All the God's men

Religion, especially if taken too seriously, can be dangerous. It can serve as the perfect mask to hide your sins; it can lead to visions of self-righteousness. Religion is of course, at least in my view, different from being spiritual. By forcing yourself to be religious, you can give some direction to your life, that is, if you feel you need one in the first place. And then again, being over-zealous can lead to acts of insanity, enough to vilify the person for life. So somewhere in between this fine line, mankind created the moniker of Godman, who, unsurprisingly, shall serve as a liaison between the mortal and the immortal soul. God's own man! I would love to have that on my visiting card. Unfortunately, that one line is all that can be said about most godmen peddling their trade around these days, not in a positive way.

So what are they actually doing? Some like Terry Jones, a pastor in a conservative church at Gainesville, Florida, believe it is a sin to practice Islam, and in his own mind, advises his followers that by physically burning the Koran, a strong message can be sent to the fundamentalists out there. In the process, he has provided sufficient ammunition to the evangelists. Then, there's the kind of Hafiz Saeed, the chief of JuD, operating out of his personal fiefdom in Pakistan. To him, not believing in Islam equals blasphemy, and as Allah says (though it is hard to come up with specific quotes), death shall rein on the blasphemous. Oh, and he also master-minded the 26/11 attacks on Mumbai, where innocent passengers awaiting boarding their train were slaughtered in cold blood. Surely they must have sinned, because he had the terrorists believe so. Innocent lives were taken, children silenced forever, before they could even discover God and create their own impressions of his creation. It is a shame that people are being misled by religious venom spouted endlessly to satisfy the selfish needs of a few.

And then we come to our Godmen. The ones who wake you up in the morning with an addictive (to those undergoing the midlife crisis) concoction of yoga and Bhagwad Geeta. Some go the extra mile and add a song-and-dance routine. Early morning entertainment the way only India can dish out. And then there are those who call themselves reincarnations, who profess their self-connect to the almighty and establish themselves as a legit channel of absolving sins and purging past lives. One such god, Shri Sathya Sai Baba, breathed his last yesterday, and the sky came crashing down. I had a rather horrid introduction to his gospel. If I remember correctly, sometime in the year 2000, India Today carried a headline on the alleged sexual misconduct and abuses being carried out in his asharam. While the details are too fuzzy to pinpoint, it carried interviews of devotees-turned-disbelievers, who claimed to the extent of homosexual abuse at the hand of baba. Not a good line to read if you are 12 years old (it raises too many questions which don't get answered up to 4 years later). As it turned out, the charges were never proved and the sensation-craving media moved on to match-fixing. The second introduction to baba's gospel came when we shifted to our current house and a family in the neighborhood started weekly kirtans dedicated to the Sathya Sai baba. And did the ladies of the colony flock!

Somehow, even though we heard his praise from all quarters, replete with anecdotes of his magical vibhuti having cured grave illnesses, Baba's image had been torn in my mind. The importance of a good first impression! So knowing him through news articles and hearing about him from talkative aunties may not be the best way to form strong impressions about a revered personality. And then came the news of baba's life strength being sapped after a prolonged period of illness. While he succumbed to geriatric problems, questions and conspiracy theories arose in the sensationalist media. As it turns out, while baba was one of the foremost philanthropists and social worker in India, his Sathya Sai central trust being responsible for numerous noble initiatives, baba could not live up to his word. Calling yourself a reincarnation of an earlier personality is safe, because really, it is like dissecting a dead fish and finding out the source of the weed that trapped her. But predicting your own demise and then a reincarnation, complete with details of location and caste, is an altogether different ballgame. Baba died 11 years too soon. The rationalists cry victory. Now the sceptics are out in full force and it is safe to say that the aforementioned location shall be at the center of the attention of Baba's devotees.

While the concept of a human calling him/herself God is beyond my comprehension, why go to those extremes in the first place. Are you trying to say that the all powerful almighty wasn't strong enough and so he sent interlocutors? Or that Science, which definitely cannot prove everything but surely offer a train of thought, can be subverted by the magic of these Godmen. If anything, Sai Baba should be remembered for his noble causes and the lives he benefited. 10-year olds don't wail for nothing, so he did have a profound impact on millions of humans. In the end, it essentially boils down to human insecurities, which prompt us to look for escapes and bunkers. And in a materialist world, these are attractive professions. So you have one Godman after the other exposed, some even charged with acts of communal violence. However, a few Godmen, who know the difference between God and man, can usher in positive changes. Maybe God comes knocking at our door right when we get into the shower. And then comes the Godman!

I wish we could somehow prove this guy wrong conclusively!

When are the endsems?

In what seems like an eternity, and at the same time a whisper of the wind, I am nearing the last set of the much hallowed (read despised) occasion of the end-semester exams. Very soon, most of us would be done with the anxiety of last-minute preparations for good. No more night-outs for academic reasons, and no more visits to the maggu junta of the batch (no offense intended). Which takes me back to the first end-sem I appeared in, the night of what was to become a habit of laundering time when you needed it the most!

It was a cold, dreary, november night, when the chirping of the crickets was no longer audible in the intermittent shouts of dayaaa, inki maa, kya kya padha rakha hai yaar, Dude, I am f***ed! No other subjects begs more wails of mercy than Maths, and that too MA 103, which complicated things like limits and basic calculus irreparably, and for ever. It is true that at first, all freshie year courses appear to rehashes of all that we had mugged during the hellacious years of making it through the JEE. Believe me (I fall in the majority of those below 8), nothing is farther from the truth. They say that nostalgia often brings back memories of those little mistakes that you committed long back, and this was a glaring one. If the first MA lecture isn't shocking enough, the tepid tutorials and the myriad of hostel activities (H3...H3..) makes it impossible to pay any attention to the long derivations. A special mention here to the genius who conceptualized the I.K. Rana textbook, which in reality is more like a loose-bound set of cheap printouts, supposed to serve as reference to God-knows-which-part of the course. Of course, naive as we are when we set foot here dreaming of cracking the top position, the book is religiously bought and then dumped in a corner of the small 1x2 room, which makes us endure first year as refugees from a happier place. Ok, back to the end sem.

So to all those like me who were on the edge when it came to breezing through the course (a polite euphemism for desperate to pass the course), the end-sem preparation was the be-all-end-all of the world. And just as we learn to take things seriously at IIT in our later years, the pre-endsem break, which is totally useless by the way and serves no purpose than to play football from 5 to 11 and chat mindlessly about the cruelty of having to give an endsem in the first place, had been spent doing nothing. So, at t-12 hours, notes were xeroxed, tutorials were arranged and off we set to learn the nuances of epsilon-delta. For the Biswas kids, these were times when a prof showed more mercy on his subjects and thought twice before awarding a fail grade (unlike the now notorious courses like IC and MA105, where the number of those failed is more than those awarded and AA and AB combined). Still, nervousness set in quite early and to chill our heads, some wingies came up with the glorious idea of playing cricket in the front lawns, something we had never done in the entire 1st semester. It is rightly said, the mind conjures brilliant ideas when challenged to a deadline! So, at t-6 hours, we sit down again and realize that the syllabus is more than the mental capacity of 3 of us combined. And to our horror (and to the delight of all who scorned at the idea of playing before an endsem), the genius who came up with the idea of 'relaxation' had gone to sleep after finishing the course a day back. So the invectives grew louder, and coffee was gulped like Marv gulps scotch in Sin City. What shall we do?

Then one of the three musketeers had an epiphany and promptly went to bed! I was having my first taste of swollen eyes and what excess of caffeine does to your system, and the other loyal soldier was rubbing his head while cursing me and 10 other students in a periodic manner. At t-2 hours, we decided it was best to trust in God, and lay our heads down for a short nap, which was to be broken in exactly 5 minutes by the bustle of wingies running to-and-fro, lining up for their daily ablutions. Damn! Of course, I didn't ace the paper, and for what its worth, the concept of a Gaussian curve was illustrated to us by the means of the course grading.

So think about it. What has now become a norm was once a new experience for each one of us. These are just one of the many things that will stay behind, as we move on to another chapter in our lives. To add insult to injury, this endsem was on my first birthday in IIT!

If only we had it so simple :-/

You vote, stupid people!

Before you proceed, if possible, open a newspaper in your reach and go to the opinion/editorial page. The abode of wise-cracks who feel that sitting in AC offices and hobnobbing with the political and corporate bigwigs lends them credence to write what they feel like, and of course, try and dissect the bare shreds when the bigger picture is more pressing. I am not saying that coveying of opinions is a negative, quite the contrary, the fourth pillar has helped bring issues to the fore which were buried deep down in the society, for the fear of action and the intolerance of reaction made them unappealing to the masses. Yet, it is sad to see 'eminent' columnists coming out in full force denouncing what some naively call India's Tahrir movement. 'India against corruption' managed to extract some reaction from a rubber-stamp government on an issue which erodes public confidence and the country's coffers each passing day- Corruption. The educated class woke up, the youth took to the streets and and made their voices heard, the country suddenly woke up from a nightmare and decided to eradicate the very symptoms of it. What message did the government take from this mini-revolution? That it can no longer rest for the next 3 years and ride out the wave of anti-incumbency. What lesson did the society take? That collective participation is as effective as it was 64 years back. What lesson did the eminent columnists take? These are stupid people, they don't know what they are doing. Our masters are beyond public appraisal and the leash of an anti-corruption watchdog.

In my humble opinion, the principle of 'partners in crime' applies here. Just like the NDA raised a hue-and-cry over its omission from the drafting committee, these eminent personalities have decided to put down an attempt at checking rampant corruption in the public sphere even before it is on its feet. Some of the disclosures in the recent week, be it the CD purported to have the audio clippings of the Bhushans engaged in cutting a deal with Mulayam Singh, or news on how Anna lost a case and was brandished, or how this movement smacks of communalism because he praised Modi for the justifiable cause of good governance in Gujarat, the timing and the intensity is too hard to miss. But nothing is more obnoxious than their assault on Hazare for his statement on the gullibility of the poor when it comes to voting. How could he? How could he put down the electorate and dub them as sheep who vote for short-term promises? Well, if you get off your office chair and step into a small village in West Bengal, which incidentally went to poll today in what is been termed as a make-or-break election for the Communists in India, you will realize how different a person's priorities are when he has to care about finding a square meal every single day. Yes, voters have at times made sensational decisions and proved pundits wrong by voting on mass issues. However, in the mire of corruption, it is hard not to see this apathy for the legislature with a more accommodating view. What perceivable social change has been brought to them in the last 64 years of democracy? Sure, they probably get 2 hours of electricity a day now and if lucky, have access to a primary heathcare center in their village which actually has staff. But the economic spoils of the post-liberalisation era have largely skipped them and went to the upper 15% of the population!

I will not justify my point solely on the difference in priorities of a poor voter. How about the general idea of representation in law-making process? Yes, we elect the members of the parliament and hence should entrust our full faith in them. Therefore, the idea of members of the civil society being directly involved in the drafting of the Lokpal bill, which in any case is going to be debated in the Parliament before the President's seal, is unconstitutional to these learned opponents of the joint-drafting committee. They have questioned the credentials of the members of this committee, and why X has been preferred over Y and those sort of arguments. And in doing this, they have completely missed the larger picture. When a few representatives have to come forward from a country of 1.21 billion people, is it not wise that the person who stood up to mobilize them be trusted with his choice for those who will occupy the chairs in this important event? Anna Hazare needs no stamp of approval from the electorate, his work at Ralegaon Siddhi and his subsequent movement which led to the passage of the Right to Information Act in 2005 speak for themselves. He is even a part of our coursework at IIT Bombay (I hope these eminent columnists don't barge in and haggle the HSS department for this). Out of the other four, one is a Magsaysay Award winner, another has brought the government in Karnataka to its knees over charges of nepotism, and the father-son duo are widely recognized as lawyers who have spoken up for the public's cause, and who can bring to the table a deep knowledge of the law so that this version of the bill is not toothless and would not become another in a line of weak measures. Hence, I simply fail to see what problem do these columnists have with the representatives on the committee. It is wise to suggest improvement, it is foolish to improve cynicism.

It goes without saying that this committee has the eyes of the nation (or at least the educated part) on it, and expectations are high from both Hazare's men and the government (whose own 'official' NGO, the National Advisory Council is learnt to have drafted a similar bill but of course, not a word was written against it), and one can hope for the sake of those lakhs who see a ray of hope in their exercise of opinion which led to this unprecedented event in the first place. If nothing else, we will stand up for a second time if the need arises, but the public is alert. So Mr. columnist, it is time to meet reality.

If you haven't seen this gem of a show, you have missed something!

The boyhood dream

When I was growing up, my bucket-list was checkered with assortments like: An imposing degree, a fat pay cheque, great friends, and a good-looking girl. Over years, these dreams went through a see-saw of hope and despair, of conviction and blind-faith, of emotions and delusions. The boyhood dream seemed to be a reality, and yet too good to be true. In the meantime, the grindstone was conquered (sort of), a boy left his home, on a new journey to an alien city. They say that the ride is worth it, yet, Alexander wasn't happy about returning from India rendered helpless in spirit, Tendulkar would not cherish the 2003 WC like he would the recent edition, and Yuri Gagarin would remember his space odyssey more than the test missions. I am no great man, so I'll keep these as parameters to measure my own journey. The boyhood dream shaped up like this: A degree very few outside IIT know of or understand, subsistence stipend at grad school/a good salary, great friends, and misadventures in the female department. Great friends it is that turned into a reality.

Yet, the invectives in the air and investigative reports on an affair in class 11th seem confounding, almost too good to be true. Yet, they have become the backbone of a valfi profile, one read out in our moment in the limelight, our valedictory function. In other words, here is what a stereotypical valfi profile algorithm looks like:

a) A colorful description of the victim's mother's labor and how abhorring it was

b) How the victim was a nerd in school and could only stare at girls from a corner (sure, girls would do the same at times)

c) How this hasn't changed even though he/she is at IIT

d) How he/she summed up courage and made a pass at their crush of yore

e) How it was an unsuccessful attempt and became a point of ridicule

f) Choicest abuses to cap it off

This was never a part of the boyhood dream. This wasn't a part of any dream at all! Sure, even though it is done in a friendly manner and with the sincerest of intentions to assassinate the victim's character, it leaves me amazed at why a person would want to go out on a ride of shame when he/she could do much more in the final days at his/her second home. Valfis constitute an important part of our life at IIT, it is almost incomplete without it. The tradition, as they say, was meant to offer a counter-view to the victim's perceived image. In other words, it was meant to take him/her to the bare beginnings, when there were no PORs, no studapa, no grand-standing exploits in foreign land. And this is the only level where it is successful.

What valfis succeed in is making us realize the boyhood dream once more. Once more, take us back to that aura of ignorance at what life ahead would be like, how destiny would unfold and leave us amazed at our own capabilities. For 4/5 years, we toil hard, scrape at the bottom in order to come out on top at something, do our best to become a part of a second family. In this ride, the bargain involves shedding some of that naivete and embracing selfishness. To start looking out for oneself. And this is where we need these valfis, to bring back memories, good or bad but equally satisfying, to bury grudges, to absorb that feeling of a second parting from a family we have grown to love and enjoy. Parting from a company of friends, who have been there through thick and thin. The core implies that bonding which is almost too impossible to rediscover. As we look ahead to another chapter in our lives, to times where seeing each other would become harder than cracking an AA in MA, to tales that shall be regaled in silver jubilee reunions, we need that emancipation from our second family. And this is where valfis come into the picture. Although it could be done with less gaalis and investigations into a crush on a girl in class 11th, it is a moment to be savored.

From an album produced for a friend:

...W X _ Z

Anna Hazare is on a fast-unto-death, demanding stringent provisions in the Jan Lokpal bill to bring the corrupt to the book in a speedy and transparent manner. He is also demanding consultations with the civil society in respect to the content of the bill, by bringing representatives from civil society on board, constituting an equal share on the joint committee mooting the bill. What he has done is to bring the public rage and anger on the sensitive issue of corruption in the public sphere to a tipping point, to a stage where people are no longer ready to go with the same-old 'chalta hai' attitude, rather they are standing shoulder to shoulder with Hazare, clamoring for the government to accede to his demands. Therefore, it can be said that a large proportion of our 1.2 billion strong demography has awaken from the stupor it was lying in over the last 2 years. Hence, it is an apt time to bring to notice an issue with far-reaching consequences and tribulations, perhaps more pertinent than the issue of corruption itself, which is not a problem that has risen in the last decade (evidence can be found in Kautilya's Arthashastra of corruption marring state's revenues, and measures which are not unlike what Hazare is boldly demanding).

Last week, the first figures from Census 2011, considered by many to be the most important parameters for formulation of state policy, came in. India is now 167 million behind China on headcount. Way to go for a country 40% the size of its economically far-superior neighbor. That is not the big issue, not yet. The decadal population growth rate has slowed down to 17%. Surely, with amelioration in national literacy, which is now at a healthy 74% and is on an upswing, we can expect the mission of educating the masses on population control will bear fruit. The biggest news coming out of the census, which has been lost somewhere in the din surrounding the nationwide protests on corruption, is that the child sex ratio, i.e. the sex ratio for children aged 0-6 years has fallen from 926 in 2001 to 914 in 2011.

Typically, the health ministry comes out with periodic, if lame, advertisements on improving the sex ratio in the country and how a girl child is at par with a male child in today's knowledge economy. There is also the PNDT (Regulation & Prevention of misuse) act of 1994, which makes it illegal to determine the sex of a child before birth. How effective it has been is a narrative made lucid by the data coming out of Census 2011. The Women and Child development ministry, along with the health ministry, have reasons to hang their heads in shame. It is not as if literacy has not gone up in the last 10 years. Both male and female literacy has shown significant improvement, even if according to some experts the increase in female literacy can be attributed to more elderly women and not necessarily the kids. Not to discount this, but it has to be clear to everybody by now that the ravages of female infanticide and foeticide are destroying India's social fabric slowly but surely. This is a country where the name of the Goddess precedes that of her male counterpart and where wealth, education, and power is wished off female deities! How ironic it is that the same couple that aborts a female child thanks these deities for the good riddance and then prays to the same goddesses for a male one.

So next time when you go home, check for the number of illegal ultrasound centers, that have mushroomed in every nook and corner of the country, operating in your native city. Much better, if there is a doctor in the family, ask him/her about the count of sex determination tests in which he/she have been a complicit or is aware of. And then ask for the reason. The old adages of a son carrying forward the family name no longer exert the same clout. Nor do the arguments of a son being more productive in the sense that his marriage brings in the moolah, because there is another law to save the hapless bride and her family from the evil of dowry. Girls regularly outscore boys in educational tests, and are preferred by recruiters at all levels. Therefore, it is hard to believe that even in this global age, villagers in Haryana would prefer a male child as if he is a boon to the mankind, when unemployment is forcing males in this robust agricultural belt to fall to drug addiction. That the NCR, which boasts of the desi culture and modernness, notwithstanding the everyday events of rape and abduction, has seen an alarming dip in the sex ratio. That every major industrial state in India is now choking on the issue of missing girl child. The government will form a committee, and the data would be forgotten till the next census comes around. There would again be a hue and cry, though hopefully not reflecting a negative sentiment. It is clear that whatever provisions are in place to supplement the growth and nourishment of a girl child are no longer effective. All the aanganwadi schemes are of no good. The daily ration a kid is entitled to is not attractive enough. This is not a problem limited to the central policy. The state governments are as much to blame, even though a few have come up with commendable schemes to incentivise a female child and the increase in the child sex ratio in these states reflects a shift in the society's mindset. The important question is, can we, the citizens come forward and do something about it, like we are in our crusade against corruption? Or will we leave its fate at the mercy of faux NGOs and an impotent ministry?

Edit: This post was written before the government agreed to give in to Hazare's demand for a joint committee to examine the nuances of the Lokpal bill. In the light of this triumph of the voice of common man, perhaps it is time we can move on to other burning issues.

No April's joke this!

For years as I can remember, especially when we were all still in the joyous shade of school trees, half of the conversations revolved around cricket. Be it the 1996 WC (when I was too naive to understand our autowallah's tirade against Waqar Younis and Eden garden), the 1999 WC, when Ganguly's displayed his heroics at Taunton, including the ferocious strike that pummeled Sri Lanka literally as he sent the ball soaring to the river flowing nearby, the euphoria surrounding the World cup never used to subside for weeks after the event. It would appear as if we were the perennial second-best, never comfortable in foreign conditions and of course, always ready to self-destruct.

This was also a period when India made it a habit of losing in the finals of ODI tournaments, and the followers gradually mellowed to the team's impetuous drubbing in the finals. Ganguly was rebuilding the squad on the advice of John Wright after a tumultuous match fixing era which shocked all and sundry, and for the first time, fresh blood from the cricketing backwaters of UP and the upper reaches was infused into the team. In came the likes of Mohammed Kaif, Yuvraj Singh and Reetender Singh Sodhi, all members of the U-21 world cup winning squad. The dreaded situation of saving the two's slowly became a regularity, and team India rode into the 2003 world cup on the back of success in the Natwest trophy. In the middle of final exams, lakhs of nervous youngsters and their equally nervous parents stayed up late and held their breath as the Men in Blue (which is still better than the sleazy Bleed Blue) came close, and then stuttered as India was crushed in the finals at the hands of a rampaging Ricky Ponting and Damien Martyn. Heads hung low, spirits battered, we went back to the same old- Yes, we are probably destined to be second-best!

I will not talk about the 2007 world cup, because I did not follow it at all (more than one reason apart from India crashing out early on). What did happen around this time was the advent of trust and confidence in the abilities of the team. Greg Chappell's shadow on Indian cricket disappeared, along with the shaky leadership of Rahul Dravid. A new guy stepped up, unheralded, unheard of until recently, and from the most unlikely of Cricket's nurseries in India. Mahendra Singh Dhoni, a long-haired bike-loving dude, from a family of modest means, was suddenly the captain of Team India. For weeks, pundits on TV talked about how this was a rash decision on part of the Vengsarkar-led selection committee, how Dhoni lacked the technique to even serve as the wicket-keeper, leave aside the captaincy. How this move would isolate the seniors of the team and disrupt its unity. How Dhoni would be burdened with the pressure of keeping everybody happy in a team of superstars. When I think about it now, Dhoni seemed immature yet exciting, for he walloped the ball under any circumstance, and actually used the Helicopter shot on the field during his early days. But could he replace Dravid, in front of guys like Sehwag and Yuvraj, who were richer in experience. Sure, Kumble could've easily taken on the responsibility of ODI captaincy just like he did in the tests, but Kumble, the commander of Indian bowling, was in the twilight of his cricketing career. The choice was made, new blood it was, and new blood it shall remain had Dhoni failed and gone on to be prosecuted under the guillotine of the Indian cricket fan's expectations.

Yet, things started getting better. Comebacks were suddenly in the vogue. The team dug deep, chased down the biggest of totals. Tendulkar regained his miraculous touch after a short dry spell, Ganguly came back looking for blood, Zaheer took over the mantle of India's leading bowler. The reason was apparent and obvious, nobody was a sure-pick anymore, of course, apart from the little master. Along came the inaugural T20 championship, and India beat Pakistan in a dream final, a match which made Joginder Sharma and his entire clan (in)famous, where Yusuf Pathan first bared his claws when he hammered a six of the first ball he faced. The progress was well underway. Team India was now matching its rivals on their turf, be it Australia, South Africa or England, all traditional weak links in our own ride of the valkyries.

One year later, we were the premier test-playing nation in the world. Tendulkar had breached landmark after landmark in his second coming. Dhoni was now Mr. Cool, the new wall, who now played and kept wickets with the assuredness of Dravid. The bowling was weak in places, but Zaheer became good at masking the deficiencies with his measured yorkers and slower ones. The final bastion to be conquered was here- the 2011 Cricket world cup. Will Tendulkar finally win the last medal missing from his cabinet? Will Dhoni accomplish what another small town boy, Kapil Dev, did 28 years back? More importantly, can we overcome the sinking feeling of being the perennial second-best at the big stage? 42 days later, India is the new world champion of the ODIs. Today, we can stand up and be counted, as having being born in the generation of winners. Today, all doubts have evaporated. What remains is the sweet smell of victory, the intoxication of conquest, the pride of being a nation united in the spirit of cricket!