Life - What Is It Worth?

One of my aunts passed away yesterday. While visiting her house this morning and seeing her body laid to rest for one last time, I was flooded with memories. All those childhood days spent in that house, where she always treated us with home-made ice-cream (those were days when the refrigerator was a magical thing!), one of her sons who used to draw and paint and thus did sow the seed for my interest in art that remains afresh till date, all those days of turning through the pages of his Archie Comics while recognising a few English words here and there, being made a fool by my didhi that always told me about how a ghost in one of the paintings really lives in the garden of that house and so many such nice ones.

Another hour or so and my aunt's body will be cremated and even her ashes and bones will be scattered in the sea. All that is going to remain of her are a few photographs and all our memories.

End of the day, isn't this the fate of all of us?! All our dreams, ego, anger, qualms, grudges, pains, pleasures, possessions - what do they all count to?! When we leave, we are not going to be remembered for owning a costly gadget, riding a luxury vehicle or throwing away wads of green every now and then at life's little pleasures. All that is going to remain of us will be a bunch of photographs and the impressions that we leave behind in the minds of the people around us. Why don't we all realise it sooner than later and strive to leave behind some good memories?!

Love and Life

All of us humans are like flowers - each with his/her own colour, texture and fragrance, similar in life traits, but no two ever the same. And, Love is that lovely butterfly wandering amist us lovely blooms. The Butterfly decides to sit on some, speak with some, sip on some, but there are many flowers that go through their whole lives without ever getting acquainted to that Butterfly. But, just because the Butterfly didn't sit doesn't make the flowers any inferior, just the same way it doesn't make the butterfly an unreal thing to the flowers. End of the day, the flowers need to realise that the purpose of their lives is to shine in colors and spread their fragrance, and seeking the butterfly isn't their purpose in life. For, as Zen says, the Butterfly sits, not by force or by prayers, but on It's own will!

Book Review: Sampat Pal – Warrior in a Pink Sari

The first time I learnt of Sampat Pal and her famed Gulabi Gang was through one of those innumerable Facebook posts that flood my screen. Ever since I read about the group and their resorting to often-subtle-at-times-abrasive methods of vigilantism, I felt curious to know more. So, at the first opportunity available in the form of a book in sale at Landmark, I lunged at it. I can say that I am not disappointed.

Sampat Pal hails from Uttar Pradesh, from one of those innumerable low-caste clans. As such, she had gone through all the troubles one might expect in this background – caste differences, illiteracy, hatred towards the girl child, childhood marriage, lack of understanding from in-laws, oppression from the high-caste Brahmins of her area, and an indifferent government.

She is a woman who had stood through all these travails to establish herself as a sole solace for many of the oppressed women, and at times even men, who go through troubles akin to hers. What started as a simple fight against caste-based oppressive treatment, turned out to be a fight against ill-treatment of daughters-in-law, corrupt government employees that fail to perform their duties, corruption in the public distribution system and lack of implementation of the government welfare schemes.

She comes across as a fire-brand social activist who resorts to not-so-subtle tactics to send her message across – like the time when she slapped a Brahmin in her village that beat up a lower class person, or her slapping a cop when he tried to arrest her companion for no reason, or even the time when a corrupt government official as well as a police constable were beaten to pulp by her gang for attacking them.

She claims that she has produced results with her methods often and the spreading of her fame across the globe is only proof enough for the same. While you may question whether she is right or wrong about her methods, I humbly feel that as long as she manages to produce the good results her methods are well justified.

But all isn’t well and pink – forgive the pun here – about her. For one, she comes across as a paranoid, domineering, over-ambitious and belligerent personality. She herself confesses that she does not trust anyone and has no close confidante to share her emotions or inner feelings. Also, she does not do these things in an organized manner – for example, her group itself is not registered anywhere and does not have proper data of its members. Her domineering attitude becomes evident in the way she describes others and talks about others. With a fling at MP elections and her ambitions seeping through her words, to attain power and position so that she can act better, prove that she is not entirely beyond all such things that eventually catch up with any activist.

She never shies away from any single opportunity to compare herself with some of the great leaders of this country – B.R.Ambedkar (finds him inadequate), Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi (says the queen spilt the blood of many men while she didn’t resort to such gory methods), Mahatma Gandhi (compares her work with that of Gandhi). While she may be justified in seeking recognition and glory for her work, I think such comparisons are a little too far-fetched.

Also, I found one thing to be pretty annoying – her constant bashing of men. In her eyes, all the men are absurd, selfish and oppressive. I wonder why does every female worthy of note in this country resorts to bashing up men and their character to justify her own achievements. This woman does not even wince when blasting her husband or her father or even her own ‘Babuji’, the social activist who organized her and made her what she is today. She easily forgets all the contributions that men had made in her life – her uncle who sent her to school against prevailing sentiments, her husband who after initial reluctance agrees to let her do what she wanted, her activist companion ‘Babuji’ who put her in limelight with his organizing skills, or those innumerable unnamed men that support the Gulabi Gang during its processions and demonstrations.

There are some moments of absurdity in her attitude as well – when she says that though her work is as good as that of Gandhi, her face will never get to feature in the currency notes of the country or when she says that she will pray (!) to the Statue of Liberty’s replica in Paris for the liberation of all the women.

End of the day, Sampat Pal is a worthy social activist who has her own ways and methods of tackling the issues in the world around her and emerges victorious, all the while grappling with her own weaknesses, faulty traits and prejudices. You can find so many wrongs with her, but you ought to give it to her for courage and sense of dedication for the welfare of others. We need to recognize and bring to light all such activists from the dark nooks and corners of our country. She says that it is only through the foreign media that she might gain recognition for her work in this country. Rightly so!

Ashok Krishna

Is Past really better than the Present?

The grass on the other side of the fence is always greener. For us humans, the past is the other side of the fence. We were not witness to the micro-level events that took place and all our knowledge of the past is through the sieves of authors, poets and artists. That being the case, we always find the past to be better than the present.

A Brief Book Review - 'The Kept Woman and Other Stories' by Kamala Das

The stories range from mesmerizing to mediocre. Each story is peppered with the inferiority complex of Kamala about her appearance and dark complexion. Most of them sound not like a short story but like an anecdote from her own life. Add to it the annoying depiction of male gender as selfish, lustful and insensitive. Except for some occasional flashes of brilliance, the book is overall a forgettable experience.

Story-teller Kamala is not as thrilling as the poet Kamala.

A comparison between the 'Civilised' ones and the Barbarians!

"Ah! this civilization, what does it all come to? For forty years and more I lived among savages, and studied them and their ways; and now for several years I have lived here in England, and have in my own stupid manner done my best to learn the ways of the children of light; and what have I found? A great gulf fixed? No, only a very little one, that a plain man's thought may spring across. I say that as the savage is, so is the white man, only the latter is more inventive, and possesses the faculty of combination; save and except also that the savage, as I have known him, is to a large extent free from the greed of money, which eats like a cancer into the heart of the white man. It is a depressing conclusion, but in all essentials the savage and the child of civilization are identical. I dare say that the highly civilized lady reading this will smile at an old fool of a hunter's simplicity when she thinks of her black bead-bedecked sister; and so will the superfine cultured idler scientifically eating a dinner at his club, the cost of which would keep a starving family for a week. And yet, my dear young lady, what are those pretty things round your own neck? -- they have a strong family resemblance, especially when you wear that very low dress, to the savage woman's beads. Your habit of turning round and round to the sound of horns and tom-toms, your fondness for pigments and powders, the way in which you love to subjugate yourself to the rich warrior who has captured you in marriage, and the quickness with which your taste in feathered head-dresses varies -- all these things suggest touches of kinship; and you remember that in the fundamental principles of your nature you are quite identical. As for you, sir, who also laugh, let some man come and strike you in the face whilst you are enjoying that marvellous-looking dish, and we shall soon see how much of the savage there is in you."

- an excerpt from the book 'Allan Quatermain' by Haggard, H. Rider (Henry Rider).

How the British forced the Chinese to open trade links with them in the early 18th Century!

An excerpt from the book 'What On Earth Happened?', by Christopher Lloyd:

Tea, silk and porcelain were highly sought-after commodities in Europe. But there was a problem. Chinese society was built on a philosophy of self-sufficiency. Since the mid-fifteenth century, China had been a civilization independent of overseas fleets and trade with far-flung vassal colonies. Food and luxury goods were all manufactured in the home market. The Chinese Emperor himself explained as much in a letter he wrote to King George III of England in 1793, in response to a British request for trade:

‘You, O King, live far away across the mighty seas… The difference between our customs and moral laws and your own is so profound that our customs and traditions could never grow in your soil… I have no use for your country’s goods. Hence there is no need to bring in the wares of foreign barbarians to exchange for our own products…’
Such self-satisfied sufficiency provoked the most extreme imperialistic reaction. If the Chinese didn’t want Western goods, then something had to be done to make them want them.

Officials in Britain’s Honourable East India Company came up with the rather less honourable solution of drug trafficking. An elaborate system was established whereby British traders would buy Chinese tea at Canton and issue credit notes to Chinese traders, who could then redeem them against opium struggled across the border by Bengalese agents from Calcutta. Between 1750 and 1860 thousands of tonnes of opium grown in the poppy fields of Bengal were smuggled into China in exchange for silk, tea and porcelain. The trade was a masterstroke of ingenuity. Rather than the British paying for goods in valuable silver, locally grown opium could be used as currency instead. And the problem of China’s self-sufficiency was solved by a freshly cultivated dependency on highly addictive drugs.