Astride Two Worlds

"Strange feeling of opening up as you reach beyond the conventional touristic borders. Down in the metro well cut suits and thin-lipped faces slowly start to give way...first, an older gentleman, perhaps from Chad, dressed in complets of pearl white, with a baby blue kufi atop his shaved head. Two more similarly dressed men at the next stop, a little younger this time. Smells are changing too; we are dipping above ground- roar and soot of a 2-stroke from before living memory, warm enveloping scent of falafel, gyro and Kati roll stands carry the friendly appeasing yelps of their proprietors, an imam's call for Duhur rides just behind the beat of an Afro-pop song blasted from a speaker on the corner... An Algerian woman and a toddler get on at the next station. She hums dreamily to the child, bouncing him lightly on her lap..."

The above is the description my then 17-year-old son Dhani wrote of his last ride in the metro across Paris...Yes, the morning before he was to take off for New York, the host family decided that it wouldn't be fair if he left without experiencing the life of the 18th arrondissement. Also known as the Goutte d'Or, the 18th arrondissement has developed into the immigrant quarter of Paris. It is here that the monochromatic/achromatic trends of the fashion metropolis of the world relents  to colorful Agbadas with bright floral patterns, and flowing kaftans and kangas. 

It represents the other side of this City of Light, the one that most tourists are warned against. Paris, without its legendary chic-ness; without its outdoor cafes, yet still Paris, and yes, still impressionable, if not even more unforgettable. In this part of the famous city, 24 percent of the people live below poverty line...this side is replete with figures and statistics, making it a mecca for the modern sociologists.

It was as though not enough to stand in the shadow of the Eiffel tower, saunter around  Champs-Elysées, enjoy a picnic by the Seine, spend a day at the Louvre, visit Musée d'Orsay,  take a selfie at Arc de Triomphe, and light a candle at Notre Dame...The experience of Paris wouldn't have been complete without an exposure to the life in the 18th arrondissement.

I was somehow reminded of Rev. Martin Luther King's speech delivered at Stanford, a speech where he spoke of The Other America- black vs. white, free vs. restricted, affluent vs. poor, educated vs. unprivileged...It was the first time, here, that he used the term 'the two Americas' to capture the cultural and economic divide with all its ugly connotations. In a few months this historical speech will mark its 55th anniversary, reminding many of us that we are still jogging on the spot, yet more and more reluctant to acknowledge it. The fact that Vir Das, the stand-up comedian was crucified in his home country for having  closed his set at Washington’s Kennedy Center last Friday with a heartfelt reflection on the “two Indias”, highlighting the country’s many paradoxes and tensions:

"I come from an India where we take pride in being vegetarians and yet run over the farmers who grow our vegetables," he said, referring to a deadly incident last month where a vehicle linked to a government minister mowed down seven people protesting against controversial agricultural reforms. 

Das, the Mumbai-based comedian, besides the farm protests, also touched on other sensitive topics such as the battle against COVID-19, cultural duality vis-a-vis women, and the crackdown on comedians. His six-minute clip compellingly encapsulated our polarized society and the dichotomy between its ideology and everyday reality.

The reaction from various quarters, split between admiration and support to outright outrage, once again brought into the limelight the nation's sharp political divide, almost as though to prove Das's point. While Shashi Tharoor,  the opposition parliamentarian lauded the speech, saying Das reflected the thoughts of millions of Indians, Ashutosh Dubey, a legal adviser to the ruling right-wing party not only accused Das of “defaming” and “spoiling the image of India” he also filed a police complaint against him. "Freedom of speech has a limitation that stops when we go against national integrity,” said Dubey to a media outlet. 

Statements such as Dubey's render abstract concepts that have saturated our media -"bringing India into the 21st century" or "onto the world stage", for example - as highly dubious, if not downright laughable. How can anyone contend such things, when ruling party affiliates still cling to ideas more reminiscent of Stalinism or the Third Reich than any so-called 'developed' nations of today? It is when the individual's freedom of expression becomes subservient to the State that we had better watch out. For, we may have inadvertently veered off onto the Red carpet; and I am not talking about the red carpet that PM Modi is accustomed to walking down on his visits abroad, when he is selling India as the biggest and oldest democracy in the world.

Mr Sibal, a senior leader from the opposition also did not mince words when he tweeted, "none can doubt that there are two Indias… It is just that we don’t want an Indian to tell the world about it. We are intolerant and hypocritical." 

Or do we just want to forever stay in denial instead of addressing the issues? It is decidedly easier to build castles in the air than to recognise that we have problems at the grassroots level. And who cares if the air is polluted?

Hello Me!

Nostos  is the Greek word for return and algos for suffering. The two words compounded form nostalgia, meaning the suffering caused by one's yearning to return, return either to a  bracket of bygone time or to a particular place.  

Lately, I have been nostalgic for myself, for the unhindered, undulating quietness which once inhabited the vast vistas of my inner scapes...by and by, because of my own negligence I let the deep creative well which watered this stretch dry up, leaving me to deal with the frightening unfertile expanse of  desolation within me. As is my wont I blamed it all on the assault of the digital world.  I reminisced the time when smartphones and laptops were considered redundant instead of absolute necessities that they have become, without which life simply stops dead on its tracks. How could a thing become a valuable extension of myself, is the question I have asked myself over and again.

So yesterday, I decided to disconnect with the e-world in order to connect with myself. I let my gadgets rest, so I could too. I let my eyes meander across the porch, alight on the cashew tree trying to revive itself, while I did the same. I smelled the rain that had fallen last night and shook a branch over my face and felt it quiver at the supernal touch of the cool drops still clinging to the leaves. Unbeknownst to me, I landed up startling a maina which quickly fluttered off, leaving in its wake the echo of my terrified scream.

I read three short stories, two by Paul Bowles and one by Borges...and when I chanced upon an unfamiliar word, instead of skipping over it, I got up and pulled out the 22-year-old Webster to look up its meaning...Besides the meanings of  words, I found an entire trove of treasure, lost and found, and still capable of issuing  a host of memories. Along with strips of salmon pink birch bark from our land in Alaska, I discovered dried lavendar and dandelion flowers right from our backyard in New York,  yellowed neem leaves in the shape of birds which I must have picked during my constitutionals in the neighborhood here, and a minuscule cashew leaf, imitating a perfect heart. I also chanced upon some colorful shiny wrappers of Parisian chocolates my friend had once brought  and empty pouches of Biglow's herbal tea.

All the things I had once loved and had now forgotten were here tucked away in the dictionary: words, nature, friendship and Tea. Maybe, I can after all find my way back home.

Playing the Card Right

 The royal family and its entourage appointed a prominent event managing company to prepare for the pompous celebrations related to the upcoming festival of lights...The deadly virus had been banished from the kingdom and the occasion called for an extravaganza befitting the victory. So what if the farmers have been on the road protesting for almost a year now? "After all, isn't it easier to protest than to till the land and sweat it out?" the king had reasoned and left them to their lot, shivering in the November cold. And, how about those whose businesses closed down, or the daily wage labourers who lost their jobs, due to the pandemic? They would find ways to trudge on. "They are a resilient race you know. God has been kind to them," is how his highness liked to eulogize the downtrodden of his kingdom. No one disagreed, instead they marveled at his utter humility which could put on a pedestal a hoi polloi. Moreover, the king once annoyed, could simply threaten to step down, as he had done on several instances. And no one desired that of him, for he looked so frail, vulnerable and helpless that the ministers and his subjects shuddered to think of him out there, in the big bad world, all by himself. They relented to his whims to keep him happy and satisfied. 

A makeshift replica of the grand temple was  built to offer oblations to the deity. All the ministers and their families were invited to partake in the grand Pooja. The subjects were advised to remain at home and enjoy the live telecast from the comfort of their living rooms. So while the obedient people of the kingdom feasted on colorful visuals of the ministerial jamboree,  the street-dwellers decided to steal the oil from the clay lamps set in front of the houses of the wealthy, so they too could aspire for a meal on the night of the festival.

The next day, the media went beserk reporting on all the minutest detail of the event, right from the ornated deities in the temple, to the dress code observed by the royal couple as well as by the family of the second and third in command were captured with great flair. The presence of famous musicians and dancers  was described as imparting a cultural edge to the overall ambience.

Some of you might have guessed that the reference here is to the Grand Old Lady of Delhi, the Chief Minister Kejriwal himself and his yet another staged performance revolving around Diwali. To commemorate the festival in style, he  commissioned a 30 ft by 80 ft. temporary replica of Ayodhya temple. Constructed and carved out of plywood and styrofoam, the temple was completed within a week. While the event was vigorously covered by one and all media houses, no one cared to find out what was the total budget for this utter waste of a structure and more importantly, where did all that money come from. Was it collected in the form of contributions from  party members, or was it the tax payers hard-earned dough which was being splurged? Secondly, which event management company was given the contract? And lastly, what would happen to this makeshift temple? Would it be packed, boxed and stored away for next year, or would it go to the already overflowing landfills?

This blogger here, yours truly, did her best to get in touch with the concerned authorities, via several phone calls and emails to the Chief Minister's office, but an answer has not been forthcoming so far.

Funnily, all the reports condescendingly stated that since the Chief Minister Kejriwal has had his eyes on the Uttar Pradesh elections slated for early next year, he had to play the religious card to woo the Hindu majority. In fact, it was considered a politically savvy move and was being applauded as such. It might  remind some of us of Donald Trump, 

on the campaign trail in 2016 telling a crowd  in Nevada, “Nobody reads the Bible more than me.” While the media in the U.S. did not spare Trump his bigotry, Kejriwal escaped unscathed.

So, all said and done, my personal ire at such puerile and pointless activities coupled with the curiosity to dig deeper into the  cost and waste aspect of the CM's profligate theatrics apparently finds me in the minority. And the fact that most people don't care about such statistics makes it a cultural issue, not a political one. 

Far Away...and Closing in

It was the same venue as presented by several other uncertain evenings wrapped in solitude: a vast stretch of sky leaning over a long terrace. By now, my occasional walks on this fifty-five steps long tiled site had earned me a couple of loyal friends: a drongo and a jungle crow. They seemed to alternate between the two perches the simple layout of the terrace afforded: a firm one on the parapet and a free-spirited one on the clothesline. Sometimes our eyes met and locked, at others our acknowledgement of each other's presence was best expressed by discounting it.

But something unusual happened a few days ago as the dark sky momentarily lit up presenting a filigreed vision of a phantom flock of Caspian terns headed somewhere beyond the storms. Appearing suddenly on the western horizon, it imparted the impression of materializing out of thin air. An orchestral silence followed in its wake. At least a thousand of them, in a constantly wavering formation. Threading their way in and out of invisible obstacles the terns moved, stealthily dividing themselves into waves, and then coming together to form a frothy ocean. My heart sang out at this elysian sight and two poems emerged from this moment of supernal joyousness. They definitely don't do justice to the glorious beauty of our migratory guests which graced the evening, but it's an attempt nevertheless. 

1.

a ribbon of joy

spreads across the

gray and gloomy

sky above: shimmering

in their own thrill

of a long journey

ahead, the terns

quietly make their

way across the

jubilant vastness

of the ocean...

like a phantom vision

they dance with 

the dimming light

now a wavering streak

of  silver, and now a

pall of dense darkness:

hide and seek to

confuse and delight,

adventurers into

the unknown, woven

into the rhythms of

nature, they heed the

call...they dream 

the path...

2.

columns of

love flowing

unto me in the

soft rain beyond

the fields where

cows graze...dark

clouds flee above

colliding with their 

own shadows; a

phantom flock of

stroboscopic terns

makes its way across

the dark ocean:

unhurried, woven

so gently in the

choreographed 

dance of Nature...

below the wild

waves rise and roar