Ethics

“Appa…”

“Hmm!” said appa, without looking up from his newspaper.

She was about to go back into her room. He did not seem to be noticing that either. She stood there hesitating for a minute. A sneeze startled appa’s attention. And a bout of sneezes continued to rock his constitution.

At the end of it, he was too shaken up to go back to his newspaper. And she kept standing there.

He looked at her as if he was seeing her for the first time in his house. He said “Yeah?” “Are you waiting to talk to me?”

She nodded.

“What?” said appa. She was quiet.

There was a very amused, curious expression on appa’s face. He started biting his nails.

She said, “I have fever..”

Appa said, “Oh!” He had been too distanced from her to feel her forehead and check if she was running a temperature.

“I have no idea what to do.” said appa. He sounded genuinely confused and mildly distressed at his own inability to help.

She said, “No! Anyways I take two antibiotics everyday. I’ll just go to sleep now.”

Appa was slightly alarmed. It showed in his dilating pupils. Now he was thinking.

“What about office?” “Have you informed them?” Now he began thinking she is feigning a fever to escape work.

“Yeah I just text messaged my colleague. The air conditioner at work is too strong and directly over my head. I don’t want to go there and aggravate my fever”

“I see!” Appa was thinking hard. “Why don’t you take a scarf with you? Or a sweater?”

“No, pa” she said, “It is neither so cold you should wear a sweater, nor so warm you can go there with a fever. It is damp there..”

“What is happening with your current project at work?” asked appa.

“Umm.. we are still in the initial phase..” She cleared her throat because something seemed to be choking there. She coughed now.

“Will they be ok with it if you don’t go.. I mean, you’ve just started off with your new project and everything” Appa was trying really hard to sound concerned, polite and persuasive at once.

“Is your fever so significant that you can’t go to work?” appa asked.

She was quiet. Her throat felt dry and irritated. Some germs must be having a rock show running in there, she imagined.

“I’m going to sleep, pa” she said. “I’ve body ache”

“Fine.” said appa curtly. “I have some interesting stuff to read in this newspaper.” He went back to his paper.

She went into her room and shut the door. She called her best friend who was never there when she wanted him.

“Hello” she said.

“Hi” said he.

“Can I talk to you for a few minutes?” she asked cautiously. Time with her best friend was always rationed out according to his needs.

Surprisingly, he said, “Yes!”

“What would you say if I said I have fever and I’m not going to work?”

“Go to sleep and take rest. Take care of yourself”

“What about somebody who says, ‘Is your fever so significant, you can’t go to work?’”

“That person is really concerned.”

“About what? My work?”

“Yeah!”

“But that person has nothing to do with my office or my work”

“Who was it? Dad?”

“Yeah.”

“He has good work ethics.”

She talked to him for a few more minutes and for some unknown reason he hung up on her abruptly. He did not answer the two calls she made after that.

She had nowhere to go. So she wrote everything down.

Redness Imposed

I’m a chair. I don’t exactly remember when or how I was born. I had been too young then to begin the drudgery of assimilating ideas or accumulating memories. However, I’ve been a chair for as long as I can remember.

I sit here day and night. I know you’d have never imagined a chair, sitting. Some chairs that I’ve known, stand. They live in the houses of rich men who spend their days surrounded by flatterers. Those chairs wait. “They also serve who only stand and wait.”

Luckily, I’ve sat all my life in this garden. I watch the red earth brimming in the flower pots and cobwebs growing and disappearing in the stalks of the overgrowth. I’m a chair in the garden under the sunshine and the rain.

Sometimes, the old lady of the house spends her time in the garden. She places her walking stick against me and sits down. She religiously places both her hands upon mine. I hold her. I’ve seen her cry at times. She is alone. Alone and old. Alone, old and doddering. Clumsy and alone.

Some children came once. They preferred the swing to me. A small child chose me. The child imagined I was the safest place to be. He was tender and I wished I was cushiony for once. I held my cast-iron frame and legs firmly to the ground so as to not fall. The child began all his antics on me. He tried sitting on my head. Scratched my hands and rocked me back and forth. I almost fell over a couple of times. I was very frightened. Then he got off and ran away for want of better mischief to do. I heaved a sigh of relief.

Twice a day, severe sunlight beat down upon me. Every part of me turned hot, fiery and unfriendly. I only wished the shade would come over me soon. Then, when shade came back, the tendril patterns on my frame cooled down and I once again became contented being a chair.

Rain is pouring down on me. Sometimes it feels salty and smells exotic. My feet get buried in the red soil. I watch the grass and mushrooms sprout around my legs. There is green moss spreading over me. Some black ants scuttle over me while the rain clouds take a short nap. I love the fragrance of rain. For days on end, I listen to the pitter patter. I watch the rain trickle down in small rivulets all over the ground. The leaves endlessly drip. It becomes silent and sad. A puddle forms on me and under my legs. I get chilled to the bones. Sometimes I contemplate over rain but without too many answers. A chair can only think so much.

When at last sunlight comes around, there is red dust in my crevices. Life bustles in the garden and bird droppings are generously shed on me. Of late I’ve noticed I’m turning orange. How does it feel when you’re turning orange when all your life you’ve been a harmless green? Ask me! It feels cold and sour. It smells pungent. And as time passes, it feels awkwardly warm, like you’re some new wood with caterpillars tingling on your twigs. And embarassingly enough, the sun keeps shining on you. Till grandmother comes back to me, I’ll remain orange, dusty and beautifully ugly.

A catastrophe. Nobody listens to the complaints of a chair. I vehemently disapprove of what happened to me in the recent past. They have dug up myu legs from out of the ground, massaged me with slimy oil and painted me red. I smell horrible and and feel sticky. The ants avoid me. The birds are worried if I am some new animal. I really wish I could go where the broken swing and grandmother went, than sit here painted and shiny.

Painted, shiny and red I was hauled to a strange room beyond the garden. Some old lamps sit here, dry, dusty and solemn. They try to look their once-immaculate selves but fail miserably. A red carpet is rolled up and parked against the wall. Some sunlight enters this room through tiny holes in the wall. The wind also trespasses through these holes with a lot of dust. There are a hundred barrels sleeping quietly. Occasionally someone enters, fumbling in the dark, lights a match, and collects trickling old memories from the barrels. It is moistly cold in here. I miss the pigeon smells. I smell dampness instead. I miss the swing, orangeness and the mushrooms.

And here I sit awkwardly amidst solemn old lamps, a rolled red carpet and barrels of intoxication fermenting in the cold. Here I sit painted, red, and smelling intolerably perfect.

Yeri Aali Piya Bin

Listen to another version here

Sakhi yeri aali, piya bin
Yeri aali piya bin
Kal na padat mohe, ghadi pal chhin din.
Yeri aali piya bin…

Jabse piya pardes gawan kinho…
Sakhi, jabse piya pardes gawan kinho
Ratiya katat mori taare gin gin
Ratiya katat mori taare din gin

Yeri aali piya bin…
Sakhi yeri aali piya bin.

Girl.. ever since he left I count every day
Ever since he left to another place
I spend the nights counting stars
I spend the nights counting stars..

..More on Raag Yaman at Kalakari

Ashwini Bhide’s awesome rendition of Mo man lagan lagi ends with the best version of Yeri Aali I have had the fortune to listen to.. Mo Man Lagan Lagi

101 minus 37 ways to combat loneliness

Me and Venkat were jobless and came up with this long list o things to do when you’re lonely. In his blog, he has added a lot of b.s. about the significance of our service to humanity in this form… heehee.. Ensoyy.. and don’t forget to add your own points..

So now you know I can be funny!

The comments in the parentheses are the ones which came up as we compiled the list.

1. dance alone

(ok start moojik!).
2. make gourmet food

(but don’t eat it)
3. feel your body….every inch of it
3. pretend like a talking gorilla in a sci-fi movie

(ok that’s 4!)
5. think of twenty reasons why you hate milk
6. sing along ur favorite songs at the top of ur voice
(ok that’s six already!  my numbering is bad)
7. play a prank on your best friend. (u cant say play a prank.. u should say wht prank!)
6. contemplate on why your 6th standard maths teacher had a nose like a withered capsicum.
(ok u please give the 9th point with correct number!)
(he he…I understood u r bad at math !)
(math is bad at math!)
9. read as many as random books at the library as possible…
10. invent a mechanism to produce electricity out of bird poop.
(aint i funny? )
11. Wire up your home with cameras, clap switches and voice activated music.
12. recite the 16th table in reverse
(we are not responsible for PTSD : post-traumatic stress disorder)
(we can add disclaimer to this list!)
(try with adult supervision.. but because u r lonely u can use a poster of marilyn manson at the geriatrics convention.)
13. surgically remove your sixth (nonexistent) finger
14. give yourself a nose job

lol… what nose ..i have very little!)
15. change all your internet passwords
16. try hacking into ur friends email account or atleast succeed in disabling them
(get it locked for 24 hours or something!)
17. Write a love letter to your frinds wife or husband
18. recite swear words beginning with all letters of the alphabet
(refer google for z)
19 . sky dive, bungy jump or run a marathon
(oh are we also getting outdoors then the options are endless!)
20. paint your neighbours car yellow
(ok then lets keep it indoors !)
21. scare all the kids in the neighborhood by telling them ghost stories.
(or by going out in your bedclothes)
(but then u r not lonely, u have kids!)

(neighbor’s kids)
(lonely = alone )
(ok delete 21)
(not surrounded by babes, kids, amusement park attendants etc )

21. wear all the clothes upside down
(inside out!)
22. feed the rodents in ur house
(not your computer mouse.. it maybe allergic to eggs)
23. remove all the keys from the keyboard and reassemble them
24. dress up like an alien
25. write a UFO sighting article
(or suicide note!)
(it would be an added advantage if you can take a picture of a half-boiled egg and scientifically prove that it is a UFO. You can also dig crater in neighbor’s garage for effect!)
26. try making wine out of last week’s rotten grapes
27. call your mobile from your landline and vice versa. Get surprised when you hear the busy tone.
28. try to remember what everybody wore for your aunt’s funeral in 1986
29. drink milk or any other drink from a flat bowl licking it up.
(don’t steal your dog’s bowl for this purpose. it is cheap)
30. write your will imagining you are rockefeller
( yay!
we made 30)
(or autobiography imagining you are Michael jackson)
( that can be 31 !)
32. cook risotto italian style. don’t use a recipe.
(:|
or vankaya pulsu
or sushi
or bouillebaise)
33. sleep under the bed.
( with a torch light
and a book!)
34. Pretend like a carpet(also can be substituted for pretend like a rug)
35. switch off the lights and light candles and blow them off one by one and then search for the light swicth with a torch light
(too many “and”s)
35. try ardha matsyendrasana or paad pashcimottanasana
(please keep phone at hand in case you require a friend to untangle you)
37. go around the house crawling or rolling or just dragging urself or like yesteryear snake dance heroines
38. sit in the fridge and the oven alternatively for a few minutes till you reach the room temperature.
39. assume you’re volatile phosphorus and spontaneously combust.
40. write a mail full of typos to your english teacher in school
(or write a status mail to your previous manager with double decimal status percentages “I have completed 69.86% of the first task)

41. pour a drop of water or oil on your forehead and track it all over your body till it hits the ground
42. Pick your nose employing the principles behind simple harmonic motion
43. Write a pay hike and promotion mail to yourself.
44. Reply to ntunga binjoba from nigeria who promised you 10000000000 pounds and tell him you’d like a chihuaha instead.
45. Order 4 packs of viagra and present it to the next old man u meet..
(Then run like hell)
(Leave your mail id in case he wants to send you a virtual kiss or an ecard)

46. Reply to the classified ads and never show up.
46. Dress up like a Chinese grandmother and go to the vegetable market
47.post your 15 year old ragged shoe for sale on ebay. Praise it with the best possible adjectives.
49. Count all the eggs you have, put them in one basket and break them
50. Collaborate with a friend on chat and produce 50 useless ideas to spend time when lonely

(we ll repeat tht idea for 100 also)
51. Assume that your name is pilavullukandu thekkapirambil warnakulasuriya ushantha atapattu and write to a Nigerian bank officer about the 1000000 pounds that you want to transfer to his account.
52. Make paper rockets and try to project them into space and announce failure due to launch pad loose screw.
53. Pretend that you’re an asparagus and hate yourself for it
(refer point 38 for added effect)
54. Run the fan at low speed and let the eyes roll following it and pretend that you got hypnotized and tell yourself all the secrets about yourself
(thts a good one really )
55. write a post-colonialist criticism of kamasutra
( it is easy actually
i can do tht
but it ll be pseudo!)
56. Cough like you are a movie hero and sing a sad song all the way to death interspersed with loud coughing all through.
( vaazhvaeeee maayam
ulagae maayam
lokk lokk lokk)
57. Concoct a potion from available ingredients and pretend you’ve grown green knee-length eyebrows because of it
58. Run out of ideas and sit still
59. Make ice cubes in a variety of shapes and decorate the fish tank with them
60. Take a solemn speech by martin luther king and read it out in silly baby talk with sound effects by jim carrey.
(This post is gonna be a super hit)
(41 to go!)
(Let’s make it 60 ways instead of 101)
(Lazy bum)
61. Observe the movement of water drops on a hot pan and write a thesis on it.
(Alternatively u can try sitting on it)
(And verify Einstein’s statement)
(For the lack of a beautiful woman)
(“A minute on a hot span seems like an hour even with a beautiful woman next to u.”)
(No but an hour with a beautiful woman seems like a minute)
(Not when u r sitting on a hot pan)
(Provided she is not sitting on the pan )
62. Learn to say good night sweet dreams in 32 languages
63. Have laziness competitions with an online friend.
( *friend online)

Tantalus at Lethe

I pray
Not to god
I pray to fragile sweet things
To pass on their sensitivity to people

I pray to the wafting sounds
To fill my mind with chaos
Chaos that prevents me from remembering

I pray to invisible sunsets
Beyond the visible blank wall
To shatter the places around
And make refuse out of tomorrows

I pray to insanity
To bind me in its clutches
Escape reality and fall into fetters

I pray to animal killers
To clip my feathers
And render me incapable of flights of fantasy

I pray to that face
Which makes living hours a nightmare
To forget to enter my eyes for a day

I pray to the scars
To remind me of the pain
Over and over again
Till I forget to forgive

I pray to cold winter
To visit my doorstep once
And teach me the tactics of indifference

I pray to my tears
To wash myself away
Like the stains of a blood red drawing
That dared to paint itself

I pray to the fish
To keep churning up the oceans
And make eternity an endless fear
Cyclical ebbs and tides
Neverending and cripplingly fierce

I pray to colourless dreams
To kill my intensity
Suffocate my heaving pride
And make me impotent and limp

I pray to my own violence
To not hide under ethics
And my flamboyance
To breathe through my words
If only insignificant and ignored.

I pray to cold fingers
To grip me in their lack of movement
To stagnate my journeys
Across painful past and past-stained present

I pray to you
To teach me hate
Secret love
And forgetfulness
And feed me with a potion from Lethe
That the gods drink deep every night.

Note: This poem has no mythological connotations. Only figurative.

Sunset

This is something that I drew based on the tutorial in this link.

Click on the image to view a larger size. (Pssst.. it is a mess in a lot of places.. :p)

These tests rock!

You Should Rule Saturn

Saturn is a mysterious planet that can rarely be seen with the naked eye.



You are perfect to rule Saturn because like its rings, you don’t always follow the rules of nature.

And like Saturn, to really be able to understand you, someone delve beyond your appearance.



You are not an easy person to befriend. However, once you enter a friendship, you’ll be a friend for life.

You think slowly but deeply. You only gain great understanding after a situation has past.

What Planet Should You Rule?

Ranajit Guha on Elitist Historiography – An Analysis

The essay “On Some Aspects of the Historiography of Colonial India” by Ranajit Guha analyses and compares neo-colonialist historiography and neo-nationalist historiography from the elitist perspective. The essay also touches upon the subaltern groups’ contribution to Indian Nationalism, which has been overlooked by the elite historiographers.

There are sixteen points discussed in the essay with reference to bourgeoisie nationalist, colonialist, elite and subaltern tendencies in the writing of Indian history. The essay speaks of both pre-colonial and post-colonial India with reference to Nationalism.

The author begins by establishing the differences between the history written by British elite groups and Indian elite groups. The British adopt a method of neo-colonialism or the use of economic, political and other pressures to control or influence a former dependency such as India. This method is adopted chiefly by British writers but not without Indian imitators. On the other hand, the neo-nationalists attribute the entire credit of achieving Indian Independence to native (Indian) elite groups. There are liberal British historiographers who support this idea along with the Indian historiographers.

The one commonality however, is their prejudice to the elite class making them predominant heroes who brought about the nationalist consciousness in an otherwise subdued India.

In the neo-nationalist sense the Indian elite groups are made up of Indian elite personalities, institutions, activities and ideas. It seems correct, for, the Indian neo-nationalist history credits the whole of the struggle for Independence as an act performed by a group of elitist lawyers such as Gandhi, Nehru, Ram Mohan Roy, Tilak, Gokhale, Patel, Rajagopalachari and others.

In the neo-colonialist sense the elite groups are made up of British colonial rulers, administrators, policies, institutions and cultures. The neo-colonialist definition of Indian Nationalist portrays it as a function of stimulus and response. A good example would be the text book depiction of the 1857 War of Independence as “Sepoy Mutiny”. This portrayal attempts to classify the 1857 rebellion of the Indian soldiers as a mere reaction to a provocation of their religious sentiments (The Enfield Cartridges). It also portrays the native elite as a group of people who were in a learning process, trying to assimilate a huge governing structure and understand its principles. This too is not due to any great idealism but only because the native elites seemed to want to gain power, wealth and positions of pride. The Zamindars and princes (bourgeois) are always represented as the subordinate natives who would commit treason for their own ends. They were also depicted as being divided, inefficient, dull and easily surmountable.

As opposed to the neo-colonialist depiction, the native elitist historiographers depict the elite nationalists as idealists who led the people from subjugation to freedom. There are several versions in this sort of historiography depending on varying degrees of emphasis on individuals and institutions. The chief aspects highlighted about the indigenous elite nationalists are:

1. Their goodness and its phenomenal expression in the form of Indian Nationalism.

2. Their antagonistic stance against the colonial regime.

3. Their role as promoters of the cause of the indigenous people.

4. Their altruistic and self-abnegating characters.

Guha puts it across very satirically and sardonically by placing an opposition next to each of these tall claims.

“They have completely tried to evade the accusations of being collaborationists, exploiters and oppressors who scrambled for power and privilege, making them appear like spiritual men…” he says.

There are certain advantages in elite historiography. It helps:

1. In understanding the colonial state structure.
2. In knowing the various state organs and their operation during certain historical circumstance.
3. In knowing the ‘nature of alignment of the classes’.
4. In the identification of elite ideology as dominant during certain periods.
5. In understanding the contradictions between Indian and British elite groups, their oppositions and coalitions.
6. In classifying the roles of certain important people and organizations of the Indian and British elite groups.

The ideological characteristics of such historiography, is made evident by these interpretations.

The people or the subaltern groups and their contributions have been looked at as mere response to an elite inspiration and influence. The British elite represents the subaltern nationalist upsurges as a ‘law-and-order’ problem and the Indian elite represents it as the response to the charisma of a certain leader. They use the term “vertical mobilization of factions” to describe these leaders moving the whole nation towards a common goal. This sort of falsehood and misrepresentation gets exposed where history has to explain phenomena such as the Rowlatt Movement and the Quit India Movement where the people acted against the colonialists without any elite control or guidance.

Such inadequate history whose efficiency is doubly crippled by beliefs such as the ones upholding the colonialist superstructure and ‘class outlook’ can never give the native nationalists as much importance as they deserve. The subaltern groups mobilized themselves. Guha calls them an “autonomous domain”. Though colonialism intruded into elite nationalism several times and rendered it ineffective, the subaltern nationalism continued to operate vigorously by a) adjusting and adapting to changing conditions and b) developing new ideas in form and content.

Subaltern politics considered mobilization as a horizontal activity that touches upon social groups of equal status at any point in time. The elitist groups practiced vertical mobilization that touched upon several levels of colonial hierarchy. Such elitist mobilization depended on the movements of the British parliamentary institutions and such. For example, Patel who unified the Princely States after independence did it with great difficulty by using vertical mobilization. Horizontal mobilization involved kinship, territorial and class associations at the level of consciousness of the people involved. This was simpler and pragmatic. It was spontaneous and violent unlike the controlled, legalistic, and cautious mobilization methods of the elites.

Peasant uprisings and such subaltern revolts had a constant element of antagonism to elite domination. This ideology was in varied degrees. Sometimes it helped by increasing the concreteness, focus and tension in subaltern politics. At other times, by its communal interests, it resulted in bigotry and confusion. Two things that drove the subaltern class in a certain path was their understanding of exploitation and of productive labour. This was a distinct factor that set it apart from elite politics.

Despite the living contradictions that stopped the subaltern politics from actualization in history, clear demarcations ideology, operation and spontaneity can be made between subaltern politics and elite politics. The failure of the bourgeoisie in speaking for the nation is evident. Their hegemony created a dichotomy which cannot be ignored by an interpreted of history. Ignoring the vast differences in ideologies between the subaltern and the elite could mislead the history reader.

These two factions are not watertight compartments sealed off from one another. They still overlap due to bourgeoisie attempts to integrate them. These efforts succeeded when backed by anti-imperialist motives. They failed miserably causing nasty strife among the sects when the anti-imperialist motives were not firm and when compromises were made with the colonialists. A good example would be the partition of India and Pakistan.

Due to the inability of the working class to rise above the local limitations, and the lack of good leadership, history has interpreted their national struggles as fragmented local rebellions for economic, political and petty reasons. The inadequacy of the bourgeoisie and the working class has resulted in a historic failure.

The end result could have been either ‘a democratic revolution under the bourgeoisie hegemony’ or ‘a ‘new-democracy’ under the subaltern hegemony’. Unfortunately, it was neither.

Ranajit Guha concludes with a need to resolutely fight against elitist historiography by ” I) rejection of spurious and unhistorical monism and II) recognition of the co-existence and interaction of the elite and subaltern domains of politics”. The purpose of the writers of subaltern studies, he says, is to create a convergence of elitist views and ideas opposing it. Criticism and discussions that ensue would help in learning a great deal more about how to preserve the integrity of historiography.

Glossary:

Historiography: The writing of history, the study of history-writing.

Historicism: The theory that social and cultural phenomena are determined by history.

Subaltern: A marginalized group rendered voiceless by oppression.

Elitism: Advocacy of or reliance on leadership or dominance by a select group.

Bourgeois: Upholding the interests of the capitalist class.

Neo-colonialism: The use of economic, political and other pressures to control or influence other countries esp. former dependencies (a country or province controlled by another.)

Neo-nationalism: An ideology supporting the creation of a nation-state.

Idealism: The practice of forming or following after ideals.

Ideological: The system of ideas at the basis of an economic or political theory, the manner of thinking characteristic of a class or individual.

Vertical: Involving at the levels of hierarchy of an organization.

Mobilization: Organize for service or action.

Hegemony: A leadership by one state or confederacy.

Dichotomy: Division into two (sharply defined)

Localism: Limitations arising from attachment to a local custom or ideology.

Monism: The doctrine that only one ultimate principle or being exists.