care. The day women stop being the weaker sex and learn to defend themselves, society will start looking at them with new eyes. And the law might just stop being an ass! Open Page, The Hindu 21st October, 2012

Long years of sacrifice in an unfair society

My maid came to me the other day, a worried look on her normally cheerful face. “Madam, yesterday a boy had come to ‘see’ my daughter. He liked her but his family has made the following demands.” She rattled off the list — 12 sovereigns of gold, a refrigerator, a television, a grinder, an induction cooker, a bed and mattress and a cupboard. Plus she had to conduct the engagement ceremony and give her daughter the requisite jewellery and saris that would showcase her as a bride. She was talking about her daughter, a girl whom she had scraped and scrounged for over years of slaving at people’s homes, and whom she had moulded into an engineer. She now works for a reputed company. There was a second daughter who had finished her graduation in commerce. It was an amazing tale of fortitude and struggle on the part of a mother, whose drunkard of a husband had abandoned her for another woman. He could share none of the credit as he had never been around for his daughters, nor paid a penny towards their upkeep or education. He had escaped lightly as no one ever asked him why he had absconded. On the other hand, it was his poor abandoned wife who was constantly probed about how she had managed to educate her two girls! Unfair, but true! The said ‘boy’ was a graduate in commerce, working as a supervisor. His to-be bride was an engineer with a fatter paycheck than the ‘boy’. Yet, the fact that he was the man pushed his price up to a level where his family expected the bride’s family to pay for the honour of ‘acquiring’ him. We cajoled our maid into putting her foot down. She listened with a woeful look, but had the sense to take along with her a crowd — her estranged husband, his mother and sisters, a talkative niece and a few other wallflowers to make up an impressive contingent. The next day she came back, grinning all over her face. “Everything has been fixed!” she announced. The boy’s family had taken back the demands of much of the household goods, all except for the bed, the mattress and the cupboard. The sovereigns had gone down to nine and the girl’s side had to conduct the engagement ceremony. The wedding after three months would be conducted by the boy’s side. Now there was a smile on her face, as she recounted what the boy’s mother had said to her. “The reason why we are insistent that your daughter should come into our family is because she is an educated girl.” In that one sentence lay years of sacrifice, hard work and tribulations undergone by the poor mother who had never given up on her daughters. Other mountains lay before her — jewellery, silk saris, suit for the groom, the feast and the invitations, but for today, the smile in her eyes spoke volumes. All those long years had been finally worth it! 03rd October 2012 12:00 AM New Indian Express

Who's to Blame - parents, teachers or films

The killing of a schoolteacher by a student in Chennai has sent shockwaves throughout the country and sparked a debate on the ills of the education scenario. Here, students of a school in Erode pay floral tributes to R. Uma Maheswari, the victim. “Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end...” Such nostalgia is wrapped around this song; those were indeed the days! A house would overflow with children, of all ages and sizes! Uncles, aunts, cousins, friends, visitors were all welcome, as enormous amounts of food were cooked in the smoke-filled kitchen, and served with affection. Children went to neighbouring homes, eating breakfast at one place and lunch elsewhere. Amazing was the rapport between cousins, as also between adults and children. The parents often didn't even know what their kids were up to, and when they were naughty, anyone of their uncles or aunts had a free hand to chide them and set them on the right track! The chiding would slide over like water off a duck's back, and off they would go, back to their tricks again! There was no time for complexes to form, as corners were rubbed off, and children learnt to face challenges with a smile. At times, canes were brandished at the backside, but after the first torrent of tears, they would be back to playing with their cousins! Sulks never lasted long as playtime was precious, and no one wanted to miss the fun! Thus, kids grew up tough, unspoilt and intrepid! So much has changed since then! Nuclear families are now cocoons with just the parents and one or two children. ‘Personal attention' has become the catchword, with young parents reading books on parenting, trying to bring up their children according to the written word. Grandparents are too far away to be able to offer nuggets of wisdom through wonderful tales of the past. So children grow up as loners, depending on their own devices, turning into latchkey kids. They learn to twist their parents around their little fingers. Guilt can often prove very lucrative! A special treat at McDonald's for having missed the school annual day, an extra bit of pocket money for a birthday forgotten! For, the parents, both working, have ‘no time to stand and stare'! New rules for GenNext Schools have also revised their rules to cater to GenNext. “Spare the rod and spoil the child” has now given way to “Strictly no corporal punishment!” No longer can a teacher scold a student, or lay a finger on him, for fear of damaging the sensitive psyche of the child. Of course, when we were growing up, there was no such thing as a sensitive psyche, which was actually a good thing. For, we grew up well able to handle ourselves and the tough world beyond! Today psychologists talk about young plants needing protection to grow, and warn that negativity might maim a child's mind! So words like 'fail' and ‘poor' are taboo, and ranks have been replaced with grades to boost the child's self-esteem. The latest principle: overprotect a child to the extent that he is scared to death by any challenge — exams, competitions, a strict word, a rebuke before his peers, any kind of failure! Anything can make him go over the edge, which is mortally frightening. For, suicides have become all too common and no adult wants to take that risk. So a 14-year-old creeps up on his teacher and stabs her to death, because she wrote a few reformative remarks in his diary on his poor performance in class. A deadly rage within his bosom grows day by day, as he feels pressure on him from home and school. This rage reaches breaking point, and he buys a knife for twenty rupees and keeps it ready to be used against a hapless teacher, only doing her duty! A teacher who has worked hard all her life to brighten the lives of her students, popular amongst students and colleagues, a woman aspiring to become a college lecturer as she had just two papers to finish her M.Phil, a doting wife and mother of two daughters... a good human being, who had not lived out her life completely. The boy comes from an ‘affluent' background — he gets one hundred rupees a day as pocket money! However, does that give him the right to cut short a human life and blight an entire family? Who is to blame — the parents for wrong parenting, the teacher for having tried to give the boy a bright future, peers who often wield a frightening influence, or as the boy has cleverly said, a movie like Agneepath that provoked him to take revenge? Questions that need answers if such endemic rage is to be stopped! The Hindu Feb 12th, 2012

A TEAR JERKER: Aamir Khan’s TV show, Satyamev Jayate, has hit the small screen with shocking stories of mothers who struggled to give birth to their girl child, of the killing of unborn girls. Photo: Mohammed Yousuf Aamir introduces the subject, and lights a spark, taken on by three women who bare their souls and strip naked the atrocities committed against them. Aamir Khan is a genius! Only he could have chosen a name for his show so well calculated to touch the heartstrings of all Indians, one that aids to dredge out the latent [?] patriotism with their whole heart. At a juncture when scams are the new status symbol, when politicians have copyrights on how to talk and how not to deliver, when people cluck their tongues at corruption eating away at the nation's innards, when the common man finds life turning even more common with price rise and when the rich get inflated despite inflation, here comes a star who hits out at the very poignant, very real issue of female foeticide. Much akin to the ancient sutradhar, Aamir introduces the subject, and lights a spark, taken on by three women who bare their souls and strip naked the atrocities committed against them. As the horrendous tales unfold, tears flow unashamedly, as the listeners take in the cruelty of men, and in many cases, that of women. Aamir gently nudges and prompts them, even as he wipes away his tears, but the real heroes of his show are the women themselves. In sharp contrast, appears the DIG of Police, Sahranpur, who obviously has a big mouth and a bigger ego. He twirls his moustache and berates a poor man who has come to lodge a complaint about his 14-year-old sister eloping with a youth. With a glint in his eye, probably because he is on national TV, he barks, “Had she been my daughter, I would have shot her for the shame she has brought upon our family!” No compunction, no remorse, just a bull in a chinashop, smashing the emotions of around 50 people with one callous statement! This is regression at its worst, upholding honour killings, a barbaric tradition! Chilling clips of clinics in Rajasthan, where female foetuses are aborted with ease, and despite a sting operation that clearly reveals faces, deeds and complicity, not one doctor's licence has been revoked. The carnage goes on ceaselessly, and often, the whole staff is involved in the crime. Aamir points out that female foeticide is not restricted to the poor, but is practised with impunity in the chambers of the rich and the famous. Obviously, education has nothing to do with real learning, as all those bigots who put the blame of bearing a female child on the harassed mother have no idea that the sex of the foetus depends entirely on the father. Betraying their ignorance, they strut around, preening themselves on getting a boy and cowering like mice if the child is a girl. The saddest part is that code words indicate the sex of the foetus. Jai Sri Krishna, if it is a boy and Jai Mata Di, if it turns out to be a girl. How ironic that in such cases, the Devi, a goddess of immense power and worshipped by millions, is the epithet given to a helpless little mite who is killed in the womb! While on the topic of honour killings, we do not have to delve very far. The Aarushi case, which has turned murkier over the months, was initially termed honour killing. The ‘most unkindest cut of all' was the manner in which the media and the police crawled through the entire house after the murder, riding roughshod over any clue that was not earlier obliterated. As pictures of the young girl were plastered all over the media, the case grew more complicated, finally ending with her parents in the dock. A village in Punjab has dug itself out of the mire with one man having risen like a Colossus to strike against female foeticide. Aamir exhorts the rest of India to follow suit. He knows this is the right time to strike a chord, when his listeners are shell-shocked at the sight of a woman whose husband bit her brutally all over her face for having borne only daughters, and a doctor whose mother-in-law kicked her granddaughter's carrycot down the stairs. Are these the doings of civilised people? And even as a group of bachelors, aged 35 or so, finds no brides due to the skewed male-female ratio, a young mother on the street smiles radiantly in answer to a question whether she wants a boy or a girl. “I would accept with gratitude whatever God gives me!” Simple words, yet so meaningful! The Hindu May 13th, 2012

Politicians or Pedagogues?

“Off with their heads!” The Queen of Hearts is well and thriving, but would she have been allowed to survive? Lewis Carroll would have probably had to delete the interesting character that the Queen was, had he been alive in India today. In fact, a number of his wonderful creations would have had their heads chopped off, especially with the number of thin-skinned politicians and bureaucrats who seem to dominate our country, determined to rid her of her funny bone! So the Thorat committee has taken a pair of giant scissors and ridden roughshod over NCERT textbooks, like the bull in a china shop, destroying what it does not understand — the thin line between good humour and stringent lampooning! The advisers on the political science textbooks cautioned readers at the start that “the attempt is not to hand over a definite opinion to students, but to enable them to think on their own!” Mere wishful thinking, it seems as even the immortals in the rarefied realms of politics seem to have forgotten to think! Why else would such gems be done away with? A picture is worth a 1000 words, and a well-scripted cartoon makes one laugh and think as well! Yet, the snipping goes on, along with the harping and the carping, and the tendrils of gentle humour are yanked by their very roots and thrown into the dustbin. The two offending cartoons that opened a Pandora’s box have disappeared, and a number of others which have enlightened so many students are also on their way out. The reasons are flimsy — politicians and institutions may not be represented as animals (which get rid of the use of the popular allegory), regional sensitivity is paramount, the role of the bureaucracy shall not be misinterpreted and no ambiguity will be permitted! All very ambiguous indeed! So it is back to the old boring textbook that drones on and on about dry facts and trivia, and the student is at liberty to fall asleep, as his mind begins to lose that creative spark and energy fuelled by cartoons! The NCERT, which had tried to be original, has now had to backtrack, all because politicians have suddenly turned into pedagogues, who think they know everything. Unfortunately, many of them know little enough of what is happening in their own constituencies, let alone in the hallowed sphere of education. Let us applaud the lone dissenter on the committee, M.S.S. Pandian, who firmly avers, “What is perceived as ‘politically incorrect’ need not be ‘educationally inappropriate.’ The textbooks should be used as they are.” What are we finally losing out in the long run? Ever since I was able to read a newspaper, my first instinct has been to glance at the cartoon on the first page, which always evokes a smile, and kick-starts my day, along with my funny bone! Aren’t we being selfish to deny our children the same, even as we try to curb their curiosity and nip their ability to judge what is humorous and thought provoking? The Spectator Pandit Nehru loved a good cartoon, and a good cartoonist! Maybe, that is the difference between a great statesman and a mediocre politician! Open Page, The Hindu July 21st, 2012