How History Is Written- An Explainer

How History Is Written- An Explainer

The king was sitting impatiently in the audience chamber while the nobles around him argued loudly back and forth. One of them shouted “but we can’t keep allowing these migrants to invade our country, they might soon overwhelm our native population at the rate at which they breed. The best way to stop them is to build a wall across the border and make them pay for it”. Another minister screamed even more loudly “and their culture is so primitive- they worship the fire and offer sacrifices- animal and human to it. They don’t have gods like us”. Meanwhile a third noble stood up and said “but my lord we have to remember that these are peaceful refugees, they are unarmed. We cannot in good conscience turn away starving women and children who are fleeing famine from our bountiful lands”.

Another minister offered his view “he is right my king, these refugees prefer to settle in the forest areas by clearing the plantations. They don’t trouble our native populations except to work for them or to trade with them”. And one of the other ministers tried to interject “and they bring certain useful animals with them. That horse animal they have domesticated for sacrifice that seems to me a far more practical animal for travel than our own native racing bulls”. At this a whole host of voices tried to shout him down as a “barbarian lover”.

Meanwhile the king scratched his head and asked “so what do you want me to do? I don’t think these tribes are any threat to us in our strong citadels. They might trouble a few far-flung villages but we have received no news like that till now. Can we postpone making any decision for later?”. The general of the army stood up then and said “why not send a warning my lord?” the king looked at him hard and long “what kind of warning?” the general, who was a pretty bloodthirsty one as generals go “ the kind of warning these half naked fire worshippers will understand. Pick the next batch of refugees illegally entering our border and kill them to send a message to make sure that others don’t follow them”. The king frowned “women and children too?” the general shrugged “of course, elsewhere is the message that our borders are inviolable? We can’t allow any tom, dick and harry to cross our borders”.

The wise chief minister stood up then and said “if that’s the course you follow your majesty, let me add a small piece of advice. These fire worshippers would like nothing better than to burn their bodies in their fires, so deny them that and just bury those bodies in plain view outside our citadel as a warning to further intruders.” And so it was done and a refuge band of fifty men women and children were massacred and buried outside the citadels walls as a warning to others.

Four thousand years later a group of archaeologists were excavating the area and they accidentally chanced upon the citadels walls and the graves nearby. Excitedly they dug up what was left of the buried remains and sent them to foreign universities for DNA analysis for identification. The next day all the newspaper headlines screamed in bold letters “Aryan migration theory disproved by new DNA Evidence- Aryans have always lived here” “DNA analysis conclusively proves that it was the fire worshiping pastoral Aryans who were the builders of the great Indus Valley Civilization”. “The Indus valley civilization was a myth- it was the Aryans all along says DNA evidence” etc. And that’s how history is written – by whatever/whoever survives.

Dedication : To Tony Joseph for his piece in The Hindu on the IVC excavations.

Travels to the North-East- Part 2

Travels to the North-East- Part 2

As they say to travel to the north east, you have to first head east. And the gateway to the east is the magnificent megalopolis of Calcutta, nee’ Kolkata as its now pronounced. For those who don’t know, including me till this visit (although I have been to Kolkata before), the city is actually two, twin cities- Kolkata and Howrah joined together by the iconic Howrah bridge. Like all good things ruined by communism the leftists had ruined the once thriving capital of united Bengal into a bursting at the seams poverty ridden provincial township. Thankfully after the departure of the socialist regime lock, stock and barrel, things seem to have taken a turn for the better.

Kolkata now, on this visit, seemed filled with huge skyscrapers and long flyovers reducing the traffic snarls to manageable levels. There is also a general bustle in the streets and a sense of optimism in the people. Say what you will about Mamata di, the city of Kolkata looks spic and span in the brief period she has ruled over the state even if she prefers to stay over in Howrah and commute across to Kolkata to work daily. I was told that this was one another way for her to differentiate herself from the snooty communist bhadraloks who used to look down on the old city of Howrah while preferring the Victorian era genteel Kolkata.

I spent a day touring the tourist favorites like the Howrah Bridge and the Victoria palace and even ventured over into the old city of Howrah to see the authentic old gallis which Dominic La’pierre had written about in the bestseller novel ‘city of joy”. I came away with a sense of completeness to my journey into the Bengali consciousness as evinced by their pride in their capital Kolkata. And most surprisingly my taxi driver with whom I tried to communicate in English /hinglish ended up talking to me in my mother tongue telugu as he was a migrant from Andhra Pradesh. He informed me about the large number of migrants from Andhra who were living in Bengal for generations with just a remembrance of their language to connect them to their ancestral state. So instead of learning Bengali from my taxi driver as I had planned to I ended up speaking in a language I was comfortable with since childhood.

Having done the official part of the trip successfully, and with a win in the elections under my belt it was time for the actual vacation to start. And where better to head rather than the hills. The mighty Himalayas beckoned and from Kolkata I took a 45 mins flight to Bagdogra airport in north Bengal- an area called 24 parganas for reasons lost in the mists of times. It was a pretty short flight to say the least. I had just plonked down on my seat on the flight, adjusted my seat belt and got comfortable after the seat belts off sign came on, when the pilot again announced the seat belts on for descent into Bagdogra airfield.

For those who have never visited Bagdogra airport take it from me that it’s the size of Koyambedu bus stand in Chennai but serves a lot of important tourist spots in the north east –Siliguri, Darjeeling, Gangtok etc. Its approximately 20kms away (and one hour away depending on the traffic) from the nearest city- Siliguri and from there it’s all uphill into the Himalayas. Siliguiri is the last place you see the plains and as soon as you leave the city and head into the outskirts you can see the tea plantations start- the famous Darjeeling tea. And then you run smack into the largest landmass feature of India- the Himalayan ranges. More on my next post into the hills.

Travels In The North East – Part 1

Travels In The North East – Part 1

As a South Indian, especially someone who lives in the deep south of India, in the state of Tamil Nadu, you grow up with stories of the north-south divide and how the hindi’ans (yes that’s a term) look down on all things below the Vindhyas which divides the north and the south of the country. You also get frequent reminders of this from the other perspective when some North Indian language chauvinists stress that Hindi should be given precedence over your mother tongue or the common lingua franca down south- English, which everyone speaks in addition to their mother tongues. Finally you get the whole how south India is more rational and accommodating of all religions while the north is filled with rabid hindutva’vadis who would just as soon do riots or destroy mosques rather than worship god in the privacy of their homes theory which is a part of the popular narrative bandied about as self-evident knowledge.

But travel has a way of opening one’s eyes to some unpleasant truths and making you see things from the others perspectives. I recently spent a week in the northeast, yes that part of our country which is often marked in maps as an itsy-bitsy add on to the rump of the landmass. As a South Indian I must confess to my shame that I had almost zero knowledge of the north eastern culture except for what I learned in school textbook geography. My knowledge of the region’s History was again nada/zilch- for all of Indian history is filled with horror stories of conquerors and destroyers who came out of the northwest- present day Pakistan and built pyramid’s out of the heads of the native Hindustani’s they had beheaded and destroyed temples by the score. All of which fear mongering I had taken to be children’s stories designed to explain the backwardness of the north when compared to the south or the west.

But as I said travel opens one yes to the reality. Textbooks come alive and history is shown to be real and not a figment of someone’s imagination. Some of the sights I saw up there showed me that history is alive and well and is the source of all the fear and angst against the outsider. I could finally see and accept for myself that all the rich culture I take pride in naturally as a South Indian- all those beautiful art works, the majestic temples etc down south, survived and in fact were all spared at the expense of the north.

The barbaric invaders from the northwest were so busy destroying anything which reeked of the local culture (hindu culture) including our temples and artworks in the north of the country that they never got around to doing the same in the south. It’s based on the sacrifice of the north- the utter destruction of hundreds of magnificent landmarks and iconic temples that Hinduism survived and flourished in the deep south- a fact which is proven again and again whenever you see the ruins of ancient temples all over North India and compare it with the majesty of the Tanjore Brihadeeswara temple or the Madurai Meenakshi temple which have stayed the same over a thousand years.

The same is true of our borders – it only takes a trip into the mountains of the north- those magnificent Himalayas and look up into the mass of the Chinese army poised to rush down into the plains of the peninsula to appreciate the constant fear of the people of the north east to be run over by the chic-coms and start speaking mandarin. It’s here that you really get to appreciate the Indian army and its many sacrifices in guarding the borders. I spent a week in the border towns along the Chinese-occupied Tibetan border and I came away a chastened man with a better perception of what it means to be an Indian, a Hindu and to be at the mercy of two enormous hordes of barbarian armies poised to the east and west of my country straining at the leash to enter the Gangetic plains and down south to finally erase the idea of India from history like they have been trying to do (and failing) for millennia. The threat from the unwashed barbarian hordes to the west and the yellow peril to the east is indeed real (as spoken from the times of Kipling) is what I came back with.

The idea of India- in fact the very survival of this fragile idea of hope, optimism and freedom is in a precarious position and guarded by a few regiments of die hard soldiers on our borders in the midst of sub zero cold and absolutely zero comfort is what shocked me. I have come back with my eyes opened and a great deal of respect for our men in uniform. And an iron resolve to do my bit for the safety of my nation, for its very survival amongst such overwhelming odds. More to follow in my next few blogs as I report on my experiences in the frontiers of India.

The October Revolution(s)

The October Revolution(s)

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and it behooves us on certain anniversaries to reflect how that innocuous path taken in the beginning led right to the sulfurous pits of fire. And no I am not referring to the recent history of demonetization and its appalling aftermath. I am jogging your memory back to a similar economic terrorism let loose on an unsuspecting population based on the noble ideals of social equity and punishing corruption.

A hundred years ago, back in 1917, there was a large country, riven with rifts between the devastatingly poverty ridden majority populace who lived hand to mouth existence as serfs and the fat cats who ruled over them by colluding with those in power, all of which was centered around a single family rule. Sounds bizarrely similar to current India and a certain congress party? No, I am talking about imperial Russia and the ruling tsar family. There was even a secret advisor who had the ear of the empress like a certain pc of the UPA government who was widely blamed for all the illogic laws affecting the poor populace and whose ill-intentioned advice was responsible for the majority of the anti-people edicts which so poisoned the serfs and peasants against the then ruling government of the tsar.

History, shows again and again that rulers who listen to the backroom boys with no ear to the ground among the people are the ones who end up with all the opprobrium and hate of the people while the backroom manipulators escape with their reputation’s untarnished to serve another set of rulers again. Meanwhile the long suffering poor and downtrodden looked out for a messiah, even if he appears to be a snake-oil specialist to all un-blinkered realists and a charismatic demagogue appeared on the horizon – someone who promised to end the single family rule and put the fat cat capitalists in jail. The October revolution happened and blood flowed all over Russia. The imperial family was decimated, those close to the tsar were hounded out of Russia and all looked rosy.

But. As a corollary to the main show of political freedom, the new rulers of Russia, Lenin and his thug, Stalin, a backroom manipulator of the party, who together ruled over the government and the party decided they needed a grand economic narrative, something to change the course of history and etch their names in gold for posterity. So despite the best advices from a host of economic experts, the two not-so-wise men of Russia decided to implement socialism in one stroke, overnight. Eliminate private property by converting it all into public property and hence destroying the ill-gotten gains of the corrupt with one surgical strike. Anyone who protested the illogicity of such drastic action and its obvious effect on the economy were labelled anti-nationals and either shot or sent into re-education camps in Siberia, something which has thankfully not happened over here.

The move to destroy all property ownership was received with acclaim by the poor and downtrodden as they were happy (vicariously) to see the rich suffer the same fate as themselves, much similar to a hundred years later when everyone was happy about their neighbors and dog queuing up outside the atm’s to receive two, two thousand rupee notes a day from the ration shop turned ATM’s. But such vicarious pleasure at the sufferings of others only offers temporary gratification and does not feed the belly. The economy took a nose dive and crash landed so badly that the starving masses instead of getting their bellies filled just had new competition for scarce resources in the form of the newly poor and desperate. These were mostly the middle class and the intellectuals who were treated with contempt and anathema by the illiterate thugs now in power and who had always harbored a secret envy of the educated middle class who had till then somehow managed to just about stay above the poverty line.

And as a corollary, the uber-rich managed to flee the country with their ill-gotten gains, courtesy the corrupt amongst the new ruling dispensation to safe havens in Great Britain aka how Vijay Mallaya and Lalit Modi fled a 100 years later.  The thugs of the ruling party, local commissars who let their petty power go their heads, stifled dissent in the name of patriotism, destroyed all individual initiative in the name of progress and instituted a widespread surveillance system to root out those desperate enough to speak the truth and all this in the name of doing good to the country.

And Russia instead of getting the change they hoped for, went into the dark ages for a hundred years with countless millions dying of food shortages and official apathy while the rulers celebrated each anniversary with pomp and pageantry and self-pats on the backs for achieving equality and egalitarianism. The economic experts re-wrote fudged data numbers showing bountiful harvests even as millions were slowly starving. The newspapers , the paid media of those times, reported the obviously false data as verified news and sang paeans to the rulers and everything looked hunky-dory till it all came crashing down almost overnight and all the lies were exposed for what they were, mere self-delusion.

The October Revolution of 1917 has now been universally condemned by history as a colossal failure led by megalomaniacal rulers who brooked no dissent in their belief in their own infallibility. History has a way of surprising us when it repeats itself, first as a tragedy and subsequently as a farce. To conclude, I can only repeat the cliché that those who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it. Unfortunately we didn’t and we did. I rest.

The Brave Cowards

The Brave Cowards

I recently finished a book called “Origin” by author Dan Brown which stars his favorite hero the Symbologist Robert Langdon. Langdon is not your conventional hero who goes all out swinging right from the first page. He is far more realistic and like the majority of us someone who survives (shivering and cursing) being thrust into situations not of his making. He admits his lack of guts and never hesitates to use his brain instead of brawn.  And it’s refreshing to read about a mainstream character from a bestselling author who refuses to be brave all the time. Most literary heroes would never admit to any doubts about their lack of guts. Offhand I can’t recall a single major character from any bestseller who admits to fear or acts a coward, without a redemption story. If at all a character is written like that- he becomes a side-kick or comedy relief like Neville Longbottom of the Harry Potter series who ends up becoming a brave heart (of course) by the end of book in a mandatory plot twist. All of which made me wonder whether bravery is synonymous with courage? And my conclusion was that both are as different as chalk and cheese and I will now explain why, in a long blog post guaranteed to bore you to tears.

In my younger days (damn…those feel like eons ago) I used to watch a cartoon series on Tv called “Courage the cowardly dog”. It was one of my favorites along with Oggy and the cockroaches, Heidi and Chotta Bhim. Anyway the premise of the show was that the dog Courage, contrary to his name, was a bit of a coward and afraid of pretty much everything under the sun. But as luck (bad luck) would have it, in every episode he would have to face one of his worst fears and battle it to save his beloved owner. The moral of the cartoon series was on how love (for others) makes us conquer our worst fears and act courageously. One of my takeaways from the ‘toon was that no matter how much of a coward you are, sometimes you just have to stand your ground and face your fears without retreating. The reason may be immaterial but when you have no option to run and hide you are called brave and only you know the true extent of your knees quaking under the table. Which brings me to the concept of bravery.

When people say so and so is brave what I assume is that the said person is fearless and has always been fearless and has a track record of being fearless. These must be exceptionally gifted people who have never seen failure I suppose. Or never ever entertain the thought of failure in their lives. Their confidence in themselves, courtesy their upbringing or maybe their socio-economic status or their lifestyle, must brook no option of their even losing or being humiliated in public or god forbid getting maimed in limb or life. But unfortunately for average people like you and I with normal middle class upbringing there is no such over-arching self confidence in our success rates. We are the ones who have been trained to walk on pavements, look both ways on the road before crossing even if it’s a zebra crossing with red lights on etc. We are psychologically trained to admit that shit happens in our lives despite our best precautions. For us it’s never a question of being brave all the time – there is no absence of fear from our lives where it lurks just under the surface. It’s merely a fact of conquering fear enough to step out and do what is necessary despite admitting that our best may not be enough and the probability is great that we are going to fail. And that’s why I rate courageous people better than brave people. It’s easier to accomplish things in the absence of fear, but conquering fear? Ha… that takes a lot of courage.

To end this post, I would like to paraphrase a quote from Tolkien “the bravest step he took was the first one from his doorstep”. Indeed, for a hobbit the fear of leaving the safety of his snug house must have looked more daunting than facing those orcs or beasts or even the might of mordor. And likewise every step we take out of our houses in the morning is a badge of courage for all of us naturally cowardly people. Would you agree?

Absent Empathy and Low Emotional Quotient

Absent Empathy and Low Emotional Quotient

When you are sick and at home a'bed you have time, lots of time, to rehash the past and go revisit all those wounds which scarred you over the course of your life. Although not a healthy practice in everyday life, sometimes it does become necessary to reopen old scabs and inspect the wounds underneath, to stare at and learn something from past errors. The most worrisome thing is when you rehash the past and find that you haven’t learned anything at all from it but have kept on doing the same mistake again and again.  And that is something I find I am guilty of. I have never seemed to have learnt from my mistakes. All of my actions, say for instance in my relationships, seem to follow a predictable pattern. Invariably I have been associated with people (let’s leave it that) who have been barely stable psychologically spanning the entire spectrum right up to frank psychopaths. I could give specific instances with examples, but as that wouldn't serve any purpose other than titillating you the reader- let me pass lightly over all those unsavory types with overactive imaginations who read too much into casual things and couldn't deal with reality but tended to lash out at me for not acting up to their imaginary expectations.

After much thought into why I repeatedly attract psychos towards me – I can only think of two reasons- either I am one of them too (if I were, would I know it?) or it’s because of my innate empathy- my high quotient of emotional intelligence which makes me sympathetic towards those who are barely there psychologically. Unfortunately no good deed goes unpunished and those very same unstable characters that I alone am able to tolerate their antics of, react like the asp cladded to the chest and tend to bite me as soon as they can and poison my peace of mind. So in retrospect I think I would have been better off if I had behaved insensitively right from the beginning and been the kind of self-centered asshole most men are when it comes to women. Being sensitive has its punishment- it attracts the wrong types who subsequently manage to make life hell for the sensitive person. It’s always better to be an asshole rather than be at the receiving end of one. Be bad or be crushed is the conclusion I can come to after reviewing my entire case history. Empathy, sympathy and all kinds of tolerance are the enemies to decent people. Assholes have it easy, good guys don't. That sums up lesson number one of my relationship error history- be selfish in getting what/who you want.

Lesson number two immediately follows- never mistake pity for love. Many times I have been guilty of dating the undateable, loving the unloved. I can’t help it- I am made like that. I am a great friend of all street dogs, homeless people and the left behinds of society. That might be a part of my job as a doctor- to help the unfortunate but when it comes to selecting someone to spend the rest of my life with- that’s about the biggest error to make- as I have learnt to my cost. There are some people who have been left alone because they deserve to be. Why society, even nature has judged them and found wanting – that they are fit to be alone all their lives- the confirmed spinster types. And it’s the height of foolhardiness (masquerading as bravado) to go and start something with them. They won’t give you any love or gratitude for rescuing them from a life of loneliness. They will instead show all the pent up hatred towards society for neglecting them all this time- all on you. You will become the symbol for everything they have lost in their lives till then- all their wasted youth, all their lost dreams all their expectations towards finding a good match- all of it foisted on your head and the blame laid solely on your head.

Let’s come to the gold diggers next. Those women who don’t give shit about you or your emotions except in learning how to manipulate them to their advantage before finding a good enough reason to justify dumping you after their exploitation. These are the types who often scream “harassment” and “stalking” and all those carefully pre-selected keywords which immediately stroke the ire of the femi-nazi brigade who they hope will confuse the issue enough by talking about women’s empowerment to mask the bare faced financial swindling they subject the men to. Their logic is simple when a woman screams harassment nobody ever asks so how much did you borrow from him or how much did you make him spend on you? I know that it’s not a given that anybody, any woman who makes money of you should get compulsorily emotionally involved with you, but when you dangle emotional entanglement as a carrot for financial benefits it becomes a straight financial trade doesn’t it? To make him spend his last rupee before he realizes that no she has not loved him, has never even been in love with him is the ultimate goal of such gold diggers.

 Compared to these type of women the straight sex for money kind of dealing by professional sex workers is far more honest as at least you know what you are getting into right at the beginning and will by the end at least have some money left in your pockets instead of being completely wiped out- both emotionally and financially. And that’s lesson number three- when a woman is more interested in your financial background, asks how much you make per month and wants to be taken to expensive food joints in the guise of experiencing new ambiences- all those are warning flags that you are about to be swindled left, right and center. No woman who is looking for lifelong commitment is going to make that decision based on how much you are willing to spend for her on every single date. Just take an about turn and run.

Finally the point of having a life time commitment is that for a long time you not only have to tolerate each other but also depend on each other- for everything. Your life partner is not only going to be your closest friend emotionally but also your financial planner, your investment adviser, your banker and the first person to listen to and give advice on any and every major decision or event of your life. Would you choose someone who gives you wrong advice? Or who is clever enough to guide you on the right path when your mind is fogged with emotional turmoil? Or would you select someone standoffish who doesn’t want to hear your troubles but prefers to talk about their troubles all the time? Which is the worst option? Based on such questions alone should you select a life partner- someone with whom you going to share food, share a bed, share a room, share kids, share money, share property and share everything else- including when you are old and feeble at the fag end of life. That’s not a decision taken lightly is it?

Hence my decision to look for someone with high emotional quotient and real empathy and to sterr clear of psychos henceforth. Wish me luck, comrades.

Angry Birds Who Shit On Me.

Angry Birds Who Shit On Me.

I recently celebrated yet another birthday and as usual it was time to reflect again on certain aspects of my life which I feel the need to improve on at least in the next year. One area which I definitely have to work on is in my attitude to relationships. Being single at the end of one more year, I couldn’t help but deeply ponder on my relationships lakshman rekha- the very bright red lines which cause me to opt out of any relationship. The absolute be-all and end-all relationships killers. And in the top of my list was anger.

Believe me I get that anger is a very human emotion and everyone gets angry at one time or the other. Even I get angry maybe once in three years or so (don’t believe me? ask my mother who will certify the last time she saw me angry a few years ago). Not getting angry or reacting in anger is a major plus in my work as a government doctor as there are umpteen number of patients and situations everyday which tend to provoke people with less control of their temper to say or do something hasty and nasty. But I always remember that these patients are in trouble, severe pain, and it’s not right to get angry against them when they can’t help it.

This very attitude from my professional life is what I unfortunately tend to carry over to my personal life. I give allowance, great allowances to the moods of others and tend to look at things from their point of view, thereby making myself the butt of unjustified anger which I never deserve. Somehow, I don’t know how, I always end up attracting people opposite to me in temperament, the angry birds, who are always going around with feathers ruffled trying to peck anyone who is stupid enough to fall for them.

Being in a relationship, especially being the sane person in a relationship, the calm person, the mature person in the relationship does not earn me any kudos, instead it gets me un-ending abuse in the guise of “just venting off steam”. I, on the other hand, (unfortunately) am wise enough not to vent off steam undeservedly at my loved ones, I vent off where necessary and not at innocent souls who can’t even comprehend what they did to deserve this stream of abuse.

And I just can’t agree that people get angry at others and spout rubbish because they are short tempered. Have you ever seen any short tempered person scream in school at their head master? Or at work at their boss? I too, haven’t. Even those who confess to being short tempered are prepared to hold their tongues in the office against a boss for whom they might or might not work within the next few months. If they are prepared to bite back the angry retorts and abuse for something as transitory as a job where you spend a few hours a day what prevents you from doing the same with someone you want to spend a lifetime with?

The license to get angry and vent off for unrelated stresses and tensions works both ways doesn’t it? What/how would it look if I did the same? Not that I am capable of doing that, but still for the sake of argument just imagine me screaming and ranting and “just” letting off steam. And that’s why anger and short temper continue to remain my lakshman rekha, the line that thou should not cross. But being the floor mat that I am (prepared to let another person walk all over me) I still allow the same number of strikes Krishna gave to Shishupala- abuse me a 100 times and I shall bear it, the 101^st time I walk out without looking back.

Now I know that you will be thinking what if I deserved it? Well, let me tell you that if I really deserved it, I would stand there and take my punishment like a man. It’s just the underserved abuse coming from temper tantrums I am in no way responsible for that I totally abhor and will walk out off. Fair warning, if you are in a relationship with me and if you are going to get angry, go punch a wall, go scream alone, go work it out of your system somehow, never ever try to ram it down my throat. I don’t deserve abuse. I don’t like short tempered people. And I absolutely abhor angry people. I would rather spend all my life alone than be in any kind of relationship with someone who gets angry at me for no fault of mine or is generally short tempered. Its time I get stopped getting shit on by angry birds who cant find anyone else to take their shit.

So to end this- short tempered people, angry people- go see a shrink, just don’t come near me. For me a peaceful life is a happy life. A life where no one raises their voice at the other is my idea of a perfect relationship. Disagreements should be talked over, preferably over a cup of coffee like mature adults and not screamed at. Don’t agree, just take a walk or I will and never look back. And this has been my credo for all these years and that why I am still single and can’t find a girl who is not short tempered and who will not shout at me. Know anyone like that? 

A Balanced Life

Can we have our cake and eat it too? No? Does that sound too greedy? But why not? Why can’t I have a great career? A good family life? Enough leisure time? Adequate “me” time? All of the above, instead of picking my choices from one of the above? Sounds bizarre to you? Yeah to me too. All I want is to have a balanced life, where I can work a little, play a little, sleep a little and just lie down there and daydream a little. But increasingly I find that I just can’t find the time to fit all of this into my daily schedule. No I am not trying to beat my own drums that I am very busy and can’t find the time. The truth is sometimes I just can’t remember where the time went when I reflect on it at the end of an average day. Some of it surely went sitting and waiting in traffic on my daily commute, up and down the city working at two jobs at either end of the metropolis. But travelling does give me the time to catch up on my old favorites on FM radio channels and I am usually in a chirpier mood after listening to for instance “mundhiri muthaella syenjukku” or whatever it was from the song “nenjinelle, nenjinelle” from the incomparable AR Rahman. Leaving that aside, travelling also gives me a great perspective to write the kind of short fiction I like to write. I look at people and try to imagine their everyday lives and then I use them as characters in one of my stories. Where else would I go for authentic personalities if I spend all day locked up in a cubicle listening to people explain in great detail what they think their disease is and what treatment should I do to them?

Nutritionist’s talk a lot of balanced diets. About how we need carbohydrates/proteins/fats in equal measure…but every single diet out there stresses one particular aspect in favor of the other- low-cal diet, no-fat diet and they all seem to work to some extent. What works for food ought to work for life too right? Do we need to live a balanced life or can we live a life where we are happy to accept that life is essentially unbalanced and you just can’t fit in all you want to do, the operating word here being “want”, in a span of 24 hours? What if you were to work all week and rest all Sunday? Like the good lord told us to do on Sabbath? Is that a balanced life? Or are you building up to having a coronary? What if I just pick and choose one aspect of my life? Say my career? And revolve all the rest of my life around it? Arrange to have a convivial family life with someone who respects my need to work hard at my career even at the expense of forgoing any leisure time or activity? Can it be done?  I definitely hope so. When we get to the core of it the only persons who can choose to have a balanced life, do all that their hearts desire- rest, relax, spend time with family, work within limits- are those who were born with a golden spoon or those who have already attained a certain level of affluence where money becomes superfluous. All the rest of us poor mortals have to slog our butts off to make a decent living and stay off the poverty line. We can ready in lifestyle magazines about the heady experience of living a balanced life and then get on with trying to balance all our different priorities into the same time frame. Live one day at a time within our means and not be greedy to have it all. In the end its better to be practical rather than be idealistic. And keep alive hope that someday…..

The Gloating At Others Discomfiture- New India

The Gloating At Others Discomfiture- New India

Last week there were two significant judgments delivered by the supreme court of India. The first was on the constitutional validity of the right to privacy where the judgment affirmed that right to privacy is a fundamental right. And in the very same week the judges pronounced that personal laws are no longer valid by striking down the triple talaq law under Muslim personal law. Now the two may not seem related at first glance but lets dig a little deeper to see what this means at ground level. In fact to digress a bit there are those who are celebrating both the judgments without realizing that they are both contradictory. The first one is an instance of executive over reach being corrected by judicial over sight and the second one is an example of judicial overreach (with the full connivance of a double-speaking executive) which has used the judiciary as a stalking horse to achieve a backhanded assault on personal laws and right to privacy.

Now disregarding the feminazis who will celebrate anything which makes life harder for men (like easier divorces) and disregarding the usual Muslim baiter's who will celebrate anything which will annoy or inconvenience the average Muslim citizen of India, the real reason people should be afraid of this judicial over reach is that based on this judgment any and every personal or religious belief/freedom/personal law is open to censure by the courts and government. I was so forcefully reminded of this by the Jallikattu movement a few months back when a few offended animal rights activists invaded the personal law space of Tamil pride and got jallikattu banned through the supreme court. Now jallikattu might be a regressive practice in the eyes of a few volunteers working with animals but does it give them the right to impose their will on a million others under the garb of the court's orders? Invading personal laws of various religions is pretty similar when you come to think of it- tomorrow any person can state that they are offended by this or that particular practice – say tying a mangalsutra on a woman’s neck (just for an example) as a regressive practice under Hindu personal law and have the supreme court ban it. Will it end there? There will be more and more invasion into the personal laws of people based on the whims and fancies of whoever rules us or based on lobbyists influence with the powers that be.

I remember reading somewhere that Sardar Vallabhai Patel warned Nehru against meddling with Hindu personal laws as opening up a can of worms and it’s taken us all these years to find out that the Sardar was bang-on right and Nehru was wrong, as usual. That single instance of unwanted meddling with hindu personal practices was the catalyst which fanned the flames of hindutva renaissance all through these years and has atlast brought the current party to power capitalizing on the hindu community’s feeling of being selectively targeted by politicians which might or might not be true  but you cant play with people’s emotions with intellectual arguments based on the view from the lofty heights of Lutyen’s Delhi or western mores.

If only Nehru had listened to the Sardar’s words and just declared all personal laws as invalid from (or sacrosanct as the case may be) instead of selectively targeting Hindu personal laws for reform we would not have seen such communal polarizations and religious riots today in our country. The root cause of all this evil lies solely there in the mists of forgotten history when our first prime minister tried to reform Hindus from without instead of waiting for them to reform from within. This left, in my opinion, a feeling of being sinned against in the Hindus who instead of blaming the politicians (the Congress collection of St.Stephens crowd) who had tried to pit one community against another for their own narrow political needs instead took to venting their ire on fellow sufferers like Muslims and Christians under the erroneous belief that they enjoyed more religious freedoms that the Hindu’s were denied using the law as a tool to bludgeon the Hindu community.

And the politicians succeed in driving a wedge between hitherto peaceful communities for political gains and the same successful formula has been used ever since by every mainstream political party to reap electoral rewards while us citizens of India despite our religions and differences end up being made fools of. Fools enough to not protest against executive or judicial over reach even into the sanctity of our personal relationships leave alone personal laws. And future generations will probably say the same thing about us that we accuse them of- that we were mute spectators and applauded inwardly (envy/hate – are two sides of the same coin), the judicial invasion of another communities personal laws. Now nothing is personal anymore in our new India. And we are all in danger of being legislated or judged out of our beliefs and ways of existence which has stood the sanctity of time.

The Anti-Bro

The Anti-Bro

The very famous Tamil actor and equally famous Tamil politician Captain Visaiyakanth is credited with speaking one of Tamil filmdom’s most iconic dialogues ever (in a movie called ramanna) which goes something like this “the only word I don’t like in tamil is sorry”. Sorry, what? Anyways Copy/Paste to 2017 and I would have to borrow from him and say (hand on my heart) that MY most hated phrase in English (in recent times) is “bro”. (disclaimer: my hated words keep changing with time- previously they used to be exams/marks/ its morning get up your ass, don’t you have to go to work/ but I don’t think of you that way, ours is a platonic friendship....etc…etc).

I don’t know why but every other pseudo hearty guy I meet nowadays greets me with a very hearty and instantaneous “bro” in a loud pitched voice. And truth to say, that grates on my system, makes me nervous and look back over my shoulder to see if anyone’s creeping up behind me to mug me while I am distracted by the false heartiness of my suddenly found “bro”. Bad enough that the girls used to call me bro/brother/bhai/bhayya as soon as they espy me anywhere within 500meters of them (early warning sign, I guess) but in my worst case scenario now even guys are calling me “bro”. Bro this, Bro that, bro everything.

Just last year it was Dude (pronounced dood) in a very fake American drawl which stank to Yankee Doodle Dandy. And the year before that, it was “mate” like every other guy halloo’ing at me was a stinking Australian crocodile Dundee. I get it, I get it, I get that sometimes guys have to use informal but respectful forms of address to each other but what’s wrong with good old “meester”? Or “sir?” or even “your worshipful excellency?” if it isn’t quite a mouthful to pronounce.

Digging back in time paleontologically, I can try and trace all this “bro’ing” to a very execrable television sitcom called “how I met your mother (who was passed between me and my best friend like a piece o’candy)”. The characters in that sitcom (who I might add in real life are gay, not that I am homo-phobic or anything for I even had a rainbow coloured facebook dp once for a few hours before I learnt what it really meant and changed back pronto) called each other “bro’s” and that’s where the famous “bro’s before hoe’s” phrase first came up I guess, the line which encapsulated the modern millennial man’s motto perfectly- “ first screw up your bro/friends life before you go home to screw your girlfriend's”.

In our native culture we have certain perfectly acceptable form of greetings called “machi”, “machan”, “dei porambokku” “ngotha deiii veena ponavaney” etc. and having such a diverse form of addresses to suit every occasion (and person we meet) I fail to understand what prompts the youth of today (mee too youthu only bba, ok?) to call each other’s as “yo nigga” “damn homie” or “bro”. That stuff doesn’t express the varied emotions like a heartfelt “deii paradesi naaaye” when meeting a friend after an absence (or even daily).

So to make a long story short (as I am running out of words), let me repeat my original premise – I am no one’s bro (least of all, of random girls I run into suddenly, caveat added- only good looking one’s mind you, for the ugly ones can bro me to their hearts content). Anyway, I digress from the topic. To come back to it, call me anything, but just don’t call me “bro”. Howazzat Buddy? 

The Thin Line Of Hope

The Thin Line Of Hope.

“Hope is a wonderful thing. It’s the thin line which often separates life from a life not worth living for. The absence of hope is the greatest tragedy of human life. Especially when humans lose hope just when their life is going to take a turn for the better and make some hasty decisions. Of course, humans can’t see the future as we do and that’s the beauty of hope. They have to believe in it, believe that life is going to turn on its head for them in the very near future. That a benevolent god is up there watching over them and he sends angels like us down to earth to walk with them in their most care-worn states. That belief and the hope it generates is what human life worth fighting for. Loss of that belief and consequent hope for the future results in such cases” he gestured to the prone figure on the bed battling for life “and just when her life was about to get better she has taken poison to kill herself. And now we just have to wait here for the grim reaper to come collect his toll”. “But” the cherub asked the senior angel “can’t we do something?” It was its first day on the job and it was still learning the ropes “can’t we, like, turn back time and show her a little hope? Give her hints that she just has to pass over this bump in her life to be happy again?”

“Ahh”, the senior angel shook his wise head negatively “that’s just what we are forbidden to do little one. Remember the fight over the first man Adam’s creation?” he winked as he didn’t want to mention the ungodly revolt even here on earth for god had eyes and ears everywhere “well, God in his everlasting benevolence granted Adam and his progeny the gift of free will. It’s up to the humans how they use it. To better themselves or to fall into temptations. And we are forbidden to interfere in their choices even if they make some such stupid decisions like taking their own lives”. He stood there wings folded staring pensively at the woman on the bed now whooping great gasps trying to suck in air as the poison started taking greater effect. “Now look at this girl, would you believe that six months ago she was a bright and cheerful girl always with a smile on her face? Then she lost her mother, her father a drunk, disappeared around the same time and she joined up as a domestic help in a wealthy household. And that’s where the seeds of her destruction were sowed. It took six months, but that family was the one which killed her today”.

“An entire family were responsible for her taking poison?” the newest cherub to join the angels asked aghast “how is that possible? Wasn’t there even a single person in that household with a little pity in their heart?” the senior angel looked oddly at him and then making a decision “No, that single family was the epitome of all human vices- there was lechery, greed, jealousy and hate but no redeeming features in them. All in all, I would say, they are a typical human family. I think it would be better if you saw for yourself so come with me” he said, “and I will show how she ended up like this today” and taking the little cherub with him the senior angel flew off to visit Seth Narotamdas Damodardas, the wealthy philanthropist and benefactor of many temples, ngo’s and cows.

They entered a massive villa built like a replica of the Jaipur palace and the first person they saw on flying in through a first floor bedroom window was a young man snoring away on a palatial bed in an alcohol induced haze. “This is Pankaj, the only son and heir of Sethji’s vast business empire of beedi and gutka” said the angel “and also the father of the unborn child in the dead girls womb. While pankaj got her pregnant with his tender profession of love, beguiling the innocent little fool fresh from the village, it was his father sethji who drove her out of the family mansion for daring to accuse his son of being the father of her child. Sethji was angry beyond words because he knew any word of this leaking out would damage the marriage prospects of his son to some other rich business family.

And how do you guess the whole affair came to light? It was jealousy which did it. The Seth’s daughter Neerja hated the servant girl from the first, hated that even in her rags and grime she looked far lovelier than the bejeweled Neerja. She especially hated her because her fiancée, Paresh had once spent an entire dinner staring at the servant maid as she served at the table. Though plain and ugly Neerja has a haughty heart, a heart which cannot countenance playing second fiddle to anyone and she bore spite from that moment on towards the maid. And when she found out the idle dalliance between her wastrel brother and the maid she couldn’t wait to run in and inform her father and mother. Sethji was a tad less guilty in that he only dismissed the maid and sent her out to starve in the streets, it was his wife madamji -Manju madam, who not only hid her gold ornaments but made sure that the seth file a police complaint against the poor girl and had her arrested and sent to jail for her temerity in beguiling her innocent son. She was also responsible for spreading the word around in all the voluntary organizations and women’s rights organizations she served in, that anyone having the intention to help this particular girl would earn the undying wrath of the seth’s whole family.

The poor girl was driven to begging on the streets to satisfy the hunger pangs of her unborn child in the womb. She couldn’t eat enough to feed herself let alone the child gnawing in her belly even though she spent all day on her feet begging for work, some work which would allow her to live with dignity or at least feed her babe. But society, human society is a cruel, cruel thing, humans have no pity on those who are down on their luck, they avoid them like the plague to make sure that their ill-luck doesn’t rub off on others. If only they knew that nothing is ever so simple” the senior angel sighed “just this afternoon this girl fell down on the street dashed by a passing motorcar and when she reached her tenement she found her petticoats running with rivulets of blood and she felt she had lost her child, the only thing which had made her current life worth bearing and unable to face such a bleak future she took the easy way out, the only way she knew to end her misery in one stroke by swallowing a packet of poison”.

The cherub was aghast “senior angel ji you speak as if sympathizing with the action of this human. Hasn’t god expressly forbidden taking self-life by humans? Isn’t it a great sin?”. The senior angel smiled cynically “yes god, has said that, he has had it written down by his prophets and messengers and had it widely disseminated to everyone. But, you know, humans, they are a weak souled species, they cant take adversity and attribute it to gods way of testing them before rewarding them. They are so short sighted and short lived that the trials and miseries of a few years breaks their will to live”. He continued the lesson to the young apprentice “Now take this girl for instance, in a few months there’s a going to be a major car crash and the sethji, his wife and daughter are all going to die. The seth’s son, this girls lover is going to be crippled and he is going to come crawling back to her to marry him and restore to her rightful place as his wife”.

“But, but” the cherub spluttered “she’s dying right now and how can all this come to pass if she dies tonight?”. The senior angel signed long and deeply and said “exactly, that’s why I said humans are so short sighted. If only she hadn’t taken the extreme step of taking her own life tonight, her life in a few months would have seen a miraculous turnaround. But that’s free will for you- that which the humans alone were deemed worthy to receive from god and not even we angels got”. The cherub was impressed by the gravity of the senior angel’s pronouncement “so the humans have got better than us? Are they that special to god? Don’t we angels deserve something too? For following gods will without question? While they get to have free will, hope and every kindness in gods power to grant?”. 

The perturbation of the little cherub brought a smile to the angels face but when the senior angel smiled this time, it was an ugly smile full of hidden menace “yes they have free will. Yes they have hope. But we, my dear cherub have got the power to break their hopes, merely by standing by and not doing anything to help them. And can you guess the best way to break hope in someone? You don’t break them, you just break something they love and if it’s something which loves them back that’s even better. That’s how they lose hope and give up themselves. And that’s how we angels get our revenge on mankind”. He smiled as gaily as if he had won a great prize.

For hope is indeed a precious gift for mankind and we humans treat it as if it doesn’t matter.

P.S. I have written a lot of short stories- crime fiction, science fiction, social fiction etc but I have never yet written a moral story, something which has a message for the reader. I have been re-reading a lot of my favorite Russian authors- Tolstoy, Chekov, etal and under their influence I have tried to write a honest-to-god message oriented short story for the first time in my life. I expect reader’s feedback to see how far I still have to go to improve. Do write in with your suggestions.

The Mental Aspects of Disease

The Mental Aspects of Disease

Are you frequently fatigued and unable to bring up the drive to work properly as you were wont to do previously? Are you always sad and depressed and don’t have the enthusiasm to do anything about it? Do you keep getting fat even though you are semi starving yourself all the time? Are you anxious? Depressed? Eccentric? Is it time to visit a therapist? A counsellor? A psychiatrist? And talk things over?

Hold on a minute. Perish the thought that psychiatry comprises counselling primarily and counselling can cure anything. It never happens that way in real life despite the millions spent on counselling therapy by gullible people who are desperate for a cure for their symptoms and problems. Despite what counsellors would have you believe, venting out for an hour in a darkened room to a bored person who keeps interjecting soothing platitudes is not going to make your problems disappear or your diseases to cure itself. In 90% of the cases I have mentioned above you will have an as yet undiagnosed physical condition with the remaining being the interplay of your inherited genes with your environment.

If you are depressed or anxious visit a psychiatrist who can prescribe you drugs to bring your mood swings under control before you slash your wrists. Talk therapy can achieve only so much when the entire gamut of your neural messengers inside your brain are playing havoc with your individual neurons making some misfire and others to cease fire.  

If you are fatigued all the time go visit a good internist or general physician and rule out any viral diseases -for most of the times, it’s these little culprits who drain you of your energy without any obvious reasons. If still not satisfied, the next port of call should be an endocrinologist who will assess your chemical messengers from the adrenals and thyroids which have an effect on whole body wellness even in miniscule amounts. Any absence or reduction in these little proteins can lead to a whole lot of misery in everyday life.

And finally if you are desperate to lose weight and find you just can’t control your appetite don’t listen to the counsellor who says you have weak will power and over eat. They are just putting the cart before the horse and failing to diagnose the underlying physical problem which is causing you to feel hungry all the time and makes you overeat. Go visit a good endocrinologist and check out your hormone levels. Once you get them under control, your hunger pangs and mood swings will automatically disappear. Don’t blame yourself for being fat and don’t let others blame you- especially if they are taking good money off you just to listen to your failings.

Hunger is an awful thing and you are only human if you are miserable and pre-occupied with thoughts of food when you are dieting. Add to it the emotional stress of being fat- the unspoken judgment that you lack will power, the suffering from internal starvation and the constant guilt feeling when you listen to your body and indulge its wants – none of which can be cured by lying down there and talking about how you are going to make an effort henceforth. Get a blood test done before you start keeping a fancy food diary. Re-balance your hormones so that the food is burnt up to feed you and not just stored away as fat. Do the simple things, the basic things right and the larger issues (pun intended) will take care of themselves.

The mental aspects of disease are real, no one denies that. But that’s not all we are- we are an amalgamation of nerves, hormones and millions and millions of bacteria which live inside us. Any change in any one of these components can cause disease by the very imbalance the body is incapable of managing. You are not just your brain or your mood- you have an entire system of interconnected body parts and organs which, all of them, have their own agenda and look out for their own good. The loss of balance in your physical body can and does affect the brain and vice versa. It’s far easier to diagnose and treat any bodily ailments before trying to tamper with the brain. A good therapist can make you talk your fears out loud, but merely talking them out loud (and paying your therapist for that privilege) is not guaranteed to cure you once and for all. Everyone deserves to live healthy and live happily- not either or but both. So think over your options before jumping to conclusions. All the best.

P.S. this rant was triggered by too many patients professing that they undergo counselling even for blatantly physical diseases which require medications and a boot up their backsides rather than couch talk. I am not sure how these counsellors have done it, but they seem to have convinced an entire generation of idiots that they can talk their way to good health. If only.