thebengali.com

By the way, what do you do with adults who can’t seem to mind their language around children?

Most times, I cannot stand to be around people in social gatherings. Most times.

As a child, I remember disliking birthday parties and family visits to neighbours’ and festival times. Since children didn’t have much choice in such matters when I was growing up, I had to attend everything the family attended.

As an adolescent, my family was glad that I did my bit during festivals, and they did not insist when I restricted the number of houses I would visit to really close family friends. For a long while, people were under the impression that I was an extremely extroverted, social person. Possibly because once I committed to attending a social engagement, I would be as social as possible. I figured there was no sense attending events under protest – it brought discredit to the family, hurt the people who dotted on you, and of course, you made yourself miserable wanting to be somewhere else.

After I started working, I pretty much stopped going to all formal social affairs, which by then I had come to abhor. People eventually realized that I wasn’t a social person at all. And thankfully, it didn’t harm my relationships with anyone, because I genuinely enjoy the company of others in one-on-one situations or informal meetings involving 3-4 people.

Today, I’m back to square one – but on the other side of the fence. I am father to a toddler who has a mind of his own and states his preference of meeting people. For a while now, I have been struggling with the drive to impress upon him the social graces and letting him be. It’s a thin line between what the parent wants to do or thinks the child must learn and what the child wants to learn.

When I look back upon my childhood, I realize that I have learned the required social graces. But the hundreds of social outings did nothing to change my nature of seeking company on my own terms. All it did was to make me a non-conformist to a fault, a learned behaviour that I have just started coming out of.

So, what am I going to do? Will I do what my parents did and toe the social line so I can teach the child what I think he ought to learn? I am learning that my child is happy when he gets to do what he wants. He is sometimes happy when he has to do what I want but only if it is on his own terms. He is happy when his parents are happy. He is anxious when his parents are anxious and so on. At this point, he is a reflection of us with a good and growing measure of his own individuality.

I don’t have any concrete answers right now. But I am thinking it is important for me to do what I want to do instead of what I think I must do or what someone else wants me to do. I must also allow the child to do what he wants to do. And I must get into the habit of sorting out any differences in an amicable manner rather than through a contest of will powers which usually ends up with the parent arguing “you do so because I say so or else” and an indignant child bawling his head off. So the key to the child’s behaviour lies in the parent’s behaviour because the child is replicating what he sees.

It’s funny how nobody hands out clues on these things …

In 1985 I was persevering to get an education at the Union Academy Senior Secondary School in New Delhi.

I say persevering because I was 14 and I was trying to come to terms with the fact that Maths and Science were really interesting subjects to people who were not me.

I was also realizing that temptation was the least of the problems for a 14-year-old boy trapped in an All-boys school, flanked by an All-girls school with three co-ed schools and another All-girls school within a radius of three kilometers.

And, to compound it all, I had a bunch of friends who were very committed to exploring the restlessness of 14-year-olds.

It did not help that Union Academy was located in Gole Market, which was a brisk walk from Connaught Place, where one could find two of the very few cinema halls in Delhi that ran English movies with ‘A’ certificates in their morning shows – a tragic scheduling error that was not lost on a 14-year-old attending morning school.

If this was not temptation enough, there was the matter of two broken window bars in the groundfloor classroom – the window opened into the adjacent dhobi-ghat (a dhobi ghat is … well, let’s just call it a grand open-air laundromat).

And so, one fine day, in spite of our diligence and dedication to the cause of education, six of us bunked class, squeezed through the window with the missing bars, and ran all the way from the dhobi-ghat to Connaught Place, just in time for the 9.30 morning show at Regal.

The poster at the theatre was all the sign we needed that we had found our own corner of paradise. The poster had a blonde woman, some sort of a map and the title : “Incident at Map Grid”.  The decisive conversation about the decison to spend hard-earned pocket money went like this:
“It’s English,” grinned Ghosh. Everybody nodded appreciatively.
“Story achcha hoga - looks serious,” piped in Ashish.

“Blonde heroine,” Ghosh grinned wider. Everybody nodded appreciatively again. 
Khurana and Vineet started collecting the money for the tickets. I kept looking towards the route to school, convinced the history teacher was following us. Deba looked cool as usual.

At 9.30 we were in our seats.

By 9.45, we had only seen water, air, and men talking in Russian.

By 10.15 am, we finally understood what Milton was lamenting about in Paradise Lost.

And by the end of the movie, we were swearing at the bloody censor board – the blonde woman on the poster had been snipped out of the movie.

“It was in Russian! Not one scene!” Ghosh was livid.

“Hanh yaar, story bhi samajh mein nahin aya,” rued Ashish.
“That’s the last time you get to choose what we see,” Khurana told Ghosh. Vineet was laughing his head off. Deba continued to look cool.
As for me, I had finally started relaxing, but then I started worrying about how we were going to get back into school.

I want to write something meaningful.
Oooh, but that’s a terrible aspiration these days!
Why?
Well, for one, there is the internet. If someone wants meaning, they will go find it on the big dublu dublu dublu.
I said ‘meaningful’ not ‘meaning’.
Well, it’s one and the same these days. In fact, I think the way technology is shaping language, they might banish ‘meaningful’ from the general vocabulary, since ‘meaning’ works just fine.
 Don’t be absurd!
I think that entire phrase has already disappeared. It’s been replaced by: ‘Bullshit!’
You can’t be serious. There are plenty of people who appreciate the subtle nuances of language.
That sentence is such a waste of time and space. You could have simply said: “Bullshit!” That’s the beauty of this new language – it’s ecomonical and words multi-task so one word fits so many situations.
Don’t be daft!
Na na na!
Now you are just being silly.
Ya ya ya ya!
I refuse to speak to you.
Ya ya ya ya works so much better.
Oh buzz off!

“Sir, could you step this way please?”

It took me sometime to realize that someone was asking me to step some particular way. It was my third trip to the United States. I was at Miami International Airport, waiting at the end of a really long queue to go through security check. I was enroute to Orlando to attend a training symposium.

I looked at my colleagues and smiled. They would have to continue along the long queue. I followed the security official, past all the serpentine queues and straight to the head of a smaller queue.

After a 5-minute wait, I went along to a table and put my carry-on bag and laptop on it. Next went my shoes, belt, wallet, and the sundry other loose items from my pockets.

A very amiable security official then came over and asked me some questions very politely and in good humour. Where was I going? How was my flight? What was the purpose of my visit to Orlando? Had I been to Orlando earlier? How had that trip been?

Then I was invited into a cubicle, for some more checks, frisking, and voila! I was done, with a “Have a pleasant stay.”

My colleagues would take at least another 20 minutes. In fact, they almost missed their flight.

I looked at my boarding pass. There had to be some code in there that identified me as a member of an airline loyalty program. That’s why they fast-tracked me.

That 2008 Orlando trip wasn’t any different from the 2007 Orlando trip, or my trip to Dallas in 2007. I have always received special attention at airports around the US. But on the 2008 trip, I took 4 flights within a 2-week period and all the attention made me admit that it wasn’t just loyalty program status.

In 2009, I returned to the US for my annual trip to Orlando for the World Aviation Training Symposium. This time I felt like James Bond, because I knew I would catch the eye of most security officials in the vicinity. In fact, after the 2008 trip my travel habits have changed a bit.

I check everything in, except for my laptop and I carry nothing in my pockets – everything goes into the laptop bag. I don’t carry oils, gels, toothpaste, no loose change, no last-minute toys for my kid, no medications if possible. All of this just slows down the security check because they go through every item in my bag, even after the screening machine.

Nowadays when I join a queue, I am already looking at all the officials at the various screening gates, because sooner or later some or all of the ones close to my queue will notice me and start talking into their phones. Sure enough, within a few minutes I get fast-tracked by a smiling, courteous official into a smaller queue or many times, straight to my own private screening.

I am a person of average height around 5 feet 7 inches, with fair brown skin, long hair dropping to my shoulders. I wear round-rimmed spectacles.

I have stood in queues with other brown skinned people, but usually I am the only picked out for additional checks.

I have stood in queues with people with long full beards (but not of an Asian origin), and I have been the only one picked out for additional checks.

Did I mention that I have a long, full beard? Well, you see I get singled out for additional checks because security officials look at me and assume I am a Muslim of Asian origin.

In fact, I asked this question to a couple of security officers this trip. They were, of course, “just doing our job sir.”

I am fairly certain that airport security screening will become a mundane boring and extremely long affair for me if I were to be clean shaven. And to be honest, I have, in moments of fear and anxiety, thought of shaving my beard.

I feel sad that we live in such times when prejudices rule procedures that are trying to deal with very real security concerns. But, at the end of the day, I do understand one thing very clearly: these measures are all aimed at ensuring the safety of their country and of the poeple who come a-visiting. I may not like the prejudice, and may not agree with the approach, but I cannot deny that the message they send out is loud and clear: we are vigilant and our measures apply to all.

I was listening to some music by Damien Rice today. Still early days, but his original music has a strange ability to move if you connect with the subject matter of his music. There is a very raw, earthy quality to his music. Although he still hasn’t managed to exorcise the raw passion of Glen Hansard (Once) from my mind.

Curiously enough, as I was looking for more songs by Rice, I came upon a cover of Hallelujah by Rice. So I listened. And since YouTube is YouTube, I noticed another cover of Hallelujah by some other artist. Well, one thing led to another and after listening to 12 covers, here are some plain observations and opinions:

Jeff Buckley was very surprising. He delivered a clean rendition, very interesting, all voice and very creditable.

Alexandra Burke’s cover is a production, diva-style. Big voice, flourish, orhcestea, style … mostly a predictable rendition from a diva-style singer.

Rufus Wainwright’s version for the Shrek soundtrack, well, it’s one of the also rans.

Damien Rice’s version was definitely different, but I didn’t remember the rendition after I had heard three others.

So which ones did I remember?

Leonard Cohen, the original.

Bob Dylan’s Hallelujah. In fact, of all the cover versions I heard, Dylan’s was the best -  he created something new out of a very famous song sung by many.

And I also remember Arooj Aftab’s cover. I heard her version maybe three years ago, and it still lingers on.

Of course, there’s another Hallelujah, more famous and definitely more familiar if you have grown up with choral music: Handel’s Hallelujah chorus, composed in the 18th century as part of the choral masterpiece, Messiah. 

And none of the songs come anywhere near that one.

Ciao.

I am intrigued by people who argue about history.

History is an odd preoccupation. Everyone has an idea about it, usually based on bits they have read or heard. Over a period of years, we read and hear a lot of ‘facts’ about a lot of histories and we gather close to our bosom the histories that fuel our self-identity. Eventually, we arrive at a sub-conscious (if we are lucky) but concrete idea of history as we believe it to have happened.

And then, when the subject is broached, we enter the battlefield armed with this authentic knowledge amassed over years, abandoning all other reason that would otherwise guide our conversation or action.

I have a Masters in History, but that doesn’t really mean anything when you are arguing with someone who holds the viewpoint that a degree (or knowledge for that matter) is not really knowledge unless it is from a Cambridge or an Oxford or a Berkeley or some such esteemed institution.

But what a lowly masters in history would teach even a bad student is that history is a perspective about a moment in time. A perpsective presented by the historian /writer/narrator or the person who is writing that particular history.

And what does that mean?

Well, let’s pick a date, say 1305 AD and let’s pick a place, say India at that moment in time, and ask the question: “So, who was the ruler of India in 1305 AD?”

That should be a fact by all means and definitions, right? Beyond dispute?

Well, it depends on your perspective, because your perspective has a say in where you gather your facts. The ‘facts’ themselves are another matter.

To answer the question who ruled India in AD 1305, we would need to agree upon the political entity of India at that time and find out whether all writers recording facts at that time had the same idea about that political entity.

Let us assume that all Indian writers of Indian history agreed upon the fact (although it is unlikely). The next question would be: Will a Chinese or Mongol or Persian or Sri Lankan historian agree? Would a Roman historian agree? More importantly: Does Oxford, Cambridge or Berkeley agree?

Generally speaking, the southern, western, and eastern coasts of India, the northern mountainous region, and the north-eastern land routes have provided foreign visitors with different perspectives on what is India. It’s another matter that within each of these perspectives there are bound to be disagreements. Also, the visitor’s experience would be limited by the scope of their activities within the kingdoms they dealth with.

Apart from court historians, travel writers, poets, explorers, traders, another important source to consider would be religious historians, who have very different reasons for writing history, as compared to historians from ruling dynasties.

Each of these historians had an agenda and each of them had a reason to see history the way they eventually wrote it.

Here is a partial list of dynasties /kingdoms /empires (and the respective kings) in India in 1305 AD:

Paramara Kingdom (Mahlakadeva in 1305)
Yadava Empire (Ramachandra in 1305)
Hoysala Empire (Veera Ballala III)
Eastern Ganga Empire (Narasimha II)
Kakatiya Empire (Prataprudra)
Ahom Kingdom  (Sukhaangphaa)
Khilji Dynasty (Ala ud udin Khilji)

Which of these answers is the correct one?  Would the references/accounts made by foreign visitors to any of these courts be accurate and prove one to be the fact over another?
 
The answer to the question ‘Which of these ruled India in 1305 AD?’ would be dependent on the historian’s context and perspective.

So, let’s pick a perspective: the kingdom which ruled Delhi, ruled India. This is a perspective based on the premise that Delhi was the seat of the political entity and therefore, the ruler of Delhi ruled the entire political entity. This is also the argument on which Mughal Empire stands as the ruler of India in later centuries, although the Southern regions were not under Mughal rule for most of their reign. Delhi was the capital seat for most foreigners who had contact with India through the land route from west and central Asia.

So, Alauddin Khilji, then was the ruler of India in 1305 AD.

Let’s take another perspective: the ancient Southern dynasties with their ties to other continents through the sea route, were the rulers of India.

We then have two correct answers: Hoysala Empire (Veera Ballala III) and Kakatiya Empire (Prataprudra), with a possible third (Yadava Empire, Ramachandra in 1305 – there is debate whether the Yadavas were originally Kannadiga, Marathas or North Indians).

If you are a flag-bearer of the Kannadiga dynasties, you might root for the Hoysala, while an Andhraite might back the Kakatiya’s. If you hold the ‘ancient India of Kalinga fame’ viewpoint, then Narasimha II of the Eastern Ganga Empire could be your answer (this empire also ruled in Andhra Pradesh). Similarly, proponents of the Ahom kingdom could point to the fact that the Ahom dynasty held sway in the North-east (they ruled for over 600 years).

I am sure you get the drift of this long ramble.

But all this does not matter in an argument because most people do not know (or remember) that history is at best ‘contextual facts’ presented from a ‘perspective’. For most people, their idea of history is ‘it’, and that’s good enough to go to war.

I admire people with such fervour, because I personally lack such a strong sense of roots. I don’t have a concrete view about any particular history, except that it is incomplete without the context and the perspective. I do, however, have a rudimentary understanding of what history is, and one account of history is definitely not ’it’ by any stretch of my imagination.
A friend of mine, Rukesh, had once asked me about my opinion and definition of history (given my background). I guess this is the first instalment of my answer.