The word terrorism was part of one’s consciousness growing up in Delhi in the eighties. It was the height of the pro-Khalistan movement. Every now and then, the terrorists would strike, usually described as a couple of “bearded, turbaned youths on a scooter” who opened gunfire in one of South Delhi’s residential colonies killing innocent citizens. Within a couple of days, life would return to normal. How long could one’s daily routine be dictated by these happenings? It was something one took in one’s stride and moved on.
Khalistan faded away, but terrorism has not. Bomb blasts happen every now and then. Tens, and sometimes, hundreds of people die. Ordinary people grieve for the victims, let the news linger for a day or two and move on. Those who have experienced personal loss live with the grief for the rest of their lives. Some things haven’t changed, but the extent of destruction in these attacks has. Bombs seem to have become deadlier, and the number of victims per attack has increased. The worst of them have extinguished more than a couple of hundred lives.
What motivates those who carry out these one attacks, one wonders? Are they really close to the “causes” that they supposedly are fighting for, or are they just clueless souls with a twisted desire to kill and maim? If they are indeed pursuing a cause, the correlation between the “success” of these acts and the achievement of their goals is far from obvious.
While they do create a concern about public places and crowded modes of transport, economic and social need dwarfs the niggling threat to self-preservation. So people will still go to work and travel because it is in human nature as well as a necessity to do so. It is delusional for anyone to believe otherwise. For the terrorist to imagine that his act will bring the community at large to a standstill, is like a mosquito believing its bite will permanently cripple a human body.
The “terrorist” label is also applied curiously and selectively. Last week, a hundred and fifty people died in India, from alleged sabotage of rail tracks leading to a terrible collision between two trains. The authorities say that a Maoist group is responsible for the act.
If that is the case, isn’t this as deserving as the “terrorist” label as 26/11 and similar incidents? Why term this differently and deny the evil inherent in the act?
Monday, May 31, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
The passing of homes
Homes bring a measure of permanence to our ever-changing lives. Our favourite memories are built around 2 Ps: people and places (often homes). They release their dwellers into the world each day, and draw them back in for rest and repast, in a never ending cycle. Lives are begun, lived and ended in homes. They are our own personal space, providing shelter, privacy and an escape from the chaos outside.
Living in, or even simply being associated with, a house over several years makes it an inseparable part of one’s existence. The years of association with a particular house become a reference point for memories from a period in one’s life. I can think of two or three houses in my time that evoke strong emotions. One of them is at 14/4 Shakti Nagar, Delhi.
My first visit to that house was nineteen years ago. My classmates and I had finished school, and were in the Delhi University area, filling up admission forms for various colleges. I dropped in to my friend’s house, and received some career counselling from her school teacher mother. I recall feeling an easy comfort in that house almost instantly.
There was a constant buzz, with students of my friend’s mom flitting in and out, and a general atmosphere of sharing and community living. Sizewise, the house wasn’t much, with a little doorway flanked by two rooms, opening out into a small open courtyard with a round dining table where the family (and it seemed the constant stream of visitors) had meals and conversation.
On the other side of the courtyard was a wall, which separated my friends’ part of the house from their neighbours’ almost identical portion. The two sides were connected by a doorway that remained open at all times. Another family occupied the first floor of this two storey building – but the general impression was of one large household rather than three independent ones, with banter being traded across walls and floors.
What the house lacked in size, it more than made up for in character. The little courtyard was ringed by the kitchen, bathroom, toilet and washing area, and there was a little ladder that led up to an attic that was too small to stand upright in, where a cat and her new born litter lived. My friend’s family had moved in there in the early 70s, and that was the only house she had ever lived in.
As the years rolled on, and my friend became more than just that, I found myself making more and more frequent trips to that house, and even while I was in college in another city, I found ways to make at least an annual trip there. It was my home away from home. More than a home, it was an eco-system. It was as though the building was the focal point of many people's lives, not just those who slept under its roof. Sweeper, electrician, cook, students, adopted children, all found a place there, and were, I daresay, the better for it.
There was no shortage of people to converse with, and there was always someone around to put some tea on the boil and serve up some munchies for hours of chitchat late into the night. I got to know the house and its residents better, and was fascinated by the many stories, both bitter and joyful, that it had witnessed over the decades.
The feeling of belonging to that house was formalised, seven years after my first visit, when the lady of the house became my mother-in-law. Since then, that has been my home address in Delhi. The kids have also got to know the house, and come to love it as I do. They have climbed the ladder and discovered the attic, played cricket in the lane, and Uno/Snakes&Ladders with my mum-in-law’s students.
Forty years after my family first started renting that house, the owners have decided to sell. My mother-in-law will probably have to move out sometime later this year. I look forward to one last stay at 14/4 this October, to pay my heart’s arrears.
Living in, or even simply being associated with, a house over several years makes it an inseparable part of one’s existence. The years of association with a particular house become a reference point for memories from a period in one’s life. I can think of two or three houses in my time that evoke strong emotions. One of them is at 14/4 Shakti Nagar, Delhi.
My first visit to that house was nineteen years ago. My classmates and I had finished school, and were in the Delhi University area, filling up admission forms for various colleges. I dropped in to my friend’s house, and received some career counselling from her school teacher mother. I recall feeling an easy comfort in that house almost instantly.
There was a constant buzz, with students of my friend’s mom flitting in and out, and a general atmosphere of sharing and community living. Sizewise, the house wasn’t much, with a little doorway flanked by two rooms, opening out into a small open courtyard with a round dining table where the family (and it seemed the constant stream of visitors) had meals and conversation.
On the other side of the courtyard was a wall, which separated my friends’ part of the house from their neighbours’ almost identical portion. The two sides were connected by a doorway that remained open at all times. Another family occupied the first floor of this two storey building – but the general impression was of one large household rather than three independent ones, with banter being traded across walls and floors.
What the house lacked in size, it more than made up for in character. The little courtyard was ringed by the kitchen, bathroom, toilet and washing area, and there was a little ladder that led up to an attic that was too small to stand upright in, where a cat and her new born litter lived. My friend’s family had moved in there in the early 70s, and that was the only house she had ever lived in.
As the years rolled on, and my friend became more than just that, I found myself making more and more frequent trips to that house, and even while I was in college in another city, I found ways to make at least an annual trip there. It was my home away from home. More than a home, it was an eco-system. It was as though the building was the focal point of many people's lives, not just those who slept under its roof. Sweeper, electrician, cook, students, adopted children, all found a place there, and were, I daresay, the better for it.
There was no shortage of people to converse with, and there was always someone around to put some tea on the boil and serve up some munchies for hours of chitchat late into the night. I got to know the house and its residents better, and was fascinated by the many stories, both bitter and joyful, that it had witnessed over the decades.
The feeling of belonging to that house was formalised, seven years after my first visit, when the lady of the house became my mother-in-law. Since then, that has been my home address in Delhi. The kids have also got to know the house, and come to love it as I do. They have climbed the ladder and discovered the attic, played cricket in the lane, and Uno/Snakes&Ladders with my mum-in-law’s students.
Forty years after my family first started renting that house, the owners have decided to sell. My mother-in-law will probably have to move out sometime later this year. I look forward to one last stay at 14/4 this October, to pay my heart’s arrears.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Canberra and fairness cream
We liked Canberra. It has a typical capital city atmosphere. Capital in the administrative, and not commercial, sense. Rows of low rise administrative buildings. Impressive monuments and stately buildings such as Parliament House, large traffic roundabouts, and quiet in the weekends.
We were there over the last weekend in April – it was a long weekend with Monday being a holiday and the drive from Sydney is beautiful. They say Canberra is at its prettiest in spring, with the flowers in full bloom, but late autumn is also a feast for the eyes. In India, autumn is an alien concept, and my earliest recollections of that term are from references in Archie comics, where the teenagers’ parents are perpetually shoveling snow in the driveway (winter) or sweeping leaves in the yard (autumn). So with this trip to Canberra, I can confirm that the trees actually do turn various shades of orange and red, and present a rather splendid sight.
One of the high points of the trip was the visit to National Science and Technology Centre, better known as Questacon. As a healthy entertainment option for kids, there are few things to beat a museum full of working models and gadgets that invite children to press buttons and watch things happen. I remember from my childhood, the great fun we had on trips to the Nehru Children’s Museum and Birla Industrial & Technological Museum in Calcutta. I wonder if those facilities are still in good repair or have degenerated with time. With more stimulating (though not necessarily healthy) sources of kid’s entertainment now available, places like these seem to have sadly waned in popularity.
*********************
How cynical can a celebrity get, in peddling his personality to get even richer? I always thought of Shah Rukh Khan as an intelligent, cultured sort of chap based on his interviews. All that was shattered last week, when I saw him in a TV commercial, peddling a fairness cream. I think that is totally unacceptable in a country like India with its deep-rooted prejudice against dark skin. These celebrities need to use their power to impress young minds more responsibly, rather than exploit weaknesses in our countrymen’s psyche for their financial gain.
Aamir, please don’t disappoint me.
We were there over the last weekend in April – it was a long weekend with Monday being a holiday and the drive from Sydney is beautiful. They say Canberra is at its prettiest in spring, with the flowers in full bloom, but late autumn is also a feast for the eyes. In India, autumn is an alien concept, and my earliest recollections of that term are from references in Archie comics, where the teenagers’ parents are perpetually shoveling snow in the driveway (winter) or sweeping leaves in the yard (autumn). So with this trip to Canberra, I can confirm that the trees actually do turn various shades of orange and red, and present a rather splendid sight.
One of the high points of the trip was the visit to National Science and Technology Centre, better known as Questacon. As a healthy entertainment option for kids, there are few things to beat a museum full of working models and gadgets that invite children to press buttons and watch things happen. I remember from my childhood, the great fun we had on trips to the Nehru Children’s Museum and Birla Industrial & Technological Museum in Calcutta. I wonder if those facilities are still in good repair or have degenerated with time. With more stimulating (though not necessarily healthy) sources of kid’s entertainment now available, places like these seem to have sadly waned in popularity.
*********************
How cynical can a celebrity get, in peddling his personality to get even richer? I always thought of Shah Rukh Khan as an intelligent, cultured sort of chap based on his interviews. All that was shattered last week, when I saw him in a TV commercial, peddling a fairness cream. I think that is totally unacceptable in a country like India with its deep-rooted prejudice against dark skin. These celebrities need to use their power to impress young minds more responsibly, rather than exploit weaknesses in our countrymen’s psyche for their financial gain.
Aamir, please don’t disappoint me.
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