More bloodshed, more blood shed
Not a drop reaches the ground.
Is it stopped by
The impenetrable cloak of countless dead,
Or the thick shroud of apathy?
Maybe the violence is
A fitting consequence of past deeds?
We reiterate, dust to dust and ashes to ashes
Do we care in these times-
Every being on its own,
Life hurtling, destination unknown?
No matter what the end,
But a footnote will finally
Represent each carnage9-
9Collateral Damage.
Esteemed readers of contemporary English literature by Acclaimed Authors of Indian Origin (AAIO!) would know that we started not so long back with a gentleman who was putting Midnight’s Children to sleep and who went on to make Shalimar clown. We then followed closely the attempts of another guy looking for a Suitable Boy, who also played an Equal Music. Along the way, there was the pretty lady who called upon the God of Small Things, another lady who was enamoured by her Namesake, and the third who bemoaned the Inheritance of Loss. Closer to date, there is this guy who was feeding the Hungry Tide in a Sea of Poppies. The journey has been crowned off by that chap whose name-sounds-like-an-old time-coffee-house-in-Bengaluru writing about a rare keystone species, the White Tiger.
I am convinced that these people became AAIO!s because of the circumstances of their lives, and has less to do with their literary or imaginary (pun intended) writing capabilities. A study of their life and books tells me that, on an average and not to put too fine a point on it, my life has gone exactly the way a future Booker winner’s life should play out.
For starters, most AAIO!s are those whose connection with India is through part of their family tree which is to be found after digging a considerable depth. My parents are normal middle class folks, but I am fast getting to the AAIO!-types by being connected to India only through my roots because of what I do and what I don’t.
Do’s: I listen to Coldplay when the neighbourhood temple plays the Suprabhata, I only light incense sticks to make my home smell good, I call everyone including really older people by their first name, I roll my “R”s, and I crib about the heat and dust when I step out of the aircon.
Don’ts: I forget to light lamps on Diwali, in fact I hardly ever light lamps, I don’t step out without my bottles of mineral water (never cold) and hand sanitizer (lemon), … seems like I am on the right track.
Let’s run a checklist to establish my suitability for the prize, what say?
1. AAIO!s are often criticized for not being able to connect sufficiently with realities in India. I must say this holds true for about 99.99% of India’s urban upper middle class. I am pretty sure that milk comes from packets, I can’t differentiate between a cow and an ox (all right, I’m exaggerating), I didn’t know what caste I was from till I reached college. Let us check this one!
2. Now, AAIO!s are only able to bring out their perspective about the country they hardly know in the language that is quite alien, but which they know best- English. I take two days to read a reasonably spaced page of large font size Devanagari script, and end up making the less than literate wonder why they should spend time and money getting educated when I try to communicate in my mother tongue. An illustration below (this is a true story):
Me: (to Bus Conductor) (in Kannada): Does this bus to go Hassan via Channarayapatna?
Bus Conductor: (in Kannada, smirking): Please read! Have you been to school?
Me (running to the back of the bus, muttering in English): “Ha…….Sa……..Na, alright, correct destination. This other word seems too long to be Tiptur, I guess it has to be Channaryapatna then….”
Bus Conductor: (blowing the whistle): “Pippip! Reyya reyya”…bus starts up and leaves.
A sure sign of impending success with the Booker, check with a capital C!
3. Most AAIO!s have drawn from remarkable locations for their writing- places that are known for their extraordinary natural beauty or the jolting reality of poverty and conflict in the face of wealth and security, or both. I’ve lived in a place of extraordinary natural beauty and have had the chance to see poverty and crumbling infrastructure closely. So far so good.
But my candidature is not without its pitfalls. Typically, most AAIO!s have spent a lot of time outside of India- by birth (often), sometimes by choice (either theirs or their parents’) or, by being exiled (rarely). These are the inputs that make the sights, sounds and smells of India eminently suited for a novel. Having lived all my life in India, Vitamin P (Phoren-return-after-a-long-time) seems like the only vital ingredient I am missing in order to be a serious contender for the prize-.
A couple of decades should be long enough for me to accumulate enough Vitamin P, which explains my timeline. There are some obvious things that I still need to work on, such as writing the book. An insignificant detail, though.
I have a childhood friend who lives in Canada and practices psychoanalysis. (I prefer to believe that these three facts have no causal relationships whatsoever).
Let’s call my friend PA (for Psycho-Analyst) and let’s call his wife PAW (there is no Freudian slip here, just convenience). Now we were all enjoying our largely idyllic lives before PA decided to come to India for a short trip.
We exchanged the usual ‘let’s meet’ e-mails and I gave him my phone number and forgot all about it. I had not met him for over a decade and all I could recall of him was that he used to be a good guitarist and quite popular with the girls. (Wonder how we made friends? Guitar and I are like say Sachin and nuclear physics and my relationships with girls have usually been in the Bhajji-Symonds league)
Anyhow PA didn’t forget our e-mail overtures and called me for a dinner meeting. I pounced on the opportunity of putting some foreign exchange in India’s current account kitty. I suggested that we pick up PA and PAW and drive to Ohri’s 100 degrees on the lakeside for dinner.
Gradually I realised the impending social problems that may arise out of our meeting. First PA is a psychoanalyst and NOT an MBA. And PAW teaches art at the University of Toronto. Yours truly and wifeji are both MBAs. What are we going to talk about!
See, when we meet our Business School friends there is a kind of social ease and camaraderie. The following topics are covered in random order:
1. The sad hours one is putting in at work
2. Official travel, travel plans, good hotels to stay at, what to eat etc.
3. Boss’s incompetence and how one bears all this in the line of duty (though the language used is less sophisticated)
4. Discussing the good old days (profs replace boss here)
5. State of Indian cricket first, state of Indian markets next
Now PA from Canada might not want to discuss any of these comfortable issues. But now the die was cast and I was hoping that PAW and wifeji will carry the day. This hope is not unrealistic as women have an entire set of important issues they can discuss, even when they meet someone for the first time. (The colour of the Sari itself is good enough for 40 minutes of prelims).
So at the appointed hour we picked up PA and PAW.
Quick assessment: PA not changed much, about PAW I wouldn’t know as I was meeting her for the first time!
We start driving and wifeji and PAW have already broken the ice and are discussing the ‘must buys’ in Hyderabad. PAW was already in her elements and said something like the drive was more interesting than any Hitchcock movie, nobody was sure how it will end. I ignored her. One cannot compare my driving (a higher art-form) with movies by a guy with a name like Hitchcock.
PA fired the opening salvo. “So Soami what do you do?” I told him the few interesting bits about my pitiful finance job. I think PA was quite closed to the idea of discussing my work-life after that.
I came up with my usual smart repartee “what about you PA”. His explanation was rather long and vague. I could only catch some words in the jetstream – practice, analysis, freud, social problems. I latched on to the first.
RS: what do you mean practice? You use people like tennis balls?
PA: smirk-condescending smile-smirk. “Nope, we just try to analyse why people think what they think.
RS: “You mean you can think what people are thinking better than the people who are actually thinking whatever they are thinking?” I was beginning to drag the discussion towards a safe heaven called logic.
PA: No we can guess why they are thinking what they are thinking.
RS: So you can guess why I will think what I will think when I will think something?
PA: You are daft!
Wifeji to PA: You don’t need to be a psychoanalyst to conclude that.
PAW, still smarting from the drive: “well PA is good at finding out what people really are”. Exemplary, I have to admit, from an Arts Professor.
RS: so PA I am thinking of aloo parathas now.
PA: that’s good.
RS: no, I mean why am I thinking of aloo parathas?
PA: may be you like aloo parathas and you are hungry.
RS: so this is what you do, tell people the obvious with serenity and make money from them.
PA: surprised by the assault “I don’t analyse aloo parathas. Let me give you a word association test.
RS: ok. Shoot.
PA: mother
RS: aloo paratha!!
PA: business
RS: business lunch…. hmmm… May be some aloo paratha too
PA: violence
RS: Bush
Dinner had arrived by now. Some pasta and sizzlers. I lost all interest in being practiced upon. But PA was a true pro.
PA: discipline
RS: No
PA: Health
RS: Aloo parathas
PA: very dense, I must say.
RS: that’s much more than one word.
PA: you should switch careers and join politics. You have no brains, no creativity, good focus and clear priorities.
RS: Thanks, the pasta is good no!!
The rest of the dinner was spent riling the uncontrolled growth of urban India, the weather and how difficult it is to fly from Canada to India.
After a round of desserts, PA offered to pay the bill and I cracked some jokes about charging him for the practice I gave him, which he did not appreciate. But nevertheless signed the cheque.
I offered to drop them off, but PAW said “I think it’s rather late and best for all if we just catch a rickshaw”. Yahoo!!
And so it Goes. Lehman Brothers (all of them) and their cousin Merill Lynch (all alone) followed Bear Stearns into Alaskan oblivion. The greater tragedy has not been the disappearance of these pious reticent institutions but to their customers who had gotten used to the high standards of service quality, respect and diligence that these institutions delivered. In a material world, it was only investment banks like these which stood out for their utmost respect and adherence to the highest social and environmental values. Please check the websites www.lehman.com and www.ml.com
Readers will be aware that at this point your correspondent usually comes with something profound such as ‘the recent developments on wall street have bared the capitalistic reality that profits are private but losses are collective’. But the author is well aware of the financial, social and psychological insulation that the readers have against fancy news items such as ‘Lehman goes under’. As I have always attempted, in the interest of my readers, I will try to focus on what is relevant for them i.e. you.
My first reaction to the news of the chapter 11 filing by Lehman brothers was not, in spite of my formidable and much respected intellectual prowess (yes, the word you are searching for is delusion), to delve into the murky depths of valuing the derivates in Lehman’s torpedoed balance sheet or its implications on financial markets but a very human “why didn’t this happen to ICICI Bank and for how long will one have to wait till this happens to them”. The second reaction was of ‘not again’ that Chelsea Clinton was attending the bankruptcy hearings. It seems that nothing consequential can happen in that silly country without either a Bush or Clinton being involved.
I digress. The obvious and life-critical question all of us in India are asking is when will ICICI bank sink. The existing customers of ICICI want the bank to ‘go under’ because of the quality of service that this magnificent institution provides. The few who are not yet customers of ICICI bank want it to sink because of the quality of phone calls they get, sometimes on Sunday afternoons, during which the bank representative starts off by asking one’s name and then enquiring if one is interested in a particular product of the bank. When I realise that the tele-relationship is not going anywhere, I usually try to elevate the quality of the conversation by asking the caller’s opinion about the 1-2-3 agreement or the crisis in Georgia. To my utter surprise the calling party quickly rebuffs my platonic-intellectual overtures by slamming their phones. In any case, by the time the call ends both parties involved are unable to resolve who is more disinterested in this bank-customer mating ritual.
I must admit that I have nothing particular against ICICI Bank. Far from it. I know of several entrepreneurial people who have raised money (fictionally termed ‘Loan’ by the bank) from ICICI for just causes such as a swankier car, or an education (MBA-if you have the courage to call it an education), or a house and have never had to repay the money. I also have a million friends who have at some point been paid by ICICI for doling out these Loans, which is fondly called work in ICICI circles. One would say that such a philanthropic institution needs to be strengthened.
But if this institution is not stopped in its tracks very soon this country will go back to the stone age. Let me explain. Indian civilization is based on mobile phones. Whether it is a mother’s painstaking 3 hour interrogation of whether or not her 34 year old son has absorbed enough calories during the day and enough here is defined by enough calories to light up Ghana for a year, or a 35 minute discussion with a second cousin’s friend regarding the national crisis of Dada being dropped. While this conversation is being tapped by Reliance-ADAG, Dada calls up the agriculture minister to discuss the rising prices of potatoes, amongst other things.
Now imagine, what will happen to this society, country, economy if people throw their phones away in sheer terror of the calls emanating from ICICI. Very soon the whole telecom infrastructure of the company will be rendered redundant. The country will go back to booking trunk calls I say!
There won’t be the nokia handsets to place individuals in the social hierarchy. Individuality will be dead. People will become indistinguishable- like those in Beijing. There won’t be any indicator for the Delhi Police cop to gauge how much he should ask for from the man who just jumped the light. No meaningless but beautiful jingles on TV. Even ‘the Brothers’ might stop quarrelling. In short, duniya humari mutthi se nikal jayegi. Poor AR Rehman will have to go back to writing full-length compositions. At least one of the Indian openers will have to look for alternate employment opportunities. Only things left will be air, water, fire, earth. No Signal.
ICICI is a small price to pay for protecting modern Indian society.
