Desicritics Category: Culture: Men

Poessay: Rosary 23: Musings

temporal — Mon, 5 Jan 2009 06:48:44 EST

Edge of precipice. Cliff?
Diving board. Looking down into water.
Water?

Of hope.
What hope? Mirage. Shimmer. Illusion. Belief in the unseen. Acceptance.
Acceptance? With conviction.
Conviction of what? Faith or reasoning?

Of reason.
Rationality. Two plus...Cause and...Things not...
Self-existential illusions. Illusions or hoaxes? Certifiable?

Of faith.
Belief of unfathomed power. Recognizant of the unrecognised.
Unresolved nothingness. Ensconced nothingness. Transference.

Back to hope, reason, faith. Nothing.
What if nothing is the vacuum cementing life to death.

Oh death? The final dot. -30- Kaput. Kapitsh. End.

End, another beginning. Movement towards another dot. To other
unresolved queries. To other needs and desires. To know or to give
in.

Again.
Earlier:
Poessay: Rosary 1 - Pink Sand Beach
Poessay: Rosary 2 - Fishing
Poessay: Rosary 3 - Adam and Eve Limited - I
Poessay: Rosary 4 - Adam and Eve Limited - II
Poessay: Rosary 5 - Descending
Poessay: Rosary 6 - Dinner In The Park
Poessay: Rosary 7 - Under the Jamun Tree
Poessay: Rosary 8 - Voices In The Air
Poessay: Rosary 9 - Life Rosary I
Poessay: Rosary 10 - Life Rosary II
Poessay: Rosary 11 - Creating In Isolation
Poessay: Rosary 12 - Kohled Eyes
Poessay: Rosary 13 - By the Lake
Poessay: Rosary 14 - Snow Flakes
Poessay: Rosary 15 - The Drop
Poessay: Rosary 16 - Ageless Quest - tishnagi
Poessay: Rosary 17 - Hemashree
Poessay: Rosary 18 - burning blazing fire rages
Poessay: Rosary 19 - Word Whirlpool - BhaNwur LafzouN Ka
Poessay: Rosary 20 - Thanksgiving I Poessay:
Rosary 21: KhamOshi - Wordless Poessay:
Rosary 22 - A Simple Poem

Poessay: I'm Not Dev Das and You're Not Anarkali

temporal — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 12:20:07 EST

painting - Gulgee

Permanence is a Utopian illusion. It is nurtured by groups that ferment a vested interest - popes, padres, rabbis, maulvis, pundits, financiers - purveyors of permanence.

Insomniac Dream Sellers of
Truth, Beauty, Wisdom, Courage, Love, Anger, Hatred

Sea
and Mountain
Enslaved and encircled with smile.

Then the smile melted
His?
Her's?
His smile melted her? Her smile melted him?
0r like the shivering polar ice
Melting under the rape of environment
Euphemism for global warming

Sea - the mother of transmogrification
-clouds, snow, rain, lakes, rivers
And completing the circle - sea

The circular reverberation
Womb - grave - womb
Is the tale of drops
spermatozoa
"Read, read in the names of thy Lord..."

***

for believers it is Him
for others some grand design
that would finally still
                           the drop
the last meltdown
when neither love
                           nor hate
will deter, defer, persuade or play
                         when the smile
will last for ever sans flesh

we, who indulge in super hate
we, who miss not an opportunity
to throw barbs, grenades
and uranium tipped mines and bombs
we, who excel at malevolence
- when will love conquer us?

yaadOn ka guldasta thamay*
sar-saratay sukoon maiN ghar'q
jub saa'yay hum aa ghosh hotay haiN
tou mudhoshi ki devi bhee
khud hee muskurati hogi
hosh apnay kho bethti hogi

ab tou yaad ki baiRiyouN maiN qaid
dabay qadmON t'ra tasawwur
youN chala aata hay kay
khood faraibi ka shaiba
bhee choo ker nahiN guzarta
choti ki is joostujoo maiN
khaai maiN girnay ka ehsaas kisay

said the bluebird to the bulbul
the simpleton is unaware
and the curmudgeon unconcerned
love has been cremated
in hiroshima

Man shorn of humanity is hurting and hurtling down the precipice, brakes worn, singling gaily, oblivious of the rushing winds of time, aware but not cognizant of the abyss.

_________________________________________________
* translation:

clutching the bouquet of memories
and drowned in the whispering quiet
as the shadows embrace
the goddess of intoxication
would smile at herself
while letting go of sobriety

bounded in memory-chains
your thoughts tiptoe
swirling and cascading
around whims and doubts

in the strive to conquer the peak
who thinks of a fall into the abyss

P. Sainath and Farmers' Suicides in India

Siddhartha Shome — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 01:09:05 EST

P. Sainath is one of India's most exalted journalists today. Last year he was awarded a Ramon Magsaysay Award for "his passionate commitment as a journalist to restore the rural poor to India's consciousness, moving the nation to action".

I read Sainath's writing occasionally, and last week attended a talk by him at the University of California at Berkeley. Here are some of my thoughts on Sainath and farmers' suicides in India - an issue with which Sainath in intimately connected.

Why Sainath is Important

Today's English educated urban upper middle class India remains almost totally ignorant of rural India. An English language journalist seriously interested in rural India is the rarest of rare creatures. It is therefore remarkable that Sainath has decided to devote his career to reporting about rural India. What is even more remarkable is that Sainath, with his passion and eloquence has been able to successfully carve out a space for himself in the India's English language media.

For this reason alone, Sainath deserves much acclaim.

Farmers' Suicides: Why Sainath's Analysis is Deeply Flawed

Sainath is a remarkable journalist. However, he does not limit himself to reporting. Though he does not claim any expertise as a researcher or an economist, he offers a very stark analysis of the problems of rural India. While I am in agreement with some parts of his analysis (the existence of an agrarian crisis, the negative impact of industrialized countries' farm subsidies, etc.), I feel that much of Sainath's analysis is, sadly, deeply flawed.

Sainath's Analysis

The issue most closely associated with Sainath is farmers' suicides. According to him, the story goes like this:
1. In recent years there has been a huge surge in farmers' suicides in rural India.
2. Farmers' suicides are driven by indebtedness.
3. Rising agricultural input costs are responsible for much of the debt.
4. Corporations, freer markets, and globalization are responsible for the rise in input costs, and hence are the root cause of farmers' suicides.

Thanks largely to Sainath, the issue of farmers' suicides in India has become something of a cause celebre in the global anti-globalization movement today.

The Reality of Farmers' Suicides in India

Sainath's uses data from India's National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) to support his narrative. According to the NCRB data, the total number of suicides in India has risen from 95,829 in 1997 to 118,112 in 2006. This works out to an annual growth rate of 2.4%. India's population, meanwhile, has grown at 1.93% annually (between 1991 and 2001).

Above: Total suicides and farmers' suicides in India (reference)

Above: Farmers' suicides as a percentage of total suicides (reference)

It is evident from the data that over the last 10 years, the number of suicides in India has grown only slightly, especially when adjusted for a growing population. Even farmers' suicides as a percentage of total suicides in India has been fairly constant at around 15%.

Clearly, it is a false notion that farmers' suicide rates in India have shot up dramatically in the last few years.

Farmers' Suicides in Yavatmal District in Maharashtra

While the notion of a huge surge in farmers' suicides in India is largely false, maybe there are pockets where farmers' suicides represent a serious problem.

Let us take a closer look at Yavatmal District in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, considered by Sainath as the epicenter of the farmers' suicide crisis. An investigation into farmers' suicides in Yavatmal District was carried out by Meeta and Ravilochan in conjunction with the Yashwantrao Chavan Academy of Development Administration (YASHADA). The findings were published in 2006 in a book called Farmers Suicide: Facts and Possible Policy Interventions. The following are some of the points from this book.

Yavatmal District has the highest suicide rate in Maharashtra.

For the years studied, the total number of suicides in Yavatmal District was 640, 819, 832, 787 and 786, in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004, respectively. In each of these years, suicides of farmers and agricultural workers represented 23, 24, 23, 22, and 30 percent, respectively, of all suicides.

The researchers conducted case studies for individual farmers' suicides in Yavatmal District. A total of 148 case studies are presented in the book. To give a flavor of these case studies, two are very briefly described below.

Case 46. A 45 year old farmer who committed suicide by consuming poison in 2004. He had 3 acres of land. There was a crop loan of Rs. 3954 taken in 2001 from the Primary Agricultural Credit Society, which remained unpaid. In 2003-04 he spent Rs. 10,000 in treating his wife who was a psychiatric patient at a private clinic.
Case 120. A 50 year old farmer who committed suicide by consuming poison in 2004. He had 19 acres of land. There was an outstanding loan of Rs. 33,000 with the Bank of Maharashtra, and another outstanding loan of Rs. 8,000 from the Primary Agricultural Credit Society. In 2004 he spent Rs. 60,000 on the marriage of his second daughter. He used to drink alcohol and also gamble. He was having an affair with his bhabhi (sister-in-law). His affair had been discovered shortly before his suicide.

According to the authors of this study,

We found that while indebtedness was rampant, there was little clarity: was it disabling, to what extent, and who was responsible. On one side, indebtedness as high as 75% has been reported since the early 20th century but it was not considered disabling. On the other side, in the early 21st century, only 14% of the victims had indebtedness that resulted in alienation of land and/or animals. Moreover, we discovered that a loan from a rapacious relative rather than a bank or moneylender was often the cause of economic distress of the victim.

What comes out clearly from this study of farmer suicides is that each suicide is a unique and complex phenomenon - the reasons and motivations are varied and multifaceted. To find a single cause, one can certainly try to look for common threads running through the suicides, but one must keep in mind that this is bound to be a substantial oversimplification of a highly complex and multidimensional phenomenon.

Implausible and Plausible Causes of Farmers' Suicides

Sainath attributes farmers' suicides to rising indebtedness. How plausible is his reasoning?

It is true that most farmers who have committed suicides have outstanding loans against them. But can that be isolated as the single most important cause for suicide? The fact is that most farmers who do not commit suicide also have outstanding loans against them. To me, things like poor farm productivity, medical problems, social pressure to spend lavishly on a daughter's wedding, etc., seem to be at least as important as debt - if not more so - in driving people to suicide.

Sainath's further attribution of blame to economic liberalization, globalization, "the neoliberal agenda", etc., are even more implausible. As can be seen clearly from the NCRB data, the crisis of farmers' suicides is not a nationwide phenomenon, but is visible only in certain pockets. Surely it make sense to look for local factors, not just national or global factors. Nation-wide issues like growing cash crops (instead of food crops) are equally applicable to farmers in, say, Gujarat. So how come there are so few suicides among cotton farmers in Gujarat?

A much more plausible cause for cotton farmers' distress in Maharashtra is provided by Sharad Joshi, leader of the Shetkari Sanghatana, an important farmers' organization in Maharashtra. According to Joshi, the primary villain is the Maharashtra State Cotton Monopoly Procurement Scheme - a mechanism that makes the state government the sole buyer of cotton in Maharashtra, and despite promises, usually pays farmers less than prevailing market prices. Cotton farmers in Gujarat, who, by contrast, enjoy access to markets, a state government that invests in infrastructure, and access to new technologies, are witnessing unprecedented prosperity.

Suicides as a Development Indicator

Every suicide is an incredibly sad event. However, a basic question that must be asked is: how valid is suicide rate as an indicator of human development?

Above: Comparison of suicide rates

According to Jean Dreze and Amartya Sen, both eminent developmental economists,

The relevance of the suicide rate as a basic development indicator is far from clear. Indeed, many countries with high suicide rates (e.g., the Scandinavian countries) are doing extremely well in terms of overall social opportunities, and it would be quite odd to take their high suicide rates as a severe indictment of their development record. Suicide rates do correlate with specific social problems such as high rates of unemployment or divorce ... and it is quite possible that problems of this kind contribute to the high rate of suicide in Kerala. But these problems, such as they are, do not detract from Kerala's achievements in other, more fundamental fields such as health and education, just as - say - Finland's high suicide rate does not detract from its success in guaranteeing extensive social opportunities to its citizens.

Farmers' Suicide Crisis in Perspective

Sainath depicts farmers' suicides as one of the worst humanitarian crises facing India. So here are some statistics to keep things in proper perspective.

1. In 2006, 17,060 farmers committed suicide in India.

2. Every year in India some 400,000 to 500,000 children under the age of five die from diarrhea. Diarrhea and other waterborne infectious diseases can be easily prevented simply by improving the infrastructure for drinking water and sanitation.

3. In India some 35,000 people die every year from rabies, i.e., every year twice as many Indians die from rabies alone as from farmers' suicides. Rabies can be very easily prevented, simply by removing stray dogs from public areas.

4. Some 4,000 people die every year in accidents in the Mumbai Suburban Railway system alone (Mumbai city's mass transit system). This is just one example of the enormous numbers of accidents and fatalities that plague India's transportation system - a result of woefully inadequate infrastructure a virtual absence of even basic safety features.

Such statistics (and there are many more) point to the need for more, not less, economic growth and development in India.

India's Agrarian Crisis

While I disagree with Sainath on many things, I do agree with him that India is facing an agrarian crisis.

One need not look for clues to India's agrarian crisis in suicide statistics - there are many other more obvious pointers, such as anemic growth in agricultural output. The figure below of yield-per-hectare of foodgrains in India illustrates this problem.

Above: Foodgrains yield in India (reference)

This figure points to the issue that is at the heart of India's agrarian crisis: after a period of rapid growth during the Green Revolution, agricultural productivity in India has tapered off. As a result, farm incomes are under pressure. This is in sharp contrast to the industrial and service sectors of the economy, which are currently booming.

Economic Liberalization and Agriculture

In India the government started a process of economic liberalization in 1991, which aimed to move India away from a Soviet-style statist economic model to a much more free market oriented economic model. Anti-globalizers like Sainath blame economic liberalization for the agrarian crisis in India. I disagree completely. I think it is exactly the opposite - that it is not economic liberalization but rather the lack of it in the agricultural sector that is to blame. If increased economic freedom has made Indian industry boom, why should Indian agriculture be denied the same opportunity?

Below are two examples of how economic liberalization can help Indian farmers.

Consider farmland. Farming in India is not a particularly lucrative profession. It is thus no surprise that, according to a major survey, as many as 40% of Indian farmers would like to give up farming if they had a choice. I think it is important to give these farmers the liberty to monetize the most important asset that they possess - their land - and use the capital to embark on alternative ventures if they so desire. Unfortunately, India's stringent and stifling land regulations do not allow this to happen. According to Barun Mitra,

Indian industry can raise capital from the global market on the basis of a prospectus, which promises performance in the future. But Indian farmers can't raise adequate capital on the basis of the land asset which they already possess.... It is critical that the value of the land of farmers, often their only asset, is maximized, and it is made simple to capitalize. The problem facing the poor is not their poverty, but inability to capitalize their assets... Restrictions such as zoning, land ceiling and land use laws, along with unclear titles and poor land records, grossly undervalue land prices. ... The result is a greatly distorted land market. At one end, there are landowners, millions of small and marginal farmers, who can't even know the market value of their land. At the other end, there are the land mafia and speculators.

Consider farm technology. Like any other sector, to increase productivity, agriculture too needs new and innovative technologies. The good news is that recent advances in fields like biotechnology, genetic engineering, etc., offer immense promise. The bad news is that, partly in response to demands from anti-globalization groups, strict restrictions and prohibitions have been imposed on these new technologies.

Gail Omvedt, an American-born Indian scholar who married into a farming family in India has this to say,

Behind the appeal of the campaign is a distorted image of farmers ... which depicts them romantically but demeaningly as backward, tradition-loving, innocent and helpless creatures carrying on with their occupation for love of the land and the soil, and as practitioners of a "way of life" rather than a toilsome income-earning occupation. These imagined farmers have to be protected from market forces and the attacks of multinationals, from the seductions of commercialization and the enslavement of technologies...

Farmers may love the land they work on ... But they are people who are trying to scratch out a living, who want a better life for their children and for whom farming is a source of income and not a very good income. They are familiar with hybrid seeds ... They buy them, try them out, and refuse to use them if they do not perform... Farmers are economic actors and capable of making choices.

The way to overcome widespread poverty is to increase opportunities for people to fully utilize their own talents and abilities. I believe that if given the opportunity, most human beings will be able to overcome poverty through their own enterprise and hard work. For this, economic liberalization and better market access are vitally necessary.

This is not to suggest that the market is the solution to all problems. Markets need to be well regulated, with regulations designed to increase choice rather than stifle initiative. And because not everybody will have the ability and the luck to succeed in a dynamic market environment, especially during periods of downturn and crisis, social safety nets must accompany free markets.

Story Versus Analysis

Even though I disagree with much of Sainath's analysis, I can see where he is coming from. He is a journalist - a very good journalist - who is on the lookout for a story that a section of his audience can connect with. His urban English newspaper reading audience, immersed in a post-industrial economy, probably has very little serious knowledge or interest in obscure issues like Maharashtra's cotton procurement system, or in mundane problems like stray dogs and rabies. It is only the anti-globalization ideological angle of Sainath's story - whether real or imagined - that makes it interesting to some of his readers.

Reasoned analysis is sacrificed to produce a story that a particular section of the metropolitan audience will find engaging. Good reporting is lost in the blind rhetoric of anti-globalization.

Poem: black in white

temporal — Sat, 8 Nov 2008 12:23:23 EST

credit Daemys

dear occupant
we are expert movers
no job is too small
or too big
for our staff
we are certified and bonded
and guarantee our work
read the generic mail

i read and threw it
in the garbage

in the wee hours today
am thinking of the white man
who will be shortly vacating
                     that house

a man low in self esteem
                     and lower in polls
who should be punished
for mayhem and incompetency
and incarcerated for the rest
                    of his natural life

will the movers
wrap, seal and remove
the injustices, deaths, wars
this born again zealot wreaked
on the unsuspecting many?

will it be the same movers
who move in the black man
                   in the white house
with hope and dreams
                   so children
born and unborn cackle
smile innocent smiles
                   in far off lands?

I Am Jill's Social Microscope

IdeaSmith — Thu, 6 Nov 2008 10:44:38 EST

Lunch at the cafe, alone. At long last. My thoughts and I dine together.

The host wants me to sit in any one of the dingy corners and ignore the brighter, roomier booths in the center. I make a wry face so he concedes and lets me take the bright corner. The cafe isn't even crowded after all.

They enter some five minutes after I've settled down, by which time I've placed my order and am sipping my wine. I notice him first. All I see is the back of their heads and a profile view in a flash.

He looks familiar - for a vague instant. In that not so nice way that makes you glad you spotted the person first and hope they don't notice you back. He probably looks a little like the friend of someone I want to forget. That's still too close for comfort but not so close that I want to scat. She's totally unfamiliar in a familiar way. That is to say, she's the typical nice-looking, a tad too 'healthy' to be one of the stick-insect-model-types. An Indian woman. A pretty Indian woman.

What strikes me is their clothes. Ah, his clothes. He's wearing a mildly striped full-sleeved shirt with cotton trousers. It's not quite formal enough to be workwear but it seems a little too dressy for Saturday. Unless, ah of course. One of those dates that he feels he must dress up a bit for. Still dude, it's just nearing 2pm, that shirt is Saturday evening territory we're meandering into.

For awhile I wonder what it would like if I were his ex- and he were to spot me. The carefully coiffed look would probably shatter in an instant. He's really trying very hard to be on his best behaviour and impress the girl with him. And what if he were to bump into someone he didn't treat that good, who knew him well...only too well...underneath that polish.

But he's nervous. His hands aren't quite shaking but there's that high-strung air of tension surrounding his being and I can feel it sitting 30 feet away. Like when she takes a call on her cell, he turns his face away in an attempt to appear polite and respect her privacy. But he's fidgety and the minute she hangs up, I can almost see him counting his breaths before he can turn around and resume conversation.

His smiles and laughter seem a little too eager. Not quite offensive but just like he's relieved to be able to laugh off some of the tension. She, on the other hand, is natural. Smiling just enough, movements easy. Almost. Her gaze wanders ever so slightly in each direction. Sizing up. The surroundings, the people around, the arena. She's playing and she's just taking stock of the field.

That taken care of, my attention returns to him. It's not that she's uninteresting, she's just 'figured out'. Besides his nervousness draws me again. And I wonder what makes him so nervous. He obviously wants her to like him. Why?

Is it because he likes her as much? What does he want from her? Reciprocation of affection? A night or a weekend in bed? Respect? A month or so as trophy girlfriend? Awe and devotion?

My chicken satay is here and my glass needs a refill. I set to devouring my solitary, perfect lunch and put aside the messy questions of people for awhile. When I look up again, their orders have arrived and they're waiting for the waiter to finish serving. Then they wish each other Bon Appetit and start eating. I walk out, content with a good meal and some foodside realtime entertainment.

Give Me a Dhoti to Wear

Vinod Joseph — Tue, 4 Nov 2008 09:45:23 EST

The other day I met up with a school friend with whom I had been out of touch for many years. My friend is a senior executive at a reputed company in Kochi and I met him during the lunch hour, on his way back to his office from a meeting. Dressed in a well-cut suit and tie, his feet clad in Gucci shoes, my friend was sweating profusely by the time he got to the restaurant where we had arranged to meet. The restaurant was air conditioned and quite cool, but my friend nevertheless asked a waiter to turn up the a/c.

‘I wish I hadn't walked,’ he told me as he sat down. 'My driver was on his way to pick me up from Katcheripady and bring me here, but he was held up in the traffic and instead of taking an auto, I stupidly decided to walk here.'

‘I guess your driver will pick you up from here and take you back to the office,’ I said. My friend's office was a ten-minute walk along M.G. Road

‘Well yes,’ he admitted with a laugh as he enviously looked at me in my holiday shirt, slacks and sandals.

‘Tell me,’ I asked him. ‘Are you really required to wear a suit everyday?’

‘There is no hard and fast rule,’ he told me. ‘But everyone wears a suit these days.’

And you don't have the guts to be different. Not, I didn' tell him that or I would have lost a friend.

I remember a time when people hardly wore suits in Kerala. Even in Mumbai where I used to work (from 1998-2002), suits were the exception rather than the rule. You wore a tie if you had to meet with a client, and that was it. Suits were reserved for conferences, though the moment you were about to sit down, you took off your suit and hung it on the back of your chair. The economic boom seems to have triggered a desire among professionals in India to be as western in appearance as possible. There are a lot more people wearing suits (and sweating profusely) than there were a few years ago. Air conditioners are therefore a necessity rather than a luxury. I’m not sure if many people have noticed the absurdity of wearing a suit and turning up the a/c.

My job in London requires me to wear a suit and tie everyday, and I don’t have a problem with it. For one, a suit keeps me comfortably warm. I’ve always believed the neck tie to be the most useless of all appendages, but when it’s really cold, even the tie contributes to the feeling of warmth. The first thing I did when I reached Kerala a couple of weeks ago was to change into a lungi (a colourful local version of the dhoti) and discard my shoes. And it was so comfortable! However, it is no longer socially acceptable in Kerala to go out in a lungi. One usually wears trousers, though once in a while you do see a brave soul wearing the double mundu, a formal version of the lungi. As long as I don’t have to wear a tie or shoes, I don’t really mind wearing trousers even though a simple lungi is actually a lot more comfortable than wearing trousers.

When I was in school, I had to wear shoes, socks and a tie as part of my uniform. When I look back, I'm not sure why I was made to wear all that. It goes without saying that the classrooms were not air conditioned. Even now I don't think there are many schools with air conditioned classrooms, though I think a lot more school students these days wear a tie. Is it meant to instill in students a sense of discipline? Or is it mean to add to a 'western education'?

The other day I was talking to a software engineer who recently finished his MCA from a reputed college in Bangalore. When I asked him what he liked most about his new job, he told me without hesitation, 'the informal dress code.' Then he added, 'I had to wear a tie every day for three years during my MCA course'. I couldn't believe my ears. Why on earth should post-graduate students studying computer engineering have to wear a tie? 'It makes them take their studies seriously,' I was told. Do you really need to half-choke students to make them take their studies seriously? And these are not students who receive a subsidised education that will lead to permanent unemployment, the fate of the bulk of India's college students, but students shelling out a lot of money for an education that despite the recession, guarantees a job at the end.

In a warm climate, the only joy one can get out of wearing shoes and socks is to anticipate the pleasure of taking them off. No, I don't wear chappals when I am in Kerala except when I go to church where we are required to leave our footwear outside for the benefit of thieves who nick them. Instead, I don a pair of leather sandals which allow my feet to remain fresh. Come to think of it, why on earth should feet be enclosed in shoes unless cold weather requires it?

This has set me thinking. Why don't Indian office workers wear Indian clothes at work? I am not saying this because I am anti-West or anti-MNC. I’m saying this simply because Indian clothes – dhotis, kurtas, mundus, lungis etc. – are so much more comfortable in the Indian heat. What’s more, with global warming and the need to save energy, we’d save a shit-load of money if everyone went to work in short sleeved shirts, a dhoti or trousers and sandals and switched off the air conditioners.

Last year Shashi Tharoor set off a controversy when he wondered aloud in his Times of India column why Indian women have stopped wearing the saree. Tharoor cited tradition and elegance as reasons for wearing the saree. ‘Comfort’ was not one of the reasons mentioned in his article, though many of those who attacked him did specifically say that they didn’t wear a saree because it was so inconvenient or uncomfortable. ‘Try catching a bus in a sari,’ someone is supposed to have said. I have never worn a saree in life and so I am not in a position to comment on how comfortable or uncomfortable it is. I have a feeling it is not particularly comfortable and I have no clue as to what would be the most comfortable dress for women to wear in warm weather. For this reason alone, I am going to restrict my piece to men’s wear.

I don't really know what could be done to promote Indian clothes among Indian office goers. Don’t forget, it has to be promoted to a generation which associates attire such as the dhoti, the kurta, the veshti and the mundu with backwardness and ignorance. A suit is always associated with intelligence and more to the point, (western) knowledge. Our politicians have always worn Indian clothes, but then, our politicians are not exactly role models, are they?

Maybe I am asking for too much when I say we should go back to traditional attire like the dhoti or the mundu or the veshti. Maybe we should just start wearing clothes appropriate for the weather - short sleeved shirts and slack trousers and sandals – when it is warm and sweaters for northern India when it does get cold during winter. Hold on a minute. What about the safari suit? Yes, I am talking about that very interesting attire (half-sleeved suit-like shirt with trousers of an identical colour) which used to be de rigeur for bureaucrats all over India. I don't see many safari suits these days, though I am told that some of our bureaucrats still wear it. No, I don't think the safari suit will become popular with the private sector crowd. It is associated with old-style Indian bureaucracy and inefficiency and redtapism, even though it is actually perfect for warm weather.

This brings us to the nub of the problem. It's all about image. I have no doubt that most of us wouldn’t have any problem running to catch a bus in a double mundu or a dhoti or with sandals on. But if you wear a double mundu and want to sell a cutting edge banking software to an MNC bank, you are not going to get far. I'm sure that the woman who asked Shashi Tharoor to try catching a bus whilst wearing a saree will don a saree in no time if a saree is what's needed to project the right image. People are very much willing to wear the most uncomfortable clothes possible in order to show themselves in the right light. Western clothes are reasonably comfortable in a cold climate. They are not suitable for a warm country like India. Israel is a warm country which has a reputation for informal clothes. When I visited Israel, I didn't see anyone wear a suit except the haredim whose religious beliefs require them to wear long black suits.

Arabs wear their traditional clothes even when doing business, but then, Arabs usually hold the purse strings and when you do that, you can wear pajamas and still get away with it. I wish I could say that as India's economy grows, Indian businessmen and executives will start asserting themselves and wear traditional Indian clothes while doing business in India, but I'm not too sure of that. Look at Japan. You almost never see Japanese businessmen or executives wearing traditional clothes when doing business. We all have a tendency to imitate the sucessful and the West has been succesful in doing business and generating wealth to an unbelievable extent. We Indians want to copy their success and we make no bones about it. I just wish we could do so wearing the right clothes for India's climate.

Let's Talk!

IdeaSmith — Mon, 3 Nov 2008 05:54:06 EST

Good communication, I'm told, is the foundation of healthy relationships. No, I'm not going "Bah, humbug!" The wise one said good communication, not mindless all-out communication. There is a fine art in communicating with men. You see, Martians and Venusians may both speak Earthese but they seem to process them differently. Sometimes I think it's a wonder I manage to talk to men at all. And yet, since I pride myself on being a good conversationalist, maybe its time to examine exactly why.

A conversation with the opposite sex (when endowed with a brain in the correct head, even if they don't usually use them...well, they do, at least initially) can be interesting, enriching and delightful. It's a cross between an African safari and a minefield. It's almost always a trip through a brave, new world....ooh, how exciting...but watch, watch, WATCH your step (and your words).

Career: Forget about equality in the workplace. Or wait, let's just understand that better. Men have never bothered much about our opinions of their professional lives, have they? Just so long as we look up to them with adoring eyes and coo over the bread-winner bringing home an extra loaf or two. Here's to equality then. Why should it matter what his opinion of your professional life is, then? Don't even go into the potentially explosive areas of who earns more, whose job is more important. I mean, really...you didn't need him to get a degree, an interview and a job. Obviously he's curious about what you do (or he pretends to be, in an effort to seem interested). There's no need to lie, all I'm saying is, there's no need to discuss your professional goals and dreams with him. Take it from me, he's not interested...or worse, he'll feel upstaged and threatened. He wants to know you're intelligent, sound the part, you don't have to hold it up on flash cards for him (though the idea has crossed my mind several times....why do men never understand the simplest of things???) It isn't even an issue if he's in the same line of work as you are (though it could be if he works with you). From what I see, men can distinguish their professional and personal selves as clearly as they do love and sex. Take a cue from him and do the same. Don't of course follow suit, when he starts to talk about his work. All little boys like showing off, they do need our approval after all.

Family: There's nothing more annoying to me than a man who goes on and on and on about mama dearest, the big sister he's always looked up to and the dad he never got along with. No, actually there are several other things about men that annoy me but this is right up there on the list. So don't subject him to the same thing. This is difficult, some of us actually like our families and it is hard to make conversation while all the while avoiding talking of the people in one's life. Well, just don't overdo it. It's fine to love your parents and siblings, only don't take it to the extent where the listener wonders whether you're just out with them because the family was sleeping in that day.

The past: I've always advocated honesty, especially about one's past, in relationships. However, it occurs to me that there are degrees of honesty. He is not your sounding board or your therapist. He does not need to know how many people there were and what you got upto with all of them. He may be permitted to know that you've been schooled in dealing with his kind but really you don't need to lay out the curriculum for him. This has always been debatable but I find men make a bigger deal of this than women do. Let's face it, a cliche holds true again: A man wants to be a woman's first love. Women are more subtle; they just want to be a man's last romance.

Secrets: Please do not make the mistake of assuming that you can be best friends with him and romance him at the same time. I'm not saying couples can't be best friends. But a real friendship takes time and understanding. Even more so between people of opposite sexes since they don't have the intuitive understanding of each other's randomness (women) or an instinctive grasp of the other's linear thinking and actions (men). People who are dating are also grappling with the billowing clouds of game-playing, mischievious romance, sexual chemistry and all the jazz that goes into it. It is just way too much to expect to get to be friends as well. I've made this mistake myself (several times over, I admit it!!!!). Just because you get along well, does not mean that you can or even should be friends. It just means that you share some great chemistry and both of you like each other enough to play along. Give it some time, get past the clouds, shake out the sparkly dust from your eyes, have a few arguments and then see the other person and think about whether you actually want to be friends with them. And hence corollary to that, please don't talk about things that you would only discuss with a close friend. Your most embarassing moment, your greatest fear, your wildest fantasy.....these may make for some exciting conversation-starters but they can also turn into demons later on. Sharing little intimacies too early is just an attempt to speed up the 'getting to know each other' process...some things just require time and effort so give it that.

A quick check-list of the things one must never say to a man on the first few dates:

My best friend is getting married. I want to be married this year too.

What was I doing when you called? I was watching Titanic. The scene where Jack dies always makes me cry, wouldn't you agree?

45 girlfriends! Will you remember me tomorrow then?

I really like you. We have this amazing connection.

Is your friend single? Because I know this lovely girl who'd be perfect for him.

What would I like to do tomorrow? Oh, would you help me pick out a dress?

Will you be my date for my friend's wedding next week?

So now that leaves us with what to talk about? Ah, that's for another post. In the meantime, enjoy your drinks. And each other. ;-)

When Desperation Overwhelms

smallsquirrel — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 10:53:50 EDT

In today's online version of CNN, I saw the following headline: Woman Beheads Man, Parades It Through Streets.

Disgusting, but intriguing. Then I look at where the story is filed from.

Lucknow, India.

Apparently, a woman was working in a field and was attacked from behind. A man who apparently had been stalking her for months and threatening her, decided to make good on his threats. She suffered bite marks on her face and neck during the attack. According to the article, in an attempt to save herself, she used the sickle she was working with in the field and cut off the man's head.

Wow.

When questioned, she said she realized she would be charged with a crime, but she did not care. She said she felt no regret about killing him.

Imagine how scared she must have been to resort to that kind of violence. Did you know that a massive percentage of women (some report as high as 80 percent) in prison in the US are there because they took revenge on a partner or spouse following prolonged domestic abuse? Those are astronomical figures. And they tell us something else. That women feel they have nowhere to turn when things are going horribly wrong. They feel they have no one to save them from the abuse, so they take matters into their own hands.

Now apparently women in India are starting to wake up and realize that they are not powerless to effect change. Do I advocate this kind of violence? Of course not. All that happens is that the victim then is turned into the perpetrator, and generally innocent children are left withouth both parents.

It is high time that India put in place some real resources for women who are victims of stalking, assault, and domestic violence. Maybe if there were effective tools for them to use, they would not resort to violence or other unproductive means of stopping the terrible situation they find themselves in. Sadly, even in a "developed" country like the US, those resources are few and far between.

One of my closest friends runs a shelter for women in a city near me. She has all kinds of tales of what happens to her clients. One woman's husband had threatened to kill her if she left him. She left anyway, because she could not take the abuse anymore, and she moved into the shelter. She tried to get an order of protection against him, but the judge said there was not enough evidence. So right on cue, the husband came and shot her dead right in front of their two children.

So why do most women not leave? Because abusers are even more dangerous when you do finally pick up and go. They escalate. Without resources to help woman, and without people in positions of power who are willing to help, women will be forced to do the unthinkable. And that is not acceptable to anyone.

Dress Code Hypocrisy At Indian Workplaces

Deepti Lamba — Mon, 6 Oct 2008 11:45:53 EDT

A couple of weeks ago the front page of Bangalore Mirror carried the news that a leading IT company had enforced the wearing of Ties on Monday and Tuesday. I snickered over sensationalizing the mundane. Whats the big deal about enforcing formal wear at work?

What would have made news if the company had enforced women to wear formal Western wear as well seven days a week.

If men are not allowed to wear Indian formals to work why should the women be allowed to wear salwaar kameezes and horrendous worn out sandals to work?

All said and done, snappily dressed people always speak well for the company instead of shoddy employees who look as if they dragged themselves to work straight from their beds.

Enforcing rules that women be well dressed and wear closed shoes should not be that difficult but the problem is most male bosses/Companies are apprehensive to enforce such a law. No one is telling the women to dress like Playboy bunnies to work but the only places where I have seen most women take pride in their clothes (even those in ethnic wear) are in Indian schools or in the hotel industry.

Why is this? Because they are told that the way they dress reflect the institutions they work for. Isn't that what men are told at private work places as well? Why should the rules be any different for women who work for these mega corporations?

Why are men forced to put up with these double standards? Why don't women managers who consider themselves to be fair feminists take this matter up with their HR Department?

Poessay: Timeless Queries

temporal — Mon, 6 Oct 2008 10:40:04 EDT

"Are marriage and writing compatible? Co habitable? To be an artist, and create well one must be submerged in his art? at what price? Is it worth it?... Living according to the social norms? Or should one follow their passion?" Zen asked

She is a talented, passionate, caring, young woman and the timeless queries she posed had been uttered innumerable times by countless people before.

"Are marriage and writing compatible? Co habitable?"

Yes and no - I will substitute creative work for writing. In an overwhelming number of cases the conclusion would be no - no they are not compatible. Marriage (or long term serious relationships) demand nothing less than 100% commitment - and the same is true of Art.

But there is a yes to above too where (in rare cases) the spouses are immersed full into each others passions.

And in still rarer cases there is the tightrope walk between commitment to passion and to more temporal affairs. This act is fraught with forebodings and in danger of succumbing into an uncharted abyss.

To be an artist, and create well one must be submerged in his/her art?

Is there any other way? Passion and commitment are hard task masters demanding complete allegiance and subservience. There are no half measures.

...at what price?

Is there a price that can be assigned to passion and commitment? If you inquire of the price you cannot afford it.

Is it worth it? Living according to the social norms?

Absolutely. The other way is one littered with thorny what-ifs and despair.

This is the conundrum every creative person faces at some point in life. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote succinctly about that moment and the choices one faces. "The hour of that choice is the crisis of your history; and see that you hold yourself fast by the intellect."

Or should one follow their passion?"

There is an allusion alluded to here of a subterranean fear - that of affordability. Can one follow the passion, throw caution out the window and be prepared to endure the fallout?

There are no easy answers in life - only tough choices. The answers appear as distant mileposts and as we continue the tread they fade behind us - the once troubling queries humbled by dogged determination and replaced by yet others lurking on the distant horizon.

Life becomes a bed of roses traversed on strands of cobwebs lined with thorns in full sight of humanity. The sighs and pains have to be endured with forced smiles. Enigma, conundrum, dichotomy, dream and illusion, taken in stride, balanced on the tightrope of hope and passion over the dark sea of despair. There is no looking back - or down - ever! and the 'hour of that choice is the crisis of your history; and see that you hold yourself fast by the intellect.'

***

having made the choice
the eternal smile
remains unhampered
unconquered, filled with
pride and resolve
- screen, paper, canvas
mere medium
for bleeding fingers