Dr. Ramadoss, Kashmir Valley’s trouble is not psychiatric

Times of India July 4, 2007 reports Indian Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss saying:

“We have just 3,300 psychiatrists in the country 80 per cent of whom work in metros.”

He was replying to queries about the lack of psychiatric doctors in the Kashmir valley, where the number of those suffering from mental illnesses has shot up and suicides increased.

May be, Mr. Minister.

But how about more comprehensive policy response to solve Kashmir problem?

Similarly, psychiatrists can speak to suicide prone farmers too but if we can solve their basic problem why would they want to kill themselves?

Sure, we want more psychiatrists but we need even better policies.


Artist: Frank Modell The New Yorker 1 Jan 1955

Reading “Robinson Crusoe” on a Mumbai Local

There is a cliché about Mumbai locals. “They’re Mumbai’s life-line”. May be. But more than that I think they define Mumbai more than any thing else. Yes, more than Hindi film industry.

When I first visited Mumbai in 1980 at the age of 20, Mumbai looked and sounded different than any other place. It was because of local trains. Later from 1981 to 1983, I lived in Chennai, which too had locals. But unlike Mumbai, locals did not define Chennai’s personality.

Later I had the opportunity to live in Mumbai from 1983 to 1987. I even commuted for a while on its trains. I was lucky though because I used to commute ‘against the flow’. When people traveled towards the downtown, I traveled away from it and vice versa.

The experience was like getting to know another world. The world that has its own etiquettes and rules.

You cannot wear a raincoat there (no-brainer as you will wet your neighbour). If you want to get down at a particular station, you need to start moving towards exit just in time (not too early, not too late). A seat is meant for three people but if you try you can accommodate the fourth person rather easily. You can trust a total stranger to save you if you are about fall off the carriage. You can be sure a total stranger will help you to get on to the fast moving train if you are trying to catch it. No stranger will talk to you about anything unless you talk to him first.

It’s a world within a world. You are in a trance while in it.

VERLYN KLINKENBORG has written a beautiful essay “The Subway Beat” (NYT June 25, 2007).
“It’s nearly always a mistake to think of the subway as a public conveyance. This is a mistake that out-of-towners often make. They overlook the essential privacy of the subway, and by that I don’t mean the young woman at my end of the car who has made up her face in a compact mirror between 86th Street and Times Square. I mean the very fact that this is my end of the car at my end of the train. It’s 7:30 in the morning, and this isn’t just a subway ride. This is going to work. Nearly all the people on this train are in their usual spots, within a few minutes of their usual time, and the ride is not separable from the larger and more complicated rhythms of our private lives. It is possible to be on this train and not yet be in public.
“Please watch the closing doors,” comes the announcement. The doors close. Everyone here knows just how long the delay should last before the train begins to slide forward. We could count it off: the doors close, then comes a single beat, and then we feel that horizontal gravity as the train picks up speed. But on this one train the one beat passes, then another and another before we finally start to slide out of the station. It happens at every stop. Three beats, four beats too many. Perhaps the driver adds these extra beats to allow riders to find a seat. I like to think it’s a tiny, intentional perversity.
This has happened many times before. After the one beat, the whole train leans forward mentally. We are urging ourselves on our way. If the train ran by some kind of synchronous psychological impulsion, we would be moving by now.
We know how to be stoic when stuck between stations. But there is something heartbreaking in this added pause. It interrupts the privacy of our thoughts and shows us what the other passengers are thinking. It holds us back from flinging ourselves headlong into the morning. It shows us, if just for an instant, how deeply we have internalized the pulses of this city. “

Mumbai locals have made impression on Indian art world.

One example- Raj Kapoor’s classic “Boot Polish”. The Movie could not have been made without locals

Vasant Sarwate वसंत सरवटे and Abhimanyu Kulkarni have drawn some touching cartoons on the subject of “local life”.

Here is one by Vasant Sarwate that shows a man reading “Robinson Crusoe” on a crowded train and the caption reads: “does literature contain reflection of the whole society is a real question” (please note the man is not holding on to anything to maintain his balance! I can vouch he need not)

Artist: Vasant Sarwate (source- “Savadhan! Pudhe Valan Ahe!” Mauj Prakashan 1990)

Is there a Mrs. R D Karve?

Raghunath Dhondo Karve (1882-1953) remains one of the most fascinating characters of 20th century India.

On July 1, 2007, Doordarshan showed a film “Dhyas Parva” made on his life. It’s an OK film. But I rather prefer books. I recommend two of them- M V Dhond’s म वा धोंड
“Jalyatil Chandra” (Rajhans Prakashan 1994) and Y D Phadke’s “Ra Dho Karve” (Ha Vi Mote Prakashan 1981).

Dhond’s book consists of collection of his literary essays. Three of them are focused on RDK. Third of them is the best-“Ra Dho Karve Ani Santati Niyaman” (R D Karve and family planning).

In the said essay, Dhond analyses why RDK was not as successful in his mission as Margaret Sanger and Marie Stopes, his counterparts in US and UK respectively.

Dhond says RDK’s mission, unlike that of the ladies, was not just happy family life, emancipation of women, control of population etc but more. RDK wanted women to have as much sexual freedom as men did. He wanted them to have as much sensual pleasure as men did.

Sample few of RDK’s thoughts: - 1) so long childbirth and venereal diseases are prevented debauchery of women does not really harm men and the benefit is those women who need variety get it. 2) Why cannot women have right to prostitution?

Dhond claims contemporary society’s objectives were restricted to those of Sanger and Stopes and hence not only RDK’s mission has a whole suffered, he himself was persecuted by society at large. There were other reasons too - RDK’s unattractive personality, poor finances and lack of networking skills.

It’s unfortunate RDK was not alive when three major events that make us understand woman sexuality better happened- 1. The Kinsey report of 1953 2. Masters and Johnson’s book of 1966 and 3.The Hite report of 1976. The late Stephen Jay Gould has discussed them in some detail in his essay “Male Nipples and Clitoral Ripples” (“Adam’s Navel” Penguin 1995).

These reports conclusively proved to men that primary site of for stimulation to orgasm centres upon the clitoris and not vagina. Not to have orgasm from intercourse is the experience of the majority of women A woman’s sexual pleasure might not arise most reliably as a direct result of man’s own coital efforts. 79% of women who masturbate do so by directly stimulating the clitoris and surrounding vulva, while only 1.5% use vaginal entry. The techniques of masturbation and of petting are more specifically calculated to effect orgasm than the techniques of coitus itself.

RDK would have been particularly pleased because these reports busted Freud’s edict that women must make the transition from clitoral to vaginal orgasm to escape the tag of frigidity. (by the way RDK also hated Freud’s child -psychoanalysis.). Therefore, if women were as much entitled to sensual pleasure as men they need not choose vaginal orgasm and hence men.

RDK would also have been happy with the oral contraception’s (birth control pill’s) contribution to women's reproductive rights and health,

I am not sure if our society is ready even today to discuss RDK’s mission in its entirety.

Was there a Mrs. RDK? Sure there was. Malati was whole-heartedly with Raghunath on this treacherous journey. She actively participated in whatever he undertook. She willingly supported his decision not to have any children. She also helped him in making contraceptives and applying them on to their women clients. By all known accounts they were a happy couple.


Artist: Peter Arno The New Yorker 1 May 1948

Chandamama, Amar Chitra Katha and My Juvenile Dreams

I was a voracious reader in my childhood. For recreation, I read only Marathi until I was almost 12 or 13. Magazine “Chandoba” (“Chandamama” in Hindi) was one of my favourite. We did not buy it every month because my father did not like it much. Amar Chitra Katha (ACK) was borne in 1967 but I could lay my hands on it much later.

I thought I liked only stories from “Chandoba” but realized later that I also liked accompanying pictures. Pictures of curvaceous women. I also read a lot of Indian mythology that of course has plenty of explicit sex.

Recently ACK completed 40 years of its very successful existence-400 titles, 86 million copies sold. Anant Pai, ACK’s creator, admitted to Times of India (June 29 2007) that imagery of early ACK issues was quite sexy. He said:”…….. our major influences were the sculptures of Ajanta, Ellora…..We may have been a bit over influenced by it….But forget the first 25 titles or so, we have toned it down.”

Pratap Mulick (प्रताप मुळीक) pioneering illustrator of ACK, I hope,  never regretted his following picture of Matsyagandha or Vasavadatta or Satyavati or Shakuntala or who ever she is. Even today it makes my knees go wobbly!

Why regret Mr. Pai? I wish to thank you and Mr. Pratap Mulick,particularly for first 25 titles, and to anonymous illustrators of “Chandoba” for giving pleasure to my eyes.

You saved me from dirty porn.


Artist: Pratap Mulick


Artist: Robert Weber The New Yorker 9 Feb 1998

What has your Beer Drinking to do with Groundnut Oil Prices?

I am like a squirrel. Peanuts are my most favourite food. Next only to Payari and Hapus mangoes. I can eat them in any form- raw, roasted, fried, coated, boiled, crushed etc etc. During my school days, I used to relish eating them with a lump of jaggery. Both items would first go in pockets of my half-pants before they went down my throat. Peanuts also are integral to many snacks I relish. Of course, I don’t touch any of them if they have no peanuts or some one like me has picked them before.

My weak liver is the only thing that holds me back from going for a peanut binge from time to time.

I remember one morning in 9th or 10th standard when I had gone to fetch my friend for the school. He was busy with morning chores and I was asked to wait in the drawing room. There I could see what his father and his friend had done previous night. Drinking. There were bottles, glasses- empty, full. But what I found most attractive was a plate full of peanuts. I helped myself with some of them without asking anyone.

When I started drinking or watching people drink, I realized that drinking is just an excuse. Objective of the damn thing is to eat peanuts without feeling any guilt.

All along I knew drunkards ate lots of peanuts but I was not ready for following.

Business Line reports on June 25, 2007: “What's increasing consumption of liquor in the country got to do with rise in prices of groundnut oil? Simple, consumption of peanuts during consumption of liquor is leading to more direct consumption and, thereby, affecting its availability for oil crushing.

Groundnut oil prices topped Rs 70 a kg last week and during the weekend it was quoted at Rs 72 in Mumbai. The oil prices have gained 23 per cent since the beginning of this year, while groundnut kernel, which was quoted at Rs 3,600 a quintal during the weekend, has also increased around the same level.

"The problem with groundnut oil is that mills are not getting kernel for crushing. One of the reasons is rise in direct consumption, including as snacks, especially for liquor consumption," says Mr B.V. Mehta, Executive Director of the Solvent Extractors Association of India.

The current oil year ending October has been witnessing a lower oilseed crop. Groundnut, in particular, is projected lower at 53.5 lakh tonnes against 62.5 lt last oil year.

On the other hand, the country has seen its citizens guzzle 105 million cases of beer during 2006 and 115 million cases of Indian made foreign liquor.
Liquor consumption has increased over 50 per cent since 2001 and annual rise in the offtake is seen between three and four per cent.

The scenario with regard to groundnut is that of the 53.5 lt projected output, 18.5 lt are crushed for yielding 7.4 lt of oil, while 19 lt are retained by the growers for sowing. The remaining 16 lt are assumed to be consumed directly. This season, availability of groundnut for direct consumption is seen lower by 2.5 lakh tonnes.
"Peanuts are preferred to be eaten during consumption of liquor as they are cheaper than cashewnuts. Also, rising income levels are seeing corresponding increase in consumption of almost all products, including liquor," say analysts. “

Hey Indian Homer, Marge has more than one reason to crib for your frequent visits to Moe’s Tavern.


Artist : Charles Barsotti The New Yorker 20 Apr 1998

Who in hell uses oil, anyhow?

Some say America and Britain have meddled in Middle East only for oil.

If you read William Bowles’s review of William Engdahl’s “A Century of War – Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order”, you tend to entirely agree with it.

“….The core of the book reveals the pivotal role played by the Wall Street/London financial axis that determined how the world of the 20th century developed, whether it was the competition between rival capitalist powers or the control of the vital resources needed to power the entire process. So for example, whenever it looked like there might some kind of challenge posed to the Anglo-American alliance such as that of Germany in the 1920s or Italy in the 1970s, ‘convenient’ assassinations of key players would occur, or ‘exposés’ that scuppered deals that would have endangered US/UK hegemony.
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the masters of the ‘Great Game’ as the rule of British Empire was so named, was dictated by oil and even though the by the post-WWII period, it was the de facto American Empire calling the shots, the alliance formed between the two remained solid, dictated by the seven great oil cartels and a handful of international banking corporations that between them were to control events including the inevitable slide into yet another war, again determined by oil, without which modern industrial capitalism was nothing.
Fast forward a century and we find a world almost entirely shaped by that imperialist vision…”

But this interference seems to predate the Otto Cycle

Read Robert Kagan’s review of Michael B. Oren’s book “Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present”
“..Today, the conventional view is that George W. Bush took the United States on a radical departure when he declared a policy to transform the Middle East and that, as soon as he leaves office, U.S. policy will return to an alleged tradition of realism, rooted in the hard-headed pursuit of tangible national interests. This is both bad history and bad prophecy, as Oren shows in Power, Faith, and Fantasy, a series of fascinating and beautifully written stories about individual Americans over the past four centuries and their contact with Middle Eastern cultures………. U.S. backing for the establishment of Israel was rooted in religious convictions going back more than four centuries… …..Despite all the crises of the past years, including the present war in Iraq, Oren predicts that the United States will continue "to pursue the traditional patterns of its Middle East involvement." Policymakers "will press on with their civic mission as mediators and liberators in the area and strive for a pax Americana." American "churches and evangelist groups will still seek to save the region spiritually." And Americans will regard the region as both "mysterious" and "menacing," as they have for centuries, and will seek to transform it in their own image. Many today may want to disagree, but they will have to wrestle first with the long history of American behavior that Oren has so luminously portrayed. “

Therefore, America was always in their neighbourhood even when Arab Sheikhs asked “Who in hell uses oil, anyhow?”


Artist: Everett Opie The New Yorker 20 April 1957

Filth, Noise & Stench in our cities

Our cities are dirty. They were dirtier. Some times nostalgia does not let us remember the dirt of the past accurately.

I remember how dirty Miraj and Kolhapur used to get.

Lack of adequate public toilets, insensitivity to personal hygiene and plain laziness has forced Indian people, particularly children, to defecate at the roadside. Monsoon used to wash all that was deposited at the side to bring it to the middle of the road. One could barely walk there. And many areas used to stink.

Until 1970’s, we also had toilets from where night soil was removed and carried manually in handcarts. We used to call those carts “battle tanks” because people used to change their course after sighting them or on hearing their rattle.

Miraj and Kolhapur, the towns I knew well, had plenty of filth and stench but not much noise. Pune the city I live today has perhaps less filth and stench but it more than makes up by creating cacophonic noise. All the days of Ganpati and Diwali festival have ear bursting noise.

How did London fare on FNS?

Michael Crichton describes 19th century London in “The Great Train Robbery”. High on FNS.

For earlier centuries, Emily Cockayne has recently written a book “Hubbub: Filth, Noise & Stench in England”:
“…for the citizens of London, Oxford, Bath and Manchester in the 17th and 18th centuries, life was not merely nasty, brutish and short. It was ugly, itchy, mouldy, noisy, grotty and dirty…….. Viewed in one light, 17th and 18th-century cities were libertarian paradises: economically vibrant, but with a quality of life tending towards the lowest common denominator.”


Artist : Alan Dunn The New Yorker 27 June 1970

Are Pigeons Rats with Wings or Man’s Second Best Friend?

During my childhood at Miraj, I saw pigeon only in a stock picture of Jawaharlal Nehru freeing it. Nehru all smiles, bird little scared, happy to be in the air instead of human hands.

I really got to see them only when I spent some time with my aunt, Kumud-mavashi, at Girgaum, Mumbai when I was already 23. At Girgaum they were everywhere like cockroaches. There was only one difference between the two. I did not see cockroaches making love.

For me, Mumbai was truly a sensuous city full of beautiful girls and women. So was perhaps the case for pigeons. But I was not as lucky as them. I felt little jealous of them.

I left Mumbai and forgot all about pigeons, as they never visited me at Nashik, Assam, Calcutta and Bangalore. When I came to stay at Pune in 1999, they were present in all their glory: eating, making love, nesting and generally dirtying the place.

Once we allowed them to breed just outside one of our windows. The place stank for a long time. Next time when they laid their eggs there, I pushed them over. The place I stay today has no pigeons in its vicinity. And guess what, no one from my family is complaining.

Sorry I have not been to develop any respect for these creatures.

Looks like I should.

NYT June 26, 2006 has an essay “Pigeon English” by ANDREW D. BLECHMAN.
“…Humans have had a particularly long and proud association with the rock dove. Pigeons brought news of the first Olympics in 776 B.C. and some 2,500 years later, of Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo. Charles Darwin (himself a fancier) relied on them to prove his theory of evolution; Julius Reuter built his mighty news empire literally on their backs; and perhaps most important, pigeons saved thousands of Allied soldiers during the two world wars. Keep in mind that a modern racing pigeon can fly 60 miles per hour without stopping for 600 miles and find its loft from a place it has never been before, and that the House of Windsor has proudly raced pigeons for more than a century.
And yet, in a matter of decades, one of the world's most venerated creatures and one of nature's most phenomenal athletes has been reduced to the status of vermin by governments on both sides of the Atlantic. The peaceful co-existence of man and pigeon has deteriorated into a war of attrition.
The bird's crime? Its gregarious nature. Pigeons are simply attracted to people as well as the company of other pigeons. Unfortunately, their unsightly and unhygienic droppings rapidly accumulate. But we really have only ourselves to blame: pigeons subsist on the food we drop. ….
One thing alone leads to an overpopulation of pigeons: overfeeding. Pigeons breed only when food is available. When food is overly bountiful, as was the case at Trafalgar Square for many years, pigeons will mate as often as possible — up to six times a year. When food is scarce, mating drops drastically as the flock anxiously forages for food……
Although some view pigeons as "rats with wings," we should keep in mind that they also bring joy to millions who appreciate how they animate our cities. After all, it's not Lord Nelson's column that attracts flocks of tourists from around the world to Trafalgar Square; it's the birds.”


Artist: Bruce Erik Kaplan The New Yorker 28 Feb 1994

In 21st century Trophy Human Skulls on the soil of the Earth’s Most Powerful Nation

War surely brings the worst out of humans.

In Mahabharata, I read how it brought the worst out of Jayadratha, Ashwathhama Yudhishthira, Bheema, Satyaki …………… The list is long and perhaps includes all players.

And yet as children we seem to enjoy the real wars. I remember how I rejoiced India’s victories in its wars against Pakistan in 1965 and 1971. As I grew up, I learned to hate China and its people because India lost a war against China in 1962.

I was shaken out my romance of war when still in school I read this dedication in Erich Maria Remarque’s “All Quiet On The Western Front”:

“This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war.”

Mahabharata is not about the victory of Pandavas against Kauravas but warning to humanity about annihilative nature of war. “Panipat 1761” by T S Shejwalkar is about how bloodily expansionism of Marathas ended and how badly “victorious” Afghan Abdali got hurt in the process. Reading “1812” by Adam Zamoyski made me hate Napoleon as much I hated Hitler.

NYT June 22,2007 has an article “The Bones We Carried” By LORI ANDREWS. ”……. When American G.I.’s returned from the Vietnam War, some tried to smuggle home the skulls of Vietcong and North Vietnamese soldiers. The graffiti-covered skulls served as ashtrays, candle holders and trophies. Six skulls were seized by the Customs Service. They remain in limbo, relegated to a drawer on the campus of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington........"

Can we teach our children to mourn wars? Can we teach them gory details of violence in war? Can we stop calling sports encounters, examinations and other competitive situations as battles or wars?



Artist: Edward Koren The New Yorker 23 Dec 1967

32 Years After The Emergency, Durga Bhagwat and Henry David Thoreau

Thirty-two years ago, midnight today, the Emergency was declared in India.

I remember the next day vaguely. For shouting slogans against the government at Kisan Chowk, Miraj, cops arrested one of our neighbours young Makrand Deshpande (मकरंद देशपांडे). I witnessed it. There was nervousness in the air, which was going to last for a while.

Kuldip Nayar remembers it vividly in Asian Age June 25 2007.

“….The press was gagged, dissent smothered and individual freedom suspended. Nearly 100,000 people were detained without trial. So immense was the fear, that judges tailored their judgment to suit government convenience and magistrates issued blank warrants for arrest. Public servants as well as the police willingly carried out arbitrary and high-handed actions. It was a reign of terror. This authoritarian rule lasted 22 months….. Institutions got such a thrashing that it has not been possible to restore them to their original form even after three decades. Politicians of all parties and their cohorts, the bureaucrats, have found the battered institutions convenient and cooperative. Their whims and wishes get authenticity, and gone are the days when they themselves were looking for norms……. The system has not recovered since. The civil service is now a set of sycophants and supplicants who allow themselves to be used by the politicians……. Media’s role is important. But some of the media is irresponsible and some just timid. I wonder if we will pick up the gauntlet thrown to us by the government in the shape of the Broadcast Bill. The media can retrieve its reputation because it failed during the Emergency. L.K. Advani, when information minister, aptly remarked, "You were asked to bend but you crawled."”

If Ms. Indira Gandhi was the architect of the Emergency, one of its fiercest and the most fearless opponent was another lady- Ms. Durga Bhagwat दुर्गा भागवत. In the presence of powerful union cabinet minister Y B Chavan,she launched a frontal attack on the government from the dais of 51st Marathi Sahitya Sammelan at Karad in December 1975. Later Ms. Bhagwat inspired opposition to Emergency across Maharashtra.

Durga-bai had a lot of affection for Henry David Thoreau because of his nature’s love and that he was an inspiration to Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi. The affection was so deep that she absolved India Gandhi of all her crimes when she discovered that Ms. Gandhi had written a poem on Thoreau!

Durga-bai quoted following paragraph from Thoreau’s writing in her speech to Mumbai Marathi Granth-Sangrahalay in December 1975:

“However mean your life is, meet it and live; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. the fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perchance have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poorhouse. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse as brightly as from the rich man's house. The snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts as anywhere, and, indeed, the town's poor seem to live the most independent lives of any. They are simply great enough to receive without misgiving. Cultivate poverty like sage, like a garden herb. Do not trouble yourself to get new things, whether clothes or friends. That is dissipation. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. If I were confined to a corner in a garret all my days, like a spider, the world would be just as large to me while I had my thoughts.”

During her life Durga Bhagwat knew the path Thoreau took. She didn’t need to ask like Helen E. Hokinson’s characters below.


Artist: Helen E. Hokinson The New Yorker 3 Aug 1935