Know thy History

In India history as a discipline has been a much maligned subject. Just need to look at the controversy each version of the NCERT history texts generate. This does not happen with any other discipline. But as a normal interest area of a student, the importance of history is declining. it is even losing favour with potential Civil Services candidates. I think it would be a sad day for us when our civil servants are not well read and not well read into our history. Among the civil servants especially those who rise high to determine local policies and are responsible for security some books which are quite immortal much be read and updated. I was for example told by a senior civil servant of kerala cadre that William Logan's Malabar Manual written in the 19th century was the most helpful book he ever read as a non Malayali officer of Kerala cadre. He in fact has committed the book to memory. it helped that he was interested in reading as a Engligh literature student and as a polyglot. another important sets of books were the District Gazette series. I have read most of them pertaining to Bihar and Bengal and though written in the 19th century and some of them shoddily updated in the 1970s, they are a wealth of information for the educated district officer. As are the Final Report on Survey and Settlement operations of each district [there would be one for each british district]. As opposed to Col Todd's romaticised Annals of Rajasthan or numberous British translations of Persian and Sanskrit texts, the works that i mention are based on field surveys and meeting with real people and what they thought of themselves and others in thier locality. Also, a must read are the decennial census reports starting in Bengal from 1872 and appearing regularly for each province from 1891 up to today. They are literally invaluable in understanding local language, customs etc. I wonder how many of our civil servants would have read any of these. It does not really help especially since most of our civil servants have little or no training in social sciences [they are mainly engineers and management students or worse still doctors].

To the senior policy makers given the political situation in the country I take the liberty of suggesting an essential reading: William Hunter's "Indian Mussalmans". Published in 1882, less than 30 years after the first "Indian War of Independence " this book is a masterpiece. Hunter was probably the first one to envision that from the Northwest frontier provice [starting in what is now Afghanistan] to the gangetic delta in what is now Bangladesh, there was a continuous tract running through punjab, united provinces {UP}, Bihar and Bengal dominated by the Muslims whose social needs, needs to address their grievances were different as were there responses to the reforming influences of the British rule. Juxtapose this area on a current map of India and you would begin to realise the importance of this book.

Another set of books came out from the mid 20th century till recently. These set of books spoke about civil disturbances, popular movements, millennium movements etc. in a geographical congruous area forming a necklace from southern bengal bihar, chattisgarh, madhya pradesh, andhra pradesh, maharashtra and western parts of Gujarat. Plot this area on the map of India. You will not miss to note two things: a) the area is mostly dominated by "adivasis" b) this is a the now dreaded naxalite belt".

Who says you dont learn from history? it all depends on whether you want to learn anything from it.

Cheers,

Ancient Wisdom

Many years back I was told by the scion of a large industry house down south that it was a matter of shame that while the Japanese, Chinese and the Koreans always go back to their ancient corpus of knowledge at times of crisis or faced with a dilemma, Indians would fall back and rely on American and English books of management. This was seen clearly as a sign of what came to be known, thanks mainly to many historians, "colonisation of the mind". I am all against the concept, who in their right minds would like to be colonised at this day and age.
To back to the ancient Indian wisdom when faced with crisis was easy for me being trained in Indian history and having actually read some of those classical beauties. Life for me has become much easier since then and I can not resist sharing some of those philosophies with you. 1. No salary rise for 3 years? Open the Gita: it tells you "serve with love without hope for reward [sounds very biblical too]
2. Dont fear if you are blamed to be ostentatious: Open Charvaka "As long as you live happily, if need be borrow and buy ghee" Sounds dangerously like the hedonists of ancient Greek.
3. Tax Raids: Don't be demoralised. Arthashastra prescribed taxing prostitutes [I guess that would have been the service tax] Our Finance Minister has not come anywhere as close
4. Fear of taking risks: Open Mahabharata, five young men of decent upbringing chose to gamble with a professional gambler to get a kingdom and at the end they were successful... but at the very end.
5. Fear of backbiting: Get used to it. Read Mahabharata again.
6. One of the corporate tricks is not to take any decisions: Like Narasimha Rao was supposed to have done when he was the prime minister: Who did he learn that from? Of course Bhishma Pitamaha, Dhritarashtra and other seniors who just sat and watched while Draupadi was being de-sareed.
7. Non-nepotism: Remember Rama asked his wife to go through the fire test. You can do the same to your nephew at the interview.
8. Finally, gender Equality: At least 5 Dharmashastras devote 20 per cent space to the same subject "how to control" women. What does that mean? Since ancient times, women were not controllable by men... So why try it now?
Tathastu...

India: Living on the Edge!

As an avid watcher [and only a wacther] of AXN and other similar channels which highlight the acts of bravado that "others" perform on screen such as bungee jumping, skydiving, rock climbing, fighting with crocodiles, participating in reality shows where spiders are showered on you or you are asked to eat crocodile eggs or kiss a crocodile on the lips; I have always wondered are we Indians a nation of cowards? are we incapble of such acts of gross and raw bravery? It would apparently seem so, since not one of these shows ever features an Indian. On the other hand from American Idol to all sorts of "gambling" and guessing sort of programmes you would see a fair number of Indians participating.
I thought about it long and hard and was just about to get depressed when the idea stuck. Why do you have to display overt acts of bravado in front of a camera or in an attempt at self fulfilment when your day to day living itself is so dangerous? Irresepective of caste, colur creed or sex all indians live dangerously and on the edge. You don't believe me? Read on:
Farmer: fear of crop failure, non- repayment of loans, expenses on marriage and death, floods, caste and revenge killings
Rich Farmer: Fear of dacoity, retaliation, kidnap of children
urban poor: fear of death by contamination, death due to misdiagnosis, death due to illicit liquor, death due to train, bus accident; fear of employer, fear of unemployment
urban middle class: Fear of EMI, Fear of crowded skies, Fear of being banged by a truck on the road, fear of children being kidnapped to raped; fear of losing jobs, fear of lack of balance between home and office, fear of aspirations not being met.
Business man: Fear of new taxes, fear of collapse of stockmarkets, fear of sealing, fear of kidnap, fear of raids,
Bureaucrats: Fear of RTI, fear of being shunted, fear of being bypassed for promotion
Industrialist: Fear of workers, fear of government rules, fear of FERA, FEMA and many others, fear of hostile takeovers
Politicians: Fear of losing elections and retaliation, fear of immigration authorities, fear of tehelka

We have to overcome so many fears each day just in order to live on to the next that we find acts of bravado done for TV shows or for self-fulfillment pretty gross and pompous.

What do you say?

Globalised Names

Much before Indian economy became globalised and Indian women started wearing hipsters, Indian parents in order to make their children more competitive and hip and cool have been giving "global" names to their children. So in Punjab you had Tony, Vicky, Lucky and Bobby, In Kerala you had a Dolly Nair and in rest of India you had anything in between.
Bengalis have been very serious about names and for at least the last 70 years preferred secular names. My late father had the fancy and short name of Subrata, he was born in early 1930s. I think Bengalis did away with mythic and religious names long time back and became serious about names. A case in the point is the full version of my own name:) It is little wonder therefore, in globalised names too, Bengalis have been thought leaders. I knew someone in Calcutta who was named Monami Mitra [From the french mon ami] In the Calcutta of 1960s you could find many a woman named Lucy [not to be confused with the bengali Luchi]; and a class mate of mine was called Happy Ghosh. I do not think any other region can beat that.
My pride in Bengali names lasted for nearly as long as I have lived and increased until last week. It happened on a Saturday when I was working alone in my office with the front door of the office open and unattended. On hearing footsteps and rightly suspecting that it might be a bunch of salespersons I got up to get out my room and to confront them. I am usually very poilte but firm with such pushy salespersons but that day I was in a foul mood and decided to be very rude and nasty. In fact when I left my chair I was already gnashing my teeth. By the time I entered reached the door of my room to get into the hall from where the footsteps were coming, two young salespersons were alredy pushing open my cabin door. At which my determination to get rude became even firmer.
Finally, I managed to open the door first and before I could open my mouth, a young man, very fair and with locks that must have killed a hundred girls spoke up " Sir I am from Hutch and my name is Romeo Khan". I do not know what happened to me, suddenly instead of shouting at the guy and being rude I burst out into incessant peels of laughter.... The only thing I remembered while laughing was why didn't the guys parents name him Majnu Khan, why Romeo? By the time I had finished laughing Romeo Khan and his female colleague had left my office. Probably taking me to be insane. While I resumed work after that hysterical bout of laughter, I remembered you can not be more rude to a person than laughing at his name.
I also realised sadly that the best global names in India did not come out of Bengali households anymore.....
Jai Bharat

Zombie Banks

If you do not know what that term means, you can either call up an economist friend or forget about it, it does not really matter. Simply, put a public sector bank becomes zombie when the government is ready to put just enough money for it to survive and not enough for it to thrive and grow in a liberablised environment. The term was used by Percy Mistry who chaired a committee to prepare a report on how to make Mumbai a financial hub [not clear financial hub of world, india or maharashtra, I guess it must be the world since all of us are thinking global nowadays]

The excerpts of the report that I have read with a layman's perspective has lead me to the conclusion that in order to make mumbai a financial hub the enitre country or at least the entire financial policy and structure have to change. Hah hah!

However, this entry is not about making mumbai hub of high finance, but about a so called zombie bank and my experiences with it. When I enter the bank at 10 am every one seems to be awake and there are actual people in the counters, who talk to you, sort out your problems and very often know you and your last transaction. From opening to a locker to closing an account can be done absolutely fast. You sometimes also get a cup of tea while you are waiting to be served. This does not look zombie to me at all. Most important people in the counters do not change every week and they do not forget the commitments they make to you for the next week.
Compare this with a non-zombie bank which is more in news for floating ADRs and aspiring to become the largest bank in India and aiming to lead the charge if Mumbai ever becomes an international financial hub... It took me two months to convert an account to a joint account since every week the person behind the counter changed and each time I went back the person had no idea about my application form and supporting documents. Nothing is issued from the branch, you would have to wait for everything to come from "mumbai service centre"; cheques are home delivered, except that the couriers have strict indstructions to give it to the person whose name they are in [you are expected to wait at home because the couriers choose to come only in the afternoons or soon after you have left for office]. Even if you have an account with them they will not endorse your address. All these and much more in the name of "your own security". I feel proud that at least in my bank I have Z category security, makes me feel like Jyoti Basu. But does it really make my banking better. Not at all. Of course, a new feature has been added recently to help me serve better, I have to take a queue number even to queue up......

I think I would prefer zombie banks any day. What would you prefer?

Hype over Hapoos

Summers in Mumbai are always interesting especially in traffic junctions when the hapoos vendors vie for space with sellers of pirated books, toys and other sundry items. Many of these vendors change vocations and switch to selling hapoos during summer going back to pirated books and cheap toys when the hapoos season is over.

14 years ago when I first visited Mumbai [having spent a considerable amout of my life in backward areas such as Bihar, Kolkata and Delhi] I was curiously amused by the fact that mangoes were sold in card board boxes. I had before that never seen mangoes being sold in cardboard boxes in street corners or at traffic junctions much like some tacky consumer item. I was also shocked by the price [which still continues to shock me, although at 300 Rs a dozen every Mumbai equivalent of Tom, Dick and Harry are lapping it up]. A year later and for many years after that, I regularly saw those cardboard boxes making their leisurely journeys on the numerous carousels at Heathrow Terminal 3, as an essential part of the travelling NRI, most of whom actually carried them to sell them at even more exhorbitant prices in their corner shops. The famous hapoos has now worked its way to the US, of course in much puerer form through irradiation and all that. I am happy for the hapoos. It has been the most internationally recognised mango brand from India and given some time, it will definitely give a run for its money to those large ugly fibrous red and yellow mosters from latin america which pass off as mogoes in the west. At least our friends in the west will know what a real mango is [it is not a sour vegetable most certainly but a sweet seasonal fruit!]. I am happy too for the exporters and the orchard owners who would make a mean buck by exporting the delectable hapoos.

I, however, am of the opinion, that hapoos is a highly overated fruit in India. It is an aspirational fruit and people buy it for snob value. And quite frankly it it overpriced. And more dangerously, it has hegemonised the discourse on mangoes in India - people, at least in western India, do not seem to care for any other mangoes. It is much like the case of Nescafe and Bru which most people in India take to be the real thing which they certainly are not.

While the hoopla over hapoos is killing much of the varietly in western India, I can vouch for north and east Indians that they do not care much about hapoos/alphonso. Ask any self respecting mango lover anywhere between Delhi and Kolkata, they will probably name the famous Langra [literally lame]. In spite of its being of very high quality and dominant in the minds of people up north and east, the poor langra has not killed its lesser cousins the zardalu, safeda, malda, himsagar or the hunk of a mango called fazli. In fact, mango season follows a complicated ritual in these parts. Unlike in Mumbai, you do not start and end the season with Hapoos. it is far more complicated and graduated...

Here is how it goes at least in eastern India... At the first flush of summer say in April you start of with the fazli which is sweetest when unripe and tasteless when ripe, then move on to the tasteless but colourful sindoori which is often sour, but tastes good really since you have not had mangoes for a year. Then the yelllow safedas make their appearance, slightly better tending towards sweeter, then comes the higher quality ones like himsagar, zardalu and the rest and the climax is reached with Langra which comes towards the end of the season. The defining features of a good langra from outside are two and you can not miss them: a) they look exactly like the mangoes that your teacher taught you to draw in school b) they are still green when ripe. The defining feature inside is fibreless, not too soft and exquisitely tasting golden fruit with a very small stone and paper thin skin. Commercially, it is good value for money too. Last season I bought them in Delhi at 35 Rs a kilo [a kilo would take 5 magoes].

But alas, like all good things, the langra season does not last for more than 15 days in the summer and if you are a fan, you have to make the most during that short time. And do not look out for them from March end to September, they are not sold irradiated in cardboard packets, nor do they travel across the globe as accessories of NRIs. They are home made, home grown and are there to tickle your taste buds for 15 days a year only.