[Bitter harvest ]

There has been a colossal tragedy in the foothills of the mighty Himalayas. Over a thousand dead and still counting. And one can’t even accurately assess the magnitude of the destruction of properties and livestock. The fury of nature knew no bounds and the catastrophe has indeed been of Biblical proportions. You can’t but be saddened by the scale of this human suffering. But why do I have a kind of mixed emotions about the whole thing? Why do terms like ‘just deserts’ and ‘they had it coming’ doing summersault in my head?  Disasters at the pilgrimage sites in this country is not a new phenomenon in fact, it has become the norm rather than exception. This latest catastrophe could be attributed to the wrath of nature but the man has done his utmost to contribute in equal measure to this terrible tragedy.  It is a very fragile ecosystem in the foothills of not only the Himalayas but almost all the biodiversity hotspots where these religious sites and shrines are located. The nature has managed to achieve a very delicate balance over there. But in this day and age of the mammon, everything is an opportunity to mint money and what we are witnessing is that a lot of unscrupulous elements in cahoots with builder-politician-bureaucrat nexus have wreaked havoc at these places by attracting ever larger number of people when in actual fact these so called holy places are just not meant to be visited by such a huge throng of people no matter what. That is where the ever increasing religiosity in our society comes into the picture. Year after year, the throng of people visiting these places is getting humongous which has had a terrible cost on the fragile ecology and limited infrastructure along these sensitive zones, but the greed of some people knows no bounds. Lots of guest houses have been constructed right up to the river banks in the shallow waters and when these were buffeted by heavy flooding due to swollen rivers, they collapsed like house of cards resulting in so many losses of lives.

The larger point I would like raise is this growing craze of the Indian middle classes to visit ever exotic religious places in such a huge and unmanageable numbers that would stretch the resources of any place never mind these fragile and delicate zones like the foothills of the Himalayas.  I have very little idea where my latent rage trying to aim at, but I’m frankly appalled at the ever increasing religiosity among a growing section of the middle classes. It would be all worthwhile if this religion thing had helped the people becoming more compassionate and ethical in conducting themselves in the real world, but unfortunately the reverse is the case. What these millions gathering at such places denotes is a kind of unbridled consumption in the Gods market; every pilgrimage site has become a religious super market where you would like to flaunt your ability to consume in ever greater numbers at the wares on offer. I mean how smug they are in their certitude about their place in the larger scheme of things, these people who wouldn’t bother to give alms to a beggar or a leper, would go to any extent to strike a bargain in the divine marketplace. When something goes wrong, like this recent calamity for instance, they would blame the same Gods with whom they had come to bargain in the first place! Ultimately, you have to accept that your blind faith may give you momentary respite from your pain but what about suffering? There is no getting away from it for pain is external but suffering is internal. Whether you do good or you do evil, suffering will always be your reward and there is no escaping the punishment. So why bother the Gods  needlessly. 

facing the music, literally

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Listening to good music is more than a pastime for me. It is an spiritual experience for me. When I tune in to my favourite songs, I drop everything else and just immerse myself in the sea of melody and forget about everything around me. Not for me listening to the music and reading simultaneously or talking with somebody at the same time. Music for me constitutes an act in itself requiring my full attention. Whether it is Indian music or western, I go for the older stuff like 60’s, 70’s or 80’s and I don’t like to experiment too much and look to meaningful lyrics and aching melody. They say that great art do not intend to blaze a new trail or reinvent the wheel but they point us to the direction that we already knew but we didn’t know that we knew! So whenever I listen to the likes of Sinatra, Doris Day or Pink Floyd or Nat King Cole or Bob Dylan, I am confronted with the emotions that existed deep within my core and were brought face to face. The same goes for the Indian music. The strange thing is that when I think about books, I want to read this book and that book as soon as possible for I feel I don’t have much time on my hands, but  as far as music is concerned, I want to make sure that I have just the right kind of peace and quite and I am willing to wait. It’s like delayed gratification because then I think that I have all the time in the world. 

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My cousin gave me a Hindi novel to read and I thought okay let’s read some Hindi for a change. But after fifteen pages I felt that it was not only taxing on my eyes but also on my nerves. Don’t get me wrong, I am not one of those snooty types who look down upon Hindi in fact, ,my formative years of reading have been grounded in Hindi magazines and books so there is no question of unfamiliarity with the Devnagri script in which Hindi is written, but the matter goes somewhat deeper than that.

For quite some time in my early years, I would avoid having anything to do with English, it would seem too formidable a language to gain any control over as far as I was concerned. I would always look at easy way out and go into the comforting embrace of Hindi. As I came of age both literally and figuratively, the world was changing around me real fast and there was a great danger of being left behind more so in my case because I was never a part of a formal education system. The moment of epiphany struck when I was about to turn nineteen and it was kind of embarrassing to have such a poor grasp of the language; I thought it was time I did something about it. I ditched Hindi reading and adopted English mind body and soul. I read, I watched and I observed how truly educated people communicate. Not only I embraced the language, I also internalized a whole new value system and cultural mores. As the years went by, my connections with Hindi became more transactional, in other words what would I gain if I stick with Hindi and my conclusion was, nothing much. So I pursued English with missionary zeal and without sounding immodest, I can justifiably take pride in my accomplishments, whatever little they are. Coming back to the point I made at the beginning, as I tried to peruse the text of that Hindi book, I felt dyslexic. It was like my eyes were a kind of vehicle that is on a jerky ride on a damaged road. Whereas when I read in English, it is like my eyes are gliding on a smooth surface registering both text and context. On balance, I would say that I have gained more by my association with English than would have been possible had I stuck only with Hindi. Now I completely identify with the observation of our first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru ‘’I have become a curious mixture of east and west, out of place everywhere, at home nowhere’’.

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It really pisses me off big time but I have known some female member in my extended family who shall remained unnamed, who want to forge their identity in relation to either their spouse or father or brother. It isn’t as if they have been devoid of opportunities in life, it is just that they are dumb enough not to grasp it. Whose footsteps are they following? Their mother and grandmother? At least they could be excused for being the product of their time. But what excuse these lotus eaters have? Except that the allure of the proud badge of domestic drudgery is too irresistible to let go? If I come across a bit too harsh, then I can’t help it for what is not being appreciated is that any hint of defiance and determination to break out and create your own place under the sun is one more nail in the coffin of paternalistic and patriarchal ethos in this country.