Just Good Business!

If you’ve watched the Pirates of the Caribbean series, you’d remember, in the third part, Lord Cutler Beckett murmuring his favourite line, “Nothing personal Jack, it’s just good business…” as he goes about executing his evil plans to control the seas. Richard Branson’s “Screw Business As Usual” reminded me of the memorable dialogue — not because the book endorses the idea, but because it strictly opposes it. What the glamorous and flamboyant magnate wants to tell the world through his book is that all business is indeed personal — it’s not just about making profit, it’s about making a difference.
He quotes Ray Anderson: “For those who think business exists to make a profit, I suggest they think again. Business makes a profit to exist. Surely it must exist for some higher, nobler purpose than that.”
Through the countless examples of big and small entrepreneurs that his book is strewn with — along with his own, of course — Branson wants to make people believe that “doing good is good for business”.
The book has a preface that compels you to turn the pages — it begins with the fire at Necker Island that completely razed his house to the ground. That wouldn’t be news for you, if you’ve followed the life of the adventure-loving billionaire. But he’s used the incident to subtly remind us “how unimportant ‘stuff’ is” compared to people. Which really sets the tone for the rest of his book, talking about the ‘stuff’ that really matters — the creatures (people as well as animals) living on the 24,902 miles that make up the earth’s circumference. And that, as you come to know, is what gave rise to Capitalism 24902 — doing business in a way that you can contribute to making lives better. As Branson says, people want opportunities, not charity.
And there is information here that would shock you: in the US (of all places!) almost two million young people — some less than 12 years of age —experience homelessness every year. Then there are stories that you would marvel at, such as that of Gyanesh from Bihar who is creating electricity from rice husk for 30,000 rural homes at $2 a month, or that of Adam Balon and Richard Reed, founders of Innocent Drinks. When they created their first smoothie, they were working at Virgin Cola but wanted to start their own enterprise. Unable to decide whether to quit their jobs for this, they took their smoothies to an open air jazz festival, put two waste bins labelled ‘yes’ and ‘no’ in front of their stall, and put a sign above the bins that read: ‘Should we give up our jobs to make these smoothies’! (By the end of the day, the ‘yes’ bin was overflowing.) The book is topped up with dollops of the billionaire’s trademark humour, which brings the text to life. As he cleverly says, “humour can often be a far better way to change behaviour than just trying to scare the hell out of people. If Martin Luther King’s famous quote, ‘I have a dream’ had been ‘I have a nightmare’ it would never have been so successful.”

Walking with Death

Most people feel uncomfortable discussing death. I have always marvelled at how desperately we want to ignore something that’s the biggest truth of existence. There is nothing closer to a human being than death; it could be with you the next second. But you’d rather not think about it.
I became acquainted with death early on in life. My father died in a car accident when I was nine. At that time of course, I didn’t really understand what dying meant. What I did understand, though — courtesy Hindi movies — was that I would never be able to see him again, except in photographs.
But the time when the truth of life really hit me was a year ago, when one of my classmates died, again in a car accident. She had been an exceptionally bright person and though we had been competitors, there was no tension between us. We were close enough to share some deep secrets, although we were never a part of each other’s closest circles.
I did not go to her house when she was flown back to Aligarh from Bangalore. (It was devastating to hear people referring to ‘her body’ being flown in… one minute you’re you and the next you’re a body.) I didn’t have the courage to see her lying motionless, lying dead. I have never seen a person lying in the stillness of death — not even my father; he was buried before I regained consciousness in the hospital (72 hours after the accident).
To come back to my friend, I cannot say that she was particularly dear to me, or that I felt a personal sense of loss. The shock, however, went deep, deep down. More particularly, she had been like a space rocket and we were all eager to see where she landed. It was shocking to realise that it was the grave.
People say death shows you the futility of life. I’d like to disagree. It taught me the preciousness of life: Am I doing what I want to, or sacrificing for a future I might not even reach? More importantly, am I doing what’s good and what’s right, right now, or am I waiting to get old before I give up my vices, or get honest and generous and forgiving? There’s nothing as certain as death. I’d rather not be scared of it; I’d want to be prepared for it. Every moment.

Arabian nights on a magic carpet: From spell-casting gypsies to the Facebook-savvy bedouins— Jordan never fails to enchant you

Seeing is believing. You can truly appreciate this adage when you set foot in the small country that is Jordan. No amount of pictures can do justice to the sights, as each step leads to a fresh delight, juxtaposing the developed-modern with the magical ancient-Arabian. You’d have to see it to believe it.

My five-day visit to this land straight from the pages of the Thousand and One Nights was an enchanted journey of sorts—a tryst with holy lands, nomadic tribes, spell-casting gypsies, Facebook-savvy bedouins, hot springs in the middle of the desert and ancient cities carved out of mountains. Not to mention the sea that leaves you dumfounded as you float like a paper boat on the super-salty surface.

But this is not the way Sheherzade would have narrated it: a proper Arabian Nights tale must begin at the beginning. So the first stop for our tale is the Queen Alia International Airport, where I meet the guide: Ali Abu Dayah. He is a cheerful man, with loads of patience, ever ready to answer the flurry of questions hurled at him. Ali tells me that the farther north one moves in Jordan the greener it gets. The desert lands can be encountered down south.

And right now we are headed towards the north, to the city of Jerash, that boasts of having the largest and most well preserved Roman architecture site outside Italy. It is drizzling as I step in through the Hadrian Arch or the Arch of Triumph, built by the emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD. The huge columns loom ahead one after the other, slowly taking me out of modern Jordan and into the Roman settlement centuries ago. To the left is the Hippodrome where the Romans held chariot races. You can enjoy the sight even today, as Chariot races are held once a day for the benefit of tourists. We, however, were not lucky enough to witness these. But somehow, there is a certain enhanced thrill in imagining the unseen…in standing smack in the middle of the huge open space and letting the patter of raindrops translate into the clatter of hoofs and wheels around you…

A football hits me, breaking my reverie. The Hippodrome, while its empty, is the preferred place for a game of football by a handful of school and college kids. Football, by the way, is a national obsession in Jordan. I move out of the line of kick…er…fire, and walk farther into the magnificent city that, even though in ruins now, cannot but leave you awe­struck. Inside the building, we come to a miniature model of the grand Zeus Temple that once stood inside the complex. Back outside, we gaze at what is left of the Zeus Temple… The rain stops and a delightful breeze takes its place. Zeus, it seems, is pleased with us.

Moving ahead, we enter the Oval Plaza, a circular space measuring 90x80 m, half-lined with 56 Ionic columns, used as a venue for social, religious and political ceremonies..The plaza is now the venue for the annual Jerash festival of culture and arts, held in late July. From here, you can see columns upon columns in the distance. That, Ali tells us, is the ‘Cardo’ or the street lined with 500 columns. As we saunter through the Cardo, he points to chariot marks embedded in the stones.Further uphill is the Southern Amphitheatre, adjacent to the Zeus temple. The steep steps leading to the top of the theatre beckon to me. By the time I reach the top, I am panting. But the view makes me forget everything. The entire Roman city, the modern inhabited city in the distance and the hills all around—it is quite understandable why people would hold religious ceremonies here—at such a height you would possibly feel closer to the heavens and easily contemplate God. I stand there and for a minute wonder if this is what the Creator of the universe feels, looking at the beauty of the created land.

But my attention is diverted by the sound of bagpipes and drums. Two men in traditional Jordanian attire have begun to play a catchy tune, with drums and bagpipes, that echoes all round the theatre. The precarious perch, the strong wind and the steep fall below are sufficient deterrents to the irresistible urge to break into a merry jig. But the music combined with the view and the weather makes it an almost ethereal experience. I think again: seeing is believing.

From here we move farther uphill towards the Artemis Temple and the Byzantine Church, which has a mosaic floor. Mosaic floors are common to the churches in the Byzantine period, and Mosaic work is a flourishing handicraft in modern Jordan.Sitting on the edge of the ruins, I spot a boy holding a typical shepherd-stick with a curved upper end as his sheep follow him, grazing randomly in the green-yellow fields. I am reminded of the shepherd-Prophet David in the Old Testament story of David and Goliath. That’s what the place does to you—every step conjures a new story.

The second day includes Madaba, St George’s Church with its famous Mosaics, Mt Nebo and the Memorial of Moses, and olive plantations along the way! Madaba, the city of mosaics, has been mentioned in the Old Testament. St George’s Church here, is famous for its Mosaic floor which is a ‘religious map’ describing the travels of the various Prophets that crossed Jordan. It was also from this Mosaic that the place of Baptism of Jesus—Bethany beyond the Jordan—was discovered.

Hold your breath when you get to Bethany. It is truly sacred land, crossed by messiahs, such as the prophet Elijah who ascended to the heavens from here on a chariot of fire. I stand across from the place where John the Baptist baptised Christ. Behind it is the river Jordan—just a ribbon of a river now—which holds the holy water. I walk slowly back, my feet treading gro­und that has been treaded on by Messiahs.

The desert experience begins with the drive down to Dead Sea. A roadside signboard says ‘Bahr Al-Mayyat’, (mayyat is commonly used for dead body among Muslims) which is a thousand times more chilling than the English name! It is the lowest point on the earth and four times saltier than other seas. The salt makes the Dead Sea ‘dead’—one, it makes it impossible for marine life to survive, and two—it makes you float…like a lifeless body. That is where the magic begins. I step into the sea—and it wraps itself around me. I lie down limply in the water, raise my eyes to the sky, scan the hills in the distance and wonder if Sheherzade could spin this one.

The same day we visit the Ma’in hot springs—streams of water spurting out of nowhere in an entirely barren land of rock mountains. The place is now part of the Evason Ma’in six senses spa that has been built around it.

A pool has been constructed here at the foot of the hot-fall: the springs contain minerals that would make you relax and forget your worries.

Night brings us to Petra—the rose-red rock city carved out of mountains, built by the Nabateans more than 2000 years ago.But Petra by Night is entirely different from Petra in the daytime. Held every Monday and Thursday, Petra by Night is a sensory experience. Night is the mother of mystery and magic, and while the day would answer all your questions, night unleashes your imagination.

We are asked to keep silent during the walk. As we set off down a winding passage flanked by imposing rocks, all I can hear is the hushed whispers and the soft crunch of gravel. There is no moon—but the rocks gleam white in the starlight. Tiny lamps light up our path, and nothing else. Camera flashes are like flashes of lightning reflected on the rocks, I can make out carvings and entrances all around. Suddenly the path narrows down and we are hemmed in by huge rocks—it is the ‘Siq’ or the gorge, which marks the way to the main city. I stretch my hand and let it trail across the mountains—perhaps it would touch the handprints of an ancient Nabatean who went this way. My companions are wondering how the gorge was made…I try to imagine the royal magician cleft the rocks asunder with a spell…Just as the walk seems to go on to nowhere, the mountains abruptly open up to reveal a majestically imposing structure—the Treasury at Petra—with a carpet of a hundred lamps lit in front.

We squat before the lamps and hear a Bedouin play the rababa… I lie down on my back and watch the stars… maybe the theme was played ages ago by a youth in memory of his beloved. Then follows a flute performance and everyone is spellbound. Maybe that was the magician leading everyone into the city…

Petra in the daytime is a rose-coloured city, its rocks adorned with natural multi-colour patterns. The place might even remind you of grand canyon. The Treasury, which is actually the Nabatean King’s tomb, was so called because the Bedouins thought it contained money. A carved urn at the top of the entrance even holds bullet holes—efforts to get the coins out of the urn!Royal tombs, natural caves, cities, palaces all spill out of the rock. Every step leads you to something greater and more marvellous—the amphitheatre, the Great temple, The Qasr Al-Bint or Palace of the King’s Daughter—and not to forget the parade of the ‘Roman soldiers’ that takes place everyday for visitors!

I try to photograph a Bedouin selling knick-knacks and he mutters something curse-like, followed by a yell—“I’ll follow you around! Don’t take pictures, I’ll follow you!” The subsequent event is something like running for dear life!

But not all Bedouins mutter curses. Captain’s Desert Camp in Wadi Rum gave me a slice of Bedouin life. The brightly embroidered insides of the tent followed by some cola-coloured desert ‘chai’ set the mood for our jeep tour. An open jeep, with sand blowing in your face and the sun beating down on you, lets you take in the gloriously stark magnificence of this protected site, which was also where Lawrence of Arabia was filmed.

Open-mouthed is the right expression when experiencing Wadi Rum. We stop at a place with drawings on the rocks. These, Ali tells me, are inscriptions dating to the 4th century BC—drawings of camels, ostriches and hunters. Now we know why the valley is protected. Walking in Wadi Rum is no piece of cake—the sand seems to pull you down and the rocks look down contemptuously upon your insignificance.

But the sight of the sun setting behind the rocks will remind you why an Arabian on a horse is a creature of romance.

Dinner at the Captain’s Camp is typical Bedouin affair, to the accompaniment of two Bedouins playing desert songs. I am recording the performance, when one of them asks me to transfer it to him by bluetooth. For a moment, I just stare at him. “No bluetooth? Well, then, please add me on Facebook,” he ends, smiling.That’s what you get in Jordan--An arabian genie in an iPhone!

Words' worth: A story of some of the most exquisite books in India and abroad

How much would you be willing to spend on a platinum ring? And how much would you sell it for, if it’s the one you wear on your ring finger…?” So went an ad for platinum jewellery, almost a decade ago. The tagline was something like this: the most precious things in life don’t come with price tags attached.

If you are one of those obsessed with books, you might want to re-interpret the ad: how much would you be willing to spend on a book that contains rare pieces of poetry and art? And for how much would you sell that book for if it’s signed by the artist you’d die for…?

Probably, the ad was right. The best things in life can’t really be valued by bar codes. Nevertheless, they do come with price tags—and no mean ones at that. Rare books, like any other sacrosanct object of art, come with their own little haloes and, sometimes, with their own not-so-little stands, too.

Hold your breath—Bhutan: A Visual Odyssey Through The last Himalayan Kingdom, which holds the world record for being the largest book at 5 ft x 7 ft, weighs 150 pounds and was priced at $15,000 (Rs 7 lakh) and had a limited run of 100 copies. Interestingly, it was only offered to donors who made a tax-deductible gift to support education in the world’s special places, and was produced on demand for each of them.

The book—if that’s what this monumental work of art can be called—contains arresting pictures of Bhutan and comes with its own custom-built aluminium stand.

The author, editor and principal photographer, Michael Hawley, is the director of special projects at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “I love Bhutan,” he told Financial Chronicle, “and hoped the book might have a positive impact by sharing some of their culture and values.” Ask him if he could briefly describe his journey, and he replies, “Briefly? Not really. Two years in the field, half a dozen trips covering the entire kingdom, hundreds of unique adventures and personal encounters.”

The publisher of the book is a non-profit educational charity called Friendly Planet, founded by Hawley, to support educational efforts in Bhutan and Cambodia.

“The King of Bhutan has seen it. I personally gave him a copy of the small edition,” Hawley says. “There are at least three big copies in Bhutan, one in the National Library, one at Sherubtse College, among others. It is a well-known project,” he adds. Though not for sale now, you can buy smaller editions and ‘read’ versions on Amazon.com.

However, if you do want to buy a rare book—with a stand, too—you need not go very far. Timeless—The Art Book Studio, at South Extension in New Delhi, proudly displays Modern Art—Revolution and Painting, a “wooden hardback covered in pale leather, hand finished and punched warm with silver” that measures a little over 100cm x 70cm when open, and weighs 32 kg. Sitting grandly on its own book-rest made of lacquered wood, it would surely dazzle you. And not just because it’s priced at a cool Rs 4.5 lakh.

The book, published by Art Media Italia in 2002, describes its own purpose to be the presentation of a “virtual art gallery” analysing modern art through the cultural and political revolutions of two centuries, “that changed mankind’s position in the world and consequently also its vision of art.”

Raavi Sabharwal, the owner of the store, tells you how he got 12 copies, out of 1,000 that have been published. He has sold five.

“I was at the Frankfurt book fair in Germany in 2009, when I first saw it. As I requested to meet the publisher, the organiser pointed a finger over my back and said ‘there he comes,’” recounts Sabharwal. “When I turned, I came face to face with the man and asked him how many copies were left. He said he had 12. I offered to buy all of those. Hearing this, the man turned to his companions and exclaimed, ‘see, you thought I was crazy!’”

Sabharwal has other such tales to tell, but he cannot divulge the names of the buyers. “People who buy such books are art lovers and book lovers. They could also be collectors. One man who bought this took it as a gift for his friend who is an artist,” he says.

There are several factors that make these books command the handsome amounts they do. “First, they are limited edition books. That alone makes them much pricier,” says Sabharwal.

“Then there is the size of these works, the quality of their prints and pages, and of course, their value as an object of rare beauty,” he adds.

Anuj Bahri Malhotra, CEO or Delhi’s most famous bookstore, Bahrisons Booksellers, has an important point to make. “You really cannot say what it is that makes a book expensive, or even which book is the most expensive of all. For instance, if a book is out of print, and I am willing to pay any amount to get it, how expensive does that make it?” Which means, ultimately, that it’s the precious factor, that human longing for all things beautiful and rare, which comes into play here.

To behold other such royalty, you can go to the Vadehra Art Gallery bookstore in Defence Colony. It houses some enchanting volumes of MF Husain’s reproductions, with prices ranging from Rs 25,000 toRs 45,000. The former is for Poetry To Be Seen, a 2-ft- high treasure trove of charcoal paintings by Hussain, accompanied by poetry that interprets them, or vice versa. As you turn the cover, you come face to face with a homage by Mulk Raj Anand: “Let the ‘poetry to be seen’ and the ‘poetry to be read’ here excite the imagination of those who have so far looked but not seen.”

Pradeep, store manager of the Vadehra book store, informs that in the past six months, they have sold two copies of this limited edition book (100 copies) published by Cinema Ghar, ‘Museum of Art and Cinema’, Hyderabad, in 2006. The last page of the book leads to this description: each sheet is hand-printed with silk screens and signed by Husain.Then there is Husain for Rs 30,000, a first edition publication by Tata Steel, also a reproduction of his works — designed, conceived and with a foreword by the maestro himself — handwritten, signed Bombay, 1981.

The foreword describes the journey of art from the caveman’s abode to the briefcase of the multinational conglomerate… “Poor ‘MONA LISA’ once abducted from Italy by the/ French general is now being raped at every/ street corner. Growth of ‘art consciousness’ galore…”Interestingly, the book has, on its back cover, a postscript, again handwritten, declaring “any resemblance to any of my paintings in this book is coincidental,” because “reproduction is not a true replica of the original.” Therefore, the book is “a joint effort of printer and painter”.

There are other books, such as those published by Timeless, priced at pretty much the higher end of the spectrum. Panorama of India and Ladakh, priced at Rs 30,000 each, and a book in the pipeline, titled Taj Mahal, with photographs by Raghu Rai and text by Usha Rai, to be priced at about Rs 25,000 when published.With this book, says Sabharwal, “you would be able to take the Taj with you.” Flipping through the book is a visual delight. Instead of the usual pictures, you have distant views of the Taj with people’s experiences of it. One, for instance, shows tourists at the Agra Fort gazing happily into their digital cameras after having taken a picture of the Monument of Love. Another, a very old one, has a steam engine chugging away with the Taj in the background…

But we have only been talking about contemporary books here. If you want real literary-artistic opulence, then you need to head towards the antiques section. First- edition works such as The Gutenberg Bible—the first book printed with moveable type or the Codex Leicester—a 72- page notebook containing the scientific writings and sketches of Leonardo da Vinci, belong to the category that are not really sold; they go under the hammer. The list includes Birds of America by John James Audobon that has life- size sketches of birds, and measures 3 ft x 2 ft.

The Codex was purchased by Bill Gates in 1994 in an auction. Handwritten by Leonardo in his characteristic mirror-writing, the book is put on public display once a year in a different city around the world.Birds of America, The Codex Leicester and The Gutenberg Bible have been bought at $11 million, $30.8 million and $35 million, respectively. Now, that’s definitely something to be said for the most precious things and their price tags.

The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje: Like a sea voyage

The most striking thing about Michael Ondaatje’s The Cat’s Table is the effortless quality of his prose, full of vivid and colourful images seen through the eyes of an eleven-year-old. The story seems to sweep you in without you being aware of it. It is as simple as it is dreamlike, weaving in every character with such ease that they seem to already be vaguely familiar.
A Sri Lanka-born Canadian, Michael Ondaatje’s life seems intimately connected with this latest work of fantasy. Its protagonist is named Michael and journeys aboard a ship from Sri Lanka to England — just as Ondaatje himself had done at the same age. Moreover, with the boy growing up to be a writer and migrating to Canada, the book could be easily mistaken as woven round the story of the author’s life, if not for the end note —clearly stating that though it “uses the colourings and locations of memoir and autobiography”, the story is fictional.
The three-week journey aboard the Oronsay is full of incredible images — the wild run of a child left to himself for the first time. Michael and the two boys he befriends — Cassius and Ramadhin — are assigned to the Cat’s table for their meals, which is “the least privileged place”, far from the Captain’s table. For the three, however, this fact is of no consequence as they explore every tiny bit of the ship, collecting images, nuggets of interesting information, and sentences overheard from fellow passengers.
The narration is criss-crossed in places with episodes from a grown-up Michael’s life, subtly revealing the deep effects that the wild 21-day adventure had, not just on him but on his two companions as well. The world of adults and the things occurring within it are presented in a perfectly non-judgemental manner, such that would only be possessed by an eleven-year-old, who, while watching a movie on the ship’s deck, remarks: “The plot was full of grandness and confusion, of acts of cruelty that we understood and responsible honour that we did not.”
In the process, we are treated to images that are astonishing and entertaining at the same time: a man with an entire garden, artificially-lit and unbelievably magical, hidden inside the dark bowels of the ship; a woman who carries birds about the decks in the pockets of a specially designed coat, and the two boys, Michael and Cassius, tethering themselves to the hull to experience the fury of a sea-storm.
Then there are the people whose tales both amaze and influence the children: Mr Mazappa the man of music, who played with the ship’s orchestra and gave piano lessons or Mr Nevil, a retired ship dismantler, who tells them how “in a breaker’s yard you discover anything can have a new life, be reborn as part of a car or railway carriage, or shovel blade. You take that older life and you link it to a stranger.”
One image after another unfolds with barely a ripple, so that when the sudden twists occur, they are least expected. The book is much like the sea voyage it describes; sways you gently and moves you deeply, just as the people at the cat’s table affect Michael: ‘It would always be strangers like them, at the various Cat’s Tables of my life, who would alter me.”

The book loving sensualist

We’re living in the virtual age. Physical forms are beginning to lose their significance, as the world becomes more and more compact — small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, through the display of your smartphone. The need for physical presence, even in relationships, has become minimised, courtesy social networking sites, helped by video chats and video calls — stuff that you read about in science fiction not so long ago. And speaking of reading, we really don’t know how long the book is going to stay around in its actual physical form. What with e-books taking over with a vengeance, flipping through the pages is fast getting replaced by ‘scrolling over’ the pages. The Oxford Dictionary of English defines an e-book as the electronic version of a printed book, but the fact is that books are now being published directly on the web in an electronic version. So you have books that don’t even have a physical form anymore.That isn’t such a bad thing, though, because now you have a hoard of literary loot right there in your pocket, at your disposal whenever you please, without having to lug it around or it getting ruined in the process. You don’t even need huge shelf space around the house to store your treasure.And yet, somehow, having an electronic book just isn’t the same as having a ‘real’ book. It’s sort of like looking at the picture of your beloved, rather than seeing them in person. Perhaps it’s an old-school way of thinking, but can scrolling through a list of names on a web page make up for the experience of sauntering inside a bookstore? The feel of taking in the colours and shapes, walking from one section to the next — exploring at length, letting your fingers slip around the myriad forms and textures… breathing in the woodsy smell of newly printed words on paper… the experience is deeply sensual.Then there are those little nuggets of memory — ‘inheriting’ a cherished book from a parent or a teacher, discovering an old forgotten work in an attic or a storeroom perhaps, or just having ‘the one’ book that we always came back to, which could be counted upon to provide some emotional or spiritual relief — like an old friend that’s always there. There’s also the collector’s joy or the crazed fan’s delirious satisfaction of having all the parts of a much-loved series occupying pride of place in your room.But more than all that, there’s something about the human psyche that places a lot of emphasis on the sense of touch. Think about it — when we see something arresting, intriguing or just beautiful, we are tempted to reach out and touch. It’s that human longing to be able to ‘hold’ what you like; the longing that appears in its raw, unblemished form in infants. They reach out toward whatever it is that catches their fancy. Adults, moulded by civilised culture, restrain themselves; but who can deny the pull? Perhaps that’s why touch screens became such a phenomenon, and that’s also why e-book readers have come up with versions where you can virtually ‘flip’ the pages as you read.The more sensualist you are, the more you’d miss the smell, the look and the feel of the physical form. And I’m sure there are a lot of those out there. So hang on, ‘the book’ isn’t going anywhere in a hurry.

India: a case of disappearing liberal arts?

India’s growing labour force is already a much talked-about asset, not just within the country but also around the globe. There have been numerous discussions on how the country needs to bring about changes in its education system to properly harness the human capital and reap the demographic dividend. Now, HRD minister Kapil Sibal has stated at the India Economic Summit that India will have 200 million graduates and 500 million skilled staffers by 2020, accounting for 20 per cent of the entire world’s workforce. To ensure employability of these huge numbers, Sibal also said that the government is trying to set up vocational institutes near industry clusters so that industry can give inputs on its requirements. Interestingly, the talk around employment in India mostly focuses on the IT sector and providing skilled labour for it. There has, of course, been some concern over manufacturing too. But IT, with its status of being a key driver of the country’s growth, gets greater importance. While the presence of a skilled workforce is definitely a must for a growing nation, the development of human capital in our country has shown an increasing tendency of being lopsided. There is much emphasis on vocational or technical education, and with good reason. But in the process, the liberal arts are increasingly being pushed into the background. The liberal arts have a tradition of being an integral part of human educational history, since the time of the Roman Empire. At the time Romans used the term liberal arts to refer to the proper education that a “free individual” should receive. It was supposed to be essential for creating a well-rounded individual and was based on the premise that a free man (as opposed to a slave) should have a broader education, encompassing a vast field of subjects. In the developed nations of the western world, there is an essential balance between the study of liberal arts and the imparting of technical education. The youth are equally encouraged to aspire to be researchers, writers, economists or historians, as they are to be engineers or managers. Which is, in turn, reflected in the quality of writers or social scientists that they produce. In India, the lack of names that can claim global recognition in these fields is very apparent. The above-mentioned professions don’t really attract a huge pool of talent, and parental or peer pressure doesn’t help the situation in any way. Professional education, in particular the churning out of engineers and IT professionals, has hogged all the limelight. However, it must be kept in mind that emphasis on the liberal arts is important for the growth of knowledge in a country’s citizens. Rather than mere employability, a country’s education system also needs to deliver broader, in-depth knowledge to its youth, honing their intellectual capabilities. A liberal arts education is designed to help an individual develop rational thinking and intellectual capacity. More than that, it can also be a major growth engine for the economy, for it encourages innovation and forward thinking. Holistic growth in the economy cannot come from just employable labour being provided to one or two sectors. For an economy that is knowledge driven and innovation focused, it is very important that the youth be encouraged to delve deep into the various pools of knowledge and help create a nation that is balanced in its growth.

Anita Desai: The Artist of Disappearance

Acivil servant posted in a small town in Bengal, a teacher who gets a shot at fame by turning translator and a reclusive man living in a burnt down house in Mussoorie — these are the people around whom revolves the narrative in the three novellas that make up Anita Desai’s The Artist of Disappearance.

The first story — Museum of Final Journeys — revolves round a civil servant on his first posting in a “remote outpost”, caught in the monotonous routine of an eventless administrative life.
He is roused from his state of inertia by a man who arrives at his door, leading him to a most curious existence in the middle of nowhere — a museum of astonishing art works and curios from across the globe, languishing in various stages of neglect and decay.The officer is requested to help get government custody and care for the place and its keepers, as well as for the great beast — revealed later in the story — the only living addition to that incredible collection. Not particularly big in itself, the event — and our protagonist’s response to it — turns into something he’d never forget.

In a similar vein, a single event becomes the defining point in the life of Prema, the protagonist of the second novella — Translator Tran­sla­ted. The teacher had, in her younger years, devoted her energies to the stu­dy of her favourite Ori­ya writer Suvarna Devi, only to discover the futility of researching a regional language writer in a country fixated with the language of its erstwhile masters. So, when many years later she is offered a chance to translate Suvarna Devi’s works, she realises she has found the ‘climax’ of her life. In her zeal, however, she blurs the line between writer and translator, bringing her own alterations in the stories, even editing parts of the plot. Once again, it is the singular act that decides the course for the rest of her life.

In both stories, there is an inherent sense of disappointment. It is as if we are expecting something more heroic and dramatically triumphant at the end, like sputtering for air under water and waiting for the moment when you break the surface. That moment doesn’t arrive. Life continues as it usually does in the real world, shorn of any dramatic change.

The third story, from which the book derives its title, has a man who discovers creation and expression within the drudgery of his existence. Ravi, an orphan neglected by his adoptive parents, grows up into a reclusive man whose only friends are the elements of nature, within whom he creates his world.

This world is unintentionally invaded by a girl from a team making a documentary on deforestation in Mussoorie. The girl discovers Ravi’s art in a glade in the forest and hits upon the idea to use it as a symbol of hope at the end of the movie. But, true to the prevailing theme, here too, the world is not allowed to alter.

The book seems to be a wry glance at, rather than a celebratory description of, human nature. It does dwell on art and the creative instinct — particularly on the dedication and triumph of the non-attention-seeking creator. Ultimately, however, it doesn’t leave you with a sense of triumph, only a gnawing feeling of despair at the non-climax in a majority of mortal lives.

Amitav Ghosh's River of Smoke

The trouble with reading a tragic novel based on actual historical episodes is that you cannot put the book down with a wistful smile. Knowing that the tragedies and injustices spoken about have actually been inflicted pinches you deep inside, and keeps on doing so long after you’ve turned the last page.

Amitav Ghosh’s River of Smoke, the absolutely brilliant second book in the Ibis trilogy, continues to explore the world unleashed by opium, grown by Indians — against their will — and traded with, or rather inflicted upon, the Chinese by the British. The story here begins with Mauritius and grows to its full pace in China — Canton, or fanqui-town, as the trading hub was then known.

There are three most remarkable things about the book, which make it a bibliophile’s delight. One: perhaps no other literary work offers characters so diverse — from the Raja-turned-fugitive-turned-munshi Neel; the British botanist cum plant-trader Fitcher; the spirited French-cum-Bengali plant-lover, Paulette; the Gujarati-Parsi opium trader with a conscience, Seth Bahram Modi; the American who fights a lone battle, Charles King; the elusive and powerful Lynchong aka Ah-Fey, the illegitimately born Edward Chinnery aka Robin — an “effeminate” man with artistic talents… the list is as diverse and mind-boggling as the pot-pourri of languages they converse in. For someone who has read the first book, the language isn’t so baffling, perhaps because you have become familiar with the characters and their idiosyncracies. And even the new ones do not seem to be strangers; you just flow along and grasp words that aren’t even remotely familiar.

The second distinguishing feature is the detailed, spell-binding descriptions of scenes of action and each object located within that frame. The immense research that has been poured into the book swamps the reader, but not in a tedious, scholarly way. Rather, you will be treated to vivid word paintings of the flowers of Canton, the ships moored there, the ‘Hongs’ where the foreign traders resided and worked, the Maidan all abuzz with activity, the Pearl River Nursery, the wilderness of the island that was Hong Kong…image after image floats before you and you are transported to the land of trade, smuggling, opium, and contrastingly, flowers, paintings and love. Of course, not to be forgotten is the appearance of Napoleon Bonaparte! Two of the principal characters actually get to meet the general, and the interaction, with Bonaparte’s curiosities and reflections on China, is one of the best episodes in the book.

Finally, the third unique thing is the complete absence of the author. In most books based on issues affecting society, you can sense the author’s invisible presence, through sentences reflecting ideology and little telltale details. Here, however, the author is like the puppeteer whose hands control the action, but the story and the characters are so captivating that you forget there is a hand holding those strings. All reflections are conveyed through the actors, not through the narrative.

The last line of the novel, spoken by Neel, aptly conveys the cruelty of history and the tragic destruction of the liveliest of trade hubs after the opium war: “The picture cost more than I could afford, he said, but I bought it anyway. I realised that if it were not for those paintings no one would believe that such a place had ever existed.”

I, lalla: The poems of Lal Ded

When you think of mystic or Sufi poets, how many women Sufis can you recall? There are few female names in the realm of mystic poetry, and fewer still that are well known. There are, however, certain names that form an integral part of the culture and oral literary tradition — not to mention folklore — of specific regions. Kashmir is one of those regions that take their poetesses seriously, with several female names in the literary tradition, which even children are familiar with. Lal Ded is one of those.

To merely call Lal Ded — or Lalleshwari, the name used by Hindus and Lal Arifa, the one used by Muslims — a poetess, would be an insult to her huge following and oral traditions handed down over generations. One way to introduce Lal Ded (literally meaning Grandmother Lal, or Lal the womb) to the uninitiated is to draw a parallel with Kabir, the poet sage claimed by both Hindus and Muslims as their own. Lal Ded belongs very much to that category — her writings a confluence of Shaivite and Sufi mysticism.

The latest book of translations of Lalla’s poetry, I, Lalla: The poems of Lal Ded, rendered by the poet, cultural theorist and curator Ranjit Hoskote, beautifully presents Lalla’s writings for what they truly are, and Lalla for what she was—or ra­ther, the different fo­rms that she holds. The introduction wo u­ld be extremely fascinating to the pe­rson who wishes to know about the origins and compilation of Lalla’s utterances. Called ‘vakhs’, Lall­a’s poems are the earliest known man­i­­festations of Kash­m­iri literature and co­ntain a mix of Sa­nsk­rit terms and ph­rases from the Hin­du-Bu­ddhist universe, along with smatterings of Arabic and Persian, mirroring the Islamic effect. More precisely, as described by Hoskote, it is the confluence between the Yogic and Sufi traditions.

The utterances, true to form, deal with self-knowledge and a convergence with the divine, as opposed to ritualistic observances:

“Neither you nor I, neither object nor meditation/ just the all-creator, lost in His dreams. / Some don’t get it, but those who do/ are carried away on the wave of Him”

The vakhs reveal a very simple and straightforward approach to spirituality, which can be a delightful — “ The Lord has spread the subtle net of Himself across the world/ See how He gets under your skin, inside your bones / If you can’t see Him while you’re alive, / don’t expect a special vision once you’re dead”

The vakhs abound with references to the soul as the abode of the divine, emphasising the futility of searching in places of worship, or going on pilgrimages. There are several ‘companion vakhs’ too, wh­ich are the continuation of a single stream of thought.

“I, Lalla set out to bloom like a cotton flower/ The cleaner tore me, the carder shredded me on his bow / That gossamer: that was I / the spinning woman lifted from her wheel / At the weaver’s, they hung me out on the loom.First the washerman pounded me on his washing stone/ scrubbed me with clay and soap. / Then the tailor measured me, piece by piece, / with his scissors. Only then could I, Lalla, / find the road to heaven.”

Pick up this one if the mystic and the divine attracts you, if poetry beckons to your soul, or if you are simply curious about the ‘matron’ saints of Indian Sufi tradition!

Paulo Coelho's Aleph: Not quite the masterpiece!

Ever known the feeling when you’re reading a book and it seems like the author is speaking directly to you? Or, when you’ve finished the journey from the front cover to the back, you let out a great sigh and want to start all over again? In short, ever known that feeling of reading a story you’d like to revisit again and again? I’m sure you have.
Most of us have that favourite book that we like to read when we’re down in the dumps, which has pages worn down with being turned over and over, one that somehow perks us up every time. Paulo Coelho is one of those authors whose words have acted as companions in gloomy times for a whole lot of people around the globe. If you’re interested in books, I’m sure you know at least one person who holds some book of Paulo Coelho in the category just mentioned above. So, it’s just natural that when the author comes out with another book, presumably about his own journey — or pilgrimage, as he puts it — many of us would be waiting to lap it up. Here’s another one to add to that ‘comfort reading’ list, right? Not this time, though.
Aleph can definitely not be called one of Coelho’s best. The plot seemed to have infinite possibilities — a journey across Russia aboard the trans Siberian railway definitely spells adventure. Of course, since it’s not just a story — it’s an autobiographical episode — you can’t complain that it isn’t juicy or spicy eno­ugh. But, all said, it does make you feel a bit tired of the same old stuff. The spiritual quest to get in touch with your real self… going into a past life to clear out the dark spots that haunt your present… now where have we read that before?
Granted, there are bits that would catch your interest — like the symbolism of the Chinese bamboo, which grows downwards for the first five years, spreading its root network, and then suddenly, in the sixth year, shoots up to a height of 25 metres. Or the discovery of Coelho’s past life and his role in the hideous tortures inflicted during the Spanish Inquisition.
In true Coelho style, there are also those little life-truths that make you stop and think a bit, wondering at the simplicity of the fact and its ability to hold things in a new light.
“…Conflicts were necessary for humanity to be able to evolve…” the writer tells Hilal, the volatile, unpredictable woman accompanying him on his journey. “The motto of the alchemists was Solve et coagula, which means ‘separate and bring together’.” He goes on to illustrate — “This morning you and my editor quarrelled. Thanks to that confrontation, you were each able to reveal a light that the other was unaware of. You separated and came together again, and we all benefited from that.”
As for the Aleph itself — the magical ‘point in the universe containing all other points’, well, you will either be rather bored or rather fascinated, depending on whether you’ve read earlier works that contain much the same thing stated in a different manner. Then there is the ring of light exercise, quite tempting to any reader, precisely because it is so simple and comes with that delicious tag of being ‘warned about’.
At the very least, you might enjoy the book. But you certainly wouldn’t bother to come back to it.

Rich vs. poor: Ayn Rand and America's clamour for a tax on the rich

If you’ve been following the ups and downs of the world’s fortunes, you’d know that a huge chunk of the globe is reeling under debt and everyone’s baying for the blood of the rich.Generally, we all love characters like Robin Hood who “robbed from the rich to give to the poor”. And with good reason. We believe that people who are literally ‘swimming’ in wealth — a la Disney’s Scrooge Mc Duck — have worked their way to the top through unscrupulous ways, and not the least by underpaying their worker-ants. That’s what had led to the birth of capitalism’s greatest foe. And now, the resentment against the ‘filthy’ rich is what’s leading to the growing clamour in the US for taxing them.Of course, as the rich say — we earned it, so we can darn well keep it! Now, I’m no enemy of Robin Hood, but anyone who’s remotely familiar with Ayn Rand would know that the rich may also be heroes and heroines. And labour unions can also be cast as the bloodsuckers. At least, that’s what you get in Atlas Shrugged, the 50’s novel that immortalised the query “Who is John Galt?”The 1,000-page tome is an industrial mystery of sorts, where an unknown John Galt is out to “stop the motor of the world”. Factories are shu­tting down, min­es are catching fire and industries are going down like nine­pins. Nobody can really figure out what is driving all the destruction. Dag­ny Taggart, the headstrong heroine of the story, determines to challenge the mysterious ‘John Galt’ by naming her new railway line in his name, and of course he comes to “claim it.”Behind all the mystery and the twists of tale is a very strong capitalistic flavour — what happens when instead of the workers, the owners go on “strike”? What happens when the biggest industries in the country shut down and slowly leave everyone unemployed, with the state on the verge of chaos? It is actually, an echo of the theory of objectivism propounded by Rand. The theory isn’t about capitalism per se, of course. It talks about man being a “heroic being”, motivated by self-interest and guided by reason, producing magnificent creations for humanity. Of course, the only way she sees this being manifested is through laissez-faire capitalism, which, if you read carefully, is supposed to bring ultimate happiness and prosperity to all.The protagonists, in such a world, are the men and women who have undying passion for their work, and are guided by pure pleasure of carrying it out. That’s what helps them get power and wealth, and in the process, create more for others too. So far, so good. We really do have examples of people in this world who have, through their passion and dedication — purely for their own benefit — brought about the benefit of humanity in general.But, there’s a minor point that we’re overlooking. Rand’s basic presumption about her characters is their ‘honesty and fairness’; their being willing to give everyone his/her rightful due. That, sadly, doesn’t always happen in the real world. That’s not to say that the world is a bunch of liars and opportunists, but who’s to stop a person from turning into one?

The Google Guys-- Inside the brilliant minds of Larry and Sergey

Birth and death make up the circle of life. Just about a week before the globe mourned the passing away of tech god Steve Jobs, who changed the way millions viewed the world; another tech giant celebrated the completion of 13 years of its life. Last month, everyone’s favourite search engine Google turned a teenager. We all know the story of its birth — how Larry Page and Sergey Brin created the search engine, and how, due to the lack of any takers for their technology, it metamorphosed into a full-fledged company. The rest, as they say, is history. And Google keeps creating newer history every day. Of course, that’s what more people are interested in. And yet more people would, obviously, like to know more about the guys that go on creating that history.The Google Guys: Inside The Brilliant Minds Of Google Founders Larry Page And Sergey Brin by Richard Brandt definitely tempts you with its title, and it does, to some extent show you why the duo took some of the decisions they did and what is it that guides their decision-making process. The book begins with an interesting analogy: comparing Google with the world’s first great library — the library of Alexandria at Greece, created by Ptolemy I, a childhood friend of Alexander, and a general in his army. The analogy is continued in the beginning of every new chapter, referring to little bits in the creation of the giant.The interesting part is the exploration of Larry and Sergey’s origins and how they exert an influence in the way they operate their company — thinking more about the ‘ethics’ of things. In fact, the ethical angle has been emphasised a lot throughout the book, in bits and pieces. It has a lot to do with censorship and the founders’ aversion to it, the choices they had to make to deal with it and the scathing criticism from people who didn’t like that choice one bit. For instance, there’s a very interesting bit about how Nicole Wong, Google’s deputy general counsel, travelled all the way to Thailand to see for himself why Thai people found certain “unquestionably disrespectful” videos of their King to be offensive enough to be termed illegal.What he discovered was that in Thailand, the king was revered as a “cross between George Washington, Jesus Christ and Elvis Presley”. She finally decided that it was actually right to block the offending videos in Thailand. On the other hand, though, Google came under flak for refusing to censor an anti-Semitic site called JewWatch (incidentally, both Larry and Sergey are Jews). Sergey publicly defended the company’s anti-censorship stance.The book is full of such moral-dilemma episodes, aside from the usual tracing of the ups and downs of business. There’s the story about how the company’s ‘Don’t be Evil’ slogan came into being, and how, “it’s the bloggers that set out to prove… that Google is getting evil as it gets bigger”. The re-iteration of the ethical stance does go rather overboard at times. But the stories peppered around it make it worth the while.The bottom line, as the book underlines, is: Ptolemy’s library reigned as the greatest library in the world for 300 years; is that some mystic indication of how long Google is going to stretch its reign?

Barnes and the Booker

W HY is it that the words ‘prize’ and ‘award’ are always accompanied by the word ‘controversy’? This year too, as always, the Man Booker Prize has had its share of criticisms, although more people seem to be in agreement about the choice this time around. Julian Barnes, dubbed the ‘Booker Bridesmaid’ for having been in the race three times before this — close to the finish line but never quite making it — has been fourth time lucky with his novella The Sense of an Ending, a mysterious fiction work about memories, sex and friendship. Of course, many say that it’s a case of the ‘right author at the wrong time’ as Julian Barnes has produced works more deserving of the accolades than this one.There have been apprehensions all round, for quite some time, about the ‘dumbing-down’ of the Booker. Not the least of these was the judges’ criteria of ‘readability’ in selecting the writer of the year, as it were.That is actually a tricky sort of consideration. True, a book’s readability will surely have an effect on its popularity — on how well it reaches out to the people holding it in their hands and how well it connects.But then, there is more to a book than mere readability. If that were the case, crime thrillers and pulp fiction might well win the popularity war. So, of course, when the judges speak of readability, they are looking for that quality in conjunction with the nuances that go into the making of ‘literature’.They say there is a simple test for deciding whether a book falls into the ‘literature’ category: Does it make you think and feel more? Does it raise some questions in your mind? May be answers some that were already there? In essence, does it make you stop and think a little?That, perhaps, is what we are looking for when we wait for that ‘name of the year’ to be announced. And that, surely, has to be what the judges look for, as well. So long as it has all these, and still is ‘imminently readable’. Meaning, it will hook you long enough to capture your mind and take it where it wants. That’s readability in top-rung literature.On several occasions, the choice for the Booker prize-winner has raised more than a few eyebrows. In one such instance, the centre of the controversy was our very own Arvind Adiga, whose White Tiger pipped Sebastian Barry’s The Secret Scriptures, Steve Toltz’s A Fraction of The Whole, Amitav Ghosh’s Sea of Poppies and Salman Rushdie’s The Enchantress of Florence. What was the X-factor that took him to the top? The judges claimed the book ‘shocked and entertained’ at the same time, with its dark and different take on modern India.Well, you might or might not agree with their choice, but I suspect the readability quotient has a lot to do with the end result.Which brings us back to this year’s winner. Julian Barnes was apparently the only ‘heavyweight’ left on the Booker Shortlist, and perhaps it was a conscious decision to remove the ‘readability first’ stigma from the award.Well, we all have our grudges, and we all have our favourites, and the Booker will go on being what it was. A little controversy never hurts anyone, does it?

A traveller's diary: travelling in time

The traveller sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see, GK Chesterton had famously remarked. When you roam the streets of some foreign land, letting your instincts take you where they will, you drink in and feel a lot more than you would if you rushed around with a fixed itinerary, oblivious to those tiny nuggets of living wonder that beckon in between. There’s a third kind of travelling too, which most people hardly pay any attention to. That’s when you see distant lands through the eyes of someone else, someone who knows the place inside o­ut, someone w­ho can sketch for you the life within it. You are neither the traveller nor t­he tourist, but the reader. And the reader sees what the writer wants him or her to see.The act of r­eading can be just as exhilarating as the act of actually tr­avelling to the pla­ce menti­oned in the book — if you have chosen t­he right guide for yourself. There are certain authors who have the sorcerer’s kn­ack for conjuring up images of the wet, the arid, the blossoming or the wild and to take you deep into realms unknown.Among the most rec­ent books, the one that would really take the cake for detailed visual images and living descriptions of the flora, fauna and life of a place would most certainly be Amitav Ghosh’s River of Smoke. While the first book in the tri-series mostly explored poppy-fields of Bihar and the cabins aboard the Ibis, the second book has amazingly vivid word-images of China’s fanqui-town, the island of Hong Kong and Deeti’s shrine in Mauritius. In particular, the bustling life of fanqui-town, full of traders of all shapes and sizes, resounding with overlapping tongues, can be seen with astonishing clearness. It takes you effortlessly into the very heart of a place that doesn’t exist now and which none of us have ever seen.Another book that takes you inside a land you would never be able to see again is Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner. Through the eyes of the protagonist Aamir, it shows the world a happy, flourishing Afghanistan, its skies full of kites and its land sprouting pomegranate trees — an Afghanistan which the modern generation, fed on images of gun-toting tribals and bombed towns, would gape at disbelievingly. It winds through the streets of Kabul with the lingering smell of kebabs, through the gardens of the rich and the pretty holding parties at night, through green fields and happy meadows that a grown-up Amir, returning to the place, searches for in vain.Finally, any discussion on word-sorcery is incomplete without a mention of the ultimate word-sorceress, Arundhati Roy. Her only work of fiction, The God of Small Things, is unique in its descriptions for they breathe life into inanimate things, painting everything with a wild brushstroke. Be it the baby bat that the ‘dead’ Sophie Mol spots from ‘inside her coffin’ or the river, in Kerala’s Ayemenem, which, though it appeared to be a tame ‘church-going amooma’, was actually a wild thing — every object within a frame has life of its own. The best of all, perhaps, is the ‘moth’ that lays its cold, hairy feet on Estha’s heart, a huge moth that you can somehow see before you.From China to Kabul and Kerala, you move not just in space but also, smoothly, in time. Now, that’s one helluva way to travel!

Mark Tully's "Non-Stop India"

India is a land of dramatic contrasts. We’ve all heard that one before. We, Indians, are completely familiar with our society, a colourful fabric crisscrossed with a patchwork of alternating chaos and sophistication. So maybe you’d just shrug and wave off another book that talks about the myriad issues affecting our country. But not when it comes from India’s “most-loved Englishman”, the indomitable Mark Tully. And that’s perhaps the reason why it sits pretty at the top of the charts for non-fiction bestsellers this week.With a title that sounds a lot like his older No Full Stops In India, Tully’s latest book Non-Stop India charts familiar terrain — for him, that is. For the reader, it is both familiar and surprising at the same time. The book is a collection of 10 essays on subjects ranging from India’s Maoist woes and caste politics to Indian languages and saving the tiger. As Tully writes in his introduction, his book is for a global audience, not just Indians. And that’s where the balancing act is required — as he says, to avoid the “danger of falling between two stools, of writing a book, which Indian readers would find too simplistic, others would find too complicated, too detailed.” The solution that he devised for this — “letting Indians do most of the talking” — has definitely worked for the book.It is written with great clarity and depth, traversing his journeys through the Indian hinterland, and his discussions with Indians of all shapes and colours — from top-notch politicians and educationists to dalits in hamlets around Khurja, a small town in Uttar Pradesh, and the Baheliya poacher community in the Panna forest of Madhya Pradesh.In a lot of places, it just sheds more light on what you already know. In others, it shows you a different dimension of public occurrences. For instance, the second essay, Caste Overturned, shows how the statue-constructing penchant of UP chief minister Mayawati, which is so abhorrent to us, actually serves as a symbol of identity and community pride for the dalits. Of course, they crave actual economic upliftment, but to see their own icons magnificently displayed is a milestone for people historically pushed, quite literally, to the bowels of the village.Then there are the little nuggets of information, which you would scarcely have believed. For instance, you might well remember the countrywide popularity of the two pioneer mythological television programmes, Ramayana and Mahabharata. But what would really surprise you is the fact that people from southern states, such as Tamil Nadu, began to learn Hindi to understand what the characters were saying!The best thing about the essays is their unsentimental and entirely objective way of viewing subjects. In true journalistic spirit, the stories are narrated by the characters themselves, and both sides get to speak out. There is neither the too-bright optimism that is so common nowadays, nor the bleak cynicism of the rich versus poor debate. It charts both the highs and the lows, and, in general, paints a very true picture.What takes the cake is, of course, Tully’s understanding of the Indian ‘jugaar’. While he does acknowledge the role that jugaar has played in pulling India noisily along, improvising all the way, he very aptly warns of the dangers. Just because we have managed to ‘muddle through’ with jugaar, doesn’t mean we don’t need to think up serious, long-term solutions to our problems. After all, we don’t want to remain a patchwork country forever.

Sudan's independence and a borderless world

Yet another small country celebrates its day of breaking free, with proud military marches, flapping flags and blasting national anthem. South Sudan’s independence has come six months after the southerners voted almost unanimously to split with their former civil war enemies in the north. Now, under mixed comments from people over the world, the country will take its place at the bottom of the developing nations list, as it prepares to chart out a growth track using its abundant oil reserves and other natural resources. Yet, as South Sudan rejoices in its newfound independence, it also stands out as a symbol of a growing debate—is the disintegration of bigger states into smaller ones the way to go in a world increasingly talking about global citizenship and the erasing of boundaries? The division of huge tracts of land into smaller states on linguistic, religious or other such grounds is in fact a remnant of the great predatory bird known to the world as colonialism, which cast its shadow on most parts of the earth. When its victims sought to free themselves from its hold, it scratched across their faces by drawing boundaries arbitrarily, leaving a wave of uprooted, mauled lives and long-drawn enmities in its wake. Freedom is not a word that stands alone unto itself. When people seek to be free, it is always to be ‘free from’ someone or somebody, to be ‘free of’ repression or cruelty or discrimination. And yet, ironically, the creation of boundaries effectively limits human freedom in certain very obvious ways, such as the freedom of movement. Humans, who have never stayed in one place, migrating constantly from time to time, are confined to a certain geographical boundary; their freedom to move and settle in other places facing considerable restrictions. The craving for independence, for having a nation of your own also has something to do with every person’s need for a separate identity, a sense of belonging to a particular group, nation or community. The creature that belongs to everyone, in all fairness, belongs to no one. And the need to belong is one of the basic needs of human nature. Perhaps it is true that growth occurs faster and better among people that share a sense of belonging. But in a world where cultures, identities and origins are getting blurred by the day, most people actually belong to several places at the same time; being born in one, growing up in another, settling down in a third and dying someplace else. The best example of a boundary-less world is the world that almost everyone inhabits now—the virtual world. Universal spaces like Facebook and Twitter are witness to the coming together of people having vastly different identities. But even within this universe, one cannot deny the existence of ‘countries’ in the form of communities that people join according to their convictions, origins and alignments. A free world seems to be a utopian concept, much like free trade. The most vehement advocates of free trade are the very ones who wouldn’t bat an eyelid on imposing restrictions the minute their own interests stood jeopardised. Nonetheless, that cannot be reason enough for the human spirit to not dream of a world where people will not be compartmentalised and can adopt any, or as many, identities as they wish to. After all, the Berlin Wall, too, crumbled down one day.

Indian origin Nobel laureates: Jun2011 edit

Several decades ago, India witnessed the beginning of the phenomenon termed as brain drain, as the country’s best brains started moving out to foreign lands in search of greener pastures and wider skies to stretch their wings. The wheel has now come full circle, with the cream of Indian intelligentsia flocking back to the country, as they watch opportunities spring up here with amazing speed. As latest news reports reveal, top-notch firms such as Tata Motors, Larsen & Toubro, the Aditya Birla group, Novartis and Cognizant are looking for Indians working abroad to fill senior positions. The infrastructure sector particularly is banking on this pool, since it is facing a severe shortage of talent. And returning expatriates are only too happy to oblige. This is a far cry from the days when bright young minds, disillusioned with the lack of a supporting and nurturing environment at home, sought refuge on foreign shores for their budding ideas. The fact that Nobel laureates of Indian origin such as Hargobind Khorana, the Indian-American biochemist who got the Nobel in Medicine in 1968, or the very recent winner Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, who shared the 2009 Nobel in Chemistry, carried out their groundbreaking research away from Indian soil, speaks volumes about the way the Indian growth environment was being percieved by aspiring minds. It was common knowledge until recently that most top B-school graduates preferred to move abroad for more lucrative jobs. All this seems to be changing for the better as more and more Indians are moving back to the homeland, and being welcomed into the fold by corporate bigwigs. The trend however, cannot just be attributed to a singular rise in opportunities at the home turf. The global financial crisis contributed quite a bit to the state of affairs, spelling doomsday for developed markets, tilting the scales in favour of countries like India. The crisis also led to a sudden increase in restrictive practices in the US and other markets, which came under pressure to give preference to local people in their hiring routines. Added to all this was the heartening fact that the pay packages doled out by Indian giants became very much at par with their foreign counterparts, setting in motion the reverse brain drain process. Highly skilled and qualified professionals are making a beeline for their native country, and that is indeed cause for jubilation. However, amid all this, it must not be forgotten that a return of professionals is not enough. The country needs to develop an environment that would facilitate the growth of entrepreneurs, scientists, innovators and the like. When China had first opened up its economy, it was the Chinese expatriates who were the first to invest in their homeland. The difference, however, was that these were entrepreneurs. While it is no mean feat that India has possibly the best set of managers and talented professionals that a country could ask for, we still have a long way to go in fostering original thought, initiative and enterprise. Instead of being complacent about bringing back the best talent to fill positions, we need to create a nurturing environment for people who would help create the most coveted postions. So that, in future, Nobel Laureates can proudly claim to be ‘Indian’, not just of ‘Indian origin’.

Indo-Pak cricket edit

Mar 30 2011, 2336
A nation of a cricket-crazed billion was ready to go to war at the opening of the World Cup semi-final between India and Pakistan. Cricket is a gentleman’s game; it is supposed to promote camaraderie, friendship — and, by extension, peace. But if past records are anything to go by, the game has been more war than peace. And, perhaps, an indignant fan may even exclaim un­believingly: “Game?” For a lot of those waving flags and blowing horns in the stadium, it is not just a game. That becomes pretty much evident when a young man from Jharkhand expresses his willingness to sell his kidneys for a ticket to the hallowed stands of Mohali, or when a Pakistani businessman declares that he would have a heart attack if he didn’t get one. Best-selling author Chetan Bhagat, who made a point of commenting on every new dev­elopment in the match on his Twitter profile, succinctly called it ‘the country’s biggest mass bunk ever’, while sliding in a jibe that ‘blue is definitely a better colour than parrot green’. When arch rivals like India and Pakistan play, the ‘sportsman spirit’ goes for a toss — off the field, that is. It is not just the Indians who charge on with battle cries; the Pakistanis pretty much match up to them. Placards that read, “Save the drama for your mama, we are here” say it all. Pakistani writer Muniba has been quoted as calling this match ‘war over cricket’, and adding that what happens in the final is ‘irrelevant’. Obviously, in the minds of the cricket-crazy fans, Mumbai is not the host of the final, Mohali is. In a way, for a part of the Indian subcontinent, Mohali will be the final. For the fans of the team that gets knocked out, the World Cup will be over. So yes, the final will definitely become ‘irrelevant’ for these worshippers of the demi-gods out on the pitch. But other than the patriots, there are people on both sides who root for the neighbour. Social networking sites are rife with people fighting with one another over their favourite team. Patriots, of course, have nationalism as their one cause for support, while the ‘others’ explain their stand by calling themselves true lovers of cricket: they will not let nationalism get in the way of rooting for the ‘better’ team. Bouts of name-calling and ridiculing occur as a natural consequence, and are definitely the online version of fistfights in the age of Facebook and Twitter. No wonder, there are over 3,000 policemen deployed in Chandigarh, which has also been turned into a no-fly zone. But there are always examples to show that the war need not be a literal one; that there can be occasions when cricket actually does become just that—a game for goodwill. Can anyone forget the sight of the tricolour being waved madly by a purely Pakistani audience during the Indo-Pak ‘Friendship Series’ in Pakistan in the year 2004? That was definitely one for sportsmanship. We in India might not be able to tolerate so much of ‘loving thy neighbour’, but we could take a leaf out of our prime minister’s book and raise a toast to goodwill, too. Of course, not too tame a toast, for that wouldn’t do justice to the game. Maybe a little splash to each other’s face would do.

Edit on Ratan Tata's "Dream" : Dreams Unltd

The world thrives on dreams. On people who dream big enough to change it. Visionaries, revolutionaries, inventors and great leaders—all start out with a dream and a conviction to make it come true. Most people usually dream of acquiring wealth, power and prestige. Then there are some who dream of creating things that would make the world sit up and take notice. The world as we see it today is the outcome of a million dreams that blossomed over the ages, battling contemptuous smirks, malicious assaults and vehement opposition. Whatever be the type, dreams of all sorts are fuelled by a desire to change and improve the present, to take life to a better, higher level in the future. At an individual level, a dream might simply mean moving one individual’s life to a higher step. A larger dream, on the other hand, envisages an upward movement in the lives of great multitudes. It might be a dream of freedom from foreign rule, of bringing equality to all, of getting technology to change the lives of the masses or of taking humanity into realms hitherto unknown, but most dreams and revolutions at the onset seem far-fetched and impossible to attain. Of course, once they are realised, they leave their mark on the world forever.What goes into the making of a dream is the ability to look ahead of your time, meticulousness to plan its execution and sheer grit to withstand the buffets of multiple, inevitable setbacks. In the battle between frowning sceptics and doughty dreamers, it’s the ‘yes, we can’ approach that makes all the difference. A dream is much more than just a vision; it is a work in progress. And it’s not just the passion of one individual; rather it entails a multitude of sacrifices, efforts and commitments on the part of many others who might be associated with it, however tiny that association may be. When one person dreams a dream, several others get involved. And when that dream is a larger one, the entire society, sometimes an entire country, or maybe even the world gets involved. That’s what happened when Gandhi launched his non violent resistance, when Larry Page and Sergey Brin created Google, when Yuri Gagarin became the first man to go in space, when Reliance revolutionised telecom in India, and when Tata delivered what was a near impossibility in the world of cars.So, when a man like Ratan Tata tells the world that there is yet another dream of his which remains unfulfilled, it is bound to fuel speculations about the nature of this dream. The man who has not only shown the world again and again how seemingly impossible dreams can be turned into reality, but also inspired the dreams of a million others would be sure to have another head-turner and eye-popper up his sleeve this time. It is exciting to merely imagine what kind of upgradation this dream might bring to the millions of lives that he has touched, not to mention to his own company that he has taken to dizzying heights. When Martin Luther King Jr spoke the famous words “I have a dream” in a speech in 1963, little would he have imagined Barack Obama rising to the topmost position in the United States of America, over forty years later. When Ratan Tata says, “I have a dream”, the entire country would be waiting with bated breath for something that might, perhaps, lead us to change the way we dream.

New Year Edit for FC, Jan 1, 2010: WHAT IF?

Every new era, every revolution in the history of the world begins with a single thought — “What if…?” Developments that we take as commonplace in our everyday lives were far-fetched visions sometime in the past. It’s the implausible ideas of the present that would turn into life-changing revolutions in the future. But what if instead of waiting for some distant, earth-shaking idea, we just push ahead with the small ones that we do have and try to live up to the targets that we set for ourselves? What if, instead of finding excuses for incomplete tasks and unattained targets, we just go ahead and meet them head on? There is a lot of talk about India becoming the next super power. But rather than making tall claims, doesn’t it make sense that we live up to our own deadlines first? For a country that has a history of setting targets and then coming up with explanations for not being able to meet them, delivering the goods on time ought to make a big difference to performance in the long run. Infrastructure development has been one of the core concerns for the government in the recent past. However, there are huge gaps in the targets set and the targets met in various sectors. In power generation, we would be adding only 78 per cent of the 14.5 gigawatt target for the present financial year. This much was admitted even by Union power minister Sushil Kumar Shinde. The government is also likely to miss its infrastructure-spending target for the 11th five-year plan, ending March 2012, by about $100 billion. An important case in point is our preparation for the Commonwealth Games. The snail’s pace at which work was progressing before we realised failure was staring in the face is evidence enough of our inherent tendency to procrastinate. So, what if we shrugged off this tendency and supplemented our claims with actual action? What if we did actually build 7,000 km of road every year? What if we did generate 1,000 mw of additional solar power by 2013? What if the Indian populace received the education, healthcare, drinking water and sanitation promised to it? All this would catapult us to much greater heights of development, not just in terms of GDP, but more holistically, in terms of the quality of life. We could hold up our heads and say that we match up to our expectations. That we are indeed serious about the promises we make. But even more importantly, what if we stopped considering all these to be just the responsibility of the government? What if we looked deeper for what we, as individuals, can do to help the government achieve these targets? What if we overcame our instincts to earn that sly-buck, which ends up in things being done the sub-standard or the illegal way? What if we gave up the urge to throw wrappers out of the windows of our expensive cars on to our roads? What if we kept checks on the amount of water and power that we use in our homes and offices? What if all of us collectively gave up the idea of ‘what difference will I alone make’? Much like the government that sets targets and apologetically falls short of them, every year we make new resolutions and promptly forget them. So maybe we should think about what if we gave ourselves a chance to honour our commitments and be able to say ‘we did it.’

Edit on Women two years ago

Dec 14 2009, 2235
Gender equality seems to be headed the right way in India, at least in terms of employment and even leadership positions in the corporate sector. Two distinct studies point in that dir­ection: the first one by EMA Partners International, which says that 11 per cent of 243 top Indian companies by revenue have women CEOs, compared with only 3 per cent of US companies in the Fo­rtune 500 list; and the second one by industry body Nasscom and human resources consulting firm Mercer, which shows that India has more working women than any other country in the world (30-35 per cent of our 400 million workforce comprises women). That is indeed good news for a country where the word ‘female’ is men­tioned quite frequently with the word ‘foeticide’. Always a land of complexities and contrasts, India is a place where women exist at two extreme ends of the universe. At one level, a woman is considered a force to be worshipped—the mother goddess and life giver. At the other extreme, the woman is rejected and abused, deprived even of the right to be born. The female foeticide figures stare us blatantly in the face, with United Nations estimates showing that almost 2,000 female foetuses are aborted a day in India. The country’s sex ratio, according to the 2001 census, at 933 females per 1,000 males, is among the lowest in the world. Somewhere between these two extremes there is a gradual surge of a class of women who are pushing their way ahead and holding their own in what used to be a ‘man’s world’ -- breaking free of the glass ceiling. This also has a lot to do with the rapidly increasing number of women who are going in for higher studies. The Nasscomm-Mercer study also highlights that while in the 1980s, only 5-8 per cent of students in engineering colleges were women, in 2005, women formed 40.4 per cent of students in institutes of higher education. Slowly, but surely, women have moved into top positions and are demolishing stereotypes, in terms of power, position and wealth. So, while companies consider female employees to be better at managing teams and client relationships and at handling crises, wealth managers are now making a beeline for them with investible surpluses. The change is pervasive at all levels of decision-making. Women are unafraid to take their own decisions, which includes personal, corporate and financial. And that is what drives them to lead projects and eventually companies. An interesting fact that is evident from these figures is that male mindsets in the country have changed, too, with men becoming more open to the idea of having a woman as ‘boss’, which was not exactly the case several years ago. It is even more heartening that all of this is happening in India, which is racing ahead of even the developed countries. That leaves one with greater hope for gender inclusiveness in the country. The outlook would be infinitely more promising if the country could also witness a change in the mindsets that lead to declining numbers of women in the population. The task looks Herculean, but with a look at the achievements of women so far, it is definitely not impossible.