Existential dilemmas…am I alone?

When I read in Sapiens, the famed book by Prof Harari that Homo sapiens have a unique capacity to believe in contradictory beliefs I was in a way relieved and absolved myself of being out rightly stupid. I am a great specimen whose life is actually run on contradictory beliefs.  I know I am powerless but relentlessly strive to wield power over whoever I can. I know, I know absolutely nothing but never let go of an opportunity to exhibit what I know and distribute ‘Gyan’ both solicited and unsolicited. I know nothing is permanent but still feel helplessly drowned in despair by perceived unfavorable change in circumstances or outcomes of events. I know I am not God but try to become one by micro planning and micromanaging everything around me. I know expectations are the root cause of unhappiness and still I fail miserably in even controlling and managing them forget discarding them from my life. I can go on and on and give myriad examples from my life about how I seem to have a fair understanding of a concept or an issue at hand but seem to do absolutely diametrically opposite of what wisdom would warrant me to do.

Is trying to achieve balance between the contradictions in your life is what life is all about? I don’t know for sure and even if it is, it is a continuous endothermic process which saps you off your productive energy and leaves you feeling lost.

When I get tired of fighting my monsters and self-created battles I get suspicious that may be I am depressed and that’s why I am feeling this general loss of direction. When I feel that I do not really control anything and cannot really change anything including my own self or how I deal with things and people around me or feel about them, I feel a fear that asphyxiates me. I feel utterly helpless and absolutely lonely, all by myself, dreading that I am the only one, may be, who is undergoing all these dilemmas. I am convinced at that point that I will not be able to make anyone see my point of view, neither the closet of my friends nor any of my family and thus refrain from picking their brains.

Next moment I pick myself up, do a bit of self-counseling, summon all the knowledge that I have over the years incidentally gathered not acquired, again manage to convince myself that its ok not to be in control especially when I know I am not meant to be in control. I know I just need to control my mind, my thoughts, my speech and my action (Phew that’s a very very tall order for me or may be for humans in general/by and large) and the fact that I do not exactly control any of them pushes me more towards ‘being not in control’ in general and this is debilitating.

I know I just need to be honest about what I am doing and that’s it…..life will take its own course in its own time. Unfortunately I don’t understand and have not been able to assimilate and internalize this understating in to the core my being. My knowing is very superficial and it has not made even a dent on my how I conduct myself. I know that my doing something differently will not change things for anybody though it might make a little difference to my own life. I am responsible for who I am and thankfully only for what I make of myself.

I can give inputs and do whatever my conscious being, intellect, circumstances and temperament allow me to but what happens afterwards is beyond me so I should not fret and lose my sleep over it. I should only bother myself about being able to give my inputs to the best of my abilities and somehow learn to sleep peacefully after that. This attitude is detachment which is an art that one has to learn and doesn’t come easy to anyone. This attitude is what Gita says…isn’t it? Do your karma and forget about the results. I know I know…….unfortunately I still do karmas to achieve results. I don’t seem to be able to lose sight of the result and ensure that all my karmas are directed towards achieving that result. What an irony …hang on…or is it a conflict between my rational being and my spiritual being. Who do I listen to? Who is supreme? Should I allow my spiritual being to reign supreme but again how naïve can I get….do I control them or do I just watch helplessly as a bystander? I am like a stage where all these actors are enacting the drama called life according to an unknown script and headed towards an unknown ending.

I try desperately to engage productively and meaningfully with everything around me but not confuse that engagement with the source of my happiness. The fact that I am engaged productively and meaningfully should be enough for me to lead a happy( I am taking happy to mean…..to be at peace with myself, where I do not feel inadequate and helpless)  life, the outcome of my engagement should not have any bearing upon me. The fact that I am doing what I am doing with all honesty and integrity at my command and to the best of my abilities and also sometimes pushing my boundaries should get me a good nights’ sleep….I know it should but it doesn’t because that urge to be in control and thus be able to control the outcome fogs my intellect and I fall prey to misery that should be avoided. 

Vipashana taught me to be equanimous to pain and pleasure as they are impermanent, I understand but thoroughly incapable of translating that in to real life. It taught me not to crave and have aversions for pleasure and pain but I seem to be falling deeper in to that trap. Meditation is very tough. To control my unruly monkey mind is the toughest task I have tried my hand at. I have tried several times but have failed so far….I have never been able to quieten my mind and stop the chatter completely even when I am doing meditation.

I know the collectively perceived right thing to do in a given set of circumstances but if that doesn’t agree with my being then I end up doing what appeals to my conscience or intellect or a mix of both generously peppered with my biases, prejudices, frailties and foibles. Incidentally that happens most of the time for me and I do not fit in…..Am not regretting or being apologetic am stating the fact of my life. My biases, prejudices, frailties and foibles make me the person that I am and they have not been consciously acquired by me but have come to become a part of me over the years because of where I was, what I did and who I met.

Hopefully I will find a way to quieten my mind and stop the incessant chatter in it, to let my spiritual, rational, emotional and every other being work in harmony and have faith in the script written for my life and be able to feel less inadequate, less helpless and sleep well.

Gratitude

On an average an adult human body is made of about 34 trillion cells. These 34 trillion cells have to function well individually as per the mandate given to them (encoded in their DNA’a) and cooperate with each other for a lifetime to enable a human body to function.  That means to keep us healthy, 34 trillion cells are at work day in and day out with discipline and utmost restraint and we have at least that many reasons to be grateful to God (since I kind of believe in God)) or whatever else we might want to call the force or energy that created us.  If we add our parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren, spouses, friends and relatives to this list then we all surely have indeterminate, countless reasons to be grateful to God simply because we are endowed with good health. We don’t value the worth of good health, and don’t have the gratitude that we should ideally be filled with, till the time it threatens to leave us.

One can’t but feel overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of effort that goes in to making every cell to function properly and cooperate with trillion others for us to live a healthy life, We have a mind and a heart which don’t rest at all; they keep working round the clock. I marvel at this extremely complex, advanced machine that has so much happening inside it all the time. Even if one out of these 34 trillion cells decides not to follow the mandate and goes haywire, the very existence of one’s life can be threatened. Each one of these 34 trillion cells has, in a way, a veto power, but they do not exercise it in most cases. People by and large live long and healthy lives, but do we realize how complicated this task is and how calmly it is carried out day in and day out.

Since the time this fundamental fact of life has sunk in to me, I dread to be ungrateful and even when I am running after something, salivating after a material, worldly or other pursuit, I don’t forget to express my gratitude for what I have. I am really grateful to almighty that I have been granted a healthy life and a healthy family.

Learning is life

Learning is an ongoing process which continues till our last breath. It’s absolutely mind boggling to even get a grip on the quantum of learning one has to do throughout one’s life. The moment we stop learning we stop growing and the moment we stop growing our downhill journey starts. As soon as learning stops we begin to vegetate, gunk of ignorance begins to accumulate on our minds and souls which asphyxiates life killing us both literally and metaphorically. When there is no learning happening, life becomes like a pond of still polluted water which does not have enough dissolved oxygen at any level of its depth to support any animal or plant species. When human beings stop learning, life begins to wither, the zeal to live starts to dry up and we begin to helplessly drop everything that we have acquired through our life like plants drop dried leaves in autumn. Ultimately we become obsolete and perish.

Living beings are so programmed and wired that learning comes naturally to us. We learn all the time, sometimes with a conscious mind and sometimes with subconsciously, just like voluntary and involuntary body actions. Our mind, like our heart, never sleeps, it works around the clock. New scientific research has now shown that mind continues to work even when we are not conscious, it processes complex stimuli, creates and consolidates memories, makes creative connections, clear out toxins while we are asleep.

My experience in life (whatever little I have and whatever it is worth) tells me that voluntary learning is the life force of a healthy and a thriving mind and makes the mind grow and evolve. As far as I am concerned, voluntary learning makes me happy and contended in the process. Voluntary learning for me automatically yields happy hormones.  The more serotonin I have the more I tend to learn and for me it is a self-sustaining exercise.  Conscious learning is my recipe for happiness. The moment I stop learning proactively, I can actually feel degenerative forces having a field day somewhere inside me and obviously there is a visible drying up of the supply of serotonin and endorphins. The degenerative forces begin to erode my sense of self-worth, they begin to rust my self-esteem and they begin to bleach the colour off my soul.  For me there is no choice, I have to keep learning to live and to live a life of happiness and contentment.

During the course of my life and learning I have learnt some important lessons.  Some of these lessons are like thumb rules of my life and enable me to zoom in on any action that I do or choose not to, to help me understand its consequences. I have discovered that fear and doubt are the biggest enemies of learning and since learning is life, they are the biggest enemies of life. Fear roots us to the status quo and doubt is the speed breaker of our growth. In limited amounts both these elements work like catalysts that accelerate action, but the moment they exceed the requisite quantity they do just the reverse. In life just, fair and reasonable fears and doubts have to be entertained, analysed, processed and resolved, but the moment they cross the threshold of reasonability they must be discarded at the very first instance.  Excess of both these elements become lethal for learning, life and growth.

Women’s day

This concept has really caught on…..to my chagrin even well-educated like the really educated ones also fall prey to feeling special on this day. I wonder why do women consider themselves special or important or succumb to the temptation of feeling so, upon anyone making attempts to make them feel important or special if they don’t feel the same or made to feel the same for the rest of the 364 days.

I think that before becoming special we need to become equal and for that we need to get gender out of the equality narrative to begin with. We need to treat boys and girls as human beings first and ensure every one’s unalienable human rights irrespective of their gender. 

We need to start raising our sons and daughters as human beings. We need to stop slotting our children on the basis of their gender. We need to treat sons and daughters alike in every which way. We need to stop cultural conditioning of our children. We need to give roots to our sons and wings to our daughters. We need to inculcate self-esteem, empathy, love, care, ambition in equal measure  in our children which is not tied with their gender normative roles. We need to get rid of gender stereotypes and the media both print and visual can play a significant role  in this long battle. Mothers in the advertisement need to look like what we aspire our daughter to become not what we want our bahus to ideally be (secretly maybe). Women can’t be all the time shown as care takers only or cooking or washing or doing dishes. We shouldn’t feel happy even when they are shown as super women, multitasking with elan…. Who the hell wants to multitask….?

We need to get rid of our entrenched archaic mindset, we need to realign our expectations from women in view of the drastically changed realities of the 21^st century. We need to redesign our role models that we want our children to look up to.

Lets ask ourselves one question and try and answer that with utmost honesty …are we truly equal to men in our houses in all respects?

If we are sure we are, we are ready to raise our children as human beings who will grow up to become good people and form a society where everyone would be equal.

Art of living or art of living it up

A few days ago I was seriously considering doing a basic course of art of living because some of my friends who are very dear to me and in whose judgment I have great faith in are really devoted to this mission. I am all for yoga, meditation and breathing techniques but somehow could not get myself to do a course with the art of living people. There was something that didn’t agree with me. I have never liked anything that claims to be spiritual but run like an MNC. I don’t like the idea of spirituality or religion or anything dealing with my higher needs hawked to me. I don’t like people telling me that they have the best solution for my spiritual advancement as if I am in the market to get the best quality all weather paint for my house and will settle for whoever gives me the best technology at the cheapest rate. Anyway after giving my consent for the basic course I withdrew it the same night as I was not feeling good about it at all. Today I am glad I didn’t do that otherwise I would have also held myself responsible for the environmental travesty that’s taking place right under the nose of the highest executive, judiciary and the environmental court in the country.

I have a few points to make, rather a few questions in mind, that I can’t seem to find answers for. Why does an organization which claims to be an educational and humanitarian movement engaged in stress-management and service initiatives need to indulge in an extravaganza bordering almost on a show of strength in terms of its equity with the ruling disposition. The art of living states on their official website that they have spread peace across communities through diverse humanitarian projects, including conflict resolution, disaster relief, sustainable rural development, empowerment of women, prisoner rehabilitation, education for all, and environmental sustainability. I wonder what they understand by environmental sustainability if they did not know what a river flood plain is, or what a wetland is or what ecological services are provided by the same. I am appalled by the stand taken by the representatives of Art of living, that they chose this site as they wanted to attract world attention to the plight of dying Yamuna It is absolutely beyond me that how can attention be drawn to someone’s plight by inflicting an irreparable damage on the same resource that you want to allegedly protect. 

Art of Living representatives and even the BJP spokespeople were defending the involvement of the army in making the pontoon bridges on the grounds that it is an international cultural event and that the army had also been called upon to help during commonwealth games, Kumbh mela, Asian games etc.  Either it was a deliberate attempt to fool people or these people themselves were fools, otherwise how can anyone compare national events or events that the government organizes with events that are organized by a private person or organization.

Actually, if you watch TV debates seriously the glaring moral and intellectual bankruptcy across the spectrum hits you like a tsunami on your face. Everybody almost everybody, barring a few exceptions (that one gets to see rarely), whether it is the interviewer or the interviewee, speaks with a political slant. Five minutes in front of the idiot box and one wonders maybe that’s why it’s called an idiot box after all, most of its inhabitants resemble unthinking people who seem to be handpicked from all walks of life with a special expertise to lie to defend whatever they are called upon to, with impunity, without blinking an eyelid and with such self-righteousness that even poor Arnab Goswami looks tolerable.

None of the debates seriously discussed the issue of eco sensitive zones, ecological services, irreparable damage to fragile ecosystems and the economic value of ecological services that we all will be deprived of.

You are responsible for what you are and what you become

It was an absolutely amazing cab ride and definitely one of the most memorable one for me when I took one yesterday to visit a friend who was visiting from out of town.  Yes, for me most cab rides are memorable, as I look forward to talking to the cab drivers about their lives, the state of affairs in our country, politics if they are interested in or anything that interest them.  Some of them turn out to be taciturn, but I have over the years got an interesting insight in to the complexity of our country’s politics from the perspective of cab drivers (I also grab any opportunity I get…. to get talking to just anybody anywhere…worth talking to). I see cab rides as an amazing opportunity to peep in to the lives of people who drive us. In the process I also get to know about their hardships, their trials and tribulations and their triumphs. I get to hear stories of human grit, hard work, their wives, parents, home town and children. Several times we become good friends and I take down their cell no.

This particular cab driver was unmistakably a blue blooded Pahari. The moment we spoke to him over the phone while we were booking the cab, we realized from the very distinct pahari tonality of his manner of speaking that he has to be from the hills, home for me and my husband. All the Paharis out there I am sure would understand what I mean. Somehow most of Paharis can’t get rid of their particular way of speaking and it comes through even when they are talking in French ( just kidding) leave aside English. Though I was almost sure that he was a Pahari, I confirmed it as soon as I made myself comfortable in the cab. I must admit I have a natural affinity towards all Paharis (right from Himalayas to Vindhyas and from Alps to Rockies….) irrespective of caste, creed, gender and class. The gentleman confirmed with a pride that I am so very familiar with that he was a Pahari and when I told him I too belonged to the hills there was no stopping us and we talked as if we were two long lost friends. He told me his life story which was like a Bollywood script and also about his present life and children.

Before I share about his current life and his family I want to briefly narrate his life story. This gentleman had come to Delhi when he was all of fourteen years, in the year 1977 with Rs 5 in his pocket and some clothes in his bag. He had flunked his class 9 exam in his village school and his parents didn’t readily have money or will to get his papers re-evaluated. He was at a cross-roads in life and didn’t know what to do with himself. He could not see any future for himself in the village but was clear that he wanted to do something in life. His restless adolescent mind made him do the unthinkable…he ran away from home to come to a big city, as if that would be the end of his miseries and as if the big city was awaiting him with open arms and a solution for all his problems. After walking some 10-15 kilometres out of his village he boarded a bus which after an overnight journey got him to Old Delhi.

He stared out as a child labourer in a dhaba in Old Delhi where he was hired for Rs 60 a month for doing the dishes through the day and well into the night.  His joy knew no bounds as he had landed himself a job almost as soon as had arrived in the city. He knew this was not his destiny but was just a stop gap arrangement. At that age also he had the clarity that he could only take a step at a time to move ahead in life and must not flinch from taking even the smallest step as long as it took him ahead. Whenever life offered him an opportunity he grabbed that with both hands and continued to move ahead in life slowly but surely. After having heard his story in minutest detail it would not be wrong for me to say that he always proactively worked towards creating opportunities for himself rather than waiting for life to offer him the same.  The next 25 years of his life is a story of a clear thought process, amazing perseverance, grit, determination, focus, hard work, as a result of which he inched closer towards what he was dreaming and aiming for. After riding cycle rickshaws,  auto rickshaws, working in halwai shops, selling chola bhaturas then as a taxi driver, by the year 2001 he had saved enough money to buy his own second hand car and he became a proud taxi owner/driver. It’s been 15 years since he has been a cab driver and today he works with a big radio taxi company and owns a brand new Volkswagen Vento. He has come a really long way from earning Rs 60 to Rs 40,000!

Now comes the most inspiring part of the story. He has two kids, a daughter and a son. His daughter is a graduate from Jesus and Mary College and along with pursuing her college degree she also did a three year computer programming diploma from NIIT. He thought she would not be able to deal with the pressure from both college and NIIT so advised her to first focus on college and thereafter do the NIIT diploma but she was after all his daughter and insisted upon doing both together to save time. He had bought her a scooty after he was convinced about his daughter’s determination, to cut down on her travel time between home, college and NIIT. This girl according to her father would wake up at 5 in the morning every day, study and help her mother with household chores before she would leave for her college. In the afternoon she would go to NIIT and it would be dark before she would come back home.  She worked with utmost sincerity and dedication and cleared both the college as well as NIIT exams as per schedule securing good marks. After graduating she cleared her very first job interview and confidently went past four rounds of grilling and is now working with a large BPO company in a posh office in Gurgaon, earning a fairly handsome salary.

I could feel the car filled with pure joy and positive vibes when this guy was talking about his family. He was so proud of his daughter’s achievement, and rightly so, that he looked like “the happiest person” one can ever imagine. I generally asked about his wife and with obvious affection for his wife in his voice, he told me that he was very lucky to have got the wife that he has. She has to be a great woman if her husband in her absence could talk about her so fondly and straight from his heart. He offered me if I wished to speak with her, which despite temptation (as I wanted to know the recipe to make husbands head over heels in love with wives) I declined as I was aware that I should be reaching my destination anytime soon and I didn’t want to leave the story halfway. According to him he could not have asked for more as far as his wife was concerned who has always been a pillar of strength in his life. She could always run the house very well with whatever he got and takes great care of him and his children.  He works outside the house and she works inside and also takes care of the finances of the family. As if just to prove his point his phone at that very moment started ringing and since we were at a red traffic signal, he took this call. This sounded like a call from some insurance company who were selling him something and he promptly directed them to his wife saying she takes the investment decisions in the family so please talk to her. I actually could not believe my ears … I thought I was talking to a man who was semi-literate, a  taxi driver  but whose wisdom and clarity of thought was much much beyond what his economic, social and educational background could allow to be attributed to him. I obviously learnt a very important lesson and in future would not slot people to be of a particular mindset due to their educational, social or economic background.

His son is currently taking class 12 board exams and aspires to pursue a hotel management degree from either Oberoi or Maurya group’s college. That child, I was told, is a natural cook. He apparently has a god-gifted talent which is visible even when he is cutting vegetables, which he does with machine like speed and an artist like finesse, or when he cooks all kind of delicacies that he reads about or finds on the internet. The proud father has a desktop complete with an internet connection for him at home and had invested INR 18000 last year to buy an oven for his son so that he could live his dream. He according to the father is a very bright student and the father was determined to go to through any pain to help his son realize his dream. I am sure that together they will.

The driver also told me, “Madam, I have been working for about 40 years but must not have rested for more than 40 hours in all”. He was not complaining, he was trying to tell me that he has worked very hard in life and as a reward God had been very kind to have given him the family that he has. He told me about his yearly family holiday also. He fills the tank of his cab and takes his family once a year for a vacation and has taken them to Jaipur, Agra, Mathura, Haridwar, Rishikesh etc. They live in dhramshalas and eat at dhabas and have a blast together.

He showed me several letters of recommendations that people have sent to his taxi service company and has kept a very impressive folio of these in the form of letters, photos and email print outs.

I had completely forgotten about my destination as I was so engrossed in his awe inspiring story and I was brought down to the present when  my husband called me to ask why I had not reached as yet.

This journey was an eye opening experience….I felt a kind of happiness that I had seldom experienced before. This happiness was getting exuded from this guy who was so proud to be who he was and who took this amazing pride in his work. This happiness had enveloped the entire atmosphere inside that cab and I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face while I was in the company of that gentleman listening to his story. His contentment was palpable, I really could feel and see it coming out of his each pore and his gratitude to almighty was written all over him.

It was an absolutely amazing experience…I had just met a man who didn’t have any complaint against anybody, who seemed genuinely happy (I felt it and basked in the glory of that happiness for 45 minutes, believe me you it was surreal) contended and grateful, who believed that one has to work hard and if one honestly does that, then all is well. I wish all the very best to him and his family. I will pray to almighty that his son should be able to realize his dreams and grow up to become a delightful human being like his father.

I am sure some of his qualities have rubbed off on to me………I complain much less than before. Now i don't complain all the time i just complain most of the time.....

Free Speech and Sedition

The other day while watching India Pakistan Asia Cup cricket match, my younger son just to tease his “passionately in love with cricket” elder brother prophesied that India was about to lose another wicket. My older son retorted that he would call the police and they will round off his anti national brother to the court where he could get a legal beating. I was really amused by this exchange but also discomfited in the manner in which my kids were mocking our laws, systems and law enforcement agencies. This I knew was a fallout of whatever they were watching on  TV news over these past few weeks now and had formed their opinions about free speech, anti-nationalism and sedition upon half-baked facts and ludicrous debates being so unabashedly dished out.

I tried to explain to them sedition, what law says and free speech as it is supposed to be in our constitution, rather than their understanding of it based on the JNU incident and pandemonium being played out on TV channels.

I am not taking any stand on any of the issues that has gripped the collective literate mind and conscience of well-fed and well-read people of this country. I am a great votary of free speech but am under no illusion that my right to free speech is endless, unalterable and unrestricted.  In a country where we have more gods than people in some countries in the world, where we speak some 1652 languages, have some 3000 castes and 25000 sub castes, we can well imagine the kind of diversity we have. We all are very different people in terms of our religious belief systems, customs, traditions and languages but all of us are unequivocally, irrevocably tied together by our constitution which the people of this country have given to themselves. The same constitution while recognizing the right to free speech (Article 19(1)(a)) also recognizes some restrictions that can be imposed upon this right.  I am quoting Article 19(2) which lays down the restrictions:

“Nothing in sub clause (a) of clause (1) shall affect the operation of any existing law, or prevent the State from making any law, in so far as such law imposes reasonable restrictions on the exercise of the right conferred by the said sub clause in the interests of the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court, defamation or incitement to an offence.”

As long as any curb or intended curb is reasonable and is for the purposes mentioned above and passes the constitutional blue litmus test of reasonableness of restriction we should be fine. We all need to understand that nothing is in absolute terms and so is the case with right to free speech.

Having said this we also have to bear in mind that we can’t assault this right to free speech or allow it to be assaulted on every small little pretext. The grounds on which this right can be curtailed have to be absolutely categoric as per the constitutional mandate and the reasonableness of the restrictions is justiciable.

What happened in JNU is disturbing on two accounts, apart from having started a raging debate on free speech and sedition. One, if there were slogans that are being talked about actually raised then it is a matter of grave concern not because they were seditious (let a due process of law decide that) but because they were being raised in a place where people understand what they talk about. They were not illiterate, poor, famished people who could be influenced by a few fanatics or easily indoctrinated by extreme religious ideologues who are apparently trying to vitiate the atmosphere of our educational institutions. They were well educated, enlightened university students that too of one of India’s premier university. Can this be dismissed as student outrage or is there anything more to this disturbing sloganeering (if it has happened in the manner and form it is being alleged) is something that I would like to get deeper into.  The second disturbing issue is the alacrity with which sedition charges were slapped against the students as if they were about to wage an armed war against the state and were a grave threat to national security. The unholy haste in which the student leader was hauled up seemed as if the police were in a ‘ready to pounce mode’ and were just waiting for an appropriate time. The blatant unjust manner in which state’s law enforcement agency botched up the proceedings thereafter have surely left an indelible mark on every regular (liberal by default due to indifference) Indian’s mind and jolted us temporarily out of our apathy towards social  and state related issues, as long as they did not directly affect us.

One lesson that India has to learn from the JNU episode is to ensure that our laws are unambiguous, categorical and not capable of multiple interpretations, thus liable to be misused and abused. We need very robust processes in place which cannot be fooled around with or compromised. The question, at least for the time being, is not whether we need a law against sedition or not. The most critical issue right now is that we need to ensure that whatever law we have currently is applied strictly and very carefully to the facts of the present case ensuring that there is no miscarriage of justice whatsoever.

We can’t decide on the roads and in the newsrooms of TV channels whether we need a law against sedition or not. We also cannot decide on the basis of just antiquity that a law ought to be repealed, though that surely calls for its review if required or is necessary by change in circumstances or is in the fitness of things. A meaningful, inclusive and an informed debate of all sections of society has to be initiated and as a country we need to figure out whether there is any need to have a law against sedition or not. If we decide that a sedition law is required, then we can focus on ensuring that sedition law is worded very clearly, categorically and in unequivocal terms to avoid any kind of possible ambiguity leading to its misuse or overuse.

Salute to my friend at Sunaay

I live in the heart of India in New Delhi and that too in upwardly mobile South Delhi. Whenever we meet our friends and associates over dinner at our place or we get together we, being India’s intellectual middle class euphemistically called intelligentsia, discuss India’s economy, its polity, social ills, religion and politics, far right versus left liberals and everything that, in our eyes, other less educated or less fortunate people normally don’t when they meet their friends. We are a part of that segment of affluent (actually unfortunately on the fringes), educated Indians who are very meaningfully engaged with the country and its problems when it comes to giving lip service and providing lofty verbal utopian solutions. We are experts in criticizing everything sitting in our comfortable drawing rooms and sipping our new found taste for single malts or unpronounceable wines, smugly attired in our branded designer clothes and clutching on to our  fancy phones and bags with our diamond studded fingers. The other day we discussed the budget in all the earnestness that we could muster over drinks and snacks, along with discussing venues for our forthcoming summer vacations. In the background our very erudite and amiable looking chief economic advisor was beaming on the TV screen, very graciously accepting congratulations from industry leaders and TV studios’ staple celebrities, with Arnab for a change not over the top in his usual fit of uprighteousness but strangely giving just a knowing smile. There was euphoria visible in TV studios on all channels as the budget was being hailed as pro poor and pro rural India, which was a very pleasant respite from the raving and ranting that was dominating the discussions last week over free speech and sedition issues. Now those had become stale issues and the budget was the newest toy that everyone wanted to play with.

I came across a piece of statistics which I thought was a little alarming given our democratic, socialistic antecedents. The Gini Coefficient was on a rise in these last few years, meaning that disparity between the rich and the poor in this country was on a rise. The poor are becoming poorer and the rich richer, reaffirming the old saying money begets money. I can actually see it all around,…the disparity increasing.

From our balcony, for about a month now, I can see a motley group of slum kids very religiously gather about ten in the morning for about two hours. These kids are taught by very modestly attired and seemingly very modestly educated women coming from the adjacent slums. I soon figured that this is another branch of Sunaay that a friend of mine had opened near her house for the kids of maids and drivers and other casual labour who do not go to school for whatever reasons. I remember when she started  Sunaay four or five years ago, I thought that she was doing a great job but that these days everyone almost everyone went to school so she would not have many takers.  She obviously had done her home work very well and knew that there are enough kids who are out of school and are left alone in their houses, if the tenements they live in can be called houses, without any supervision for most part of the day. Slightly older kids look after their younger siblings and these kids are left to fend for themselves while their mothers work as household maids in the nearby residential colonies.  She was very clear that she wanted these kids to come to her so that they could be taught basic literacy and hygiene. She had a dream in her eyes. She wanted to bring alphabet and numbers to their lives along with some cheer. She worked hard, got in touch with whoever she thought would be willing to help in whatever way and started to run this school. She would rope in her doctor friends to do medical check-ups, musician friends to sing for these kids and corporate friends to organize picnics and food for them. She would never force anyone to help her. I really liked her modus operandi. I can call myself a good friend of hers but never did I once feel the pressure to help her out even when I left my work.  She would discuss her work with me whenever I would ask or when she would have something special to share. The only time I recall she wanted me to intervene was to trouble shoot on her behalf when she faced opposition from some people living in the area she was working in. Today she runs three such branches with a very healthy presence of kids across all age groups and has people approaching her from adjacent slum clusters to open similar branches in their areas too. She seems to have developed a very simple model whereby she gets in touch with educated women in the slums and with their help motivate kids who do not go to school to come to her classes for two hours everyday.  She pays these women out of the resources she so painstakingly gathers and accumulates to meet her running expenses.

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Today I realize fully the importance of work that she has been so selflessly doing all these years.  I am amazed at the number of kids who do not go to school at all or who drop out in primary classes only, in a place like Delhi. Here we moan about high costs of summer schools and undergraduate courses in US and UK universities and lament that these schools are meant for seriously rich people, while just below our nose there are kids who do not even get to a primary school to get basic education.  There were kids who didn’t go to school even when we were kids and our parents were our age, but then our parents never discussed summer schools or Ivy Leagues for us. These things were not even in the realm of their imagination.  So we have moved on and marched ahead, more so after the economic liberalization, but the kids of the kids of our generation who didn’t go to school, are still not going to school. The gap has very visibly increased. We have marched ahead not because we inherited legacies but because we got good education and then good jobs. We are now providing to  our kids world class education and they will obviously go much farther…

What do we do as citizens to bridge this gap? Absolutely nothing except discussing these disparities with a lot of passion and theatrics when we meet our friends.  We castigate the government, rue the fact that we are one of the most corrupt people, punch holes in our systems, cry ourselves hoarse over crony capitalism, nepotism and lack of integrity in general but never introspect and analyse in terms of what we can contribute towards building a better society. I am increasingly getting averse to social dos and meeting people where we just discuss problems and blame everyone else for everything that goes wrong except our own selves. I feel happier when I am in the company of people who walk their talk in whatever little way. I must admit I too belong to the category of all talk and no walk; maybe I change that soon by keeping good company.

I want to salute this friend of mine who is the brain and heart behind Sunaay, because she is doing an absolutely tremendous job.  We need more people who can get out of their comfort zones forget themselves and their families, kids and their worries for a while every day and do whatever little they can to contribute towards building a little better, a little less unequal society, apart from working for their own welfare all the time.