The summer of Punk

The proverbial summer of 2011 is coming to an end. In true Indian color, and in the midst of all the chutzpah surrounding the boiling heat being dissipated by the cool pangs of the monsoon, another summer has passed from our lives. The summer metamorphosis goes through various shades depending on the stage of life we are at. A school going kid would want the vacation to go on and on, as I did. The first day back from the vacation would hurt as much as watching Harbhajan Singh go from being a world-class spinner to an ordinary slow bowler. Agony gives way to gratitude when one reaches the upper grades, and the prospect of bunking classes and having some fun in school appear more inviting than another month at home watching TV from morning till night. The situation remains unchanged till say the last year of college or so, when suddenly the pressures of a whole new beast in the form of the 'real' world, awaiting you, starts to appear a bit scary.

Yes, I have just finished college and will graduate honorably in 6 days to be precise. I also have a good option lined up ahead in the form of graduate school in the states. So have a lot of us, who will graduate this year from the 7 IITs, some 3500 in strength. More will be added to the alumni rolls next year, when the baby IITs shell out their first offerings to industry and academia. I am not going to delve into the big, endless, and frankly pointless debate on how IITians don't give back to the country in proportion to the exchequer's expenditure on their education. It is nobody's business to dictate how much is too much or too little when it comes to giving back to our alma mater. Not least the bureaucrats and politicians who are running amok our once growing economy's fledgling prospects via weak policy making and craven show of feudal mentality. Oops, I digress! Back to my point. So all of these shining new products, certified and approved by our symbols of world dominance in an area India needs to do a lot more, will be out on their own, without a support structure of mess workers toiling in the kitchen to prepare their 4 meals a day, without a round-the-clock security, and a serene campus to calm those fraying nerves when the end sem results go wrong, or when an election result goes the other way. Yes, that is the understated part of moving away from college. You are suddenly all on your own!

Is there a viable replacement for these institutions? Somewhat close mimes can be the HR department of your company or the department coordinator in higher studies, but they won't go out on a limb to ensure that you don't miss that tiffin even if you reach the mess counter at 6:10, 10 minutes past the closing time (Yes, H13 mess workers are so generous!). In the end, the so called hallowed portals should be indebted to the numerous small support centres functioning inside them day and night, with questionable efficiency at the times but functional nonetheless. We can curse them and mutter unsavory words all we want, but with college, the secure part of it is the thing we'll miss the most.

PS: To those wondering why this post is titled 'The summer of Punk', it is because I follow professional wrestling and a certain man recognized as CM Punk around the world is setting the wrestling landscape on fire. A toast to his awesome entrance music:

If we all sit idle...

Controversy is media's favorite child. Just let one erupt and they lash onto it. However, it is poignant to note that a major factor behind all the derision surrounding the fundamental nature of controversies is the idle mind. Yes, if we all sit idle, all we do is to conjure mindless chatter which ultimately blows up into a controversy. Nowhere has it been more prominently on display than the two 'stories' jostling for space on live television.

It is a well known fact that in India, nothing works better than the word of God. So people claim to have received divine intervention and suggest it as a means to justify their actions. The so called 'antaratmaa ki aawaaz'. First, a harmless directive from the honorable Supreme court constituting a special committee to prepare an inventory of the speculated wealth lying around in the holy confines of the Padmanabham temple in Thiruvananthapuram. The media didn't pick up the news when a retired IPS officer and a stout devotee of the lord filed a petition praying for the transfer of the control of the temple administration from the hands of the royal family of Travancore to that of the state. They didn't pick it up when the members of the teams were announced. They certainly wouldn't have picked it up if it weren't for countless artefacts of historic (and monetary) value that started teeming out of the underground chambers. The media went into a frenzy, and a controversy was born! The debate shifted from how to protect the wealth to how it got there in the first place and who should be the owner and protector of it. I have been to the shrine situated in the capital of Kerala. I remember it vividly because I had to buy a dhoti from a nearby stall to gain entry into the temple. Yes, the rules of entry to this shrine are as stringent as any other temple you could fathom. What wowed the attention of all present inside with me was not what lay beneath, but what lay above- the reclined statue of Lord Vishnu whose darshan could be taken from three huge doors. I would have loved for it remain that way.

The topic of frenzy shifts just as seamlessly to another god of sorts. Sachin Tendulkar is one short of his 100th international century, one that is of sentimental value to his billions of followers. Yet, the debate rages on. Is he the greatest of all time? Frankly, why should anybody care. Why not simply live in the present, when the man is playing in perhaps the best form of his life. Then came the announcement of the greatest test team of all time, to mark the occasion of the 2000th international test which begins tomorrow at Lord's. While the list is definitely not what a pundit would like it to be, it is what it is- a survey of the popularity of the players who live on in the fans' memory. The point of the matter is, the so called greatest team in no way undermines the greatness or the talent of any of the great players who happened to have plied their art in an era before the advent of facebook and twitter. Dear media, let it be!

$1.25: The magic number

Statistics is perhaps the greatest form of art available to the humankind today. It can adorn harsh realities with a radiant glow, and obfuscate the going on behind the scenes with mere numbers that ultimately lead to nowhere. In this latest report, the Wall Street Journal says that India has improved its standing in the world on the count of the maximum number of residents afflicted by poverty. According to the official United Nations statistics, the benchmark for a person to be considered above poverty line (APL) is an earning of $1.25/day, or Rs 56/day according to the average exchange rate of Rs 45 being equivalent to US$1. Hence, the number of citizens below poverty line (BPL) will fall to an estimated 22% of our 1.21 billion population by the end of 2015. More of a matter of concern than rejoice, for that $1.25 will fetch you jack shit going by the inflationary pressure in our domestic markets.

Let's do some basic maths. An average person has 3 basic needs in today's world- food to eat, a shelter to live, and means to commute. Clothing can be considered a luxury, a one time expense. A basic meal of potato with rice, and an occasional serving of lentils, would alone cost somewhere close to Rs 40 per day at today's market rate for flour and vegetables. That leaves 16 bucks to be spent on shelter and transport. The savings can very understandably be considered negligible. And this after our economy has opened up post the great liberalization of 1991. The poor has climbed out of poverty on the basis of numbers, not in reality. And thus the growing concern among policy makers and economists that the rich-poor divide is increasing is well founded, though it would be appropriate to separate it from the Left-propelled paranoia about wealth redistribution, which has left West Bengal among the poorer states in the country with little industrialization. So much so, that the hapless Industry & Commerce minister of the state has imagined a novel solution to the state's woes- changing the name to push the state up the pecking order of attendance at major national forums!

A retrospective view of our situation would gain us the realization that the pre-1991 times were particularly hard on the country, but the great divide wasn't as pronounced as today because the middle class and the lower class were bedfellows nudging each other all the time. Post-liberalization, opportunities grew, so did the number of scams, and central schemes became a means to siphon off public money for private welfare. Our GDP has shown remarkable growth compared to the base years, and yes, the economy is a hotbed for foreign investments. But all lip service is of no value to the poor soul who awaits his day at the turnstile when he can walk into the APL world in actual terms. Tightening leakages in the system, as the proposed cash transfer scheme intends to do, would serve us well. At least you would be sure that the usurping is going on at the other end of the deal. Middle men would be sniffing their chances in this exercise, and the complicity of government officials in propagating corruption has reached an all time high, even with heightened vigilance in public governance. More imaginative ideas and solution are needed if we are to benefit all those who share their voting franchise with us and then leave us to enjoy the fruits of our economy.

Peepli live- one of the more realistic portrayals of our situation

The battle of the Pukh!

Pukh, short for the revered Pukh nakastra in the Hindu calendar, is the day when according to the folklore, Lord Ram arrived from his kingdom in Ayodhya to the palace of his devout follower, Rani Ganeshibai of Orccha. It comes once every month, so unlike deepawali or holi, there are 12/13 pukhs a year at the revered temple in Orccha. Therefore, it is only natural that the devotees, believing in the maxim of 'the more the better', throng to Orccha every pukh in a windfall.

I have had a few brushes with the pukh previously, but the events were long erased from my memory due to my tendency of avoiding worship at temples as a ritual. However, this sunday, on one of our regular escapades to Orccha, things got serious. Exactly at the halfway mark on the 24km distance from my home to the temple, we came across a 2km long jam, which we thankfully avoided and parried in time. The reason- Lord Ram was visiting Orccha on the very day of my parents' wedding anniversary. Blessed be the name of the believer, and those thousands, who stood in the humid july weather on the serpentine road to the fortress of Orccha. It takes something special to reinforce your faith in our culture and traditions, especially if you have been used to the cosmopolitan way of life. This was one of those moments!

We promised to return later in the day in time for the evening aarti, otherwise the prayer service. Keeping our promise, and hoping that the morning rush from neighboring towns and villages would have subsided by then through the passenger train scheduled in the evening, we made our approach, only to find there were countless others who shared our thought. Nonetheless, the destination was nigh, and as we made our way into the courtyard, the sound of dholaks and folk songs reached a crescendo. The scenes inside were more colorful- men dancing in the sheer joy of the occasion; women making a frantic effort to extract the maximum possible out of the short darshan; and children adoring the deities which were richly decorated and kept outside the inner sanctum for all to see. To say that it wasn't moving would be a blatant lie, for I haven't felt such a strong connect to out traditions for quite a while. As somebody who abhors superstition, which is slowly becoming the staple of modern hinduism much to the chagrin of the learned scholars, I was beginning to believe in a god who is formless and needs to be discovered within oneself. This pukh changed it in a different, and dare I say, a better way. Faith needs a support structure to weather out the periods of calamity and bliss, both of which can be harmful to the conscience's battle against ignorance. And the sight of men and women, young and old, dancing and enjoying the mutual feeling of reverence to Lord Ram may just be that additive anybody needs.

A beautiful composition from our best performer at the Oscars yet!