Patriotism through parody - my review of Shashi Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel

I consider Shashi Tharoor to be one of India's finest contemporary minds. His genius shines through in his every enterprise - be it oratory, writing or political commentary. I recently discovered another arrow in his intellectual quiver, comedy. The Great Indian Novel is a work of comedic genius - a grafting of the Woodhousian tradition of wry, hyperbolic humor over loud and noisy 20th century India. For fodder, Tharoor takes two of India's grandest stories, the Mahabharata and the Indian Freedom Struggle and fuses them into an irreverent comedic masterpiece. The idea to merge these two drastically different stories is a spark of pure magic. In retrospect, these tales possess remarkable synergy that makes this fusion very natural and spontaneous.

In the grandest sense, both these stories ponder the 'Idea of India'. The Mahabharata asks the question whether Bharat is the land of the usurping Kauravas or the Dharmic Pandavas. The Freedom Struggle asks whether India can aspire to be more than a grubby gem on Imperial Britain's greedy crown. And yet, neither of these tales is black-and-white. They are filled with morally compromised characters and possibly adharmic actions that stain every victory with a whiff of scandal. Far too often 21st century India is tempted to ignore these complexities and impose a binary cleanliness to these multifaceted stories. Tharoor picks out these gray undertones like a blood hound and lays them out to dry.

Tharoor's characters are surprisingly well-etched for a work of comedy. Prominent characters from the Mahabharata are paired with ones from the freedom struggle. Bhisma is Mahaguru Gangaji, the enema-loving sage on the hunt for absolute Truth. Dhritrastra is the favored Fabian Socialist disciple of the Mahaguru. Pandu is the Mahaguru's spurned disciple who flirts with fascists out of love for his country. Priya Duryodhani is Dhritrastra's daughter whose political philosophy takes from the proverbial iron hand in a velvet glove, sometimes discarding the glove altogether. Karna is the aristocratic, scotch-loving lawyer who convinces the Mullahs of his religious pedigree and carves out the Islamic state of Karnistan out of India. The five Pandavas reflect different aspects of the Indian story. Yudhistir is India's obsession with the notion of Dharma. Bhim is India's kludgy, but immensely powerful army. Arjun is the blessed, but perennially conflicted Indian media. Nakul is India's bureaucracy for whom life begins and ends on quintupled forms. Sahadev is the consummate Indian diplomat, capable of examining every aspect of a problem without ever coming close to solving it. Tharoor manages to make fun of all these characters while simultaneously bringing out their best traits. This book deserves to be read and re-read for the complexity Tharoor imbues into these characters.

As much as I enjoyed the book for its humor, I was forced to ask myself whether this book will get published without controversy in 2016 India? I doubt it. Superficially this book mocks too many of India's vaunted religious and political figures. Tharoor's subtextual or contextual praise for these characters will not be appreciated by many. There is a high chance of the saffron brigade using this book to hammer another dent on the Constitution's 'inconvenient' freedom of speech guarantees. And in the current political climate, I wonder whether the pillars of Indian democracy will do the right thing and protect this work. There is too much political mileage to be obtained from letting a prominent opposition MP get roasted by 'righteous' offended masses. Perhaps it's a good thing that this book is less well known than it deserves to be.

To get back to the book, Tharoor sprinkles it with ruminating passages that ask moral and philosophical questions, primarily through the book's orator V.Vji. I found the last few pages to be its most introspective moments. Yudhistir is about to die on top of a mountain and gets repeatedly tested by his cosmic father, Dharma. Yudhistir successfully clears each test but is left empty-handed at the end. He then wonders on the whole point of these dharmic tests. What is the point of Dharma if it's sole purpose is testing for its existence in every deed? Tharoor leaves this question unanswered to some degree. I think it's the right question to be raised. India and Indians love raising the specter of Dharma in everything. Dharma is almost a kitchen-sink for our every action and inaction; remember the doctrine of strategic restraint? I consider questioning the usefulness of dharma to be a most dharmic rite.

To summarize, I learned more about my country from this work of comedy than from all my school history textbooks combined. I urge every Indian to grab a copy at the earliest.

A Vegan dilemma - To kill or not to kill

A few weeks back, I was involved in an agitated debate with a friend on whether the consumption of meat by humans is justifiable. He was interested in this question from a philosophical/ethical standpoint, while I was interested in pushing my agenda of vegetarianism. Hence, it was not an impartial debate from my perspective. Over the course of two hours, our discussion arrived at several islands of thought such as the definition of sentience, the ability to subjectively evaluate one's environment, the ethical implications of humane meat farming and so on. For instance, we spent close to an hour arguing whether we can categorize animals on a spectrum/scale of sentience. He argued that cats/dogs are vastly more sentient than ants, while I countered that ants can collaborate and build architecturally complex ant-hills, which cats/dogs cannot.

Reflections on a relationship

The shelf above my dressing table is home to a picture of Lord Balaji from a 2012 calendar, a small plastic Krishna, a miniature bronze Lakshmi and a framed portrait of my father. Each morning after a shower, I would stop in front of this shrine and close my eyes for a few moments. Some years back, I would mentally voice my hopes for the day - 'do well in the upcoming exam', 'help me kick this cough', or 'let that girl like me a little!'. Nowadays, I hardly have the time to call out His name a few times. This morning, as I was beginning this 10 second tryst with my faith, I noticed a smudge on my father's picture. I picked it up, wiped away the dirt and found myself gazing at the man. Ever since I can remember, people have told me that I look like him. I rarely agreed then. And yet, each year as my face hardens into age, I see more of my father in the mirror. I know that in twenty years, I will be just like the image in this frame. Hopefully, a bit thinner.

A tragedy of Vedic proportions

If you have been following the news from India over the last few weeks, undoubtedly you’d have gawked at the following gems:

“We discovered the Pythagoras Theorem but we gracefully allowed the Greeks to take the credit” [1]

“We realize that the Mahabharata says Karna was not born from his mother’s womb. This means that genetic science was present at that time.” [2]

“Ancient India knew aerial combat techniques” [3]

“Ancient planes powered by donkey urine” [4]

My 2014 in Prose

The start of any year is a good time to take stock of one's life. Books are an integral part of mine, and in this post I hope to review my 2014 in reading. I will not be talking about any particular book in depth, instead will focus on the general trends in my reading preferences. I will also put forth my reading goals for 2015. In short, 2014 was a great year for my reading (yay!). I ploughed through 35 books, most of them veritable tomes (500+ pages) and this journey introduced me to new authors, styles of writing and hidden tastes.

The Tree

A man sat under a tree to take shelter from the searing sun. It was the middle of summer and the afternoon hour; nothing alive could bear the might of the sun at that moment. The man, who was crossing a dense jungle, decided to take shelter under this ancient, beaten tree with a canopy so vast that it appeared to block the entire sky. Under that sylvan sky he partook his lunch, a simple affair of rice and curd – he was a poor traveller in search of work. After the meager meal, his eyes began to sink beneath a rising tide of drowsiness; he slowly nodded off to a deep sleep. After what seemed like an instant, he opened his eyes to find the sun low in the western horizon. He panicked. He had intended to rest just long enough for the afternoon sun to lose its edge but now the night was approaching and he still had many miles to cover through the jungle. Traveling in the dark was inadvisable for these woods were notorious for man-eating tigers, ambushing jackals, and poisonous cobras. 

The dying rays of the sun would last for a while more. He figured if he sprinted, with conviction, he just might make it to a safer place beyond the densest parts. There was a single road through the forest and he would not get lost As the man was bundling his things and preparing for a headlong spint, a deep, resounding voice spoke to him, 

“Human! Don’t run into the forest now. You will never make it through before the darkness descends and the demons emerge. Stay here. This tree is blessed. It is the only safe spot in this entire jungle. No man-eating tiger or four-headed cobra can reach you while you are under its protection.”

The man was stunned. The voice appeared to be from everywhere and nowhere in particular. He suspiciously eyed the tree and approached it with ample caution. He was a wizened traveler. He filled his lungs with air and shouted at the trunk, 

“Who are you? How do I trust you? What if this tree is not an agent of God but rather an instrument of the devil? What if the wickedness that resides in this tree emerges at night and devours me?”

A few moments passed. Slowly the ground beneath his feet began to shake as the voice returned with a mirthful laugh. The booming laughter seemed to send tremors to every nook and cranny of the tree, disturbing the birds that resided in its vast branches. As gradually as the laugh began, it ended as abruptly, 

“You just spent many hours resting peacefully under this tree. Any devil residing in this tree could have easily consumed you then. That you are still alive proves that this tree is not a tool of the Shaitan.”

This struck the man as a reasonable argument. He had indeed lost himself to an uncharacteristic slumber but had emerged from it thoroughly refreshed. But he was still not conviced. He replied, in a louder voice, 

“Even a toddler knows that demons cannot emerge when the sun is shining. Only the night bequeaths the fell!”

The sounds of his proclamation echoed through the woods until they were drowned by the twittering of birds rushing back to their aerie homes. The voice sprung to life grander than before, 

“The foolishness of man never fails to suprise. Demons don’t hide from the sun. They shelter from it. You too avoided the sun under this canopy, do you perish if you step outside for a moment? I pity your ignorance, but I want to help you. Go back to sleep. No animal or demon will touch you. Look at the birds flocking back to its arms. They are smarter than you for they know the magic of this tree and the evil that surrounds it. Stay here, stay alive.”

The man was perplexed. His rational mind suggested he should run towards the safety of the forest periphery. But what if despite his efforts he is unable to reach the periphery before nightfall? What will he do then? Where will he find shelter from the foul creatures of the night? Wouldn’t it be better to trust this mysterious voice and stay here?

As the man was wrestling with the two choices, both unpleasant, he heard a sharp screech above him. When he looked up he saw a hawk, her wings abraze with the dying sun behind them swooping down towards him. As she fell she ushed darkness towards him like a heavy curtain that has been unleased from its hinges. Her feathery edges shone red from the last rays of the sun and her razor talons rippled into his eyes. The man screamed and fell to the ground, his hands clutching his empty, bleeding eyes. Copious tears he shed for his missing eyes, until finally, in a voice filled with scorn, he called out, 

“Whatever happened to the magical tree? You said it will protect me, but even before the night the tree let me fall into eternal darkness. Answer me!”

There was no answer. The man struggled to his feet. In his newly blind disorientation, he swiveled from side to side like a drunkard and screamed agan, 

“ANSWER ME! If humans are so ignorant, how could this magical tree let this happen to me? Answer me!”

A few moments later, just as the man was preparing himself for another gut-wrenching scream, the voiced replied calmly, 

“This is indeed a magical tree, ancient and wise. It could have protected you from the malice of tigers and the mischiefs of jackals, but even magic cannot contend with the hawks of destiny.” 

The man screamed in agony and fell to his knees. Blood flowed down his face and arms as the sun finally went to sleep. 

How to start writing?

People express themselves in various ways. Some sing themselves hoarse, some dance their hearts out, some cook and decorate their food with painstaking detail, some collect rocks that look funny, and some write. 
Writing is something each and every student has to do at some point of time in school. Anything made compulsory quickly becomes an object of hatred among kids and hence, a lot of people consider writing to be a chore, something they need to do from time to time to get the job done. Writing for joy or for emotions sounds alien and strange to them. 
However, there are tons of people who write simply because they love it. I am one such person. 

I write only when I am truly inspired to express myself in a certain way. Writing this blog is probably the most important thing I have done in my 22 years; it is a living, breathing scrapbook of my emotions and thoughts over the last 5 years and I am proud of it. 

One question a few people have asked me is how do I write? How to get into the mindset of writing and what are the tools required to write effectively? These are common questions and I am sure there is no right answer to them, rather there are several good answers. But I would like to share a few thoughts on my approach to writing. If you have different thoughts or views, please do share them in the comments - I would love to know them. :) 

Reading
A lot of people consider reading to be the first step in writing. They assume that being well-read is a necessary requirement for writing. I beg to disagree. Reading is *important* and *vital* for writing but definitely not *compulsory*. Reading and writing are two different strands but they intersect at several places. 
Reading helps writing in two key ways:

1. It builds your vocabulary, arsenal of idioms, phrases etc. These lend to the richness and vitality of your writing. Good writing and great writing are sometimes differentiated only their difference in choice of adjectives and adverbs! Reading good authors will help you enrich your own tool set for writing, but this is a sub-conscious process which occurs over a long time. You definitely should not read just to write! That will deprive you of the joy of reading and writing! 
2. Reading gives you content for writing. Let's be fair to ourselves, we don't have a lot of things happening in our lives. Most of us are students or employees and a major chunk of our day goes off in getting through to the next day in one piece. We don't get opportunities to travel or observe as much as we would like. Reading can provide with the much-needed fodder for writing your own content. Reading good newspapers, blogs and books will enrich your mind and give you a chance to build on those. You may do so through 'reply' articles or letters or even 'fan-fiction'! 

Write what you know! 
A lot of people love reading murder-mysteries and whodunits from a very early age. I am also a part of that list. I love reading tense, terse action-thrillers (think Bourne) and historical mysteries (think Angels and Demons), but if I try to write such a book, I highly doubt if I will want to read it myself! The reason is, I don't *know* how a murderer feels when he plunges his knife into his victim! I have not had the opportunity to talk to convicts or detectives to know their mindsets. I don't know how a helicopter flies or how it will explode when struck by a missile! If I try to write a book about a murderer who attempts to flee from the cops on a helicopter, it will be a childish rendering of what I would have read from numerous other whodunits. There will be nothing uniquely *me* in that book. So, I generally aver, don't write what you don't know. 
In its own way, my life has been full of challenges and excitements, so I try to write about things I can relate with - my past, my hopes, my concerns at the state of our nation etc. 
I don't publish any post unless I am sure there is at-least a tiny part of me in it :)

The Word Processor
Please don't write on MS Word. Please, just don't! It is one of the most depressing experiences in my opinion. Every time I open MS Word to start writing a post, I am reminded of the hundreds of school and college assignments I was forced to write and it totally spoils my mood! Word also has too many options for font, color, scaling, background blah blah. For writing all you need is a screen and a keyboard. Go for a minimalistic word processor like Q10. Trust me, you will be amazed at how much you can write in one sitting with a no-nonsense word processor! 

The Font
I know I just said, a screen and a keyboard are all you need for writing, and I stick by it. However, I am a fool for fonts! :| I love the typographical features of various fonts and they help me focus my thoughts better. If I am writing for office or work, I prefer a more serious *getting-it-done* font such as Calibri. It is crisp and literally has no frills attached. But for my blog, I prefer Helvetica or Trebuchet. I feel the elegant notes of these fonts give the blog post the personal warmth I want my readers to feel when they read my articles.

The Music
Simple advice - turn it OFF! People love listening to music when they read or write. I detest both. Reading and writing are for me - uni-functional tasks. You must give them your full attention, otherwise you are just wasting your time. Music has a great power to transport you to different states of mind in no time. While that is a magical thing when you are stressed out or bored, that may not be good when you writing. Imagine that you sit down to write a polemic about the garbage problem in Bangalore and you plug in your headphones to listen to classic country music (think James Taylor). If you are anything like me, your anger would instantly fly away and get replaced with a sense of wonder at the power of such simple lyrics. If you still strive to write your angry article, you will end up neither enjoying the song nor relishing the righteous anger etched into your words. 
There are innumerable places where music helps, I feel writing is not one such place. 

Whom are you writing for? 
Target audience is an important thing to consider when you are writing a blog or a book. Whom are you hoping will read and savor your words? Your peers? Young children? Women? Or, are you planning to write just for yourself? 
Any answer is fine! As long as you know your target audience, it will help to focus your work. If you are writing for your peers, you will automatically gravitate your article towards references or implications of their affinity. If you are writing for children, you will obviously refrain from certain avenues and topics. Like me, if you write largely for yourself, then it is an open world for you! You can write anything you want and there is a sweet sense of freedom in that. 

When to write?
Time tables help me get through my day. I assiduously compartmentalize my time into several chunks of productive work. Being a geek, I use tons of apps and websites to help me increase my productivity. But the one thing I can never organize is my writing time. If I sit down at my desk with the intention of writing, I usually cannot. Or worse, I will write such absolute drivel that I will get depressed for the next hour. Like most forms of expression, writing is inspired work. You may never know when it will hit you and you certainly can't predict it. For example, once after getting drenched to my bones in the rain, I came back home and after having a bath, sat down and wrote 3 chapters of a novella, no questions asked. The words just kept coming out! 
However, if you are just starting to write, it is always good to practice writing regularly. Don't expect your articles to always be at the best of your potential but regular effort will attune your mind to the patience and rigors of writing. 

Popularize
If you plan on writing a blog, even if it is a personal blog like mine, you will eventually want more people to read and share your thoughts. Obviously, like any form of expression, writing also demands attention and nourishment from informed audience. Popularizing your blog, however, can be an uphill journey. In this age of twitter and facebook, a lot of people don't have the discipline to read a full article. So it will take time and a *lot* of persistence before you assemble your band of dedicated readers. My blog, despite being 5 years old, is still an infant in terms of reach but I have managed to put in place a group of people who always read my posts and give me invaluable feedback. It makes me feel appreciated and inspires me to write better! So, don't shy away from popularizing your works. 
There are several techniques for promoting blogs - Search Engine Optimizations, Social Networking, Blog Directories like blogadda etc. Just Google it!

Editing
A very important part of writing is editing. You must keep reading and re-reading your own work to ensure that it is absolutely of top-notch quality. You don't want embarrassing grammatical mistakes or silly play of words to spoil the flow of thought in the article. Sometimes, reading your post after a day or two will give you a different perspective and aid the editing process. Never shy from butchering your work till it is *just* perfect! 

Respect your limitations
Just like anything else in life, you won't become a Gabriel Garcia Marquez after writing for a year or two. It will take time, effort, discipline and limitless patience before you reach a level that you will be proud of. But don't write for the sake of becoming better at it, instead write because you enjoy it. That will make the journey towards perfection a breezy ride. Respect your limitations but constantly strive to overcome them!

Happy writing!  :)

On the question of frailty

Growing old is hard. All of a sudden, you go from being a brat who cannot be trusted to wipe his own nose, into this entity who can't just take care of his life but is also expected to 'do his bit' for the family. Yes, it is hard. 

But, undoubtedly, one of the hardest things about growing up is realizing the fact that your parents are not that breed of super-humans who never grow old or weak. That moment when you realize that your parents are just as human as the rest and are indeed being ravaged by the cruelties of nature and old-age is one of the most painful moments of growing up. It is a rite of passage that is as devastating as it is permanent.

Luckily for me, I only have to worry about one parent's incipient frailty and old age. Having lost my father when I was 11, my idea of my father as a youthful, strong, vibrant man is preserved from the vagaries of nature. In an odd way, I am grateful for that now. My mother, whose body has never been strong enough to cope with the immense vitality of her being, is starting to exhibit the tell-tale signs of old-age. Her hearing is not the same as before, she struggles with lifting groceries and her razor-sharp memory which could once recollect where I had strewn every bit of my stationary, is now starting to fray at the edges. Yes, my mother is growing old. It is hard to accept that, but I have to.

It looks like the heavens have been split open over Bangalore today. It has been raining non-stop for over 5 hours now. Unlike the cyclonic rains that occasionally hit Chennai i.e. the kind of rain that bursts much like popping a water-filled balloon; today's rain is different. It is steady, calm, confident and strong. I find such weather to stir within me, memories which I had long given up as forgotten. My mind seems to become fecund for epiphanies and extraordinary connections. Unsurprisingly, today's weather brought back an odd little memory. A memory whose significance has been bolstered by my current concerns of parental old-age.

We had just moved to Kolkata. My dad had just died and no one in the family really understood why my mother decided to take her son and aged mother-in-law to a city that was thousands of kms away and completely off the radar of our lives. But move we did. On my very second day in Kolkata, my mother got me admitted into my new school. After an eventful first day (about which I hope to blog about sometime in the future), I got out of school at 3 pm to find my mother waiting by the gate with an umbrella. It was the month of June and Kolkata was bearing the brunt of the monsoons. No Chennaite can ever appreciate the force of nature that is the monsoon without having lived at least once in its path. I was spell-bound by the rain! It was incessant but disturbingly quiet. It almost felt like the Rain God felt bad about inconveniencing people for clogging their sewers and turning their roads into swimming pools, so He decided to do it silently! But I digress.

So I saw my mother as she stood hunched below an umbrella waiting for me. I ran up to her. Apparently she had arranged a private bus service to ferry me from school to home and we were to go home on it. It was a huge, green bus, filled to the brim with kids and being the first day of school, quite a few parents as well. Apart from the driver, the bus had a 'Conductor' who was the de facto disciplinarian of the bus. Kids tend to go crazy within school buses and end up doing the most atrocious stunts, so you need a strongman to hold them to their seats to ensure everybody gets home safe and soon. He was small, bespectacled man with oily hair. He was called Samantha Sen. It's strange indeed how I remember him so vividly when even some of my close friends have now turned into unrecognisable shreds of memory.

Samantha Sen seemed kind enough. He had realized that neither my mom nor I could speak a word of Hindi or Bengali and his English was limited to bus terminology. He gestured to us to occupy a pair of seats at the end of the bus.

The bus soon took off and it wound its way across the new city. Being just a day into the city, we had no idea where we were and were hoping for the conductor to inform us when our stop came. An hour into the journey, my mother realized that something was wrong, so she carefully made her way to the front of the bus and enquired about our home stop. Samantha jumped up in fury! Turned out our stop had been passed more than 20 mins back. He directed the driver to stop the bus and asked us to get down there and take a normal bus back. My mother was taken aback. I imagine that Samantha saw the look of incomprehension and fatigue on my mother's face and the pouring rain outside, and something gave way inside him. He asked the driver to take a U-turn at the next junction.

It was now the driver's turn to get angry. He loudly refused to turn back and passed remarks which sounded racist and hurtful even to my unknowing ears. A loud verbal disagreement ensued and fortunately Samantha won. The bus turned back and soon we were dropped off closer to our stop. As we got down, Samantha came close to my mother and asked her to walk straight down the road till we reached our home neighbourhood. I can still see the apologies his bespectacled eyes shed which his words could not share.

That long walk back home is one of my most melancholic of memories. Huddled under one umbrella, hopping and skirting over puddles and pot-holes on an empty road, I had never shared a more alone time with my mother. And suddenly, I realized the immense frailty of my mother whom up until that point I considered an avatar of Wonder Woman. Once the dam of superstardom that I had constructed around my mother started on its first crack, the whole structure came down. Immediately the gravity of my father's death sunk. You see, when he had passed away, I knew I was expected to grieve but grieve I could not. Even as his cold body was in front of me, I could hardly find meaning within me to lament. But noticing that evening of frailty in my mother, I began to understand the extraordinary, unpredictable sequence of events that had lead to my mother and I sharing that old umbrella down that clogged road. It was a walk of discovery.

From that point onwards, my childish sensibility changed my life into an arena, one where it was my mother and I versus the rest. I began to consider my life as an exercise in forging the safety of my family against the rains and storms of life. It seemed to be the noblest of efforts and the most logical as well for a long time.

Eventually I grew up and it became 'my' life again, up to such an extent that I needed 5 hours of rain to bring back this memory which had such a bearing on me at that moment.

I don't know what to make of this memory. It is not the happiest of recollections. It is overloaded with the sense of human frailty and death but at the same time, there is a certain poignancy to it which I cannot stop admiring. I discovered the emotional fatigue in my parent many years before my peers and foolishly I attempted to wage a war on it. I like to think that I won, for a while at least.

Why I bought 'The Great Gatsby' and why I ought to have bought it just now.

Browsing through the endless racks of books, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, with my friend Jincy at Blossoms in Bangalore, I came upon a tiny, Penguin Books edition of F.Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. I have always wanted to read that book. In fact, I had already purchased a copy on Flipkart a few years back but found the first few pages so depressingly boring that I gave up! I do that sometimes! Catch-22, Ullyses and Wolf Hall - all books of staggering repute that I simple could *not* get! 

But I immediately took to this tiny edition of The Great Gatsby! It had that fresh, crisp feel to it that only a newly minted book can possess. Plus, the upcoming release of Di Caprio's film adaptation of the book was an added incentive.For I have this idiosyncrasy where I don't watch a film unless I have read its book beforehand. Lastly the low price tag of Rs.200/- sealed the deal and that night, I started afresh on The Great Gatsby. 

And it changed my life. 

Not really. That was an exaggeration, but it certainly spoke to me in ways that I did not expect it to! 

At its heart The Great Gatsby is a story of thwarted love between an ambitious man and an aristocratic girl. Sound like a 1980s Bollywood film? That was what I first thought. But over time, I began to realize that nothing in this book is really what it seems. Face-value is a mist in this work and when that clears away, you start to scratch the surface of the real book. It is amazing how a small work of ~200 pages manages to touch on so many questions and better yet, raise even more of them. 

Any book worth its salt, will mean different things to different people. A book is a conversation between the writer and the reader, spanning across hundreds of years and thousands of miles and like any conversation, it has its private moments, where unuttered thoughts are planted and unexpressed opinions are shared. 

The Great Gatsby though is a little different. It does not attempt to talk to a single individual - the reader. Instead it tries to talk to an entire generation of individuals who are on the threshold of watching their collective dream of a happy, healthy & prosperous life, crumble into the dust due to excessive, unrelenting pursuit of materialism.

The book portrays many motifs to signify how fast & easy money can erode social and moral frameworks and also how, even those raised with sound values can fall prey to them. 

The Great Gatsby is as much a commentary on today's social hierarchy as it is of the 1920s New York. 1920s was a time of extravagance in New York. The end of WW1 and the ensuing economic surge bumped up an entire generation of people up the economic ladder. Bootlegging of liquor and related criminal activities provided ample options to young men to earn the quick buck. As a result, New York was teeming with people with fat wallets and slim morals. This class of people are symbolized by the 'West Egg' village, a geographic protrusion along Long Island.

The residents of West Egg stand in sharp contrast to the aristocracy of the 'old wealth' who inhabit the identically shaped 'East Egg'.  However, the similarity of the two classes in terms of money does not hide their gaping differences in avarice and sleaziness. 

A particular feature of the book that I found deeply disturbing is its usage of symbols to convey deep thoughts. Such as the ashen heaps outside New York - large lands that had gone barren due to interminable discharges from surrounding industries. It was a chilling reminder that growth and wealth can spoil our moral ecosystem just as much as it can devastate a physical landscape. 

Thee green light, that shone from the end of East Egg's dock, faintly visible across the waters from Gatsby's home in West Egg, is a fundamental symbol of 'The Dream'. The one thing, each and every one of us wants to achieve. Each person may have his/her own version of The Dream, but we all possess one. Gatsby's dream was to be re-united with the love of his life - Daisy who lived in East Egg. He resents the proximity of the light to his Love as much as he longs to be near it; for nearing the light meant nearing Daisy. But when he is finally reunited with Daisy, that light, the very same green column across the waters ceased to be a marvel. It was just a tiny green speck across a dark bed. Do all our dreams lose significance once we achieve them? Or in the pursuit of our dreams, do we attach inordinate importance to them, which they eventually cannot live up to? 

And who can forget the haunting passages involving the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg? A fading advertisement in which only the large, bespectacled eyes of its former star remain - the eyes seem to keep a vigil over the ashen heaps. To me, the eyes seemed to represent God. The all-seeing eyes that are silently watching the devastation we wreak upon ourselves in the name of growth. Even the though the book does not signify the true meaning of the Eyes, they are a potent part of the narrative. 

The Great Gatsby is a masterpiece of a book by any measure. In that sense, I have totally understood the veneration that it commands from legions of historians and literature enthusiasts. But the book had a very personal message to tell me too - the urban young of 21st century India. It seemed to tell me, 'Don't get too easy'. And it made sense! 
My life is ... a little too simple. At 22, I earn a lot more money than my parents did and for work that is hard, but not hard enough to make me feel like I have earned it! I seem to be on a highway towards a financially-secure future and that, unsurprisingly, gives me this sense of freedom, this conviction that I am in-charge of my life and that I can wade through these calm waters  using my moral compass and my intellectual abilities. 

The truth is that anything can happen. The same dream of a secure future could turn toxic and destroy our very identity. The same vision of a happy future could turn into a limbo where we don't recognize ourselves and cannot recollect how we used to be. 

Money is dangerous. Power is dangerous. Fire is dangerous. When we show so much caution with the last, why not with the first two? 
The Great Gatsby. A book I am glad I read at this point in my life. 

 

The Indian Newspaper of 2013

The first rule of a capitalistic enterprise is to boost value to its shareholders by increasing profits and expanding revenues. But as capitalistic pursuits go, the Newspaper business does not fall so neatly into such frameworks. What is the real goal of a newspaper? Does it owe its allegiance to its stock-holders or to the public at large? Managing these two objectives, sometimes conflicting in nature, has always been a challenge to any newspaper worth its salt. 

Before proceeding, I must confess that I am no insider to the newspaper industry. My sole experience with the newspaper lies with the thousands of hours I have spent reading newspapers in the living room, the bed room, the kitchen and most-definitely, the bathroom. Thanks to my parents, I was introduced to reading the morning paper very early on and I cannot imagine a day now without at least skimming the headlines and the editorials. 
However, unlike other industries, newspapers lend themselves to convenient scrutiny by the public at large. As voices of commentary and critique of the society, it is only fair that the public also exercise that right from time to time. Another point I would like to stress is that the object of commentary in this piece is only the newspaper industry (that too, largely on the English Newspaper industry in India) and not TV news or Vernacular newspapers. 

Firstly, I believe that profits cannot and must not be the sole motive of a newspaper. Indian constitution rests on the three pillars of the Judiciary, the Legislature and the Executive. But there is a silent, fourth pillar, eternally examining and censuring the actions and inactions of the first three, that is the role of the Media as envisioned by the creators of our Republic.

As much as we would all like the media to be an independent, profit-agnostic exercise, the fact remains that achieving financial self-sufficiency is a prima facie requirement for the pursuit of intensive journalism. Unlike other enterprises, the media cannot rely on state funding as that could convert the media from the voice of the people to the voice of the rulers. So from that perspective, the framers of the Republic would like the Media to attain financial independence from the State for the carrying out of its responsibilities to the Indian public. 

When countenanced with such delicate, roundabout arguments for balance, it is likely that every once in a while, the Media will tip-toe on the wrong side of the border. I fear that this could be a time of such an unwarranted incursion. 

Indian newspapers have a long and glorious history. From the Bengal Gazette in 1780 to the Times of India in 1838 and The Hindu in 1878, Indian newspapers were an integral and catalysing part of the reawakening of the nation under the ambit of nationalism and Satyagraha. They were constant commentators on the British Government in India and the Indian Freedom Struggle. With such a long tradition of critical study and reporting under its belt, the Indian print media was well placed to midwife the Nation towards a mature democracy with a vibrant media. 

While Indian print media has a long history, it paled in comparison with the print media in the West, especially when it came to technology if not in terms of content or quality of reporting. 
Technologies, management practices and revenue-generating initiatives that were commonplace in the West would take many years before making their way into the Indian English Newspaper Industry and later on, into the Vernacular industry. But this time delay in the transfer of technological and management benefits from the West has been greatly reduced in the last few decades. Today, the latest and greatest in the world of reporting and printing are used in India within a few years of them making an appearance in the West. This has been a major boost to the profile and esteem of our Newspaper industry. 

However, tighter integration and globalisation mean that the bad effects get propagated too, sometimes with frightening intensity and pace. The Western print media is now crippled with the twin body-blows of falling advertisement revenues and plummeting subscription numbers. Consolidation and sale of major, iconic newspapers such as The Boston Globe and The LA Times have become staple news pieces. In these times of such great financial uncertainty, one cannot help but wonder at the effects these would have on the journalistic independence and investigative endeavours of these newspapers. 

Even though Indian newspapers are not facing the same issues as their Western counterparts today, thanks to lower internet percolation in the country, they cannot stay smug for too long. It is only a matter of time before the growth in Internet percolation ensures people start considering hard copy newspapers a redundant expense. 
But being behind the curve in this matter, has given Indian newspapers some time to adapt and hopefully stave off the crises of the West. 

Among the measures pursued by Indian newspapers in warding off the fall of subscription numbers, the most prominent are the increasing focus on entertainment aka the tabloid culture and a capricious tendency of sensationalism often by throwing caution to the wind. 

Personally, I am deeply concerned by this development as an indirect victim of these policies is the relegation of investigative journalism especially in topics unpopular with the masses. A newspaper that allows its subscription numbers to decide its charter fails the Constitution, the public and the tradition of journalism. While I may sound alarmist to many, I have very solid reasons behind my panic. Reputed, national newspapers which deeply influence public opinions are also falling into this trap and transforming the business of reporting into pitched street battles played out through pointed advertisements on TV and Youtube. There is no 'one way' of journalism, and ergo, there is no 'one-right-way' of reporting the news. It is amusing to see newspapers with over 150 years of experience  implicitly propounding this fallacy. 

The arrival of 24x7 news channels on TV revolutionised Indian Media and the public's perception towards news and current affairs. Thanks to the inherent advantages of the medium, 24x7 news channels took the daily news to millions of Indian hitherto deprived from it. Their proliferation, thanks to healthy backing by sponsors, eventually led to a situation where news channels struggled to differentiate themselves from the horde. 'In just how many ways could you read the daily news?', one might ask. Some channels responded with the introduction of media-induced sensationalism. News items were picked for broadcast, not for their intrinsic worthiness but rather for their ability to stir up partisan emotions. Purporting to portray the angst of the 'urban, middle-class Indian' (of which I am a part) these channels have been at the vanguard of a disease that has hollowed out the media from within. The print media was not far behind as reputed newspapers started clamouring for the viable (and lucrative) voice of the urban educated masses. These developments have already converted the role of the media from that of an impartial rapporteur of events into a selective PR machine cum ad-hoc judiciary cum myopic speculators. One can only shudder about the future.

The second disturbing trend is the ever-increasing focus and pages being devoted for sports, entertainment and local political claims and counter-claims. Understandably, these instil great enthusiasm among readers and hence, occupy a role in any standard newspaper. But can they claim to be the bread and butter of a standard, non-tabloid, newspaper? Most certainly not. But market dynamics suggest that this strategy, 'tabloidization' if you will, is certainly working. Newspapers that devote greater share to tabloid-worthy material and localized content are boosting their readership numbers in B and C centres, for long the holy grail of the newspaper industry.  While the latter is a recommended measure for catering news, the former is a concerning development in the long run.

While there is nothing wrong in a newspaper catering to the requirements of its readership, any newspaper should first take into account two considerations. The first is the growth of the Internet in India. Driven by mobile devices, which already account for 2/3rd of Indians reaching out to the net, close to 122 million Indians go online regularly. That number is expected to double or triple in a decade or less. Given the fact that the Internet is a reservoir for news on entertainment, sports, fashion etc., for how much longer can a newspaper expect its readers to turn to it alone for these topics? Personally, I believe that it is highly unlikely.  The Internet can always deliver faster, steamier reports on these issues.
The second consideration is a subjective one that will vary from person to person and newspaper to newspaper. Whose voice does a 'national' newspaper represent? If we go by population figures, it must represent the voice of the rural poor. But how many in that demographic refer to a newspaper regularly? If it went by readership numbers alone, it will necessarily have to represent the voice of the urban middle-class. Neither extreme is justifiable of the term 'national newspaper'. Rather, I believe that a 'national' newspaper owes its primary obligation to an implicit social contract it shares with the people of India, all the people of India. A social contract that binds it towards equitable, objective representation of all their views, concerns and interests without falling to market compulsions or ideological tones. From that perspective, devoting greater and greater share of the newspaper to catering to a small subscription base is denigrating the social contract of the Newspaper with the people. 

It is imperative that newspapers collectively awaken to arrest these trends. Introspection is a bitter pill to swallow for anyone, let alone for an inured critic. Each newspaper must recognize its voice in this integrated, internet-driven, noisy world where each one has the information at hand to have an opinion. This soul searching must definitely involve market conditions but only as a peripheral concern rather than as the scope of the search. 
Newspapers must understand that the only areas where they can always hope to compete with and surpass content on the crowd-sourced Internet are editorials, in-depth analyses and investigative journalism. Realization of its key strengths will help in harmonizing the identity of the paper with its strategies. The internet is an important tool that must be leveraged by each newspaper, not only for boosting revenues but also for widening its reach. Some articles could be made available for free on mobile internet sites while the others could be charged, similar to the strategy adopted by leading International newspapers such as The New York Times. 

A relatively more obscure weapon in the arsenal of Indian newspapers but with potentially game-changing consequences is the treasure trove of historical data in its archives. As a nation, we are notoriously inept when it comes to maintaining history and more importantly, learning from it. No wonder that we needed the British to rediscover the wonders of our own history. Newspapers are the greatest collective source of contemporary Indian history, which is of more value to the governing of this nation. The historical archives of leading Indian newspapers must be indexed and made available online. Several newspapers could come together to make this information available in the public domain. Apart from making this information available, newspapers must also strive to use them more actively in their reporting. Editorials and analyses must draw historical parallels to enable a more comprehensive understanding of the problems of today. In a nation with little or no regard for historical facts, Newspapers are vital guardians of the value of history. 

In all fairness, Indian newspapers are in fairly good shape. It is a vibrant industry that is growing well in a country with increasing literacy levels and an overdue demographic dividend. The industry has an active self-regulator in the Press Council of India and a few newspapers such as The Hindu are reputed worldwide for their quality of news reporting. These achievements sit side-by-side with dangerous, nascent overtones which must be studied and checked. The public must play a role in this, an active role. After all, this is a classic question of who will report on the reporters. And democracy rests that responsibility on my shoulders, and yours. 




 
 

The Monolingual Indian

In a land with 18 official languages enshrined by the Constitution, 1652 natively different mother-tongues and over 30,000 dialects, it should be odd to find a monolingual citizen. But far from being an oddity, people like me are becoming the norm of today.

I must clarify upfront that I am not monolingual in the way an American is with English. No, I can speak Tamil fluently and Hindi passably. I can understand enough Malayalam and Kannada to find my way around. If multilingualism related solely with the functional usage of a language, then I plead guilty to the count of a misleading blogpost-title. 

However, I refuse to accept this inferior definition for multilingualism. In an excellent essay on Bilingual Intellectuals, Ramachandra Guha defines a language as a bridge or a wormhole into an entirely new universe of values, ideas, conventions and cultures. By imbibing these natively, a bilingual intellectual can connect them with readers of a different tongue. That is a powerful thought and I have borrowed liberally from it in this post. 

Pluralism is the only word that can define India and ergo, define an Indian. There is no 'One' India and there is definitely no 'One' Indian. One of the facets of the Plural Indian is his linguistic identity. Personally, I am a Tamilian. But the Tamil I speak at home is greatly different from the Tamil spoken on the market streets of Madras. My Tamil could then be classified as Brahmin Tamil. However, it would still be different from the Tamil spoken by Iyers. The words, pronunciations and phrases will be quite different. So I can finally say that my mother tongue is Iyengar Brahmin Tamil. 

But I still consider myself as a Monolingual Indian for neither can I think effortlessly nor can I communicate complex thought processes in Tamil or Hindi, half as well as I can do so in English. English is, in the broadest sense, my 'mother tongue'. 

An important aspect of knowing a language is one's literary contributions to it. Many people might be satisfied with just using a language as a functional tool for purchasing bus tickets or for ordering dinner. If everyone had such a commonplace relationship with languages, the world would be a very dull place indeed. I like to consider a language as a malleable sheet of gold. One really must try bending it back and forth to express more than just 'Two burgers and a Coke'. But literary outputs in any language requires a greater depth of understanding and an intrinsic ability to 'connect' with the language on a sub-conscious level. Of course, many writers first output their work in their native or first language and then translate it into their second language. But if the translation is to retain the spark and vigour of the first, the 'connection' with the language becomes paramount. 

I cannot 'connect' with Tamil the way I can with English. As a Tamilian, if not as a Tamil Brahmin, I can claim inheritance to the extensive literary outputs of the Sangam Age, the Self-Respect Movement, the Dravidian Pride Movement and the Bhakti Movement. Sadly, I cannot and certainly could not do justice to such an inheritance. I can pay lip-service to my heritage but it is a dead artefact to me for all practical purposes.

I do not have the luxury of repining as I was not denied in any manner from learning Tamil, Bengali or Sanskrit well. I certainly had the opportunities but not the inclination. In a misplaced childish sensibility, I used to regard English as a symbol of status and power. The vernaculars seemed to be the pointless exercises of a nation that got subjugated by an island for 300 years. To rephrase in a less odious manner, English appeared like the express to the future, while vernaculars seemed to be bridges to a broken past. 

I regret those convictions today. The past, broken or otherwise, carries powerful totems for the future and it's imperative that we carry forth its heritage. My inability to connect with my own linguistic heritage and thereby influence my literary outputs, in English or otherwise, renders me handicapped. I can connect easier with the British peerage of the 19th century than with the Thanjavur Marathas who ruled my native town. 

A sanguine commentator would advise me to plunge right-away into learning Tamil from first principles.  He would ask me to understand the grammatical underpinnings of the language and over many years, achieve the level of comfort required to comprehend the great works. That is certainly a plan. I could definitely learn the grammar and hope to reach a level of comfort with the language that I currently enjoy with English, but I fear that it will always be the effort of an 'English speaker attempting to learn Tamil'. My thought process will always kick start in English and then hopefully switch to Tamil. But I suppose it is better to try and fail than to not try at all.

Here is to hoping I can someday write a rant in Tamil about having missed the opportunity to connect with Bengali! 

The communication paradox

I vividly remember the summer holidays in Kolkata after my 7th grade. Amidst the searing heat and tee-shirt clenching humidity, I discovered the letter. What started out as a playful prank with my cousin (also a wiry 12 year old) who lived in Chennai, soon turned into a continuing series of correspondence spanning an array of interests and aversions, ranging from Pokemon and Batman to Brinjals and the Australian Cricket Team.

Members of both families found our obsession with letter-writing rather odd. After all it was the year 2003 and the e-mail had started to become ubiquitous even amongst the Dial-up modem middle-class. My mother surmised to be to be a P.G.Wodehouse-inspired phase of mine, but avidly encouraged me to get better at it.

A few months back, while I was shifting a few things from Chennai, my home town, to Bangalore, my work town, I recovered one of those letters. Cliched, assiduously formal but with childish content and expressed in a bits-by-pieces scrawny handwriting, the letter brought back some old memories and rekindled old laughter. It was a good thing to discover. But running into old, warm things is nothing new, right? We all see that old diary in the back of the cupboard and end up poring over it that weekend, or we rediscover that buried tin box with all our childhood treasures in it and rack our brains all day trying to figure out what was so special about that one-armed G.I.Joe. No, my discovery was very much within the boundaries of coincidence and a childhood well-spent.

But I believe that finding that letter was more than just that. It almost felt like the Universe was nudging me to understand the under-currents below my feet and acknowledge them. You see, I am a communications engineer. I work on a mobile system-on-chip. For the better part of my education, I have studied about communication and ways of making it more effective. And haven't we?
From the once-revolutionary Telegraph to the today's 'sexting' convenient Snapchat, we have come a long way in making communication more effective, efficient, cheap and most-importantly easier.
But is communication, just the transfer of ideas or thoughts from one person to another? Is it just that mechanical experience we all have to endure to convey information to others? After reading that letter, I refuse to accept that premise.

Because that letter was not about the content. What it spoke to me was not written on it. The subtle implication that another person took the trouble of sitting down with a pen and paper, jotted down their thoughts, phrased them eloquently (*citation needed* ), stuck a stamp onto, walked down to the post box and dropped it, all for the express purpose of my having a peek into his opinions on Pokemon evolution. That was never written on that letter, but that was the message which struck home. That letter had character. It had meaning and more importantly, a human face behind it.

I wish I could say otherwise but today we do not have that. The under-currents that flow beneath every letter and which sometimes need 10-20 reads to identify have been made irrelevant today. Earlier, words used to be the mode for describing a beautiful vista outside one's hotel room when traveling. Today it is about Instagram this and tweet that. That picture was never taken for one special person to admire along with us, it was taken to boost one's self worth on a virtual reality.

I am all for the communication revolution. After all, it pays my bills! I agree that in this fast paced world, awaiting a week for a reply is not feasible. But surely there could be a middle ground? That does not just mean forcing kids to do it to appease the guilt of their parents. Surely, we could find more things to say without just punching into a slab of metal and glass?