Love’s Labour’s Lost, in India Today: Reflections on a Graduation, Politicians and Parents

Some years back, on holiday in Thailand, I intended to recuperate after finishing writing one book by spending days in a hammock on a beach, eating - lots, drinking - more, and reading - rather re-reading - one book: The Discovery of India.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Discovery_of_India The vacation turned out to be exactly what I needed and the only part of my plan that didn’t work out was that I didn’t end up re-reading as much as I intended to — blame the myriad charms of a comatose holiday. As our hammock days ended, in jest, I turned to my family and said that I could almost hear Pandit Nehru’s gentle rebuke: Beta, aap hamari kitaab nahin kholey?

Fast forward to yesterday when we were driving back from wind-blown Providence after witnessing a graduation — of my friend’s daughter who, in the manner of children we’ve seen grow up, is now a friend too. Sometime during the journey, hubby and I discussed the one defining statement that Brown University’s President made in her commencement address: Do what you love. We both agreed that while that was entirely valid, what was missing in that exhortation was that one essential element of any true love: labour.

How can you know what you love if you haven’t put in the labour that love demands? 

Doubtful? Ask any parent or caregiver who raises a child. We love our children, but of course, yet is there a day when raising them — and Lord! we shall not even get into adolescence here when several WWs are resolved in one day, and largely because one party (the parent must always remember to be the adult in the relationship) — that parents are not tested? Yesterday, my friend teared up so often that we joked it was the stinging icy wind of New England. But when you have raised a mewling helpless infant to the day they toss their mortar boards gleefully into the air, you have scars which your children will never know. Until they become parents themselves. That is the circle of life. Labour - Love - Labour - Love… 

Now we are living in an age where it has become easy and fashionable to denounce our past leaders, be it Obama in the US or Nehru in India. The current governments seem duty bound to diss those visionary leaders. They love being in the public eye — bespoke suits, grandiose rhetoric, social media glitz — not so much the labour of governance, it seems. 

There is the fantasy of love and the reality of worthwhile achievement — Shakespeare well understood this when he wrote Love’s Labour’s Lost. As do our current politicians. Having little worthwhile achievement to show, they are rewriting Nehru’s Legacy via their frothing social media troll wagon. Anyone with a smidgen of historical knowledge knows the “contribution” the RSS and its right-wing cohorts made to the freedom of India — the most famous being the letters of apology Savarkar wrote begging the British for his own freedom, the country be damned. 

As for Nehru, he was jailed so frequently by the British that he picked up gardening, often turning part of the prison yard into a flower garden with the help of fellow prisoners. Spinning was another activity he took up in jail. Indeed, the pale pink khaki silk saree that Indira Gandhi wore on her wedding was spun by him in jail. And while Savarkar was writing his mercy petitions, Nehru wrote The Discovery of India in jail in 1944 over five months, without the aid of the internet or any research assistants — it covered 1000 handwritten pages. 

Labour - Love. Got it? 

You raise a child, you got scars to show. You free a nation and work to ensure its freedom is sustained, you got scars to show. Of his 74 years of life, Pandit Nehru spent almost a decade shuttling between jails. As Prime Minister, he worked to the beat of Frost’s homily to love & labour: I have miles to go before I sleep…

Pandit Nehru died 54 years ago. But his words live on. You can read mercy petitions or you can read the The Discovery of India. Question is: are you willing to put in the labour for what you love?

It’ll be a Good Year, A Seer has So Ordained …

It’s that time of the year again: fir trees, white-green-plastic-flown from Norway; piped carols in stores; Santas at supermarkets; iridescent lighting on skyscraper facades. We’re spending Christmas in Hong Kong after several years and I am glad. It’s gorgeous at this time, the city dressed up to party! A ferry ride from Kowloon to HK island in the evening is a must do if you are here – the usually impressive HK skyline gets a twinkling-lights facelift. And then there are the fireworks!

It’s also the time for parties, meeting friends and catching up with family and therefore, invariably, time for copious conversation as well. So while you may want to brush up on your talking skills – I recommend How to have a Beautiful Mind by Edward De Bono – you might also like to have some shayrs up your sleeve, to be artfully slipped into chats as a sequitur, rhetoric, irony, metaphor, euphemism …

You know how it goes: pub and poetry, shayr and sharaab, Ghalib and ghazal!

Why Ghalib, you might ask? In the pantheon of poets you could summon anyone from Rumi to Faiz – this party is certainly one where the more the merrier – but Ghalib, like Shakespeare, has opined on every topic under the sun, from art to zephyr, bazeecha to zulmat. He has trawled through tulips and thorns, death and destruction, love and anguish, life and longing, and come up with shayrs that plumb our universal humanity. Ghalib has wit, passion, rhyme and meter and the ability to reveal the universe in two lines – pray why would you go elsewhere? As Ghalib himself said:

Hain aur bhi duniya mein shukhanwar bahut achhe,

Kahte hain ki Ghalib ka hai andaaze-bayaan aur.

Be there many poets in the world,

But Ghalib, it is said, has a diction that is singular.

Ghalib is handy, and how.       

Amongst the topics of conversation will likely feature the important events of 2010, farewell to the present year, and hopes and wishes for 2011.

Let’s start with the highlights of 2010: Haiti earthquake, Pakistan floods, Chilean miners, Dubai property crash, the PIGS Euro crisis, CWG scam, Tea Partiers, Assange and Cablegate, World Cup, Winter Olympics in Canada, eruption of Eyjafjallajokull and Mount Merapi, the BP oil spill, Nobel Peace Prize and China, the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, North Korea’s shelling of South, US-China currency tango …

Ghalib can be deployed with dexterity in any confabulation around the above topics. Witness:

• US-China interaction: Wen Jiabao could aptly tell Obama

Har ek baat pe kehte ho tum ki tu kya hai,

Tumhee kaho ki ye andaaze-guftagoo kya hai?

To everything that I say, your retort remains: Who are you?

Pray tell me, what kind of conversation is this?

Obama could in turn salvo the above shayr to the Tea Partyers!

• The scam masters of India; or Kalmadi, Raja & Inc.

Hazaaron khwaahishen aisi ke har khwahish pe dam nikle

Bahut nikle mere armaan, lekin phir bhi kam nikle.

Thousands of desires, each worth dying for,

Many a wish have I realized, yet I yearn for more.

• And the ennui and resignation of Indians is best summed by:

Raat din gardish mein hai saat asmaan,

Ho rahega kuchh na kuchh ghabrayen kya

Day and night the planets are in motion

Something will work out, why worry ourselves

• The dalliances of Messrs Berlusconi, Putin & Tharoor

Ishq ney Ghalib nikamma kar diyaa,

Warna hum bhi aadmi the kaam ke.

Love has rendered me useless Ghalib,

Otherwise I was a person of much worth.

• BP’s desperate attempts to mop the spill while the Gulf of Mexico perished

Chipak raha hai badan par lahu se pairaahan,

Hamaari jeb ko ab haajta-e-rafu kya hai?

The garment sticks to the body with my blood,

What use is it darning the collar now?

• PIGS countries tell the European Commission

Unke dekhe se jo aa jati hai munh par raunaq,

Who samajhte hain ki beemaar ka haal accha hai.

A smile lights my face when I sight her,

And they take it to mean all’s well with blighted me.

The Greeks could tell Merkel the same!

• Chilean miners

Zindagi apni jab is shakl sey guzari Ghalib,

Hum bhi kya yaad karenge ki khudaa rakhte they.

My life took such a turn Ghalib,

That I realized there is a God who shaped it thus.

So how was 2010 overall? Eventful, insightful, we won some, we lost some – a year like all the others! Time to bid farewell then, and ring in the new.

Hum ko maaloom hai jannat kee haqeeqat lekin,

Dil ke khush rakhney ko Ghalib ye khayaal achcha hai.

The realities of Heaven are known to us Ghalib,

But to beguile the heart, it is a good thought.

            And here’s a handy one for 2011:

Dekhiye paate ushaaq buton se kya faiz,

Ek Barahman ne kaha hai ke ye saal achha hai.

Let’s see what blessings the desirous get from the unresponsive ones,

A seer has ordained the year will be a good one.

December 27 marks Mirza Ghalib’s 213^th birthday. As a writer I am indebted to him for the manner in which he reveals himself anew with every fresh reading of his work. When I first encountered the following shayr –

Aate hain ghaib se yeh mazaamin khyaal mein

Ghalib sarir-e-khaama nawaae sarosh hai.

These thoughts, Ghalib, are heaven-sent,

My pen is the scribe of the voice of Gods.

– I took it to mean that Ghalib had claimed his writing was of a standard that was of the Gods. Not unusual for a man who was aware of his genius and entirely unaffected by false modesty. However, subsequent readings over the years have revealed to me another facet – one in which Ghalib states that he is a vessel for the divine discourse, channeling what he is receiving from the Heavens above. Remarkable humility, Mirza Nosha, for one who is regarded as the greatest Urdu poet. 

Salutations my friend on your birthday!

And to all my other friends, wishing you a Merry X’mas and a very Happy 2011. It’ll be a good year, a seer has so ordained …

A writer, a President and two Nays

Two recent news in Indian media caught my eye: the banning of Rohinton Mistry’s book Such a Long Journey, and a probable cancellation of President Obama’s planned trip to the Golden Temple during his upcoming trip to India. The two engaged me perhaps because I am a writer and a Sikh, or because of the incongruous congruity between the two situations.

Mr. Mistry’s book was hastily banned after the Shiv Sena, a fundamentalist Hindu party headquartered in Mumbai, burned copies of the book in front of television cameras and threatened to burn the author too if he returned from Canada where he resides. Such a Long Journey was first published in 1992, won the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize, and has been a part of the literature syllabus of Mumbai university for four years. Meanwhile, according to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, "the President has decided, or the White House has decided, not to send the President to the Golden Temple because of concerns about him having to wear a headscarf."

Such a Long Journey was banned because it is apparently derogatory to the Shiv Sena and slights the Marathis. President Obama’s reluctance stems from the perception amongst some right wing Americans that he is Muslim, one that would be strengthened by his proposed visit that would necessitate him covering his head as per the traditions of the shrine. In both cases, the moot question is: is it a perception that can be corrected by denial?

Mr. Mistry has issued a statement denouncing the burning and banning of his book. President Obama and the White House have repeatedly reiterated the President’s Christian affiliation. What next?

In Mumbai people have organized readings from Mr. Mistry’s book, and uploaded video recordings on Youtube.  Discussions are being held on censorship, the idea of free speech and its constitutional guarantee. The only way to beat ignorance is by creating awareness. Public readings draw the attention of people to the book, who can read it and then judge for themselves. Something the twenty-year-old proponent of the ban chose not to do. It is easier to burn a book as your launch pad than read it and make sense of our conflicting reality.

            What is President Obama to do? A man of principles and courage, he came to power by fighting stereotypes. What cause withholds him then, as Mark Antony famously said, to continue the fight? Admittedly, as President he has to account for realpolitik. But the post of the most powerful man in the world also wields tremendous influence, influence that he must parlay in the battle against misplaced perceptions. 

Let’s begin with the Sikhs and their shrine. Sikhism emphasizes the equality of all human beings and rejects discrimination on the basis of caste, creed or gender. Sikh teachings stress individual hard work, community service and an optimistic view of life. India’s current Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, is a Sikh. The Golden temple is the holiest shrine of the Sikhs. In the spirit of religious harmony, its foundation stone was laid in 1588 by a Muslim Sufi saint. Several notable people have visited the temple including Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, and the Dalai Lama. Most Sikh men wear a turban as part of their faith, which has led to them being mistakenly attacked as Muslims in the US.

President Obama’s visit to the Golden Temple is a chance to raise awareness that people who cover their heads are not all Muslim, backward, or violent.

Post 9/11 the headscarf has acquired demonic proportions. However, despite a widespread misconception in the West, the tradition of covering one’s head is an ancient one that was prevalent in cultures across the world. From the Egyptian Pharaohs to the Mayans of Central America to the European men of the Renaissance, the practice of wearing some form of headgear persisted over millennia. The same for women. The veil grew as a status symbol for high society Sassanian women and turbans were fashionable in Europe until the middle of twentieth century. As a neat solution for a bad hair day it was coined cache-miserie. Contemporary headwear is commonplace in the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, South East Asia, and Africa – Sikh pagri, Turkish fez, Pashtun lungee, African turban or Jewish kippah – whether as accessory, instrument of faith, or as protection against dust and sun.

A covered head is a requisite mark of respect in many religious places – Sikh temples, Muslim mosques, Jewish synagogues. Even the Vatican requires that bared arms and legs be covered when visiting the premises.

            A headscarf is not suspect, the thinking that stereotypes it thus is. President Obama, this is your chance to bust the stereotype, and in the process, enlighten your countrymen.