Turn up the Radio

For over a century, radio has played tunes to the march of human history, setting the background music for our lives.  As we listen to news and traffic reports punctuated with the latest hits while driving, how many of us reflect upon the invention that revolutionised communication? There’s more to radio than songs presented by vivacious RJs.  Did you know, for instance, that radio signals played a vital role in the rescue of over 700 passengers of the ill-fated Titanic, enabling quick communication with nearby ships? In those days, carrier pigeons were the prevalent mode of communicating at sea. Without radio, it would have taken days for distress messages to reach, and there would have been no survivors of the Titanic.

Those of us who grew up when TV was just a single Doordarshan channel with limited transmission timings, will remember how radio brightened up our days.  Latest news bulletins, talk shows, quizzes, radio plays and of course music to cater to varied tastes; radio constantly regaled us with never a dull moment.  Providing infotainment may still be the most obvious function of radio today.  But radio technology also supports many other marvels of modern life. The story of how radio evolved, a product of research often independently conducted over many years by generations of brilliant minds, is fascinating in itself.  

First, let’s see how good old radio still scores over its arch rival, TV. Indeed, once the whole world thought radio would die a natural death with the expansion of TV. But radio reinvented itself by offering FM stations, which are very popular and offer spunky competition to TV. In its heyday before TV stole the limelight, we relied upon radio to make the dullest things sparkle with life and excitement. The sound broadcasts drew our interest, and excited the imagination of individual listeners to form their own special mental images. In my schooldays, classmates with their own pocket ‘transies’ were the cynosure of all ears. Come winter and test cricket season, work slowed down all over town. In school, we would slump upon our desks and perpetually pretend to tie shoelaces, or search for lost erasers or pencils. Ingenious ploys to catch the running cricket commentary from transies smuggled in schoolbags. Ace commentators’ electrifying voices infused excitement into every wave of the bat and each toss of the ball. During a particularly sizzling international test match, our teacher must have sensed how her best speeches were assailing deaf ears. Choosing pragmatism over authoritarianism, she asked, “What’s the score?” Our terror at the prospect of impending doom in the Principal’s office, made way for smiles. Our teacher joined us to hear the commentary for five full minutes, before turning off all transies and resuming the day’s lesson. After subsequently watching cricket on the field and on TV, I now realise that radio commentaries played a major role in creating excitement and hype over test cricket.  Urged by the vibrant commentary without visuals to bring home drab reality, we actively imagined an action-packed game. Minus commentary, traditional cricket is a visually dull affair with players’ languid movements drawn over five long drawn days. No wonder limited over one-dayers, and IPL with its cheerleaders and hoopla are more popular versions of the game today.

The famous War of the Worlds broadcast directed by Orson Welles shows how radio, with sound alone, could excite the imaginations of multitudes.  Broadcast in the USA as a Halloween special on October 30^th, 1938, this series of fictitious news bulletins was based upon H.G. Wells’ classic science fiction novel, War of the Worlds. This radio broadcast sent many American people into a tizzy because they were convinced that Martians were really invading Earth. TV broadcasts on the other hand, show everything while leaving little to the imagination. Thus TV, which encourages passivity in the audience, dulls our imagination instead of challenging it like radio.

News reports of war and violence are clear enough on the radio, without the support of graphic visual images of violence. This is a gentler way of making young children aware that death, war and violence exist, without compromising their natural sensitivity. As little children living in New Delhi during the Indo-Pak War of 1971, we listened intently with our parents to war updates on the radio. Lights stayed dimmed and windows were pasted over with newspapers because of the blackout.  We children would crawl under the bed whenever we heard anything remotely resembling an air-raid siren. We felt concerned and sad for brave soldiers who were fighting and laying down their lives. If we were also constantly seeing visual images of this death and destruction on TV, it is likely we would have grown more insensitive to violence.  Our fear and concern must seem silly to today’s children, who are habituated to a steady barrage of gory images on TV.

Compared to radio, TV with explicit visuals would definitely be a greater culprit in accustoming people to violence by making it a part of our daily routine. Scholarly studies worldwide have made strong statements linking media violence and violence in society. A continuous deluge of sensational TRP-grabbing images in the media (print, TV, movies, video games etc.) can desensitize us by distorting death and disaster which doesn't affect us directly, into prime-time entertainment. When violence and bloodshed is thus presented to be the everyday norm, it is less likely to move us.  This raises deeper and ominous questions. Is the overwhelming graphic violence in print and TV influencing increased aggression on our own city streets? If we are impressionable victims of such subtle brainwashing, then TV would make a stronger impact compared to radio.

Since radio engages only our sense of hearing, it leaves us free to focus our sight and more of our attention on driving, knitting, gardening, jogging and various other things we like to do while listening to broadcasts. TV on the other hand, demands ALL our attention, and turns us into passive couch potatoes.

Music is more enjoyable on the radio, where the focus is on the melody alone. Glitzy visuals do not vie to distract us, or compensate for mediocre lyrics, vocals or instrumental effects. Recently a friend shared a video of a song sung by the inimitable Mukesh.  The visuals were unremarkable, with Mukeshji standing before a mike, while the staid orchestra played behind him. Everyone wore straightforward everyday clothes, and there was no fancy lighting, dancing or histrionics. Mukeshji sang with pure, undiluted passion, and what a song it was!  No special effects distracted attention from the soulful lyrics sung by a timeless, mellifluous voice. Radio supports pure, good music, which doesn’t need to hide behind distracting gimmickry.

Radio has revolutionised mass communication, and is useful in many other ways. Before radio, telegraph was the best way to rapidly transmit information over long distances. But telegraph used a system of codes, while radio carried speech. Telegraph required wires, and could not work across vast areas without wiring. Around 1891, radios began to be used on ships at sea, preventing accidents and helping in rescue operations.  In 1899 the R.F. Matthews became the first ship to use a wireless device based on Marconi’s system, to request emergency assistance at sea. 

Radio spectrum and technology has many applications; from baby monitors and broadcasting to radar and radio beacons. In 1910, Frederick Baldwin and John McCurdy first connected an aerial to their bi-plane, to demonstrate radio’s use for navigating planes. In 1921, the Detroit police first used radio equipped vehicles. Today’s ambulances use radio to monitor and relay the patient’s condition to the hospital.

 In 1902, ‘ham’ or amateur radio was first introduced to the U.S. through a Scientific American article on “How to Construct an Efficient Wireless Telegraphy Apparatus at Small Cost.” Today, there are many ham radio enthusiasts all over the world, connected through ham clubs. Apart from enjoying an interesting hobby, ham operators have been helpful in rescue operations after natural disasters such as earthquakes, when major communications centres have been damaged or destroyed. Their broadcasts have guided search parties and located victims in remote areas.

Radio telescopes pick up radio waves naturally emitted from stars, quasars, black holes and other objects in deep outer space.  This helps scientists to get a better understanding of our vast universe.  Given the infinite expanse of space, it’s possible that other intelligent life exists far away. Radio will play a major role if humanity successfully connects with intelligent extraterrestrial life.

The world has many scientific minds to thank for this wonderful invention. In the early 1800s, Hans Christian Orsted began experimental work on the connection between electricity and magnetism. Further experimental work was continued by Andre-Marie Ampere, Joseph Henry and Michael Faraday. Subsequently James Clerk Maxwell developed a theory of electromagnetism, predicting the existence of electromagnetic waves. Heinrich Hertz proved that electricity can be transmitted in electromagnetic waves. Nikola Tesla wirelessly transmitted electromagnetic energy in 1893.

Indian scientist Jagadish Chandra Bose was a pioneer in the field of microwave devices. He invented the Mercury Coherer and the receiver which Marconi used to receive the first radio communication across the Atlantic over a distance of 2000 miles, in 1901. Guglielmo Marconi is widely credited to have developed the first instrument for radio communication over large distances. He was awarded the official patent by the British Government. Marconi established the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company in 1897. The work of each of these scientists and several others was of vital importance. Ultimately it all led to the system of wireless sound broadcasting known today as radio.

In India, radio went commercial in 1965 with the introduction of ads in Vivdh Bharati broadcasts. Catchy radio jingles won the public’s hearts. Tunes like Tandurusti ki raksha karta hai Lifebouy, Doodh ki safedi Nirma se aaye, and  sona sona naya Rexona stayed on every Indian’s lips. Ameen Sayani, with his rich, sonorous voice, was India’s pioneering all-time number one RJ. He first appeared on radio in 1953-54 to change forever the relatively staid tone of AIR broadcasts. Sayani made broadcasting history by hosting the Binaca-cibaca Geetmala film songs programme for 39 years. At the height of his career, he did over 35 radio programmes every week. My personal favourites among the golden radio voices of yesteryear were Gitanjali Iyer hosting A Date With You, and Melville De Mello’s reading of the English news. Yuva Vani programmes and Bournvita Quiz had us kids hooked.

Today’s profusion of FM channels has produced many talented and magnetic radio presenters or RJs, each with their distinctive brand of delivery. Deadpan humour, talent for sarcasm or spoofs, rich and electrifying voices, the ability to talk non-stop with oodles of confidence even when they make a slip of the tongue, the most popular RJs are celebrities with fan followings. Teaming up with copywriters and producers, they make up the most visible, oops audible, face of an exciting profession.

Radio thrives on, reinventing itself and offering new ways to support technological advances. On World Radio Day, and every other day, let’s celebrate this invention which brings music to our ears.

 This was first published in Sunday Herald

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BOX

Landmarks in Indian radio history

June, 1923: Programmes aired by the Radio Club of Bombay.

November, 1923 : First broadcasts by Calcutta Radio Club.

July 31,1924 : The Madras Presidency Radio Club begins broadcasts.

July 23,1927 : Indian Broadcast Company (IBC), Bombay Station inaugurated by Lord Irwin, the then Viceroy of India.

August 26,1927 : Inauguration of Calcutta Station of IBC.

September 10,1935 : Akashvani Mysore, a private radio station, set up.

January 19,1936 : First news bulletin broadcast.

June 8, 1936 : Indian State Broadcasting Service became All

India Radio.

October 1,1939 : External Service started with Pushtu broadcast.

January 1,1942 : Akashvani Mysore was taken over by Maharaja of Mysore.

1947 (at the time of partition): Six Radio Stations in India (Delhi,Bombay,Calcutta,Madras, Tiruchirapalli

and Lucknow) and three Radio Stations in Pakistan (Peshawar, Lahore and Dacca)

July 20,1952 : First National Programme of Music broadcast from AIR.

July 29,1953 : National Programme of Talks (English) launched from AIR.

1954 : First Radio Sangeet Sammelan held.

August 15,1956 : National Programme of Play commenced.

October 3,1957 : Vividh Bharati Services inaugurated.

November 1, 1959 : First TV Station in Delhi started as part of AIR.

November 1,1967 : Commercials on Vividh Bharati introduced

July 21, 1969 : Yuv-Vani service started from Delhi.

July 23, 1977 : First ever FM Service was inaugurated from Madras

Bangladesh recognized Akashvani for its contribution in Bangladesh Liberation War. On 27^th March, 2012, Sh. L. D. Mandloi, DG, AIR received the award at a ceremony in Dhaka.

Nostalgia

Remember the good old days? Those magical yesteryears when the skies were bluer, air purer, people nicer, music sweeter and life a rainbow-hued fairy tale. In those mythical halcyon days, love and friendships lasted lifelong. Life was all pristine innocence and goodness. Today's crass materialism and soul-stifling lack of morals were unimaginable then. At least that is what we wish to believe when we daydream our way into a nostalgic time-warp.

Most of us at some time or other, have compared the glorious past to the degenerate present. It’s tempting to tell our successors how we were more intelligent, diligent, honest, better behaved and better in everything than them. We forget that we too were at the receiving end of such grievances from our own elders. Our venerable elders would surely have heard similar complaints from their own venerable elders. Our prehistoric caveman ancestors would probably have lamented the hairless bodies, larger craniums and more erect gait of degenerate younger generations. They would have deplored the new-fangled way of communicating with words as needlessly complicating the traditional hominid system of modulated grunts. Those new bone and iron tools would have seemed more cumbersome than traditional rocks and sticks.

Nostalgia makes us gloss over the flaws and cocoon ourselves in an idealized version of olden days. We feel that in the past people lived better lives. But we conveniently overlook the fact that their lives were shorter because of smallpox, cholera and other ailments which can be cured today. Let's carry the argument further. If the past was indeed perfectly wonderful, what about the Thugs who waylaid innocent travelers on the Grand Trunk Road, and the murderous hordes of Genghis Khan and Timurlane's armies? They too belonged to the golden past. Life in the Middle Ages or Dark Ages as modern ignoramuses call it, was a time of faith. Blind faith. The people were discouraged to learn and ask questions. Thus they were protected from unpalatable truths. The Salem Witch Trials and the Spanish Inquisition belonged to the golden past too. In our own land, widows were routinely burnt upon their husbands’ funeral pyres. Human sacrifice, slavery and other progressive social customs prevailed along with all sorts of superstitions and taboos. People dared not cross the seas and travel to foreign lands for fear of being excommunicated from respectable society. Time-honoured institutions, sadly forgotten today.  

In the distant past, cavemen led the purest life. No hectic work schedules; no money, and therefore no need to chase that root of all evil. Issues were resolved swiftly and decisively. They simply smashed opponents with their clubs and either killed, or got killed. The apelike forefathers of the Homo Sapiens lived on a higher plane above their degenerate future progeny. They thrived close to nature with their heads up high, usually in the branches of trees. The remoter the past, the grander everything was. Just think of the dinosaurs. Those primeval monsters truly lived life king size.

So are we the inferior waste products of history and pre-history? Is Darwin’s theory of evolution a crazy myth? Is human civilization hurtling toward a cultural compost pit? Think about it. Is nostalgia deceiving us? Was the past ever perfect? Is the present merely imperfect continuous?

Idealized images from the past have their uses. When the computer gives up its ghost to a virus, or when the Internet grinds to a crawl, it’s therapeutic to go strolling through the tranquil bends of memory lane. Sentimental longing and wistful affection for the past; treasuring selective airbrushed and rose-tinted mental images of times long gone; that’s what nostalgia is all about. It’s but human to long for a home and loved ones, who have changed considerably with time. Even loved things such as old movies or books can trigger feelings of nostalgia. An old Lata Mangeshkar, Bob Marley, Bob Dylan or Kishore Kumar song can unlock the gates of magical memories, depending upon the generation and culture to which the listener belongs.

Nostalgia smooths and softens the rough edges of things from the past. In the words of Doug Larson, nostalgia is a device that removes the potholes from memory lane. Nostalgia can add cheer and joy to our rat-race weary lives. How magical it is to leaf to your childhood autograph book, filled with scrawls from school pals, teachers, and those film stars who shot a scene in your school if you were lucky enough. Oh, that dreamy feeling of reliving old memories as you view sepia tinted photographs in the family album! Have you ever felt more delight and contentment? The aromas of your mother’s cooking; that camping trip you took with your father; the warmth of his hug as you snuggled into your grandfather’s lap and listened to his stories; our dear elders had made our lives worth living. They were only human, and not all-powerful superheroes. But when we were young, they were perfect in our eyes as they lovingly nurtured us into becoming what we are today.  Some of them have left this world, but their affectionate memories continue to guide and uplift us.

Inanimate objects like favourite books, songs or movies can similarly boost our spirits. They gain this power because of their association with our dearest people and happy events from the past. That movie or song is evergreen because we enjoyed it in the company of friends from our carefree schooldays. That favourite book is often the one a beloved parent or teacher gifted us, opening our intellectual perspective in an amazing new way. Whenever I pass a Subway sandwich shop in any city, I am flooded with soft-focus memories of the lively addas I once enjoyed with my children’s author friends in a cozy Subway branch in Bengaluru. We all live in different cities now. Distance and time draws old friends apart. But nostalgic memories can bring back some of that old happy glow.

Pleasant memories can help us tide over hard times. I remember how my late brother was once passing through a rough phase in life. When I visited him, we sat together leafing through old photos of our shared childhood. Then, he brought out his file of testimonials. That letter of appreciation from a visiting dignitary; that photo with a famous film star; a glowing recommendation from a former employer; those newspaper clippings; all helped gradually ease his frown and bring back the spring in his stride. Drawing a deep breath, he then readied to face the challenges ahead with fresh hope and energy. Nostalgia helps us overcome setbacks. It reminds us that if winter has come, spring cannot be far behind. If we succeeded before, we have the capacity to succeed again in our endeavors. Nostalgia can give us hope and courage.

Nostalgia is a great way of creating and nurturing human ties. Families and friends bond over happy memories, sharing experiences and emotions. School and college alumni associations are strengthened by nostalgia. When I attended a meeting of the Lady Shri Ram College Alumna Association in Bangalore, I had hoped to reunite with long lost friends from my college days in New Delhi. I scanned the unfamiliar names and faces of attendees, who ranged from august ladies to youngsters who looked as though they had bunked lectures to be there. I didn’t find a dear old friend, but as I chatted with the others, I realized we all shared memories. Our favourite teachers, discovering fascinating books in the library and bonding over snacks at the college canteen; we had been there and enjoyed the same things. People may have studied different courses, and may be born generations apart. But getting together to celebrate the glory of the shared alma mater can draw diverse people closer.

Our memories of what was good in our past, can guide us to build good things in our future. I sometimes feel nostalgic about dear Melly Aunty, an especially friendly and caring neighbour from decades ago. These memories stand as guidelines for my own behavior today.   Nostalgia can help us understand the things that matter the most to us; the memories and emotions that leave a lasting impression in our minds when all else has passed.

Nostalgia can enrich literature and history. Rabindranath Tagore’s enchanting memoir My Reminisces, brings to vivid life Tagore’s unique childhood world as he grew up in the thick of the Bengal Renaissance. Qais Abdul Omar’s Fort of Nine Towers is a moving account of his personal experiences of the beauty of Afghanistan as it was, and of the horrors of recent decades of violence in his homeland. In addition to being memorable reads, such books also help readers experience past realities which they would otherwise never have known. Such memoirs flesh out the gaps and show us the human side of the past overlooked by dry factual history textbooks.  

It’s easy to let the magical enchantment of nostalgia overwhelm our sense of present day reality. We must strike a balance and take care not to get carried away. “Nostalgia is a seductive liar,” as George Wildman Ball so aptly put it. It amplifies the glories of the past and can encourage people to ignore what they can do today. It can make us resist new ideas, progress and innovation as we yearn for what is dead and gone. Love for a glorious past can blind us to the good things in the present.

This ambiguous and bittersweet emotion can also sink us in the quicksand of regrets. We need to guard ourselves from wallowing in misgivings; of dwelling upon what could have been, rather than focusing on the here and now.  I remember being with a friend as she lamented the lost promise of her youth. If only she had built upon her bright academic career and pursued her dream of joining the Civil Services. Meanwhile her little son tugged at her dress, pleading for attention. She scolded him for interrupting while she was talking. The little one toddled away with downcast head. A crushed flower fell from his tiny hand.

We will be the ultimate losers if we allow nostalgia to distract us from appreciating life as it is now. It’s important to use our memories of the positive aspects of the past, to improve current circumstances. This can help strengthen our will to move ahead and grow. Sometimes the pain of regrets may be unbearable. That’s when we must delve into our nostalgic impressions of the good times, and remember our positive achievements. This will revitalize our hopes, and help us to forgive ourselves. As a writer so aptly put it, people find it hard to be happy because they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.

Dwelling in a self-created prison of nostalgia can stunt our thinking and vision. Albums, autograph books, school yearbooks and mementoes get damaged or lost as the years go by.  In this never-ending rat-race, the pressures of deadlines, cut-throat competition, soaring inflation and plunging sales graphs all take their toll. We can’t afford to let ourselves be embalmed in old memories. In the course of moving houses, I’ve lost that book inscribed by a long-lost friend. Tears fill my eyes because I cannot find those dainty sandesh moulds my late aunt used to shape mouth-watering Bengali sweets. Physical symbols of our most precious memories fade away with the passage of time, leaving us emotionally orphaned.  I try to convince myself that indulging in nostalgia for what cannot be retained, will make me as obsolete as the defunct past. Instead of mourning the lost sweet moulds, I hope to replicate some of my aunt’s gracious, forgiving attitude. I feel that would be her best memorial.

Dipping into nostalgic memories is a lovely way to soothe and revitalize our souls. But we must take care to dwell just long enough, and not lose ourselves in nostalgia. Our focus should be to use that fresh energy and insight to face today’s challenges with renewed vigour.

This was published in Sunday Herald

cleaning India

On October 2^nd 2014, wondrous scenes unfolded in India’s public spaces. True to the spirit of the Mahatma, Prime Minister Narendra Modi celebrated Gandhi Jayanti by taking to the streets with a broom to launch the Swachh Bharat or Clean India campaign. The media was soon flooded with broom-wielding images of netas, government babus, celebrities of motley hues, and ordinary people like us. Over 31 lakh central government employees from all over the country paused from tying red tape, to pledge to clean up India. Since then, Facebook, WhatsApp and the rest of cyberspace are flooded with memes, jokes and publicity shots of who is doing what to clean up this country. The Clean India campaign is an ongoing one, with multiple suitably impressive goals. Meanwhile, we debate the issue in the social media, sign pledges, and sometimes even flourish a mop for effect. We then continue to relieve ourselves at the nearest roadside wall, and toss our garbage at the neighbours’ doorstep.

So is all this flurry of real and virtual activity leading the way to a cleaner India? Will pouring public money into more toilets be enough to keep our cities and villages clean? How can we counter the surge of environmental pollution from industries? What will happen when people misuse the toilets, and then return to squatting behind bushes or emptying their bladders upon public walls, because the toilets no longer work? Will a carpet ever be found, under which we can brush the mountains of garbage being generated by our cities? Will the dream of a clean India remain just a dream? Can people like us help turn that dream into reality?

Half a century ago, V.S. Naipaul observed in An Area of Darkness how Indians defecate everywhere. They mostly defecate beside the railway tracks. They also defecate on the beaches; they defecate on the hills; they defecate on the riverbanks, he pointed out. We Indians were profoundly hurt. We blushed, we bristled with indignation and we took umbrage. Yet the more things have changed, things and we ourselves, have remained the same.

This isn’t the first time the government has taken initiatives to clean up our country. The Rural Sanitation Program of the eighties was restructured into the Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) and relaunched in 1999. To boost the TSC, in 2003 the government launched an award for overall sanitation coverage, maintaining clean public spaces and open defecation -free panchayat villages, blocks and districts.  This award was called Nirmal Gram Puraskar. Then in 2012, the TSC was renamed Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA). The campaign was revived in a new avatar as the current Clean India/ Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. Even more funds have now been allocated, and constant drum beating in the media, among other things, has made this campaign more attention grabbing than ever before. The government’s and our fervent hope is that all this hoopla will translate into tangible and lasting improvements.  While some other developing nations such as the Philippines also have the problem of open defecation, India’s predicament is in a class apart. India has the world’s largest number of open defecators. Therefore, the cleanliness drive is of special importance to us. According to plans, around 600 million Indians who now relieve themselves in public view because they have no choice, will all have the benefit of private flush toilets within the next five years.

We are sometimes embarrassed by the sight of gentlemen hopping out of their Mercedes to urinate upon conveniently located walls. Don’t we all have relatives and friends who indiscriminately generate plastic waste, or toss garbage wherever they like? We hope the awareness campaigns will also change the mindsets of such educated urban citizens like us. The Intensive drive for awareness also hopes to cover people from all social and economic segments in interior areas of the country. We can do our bit here, by pointing fingers at the wrongdoers among us, and hope to shame them into better behaviour. After all, clean households and a clean environment will help us all stay healthy and keep communicable diseases at bay.

The current Clean India campaign is a multi-pronged ongoing drive, and not a short-lived action and publicity blitz. The Prime Minister is keen on involving the entire country, and hopes that the campaign will inspire youth and encourage everyone to follow his steps. Innovative ways are being explored to encourage cleanliness. Social media is being used as a key platform to spread the message of the cleanliness drive. Our Vibrant festivals are also to become occasions for spreading the good word. The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation has evolved a new campaign strategy to spread the message of ‘Swachh Bharat and safe drinking water’ at festivals such as the Kumbh Melas, where lakhs of people come together. The renowned Meenakshi Kalyanam festival of Madurai in Tamil Nadu and the Amarnath Yatra in Jammu and Kashmir will soon be occasions to spread awareness among pilgrims coming from far and wide.  Lord Jagannath’s Rath Yatra of Puri, Odisha, Maharashtra’s Pandharpur Palkhi Yatra, and Bihar’s Sonepur Livestock Fair are among the festivals recommended by the Ministry as platforms for launching the campaign.

 By 2019, the authorities and we, hope that Indians everywhere and from all walks of life will know and actively participate in the cleanliness drive. The drive envisages:

•  Construction of sanitary toilets for households below the poverty line, offering government subsidy where applicable.
• Upgrading existing dry pit latrines without a water seal, into low-cost sanitary latrines.
• Constructing village sanitary complexes for women, with facilities for hand pumping, bathing, and washing. This can be done where there isn’t enough land or space within houses, and where village panchayats consent to maintain the facilities.
• Total sanitation of villages through the construction of drains, soakage pits, solid and liquid waste disposal.

Let’s hope that key people in the government and in the private sector help the Prime Minister make this campaign a success. May this campaign fire the public imagination and involve the entire country. Only with widespread participation and commitment will the dream of a cleaner India be realised.

The path charted out by the Swachh Bharat campaign doesn’t quite perfectly address all aspects of cleanliness. The programme leaves some gaps in the complete sanitation chain, which goes beyond building better and cleaner toilets. What will happen, for example, when the toilet pits fill up? That’s happening in some states like Kerala with high sanitation coverage. Existing treatment facilities are inadequate to deal with overflowing pits. This creates a different health hazard.

The programme stresses upon providing toilets and offering subsidies. But many toilets are later misused and stop working. Sometimes the money is siphoned off by unscrupulous officials and the toilets exist only on paper. Despite all official efforts and in spite of increasing prosperity, access to education and information, too many of our fellow citizens simply don’t care. They will not properly use and maintain what they have, let alone make efforts to improve things.

Despite these inherent stumbling blocks, palpable positive change has happened in pockets in our own country. Best and lasting improvement has been seen where various agencies and the people themselves, have actively coordinated their efforts at all levels to achieve a common goal. In the 1990s, the Nandigram II block in West Bengal became the first block in India to take pride in providing a sanitary toilet for every rural household. To make this success story happen, officials at the district and block levels worked together as a team along with the Ramakrishna Mission. Competent technical support was secured, and funds were released according to needs, and in time. The state sanitation cell monitored the overall process. Similar successful projects later happened in some areas of other states. They were all marked by active involvement and leadership from within the community itself. With the help of strong political and governmental support, the local people themselves helped to usher in positive change.

Success can happen. Ordinary people like us can help make good things happen. It’s time we stopped passing the buck and criticizing the ‘system’.  We are ourselves a part of that very ‘system’ we never tire of blaming. Here are a few ways we can do our bit to clean up our environment:

People like us can help spread awareness and support government initiatives by our personal actions. As members of local citizens’ groups, residents’ welfare associations, or as volunteers with social service organizations, we can help facilitate positive action at the grassroots level. Best and lasting results are seen when ordinary citizens participate wholeheartedly. Aware citizens groups can point out shortcomings in government policies, and offer suggestions for fine-tuning those policies so that optimum results are achieved in their own communities. Knowledge is power. Spreading that knowledge and using it to help ourselves, increases its benefits exponentially.

The Government authorities are making some efforts to address various issues involved in cleaning India. A committee set up by the National Green Tribunal, for example, has suggested that the use of fresh river water for industrial processes, railway and bus cleaning, fire-fighting etc. should be prohibited and made an offence. This will help maintain the minimum environmental flow of the highly polluted Yamuna River. In a seemingly unconnected move by the Government Railway Police (GRP) in Agra, 129 people were fined for allegedly urinating in public, in just three days in June. Noise and light pollution is another problem in our cities. Increasing amounts of untreated sewage, industrial effluents and other waste are finding their way into our rivers. We can help spread awareness about the many ways our environment is being sullied. We can draw attention to the importance and interconnectedness of all measures to counteract environmental pollution, and thus help policy makers and fellow citizens more conscious of the big picture.

The authorities need to clean up their act in implementing pollution control measures upon our industries. Too often, the small fry fall below the radar of the authorities, while big money has a way of getting its own way. Vigilant citizens groups can help by whistle-blowing on such pollution generators within their own communities. Citizens groups can also help pinpoint the sources of corruption, which help polluting industries find loopholes, and siphon off funds meant for public projects or paying sanitation workers.

We need to get over our feudal prejudices, and treat with respect those who clear our garbage and help keep our surroundings clean. We can show some concern for the welfare of the sanitation workers in our own neighbourhoods, by guiding them towards better healthcare or educating their children.

Cynicism is ingrained in many of us. We take it for granted that government measures will fail. We justify our own inaction by averring that others will dirty our surroundings anyway, no matter how hard we try to keep everything clean. The murky side of human nature sometimes surfaces not just in our own country, but elsewhere in the world. Plastic waste ‘islands’ stretch for miles in the Pacific Ocean. Mt Everest’s majesty is being sullied by mounds of waste left behind by mountaineers. Around 30% of the Great Wall of China has disappeared over time, not just due to natural wear and tear, but also because of reckless human activities. Reckless constructions and deforestation are increasing the risk of flash floods and landslides in the Himalayas. It’s up to us to resign ourselves to the elephant of pollution in the room. Or, we can pick up our brooms to help make a difference.

The fact is, that small groups of ordinary citizens with full time jobs and families to care for, have come together to show results. Instead of just talking, they have worked in silence even in our very own namma Bengaluru to clean up spots such as Church Street and Malleswaram’s vegetable and fruit market.  Once they have taken the lead, other folks like us have seen the change and curbed their native muck-tossing instincts.

This brings us to a bigger question of our role on this planet. The rate of extinction of species has been precipitated in recent times by human activities. We have a hand in making our earth less liveable, not just for other creatures, but even for ourselves. We seem hell-bent on transforming our planet into a toxic junk heap someday. If we don’t want to clean up out act and save this world, perhaps we can still hope to discover new worlds to colonize and exploit.  

This essay is published in Sunday Herald

Technology and humanity

Technology is advancing by the nanosecond, sweeping us into the tide of change. New gizmos and gadgets are radically transforming our lives. Electronic devices are our closest companions today. Wherever we go, the network follows. Social networks in the virtual world are overshadowing reality. We have no time to look at or speak to each other, though we tweet and text eternally. Recent research in Birmingham Business School (UK) shows that frequent posters of selfie photos or self-portraits on social networks alienate those close to them, thus weakening supportive human bonds. Is interaction between people and lifeless gadgets becoming more important than connections between human beings? Are we placing more value on technology and prepared to offer less to each other?

Rapid strides in technology improves our lives and offers hope for a better tomorrow. While scientific advances can have a backlash, technology can also help us find new remedies. Infections resistant to antibiotics, for example, are a matter of growing concern. But a new gene-editing system developed by scientists in MIT promises to selectively kill bacteria carrying harmful genes that cause antibiotic resistance and disease.  Human technology interferes with fragile ecosystems. This can trigger floods, landslides and other disasters. But technology is also helping concerned people join hands and volunteer for rescue work. It’s up to us to choose how to use technology.

In the good or bad old days, people cared and looked out for each other. Everyone cultivated their neighbours, colleagues and members of their communities. These people were a priceless social support network; sharing information and lending a sympathetic hand in times of need. Apartment dwellers in our metros now give murderous looks if you smile at them. Run out of sugar? Why disturb dragons next-door, when you can order grocery on-line and get doorstep delivery? Searching for an unfamiliar address? Locals can send you on wild goose chases. Why bother for random oafs, when the magical technology of Google maps lies in the palm of your hand? Jobs are no longer places where people grow roots, and colleagues become lifelong friends. The rat-race is everything, and our hunger to acquire expensive gadgets drives us.

High-tech playthings are radically altering our perceptions. They create the illusion of being connected, while isolating us. We all have thousands of ‘friends’ on social networking sites. But how many do we actually know beyond fleeting virtual contacts? Would we really bother to do more than click a mouse for each-other? When my father passed away last year, members of a local internet-based network of women professionals sent their condolences via sms and e-mails. Though we have met many times in real life also, only one of them personally met me. Social media is a delightfully convenient way to make us feel righteous and uplifted, without getting involved. All we have to do to demonstrate our concern is click the ‘like’ button or forward some e-mail, before we move on to the next cause of the moment. Meanwhile, one wonders about all those dazzling social lives on Facebook. If they really were enjoying life eternally, would they have so much time for Facebook?

Technology is a neutral tool in itself. What we can get from it, depends upon how we choose to use it. Social media can make us indifferent and even dehumanize us. As a wise person said, people are meant to be loved, and things are meant to be used. Much of today’s troubles arise because we love things and use people. But weren’t enough people callous and self-absorbed even in the technology-free past? If we want to, we can also use technology to draw people closer and increase intimacy. That’s what my school friend did, when she made a long internet phone call from the other side of the planet. Those words of solace from a friend who genuinely cared, compensated for the many who had only beeps and pings to spare.

Thanks to technology, you don’t have to be consistently helpful, caring or jovial any more to have a social life. Witty and enlightened conversation? It’s simpler to post selfies with your tongue sticking out and attract hundreds of appreciative ‘likes’ from virtual ‘friends’. Cocooned in an illusion of popularity, we are busy clicking, tweeting, pinging and beeping. We won’t notice if the man walking next to us on the street gets mugged or mowed down by a bus. People have been known to get run over by trains and cars, while they were busy on their cell phones. We have never been so constantly connected, and never so alone.

The virtual world is distorting our lives in the most surprising ways. Before we jump to blame corrupting western influences and praise our own culture, let’s make a reality check. According to recent news reports, a Bareilly college student decided that a woman from Kerala whom he met on Facebook, was better suited than his real parents to be his ‘mother’. The lady electronically transferred Rs22,000 into his account, and the young man used it to go and stay with her.

 If you think this is a crazy isolated incident, think again. Indian marriages are routinely made not in heaven, but in matrimonial portals.  Educated young Indians are too busy checking WhatsApp and Viber to compose an attractive and relevant profile. If they don’t care to write a few meaningful sentences about themselves, one can only imagine how they will treat their future partners and marriages. Everyone knows that Indian men lag behind orang-utans in the behaviour and intellect departments. Today’s tech-savvy Indian ladies are striving to outshine men in every way. Here are a few exact quotes (including bad grammar etc.) from actual profiles of professionally qualified young Indian women on marriage websites:

“Hi. am a v. simple gal doing M. A in English. I love 2 hv spicy foods, spending tym with frends&family, lstng music, dancing etc.”

 Brevity is the soul of wit for this 24-year-old woman doctor, whose complete bio note reads; ”i like France. I like saudi arabia.i like to watch movies”.

The woman who writes this one-liner, is refreshingly honest: “I am a Fun Loving Person who don't prefer to think much before doing anything.”

Another emancipated young lady writes this sparkling one-liner to define her personality: “I love to do shopping, gossiping, eating, watching latest movies.” Such profiles are a dime-a-dozen, making one wonder how many understand the importance of marriage in fulfilling the human need for intimacy and emotional support. A healthy marriage can beat the stresses of today’s hectic lifestyle by binding two equal partners in a caring and nurturing relationship. But can such technology-dazed young people spare the effort and attention needed to build a healthy understanding with others? Relationships today are being made and trashed with sms, tweets and Facebook status updates. Can such a shallow approach enable people to seriously deal with life’s problems?

 Will future generations be able to strike the right balance between isolation and connectivity? Many toddlers in middle class Indian families are hooked on to shiny, noisy gadgets. Parents boast how kids can operate laptops before learning to speak sentences.  Even underprivileged domestic helpers use cell phones to amuse their children, while going about their chores. Such children tend to mimic the behaviour of characters in cartoons and video games, and confuse the imaginary world of electronic sounds and flashing images with reality. Children are spending more time viewing screens, than interacting with other children. This hampers the growth of their human relationships, and affects their development into responsible adults. Busy making money and keeping up with the twitterati, parents have little time to draw their children close and find out what is going on in their lives.

News today travels at the speed of light. Images of bomb blasts, beheadings, epidemics and war are served every morning with our breakfast. Technology thus interweaves violence into our daily lives. Are violent TV programmes and video games behind today’s culture of blood and mayhem? Or is the issue more complex? Electronic images aren’t monsters empowered to corrupt normal humans into killing machines. Well-produced TV programmes can educate and spread positive values while entertaining children. Video games can develop children’s motor skills and alertness, prevent them from feeling bored and lonely, and falling into bad company. Violence on screens is only part of a larger problem which makes children today more aggressive.  Rather than policing children, adults can proactively guide them to make the right choices. And leading by example is the best way. As parents, we can try to spend more quality time understanding and engaging our children, instead of posting selfies and status updates.

We don’t yet live in a world of unfeeling robots. Even when we surf the net or watch TV, the content has been created by humans, and is meant to interest other humans. We may connect with electronic signals to social networking sites in cyberspace. But we exchange texts and images with real people, even if they are not physically before us. Die-hard technology freaks haven’t yet completely forsaken human connections. Those cell phone calls and messages are made to other humans. On-line game players may spend hours in imaginary worlds. But they interact with fellow gamers there, and together they influence those worlds. Most LAN, WAN, and internet activity still needs human inputs although signals are transmitted by machines.

The future may change with advances in automation and artificial intelligence. Intelligent machines are already learning to pilot planes and cars, babysit children and prepare food. Someday, machines may fuel the main thrust to our progress. Robots could replace human friends, bosses, children and lovers. Robots could program themselves to evolve intelligence and abilities superior to humans, rendering humanity useless and powerless. They could turn into monsters out to exterminate their original human creators.

Such terrifying scenarios could, but need not necessarily translate into reality. Humanity can stay on the right track if we do not forsake our morals and principles in order to get ahead. Progress and ethics do not have to be mutually exclusive. Moral people need not be impractical dreamers. And crooked means need not be the only path to solid achievements. Striking the right balance and showing concern for our fellow human beings can be one route to improving our lives.

We have every right to try to fill our brief lives with joy. Technology opens up multiple worlds, adding fun and excitement to our existence. These worlds can be closely linked to reality, such as groups of former school and college mates. These worlds may be imaginary and fantastic, such as gaming and TV shows. Whichever options we choose to explore, we can gain new information and perspectives, and also simply enjoy ourselves. Learning, being productive and having fun need not be contradictory. Technology can broaden our perceptions in countless ways, helping unleash our creative potential. The best ideas and innovations are most likely to thrive when we have some liberty to explore and play with new concepts and experiences.

Today’s technology constantly swamps us with information. The noise and confusion can overwhelm us. We need to think clearly and choose how to best use our time and resources. When faced with conflicting options, we need to evade loud but misguiding voices vying for our attention. We must cultivate healthy scepticism and not believe everything we see and hear in cyberspace. Once we do that, technology can offer wonderful rewards.

By overcoming our self-centeredness, we can use technology to understand others, their lives and thought processes. Understanding others is about listening carefully to what they have to say, and analysing its significance. This helps us to be better parents, employees, bosses and spouses. We will also know how to persuade others to our way of thinking. This isn’t only about goody-goody altruism. If we can learn how other people think, the world can be ours. Ad and marketing men are already using social media to identify markets, and figure out the most appealing and convincing approach to sell Mt Everest. Terrorists are using social media to coordinate and plan attacks, and spread fear among the populace. Who do we want to be?

Technology can help us understand others and be more innovative and effective in whatever we choose to do. It’s up to us to sustain our own principles. As Isaac Asimov rightly said, technology is but a neutral tool at our command. If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.

This is published in Sunday Herald

The great Indian herd mentality

Are we as a society guilty of herding together within the confines of mainstream mediocrity?

Don’t we, like the proverbial crabs, pull down anyone who dares to be better, back into our shallow intellectual buckets? 

Did an eminent Indian hit the nail on the head by reportedly stating that 90 per cent of our countrymen are idiots?

Is it true that average Indians do not have the perceptiveness or determination to rise above casteism, corruption, communalism, rigged exams and everything else that prevents us from being a more advanced and prosperous society?
 We happily delude ourselves into believing that ‘we are like this only’. Poverty, garbage, farmers’ suicides and bribery are unquestionably accepted as part of our existence. 
We prefer to do what everyone else does, and uphold the status quo. 
It’s socially unacceptable to make optimum use of our intelligence, or strive to radically improve our circumstances.

Change is scary, and therefore taboo. Safety lies in siding with the majority, and crouching in our self-created ruts.

We rush to worship mediocrity, and are suspicious of anyone with superior abilities. We pin our hopes on good-looking young ‘leaders’ from prominent lineages, glossing over their lack of intrinsic merits and accomplishments. 
We hero-worship match-fixing cricketers and can’t have enough of B-grade movies or pulp books patched together by hack writers. This is how things are, and this is how we are convinced things will continue to be.

If someone dares to push for genuine change and improvement, we systematically close ranks to shut him out, or gang up to stifle his voice. If one from among us shines in any field, our collective herd reaction shows the depths of pettiness to which we can sink.As friends and neighbours, we raise our claws and fangs to belittle the achievements of our former friend.We then either socially ostracise him, or show him off hoping some of the glory will rub on to us. If we can’t snuff them out, we pretend superlatives cannot exist.

But, does popular appeal alone justify commonplace mediocrity?There’s nothing wrong in being average, which simply means normal or usual. The problems arise when we are content to mindlessly follow the herd without applying our own normal talents and intelligence for growth and change.

We need to remember that ‘normal’, ‘average’ or ‘usual’ are not absolute and ironclad.Once upon a time, it was perfectly normal for Indian widows to be burnt on the funeral pyres of their husbands. ‘Witches’ were routinely burnt on the stake in ‘civilised’ Europe, and the Spanish Inquisition was an accepted part of life. Average citizens of ancient Rome frequently enjoyed the spectacle of gladiators being mauled to death by hungry lions. Slavery, plagues, apartheid and famines were normal and usual experiences of average people in various times and societies.

In several respects, today’s normal and average is definitely an improvement over that of the past. 
Daily life for ordinary people has improved because of the efforts of pathbreaking thinkers, scientists and leaders. 
The unsung efforts of ordinary people like us has also contributed to our evolution, and improved the average quality of life in the course of time. 
When India gained independence, the average Indian did not live beyond his 40s. Today’s average Indian can expect to live well into his late 60s or 70s.A few decades ago, India’s hungry multitudes depended on food grains supplied by developed nations.While hunger continues to exist among today’s Indians, our average middle class citizens are eating well to the point of obesity.

Humanity has slowly but surely progressed since the dark ages, and we can look forward to a better tomorrow. 
But our dream of a rosier future will become reality only if each of us tries our best to make it come true.

Follow the crowd

The Great Indian Herd Mentality is a major factor pulling us all back into the mediocre and substandard dung heap. 
We consider ourselves to be far more intelligent than fellow bipeds, quadrupeds, arthropods, amoeba and other creatures that populate our planet. Yet, like other animals, when we superior Homo sapiens see a crowd moving somewhere, we blindly plunge in and do what everyone else is doing, without bothering to understand why.

Everyone cheats, so we also try to cheat when we think we can get away with it. Students cheat at exams, while teachers cheat students by not taking classes and diluting the quality of their lectures.
Housewives haggle and undercut vegetable sellers, and vegetable sellers inflate prices and cheat housewives. Property owners and entrepreneurs undervalue their assets to cheat the government by paying lower taxes. 

Shiftless and bribe-loving babus, spouses cheating on each other, corrupt netas, shady businessmen, unethical journalists, job aspirants with fake certificates; we all cheat and lie in some way or another. No wonder we are a corruption-riddled nation.
Our herd mentality pulls us down in many other ways.
We staunchly believe that what’s good for our neighbours, brother-in-law or boss, must be good for us too.This drags us neck-deep into many a pot of soup or sambhar.Parents shove their offspring into engineering and business schools simply because their friends are doing it. They don’t care about the child’s individual talents or aptitude.They don’t care that some of our engineering graduates end up being unemployable, or that all MBAs, even those from IIMs, don’t inevitably get plum campus placements.We are so obsessed with somehow grabbing prized qualifications for our children that we pay astronomical sums to buy them that coveted piece of paper from teaching shops of dubious repute. Who cares if such doctors or commercial pilots do not get adequate training?The distant threat of botched up surgeries or plane crashes don’t bother us as long as the victims are people we don’t know.

The Great Indian Herd Mentality shines through when Ponzi scheme promoters conjure up one magical money-minting scheme after another.People like us race to deposit their life savings, only to lose all to the next big scam.Whenever the stock markets move up in an upward cycle, everyone wants to grab a piece of the action and make as much easy money as they can.Smart investors cash in while the going is good, while gullible followers of the herd enter the market at high prices and incur losses. Then they blame the government for everything that goes wrong in their lives.

Hard-nosed businessmen don’t always fare better than the aam janata in the herd mentality department. 
One start-up comes up with a winning idea, and dozens of copycats follow suit with nothing new to offer. So we have droves of ‘me too’ matchmaking portals, travel websites, social networking sites and more. Mall after mall is constructed and then shut down in our city. 
Then the recently built building is demolished to construct yet another mall in the same location.
Many such ill-conceived commercial ventures are bound to fail when promoters mindlessly follow the trend.
Precious money and resources are thus thoughtlessly wasted by blind followers of the herd.

We are social beings, and it is but natural for us to reach out and associate with others. But when we abandon good sense and reason and are guided by fear of social censure, we can end up committing grave mistakes. 
The fear of what others will say and think of us; the fear of being left behind; the fear of being isolated or singled out for ridicule; these fears can push us into dangerous paths. 
We try our best to stick to socially sanctioned behaviour, values and norms. 

We often do not ask enough questions or raise appropriate doubts, even if we have them in our minds.
Hitler used this to bend the masses to his will. During his rallies, he would plant groups of his own lackeys among the audience.These people would raise huge cheers and clap, inciting others around them to do the same. When these speeches were broadcast, the thunderous applause could be heard by an even wider audience.Huge numbers of listeners were thus led to believe that since so many people were cheering, Hitler was indeed a great leader propagating noble ideas.

The electronic media has taken the herd mentality to unprecedented levels.All sorts of subversive and provocative posts do the rounds. Some of these have only tentative basis in facts.Fake photos and misleading quotes deliberately taken out of context are widely circulated. Videos of molestations are put up on YouTube without a care for the poor victim’s safety and mental peace.We, on our part, ‘like’ and forward these posts, and bask in the glow of self-righteousness for having done our good deed for the day.

It’s so easy to delude ourselves that we are making a difference, when all we do is click the mouse or swipe our smartphone screens before moving on to the next hot item of the day. Our insensitivity and indifference as individuals gets social sanctity because we are part of the herd.

We Indians are bogged down by our class snobbery and our urge to safeguard our hereditary privileges at all costs.Our society too often collectively pushes persons from privileged backgrounds without concern for their intrinsic merits. We are brought up to believe that only the children of doctors can be capable doctors and only the offspring of thespian families can be successful actors. The scions of established business enterprises are bred to head them.Why, then, do we criticise netas for perpetuating dynastic rule and filling up plum positions with sundry friends and relations? 

One of America’s greatest presidents, Abraham Lincoln, came up from humble origins. 
He is celebrated by his people for his great ideas and achievements, and his undying spirit in the face of overwhelming adversities is admired and respected to this day. Yet an Indian leader has recently been lampooned by some groups for having risen from the ranks of railway tea stall boys.

Why are we so ready to condemn initiative and herd together to support mediocrity? Are we afraid of exposing our own shortcomings? Are we afraid we shall fail if we try to improve our lot? Why do we hate the rare individual, who with his own strength and capabilities achieves feats beyond our dreams?
Is it because we feel small and mean before others with superior intelligence and accomplishments?

While people mindlessly following the herd can be dangerous, there is a flip side to the coin. 
The fact is, even ordinary people like us can make a positive difference.
A group of ordinary like-minded people can work together to make an even greater beneficial impact.
For this to happen, we need to think before we rush to endorse a cause, make assumptions, or draw conclusions on any issue. 
The power of well-reasoned individual votes can snowball to elect new leaders with strong popular mandates.Popular movements and pressure from large groups of concerned citizens can be agents of positive change. Our freedom struggle is an excellent case in point.Even today, strong public pressure can bring corrupt officials to book, and prevent upright officials from being victimised.Ordinary citizens have successfully formed social activist groups to help revive our city’s lakes, clear neighbourhoods of garbage and help uplift the underprivileged around us in various ways.The collective voice of a group is more powerful, and therefore a stronger agent of positive change when used in the right way.

If herd together we must, the way forward is for each of us to nudge the herd towards improvement. People like us, no matter how ordinary, can exercise some affirmative influence on our peers. Inspiration is all around us, and each of us is capable of creative and original thought.But nothing will happen if we sit and wait for someone or something to change on its own. If we keep our minds and hearts open to fresh ideas, we can work together for the common good. 

We need to step out of our comfortable ruts, think more and make choices. The simplest way to change our lives is to change the way we perceive things. Change will happen when we really want it to, and when we are ready to accept it.Simple, decisive actions taken by each one of us in daily life can add up to a palpable improvement in society as a whole. We need to get over our urge to make excuses, and point fingers at everyone else, and the Government, for all that ails us. We sit around waiting for another Gandhiji or some new godman to come and rescue the world. We don’t care what happens to others, as long as we ourselves are not affected. This dithering and indifference drags us down. Walk through any of our city streets. Mountains of piling garbage pull down our aspirations to world class luxury. We complain tirelessly about it, but that stinking garbage is dumped on the public roadside by ‘people like us’. We strongly prefer the easy way out by shirking responsibility. 

If things are to change, the onus is on us. Initiative must come from within each of us.
As Martin Luther King Jr so rightly said, we must never be afraid to do what’s right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. 
Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.

This essay is published in Sunday Herald

My Village Home

I've been living in a medical college campus in rural Andhra Pradesh since nearly a year. My son is an Asst Professor here, and I stay with him. We have a village postal address, and are surrounded by green fields and rocky hills. Within the campus, we have modern housing and amenities such as backup power and internet, not to mention our own large teaching hospital. The villagers come to our institute for medical care, and many of them are employed by the hospital and medical college. We institute residents go to them to buy vegetables and groceries, and employ them  as babysitters, cooks and domestic helpers.
The positives I see are:
1. pure, fresh air. The peace and calm is refreshing



UFOs spotted over our campus. Really!

2. The people are hard working and more honest, sincere and tolerant as compared to huge metros.

3. People are comparatively more friendly, tolerant, hospitable and gentle. The owners of the fruit and vegetable stalls I frequent, have taken it upon themselves to teach me the local language, correcting my mistakes with a smile.
The local women who come to babysit and work here, are very sincere and nice.

4. Locally produced fresh fruits and vegetables may lack the variety of supermarket produce, but they are fresh from the fields. The flavour and nutritional value is unbeatable. Not to mention that this leaves a lower carbon footprint since the produce is not transported over distances.

5. People are doing their bit to make the best use of food wastes. The village women who work here, leave pots for us to toss our kitchen and food waste. They then take it to feed to their cattle.

6. The social fabric is yet to rip apart, as is happening in big cities. People still care for each other, and there is stronger community feeling.


These crows are as polite and friendly as the locals

7. Our privately run hospital provides medical care, and specialist doctors are available around the clock for emergencies. The 108 free ambulance service is excellent. They come to the hospital in a steady stream, bringing in patients. Patients come here from 30-50 kilometres away, sometimes from even more distant places.
The state government's health insurance scheme for people below the poverty line, ensures that they get proper medical care. Hospitalisation and surgeries are paid for by the government.

8. The nearby town has respectable English medium schools as well as vernacular language ones. Some of our institute staff's children go to these schools. They are as well mannered, well informed, and articulate as the children I see in my home town, Bangalore. School buses come from the town to pick up children from the villages nearby.

9. One can see exciting and unusual sights like UFOs (see my photo). As the resident writer, I'm enjoying this retreat.

The negatives.
1. Ignorance. People first go to faith healers and quacks, and sometimes come to the hospital as a last resort, when they are in very bad shape.

2. The feudal system is still entrenched.

A stone age dolman worshipped as the village deity

3. People are poorer compared to city dwellers.

4. Agriculture and animal husbandry are tentative means of livelihood. Rains fail, crops can be blighted, and valuable cattle die.

5. Plastic waste is a huge hazard here. Large piles of waste plastic bags etc pile up over the wayside, and this can grow into an enormous problem, which our cities are already facing.

Blackbirds in The Pomegranate Tree: A writerly friendship

I first met Mary Ellen Sanger in Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope Virtual Studios way back in 2002. She was an American living and working in Mexico, and her short stories spoke of poor Mexicans and smelt of green trees and fields of their world. Her writing showed a deep empathy for the people among whom she then lived.

Mary Ellen Sanger

We exchanged critiques on each others stories and stayed in touch through the years, forging warm ties. Life went on smoothly until we heard the shocking news of her incarceration in a Mexican prison for no fault of hers. She found her way to freedom after a life-changing experience, which has inspired her new book,
Blackbirds in the PomegranateTree: Stories from Ixcotel State Prison
Indian readers can get it here

 Mary Ellen Sanger spent 33 days in Ixcotel State Prison in the fall of 2003. These stories of the women she met there, illuminate her biggest surprise and her only consolation in prison: the solidarity that formed among the women she lived, ate, swept and passed long days with while inside. Nine lyrical tales show the depth of emotions that insist on their own space, even in these harshest of circumstances. The largest and brawniest woman in the prison, doing time for armed robbery, kills a rat with her foot, then turns to the author for help with a very special letter. Another young woman, only nineteen years old, has already been in for three years, guilty of kidnapping her own child. And Ana, a political prisoner, teaches the author about creative ways to turn the tide, one including frog-eating snakes. Mary Ellen weaves her own tale through the stories. Accused of a crime that doesn't exist by a powerful man in Mexico, she depends on the fierce solidarity of friends on the outside, and a brilliant lawyer who trusts in the rule of law... even in Mexico. The women incarcerated in Ixcotel State Prison said that the blackbirds chattered in the lone pomegranate tree in the courtyard whenever a woman was about to be released. They are chattering now.



Chiapas, Mexico, birthplace of the Batista movement

Here's what she shared with me about her experiences, and the story behind the book.

When I returned to the US after being unjustly imprisoned for 33 days in Mexico, I thought I left prison behind me. But I realized the women I met inside, their surprising solidarity, the sense of community we built together and the many injustices I shared with them in their stories, stayed close with me. I wrote “Blackbirds in the Pomegranate Tree: Stories from Ixcotel State Prison” to share my own experiences in Mexico – most of those experiences lush and full of color – and the story of how the (in)justice system prevalent there seems destined to imprison some of the most innocent of Mexico’s population. And me.

 

 

 

1. Which writers influenced you the most, and why?

Elena Poniatowska, the First Lady of Mexican Letters, graced me with an introduction to my book. We made a sweet friendship several years ago through a chance meeting. I respect her writing for its focus on Mexico’s women, many who are victims of poverty and social inequities. One of my favorite writers on the planet is Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, whose lyrical style I could only hope to emulate. Give me Eduardo Galeano any time of day or night.

2. What is your experience re self-publishing? E-book vs print?

I self-published “Blackbirds” because my life was too full or work and volunteering and falling in love and moving, to do the intensive research and time-consuming work of finding an agent – which is quite a challenge in the US these days. I tried, and found several who were interested, but not enough. I wanted the book to be out for the tenth anniversary of my release from prison, so I popped it in the queue. It had been edited with the help of a professional editor friend, so I was confident of its quality in that respect. The shift to indie presses and self-publishing is a remarkable surge. However, the ease with which one can enter into self-publishing does flood the field with some astonishingly weak manuscripts, many poorly edited. So I am up against a hearty stigma still – though I do trust that with the proper exposure, and the attention given by people interested in the world of social justice – that my book can cut through the preconceptions around self-published works. I did make the book available in Kindle (e-book) format, which has enriched sales by 20%, as some of my audience is in Mexico and the book is more quickly delivered electronically.

3. Is the craft of writing receding in importance in a world where shoddily written but slickly marketed work dominates?

I hope the craft of writing is even MORE important in that world you describe. We recognize good writing. We find our way to it. Good writing (that is, talented writing!) is a necessary craft, an antidote if you will – to the instant and slick. If you can make a delicious slow-simmered sauce – that should win out any day over a squeeze-packet of mayonnaise!

4. Would you return to Mexico if things improve there?

I return to Mexico every year. I cannot be too far from her! The justice system is changing… at a glacially slow pace. As of 2008, there has been a mandate to allow for oral trials, and the country is slowly putting in place new practices. It is, however, a long history to counter. It will take time. Meanwhile, I visit each year, I eat my slow-simmered sauces! And I drink in what music and magic I can.
 

One of the nine imprisoned women whom Sanger met and has written about.

5. What are you working on now?

Thank you for asking! I am trying to write a poem-a-day, as a part of a project started in 2010 with a friend, in honor of National Poetry Month in April. We were going to write those daily poems for one month, but we liked the practice so much we kept on going! We have put out a book of these quickie, unedited poems every year since 2010. Finishing up for 2013. Other than that, a novel is cooking in my head right now, which should involve Mexico and dancing! I won’t say any more. Still simmering!

 

Indian readers can get the book here