Just pissing in the wind!

A few days ago, there was a sense of déjà vu, as I was between choosing a book to buy at a Crosswords store, here in Bangalore. The book in hand was 'Summary of Broken Republic: Three Essays', by noted speaker and freewheeling democrat, Arundhati Roy. The Booker prize winner is either loved or hated for her outspoken views on issues in India and many belive she is of little value other than being a nuisance at best.

The déjà vu, came about because as I flipped through pages, a procession went by, with the national flag and all, in support of the man of the moment in India 'Anna Hazare', who in his fight against corruption has pushed politicians of all hues into a rather tight corner.

In this battle for survival the politician has received assistance from rather unlikely sources, one is Ms.Roy. Her reason for opposing Hazare being that he did little for his village when farmers were committing suicide and more importantly that he was an RSS sympathizer many years ago, thus in a way echoing the voice of politicians in the UPA.His message, well thats not important, as far as she is concerned.

Ms. Roy's logic is a tad inexplicable. She has no take on how corruption is to be fought but when there is a movement she is seen making feeble attempts to derail it by targeting its leader. With her limited wisdom Ms.Roy ought to see that the move on corruption has gone beyond Hazare and the message has captured the collective imagination of India.

Should Ms.Roy, feel very strongly about her views on Hazare a good idea would be to fast in protest and take her chances! In her book she talks about her time with Maoist guerrillas which made a profound impression. She vividly describes spending nights sleeping on the forest floor in a "thousand-star hotel", applauds "the ferocity and grandeur of these poor people fighting back", and says "being in the forest made me feel like there was enough space in my body for all my organs". She seems to root for the underdog. Yet when the common man looks to make life better for himself she makes an attempt to thwart it by pretty prose in a daily newspaper.
Just pissing in the wind, I would say.

Are you a Sammy?

In apartheid South Africa, being called a ‘Sammy’ was as derogatory as it could get. If you were not an African or a white European then by default you were a ‘Sammy’, and so Indians were Sammie’s. How did this term come about? Apparently, the indentured labor shipped to South Africa, from India by the British, many years ago, to work their mines; plantations and so on were from South India and in all probability had names ending with ‘Swami’. The Swami gradually turned to Sammy, probably innocently and stuck as a derogatory name for anybody who was brown in color, thus reinforcing apartheid and racial discrimination.
A few days ago, while discussing terrorism, a participant said that, terrorists were all ‘Jihadists’. An innocent remark, but with dangerous portends because it directly then links terror to a particular religion and then leads to broader stereotyping. As we now know terror attacks across the world have more to do with political ends and end result of social disparity rather than meeting religious goals. The England riots and massacre in Norway by a right wing lunatic are a case in point.
Stereotyping unfortunately happens all the time, innocently at first so that a person or people can be identified and pigeon holed and then get a life of its own with tragic consequences. In conflicts, people tend to develop a negative percept of the other side. The opponent is expected to be aggressive, self-serving, and deceitful. These stereotypes tend to be self-perpetuating. If one side assumes the other side is deceitful and aggressive, they tend to condition their own response. This turns to a vicious cycle grows worse, as communication is either shut down or filters develop which color interaction.

The Quiet Bangalorean!

Two things struck me over the last week or so. The first being the fact that men in power clutch at anything and everything including straw when they fear they are drowning and two, the entertainment that the mundane provides.
Both have to do with the Indian cricket team’s performance in England and the recall of Rahul Dravid to the one day team after two years. It is not coincidental that India did not play top class teams abroad during this period and now that they are, performance clearly separates’ men from the boys.
While the cricketing pundits in India do not seem to be overly surprised, the man himself (Dravid) has since announced his retirement from pajama cricket, post the series for which he has been selected. He probably realizes that he will be jettisoned once the team returns to India and its flat tracks where the big boys with bigger endorsements will come out to murder hapless bowlers in the heat. He saved the selectors the trouble of dropping him.
Former India batter, Sanjay Manjerekar was at his best when he observed a few days ago that when people saw the God of cricket, Sachin Tendulkar when he was 14 years old there was no doubt that they were watching a genius in the making. Manjerekar later captained Rahul Dravid and says he never thought that Dravid would reach the heights that he has and the tough bloke that he has turned out to be. In short Dravid has over achieved.
In doing so he has shown us the importance of intelligence, dedication, simplicity, hard work and focus. Characteristics that never seem to go out of fashion, the size of endorsements not withstanding! You can also be certain that he will be there trying to keep the English bowlers out, while the Indian Institute of Management @ Ranchi, India, attempts to map beleaguered Indian captain M.S.Dhoni’s brain, to determine his leadership traits and style.
Slapstick and comedy are never in short supply.The probable reason why we smile amidst our daily chaos and silently salute quiet blokes like the Dravid's who keep us afloat!