Subsidies and all that...

The Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) recenlty gained power in Delhi and announced certain sops for 'aam aadmi' (common man) forthwith, without even waiting to prove their majority on the floor of Delhi Assembly with the support of Congress (or perhaps wanting to 'do it quick' before someone could pull the rug from under their feet!).  Commenting on the subsidies announced by the AAP Govt., esp. the one relating to power charges, a couple of respected former colleagues expressed themselves as not wholly in favour of such subsidies, broadly on the ground that it was a wastage of precious public resources.

I've a bit of a contrarian view on this (though perhaps still to consider all aspects). Why are direct subsidies necessarily seen to be bad when they're granted to the common man or disadvantaged sections. What about the very many indirect subsidies afforded to the privileged few? For starters, does anybody talk about the huge subsidies by way of Govt. houses given to public servants (just compare the market rents in surrounding areas to the pittance they've to pay the Govt.)? What about the almost 'everything free' life of our so called elected representatives (someone once came up with a calculation for an average MP - it came to millions!)? And we're not even talking of the disparity in opportunities afforded at the two ends of the scale of affluence, an indirect subsidy in itself - remember that someone born with a silver spoon in his mouth has infinitely greater opportunities to progress, against someone born in more humble circumstances.

The going wisdom, honed by the traditional wisdom and conditioning poured into all our minds since eternity, seems to be that metrics like fiscal deficits are affected only by the direct subsidies granted to the economically disadvantaged, while the indirect subsidies are manna from heaven! But just consider: where does the effect of the largesse afforded to the privileged few land up - perhaps on the same plate, just as direct subsidies do? Eventually, it'd seem that the same 'common man' ends up bearing the burden of fiscal deficit from his pocket, either by way of increased taxes (which he can't evade like a smart businessman, being subject to witholding taxes from salary - another subsidy asymmetry!) or erosion of savings due to inflation (while the solution for businesses is simply to jack up the prices of goods and services, protecting their marging).

One argument could be that the advantages accruing to the entrepreneurial class is ostensibly due to the operation of risk-reward equation: more the risk taken, greater the reward.  But at whose cost do such supposed 'entrepreneurs' (many of whom may be the old landed class, rent-seekers rather than true innovators) take such increased risk.  We only have to look at the subprime crisis for the answers!  Closer home, how many industrialists have really been made to pay with a reduction in their lifestyle after their businesses failed - word is that most of the risk is actually borne by the banks and financial institutions, while the super profits/rewards go to the 'promoters'.  And ultimately the tab for the inefficient (and sometimes downright corrupt) lending practices of public banks has to be picked up by the same common man!

So what's really the harm in the poor common wo/man being compensated at least a little bit by being granted some direct subsidies. And make no mistake - the common wo/man is yearning for it!  With the information asymmetry slowly withering away, mainly due to electronic media and especially internet, aspirations are rising all around.  And we the middle class have started to feel the pinch lately, much later (in terms of social development) than many other developed societies - labour wages from farms in Punjab to construction sector in Mumbai have been rising due to the 'NREGA' effect (supply of labour stemmed due to rural employment scheme in their villages), as have the salaries of domestic helps, many of whom used to come from such rural areas.  One pernicious effect brought on by the rising aspirations has been the unsavoury social incidents like honour killings and worse, epitomising the 'clash of two worlds' (mainly rural and urban), where economic conditions and mobility change but social mores do not keep pace.

When some people talk about wastage of public resources in subsidies, the underlying thought seems to be that since the resources are collected from the middle classes (not counting the really rich who have ways of either 'passing on the burden' or evading it!), they should be spent on the same classes.  However, taxation theory also says that the objectives of taxation are not only public/common welfare, but equalization of wealth to an extent by transfer of resources.  We wouldn't want forcible and sudden transfer of wealth (like Dr. Zhivago's house in 1920's USSR being marshalled for housing the poor!), would we?  So taxation and grant of subsidies seem to be the other way in which this is done!

I say subsidies "granted' and not "availed", consciously, because as anyone with an iota of exposure to real life knows, here the lion's share of even those direct subsidies is cornered by many of the same privileged classes who also get a plethora of indirect subsidies, by way of rampant corruption and administrative overheads.  The public distribution system (PDS) of India, which provides 'ration' food for the common man, is a prime example of leakage, as is the MGNREGS (the rural employment guarantee scheme).  The real debate should perhaps center around such inefficiencies and corruption around the subsidy schemes.

I believe AAP's recent electoral success is due to the fact that the other political formations have lost touch with these realities at ground level. And this applies especially to Congress, full of lawyers and economists whose only occupation seems to be to fulminate over esoteric things like balance of payments, monetary & fiscal deficits, market/& FII sentiments, 'confidence of the international community' (whatever that means!) and the like. Issues which don't make sense and not an iota of difference to the life of the common wo/man, who's more concerned on a day to day basis about balancing his/her household budget and keeping his/her head over water.

I fervently hope the common wo/man relegates all such political parties/formations to the dustbin of history and brings in more AAP-like people who're in regular touch with ground realities. But that's only a hope - I'm realistic (or cynical!) enough to realize that there are a host of factors like caste, religion, musclemanship, corruption etc. at play to thwart such a grant vision and perpetuate the status quo. My remaining hope is that perhaps AAP's victory would spur some in the current bunch to see the writing on the wall and take up common people's issues.  Perhaps a small start has been made in this direction by Sanjay Nirupam, the Congress MP, who's now demanded that Maharashtra Govt. should also look at ways and means to reduce power charges the same way that AAP has done in Delhi. Amen!

Books, books, books...

A friend recently asked me about my reads.  Going through my past reads mentally, I realized they are a ‘peculiar’ list of fiction & non-fiction.

• I seem to be big on Coelho - have read up at least half his, including the latest ‘Manuscript Found in Accra’ (which I found a bit ‘light’ compared to his other/earlier ones).  I find Coelho's unique combination of storytelling+philosophy+hint of theology an enticing mix.  
• I finished about half of ‘Dharma – The Difficulty of Being Good’ by Gurcharan Das.  His drawing of lessons from Mahabharata episodes is interesting.  
• I also adore the ‘Fish’ series.
• And ‘Who Moved My Cheese’.
• And books by Malcolm Gladwell, who seems to come up with surprising and unique perspectives on social phenomena – ‘Outliers’, ‘Tipping Point’, ‘Blink’, ‘What the Dog Saw’.
• Some of Edward de Bono (I heard about ‘Six Thinking Hats’, but read up ‘Six Action Shoes’) are inspiring and thought-provoking.
• ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’ gave me something to think about.

On economic/financial topics 

• I’m a fan of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, one of the most cerebral writers in my opinion (I devoured ‘Black Swan’, read up part of ‘Fooled by Randomness’).  Surprising to know he was a ‘quant’ i.e. a financial market trader!
• I also read up ‘The Big Short – Inside the Doomsday Machine’ by Michael Lewis on the 2008 US banking crisis, which reads like a thriller! (I also started on 'Freefall' by noted economis Joseph Stiglitz on the same subject but found it too dry!).
• ‘The World is Flat’ by NYT columnist Thomas L. Friedman, about interpreting the global economic liberalization and ‘connectedness’.
• Some others like ‘Economic Naturalist’, and ‘Freakonomics’, giving an everyday twist to seemingly complex economic phenomena.  
• My readings on business topics include books like ‘Execution’, ‘Good to Great’, ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’, ‘24 Carrot Manager’,etc.
• Books on general interest topics like 'Eats Shoots & Leaves' (a hillarious take on incorrect language & punctuation) and by the same author 'Talk to the Hand' (on the prevailing general misbehaviour patterns), 'The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari', etc.

On fiction, during my college/early career days, I used to read authors like

• Mark Twain  - 'Tom Sawyer' & 'Huckleberry Finn' of course, but also ‘A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court’.
• And collections of O Henry short stories, with their 'twist in the tail' - so many of them have been made into movies including some Hindi movies (the recent 'Lootera' had allusions to 'The Last Leaf') which I watched later.

Then, after a longish hiatus, I again took up some classics 

• ‘War and Peace’, which somehow I hadn't been able to finish during college days (but this time some parallels with Indian thought processes got me hooked - I finished it during my travels over a period of two years!).  Other Tolstoy works also attacted me a lot, including some of his short stories.
• 'My Experiments with Truth' by Gandhi.
• I still haven’t finished ‘Freedom at Midnight’ (though I've read other Collins/Lapierre books like the nuclear thriller 'The Fifth Horseman' and -started on - 'City of Joy'...)
• Big fan of Thomas Hardy (‘Far From the Madding Crowd’, ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’)
• And lately the Jazz era novel ‘The Great Gatsby’ (saw the movie too, but after having read the book)
• Started on Gorky (‘Mother’).  

But I also read up

• ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy (after having watched the movies) - (a) found the books contained far more content than the movies, and (b) the allusions to human nature and behaviour were timeless.
• Almost all of Sherlock Holmes, the cerebral detective of early 20th century London.
• Quite a few Agatha Christie detective stories, including a large collection of 'Hercule Poirot' and some of 'Miss Marple'.
• The 2nd and last three of Harry Potters series (have watched the full series of course).
• Quite a few of Dan Brown’s - ‘Da Vinci Code’ of course, ‘Angels & Demons’, ‘The Lost Symbol’, ‘Digital Fortress’, ‘Deception Point’ - before I lost interest in the genre.
• Siva trilogy by Amish - I think the last one ‘Oath of the Vayuputras’ was somewhat of an anti-climax, though perhaps in line with the created mythology.
• A few of the 'Ramayana' (e.g. 'The Vengeance of Ravana') and 'Mahabharata' (e.g. 'The Forest of Stories') series of Ashok Banker
• Sci-fi series by Isaac Asimov - reading one of the ‘Foundation’ series these days.
• And Arthur C. Clarke - a couple of the ‘Odyssey’ series, and his ‘Rama’ series which starts with pure science fiction but by ‘Rama Revealed’ metamorphoses almost into theology (the same can perhaps be said of '3001: The Final Odyssey')
• Amitav Ghosh’s ‘Sea of Poppies’ (which alludes to the Opium Wars around China in 19th century); also started on the sequel ‘River of Smoke’ but couldn’t finish, before I had to return it to my online library)
• A few of Jhumpa Lahiri's books ('Namesake' - also watched the movie, 'Unaccustomed Earth'), including the Man Booker longlisted 'Lowland'
• Also Booker winner 'Life of Pi' (recently made into a movie).
• A few thrillers like 'The Fourth Protocol', the first two of 'The Girl...' millennium series (got put off later) and the first of the Japanese 'Ring' trilogy.
• Some Indian 'chiklit' novels, including a few by Chetan Bhagat - 'Five Point Someome', 'One Night at the Call Centre', 'Three Mistakes of My Life' (the three made into Hindi movies, with 'Three Idiots' partially based on the first one a huge hit, and 'Kai Po Chhe' based on the last one also a moderate hit); 'The Incredible Banker'.

Apart from ‘series’ books, I’ve read a whole lot of others, for instance

• The hillarious ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ (also watched part of the movie).
• ‘The Palace of Illusions’ - on Mahabharata through Draupadi’s eyes.
• ‘Hullaballoo in the Guava Orchard’ - about so called social misfits

and so on,  which I’ve lost count!

That's for English. I also used to be an avid Hindi reader, though not necessarily established tomes, but in olden times I've read a few of Munshi Premchand.

And in Bangla, I've read up

• Satyajit Ray's series of 'Pheluda' detective stories - very evocative of the place where the stories are set (for instance, even 20 years later I found Kathmandu to be quite similar to the place described in 'Joto Kando Kathmandu-te'!).
• Ray's 'Professor Shonku' stories - about the eccentric scientist dealing with strange inventions and phenomena.
• A few by noted litterateur Bibhuti Bhushan Bandhopadhyay - 'Pather Panchali' (made into the famous trilogy of movies by Ray), 'Adarsha Hindu Hotel', 'Ichhamati' (started) - simple stories but incredibly evocative of early 20th century rural Bengal/Bangladesh.
• Nihar Ranjan Gupta's 'Kalo Bhromor' stories featuring the intrepid detective 'Kiriti'.
• And Sharadindu Bandhopadhyay's detective 'Byomkesh Bakshi' (made into a popular TV series and also a few movies recently).
• Stories of well-known Bangla novelist Sunil Gangopadhyaya (including the ones serialized in 'Desh' magazine).

These are the ones I can recall right now.  Doubtless, there are countless other books I'd have read over the years and lost track of.

When my interests 'bent' towards a certain direction, I started with 'Autobiography of a Yogi' (an international bestseller) and a host of other books by the same author (including interpretations of Bhagwadgita and 'Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam' which come up with quite surprising insights).  But then that's a completely different journey...

Phases in the journey of life...

It seems that, while carrying on with our day-to-day life, we pass through at least three distinct phases of life (there could be more, but maybe these three are easier to perceive).  The first phase is mostly concerned with the physical reality.  This seems to correspond with the early stages of working and family life.  Here, one focuses mostly on the material aspects of life: one relishes good food to satisfy the palate, one exercises to keep the body fit, one gets a job to 'bring home the bacon' and satisfy the physical indulgences, one marries for physical intimacy (in most cases), and so on.

In the next phase of life, we move a bit beyond the physical reality and crave emotional satisfaction.  The role at the workplace has to result in 'job satisfaction' and challenging content.  The marital relationship has to mature more towards emotional support rather than purely physical.  One starts looking for 'mind satisfaction' beyond bodily fitness.  And in the next stage, many among us move into the spiritual domain (or at least try to).  Looking at a job 'making a difference' in the larger context.  Looking to satisfy our curiosity on 'meaning of life'.  Wanting our spouses to support, or even join, our spiritual quest.  And so on.  

Maslow's famed hierarchy of needs, though devised mostly from a workplace perspective, seems to have a resonance with these phases of life.  The 'physiological' and 'safety' needs seem to be in the physical domain, 'love and belonging' and 'esteem' on the emotional plane, and 'self-actualization' points towards spiritual portends. 

There is also something to be said for the 'aashram' system devised in ancient times in India.  Moving beyond the education stage with celebacy (brahmacharya'), the 'grihasth aashram' (householder) stage seemed to correspond to the 'physical' reality.  The 'vaanprasth aashram' (pre-renunciation) stage may be seen to roughly correspond to the 'emotional' phase, while the 'sanyaas aashram' (renunciation) stage probably helped the 'spiritual' quest.

Important thing to note is, there seems to be no hard and fast rule as to the bodily age when someone may progress form one phase to another.  It may depend on a multitude of factors - conditions of life (especially at early stages), education, social conditioning, peer pressure, family & other responsibilities, et al.  And there is no issue as long as the concerned person is fully aware of and reconciled to these factors and their effect on the journey of life.  The problem seems to arise when, while one's 'inner being' is yearning to break free and move on to the next phase, one is constrained to latch on to an earlier phase.

This may happen due to both internal and external factors.  Internally, one may struggle to hold on to a set of beliefs or way of being which is contrary to one's deeper tendencies towards a next phase.  One may be so hooked to the physical indulgences as to refuse to let go of them even while the mind says otherwise.  One's ego may be so big as to preclude forming emotionally satisfying relationships, whether at work or at home.  Externally, to earn a livelihood and make ends meet, one may be forced to do mundane jobs, while the mind yearns for more job satisfaction.  Or the predominant behavioral patterns (for instance aggression, or unscrupulousness) in certain job roles or in certain industries may be contrary to the inner needs of contributing to a 'bigger picture'.  One may wish to foster more emotional relationships, but lack of maturity of the partner may be a constraining factor.  One may even want to renounce certain ways of living and move on to the spiritual plane (akin to 'vaanprasth' or 'sanyaas' stages of yore), but family and other economic responsibilities may not provide the leeway.  Could it be that many of the ills, of society as well as in individuals, are a result of this 'inner conflict' between what one yearns to do and what one is forced to do?  The essential selfishness, the sense of rootlessness, the cynicism and loss of moral values...

But then how is it that our fathers and grandfathers (mother and grandmothers as well) seemed to manage to transit more smoothly between the various phases of life?  One answer may lie in the level of 'connectedness'.  In earlier times, the adage 'no man is an island' was perhaps more true.  Everyone seemed to be part of a large family (even if not living together), of a community (with shared value systems), of a nation (bound by patriotism).  Even if a person was madly busy at the workplace, for instance, s/he would usually find some time and space to connect with the community, either on the religious plane (by visits to temples or 'satsang', for instance) or social (as harmless as 'gossip groups').  But it seems that in our relentless quest to make the 'best use of our time', we've just exiled any space to connect with others, on any plane.  So while we have the means to instantly connect to anyone across the globe, we don't feel it necessary to connect to the next person (at best we just 'do our duty' by sending him/her a text/instant message!).

One possible solution (and there may be countless others) to this conundrum, the resolution of this inner conflict, may lie in two concepts: 'vasudhaiv kutumbakam' (the world is one family) and 'solitary journey'.  These two may seem contradictory at first, since one concerns the self while the other concerns the world.  But with some thinking, one may realize that one could be at peace with the world only when one is at peace with himself/herself!  The path to self realization is essentially a solitary journey.  If one is lucky, one may find co-passengers on the path, or even a guide, but all the effort required to 'know oneself' has to be exerted by the individual oneself.  

And when one is reasonably 'at peace' with himself/herself, one may realize that 'we're all on the same boat' - self realization by its very nature expands the consciousness to include all within its fold...

Do business executives in general stand for more gender equality?

I recently attended a seminar organized by an industry body.  One of the topics of discussion included Ethics, and this was sought to be illustrated through dilemmas we frequently face in life.  In an innovative effort, the medium chosen was a 'live' case study, with a theatre group helping focused groups of participants consider different aspects of a supposed question of ethics, including by enacting 'freeze frames' of different aspects related to the issue.  

The case study distributed was:

Rashid is an entrepreneur with a social conscience who sets greate value in being morally upright.  He and Anurag met while they were at college and have been friends ever since, having had a common passion for many things: wildlife, conservation, the environment.  Over a period of time, Anurag got married and started his own NGO.  Rashid was an integral part of the process.  Not only was he one of the largest funders - a position he retains - but due to his own goodwill and connections, he brought many more funders to Anurag's project.

Anurag's NGO works with the Bahelia-Pardhi tribe, historically stigmatised as a 'criminal tribe' in the colonial listing of 1871.  They are traditionally hunters and, more recently, poachers.  The NGO works towards rehabilitating them by creating alternate employement for both the men and women of the tribe - a significant challenge as hunting is what they primarily know.  It also runs a school for their children.  Rashid was proud and happy to be a part of this.

Vandana is Anurag's wife.  One day, Rashid received a call fromher; she sounded upset and explained that she was making this call because she wanted him to know that Anurag had been violent with her and had hit her.  He learnt that this wasn't the first time.  Needless to say, Rashid was upset and shaken by this.  He connected with Anurag who was indignantat the accusation.  When Rashid tried to speak to Vandana again, she was non-committal and vague.  After much debate and angst within himself, Rashid pulled funding from the NGO.

The first part consisted of play acting/'freeze frames' by groups of participants on different aspects of the situation.  The views and prejudices of many of the participants seemed to be visible even at this stage.  Some were seen to be in a contemplative mood (in a 'freeze frame') since, as they explained when prompted, the situation involved 'larger questions'.  Some others were seen to be advising the 'wife' either to "take a step back" and coolly analyze the situation, or (more directly) to look at a compromise.

The last part of the feature had two actors on stage fielding questions from the audience - a male actor playing Anurag (let's call him 'husband') and a woman actor playing Rashid (the 'friend').  The moderator asked the audience the opening question: Was the 'friend' right in pulling funding from the NGO?  'No' was the overwhelming majority response on a hand count.  And this was also reflected in the questions (more like thinly veiled accusations and imputations) put to the 'friend' and to the 'husband' by the group of business executives in the audience, which seemed overwhelmingly one-sided (about 4:1 majority) across age and gender divide.  Most of the 'questions' were directed at the 'friend'.  Some of the 'questions' were:

(a) Were you not acting in haste? (The 'friend' explained that he had worked for a month to establish the facts.)
(b) Were your conclusions not based on incomplete/unestablished facts? OR How could you believe only one side? (The 'friend' said that when he asked the 'husband', a long time buddy, point blank whether he had been violent with his wife, the 'husband' was non-committal and aggressive.)
(c) What right did you have to interfere in personal matters?
(d) [The 'rationalizing' thought] Were you not harming the larger purpose of the NGO by pulling funding on the basis of a personal issue of the NGO's CEO?

There were also suggestions, direct and oblique, for the two parties (the 'husband' and the 'friend') to sit together and resolve the issue (on the same lines as India and Pakistan were advised to do after 1947, as a member of the audience remarked!).  This suggestion the 'friend' was okay with (on a personal level, but standing by his decision to pull funding from the NGO), but which the 'husband' rejected outright (with a resolve to have no truck with the 'frined' in future), saying the 'friend' had ruined his life by harming his life's work.

Our much smaller group tried to argue that personal conduct could not be totally disjointed from the professional, especially when the NGO's work involved communities, and the 'husband' was also involved in 'counselling' community members sometimes.  One question we asked the 'husband' was, given that he had said that work was life and life was work for him (and turning this argument around), wouldn't his personal conduct and outlook on personal issues also affect his work with communities and his ability to deliver appropriate counselling and other services?  To this the hypocritical response from the 'husband' was that he had never held himself up as a role model.  Going on with the '1947 analogy' earlier, we also reminded the audience that in 1942, Gandhiji had suspended the Quit India Movement when a group of people at Chauri Chaura had indulged in violence against security forces - and, so, the ends do NOT justify the means.

Most amazing perhaps was the question from a woman colleague in the audience.  She asked the 'friend': Don't you think that your acting against the already frustrated 'husband' could lead to his indulging in more violence towards his wife?!

While the session ended with the moderator saying that questions of ethics were in general confusing, with no absolute rights and wrongs clearly demarcated, it made me somewhat sad about the social mores of a so-called 'distinguished' group of business-people.  This was especially so as the above session came after an earlier session where (a) an academic briefed the audience on a multi-disciplinary study on gender rights, one of the findings of which had been that the way women are treated in workplaces has an effect on how they are treated in society and households (and not only the other way round, as is conventionally believed); and (b) a briefing on the task force of the industry body on measures proposed to strengthen women's safety at the workplace.

To play the devil's advocate, I may've been acting as an 'armchair practitioner', while the larger group may've consisted of (at least some) people who've to take a stand on such issues on a day-to-day basis.  But does that condone the overall regressive mindset on display among such a group, who are supposed to be 'educated and enlightened' as compared to perhaps some other parts of society?

Such ambivalence may not bode well for women's safety, especially in the workplace, and as a wider portent, for gender equality whether in the work sphere or society in general.

Old Hindi movie songs and spirituality?!

Most Indians of Gen-X who understand Hindi (or at least watched Hindi movies, which is a bigger population!) know that many songs in Hindi movies of yore, say upto 1970s, had 'double meanings'.  But double meaning of the gentle kind like 'Aanchal mein kya jee?...' (Kishore Kumar), not the like of 'Choli kay peechhay kya hai...' (Neena Gupta gyrating in 'Khalnayak').  And I mention one from the 1980s because the ones with 'real' double meanings, especially those from movies made in the 'noughties' (the first decade of 21st century, not to be confused with 'naughty'!), hardly leave anything to imagination.  And that applies to the songs with double meanings, not ones in recent times which have single, explicit meanings (just listen to 'Bheege honth tere...')!

Anyway, talking of the old Hindi movie songs, the double meanings in those songs were of two kinds.  There were some which were naughty (in a decent way, in keeping with social mores of the time), alluding 'between lines' to things which they could not in polite conversation (after all, those were the times when a mere touch between screen lovers could ignite sparks!).  And then there were some with perfectly normal lyrics but with a hidden meaning hinting at spirituality.  These were the songs which really touched the chords of one's heart.

Some of these songs, while ostensibly talking of the mundane, eventually made it clear that the allusion had all through been to higher things.  An example of this kind would be 'Laaga chunri mein daag...' - not the recent movie with that title, but the Manna Dey song picturised on Raj Kapoor.  Here, while the initial stanzas of the song seemed to be saying something mundane, the closing lines make it clear that the connotation all through had been to 'this world and hereafter': 'O ri chunariya atma mori, nain hain maya jaal...'.

And then there were songs which did not make any effort to clarify their meaning in any detail, perhaps because no such clarification was needed by the listeners!  Take the supremely soulful 'Mere sajan hain us paar...', sung by the maestro Sachin Dev Burman for 'Bandini', picturised on Nutan and Dharmendra.  I'm told the tune belongs to a musical tradition known in the Eastern part of India as 'Bhatiyali', alluding to songs sung mostly by boatmen and their ilk.  In this song, the first and the third stanzas, 'Mere sajan hain us par...', and 'Mat khel jal jayegi', talk of the longing of a lovelorn for her lover, supposedly living on the 'other side' (maybe of a river?), while the second stanza ('Man ki kitab se tum...') seems to hint at the ephemeral nature of fame or reputation.

What's to be noted is that while the meanings of the first and second stanzas is clear to the listener (one 'other-worldly' and the other promoting 'vairagya'), the meaning of the last stanza is not so clear.  A casual listener may conclude that this stanza ('Mat khel jal jayegi, kehti hai aag mere man ki...') cautions the lovelorn lady not to be consumed by the 'fire' of love, while she protests that she's after all the constant companion of her beloved ('Main bandini piya ki, main sangini hoon sajan ki...').  But just dig a little bit deeper and there's another meaning that shines forth: that the path of devotion to God is like walking on fire, and your only support is a firm conviction that you (the soul) can gain His companionship.  The masterstroke is the final line which subtly hints at His constant call: 'Mera kheenchti hai aanchal, manmeet teri hai pukar...'.

More on such songs later...

Backing the wrong horse(s)...

The headline news (or "breaking news", as most news channels are wont to call it!) in almost all Indian newspapers today is how Manmohan Singh, taking over Finance ministry after Pranab Mukherji resigned en route to the President House, choose to meet his old 'groupies' Montek Singh Ahluwalia and C Rangarajan for a start.  And how this signalled great things to come...

It's striking how we Indians as a people, raised as many of us are (or at least were, till a couple of decades back) on mythological stories, are highly susceptible to the 'history syndrome'.  At the slightest pretext, whenever we even get a hint of an incident (or even a persona) resembling anything that has happened any time in the past - right from Rama's time to Krishna's and all the way till the end of 20th century and everything in between - we are wont to clutch at the straws of history/mythology and get our danders up 

(or down, as the case may be) basis the similarity of circumstances.  Little do we realize the dynamic nature of history - things once gone are hardly likely to come back, not in the same form at least.  Even if we could at least learn something from history, it'd be of some use; but no, we're content with just being nostalgic and all rosy eyed...

The over-exhuberance with Manmohan Singh taking charge of Finance ministry, and pulling along his 'old' team on the first day, is another demonstration of the same syndrome.  Now, nobody has got anything against Dr. Singh - he's a decent enough man, who's come up the ladder by dint of his technical/academic brilliance.  But how in the world is this 'opportunity' - of being in charge of Finance ministry again (though there were snide remarks earlier that even as PM he preferred to deal with Financial and Economic issues rather than the wider ones, including political) - supposed to add to his ability to deal with the country's current economic situation any more than what he was already able to do as PM?  


And are we really sure he 'understands' the current world/economic paradigm the same way he did 20 years back?  Perhaps he does (being a brilliant economist himself), but there's a world of difference between understanding something and doing, or even being 'allowed to do' (ref. all the the talk of 'coalition dharma'), something to help the situation.  Do we expect that Dr. Singh would just pull out his magic wand (of 1990s vintage!), say "Abracadabra", and all our economic ills would just vanish?!  And that too when the wand itself has rusted quite a bit in the intervening 20 years.  Call it 'old wine in new bottle' or whatever you may, the reality is that Dr. Singh may find himself as flummoxed (and hand-tied) in dealing with the current situation as FM (esp. if he chooses to use 20 year-old methods) as he has been as PM.

As for Montek, the guy appears to have actually deteriorated in his outlook over these 20 years.  Part of the blame must be put in the

space he finds himself in - as head of a communist-style 'apparatchik' body lording over Central Govt. resources and granting 'doles' to provincial govts.  Never mind that the resources are raised in the same provinces (and then 'appropriated' by the Centre and part of it funneled into the black home called Govt. bureaucracy)!  And never mind whether the money so doled out actually reaches the target populations.  The fact that Montek has got totally disjointed from ground realities is borne out by many indications, one being his view that a 'normal' person an live on Rs. 30 a day (presumably, if that 'normal person' doesn't have to spend Rs. 3 million on a couple of toilets, of the kind recently built in Montek's fiefdom Yojana Bhawan), while 'Montek-ji' himself can fly around the world on 'official' tours at a cost of crores.  If ever there was a contest for the best 'armchair economist' (living within ivory towers), Montek will qualify without even running for it!

As for Rangarajan, the best one could say about him is that he prefers to 'stick to his knitting'.  As Governor of Reserve Bank of India, he excelled in dealing with esoteric things like repo rates, CRR, (theoretical) inflation trends and such like.  And one suspects he has continued to restrict himself to dealing only with faceless numbers rather than real people.  Probably he can talk at length on the shape of money supply in the economy, without even a hint of what that 'money' means to the person on the ground trying to survive with the same (or even reduced) 'supply' of it while prices of everyday items keeps going up and up and up.  Something that not only doesn't hit people like Rangarajan, insulated as they are from any level of price rise, but is sanitized by the same people into faceless concepts of 'inflation' ('double dip' or not), 'stagflation', 'recession' and the like - much more palateable to deal with than the ugly realities of abject poverty and penury at both urban and rural levels.

Is it any surprise that with such a merry bunch at the helm, our economy is in the doldrums.  These are the people who, even when they get themselves up to do something at last, start talking about dealing with 'investor sentiment' and 'market trends', not even making a passing reference to the plight of the same 'common man' to whom many of them have to go every five years.  As if their first accoutability lies with the 'international community' and not to their constituents.   Well, talk of investors and market all you like, but at least explain to the common man how doing something to improve these is likely to (it's only a possibility after all, not a certainty) lead to a better deal for him.  


A classic example is how the Govt. machinery dealt with the resistance to foreign investment in the retail sector.  On paper, a whole lot of downstream benefits could be envisaged, from better realizations for farmers to more competitive prices for the consumers, eliminating middlemen from both ends of the chain.  But no, the Govt. preferred to talk only of how permitting this would lead to a great improvement in investor sentiment (even as many farmers' bodies got wise about the potential benefits, and chose to take a stand counter to the agitating trader community who seemed to have a bigger ear of the powers that be across the political spectrum)!


And you know why they wouldn't talk about the common man's reality on any issue?  It's because, in his heart of hearts, in the privacy of his leir, any intelligent man (discounting the idealistic fools), either in the economic or in the political space, knows that the machinery and mechanism which has been built up since our independence (and even before) is so rusted and moth-eaten by corruption that come what may, only a very small portion of economic benefits actually reach the common man for whom it's meant.  


And that applies to 'trickling down' of any economic & social good under the sun - unemployment benefits (the NREGS chain riddled with corruption at all levels and leakink like a sieve), education (whole armies of teachers drawing salaries from Govt. but not setting foot in the dilapidated rural 'schools'; why do you think there are riots every time a recruitment drive for teachers or policemen is held - because it's a licence to draw a pay withouth working & thus 'loot of the treasury'), health (primary healthcare centre workers playing truant, just like their brethren the teachers), industry (e.g. mining, a daylight robbery industry the likes of which are alleged to be driver of Naxalism), even law and order (a special case - a force tied down to its British-era 'legacy' as a tool of repression in the hands of the powers that be).

Faced with such 'insurmountable' challenges of economic development to benefit the common man, what do smart men like Manmohan, Montek, Rangarajan, et al do?  Why, they keep tinkering with this or that 'rate' or 'indicator' a bit this way or that way, while making all the right noises at Davos and Mexico, if only to ensure that after retirement (if it ever comes, for this lucky group) they have plenty of offers from the 'international community'.

Is the situation totally hopeless?  Is there not even a glimmer of hope?  I believe there is.  Just that we've to learn, as a country and people, to stop putting our stock in hopeless personages.  A lot has been said about Indian 'jugaad', the proclivity of the Indian people to get around any roadblock by using 'whatever works'.  Some negative comments have also been made against the 'jugaad' mentality - legitimate complaints that this mentality is condoning social/economic ills, encouraging corruption and letting people get away with murder.  However, I believe it's the Indian ethos of micro-level entrepreneurship (in the widest sense of the term), whether called 'jugaad' or something else, which'd eventually help us rise above the conundrum in which we find ourselves.  And that would probably happen in spite of, not becuase of, any shenanigans indulged in by the holier-than-thou armchair economists and technocrats.

There is a passage towards the end of 'War and Peace' where Tolstoy puts down the realization that it's not great kings and emperors who win battles, but the soldiers on the ground whose courage or cowardice on a given day and in a given battle actually decides the fate of that battle (and eventually the war).  This resonates closely with the timeless Indian classic Bhagvadgeeta which says while being engaged relentlessly in work, one shouldn't even think that things come about because of his efforts ('maa karmaphalheturbhu...').  If only the self-important 'rulers' like Manmohan, Montek & Rangarajan would get the import of this philosophy and focus on 'getting out of the way' of the common man as he goes about building his dream with his own two hands...

Unemployment dole vs. 'Minimum Wages'

There was a news item in the Economic Times page 11 today that the Central Govt. is trying to deal with the fallout of the Karnataka High Court order last year (for equalization of MNREGS (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme) wages with those mandated under Minimum Wages Act) by revising the wages, while simultaneously going in for an appeal to the Supreme Court.

My take: Decide first whether it's a dole (which is support for the poor) or proper 'employment' (which should lead to creation or value addition of certain economic goods)?  Has there been any sort of evaluation of the 'projects' undertaken under MNREGS to understand whether they're really useful to the rural economy or society - that is, those projects which are actually carried out, not the ones which remain only on paper and become a tool for rural/intermediate level functionaries to loot money.  If not, let's treat this purely as a dole, and not talk about parity with Minimum Wages which are paid for proper employment.

 

It seems some state governments, in the garb of supporting a socially progressive scheme, are going overboard raising MNREGS 'wages' to those mandated under Minimum Wages Act.  Treating it as another one to hand out largesse, on the same lines as the 'Rice at Two Rupees' and such other schemes, which have in the past led to virtual bankruptcy of the concerned state treasuries.  

Already, in the past few years, there have been huge demographic shifts in the rural workforce earlier coming to work in the farms of Punjab etc. and on construction projects.  Now many of them prefer to stay in their villages and take advantage of MNREGS.  This has led to huge rises in wages in these sectors due to severe shortage of manpower.  

Now, it may be said that the rise in wages, coupled with more leverage in the hands of workers, may not be a bad thing in itself – at least it’s paid for proper hard work (though there probably needs to be better management of rising industrial tensions, ref. the recurring cases of industrial unrest in Gurgaon-Manesar belt).  Bottomline: it's still payment for legitimate economic 'work'.

 

This Budget, they announced the intention to bring in an 'urban' employment guarantee scheme.  Before expanding the scope of such schemes, can we have a national consensus to treat wages as wages (with all associated privileges) and dole as dole.  Else there may be long term effects on the labour market which the politicians may not visualise now (or, even if they do, choose to turn a blind eye to, for political gains).

There’s always a danger that we may create whole generations of young people (a la US or even partly like Germany) dependent on dole, and on a much more massive scale than in other countries.

Reminiscing about a wedding in the 70s...

The topic of a family reunion has been flying in the air, in my (online) interactions with certain clan members (some settled out of India now) lately.  F2F (that, for those uninitiated, is short or text lingo for face to face), it came up when I met an aunt (my later mother's cousin, let's call her "SM") after decades, ironically at the home of her daughter who's been staying in the same town as I for quite a few years now, but whose husband and children I met for the first time (and they likewise, with my family)! And how did the meeting come about?  Ironically, aided by an online tool, the ubiquitous Facebook, where SM (perhaps the only one of her generation in our clan active on FB) saw my message and responded with a phone call.


So, as often happens when you meet a relative after such a long time, we got talking about previous family gatherings.  One of the interesting ones was when we had gone to Patna for SM's wedding (isn't it curious that in those times, despite our resource constraints, we managed to go attend family gatherings in other towns, whereas now we don't do that even for many functions in our own town?).  Interestingly, the eldest daughter of our aunt at Patna, who was actually older than SM, was called "... mashi" (aunt) by SM, in a sort of reversal of roles.  I guess this disparity between age and relationship is not something unique in our clan.  More interesting was the case of one 'meshomoshai' (uncle), who was the brother of one of our 'didimas' (my mother's aunt).  He was called '....da' (grand uncle) by some, including those who probably knew him before he became a 'meshomoshai', while the rest of us (including I) continued to call him '..... meshomoshai'.  I met his son my cousin recently while he was in Delhi, and he mentioned having visited '....da' (or elder cousin), the son of the said 'didima' (who was meshomoshai's sister), who most of us call '.....mama' (or uncle)!  Go figure.


I digress (and will continue to do that off and on).  The wedding in Patna happened when I was perhaps 6 or 7.  Not 5, as far as I remember, because I would've been 5 when the Bangladesh war happened, and we had trenches dug in front of our house in Delhi Cantt., to take shelter in case of a bombing, which mercifully never came about (we had all sorts of theories on the reason for the 'Z' shape of the trenches, including that it was so because a bomb, if it fell on a trench, would just roll to the end of trench, sparing the 'occupants'!!).  Anyways, to return to the wedding, we traveled from Delhi to Patna on a train with a steam engine in vogue those days (now I hear the Indian Railways is charging a bomb letting people travel on heritage trains with steam engines, some of which keep breaking down being not very well maintained).  It was probably better than travelling on a train with a diesel engine (as happened later on another travel for another wedding), where the soot tended to get into your hair and face if you so much as poked your head out to catch the wind.  For us children, the train journey used to be the highlight of any travel, while our parents were probably pulling their hair out trying to manage the whole affair.


I don't remember much about the wedding proper, except the dressing up part.  What I do remember are the episodes around the wedding where we children had the most fun.  It was of course quite a madhouse, what with relatives of all hues milling about the large two-storied house.  Once, when we children were sort of locked up on one floor, perhaps as we were making two much nuisance, we threw down the footwear of all guests which were piled there - quite a sight!  Once, our eldest cousin '....da' (the son of our aunt at Patna), made quite a hash of 'chicken leg'.  What happened was that he wanted to treat the whole household and guests to a sumptuous meal of chicken curry and rice, ensuring that each one got a 'leg piece' (something prized in those days, unlike now when chicken legs are treated at par with red meat and avoided due to health concerns, even exported on 'cut price' basis).  So he got quite a number of dressed chickens home.  When it was time for the meal, it was found that the chicken legs were not sufficient for everyone.  The reason?  '....da' had counted the number of people correctly (being fairly good with numbers, as he was a manager of Cole biscuit co.), but had then divided that number by FOUR, to get the number of chickens required!!  We had quite a laugh, ribbing '....da' on the number of legs a chicken had.


But the high point of the function was undoubtedly the proper theatre skit we children put up.  I remember because I had a walk on bit part, of a 'suited booted Englishman'.  It was a properly done affair, with a well made stage, backdrop, curtain drops, props, dresses, et al.  It was orchestrated by our talented cousins from Kolkata who ran Children's Little Theatre group, a minor rage in the Gariahat area in those days.  At the end of the skit, there was even an award distribution ceremony.


Ironically, it was an interaction with the elder of those cousins, now in US, which brought back many of these memories ('purano smiriti').  Talk of the world being round...

Language - to illuminate or confound?

Language is supposed to be one of the means of communication.  A vehicle to express thoughts clearly (or, especially in current business and legal settings, only as unclearly as the sender of the communication wants it to be!).  A tool to elucidate things, to explain things, to throw more light on ('illuminate') things than already there...


What, then, would you say if you were to come across something which leaves you more flummoxed than you started with.  Consider this (paragraph-size!) sentence from the front page story 'Army to stop ops if Omar lifts AFSPA?' in today's (Friday 11th Nov. 2011, or 11/11/11 as popularly being peddled) Hindustan Times, Delhi's most-circulated broadsheet:


     "A defiant Oman Abdullah is hoping his strong stand in favour of partially lifting AFSPA, which protects all actions of security personnel from judicial scrutiny, will helps him regain the political capital - and authority - he has lost since his swearing in almost three years ago following a series of violent street agitations, administrative lapses and the controversial death of a party worker last month."


Whew!  Quite a mouthful, wouldn't you say?  If you're a bit lazy-minded while reading this, you may lose track of what happened first and what later, out of the surfeit of incidents thrown into the jumble - AFSPA (imposition or lifting), judicial scrutiny, gaining & regaining of political capital/ authority, swearing in, violent agitations, and so on...  Why do sentences have to be sooooooo long, you wonder, paragraph-size?  Is it an effort to hold on to the reader's attention at least till the end of the sentence/ paragraph (in this day and age of micro-size attention spans, seen in continuous TV channel surfing)?  Or is it to display erudition in being able to craft sentences of such massive size?  Well, at one scale, this may be nothing compared to a 2G case judgement in which, as reported recently, one single 7000-word sentence ran for 24 pages!!


But we digress.  The point was, if the intent of language is to explain and elucidate, what does the last part of the above sentence (starting with "he has lost...") do?  When you start reading this part, you get the impression that the honourable Oman Abdualla was sworn in 3 years back after violent agitations and the like!  Then, the last few words totally confound you for a moment.  How can the death of party worker, only last month, have led to Omar's swearing in three years back?!  Time travel?  Inverted etymology?  Well, to be sure, there are philosophers who argue that space and time are just constructs, and that actually all occurrences across time scale can be imagined to be happening at the same time...


But then, the reality dawns.  It was actually just a couple of missing commas which queered the pitch (think "For want of a nail the shoe was lost...").  Turns out what the report meant to convey was that Omar had lost his political capital and, importantly, authority as well (and was not sworn in) following violent street agitations, et al.  If only, while concentrating on crafting such a long sentence, the 'crafter' had paid due attention to putting a comma before "since his swearing in" and after "three years ago".


Moral of the story: all of us should just take a break and break their sentences after a reasonable length.  And that includes us corporate-types and especially the legals, who revel in crafting similar long and convoluted sentences (whether in reports, legal documents or in emails).  After all, as someone said, the human mind cannot keep its concentration beyond three lines (maybe that's the target!) and tends to switch off.  


That would also save valuable time spent in checking and rechecking grammatical accuracy...

Awesome things...

Came across a website (read about it in the paper first - it's apparently featured widely in media and has won an award of some kind) called '1000 Awesome Things'.  Here, one Mr. Pasricha started writing about the everyday, mundane things that he finds awesome.  Things like the smell of shampoo, a road-blocking slow car moving out of the way, food in a potluck, and so on.

At one level, writing about such things can look like self-aggrandizing: who cares whether or not you found a summer midnight walk enchanting, for instance.  On thinking it through, though, it struck me as an exercise in developing at 'attitude of gratitude', or even humility.

First, how many of us really, deliberately take time out of our 'busy' lives (esp. those of us in urban settings, with long commutes) to 'smell the flowers' on the way.  We've become so engrossed in 'making a life' that we've forgotten how to enjoy life (while we still can!), even the little pleasures that are available to us in plenty.  And this is even when we do find (or make) a bit of time from our grinding schedules.  We'd rather sit in darkened halls, munching on (unhealthy!) snacks, supposedly 'enjoying' a movie with reputedly breathtaking scenes, but we wouldn't look up from our car window to take in the unfolding magic of a monsoon sky.

Second (perhaps more important) aspect is that we hardly appreciate what we have, while constantly running after things we think we 'should have'.  We take it for granted that we'd have (and always continue to have) the ability to talk, walk, speak and even breathe.  But do we ever realize what huge blessings these, apparently 'normal' things, are?  And I'm not even talking of other people who are physically or mentally challenged, deprived of these faculties.  I'm talking of people walking among us whose condition or circumstances hinder them from enjoying these things as a 'normal' person would.  Ask someone with arthritis what a blessing it'd be to just be able to walk without excruciating pain!  Ask someone with asthma what utter relief and pleasure it'd be to just breathe normally all the time without fear that the wind would be sucked out of their lungs at times!  Even, for a person who has to live apart from his/her family due to work or other reasons, ask him/her the joys of just being able to hold his/her infant child in his hands!

So, coming back to the 'awesome things', it seems to do no harm to remember, once in a while, the blessings and bounties that nature or our circumstances bestow on us, and thus (directly or indirectly) show our gratitude for the same.  This attitude may also have two indirect effects: (a) Negating the 'entitlement' syndrome, where people (usually those with means) get set in the belief that they are 'entitled' to all that they have (and some that they don't have but crave!), not realizing that many of those things are not only not earned by their own hard work, but are actually a 'tax' on the society in some cases (think about lighting up your house with extensive decorations, in places with perennial energy shortages).  (b) Inculcating humility, once we realize that we are just a speck in the larger scheme of things (whether worldly or cosmic).

With this in mind, I've decided to 'pen' down here, every once in a while, the things that I find 'awesome' and to be grateful for.  It'd perhaps be presumptuous to call this something like a 'list of things in which I see God', so I'll leave it to the best judgment of the readers.

I've already thought about the thing that's #1 awesome on my list - the one above.  That is, a monsoon sky in India, showing but a small part of the works of the gigantic paintbrush of nature! Really awe-inspiring, what say?