Losing a Close Colleague

This is not an obituary. This is a cry of pain.

For the first time, I am feeling the depressing weight of the pandemic truly weighing on me. I realise that I am exceptionally shaken by the heart breaking news that came crashing down on us last evening. Tridib Roy Chowdhury, the centre manager for the MINRO Centre in IIIT-B left for the heavenly abode yesterday. Suddenly.

Tridib wasn't the kind of a guy you would expect to go like this. Tridib was in his late fifties, but was extremely fit. An avid sportsman and cycling enthusiast. By his looks, he could have given any young person in his early thirties a run for his money. You read the obituaries that came pouring on Facebook yesterday, and you know what he was: and IITian, an inspiration, a mentor, a successful corporate, an exceptional human being.

His going like this hurts at many levels. Firstly, this is my first experience of losing a close colleague like this. I had got many opportunities of interacting closely with him over the last one and half years. I had seen how hard he was trying to bring in the positive energy, the movement, the result-orientedness that drives the corporate world, into our laid back academic world. I had found his energy infectious. And all the accolades that came along through the Refreshable Braille Display project had largely to do with him.

Secondly, It wasn't COVID, or an accident, or something of that kind for God's sake! Seeing a fit person like him succumbing to a freak cardiac incident fills my heart with a chill. If keeping fit doesn't safeguard you from your heart giving up on fine day just like that, then what does? I tend to lose my enthusiasm about the effectiveness of a healthy life-style in preventing your life from getting cut short from something we typically associate with bad lifestyle. It's really disappointing.

Thirdly, I realise how inept, unequipped we are in feeling -- leaving alone expressing -- our shock and pain! For an hour after getting the news (from Facebook), I sat there alone in my living room: numb, dazed and stupefied. Both my wife and my son were in two different rooms doing their things. They had no way to know how nerve-wracking those moments were for me. My education, my 'status', has robbed me of my ability to scream out, to accept that I am suffering, to acknowledge even to myself that I am in pain, to cry for help.

And finally, the ominous reality of the pandemic seems to finally dawn on me. It's not an open wound, not a raging burn. It's a slow, dull pain which is continuously at work inside us. It has shifted the ground level of our despair just that much higher so that one or two incidents of this kind will throw many of us over the edge. Government figures will write these off as collaterals, co-morbidities. Not COVID deaths.

A brief moment yesterday brought me the realisation how alone we are away from our near and dear ones, how helpless and vulnerable we are against the power of fate, how ridiculous it is to centre your life around thoughts of the future, and to make too much of our glorious past and present. At that moment, I would have given anything to have a shoulder to cry on, a heart that would know my feelings, a voice that would tell them to me without my having to find my voice, a reassurance that it was OK to feel sad and afraid.

At this moment, I am looking for a bunch of friends to huddle together with and whimper and cry. Nothing else!

Dissociating Emotions from People

It's not possible to like or dislike people uniformly. There are people with whom we share warmth and liking. And there are those with whom there's a coldness that can't be removed. In many cases, our interactions with people are so shallow that it doesn't matter if we let them go out of our life because we didn't enjoy our first few interactions with them. This is not affordable in some cases, in particular when it involves a friend, a colleague or someone within the family.

At work, developing an overall negative emotional chemistry with a co-worker can have very detrimental effect on our productivity and our sense of fulfillment from our work. With friends, a person with whom you must have spent many beautiful moments, tagging that person with one adjective based on an isolated experience could prove very costly. In the family scenario, tagging a person as unlikable or obnoxious may make it hard to feel happy and peaceful in your own house. Again, it's not meant to say that people can't be obnoxious. For example, if you are trapped in a relation under a roof with an abusive person, you may actually get to realise that much after you decide to get into a relation with him/her (if at all you get that opportunity to choose in the first place).

Assuming that not to be the case, one thing which does help a lot in such situations is to look at persons as a collection of, often unrelated, characteristics. A person may be lazy, but creative; lacking focus, but witty; insecure, but diligent; haphazard and disorganised, but sharp; rude, but honest ... you get it, right?

Controlling the Visceral Reaction

If we see that the relation with a person is going downhill, more often than not, it's because of a negative spiral of show of mutual dislike. When we see a sense of dislike in another person, we often feel hurt, and before anything, want to hurt back. This is a natural visceral reaction. But with practice, this can be controlled. If we realise that the dislike for us in that person may be because of a particular aspect of us, it (often) immediately attenuates the sudden urge to dislike back.

 A person disliking us (or mostly certain aspect of us) isn't a clear evidence of that being a negative characteristic in us. Rather, it's most likely something that is causing the other person to feel threatened for some justified or unjustified reason. Here's an example of an unjustified reason: your being talented may be a disadvantage to the other person if both of you are in the same competitive space. Often, something good in us forces the other person to the unpleasant predicament to having to look at some of his/her negative aspect. For example, if you are quick at finishing tasks, while the other person takes longer, your showing quick results may force the other person to accept his/her weakness w.r.t. you. He/she would rather not do that, even if projecting it as a vain, show-off or beligerant attitude of yours. Another example: if you are good orator while the other person struggles to hold the interest of the audience even with great effort, that person may judge you as using flowery and fluffy language -- probably because he/she doesn't want to accept to himself/herself that he/she is not as good as you in communication skills.

In short, when a person shows dislike for us, instead of falling for the visceral reaction of disliking back even more intensely, it helps to critically look at the above aspects. If not anything else, it helps tone down and/or slow down our own reaction. This may be crucial in arresting a relation with another person in going into an irreversible negative spiral.

Reflecting

Note that, we are also subject to these reactions. So, I am not being judgemental about anybody, nor am I assuming that we are free of these vices. It helps knowing and accepting this. It's important not to loathe oneself for not being perfect. Self-loathing is often the biggest reason why we react in a toxic manner to others.

Expressing Appreciation

Treating people as a collection of disparate characteristics also allows us to look at their positive aspects in isolation. Assuming that the interpersonal dynamics haven't already degenerated to irreversible damage, there are opportunities coming our way every now and then to express this positive observation. Being able to look at different characteristics of the same person in isolation has a lot of benefits. For one, the other person realises that we haven't mentally given up on the relation from our side, and are willing to do our bit to save it. This itself is a great plus. Further, when the other person sees that we don't look at him/her entirely in a negative light, it's a proof that our dislike for them isn't so great as to have blinded you from looking at his/her positive aspects. Internally, when we genuinely see a positive aspect of the other person, it appears morally OK to appreciate that. Note that we don't praise or criticise a person but specific characteristics. Two negative and positive characteristics can co-exist in the same person. And it's completely OK to praise or criticise them at two points in time.

Is Religion Such a Ridiculous Idea?

You may count me as an atheist. Some reasons:

• I don't think all nature leads to any conclusive evidence of it having been created by a sentient/intelligent creator, or being maintained by one. I don't think that for a moral society, we need constructs like God.
• I don't consider religious rituals the only good or even the best way to bring camaraderie or cohesion among people.
• I don't consider spiritual experiences as necessarily religious.

But hello my atheist friend! Wait a moment before considering me one among you. Here's how I am not exactly like you:

• I don't think religion is a stupid construct, let alone being a vile one.
• I don't think science conclusively proves the absence of an intelligent creation.
• I don't consider religious people stupid in any way. I know extremely intelligent (and wise) people who are religious. And I don't count it as their failing.
• I don't reject the good deeds, qualities, thoughts of people just because they place it in a religious context.

Faith, like food habits, are not all cerebral in nature. They are handed down to us from our culture, and by the time we get the intellectual choice to question them, they would have played too critical a role in our making -- both in good ways as otherwise -- for us to have a total freedom to forsake them.
In fact, if one is a true sceptic, he will refrain from judging and ridiculing others, or passing blanket statements about someone's faith. When this restraint is broken, your atheism is no different than those religions you so eloquently ridicule.

On World Bicycle Day

I wish to join in to try and spread the message of clean commute using bicycles. On a broader canvas, I would request you all to give a serious thought to minimalistic living, to question the edification of consumerism as the driver of economy and prosperity.
Sharing two pictures.
 

The cartoon depicts how cynics would see vanity even in your simplicity. To many, showing off wealth, physical beauty and such is acceptable, but being proud of your simplicity is not. I have experienced something similar, and found that experience an immensely humbling one. On the one hand, it gave me the realisation that I shouldn't have too much expectation about the influence that exemplary behaviour can have in spreading a positive message. How far a good message can spread depends far more on how receptive people are to them. Good, positive thoughts and messages have to struggle against people's ego and judgements about you to spread. On the other, I have realised that good behaviour isn't vindicated only when its message is spread. It's a vindication by and of itself. So, it's correct to do the right thing. If it doesn't scale, it's most likely due to the negativity of the naysayers, not necessarily due to any inherent limitation of what you do.
 

Grocery. The second picture is something I am very proud of showing off. My neighbour Arun Awasthi took it for me when I returned after doing grocery one Sunday morning. And I feel, this picture shows what I consider bicycles really good for. Apart from all the other good things they are -- clean, cheap, healthy -- they are quick, light, manoeuvre-able machines and very useful!
At this point, I wish to tag several of my friends who have inspired me very much through their use of bicycles. They all are eminently successful people in their lives, capable of lavish exteriors like most, but had the courage and ingenuity to prefer simplicity and sustainability over vanity:

1. Pritesh Ananth Krishnan
2. Ananthakrishnan Gopal
3. Ganesh Shankar
4. Niranjan Roy
5. Sethu Madhavan
6. Ashish Verma
7. Satvik

#worldbicycleday #ResetWithCycling

Can We Give another Chance to an Alternative Economy?

On the one hand there's being sympathetic to people who have been displaced due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On the other hand, there's this belief that the over-consumption led economics that we have been forced to leave behind us by the ravaging virus, is unavoidable to prevent famine from hitting large swaths of population.

Quite the contrary! Very powerful people have it in their interest to make people believe that the most important way they help the economics to thrive is by consuming. Because consumption generates demand. And demand generates business and employment.

But this also makes millions of people hook themselves up helplessly to one monolithic system (which we so grandiosely call the global economy) and rest all their hopes and dreams on it never failing. And this starts the unending cycle of people scrambling hard to get away from the fringes of this system closer to its core. While there's no denying that this scrambling leads to high productivity and quality of output, that's not the complete picture. Please note the reason why we scramble so hard in the first place: Firstly, because we know that being in the fringes of this system is very bad for us, because it makes us vulnerable, helpless and pushes us to the brink of extinction. Secondly, because deep down there's this realisation that, by definition and design, a large majority of the population will be in the fringes, because the urgency to get out of those fringes is the basic engine that drives this system.
 
But there are certain invariants about this system:

• It can generate wealth as no other system can.
• It critically depends on creation of global super-specialists. These are the winners of this system. They are enormously rewarded with wealth and power. The overall efficiency of the system is entirely to the advantage of this very minuscule minority of the population, say R%.
• One of the most towering achievements of this system is that R keeps getting smaller and smaller.
• There simply aren't enough number of specialised jobs to employ to the entire human population. In fact, nowhere close. And there never will be.
• The rest of the population is doomed to struggle fruitlessly to find a toehold in this system. The efficiency thus generated from the insecurity of these suckers leads to efficiency and productivity.
• Whenever the system totters, not always from external forces (e.g. pandemics), but more often under its own weight (e.g. recessions, wars, terrorism, revolutions), the people at its fringes are washed away like ants. Nobody comes to know how many perished.

Therefore, the sufferings that are descending on our poorer brethren is not due to the pandemic, but is a result of the very structure that we have created. It's efficient on the one hand, and extremely fragile on the other. But most importantly, it's extremely unjust and unfair: those who drive it with their sweat and blood are the first ones to perish when crisis hits.

Alternatives do exist. But the reason why they don't get tried is not so much because they are unrealistic, unscalable, impractical or academic, but because the ones who decide the fate of so many people in the current system are also those who gain so disproportionately from this system, primarily by keeping millions -- billions -- on the brink of starvation. Why will they ever agree that anything else can work? Because no other system will allow them to appropriate such unrealistic shares of the commercial loot.

One such economic system that I have in mind would be rejected as plain regressive by most. I am no economist. So, I may not be able to articulate everything well and do I have elaborate arguments in defense of my ideas. Also, the whole idea may be trashed on the basis of the lack of clarity on how to get there from here. But anyway, it's my blog. I can at least write about it here.

Here are a few salient points of this economy:

• It will be less 'advanced'. Technological advancement will definitely be slowed down.
• It will be slower. Commercial activities will be far less. Many businesses which exist today will not exist or will be severely curtailed.
• There may be some severe penalties to pay. Many advanced healthcare facilities will no more be there. Deaths from deadly diseases etc. will be harder to prevent.
• It will be agrarian, artisan based economy. Megapolis economy will not exist.Government may play a role in ensuring that the above basic structure doesn't get compromised. In that sense, there will be similarity with socialism. But the Government will not be the owner of capital as in socialistic system.
• Population mobility will be curtailed, because the probability of doing well in life will be comparable everywhere.
• Scholarly pursuits will be done as an integral part of the agrarian, artisan sphere of life. On the one hand, education, research, art and culture should be closely associated to the needs of people. On the other, it should be kept away from becoming a recreational activity of the rich and privileged. The idea of scholarly independence must be rethought.
• The idea will never be to banish hardships and manual labour from people's lives. Focus of progress will be empowerment, not emancipation from inconvenience.

 I don't claim all the above to be realistic. Particularly, there's something about the way humans are wired that it will be (and has been multiple times in the past) very difficult to set up an economic system similar to the above. Every attempt so far has succumbed to the baser human aptitude for greed, hunger for power and domination, sexual and material insatiability born out of ignorance and suffering.

Nevertheless, some of the brightest minds and elevated souls in history (e.g. Plato, Gandhi, Vinoba Bhave, Buddha, E.F.Schumacher etc.) have time and again thought about something in similar lines (no covert attempt here to gatecrash into that august party). So this idea is not all that silly. It can for sure act as a reference, a prototype to work towards. I would definitely want to think and read more about it.

Remembering Irrfan Khan

Was it '87? '88? I was a young boy. There used to be a serial called Katha Sagar on DD -- which would show dramatised versions of short stories written by great writers of the world. Many of you would remember.

There was this Anton Chekhov story 'Ward No. 6' made into three episodes. The story was about a psychiatric doctor who befriends one of the patients in the madhouse (named 'Ward No. 6') because his ramblings would make more sense to him than the so-called sane people around him. The story traces the gradual degradation of the doctor's social standing, eventually landing him in the same ward.

A young adolescent, already struggling to find my standing in my circles, I was deeply affected by this story. The story was an insightful illustration of the fact that what's popular needn't be sensible, nor that what's sensible need to be accepted by the public. Somewhere, the growing child in me identified with those characters -- that doctor who had the intelligence and innocence to not blindly follow a popular judgement but listen to his own thoughts and even with that madman who talked sense. It gave me strength to believe that it's not necessary to agree with the majority to make sense. Secretly -- perhaps -- I had also pledged to myself that I wouldn't go down meekly like that doctor.

Even 30+ years ago, that lean actor with a run-down, deeply sad and intelligent look in his eyes who had played that role so beautifully, had caught my notice. I didn't know his name then and didn't try to find out either. And he remained lost for years after that, making sundry appearances here and there doing often nondescript rolls. It's only after he resurfaced and sky-rocketed into becoming a major star in the last 15 years or so that we came to know his name. He was Irrfan Khan -- the late bloomer.

Yesterday, we dug out those episodes on YouTube and watched them. At least to me, they touched me equally deeply even now. Added to that, the whole minimalism -- almost penury -- of the whole set-up affected me deeply. Those were the times when the actors and directors had nothing except the raw intensity of their performance to narrate a story with multiple layers. Nothing else than an Irrfan Khan could have essayed that role so completely. To me -- that schoolboy, Irrfan

was already a star even when he wasn't one.

To the ocean of tears that's been created in the last 24 hours by his billion fans, I join in with little drop of tribute. In lamenting his premature passing and the death of those innumerable roles that will never get played as only Irrfan could have.

सोशल नेटवर्किंग के रंग

कहने को तो है बहुत कुछ,
पर तुमसे कुछ न कहूँगा।
भले मन में ही घुट जाऊँ,
फिर भी मैं  चुप ही रहूँगा।

भक्त को मैं libtard लगूँ।
Leftist को मैं भक्त।
क्या बीच की कोई राह नहीं ?
ये कैसा आया है वक़्त ?

मेरी हँसी को व्यंग्य बनाया। 
मेरी सादगी को मेरा अहम्।
मूर्ति के सामने हाथ क्या जोड़े,
तो यह था मेरा वहम।

feminism का समर्थन ना करूँ ,
तो सोच मेरी नीची है।
प्यार से कुछ सलाह दूँ,
तो सुजीत, तू बड़ा preachy है।

यहाँ थप्पड़ कहलाए
प्यार भरी थपकी
सरदार सजा बरोब्बर देगा ,
भूल भले हो कब की।

ये Internet पे बहते शब्द,
क्या कहर ढा गए।
दोस्त मेरे मुझसे रूठ गए।
गहरे रिश्ते पल में टूट गए।

इन शब्दों के पीछे का चेहरा ,
जब नज़र नहीं आता है।
उन्हें पढ़ने वाला उनमें ,
मनमाना अर्थ पाता है।

खुद को उत्पीड़ित समझने वाला
अपनेपन में racism ढूँढता है।
तुम्हारी party की तस्वीरों में ,
pervert नंगे जिस्म ढूंढता है। 




Fake news का ज़हर ,
ये propaganda का तेज़ाब।
तुम्हारी एक चूक पे घात लगाए ,
बैठा trolling का सैलाब।

तेरे हाथों में ऐ बहरूपिये क़ासिद,
ना मेरे माशूक़ को पैग़ाम दूंगा।
कहने को तो है बहुत कुछ,
पर सोचा है मैं  चुप ही रहूँगा।

Fighting Oppression without Catch phrases

How silly it is to tag someone as privileged or oppressed just by their collective identity! A subset of feminists think being a man is all you need to be privileged and to have no idea how it is to be discriminated against while just being a woman automatically gives you all the knowledge about being oppressed and banter about it on social network. Similarly, being born upper caste condemns you to being identified as privileged lifelong, while having been born in a dalit family gives you all rights to consider yourself a struggler who has risen up in status against a biased society.

I think, we all are privileged and oppressed in different measures. If I am born an upper caste male, I still am born a lower middle class Asian. In my local experience, I have experienced what it is to be denied entry to desirable or aspirational positions on the basis of caste. I am not raising any flags as whether it's fair or not. But most importantly, I am a person with reasonable intellect and empathy. I can feel emotions even if I have not been subjected to their primary triggers. So, I understand it in various ways.

Take for example 'patriarchy'. Of course, there are a hundred rejoinders about what it means and what it does not. But literally it names the father. In fact, it's originally a morally neutral term meaning just a social system. However, it's now tainted with a negative shade. And it's used in a negative sense. Isn't it unfair and sexist? 'Male dominated society' is much more closer to reality, because it explicates the fact that the society has largely been dominated by males. And yes, why should that be? Feminism is another word. It claims to encompass all the work that gets done in the name of uplifting women. But it silently propagates a falsehood: that doing fair and just things has something to do with being feminine. How ridiculous and sexist is this?! Being fair and just is a human quality, not feminine. If people have forgotten this, they should be reminded of this with all the force you can muster. You don't coin a new inherently sexist term and keep throwing it around just because it's locally effective due to its shock factor.

Oppression and discrimination has existed forever. No point in denying that. Oppression has been done against gender, race, caste, religion, ethnicity, disabilities and several other collective identities. We all have taken part in such acts, knowingly or unknowingly. We all have been the victims too.

So, my point is: let's discuss social issues. Victims of social oppression can be identified to some extent by name: e.g. women, Muslims, Dalits, coloured people, Asians etc. But let's refrain from using terms corresponding to the compliment of the victim set which directly or indirectly implicate certain collective identities as the perpetrators. 

Constructive discussions and useful actions can be taken by not identifying specific collective identities. This will let open minded individuals of all identities to freely participate in the movement as long as they have their head and heart at the right place. On the other hand, you create unnecessary strife by using inflammatory terms. For example, I am all for fighting for women's right, because that's just the right thing to do. But, I don't want to fight patriarchy because I am not with the whole drama of first attaching a moral innuendo to an otherwise neutral term and then using it to indirectly implicate an entire gender.

The King of All Oppression

One collective identity which cuts across all others, and probably explains the phenomenon of social oppression the best, is economic status. If you are poor or economically dependent, you will face discrimination and oppression. Economic bounty gets you social power. And power is the key. All oppression is in some sense done for it and using it. Haven't you heard of women who treat their domestic helps cruelly? Haven't you come across a Dalit who beats his wife or a Muslim who is sociopath. Then why do we keep talking about the mere symptoms and shy away from the main disease -- the inequity in economy?

Before you immediately tag me as a socialist or communist (which are another bunch of collective identities I find ridiculous), let me deny being either. Anti-capitalist -- to some extent. All I say is indefinite freedom to earn and spend as much material wealth as one wants is a ridiculously unrealistic and unsustainable ideal. Differences in social status/power should be treated as a necessary evil (but evil all the same). Its blatant and crass display or manifestation should be something that should be frowned on, or even curbed if required. If we do agree to do that, we will encompass all social discrimination. If we continue to consider this a taboo the way we do it now, we will keep hoping to get rid of the disease by treating its symptoms.

I would even say that these social identities which are used to simplify discussions by representing concepts often turn into a weapon of imposters to hide their intellectual ineptitude and laziness. These terms also get picked up by radical factions of all movements and are used to propagate hatred against people. These terms are so susceptible to misuse that I am all for a social experiment wherein we carry out our conversations without using them at all even if that means explaining what we say at length every time.

Saraswati Puja Celebrations -- An Environmental Report

With inputs from Shilpi Banerjee

Photographs by Arijit Banerjee

We celebrated Saraswati Puja in our apartment complex on Jan. 29. The festival brought a lot of positivity and joy to hearts, and hopefully contributed to a general view of learning, science and arts as something pure and pious.

The goddess and the priest

As I have been pointing out the environmental aspect of community events in our neighbourhood, I think it would be good if I apply the same scrutiny on something we organised. So, here we go:

Decoration

We mostly used paper, flowers and leaves for decoration. The drapery used as a backdrop was reusable and went back to the tent house. The organic waste goes to the central organic waste disposal of our apartment.

After the puja, we ourselves removed the decoration. We created three heaps of waste: organic, recyclable and reject (very little). What remained were mostly work of art and craft done by ourselves. We retained them.

During decoration - 1

During decoration - 2

Drawings and paper decoration

Outdoor flower decoration

Idol

The goddess idol was a clay one; no plaster of paris or plastic. The idol was painted using organic colour and accessories were stuck using organic adhesive. After Puja, we did the immersion in a drum normally used within the society for sundry construction work. The drum, though not of a very presentable appearance, was very clean and hygienic. It was orders of magnitude cleaner than most ponds and lakes. We used freshwater for immersion. After immersion, the water and the dissolved clay was used in the society garden. The non-degradable parts of the idol, e.g. the clothing, hair and crown, were extricated and retained.

Goddess Saraswati

The immersion drum (PC: Mrs. Sudeshna Banerjee)

During immersion

After immersion (PC: Mrs. Sudeshna Banerjee)

Left over hair and accessories

Prasad

Much of the morning time prasad was served in biodegradable plates. However, we eventually ran out of them and were forced to use paper (foil filmed) plates which are non-eco-friendly.

Lunch

Main course of the lunch was served in biodegradable betel leaf plates and spoons. Sweet Dahi was served in earthen pots, rosogolla was served directly on the plate.

Lunch being the most real time, populated and probably the most sensitive aspect of the festival, saw a few points of failures.

Towards the end of the queue, we ran out of plates. Eventually, we had to arrange more plates which were, unfortunately, not bio-degradable. Since all used plates ended up in the same bin, it all turned into reject waste. This was a bad failure for us.

Water was served in use-and-throw plastic bottles.

Number of people taking lunch was kept track of using lunch coupons generated out of the payment records. No paper coupons were printed. Of course, on the ground, most people having lunch were friends and acquaintances. Hence, the coupons were not used.

Waste Management

Amid her many tasks, my wife Shilpi was continually keeping an eye on the way waste was being managed on the puja venue. She ensured that all organic waste generated from the process was kept segregated from non-biodegradable waste. When we finally left the puja hall after cleaning up in the night, we had three neat heaps of waste: organic, recyclable and reject.

One failure on our part was that we couldn't ensure that the above segregation was honoured by the waste collection people when they picked it up in the morning. This happened primarily because none of us was available onsite at the time of clearing of waste.

Conclusion

Though not directly related to the environment, let me mention that the surplus fund (which was of course rather tiny at this scale) was donated to fund the education of one poor child through Akshay Patra foundation: as a tribute to the Goddess of knowledge a small deed of kindness to make knowledge accessible to one more person.

Overall, I think, we did set a good example of an eco-friendly celebration. Not so much because we didn't create any pollution at all, but because we paid attention to this aspect, and at least a few members of the team consciously worked hard to ensure that this aspect was not forgotten as unimportant. And it showed in the output.

We couldn't prevent being eco-unfriendly in some aspects. I think, we will do better in future through better planning, more explicit buy-in from the organising committee and better communication to all participants.

For celebrations of larger magnitude, the organising committee should appoint one person who keeps an eye of the environmental footprint of the entire event. Of course, such a person should be  passionate about sustainability. As much of his/her responsibility will involve making other people's work a bit harder (at least that's how many would perceive it), he/she will have to mentally sign up to earn a bit of unpopularity amidst other organising committee members and public. However, such a member's role will exceed in importance to most others'. By paying special attention to sustainability, organisers of large festivals and gatherings can make a big difference to the level of pollution that such events create.

Sustainability is going to be the key mantra of future public events. Because that's precisely where we tend to forget about the planet we live in and what we are doing to our habitat through our unsustainable lifestyle.

अनुसंधान क्या है?

अपने दैनंदिन जीवन में बेहतरी की कोशिश में किए गए काम से भी शोध और अनुसंधान संभव है। गोरों ने सदियों यही किया और आज कहीं पहुँचे हैं । अब हम वही करें तो हमारे सर पे लिटरेचर का पहाड़ पटक दिया जाता है कि  ये पढ़ो फिर ही कुछ करने की सोचो। आधी ज़िन्दगी उस पहाड़ पे चढ़ने में गुज़र जाए और आधी उस पहाड़ की ऊंचाई को थोड़ा और बढ़ाने के लिए कुछ और कंकड़ पत्थर बटोरने में, ताकि हम जैसा गरीब आगे उस पहाड़ को लांघने की सोचे भी ना । इस चक्कर में आदमी भूल ही जाए की वो करना क्या चाहता है। इतने बड़े गोरख धंधे ने आज करोड़ो लोगों को ये सोचने पे मजबूर कर रखा है की वे किसी काम के नहीं। 

Which Human Qualities to Applaud

It's definitely a step in the right direction to recognise that black is beautiful and that dark is merely a skin tone.

A giant leap will be when people recognise that celebration of physical beauty itself is in some way discriminatory in the same way as preoccupation with skin tone is.

In fact, the only things that should be applauded and celebrated are human qualities that lead to actions adding value to the world: compassion, kindness, perseverance, determination, hardwork, discipline.

Everything else is so-called God's gift, even mental abilities like intelligence, creativity, artistic talents. All these go only as far as hardwork and discipline take them, and do only as much as good as compassion and kindness permit them to.

Privileges and Opportunites

We had been to a football coaching club this evening. Apparently, Vigyan wants to learn playing football. The thing is, the whole affair is rather pricey. A good Rs. 4000 is the base monthly fees, excluding the football gear, the arrangements for getting him to the club and bringing him back etc. etc.

We have absolutely no issues enrolling our kid in a football coaching club. We aren't super rich, but this money is comfortably within our means. Yet, this business of burning a few tens of thousands just because our child has said he wants to join a club seems to conflict with something deep within; and it's not just stinginess.

In my childhood, many of these opportunities didn't exist for us, even if we showed great talent and passion in a pursuit. I never went to an art class except what was available in our school curriculum which was not much. Had I got even an inkling that music would become such an important part of me in my adulthood, I would at least have considered asking my parents to get me some basic training in it. Had I asked for such a thing, it was unlikely that I would have got it. But, the fact is, the idea itself never crossed my mind. I developed my passion for reading through books borrowed from the libraries in our school and neighbourhood. The concept of creating a personal collection of books came into existence much after I left my parents' home. And then there were myriad other pursuits which I never explored. The same applies almost exactly to my wife's case.

At what level of economic privilege should we bring up our child? He already studies in a school many families can't afford. But there are more expensive schools. We already mix socially with people who wouldn't consider such a school good enough for their kids. He eats food, he wears clothes, he has access to infotainment, which is inaccessible to a vast majority of kids of this planet. None of these are based on his merit. Some of these advantages conveniently can be attributed to the economic capacity of the family he is born into. And yet, some -- like this football club thing -- are hard to decide.

We want to bring up a child who is compassionate, appreciates the difference between what's earned with sweat and what's been inherited as a privilege. How can we do that if most of what he experiences through his childhood is merely a privilege and not his entitlement? We don't want to bring up a hypocrite who is good at speaking about sharing and caring in social circles, but deep down thinks differently and clings to his privileges as critical resources to live a life he desires. Compassion, equality, respect for human qualities over economic and social status, should be active elements in his thought process. They should influence his decisions and choices in a practical way. This must include not just directly materialistic things like money, physical comfort and luxuries, but even more abstract things like access to opportunities, the number of attempts allowed before one demonstrates passion and talent in a pursuit. How expensive a school should a child study in? How many opportunities should he get before the parents put down their foot and demand that he show some seriousness and sensitivity about the amount of resources that are being spent to afford him these opportunities.

Of course, expecting a child to earn his rights from day one is a ridiculously idealistic thought. Some amount of austerity in approach is definitely healthy. But it's hard to decide when we are stretching it so far that it ends up stunting his development.

I have no answers to this question. And I worry a lot about it. 

One may be tempted to dismiss the entire thing -- this discomfort that I feel -- on the basis of the vast difference between the economic conditions of our child's childhood and ours. May be it's just culture shock, generation gap. May be I am being old school. May be I am thinking too much.

But I wouldn't be easily convinced if someone takes a stance of having figured it all out without any trouble. Options like 'spend how much you can afford', or 'spend what you feel like spending', are too naive and subjective. I think, the conundrum is more real than that. And acknowledging its presence is at least better than feigning absolute clarity about it up front.

One thing I have done off late is not to hide this worry, this lack of clarity, from our son. Without embittering little nuggets of affection, I have been trying to sensitise him about the difference between privileges and entitlements. I hope I am not doing too early, or too late. I hope I don't overdo it. I hope he gets it.

Inspirations of Different Ages

In our younger days, we used to find certain things interesting because they used to appear difficult and challenging. The incentive was that success in doing them would give us distinction, recognition, fame. Probably, math, arts, music, sports and many such things fell in this category. In some cases, we would succeed in earning that distinction. In certain, we would fail and then the activity would lose its attraction. But in certain rare cases, the thing would not lose its effect on us in spite of repeated failures to excel in it.

With growing age, the number of this last category is increasing: Yoga, cycling, domestic involvement, kindliness, minimalism, beautiful coversations ... these are not going to bring me trophies or fame. Nor do I stand out of the crowd in these because there are many who do them better than me.

And yet, I feel increasingly attached to these little insignificant things. I find them beautiful in their own right, not because they offer any possibility of distinction to me.

This change is among several other positive changes I feel coming over me with passing time. And I feel happy about them.

Sketching Lessons with Vigyan

Sketching lesson with Vigyan: man talking on phone while walking:

• How to start abstract and add details as you go.
• How to detect and correct mistakes before they can spoil the drawing
• How to make the figure look natural
• How to ensure that the final strokes are confident and accurate
• How to shade

ELEPHANT RIDE IN THEKKADY

During our recently concluded trip to Kerala, Vigyan (my son), Vidyut (my nephew) and I were taking the very hyped elephant ride in Thekkady. At a very graceful and sedate pace, the cute, little and very beautiful elephant named Lakshmi took us through a very green spice garden. In between she wanted to do the very natural thing of taking a trunkful of dust and spraying it on herself. But for this, she got a very harsh beating on her legs from her Mahout that made her cry out in pain.

Vidyut, a perceptive and sensitive young boy, said that we shouldn't be doing this kind of thing, and that all this was wrong, For me, his saying so was quite moving. I told him that it made me happy that he's grown up to understand this, and that even though there doesn't seem to be much we can do about that right at that moment, it would definitely influence his attitude and treatment towards animals in future.
To this, Vigyan (with no touch of sibling/cousin rivalry) said: "What's there? Even I understand that all this is cruel and wrong."
I was very impressed. I patted him: "Good, I am proud of you, my son."
"Yes," Vigyan said. "And that's why, on growing up, I will only do horse-riding," he finished off in style.

PLEASE DON'T IMPOSE HINDI

.. because it doesn't need such imposition.

Some recent incidents:

INCIDENT ONE: Standing in the vegetable shop billing queue. I insist on conversing in my toota-phoota Kannada. The shopkeeper woman (who is a Tamilian speaking fluent Kannada) gets irritated and says: "Aapko Hindi aataa na Sir? Phir Hindi mein bolo na. Customer ko late hota na."

INCIDENT TWO: Deep in the hinterlands of Kerala in an eatery by the highway, I start conversing with the waiter in English (I wish I could use Malayalam, but I don't know the language). The Mallu waiter fidgets a bit and says: "Sir, Hindi?"

INCIDENT THREE: Again Kerala. Saravana Bhawan, Munnar. The Tamil waiter sees a North-Indian family of customers. While serving in his characteristically hurried gesture, he makes sure to name each lentil and vegetable in Hindi. He even knows सूरन.

INCIDENT FOUR: Two autowallahs exchanging pleasantries across the road on a Bangalore street. Both South Indians. Which language did they use? Hindi.

I think, people who are thinking that Government mechanism is needed for Hindi to become a national unifier, and those who are opposing its 'imposition', are both driven by their personal agenda.

Hindi has penetrated deep into all corners of the country. There's no doubt to me that it is more qualified than any other Indian or non-Indian language to become a national unifier. I am quite confident that amid all this political nonsense around it, that's going to continue happening anyway. I don't think the Government should interfere with this.

Instead, there are several reasons why the government should continue spending its resources on imposing English. Because despite its much less penetration, its threat perception is much lower and it doesn't hurt regional ego. The fact that it has cannibalised on so many of our cultural assets (literature, movies, music ... you name it) is all acceptable, even invisible. After all, it's a global language. It helps us distinguish ourselves from those who don't know English. While Hindi? It's that vulgar language in which the Northies do MC, BC. It's a symbol of North Indian vulgarity! What? Did you say, it's useful anywhere except in a few places in India? Oh come on! Who goes to those places?!! I would rather hop into a plane, go abroad without having to step anywhere in those filthy pan-stained places where this vulgarity of a language is prevalent, and never come back to this Goddamned country. Of course, I will send back a lot of money and serve my mother nation, and die a patriot. At least, for our general slavish feeling towards everything English or European, we have one thing to blame: our colonial past and those white-skinned British! On the other hand, God forbid, if Hindi wins tomorrow, we have to bow our head in front of those migrant labourers from BIMARU states! So, let's learn English. Or even French, German, Spanish. What? These are spoken by fewer people? Of course, but these people matter. They have white skin, you see! You said they are useless in my setting? What do you know of my setting, bro? Didn't I tell you I wish to go settle abroad?

Government should stop wasting its resources in trying to impose Hindi. Hindi is accepted naturally by people as a common medium. Because I am confident that people at large aren't so idiotic as not to see that it simply makes sense. Economically. Culturally.

To end, there should be space for those who don't know Hindi. And I have seen many such people for whom natural circumstances haven't created an impetus to learn Hindi. I think, such people should be left alone. Any compulsion to learn a language is going to shrink the limited space available for other languages (and people following them) to prosper. However, I am not certain that people who are doing social network activism against NEP are driven by compassion for such people, or by their concern for local culture. Most of them are driven by their regional ego, and servility towards English.

Some clarifications:
- The author of this post knows 7 languages. 6 are Indian. 2 are South Indian.
- He loves English as a language and has nothing against it too.
- Though unfortunately educated in English medium, he firmly believes that primary education should be in Mother tongue.