Mumbai November 2008

I am unable to come to an understanding of what and how I feel about the “War on Mumbai”.

Maybe I'm just intellectualising things without giving way to basic emotions, instinctual reactions. Maybe I'm trying to find meaning in an obvious and apparent situation.

I'm wondering whether my grief in collective public display with its many innovations in this digital networking age will be of benefit to anyone other to stroke my ego.

Should the energy that goes into my grief be perhaps better directed to individual and collective action? What is it that I can do? How do I support and bolster the security of my country without going up and shaking a policeman's hand, without lighting candles at the Gateway, without giving vent to communal hatred, without taking vigilante action, without getting overcome by the base feelings that television awakens in us, without cynicism, without being partisan, or indifferent?

I'm sure the last thing our security forces need right now are interfering, meddling, and bumbling citizens with a panicked zeal. Nor do they need our criticism, armed with our imperfect wisdom and solutions. They just need the space to do their job. If they need us, they'll ask us.

So where then is our power? Our power is in our hands as citizens. As tax-payers, as voters, as proud of being Indian as the folks who we voted to represent us and govern on our behalf. We have the collective power and authority to generate a widely spread and momentous pressure on all politicians regardless of the colour of their persuasion.

We need to get together as citizens and put united public pressure on them to take many different actions, enact laws, and work at strengthening the defenses of our country. There can be no one solution. We need many to work in synergy. Our pressure has to be exerted through collective and united opinions and voices in popular mass media, the digital ways, through awareness campaigns in public spaces, and to make sure the joint political entity of India do what we want.

That's all I have to say.

Thoughts on music in Calcutta and Bertie da Silva in Concert

Indians write in English and have readers all over the world. Indians make films in the English language and get international audiences. Indian artists receive global recognition. Indians create software that is operated internationally. Indian academicians are renowned in almost every corner of the earth.

But when it comes to Indian musicians making music in English, frowns appear, subjective criticism is so vehement, it could almost be mistaken for poetry. WTF? Yet you will find many of these hypercritics energetically wagging their heads to rock, folk, country, hip-hop, or whatever music, which has originated in the Occident. Music with words in English must, it seems, be only from where this tongue is the dominant and primary means of communication.

In 1979, we had considered this anomaly in our vague, post-adolescent angst. It resulted in Blues in the Basement – a concert of original music in English that is still talked about today for reasons that range from nostalgic remembrance to awe. But that was a one-off show, a concert that was never repeated in its format by us, or anyone else. At least not in Calcutta.

A bit of history you thought you knew

Over the decades, a generation or three emerged as good musicians in their own right, composing English songs and tunes of quality with dedication and a strong belief in their abilities. At the same time, popular music in Indian languages, mainly Hindi, began to rob elements of this second-class “English music” and to happily integrate these into their melodies and rhythms, and even in the lyrics. Naturally, it gained an immense popularity that spanned language and cultural barriers across the nation. Such music generated so much demand that it gave the ruling Hindi film soundtrack songs tough competition. This resulted then in producers wanting the non-film musicians to sing and perform in their movies. And a whole genre of crossover popular music was born. Suddenly, the role of Indian musical elements was reversed in this music which was essentially rock and pop from the West.

This then led to the advent of fusion music. It’s not that this form hadn’t been tried in earlier years. From Ravi Shankar and Yehudi Menuhin to The Beatles and others who followed, Eastern and Western fusion music had straddled popular imagination. In fact, if Indian and Western fusion music had a beginning, it was in the early Hindi movies. S D and his son R D Burman were pioneers. But the fusion music of more recent times was inspired by global trends in listening. ‘World music’ became a genre in itself. This was a lot of different kinds of music from varied cultural origins attempting to musically come together in an often contrived manner, leading it to be sardonically termed ‘con-fusion’. Indian musicians did not lag behind in adopting this trend.

Over the years, a regional bias had crept into everything, including music. Back in Calcutta, the live performance of original Western music had become almost non-existent. The musicians who played this stuff had been transposed to performing English cover songs at pubs, college fests, and parties. DJs with their electronic and digital gadgetry and their shoddy, unschooled, amateur and eclectic tastes and sensibilities were now catering to the lowest common denominator. Individuals who composed original music banded together to play gigs which insisted on cover songs and tunes so that they could make a living. In any case, making a living from playing original ‘English’ music was next to impossible. Some drifted off into the fusion genre which seemed to have potential and others re-discovered their ethnicity to do Bangla “band music”. Many did it all at various convenient moments.

Once again, everyone robbed randomly from ‘English’ music to add that additional, familiar texture to their songs which echoed their influences and exposed a whole gamut of mediocrity. But no one was complaining – neither the audiences nor the musicians. The Bangla band or rock variety has now become so universally accepted that when one tells an avid fan that some tune or the other was originally from an English song, one is greeted with incredulity.

Within this scenario, there were still musicians trying to do their original English music. Therefore, it was not unusual to find these musicians getting frustrated, jaded, bitter and cynical about their creative efforts. Worse, it began to tell on their music. They now no longer played music for a wider audience. In fact, it seemed like they were almost playing for themselves and a small core group of fans and friends who gave moral support if nothing else, and that too out of a sense of loyalty.

The way it is today

The state of confusion had just exploded. Now, if you were doing original music, (and it didn’t matter whether it was English or fusion), you had no place to perform other than college fests, pubs, and special nights at the various clubs. The one pub that revived live English music performances a decade and a half ago frowned upon fusion, didn’t really care for original lyrics, and only wanted local musicians to make familiar popular music by chart toppers from the West so that their bar business was brisk. All this “original-shoriginal” stuff could be performed by guest bands from other parts brought in for one-night-only gigs at costs that usually equaled two weeks or more payment to local musicians. In fact, this unnamed but obvious pub has been more responsible for the detriment of quality music by local talent than anyone or anything else. But they have their bottom lines all worked out, and nothing will make them change their minds now.

Concerts in auditoriums and similar venues in Calcutta had ceased long ago, especially for English rock music. There were no sponsors keen enough, no promoters willing to take the risk, and they all said there really was no audience. You see, the massive popularity of what is commonly called ‘Indipop’ has given a different tack to brand marketing strategy. In Calcutta, Bangla rock is granted second place, not because the music is of superior quality, but due to the kicking in of a regional bias vis-à-vis the way the sponsoring brand is marketed. Unable to make a decent living from music they would much rather play, talented and creative musicians depend on the whims of unaware or badly informed audiences, equally ignorant sponsors and promoters to make a few bucks more by playing what such crucial elements in their income-earning opportunities want. Apart from a sense of ennui, the cynicism and bitterness also pours through.

The courage of his convictions

Into this disquieting world of modern music in Calcutta, one man has the courage of his convictions to take a deep plunge into not just the unknown, but to do the unheard of.

Having voluntarily removed himself from the scene described above as it was developing, twenty years later, he decides he is ready to not just give it a shot once more, but to either make or break with it. Fatalistic? Not at all. Maturity. Confidence. Conviction. All of that, yes. And knowing that you gave it your best and your all.

In 1979 I saw that light in his eyes, and we did Blues in the Basement together. In 2008, that light was once again evident, and we did Bertie da Silva in Concert together. Both times our gamble paid off. We realized that the audience did not actually know what they wanted to hear. And if it was music very well performed, they would like it for its originality even more. And we were right.

The audience does want stock favourites, but they also want the music we gave them. This much was evident in both years. Sold–out shows, packed venues and a clamour for more proved our point very satisfactorily. It can be compared to eating “chowmin” from street stalls and considering it value for money till you are treated to an authentic meal at a Chinese home. All at once the bar that defined taste has been notched up quite a bit higher.

I am not going to actually do a review of the concert by Bertie da Silva on the 18^th of November. I can’t. It would be biased, since I was so much a part of it. And to set any doubts you may have at rest, we have been self-critical, but that is rather a private reckoning and has no relevance to you reading this. Suffice to say we have learned from mistakes and know what to do/not to do next time. Yes, there is certainly going to be a next time. Actually, many more next times.

Doing concerts like this puts a whole lot of responsibility on musicians to offer up much more and better. Concerts like this expect audiences to come for the music alone, so if your music does not meet expectations of the audience you should be ready for the brickbats. And to work harder at your music.

That’s the space we want to carve out. A space for musicians who will be able to perform their original creative efforts for ignorant and unaware listeners and turn them around to their way of thinking. And yet make money from it. This is “alternative” at another level. A collaborative way of working so that new listeners emerge, new opportunities open up, and we can put the cynicism and bitterness to rest.

We may as well give it a shot. We have nothing to lose.

And the music never died

The lizard scampers away across the wall as I wait for the liftman to return from his namaaz and pull a brass lever which will elevate me up to the 5th floor. Its one of those typical old buildings of Central Calcutta, a relic of British times, but fairly well maintained, plumb in the middle of Chandni Chowk. It mostly houses a hotel and a bar which has live music every evening. Appropriate perhaps, considering that three floors up from the bar, intense rehearsals are on for a different kind of live music to be performed in a month's time.

The live music playing in the bar on the first floor is so at odds with what is being rehearsed up here that they might as well be from another planet. I have never actually been to this bar, but every evening I hear the music blaring into the stairwell in the many keys of off that the keyboard player can conjure up, as the digital drum machine whacks out a beat that seems to have nothing to do with the tempo of the song. It is a lot of amplified noise with a disjointed melody sneaking through. The songs are sung by a surprisingly good female voice who just sings away, sounding like she's ignoring the band backing her. I'm pretty sure the male-only patrons of the bar watching her with alcohol-ridden lust in their eyes, are not particularly bothered about the quality of the music. The music is only as good as its familiarity with them, and also perhaps the associations they carry from the Hindi films they originate from.

Maybe I'm being a little unkind to these professional musicians. Perhaps I think too highly of the music my friend Bertie Da Silva is playing three floors up. Neither Bertie or I would ever dream about doing a daily gig in a down-market bar. Forget down market. The reason Bertie and I decided to return to doing a concert in an auditorium like in our old days is because we were (and are) pretty disillusioned about performing background music for a social evening at an upmarket pub or club. Not strangely, both kinds of market establishments promote their facilities on the basis of the live music. Bertie and band don't even have the ostensible advantage of a sexy woman in slinky clothes vamping it up frontstage with a microphone in her hand!

Are we “English music” aficionados snobbish and snooty about the music we prefer to hear live or otherwise? Is it because it has no mass appeal here, unlike the music being performed downstairs, so that our inverted snobbery is like a defence mechanism for a rarefied clique? Do we justify our stance by the “quality” of music we listen to, and the intellectual and aesthetic attractions, not forgetting the nostalgic sentiments, it holds for us? And what about the reputation of the performers?

Could be. Who knows? All I know now is that we are committed to doing our show in less than a month's time. Such questions could be distracting to what we want to achieve in our 'other' world. In my mind I wish the musicians in the bar all the best as the liftman swings open the collapsible iron gates for me at the fifth floor. From outside the door to Cyrus' home I hear Willy doing his bass solo in La Dolce Vita. With him, Jonathan's keys and Amlanjyoti's soft drums fill up this space I am now standing in, a world away from what's happening three floors down. And of course the tale the song tells is a true one, like many of Bertie's songs. It has the added flavour of my having been present during what he sings about, a slice of life that happened in an upmarket lounge bar where live music is also used to bring in customers. As an aside, the jazz inflections endear it to me as well.

I sit down quietly and watch Bertie and the band rehearse the 18th November concert material. They've been at it for more than two months now and I see it's only getting better. It should be. Because he planned it that way. Hand-picking the musicians, initially rehearsing with them in separate sessions, then bringing them together as a band just about twenty days ago, and now working hard at it so that everything falls into place. And it's surely looking like that, the way things are going.

We all have a suppressed excitement about the show. This really is Bertie's comeback concert. There are two reasons why I discount last year's reunion show with Mel and Fuzz at Princeton, and the two or three collaborative gigs he did with Pink Noise later in the year, as his comeback shows. Firstly, the one with Mel and Fuzz was a one-off, a sentimental get-together resulting from Fuzz's visit to Calcutta after almost 10 years, and a keen sense of nostalgia which naturally occurred. I'm sure the three of them would love to do another, properly rehearsed concert together, but it requires a major commitment level and relocation for Fuzz which presently seems impossible.

Secondly, the gigs with Pink Noise were good to hear since those guys are such experienced and talented musicians who perform and practice regularly, but their commitments beyond Bertie were not helping him to take his music exactly where he wanted to go with it. The inevitable was what he now has put together. A band playing exclusively with him, dedicating huge chunks of their time everyday to the music because they love it so much.

That's the other thing. His admirers and fans, very often students he has taught or still teaches English to. I'm constantly amazed at how quickly and easily they respond and volunteer to do any little thing to make this show by “Sir” a resounding success. Some of them are influential, some are not, yet the individual and collective, genuine admiration spans quite a few years and even a generation or so. In fact, both Jonathan and Anindya are ex-students of his and they along with Amlanjyoti who is the son of old friend Victor, have brought a youthful energy and drive, as well as fresh ideas to the entire sound. Nice!
Willy, a contemporary of Bertie's and mine, provides the been-there, done-that backing a band like this requires, but not at all in a cynical, jaded way. A neat, and you could even say optimal mix, to the music. Ever the one with a piquant, Anglo-Indian sense of humour, Willy is discussing with Bertie about a bass run that he needs to do in a song, which musicians call “doing a walk”, when he remembers a tale from long ago. A musician of Goan ethnicity who played upright acoustic bass was unfamiliar with the 'walking' term. When he was told to “do a walk” in a particular song, the other band members were surprised to find him pick up his huge and heavy instrument and start to walk around. Fortunately, this happened at a practice session and not on stage! We all have a good laugh. Then Cyrus brings in the tea and everyone takes five. Willy and Cyrus also go back a long way, and it's nice sometimes to hear them exchange memories. I really must start documenting these musician stories soon.
It's a pity Cyrus won't be able to play this gig. His reasons are solidly valid, but personally speaking I'll miss him being on stage after three decades or so. I remember being very blown away at a High concert when he played lead guitar with them. However, things are open with him for the next gig, which we must do soon, at least within the first three months of next year. I do want to hear him play live once again.

Post-rehearsal, Bertie and I go back to his house and sup on kati rolls and tea. We are tense with the thoughts of what the future will bring. Maybe trepidation is a better word. But we are optimistic. Things seem to be slowly falling into place, both musically and otherwise. The lack of a lead guitar is no longer noticeable after Bertie has tweaked and rearranged some of the tracks which would have used the part. People are already talking about the show even outside Calcutta, especially Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad. Tickets to the show are being sought, and though we have no sponsors yet, we are not unduly worried. The way things are moving, that too will happen. We have a very strong verbal commitment from a leading city newspaper and a FM radio station to write and talk about Bertie, this concert, and a whole lot besides.

We talk of the concert and the things still left to do. We are looking at this as a stepping stone to bigger and better. More shows in Calcutta and away. More shows with other musicians, organised specially for them, not necessarily featuring Bertie every time. All these shows will have one dominating criterion. They will feature original music performed by the musicians. Music that is never really given a fighting chance by the big labels, the music stores and the airwaves because it cannot be classified, set into little boxes which are convenient for sales. Live concerts are the only option left open to such dedicated musicians, and even there sponsors can be mean and stingy. These musicians pour their heart and soul into their music, often sacrificing much and compromising with too much to play what they want. And make you like it enough to want more.

The music never died. It never even faded away. It just orbited out of our ambit for awhile. Maybe we'll be able to bring it back to a space where you will come to listen to music for its sake alone.


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Bertie Da Silva and the band perform in concert on Tuesday 18th November 2008 at G D Birla Sabhagar, Calcutta, from 7 to 9 pm. The first set will feature Bertie in a solo performance. After a short intermission, he will perform with the band, who are: Willy Walters on bass guitars, Jonathan Ramgopal on keyboards, Amlanjyoti Singh on drums and Anindya Sundar Paul on backing vocals. Yours truly will also be doing backing vocals for three songs when I'm not running around the premises acting frightfully busy.

A BRIDGE TO HOWRAH

The layers of this city run thick and deep. A renaming to Kolkata does not reveal much. It merely creates another layer instead, another mystery.

This city takes you beyond loving it and hating it. Words seem inadequate, often superfluous when I try to write of it. Images, both moving and still, seem better suited to express things about Calcutta/Kolkata. Love and hate for a city is possible when certain aspects can be taken for granted. Things are that are standard, universal, fit the norm, are comparable.

Is Cal/Kol really in a time warp as the critics say? As if static, unchanging, unable to catch up with preconceived notions of “the times”? Yet when you turn to look again, there's been a shift in perspective, a subtle transformation, the inexorable tread of progress. The people of course. They are the cause and effect of it all. The hum of this city. The disturbing blurring of the senses when your perceptions and information systems are overloaded.

And then when you come from foreign shores with certain ideas, particular information, even impressions from an earlier visit, you could find distinct, deliberate changes have taken place since. As a medium for information, interpretation and expression, documentary films are hard to beat. You can adapt, adjust, if necessary compromise with your story line for such changes that will invariably occur. Calcutta/Kolkata will always give you more than enough footage for your needs.

York Street Productions from Hamburg in Germany came to shoot a 'city portrait' of Kolkata. At the outset it seemed simple enough. An earlier visit had given an idea of the way things worked here, happened here. They were prepared for many eventualities, having widened the scope of the film to encompass them. They had found that films about Kolkata shown in Europe were, broadly speaking, stories of a city that was dying, somehow on the brink of existence, mainly because of Mother Teresa and her legacy. Stephan the director, knew there was a positive side to Kolkata, a viewpoint that might reflect the promise and hope the city held.

The York Street team arrived as Mamata Banerjee was at the height of her Tata Nano-Singur agitation; a major constituent of the Left Front government of Bengal was withholding the license to operate from Metro Cash & Carry, the giant German wholesaler; bomb blasts in Delhi and other places were making their effects felt in Kolkata; the downslide in international financial markets that would certainly have its repercussions here, had just begun. What promise and hope? This was a question citizens were asking in distress and cynicism.

At the micro level, important permissions for their shoot were still pending. Appointments with some industry spokespersons were awaited. It was raining every now and then, enough to cause a nagging worry. But the IFA Derby match shoot at Salt Lake stadium was sanctioned, and despite it all, in spite of the mediocre football, about 80,000 fans of East Bengal and Mohun Bagan filled the stands and a good few hours of videotape. The local television channel which holds the exclusive rights for all IFA matches refused permission to shoot the game itself. They did not realise that the imagery got from the stands was worth more than the actual game.

The inevitable happened as I knew it would from past experience. Things began to fall into place. However, an unknown factor to me as their production coordinator was Howrah. They were to film in quite a few locations across the river and I am quite ignorant of the place. The bulk of my knowledge about Howrah is centred around its location as a railway station. Plus we were to shoot in areas dominated by a community feeling targeted and vilified because of current happenings in India, across the borders and globally. While no untoward incidents took place, and though I was pretty sure they would not, nevertheless they were anticipated.

But I, along with Ankit who was assisting, felt the resentment and the anger in the scathing remarks and snide comments directed at us two Indians in the crew. We had to remain non-committal and beyond conflict as we were accused of selling out to the sada chamra, the white skin, who in turn would sell their images for good money while the people being filmed lost out as usual. The bitterness and partial truth hurt and I questioned things once again.

Is there a right way and a wrong way of showing poverty? Does it have to be filmed at all? But the bare facts already surround you, we live side by side with it. As reasonably aware and informed citizens we know quite a bit of the sordid reality. But how much does it affect us, move us to action? What works? Charity? Rehabilitation? Can the two be differentiated? How do intervening factors like bureaucracy, corruption, violence, politics find their niche in the scheme of things? And become an integral part of the system? If we must show some of it, how much is no more? Will it all change with big factories, globalized business with local addresses, shopping malls and real estate development? Will it get better? Or is the rich-poor divide getting wider? Is the divide itself now fodder for international entertainment television, reality TV?

I have yet to find any satisfactory answers. I know I must live with these questions and deal with it the best I can, in as equal terms as I can. Or be insensitive, impervious, completely uncaring. Live within my insulated bubble, my comfort zone of creative arts and expression. Intellectual masturbation perhaps?

India is a hot topic in the West. The Germans I know, from personal interaction in the past, are fascinated by Kolkata as well. Their previous Cullkoota has become Kolkata, until they arrive to find that Calcutta coexists, as does Cull-katta, and “north Cal”, “south Cal”, “central Cal”...plus all the layers between. And flowing right through it all is the river with the bridge that spans it in more ways than one.

Howrah Bridge, the first one, the prime visual symbol of the city in tourism tracts, sounds like a difficult task. Especially if you have already experienced belligerent policemen when you tried to use your tiny digital camera at the bridge. I also know any official paperwork holds sway over almost all aspects of life here. And an infinite store of patience will help you get it at a very, very reasonable cost. Legally, officially. Permission to film the bridge all of two days was granted.

This bridge, Rabindra Setu, is grander, lovelier and livelier than the second Hooghly bridge, the Vivekananda Setu because people use it. And they use it more than vehicles. The constant, surging flow (like the river below) of people walking at all hours, changes the dimensions of this steel structure to such an extent that it feels totally natural, the way it should be. This is Calcutta, not Kolkata.

The Vivekananda bridge does not allow pedestrian traffic. Seen from Mullick Ghat beside the Flower Market, Howrah Bridge (who other than officialdom calls it Rabindra Setu?), is a pulsating, living thing. In a boat on the river underneath, the bridge has a strange auditory experience, like a rumbling bass voice in the distance with intermittent highs. You feel like talking to it, like a child to a father. I'm sure it has much to say.

There are many opinions about Calcutta/Kolkata that its citizens have. Vibrant is a much used term. Fascinating, lively, colourful are other adjectives that readily come to mind. In the madness and chaos, the poverty and the extremes, the Germans see smiling faces, ready laughter, unbridled curiosity, and an innate politeness and hospitality whichever way they look. Locals are surprised by this observation till they themselves leave their shells and see the truth of it. It is as though there is a silent, mutual conspiracy among all its citizens to not just say good about their city, but to also feel good, even as they are full of woe and cynical of current events and history. I like to believe this is a very Calcutta phenomena.

Kolkata as a global business destination is not surprising at all. Calcutta was - till politics and circumstances altered that. A feel-good factor holds forth, as interviews with a cross-section of people from the IT Minister to a football coach, from industrialists to a leasehold farmer on the city's eastern fringes, from a historian to a musician, and a film director to a social worker reveals. If much is artificial, PR-speak, fear of political reprisal, or sheer diplomacy one cannot say, but the overall attitude is positive.

That people live, work and play here, and make the best of prevailing circumstances while still retaining hope, is a fitting response to those in other parts who shun and denigrate the city. Maybe Calcutta/Kolkata requires a tougher breed of people than those who do not stay here. Which urban agglomeration has no difficulties? It's the manner in which you acknowledge and deal with it that makes you stand apart. Foreigners who live and work here, and were interviewed during the filming had much the same thing to say. Why should this be? It's not necessary for them to do so. As it is not necessary for its natural citizens. Yet we say so and mean it.

Calcutta/Kolkata is between the awareness and understanding of it. Which, by the way, is never complete. The more you understand the less you know. The more you know the less the appreciation. And the more the awareness the more the mystery. Or is it the mystical? That too.

The documentary, A Bridge to Howrah, may never be seen publicly in the city of its filming. In any case it is not being made for audiences here but for European ones. Who will probably enjoy it quite whole-heartedly. Many of them will possibly donate money and goodwill to a project initiated by a German doctor currently working with child labour in Howrah. In fact, that project will be the fulcrum of the story that York Street Productions will attempt to tell. Their telling of it will be one version. Their captured imagery on the other hand may form many more versions in other minds. My own observations during the shooting of it has definitely created another version. A bridge to Howrah can only return me to Calcutta/Kolkata.

I wonder if Calcutta/Kolkata is beyond documentary films made on it; beyond words written about it? I wonder if there is some sort of inner communal, tribal sense of pace and strategy its citizens share which dictates our attitudes and moves? The Tata's small-car big-factory exit from Bengal on the eve of Durga Puja didn't do much to dampen spirits. The possibility of rain ruining celebrations was more worrying. Media interpretations of who we are, what we do and why we do so are infinite and versionary and will leave little or no impact on Calcutta/Kolkata and its citizens. Whatever happens as a consequence of such media exhibits will be grains of sand on a beach, drops of water in monsoon floods.

The layers pulled back reveal more layers. Perhaps there is an insularity that is at once self-absorbed as it is open. Maybe it is 'open source' where you may tinker with the original code to make a better version but you cannot take undue credit for something that is not originally yours.

Calcutta/Kolkata is not yours or mine to claim. Except the version you make of it. For better or worse.
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Go here for my pictures of "The Making of Bridge to Howrah".

OK TATA BYE BYE

The theme of a Durga Puja pandal this year in the Sealdah area. It featured the facades of two factories - one old and the other new, garlanded by a huge chain and lock, and the "Nata Mano" - "the short man"? Now I wonder who that is?

The reason the Tata Nano car project has opted out of Bengal's Singur is ostensibly, as the Scion put it, “the agitation by Mamata Banerjee”. Okay. Fair enough. Her brand of disruptive, constantly 'opposing' vis-a-vis Opposition politics is not really favoured by most people. Her single-minded agenda to somehow grab the headlines and stay within sight (and sound) of the electorate who can, as she well knows, easily trash her sooner than she likes, has caused what one newspaper screamed, was the “death of hope”, a “bullet into Bengal's soul”.
Really?

Does it mean the other 'lesser' industrialists, entrepreneurs, and assorted capitalists who have invested heavily here are not to be considered as contributing to the over-all development and progress of Bengal? When did Tata suddenly become the sole saviour of this state's “resurgence”? How is it that the ruling majority political party, who not too long ago, intentionally created conditions that ensured the withdrawal of big industry and business from Bengal, are now being appreciated for “the support that the government gave us and the facilitation that they provided”? Quote unquote, Ratan Tata. Joke mara kya?

The same newspaper mentioned above also fears that “West Bengal will continue to sink into the quicksand [sic] into which the state's politicians put it way back in the Sixties”. Nevertheless, and you have to hand it to Mamata Banerjee that despite her dense intellectual abilities and obvious lack of any game plan (other than headline grabbing), she has instinctively understood that much more is afoot than one sees on the surface. Although I do believe I am being kind to her.

Even today, the Communists who rule Bengal are a house divided. While Tata is feted, other big investors are discouraged or subjected to prolonged delays. Then again small businesses, farmers, fisher-folk, workers, and a huge populace of ordinary citizens have been displaced, abandoned, ignored, mistreated, threatened, and generally dealt badly with by these very same Communists over three decades. However, their mutual objective despite their many shades, has been to gain a complete stranglehold of absolute power through any means possible, usually by terrorising, and when they feel munificent, through agitation.

So I have my own vision of a future scenario, or two.

One. The next general elections are a mere two years away. And like always, and in keeping with their favourite colour, the Communists must then come up smelling roses. Their initial land reforms policy from which some good did come, mainly from their legalisation of the bargadar system and their revolutionary land redistribution methods, also created a very efficient and monstrous system of corruption at all levels. Over the years this has actually caused the ruin of farmers and small land-holders, and once again re-vested power (and valuable resources) in the hands of the few and the wealthy. With the Communists no longer able to deliver anything other than empty promises in rural, agricultural Bengal, they have no option but to now push for “industrialisation” and what must necessarily be a shift to urbanisation. In fact, their public relations machinery has even coined a motto that succinctly reflects this new, 'progressive', 'resurgent' thinking: “Farming is our legacy, industry is our future”.

The Tata Nano car project would have been the biggest industrial project to come up in Bengal since the Reds came to power in 1977. I have no doubt that it would have led to a better socio-economic situation for us citizens in some ways. However, the recent Singur affair or fiasco where none of the interested parties backed off or compromised, and endlessly manipulated common folk who have lost the most, seems to me to be a very clearly thought out, long-term strategic move.

Imagine the official PR machinery of the rulers going to town in a few days with dejection and despondency and the humble attitude of “we did our best, what more could we have done?”. The Industries Minister has started the ball rolling by saying, “I don't feel like living in Bengal”. Mainline media have already identified scapegoats to lynch so that they can justify plunging advertising revenues they would have certainly, and optimistically forecast for themselves a year ago.

Imagine a huge section of urban voters, traditionally anti-Left, instantly swing back to vote Red in sympathy and empathy. Imagine a large section of rural voters who had the courage to oppose the Commies in the recent Panchayat elections find that their land has no value once again, revert to vote for the Left. And you have the perfect formula for another staggering win for the Communists at the hustings in two years!

If you feel like extending your imagination a little further, imagine that the Opposition is very much a cog in the well-oiled wheel of corruption whereby they are encouraged and incentivised by the Reds to maintain their opposing stance and allow the humble Left to once again emerge victorious in the polls. And when this eventually happens, the Tatas return to Bengal with new terms and favours. From what looks like a lose-lose situation currently, it becomes a win-win situation for all.

Alternative scenario: (This is played in fast forward mode compared to the above scenario.) Public opinion is swayed by the despondency and dejection being enacted on live television and hot-off-the-press dailies as the Tatas and their ancillary units begin to pack and move. Not a very happy, shubho Puja for all. Mamata sulks and retreats to a corner as usual. Opportunities seen in capitalist dreams of the proletariat are bursting like soap bubbles. In any case, the forcibly acquired, meagrely compensated, and disputed land in question at Singur is useless for agriculture any more as it has been completely covered with fly ash to facilitate the Nano factory construction. The Red rulers once again appeal to Tata with the added voice of “public opinion”. Mr Tata does a magnanimous about-turn and returns to renegotiate. (In fact, the way things are going in Sanand, the alternative Nano factory may not happen there either.) The Left having learned a bit of a lesson (not too much), deal more maturely this time keeping the coming elections in mind. All of a sudden, things are looking up again.

One cannot ignore the fact that if the Nano is to be a successful small and cheap ($2000) car it has to be first in the market with the ability to flood it in the next year or so. The Tata's competitors are not exactly sitting back and wondering how things will be. They are certainly working on their own versions. All the alternative manufacturing sites available to the Tatas either do not have adequate infrastructure or require huge new investments and longer time periods so production cannot start so fast. The bare fact is that Singur is already there and already heavily invested in by them.

I believe the Tatas are not yet ready with their Nano. They are also not equipped with the necessary environment and other clearances they need to sell the car in foreign markets, especially Europe where there is much dismay and strong opposition to the Nano which is viewed as a potential hazard. They have conveniently used Mamata's stupid agitation to gain time and save face. This time, the Opposition is granted the victory of some more rural seats in the general elections so they can crow about how farmer-friendly they are and at the same time save face too. Again, win-win for all.

We live in interesting times, don't we?

Responsibility? My arse!

This is quoted from Calcutta's The Telegraph newspaper of Friday September 5, 2008:

"[Ratan] Tata also told The New York Times that he thought farmers genuinely wanted a different way of life, using new skills in new jobs.

'As each generation develops, the children of the rural economy must decide whether they want to continue to work on the farms', he said."

Great, Mr Tata! And what should we eat then, the Nano? the Indica? the cellphone and Internet bandwidth? steel?

I'm amazed that the scion of one of India's most respected industrial families can make such irresponsible statements. This is also not the first time he's said something like this. Earlier this year, at the Auto Expo in New Delhi he made a similar statement about people in Bengal needing to decide whether they want development or agriculture.

Actually, I'm not amazed. I'm sick of these industrialists who believe that their profit-making, pollution-creating devices are signs of "development".

Witness one more instance where the Tatas have gloriously fucked up. Greenpeace has been waging a very real protest against the Tata's Dhamra port project.

“The TATAs have demonstrated concern over their brand image, but not about the impacts their port construction will have on the turtles and their habitat. They do not seem to care that close to one lakh TATA customers have asked that the port be shifted, or that over 200 national and international scientists and academics, including over 30 turtle experts, have called for the port to be stopped. They are not bothered about the fact that fisher forums, representing the interests of thousands of fishermen in Orissa have called for the port to be halted” said Ashish Fernandes, Oceans Campaigner, Greenpeace India.

Read all about it here.

And the less said about their broadband and Internet services, the less you'll have to read my rant.

So here we are with India's premier industrial behemoth and their so called corporate, social and environmental responsibility. As I said before, my arse!

I think we also need to add our voices to things like this apart from crying out for non-violence and peace in our lives.

Who are these people?

Who are we? Who are we, who question established precepts, argue the considered opinion of mass media, and as someone rather unfairly put it, are intellectual wankers?

But then who are we, we who are confident of our identities, our capabilities, our place in the scheme of things even if not endorsed by official authority? Who are we who observe, experience, digest, process, understand (or not) the onrushing ocean of text, images, sound, smell, touch, feelings, emotions, and still not drown?

Why is it that the artistic, the creative, the truly innovative affects us more than the money that can, or may not, be generated from it? That we mostly choose the art, and not the money, and are happier for it?

Who are we who question our own ideals, as we also find wanting the ideals of others? And if we leave aside political, economic, military and religious ideals, then there really isn't much to make a choice from other than the creative spirit.

Why do we from across countries and continents, rivers and oceans, mountains and forests, connect at a common point where our skills and abilities, our wealth and means, our status in society, our origins and backgrounds, are of no consequence? They say 'birds of a feather', 'like minds'... They are right.

But they are not us, even as they acknowledge us. And even as they do, they would rather ignore us, in many places thwart us, certainly laugh at us, even eliminate us. And the many who do this, are they who are family, community, colleagues, neighbours. We who will not go to war with them, run the rat race with them. We who will not avenge ourselves but seek to resolve conflict, find common ground, make peace.

I don't know who we are, but I am finding more of us. Are we a marginalised, widely dispersed, loosely coalesced, thinly populated conglomeration of not just thinkers but actively involved individuals who are there to balance, and on occasion, even tip the scales?

Who are these people, we who live right there among you?

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

I see people who are supposed to know better standin' around like furniture.

There's a wall between you and what you want and you got to leap it,

Tonight you got the power to take it, tomorrow you won't have the power to keep it.

- From The Groom's Still Waiting At The Altar by Bob Dylan in Shot of Love (1981)

A Death In Mizoram (and other reflections on life)

RAVI ADVANI: November 1, 1966 - August 6, 2008


Written: August 7, 2008

Ravi Advani died yesterday. The fourth of my contemporaries, one more of my closest friends, who went well before his time. But what is this time that we have an illusion of? What is this concept of time we have, where it is not quantified by mere numbers, but as an undefined period or space between birth and death?

I don't know. I'll leave such querying to more scholarly minds. Yet I cannot but help contemplating this aspect of our lives. We accord time such value, such importance. And then when our pre-conceived notions of life do not fit into this 'time' we believe is allocated to us, we are at a loss.

Still, Ravi, 9 years younger than me, has passed on. He died of many complications which wrecked his body over the years, finally resulting in a multiple-organ failure that ended his life. Of course he neglected himself. Of course he chose to consume alcohol in excess. Of course he lived life with the sure knowledge that he had plenty of time.

It was this last mentioned guarantee which he gifted himself that determined the way he wanted to live his life. He lived life to the full. Once more, another indeterminate and vague concept. The fullness of one's life is bound or controlled by individual circumstances. Ravi enjoyed his life in the best possible way he could. He used humour to buttress his weaknesses and failures, of which he had plenty. He bore no ill-will or grudges for any length of time. This too ensured that people took advantage of his warm heart, a generosity of pocket he could least afford, and his status as a bachelor without family of any kind. He gave in easily to others' whimsy and overbearing attitudes.

So when the time came for the truth of friendship to be put to the test, these so-called 'others' were found to be sadly lacking.

It was his destiny to have come to Aizawl in Mizoram and find his place on earth ten years ago. Before this move, he lived in Calcutta, the city of his birth, where we met. Just a few months before his migrating, he had been diagnosed with tuberculosis and was in a very bad way in the hospital. My late parents insisted on bringing him home to our house where they cared for him, nourished him, and ensured his recovery, just as they would have done for their own children.

Having lost his own parents at a very young age, Ravi had no real family of his own. There were relatives scattered here and there, but he never talked of them much, and certainly not in a special manner as many of us tend to do. He claimed me and my family as his own and yet he suddenly disappeared without notice and we lost touch for more than 5 years.

And then in Aizawl he found another family, another set of true friends. Makuka and his family, and the good doctors Jane and Zothan. They were the only people he talked of regularly, animatedly, and with all the emotion one comes to bear upon when talking of people one loves and who love you back. Unconditionally.

It hardly mattered that there was no blood connection. The last ten days of his life spent in a hospital was when, once again, this Mizo family of his did what blood relatives should normally do. They arranged for expensive medicines and bottles of blood, paid his bills (he was stone broke), sent him meals thrice a day, took it in turns to stay nights with him, and constantly kept me and my sister updated with his progress, or lack of it.

It was at their urging that I eventually decided to come see this friend of mine, someone I'd known for 20 years. Nearly half his life. Despite my not wanting to see him in the condition he was in, I realised we were brothers and it was the least I could do. I flew to Aizawl with a bad gut feeling and a heavy heart. He called me in the morning yesterday telling me that my flight was as per schedule, and that I should get him some fruits unavailable in Aizawl and the new book by Jhumpa Lahiri. At Lengpui, Aizawl's airport, I sent a text informing him I'd arrived and that Makuka was driving me up to my hotel. His last communication with me was a text in reply to tell Makuka that he wanted freshly boiled country chicken (a Mizo speciality) for dinner that night. I later learned he died an hour and fifteen minutes after that. The time I must have entered my hotel room.

Once again, his Mizo family showed what it means to be considered as such. Makuka brought Ravi's body to his own house, where his sister and others laid his body for people to pay their last respects. The entire neighbourhood and community, more than a hundred people, gathered to keep vigil till late at night with us. Most of them did not know Ravi, or had a nodding acquaintance with him. Yet they and the YMA, the Young Mizo Association, organised everything. From making and serving tea and food for all visitors, making his coffin, transporting it to the Chanmari cemetery, digging his grave, and today, to sealing his final resting place. The graveyard is on a hillside, and it is rocky, and at the end there were some 80 people who made sure the mandatory six feet was dug so that his burial could happen that very night itself.

I had been using his mobile phone to inform all the people in his contacts list about his demise. What I was really trying to do was somehow connect with a blood relative so that someone from his family would know. But I was not successful. Instead I received a call from an obstreperous, uncouth, arrogant man from Delhi who claimed to be Ravi's friend for four years (4 years!), who actually had the unmitigated gall to question our decision to bury him and not cremate him, since, he said, Ravi was a Hindu and had apparently told him sometime in the past that he had wanted this.

I think I knew Ravi better than anyone. We spoke almost every day once we renewed contact some 5 years ago, often merely enquiring about my normal, daily routine. He shared many of his thoughts with me. One thing I knew for certain was that Ravi was not religious. In fact he avoided such people and places as much as he could. At the end, it was the people who looked after him and who, as Ravi was keenly aware, were real family, who took the decision to inter his remains rather than burn them.

The horrible man from Delhi, a certain Vicky Chauhan, did not even know that Ravi was in hospital until he got my text informing him of his death. Who are such people who suddenly want to make decisions about what to do with a dead Ravi when they least cared for him when he lived? All they were, were good-time buddies. They used Ravi's position as the manager of an airline agency to get confirmed air travel during peak periods, on the assurance of gifting him a bottle or two of whisky, a valued commodity in Mizoram where prohibition is law. In fact, they would also help consume that whisky gift. I feel excessively violent as I think of these scum of the earth, and I would have no regrets if someone cremated them alive.

My third visit to Mizoram, though in extreme contrast to my earlier two, has again been a valuable learning experience for me. I am completely enamoured of this place and its people. I consider myself an honorary Mizo, not because they conferred it on me, but because I am honoured to consider myself as such. It is due to Ravi that such a feeling overwhelms me about this treasure-house of a people in the north east of India.

We in urban, urbane, globalised India have much to learn from them. Or perhaps re-learn. We need to once again absorb what I fondly term the tribal traditions that keep them together and strong in times of need and stress, and in times of joy and happiness. Basically, at all times.

In the cities of the plains, we are self-centred, self-absorbed and selfish, doing things more for their social acceptability and trumpeted acknowledgement rather than for the sake of doing it. This intangible, precious quality of doing good for others without question or motive reposes only in a handful. In Mizoram, it is the quality of its people completely.

The death in Mizoram of my dear friend Ravi Advani is not an end. For me, it is a beginning. I have found true friends who have easily inducted me into their families. I have also been witness to the true Christian spirit in action, something that for so long has been theoretical, perhaps liturgical knowledge for me. I saw it in my parents and a few others which I took for granted, rightly assuming it to be their nature. Now I'm happy to know that such a spirit exists in an entire community and people.

In contrast, there is Ravi's employer of eight years. The man minced no words to publicly denounce Ravi's philandering ways at his wake, and over the next two days when I met him again to pack and collect Ravi's personal effects. Neither was he sparing in the self-praise and congratulations he awarded himself as he told me and others of the 'lakhs and lakhs of rupees' he had spent on Ravi's medical treatment over the years. Yet he never had one good thing to say about Ravi whom he had kept questionably employed for 8 years, other than to be slightly impressed by his PR skills.

Of course the man is a non-Mizo, even worse, a Bengali, a person of my 'exalted' community. To some, that itself would be a moot point, as his origins are not of Bengal. In the three times I have visited Aizawl, I was made acutely aware of the regard non-Mizos have for Mizos. They are vile in their vituperation and slick with their abuse and slander. This feeling is especially strong among the Army in their avatar as the Assam Rifles. This same attitude is perpetuated by the non-Mizo businessmen and traders who profit tremendously from doing what they do in Mizoram. (Some of them have even married Mizo women...)

In all the Mizos I have met over the years (and I have met a great number), I saw no such reciprocal tendency of attitude. In fact I sensed, and empathised with the alienation which has been forced upon them. I see this alienation mirrored in the advertisements that litter the pretty mountain sides in which handsome Indians (non-Mizos) pose to seek the necessary custom of Mizos for cellphone services, cars, TVs, et al. Why, when these companies are anyway spending millions to advertise, can't they find Mizo models to do the same, and not further perpetuate this alienating attitude? It would, to my reasonably long experience, make good marketing sense. There has been strife and bitterness in the past between Mizos and non-Mizos, but the present generation have left those memories behind and are making sincere efforts to integrate with the mainstream Indian identity. The media too have made no real contribution to furthering such ties. Other than creating special shows, pages and such which mostly examine political happenings with immense erudition and nothing else, mainline newspapers, periodicals and TV channels have miserably failed in their purpose of also being a unifying factor in our lives.

Ravi's death in Mizoram has opened doors and windows for me. I shall be eternally grateful to him for doing this, not by dying, but by having chosen to make that place his home eventually. And giving me pleasant and worthwhile insight and understanding. The more I look at these, the more I appreciate that we are not separate communities, or races of people with fixed identities, creeds and morals.

We are, finally, human beings, and that is all we shall be able to take with us when we too die.