The Imbeciles

What is a couple of pages worth bad publicity to a big telecom company? Well, from their demeanor, nothing much I guess. So, let me spew….

The precise date that was a harbinger of the nightmare was 27-July, related to my home cell phone. Yeah, that far back. That afternoon, I got a call from Idea Call Center, have you paid your bill sir…. Umm, yes, actually I did. Cheque number XXXX27, dated 25-July. I have dropped a cheque in the same drop box that I have been dropping for past 10 months, so you should get it.

A few days later, again there was a call asking if I have paid the bill. And then a few days later, the outgoing service was simply cancelled. No more warnings or questions! After multiple calls, I found out that Idea still hadn’t got my cheque and were asking me again and again if I have paid…the tone of disbelief going up every time!

So someone had lost the cheque, but there was no admission of that. And for Idea’s error, my outgoing was withheld. In all this rigmarole, the bill for August arrived, with charges carried forward from July, late payment fees for non-payment of July bill and also August bill with an extra topping of barred outgoing calls. That was when I became angry. So, I called the call center number…. The first thing it announced was how good Idea solutions were in billing. Really – I screamed. Then, I was put on hold for all of 45 minutes…and frustrated of hearing the background music I hung up. Then I tried logging the complaint on the website. So, pat came a standard reply, please pay the bill and then we can talk. So, I paid, taking a moral stand that since Idea lost my cheque, I won’t pay the late payment fees.

I thought that all my worries were over…but then when September bill came, something was fishy…. It appeared as if I had been given a discount for all the hassle I had to go through in July and August. I dared not ask, for I had lost the patience to be on phone with the call center and wait for tens of minutes. And then Idea decided to drop the bomb. Without any warning, the outgoing stopped! Why? Apparently, I had written a bad cheque. Huh?

Well, as the story goes, Idea mysteriously found the cheque that they claimed was lost, deposited it in the bank and since there was a stop payment put on that cheque, they treated it as bounced. No one bothered to check the history as to why that may have happened. No one bothered to call me to update that the cheque was returned by the bank. It’s as if they were waiting for the cheque to be found. And not only was I charged late payment fees once again, but also bad-cheque fees.

It took umpteen efforts from my side – lot of clamoring, posturing, use of words like dissatisfied customer, just cancel my services etc. before the imbeciles understood why I was unhappy. Two shady looking guys from collection department came over to help me settle it. I am not running away from making payments, I told them, but you seriously need to get the systems working properly. Yes, they both assured…and then Idea just couldn’t help but wait for a final climax.

Once again, there were late payment charges on the bill. It appears the shady looking guys who assured me this is the last of my problems, and had waived certain amount on the bill, did not really correct the problem in the system. This time though I would have none of it…I put my literary skills to good use and wrote a letter to higher ups in Idea. Negative words like distress, disrespect, discontinue peppered the letter. No confidence was exhibited that Idea would care about solving the problem. That had an impact and the excess charges were reversed. But by then, they had lost it.

So, now as a customer, I have been trying to understand: How is it that

* No customer care executive at the call center is not available for the first 15-20 minutes when I call?
* Looking at my usage pattern, Idea is ready to take risk with a cash-cow customer?
* No one understands what the problem is when it is explained for the first time?
* I should suffer if the customer care and billing systems do not interface with each other?
* They expect me to hold every time for more than 15 minutes if I call the call center?
* I always have to deal with the person in the call center who does not have authority to take decisions?
* The manager is never available on the floor?
* The promise – my manager will certainly call you tomorrow before 12 PM (not noon, PM!) – is never kept?
* Idea is such a moron and I still do business with them?

I actually know the answer to that last question. Too many people know that Idea number for it to be disconnected at the drop of the hat. But this forced me to finally walkover to the BSNL office to get a landline. So, once the transition period is over, Idea will miss my bill. Either that or I will wait for the number portability. Now that’s an !dea that could change my life. But for the record, they were the ones who started it….

The New History of Marathas – Armies and Administration

Read part 3 here.

One of the characteristics of Shivaji’s army that greatly helped him and frustrated his enemies was the Guerilla Tactics of the warfare. The geography around Pune and the Maval area – where Shivaji started first – was of great help to him. The armies were broken into small battalions. The armies were fast moving, light and were able to seek shelter in the forts on treacherous cliffs of the Sahayadri Mountains after a raid. Shivaji and his commanders rarely faced the Bijapur, Ahmednagar or Moguls in open planes. His tactics mainly concentrated on small group of mounted soldiers fighting with nothing more than a sword and shield cornering an enemy in a narrow pass. His army was also known to frustrate a camp of the enemy by cutting supply lines or disrupting normal operations of the camp. The army was so agile that even the British, when establishing their corps, adopted the Maratha Light Infantry. Such was the fierce attack and sharp turnaround of campaigns organized by Shivaji’s armies that not only Aurangzeb but also many historians considered him a coward who would not face the enemy in open fields. But Shivaji’s tactics were hugely successful.

Compare this with the armies of the Moguls or the factions of the Bahamani Sultanate. These armies typically consisted of heavy cavalry, backed by large siege equipment and provisioning facilities. The troops were regularly paid from the government exchequer and by this virtue also showed better loyalty. Apart from the troops, these armies also carried a burden of large number of noncombatants like grooms and servants of the mounted soldiers, animals of burden to move the cavalry equipment, cooks, record keepers and dancing girls. The armies were trained for fighting in open planes or holding a siege. And such armies were not able to move large distances easily.

Unfortunately the lightness of the Maratha army also meant, it had to live off the land. This did not go well with the peasants! Such armies were also not equipped to carryout long campaigns or to move away from the base fort to geographically distant areas.

But it is only on the basis of these strategies of Guerilla Tactics that Shivaji defeated huge armies of Afzal Khan (Commander of Adil Shah) and Shaista Khan (Commander and relative of Aurangzeb). He was consistently able to baffle the enemy and also employed strategies such as raiding a different enemy area, forcing the enemy to chase him in a different terrain.

Later when Peshwa Bajirao I started a northward expansion of the empire, the armies had to move long distances to fight battles. The Moguls had become considerably weak in the Gujarat and Malwa areas by the time of Bajirao I. By then the size of army and the distance, it had to travel for the battlefield made the logistics complicated. The army could no longer live off the land. This however, helped immensely in creation of the banking system. The government regularly borrowed money from merchants and bankers to pay for the war and expenses of the army. By the time the third war of Panipat happened, Maratha army had grown into a characteristically slow moving army that needed strong supply lines and large noncombatant staff.

One of the problems with agile army was that such army was not able to provide protection or governmental support to the areas conquered. Also, since the army lived off of the land, it was seen as a burden. And even with a less agile army, this continued even up to Raghunathrao Peshwe’s campaign into Punjab, a few years before Panipat war. While establishing tribute rights, Raghunathrao did little to establish a governmental control or to ensure that the tribute was fairly collected. However, after the provincial governments of Baroda, Indore, Gwalior and Nagpur started taking bigger role in the administration, the scenario started changing.

According to Gordon, Shivaji’s administration was largely modeled on the basis set by Malik Shah Amber. The administration of Peshwa Balaji Bajirao (Nanasaheb) brought large reforms to this administration. All the peshwas ruled in the name of the Chhatrapati, Shivaji’s heirs. As the empire expanded, the provincial governments started taking a bigger role in the administration. Eventually, the Shindes of Gwalior collected tribute from the Moguls and Rajput areas. In the calm and peaceful time, the countryside started seeing much prosperity. Other industry and trade also improved.

Gordon points out that the nineteenth century British Administration broadly consolidated the powers of a kamvisdar and created a British District Officer. Many records were already available to the British to model a tax system.

The New History of Marathas – the unit – deshmukhi

Read about the Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

Unlike other history books that usually follow the royal family, track the strategies of the sovereign and pay attention to wins and losses in a war, Stewart Gordon takes a different route. In an attempt to trace the social history and ‘know’ the people, he does not follow the royal families or the important stalwarts of the kingdom. The book follows the revenue generating units instead and the social fabric provides him with an opportunity to track not just the land holders but also the land managers. This unit is the system of deshmukhi found in one form or the other in Maharashtra and perhaps many other states in India.

The deshmukh and the patil

As Gordon points out, at one point in the time, Maharashtra was so sparsely populated that for a sovereign it became easy to group anywhere between 20 and 100 villages together to form a pargana. Each pargana was appointed a deshmukh to collect the revenues and a deshpande to keep records. These two entities worked together with their respective village level entities – a village headman – the patil and a village record keeper – a kulkarni.

(Incidentally, Deshmukh, Deshpande, Patil and Kulkarni are long standing last names of many people. Innumerable other last names have come from such professions.)

The elite families received about 15% of the government collection. Apart from collecting taxes, the patil and the deshmukh were also responsible for the well being of the population. The deshmukh was to remain loyal to the sovereign at all the times and his duties were laid out in a sanad and/or mansab – a contract between the right-holder and the government.

Both the patil and the deshmukh had rights to negotiate with the sovereign on tax collection and in case of famine or drought reassess the tax levels and collection. After assessing the tax, many times the deshmukh also paid the sovereign the money in lump sum and the collected it from the people later. The rights were also nested. In many cases, a deshmukh was also a patil for one or more villages in the pargana. The nested rights also included hereditary rights called watan and inam. In some cases, there are also examples of a deshmukh himself being landless, and making ends meet only based on the percentage of the collection received from the pargana. But such cases were exceptions.

One of the most important aspects of a deshmukhi was that a deshmukh could maintain an army. The main purpose of this army was to protect the people from dacoits or to deal with rouge villages that interfered in the official work.

In a way, a deshmukh was a governor of the pargana and his influence was more than the formal sanad of tax collection. A deshmukh would oversee adjudication and appeals, ritual leadership at various festivals and most importantly, development of cultivation and prosperity of his area. A deshmukh’s troops were also used by the sovereign for campaigns against kingdom’s enemies, other recalcitrant deshmukhs or even disloyal high ranking officials. Deshmukhs helping the sovereign were rewarded with honor robes at the court.

Malik Shah Amber, the head of Ahmednagar faction of the Bahamani Sultanate at the beginning of the 17th Century, is said to have brought reforms in the deshmukhi system by reviewing revenue settlement for each pargana. He also recruited many Marathas in this system and gave them important positions in the government and court. The deshmukhi system flourished and obtained more legitimacy during the Malik Shah Amber period making Marathas a hard to ignore faction in the politics of the era. This also made deshmukhi an important institution in itself.

More often than not deshmukhs showed wayward behavior. There are examples of many deshmukhs not submitting the revenue to the central government and the sovereign was forced to bring action to such deshmukhs. Since a deshmukh also maintained an army, the sovereign had to be careful before taking such a step. A sovereign would require help from other deshmukhs in such operations. And this perhaps cemented the in-fighting that plagued the polity all through its two-and-a-quarter century life. And this brings us to an important aspect of the kingdom – porous borders!

Invasion, Moving Armies and Porous Borders

The armies of Bahamani Sultanate, its factions and Moguls were typically slow moving. The armies were based on heavy cavalry requiring two or three horses to move one piece, grooms and servants for mounted fighters, elephants, treasury, cooks, dancing girls etc. in addition to the soldiers and commanders. The army bought provisions in camp bazaars. The entourage hardly moved more than 10 miles a day.

An invasion usually involved an army approaching and the highest ranking officer asking a deshmukh if he would align his loyalty to the new sovereign. If the deshmukh agreed, the pargana would naturally become part of a different kingdom. And hence, many wars were fought only at a deshmukhi level where depending on the circumstances the deshmukh just re-aligned his loyalty. The deshmukhs who capitulated to the invading king, were many times also quick to change their loyalty again making the invasion worthless.

Since the deshmukhs controlled the revenue and management of factions of troops, they became important to the sovereign. Shivaji’s father Shahaji also started as a deshmukh in the Pune and Supe parganas. Later he moved to Bangalore, and became an important officer in the Bijapur court. He left his wife Jijabai and son Shivaji in charge of the Pune and Supe areas. This inadvertently helped sow the seeds of ‘swaraj’ – self rule. Shivaji also faced problems with wayward deshmukhs as well as with deshmukhs who remained steadfastly loyal to Ahmednagar or Bijapur. In fact, the deshmukhi problem persisted as far later as Madharao Peshwa, with his own father-in-law, the Patwardhan family of Miraj, changing loyalties between the Peshwa and the Nizam. Gordon claims that Shivaji largely remained a sirdeshmukh – head of many deshmukhs – and not really a king.

In his book, Stewart Gordon, tracks the Mane family of Mhasvad and the Hingnikar Bhosale family as examples. Many more families also get tracked as a part of the polity. And their rise and fall is noted. Many families became Sardars in Shivaji’s court and were honored for their support. However, Shivaji realized the problems with the system and wanted to change it. But the circumstances did not allow him to do so. Once the control passed on to the Peshwas after the long succession battles between Shivaji’s heirs, the whole system got a shot in the arm to save the polity. But as the state formation continued, a lot had changed with maintaining the armies, collecting tributes and taxes. The state formation of conquered areas of Malwa and Khandesh after Aurangzebs’ death gave an opportunity to the Peshwas to exhibit more control of the central government rather than rely on a deshmukh family. An appointed officer, the kamvisdar, may have had powers similar to the deshmukh, but there was a tight control by the central government. A kamvisdar was not allowed to maintain an army but could ask the central government for help. His contracts were also performance based and did not have any hereditary rights to the land or collection. The results of this approach were also seen in the increase in prosperity of these areas. However, deshmukhi still remained an important institution and a basic building block of the polity.

Plurals and Bushes

Hear this:

During his first presidential campaign, Bush -- who promised to be the
"education president" -- once asked: "Is our children learning?"

and this:

"As yesterday's positive report card shows, childrens do learn when
standards are high and results are measured," he said.

and this too:

Just a day earlier, the White House inadvertently showed how it tries to
prevent Bush from making even more slips of the tongue than he already
does.
As Bush addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, a marked-up
draft of his speech briefly popped up on the U.N. Web site, complete with a
phonetic pronunciation guide to get him past troublesome names of countries and
world leaders.

"Childrens do learn," Bush tells school kids

The New History of Marathas – Multiple Dimensions

Every Marathi child grows up listening to the stories of Shivaji and his glory. Every Marathi once in his or her lifetime goes through this phase: Who cares the condition today; we once collected tribute from Delhi and made the mighty Moguls rub their noses. I remember having been told stories of bravery of Baji Prabhu Deshpande and Netaji Palkar and astuteness of Mahadji Shinde and Nana Phadnavis. But what lies underneath?

In the beginning

Gordon points out that the attempts to write history are as old as the history itself. The documents he used for reference are known as bakhar. A bakhar is a document written by administrators/writers which serves as a chronology of events glorifying the sovereign or an important family or person. Though the bakhar is in important source of information, many times it ends up telling the story of only one side and tends to be adulatory. However, Gordon points out that the bakhars still are a good source of history and events and particularly refers to Sabhasadachi Bakhar and 91-Kalami Bakhar.

In more modern context, there are two distinct groups of historians in India. The first group believes, everything British is correct, the second group believes just the opposite of that. The conquering colonialists had to justify their conquest and prove everything native was sophistic. Stewart Gordon is presented this dilemma and delves deep in to the psyche of the British historians and Indian historians. The observations are poignant. Where as, British historians, like Grant Duff, were interested in showing the British supremacy, the Indian counterparts, like VK Rajwade et al, were trying to show the opposite.

History or Hagiography

The Maratha period happens at a very interesting time. It begins with the end of the Muslim/Mogul stronghold and ends with the beginning of British establishment. Many consider this period as ruled truly by the sons of the soil and hence swaraj! For some, Shivaji is a divine figure but for others nothing more than a glorified rebel.

After the defeat of the Marathas, the British administrators started writing the reports on the conquered territories and this slowly became the Maratha history. Grant Duff, the first administrator of conquered territories and Mountstuart Elphinstone, to whom the education system as we know today may be attributed, contributed to chronicling the history of the Marathas. Grant Duff writes three volumes long discourses on political affairs, wars, factions, wins and losses. But he does not spend any time on social or economic aspects. According to Gordon, he made every effort to highlight the smallest of the failures of the Marathas and celebrated the brave acts of the British. With this background, the Marathi intellect found it important to prove Grant Duff wrong. Gordon takes example of MG Ranade and VK Rajwade. Ranade, in his book the Rise of Maratha Power, established the “political, social and religious renaissance of the Marathas”. The nationalistic fervor was born out of the resistance to the “outsider” Muslim powers. Gordon observes that parallels to the emerging resistance to the British can be found in the movement of the seventeenth century (and apparently not the other way round)!

Even though the initial research has gone in to proving each other wrong, it led to considerable collection and analysis of documents not just from the central government and families but also from the regional governments and families ruling the provinces. However, Gordon points out that recently, the focus has shifted from proto-nationalism against Muslim rulers and British conquest to relationship between economic and political processes, trends and cycles. Historians today, are more interested in finding out the profound effect the Maratha “polity” had on revenue administration, law, education, trade patterns, migration and economic and social make up.

मराठ्यांच्या इतिहासाची (नविन) साधने - The New History of Marathas

About the title: A very renowned historian VK Rajwade wrote several books about the Indian and particularly the Maratha History. His book Marathyanchya Itihasaachee Sadhane (The History of the Marathas) is famous and considered a hallmark work, written after detailed and in depth research. The Cambridge University Press now publishes several volumes as the New Cambridge History of India because, to quote the editorial board, “the old history has inevitably been overtaken by the mass of new research published over the last fifty years.” So, the new books published surely tell us the New History. The word new in the title depicts this.

I do not remember how or why I bumped into a book titled the Marathas, Marauders and State Formation in the Eighteenth Century India by Stewart Gordon. I remember having driven all the way up to the Main Library and looked for the book in the History Section. Having not found it on the shelf, I gave the call number to the Librarian and patiently waited as she disappeared somewhere inside to pull this important book out for me. The trip was worth the while.

The book was refreshingly different from all other history books. For the first time, it sounded like the glorious (!?) Indian history battered by the British was finally coming out of the clouds. Gordon was very categorical in putting forward proofs against some of the long held views and the views that are still being taught in schools. I remember having studied – “Bentinck ended thugee”. Gordon was ready to go in the details of social background and find out what exactly Bentinck ended! He researched into the city planning (Pune) and trading places (Barhanpur) and also studied the elaborate tax and revenue systems put in place in the Central India and made a formidable case against the long held British justification of Indian conquest and thus reducing the white man’s burden. For a proud and often arrogant Indian, it may have been an “I told you so” moment. It was an eye opener nevertheless and huge knowledge base too! For all those proud of the ruins of Shanivar wada, how many actually know the architectural details? The grant to establish a planned township of Sadashiv Peth? And makes you ponder over the question Gordon asks – why is it that the British put aside the Peshwe Rumal (documents from the Peshwa Administration) and did not allow anyone to study this meticulous record?

Stewart Gordon, a Ph D from the University of Michigan, wrote the Marathas 1600-1818 after thorough research and it forms the Volume II, book 4 of the New History of India series by the Cambridge University Press. As the jacket of the book says, the Maratha Empire is one of the most colorful but least understood parts of the history. What Gordon uncovers can be surprising. The book hardly deals with a political discourse. The Third War of Panipat has been covered in mere three paragraphs, so is the show down between Shivaji and Afzal Khan and Ahilya Bai’s benevolent administration merits two pages. But Gordon covers in great details the tax system, the collection and tribute rights, the succession wars and loyalty disputes, the diplomacy and much more.

Pavarotti

My introduction and affection to Western Classical Music came through WGUC. From then on I went on buying sprees and borrowing from the public library the numerous CDs that would accompany me in the car and on the laptop and on the boom-box. How else would one spend time without TV?

The commentaries of Lisa Simeone and CD jackets made understanding the operas little easier…but Luciano Pavarotti needed no further introduction. Rest in peace o great tenor!

The Propaganda

Dear Prakash Karat and Medha Patkar et al,

Much is happening around the nuclear deal over the past few days. I am not qualified enough to comment on the complexities of the issues, especially when the headlines in two newspapers were diametrically opposite the day after the issue surfaced. (One claimed we can do the nuclear tests the other exactly opposite of that….)

But what has surprised me is the amount of dust this is raked up and how the Left is justifying its stance. Mr. Karat, Ms. Patkar et al, you have written articles on Rediff.com to educate the masses. But, if you would care to elucidate your stance and objectives more clearly, it would be of great help.

In the second paragraph of your article, Mr. Karat you state that

“It may be difficult for ordinary people to grasp the implications of the
nuclear agreement with all its technical aspects and intricacies. The supply of
nuclear fuel, the fuel cycle, the enrichment and reprocessing technologies and
the safeguards agreement are all not within the knowledge of lay people.”

Well, if you are above everyone’s intellect, Mr. Karat, why don’t you explain it to the lesser mortals? Instead of just shouting at the top of your voice, if you come up with a point-by-point list of objections and ask for a rebuttal from the government, wouldn’t it help you garner more support? Up till now, we have heard only vague objections and allegations from you. Besides, passing judgment on the intellectual capabilities of over a billion people by just a stroke of a pen is not only preposterous but also merits more explanation.

Reading your article does not make it clear whether you are in general against anything America or just this agreement. I am going by the assumption that you are against anything America. You state that, we will acquiesce our sovereignty if we sign this treaty; again, would you care to explain how. If the UPA government has been dealing with the Americans and has signed a 10-year Defense Framework, why did you not oppose that? We hear you talk about the Defense Framework only now! Was the Left-machinery sleeping when the comprehensive agreement was being worked? Didn’t the government need your support when this framework was being signed? How is it that signing a defense framework with one country puts our sovereignty at stake? Did this rule also apply when we signed a friendship pact with the Soviet Union? If so, did you object to that at that time or consider it as a mistake when you retrospect? Or let me ask a different question: would you have reacted in the same way, if we were signing something like this with the Soviet Union instead of the US?

You also mention the nuclear-Iran issue and your objection to Indian vote in the IAEA. How, in your opinion should India have voted? Agreed that the issue is being raked up by the US to serve hegemonistic principles of the Bush Administration and that Iran is still far away from developing nuclear weapons, but would you rather prefer a nuclear state right up India’s alley? You oppose the joint-defense exercises, but again without explaining why! Hyde Act is also a bone of contention, but if the US is smart enough to protect its interests and if India is not, it calls for a different discussion, scrapping the whole deal is not an answer to it. If you and your honored brethren in the Parliament (irrespective of the party-lines) allow logical, well conducted debate on such issues, may be, even India can come up with an Indian-Hyde Act of our own to counter the US Hyde Act. Would you concur with this less intellectual compatriot of yours, Mr. Karat?

And lastly, as Ratan Tata had said sometime back, it is the Common Minimum Program that you have signed with the UPA government. How about going above and beyond that for the betterment of the country? Where does the word “Maximum” find a place in your lexicon?

Now, Ms. Patkar et al, you started your article with a grand notion of amending the constitution. You had better stuck to it! Ever heard of deflective arguments – where, to make your point, you talk about everything else but the point. Your article is an example of this. The title of the article is really misleading. You start with the imbroglio of the UPA-Left, then strategic relationship with the US, your objection to capitalism in general, nuclear fuel and nuclear arms in particular. Then you talk about the renewable energy resources, US governmental and corporate control, Iraq war, BJP etc.

How are all these related to our constitution? You want to allow a public debate on the issue. So, isn’t this happening right now? You and Mr. Karat getting a chance to write articles, TV interviews, discussions, other specialists writing their opinions in the press and so on? If you meant a debate in the parliament, then, even that is happening right now (well, more in terms of shouting and disrupting). What you want to talk about is a ratification policy, right? Then why not state it as that? Allow every treaty to be ratified. Or are you thinking of general referendum for all treaties? Good suggestions both, but you need to make your case more intensely than just beating around the bush on various issues that are not related to amending the constitution.

What I would like to know, Ms. Patkar et al, is what your opinion was when the BJP government talked sometime back of a thorough review of the entire constitution. Would you support something like this? And if you are serious about amending the constitution, can we expect a follow up article from you on how, why etc.? A series of articles, perhaps?

Ms. Patkar, I believe you are one who belongs to the principled lot. So, all the disruption of the parliament, walkouts, shouting and heckling, do you not deplore this? If so, we never heard you talk about such things. You do have a voice in the society as a leader of several agitations. Would you write an article about what you, in your own words as the representatives of people’s movement, perceive a model code of conduct for the elected members?

Mr. Karat, Ms. Patkar, you claim to represent the good of India. Well, then just as you say, don’t believe the treaty is good only because Dr. Singh says so, you also need to come up with particular objections to the treaty. My problem isn’t that you are opposing the deal, it is the way you are doing it. Oppose anything America/Capitalism should not be the only underlying principle of your concerns. After all, the world of Foreign Policy has changed now…and approach that is more pragmatic is required to deal with the problems. Why my-way or hi-way attitude? If there are serious issues with the treaty, we would like to know exactly what they are. If you were only looking for arm-twisting the government and fifteen-minutes of fame, you already got that. So either move on or make your stand clear!

Any how, I ramble much…thanks.

Three Years and One-and-a-half Kilometers Later

No sooner was the University Flyover opened for traffic than Sakal published an article on the problems still faced by the users of this road. If anyone expects a congratulatory note on the completion of this road, then great dismay is on its way. The planning and execution of the medley of flyovers on an otherwise good road has utterly failed to address any of the traffic woes.

First things first, it will be nice to get a report on the traffic patterns, as in 2003 and as predicted after five years and after ten years and so on, to necessitate the construction of the flyover. There are three flyovers on a stretch of about 4 kilometers, the first flyover near Agriculture College, one near E-Square and the final University flyover that divides the traffic into three different roads. The aim may have been to synchronize the traffic, which leads us to our first problem.

Shimla Office Intersection – Actually, this is only part of the problem. If you start from either Aundh Road or Baner Road or Pashan Road towards Shivaji Nagar, the three roads come together at the University circle (If you can tell me the official name of this circle, I will give you a pat on the back!). Even though the bulk of the traffic coming from opposite direction is now handled by the flyover, the traffic coming from Senapati Bapat Road and traffic going into the University still has to cross the oncoming traffic. Although the situation is better than earlier the attempt to get ahead of everyone and utter lack of discipline does not make it an easy ride. Traffic coming from three roads merges into a single road and the older problems persist. Since much money was spent on the construction, a little more innovative solution to the problems was expected (Right now, I am in complaining mode, not solutions mode).

Once you are past this adventure, the next comes directly at Shimla Office intersection. It must be noted that the two other flyovers – E-Square and Agriculture College make the ride smooth. But coming down from the second flyover, the sea of stopped vehicles is a test of patience.

The otherwise 3-lane wide road usually turns into 6 or sometimes 7 lane road, again each trying to squeeze ahead of the other. Nothing is more evident than the thoughtlessness. The PMT buses come from extreme left, since many don’t use the flyover and there is a bus stop just before the intersection. Many busses turn right and have to cross this seven-lane traffic, making the life of bus drivers and other vehicles very difficult. This also allows only a few cars to pass when the signal turns green as multiple busses attempt to cross the traffic and turn right. All the strategic advantage gained because of the flyovers is totally lost at this intersection.

There is another problem with the Agriculture College flyover, though in the opposite direction. If you turn left from FC Road and go straight beside the flyover, eventually all the lanes merge into University Road. However, this merge is so sudden that vehicles speeding down from the flyover and the vehicles merging from right are trying to defy laws of physics! It is nothing less than suicidal.

I did have some grand expectations from the University flyover. The lane markers are weird and the lane separation into three is equally weird. Besides, the gradient is considerable putting the less powerful vehicles under stress. The vehicles which come from Range Hills and want to go on to Senapati Bapat Road now have to cross three lanes going towards the flyover.

Another point to be noted is that the flyovers seem to have been constructed taking into consideration only the needs of those using it. All the roads beside the flyovers are too narrow and the merges into the main road are difficult, with lanes ending abruptly. Placement of the bus stops after the flyovers is also too close to the flyovers putting the speeding vehicles down the flyover, the merging vehicles and pedestrians waiting for bus into grave danger.

The only silver lining is that after enduring two months of heavy rains up till now, there is no pothole on the road.

So, what has been achieved after putting everyone through the duress of three years of construction? The 1 km that the University flyover covers does not justify the duress in my opinion.

Two Years and Four Kilometers Later

Now let me complain about Baner Road. The overall quality of the road is better. But the project management shows utter failure. Some sections of the road were closed to enable the completion of the University flyover. But the project execution was not expedited in this section. The walkways and some areas are still under construction, which is inexplicable, especially after getting four months of unbridled access to the road. Unfortunately, concrete curing may have taken bulk of time, but the areas still under construction do not depend on the concrete curing time. The placement of the YASHADA bus stop which is immediately after a bend in the road puts the stopped bus and moving cars behind the bus directly on collision course. After all the construction is complete and when lane markings are done, I am not confident that it will follow any standard practices to enable people to turn right. It's been close to two years and still the four kilometer stretch of the highway is not complete...

It makes me wonder, what if, there were no flyovers. Wouldn’t just wide well paved road (which it more or less was) with coordinated signals and proper lane marking not have helped? A lot of money has been spent on constructing this road structure. So may be answers to some of these questions are important. And while we wait for these answers, a gentle reminder about that traffic pattern report please.

The Forgotten Empire

Some time back a good friend (yes, the same guy) left an offline message for me – refer to this link, there is an e-book on Vijayanagar Empire that might interest you. It led to the Gutenberg Project and I downloaded a text file and I was immediately welcomed to what they called as Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts. The notepad file flabbergasted me…no smell of new paper, no pictures, no maps, not even formatting to distinguish one chapter from other. So the file was left on the desktop as it is – forgotten. But later, I mustered enough courage to start reading this file and learnt much about the forgotten empire.

The book was published sometime in late 1800s. Robert Sewell, the author, was an administrative officer in the British India. The book heavily relies on accounts of the chroniclers Firishtah in Adil Shah’s court and Fernao Nuniz and Domingo Paes – Portuguese travelers. Some accounts of Nikitin, the Russian traveler, are also included. However, the entire history is a political discourse – concentrating on wars, who won, who lost and so on. Also, the author finds it difficult to place the historical records to dates. The Hindu, Hijri (Muslim) and Julian Calendars are routinely referred and some analysis and crosschecking of records have helped. In absence of carefully written historical references, finding the correct period of reigns of various monarchs of Vijayanagar has also been difficult. Spellings of the names of the kings (how hard is Virupaksha?!) and places (Raichur, anyone?) also have Farsi and Portuguese flavors, sometimes making it difficult to identify the right one!

What is sorely missing is; how and what made the Vijayanagar Empire so prosperous. The author mentions the architecture of the city was better than any of the contemporary European capitals was. There are references to many festivals being celebrated with great pomp. There are references to usage of abundant gold and diamonds, references to the great architecture of the city and a carefully chosen location. Although more information would have been helpful. A legend goes that the deity in Pandharpur was originally meant to be installed in Vijayanagar, but a war thwarted those plans and then He never left the Bhima for the Tungabhadra. The city was located on the south bank of the Tungabhadra sheltered by wild rocky terrain on one side and a bend in the river making enemy access to the city difficult. The empire was able to maintain huge armies (500 elephants, 6600 horses and 11lak (1,110,000) infantry). One of the kings is also exaggerated to have 400 wives, who all burnt themselves on his funeral pyre upon his death!

The origin of the empire is also interesting – a modest beginning and under duress from Muslim invasion. The kingdoms of Devgiri, Warangal and Dwarsamudra were defeated by the raiding Muslim armies. The northern India was under Muslim hegemony. Much pillage happened in the valleys of the Krishna, the Bhima and the Tungabhadra. It was with this background that the three Hindu principalities, two of them already defeated – Warangal and Dwarsamudra and Anegundi came together to form Vijayanagar. A minister of the sate of Anegundi, Harihar Deva, rose to be the chief, founded the city of Vijayanagar and established himself with the aid of his religious teacher Madhavacharya. The smaller southern kingdoms fell in line accepting the suzerainty of Vijayanagar (not clear exactly how or if there was any resistance).

In keeping their faith with politics of division, the Vijayanagar Empire may also have been responsible for allowing the Portuguese to develop a very strong foothold in Goa, but the references are sketchy.

The splinters of Bahamani Sultanate often fought with Vijayanagar, either together or separately, with Bijapur and Ahmednagar being on the forefront. But the fighting mainly happened in the doab between the Krishna and the Tungabhadra. The capital city was at the northern edge of the empire and entire south was under uniform control and was never pillaged by the Muslim armies. The deltas of the Krishna, the Godavari and the Kaveri were not disturbed. People must have been able to carry on with the agricultural and related commercial/industrial activities and help spiral the economy northwards.

The collapse of the empire was very dramatic. While directing a war, the king accidentally slipped and was attacked and the army panicked losing control over an otherwise winnable war. The city of Vijayanagar was eventually pillaged by the invading armies of Adil Shah and was abandoned by its residents. And although the lineage continued afterwards for some time, they never returned back to the city or were able to recover. When it happened, even the Portuguese economy is said to have suffered, for so much was the volume of the commerce between the two. This also paved way to further Muslim expansion to south giving a stronger foothold to the Nizam and other smaller rulers.

Today the city lies in ruins of whatever is left. I am not sure if the ASI takes care of this treasure for ASI can be rarely trusted with such things. My next mission now is to look for social and economical history of the empire and that period but before that, there is an interlude for Stewart Gordon.

जिवतीची गोष्ट

आम्ही पुण्याला आल्यावर आईनी काही देवही बरोबर आणले. न सांगो, कदचित अनुग्रह होऊनही जाईल!

इतक्या दिवसांनी पोरग हाती लागल्यावर मग काय - श्रावण-बिवण आगदी यथोचित सुरु झाला. मला जास्त हौस खाण्याची, म्हणून मग पोट-भक्ति आलिच ओघनी...काय विचारु नका - डावाच्या चतुर्थीला रव्याचे लाडू, नाग पंचमीला मोदक, शिळसप्तमीला सांजणी आणि आळूच्या वड्या आणि वगैरे वगैरे. ही सवय आजीनी लावली - श्रावणी शनिवारी आळणी स्वयंपाक - मुगाच्या आणि तुरीच्या डाळी ची खिचडी, बाजरीचे रोटगे आणि माठाची भाजी, जन्माष्टमी ला भरलेली केळी.... मग जिवतीच वाण पण व्हायलाच पाहिजे, शुक्रवारी! कणिक आणि गूळ, जायफळ घालून केलेल्या आरत्या हे मुख्य आकर्षण, ओल्या नरळाचे कानवले आणि हरबऱ्याची ऊसळ पण आणि खजूऱ्या.

पुण्यात मात्र जिवतीच्या कागदावर आई खुश नव्हती...पण डोंबिवली मधली आजीच्या वेळची फ्रेम तुटायला आलेली. पुण्यात तो पॅटर्न मिळत नाही, डोंबिवलीतच मिळणार. मग या वेळी डोंबिवली मध्ये आठवण करून दिली, पाहिजे तसा फोटो घेण्याची. गद्रेच्या दुकानात जावून खास जिवतीचा कगद मागितला. पण तोच प्रकार. मग त्याला सांगितल, "आहो, ती एकच देवी असते ना, मुलं वगैरे बरोबर घेवून, तशी जिवती पाहिजे." मग त्याची ट्यूब पेटली - "हा, म्हणजे, सीकेप्यांची जिवती पाहिजे का?" मग त्यानी वरून कुठूनतरी तो ठसठशीत जिवती चा कागद काढला.

हिरवी नऊवारी साडी, भरपूर दागिने, एका हातात अमृताचा कलश, दुसऱ्या हातात पाळणा आणि त्यात एक मुल झोपलेले, पायाशी चार मुलगे आणि एक मुलगी असा भरगोस परिवार, सोबतीला वरच्या कोपऱ्यात चंद्र, सुर्य - अगदी लहानपणी बघितली होती तशीच.

मग लगेच कागदाची फ्रेम करायला टाकली. आता श्रावण कधी सुरु होतो त्याची वाट बघयची! कागदा वरच्या माहिती प्रमणे हा कागद १९३० पसून तसाच आहे, जरा सुद्धा बदल नाही. ह्यावर्षी नक्की आरत्या आणि खजूऱ्या चांगल्या लागणार!

टीप: तसा मी जात-पात मानत नाही, पण खाण्या पिण्या साठी कधी कधी होत अस. तसा मी देव पण मानत नाही, पण श्रीयुत गंगाधर टिपरे मधला शिऱ्या म्हणतो तस, मी नमस्कार करून, आईला, आबांना समधान मिळणार असेल, तर तस करूयात, त्यातलाच हा प्रकार.

So, What’s Happenin’?

Long time, no blog…been really busy with work and a short vacation too. Yeah, this blog was on vacation and it did not tell anyone! Well, it was a short but welcome break from the rut. As you may have guessed it, I did not do anything! So, what does really not doing anything mean? Something, actually….

I had gone to my ancestral home in Dombivli. Ancestral because my father bought it when I was in second standard and I lived there until the twelfth, then off again and on again. Dombivli has changed so much, but the persistent humidity that makes your skin sticky, hasn’t. Neither has the claustrophobic, crowded, full of people, bhajiwallas, temperamental electricity, blaring horns. But everything seems to have grown in proportions to the population and everything bursting at seams. The swamps and moors have been taken over by concrete monstrosity. The Hyacinth is gone!

So, apart from cussing and fuming about the humidity, what did I do? Well, nothing. If it makes you feel jealous, here’s what I did – wake up at my time in the morning. Read DNA (I have given up on TOI, but then that is for another post) for a good 3-4 hours, catch up on family gossip, eat, chat (not the computer kind), nap in the afternoon, chat some more, roam around on crowded streets, eat and sleep. With the exception of reading some random stories from I Thought My Father was God (Good book, read it if you get a chance) and some Agatha Christie, nothing much! Of course, there were trips to the Fish Market and sampling some “rainy season only, wild vegetables”. Ah ha, the smell of raw fish – Bombay duck, Paplet (not pomfret), Tarlee and Ravas what more could I ask?

Can we Shed Our Responsibility?

June 5 was celebrated as the World Environment Day and appropriate events must have taken place to show the solidarity towards curbing global warming. Admittedly, in corporate style, we received an e-mail at office urging to take care of the environment – car pooling and switching off computers and such. I responded to that e-mail with a longer list of what can we do. Simple things, in my opinion – set AC temperature 2 degrees higher (sometimes it gets a freezing 18 degrees Celsius where I sit), allow natural light to come in avoiding usage of electric bulbs, turn on only alternate bulbs in the corridor or staircase etc.

But how enough is enough? Would this save the earth? I don’t know…but it is like doing your bit and hoping for the best. A 2002 report shows different levels of pollution: Indian citizen emits 0.25 tons of carbon per year while a US citizen emits 5.5 tons. India uses that as a tool in saying we should not be asked to cut the Green House Gases (GHG) and that this will severely restrict our development goals. Pollution and environmental damage is attributed to the developed nations so it is something that they should take care, not us, goes the standard line.

I think this argument is loaded with ridiculous logic. Now I do agree that impact of cutting carbon emissions in a developed nation like US say even by 20% will be much more than the impact of cutting carbon emissions in India by same percentage points. But that does not mean India should continue on the rampant path of the so called development and ignore the impact. After all, it is not like because US causes most pollution, when sea-levels rise, selectively Boston and New York will be submerged under water but not Mumbai and Calcutta….

In fact, with all the infrastructure building that India is undergoing, this can be taken as an opportunity. There are merely three traffic lights in the whole of Pune which work on solar energy. What stops us from investing in this renewable energy resource to convert, say all traffic lights and street lights to run on solar energy? Why not invest in mass transit rather than new cars? Why not build more wind-energy and solar energy plants? Where are the research-grants that promote research into non-conventional energy resources?

A welcome step is that the new constructions do ask for installation of solar water heaters and many encourage rain-water harvesting. Some environmentally friendly parks and townships have also sprung up and while the general awareness is increasing, it is still abysmal. This may not be enough. After all, if we want to enjoy the fruits of our development, we want a sustainable environment too, right?

Go to Your Room and Think What You Did

A month back (yeah, must have been a month); the Information and Broadcasting Minister decided to play Morality Police and banned FTV for showing, what he felt must be offensive to the Indian society. The dish TV guys and the cable operator guys promptly blocked the channel for fear of backlash. Now, FTV is back – for the month-long ban must have expired.

I do not know what is the viewer ship of FTV and how it hurt them. (Lest you think, I am one of the avid followers, please don’t bother.) Their fault – in our moral eyes – was broadcast of something risqué that apparently spoilt our society! What I do not understand is what did the ban do to FTV and what has changed since FTV is back as it is. Was it right for the Minister to be the Morality Police, taking care of the naïve and moral Indians? The Morality Police seem to have sprung up everywhere…so it must be true that some people have way too much time on their hands. We need more jobs….

On another note: The government (whoever that was at that time), simply refused to believe that AIDS would be ever a problem for Indian society because of all the moral checks-and-balances in place already. Well, wake up; fix your priorities first. And please try not to meddle in people’s living room.

Do you have it in you?

First, there was silence. Then the name did not appear. There were whispers – how come he does not feature in the list? Well, it must already be done. Then there were rumors. He is going away. But no one confirmed. I stopped by his office the other day. We talked about the weather and resources…you can only talk so much about weather and resources. Then there was a pregnant pause.

“You know, I am going, right?”
I acted surprised. I must be good at acting.

How come, why, why now, where to…I asked all the questions that came to my mind.

Well, I am starting something of my own.

He never fails to surprise. He talked very passionately about it.

The plans – they are still on paper. The sponsors – some of my own money, some of my friends’. There are two from US and one from UK. Taking partners together mitigates the risk you know. But it is a start. It’s been going in my mind for some time now. I had to take the plunge sometime, might as well be now. I have to start from everything – the place, the furniture, the contracts, the people…. It is complicated. I am looking for a flat to start with. But it is like Catch 22. If you are starting something in residential complex, you cannot get license under commercial act, if you don’t have a license, you cannot have a bank account and nothing can start without a bank account, can it? There is the need of capital.

“Do you know what this costs”? He asked pointing to the white board. “Well, too much I can say. Ultimately, I got a carpenter, a sheet of plywood, a good glossy sheet and got done 3 white boards and 2 soft boards in the cost of one white board from the market. Everyone thinks I am mad. It is complex Kaustubh. I am very excited, at the same time very scared.” – He did not mince words.

“There are lots of competitors. As many companies start a particular day, same number also goes belly up. But I am prepared for all the eventualities. I am cutting back on all my expenses. I have enough savings to survive for next one year, but I am giving up my car, my club memberships, why have these things now? I can always buy it later again. What do you think?”

I am sure he will succeed. You will be a good competition to us some day – I said.

I couldn’t help but think of the tag line of Indian army – “Do you have it in you?” as I left his office.

The Enigma of Pandita Ramabai

I finished reading the book many moons ago, but couldn’t get down to writing anything about the book or about the Pandita herself. The book was interesting but it was difficult to write anything about it because of the enigma. Meera Kosambi spends good deal on Ramabai’s life sketch and other observations apt to that period. But Kosambi also agrees that Ramabai is difficult to understand. Was it her intellectual capability, then? Or was it her standing up to the conventional male dominated society? Was it her conversion to Christianity?

In the early part of Ramabai’s work, where she talks of Stri Dharma Niti – Morals for Women, Ramabai sticks to conventional wisdom. Directly and indirectly, she impresses upon the women that it is her husband, father-in-law, mother-in-law and other elders in the family that she should listen to and take advice. She stresses that education is of paramount importance and everyone should get appropriate education. She recommends we overcome the sloth. She advices even on seemingly trivial matters – such as how to clean the teeth, when to sleep and wake up, how to ensure work gets planned and done etc.

Ramabai’s letter to Sir Bartle Frere about the pathetic conditions of Indian women (The Cry of Indian Woman) and her observations and elucidations in The High Caste Hindu Woman are gut-wrenching. Her personal experience of poverty and famine is so intense that no one with a weak personality would have survived it. But the Pandita is very categorical in her observations. Reasons of penury and hunger – no vocational training and education – for when the family lived in the mountains of Tirumalai and when her brother tried to find work, he did not succeed. His education in Sanskrit and Liturgy had given him limited skills in any other trade. The Pandita not only had to undergo the grief of her parents’ death, she also had to see the consternation it caused for the last rites (For some reason it seems people were not ready to believe the family was Brahmin by caste and refused to help perform last rites, which Kosambi finds very surprising). The 16 year old Ramabai had to help carry her father to the funeral pyre (a big no-no for the high caste women then).

Her observations in the United Stateschi Lokasthiti are poignant and balanced covering women’s reforms to great details. In fact, she also became a part of the reform movement in the US and received support for her cause after returning back to India.

On her return to India, what initially started as a concern of proselytization in Sharada Sadan and Mukti Sadan became more and more blatant. In her essays of latter days, the Pandita increasingly started holding the view that people in her missions were saved only because they converted to Christianity. While writing on Mukti Sadan and Mission, Ramabai talks of the girls in her mission with great passion. In her own words, “Some girls who are not intellectually bright are learning other work. Some of them have a mother’s heart. … These very girls who are so gentle and loving now were very wild, greedy and selfish before their conversion to Christ”.

Kosambi struggles to understand whether this change happened because of the opposition to her conversion. Kosambi asks, “Did she enjoy legitimacy as a representative or mediator of these victims on the strength of her positionality as a disprivileged widow and a marginalized, converted Christian? Or was such legitimacy undermined by her being simultaneously a privileged, Sanskrit-educated Brahmin and English-educated Christian with an affinity with the hegemonistic Christian community worldwide?” And at the same time, Kosambi also points out that Ramabai’s pioneering essays on women’s conditions are still very relevant to Indian feminists today.

Kosambi also sites contemporary critiques. Kesari, for example, a conservative paper condemns Ramabai’s conversion very strongly. It says, ‘such an intelligent, determined and enterprising woman’s achievements helped not the Hindu society, but foreign missionary organizations.’ The liberal ones also bemoan her conversion as unnecessary, if not in as strong words as Kesari.

Kosambi rightly concludes “…after three quarters of a century after her death, Maharashtrian society, having yet to produce an individual of her stature engaged in social reform on such a vast and variegated scale, still remains unwilling to remember her and unable to forget her”.

The Other View

A few days back, I came across an interview of Prof. Cecilia Carvalho, Ph D. Prof. Carvalho is a specialist in Marathi and Sanskrit Literature. She also comes from a very typical and unique background – the Vasai Christian. Vasai – once a green get away on Western Line, about 50 km north of Mumbai, is now an example of sprawling urban decay and rampant construction. Vasai – also known as Bassein to history – was under Portuguese hegemony since 1500s. The Portuguese converted many of the locals to Roman Catholicism. In mid 1700s, Chimaji Appa, the brother of Peshwa Bajirao I defeated and drove Portuguese away from Vasai. The culture and milieu of Vasai is a mix of conventional Marathi, Portuguese and Roman Catholic influences. It is not uncommon to see names like Cecilia Carvalho and Father Francis De Brito speaking in fluent Marathi and wearing Khadi clothes or Saree. The mass in the churches is in Marathi and the bride wears a white saree and mangal-sutra when getting married. Many in this distinct community have spent hours ruminating over the Bhakti-movement and analyzing the Sanskrit shlokas.

Prof. Cecilia Carvalho is one such individual, with Ph D in Marathi and Sanskrit Literature. She now intends to write a book on Pandita Ramabai. The note of distinction was that even Prof. Carvalho agrees that Ramabai was a different breed. According to Prof. Carvalho, the rebel that Ramabai was, she did not accept Catholicism or Protestantism. She stuck to Christianity in her own sense as following the new testament. She took effort to learn Hebrew in order to understand the original Bible and undertook the project of translating it into Marathi. She was very careful about the Marathi translation; not letting her Indic, Marathi or Sanskrit background affect the translation or influence the idea of God. That showed a strong unlearning of her Vedic background and her acceptance of Christianity. The transition from Stri Dharma Niti to writings in Kripa Sadan cannot be more stark!

May be Pandita Ramabai needs to be viewed from a different angle – good rebel, intellectual with commitment to use her knowledge and passion for betterment of the women. Good organizer – her help in perpetual famines and droughts has been of help to many in the rural Maharashtra and a person with good understanding of the society and social causes. And this outsider, just needs to be accepted by the society.

Sechzehn Kilometer Stau and the Lernaean Hydra

The plebeians will write much about yesterday’s traffic imbroglio. So, I am also adding my two cents for whatever it is worth. To summarize, I understood the exact meaning of what Radio Bayern meant by Sechszehn Kilometer Stau on A73 Richtung Bamberg!

Sixteen kilometer is the distance I have to travel from my home to office – thanks to Pune Municipality’s diversions. To complete the work of flyovers in University area before the monsoon, they decided to close some roads. This means, you cannot go to the University from Baner Road or Pashan Road. From Pashan Road, you can only take left to Abhimaanshree and then left on Baner Road, towards Aundh-ITI Road. Now, if this were all planned and explained properly, with road signs and all, it would have been simpler. But the traffic police do not believe in convenience of the plebeians.

The Pune traffic has become the ugly Lernaean Hydra with its multiple monstrous heads spewing fire and poison, chop off one head and out pops the other spewing more venom. Unfortunately, we have neither Hercules nor Iolaus to take care of this hydra.

As always, I turned on left on the Baner Road and had to stop in my tracks for the road was closed ahead but no signs anywhere. U-turn later, the traffic came to halt again and it took me one hour and ten minutes to cover 2.5 km distance, so bad was the volume. No one was prepared to handle the volume. 16 kilometers later, I was so tired that my knee was hurting and leg sore. And many people claimed that I must be really ill – for I did not look good to them, such was the ordeal of the morning.

Just a little bit of sense had returned to the traffic today. But this ordeal is to continue till the flyover construction is complete. And I can only hope and pray….

The Eclipse II

The experiment with pin-hole paper projector wasn't very successful, but it did give a good view. The digital camera view was also good...and since my eyes are still operational, one or two cursory glances at the sun must not have been very harmful :).

Veggie Nazis

I remember having a heated argument in a bus with one friend about his criticism generally directed towards non-vegetarians. Why it was okay to eat plants then – I asked smugly. Because they don’t have emotions – pat came the reply. Here is an article – THE PRETZEL LOGIC OF VEGETARIANISM – that debates that logic. After almost 10 years, I have a fellow sympathizer in Ted Rall. I am not justifying the blatant omnivorous or carnivorous nature, but I am against what I call Veggie-Nazis and also their tactics to emotionally blackmail people into becoming veggies not to mention the convoluted logic.

As an aside – a popular theme on this side of the world is brahmaNanee chicken chaa bhaav vaaDhavalaa! (I am not going to translate that, take help from your Marathi friends)

The Eclipse Pictures

The Eclipse

I have neither the talent nor the style to describe an eclipse like Annie Dillard does in her essay Total Eclipse. (You can read about the essay here and here.) But I did not want to miss a chance. So I set the alarm for 5:30 AM and kept a camera handy while going to sleep on Saturday night. Up I was at 5:40 AM sharp, after only one snooze. I trotted to the terrace of my building and intuitively opened the door on my left hoping it to be the right direction. And there it was - a small white beautiful crescent strip. You could not have told it was not a crescent moon if you did not know of the eclipse.

I tried taking a few pictures but the strength of my camera falls significantly short when it comes to taking pictures of distant objects like moon, not to mention my own limited knowledge of photography to handle such situations. The night was cloudless, without much haze and a building shielded the ambient light giving good view of the changing moon. I was able to spot only one well known landmark, (!) the big dipper. I also saw a small shooting star and a faint satelitte that quickly vanished behind some stray clouds. And even though the afternoons have started becomig characteristically warm, the night was nippy enough to warrant folded hands.

The eclipse proceeded at its normal pace, allowing enough time to the marooned Christopher Columbus to extract food and help from the scared natives.

The light on the terrace started increasing slowly as the shadows moved and larger portions of moon became visible.

The opposite side of the sky was now showing red-orange lining and the birds had started chirping. I was still struggling with the camera - trying to adjust the zoom, keeping my hand steady to not spoil the picture, trying to find a good platform, playing with various controls, trying to capture something more than a blurb....

Now the moon had become much bigger and more birds were awake. A crow sat on the water tower of the next buildling and the camera flash scared it! At last, all of the moon was out of the inky shadows. The opposite side was better lit now and the sun would soon make its way in to the world soon.

Gauche, Sinister, Ciotóg, Southpaw

We finished an exhausting meeting and the person opposite to me says, “It is amazing how you do it.”

“What, the endless meetings, but you did all the talking!”

“No, I mean, all the writing”

“Yeah, like you are going to remember all this…”

“No, writing with the left hand”

Ah, now we were speaking on a topic! Is it really that amazing? Well, may be it is…for it appears only about 12% of the population can exhibit the dexterity! Or the gaucherie, actually!

Persistence by an interested person and good topic (in my opinion) - he carefully noted the position of the paper…for it was laid almost horizontal - at an angle of more like 10 degrees with the edge of the table contrary to the conventional 90 degrees, with the head of the paper on extreme right. The pen was moving furiously in what many perceive as an unnatural movement. Even I am so used to seeing people write with the right hand that when I see someone write with the wrong hand, it seems unnatural to me…. But isn’t the whole world opposite to a few of us? I have been chastised in childhood for the position of the note book, but the teachers never realized that unlike others if I were to keep it vertically on the desk, I would not see what I write! They would compliment the handwriting though, for other brethren of this community were not so lucky in this respect. Here is an article that shows various ways and positions of writing used by the southpaws. And I follow this style:

Only that in my case the page makes more acute angle than shown in the picture.

There are many things yours truly cannot do:

1. Use mouse with the left hand – to start with…
2. Use the num pad on regular keyboards
3. Use the screwdriver – I inadvertently tighten the screw if the intention is to loosen it, anticlockwise seems so natural.
4. The water tap – again the same problem as the screwdriver. But in the fancy new taps where rotation is not the motion to control the flow, I still tend to do the opposite.
5. Lock or unlock swiftly, for the key first moves in the opposite direction…
6. Use the nail cutter. This amazes me too. But for some unknown reason, I have to rely on a pair of old-grandfather-scissors to cut my nails. So, when I travel, the scissors travel with me. (If you say, eew to that…try using the scissors with the left hand and find for yourself!)
7. Use the spoon with the right hand.

Only one thing I was trained to do with right hand is eating in Indian style. My grandmother insisted that I practice and eat with my right hand. This does not work in a stand-up style eating so common at weddings and parties; I automatically switch to the left hand. Otherwise, there was no pressure to convert!

I once hurt a bank employee with the sharp end of the pin used to hold the check and the payee-slip together, for I put it in with the left hand and she tried to remove it with the right hand, making her fingertips vulnerable to the sharp-end of the pin. I still use my left hand and also the pin, but it is inserted holding the papers upside down, making it right-side-up!

I often get chastised at religious functions, for I make the offering with the left hand or extend my left hand to accept prasad, which is a big no-no. But I persist nevertheless. At my sister’s wedding, the priest was logical enough to let me ‘do’ things with the left hand, the photographer was not. When we entered into the new home, my mother requested that I put the right foot inside first – the request was granted immediately ;-), but the following ritual was all left-handed. Over time, I have almost turned into a maverick-left-handed rebel. But to be fair the society has also become more tolerable of this minority community. And I still cannot tighten the screw (pun intended)….

Not only is the hand usage asymmetrical, there is a preference to using even one eye and ear dominantly! Now I only need to find out which eye and ear use dominantly.

Do animals show hand-preference? Some primates do, according to this article . Some animals also show preference based on the prey. In some cases, some species of snakes have evolved teeth that makes it easier to break open snails that have clockwise shells. But according to the famous psychoanalyst Steven Pinker, most do not. For, Pinker believes that human brain is more complex than primates’ brain is. Because of the evolved skills such as complex logical and abstract problem solving, language etc., our brain needs special rewiring, distributing tasks of logical processing to some areas and in return showing favor to handedness to make motor controls simpler. But I guess, why so many right-handed and so few left handed is not a simple question to answer.

Now the title words: all mean left handedness in negative sense with exception of southpaw. Etymology of southpaw is interesting. In the baseball game, the striker stands facing east to avoid the afternoon or evening sun, so a pitcher throwing the ball with his left-hand faces south.
Jibe: No right-handed people were hurt in writing this post.

This One Takes the Cake

Joshua said stop the sun and Galileo got prosecuted. The sun did not stop. Later, Charles Darwin said monkey and man shared the same grand-father and nothing much happened for a long time. You put your feet up, folded your arms behind your head admiring the intelligence behind the Lazy Boy recliner and unwinding your day when like a stupid kid swatting a mosquito on your forehead with ping-pong paddle, the Intelligent Design theory made its entry in to this world! It is at least an alternative – emphasized your next-door-God-fearing Ned Flanders! Controversies flowed with parents suing schools, schools being asked to put disclaimers on the text books, scientific bodies making noises against the religious enthusiasts and the religious enthusiasts with cheerleaders like Dubya making louder noises against the scientific bodies….

And just as you are about to go back reclining on your intelligent Lazy Boy recliner – SWAT – and this time with a book right on your nose - Grand Canyon: A Different View.

Is such kind of different view really required here? Geologists believe over years and years together, the Colorado River cut through the mountains; and what you have today is the chiseled, breath taking canyon. This should have been enough. But Tom Vail wants you to believe that the Canyon is the direct proof of Noah’s flood and not just a geological process. The Grand Canyon Park’s Visitor Center sells this book and is now being accused of invalidating science and promoting religious fundamentalism. In his column The Bible vs. science, Tom Krattenmaker tears apart the argument by Vail.

Vail's point, however, begs a question that he and like-minded creationists might not want asked. If they're objectively wrong about the genesis of the Grand Canyon and other geologic matters - you'll be hard-pressed to find a mainstream scientist who says they aren't - must they concede that God does not exist?

That, of course, is a rhetorical question. No amount of scientific evidence will convince an ardent creationist of the validity of human evolution or that the Earth is billions of years old.

Nevertheless, the question frames a problem with the stance of the anti-science creationists that threatens not only their version of the world's origins, but also the credibility of their religion itself. Because by attempting to marshal empirical evidence in support of their beliefs, they enter the debate on the scientists' terms - terms that cannot possibly work in favor of a literal reading of the Bible. By playing in this arena, haven't the creationists already lost the argument?

As the evangelical writer and religion professor Randall Balmer points out, confronting the public with objective evidence of the Bible's literal truth is misguided at its core. Writing about intelligent design (a counter to evolution that sees an unidentified "designer" behind the world's creation), Balmer says, "Paradoxically, when the Religious Right asserts intelligent design is science, it implies that faith in God is … inadequate, that it needs the imprimatur of the scientific method."

The Icing on the Cake

In Florence Y’all KY, a museum is soon set to open called the Creation Museum. This museum is assembling a collection of dinosaur models, fossils, minerals and other material. Reason? Apparently to "demonstrate that the Scriptural accounts of the Creation, Noah's flood, and other major events of biblical history can be trusted" say the organizers.

But the Creationists seem confused. For Krattenmaker sites

“In comments published last fall by the Baptist Press news service, a consultant to the Creation Museum implies that the very foundation of Christian belief will crumble if believers don't disprove the scientific consensus that humans evolved into existence tens of thousands of years ago. The consultant is one Kurt Wise, a Harvard-educated Ph.D. and director of the Center for Theology and Science at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Says Wise: "If humans really date back that far, and Adam lived far enough in the past to be their ancestor, then the genealogical record of Genesis 5 is wrong, and thus the Bible and its author, God, are wrong."

…

To most people, it sounds like Wise is going "all in" with a losing hand. Do religious believers really want the truth of their faith wagered on an attempt to prove that countless scientists have somehow botched their reading of the fossil record?

But here's the rub: Wise acknowledges that nothing can convince him that Earth is older than five or six thousand years. Why? Because the Bible is his ultimate authority. "The most important thing," he says, "is that you ought to be able to trust your God and the claims the Bible makes."

Krattenmaker asks

How ironic, then, that by dabbling in science to promote their beliefs, anti-science creationists are more likely eroding the very credibility they aim to bolster.

Writing Happy Birthday!

Krattenmaker’s column couldn’t have been at a more accurate time! An article published in DNA on Feb 8, 2007 (not sure if it is a reprint, the author is Anthony Mitchell) is titled Ancient find focus of modern debate.

The National Museum in Nairobi is all set to exhibit what’s famously known as the Turkana Boy fossil – presumably one of mankind’s oldest relics. This plan has come under attack from the popular evangelical Christian movement in Kenya. The head of Kenya’s 35 evangelical denominations, Bishop Boniface Adoyo says, “I did not evolve from Turkana Boy or anything like it. These sorts of silly views are killing our faith.” He is calling on his flock to boycott the exhibition and has demanded the museum relegate the fossil collection to a back room. He also wants a notice saying evolution is not a fact but merely one of a number of theories to be displayed in this backroom.

Richard Leakey, a leading fossil hunter and Paleontologist has pooh-poohed Adoyo – “whether the bishop likes it or not, Turkana Boy is a distant relation of his”. Leakey does not mince words – “The bishop is descended from the apes and these fossils tell how he evolved.”

Good one Richard Leakey!

And, if you really want to hear a different view on Grand Canyon, here is one: http://www.aapg.org/explorer/2000/08aug/grandcanyonbeginning.cfm.

Ramabai, the Learned

Some books are bought, but it takes some effort to read. While unpacking a few boxes, I found an unread copy of one of such books I had bought hoping to understand a person better and also understand the sociology of a period better. Pandita Ramabai Through Her Own Words is a compilation and translation of the Pandita’s essays by Meera Kosambi. I liked Kosambi’s style when reading her book Bombay in Transition: The Growth and Social Ecology of a Colonial City, 1880-1980. Meera Kosambi is a director of the Research Center for Women’s Studies at SNDT University for Women and the daughter of the Mathematician Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi – best qualified to compile the essays written by Pandita Ramabai.

As Kosambi points out, Pandita Ramabai was the insider as well as the outsider at the same time. The Pandita was also born and brought up during a period that saw many tumultuous changes for the Marathi intellectual society.

1818 – Peshwa Bajirao II lost the war to the East India Company. A big thorn in the flesh for the British – mainly East India Company – was gone. With that, the Bombay Presidency inherited the core Peshwa Empire and also confederate princely states of Baroda, Gwalior, Indore, Nagpur etc. Though caste politics was not the dirty ball-game as much as it is today, Peshwas being the Chitpawan Brahmins, the caste automatically enjoyed the highest status. The erudite scholars – masters of the Vedas, Puranas, Shastras were involved in debates and making sure that the religion – dharma – was followed and not desecrated in any manner. Since the caste got many non-questioned rights similar to the clergy in France before the revolution, keeping others under the thumb was important. The Brahmin dominated society was more worried about the class strata and mired in rituals and orthodoxy many a times teetering on the edge of superstitions. Needless to say, the shudras – the lowest rung of castes and women got the wrong end of the stick in an otherwise prosperous state. Many Brahmins though lived on dakshina – donations – in return of teaching Vedas or Shastras and bhikshuki – alms given in return of performing rituals. For some, in this highest stratum of the society, penury was not uncommon.

One such penurious but deeply religious Brahmin was Anant Shastri Dongre – who was impressed by hearing and seeing the mellifluous Sanskrit debates in the court of the Peshwa. If the queen – wife of the Peshwa – can be erudite in Sanskrit, why not my wife too, thought Anant Shastri. This brought a strong reprimand for the women were not supposed to be learned! His first wife died without learning Sanskrit and when he remarried and the second wife Laxmibai learnt Sanskrit, it brought the wrath of fellow caste men to Anant Shastri. Of the couple’s six children, three survived with Ramabai being the youngest. The family traversed the length and breadth of the country visiting holy places and making a living by reciting the Puranas. Anant Shastri taught Sanskrit to not only his son Srinivas Shastri but also to the elder Krishnabai and the youngest Ramabai (born 1858). The girls learning Sanskrit brought the wrath of the community once again. Anant Shastri though took another step – not getting Ramabai married as a child – after he saw Krishnabai’s child-marriage fail.

Unlike the women of her time, Ramabai was not locked being a wife and mother, on the contrary, she was trained in public speaking, debating and treated as her brother’s equal. Later this helped Ramabai enter the public, male arena of social reform without any hesitation. Her life though was mired with tragedy – the parents were lost to the famine when Ramabai was only 16. A year later, in 1875, Krishnabai also died of cholera. The brother-sister duo continued their pilgrimage and they chanced upon arriving in Calcutta in 1878. The Brahmo Samaj in Calcutta had already started the social reforms (Bengal was under the British hegemony almost a century before the Maratha Confederacy) and Ramabai was taken in to the movement. Her intellect and Sanskrit skills were honored by bestowing the titles of Pandita (the learned one, feminine form of Pundit) and Sarasvati (the Goddess of Learning) on her. The Pandita delivered public and private lectures on the emancipation of women and soon achieved the fame of being a champion of women’s education. But personal tragedy struck again and again. Srinivas Shastri died of cholera in 1880. Alone and helpless, Ramabai married Srinivas’s friend Bipin Behari Das Medhavi a non-Brahmin Brahmo Lawyer and gave birth to a girl, Manorama. In 1882, cholera struck again, leaving Ramabai a widow and a mother of an infant.

Caste bonds are strong in Indian society even today. At that time, they were stronger. The reformers of Maharashtra laid claim on their ‘native daughter’ and the Pandita came to Pune. Immediately she became a part of the reform movement of the Prarthana Samaj and became one of us in the Chitpavan Brahmin community.

The post-Peshwa but pre-reform society is difficult to understand. The society was rigidly divided on the caste strata. Position of a woman was even difficult. The only status a woman ever had was only if she were married and had sons (daughters did not count). Widows were the lowest rung of the society and were disfigured via tonsured heads and coarse clothes. Their presence was considered inauspicious and sinful. Imagine the outrage it must have caused when the Pandita talked of emancipation of the women!

A part of the social reform had already started with Mahatma Phule taking steps towards education of women and setting an example by educating his own wife Savitribai. Savitribai was now a teacher in a school she ran with the help of her husband. The likes of Justice MG Ranade, Lokahitwadi Deshmukh, Sir RG Bhandarkar, Justice Telang, Lokmanya Tilak, GG Agarkar had started taking steps towards social reforms, equality and education. (Justice Telang presided over the first recorded divorce case filed in the Bombay High Court by a woman. At that time, the law did not allow women to file for divorce. Later the same woman – Rakhmabai – went to England for further education and became the third woman-doctor in India. She spent most of her life in Surat/Baroda taking care of the ill). The social reforms were a men’s world and interfering in the men’s task was not tolerated. Savitribai herself faced a lot of trouble. Justice Ranade’s wife, another Ramabai, had started a society called Seva Sadan that brought helpless women together. But it was still under the guidance of the Justice himself. The Pandita started Arya Mahila Samaj – a society intended to mobilize women through consciousness-raising, but this was treated as a threat by the male dominated reform movement.

The opposition faced by the Pandita renewed her ambition to study medicine and she decided to travel to England. The Sisters of the Community of St. Mary the Virgin at Wantage arranged for her stay. She was to earn her living by teaching Marathi to the Sisters. The Sisters were to be sent to Western India but there was a clear understanding that the Pandita would not convert to Christianity. The Pandita continued her emancipation of women movement by writing on behalf of the Arya Mahila Samaj, raising funds and meeting influential people (One such being Sir Bartle Frere, former Governor of the Bombay Presidency). Despite of the Pandita’s understanding on non-conversion, the Sisters genuinely believed that she was in England as an inquirer to study Christianity. The pressure and coercion started mounting slowly. Out of fear, the Pandita’s companion Anandibai Bhagat tried to strangle her master (it was better to die Hindu, than to live Christian) and later committed suicide herself. Anandibai was baptized on her deathbed and under pressure, the Pandita converted to Christianity to be baptized into the Anglican Church as Mary Rama (along with her daughter Manorama Mary).

This event had a paramount impact on the Brahmin community in Pune and Calcutta and this of course, did not go well with them. The Pandita never explained it and she was never exonerated for her misstep. It was however, inexplicable that a woman of her intellectual capability would be forced to take such a step. The Sisters Community even started planning a missionary career for the Pandita. Later, her medical studies discontinued because of an incurable deafness and she enrolled in the Cheltenham Ladies’ College as teacher-student – learning Natural Sciences, Mathematics and English and giving Sanskrit lessons in return.

The Pandita was invited to be present at the convocation ceremony of Dr. Anandibai Joshee – the first woman doctor of India at the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. She delivered several lectures on the cause of the Indian women and published essays on the same subject in the United States during her stay there for over two years. She also started writing a book called United Stateschi Lokasthiti ani Pravasvritta (the People of the United States and a Travelogue) contrasting a vibrant, progressive democracy with the colonial Britain. A society called The Ramabai Association of Boston was formed to help the Pandita’s cause in India.

After coming back, the Pandita started the Sharada Sadan (Home for Learning) for widows. Within two years, the Sadan found itself in the middle of a storm caused by the allegations of proselytization. A sensitive issue with the orthodox Indian community, it snowballed quickly leading to much bitterness. Later the Pandita started an overtly Christian institution called the Mukti Sadan (Home of Salvation) and expanded it into the Mukti Mission. The Pandita also started focusing on women from the lower castes and moved away from Pune. She started many schools and taught income generating skills (like nursing, tailoring, waving, operating a printing press etc.) to the women she housed.

At some point, with the revelation in the classic Christian tradition, faith superseded intellectual questioning and her earlier openness to religious issues gradually was usurped by blatant proselytizing. She also believed that the Hindu women would take shelter in her institutions and realize that their oppression can be remedied only by conversion to Christianity. This marginalized the Pandita from the mainstream reform activities.

The British Government recognizing her contribution to the social reforms awarded her Kaiser-i-Hind gold medal in 1919. The final personal tragedy fell upon the Pandita when her forty year old daughter Manorama died in 1921. The Pandita died in 1922. Such is the life history of a brilliant, pro-reform, feminist, scholar who lived during the period when many transitions in the Indian society took place.

The Pandita has written many essays and letters. She writes about Stri Dharma Niti – Morals for Women. She writes about her personal experience during the famine. She writes about the Hindu Dharma, the High-Caste Hindu Women, the Conditions of Women in the USA, about her own work at the Mukti Sadan and Kripa Sadan. Some of her essays have been translated from Marathi into English by Meera Kosambi and some published for the first time. What will these essays hold? Will the feminist Pandita expect the woman to blindly follow instructions from her husband in Stri Dharma Niti? Will the essays on Mukti Sadan and Kripa Sadan take a critical view of the Hindu dharma? I will read and find out, through her own words!

The Pandita’s contribution to the cause of women immense. One cannot debate on the attributes that placed her among the scholars. Standing up to the men in those days required immense courage and the Pandita had it. The outsider element came from the Pandita’s accepting Christianity. But the Marathi society still feels the Pandita as one of us.