Identities we are 'born' with...

Continuing with the question of identities...
There are identities that get mutated at various levels, changed in varying situations, overcome by individuals and communities. The identities of caste, religion, sect, language, nationality and so on.

The awareness of one's religion gets numb in the struggle to survive and urge to succeed. It surfaces when we happen to attend (rarely) the ceremonies or festivals. It also surfaces stealthily when our friends following other religions celebrate theirs.
The identities of caste are more often than not belittled by the equations of power and money. However they do surface quite often and do so in a wide range of situations from arranging marriages to alluring voters.
Similarly identities of languages and nationalities often blend and blur their boundaries in this era of rapid globalization.

But, there are identities that do not conform to this pattern.
Identities that are overwhelming, identities that are 'inseparable'. The identities that speak most eloquently throughout the span of our existence and control the power dynamics governing our lives. Identities we find impossible to ignore, overcome, supersede.
One such example is the identity borne out of our sexuality. Do we ever ignore the fact that we are a male/female or a third gender? Least of all the latter. While the equations of male/female identities have been much discussed and debated, it is the third gender that calls for our attention due to our inability of overcoming the identity of sexuality. It is the third gender that bears the wrath of our being overwhelmed with our sexualities.
Do we ever wonder why are we not able to acknowledge them as humans? Perhaps because we hardly acknowledge ourselves as humans. The identities of being a male or a female homo sapien conveniently supersedes that.

For Srujanika

"मर्त्य मानव की विजय का तूर्य हूँ मैं
उर्वशी अपने समय का सूर्य हूँ मैं"

(I am the symbol of victory of the mortal man...I am the sun that shines in my era)

The above lines were written by Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, known as 'Rashtrakavi' or the 'National Poet' due to his rebellious nationalist poetry during the pre-independence days.

Poetry evokes myriad sensations, at times so powerful that it can move masses and bring about revolutions.

Going further back in history we find someone who challenged hypocrisy borne out of religion, caste and power dynamics in practically every realm of life...

"दुनिया बड़ी बावली पत्थर पूजने जाए
घर कि चक्की कोई ना पूजे जिसका पीसा खाए"
- Kabir

(It is a crazy world that worships idols made of stone but nobody worships the grinding stone that feeds the world)

Kabir's poetry is an epitome of stark simplicity and this is where its beauty lies, for it reaches you at your naked consciousness, makes you think, re-think and question.

Words of Hope..words of wisdom

"We are but two threads cut from the same cloth."
- Dr. Asher Hasan, in his talk about "NAYA JEEVAN" on Ted(India)

"If the governments of India and Pakistan behaved with each other the way Indians and Pakistanis do when they meet individually, this would be a region of laughter rather than tears."
-M.J.Akbar, "The Shade of Swords"

Well, the above two statements are not likely to be immortal or become phrases that will be quoted to teach moral science lessons to the coming generations.
But, they are powerful, impactful. And the impact lies in the fact that they overcome the cliche, the stereotypes, the popular notions and present truth as it is, blunt and bland and at times defying the common understanding.

The Endless pursuit of Identities...

What do you identify with? What are your identities???
Such questions have the potential to probe your conscience in more ways than one!

Identities have been there and are likely to remain. They appear to be a natural aftermath of the evolution society undergoes or perhaps the human race itself experiences. But, at times I can't help wondering if there were certain frames of reference where these identities dissolved completely. If there was a plane of existence where an individual identified oneself with one's own self and nothing else.
After all, the identities imparted by nationality, religion, language, gender, caste, profession...all change their dimensions with changing time and space. Even our identities as humans gets belittled in the larger scheme of things.
Then, why not, for once, lose ourselves to something unexplained by reason, and identify ourselves as ourselves?

Many attribute poor social indicators in India to her heavy reliance on the Soviet model for all these years. Partially true, however the subsequent non-reliance has yielded no better results either. Hence, there emerges a need for a more discreet and objective introspection, a certain level of conviction and a definitive plan of action.
The staggering economic growth of 3.5% per year shot upto 9% after the reforms were introduced and it was widely accepted that India took a bold, yet inevitable step of coming out of its cocoon. But, in the midst of all this hullabaloo almost everybody comfortably ignored the obscure, yet vital statistics that build a country's economy. These statistics, given the fancy name of 'social indicators', do not merely represent the jargon blabbered at human development conferences or crafted to vent out frustrations on coffee table conversations. These figures go a long way in creating a nation's destiny, laying foundation for the tomorrow we visualise for our future generations, if at all we do so.
When one talks of child nutrition or the problem of malnourishment, the premise does not remain limited to problems of acute poverty, non-availabilty of decent livelihood options or the lacunae in the public distribution sytem, in fact, it trickles down to the very soul of our socio-economic-cultural framework, evoking questions that are subtle, yet extremely vital. Questions of whether we can realise the new world of our dreams with a generation that was brought up with empty stomachs? Can we establish the foundation of a free thinking, free-spirited society with its youth harboring underdeveloped, poorly nourished bodies and minds?
Yet another set of disturbing questions....

Narmada movement and its tangible goals

They say it was ‘Moral victory’ for the struggle. Well, anything to salvage its wounded pride or perhaps its bruised soul, if there is left any. Moreover at this juncture there isn’t much left to lose, or to gain either. This struggle remains their only link to their long lost identity, which leaves them no option except continuing the same till an undefined milestone.

Does it sound too hopeless? Well, hopeless it is. Hopelessness inspite of the support the movement receives from different pockets all over the country. Whether it is the protest of 25 social activists outside the Madhya Pradesh Bhavan in Delhi on 5^th of this month or a mass rally a week earlier in which thousands of displaced farmers gathered to protest against lathi charge and illegal arrests of NBA activists at the Khandwa Collectorate.

Support, protests, agitations induce more of them and the chain continue, but ironically leading nowhere. There is awareness and plentitude of empathy which to a great extent continues to fire the movement. But, at the end of the day, it seeks a different dimension. Solutions do not arrive while we follow the beaten path.

One does not ask to compromise with the fundamental goals of the movement, but one does seek inclusion of new ones, a certain reprioritizing and revamping of the achievables in the light of immediate concerns and changes in the national and international economic and political dynamics. One seeks victories that are more tangible in nature and eloquent enough to fuel the movement in the longer run, sustain it till the fundamental goals are realized. Such an inclusion need not necessarily be a diversification; rather it ought to emerge from the existing set of challenges. We merely need to expand our horizons and shed our ideological myopia. The needs of the displaced are multi-dimensional and ever-morphing to the changing socio-economic and political equations. Some of these needs which might seem the most unhindered and simpler to achieve, might yield dividends that are most eagerly sought for. This simplicity of theirs must not be the reason for lack of focus, for it would amount to one of the gravest mistakes on the part of the struggle.

ज्ञान वीथी में दीप जलाकर
स्वागत है नवनीत कुसुम का
जिसकी सुरभि बाँध ले मन को
ध्येय बने वह अखिल विपिन का

जो अपने जीवन का मोती
इस पथ में बिखराता जाए
उसे नमन उस कालजयी को
जो यह गीत सुनाता जाए

गीत ज्ञान की अमित सुधा का
गीत विनीत समस्त वसुधा का
आज भारती के प्रांगन में
स्वागत है इस अजेय प्रतिभा का

Gandhi's India...I dont think I know it anymore!

Gandhi Jayanti remains one of the most significant days of the year to me. Not only does it remind me of one of the phenomena of all times that existed on this earth in the name of Mahatma Gandhi, but also it reaffirms within me the faith in the values he stood for, the values of truth, non-violence and love, the values whose presence in our hearts becomes more and more significant in this increasingly violent world.
However this year Gandhi Jayanti will remind me of the massacre in Khagaria, the massacre in which 100 gunmen, suspected to be Naxalites, mercilessly butchered 16 people, including 5 children. There are several questions that brutally follow this event. Are we actually becoming a violent society? Is armed struggle the only resort a common man finds in order to get noticed politically? Where does this road to violence and curbing violence with further massive forms of violence end?
The country has witnessed fresh attempts to curb naxal insurgencies in the recent times. An overall increase in armed forces to fight terror which includes additional troops, paramillitary forces and the state police force.
One can not help wondering if it would have been much effective to channelize these resources towards curbing the real causes behind this armed rebillion continuing for the past four decades, for this rebillion has been an outcome of an outright failure of government machinery, of social justice, of development. It is an aftermath of serious injustice incurred upon the poor.
There is a lot of mending to be done and it is not an easy task either. But the process has to begin somewhere.
I am reminded of the turmoil during partition. I am reminded of the continuous satyagraha Gandhi led against this violence, a satyagraha no less significant than the one he led against the Britishers. Only this time, to his great anguish, it were his own countrymen driven mad by the surge of hatred that swept away their entire sanity. Nevertheless, he continued his resistence without a hint of violence against this phase that symbolised one of the most bloodiest times of Indian History. And then it all ended, with Gandhi being shot dead by Nathuram Godse on January 30, 1948. They say that 'Mahatma Gandhi achieved in death what he had striven for in his last months of life. His murder ended forever the insensate communal killing of neighbour by neighbour in India's villages and cities.'
I wonder what it was that evoked such an extraordinary sense of remorse in the masses, that brought back their sanity and their ability to look beyond the blinding fury of hatred? Was it the death of a man who led them in a manner unprecedented in the world history and whom they failed so miserably by the incessant killing of their own brothers? Or was it the values of love, peace and non-violence so deeply engraved in their conscience that resurfaced without much effort when they saw this messiah of love succumbing to death?
Are we not the same people? Have we not inherited the same values? Is there something fundamentally different in the substance we are made of? The questions are disturbing.

Clear Air Clear Water !!!

Have you ever tried pranayama? Oh no! I am not one of the Baba Ramdev followers (although he has become synonymous to it or vice versa!), neither am I asking you to be one. But, nevertheless, pranayama happens to be one of the wonderful forms of yoga which produces amazing results, increases your stamina, builds immunity, helps the body combat serious illnesses and (to cut short) keeps you healthy.

Well, I am not writing this article to reiterate the advantages of pranayama. What I intend to do is to recount my first experience with anulom-vilom. It is a type of pranayama in which you inhale from one of the nostrils, hold your breath for a while, let the air fill inside your lungs and then exhale from the other nostril. When I tried the above exercise, I could actually feel air entering each and every bronchiole of mine. Not only was it one of the most refreshing experiences I have had, but it also made me realize how valuable a gift is it to have a bountiful of clear air around you, and how often do we overlook its presence in our lives. Don’t we always take it for granted, the presence of clear air, clear water around us?

It is high time that we pause and ponder for a moment, consider a situation when we would cease to have these wonderful gifts of nature. Of course, the moment does not stand beckoning in the realms of the very next day. Neither does it in the near future. But, it is not too far either. But, obviously we remain so oblivious of the fact. Don’t we? After all we believe in living in the present! So we do not think for a second when we throw a polyethylene bag or a wrapper on the road, or drive alone in a car to the office instead of a car pool which seems so sub-standard.

We do not feel an iota of guilt while irreversibly poisoning the world, the world we are going to leave for our coming generations, a legacy we ought to be ashamed of. But, we need not have to answer anybody? Do we? We belong to a generation that lives in the present, lives life to its fullest. Is not it?

Fashion and me...:)

'Fashion' is one of the most ambiguous yet delightful concepts I have come across. Before joining a Fashion Institute, it was a term not only alien to me but also to an extent avoidable. Avoidable, perhaps because I knew it quite superficially, never bothered to delve into the nitty-gritties involved in it, for the only concept I had been fed on, or that was presented before me was that of a ' Simple Living High Thinking' and 'Fashion' appeared to me in an absolute contradiction with the same.
And so it is to some extent.
If we are in any way influenced by the egalitarian view of life, 'Fashion' would easily appear to be nothing but a pompous display of wealth by those who are in possession of an excess of it. A bourgeoisie system that mocks upon the hungry billions that comprise two-thirds of the globe.
But hang on, is that not the case with art, music, literature? Dominated by the bourgeoisie, dependent on the elite for its mere survival.
One might argue that art, music or literature have been there since ages, signifying the uniqueness of human civilization, thriving at the very essence of human spirit, regardless of the distinctions of class....
That is very true...and so is the fact that if we shed our inhibitions, widen our perspective a little we will find that fashion has accomplished the same feat...
Fashion has more than anything else, reflected the time it has dwelled in, its mood, its psyche, often to the level of the common man.
It was the indomitable urge to be independent in thought and action which reflected in the form of khadi and swadeshi during the freedom movement...
It is the inconspicuous but inevitable presence of sari in our daily lives that made a nine yard fabric the fashion statement of the country on the global platform...
Endless examples can be cited...but what makes Fashion the most relevant in the recent times is the role it plays in building our economy and the potential it possesses in terms of providing livelihood to millions.

Where the mind is without fear....

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow
domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the
dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought
and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

-- Rabindranath Tagore

The lines still evoke the same tingling sensation in the spine as they used to five years ago, when recited in the morning assembly as the Monday prayer by Col.(Retd.) B.R.Sharma.

व्यष्टि से समष्टि की वीथी कहाँ आरम्भ होती और कहाँ अंत, शायद कोई नहीं समझ पाया...हम न जाने किस मरीचिका में भटकते रहे, सोचते रहे कि आदर्शों की नींव पर खड़ा हमारे स्वप्नों का संसार कभी तो यथार्थ में रूपांतरित होगा, कभी तो मानवजाति अपने सत्व प्राप्त कर सकेगी...उस सत्व को जो मृत्युंजय है, कालजयी है।

वह सत्व जो स्वतः दृष्टिगोचर न सही, परन्तु प्रत्येक अणु में विद्यमान है॥

इस विश्वास को पुनर्जीवित कर दो...अगर इस मरीचिका के पार एक चिरंतन सत्य की निर्झरनी है तो इतनी शक्ति दो कि इस वीथी के कंटकों को पार कर अपने गंतव्य तक पहुँच सकें...

Equality is a dangerous concept...deceitful as well
We are not born equal...neither does anybody try to be an equal to a standard set by many....we all try to break that barrier, consciously or unconsciously...isn't it???

Then why preach equality...beauty lies in the difference that speaks out so eloquently all around us...

You may strive for being satisfied with what u are and what you can be...how much more different...instead of being more and more like the 'rest'....

The ‘Naxal Threat’: As we call it!

It is neither easy, nor ordinary when the hands that plough the fields choose to raise guns. The incident dates back to the year 1967 when peasants in the Naxalbari village of West Bengal, rose in rebellion against ages of oppression and injustice. The rebellion escalated in the face of violence and soon insurgencies from various parts of the country surfaced. There was a huge participation of students, particularly in West Bengal where a number of students left their education to join the movement. What followed was a period of turmoil when numerous radical groups became active in different regions across the country.

The country has come a long way since then. We forgot Naxalbari; we forgot the movement, the raison d'être that led to it. What has remained is a term, largely ambiguous, Naxalism, another addition to the numerous ‘isms’ that continue hovering over our social, economic and political consciousness, but nevertheless inconsequential. In fact, it poses one of the greatest threats to the nation’s internal peace and harmony.

Where did we go wrong and where did ‘they’ go wrong? Or, is it the rift created between ‘we’ and ‘they’ that led to this state of affairs? The question has met with a shameful apathy since its inception and still awaits an answer. So do many questions that have been fostered by these years of insurgency.

The uprising at Naxalbari was supposed to be a wake-up call for our policy makers, governments and above all the ‘class’ that was constituted of both the oppressors and the majority which remained impassive to the plight of the oppressed. The unorganized rebellion was crushed with an iron hand and as time passed by it fragmented into numerous groups of varying degrees of extremism and varying ideologies. From what was initially a struggle for one’s basic human right to live with dignity, it transformed into a ‘class struggle’, and a cruel manifestation of the same in the principle of ‘annihilation of class enemy’.

The movement truly lost its direction, if it had any, and the world has changed in more ways than one since then. What is the significance of Naxalism in the current scenario is the question that needs to be pondered upon. Is creation of ‘Salwa Judums’ the solution for the rising militancy? Or, does the solution lie in a much deeper understanding of the entire problem, its dynamics, the factors that lead to such insurgencies and thereby undertaking some fundamental systemic reforms?

The Bihar I knew…

What did I know about Bihar, the place I was born at, the place where my roots lie? My recent visit to the interiors of Bihar was an eye-opener to someone like me, born in Bihar, but brought up in Jharkhand, culturally similar, yet very different from its parent state. Did I know the real Bihar, as it exists today? Or, was I harboring numerous illusions drifting me away from the reality? Did I simply know Biharis, living away from Bihar, representing a considerable chunk of Bihar, but certainly not the whole of it? The questions are disturbing enough.

Of course, I did not know that Bihar is considered amongst the fastest growing economies in 2006-2007, owing to its fast changing macro-environment. I did not know that Patna, the richest city of Bihar, boasts of a per capita income greater than the Indian average. I never cared to know that!

But, I certainly knew the Bihar which has been the birthplace of religions like Buddhism and Jainism, which first propagated the principle of non-violence so vehemently, a concept that has eluded the civilized world till now, the Bihar which marks the birthplace of Goddess Sita, who epitomizes womanhood for the Hindus of North India, and Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Guru of Sikhs. It has been the land of Chandragupta Maurya and Ashok who gave this country one of its best periods of its social, economic and cultural history. It has given birth to the oldest and the best centers of education of Ancient India, in the name of Nalanda and Vikramshila universities. And, we all know the Bihar which gave this country some great national leaders, writers, scholars, academicians and is still producing the maximum number of IAS, IPS officers, IITians, Medical graduates, Software professionals and what not!

Everything seems a repetition after some time. Is not it? All this glorification and deification of a place which has been ranked amongst the poorest of all the states of India, a place where education is in its most dismal state, and corruption breaking its backbone in all sphere. A place where I found some of the finest people I ever met. At the same time a place where I saw some of the rudest and the most uncivilized lot living under the garb of an elite upper class and trying to be elite Middle class.

I cannot close my eyes towards its scintillating past which becomes almost haunting at times. I cannot remain silent at the mocking remarks of my fellow non-Biharis. It is too much for my proud soul to accept wordlessly. I can not join hands for Bihar-bashing either. I seek solutions; I seek answers from the Biharis, in and outside Bihar, who have remained neutral and just shamelessly neutral towards all this.

Era of Hatred!

Recently I was watching this movie named 'Do Aankhein Barah Haath' based on a humanitarian jailer who transforms 6 murderers into non-violent peasants, by his new experiment of 'Open Prison'. The movie eloquently speaks of the power of love, the triumph of humanity.

I was surprised watching the movie, even more surprised by the fact that it was based on a true story! And i know most of the people of my generation will be surprised too.

But Love does have the power to bring about miracles, transform people, curb maladies, maladies of hatred, contempt, heal wounds. Is not it?
We have been told that, we have read that.

Then why this surprise? Why the whole concept of transforming hearts through love seems so inconceivable?

It was certainly not inconceivable when the movie was produced...our movies reflect our times. Don't they?

Then why has it become an alien concept now? What is it that has changed so fundamentally? And it has certainly not changed for good. So, where have we gone wrong?

Is it not that we have been brought up in an era of hatred, violence? We have grown in the shadows of terrorism, bloodshed, corruption and a shameful apathy on the part of our 'civilized' society.
Is it not that the principles of humanity, the concept of love, brotherhood, have merely been confined to the pages of literature? The generation has been slowly, gradually transformed into 'computerized intelligentsia', past caring, past listening.