Discourse on freedom

I can’t remember the last time I read something so singularly infuriating and astonishingly puerile. Here Aakar Patel in Mint -

The British left in 1947, and they left too soon. We celebrate Independence Day, but another six decades of dependence as Great Britain’s colony would have been good for us. We could have learnt how to run cities. No harm in admitting what is obvious for all to see: We cannot even manage traffic.

I don’t mind satire, in fact, I relish it, but this is such mindless expression. There are so many things wrong with this post – the equation of the long, painful history of colonisation with the concerns peculiar to a merely vehicle-owning class. There’s more to follow -

Delhi would have more bits like the ones the British built, the only elegant parts of the city, just as British South Bombay is the only elegant part. Cities such as Surat and Ahmedabad and Hyderabad and Indore would have become civilized.

I can understand that Patel never read Fanon, by the above extract. But here’s another gem – the colonial economy destroyed indigenous scholarship, but Patel clearly thinks we could done with a bit more of Macaulay.

The great German tradition of Indology continues through men such as Heinrich von Stietencron, but a sustained engagement through colonial government would have resulted in more attention to Indian studies…What else would be better? Education, through the Macaulay plan.

This is irresponsible journalism at its worst. I agree that being politically engaging isn’t a priority for Mint Lounge, yet we could do without this tripe.

Facing extinction

Despite the odds, DU’s vendors have stayed on. Now they fear an uncertain future

Rajkumar at his stall outside DU's Faculty of Law

Every day at 7 am, 42-year-old Rajkumar Suri sets off from East Delhi’s Vivek Vihar for the hour-long journey to North Campus. For four years now, his stall has been a fixture outside DU’s Faculty of Law. For a decade before that, he sold vegetables at the Azadpur Mandi. “The money wasn’t steady, so I left,” he says.

Selling banta in the summer and making hot tea for students during the chilly months of winter, Rajkumar feels content. “There is at least some form of regular income. My children are able to study well,” he says.

However, every month he has to give a thousand rupees to the extortionist institutions of state – the police, the MCD and anybody else who can claim to be from the government. Most vendors, like Rajkumar, are resigned to their fate. “Kya karein? (What to do?),” they say.

Lal Singh, 35, has been working outside Ramjas College for the last 17 years. This native of Faizabad says, “I have no choice but to pay the money. I have a wife and three children, and it is hard to survive on the Rs 2500 I’m left with.” However, he is more worried about a change of guard. “Every time a new officer comes, there is trouble.”

Early last year, the police ordered all the stalls shut. “I didn’t know what to do, many times I was close to tears,” says Rajkumar. After repeated requests from vendors, the authorities relented. But after things became normal, the monthly rates were raised. Many vendors would be happy to pay a similar amount to the government, in return for accreditation. “They can give us a private lease, or a contract. At least, we won’t be harassed,” he says.

The government, though, has other plans in store. A large number of venues for the Commonwealth Games in 2010 are in the campus, which means that the vendors will be kicked out. “I may have to move to some other area, or find another job,” admits Lal Singh. “Nobody can stay hungry.”

Rajkumar has some suggestions. “They can make nice stalls for us, give us proper facilities,” he says. “Koi bahar se aa raha hai, to apne ghar ke aadmi ko bahar nikal do? (If a guest comes from outside, do you kick your own people out?)”

This story appeared in Real Page 3 in The Sunday Express on July 26.

Notes in a courtroom

Buried in the crime briefs of last week’s papers was the story of Arvind Kumar. In Tis Hazari’s Room No 238, Kumar was sentenced to life imprisonment for a crime committed on a frosty December day 15 years ago.

In 1994, following a protracted period of tension and animosity, Kumar had shot his fellow constable Mohd Rashid with his service pistol. Sitting behind me in the courtroom as the judge pronounced the verdict, Kumar sat holding his wife’s hand on one side and a cop clutching his hand on the other.

The cop’s firm grip seemed incongruous, almost unnecessary. Arvind looked a man utterly defeated, his crime of passion in one stroke had taken all life out of him. Despite having the burly physique typical of cops, standing was too much of a strain and he needed help to do so. He looked tired.

Since the age of 27, Arvind has been behind bars. In these 15 years, his brother has died, his two young children are on the cusp of adulthood while he has lived under the fear of having to stand at the gallows one day. And it has taken 15 years for a district court to get to the end.

It is possible that once he may have had the swagger and authority of Delhi cops, but that was not the person I met. His eyes were empty, beyond regret, beyond longing, removed from any sense of time itself.

I tried talking to him, but it was similar to flogging a dead horse. Words had taken flight – he searched for them, but they were no longer there.

Courage in the face of prejudice

A version of this story appeared in Real Page 3, the weekly section in the Sunday Express.

Last week, as the Gay Pride March came to a brief halt near K G Marg, a middle-aged woman stood alone at a distance carrying the placard – Proud to be a Mother. She had come here in support of her daughter. Did she feel apprehensive? “Not at all,” she said. “Awareness creates an understanding that being gay is not unnatural.”

At one of the most vibrant gatherings in recent memory, what was she going through? “I feel very proud that she is part of the community. It is poignant to see the support we are getting today,” she said, just days before the landmark judgement de-criminalised homosexuality.

While denying that she had to overcome any mental barriers when faced with her daughter’s homosexuality, she accepted it may be harder for other parents to take. “In the absence of a liberal environment, parents find it difficult as they fear social ostracization.”

How did she transcend the prejudices of the society? “If you have the conviction, then you fight for your rights.”

However, the fear of a social backlash remains. When I asked her name to take it down for The Indian Express, she tried to evade the query. “I don’t want any names. I’m talking to you as a proud mother, as a human being.”

And as the rally resumed its course to Jantar Mantar, she dissolved into the crowd – a lonely warrior for equality among people of her generation. It may come as some form of redemption for her today to know that her daughter is not committing a crime by being herself.

Senior citizen killed, wife injured by help in East Delhi

A rare crime story I did, a version of which appeared in today’s Indian Express.

An elderly couple was attacked by their long-time servant at Shrestha Vihar in east Delhi. Yashpal Soli, 63 years old and suffering from various heart ailments, died as a result of the attack. His wife, Sudha Soli, 60, was brutally assaulted with a hammer and received severe head injuries. Currently recuperating at the Max Healthcare Hospital in New Delhi, her condition is considered stable and she is thought to be out of danger.

In a tale resembling last year’s Booker-winning novel The White Tiger, the servant Surjeet had returned only a week ago to the Soli’s house. He had previously worked for them for two years as a young 12-year-old, but was later sent to work at the house of Swati, Mr Soli’s daughter, in Gurgaon. Clearly, much had changed when he returned after five years in Gurgaon, and the consequences were fatal for the Soli family.

Last night, Surjeet let two accomplices in and helped them hide on the terraces of the house. Sudha Soli, as a matter of habit, locks the house herself and that did not change. However, sometime after midnight, Surjeet unlocked the terrace door. They tied and gagged the couple and beat them.

In what looks like a case of strangulation, there were no injury marks on the body of Yashpal Soli. Apparently, his breath was muzzled with a pillow. Sudha Soli was hit on the head with a hammer and remained unconscious till early morning. By then, Surjeet and his accomplices had robbed the house, though the details for this are yet to be confirmed, and absconded in the silver Fiat Palio, that Yashpal Soli used to drive himself from place to place.

Somewhere during the crime’s time period, Surjeet and his accomplices found the time to have a few drinks. When police reached the scene of the crime, they found bottles of alcohol and glasses strewn around, along with packets of Kellogg’s cornflakes.

Panic started to creep in when Nishtha, the Soli’s younger daughter living in Mumbai, found that the parents were not responding to her repeated calls. Alarmed, she asked her sister in Gurgaon to verify the circumstances. Later, the neighbours broke into the house to find Mr Soli lying dead in the office from where he practised as a chartered accountant for the last few years, due to his deteriorating health.

Meanwhile, the neighbourhood is stunned by this act of audacious violence. As police vans arrived, members of the RWA could be seen arguing about the safety measures adopted by the colony. Especially under fire are the security guards at the gate, who let the assailants slip away in the Soli’s Palio. An elderly neighbour, who lives in the same lane, was especially critical. “They are usually lying drunk,” he said. “After 8 pm, they are so sloshed – you cannot expect anything from them.”

Other neighbours fondly remember the Solis as sober and polite, who usually kept to themselves. A middle-aged neighbour, who did not wish to be named, said she had prepared tea for her maid while she had gone out for a household chore. “When she did not return for a while, I went outside to call her as the tea was getting cold,” she said. “Only when I stepped out to the great commotion in the neighbourhood, I came to know of the tragedy that had happened.”

Urban India, 2008

Eric Hobsbawm about Europe in mid-nineteenth century in The Age of Revolution -

The middle-class world was freely open to all. Those who failed to enter its gates therefore demonstrated a lack of personal intelligence, moral force or energy which automatically condemned them; or at best a historic or racial heritage which must permanently cripple them, or else they would have made use of their opportunities. The period which culminated about the middle of the century was one of unexampled callousness, not merely because the poverty which surrounded middle-class respectability was so shocking that the native rich learned not to see it, leaving its horrors to make their impact on visiting foreigners, but because the poor, like the outer barbarians, were talked of as though they were not properly human at all.

The mythology of the paper clip in Norwegian imagination

In 1989, a giant paper clip about 7 meters high was erected on a college campus near Oslo. This was a tribute to Johan Vaaler, a Norwegian patent clerk and inventor. In 1899, Vaaler designed a paper clip without being aware of the existence of a superior version by the Gem Manufacturing Company in Britain. Vaaler also applied for patents in Germany in 1899 and in the United States in 1901. However by 1907, the Gem brand of paper clips had achieved pre-eminence as the perfect paper clip that “will hold securely your letters, documents or memoranda without perforation and mutilation until you wish to release them.” Vaaler’s invention, which lacked the two loops and was thus inferior, went nowhere. He died soon after in 1910, with no idea of his impending place in history.

During the Nazi occupation of Norway in World War II, the Norwegians made the paper clip a symbol of national unity. The occupation regime prohibited the wearing of pins or badges with national symbols or buttons imprinted with the initials of the exiled King Haakon VII. As a response to this law, Norwegians started wearing paper clips to their lapels in a show of solidarity. They became such a powerful symbol of the resistance to the occupation, that wearing a paper clip could immediately lead to arrest.

Later, Johan Vaaler was embraced as a national hero in Norway. In 1999, one hundred years after Vaaler’s patent application in Germany, the Norwegian government issued a commemorative stamp. In 2005, the national biographical encyclopedia of Norway published a comprehensive biography of Johan Vaaler that credited him as the inventor of the modern paper clip. This, despite the fact, that the claim remains shrouded in controversy. It can almost certainly be said that Vaaler is not the inventor of the gem clip as we know it today.

Yet the story lives on, erroneously. It is a subtle reminder of how the social production of a certain mythology can be such a useful tool for nationalist self-assertion.

King of banality and second-hand insights

Shashi Tharoor re-asserts his claim to the throne with this statement -

Drinking Coke has not Coca Colarised India.

What astounds me is the conviction with which he utters these platitudes of nonsense. These are statements that even university undergrads would be embarrassed to utter. Only a paper like The Times of India cares to publish such drivel, which actually makes it a sort of a perfect match.

Summer Rain

Two photos taken from my balcony as it rained thunderously last night.

Salivating on my summer reading list

Exams are going to be over within a week, and I’ve already started dreaming up my summer reading list. There are books lying at home for ages that I’ve been trying to finish. Anyways so here it goes -

The Koran
Shame Salman Rushdie
The Myth of Sisyphus Albert Camus
Collected Short Stories Anton Chekhov
Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel Garcia Marquez
To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
Brave New World Aldous Huxley
On Liberty John Stuart Mill
Gilead Marilynne Robinson
White Mughals William Dalrymple
The Last Mughal William Dalrymple
City of Djinns William Dalrymple

And then there are some books I absolutely need to go back to this summer, to establish acquaintance again.

A House for Mr Biswas V S Naipaul
One Hundred Years of Solitude Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Ian McEwan’s early work – The Cement Garden, The Comfort of Strangers and two short story collections – First Love, Last Rites and In Between the Sheets
Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky
And of course, as always, Albert Camus’ The Outsider

Really looking forward to reading and lazing around on hot summer afternoons.