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.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
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.
“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.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
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.
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.
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