Desicritics Author: Uma Ranganathan

Thoughts Inspired By A Sack

Uma Ranganathan — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:20:43 EDT

A funny thing happened a couple of days back. Our cook A, who pulls out a story a day for me from her never ending bag of tales, and sometimes more than one, told me about a sack being discovered in a side street where she works. The sack, lying on the ground by an old well at the top of the lane, was discovered by a sweeper who looks after one of the buildings where A too, has a part time job. The bundle smelled really bad. I asked A, what do you think it was? She shrugged. Could it have been a corpse, my fanciful mind wondered aloud and she said, who knows, perhaps it was.

I say, how come the police didn’t find it and take it away? She explains, oh, it wasn’t on the main road, it was somewhere at the back of a steep narrow alley and the police wouldn’t think of coming there to look for anything.

I said, why didn’t the cleaning woman inform the police and A says, you crazy? Who would want to have anything to do with the police? You think you’re obliging them but if that thing in the sack were to really turn out to be a corpse or something else suspicious, they’d be after your blood for months. And you know how it is. The poorer you are the more they harass you.

A says, I did think of telling my employer about it, I thought he could inform the police but then I said to myself, if the police were to ask him how he found out, he might mention my name and then I’d get roped into something I really have no time for! So I finally decided to keep mum.

A couple of hours later a friend from Germany calls up to chat. She happens to be working on a movie script which involves child abuse and the question arises, as to how to react to a story which is not strictly speaking your own but which nonetheless affects you in some way. Good question. How would you react to a case of a little boy whom you had nothing to do with really, but whom you knew was being brutally ill treated by his parents? How do you react to stories of violence and cruelty happening far removed from where you are but in which you feel anyway emotionally involved? People getting killed in Iraq, children starving in Africa. A suspicious looking sack lying in a back alley somewhere which you've only heard about but not seen yourself?

To my mind, two possibilities arise. In the first case you feel directly called upon to “do something”. There are those who feel compelled to go “out there” and take an active part in the proceedings, people who help to keep an issue alive, thanks to whom we know what is happening in the world and because of whom it also becomes more difficult for the rest of us to look away, completely. Journalists, photographers, social workers.

There is another way to deal with the external situation, which is more difficult to grasp because it is more low key and at first sight it seems to have no direct connection with people who are starving or brutalized in the world. And that is for each of us to take a ruthless look at how we might be contributing to the general sense of violence and insecurity “out there.” This way involves examining every corner of our minds and looking at our own relationships, at how we react to those we don’t understand, people with whom we disagree or those who are much worse off than ourselves. It is to look at how fairly and with how much respect we treat the people we work and live with.

I have a sneaky suspicion that the first option might be easier. It is easier to make a noise about something outside, no matter how difficult or dangerous the task might seem and I think this is why more people in the world opt for social work and start organizations to support the downtrodden than people who feel called upon to examine their own souls. Because your time and energy in this case is occupied in so-called noble acts and you don’t really have to come into contact with the dirt in your own life and relationships.

Wasn’t it Krishnamurti who said though, that real change will come about only when we stop generating violence and injustice at the personal level? When we as individuals become generators of peace, instead of perpetrators of violence and deceit. And will this not happen when we understand how we, with our own petty and conflict ridden minds contribute to the general atmosphere of decay? Will change not come about when we as individuals, overcome the violent streak in our own psyche? It is so much easier to allow oneself to be swayed into action by external happenings because even that brings visible returns at some level. At least you get a pat on the back from someone or a medal for your efforts which a spot of quiet soul searching is unlikely to bring you.

So is this piece an excuse for not getting involved in what happens in the outside world? No. I think that when you truly listen to yourself, the right answers do surface and they are not always comfortable to follow. The answer for one person might indeed be to step into another person’s story because that is what is needed at a particular point. For another individual the truth might be simply to use an external incident to become aware of unresolved feelings of anger or violence in his personal life and to try and understand those feelings better.

The difficult thing always, is to follow the truth because no matter what you do you will be offending someone or other. And this is what makes it hard for us to accept and to act according to what we really see, hear and feel because there is always someone in our lives whom we are afraid of offending or hurting.

When I put the phone down after chatting with my friend in Germany it was clear to me that in her own discreet way she was persuading me to do something which I in no way felt called upon to do. To inform the police about a suspicious looking sack in a back alley beyond the fringes of my own immediate neighborhood, which I had not even personally seen. Not to do what I felt she would have liked me to, made me feel I might lose her approval and for a moment I felt the muscles in my stomach tightening with discomfort. But then her opinion was not mine. Given the circumstances and the red tape in India, I felt in no way obliged to spend my time and energy following up a task which did not seem to involve me.

However what I did was to chase up that first chat with A, the following morning, which threw up a possible solution to the question of the stinking sack in the back alley. I’ll tell my employer about it, A said, and he can go take a look himself. If he actually sees it he doesn’t have to mention my name because then he can tell the police he discovered the bundle on his own while walking up the lane. So when she turned up for work this morning I put the question to her once more. The sack? Oh, she said, the boss wasn’t home today so I couldn’t speak to him. The sack is still there, only today it wasn’t smelling at all. I went close to it and I couldn’t get even a whiff of anything.

Of course we couldn’t help wondering what the hell really was in the sack but for the time being I’m going to let the matter rest.

A Bad Habit Called A Reality Soap

Uma Ranganathan — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 03:12:25 EDT

Years ago, when I started watching the “Bold and the Beautiful” and got unexpectedly hooked onto it I hit upon a slick explanation. I happened to be in Germany at the time and even I began to believe that the reason I was offering to others for the pains I took to organize my lunch break (if not my entire morning) around this truly moronic soap opera set in California was because I wanted to improve my working knowledge of German.

Never having known me to speak anything but the truth (especially when I’m a bit high on whiskey or red wine) people believed me. Of course. The same way that I know you are now going to believe me when I tell you that the only reason I’ve been glued to this reality show on Zee Marathi for the past several weeks, a dance competition featuring a host of ambitious young contortionists, is that it’s my way of bonding with the maid whose usually surly mood gives way to giggles and chatter while big and small bodies fly, jump and skitter across a glittering, discofied stage. Friends who occasionally stay overnight on a Wednesday or Thursday have gently pointed out to me that they’ve seen me watch the show even when S is on leave, to which I respond that it is actually to improve my working knowledge of Marathi that I sit up glued to the idiot box, in the interests of establishing better rapport with S, with whom my relationship hits an abysmal low from time to time. Oh well.

All I can say is that within a short spell of time I went from not knowing who the hell Sachin Pilgaonkar was to looking forward to chuckling over his deity pose during the entire show. Like all fictitious soaps, what I call “reality soaps” too are about highs and lows, about heartaches and happiness and you get to almost feel that the guy who just danced like spiderman suffering from manic convulsions, and whose act was followed by choice titbits from his childhood offered by his beaming parents, is someone you’ve known for the last fifty years (even if the guy happens to be only eighteen).

And so over a period of time I got to know Sadrick (yes that’s how he spells his name I believe) and Sukhanya and their dance guru Phulva, and Ajinkya and a host of others whom I would have been so happy to invite to tea on a Sunday evening (which is a safe thing to think about since this is an activity I never indulge in anyway). Sachinji, or Mahaguru as he likes to be called, presiding over the whole spectacle, self important smiles and all somehow – and most unexpectedly - wormed his way into and ensconced himself in a corner of my heart without my intending to let him in.

All of this brings me to a pertinent question, which is, why the hell am I writing this piece! It is not to criticize reality shows as such. If I wanted to criticize anything I would bring the hammer down on the works, the entire entertainment industry of today including the ad world and all its pretensions. But then, neither do I want to defend reality shows. That would be even worse than raging against them.

No I am actually wondering what it is that hooks people like me onto the most soppy TV soaps and the most ridiculous reality shows which make you laugh for the wrong reasons. We can forget about quality. We can forget about the deeper perspective. Forget just about everything and you’re left with something like habit. Addiction. Smoke a cigarette on three occasions and if you’re unlucky you become a smoker for life. Same goes for alcohol, for drugs, for anything, even the people you marry. You often don’t live with the person you’ve married out of love or respect for your partner. You can’t get away because you’re addicted. Addicted to what they offer you, to their presence, whatever. A partner or anyone you live with often becomes a bad habit. And a bad habit is hard to shake off.

I should consider myself lucky in terms of Eka Peksha Ek. Soon it will come to an end. The winner will be felicitated with much fanfare this coming Sunday, and people will laugh, cry, congratulate the winning candidate, commiserate with those who didn’t make it and everyone will go home feeling like something important just happened. I sure as hell will miss old Sachin but on the other hand, the end of the series will free up two of my evenings again, to read, to listen to music and do other stuff which is currently on hold. I’ll be even able to watch some good TV programs for a change, maybe - such as a film on the mating rituals of whales or killer ants on Discovery Channel. Only till the next silly soap or reality show turns up of course.

Goa - The Ride From Heaven To Hell

Uma Ranganathan — Wed, 9 Apr 2008 11:01:20 EDT

Seven weeks after her body was discovered on Anjuna beach in Goa, the story of Scarlett Keeling continues to haunt the press. Her pretty face, displaced from the front page now smiles at you from one of the inside sheets even as her mother Fiona MacKeown’s gaunt visage accompanies you through the continuing drama. Enough has been written about the actual happenings so I’m not going to go into that now. For me the whole story is one more sign of how easily and how quickly paradise can disintegrate into hell in the absence of watchfulness.

When I first visited Calangute almost thirty years ago with my parents and brother, the beach was an open, endless expanse of sand, unblemished by the small and big shacks which have turned it into a noisy funfair today. There was just one rather ramshackle bar along the shore where we would head at midday to quench our thirst with a couple of bottles of beer. Except for a long haired unkempt hippy whom one came across now and then, shuffling along the beach, in search of his next chemical high, the land was peace personified.

Eleven years ago when I landed in Bogmalo for the first time Goa could still be described as paradise. The beach was like a little handkerchief in comparison with some of the other longer stretches like Colva in the south or like Anjuna up north but within a short while Bogmalo began to feel like home. My cousin, working for a water treatment company which had its office in Verna, had rented the upper storey of a bungalow which looked like a homely version of a Portuguese villa, with a rose coloured façade and a garden full of trees, bushes and flowering plants and a backyard which was home to a community of chickens, cats, a couple of dogs and half a dozen grunting pigs.

The beach was relatively free of tourists in those days and it was a pleasure to splash around in the shocking blue sea at high tide. By and by things changed. Imperceptibly the beach started to get more garish. Huge spotlights were installed on the beachfront which bathed the entire stretch of sand in view and with which the moon had to compete for attention. Then came the population explosion. First one busload a day of tourists then two and then several, mostly from Karnataka, spilled out hundreds of individuals, mostly snickering men, who seemed to have arrived there only to view the semi naked flesh on display. Imperceptibly, our daily swims dwindled, at least I felt less and less like getting into the water in view of a bunch of staring giggling men from the repressed interiors of the land.

Tourists started to pour in from other parts of the world as well. Fat red-necked British and American shippies and businessmen along with their chunky wives who for the most part sat around the beach side shacks downing beer or pina coladas. (Not that I’m complaining about that - it’s what I tend to do in Goa a lot of the time myself!) They were followed by the Russians, the Germans and the Israelis. Today the most popular restaurant in Bogmalo, which people from all over Goa used to visit for its prawn curry and rice and other spectacular native fare, no longer serves Goan food, having switched over to spaghetti, borsch, and other dishes that cater to the European (let’s say to the Russian) palette.

The vast open isolated beach at Agonda which was another favourite hideout of ours seems neither so vast nor isolated any more. A good bit of the area is dotted with huts on stilts or with restaurants with blinking multicoloured lights. Our refuge of the last ten years, a place called Sea View Restaurant where the owner, Max, had put up three large huts on the beach and two rooms in his backyard, away from the beach has suddenly turned into a two star slum. Max, probably under growing pressure to educate his children and tempted by the luscious offers coming his way decided this last season to rent out his property to a mixture of Indian and German entrepreneurs who between them managed to convert a paradaisical piece of land into a slummy disco party. When we landed there, we discovered to our dismay that the three large huts on the beach had been converted into a dozen smaller huts which made the whole place look like a tenement colony in Bombay. Meanwhile the peace and quiet of the backyard which we had experienced only last year was blown to bits by coloured lights strung out along a fence and elevator music jingling from a couple of loudspeakers propped up on the bar counter. Even a TV set had been introduced into the open air retreat for guests to watch their favourite soaps as they chilled out with a lemonade or beer under a mango tree. A slimy blond German who called himself "The Yoga Master" slithered around us, explaining his reasons for starting a movie club on the hallowed land. For Christ's sake, if this isn’t hell, I ask you what exactly is?!

The enthusiasm about mixing with an “International crowd” in Goa had already begun to wane at some stage. Most of the foreigners evinced little interest in mixing with the Indians, and kept to their own kind. Even that would have been acceptable. The trouble started with reports about women being molested at night. Admittedly, the molesters for the most part were Indians – Indians gone astray and a little barmy with an overdose of so-called western culture which they obviously couldn’t handle. And again, it is not westernization I am complaining about considering I belong to the variety known as the westernized Indian myself. It is the lack of vigilance, the lack of any kind of plan on the part of the local government, the turning of a blind eye to the despoiling of Goa’s beaches and countryside, now littered not only with tourists but literally ravaged with plastic bags and discarded mineral water bottles and a lot of other junk.

Long before Scarlett Keeling was doped and murdered at Anjuna two friends of mine, both women, were accosted on two separate occasions, not that late at night. It was in Palolem, it was after dark and each one happened to be returning home from the beach when she found herself struggling unexpectedly against a couple of ruffians. Luckily both women managed to fend off their aggressors and to make for the hotel where they were staying, suffering only from shock and a few minor bruises.

This being the first time we had heard of such a blatant attack in a well populated neighbourhood, we were really shocked. But even the shock effect wears out and in time you begin to say things like, “Oh well, one shouldn’t be wandering around in Goa after dark,”, not realizing how your freedom to move around is gradually eroded. When I first came to stay in Bogmalo we would leave the door to the apartment open the whole day, sometimes even when we were all out at the beach, confident that our privacy would not be invaded. These days I am not sure that is such a sensible thing to do.

I am not sure what is to be done about all this but some questions do arise. For example, How does one cope with the clash of cultures which inevitably arises in the wake of tourism? How does one deal with the negligence and trash arising from unmindful tourism? Is it at all possible to discourage a particular type of tourism, which is harmful to the environment and replace it with something which actually benefits the area? Does tourism necessarily have to end in litter, rape and murder? Isn’t it possible for the local government to create a kind of environment in Goa which will attract visitors, but for the right reasons? The right reasons being not only to relax but also to partake of the local culture with a view to understanding the history of the place, a kind of tourism which is more of a cultural exchange rather than a form of environmental exploitation. Maybe this is no longer a question to be answered by the government or by leaders who are used to making decisions (and invariably end up making the wrong ones) but rather one that all of us who want to protect the last few unspoilt locations in our country need to think about and to respond to.

The Reality Of Mob Mentality

Uma Ranganathan — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:50:00 EDT

Bad things happen as we know, to people who, even if they are not always good, don’t deserve such things to happen to them. And it’s funny how so many bad things seem to happen during festivals which are supposed to bring in happiness and good cheer.

One report on the celebration of "Holi" this year reveals that a mob of drunken revelers forced their way into a hotel in Chembur, Mumbai, and beat up the owner, Ram Lakhan Yadav as well as one of his daughters who happened to be on the premises. Though this piece begins with the mention of a festival which has acquired a dubious reputation in the last few decades, it doesn’t have to do with Holi as such. Rather it’s to do with the mob mentality that grips individuals from time to time resulting in violent incidents affecting individuals who are quietly going about their business.

Sure, mob fury vents itself on ordinary days as well. The other day I read about a bunch of students who had gheraoed the dean of a college in Mumbai for molesting a student. They proceeded to blacken his face and to drag him round the premises of the college, only to discover later on that they had got hold of the wrong person. (The newspaper report doesn't mention what these goons said or how they felt about their blunder.) In Pune, workers from the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena mobbed a hawker from U.P. a couple of weeks ago and in an act of grotesque violence against "intruders from the north," chopped off the poor fellow’s hands.

Because of the dramatic and violent nature of some of these acts, we tend to associate mob mentality with packs of mad marauders. But it seems to me that in a more subtle manner most of us social beings are subject to the kind of illogical and counter-productive thinking which underlies mob thinking, though it goes by another name. Let’s call it "mindless conformism."

Intelligent women – wives and mothers – resentfully bow down to their husbands’ or in-laws’ rules and regulations because not to do so would attract the disapproval, if not fury of the circle of relatives in which they happen to live and which they are ill equipped to deal with. The aunts, uncles and cousins in question might not blacken your face or chop off your limbs for failing to toe the line but they are sure as hell capable of making life miserable for you. As a result so many of the women I know are afraid (yes even in today’s supposedly modern times and in what you might think were progressive circles) to lead their own lives and to prosper as individuals even though they have the means to do so.

Several of the individuals who come to me for counseling and therapy, too, suffer interminably as a result of their hankering for all that they cannot have and for positions they were not meant to occupy – simply because that is what they are supposed to want and which they think will elevate them in the eyes of the crowd.

Rather than examine their own gifts and cash in on their innate abilities they spend years dragging themselves through jobs they hate while craving to be recognized for what they are not. Most of them are genuinely wonderful individuals, yet fail to recognize their worth.

What can one say! So much is determined by convention, by outdated values unthinkingly supported by the majority. How else can one account for the crazy desire among the young in today’s world, To Be Somebody – never mind what. The president of a flourishing company, a famous rock star, a much sought after doctor, engineer or architect - regardless of whether the individual concerned possesses the talent necessary to excel in the field, or not.

As Anthony D’Mello puts it in "The Way Of Love", we human beings are addicted to approval the way those we consider addicts are hung up on cocaine or heroin. When we don’t get our daily fix of admiration or our daily pat on the back, we wilt. Is it "human nature" or is it that we were brought up to need those things in order to feel good about ourselves?

People imagine that perfection means reaching the top of the ladder in your chosen field and having your name and face plastered in the press and on posters around town. I prefer J. Krishnamurti’s definition of the term:

"You may excel, you may be very very good at whatever you do,” he says, “but I am talking of mediocrity of the mind, of the heart, of your entire being." Which means you might have made it as president of some monstrous multinational firm, or as a surgeon or anything else and still remain mediocre as a human being. You would have succeeded in obeying social convention and in becoming a "good boy or girl" but not in fulfilling your own unique nature.

Breaking out of the conventional mode doesn’t mean going berserk or damaging the environment or other human beings. It means establishing a different kind of order in your life, one that emerges from your own intelligence which is to say from out of a natural wisdom which is sadly lacking in our world.

In an environment where order comes not from coercion but because it honestly makes sense, and where rules are followed, not out of fear but rather out of choice, there will be little incentive for people to go on a rampage to let out their frustrations at the slightest opportunity, or to use public occasions to vent their private wrath in the name of social good, which is essentially what mob activity is about.

Book Review: The Way of Love: Learning To See

Uma Ranganathan — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 01:41:57 EST

“If you wish to love you must learn to see again.”

The sentence could have come straight out of a Krishnamurti reader but that was not where I found it. I’ve been reading this book given to me recently by a friend - “The Way Of Love”, a collection of last meditations, written by Anthony De Mello just before he died. You wouldn’t expect a Jesuit priest to be quite as iconoclastic as Tony De Mello (as his colleagues referred to him), yet the wisdom contained in “The Way Of Love” is like something straight out of Tao, Zen or Sufi literature. And why shouldn’t it be! Innate human wisdom is not something which is copyrighted and which only a few select teachers or writers have a right to express.

What sets Anthony De Mello apart from most spiritual leaders is this: most gurus, regardless of which religion or sect they owe their allegiance to, are not only blatantly full of themselves, but love to tell you how it is in life and what you should do. A lot of their “gyan” is nothing more than the imparting of rules and regulations, of do’s and don’ts which further enslave you.

Anthony De Mello, incidentally best known for his inspiring compilation of folk wisdom and stories related to enlightenment, “The Prayer Of The Frog”, has none of the regular do’s and don’ts to offer. At least in “The Way Of Love” there is not much to even identify him as a Catholic priest. What he emphasizes throughout, is the importance of learning to “see.” It is the one thing we avoid in life, he says, preferring as we do, to live with our illusions and our attachments in spite of the fact that they cause us endless suffering.

Why is it so important to open our eyes and see? The logic is simple. When you open your eyes you see things the way they are. You see them in their place, so to speak. You see the place of love, in this whole phenomenon we call “life” and you realize that life without love is not only not worth much, it is inconceivable. It is akin to a flower which refuses to open out and bloom. At some level we all know this and whether or not we are aware of it, are in search of what we call “love”. But in the absence of awareness we are not even in a position to know what love is. We want desperately to be loved without ourselves being really capable of it. What we call love in hindsight turns out only to be greed, possessiveness and insecurity in disguise.

The reason we cannot love, De Mello says, is because we cannot and do not want “to see.” And of course, the “seeing” he refers to, is something which goes far beyond the physical or intellectual understanding we normally connect it with. Seeing in this context, has an immediacy to it and is necessarily untainted by our conditioning, by our prejudices and other concocted notions. Since most of us live within the cells of our own conditioning we are blind to actual reality.

We may think we love someone for example, but if we don’t see them as they are, how can we possibly love them, argues De Mello. Because most of the time, what you think you love, is nothing more than an image, a pretty picture you carry in your head about the person or thing you love. It is a sobering thought, he goes on to say, that the finest act of love you can perform, is not an act of service but an act of contemplation, of seeing. “When you serve people you help, support, comfort, alleviate pain. When you see them in their inner beauty and goodness you transform and create.” Not only does the act of seeing give birth to love, but it helps us to live in the moment – which is really the same thing.

Is this why, in spite of there being so many social workers in the world and so many institutions dedicated to helping mankind, real transformation seems out of reach? Because so many of us are doing “good work” to appease our conscience, to ensure a place in heaven when we die (or if you happen to be a Hindu and believe in reincarnation, to ensure that all goes well in the next lifetime). Don't most of our "good deeds" come out of the same greed and ambition which generally powers people in the world of business or politics though in a different context? Or do we do what we do to take the edge off our boredom or anxiety, and not because we genuinely “see” what the right thing is, to do?

“Think of the terror that comes to a rich man when he sets out to really see the pitiful condition of the poor,” says De Mello, “to a power-hungry dictator when he really looks at the plight of the people he oppresses, to a fanatic, a bigot, when he really sees the falsehood of his convictions when they do not fit the facts.”

This terror, according to De Mello has to do with the destruction of the valued illusions and images which make up our world and on which our lives are based. “That is why the most painful act the human being can perform, the act that he dreads the most is the act of seeing.”

But it is in the very act of seeing that love is born, De Mello tells us, or to put it more accurately, “that act of seeing is Love.”

Baba Amte - Maybe We Will Meet Again!

Uma Ranganathan — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 03:57:27 EST

I wrote my first piece on Baba Amte long before I met him or had even visited his home, Anandwan, where he had set up a rehabilitation center in the fifties, for people with leprosy – a center which, within some years grew into a flourishing township inhabited by people from all walks of life and not only those who were sick or crippled. My father, who had heard about him a couple of years earlier from a friend in the U.K. had come away thoroughly impressed by his visit to the place. The second time he went there he took a young photographer called Santosh Verma with him to help him put together a slide show on the Amte’s which could be used for fund raising.

Santosh, who visited my dad with his photographs and slides, after they got back from Anandwan, managed to persuade me to write an article about Baba Amte, which he said he would get Gentleman magazine to use alongside his photographs. After a great deal of humming and hawing (how can you write about a man you’ve never met and a place you’ve never visited I complained to Santosh only to have my arguments swept aside with a premptory laugh) I went ahead and did the piece. In the process of collecting information and writing the piece on the Amte's, I gradually developed an insatiable urge to go and see it all for myself.

So I landed up at Anandwan some time in November ’87 and came away not quite knowing what hit me. A place as quiet, as green, as clean as Anandwan was, (and even the food was yummy) didn’t seem quite Indian, if you know what I mean. Baba himself turned out to be so normal and talkative that one hardly experienced the usual fear and reticence with which one tends to be overcome in the presence of a “great man.” He had this habit of quoting himself, which I found quite intriguing, and was a past master at amusing people with anecdotes related from his life. He never failed to ensure I was comfortable during my stay at Anandwan, going so far as to organize a western style potty for me when we all trooped off to Hemalkasa to visit his son Prakash who runs a hospital in this wild forested region for members of the Madia Gond tribe. Baba said he knew what it felt like not to be able to squat (which I was not able to do on account of an attack of polio in childhood) which left me quite zapped.

I visited Anandwan and Hemalkasa on a couple of occasions after that though for the most part I kept up with all the goings on through friends and through my father who was a more regular visitor. I followed news of Baba’s retirement from Anandwan for ten years to spend time with Medha Patkar on the banks of the Narmada in protest against the dam. I also kept pace with the new activities at Anandwan initiated by Baba’s son Vikas, like the low cost housing he was trying to introduce there. All in all it was one of those projects which couldn’t but inspire awe and respect in all those who had experienced it firsthand.

And now, what do I feel about Baba’s passing away? I don’t really know. Like Vikas is supposed to have said to the press, I too on the one hand feel, “Baba lived a full life. There are no regrets.” But as it happens with each great human being who leaves the world one is ultimately left feeling a bit lonely I guess. Lonely because it seems that there are not nearly enough people as there surely ought to have been, in today’s world, to take over the torch of compassion, and spread light through the world through very practical deeds as Baba Amte sought to do.

Baba did not wish to be cremated, but rather to be buried and to have a tree planted on the burial spot where he was to be laid to rest. So maybe we will meet again in this lifetime after all, though Baba might look a bit different than he did when he was a human being!

For more information on Baba Amte's work and life here’s what Temporal has to say:
http://desicritics.org/2008/02/09/011917.php

The Foundations Of Community - Part II

Uma Ranganathan — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 00:35:51 EST

Freedom, like so many other concepts which we bandy around, is a much misunderstood one. Today it is seen as the right of an individual to further his interests any way he wants. As a result we often mistake freedom for recklessness and the right to exploit others. In turn this evokes a counter reaction which is often fanatical in nature, and ends up curtailing our most basic rights. Aren’t most extremist movements in the world today, a reaction to the insensitive handling of human affairs by some of the privileged nations?

True freedom cannot be separated from responsibility. Both are an outcome of a sober and clear sighted view of life. An individual, much as he or she might be a unique combination of needs, desires and capabilities, happens to also be an inalienable part of society, a part of community and freedom has meaning only to the extent that the entity itself can be free as a whole. To recognize and to live according to this fact requires intelligence and maturity. How to strengthen the foundation of our lives together without restricting each other, is possibly the biggest challenge we face today.

Honest sharing can help us greatly to find our way into a common space, and to find a way to show directly what we need and are able to give each other. This kind of dialog itself needs preparation, and can only take place when the ground for it has been laid. Often, what is supposed to be a “dialog” degenerates into an argument, into temper tantrums or results in an individual or handful of dominant individuals taking over the forum. The silent majority retreats, only to crib behind the backs of those who have had their way. We are all familiar with this kind of scenario. The ground work consists in educating individuals to learn to listen to each other and to develop the courage and ability to express their true feelings and thoughts.

Ideally school is where this process ought to begin but since most of us never learned all this in the classroom, having been too busy mugging up dates and names of emperors and other abstract data, we are often clueless when it comes to really communicating with each other. Sit quietly and listen to almost any conversation taking place and you will find that it is mostly about people, places and things that are not in the here and now and do not really concern the individuals talking, directly. Rarely do you come across individuals who are able to address each other directly and look at what is between them. Even in the most intimate of relationships, or what ought to be an intimate relationship – in marriage or within a family – the level of true intimacy and sharing is abysmally low and there is a lot of fear about disclosing one’s feelings.

Genuine community spirit has its origin in communion and arises at the point when the fear to express oneself has been overcome. It can arise only when an open forum has been effectively created to be able to handle the truth of feelings which emerges at any given point with awareness, compassion and acceptance.

The Foundations of Community - I

Uma Ranganathan — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 06:15:12 EST

If I were asked to list off hand, five elements on which true community is based, this is what I think, I would come up with:

Freedom
Responsibility
Patience
Perseverance
Love

To many people, the first two might seem to contradict each other. When people are given full freedom over their lives wouldn’t responsibility fade into the background? But then, it depends on what freedom really means to you. True freedom is not only liberating for the person who experiences it but brings with it a deep awareness of responsibility. It is precisely when freedom is half baked and arises out of a confused mental construct that it leads to chaos and destruction, such as we are witnessing in the world today. In turn the mixture of freedom, responsibility, patience and perseverance lays the foundation for what we might call a state of love.

J. Krishnamurti often referred to freedom as the starting point of self awareness. What he meant was the freedom to look and to listen. These basic faculties are in fact the tools which help us to explore and understand ourselves and the world we live in. It seems to me at times, that the reason for all the chaos “out there” is our unwillingness and inability to explore our own relation to the world, to look at each other, to look at what love or our lives are really about. We are not really free to see things as they are but seem almost condemned to view life through lenses coloured by religious or cultural beliefs, if not by our insecurity or by past experiences which have shaped our lives. The genuine desire to explore all that we see and feel seems to be missing. As a result most investigations turn out to be half hearted inept attempts to find out the truth of a matter and end in fruitless debates and egoistic posturing. Perhaps we are secretly afraid of losing something by looking under the rug, because of which we spend most of our lives staring at and talking ad nauseum about the colour and pattern of the rug rather than on looking at how to sweep the floor clean.

Carlos Castaneda, the best selling author on Mesoamerican sorcery, and spiritual guru of the sixties and seventies generation, quotes his Mexican shamanistic teacher Don Juan on the subject of Man’s four enemies. Fear, according to Don Juan is the very first of our adversaries in life. (The other three being clarity, power and old age). Since the discussion on these four points goes into reams I am not even going to try and get into an explanation here. As a starting point though, what could be emphasised is that fear is the first emotion we need to battle with on the road to freedom. Learning to face it directly, without being defeated by it is a necessary step for those of us interested in fostering a community spirit which is authentic and not born of compulsion.

Essentially, what this boils down to is the fact that an on-going sense of community needs tremendous self awareness on the part of its members. It needs sensitivity, which can only come about when a person has to some extent managed to stop thinking of himself or herself as the centre of the universe and begun to realise the fact that he is a small part of the whole to which he is connected, and whose well being will determine his own.

A Modern Wedding

Uma Ranganathan — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 00:38:21 EST

I am not a great fan of large scale gatherings and generally avoid things like weddings and funerals. Not that I have anything against people marrying or dying – it’s got more to do with my increasing unwillingness to compromise on what I wear.

What I mostly like to wear, regardless of where I am, is blue jeans or some kind of variation on the theme. You get the picture. It is ages since I shopped for wedding wear, the last time being when I was shanghaied to Bloomington, Illinois way back in ’92 to attend my brother’s wedding. Having finally got there, of course, I was mighty happy to be part of the scene but that’s another story.

Since then, there have been other occasions but when pressured into attending a wedding or party I find myself increasingly doing it on my own terms. Which means showing up in casuals in the midst of dazzling silver or gold embroidered apparel overlaid with sequins and making up for it with a glittering smile (adequate metal in my mouth makes this quite feasible) and good behavior if necessary.

A few days back I was quite pleased to be able to be part of a wedding without actually having to attend it. The neighbor’s daughter was getting married and the first I heard of it was when I saw the foyer of our building being decked up with roses and multi-colored garlands, and a huge <i>pandal</i> being set up on the lawn. I must say, this speaks volumes, either for my status with the neighbors or my inability to remember functions to which I’ve been invited. My friend Marlis’ excitement was palpable. She is from Germany and happened to be spending a couple of weeks with me in Bombay. Her jaw dropped when she discovered that we would be able to watch an entire Hindu wedding ceremony from our balcony upstairs without having to trouble ourselves being sociable to a large number of people who had gathered for the event.

So this was when I discovered what a modern wedding is all about.

The bride’s people had gathered in the compound and were milling around the gate to receive the bridegroom who took over an hour to get to the venue from about two hundred yards down the road. According to tradition, he was accompanied by a regular brass band belting out wedding standards which perforce included a slightly off-key version of "Come September."

The elderly photographer, fumbling around with a bulky SLR and a bagful of lenses, seemed almost redundant. Each person in the bride’s entourage happened to be touting a digital camera, some of whom even photographed me and my friend grinning at the spectacle from the balcony.

"You see how hospitable and welcoming India is," I said to Marlis. "We organized this event especially for you. I mean they could have had the wedding a couple of weeks before you arrived or some weeks later but it is your happiness that counts."

Finally the bridegroom arrived, perspiring and now and then pushing aside the veil of flowers obviously asphyxiating him, but in good form nonetheless and swinging and waving his hands to the tempo of the music. By now it had switched to a kind of Bhangra to which a party of elderly turbaned men, part of the baraat, were kicking their legs and waving their arms with gusto.

The actual wedding ceremony was mercifully short – not more than about an hour and a half long, during which time the bashful couple circled the fire seven times, exchanged rings and took part in umpteen other rituals to cement their union. ("In Germany the whole thing lasts less than twenty minutes," said Marlis). At the end the bride and bridegroom were pronounced man and wife and the guests slowly made their way back to the entrance where a silver horse-drawn carriage awaited the newly weds.

In style the young couple clambered in and prepared themselves to journey off into a new life together. I got ready myself to wipe away a tear when the bride suddenly whipped out a mobile from I don’t know where, maybe from under the folds of her ghagra or from a handbag hidden from sight, and started yakkety yakking with fervor before the coach had got going.

I wondered how her newly acquired husband felt about this and whether I should start feeling sorry for him, considering the bride’s first action on getting married was to commune over the mobile. I needn’t have. He pulled out his own mobile from out of the pocket of his jacket and busied himself with it as well as the coach slowly pulled out of the driveway. I played around with my digital camera wishing desperately I could capture this scene for posterity but it was too dark and they were too far away for my flash to have an effect.

"Oh what the heck," Marlis said later with an indulgent sigh. "You never know. Maybe they were really talking to each other."

Timbaktu, Here I Come!

Uma Ranganathan — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 10:36:42 EDT

It is dusk by the time we arrive at Timbaktu and the steaming hot cups of tea with which we’re greeted are very welcome indeed. I’m a little less enthusiastic about the anecdotes regarding snakes and scorpions and warnings not to walk barefoot in the dark. “Shake out your shoes before you slip your feet into them,” says our friend Venky who lives in this faraway development project area. “Scorpion bites are painful.” Venky himself has had a snake crawl into his room on one occasion and been bitten on two occasions by a scorpion and has had to be rushed to a homeopathic practitioner staying close by, for a life saving antidote.

I wonder how I missed registering this vital piece of information during my previous visits to Timbaktu and consider myself lucky that I emerged unscathed in spite of never once having checked my shoes for creepy crawlies that could have had me writhing in agony or even dead in a few minutes. Oh well, if knowing all this is going to make my nights at Timbaktu a little less comfortable from now on, it will also make them a bit safer, I tell myself.

“How did you happen to choose a name like Timbaktu,” I ask Choitresh Kumar Ganguly (Bablu to most of us) as we watch a slide show one evening centered round the NGO project site which lies off the Bangalore Hyderabad highway, just about a three hour drive from Bangalore itself.

“At the time we saw the land and decided to buy it, it seemed to us to be the end of the world,” says Bablu whose family originally comes from Calcutta although Bablu himself has spent most of his growing up years in Bombay. Youthful idealism, flavored with more than a dash of Marxism led him in his early twenties, into an area far removed from the corporate world. For close to two decades now, he and his wife Mary Vattamattam, whom he met while working on the Young India Project in the late eighties, have been nursing a 32 acre plot in Andhra Pradesh, which they purchased together with friends in 1991, back to health. Far from being intimidated by the dry, ravaged unwelcoming territory they had decided to call home, the little group of friends took up the challenge of finding ways to heal the land and transform it into a green agro forest. They named it "Sarihaddu Rekha" in Telugu. The place where the earth meets the sky. Or Timbaktu as it is more commonly known among friends and visitors.

The barren landscape has been turning greener with the years and flocks of birds and a host of insects and animals believed to have disappeared for good, are now being lured back again by forests which have started to cover what was once seen as sterile terrain. Forest regeneration and organic farming are not the only projects on hand. Rejuvenation of traditional water harvesting structures, banking for women and education for the village children are among the activities supported by Timbaktu Collective. There is even a cell for disabled individuals, which enables those with hearing impairment, visual and mobility problems to get appropriate help.

What excites me about this particular visit to Timbaktu is the gradual merging of the work which some of us are doing in the cities, with ongoing projects in rural areas. A handful of us from Bombay and Bangalore, working in the area of self awareness - essentially to do with increasing awareness of one’s potential as well as responsibility as an individual and also awareness of one’s relationship with the environment - have made this trip now to take a first look at the foundations of the small center which will host some of our activities, making way for urbanites to learn from rural folk and the other way around. Something in me is jubilant at the new coming together of friends, based on the recognition that spiritual and material progress go hand in hand, that each part of a complex whole is dependent on the others for its own growth and development.

That most of the housing in Timbaktu has no access to running water, that I have to shake out my shoes every time I need to go to the loo at night, that for most of the day we have to do without electricity are somehow facts which don’t seem to matter - as yet. Of course in the final analysis I’m a realist and the prospect of spending more time in Timbaktu already has me thinking about how I’m going to be able to work on my laptop or have access to a reasonably good connection with the net. But such questions are a part of the game, part of the challenge facing us in the next couple of years and I have no doubt that before long, one way or another, the problem will have been resolved.