Kunhaman Sir

    In the staid academic world of mid 80s, M Kunhaman, Professor of Economics in the kerala University campus in karyavattom, stuck out like a sore thumb. He taught us economic theory. His eyes would glint when he spoke of classic Marxian thought. My senior Balu used to think highly of his class on Marxism. But my reading range was eclectic. I was into Ayn Rand, Marshall McLuhan and a lot of other stuff in those days. I believed (rather prophetically, I must say) that Communism was bound to fail. But all those who had a good range of reading and whom one could relate to, were in the leftist eco-system. The centrists, called Free thinkers, were mostly those who had only their family lineage to back them; not quite up there intellectually. Not that ideology had much role to play in our staid, eventless lives....

    Kunhaman Sir and I shared a common origin. We both were from the same college; Govt Victoria College in Palghat (Palakkad now) and he silently acknowledged that bond with me. He would never slip into vernacular and would always speak, although slowly, in English. Frankly I found his thoughts on Marxism and its basics, regarding means of production and the alienation of workers from it, very divorced from reality. World was too complex to be analysed in terms of theories rooted in the bygone era of Industrial Revolution in Europe. Euro communism was taking roots then; so was liberation theology in South America. Deng's new China had started experimenting with new shades of Communism. I felt Marxism has got stuck in a time warp, at least among the campus intellectuals in the Kerala University campus.

  I have some interesting memories of Kunhaman Sir. Once we had all gone to a lecture by K N Raj, the famous Economist who established the highly successful Centre for Development Studies in Trivandrum, This was 1984, I think, when Kerala was yet to become a tourist destination and God's own country etc. K N Raj spoke about how Kerala had many rivers that are alive around the year and how these, along with picturesque lakes, could be developed into a major tourist attraction. He recommended building cottages along the waterways and training locals to provide food, boarding and boating. Prophetic, it turned out to be for most of us failed to see backward kerala developing into a major tourist destination. Kuhaman Sir was sitting outside on the steps after the lecture. I remember him smiling and telling us that he (K N Raj) has very firm/ clear ideas and will always talk like this. Whether it was an endorsement of his ideas or was it in jest, I can't say. But I felt he was disappointed that K N Raj evaded larger questions of livelihoods in Kerala, like agriculture, industry etc.

  The second occasion was interesting. An Economist, (called Rangarajan, if my memory serves right) had visited China and was talking about how farm reforms and other industrial reforms of State owned enterprises are putting China on a growth path, thereby lifting masses out of poverty. At the end of the talk, Kunhaman Sir confronted him and asked whether it is not revisionism for a communist country. I remember the speaker trying the dodge his questions and trying to wind up his lecture at the earliest.

  Kunhaman Sir never spoke about his struggles with life and never sought approval. I was shocked to read his auto-biography in which he had written about his growing up years. I always thought of him as a proud and self possessed person. I had been reading the encomiums showered on him after his death (by suicide, it seems). I've been reading about how he was deceived by politicians and not given his due. Many of his leftist co-travellers think that he deserved to be at least, a Vice Chancellor of a University.

In the 1980s Kerala, the world was very different from what we inhabit today. Many of my classmates entertained dreams of becoming lecturers in Economics. They would engage in discussions as to how much should be paid as "donation"to acquire a teaching position in aided private colleges belonging to NSS/ SNDP and other institutions belonging to minority communities. Snagging a job which gives livelihood was a bigger concern. I don't think anyone saw Kunhaman Sir as belonging to ST community (In fact I didn't know this until I read somewhere recently). His short stature and curly hair was a giveaway, but that did not diminish his stature as a teacher highly regarded by most of his students. I'm sure that if anyone showed discrimination to him, he would have just brushed it away or hit back at them rather proudly. He himself didn't carry any identity complexes or even expect anything. However, I found his thoughts in later year interviews rather strange.. (he believed that all the wealth in the world has to be equally divided among humans. What after that? one may ask. Someone decides to blow up his wealth on booze: someone else chooses to spend it on industry/ stock market and multiply it). I came to know from my friends that he suffered many setbacks in his personal life too. He struggled with demons in his life and having retired from his teaching assignments, he must have thought it fit to go and not linger on. I wish he had stayed on and fought another day.

I keep thinking that, if someone had chosen to make him a VC of a university because he belonged to the oppressed class, he would have politely declined it. To me, he was too proud to be fed the morsels of sympathy from society. I would like to think of him as that man who lived on his own terms and decided to go when he felt it was time to go. 

Varanasi

 The time of life when you read a book is important how it impacts you. One could vividly recollect books read in one's youth, than the ones that were read in later life, while juggling with life's many challenges.  M T Vasudevan Nair, the Jnanpeeth award winning novelist from Kerala, is one writer I grew up with.  If the earlier books had alienation of youth of an era, in his later books his craft took several leaps of improvement and the themes became diverse. The lonely, silent and brooding youth from Malabar, fighting the demons of his past, crudely and selfishly honest is the protagonist in many of his earlier books. MT went on to write movie scripts, travelogues, unconventional take on mythologies etc. There was dark rain, green verdant environs, old tiled households (tharavad) with fences of bamboo thorns in his books. There is always the river, Nila or Bharatapuzha that silently flows through many books, often at its' raging best in monsoon. 

I could easily identify myself with the the male protagonist in his books although they are from a different era. MT is about 30 years older to me, we both grew under the same slice of Malabar sky, he studied in my college many years earlier and....the river and rains so evocatively brought out in his books were always a part of my lonely, lost adolescence. Nothing much had changed during the lost decades of 50s, 60s and 70s.

Just when I smugly thought that I had finished reading all the stuff that MT has written, I discovered that I haven't read Varanasi, one of his later works. Seldom have I sat through a book and read it in one sitting. The protagonist, Sudhakaran, like many M T characters, goes away from his village, leaving behind a distraught girl. A loner, he went on to make a living and was almost ensnared into a marriage with the daughter (who claimed that he has impregnated her) of a man who mentors him in Bombay. Again he makes a dash for freedom and ends up in Bangalore, many cities in Tamilnadu, Paris and returns to Varanasi, alienated from his parents, siblings and his roots. 

    Varanasi evokes mixed feelings in him. He meets Ramlal, the scion of a family that is in charge of the fire that kept burning from the time of Harishchandra. He tries to meet Srinivasan, another mentor from academics, but he had passed away, leaving behind Rukmini akka, the widow who lived with him and cared for him. There is a procession of lonely men & women, struggling with existence, Om Prakash, Chandramouli, Sumita Nagpal, Ramakrishnan and others who played bit roles in the theatre that is life.  He had made a trip a one year trip to France where  his paths cross again with Madeleine and has a boy  named Hari from her. She moves to US with Hari. 

  There he is, alone, with emptiness in life, no heirs to acknowledge him ... although he is the father of two kids. He dips into river Ganga and does the pindam ritual (seeking salvation to dead souls of near and dear ones).... After several dips he wants to know whether he can do it for his own self. The priest confirms that there is something called Aatma pindam. He goes on to performs the rituals for his own soul. It is a beautifully written novel.. traversing across time, space and generations

   

Blasphemy

The oldest known case of Blasphemy in the Indian sub-continent is the publication of Rangeela Rasool(1924), a satirical work which contained references to the colourful life of Prophet Mohammed. Apparently, this was in response to a pamphlet (Sita ka Chinala) that depicts Sita, the Hindu God Lord Ram’s wife as a prostitute. The publication of Rangeela Rasool was done anonymously, without reference to the author (Pandit Chamupati) or the publisher (Rajpal & sons). The publisher of the Rangeela Rasool, ended up being killed by a carpenter from Lahore. The aforesaid carpenter was punished with the death sentence, but his grave is worshipped by believers. Full length movies have been made in Pakistan, which depict him as a Ghazi (warrior of the faith) 

  The origins of blasphemy laws could be traced to one of the Ten commandments which exhorts that “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain”. Blasphemy laws which were in the statutes of many western democracies have been abolished- some as late as in 2019. Free speech obviously trumps over the need to punish rants and other forms of active disrespect to Gods. In the early days, the very denial of existence of God entailed burning dis-believers at the stake. All established religions have unleashed a wave of violence, killings, maiming and burning of books. Some of the great libraries containing treasure trove of knowledge of ancient Alexandria, Constantinople and Nalanda were burned by the faithful. The burning of churches in Pakistan is said to be in retaliation to burning of Quran in Sweden. Is blasphemy law consistent with 21^st century values?

    Presently blasphemy laws exist mostly in the Middle East Asian and African nations. Countries like Singapore have it in their statutes only to prevent disruptions in their fine-tuned social order. Indian laws on blasphemy are said to have originated after the Rangeela Rasool case. While blasphemy and associated punishments originated in Christianity, they are embedded as laws in Islamic nations like Pakistan and enforced by enraged crowds. In the Indian state of Kerala, which has a substantial Muslim population, worrying incidents have taken place; like the hacking of limbs of a college professor for preparing a question paper (allegedly containing adverse references to Prophet Muhammed) and the enforced disappearance of Chekannur Maulvi, an Islamic cleric who, according to the establishment Islamists, was preaching a deviant form of Islam.  

   A right to blaspheme would be a good idea and it would be consistent with present day values. Some Scandinavian/European nations already have it. And that’s how a cartoon here or a Quran burning there raises the temperatures elsewhere and threaten to spoil international relations. In a country like India, where there is so much diversity and majoritarianism growing, penal provisions for blasphemy acts as a spark that could light large fires. Proselytization and conversion start with highlighting limitations or irrationality in rival religions. If every such speech or utterance is considered blasphemous enough to rouse crowd-rage, the whole thing could metamorphose into something beyond control. Qatar insisted that India apologise for the utterances about Prophet Muhammed by BJP spokesperson Nupur Sharma in a TV show, while Qatar had, many years ago, given refuge to M F Hussain, after rabid Hindu crowds wanted his scalp for depicting Hindu Goddesses in the nude. 

      Would it not be a good idea to banish signs of religion from public spaces, like textbooks, offices, assemblies, rallies etc? Since such displays could create fissures in society, as it did in Nuh recently, it makes immense sense to do so. Anyone who takes up arms or indulges in violence in retribution could be sent to re-education camps, much like the ones in Xin jiang province in China, where according to western sources, at some point of time, at least one million citizens were incarcerated and taught to live as good citizens. Much as it would help national unity etc, it may not be practical since most political parties encash on religion as their vote bank. 

A Death in Denmark

   The author is young. She peers out of the photograph, bare arms, tattoo on wrist and a closely cropped, punk haircut. It left one imagining more tattoos and rings in unmentionable parts of her body. She is Indian, has Danish citizenship and lives in the US. 
 
      Amulya Malladi has written a most enjoyable book called “A Death in Denmark”. I loved the protagonist Gabriel Praest. (the ‘a’ in Praest merges with the ‘e’ and I can’t bring about that magic on my keyboard.) So, I shall stick to the name Gabriel. The story revolves around death of a rightist politician. An immigrant from Iraq is accused of the murder. Gabriel, an ex-cop, presently a private investigator, was hounded out of police service for launching an unauthorized investigation into corruption by a politician. He also plays the guitar in the evenings at assorted watering holes in Denmark. He has a grown-up daughter. His ex-partner’s husband is a lawyer. Gabriel, who shares a functional relationship with his ex, has his digs at her husband’s office. He is also wealthy, dresses well, is perennially upgrading his house, has a taste for exquisite wine, reads/ quotes philosophy (Kierkegaard/Nietzsche/ Sartre) and rides a bicycle to work.
 
    Well, I liked the guy. Half the battle is won when you’ve created a very likable detective/ private investigator/ amateur cop. And if there is subtle humour, easy readability and the bad guys are caught in the end, (I hate uncertain endings, in books or movies) then you have a winning formula.
 
The story begins with the World War II, when Gestapo rounds up Jewish refugees and merciless kill the family, including two children,  that hides them. There was apparently a highly placed Danish mole, a collaborator who gives up the location of Jewish refugees. Many years later, the entire affair is caught up in the politics and business of the day. Sanne Melgaard, the woman politician had been busy investigating the identity of the mole and her research gets her into uncomfortable places. The immigrant Yousuf Ahmed is framed for her murder. Gabriel is pushed into the case by his ex-lover Leila, who believes that Yousuf is innocent. Dead bodies turn up and several brazen threats are made to dissuade Gabriel from digging further into the case. 
Along the way, Gabriel has the help of his good friends from college and the Police chief Tommy himself. Finally, his investigation reaches to those right at the top of Danish politics.
  
This is a fast read and I am already looking forward to the next book in the series. However, there is underlying elitism in the food  they eat, clothes they wear etc and I am not sure that Private investigators have a rich lifestyle even in the developed world. Anyway, it is soothing to read of lives of privilege, than those trying to make ends meet.

 

Pakistan Watcher

The Pakistan High Commission in Chanakyapuri , New Delhi falls on my route for daily morning walk. I take a turn near the Nehru Park, where the rich and mighty park their huge cars and the Mem-saabs and Saabs are out for their daily constitutional. The path opposite to Nehru park abuts the back gate of Pakistan High Commission. That is where the visa seekers queue up early in the morning. They are mostly a ragged lot. Each hiding a story of tragedy and separation of bloodlines…A few men with ancient typewriters and make-shift tables and chairs sit on the sidewalk and assist visa seekers, maybe to  type and fill forms in Urdu. The queues are small but I can see that it involves long waiting times. I cheekily tell the missus, the rate at which those in India are told to go to Pakistan, we just might be queueing up some day here. A little way down is the US Embassy. A different lot are waiting their turn on the street. Mostly students accompanied by parents, both middle class and upper class.

             When a bunch of well armed citizens from Pakistan reached Mumbai and shot down 166 odd people who were just about going about their daily business, most Indians stopped entertaining kind thoughts about that country. It made a stronger impression than the fateful day that they attacked the Indian Parliament and killed our policemen. During the Kargil War, many soldiers of Pakistan’s Northern Light Infantry lost their lives. The bodies were not taken back by Pakistan and they pretended that these dead bodies are of anonymous Mujahideen and did not belong to Pakistan. A country that disowns its own, fell in my eyes. 

 

     I have been reading Dawn, a prominent Pakistani newspaper, for a good 26 years. One can’t help feeling that while Indian media has become very polarized and commercialized, Dawn has maintained a certain degree of quality and editorial integrity. In recent times I’ve started listening to a few Pakistani vloggers who are unabashed critics of their Army and politicians. Nowadays I am looking forward to my daily dose of entertainment from that hapless country. 

I had a few good friends from the Pakistan Administrative service (or the DMG as it was called) 14 years back, during my stint in Australia. I always wondered how very much like mainstream Indians, the UP/Bihar/Haryana/Punjab types, they are. They were good friends, intelligent and great company. Over the years, I’ve tried to be in touch with at least one of them, who was closest to me. But I realized that an Officer in service would have much to answer for if they continue to be in touch with Indians. Whereas I, despite belonging to the Indian Ministry of Defence, had nothing much to worry. And I thought that’s where we, as a country, trump over them.

                 Imran Khan’s party, ie the PTI has gone on offensive against the Army, the most important player in the power structure of Pakistan. They had trained their guns on Qamar Javed Bajwa, the erstwhile Army Chief. The present Army chief, apparently an appointee of the PDM, the coalition of seasoned politicians presently ruling Pakistan, has also come for strident criticism. With huge debt crisis and terrorism by TTP added to their cup of woes, things are not looking good for them. Many Indians now believe that this situation in the neighbouring country would keep them busy with their problems, thereby relieving us of terrorism through a thousand cuts, a policy initiated by Zia up Haq and practiced by successive military and civilian governments. 

         Qamar Bajwa, the erstwhile Army Chief, appeared to be a believer in civilian supremacy, a refreshing change from the control freaks in their Army. He was intelligent enough to have a cease fire agreement with India, while the Afghan situation was getting out of hand, and the US propped regime was about to fall like nine pins. With the imminent return of Taliban, there was risk of refugee inflow from the western border. By signing a cease fire agreement with India, he achieved a peaceful eastern border that could let him concentrate on the fluid situation across the Durand line.  (While it suited India too since the situation across LAC with the China wasn’t looking good). Bajwa also publicly postured that he wanted to keep the Army out of politics. Unfortunately, Pakistani politics is so much intertwined with the Army in the power structure that there truly was no way it could be achieved. While Imran Khan blamed USA (Amreeka, as the Pak anchors say) for his dislodgement from power, Bajwa knew that severing ties with US would hurt Pakistan more. Some of their most effective weapon systems and platforms are of US origin, harking back to relationship several decades old. Hence he rose up to defend Pakistan Army’s ties with USA. The defence equipment sourced from China, their strategic ally, are not very reliable. (It is the world’s worst kept secret, if whispers from recipient nations are to be believed. But that’s another story altogether.)

But I could see Pakistani diplomats/ defence analysts castigating Bajwa for not propping up Imran Khan and for backing the Sharif -Zardari duo behind the scenes. In Pakistani social media, PTI (ie Imran Khan’s party) supporters ran a huge campaign against the Army chief. The Army Chief’s personal financial details are in the public domain. The telephone conversations of many PTI leaders, family of judges and even the PM himself have been leaked. Everyone’s convinced that it is the spy agency ISI’s doing. The fact that senior Army Officers in Pakistan are allotted land in posh colonies run by the DHA (Defence Housing Authority) is a great source of amusement to those in India. The unreleased historical data of land allotments to the predecessors of Bajwa might be explosive. Most retired senior bureaucrats and uniformed Officers in India live in modest 3 bedroom apartments (like yours truly) and lead a spartan life. I suppose it’d be a good idea for Pakistan to discontinue this and allot land only to widows of those who lost lives in defending the country against terrorists. 

     There are multiple problems that besiege that country. A broken educational system that places too much emphasis on religion, elitist capture of institutions, messy public finances, burgeoning population, dysfunctional healthcare system, all feeding each other. The Army’s claims of staying away from politics wasn’t such a strong resolve, after all. It only took violence against Army installations on 9^th May 2023 by PTI supporters, to drive the Pak Army back to their old games. Sympathy to that country flows only from a few countries like China, Saudi Arabia and UAE, who also suffer from aid-fatigue. However, thinking of the few good men I’ve known, who belong to that country, I wish them peace and reconciliation.

The Fractured Himalaya- A short Review

 

     I had pretensions to (limited) knowledge about India’s China war of 1962. “The Fractured Himalaya” by Nirupama Rao punctured that belief. This is, in my view, the best book written on the events that led to the war. The twists and turns of history had boxed the players into a situation where diplomacy could not prevent the outbreak of hostilities. More importantly, it diminished the stature of Nehru, and his elder-statesman aura among countries newly liberated from the colonial yoke.

 The book deals with India’s relationship with the erstwhile Tibet and China’s entry into this mix with, avowedly, historical claims. In our eagerness not to upset the relationship with China (helped abundantly by some ill-thought-out advice by K M Panikkar, our then Ambassador to China) India had endorsed China’s annexation of Tibet in 1950. A period of camaraderie followed with many rounds of talks between Chinese Premier Chou En-Lai and Nehru. But by 1960, the relationship had deteriorated due to the road built by China across Aksai Chin region in Ladakh and Dalai Lama’s escape to India.

          During those halcyon days, a note (555 pages long) was prepared by the External Affairs Ministry of India, which laid out our detailed claim to Aksai Chin in the west and NEFA area in the East (called South Tibet by China). While the area in Aksai Chin was historically a trade route of India, the Chinese had no historical claim to it. As far as the Eastern part is concerned, India was quick to lay claim to areas along Mc Mahon line as soon as the Chinese attacked and occupied Tibet. Until then the Tawang monastery and NEFA region were loosely administered, with blurring lines of Indian and Tibetan control. Unfortunately, the same alacrity was not shown in the Western region in Aksai Chin where India had prior knowledge of Chinese road building activities- but were ill prepared to extend patrols to that area.

                This book reaffirms the theory that it was a war that was, on detailed analysis, fired by Nehru’s penchant for transparency, which he earnestly weaved into India's newly established democracy. The media, legislature and public opinion fuelled that fire and positioned India at a place where diplomacy could not save the day. The book doesn’t deal with the war much. But India’s strong Tibet links, Dalai Lama’s escape to India and China’s occupation of Tibet (and India’s rather speedy acquiescence to it) are events outlined well in this book. For instance, India wasn’t quite concerned that Tawang monastery was, in a sense, under the Tibetan tutelage (in a theological sense) and was even paying taxes to Lhasa. India woke up to the fact that China occupied Tibet and recognized the need to occupy patrolling points along the Mc Mahon line. The line itself being a product of the Tripartite conference between, British India, China, and Tibet, which was then a region under Chinese suzerainty, a term which no one understood much; it was more of a feudal concept.

  This writer heard Neville Maxwell’s lecture in Australian National University in Canberra in 2009. His book on the subject was well written, and not so complimentary to the Indian Political/ military leadership. He had eventually turned into an apologist of China. But the essential premise of his book was that India fought a noisy battle in the media and parliament. The Chinese were silent observers, waiting for practical adjustments to a colonial border. But they were also biding their time to strike. 

     Rao’s book gives a detailed background to the conflict. Cartographic details are omitted for easy reading. But it leaves the reader guessing what could be a solution to this long-standing conflict. Now that the entire dispute is linked to the Pakistan problem too, it has become intractable and permanent. There are signs that we missed the opportunity to give up our claims to Aksai Chin in return for recognition of the Mc Mahon line along the eastern sector. Unfortunately, that ship has sailed. India’s speedy recognition of China’s occupation of Tibet, our silence on the repression in Tibet in 1959 (which, even Ayub Khan, the military dictator next door, asked of India to jointly oppose), India’s support for China’s membership in UN (at the cost of Taiwan) and even their admittance to permanent membership of security council, have all eventually turned to naught:  gestures which didn’t count for friendship between two huge post-colonial powers. 

           China is today the new imperialist power. They will continue to lay claim to Tawang and Arunachal Pradesh, while continuing to occupy Aksai Chin. A negotiated settlement doesn’t look likely in the light of contemporary geopolitics. The only way we can hold on with the LAC is by increased economic and military power. At least until something miraculous happens; an accommodative, benign China and an India that is bold enough to compromise for peace. The present regime is going about silently about the happenings in the LAC. I wish Nehru had done that in the 1950s and 60s, without falling victim to the noise.

Proving myself alive

If anyone were to ask me how I spent the last week of November '21, I would say that I was trying to prove that I am alive. The events that led up to this state of affairs are quite intriguing. I quit my job prematurely in July '21. As a Central Govt employee, I could've gone on for about a year and a half more. There were big changes coming in the workplace. I neither had enough time left to be part of the change nor the drive to drive the change. Since I had reached a somewhat senior position in the great Indian bureaucracy, accommodating me in the midst of changes would have been a tough call for employers and would be an unpleasant experience for me also. So here I am spending my days reading, dabbling a little bit in the stock market, playing the guitar (ever so rarely) and playing with our pet dog kuttan, who was rescued off the streets

      I get a pension from the Government at the end of the month. About a month and a half into retirement, I started getting my pension. I was told that it used to take three months in the cases of employees who take voluntary retirement. The new reforms of digital processing of Defence pensions through a portal called Sparsh (Touch in Hindi), it was processed super fast. With my frugal lifestyle, the pension is more than enough to sustain me. I have no debt and we own a mortgage-free apartment to live. The Missus is still employed. Although she regularly threatens to quit. Our son Vasudev (aka Chathu) has a job in an IT firm in Bangalore and he has been working from our home in Calcutta/Chennai for the last one year and more. He also regularly threatens to quit. 

    There is a system called Life Certificate in Government. This is a process by which the pensioner presents himself before a Bank and signs a certificate stating that he is alive and for the Banker to certify that he has indeed seen the pensioner alive . I was very happy to learn of the new reforms that involved digital process of generating Life certificate without elderly pensioners having to visit the Bank. This meant generation of Life certificate remotely by digital/ biometric means. The local Post Office/ Banks etc are partners in the process and if we place a request online, they will send a representative to visit your home with biometric readers. I studied the entire process and put in a request to the local Post Office to send the postman with the biometric reader. The postman arrived promptly and my Life certificate was generated. The next day, I received a message from SBI stating  “Dear Pensioner , your pension account registered with Jeevan Pramaan not found with SBI. Please resubmit with correct disbursing agency details”. I requested the postman to come once again. (A nice friendly guy called Rajkumar, who is ever so keen to oblige). I did this all over again but it I got the same message.

The next day I went to the SBI branch from where I draw my pension. I was told by them that in the new cases processed through Sparsh portal, the disbursing agency is not the Bank but the pension sanctioning authority itself. They said that the biometric validation failed because I had entered disbursing agency as SBI. They also said that the validation cannot be done manually for Sparsh cases and it has to be done by biometrics only. They went on to validate my biometric particulars with details entered as they suggested but they did not succeed despite several attempts. It appears that in Sparsh cases, they have no means of acknowledging life certificate manually but only by digital/biometric validation. They expressed their helplessness. I was advised to try video life certificate with SBI.

            Disheartened by the whole experience I went home and tried video Life certificate process by entering details in pension seva portal of SBI on the same day. An error message came stating that my account number is not eligible for Video Life certificate. Finally I discovered a provision to manually upload a Digital Life certificate. After several aborted attempts, I managed to do that, with a little help from colleagues in the Defence Accounts Department. 

I hope that now, finally, the Government is convinced that I am alive and kicking

Memoirs

    I don't recollect where I saw Isher Judge Ahluwalia. Maybe in an airport or in some meeting. She carried herself with a lot of dignity.....White haired and tall. Although I knew of her work as an academic, her identity was that of an appendage..... She was the famous Montek Singh Ahluwalia's wife. And Montek was known as India's top policy maker during the UPA years and part of the team that reformed India's economy.

           Much later I started reading a series of articles penned by her on solid waste management in collaboration with Ayush Khare in the Indian Express. The subject was of deep interest to me and I found the observations therein quite interesting. One of those things that struck me was the recommendation to stop the use of compactors in our cities which reduce the volume of garbage but ends up mixing wet and dry waste. The authors emphasize the importance of waste segregation which requires deep involvement of local bodies and citizens. Although much of her work in the field of Economics was in other areas. But the past few years she was engrossed in studying the challenges of urbanisation and drawing up policy prescriptions.That's another story altogether

    She died recently after a long battle with brain cancer. The book 'Breaking through' is her memoir that she finished during the lockdown, ostensibly to enable her grandchildren understand her better. Many of my notions about this woman fell apart. I always thought of her as an 'entitled Lutyens resident'. Rubbing shoulders with the elite of Delhi society and leading a life of privilege. Apparently she came from a large, very middle class, Sikh family based in Calcutta. With sustained efforts, she did a Phd from the MIT and worked with great economists. In fact Montek's achievements pale before hers. And all this, during a time when women would not dare cross the seas for an education. She won scholarships and completed her education with very little financial support. Marriage to Montek happened and then life took twists and turns. Unusually enough, this accomplished couple decided to come back to India and raise their kids here 

    She chose to work in the field of economic policy while her husband worked in the government and achieved great heights. She always saw herself as a Hindi-medium person but believed that she had to work twice as hard to break that glass ceiling of patriarchy. She turned around ICRIER, a think tank, into a voice that the world listened to. In spite of her association with the famous Lutyens types, one could sense that she always had her feet on the ground.

   I think women ought to read this book. I suppose men too ought to......

Quiet departure

   It was a warm july day when I walked out of my workplace, putting an end to a rather  unspectacular career of 31 years.  On that big day, strangely enough, I felt nothing. I should have been overcome with emotions, felt nostalgic and ruminated about the early days at work. No, I felt nothing.  Thanks to Covid, there weren't long functions, farewell speeches etc. I still had 16 months time to go, of legitimate/left-over government  service. I didn't want to stay on. Big changes were happening at workplace and very soon I was going to be a company employee and not a civil servant. While I was ambivalent about the change in status, I neither had enough time to drive the organisational change nor be a part of the change. So the logical thing to do was to hang up one's boots and say goodbye. I was entering a period of uncertainty. 

      The days after college are normally a time of serendipity for youth of a certain vintage. A time to contemplate on the bleak, uncertain future and the scary prospect of perpetual unemployment. In our time (Oh! that term puts me squarely in the league of champion bores) the software industry wasn't offering any jobs. Most jobs in private sector for plain Arts/ science graduates were in the capacity of Pharma representatives. So the done thing was to roam around the countryside, play cards with friends under the banyan tree and generally shoot the breeze, all at parents' expense. I wan't lucky to experience that staid and peaceful bout of unemployment. I joined a public sector Bank (Indian Bank) as a Probationary Officer at the young age of 22, even before the results of the Post Graduate degree in Economics, that I was then pursuing, was declared. Most of my friends saw me as an achiever. I wasn't sure what I was getting into. I spent a long four and half years with the Bank, during which I tried to crack the civil services examinations. I spurned several other offers (including one from the RBI) I had grown to hate banking and was getting allergic to dealing with numbers all day long. A low rank in Civil Services Examination got me into the Indian Ordnance Factories Service and it was the best I could do. The Govt had imposed restrictions on number of attempts at the exams during those years. After much thought, I quit and joined the Indian Ordnance Factories as an Asst Works Manager.

    Civil servants normally do a foundation course where they meet and bond with Officers of other services. I did no such thing. I joined late and hence missed the privilege of spending time with colleagues of various services. I ended up as a technocrat in a production organisation than a bureaucrat in Govt. While working in Defence Ministry on deputation, I realised how distant the bureaucracy is from reality on the ground. As a result of this unlikely background, I had no pretensions of self-importance that civil servants normally have. Around 11 years back, something happened that led to re-consider my priorities in life. I shall not name the persona involved in this, but I felt that ultimately there is not much point in spending a lifetime focussed totally in one's career. Especially in a govt department where merit is often given the go-by.   I tried to focus on staying together with family. I learnt to play the classical guitar and am proud to have cleared the Trinity Grade 8 performance exam at the ripe old age of 56. I tried to green the environment around the work place. I took a lot of interest in the lives of sanitation workers who lead a miserable life. I think I did justice to my vocation too...I took a cool posting in Chennai because I didn't want to be in North India, separated from the Missus while she was posted down South. 

   Finally it was while I was at my most privileged and peaceful time in my life that I decided to throw away my job and retire early. It is one of those inexplicable decisions more based on instincts than on carefully thought out strategy. So here I am, with time on my hands and no place to go every day. Finally, I am enjoying that bout of unemployment that I missed when I completed college. It is a nice feeling. I intend to take a trip to my village and spend days in quiet solitude. I wanted to spend more time with Chathu, my son, but he has sort of outgrown me and is going through his existential and work crises. He has reached that stage where he feels stifled by  parents' protective and suffocating presence. The Missus is still working and she has onerous responsibilities as she grows in the hierarchy.

 I think I should be grateful for the life I had.... having met/worked with some wonderful people, lived in various parts of the country and travelled to several countries on work. I was privileged to be part of Indian delegations that visited France (several times) Korea and USA (yeah, I have been inside the Pentagon, but some friends don't believe me...).  I was also privileged to get a scholarship to pursue a one year course  at Australian National University in Canberra..... I have nothing to complain and I ought to be grateful for all that life has given me in abundance. 

       I have minor ailments. An often debilitating nuero system, diabetes and perennial back problems. I do not look forward to living with these for too long. Till then I need to see the sky every day, breathe in the early morning air,  stay calm in meditative silence, read books, play the guitar and be nice to others.... Death will come knocking one day. I shall not be found reluctant to answer that call.

Kurien: The Gladiator

 

    He worked as a despatch clerk in Bombay. He failed to get admission to regular colleges and hence had to pursue a graduate course studying part time. When he wrote and passed  the Civil services examination (meant to select the top bureaucrats in India) his Mom was ecstatic. Now she had visions of her son going around in a white Ambassodor car, lording over Pune where he was initially posted. When she landed in Pune in a cab (to spring a surprise on him), there he was on the road, his bike parked under a tree, commanding an army of  leaf rakers and rag pickers. That was life in Ordnance Factories where he was allotted his posting. He would regale us with this story frequently.

It was when I went to the Ammunition Factory in Pune in 1991 for training that I first met Kurien. Tall, well built with streaks of white hair, he looked older than the 30 odd years that he had walked the planet. What I remembered most about him was the fact that he insisted on speaking to me in Malayalam....Here I was, preening to be a cosmopolitan in a Central service, brought up in kerala, but wouldn’t speak vernacular in earshot of others.  And Kurien, on the other hand, was brought up in truly cosmopolitan Bombay with tenuous links to kerala. He was fluent in Marathi and Hindi and possessed a repertoire of slang and chaste abuses in several languages. He was an AWM, the lowest rung of the Officer hierarchy, as I was, but he was  a couple of years senior to me from the Civil services examination.

   He lived in a huge bungalow next to the GM’s bungalow, while other AWMs lived in cramped quarters elsewhere. I dare not ask him how....  But I asked someone else... Is it by misusing his powers as the Officer in charge of the estate ?  No, the story goes like this..... It so happened that the huge bungalow next to the GM was lying unoccupied for several months. Rumours were doing the rounds that the huge 6 bedroom bungalow, meant for senior officers was known for ghost sightings and other para-normal phenomena. As a result, the bungalow remained unoccupied. Kurien went up to the GM and volunteered to stay there. He firmly believed that either the ghost or he himself, would prevail.  That was an offer that the GM could not refuse and the bungalow was allotted to him. Kurien went on to live there for several years with his wife Susan until he was transferred out of Pune.I still recall watching Amadeus, the life of Mozart on the VCR in his home late at night and chatting about classical music. He was also an accomplished choir singer (one of the best, according to some)

            In a staid govt department like the one I work in, kurien comes as a whiff of fresh air. His style of oratory is unique. He would start expounding unrelated things, slowly building up the momentum, linking concurrent issues  and he would keep his audience enthralled. I haven’t seen him reading much. But he was an original thinker. He would always see the unseen. ....the detail that would escape normal humans. He could always conjure up a background to see present issues in a different perspective. I didn’t like the idea of bonding with a Mallu since I believed that once we are in Central service we need to cast away our tribal affinities and try to cultivate a pan-indian identity. (I no more hold such silly beliefs. I see that with each passing generation, regional/ caste affinities play a big role in professional careers in every Indian civil service). But Kurien couldn’t care less. It was more than affinities. For him it was us vs them. Us, being people like us, who think professionally, act decisively and get things moving. Not Mallus or UPites or Maharashtrians. And them, the careerists who party their way to the top. Later on, when he became the face of Marketing in OFB, everyone got a taste of his style. He could be sarcastic/humourous, innovative and effective at the same time. He couldn’t stand ceremony associated with hierarchy. For starters , he broke down the walls which separated cubicles of the Officers and merged  them into a single unit with a glass partition. Everyone could see what goes on behind the partition.  The Director, Jt Director, typist and even the peon would be sitting together. He placed some nice paintings and gave the place a corporate look.  Since marketing follows international timings, it was in late evening that his office would acquire vibrancy and life. He never drove so I would give him a lift to Cossipore where he lived.

       There are many “kurienisms”, that I can recall. Long ago, our organisation had paid for some land close to the Mental Hospital in Calcutta to start a guest house. While the move came in for a lot of criticism, Kurien staunchly defended it. Firstly, he said the dividing line between prospective residents in our guest houses (ie senior officers in the service) and the inhabitants of the mental hospital was very thin. It was a good idea to keep them in close proximity....Secondly he relished the idea of getting into a cab in the airport and telling the driver to drop him at the Pagal khana (mad house). Once he fixed an appointment for me  with a dentist who was located very close to Sonagachi, the famous red light district of Calcutta. He cheerfully advised me to get into a cab and tell the driver to take you to Sona Gachi and assured me that the driver would be pleased to do so.

       A Kerala restaurant had opened in Calcutta and we were tempted to sample the food. So one evening we landed there in the middle of much activity. They were shooting an ad film for the restaurant with pretty girls and guys. The hero, wearing dhoti and sporting long hair, was doing a cliched generic imitation of South Indians speaking English. Somehow this representation of a Malayali (which was so off the mark) offended the aesthetic senses of kurien. He started castigating the hero (calling him a hermaphrodite, a rather uncharitable reference to his long hair) and also the lack of good sense or even good humour in representing Keralites. The restaurant management was forced to stop the shooting. I have also heard tales of how he started chanting the Islamic Prayer loudly  in an international flight during takeoff, when he sensed his co-passengers were spouting a lot of Jai sriram stuff in loud conversation. He put them to substantial discomfort.. Once I’ve even heard that he beat up a Police Officer who had the cheek to beat his office driver. The poor office car driver was driving a bit slowly without giving way and  the police officer was in a hurry to get somewhere. Anyway retaliation was instant from Kurien which ended in a huge embarrassment to the police officer. 

    The greatest quality in him was something unique. It was the biggest Kurienism of all. Anyone who went to him with a problem would know this. From that moment on, it becomes his problem. I still remember how he got admission to my son in a top school in Calcutta. He was connected to the Principal through a piano player in a five star hotel. We landed there one evening and listened to a recital of Chopin and he explained my problem. We came back disappointed on being told that he wouldn’t use his personal friendships for such things. A few days later I was informed by Kurien that it is done. He was not someone who took no for an answer. While I had given up on it, he was still pursuing it until he found success.

    He would often call me for help; never for himself; always for others That was kurien. Often I’d receive a call from him seeking help from the Foreign Ministry (where he believes I had some clout, but frankly I didn’t have much). If it was a crisis, like a death or a funeral, then he would speak to everyone who can be of any assistance. He was a devout Christian who could quote chapter and verse of the Bible. I have not seen him frequenting the church. He would do anything to win something for his organisation. He would often tread the path between righteousness and sin for his Organisation, but never for his personal gain. I could see him chatting up arms dealers and regaling them with stories. All for the sake of his department. But did the department treat him well? Often he was at the receiving end of slander from the high and mighty. I have often seen him going through mood swings and minor bouts of depression. His wife truly stood behind him like a rock although he was posted away from Pune for a large part of his professional life. She had the task of raising their only son, Mark.

   In government service where age and date of birth mattered more than merit, he had to bear huge responsibilities but got very little credit. And when he became the top honcho of a factory, he rather nonchalantly shrugged it off for a purely professional reason that he wasn’t contributing enough. He was worried of Mark, his son who wasn’t doing too well at school. I’d tell him that he would blossom one day just like his father. Much later, he told me that it was his PA (Personal Assistant), who one day suggested that Mark could try his hand at Architecture. The PA downloaded the forms filled them up and got Mark to sign them. Mark went on to complete the course and found his career thereafter. So Kurien’s  belief in God wasn’t misplaced. Hidden hands were at work to see his son through life. My son remembers Kurien telling him the story of Gladiator. It was Kurien’s favourite movie. To me, Kurien was the Gladiator.....He looked the part. The Roman General  who fought the forces of deceit, treachery and cunning for the sake of the honour of his country. I could see him doing deep research into weapons and ammunition for presenting before the customers. He was a graduate in English literature with no formal college training. He could outsmart experts in their technical subjects.

    He died two days back. He passed leaving behind his wife and son. Every once in a while I used to call him. I called him in the first week of Dec of 2020.. He didn’t reply. I called again on Christmas. No reply. I didn’t know he was ailing again. I can’t believe that I didn’t persist. Kurien would have persisted if he was in my place. If I was not well and I didn’t answer his calls, he would have found some way to get to me.  I watched his son speak of his late father at the funeral church service in YouTube with moist eyes. Somehow I felt I let him down. 

 I’m often reminded of another ancient story.... that of Karna in Mahabharat. Born as the son of the Sun God, raised as a charioteer’s son. He never got what he deserved. But Karna’s story is the story of each one of us who thinks we didn’t get what we deserved. Kurien’s story was pretty much that of  Karna, who was born of the sun and never found his place in the sun. He never got what he deserved in professional life. But he always had a place in the hearts of people whose lives he touched. 

The Classical Guitar

        I often ask myself.... why did I take up a hobby that demands several hours of practice, cost me pots of hard earned money and very little hope of success? The classical guitar has been my constant companion for the last ten years. An affliction, more than a hobby. I have gone through many ups and downs with this beautiful instrument. Where did it all begin?

 The story goes like this. My son Chathu (aka Vasudev Nayar) got this guitar bug when he was in school. The sight of long-haired rock singers jumping with sleek guitars, setting the stage ablaze must have sparked interest in him to learn the instrument. We bought him an acoustic guitar for his birthday. We dropped in at a Music Institute  near our home. We met Peter, our first instructor. We discussed a little bit about guitars and I told him about how I played in a small town rock band ages ago and also that I could passably play some chords. I also told him that my dream was to play fingerstyle and tried learning it from Youtube but got nowhere with it.

         After the second or third session, he saw me waiting in my car to pick up my son. He asked why don't you join the class? Classical guitar is what I teach, which is much advanced, he said and also that fingerstyle is just something which comes naturally if you play classical guitar. I was very apprehensive about the idea. A 48 year old man learning an instrument with his 15 year old son sounded downright hilarious. 

   Anyway I threw my hat in the ring. Peter taught me to read music well. Something which I attempted on my own several times in the past and failed. I took the Trinity Theory exams first. Chathu  and I progressed up to Grade 5 exam of Trinity College of London. Chathu lost interest and he dropped out in the midst of challenges of getting into some professional college.

   I plodded on. The thing with me is, I practice a lot, but when I am asked to perform before the examiner, I get the heejeebeejees. And the Trinity examiner is often an elderly Caucasian male or female who don't take very kindly to old upstarts like me. In my workplace I often have to give speeches from among any three languages that I am fluent in. I can do that with a straight face without batting an eyelid. But when it comes to performing with the classical guitar before the Trinity examiner, it is another story altogether.

   Now about the classical guitar, it looks and feels like any ordinary steel-stringed acoustic guitar. The difference lies in the strings, construction and style of playing. Nylon strings are used instead of steel strings. The material is similar but it is constructed differently. The fretboard in wider. The guitar itself is held at an angle of 45 degrees close to the chest of the player. Not a very stylish thing to do and could dash the hopes of those who try to play like Van Helen. This posture is often achieved by using a footstool to raise the left leg and placing the guitar on the left thigh. (I use a whole lot of contraptions to avoid using the footstool since it gives me back pain)The four fingers of the left hand are used to press the notes on various frets. The trick lies in the nails in  right hand. The thumb and three other fingers (except the pinky ), or rather the nails of these fingers, are used to play the strings. While in the steel stringed acoustic guitar, often a plectrum is used or a fingerstyle guitarist may use the flesh on the fingers of right hand to hit the strings, in Classical guitar, nails are used to play the strings. Often I wonder whether it was intended to be a woman's hobby. So nail management is the key. An elderly male who regularly files and polishes his nails can be a sight that evokes much curiosity. And in my professional life I have to shake hands a lot. (the pandemic has saved me that trouble) I would often worry about my nails scratching the other persons hands. I also refuse to do the dishes to help the Missus at home since it might get my nails dirty

       If a nail breaks, it would mean that your practice is interrupted for the next fifteen days. So it has been a tough journey. I also have to put up with friends who ask me to play Hindi songs on the classical guitar .....in spite of the fact that my guitar journey is a closely held secret in my professional circles. But three years back, I got myself a silent classical guitar. It has only a frame and no wooden box. You have to plug in a headphone, switch on the electricals and practice. I started keeping the silent guitar in office and practice for about 20 minutes after lunch. Helps me de-stress and forget about all the pettiness at the workplace. I often get curious looks from visitors to my office as to what is this strange object and sheet music stand  doing in my office 

       Last year I passed the Trinity Grade 8 performance exam. My job in Calcutta gave me long weekends, although not much privacy in office to practice at lunchtime. My instructor (Biplab Singh Rajput) in Calcutta was a sincere sort. He provoked me into investing a lot more time into practice and eventually perfecting the pieces. Although I don't think I can play all that well, I have a certificate to show that I have the highest grade certification in Classical guitar from the reputed Trinity college of London. Now I practice only to be worthy of that certificate.  And that certificate is worth more than any academic certificate I have.....

One card

    Talking of Government policies in these fractured times can invite trouble in Babudom. In the last few years things have changed…. For better in some respects; for worse in some other. For one, individuals have been weaponised with broadcast/publishing powers with the spread of camera phones and internet. It takes just a millisecond to view natural disasters, fires, tragedies, movie stars in airports etc in the public domain.

    The Home Minister has floated the idea of a single multi-purpose card for all Indians. All identity documents rolled into one; Aadhaar, driving licence, PAN, voter ID, ration card etc. The 2021 census is expected to be conducted paperless. Let us examine the proposal, shorn of its’ political overtones.

   The Govt is already pushing a scheme for a ration card which can be used to draw rations from anywhere in the country. Many State Govts are already on board in this exercise while some states have not joined the scheme. This is certainly a laudable initiative since truly deserving migrant labour in various states will be able to draw rations in their place of work, without changing their domicile status.

   Do we need a single card? Will it serve any purpose? Will it make life easier for individuals to go about their daily lives? Well, it depends on how it is conceived and handled. The Aadhaar was conceived as a welfare initiative, to ensure that identibeneficiaries are de-duplicated and to prevent pilferage of govt resources to ghost beneficiaries. A process which has resulted in lining the pockets of bureaucrats and middlemen all these years. The govt has discovered many more uses for Aadhaar by linking it to PAN no:s, for allotment of LPG fuel and in some states for issue of rations. The one measure which has been lacking in the rollout of Aadhaar was the absence of standalone machines in public offices which would enable identification of individuals

   Now let us come to the core  issue. Would you like to carry one card in your wallet which would not only identify you but also give the entire gamut of services needed for various things like travel, ration etc ?  Might sound like a good idea but then in these times of data privacy issues and identity thefts, it could pose several other problems. India doesn’t have a data privacy law. It is still a work in progress. The single card, while making things easier for the ordinary citizen, could also raise concerns regarding futuristic threats which are still in the realm of the unknown.

   But let us not dismiss the idea straightaway. This blogger believes that there is some merit in seamless integration of data contained in various documents. While keeping the documents per se separate, it is yet a great idea to link all the documents to Aadhaar number and enable citizens to change their address on a single window system which would then automatically update the information in the backend database of all other documents like driving licence, PAN, ration card, passport etc. This would automatically obviate the need to carry out address change for migrant labour (Central Govt employees like me are also no different from migrant labour in that we end up living in many places in India; although with a lot of help from the Govt.)

    There was a time not long ago when share certificates were in physical form and any change in address had to be intimated separately to the registrar of each company. Some companies would fail to update details, resulting in loss of dividend, intimations etc. With the advent of dematerialization and trading portals, it has become a distant memory. We have to incorporate change in address or Bank account number only once and it is updated everywhere else. One more revolution of a similar kind is required for seamless updating of data of various documents which are issued to citizens by diverse authorities. These documents are issued by many central and state govt departments and would require coordination of the highest order. It remains to be seen how feasible it is to bring them all under one common platform to trigger this change which is sure to benefit the common citizen

The Bibliophile

 

I don’t know whether I should be grateful that I work in the Central Govt. of the Indian Republic. Several of my good friends who work in the State Govt, Armed forces and academia have hung up their boots and are leading a life of leisure. I continue to slog in a job not of my liking. I’m in Calcutta now, a city that I always loved to live in. The job fails to interest me much but I still have a good three and a half years of this drudgery to undergo before I retire from work.

    A nice way to look me up in Google would be to input the string" bald bureaucrat, with an unexplained interest in Roadside barbers, fountain pens, Carnatic music and Classical Guitar".....Well, that would just about describe me adequately. My reading has taken a huge plunge. I blame it on the quiet invasion of social media. That urge to read links sent by well meaning friends, to reply to messages etc have overtaken my life. I have no excuses for this long break from the blog. Writing is something that grows on you initially with inspiration, later with practice. I lost the urge to write. In the humdrum at workplace, I get to worry about procedural inanities, turf wars and ego hassles. I was persuaded to re-start this blog because I saw a longish note in Facebook written by a student called Ashley, on my bibliophile-friend Professor Nagesh who retired recently.  https://www.facebook.com/ajax/sharer/?s=22&appid=25554907596&id=10156216125188366&p[0]=668523365&p[1]=10156216125293366&sharer_type=all_modes&av=1356305017

                    I met Nagesh in the late 1980s through a circle of young Bank-Officers staying in lodging houses in and around Ernakulam town where we both worked. Nagesh lived alone in a big house in the heart of the city which belonged to his Mom’s family (His late Mom, a wonderful lady, was a Professor of Malayalam in a College in Calicut). I lived in a lodging house called Keerthi Mahal in Jew Street, Ernakulam. We both hated our jobs. We were working as Bank Officers, although in different public sector  banks. We were both from the category of Probationary Officers, freshly minted from college and directly recruited to Officer cadre, without the drudgery of working as clerks for several years. Having been para-dropped into the bank branches, we were struggling with our jobs. The job gave a certain dignity in the midst of much unemployment. Liberalization was still some time away and the software revolution yet to take place.

                      I really don’t know if Nagesh aspired to become a civil servant as Ashley seemed to think. I never asked him that. But he helped me a lot with my reading on India for the UPSC interview (for which I appeared twice with not so encouraging results). But he was more well-read and knowledgeable than the many civil servants I came across in my uneventful life. It is true that he won a national Quiz contest. It wasn’t conducted by Sidhartha Basu but he represented his Bank (I think, my memory plays tricks with me nowadays) in Discover India Quiz and won a trip to any location in India with 5-star hotel stay thrown in. It is a hilarious story how he went about en-cashing that prize and I played a small part in it. I remember trying to handle the Bureaucracy in the tourism department through my friends’ circle to hold them to their promise. It was with great difficulty that the prize was realized. Not to mention the troubles he had when he landed in the hotel (with his nephew along) and the hotel pleaded ignorance about his booking.  But he had his moment in the sun with that quiz and a lot of people knew him as that guy who won the national quiz on TV!!

      Eventually I drifted into Civil Services and he threw away his bank job to join Devagiri college in Calicut as a Lecturer in English. We both took a big hit on our pay packets, he a greater one. Somewhere along the way we lost touch with each other. He remained single, while I married a batch-mate from the Civil Services. I traversed the country on many transfers while he remained rooted to his small town and his teaching career, research and reading. I am not surprised that he asked his student whether he shares the same values with the girl he proposes to marry. That’s just our generation’s thinking. The Missus, also a good reader, is impressed with his range of reading.           

      We rediscovered each other’s coordinates when I visited Calicut long back and met a relative who was teaching in Devagiri college as a temporary lecturer. She put me on to him. It was nice catching up and we maintained contact ever since. I visited his home and was awe-struck by his library which overflowed with books. He took me around various eating joints in Calicut. He, a vegetarian, would peck at his food while I’d sample the veritable feasts laid before me. Every year we gift each other books on our birthdays. That’s probably a much tougher task for me. He invariably finds something interesting for me to read. While I’d be left guessing whether he already owns or have read the book I wish to gift him.

   Nagesh's range of reading was vast. He could name the editor of Punch from the 1950s and could quote from his works. While my tastes were eclectic (with some British crime fiction, Malayalam literature, penguin classics and some soft porn) his range was vast apart from English literature, in which he specialized. A conversation with him could be quite revealing. One could come away feeling that we are dummies and have still a long way to go to get anywhere near that erudition. Also, his modesty strikes you as very unusual for a man so well-read….. The last time we met at his home, I asked him what he thought of Arundhati Roy’s latest work (which I hadn’t read. I’ve started finding her a bit distasteful after she went politically bombastic). He then went on to give a 15 minute-long insight into the book. I was flabbergasted at his analysis. No critique could be as succinct and as illuminating. At the end of it, I had only one thing to say. He should write. I mean really sit down and pen his thoughts. 

    I still remember something he told me about our common avarice to buy books and let them rest near the bedside without reading. It is about an actress who put on a lot of weight. When someone asked her why.... she said honestly that it is all about a childhood with very little food on the family table. Hence the tendency to gorge on whatever is laid in front of her. He lived in small towns with little access to books.   There was nothing much on TV when he grew up nor was there social media. Acquiring books was a gargantuan task since there wasn't Amazon or Flipkart in those days. He maybe the last of the voracious readers from that generation......a true Bibliophile.

Jinnah

It was sometime in the summer of 2009 that I read Stanley Wolpert’s work “Jinnah of Pakistan”.  It was a work that gave insights into the mind of a man whose name is much sullied in India. At the end of the reading I came away thinking here is a man, much misunderstood. From someone who stood against the communalization of Indian politics, the transformation to Muslim India’s apostle was a journey of many twists and turns. In the end the fight turned to an intense one for a separate state for Indian Muslims. And the tragedy of Pakistan was that he didn’t live long enough to lay down the ideals of a nation and live by it, a nation established as a homeland for Muslims where they could live with dignity.  That book is not easily available in India. And I read somewhere that it is not so easily available in Pakistan too, for reasons not clear.

          I bought a very information rich book called “Creating a New Medina” by Venkat Dhulipalia. This book contains the fight for UP in the hinterland of the United Province (as the UP was called then) and the various debates on the creation of Pakistan, culled from research material, from varied sources. While Jinnah visualised a homeland for Indian Muslims, there was also an alternate narrative of an Islamic State. It was Shabir Ahmed Usmani the cleric who visualized Pakistan as a new Medina. I read this book off and on, drawing from the rich sources and getting a sense of the time. It still lies near the bedside for an occasional flip, over some aspect of the partition debate.

    But the book that captivated me in recent times was “Mr and Mrs Jinnah” by Sheela Reddy. Jinnah’s stormy marriage to Rutttie Petit, daughter of a rich Parsi Industrialist in Bombay, 24 years younger to him. A marriage that created unrest in Bombay society and set tongues wagging. Jinnah was a man of steely character. He worked hard at his lawyer briefs and also at building his political career. While the book centres on the stormy marriage with Ruttie, one couldn’t escape the feeling that Jinnah's life would have charted a different course if his peers had been less patronising and ready to concede political space. The other central character that pervades the marriage of Jinnah and Ruttie like a bright silvery cloud is Sarojini Naidu and her children. It was an unusual friendship, that of Sarojini with Jinnah and Ruttie. She was the friend who understood Jinnah only too well, the conscience keeper of his marriage, the family Ruttie had, after her own banished her. Ruttie’s is a sad story, for it was her fickle mind, moony notions of love and marriage and a life of luxury that often led the reader to think of Jinnah as the tragic character, in personal life and by extension, his hardened political positions that characterised his life.

            Reading about his life from various sources, one can't escape the feeling that he might have retained his commitment to the nationalist cause and continued to play the role of Hindu-Muslim unity in undivided India - if only history had taken different turns, leaders had exercised restraint, Congress had accommodated Muslim League in the power sharing formula .....But things, as they turned out, were not so simple. More than a leadership tussle, it was the feeling of alienation from the Hindu mainstream that manifested in many ways and resulted in his marginalization, first from the Home Rule League and later, the Congress itself that drove him in search of his political constituency.

         In the end, one comes away thinking that the loss of Ruttie hardened Jinnah, he was never the same person. Or was it the marginalisation by Congress that hardened him? Was it Ruttie, with her wayward life and tragic death, that made his life an emotional roller-coaster, ending it in a steely and determined position on muslim statehood? At the outset one might think of Ruttie and Jinnah were as  different as two persons can be. The marriage was clearly dying, and in a strange way, it reflected on his politics. While Ayesha Jalal's political analysis terms Pakistan as a political bargaining tool which Jinnah himself never imagined would come true, Dhulipalia analyses the dynamics of the demand of nationhood that took a life of its' own.... at a terrible price, of course. But Sheela Reddy's book gives a valuable insight into the man, shorn of his lawyer-politician veneer, a man who fell in love and stood firm in the face of adversities in life. Let that portrait hang in the University hall.... he is as much ours as he is theirs