A Special Prayer for Bhopal's Local Court

Dilip Chitre's (दिलीप चित्रे) e-mail to me on August 6 2009:

"Dear Aniruddha,

...To compare Bhopal 1984 with Mumbai 26/11 is not wholly unproductive. Innocent citizens of Bhopal didn't know they were at war with the giant Union Carbide corporation and that both the Union and the State government had welcomed the huge plant.

I am too close to the tragedy as it mentally maimed my only son, probably made an impact on my daughter-in-law and their six months old foetus that survived the nightmare now 25 and healthy).

best,

Dilip Chitre

एक पलड़े में नपुंसकता,
एक पलड़े में पौरुष,
और ठीक तराजू के कांटे पर,
अर्ध सत्य


Artist: Alan Dunn, The New Yorker, July 21, 1962

Where do Marriages go?

When I heard that Gores were splitting- Al and Tipper Gore separating after 40 years of marriage- my only thought was: Would they have done it if Mr. Gore had become the president of USA?

"Ellie: Our marriage wasn't going anywhere.

Val: Where do you want it to go? Where do marriages go? After a while they just lay there. That's the thing about marriages."

(Hollywood Ending, 2002)

Not all men think like Val.

DEIRDRE BAIR says in NYT June 4 2010:"For many married 20 to 60-plus years, the decision to divorce does not mean failure and shame, but opportunity."

Indeed opportunity for a few as depicted in the picture below!


'There’s no easy way of saying this — remember how stunning you looked when we first met, darling? I’m leaving you for a similar woman.’

Courtesy: Spectator, June 2010

Any Merit in Meritlist?

The best news to have come my way in 2010 is:

The established practice followed annually while declaring the HSC (std XII) results was discarded on Tuesday with the Maharashtra State Board for Secondary and Higher Secondary Education refraining from announcing the names of the aggregate toppers in the state or in each the eight divisions. (The Times of India, May 26, 2010)

I always thought the practice was vulgar display of one's so-called "merit".

Of course, our media is so perverse that Marathi news channel Starmajha (स्टार माझा) 'discovered' the topper and put her on their show.

Where has meritocracy led us?

ROSS DOUTHAT: "...This is the perverse logic of meritocracy. Once a system grows sufficiently complex, it doesn’t matter how badly our best and brightest foul things up. Every crisis increases their authority, because they seem to be the only ones who understand the system well enough to fix it.

But their fixes tend to make the system even more complex and centralized, and more vulnerable to the next national-security surprise, the next natural disaster, the next economic crisis. Which is why, despite all the populist backlash and all the promises from Washington, this isn’t the end of the “too big to fail” era. It’s the beginning..."

Artist: Rea Gardner, The New Yorker, 10 Nov 1945

Thoughts on Turning 50

Joseph Conrad: "...In this world — as I have known it — we are made to suffer without the shadow of a reason, of a cause or of guilt.... There is no morality, no knowledge and no hope; there is only the consciousness of ourselves which drives us about a world that... is always but a vain and floating appearance....
A moment, a twinkling of an eye and nothing remains — but a clot of mud, of cold mud, of dead mud cast into black space, rolling around an extinguished sun. Nothing. Neither thought, nor sound, nor soul. Nothing.

. . . No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence—that which makes its truth, its meaning—its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream—alone. . . .”

Recently I turned 50.

And so once one clown.

His life was aptly described by a poet.

B S Mardhekar (बा. सी. मर्ढेकर):

पंक्चरली जरि रात्र दिव्यांनीं,
तरी पंपतो कुणी काळोख;
हसण्याचें जरि वेड लागलें,
भुंकतात तरि अश्रू चोख.

("Punctured though night is by lightbulbs,
Someone keeps pumping darkness;
Though laughter crazed,
tears bark alright.")

He then fell ill.

He knew the saying: laughter is the best medicine.

But one day that medicine stopped working.


Artist: Charles Barsotti, The New Yorker http://www.barsotti.com/

Some more days passed and then one day...



Artist: Oliver Gaspirtz http://www.gaspirtz.com/

He was often heard quoting a borrowed line: life is habit – that it is all just a series of motions devoid of meaning.

The Man Who Tried - G P Pradhan

I hardly knew the late Mr. Pradhan although I first heard his name during the Emergency. I once saw him at the book release function described here.

I have a couple of his books but nothing noteworthy about them.

However, I have always been impressed by his dedication to the causes he believed in. And his philanthropy- he gave away his only house.

He was one of the last of a generation that produced many men and women like him. For them selfishness and greed were sins.

Did Shri GuruCharitra give them Alternate Miracle, Mystery and Authority?

"Shri GuruCharitra" c 1500 CE by Saraswati Gangadhar (श्रीगुरुचरित्र, सरस्वती गंगाधर) is one of the most popular books in Marathi. It's a biography of Narasimha Saraswati c 1378−1458 CE (नरसिंह सरस्वती).

I have never read it because I was told that it contained a lot of 'reactionary nonsense'.

Currently, I am planning to read it in not-so-distant future.

What is the importance of the book, if any, and why did it do so well?

Setu Madhavrao Pagdi (सेतु माधवराव पगडी) has written on it for his book "Bhartiya Musalman: Shodh ani Bodh" (भारतीय मुसलमानः शोध आणि बोध).

Pagdi argues the book helped preserve and revive the Hindu religion and the culture.

According to Pagdi, the most important message of the book was:

when you decide to serve your Guru, you needn't serve any one else, you needn't even be loyal to your ruler, who were happened to be mostly Muslims.

This caught my attention.

Why do most of the people need an authority to be loyal to? Why do they need miracle and mystery to put their faith into?

John Gray explains:

"...The Grand Inquisitor tells Jesus that humanity is too weak to bear the gift of freedom. It does not seek freedom but bread – not the divine bread promised by Jesus, but ordinary earthly bread. People will worship whomever gives them bread, for they need their rulers to be gods. The Grand Inquisitor tells Jesus that his teaching has been amended to deal with humanity as it really is: ‘We have corrected Thy work and have founded it on miracle, mystery and authority. And men rejoiced that they were again led like sheep, and that the terrible gift that brought them such suffering was, at last, lifted from their hearts.’

...D H Lawrence: Surely it is true. Today, man gets his sense of the miraculous from science and machinery, radio, airplanes, vast ships, zeppelins, poison gas, artificial silk: these things nourish man’s sense of the miraculous as magic did in the past.... Dostoevsky’s diagnosis of human nature is simple and unanswerable. We have to submit, and agree that men are like that.

Lawrence was right. Today, for the mass of humanity, science and technology embody ‘miracle, mystery and authority’. Science promises that the most ancient human fantasies will at last be realised. Sickness and ageing will be abolished; scarcity and poverty will be no more; the species will become immortal. Like Christianity in the past, the modern cult of science lives on the hope of miracles. But to think that science can transform the human lot is to believe in magic. Time retorts to the illusions of humanism with the reality: frail, deranged, undelivered humanity. Even as it enables poverty to be diminished and sickness to be alleviated, science will be used to refine tyranny and perfect the art of war.

The truth that Dostoevsky puts in the mouth of the Grand Inquisitor it that humankind has never sought freedom, and never will. The secular religions of modern times tell us that humans yearn to be free; and it is true that they find restraint of any kind irksome. Yet it is rare mat individuals value their freedom more than the comfort that comes with servility, and rarer still for whole peoples to do so. As Joseph dc Maistre commented on Rousseau’s dictum that men are born free but are everywhere in chains: to think that, because a few people sometimes seek freedom, all human beings want it is like thinking that, because there are flying fish, it is in the nature of fish to fly..." (Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals, 2003)

Shri GuruCharitra perhaps gave our ancestors alternate 'miracle, mystery and authority' to that given by their Muslim rulers.

Was it for the better or the worse?

I don't know.

Today science and technology have given us alternate 'miracle, mystery and authority'.

Is it for the better or the worse?

Don't know again.


Artist: Dana Fradon, The New Yorker, 19 July 1993

Never Throw a Stone at Chameleon because She could be Lonely

One barbaric practice I often witnessed in my childhood at Miraj was: Boys throwing stones at chameleons and dogs.

Unlucky dogs were often injured but chameleons were usually killed in those murderous chases.

I seldom use the word 'proud' in my connection but I am very proud that I never threw stones at chameleons and dogs.

If one wants one more reason for not committing this barbarity, it is provided by Emily Gravett who has written a picture book: "Blue Chameleon".

I was captivated by following illustration. Can I ever throw a stone at that beauty?




(India's very own) Mansur's watercolor painting of a chameleon, from around 1595.

Credit: Royal Collection, Royal Library, Windsor Castle

courtesy: Roberta Smith and The New York Times September 29, 2011

No Guts to Join a Circus? At least Fly a Kite

Once I was of an age when I liked whatever V P Kale (व पु काळे) wrote. Once I also attended his short-stories telling session at Miraj Medical College.

Although now I haven't read him for almost two decades, I still remember a few of his short stories.

The best one was about an office-goer who chooses to fly a kite on the terrace of his office in his spare time instead of indulging in office politics and backbiting.

It's a moving story and I remembered it when I attended Steven Covey's 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People' workshop.

I wish more people flew kites in their spare time instead of watching TV.

LAWRENCE DOWNES writes:

"...The kite makers dance through the camps with rubbery exuberance, trailed by younger children, all lost in the moment, the most important in the world. Kites battle kites, their makers yanking their lines to cut each other’s, as the kites whirl and spin. When one kite wins, the jubilation is explosive. It’s one of the few signs of joy you see in Haiti, entirely handmade..."

(The New York Times, March 7, 2010)

Europe and euro are immortal. Really?

As Euro's worth against INR falls, some of Europe based NRI's seem to be getting confused. Here is an example.

Mohan Murti who has lived in Europe for over two decades:

"...Europe and euro are immortal..." (Business Line, May 17 2010)

This claim is absolutely ludicrous. What is he trying to do? Blame all the woes of Europe on currency speculators?

First, when mighty dinosaurs and Ozymandiases have vanished, I would be rather be skeptical about this immortality claim.

And secondly, when the claim is about a civilization that was responsible for the death of 50 million humans just 65 years ago, I would be doubly so. (Andrew Roberts: “WWII lasted for 2,174 days, cost $1.5 trillion and claimed the lives of over 50 million people.”)


Niall Ferguson says in Newsweek May 17 2010: "...Europe now faces a much bigger decision than whether to bail out Greece. The real choice is between becoming a fully fledged United States of Europe, or remaining little more than a modern-day Holy Roman Empire, a gimcrack hodgepodge of "variable geometry" that will sooner or later fall apart."

On Europe’s destiny, I only trust Arthur Schopenhauer:

“We like to believe that all history is a halting and imperfect preparation for the magnificent era of which we are the salt and summit; but this notion of progress is mere conceit and folly. 'In general, the wise in all ages have always said the same things, and the fools, who at all times form the immense majority, have in their way too acted alike, and done the opposite; and so it will continue. For, as Voltaire says, we shall leave the world as foolish and wicked as we found it.”

(Will Durant, 'The Story of Philosophy')

Opium Dens of Tatas only!

Opium dens have been here earlier.

I did not know what Mr. Vithal Rajan of Hyderabad has to say:

"A Case for Opium Dens:

Indian industry got its first tranche of capital accumulation in the 19th century when the Tatas joined hands with the Sassoons and the British to force opium onto the Chinese. The addicts in China in that period took to opium to drown their unpleasant reality in momentary dreams, while knowing in moments of cold assessment that pipe dreams could never be realised in real life. It was only when Mao Zedong came to power in 1949 that the Chinese government banned opium dens, and people accepted their closure in the expectation that they might have a chance of achieving some of their hopes..."

(EPW, May 1-7 2010)

I didn't know Tatas' and Sassoons' 'opium' past!

Now that I know it and also that Tata brand now stands for purity as in "Tata Swach", I wish to reword the caption of the cartoon below.

"Could you point out any opium dens- preferably run by Tatas as I am very fussy about the quality of my opium?"


Artist: Leonard Dove, The New Yorker, 26 Feb 1949