Modern Times

It was interesting to read Jagdish Bhagwati invoking Chaplin's Modern Times in his comments to Financial Times on Jan 3, 2007 titled "Technology, not globalisation, drives wages down".

He says: "Recall how he (Charlie) goes berserk on the assembly line, the mechanical motion of turning the spanner finally getting to him. There are assembly lines today, but they are without workers; they are managed by computers in a glass cage above, with highly skilled engineers in charge.
Such technical change is quickly spreading through the system. This naturally creates, in the short-run, pressure on the jobs and wages of the workers being displaced."

What about alienation? I thought the scene from Modern Times was more about Charlie's alienation than his wages.

What is true of a call center worker in 1936 below is perhaps still valid for a swanky BPO factory in India today.

Artist : Alain publication- The New Yorker 11 Jan 1936

Culture Vulture of Pune

I have been living in Pune since 1999. Pune they say is a cultural capital of province of Maharashtra, India.

For me culture is first and foremost civility and I think Pune lags behind many other cities of India in that regard. I have seen people here getting ruder and ruder. But even I was shocked to learn this.

"Parking woes assume serious proportions Times of India December 22 2006

Pune: One would never have imagined that serious crimes like culpable homicide, assault and threats would replace squabbles over parking of vehicles in the city. Developments over the past four days only go to prove that parking woes are now leading to serious crimes.

Barely four days ago, a man lost his life allegedly over the issue of parking, in Bibvewadi (my suburb).

In another case, the same night, Prashant Chaudhari (32) of Sanghvinagar lodged a complaint with the Chatushrungi police station (noncognizable offence registration number 5103/06), alleging that a top army officer assaulted him over the issue of parking and threatening him with dire consequences.

These are not stray cases. Police stations of Deccan Gymkhana, Vishrambaug, Faraskhana, Khadak, Swargate, Bund Garden and Cantonment have received complaints of brawls involving motorists over parking of vehicles. "

Pleading guy in the picture has to careful. At Pune, he may never need to park his vehicle again!


Artist : Helen E Hokinson published The New Yorker 4 Jan 1936

God bless you!

Few bad or evil things can have some good consequences. Unintended mostly.

Friedrich Nietzsche claimed- war built courage & honor in men.

Black plague of 14th century that annihilated third of Europe's population may have caused emergence of the Renaissance.

Tragic crash of meteor 65 million years ago wiped out dinosaurs giving a chance to rat like mammals to launch their bid to rule the earth one day in future.

Leave alone these big things. Even a minor (not so minor for those like me who suffer from it) ailment like common cold too can have a positive fall-out.

Artist : Sidney Hoff published The New Yorker March 5 1960

BTW- man may achieve whatever. For example virtual sex as in Minority Report. But he will not stop dreaming of eradicating common cold. Good luck!

Uninfomed opinion

Television has bred our familiarity with strangers.

For instance, Sunil Gavaskar is someone who comes to our drawing room every day of the cricket match. Talking intimately. Gossiping. Therefore, we have an opinion on everything Gavaskar does or has done in the past, not just related to cricket.

Uninformed opinion is perhaps the most important characteristics of our age.

Artist: Everett Opie published The New Yorker Jan 30 1960

p.s After I wrote above, I came across following in FOUAD AJAMI's review of Pervez Musharraf's books "IN THE LINE OF FIRE, A Memoir" (NYT Jan 7 2007).

"We may not know Bahrain but we can be friends with its king; we may not have known Persian ways, nothing, for instance, of the seminarian culture of Qum, but we knew Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, and our travelers and diplomats and journalists felt at home in his court. Jordan may be a realm apart, a place of poverty and a breeding ground of angry warriors of the faith, but young King Abdullah II and his queen, Rania, are fixtures on the international circuit. And now that we have extravaganzas like Davos, no land is truly foreign, the exotic rulers can rub shoulders with Oliver Stone and Angelina Jolie. They can all serve on panels together. Why bother learning Arabic, Farsi or Urdu, when the rulers of distant lands offer a shortcut for the voyeurs and the travelers. "

Therefore, if Opie were to draw this picture from Kennedy's viewpoint, it might read: "It is hard for me to have an opinion about Sheikh or his camel since I haven't met them or been to his land or studied anything about his culture........hey but hold on, I am meeting him at Davos next month and then maybe I will know enough about all this to invade and occupy his land"

We’re killers, but we won’t kill today

Artist: Dana Fradon published : The New Yorker 24 Dec 1960

Dear Mr. Fradon,

It is very likely I have no clue to your cartoon here. However, I am going to try because I like it.
In December '60, your lady character did some crystal ball gazing to proclaim “no war”. I envy her ball’s optimism. Yes, it is very wonderful if anyone or anything foretells no war for next 7 years. But I have some bad news to report from year 2007. ‘1960’ was as bad a decade as any in 20th century- easily the bloodiest century in human history by some distance.

The lady in your picture perhaps shared her findings with our Prime Minister Nehru (who often was a target of the late Shankar of your tribe, India’s most celebrated cartoonist) because he too believed that there would be no wars.

Our nation had lost most of its innocence during ethnic cleansings following 1947's partition and assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. We lost the rest when we fought two horrible conflicts- with China in 1962 and Pakistan in 1965 - paving the way for what economist Surjit Bhalla calls "rotten age period (1960 to 1980) of declining growth and increasing poverty". During the time, India as a country went nowhere while our East Asian neighbors marched on to tiger-hoods lifting millions out of poverty.

Elsewhere the world looked down the barrel of nuclear gun with 1961’s Bay of Pigs Invasion and another bloody chapter was written in the history of Middle East with 1967’s Six-Day War (Third Arab-Israeli War). Btw- you know ink in the latter is still very wet. As I write this, one more colourful chapter is being written there.

You may visit Wikipedia to learn the complete list of conflicts at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_1945%E2%80%931989#1960_-_1969

However, I want to end on an optimistic note of Star Trek’s Capt. James T. Kirk

“We’re human beings, with the blood of a million savage years on our hands. But we can stop it. We can admit that we’re killers, but we won’t kill today.”

Sincerely,

Adam's Curse

In Maharashtra,India, when people are describing someone male, borne in early to mid 20th century, one attribute is often used to describe their nature- volatile- given to extreme anger. My father’s father belonged to that category and my father followed the suit. My son may write what I do.

According to my father, he loved his father deeply. My father, when he was twenty-one, married my mother much against his father’s wishes. He and his father remained estranged until I was 27. For almost 30 years, they did not meet each other, including when my father’s mother died.

My wedding gave some kind of an opportunity to both of them to patch up. They seemed to succeed at that. I was present at their reunion. It was both moving and funny. Moving for obvious reasons. Funny because I don't know what happens when you lead your separate lives for 30 years!

Then, I had heard my grand father was making plans to visit and stay with my parents for few days. But suddenly he died leaving behind a will.

The document disinherited four of his sons bequeathing all his property (including some prime property in Pune) to his youngest son. My father did not want a dime from his father but what really broke his heart was the will document spoke scathingly of him. My father thought my grandpa might not give him anything material but would recognise his qualities as a good son. He did neither. He perhaps never forgave my father.

All because, remember, my grandpa’s nature was volatile!

Did my grandpa look like Peter Arno's character below when he wrote his will?

BTW- Another volatile old man I knew, my friend's grandpa- Bedekar, looked like the old man in the picture. I don't know about his will but I remember his anger. When my friend and I were playing a game of chess, he came over and started moving pieces on his grandson's behalf. Unfortunately he lost. His whole body was shaking. I was scared.

Artist: Peter Arno Publication date : Dec 7, 1940

For whom the bell tolls.......

Art critic and a versatile artist himself the late Da Ga Godse द ग गोडसे wrote a brilliant essay “Ashtavinayak” for Maharashtra Times annual 1975. It is now part of his book “Samande Talash” (Shree Vidya Prakashan 1981). DGD has claimed in his essay that ancient Ashtavinayaka’s have nothing to do with ‘modern’ idol of Ganapati.

When on a visit to one of the eight Vinayaka’s, Girijatmak at Junnar, Maharashtra, he discovered how a Buddhist Vihar has been intruded into by Hindus and converted into a very popular temple. He was particularly angered by the ugly sight (attached newly to that ancient roof) and cacophonic sound of the temple bell there. Godse imagined how quiet it would have been there, few hundred years before, when Buddhist monks sat down for meditation. The only sound they occasionally made was of their breathing!

But a faithful has little regard for sensitivities of others around him. He wants to ring the bell hardest so that god hears him. He wants to sing hymns loudest so that god hears him. For many years now, Ganpati festival, spread over 10 days, has been the biggest sound polluter in Maharashtra. The next comes Diwali, particularly the day of Laxmi Puja, when you wish you were deaf for few evening hours when Puja is being performed.

Unfortunately, unlike in the picture, I cannot get the hell out of here.


Artist : Alain Published : The New yorker Aug 13, 1960

Jeevo Jeevasya Jeevanam

When I was working at a mega-corp in last century, I told my colleagues how our lives resembled to that being shown on National Geographic or Animal Planet.

Call it what you like: dog eats dog, eat or be eaten, survival of the fittest, a rat race (that makes you a rat even if you win it), in Sanskrit –Jeevo Jeevasya Jeevanam etc.

My colleagues made light of that and dispersed laughing. I knew they were little nervous.



Artist : James Stevenson Published The New Yorker 27 Aug 1960

Cause draft, cause gale

In India where most public places are crowded, you are in constant danger of becoming an unintended victim of your fellow citizens. I use public transport a lot. Therefore, I have some first hand experience.

People can gesticulate so much that they may end up giving you a bloody nose. Then, there is a constant threat of wild sneezing, a shower of saliva while talking, spitting while chewing pan or a booger hidden in a dark corner. Not to mention loud and irritating conversations on the mobile phones, habit of crossing their legs while sitting very close soiling your trousers with their footwear……….

On a cricket field, a batsman with a big backlift can cause a draft in the slips by waving his bat violently.

Here, speaker on the dais has caused a draft. Giving chills to Richard Nixon.

Btw- Nixon sitting dignified here lost this particular election all right but soon, when elected, his actions would produce a gale called Watergate.


Artist: William O'Brian published The New Yorker Oct 1, 1960

Don't get 'Mall'ed

Artist: James Stevenson Publsihed : The New Yorker December 10 1960

In India, retail revolution is supposed to have begun. Malls have now become landmarks. ‘Maller’ the place, better it is. May not be for living but certainly for buying property! When I recently quizzed a relative, an NRI doctor, why she did not return to India, she said ya it should be considered as India now has malls!

But never dare say, commercialism should be taken out of Diwali or Ganpati or Durga Puja or Christmas. You sure will be ‘mall’ed.

James Surowiecki, author of that brilliant “The Wisdom of Crowds”, has written an essay “THE GIFT RIGHT OUT” in The New Yorker dated Dec 25, 2006

He says: “Christmas shopping in the U.S. has been a reliable source of anxiety and stress for well over a century. “As soon as the Thanksgiving turkey is eaten, the great question of buying Christmas presents begins to take the terrifying shape it has come to assume in recent years,” the New York Tribune wrote in 1894…………..In fact, the more we spend at Christmas, the more we waste. We might actually be happier—and we’d certainly be wealthier—if we exchanged small, well-considered gifts rather than haunting the malls”.