Elections in Kerala

I was home recently, in Kerala.
Proud home of the first democratically elected communist government in the world.
And after many years, I was there around election time.

Every five years, the Malayalee hitches up his lungi (with it his ideological beliefs), knots it high on his waist and sets off to do battle.
Brother against brother. Neighbour against neighbour.
In multi-coloured lungis, shouting slogans political, bawdy, inflammatory and ludicrous, regiments march up and down the green paths of Kerala.

Every Malayalee takes a side.
It’s not very taxing.
You are either for the left.
Or against.
There is no third alternative.
If anybody claims there is, many pardons to your hitched saffron lungi brother, there isn’t.

In the evening, as you walk down to the toddy shop for a glug, the quiet is suddenly pierced with the pungent odour of a hundred men sweating toddy.
And there, past the palm-lined river bank, march a hundred toddy happy men.
Together, happy, committed, confident.
You let them pass, silhouettes waving red flags at the gathering dusk, bunched fists punching the hot, humid air and an imagined opponent.
And as you proceed, a few stragglers bring up the vociferous rear.
These are the ones who paused longer at the toddy shop for the one for the road.
This happy lot, somewhere between bottle 2 and 3 have forgotten their responsibility to the land at large, their duty to the nation, and pass by singing the latest film songs, fists proudly in the air.

At the toddy shop though, there still are a few stragglers, fighting ideological battles from the relative comfort of a bench, gathering confidence, faith and comfort from the spirit of life.
Here slogans therefore, are a little more colourful.
You question my ideology and I question your sister’s ways.
Till two ideologically separated men menacingly rise from behind their tables, and promptly fall into the fish curry.

On verandahs across the state, men deliberate with great interest chances, scams, scandals, policies and manifestos.
With every sip, your candidate’s chances increase and his opponent bites the dust, percentage after percentage, sip after sip.

At seminaries and temple grounds across the state, crusty theologians debate the policies of the opposing sides and its impact on the sheep.
Under banyan trees after dusk, men from the most educated and literate state discuss the effects of global events on their local elections.
Women cadres go door to door promising goats, cows and chicken in lieu for support.

In the towns, rallies compete with each other.
For numbers, decibels and for innovative sloganeering.
Till all assemble in the centre of the town and from loudspeakers facing each other, shout the other party down.
It has not been unknown, for over-enthusiastic speakers to hurl abuse at each other across the square.
Over the microphone.

Every morning during election time, the Malayalee reads more than one newspaper.
So that he can imbibe different points of view, to then abuse everyone who doesn’t agree with his.
In the ubiquitous tea-shop, impromptu debates rage all day till in the evening it shifts to the toddy shop.
And this goes on till election day.

Election day in Kerala is when you witness the power of democracy, the power of the common man.
Demand a car to go to the polling booth and a car will come.
Demand lunch and lunch will come.
Demand a drink and spirits flow.
Just for that one day, you matter.

You matter, you insignificant speck among a billion Indians.
Your mandate decides the fate of millions.

And then, there is peace and quiet.
In the toddy shop, the centre of our action, bonhomie resumes.
Till counting day.

In Bangalore, I don’t even realize when elections come and elections go.
I miss the fervour.
I miss the debates.
I miss the involvement in the political processes.
I miss the opportunity to influence the fortunes of our vast, functioning anarchy.
And above all else, by this constitution and everything else that I hold sacred, I miss the toddy.

A time for Zorro.

I don’t know Jessica Lall.
In any case, a few hundreds are murdered in this country everyday.
Why then, should Jessica Lall make me feel so helpless?

Preity Zinta made a point on TV.
You can get a year, she said, for blackbuck.
But you can kill a person and get way with it.

It’s true.

A few notable examples.
Manu Sharma.
Admiral Nanda’s grandson.
Kunhalikutty.
Ameeta Modi and Sanjay Singh.
Amar Mani Tripathi.
Natwar Singh and son.

Clout circumventing the judicial process is old hat.
The issue today, is not that.

The issue is that all the above, are still welcome in our society.
They continue to hold offices.
They are still part of the social circuit.

This, their brazenness and our acceptance, spells doom.
It means that today’s Indian society, you and me included, are willing to condone murder.
Willing to condone the castration of justice.
Willing to turn a blind eye to anything that doesn’t directly involve us.
Willing to tolerate injustice.
Too ready, to forgive and forget.

We as a society have degenerated.
The letter of the law is strictly the letter of the law.
No longer does it hold a moral value for us.

It’s getting caught therefore, that makes crime a crime.
Not so much the act.

We don’t have a collective conscience as a nation any more.
We don’t have a sense of justice any more.
We don’t, as a nation, believe in the law any more.

Many, many years back, there was a crime of passion.
A naval officer called Nanavati shot his wife and her paramour.
Russi Karanjia of Blitz kept India focused on the case.
And the whole nation developed an opinion.
Including the then PM, Pt. Nehru.
(Driving opinion has its own dangers but the advantage was that everyone knew that the world was watching.)

If today, the bench knew that India was watching, would it acquit Manu Sharma so easily?
Would witnesses so easily turn hostile?

The Nanavati case awoke the collective conscience of a nation.
And Jessica Lall proved us that our consciences have gone to bed.

This is the time for Zorro.
A time for vigilantes.
This is the time for Biblical, barbarian justice.
An eye for an eye, ear for an ear.

Drag Manu Sharma to India Gate and hang him there.
For the murder of Jessica Lall.
And his father.
For the twin crimes of procreation and for believing that justice is there to be manipulated.

Will this happen?

Last year, Malayalam cinema had a rare box-office hit.
Directed by Jayaraj.
It had unknown faces and was pretty shoddily, frugally produced.

It featured 4 students who take the law into their own hands.
Who kill, maim and generally play Zorro.
It was a superhit.

It tells me a few things.
That audiences empathized with it.
And therefore, that there are millions out there who feel castrated.
That our society is full of impotent, angry, helpless youth.

And that, at a national level, always spells bloodshed.

The world is a fun place.

Here, laugh.

All of India is outraged.
Cotton farmer and Simi Garewal alike.
The good, London based Mr.Mittal has been slighted by France and Luxembourg.
The Indian government and people are livid.
Imagine, the cheek!
Dubya was right about those yellow livered, cheese....
And this gentleman is so patriotic that he hasn't even surrendered his Indian nationality!
One of our own!
This shall be discussed when Mr. Surrender Monkey himself is in town.
Monkey money, indeed!

Meanwhile, Palestinians have the right to self-determination.
Provided Israel agrees with what they, well, determine.
Hamas? No cash!

In far Iran.
Dubya has decided that enough is enough.
No more sabre rattling!
When Dubya says stop, you stop.
Or else, more American boys shall die civilising the turbans.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, unwashed barbarians run riot.
While poor American boys have their toys confiscated.
No more cameras, says the Pentagon.

Muammar Gadaffi has substituted his sabre for an iPod.
"Thid hadh more beauthifol noith", said M'mar.

Osama ruminates.
Laz-y-boy or the bone-setter?

In India, Manmohan is faced by the burning Bush.
To Iran or not to Iran?

As is all this isn't fun enough.
Protests break out all over the world.
People agree that the world is a great, fun place.
And we don't really need cartoons to liven it up.

The world is a fun place.
But I would rather be quail.
That seems to be more fun.
Imagine, a bird's eye view of lawyers eating dirt.
Duck, its Dick!

House-husband

Wake up.
Work for an hour.
Read the papers, through classifieds and forecasts.
Breakfast.
Hang around Raghu who thus far used to wash the car in peace.
Check the screws on the bike, kick-reassure the tyre.
Wife leaves for work.
Read.
Call wife.
Read.
Check furniture for dust.
Contemplate paunch.
Check waist with tape.
Call wife.
Warm lunch and gulp it down.
Inform wife that lunch has been had.
Read.
Doze.
Wake up, wipe book dry.
Check on bike.
Call wife.
Read.
Read Good Housekeeping.
Stare at mobile phone.
Hang around gate with dog.
Talk to dog.
Wife calls to say she'll be late.
Read Interiors.
Call dog names to see if he'll react.
Sing 'How much is that doggie in the window'.
Laugh hysterically.
Dog leaves with dignity.
Try new hair-style.
Read.
Wife comes home.
Show-off new hairstyle.
She has a headache.
Order from Wok-n-Grill.
Rum and coke.
Rum and coke.
Wok-n-Grill scooter arrives.
Try to engage delivery boy in conversation.
Eat.
Read.
Crash.

This is not what I had planned.
Not exactly.
When I first realised that I would be quitting my job, I immediately made 82 plans.
Or thereabouts.

Learn Malayalam.
(That I put off for later.)

Learn photography.
(Am halfway there. Have bought new digital SLR.)

Learn cooking.
(Halfway there again. Now know how to use microwave.)

Fix things in the house.
(This have been told not to.)

Look for business.
(There's no hurry on that.)

Write.
(Reading is an inspiration to write.)

Get fit.
(Tomorrow.)

Travel.
(Not doing too badly on that front.)

Spend time with oneself.
(Not doing badly on that front either.)

Contemplate.
(Am.)

Spend more time with wife.
(It's she who doesn't have any!)

Meet friends and drink.
(They don't have any time either.)

Put down the other 70.
(Can do.)

I have this against advertising.
It doesn't prepare a man for after.

And suddenly you realise.
That you have never spent time alone at home.
All your life.
School, followed by college followed by work.
You had parents at home during school.
Then pals in the hostels and chummeries.
And then, the lady of the manor.
You have never spent days at length alone at home.
You realise that a house in a quiet neighbourhood is quieter in the afternoon than at night.
That if you need a cup of coffee every hour, you need to make it yourself.
And the dog, is definitely not man's best friend.
I read a joke out aloud to him yesterday and the jerk walked away.

Believe the man, it takes getting used to.
And it's mighty dreadful till you do.
Wife agrees.

P.S. Wife read post and found it funny.
Woe is me.

The science of humour.

I always thought scientists were serious, humourless individuals.
You know, men with their minds brimming with equations and formulae.

Till when I was in ninth standard and came across tuning forks.
You bang a tuning fork against a block of wood.
And when the tuning fork starts vibrating, you hold it close to another tuning fork.
The second tuning fork now starts reciprocating in a phenomenon that is scientifically known as a ‘sympathetic vibration’.

What a gag.
One tuning fork is banged and vibrates.
And the other feels sympathy and starts doing the same.
I mean, which guru of frequency and related studies thought this up?
The man’s Hyde must have been Groucho Marx.

This convinced me that scientists must not be taken lightly.
(Though science, I did. And am paying for.)
And I was reading somewhere about this botanist who insisted on following binary nomenclature off the beaten path.
He insisted on naming discoveries in the botanic kingdom after female genitalia.
(This doesn’t qualify as funny, but is a little weird.)

Mimosa pudica and hibiscus rosasinensis do not really have the average 13 year old falling off his chair.
But sympathetic vibration?
There he falls, off his bench!

There are many more.
Half-life, for example, is the molecular equivalent of middle-age, but then again, not really.
Mole is not the ugly protuberance peering out of your collar but is something to do with the mass, in grams, which is numerically equal to the substance’s molecular weight or something equally unquantifiable and has something to do with Avogadro’s number.
But why ‘mole’?

Or the most misspelled word in India, ‘vulcanisation’.
Every self-respecting, entrepreneurial Mallu has a different spelling for it.
But why name this simple process, attended to with the least attention in dingy stalls across the country after the Roman God of Fire?
Is the smart-arse who invented and named vulcanization looking at your friendly neighbourhood ‘tire-punchr’ and having a ball?

Maybe.
These guys were wicked.
Most of them.
The guy called Clark who was in some way associated with logarithms definitely was not.

Somewhere 6 feet under, his tibia and fibula clash as he rolls over and over again.
Cursed by the millions he inflicted his torture tables on.
The tuning fork man, may he soul rest in peace.
He made science a little enjoyable.

On the virtues of patience.

Ever since I can remember till my teens, I was chastised at home for low levels of tolerance.
Not that one was the short-tempered, loud, abrasive kind.
But was not a child gifted with the ability to grin and bear it.

Very soon, the smile would drop.
And an attempt would be made to change the topic of conversation gently.
I could also get up and slink off if served vegetables.

Over years, this was drilled into me.
Repeatedly.
And again.
That I had to be patient.
And that to not be, was rude.
And crass.
So you had to endure, whether you liked it or not.
To not endure or to ask why, was to be anti-social.
Un-child-from-a-good-home like.

The ability to suffer was Christian.
And the patience to grin through it, Catholic.

And believe me, I did change.
Over the years, I became what could well be called docile.
Evolutionary, my dear, you could say, as a man matures.
He puts the child behind him as he puts on the years.

My father, I believe, was one such.
A short-tempered youth who grew up to be an adorable gentleman.
(Though the frown, the handlebar moustache and the forearms bulging from his folded sleeves said otherwise.)

Today, I am worried.
Because my Hyde is trying to find his way up through the capillaries.
Maybe that explains the sudden rushes of blood.

Which makes me wonder, why should patience be a virtue?
As long as you do not take a hockey stick and beat up people till the slimy roots of their idiocy spill onto the streets, why should you keep grinning?

Tell me.
Why agree to like something you don’t?
Can’t you just not comment?
Why sit and listen to some joker espouse views you do not share?
Can’t you just get up and walk away?
Why reach home with a boot full of road rage?
Can’t you show the fool the finger and reach home happier?

Why be forced through a gathering you don’t like?
Why drink whiskey if you don’t like it?
Why perform favours you don’t want to?

We do all the above to be considerate.
To be known as nice people.
To belong.
To be accepted.
To be liked.
To be good Catholics.

And if you put an end to all this, what then?
Nothing much, really.
You’ll find that nobody would even notice.
You might not be enshrined as the paradigm of socially accepted behaviour.
But you will spare yourself a few blood vessels.
Have a few less ulcers.
And on the whole, be a much happier man.
Selfish, maybe.
But a lot happier.

The next kid who comes to my house and picks up the TV remote will get a long stare and a walk-away.
I won’t hit him with the bar that came off the window.
But no attempt shall be made to pacify him as I split a few arteries either.

I don’t think patience is a virtue.
Maybe my second childhood and senility have arrived earlier.
Convince me otherwise.

O captain, my captain.

Not long ago, a billion Indians were cheering their abrasive, aggressive captain in Australia.
He was a very un-Indian cricketer. But he was the one.
In Australia, he set the tone with a typical, I-dare-you-to-bowl-short century that set the tone for the tour. He was the one.
In England, he bared his chest and his intent. He was the one.
From a bad start, he almost took us to the top of the World Cup heap. He was the one.

And then came, the cricketer’s curse. Loss of form.
And when big trees fall, we look at statistics.
Now that the embers were dying, we concluded that all of the above had to be attributed to team effort. After all, it is not just one flannelled fool, there’re 11.
And did Sandy Gordon not have a hand in motivating the team?
And how can we forget John Wright? He had a hand as well.
And look at the figures! Rahul Dravid had a major hand in each of the captain’s victories.

And then came, the Chappell Diaries. Let’s not get into that.
High-handedness, insecurity, games other than what cricketers play, cowardice and everything else was leaked to the country at large.
Maybe not Chappell’s fault.
But the nation was shocked.

And the captain fell.

Now, we loved this snooty captain.
We loved him because we felt that his brand of aggression is what we always needed.
Why should we be meek?
Why should we not take on the rest?
Why should we not sledge?
Why should we not keep the opposing captain waiting?
We loved him because he had the balls.
We swore together when he misfielded.
We swore together when he got caught behind yet again.
We loved him.

But when we saw him struggle into 20s and 30s, we had had enough.
Because we don’t want to see an icon struggle.
Because it’s embarrassing and a blot on our collective potency.
Because you watched every ball not in anticipation of a divine drive through cover but in fear of a swipe and a caught behind.
We were not heroes in front of TV any more, we were a bunch of yellow livered supporters.
And that, hurt.

He should have retired then.
He would have been our most successful captain ever.
And he would have been a legend.
Venerated in a country that adores its heroes and reveres sacrifice.

He was dropped as captain then.
Dropped in favour of a very worthy successor.
He should have retired at least then.

But he did not.
He hung on.
To our collective shock, the man who only God could out-drive on the offside was now in the team as an all-rounder.

And yesterday, he was sacked from the team.

He could have been everything Chappell called him.
And some more.
Everything we feared. And some more.
But yesterday, was pathetic.
And the excuse, his performance, even more so.
It defies all logic, except the whispers that say vengeance.
It was a mockery of the selection process.
A mockery in every which way.

I wouldn’t wish this exit on my worse enemy.
And not long ago, he was my hero.

Saurav Ganguly deserved better.