World Myuzik Day, Hey, Hey!

21st June - Summer Solstice - World Music Day, a French invention!

What? Music? Myuzik? (and other variations...)

And so I went to listen to a band on the day after WMD - (Weapons of Mass Destruction). Their name was Urban Reflections,. Yessir, you got that right, Urban-fucking-Reflections! They reflected what I don't know. Music? Myuzik? They were WMD (as in definition given in brackets above) is all I can say.

They destroyed whatever musical sensibilities I had. They also had the nerve to do stuff by Bill Withers, Roberta Flack, even Doobie-friggin-Brothers, and make it all sound like bad rock music played on an unreleased album which Joe Satriani/Jon Bon Jovi/Steve Vai will never make. I mean it takes a lot of guts to make soul and funk music sound like bullshit electric guitar-rock coupled with power drumming that goes nowhere.

Who are these musicians (and a host of others like them)? Have they actually paid any musical dues? Or are they the scions of indulgent Bengali families who feel that if their ward plays music it should be financed regardless and without question as it is the appropriate Bengali thing to do? They have no funk in them and yet they want to do that backbeat. They have no blues in them and yet they want to be seen doing 12-bar variations. They have well-fed, rotund Bengali paunches on them and look like mama's milk is still dribbling from the corners of their mouths. They only want to impress with their electronic gadgetry and leave their audience stunned with their skills. Skill, not talent, skill. O lord, give me a break!

If anything, I am most critical of such musicians. They have innate talent, but lack exposure, and yet make up for it by overconfidence. They re the kind who release an album because its the done thing, not because they have music on offer. They have myuzik on offer really. Sometimes their solos sound like muzak...

This is a rant about the so-called modern, contemporary bands in Calcutta. But if you look carefully it's about bands all over India. But because Calcutta is the erstwhile, and still-while capital of culture in this country, I write of this city. And if you want my rant on Bengali Rock - (which too does not exist) - go here!

Happy Music Day folks! I hope you get the music you deserve just like the government you elected. (Just in case you do happen to live in a country which has reasonably free and fair elections.)

Friends on Top

Sometimes you need to pay public respect to folks who inspire / motivate / enthrall and/or are just friends one feels good to have.

HFT - High Fuckin' Time - is a band of friends I'm pretty proud to claim. Arjun Sen on guitar and Lew Hilt on bass (in pix above) along with Sam Shullai on drums are a trio who refuse to label or slot the music they play. With almost a combined century of experience shared between these three outstanding musicians, you know for a fact that they have paid their dues and more! If you want to hear some of their music go to their MySpace page and listen. Listen, do you hear? Not hear, listen!

By the way, here's what Jeff Beck has to say about HFT: "I love that sound you’ve got going there, real good quality tunes pleased to see some people staying faithful to music. Keep it up." And if you're asking who Jeff Beck is, where have you been getting your music from anyway? MTV?

The other good friend who I need to shout out about here is Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Thak as many of us call him. He is a senior journalist, an astute political and economic commentator, and a best-selling co-author (with Shankar Raghuraman), with years in print, radio and television. He has recently produced and directed a documentary film in 5 parts of half an hour each on the Jharia coal mines of Dhanbad - Hot As Hell - in partnership with PSBT - Public Service Broadcasting Trust, which had its premiere on May 31st at New Delhi's India Habitat Centre. You would do well to pick up a copy of the DVD. Write to Paranjoy at: paranjoy@gmail.com or paranjoy@yahoo.com

Here's an extract from the synopsis of the film:

The documentary film series seeks to explain why underground fires – literally and metaphorically – are raging for so many years in and around the township of Jharia in Dhanbad district in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand. At a literal level, tens of thousands of residents of the town are living on top of a veritable inferno. At a metaphorical level, there are powerful mafia organizations that rule over this region and exploit the underprivileged – by mining illegally, supervising organized pilferage, running extortion rackets and bagging lucrative contracts.

Jharia, is one of India’s oldest coal mining areas and a major dot on the global map for fossil fuels. The area produces the most valuable coal available in India, known as coking coal or metallurgical coal that is used for making steel. Till 1971, coal mining operations in the region were privately controlled. Thereafter, coal mining was nationalized. Despite nationalization, the economic conditions of those living in the area have not improved significantly. Jharia is one of the most polluted parts of India, if not the world. Coal mining itself results in environmental degradation; underground fires have compounded the damage."

Pictures worth more words than I'd care to speak

Sometimes I get writer's block. Actually, not sometimes, almost all the time, which of course makes blogging a problem.

And then I discovered the joy of a digital camera and after that these words I'm writing now will be the last for a long time! (Or till I want to make my unread comments available on the web.)

Till then, you may want to check out my "phlog" - my photo blog at Picasa which is going to be quite regular from now on. Kindly to click on this obviously hyperlinked blue phrase and be transported to the Himalaya mountains, to Calcutta, or to some music concerts even!

To be Free

I think we need to protest about things we consider to be wrong, against narrow-minded politics, against various issues that go against the grain. Artistic freedom treads a thin edge and there are many within and without the arts community who appreciate and understand this. Go here to register your protest if you know what's going on: http://ifaforarts.wordpress.com/

On the other hand, artistic freedom and all other "categorised freedoms" must play second fiddle to the strong protest we should make against intolerance of any kind.

Not sure if I'm expressing it right, but nevertheless...

Bertie Mel & Fuzz: Redux

12th April 2007: 12 noon

I walk in and Bertie says he's feeling sleepy! Pre-show nerves I suppose. He wants to know if the sound is all organised. I assure him it has been, but a twinge of suspicion hits me. I'll call Moses the sound guy later and confirm. I call Mel to find he's just left his school so he's not going to be at Bertie's before 1 pm. And then Murphy's Law has to happen: if something can go wrong, it will. Potla, the guy who's recording the concert calls me to say that the PA system hasn't yet arrived, when it should have half an hour ago! I call Moses who assures me his guys left for Princeton a half-hour earlier.

This is Calcutta. You go with the flow. No point getting all worked up. Fuzz calls. He's desperately getting some last-minute shopping done and asks me to let him know when we leave Bertie's so that he can meet us on time for the sound check. Bertie offers me coffee, tea, Sprite and lunch in quick succession. Sensibly, I opt for lunch. He's quite a fab cook too. Rice, dal - thick and tasty the way I like it, mince curry spiced just right, and some vegetable pickle he made as well. Burp! We joke about opening 'Bertie's Food & Music' - "Ladies and gentlemen, the cook will now sing you a song!"

Bertie's getting restive now. He wants to load the guitars into the waiting hired cars. I suggest we wait for a call from Potla telling us that the PA's reached.

Bertie suggests I call Moses. I do, and find Moses has switched off! I smoke an after-lunch cigarette and call Mel. He says he's close by. We laugh. Mel's close by could be quite a few kilometres away. Arjun, Bertie's colleague, organises the loading in the cars. Mel arrives. He actually was close by!

Potla calls. The PA's arrived. We heave a collective sigh of relief. We will only be 2 hours late with the sound check! Finally we depart at about 2 pm. I let Fuzz know. This is one-way turnaround time for traffic in the city and as usual, its organised chaos! Taking a slightly roundabout route via Park Circus we go over the Gariahat flyover and are at Princeton by 2.30. Fuzz soon arrives and they set up, plug in, and get ready to check the sound.

The first few moments are always tense. If it's not something wrong with the cable, its the quality of sound, or a weird hum and crackle out of the speakers. Mel's guitar, which he loves because, as he says, "The touch is like makkhan", is playing up. The unwanted buzz is from his axe and it keeps losing its tuning. But then it all begins to come together. The necessary tweaks, adjustments, controls are made and they decide to do a full run-through as their sound check. I'm walking around all over the place looking for the 'sweet sound' point between the PA speakers. I find it. It's just in front of the bar!

We walk out to the lobby to find a storm brewing. As the firangs love to say: a sudden, tropical storm. Chotu Rawat, the man who manages Princeton wants us to start at 9 pm. His reasoning is that it's the middle of the week, a Thursday, plus the thundershower will obviously delay others. Bertie is happy with the thunderstorm. He's been wanting a maximum of 150 people and I tell him there is no guarantee for this. All indications point to a full-house, jam-packed to beyond capacity.

Family and close friends start trooping in. Then Bertie's students, current and ex-, dribble in before the deluge. Tubby Desai, with the band LUSH who are slated to play after BM&F, wants us to start and finally we do at 8.45pm. It's not a full-house but the place is teeming with people not willing to miss this one-night only comeback concert of Bertie, Mel & Fuzz.

***

Redux

The chemistry is still there. They sound so good. The small, unnoticeable things go awry but that's part of the game, and all said and done, the evening has been won! They open with a Bertie original 'Motor Car Blues', followed by Bertie's original 'Moonlight Lady" from '79. Mel does his gospel blues, 'Have You Been Loved'. They keep seguing into song after brilliantly played song. The crowd is going crazy. Gently. This isn't a rock concert. Its a music concert that's very different. Three guitars and voices that sound so full, never requiring percussion or keys at any level, and yet somehow rocks, funks, grooves and soothes simultaneously.

And that's what the younger generations don't comprehend. How does one play a guitar without gadgets, at least with the barest minimum like Mel does? Yet gets that clean, sweet, undistorted sound? How did Fuzz slap that bass without pushing a pedal? How did Bertie sing without electronic effects being added to his voice? Well, the answers to those questions are simple. They began to play music at a time when gadgets were almost non-existent. So that required they master the techniques without microprocessor help. Which meant hours and hours of finger-bleeding practice, sleepless nights till you got that right note, and the willingness to do music that needs skill and artistry rather than digitalised gadgetry. I think it's why the music from the 60s and 70s is still so greatly appreciated by all, and younger bands today keep covering songs from that era. It is why songs were considered poetry, and not lyrics.

I'm amazed at people coming up and thanking me for putting up the show. Strange. Shouldn't they thank the musicians for playing together again?

Jayshree of Skinny Alley/Pink Noise fame said "it was magic... as usual". "Great show, man!" was the copybook reaction though from the general janata. Yes, thank you. Now we can only hope it will happen again. Extraneous circumstances will seriously affect the possibility of another show like this.

Distances, both physical and not. Timings which don't clash. Regular income earnings which will. Sponsors who will express interest but will not pay. Life is fucked but why should musicians get screwed all the time? Fuck the pretend well-wishers! And the so-called music lovers who want free shows too. A bit of well-placed arrogance is always effective.

I'm glad I did the 1979 show with my own resources and I'm gladder I did this one similarly, without depending on external financial help. One complete, fulsome dickhead, who calls himself Mampi, and who does a supposedly "interesting" program of "world music" on a Bangla TV channel offered me free editing of the video shoot I arranged for this show, in exchange for televising my show on his show! And he would not pay. Free editing! What does he think? Everyone's a beggar like his Bengali self? Really, Bongs will never get past their supreme mediocrity. They can only dwell on their glorious past of Tagore, Bose and Ray. They don't realise that because those three (among others) went way past mediocre and petit bourgeois longings, they became innovators and pioneers in their fields, which were not merely due to their natural talents and skills.

Oh, by the way, did you know that Bertie, Mel and Fuzz are from the Anglo-Indian community? The community Calcuttans call "tesuwas" - a derogatory term for an intentionally marginalised section of people? The community that Indians in general look down upon? And what do non-Anglo-Indians do today?

The same thing that AIs did many years ago. They escape to foreign shores and climes for a better, more fulfilling life. So, one makes fun of, denigrates the few AIs still remaining in India. Ones who want to make the best of what they have on offer in this country. Which is a whole lot. Like a lot of us.

We Indians are some of the most racist, sexist people on the planet.

***

For photos of the concert, link here.

A Slight Return

In 1979, Arunda's canteen inside the St Xavier's College campus was our haven from the presumed drudgery of classes. Litres of tea, kilos of rancid samosas and chops, and the smoke of too many cigarettes fuelled our impassioned, and often indifferent, discussions about everything, and nothing at all.

And so it came to pass that a music concert was conceived in that ambience. Now this would not be just another rock concert where extremely skilled and talented musicians would play covers extremely well. This concert would stress on original compositions. And it would, through such musicians, seek to reinvent the wheel. Well, the blues, to begin with.

1979 was the UN's International Year of the Child. That year the Pol Pot regime collapsed in Cambodia; the Shah of Iran fled his country allowing Ayatollah Khomeini to return and seize power; the Sahara Desert experienced snow for 30 minutes in February; Bhutto was executed in Pakistan; Thatcher became PM in Great Britain; a tsunami hit Nice in France killing all of 23 people; China registered a population of one billion; the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan; Bipasha Basu was born; Mother Teresa got the Nobel for Peace; and an energy crisis hit the world in the wake of the Iran crisis.

Much happened musically that year too. Billy Joel's Just The Way You Are was the Grammy album of the year; Led Zeppelin released In Through The Out Door; Bee Gees, Donna Summer, ABBA, Rod Stewart and Earth, Wind & Fire performed a benefit concert to promote the UN Year of the Child; Norah Jones was born...

And in September 1979 history continued to be made. “Blues In The Basement” happened in Calcutta as a sold-out show, which was totally gatecrashed by a further 200 odd people. (As an aside, since that historic day, that auditorium no longer takes bookings for Western music shows till date.)

“Blues In The Basement” featured the late, great Dilip Balakrishnan backed by Nondon Bagchi and PC Mookerjee; the cool and suave Gyan Singh solo with acoustic guitar, as well as an impressive debut by a visibly nervous Robin Sengupta doing his originals. The rising star of Baul music in those times, Gour Khepa, opened the concert to a stunned audience.

The second half though, was what the concert pivoted on. Bertie Da'Silva, Melville Samuel and Richard Francis came on as the guitar-voice trio of Bertie, Mel and Fuzz, and they blew every one away in more ways than one. Since then, there has never really been a concert quite like that with these three.

In a riverine city like Calcutta, we all know about much water flowing under bridges. Bertie went into musical hibernation and gained repute in academia. Mel searched and found alternative songs of praise while he also formally trained young minds; and Fuzz went corporate away from Calcutta before moving overseas.

And then as destiny would have it, they met again - almost 30 years on. And those old feelings remained, dormant no more. They talked, played some music to each other, and they saw it was still good.

And hence: Bertie, Mel and Fuzz: Redux.
Bertie, Mel and Fuzz: A Slight Return.

When all is said and done, Bertie, Mel and Fuzz together again.

For one night only. At the Princeton Club on Anwar Shah Road. 12th April 2007. 8 pm.

How can you not be there? Tch, tch!

****************
For some new pix of the three, go here.

The Dead

Mortality is not for beginners. You need to have been through about half of your projected life span to understand that mortality is for advanced users. All the bells and whistles which herald the living becomes a silenced farce when you are faced with death.

Death. No, not the passing away of someone near and dear, regardless of the grief one might feel. There's always the acceptance of the inevitable in the circumstances, the logical end. I say death is the sight of corpses in a police morgue where the air conditioning is malfunctioning; the cloying stench of putrefaction feebly masked by chemicals; the stink of rot and decay, old spilled blood and entrails; morgue attendants going about their usual work much as we do with ours – that same indifference, the steadfast boringness of it all.

I say death is being the only one who does not object to going into the morgue to identify your dear friend's body. I died many deaths in the short period between October and January as I went inside two separate Calcutta Police morgues to take delivery of the corpses of two of my dearest buddies. Then I cremated one, and three months later, buried the other. And cursed them silently but strongly as I did so. Two of my exact age, two who were my closest confidantes, my intellectual foils, my partners in the vices we indulged ourselves. Their deaths were inevitable but should not have been so early.

They had lived about half their lives, and we had ideas and made plans about what to do with the rest remaining. Ranjan may have been unmarried with no progeny, but he had family, including us – a core group of buddies who went back more than 20 years, and we met as often as we could. Paul was married but separated, with two sons who live in another city with their mother. Because their deaths were recorded as police cases, autopsies were required to establish the cause of their deaths. I still do not have the results. I'm not sure I want to know, except perhaps to give me some false sense of closure.

Both lived alone due to circumstances they could not really control. Both were traumatised by their addictions. Yet they both had the sparks of life still to be lived. And then they went and died. Ranjan and Paul were serial numbers 2 and 3 in my roster of dear friends predeceasing me. Number 1 was Sanjiv, my namesake, in 1989, in New Zealand. He botched his own hanging and lay in a coma with life support for a year before the inevitable. We still have no idea why he committed (tried to commit?) suicide. And were Ranjan's and Paul's deaths also verging on the suicidal? Aren't all of us who are addicted to alcohol/narcotics/psychotropics suicidal in one way or another? Even when I claim I use it and don't abuse it? Brave words indeed for the dispirited.

Death is the stench of putrefying corpses randomly assailing me for a few seconds as I walk down a street, read a book by a window, window-shop in a mall...

Postscript: Monjit and I, (two of the remaining 3 or 4 of the core buddies bunch; part of the 90% of school contemporaries still alive), have decided to open a packing and moving company. Here's what the advertisement might read like:

M & P Packers & Movers
Taking care of getting your near and dear from this world to the next

We're sure there will be enough custom.

Unloaded: The Mind's Baggage

Music and all that
From where comes this music? Who sings it? What is the song about? When was it first sung? And why does it affect me so much?

Having asked myself the five important 'W' questions, I can now sit contented. I can wallow in the fallowness of perceived logic. I can now brave conjecture, rumour, established understanding, opinionated study. And simply believe in it all. Or not.

So I listen without reservation, perhaps armed with some scattered knowledge; and I like and I don't, because I do.

And so...

Why does music break me down? When will it not? What more can it keep doing to me beyond all the infinite things it has already done? Where can I go with it? Who will go with me?

***
Herbie Hancock & Wayne Shorter
They played at the Dalhousie Institute grounds on Sunday, January 14th. The entire community of western music lovers in this city could not stop talking about the event days before it happened. The press hyped it in their usual, boring manner. And then at 9.30 on the evening of the day, it was over. Just like that. They came, they played, they went.

HH & WS, with musicians from the Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz performed for about two hours. An estimated crowd of approximately 2500 people thronged the space. There were irritants. Many with no interest in jazz spent a fruitful time socialising with no concern for genuine listeners. Others were there to be seen, to be able to say the next day they were there, just in case something exciting was reported in the gossip or review pages. But that's Calcutta. It happens at any event. Nevertheless, those who wanted good jazz, got it. In a healthy dose. And free of entry cost too!

While leaving, someone mentioned the poor sound amplification; someone else gave the show a rating of 6.5 on a scale of 10 for “after-show feeling” against an anticipated 8 or 9. Does anyone listen to the music anymore? I doubt it. Too many folks seeking criticism value and others trying to get in touch with “inner feelings”. A distinguished reviewer, a don at a university, known for his knowledge and avidity as a music buff, writing in Calcutta's highest selling rag, claimed it wasn't, at the end of it all, a good enough show. The savant speaks.

I heard Weather Report's Mysterious Traveler and Hancock's Watermelon Man when I was 17 years of age. Both were part of a large, varied, but limited collection I was exposed to, which would completely change my approach to music listening and appreciation forever. For the better too, I should add. Not having had the advantage of going to western shores and being able to choose the live music I wanted to hear, I waited for jazz fests and other like events to be able to hear some of the names I respected immensely. With no choice, I heard whoever performed. With that, my growing interest in the music expanded my horizons. A minuscule number of the big names came to India, only a few of them played in Calcutta, and it was not always possible for me to be present at their shows. Still and all, every moment and rupee spent at the shows I did go for was worth more than I'll ever have.

And the same is true of the Herbie and Wayne concert last Sunday. I had goosebumps for as long as the two played and for a long while after that. I sneer at every reviewer, critic and envious musician for their post-concert opinionated rot. I ignore the uninitiated, the chatterati, the social wanna-bes who were there, as they have no desire to know, or do, better. For me, that concert was a music event of a lifetime. I shall probably never see them live again and I'm glad I went.

I listened to the music. Did you?

***
Bag Stories
My friend slings a bag on his shoulder; a cheap, polyfibre thing available on most of Calcutta's streets for under a hundred rupees. It contains his spectacles in a case: tucked away when he must reluctantly admit that his eyesight is failing. To further compensate for age-related ocular weakness, the bag also carries a small battery torch; a penknife masquerading as a Swiss Army Knife; some nicks and some knacks; and more usually than not, a pint of whisky in its original bottling, or distributed among several small plastic bottles, (previously containing carbonated poison sold by brands whose values far exceed the economies of many of the countries they sell in), and now mixed with water. Handy at a movie or a jazz concert.

She carries one on her back, manufactured in similar material as mentioned above, but of superior quality; roomier; of a bright red hue; and handy on a trek down urban thoroughfares. This season, it contains a dark cardigan for possible protection against the city's winter chill; and its smaller, outer pocket hosts another small red case of the same fabric, containing her loose change, a stick or two of makeup and a comb, a scrunchy, and her cellphone. When the phone rings, sounding as if it were ringing submerged in a distant swimming pool, she goes through a ritual of un-shouldering her red backpack, zipping the pocket open, taking the smaller case out and unzipping it, then withdrawing the mobile to peer at the screen, and finally answering it with a frantic: “Ya! Hello-o-o-o!”

I remember her as she would wearily trudge past me as I walked to school. Muttering under her breath, constantly searching the pavement for something, she must have been in the poverty-stricken, malnourished age range of 30 to 60 years. Her shoulders and back were slung with cloth and jute bags, like shapeless, organic growths on her body. These bags were discards retrieved from garbage heaps, and all of them were stuffed to overflowing with even more cloth and paper. Plastic carrier bags were not common then, and it was incongruous to see the familiar logos and names on the few which she carried, which too contained stuffing. Bags within bags within bags.

Mobile phones. Another piece of baggage our age of technology has provided, suddenly the most essential thing that anyone carries. Suddenly people have begun communicating, after the centuries of silence which preceded its invention. And then you have all sorts of bags to carry this piece of baggage: around the neck, umbilically corded to a pocket, low-slung at your waist, in a case... And the phone too has its own bags within. Compartments which are cameras, music players, minicomputers, gaming consoles, TV screens, radios, web browsers, geographical locators. And some different kinds of baggage to complement the main piece: earpieces looking suspiciously like cancerous growth, wires spilling out of ears, people talking to no one in particular that you can see.

I want to live my life out of four suitcases. Two for clothes and stuff, the third for music and the fourth for books. Just replace the ones I'm done with, no adding on.

***
Save me
o god
save me from women who have it
and don't know it;
from those who don't, but believe they do

Hype to kickstart the New Year

With a tad less than 30 years working experience in the media industry, I would have to be all sorts of gullible to believe that opinion polls conducted by newspapers and market research companies have any significant veracity. Oh, there's truth in them, sure. Slightly over 1000 people spread over five major Indian metropoli certainly have opinions on the questions they were asked, there's no doubting that actuality.

Yes, such things matter when the spread of urban population in the states where these metros are located as their capital cities have the following 2001 Census of India statistics to vouch for them. Delhi: 93.01%; West Bengal: 28.03%; Maharashtra: 42.40%; Karnataka: 33.98% and Tamilnadu: 43.86%. The combined urban population in these states is 121,487,387. People polled for the opinion poll: 1031 - 0.00085%. Yes, such findings are of great import to us.

What is more important is the reason to suddenly spring these minutiae on a New Year readership. Really, how impressed are you to know that 14% of Calcuttans who were polled prefer money over job satisfaction and confusingly enough, social service over money? It leaves you gasping to be informed what the balance 86% prefer.

Seeing these results, I think back many years ago to what a boss of mine had said about Calcutta (read the East) being merely 25% or less of the all-India consumer market. In The Telegraph New Year Poll:City Scan, questions as mind-numbingly diverse as “Why do you want to earn?”, “What irritates you” to the über-cute, “I think...”, the Calcutta respondents hovered around the 20s percentile except when 66% wanted to help their family and 65% felt pleased that their knowledge was appreciated.

Mind you, I am not putting the Calcuttan down. I think this conservative, under-response only shows that my fellow citizens have their heads screwed on right, and are not overly concerned with owning iPods, cars, fashion, succumbing to peer pressure and so on, ad nauseam. If one must willingly suspend disbelief, Delhi and Mumbai-walas are extremely opinionated about such things, as are Bangalore-wasis, though not so much the Chennai folks.

I believe these idiotic polls are just a way of telling advertisers that the newspaper is a true reflection of Calcutta's urban attitude. It is part of a process that I call 'hype-as-myth-making', something marketing wastrels love. Just the age group of the respondents is enough to set the next quarter's marketing budgets a-flutter – 18 to 25 years.

Consider what, in the same day's edition 5 pages away, an erudite Mr Ashok V Desai has to say in his column Writing On The Wall. “So I am tempted to formulate the following laws of development under communism. The communist state is a slave of its trade unions. It is forced to rely on big industrialists because small industry cannot survive organized, militant trade unions. Amongst big industrialists, it prefers foreign ones who would have no constituency in this country. If it cannot get them, it will settle for Indian ones, but only if they accept CITU. And competition in product markets weakens the bargaining power of trade unions; so it would prefer firms that have a monopoly or a niche market.

These are stringent requirements; if the West Bengal government sticks to them, it may attract Tata Motors, but it will achieve little overall industrialization of the state. If I am right, Buddhadeb will face increasingly obstinate opposition within the CPI(M) family, will win ever greater admiration from the bourgeoisie, and will be largely ineffective. It is not his fault; it is the party he belongs to. He should bend it to his will, or split it."

One presumes that a newspaper so divided, and therefore balanced, in its approach to the new, resurgent Calcutta and Bengal, must be right somewhere. Or is dear, old departed King Crimson's, 'Confusion will be my epitaph...' the swansong? In either case the paper is certainly not helping readers like me to form opinions. Not that my opinions are required. I do not fall in the polled age bracket.

Happy New Year

The worst thing about the cellphone is its SMS facility. One becomes, the unwitting and unwilling recipient (victim?) of jokes, petitions, sales offers, jokes, bargain discounts, jokes, prayers, jokes... and often the reluctantly-obliged-to-respond, especially at this moment of the year, to insincere new year greetings composed/forwarded by short texting maniacs, in purple prose, trashy sentiment and shallow philosophy.

So the following two were ones I received which stood out because they were different, even if the first one is rather a weak attempt at schoolboy humour.

• "May 2 double-O 7 be the year of BONDing..."

• "Cheers to the New Year and another chance to get it right."

Whatever it is, Happy New Year, every year, to you!
-----

However, here's an interesting mail I've got from Rahul as a New Year greeting, which I'm reproducing verbatim:

"For those of you who follow the Gregorian Calendar, New Year Greetings, and wishes for a peaceful year ahead.

Delving a little into the history of the calendaring system (a fascinating subject, on its' own - intrigue, violence, emperors, donkeys and monks) is a source of much education and amusement.

The change from the Julian to Gregorian was not without incident - the original motivation was to ensure that Easter fell on the same day for the various Churches. Many countries therefore felt that it was a Catholic imposition, and resisted it - leading to much unrest, unwitting hilarity and the October Revolution actually occurring in November (ignore if you are an Orthodox Russian priest).

2007 will be the International Heliophysical year, studying the interconnectedness of the entire solar-heliospheric-planetary system - from what I understand, an analysis of the interaction between 'solar wind' and the surrounding environment. 2007 will also be the start of the clumsily-named International Polar Year which goes on all the way till 2009. Many geological phenomena, research into the atmospheric and magnetic systems will be started, and hopefully, many ID-ists will be pissed off.

Also today, Ban Ki-Moon becomes the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Between the 24th and 28th of this month, the World Economic Forum takes place, in Switzerland, so put on your protesting suits.

On the 14th of April, the Sir Arthur C Clarke Awards, the 'Space Oscars' are given out. Later that month, elections are being held in Nigeria. Later in the year, on the 30th of June, in an event just begging for badly written headlines, a calendar blue moon occurs; a full moon will occur twice in the month. On the 7th of July, the New Seven Wonders of the World will be announced - and votes are still being accepted. Sometime in November, the Large Hadron Collider will be switched on at the CERN.

Clearly, an eventful year, and one that we cannot but help find ourselves part of."

Moments I may have died and gone to heaven

One fine moment, in the middle of the forest at night, with no moon to bestir the soul, assaulted by a medley of sounds, safe in the unfamiliar.

Another day, wading out into the glaze of midday's sunburned sea, salt stung skin cooled by gentle waves splashing, and no distance to perceive.

Once upon a time, poised at the very edge of a cliff that rolls down to a snaking, roiling river far below, snow peaks ahead as far as the eye can see, when an eagle swoops in front riding on air currents, which carry the scent of deodar and rhododendrons.

In the colourless haze of a winter's dawn, a blood-red sun pops suddenly over the inky canopy of forest, bringing alive the shades of green, as the boat rocks on the pulsing tides of the mangrove delta waters.

Monsoon showers clean the streets, wash the leaves, and the dark gray clouds part reluctantly allowing the brilliant colours of a setting sun to paint the sky into darkness.

On a coir-rope cot, in a power-cut, humid night, to hear lizards scamper excitedly in the thatch roof, mosquitos frenetically dance to the sound of a nearby drum that steadies into an insistent rhythm, as a flute joins in, plucking out spaces in the beat.

Blagging

No I haven't misspelled it. I just had fun melding two words together. Wow! 'Melding' and all men! What big words you use, yah! Even meld sounds as if its two words interwoven. There! Another biggie! Melt + Mold (mould?) = Meld. Convincing? If you want to think so...

Blogging + Bragging = Blagging; Blah-blahing + Blogging = Blagging? Possibilities, possibilities...

Starting this blog was to get a first-hand find-out of what this blogging thing was all about. "Blogosphere" was already making its rounds in the print media pages. Undertones of envy, jealousy, competition, overtly dismissive criticism, passionate evangelism and doubts raised were getting far too much word count for me to ignore it. And having been in the print media business long enough for my curiosity to be indulged without killing any felines, I got myself a blog.

This is it. My headspace, as I'm fond of calling it. When the urge sets upon me, I usually give in to it. Like much of how I've led my life. So the urge to put pen on paper has now transformed itself to fingers on keyboard/mouse and the accompanying bullshit one must deal with. Like: an internet service provider that claims broadband capabilities, charges me as such, and then when they slip up on their promised service blame thieves who steal their cables.

Like: battered eyes from staring at the screen; like an aching back from hunching over for too long watching an image-upload not happening on the new beta blogger; like chain smoking and tea/coffee drinking; like wondering whatever was wrong with pen and paper anyway? Wow! Five alliterative Ws! Unintentional, I assure you.

So that's what my blog is. You can read it or not, comment or not, like or hate or be indifferent to it, not know of its existence, but its my blog and that's all I want it to be.

Then I read tortured essays on why they write blogs. Perhaps even mine falls in that category. Then I read how you should tweak it, how you can improve it, make it pay for you, AdSense it, ping it, tag it, win an award called the SOB (and be proud of it!), hack the matrix, and I quote: "Thus, when a misplaced angle bracket suddenly causes a rift in the space-time continuum, the damage can be reversed instantly, with no lasting harm to either the blog in question or the continued survival of the human race.", (and believe me this guy is dead serious), I know then this blog will no longer be mine.

And so then I will be blagging.

I will blog about the most useless and uninteresting things that are affecting my life. I will blog about amazing tech innovations that will pretend to revolutionise my very existence. I will brag about all this in moderated terms, in bated breath (as best conveyed in text), and I will feel the need for you to acknowledge me by emailing me, commenting, subscribing to my RSS/Atom feeds, and rating me, and, and, and, and, blah, blah, blah...

I will not be who I started out as. I will become another ghost in the machine. Who was it who said, "It takes a dream to build upon but an arsehole to wreck it"?

New Music

The thing about buying music on CDs these days is that you cannot hear what you might buy. I miss the old vinyl records days, where you could listen to them in separate enclosures within the shop called "listening booths" and decide whether to buy an album or not. There are a couple of friendly sales folks around who will rip off the plastic wrap and play it for you with no conditions attached. Obviously those are the places I frequent for my music shopping.

Then again, there are times when I take a risk, usually impulsive, and just buy the CD because whatever I can read on both sides of the jewel case seems interesting. Yesterday was one of those days. Music World on Park Street is almost next door to my favourite watering hole - Olys. Diwali had apparently kept the usual evening crowd seeking solace in a glass or more of liquid refreshment away from Olys. It was almost empty yesterday as Ranjit and I sat there and caught up with each other after quite a bit. Though we didn't say it till much later, we realised that the place was lacking in its waves of energy, loud chatter and laughter, smoke and the almost solidified atmosphere of liquor scents which assault you on entry. So we left after an hour or so, much less than the average length of time I would have otherwise spent there.
(I must make a film located in Olys...)

So we leisurely walked out into the bracing October evening of Calcutta, when all seems to be well with the world. Ranjit browsed magazines as I did the same with pretty faces passing by. Music World was not crowded either. I guess people hang out in jewellery stores during this festival of lights, to be dazzled by the glitter of precious metal and stones.

I saw a 3-VCD set of Scorcese's biopic of Dylan - No Direction Home - and grabbed it. Then I saw another album tucked quietly away in the lower corner of a rack - The Wood Brothers' Ways Not To Lose. Chris Wood on bass and Oliver Wood on guitar and vocals. In my vodka-fuddled memory I thought this Chris Wood was the same name who had played in Traffic's early records. I forgot that that Chris played flute and horns and stuff, not bass. Anyway, this was an impulsive buy, and listening to it now I realise I struck gold.
This is new blues. It's derived from black man blues and done by white men but it has a contemporariness which is refreshing. At the same time elements of the familiar are spread across each song letting you indulge in a bit of deja vu. The Wood Brothers album is first and foremost blues in its traditional 12-bar form, and then the tweaks and other style influences, not least being jazz. Oliver's voice has a gravelly tone tending to the nasal but he sings his soul. His guitar playing is prominent but not overwhelming. Chris' acoustic upright bass is contrapuntal in its soft statements which may lack the hard punch and growl of blues but never deviates from its earthy presence in all the songs. Lovely album! "At least when I die young, I'll have chocolate on my tongue". One line from one song, you must listen to the rest.

Elvis Costello, a British musician has been quite a phenomenon in the West since the 80s. Somehow he never was able to make his presence felt among the wide ranging listening that many of us do back here in India. Allen Toussaint was a name that briefly came up in Santana's Moonflower record as the last song 'Toussaint L'Overture'. I have not actually followed either of these musicians but I see that Toussaint is considered "one of America's greatest musical treasures" with almost guru-like attributes. Anyway, this collaboration between these two musicians has resulted in The River In Reverse. It has songs from Allen Toussaint's own catalogue, plus five new ones penned by them both, as well as the title track by Elvis. This is a gumbo of New Orleans and rock'n'roll and some other influences not immediately identifiable from the initial listening. Yet another gem I impulsively bought without any real knowledge!

Now you know how difficult it is for me to remain solvent when I walk into a music store!

Microcredit and the Nobel Prize

This is taken from an email forwarded to me. I have no idea who the author is or in which publication it first appeared. I do appreciate the rationality expressed, yet I cannot help feeling that an East-West divide is being highlighted, and that too quite slyly. Read on, and perhaps you will arrive at your own conclusions.

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MICROCREDIT, MACRO ISSUES

by Walden Bello

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Muhammad Yunus, regarded as the father of microcredit, comes at a time when microcredit has become something like a religion to many of the powerful, rich and famous. Hillary Clinton regularly speaks about going to Bangladesh, Yunus's homeland, and being "inspired by the power of these loans to enable even the poorest of women to start businesses,lifting their families--and their communities--out of poverty."

Like the liberal Clinton, the neocon Paul Wolfowitz,now president of the World Bank, has also gotten religion, after a recent trip to the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. With the fervor of the convert, he talks about the "transforming power" of microfinance: "I thought maybe this was just one successful project in one village, but then I went to the next village and it was the same story. That evening, I met with more than a hundred women leaders from self-help groups, and I realized this program was opening opportunities for poor women and their families in an entire state of 75 million people."

There is no doubt that Yunus, a Bangladeshi economist, came up with a winning idea that has transformed the lives of many millions of poor women, and perhaps for that alone, he deserves the Nobel Prize. But Yunus--at least the young Yunus, who did not have the support of global institutions when he started out--did not see his Grameen Bank as a panacea. Others, like the World Bank and the United Nations, elevated it to that status (and, some say, convinced Yunus it was a panacea), and microcredit is now presented as a relatively painless approach to development. Through its dynamics of collective responsibility for repayment by a group of women borrowers, microcredit has indeed allowed many poor women to roll back pervasive poverty. However, it is mainly the moderately poor rather than the very poor who benefit, and not very many can claim they have permanently left the instability of poverty.

Likewise, not many would claim that the degree of self-sufficiency and the ability to send children to school afforded by microcredit are indicators of their graduating to middle-class prosperity. As economic journalist Gina Neff notes, "after 8 years of borrowing, 55% of Grameen households still aren't able to meet their basic nutritional needs--so many women are using their loans to buy food rather than invest in business."

Indeed, one of those who have thoroughly studied the phenomenon, Thomas Dichter, says that the idea that microfinance allows its recipients to graduate from poverty to entrepreneurship is inflated. He sketches out the dynamics of microcredit: "It emerges that the clients with the most experience got started using their own resources, and though they have not progressed very far--they cannot because the market is just too limited--they have enough turnover to keep buying and selling, and probably would have with or without the microcredit. For them the loans are often diverted to consumption since they can use the relatively large lump sum of the loan, a luxury they do not come by in their daily turnover." He concludes: "Definitely, microcredit has not done what the majority of microcredit enthusiasts claim it can do--function as capital aimed at increasing the returns to a business activity." And so the great microcredit paradox that, as Dichter puts it, "the poorest people can do little productive with the credit, and the ones who can do the most with it are those who don't really need microcredit, but larger amounts with different (often longer) credit terms."

In other words, microcredit is a great tool as a survival strategy, but it is not the key to development, which involves not only massive capital-intensive, state-directed investments to build industries but also an assault on the structures of inequality such as concentrated land ownership that systematically deprive the poor of resources to escape poverty. Microcredit schemes end up coexisting with these entrenched structures, serving as a safety net for people excluded and marginalized by them, but not transforming them.

No, Paul Wolfowitz, microcredit is not the key to ending poverty among the 75 million people in Andhra Pradesh. Dream on.

Perhaps one of the reasons there is such enthusiasm for microcredit in establishment circles these days is that it is a market-based mechanism that has enjoyed some success where other market-based programs have crashed. Structural-adjustment programs promoting trade liberalization, deregulation and privatization have brought greater poverty and inequality to most parts of the developing world over the last quarter century, and have made economic stagnation a permanent condition. Many of the same institutions that pushed and are continuing to push these failed macro programs (sometimes under new labels like "Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers"), like the World Bank, are often the same institutions pushing microcredit programs.

Viewed broadly, microcredit can be seen as the safety net for millions of people destabilized by the large-scale macro-failures engendered by structural adjustment. There have been gains in poverty reduction in a few places--like China, where, contrary to the myth, state-directed macro policies,not microcredit, have been central to lifting an estimated 120 million Chinese from poverty.

So probably the best way we can honor Muhammad Yunus is to say, Yes, he deserves the Nobel Prize for helping so many women cope with poverty. His boosters discredit this great honor and engage in hyperbole when they claim he has invented a new compassionate form of capitalism--social capitalism, or "social entrepreneurship"--that will be the magic bullet to end poverty and promote development.

----------------

The following is selected text from a telephonic interview that Adam Smith from the Nobel Foundation website had with Mohammad Yunus:

[AS] – Is there any particular message you would like to use the opportunity to get across?

[MY] – The one message that we are trying to promote all the time, that poverty in the world is an artificial creation. It doesn't belong to human civilization, and we can change that, we can make people come out of poverty and have the real state of affairs. So the only thing we have to do is to redesign our institutions and policies, and there will be no people who will be suffering from poverty. So I would hope that this award will make this message heard many times, and in a kind of forceful way, so that people start believing that we can create a poverty-free world. That's what I would like to do.

[AS] – Does your work with the Grameen Bank over the last three decades make you more hopeful that this is possible?

[MY] – Oh yes, very much, we see the demonstration of it every day. People come out of poverty every day. So it's right in front of us what happens and it can be done globally, it can be done more forcefully, we can organize more things to go with it, so this is something not theoretical issue, it's a very real issue. People can change their own lives, provided they have the right kind of institutional support. They're not asking for charity, charity is no solution to poverty. Poverty is the creation of opportunities like everybody else has, not the poor people, so bring them to the poor people, so that they can change their lives. That's all we are doing. We didn't do anything special; lend money to the people so – but they never lent it to the poor people – all we did was we lent it to the poor people, and that makes the trick. That makes the change.

-------------

But of course! We live right next door to B'desh, and as far as Calcutta goes, we live in each other's pockets! Microfinance has been a buzzword in development circles for quite a few years over here. Md Yunus has pioneered and shown the practical realities of a concept, that's all. How any other state implements it is up to them, dependant on the local circumstances. In fact that is probably what eventually allows microcredit/finance to succeed. Its sustainability by suitably adapting to local conditions.

But then again, our Marxist comrades here in Big Dada Bengal have their own version of the same story. The Indian Express Calcutta edition city supplement Kolkata Newsline reports:

"Kolkata, October 19: FIVE days after Bangladesh’s Mohammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank shared the Nobel peace prize for 2006, West Bengal’s Minister for Self-Help Groups (SHGs) bragged about the Left Front Government’s far-sighted policy of encouraging these basic units of micro-credit.... In fact, funding for each SHG of around 12 members is recommended by the panchayat bodies, the CPI(M) branch and local committees that guide these bodies. With the CPI(M) dominating the panchayat system, hardly a few rupees can go to any SHG without the party’s knowledge." Read more...

All I can say is if the system is a workable one and is providing relief at some level, then it is doing a worthwhile job. We need any and all solutions for poverty issues. There can never be one grand plan.
-----------
Grameen Bank

Just Another Day

Paul McCartney and The Wings sang a song of that name. Way back when? Late 60s, early 70s? Certainly after The Beatles broke up. It was a nice song. Don't like Paul any more though... bad music! Sir Paul indeed. What was it John said? "All those up in the balcony can rattle your jewellery."

***
Open Window Again
Gloomy day today. Gloomy mood too. Clouded skies that trickled rain late in the afternoon, never the downpour it threatened to be. To top it all, woke up far too early for my liking and couldn't sleep any more. Tossed and turned to finally get up and make tea. Running out of it... got to get some more. Darjeeling is a definite reviver. Felt good for awhile. Had a second cup.

Took some pix with the borrowed camera. But it is just a slightly improved toy over my cellphone. Pics were dark in their content. The light was kind of nice though. I'm a little emphatic about people carrying loads, using their bodies and their strength to earn a living, a pittance really, while I fool around with a digicam that costs the equivalent of a few months income for them.

The woman was mad of course. She ranted and raved at an imaginary someone walking beside her. She's been passing by my window quite frequently over the last few months. There was another one, dressed in someone's horrid, bright red printed, long, discarded nightie. A young guy too with dreads (jata), clad in what is fashionably known as a sarong, with a discoloured chunni slung sideways across a shoulder, muttered loudly, shaking his head. An old man, bearded, rolling his eyes, drifted past ever so slowly. What is it today? The weather? Does such weather cause the mentally disabled to appear? And why under my window? If I believed in such things, I might say it could be a portent, a message from beyond.

Then a little later, a taxi crashed in to the side of another. Outside my window, but over on the other side thankfully. At a junction where traffic is assorted and plentiful. The usual happened. One driver cursed the other, threatening to beat him. Suddenly a crowd surrounded them. Helpful types, take-sides types, arbitrator types, passive onlookers, all got into the act till the cops came about 10 minutes later. By the way, the local cop station is immediately behind my house. Why does it take them so long to respond? Must be the weather. The mini traffic jam had to be sorted out first before the aggrieved parties were attended to. No one was injured, other than a couple of Hind Motors Ambassadors.

***

"War and Peace"
Anand Patwardhan's documentary of that name was on Doordarshan at 10.30 in the morning today. Looks like Doordarshan, having lost the legal battle is now in a hurry to get over showing AP's films. Films like this and the one shown last Sunday - Father, Son and Holy War - need to be repeatedly shown on all channels, not just DD.

This film is about non-violence essentially. A protest against nuclear proliferation. A protest against politicians who skirt the real issues of eradicating poverty and its associated pains. It's a protest against hawkish scientists like our Prez APJ Abdul Kalam, PK Iyengar, Raja Ramanna, all of whom push for increased spending on the development of arms and military security, and then only make appropriate sterile noises about the real issues. It's a protest against you and me, the educated elite of our country, who refuse to consider, who choose to ignore and subsequently justify our non-involvement in the issues in question, and selfishly look at the economic opportunities coming our way because of such "development". Patriotism is questioned. This is a hard-hitting film as well. A good film for a gloomy day. It makes me realise that the sun doesn't shine out of my backside, don't I know?

***

The end of a day like this, just another day, deserved some upliftment. The dealer told me the stuff was good. I asked him if he smoked and he said no. So I asked him then how he was recommending the weed. He just smiled and took my money. He was doing his job is all.

Of A Banned Film, and a TV Show That Won't Be

The poster for the film Father, Son and Holy War.

The film maker, Anand Patwardhan

"Father, Son and Holy War"
Gautam's SMS came on the 6th asking me to spread the word that Anand Patwardhan's documentary film, "Father, Son and Holy War" was to be finally aired on Doordarshan on Sunday the 8th at 10am. I'd already seen a special screening of the film a year or so ago at Nandan, probably during the Calcutta Film Fest. AP won the right to have his film aired on Doordarshan after a protracted legal battle that lasted 11 years. Watching it again yesterday, (and in the process watching Sunday morning TV after many years!), I can appreciate the paranoia that seized the bureaucratic machinery, causing a foolish and avoidable malfunction of the wheels within wheels. I can appreciate and understand it, but certainly don't endorse it.

Films like this are rare. There are few such films made not just in India, but anywhere. It is forthright, what is popularly termed 'in your face'. I prefer to look at it as a mirror. It is honest and takes a hard look at the politics of religion. AP documents the symbiotic but conflicting relationships between the two dominant religious communities: the Hindus and the Muslims post December 1993 and the Babri Masjid spark that spread the fires.

The film even horrifies with its blatant recording of raw, uncontrolled human emotion and naivete. Some of us pride ourselves on our high levels of tolerance, of secularity, but we cannot remain unaffected after watching, leaving us to wonder whether sides should be taken after all. Gautam tells me that when AP held a special screening of the film at NID in Ahmedabad some years ago, quite a few of the Hindu students became very agitated and objected to AP's portrayal of the Hindu sentiments. I can vouch that AP has not been any softer in his portrayal of Muslim sentiments.

By the way, there's a very unkind comparison with AP and Michael Moore in the UC Berkeley link I've provided up top. MM does not compare with Anand other than both are filmmakers. And even if AP acknowledges MM's work as having provided the impetus to raise interest levels in documentary films in India, so what? MM's films are too US-centric, issue-specific, whereas AP's films cut across cultures and communities by acting as a mirror to our human values.

I can only suggest you watch the film and see for yourself. AP has VCD copies available at People Tree in Connaught Place, New Delhi or you could write to him: anandpat@vsnl.com (.net?) and request him to send you one.

******

"Sunshine On My Balcony": The TV Show That Won't Be Banned

"Baranday Roddur" - the literal English translation given above - is Bhoomi's most memorable and endearing song for fans of popular, modern Bangla music in India. (It's a different story in B'desh..) From their first and only real hit album Jatra Shuru, the song now names a Sunday noon show featuring the band on the ETV Bangla channel.

Having switched into TV viewing mode with AP's F,T,&HW yesterday, I thought I might as well check out Bhoomi's program which has now been on-air for about 6 months more or less. After all, my connection with the band and their first two albums has been more than mere listener.

I wonder if people really want the TV programs they watch or do they get what they deserve? The show has no merits at all. It is inane, lacking in decent production values, and has a well-fattened Bhoomi performing listlessly, cynically aware of a future paying audience of under-teens who are just thrilled at being inside a TV studio. To give some credit to whoever thought it up, the concept for the program is a workable one. It might have been successful at all levels: the studio audience, the viewers and the sponsors. Simple format - display fresh young talent, provide forum for upcoming band, promote Bhoomi and it is a win-win situation for all concerned.

I have no official statistics or information to base my opinions on, but I shall express them nevertheless. It turned out to be a show that smacked of condescension and a showcasing of mediocrity and an immense lack of creativity. You can also add humiliating there somewhere.

The class 9 student and Kathak dancer was given a couple of minutes to perform, quickly handed a gift and a book of Bhoomi's lyrics and sent off. O, I forgot... they started off a with a skit with some twit actor apparently from rural parts trying to be a "Calcatian" (for fuck's sake!!!!) and making like a city slicker coming on strong to a twerpy actress playing a hep, modern urban beauty. Her problem was that she aspired to be it all: urban, modern, pretty but sadly lacked the wherewithal to be anything other than a complete fool. Because the guy was so hung up on her, he was instantly forgettable. This was a sort of intro leading into Bhoomi's opening song which was the basis of the inane skit. O god! The convoluted minds of the Bengali culture vulture!

Then with the usual breaks and the rest of the crap a presenter spewed, the upcoming band, whose name I have also instantly forgotten, went into a straight melody rip-off of Joan Baez's song Billy Rose. The trio backed by three of Bhoomi had such sanctimonious looks on their faces as they passed off a blatant copyright violation as an original, that I was compelled to use the loo. It then ended with Shomu, the band's drummer/vocalist/singer/ co-founder playing, or making a futile attempt at playing the dhak.I personally know Shomu is an excellent percussionist and has really learned a lot about dhak-playing, but this was so bad that I can't write anymore about it.

And that is why I think a TV program like this should be banned to prevent the further decay in Bengaliana. But it won't be. It will go on, impressed by its own TRPs, inflated by its own self-assessed worth, unheeding of the sensitivity of the viewers (we can always switch off if we don't like it, can't we?), and then finally fade away.

That can never be too soon.

EPILOGUE: A Mizoram Diary

This diary is not really a personal record of travels in Mizoram. Had I been able to, I would have travelled quite a bit, but the monsoon was not in favour of my gallivanting. Nevertheless, just wandering about Aizawl town, and places nearby, meeting people, gives me the self-appointed right to call this a "Mizoram Diary"! Most of what's been written are personal observations and opinions, so...

I started writing it at daybreak on the 29th of September when I was woken very pleasantly by the rising sun. That was my first day there, and standing out on the balcony I saw clouds blanketing almost everything. I imagine that it was an appropriate way to begin, auspicious even. I completed it on the 4th of October on a rainy afternoon back in Calcutta.

You can see some photos I took with my cellphone camera here. Not too good, but some of them surprised me.

A MIZORAM DIARY: That's it for now... (Part V)

If you look at a map of India, or better still, one of the Indian sub-continental region, you will see Mizoram in the far eastern corner of India. It appears to be a land mass carved into the space between Bangladesh and Myanmar, like a plunging neckline. In the north, Tripura, Assam and Manipur border it, turning it into a landlocked island, making it dependant on the larger states for its surface transport routes. It's convenient for the rest of India to forget Mizoram. Before I left, many well-meaning folks warned me to be “careful”. No one could give me a valid reason for their warning other than to vaguely remark on it being a “disturbed” area, “terrorist problems” and so on. I think I can call any part of India by these terms today.

The Mizos are a friendly and peaceful lot. An example of this is an old tradition of theirs called “nualrim” (I think that's the word, but I could be wrong!), where a suitor may call on a girl of his choice and whether she likes him or not, she and her family must be polite and friendly and cannot turn him away. This is not the formal bride-seeing type of thing that happens in mainland India. In Mizo tradition, the suitor can casually drop in anytime, and can be a bit of a kabab mein haddi even when the girl has got herself a boyfriend, but must stop once she is married. Now that's civilised. Unfortunately I got to know of this custom on the day I was leaving, otherwise I may have taken my chances! Mizo women are beautiful, and in my opinion they lead over the other communities of the north eastern hill states with the possible exception of Sikkim. But it's a moot point.

I came away with a few other impressions. Young people here are at a loose end. Other than sports and games, and Church related activities, opportunities for recreation are non-existent. There are no movie halls, so cable/dish TV is creating one more generation of couch potatos. There are no discos or dance halls, and these guys don't just love music, they make good music too! This authoritarian regime of the Church and the YMA must necessarily lead to other avenues for release. So drugs easily infiltrate the porous border with Myanmar and Bangladesh. When I say drugs, I mean heroin and its ilk; and of course booze, both “lokkul” and the brands. The Army, which rations supply for their troops, is indirectly the biggest provider of black market liquor in Aizawl. I think somewhere there's a very deep, intentional, and insidious power-play at work which is being encouraged by the powers that be.

The tourism infrastructure exists in the guise of some ill-maintained establishments, rare events, inadequate promotion and publicity, and a whole lot of good intentions. On the other hand I'm not too sure its such a bad thing. I'd hate to see plane loads of ill-mannered, noisy, unreasonably demanding, uncompromising, insensitive, money-powered, cheap Bengali, flatulent Gujarati, and $1-a-day, Lonely Planet/Rough Guide American tourists littering the streets of Aizawl, creating chaos and confusion among these gentle people. Yet at the same time, economical, eco-friendly, sustainable, alternative tourism options which do not overload and unduly tax the environment and infrastructure exist. I strongly believe such options should be implemented as a collaborative effort of the government with NGOs and right-minded individuals already working in this area. Some things like Prohibition and the moralistic stranglehold of the Church will have to be removed to ensure success. The presence of the military too must be reduced from Level Paranoia to Level Just Another Cantonment.

It was a good trip for me. And it holds the promise of another one, perhaps more. There's much that is left to see and imbibe. This furthest corner of India is not merely a land of abundant biodiversity as the official calendar puts it. It is not just the land which the Tropic of Cancer cuts in half; nor is it only the bureaucratically named “land of myriad hues”. It is a land where hope lies in its natural defense against 'globalisation', where the earth still rules the lives of its people, where the technique is what to do, rather than how to do it, where the attitude of the people is the prime reason for its sustainability.

A MIZORAM DIARY: the River, some distillations and fermentations, a former CM... (Part IV)

It's my last full day in Aizawl. Tipi arrives as promised with her 8-year old son, Mamma, in tow. I learn her full name is Lalthanpuii. It's Bijoya Dashami / Dussehra / Gandhi's Birth Anniversary and the market is closed, so we decide we'd rather go down to the river and wash our souls! Leaving Aizawl for the drive down to Sairang, we are held up in a traffic jam. Trucks entering the city, trucks triple parked on the narrow hill road, trucks doing what they do everywhere in India leaves us unmoving for an hour. This is the National Highway and leads to Silchar and Guwahati in Assam and according to our taxi driver, Arama, is the day for commercial goods road transport to arrive in Aizawl. While we wait, Mamma figures out how to play the games on my cellphone, something I haven't even bothered with. How do these 8-year olds instinctively know?

En route, Tipi stops at a village and we go down to a ramshackle little cottage. Prohibition in Mizoram has led to many families brewing illegal liquor for a livelihood, especially along the National Highway. Tipi knows someone who brews good quality “lokkul” as its called. This is distilled from regular rice and while the alcohol percentage is not as high as whisky or vodka, it is nevertheless potent. Some unscrupulous types mix chemicals in the distillate to increase the potency and it has led to deaths. The Excise officials are further down the village hassling other distillers so we buy a plastic packet and make a quick getaway.

Sairang is a village way down the Aizawl slopes, through which the river Tlawng flows. We snack on some local fried stuff at Tipi's cousin's shop and then make our way down to the river to discover that the immersion ceremonies for Durga have begun. We watch for a while and I explain to Tipi whatever little I know about what's happening. We go away from this spot to some rocks where a mountain stream joins the Tlawng.

The water is muddy, but beautifully cold. We soak our feet in the current and drink “lokkul” as Mamma joins the local kids splashing about in the shallows. One part has depth and the local kids jump off the high rocks and cliffs into the waters, thoroughly enjoying themselves. The light is changing to dusk and we decide to head back to Aizawl, a pleasant buzz in our heads.

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The evening brings an invitation for drinks to Mr Lalthanhawla, the former Chief Minister's residence in Zarkawt in the heart of the city. Ravi was a dear friend of his son who died of an overdose a few years ago. Ravi has immense respect for the man, considering him a father figure, and it is obvious Mr Lalthanhawla too is fond of my friend. My past jobs have brought me into contact with a number of politicians, but they have been of a purely official nature. This is the first time a former Chief Minister has served me a drink with his own hands and I feel privileged. Like all Mizos, he is a warm and welcoming host. He is erudite, learned, and extremely well informed. It's been about 2 years since he lost his “gaddi” as he puts it charmingly, and while regretting the quality of Scotch he was serving he laughingly told us that he himself is a victim of the prohibition policy that was enacted by him while in power. I ask why he brought in this policy, and his answer is straightforward, “The Church... and the people.”

He served me a sweet local brew, of rare vintage, fermented from the traditional sticky rice of these parts of the North East. It was certainly very different from what I had drunk in the afternoon. He conceded it to be a good afternoon drink, to be had before a hearty lunch, which I conceded to as a gentle hint to get on with my Scotch!

I finally had the right man to ask, what I now myself was getting irritated with as an obsessive question, about Mizoram's economy. He has been the most popular CM and I think the longest serving one, having given up his gaddi willingly to bring peace to this insurgency-torn, beautiful land. The peace accord with the then underground Mizo National Force and Mr Laldenga, their leader in exile, required one to voluntarily step down from his elected position as CEO of the State, and the other to lay down arms. Of course, Mr Lalthanhawla was soon back where he belonged, and it is evident that he speeded up progress and instituted projects which continue to benefit the populace. The MNF returned to power recently, and I had already heard from local folks that the current CM, Zoramthanga, is hardly as efficient. Perhaps it won't be long before the person who was my host this evening will regain his lost position.

Mr Lalthanhawla told me that 20 years of insurgency had brought poverty to his land, once self-sufficient in food grains, untrammelled by urbanisation, and beautiful. The MNF and allied forces had raped their own land and its people in the quest of some elusive Utopia. To counter the insurgents, the bigger powers in Delhi decided to do some raping of their own. The Army was installed in all its might in Mizoram, and as if that was not enough, on the 5^th or 6th March 1966, the Indian Air Force strafed and bombed Aizawl, leaving thousands of innocent people dead, destroying a beautiful hill-station and engendering the hate and anger that Mizos and other North Easterners have for the military in particular, and “Indians” in general. All this led to a massive exodus of people from the interior rural areas into Aizawl seeking food, shelter and income. So Aizawl is now this overgrown, unplanned city groaning under the weight of its population, sorely lacking in infrastructure and opportunity.

The Centre realised too late its typical stupidity, and tried to make amends by giving people jobs in the Central ministry departments, apart from all the frantic subsidising and grants they dished out as charity to a state which never would have required such sops. This then is the background to the sarcastic remark I heard a few days ago telling me that the India Government is what the economy of Mizoram is based on. But Mr Lalthanhawla is specific. He says Mizoram's economy is based on agriculture and must continue that way for a return to self-sufficiency and prosperity. I am not that naïve a person to believe every word a politician says, but the ring of conviction in Mr Lalthanhawla's voice and my own observations tells me he is right. That is heartening news for our country now gradually running amuck with uncontrolled urbanisation. We need to return to earth from the rarified atmosphere of globalisation and all the ills that it brings. The earth is where we are, and we need to touch it and love it once again.

I know for sure that if I once again exercise my franchise, something I no longer do, it will be to vote in Mr Lalthanhawla as the Prime Minister of India, rather than Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharya of Bengal, who journalists and people in Calcutta and elsewhere are rooting for. I have no particular political stance or dogma but my reason for this decision is solid. Mr Lalthanhawla is of the land and wants to return there for a sustainable future. BB is also from the earth, but he's now sailing far out in the unrealism of globalisation, at the expense of farmers.

Mrs Lalthanhawla had been away at a wedding shower and joined us for a few minutes before we left, gracious in her unnecessary apologies. She must have been quite a stunning beauty when younger. As I took their leave, I knew I had enjoyed the company of a man, who given the opportunity, has an alternative and viable vision for the future of not just Mizoram, but India in its entirety and diversity.

(There's a reasonably well-researched articles from 2003 available from The Hindu online on and another from Frontline magazine on Mr Lalthanhawla and Mizo politics, if you're really keen that is...)