Bombay Journal 2

The Irresistible Charm of the Siren City

Delhi’s Terminal 3 reflects the city’s crude unease with modernity; Bombay’s airport has the casual ease of a city used to egalitarian urban life. When you land in Bombay, you feel part of the human driving force that creates jobs, provides entertainment, choices of lifestyles and the pulsating beat of urbanity. I may be biased but this is the city where I grew up, using public transport, walking the streets, comfortable in my middle class existence.

It was only when the division took place of the erstwhile Bombay state into Gujarat and Maharashtra and I was yanked from my predictable and inclusive middle class existence, I realized that that there are Gujarati and Marathi, Hindu and Muslim, Brahmin and others, rich and poor. I sort of knew that but that was when I understood that these diversities can be used for political gain.

Today, the entire political conversation is built on these divides. All of India is riven with differences. Bombay, however, still retains the streak of egalitarianism.  There is incredible wealth; abject poverty; but the beat goes on like it did when I was growing up here. The Siren City boasts a sophistication that is far removed from Delhi’s bastard culture of privilege and braggadocio. Yes, it is my city that the brigands of the various senas are bent on destroying. Bombay’s heritage of sophisticated cosmopolitanism is threatened.

Unlike Delhi, where citizens are thugs; in Bombay, thugs hold citizens to ransom. On a recent trip, I was stuck in heavy traffic on the Worli Causeway (soon to be renamed Chhatrapati Shivaji Causeway by the thugs?) and we inched along. I was struck by the fact that no one tried to weave through traffic or honk.

I was on my way to meet my friend Father Lawrie Ferrao, one of my oldest friends. He is the director of the highly-regarded Xavier Institute of Communication. I first met Lawrie in 1958 in Hilda Pimenta’s fifth standard class at St Xavier’s High School in Dhobi Talao. I was a forgettable kid in the school that boasted many students who went on to make their mark in the world: the most prominent being Sunil Gavaskar. There were others not quite as publicly acclaimed but stars in their own right in various fields: space science, mathematics, anthropology, petroleum, journalism, law, business and what have you.

When I finished with the school in 1965, I lost touch with Lawrie and only re-established contact with him at a reunion of the class of 1965 in January 2008. Taken aback that he was a Jesuit priest and then the principal of St Stanislaus in Bandra, I spent a lot of time with him at the meet. In the event, he was the priest who conducted the service at my daughter’s wedding in St Elizabeth Church in Ucassaim, Goa, our other home. Thus, we re-established our friendship

We spent a few hours together, not just reliving the old times but discussing various issues including the state-of-the-art of communications education and urban governance and everything else over lunch at the highly-overrated Khyber Restaurant in Kala Ghoda.

The previous night I had dinner with my friends Almona and Sidharth Bhatia. She is the publisher of GQ in India and Sid has just written a fabulous book called Cinema Moderne: The Navketan Story. We talked late into the evening about many things but mainly about Dev Anand and how he represented modernity and hope in an India shackled by socialist dogma and Gandhian claptrap about village republics

Note: For my friends who, like me, hold Gandhi in high esteem. Gandhi was a post modern thinker; his ideas were seminal and far ahead of his time. However, the idea of a self sufficient village presumes full literacy and civic awareness.  He preached civil disobedience and said nary a word about free and compulsory primary education.

Coming back to my Bombay experience, it is now increasingly clear that the political battle is between those who endorse Bombay’s cosmopolitan character and the thugs, who would drag the city into moffusil obscurity. Call it Bombay versus Mumbai. The latter seem to be winning by sheer muscle.

And so Bombay is a conundrum: you see in it hope for India’s future and you despair that is held hostage by thugs. What happens in Bombay over the years will determine whether India will live up to its promise as player on the world stage; or will slide into the chaos of a fourth world country.

Finally, an explanation on why I call Bombay the “Siren City.”  It is an island; it is seductive in its decrepit charm; yet it draws people even though they may end up on the rocks. The people who have always lived there or consider it home have an Odyssean worldview:  “all that comes to pass on the fertile earth, we know it all!”

Bombay being Bombay, I have to end this with a line written by Majrooh Sultanpuri and sung by Mohammed Rafi: “Yeh hai Bombay meri jaan.” Mumbai just doesn't work in that song. Never mind it was a rip-off of an American folk ballad called “My Darling Clementine.”

Bombay Journal

Deja Vu All Over Again…

Three friends, 45 years later, sit in a palatial Khar apartment in this siren city, enjoying the cocktail hour. Dinner is a couple of hours away. This is the first time that I can remember that Yogi, Mirchi and I have sat together since our Baroda days. Sure, we’ve met en famille…in Bombay, in New York, in New Jersey. In Baroda, we met every day, largely because we were roommates at different times. So this evening was special.

In the course of the evening, we exchanged a few desultory comments about Baroda and the people we knew then. Mostly the conversation was about today and things happening in our lives. Mirchi regaled us about his fumbles with remote controlled curtains in his bedroom; Yogi about how he has given up his crusade against honking and rash driving in Bombay; I showed them pictures of my freshly-minted granddaughter. It was wonderful to be interested in each other’s lives today and not go into a nostalgic shoosha about the good old days and what have you.

Even if I do say so myself; I am mostly the guy who makes the effort to keep in touch with old friends.  In the past few decades, I have connected with friends from the 1950s, 1960s and onward. It's been marvelous because they responded with enthusiasm. The key to sustaining renewed relationships is to eschew stuff like: "remember the time" and get with the modern day program. Most renewals have succeeded in the sense that we catch up with great eagerness from time to time; the ones that have fallen by the wayside were the ones that could not get beyond the magic of the old days.

What was remarkable about the reunion was that the nostalgia was about the established friendship, not about what we did when we were in our twenties. We were all engineering students enrolled in the Faculty of Technology at the MS University in Baroda; we were from Bombay and in love with the city. In Baroda, we were inseparable, together every day: dinner, movies, late night chai; living in a world of our own. It wasn’t always smooth; there were ups and downs. But we were young and sure to have our way.

Then the busy years went rushing by us; as the Baroda experience came to an end, we drifted apart. For more than a decade, we lost touch, making our way in the world: establishing careers, building families. The bond apparently survived. I reached out to them and they were happily receptive and over the years, we built a whole new relationship that peaked with the dinner in Bombay this week.

We laughed, ribbed each other and were comfortable together as though 45 years were a blink of the eyes. If you could rewind to Baroda, you’d see the three guys, now in their sixties, really hadn’t changed much, except they were older and definitely wiser. There was much familiar laughter and in our hearts, the dreams were still the same.

In the sixties, we defined friendship; 45 years later, we were redefining nostalgia. No syrupy memories of the past; no obsessive recall of the days gone but robust conversations about today, secure in the feeling that our friendship had withstood the test of time. There was no looking back, only hope we could do this again whenever we had the chance. Our lives are different but the bonds hold firm. We don’t really need to see each other every day; just to get together every opportunity we can get.

It really doesn’t get better than this. My trip in life is to link up with old friends, to establish new ties based on old camaraderie. In that, I am the luckiest person in the world: reviving old friendships is to renew life and to keep you young and fun loving. On that score alone, I may have a ticket to the place where angels play harps and it is always springtime. That evening in Bombay, it felt like I was there already.

Something In the Way She Smiles...

A Glimpse of Immortality

Yeah, yeah, we’ve all heard that: a guy who gushes about his grandchild. This is different.

I had the most amazing opportunity of spending four days with my granddaughter Kiara at our house, Imagine, in Goa. It rang true to its name. Imagine: Goa had a cool Spring; even in March, people wanted wraps sitting out on our patio; unusual weather to herald Kiara’s first trip to Goa. Imagine: she is just two months old.

Her presence at Imagine blew away my routine: newspapers, tea, bread and cheese, figs and pineapples for breakfast. The papers were left unread and between bites of “poi” (fabulous Goan bread) laden with butter, goat cheese and blueberry jam, I sat in the patio with her. Granddad or whatever, I am her personal physical trainer, working her arms and legs, lifting her up and down, turning her side to side, getting her in training for whenever Olympics.

She seemed to love it. Her smile was to die for. And that sort of works: when the sixties refer not to the Beatles generation  but to the candles on your birthday cake.

The deal is everyone smiles with their eyes. Kiara’s bright black eyes were fascinating. Shining like full-beam headlights, they dazzled me. I kept staring at them and she looked back unblinking. “Dude,” her eyes seemed to say, “Look into my eyes. I am your glimpse of immortality.”

Whoa! That’s intense coming from a child that is younger than the vintage of the plonk they serve as Indian wines. I stared harder. And in them, I saw several films, only one of which I could understand.

This was the story of a guy born in Surat, grew up in Bombay and made his home in Chicago, where one cold, snowy winter his daughter (Kiara’s mother) was born. After a complimentary steak and champagne dinner in my wife’s hospital room, we brought the baby back next day to our condo in Oak Park and doted on her and continue to do so three decades later.

Hanging with Kiara on our patio in the cool of a Goa morning, I thought of every morning in Chicago, horsing around with her mother and she also smiled. Months later, the baby, at the smallest provocation, laughed like a certified lunatic and we have a cassette (remember those?) of her in hysterical gales of laughter. We hope to present that to Kiara when she is older; which is why I am saving my old school but slick Nakamichi cassette player.

When our daughters were born, we were too busy to think philosophy. We had to attend to them and love them; no time for bigger issues. As a grandparent, and mostly because I am so much older, I can look into Kiara’s eyes and see a continuity, once removed. It sounds weird but I see in her eyes an assurance that my life has not just been wasted making a living. Her look tells me: “Yo, 20^th century man, you did well!”

In my mind, she is the Nobel Prize my daughter awarded me.

A Conversation with My Granddaughter

Me: Yo Kiara, wassup.

Kiara: (disappointed look)

Me: You must have heard about Jack and Jill?

She: (incoherent)

Me: They were the ones that went up the hill…

She: (incoherent)

Me: Jack fell down and broke his crown…

She: (incoherent)

Me: And Jill came tumbling after

She: (incoherent)

Me: Dang, Sweetie, it’s a Cliff Richard song.

She: (incoherent)

Me: Doe a deer, a female deer…

She: (incoherent)

Me: Ray, a drop of golden sun…

She: (incoherent)

Me: Jeez kid, what does it take to get you interested?

She: (raspberry)

Me: Ok cool, I got a response; you’re all there, baby.

She: (blank stare)

Me: Ok, how about this?

 She: (blank stare)

Me: (a random boney m song)

She: (farts and poops)

(Cleanup)

Me: So yo, you like the Beatles?

She: (smiles)

Me: If there’s anything that you want, if there’s anything I can do…

Pia (her mother): Yep, Dad, a baby Ipad for her.

Me: (sigh!)

To My Newborn Granddaughter

Dear Kiara,

You will get to know me eventually, Right now; you are focused on your mother, my daughter. When your Mom learned to stand up, somewhat shakily, she held on to my knee and rocked, listening to the Beatles. I loved your Mom when she was growing up and my life revolved around her. She laughed a lot and I have a cassette that captures her near lunatic laughter. But you will never know what a cassette is

While you spend your early days feeding and sleeping, understand please you have changed our world. Nothing is more important in my life than to spend an hour watching you sleep or to hassle you when you are awake. I must confess, much as I love you like there was no tomorrow, I am not a big fan of your farts and your poop. Your Mom did that too and I had no choice but to deal with it

When your Mom was in my arms, just a few days after John Lennon was murdered, I sang to her the song, Vaishnava Jan,  Mohandas Gandhi made famous. The lyrics were in Gujarati and talked about being a good person: be compassionate, never talk ill about anyone, don’t be vain, et cetera. You will be proud to know that Narasinh Mehta, who wrote the song more than 600 years ago is an ancestor of yours

You should also be thrilled to know that on your grandmother’s side, there were musicians in the 1950s and the 1960s that popularized jazz and rock through Hindi films. On your grandfather’s side, there were great Indian classical musicians and dancers and film stars. I will tell you about them when you grow up. We also have in our family great writers, scientists and people who have made names in business the world over.

On your father’s side there are equally accomplished people: entrepreneurs, architects, artists, professionals and what have you; not to mention one of the most famous actresses in Bollywood. Your Dad will tell you about them.

Your grandmother is widely renowned as a good cook and choral singer. She will teach you the intricacies of piano and classical singing and also all manner of alternative living. Everyone loves her, not just me. Your grandfather, as in me, will introduce you to the joys of reading and writing and activism. I am also happy to teach you swear words but I don’t think that will go down well with the clan on both sides.

Your Mom has a sister you will adore and love mindlessly; she will teach you the joys of casual sophistication. She will snow you with her lovable personality and her ability to handle the world with biting sarcasm and humor. Listen to her; she has a way in the world that I admire; plus she used to live in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Need I say more?

Finally, a word about your Mom: apart from being the most organized person in the family, she is a softie and a traditionalist. I love her and have been close to her since I first held her with as a newborn with guck all over her. She is a superstar..

We love ya and welcome you into both families. You are a superstar plus.

With immeasurable love,

Your Granddad..

PS Just call me “Sir.”

Tilting at windmills - Hindustan Times

Tilting at windmills - Hindustan Times

Power, Not Principles

Anti-Congressism is the common plank of those motivated by short-term political gain.


Peeling the onion of political ideology in India is an assault on reason. You have Hindutva rabble-rousers who held sway from 1998 to 2004. Then there is the intellectually bankrupt Left that met its Waterloo on the India-US strategic partnership agreement. Sitting on opposition benches, their one-point agenda is to defeat – which is difficult – or cause problems – which is easy – for the Congress. It is a matter of wonder how closely these two so-called inimical forces, the BJP and the Left, have combined time and again to oppose the Congress for short term political gain. 

There are also 1960s-style anarchic groups that include the Anna Hazare autocratic clique and Mamata Banerjee’s socially and intellectually challenged Trinamool Congress. Plunk into the mix the personality cults of Mayawati; the dynastic set-up of Mulayam Singh Yadav, Karunanidhi and Naveen Patnaik; the slippery appeal of Jayalalithaa and the holier-than-thou stance of Nitish Kumar. These are mercenary formations that will sway whichever way the wind blows, depending on the political advantage they can derive. 

It is not clear what any of these groups stand for except opposition to the Congress. In 1974, the great anarch Jayaprakash Narayan talked of “total revolution” and called on the army to revolt against the Indira Gandhi government; today Anna has subverted his fight against corruption into an anti-Congress political movement. Talk about deja vu. 

The foolishness of the Anna band of civil society buccaneers was exposed when the moving spirit, Arvind Kejriwal, was forced to issue a statement that they are not anti-Congress. Earlier, when cornered by thinking people on a television show, he said that India’s muchadmired parliamentary democracy is a fraud. Such increasingly shrill utterances suggest he is completely out of depth on the national stage. 

Meanwhile, BJP leader L K Advani led a rath yatra against money in Swiss banks in a nonetoo-subtle bid to cash in on Anna’s storm in a teacup against corruption. Of classic RSS vintage, he believes no one remembers his other 1990 Ram temple effort which led to communal riots. So where is the “glorious” temple he promised? He served as home minister and deputy prime minister for the six years the BJP-led coalition was in power. Advani’s confusion was complete when he went to Karachi and lauded Mohammed Ali Jinnah as a secular leader. 

There are many ideological fig leafs that political formations wear in their relentless grasp for power: socialism, casteism, social justice, identity, chauvinism, Hinduism. Scratch the surface and it all turns out to be an anti-Congress position. As such, political analysis in India is best conducted on a dyadic presumption: there is the Congress and there is everyone else. 

So let’s look at the Congress record. It has been the default option for the electorate. In the past quarter century, it suffered seminal defeats in the elections of 1989 and 1996. In each case, it was voted out of power on allegations of corruption. Each time, a coalition of parties was hastily put together that stood for nothing except opposition to the Congress. In both those defeats, any objective analyst could conclude the Congress lost because its governments undertook significant reforms that hurt the status quo. 

In 1989, an agglomeration of forces came together to restore the status quo of inequity and discrimination that Rajiv Gandhi had challenged. The motley crew of political parties that formed the opposition put together a makeshift government that did not last the full term; nor did they pursue the charges of corruption that brought them to power. 

In the ensuing decade, the BJP’s unbridled appeal to communalism brought it to power: first, for 13 days in 1996; then in two desperate coalitions in 1998 and 1999. The saffron dispensation lasted until 2004 and was then showed the door because of its misplaced nationalism that saw India conduct nuclear tests that were replayed tit-for-tat by Pakistan and because of its insensitive “India Shining” hype. 

Since then, the Congress has held sway. The key difference is the Congress’s approach to social harmony and economic development: the phrase “inclusive development” was introduced to the political vocabulary. In the interim, India, warts and all, grew to be a big player in the global dialogue. Most important, economic growth was accompanied by the largest-ever reduction in poverty. Today, thanks largely to the growth of the middle class, the Indian voice is heard in world forums. 

Unmindful of these achievements, the anti-Congress brigade has spread several falsehoods: the prime minister is opposed by Congress president Sonia Gandhi; Manmohan Singh is weak; Sonia is the real power. 

The truth is different: both Singh and Sonia are on the same page as they have always been. There has been in the history of the Congress no better combination. The former pushes reform in foreign and economic policy; the latter is the conscience to ensure there is a local sensitivity to these reforms. That is the operational definition of “inclusive growth”. 

It’s ironic that the anti-Congress formations should denigrate both leaders. Singh is a highly respected economist who forsook academic achievement to serve the country first as a bureaucrat, then as finance minister and prime minister. Sonia, who adopted this country as her home, foreswore the office of prime minister in 2004 and became the conscience of the government. 

The writer is a public affairs commentator.

Left and Right against the Centre


This article appeared in The Times of India on January 10, 2012.

Link:

http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Default/Scripting/ArticleWin.asp?From=Archive&Source=Page&Skin=TOINEW&BaseHref=CAP/2012/01/10&PageLabel=14&EntityId=Ar01400&ViewMode=HTML

Setting the Record Straight

A mature response by the UPA government put an end to the disruption of Parliament led by the BJP. In a passionate statement, Pranab Mukherjee said, “I may be the most illiterate man in the House, but I fail to understand what purpose is served by dividing the House on a motion that seeks adjournment over black money in foreign banks. We have no conflict of interest on the issue.

We are with you on the need to curb the menace. So why have a division?” 

Involving as it does international tax treaties and laws of privacy; extracting information on Indian holdings in foreign banks is difficult, the finance minister said. The Mukherjee speech rates, in my mind, among the better interventions in the 60-year history of Parliament. 

Mr Mukherjee said there are enough laws on the books to deal with black money squirreled away in tax havens but they have not been effective. No banks will violate their secrecy code. Warming to his theme, he asserted that the BJP was in power for six years and had plenty of time to persuade foreign banks in tax havens to divulge their Indian secrets. 

In his forceful speech, Mr Mukherjee implied that the BJP is not a serious player and simply obstructs Parliament with a view to showing the government does not enjoy majority support. In the event, the adjournment motion was soundly defeated, leaving the BJP with egg on its face. 

The BJP’s assault on foreign holdings is meant to reinforce the canards they have spread for several decades that Congress leaders, especially the Gandhi family, have money stashed away abroad. It is of a piece with Anna Hazare not inviting the NCP’s Sharad Pawar to the muchhyped debate on the Lokpal Bill issue simply because they believe he is corrupt. Mr Pawar is the leader of a major political party that has a sizeable presence both in Parliament and in the Maharashtra state assembly. It has ministers in the Union Cabinet and in the state government. 

Two decades ago, V P Singh played the same game. He campaigned in 1989 with a piece of paper saying he had the Swiss bank account numbers of various Congress leaders and their friends. He promised he would reveal names once he was voted into power. It turned out that with the support of the BJP and the Left, he did become Prime Minister and all he did was to unleash the Mandal mayhem. If we must talk of public life and political leadership, you have only to look at Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, three tall leaders who were assassinated by fanatics. Then there is Sonia Gandhi, who suffered the slings and arrows of the BJP propaganda machine for being Italian by birth; she stepped back when she was entitled to become the Prime Minister in 2004. 

Since then, the BJP has pushed the line that Mrs Gandhi is the real power and Manmohan Singh is a mere puppet. The BJP leader, L K Advani, has been voluble in seeking to portray Dr Singh as a weak leader. I served on the Congress media committee for seven years and can say, having seen it at close hand, the relationship between Mrs Gandhi and Dr Singh was one of immense mutual respect. 

The question needs to be asked: did Mr Advani, home minister in December 1999, display great strength and resolve when the government cravenly succumbed to the demands of the hijackers of Indian Airlines flight 814? Could the Congress have accused him of being weak? The answer is yes, but they did not. It was a matter of national security and the Congress lent its support. 

The hijackers sought the release of three militants including Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British-born terrorist with ties to al Qaeda, who was implicated in the murder of Daniel Pearl, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. 

The BJP had its chance from 1998 to 2004. It started out with nuclear explosions in May 1998 that altered the balance of power in the subcontinent negating the conventional edge that India enjoyed till then after Pakistan responded by staging its own nuclear tests. The curtains came down on BJP’s rule in 2004 when, turned off by an insensitive India Shining poll campaign, voters turned away. 

Also, we must never forget the 13-day BJP government in 1996. That reckless act served to underline their lack of seriousness and their belief that being in government is about power and pelf, rather than service and sacrifice. 

Fifteen years later, its obstructionism in Parliament confirms that the BJP is confused and desperate. Now, can we please get back to the business of governance?

• The BJP’s actions are about self-interest, not seriousness on issues of national interest 

• In 1996, the party displayed it puts power and pelf above service and sacrifice 

• Now, its obstructionism in Parliament confirms the BJP is confused and desperate

This article appeared in The Economic Times on December 23, 2011.

Capital Letter

December 10, 2011

American Life: Washington Journal

Liberalism…

A Saturday afternoon at the Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington DC: I am waiting for my bag. It shows up and so do my hosts Gautam and Rita and with them the promise of a fabulous weekend plus.

Gautam is the most insightful person I know. You really have to read his book, The Intolerant Indian, to know how perspicacious this man is. Yet, I have always thought of him a rock star, never mind he’s been the editor of The Times of India and founding editor of DNA. His book, however, leads me to believe there is so much more to Gautam than his editor persona or his Elvis singsong.

So there he was with his wife Rita, wheeling my bag to the parking lot. We drove to his house in Chevy Chase, savoring the prospect of the next few days. As soon as we got in his car, Gautam was all about business. And his business was about pleasure. “We’re going here, there and everywhere,” he says, in his Beatles-besotted way as he pulls his car out of the parking lot.

He makes me sit shotgun while Rita sits in the back; she is the “chopdi (book) aunty,” as a friend christened her once in Goa, for her encyclopedic knowledge about everything. That afternoon, she was leading the charge against “these reactionary Republicans.” In his wry way, Gautam reminds her that I am the only one in the car who had shaken hands and had a picture taken with George W Bush, the hate figure for American liberals.

We make our way through this gorgeous city and I can’t help but marvel at the stuff that flies by the car window; stuff we see all the time on television: this monument, that government building, whatever. It is truly a beautiful city and whether you like it or not, it is the capital of the world.

Driving through the city, we cross into Maryland’s Chevy Chase, where Gautam and Rita reside. The place has an air of understated class; which also describes my hosts.

Through the stay, I spent time with their friends and loved every minute of it. What was remarkable was these friends were as comfortable with me as I was with them; as though I’d known them forever. More likely, it was the old “any friend of Gautam and Rita’s” syndrome. Conversations were enlightened and at times, enlivened by my minor intrusions into their liberal groupthink.

They seemed to be all McGovern liberals. I gave up that ghost a long time ago when it became clear unadulterated American liberalism is about class and privilege, on the one hand; on the other hand, it has a streak of populism: a patrician dislike of business and commerce. Bill Clinton was not about that and W was a foaming-in-the-mouth response to classic American liberalism.

In the several salon-type interactions Gautam organized, it became clear the hatred for W and the Republicans among liberals is entrenched and ultimately as divisive as the agenda of their hate object, George W Bush. Equally puzzling is their lukewarm support for Obama, who has brought to the national scene the art of compromise and negotiation that is part and parcel of state and city politics in this admirable country.

The flight of liberals from Obama’s camp is, dare I say it, an expression of disappointment. They seem to be saying: we elected you, our first black president; you were proof of our liberal credentials and you compromise with all manner of people and policy positions that are anathema to us?

Much like in India, the ruling dispensation here seems to have lost its way between the assaults from the religious right and indignant liberals. The fate of Obama and Dr Manmohan Singh in India will determine the future of democracy and liberalism in the world. The EU crisis, as always with the Europeans, is about money.

On the way back to Delhi, at Dulles, I contemplated the stentorian arbitrariness of the Homeland Security system that stalks all American airports. Struggling through the gauntlet of not-so-bright people, who may have been recruited from the American jail regime or street gangs, I thought to myself: America national security state and India anti-corruption zeal are probably the two greatest threats to liberal democracy.

At American airports and in Indian media, it appears as though the regimentation and anarchy are on the rise. At Dulles, O’Hare, Kennedy and various points of entry, agents of the emergent national security regime evoke fear and awe, largely because they have the power to whisk you away and throw you in jail and keep you there for months without framing charges. In India, prodded by anarchists and their anti- corruption protests, the judicial system can do much the same.

###

This article appeared in The Times of India on December 17, 2011.


http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/capital-letter/entry/american_life_washington_journal

Do leaders need a better image?

Recently, Parliament has lost precious time, due to differences on various issues. NDTV's Pankaj Pachauri talks to experts including Mr Rajiv Desai (Chief Executive, Comma) on the issue of political reforms in India.

See Video: http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/money-mantra/do-leaders-need-a-better-image/217828 

American Life: Chicago Journal

Chicago: This city has been my sustenance for nearly four decades. I have lived away from it for many years but come here several times a year. It is where I got my first job; bought my first house; both our daughters were born there. I started a community newspaper in the 1970s. It is a legacy and the paper, India Tribune, still exists. I wrote regularly for the city’s main paper, Chicago Tribune. It was my hometown and still remains that in my mind.

In Delhi, I still can get lost in its chaotic streets. Not in this city: I can drive you any place in the blink of an eye. In the midst of Delhi’s daily mayhem, I console myself: I will go back to Chicago soon and enjoy driving. Here, they don’t just follow the rules of the road; they extend it to road manners, showing courtesy and concern.

Driving in Chicago is fun and virtually stress free. As I tool around the city, I find wonderful new restaurants and bars with great music; I also do the rounds of the usual stores that I have shopped at for the past 30 years.

Many of my friends and acquaintances rib me about my Chicago fixation. For me, though, Chicago is about change. The city has evolved into one of the most livable cities in the world. Everything that happens here is about tomorrow. Every time I am here, something has changed for the better.

The swirling currents in this city assure you that tomorrow will be better than today. As such, it is the quintessential American city. It honors the past but embraces the future with zeal and innovation.

I am fortunate. My friends here are on the top of the world. My experience is the high end: the best restaurants, great parties, intellectual engagement; most of all, the freedom and enjoyment to drive all over the city or take the “El” or just walk everywhere..

I used to go back to Chicago several times a year; now it’s maybe twice a year. And I think to myself, how long will you keep on coming here? The answer, much as I dislike it, is less often. My adopted hometown is headed the way of Surat, the buzzing city in Gujarat, where I was born.

Surat was my first love and my grandfather’s improbably large house there was the port in my storm-tossed adolescence. When he died in 1966, I never went back until 2001. In a Times middle, after my visit there, I wrote:

“Thirty-five years on, I feel the swirling confluence of the past and the present: as though the youth who lived in that house had journeyed into the future and returned with a 50-year-old man in tow. Then the youth disappeared into the past, leaving the older man to luxuriate in the warm and fuzzy memories of the house and its people.”

It is the same with regard to Bombay, where I lived in Juhu in the Theosophical Colony; and later in Court Royal in Byculla Bridge. These houses were my anchors; I thought they’d go on forever.

When we bought our condo in a restored old apartment house in Oak Park, the first suburb west of Chicago, I thought we had struck roots. Here, our first daughter was born; then we bought a wonderful house in the Frank Lloyd Wright historic district of Oak Park, where our second daughter was born.

We thought we had achieved permanence. Just five years later, we stood crying as the trucks rolled out to take our belongings to Delhi and bade farewell to our friends.

And I thought these were all permanent addresses…

…turns out, there are no permanent addresses.

My recent Chicago sojourn hammered in my head the need to deal with impermanence. Everything you got used to and thought would last forever changes and with it, your ability to adapt.

All that you build around you is to get a sense of security and predictability. You buy a house, spruce it up, eat good food, drink great wines, go on holidays and sup at the fount of plenty. You convince yourself that this will go on and on.

Things change. You may become wise and mature; but the clock of mortality keeps ticking.

On the other hand, all these years, my project has been to catch up and establish new relationships with old friends. In this, I have been spectacularly successful.

Old friends have become new; old relationships have been revived with a new idiom. It is a heady feeling to renew friendships that seemed permanent, got lost in the way of making a living and are now back in a last-ditch battle to give meaning to life beyond professional pursuits or financial achievement.

And it seems to stop this ticking clock and deters ominous feelings about the limitations of time.

(An edited version of this post will appear in http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com, December 8, 2011.)

Evergreen Optimism

As I stood there shaking hands with him when he came to receive the Dada Saheb Phalke award, the years seemed to melt away. It was as though I was in my pre-teens, having just watched Nau Do Gyarah , Munimji , Paying Guest or whichever film I first saw starring Dev Anand.

I can remember going straight into the bathroom, wetting my hair and trying to work up the stylish pompadour. Dev Anand was my absolute favourite screen personality and I religiously caught every single film he ever made.

My friends say I am an inveterate optimist, that's why I came back to India after nearly two decades in the US. The optimism has its roots in my early exposure to Dev Anand's films.

Since the late 1950s and through the early 1960s, he was my favourite hero, not necessarily because he was a good actor but because he stood for hope.

While Dilip Kumar represented the tragedy of the Indian condition, Raj Kapoor the misbegotten ideology that messed up India, Dev Anand stood for what India could be, smiling and stylish with a song on the lips.

Dev Anand represents the most modern of all creative idioms: Find talented people and let them grow. Through his organisation, Navketan, we were introduced to Guru Dutt, S D Burman and dozens of others, who entertained generations with movies and music that today are part of our memories.

About the time Dev Anand began to be recognised as an entertainer, the operative mood in Indian films was down-in-the-mouth, a victim of the colonial experience. The theme song was Duniya mein hum ayein hain to jeena hi padega, jeevan hai agar zahar to peena hi padega .

Along came Dev Anand with his worldview expressed best in the song from the film Hum Dono : Barbadiyon ka shok manana fuzul tha, har fikr ko dhuein mein udata chala gaya .

His films filled me with hope, the ultimate global value that was in short supply in India at that time.

Congratulations on the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, and thank you Dev Saheb, you instilled me with optimism about India before I reached my teens.

In the words of your immortal song: Jeevan ke safar mein raahi... de jaate hain yaadein . Indeed, you have given me, a fellow traveller in the world, a rich lode of memories, never mind your lyricist's other lines, which I have left out in the ellipsis.

This article appeared in The Times of India on February 16, 2004.

I am posting it as a tribute to my personal hero, Dev Anand, who died on December 4, 2011.

India at the limits

Command-and-control system failure

 

If you ever needed evidence that socialist ideology, political populism and the utter lack of governance holds India to ransom, all you have to do is to study the power crisis gripping India. For the past several weeks, the country has reeled from outages that last so long that they have become the norm; the few hours that power is available are the unusual occurrence. The gap between supply and demand is thought to be in excess of 15 percent on the average: ranging for zero in the case of Lutyens Delhi, home of the ruling class, to more than 50 percent in rural areas.

India’s power crisis bears examination because it highlights the sheer inability of the public sector edifice to meet the demands of a rapidly growing economy.

Let’s start at the source. The predominant fuel used in power generation is coal. The mining of the material is in the hands of a government monopoly, Coal India Limited, widely regarded as inept and corrupt. Faced with demands for increased production, the company actually told the coal ministry it is lowering its production target for 2011-12 by four million tons. Most analysts believe when March 2012 comes rolling around, the company will report a much bigger shortfall. In the first half of the year, ended September, Coal India fell short by 20 million tons.

Among other fuels, the government has been unable to secure assured supplies of natural gas or alternative fuels to mitigate the coal deficit.

Power generation is also largely a government monopoly run by similarly inept and corrupt public sector companies. Despite grandiose plans to increase power generation, the government achieved only 50 percent of its targets in the 20 years ending 2012. A Planning Commission official was quoted as saying that if the power ministry had succeeded in meeting its targets, the coal shortages would have been worse.

One of the key risks in the generation of power is environmental pollution. The agency in charge of ensuring that the risk is mitigated is the ministry of environment and forests, which in recent years has become a hotbed of populism. The ministry, in 2009, announced a ban on mining in forests and tribal areas. It also opposed hydroelectric projects in various parts of the country. Its views on nuclear power are also skeptical, led by fears of accidents.

Beyond that, because power supply is a concurrent subject, state governments are in charge of the distribution of power to citizens. Mostly, provincial governments supply electricity through state electricity boards (SEBs). Again, corrupt and inept, the utilities are bankrupt entities. A 2001 Planning Commission report on the working of these utilities says, “It may be noted that the information provided in the report is not always based on audited reports of the SEBs as the accounts of many SEBs are audited with a considerable time lag.”

In certain cities like Bombay and Ahmedabad, where the generation, transmission and distribution of power in the hands of private companies, the costs of power are higher but the supply is reliable. I have lived in both cities and thereafter in the US, so my first experience of a power cut was in Delhi. Things improved dramatically in the capital after 1998 when the Sheila Dikshit government privatized power distribution. Just the drastic reduction in the huge (nearly 50 percent) “transmission and distribution” losses (theft) made more power available.

India’s power conundrum provides a snapshot of the challenges policymakers faces as they try to cope with the demands of a new India. The Socialist command-and-control system simply does not work. As its hold diminished, businessmen and entrepreneurs showed that without the dead hand of government bearing down on the economy, they could work wonders.

But what the noted German social psychologist Erich Fromm called the  “freedom from” moment has passed; the “freedom to” moment of the modern economy calls for bold political leadership such as greater, crony-free privatization; it demands better-trained, more responsive and transparent government agencies.

Most of all, the burden has to be shared by citizens themselves. This is not an area of focus in public debate. It’s not just politicians and bureaucrats that are responsible for taking India forward; citizens cannot absolve themselves from the responsibility of the “freedom to” opportunity.

Here’s what I mean: on a recent flight, as the plane landed and the seat belt signs went off, I was buffeted by a rush from behind as some passengers dashed for the doorway, hoping to disembark first. There was absolutely no reason to do this because in the end we were all going in the same bus and we would arrive at the terminal at the same time.

My conclusion was that these men and women who sought to push their way up front were so focused on their personal agendas that they forgot their civic sense. If passengers disembark row by row, things get done in a much smoother and more pleasant way.

It’s the same for the traffic on the roads, though the consequences there are far more dangerous. This extends to paying taxes, avoiding bribes, evade building codes,  littering, urinating in public and all the “me-first, devil-take-the-hindmost” attitudes that make it so hard to be a citizen in India and make the public space into such a disagreeable environment.

An edited version of this article appeared in Education World, November 2011.

Copyright Rajiv Desai 2011

Capital Letter

European Odyssey: Swiss Journal 

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/capital-letter/entry/european-odyssey-swiss-journal-theme-for-a-gandhian-dream

Theme for a (Gandhian) dream...

Milan’s Malpensa airport is a bit like Ahmedabad airport before it was modernized. We arrived there on a hot and sultry day and waited forever to retrieve our bags. I was a bit grumpy; who would expect this in Milan, the world’s fashion hot spot? What next, I asked my wife? Rickshaw guys milling about the exit? I want my money back!

Within minutes of emerging into the arrival area, my frown disappeared. We were greeted with warm smiles by Beat (pronounced ‘bey-ut’ though our daughters often say his name to rhyme with neat) and Raul, the Swiss component of our family. As we loaded our bags into Beat’s Audi, I looked forward to the drive that skirted the city to take us into the hills of Switzerland, headed for Tessin, aka Ticino.

The picturesque Ticino canton is spread across mountainous country and is the southernmost part of Switzerland. Called Italian Switzerland, the region, I am surprised to learn, is, after Zurich and Geneva, the third largest financial center in the country.

It took us all of 90 minutes, including a stop in a farm with a tumble down barn where we bought fresh fruit and vegetables, to get to Al Ruscello, the house by the brook, in the heavenly little village of Gordola in the Locarno district. With a view of the northern tip of Lago (Lake) Maggiore, the house is Beat and our niece Lisa’s family home. On the northern side, it is surrounded by vineyard slopes that grow the local Merlot grapes. Ticino is the warmest part of Switzerland.

Lisa and Beat come here to get away from the hustle and bustle of Zurich, where they live.

Really? They need to get away from a picture-postcard city that is consistently voted the most livable city in the world? I guess it takes all kinds. Maybe the civilized 400,000 residents; maybe the smooth flowing traffic; perhaps the quiet neighborhoods and the picturesque lakefront get to them and they want to go rough it out in Ticino. But it’s just more of the same: quiet, easy, beautiful...only on a much smaller scale; Gordola’s population is just 5,000.

Even for just 5,000 people, there is a wealth of local infrastructure. Some of it is evident from  the balcony of Al Ruscello, which offers a view of local trains, commuter railroads, private boats and ferries, civilian planes and helicopters for medical emergencies. And it’s not just in Ticino; it’s all over the country: a display of civic extravagance that towers above the fabled wealth of Swiss banks and the affluence of its citizens.

Meanwhile, the superstructure is unobtrusive: the grocery store, the butcher shop, the bakery, the fruit and vegetable store appear modest and innocuous but are lavish with an abandonza of local products. It was this “local” aspect that also struck me when we visited Ticino five years ago.

In a column for a national newspaper,  I wrote:  “...isn’t this what Mohandas Gandhi said when he talked about...villages being self sufficient? ‘Every village will be a republic… (It) has to be self sustained and capable of managing its affairs even to the extent of defending itself against the whole world,’ he wrote in the Harijan, some 65 years ago, on July 28, 1946. So while the Swiss people exult in their village republics, they also have a global presence with world beating companies in pharmaceuticals, chemicals, machine tools, textile machinery and also in lifestyle brands like Swatch, Omega, Mont Blanc and even ultimately the Swiss Army.

“Sadly, in India, villages are dens of filth and inequity; major stumbling blocks to progress. As far as global brands, India now finally boasts some companies like Infosys, Wipro and Tata. In political terms, self sufficiency in India means cronyism and a seller’s market. But the Swiss version, which I experienced in Tessin, was modern and enlightened. I thought to myself: isn’t this exactly what Gandhi advocated?

“In reviewing Amartya Sen’s book, The Argumentative Indian, the historian Ramchandra Guha wrote: ‘As a multilingual and yet democratic country, India’s only rival is Switzerland.’ Guha’s review in the Economic and Political Weekly, October 8, 2005, a scathing dismissal of Sen’s book, which has become the bible of the soft left in India,  hit the nail on the head. Switzerland appears to have been the model on the basis of which Gandhi proffered his theory about village republics.”

In the five years that elapsed since our last trip to this wondrous region of the world, it appeared that things hadn’t changed much. They hadn’t deteriorated as they would in India, for sure. In fact, they might have gotten better. In the midst of the economic disaster in Europe, Switzerland held firm, bouncing back firmly from a slight downturn. In the quarter ended June 2011, the economy grew 2.4 percent and exports grew nearly six percent despite the fact that the Swiss franc appreciated sharply against the dollar and the euro.

It appeared as though this pristine little country has weathered the economic storms that are buffeting Europe. Switzerland has much to cheer about.

The dining room at Al Ruscella boasted a fireplace that served as a grill. We barbecued locally sourced beef, venison and sausage, tossed a hearty salad with local produce, selected the local white Merlot as an accompaniment to the meal, relished home-made dessert and topped the meal off with local grappa. We silently raised our glasses to the resourcefulness of the Swiss people and in thanksgiving that our extended family includes a Swiss branch.

This appeared on Capital Letter, The Times of India Blogs on November 7, 2011.

Rajiv Desai: Command-and-control system failure

If you ever needed evidence that socialist ideology, political populism and the utter lack of governance holds India to ransom, all you have to do is study the electric power crisis currently gripping India. For the past several weeks, the country has reeled from outages that last so long that they have become the norm; the few hours that electricity is available are the unusual occurrence. The gap between supply and demand is thought to be in excess of 15 percent on the average: ranging from zero in the case of Lutyens Delhi, which houses the ruling class, to more than 50 percent in rural areas.

India’s power crisis bears examination because it highlights the sheer inability of the public sector edifice to meet the demands of a rapidly growing economy. 

Let’s start at the source. The predominant fuel used in power generation is coal. The mining of this raw material is in the hands of a government monopoly, Coal India Ltd, widely regarded as inept and corrupt. Faced with rising demand for increased production, the company actually told the coal ministry that it is lowering its production target for 2011-12 by 4 million tonnes. Most analysts beli-eve when March 2012 comes rolling around, the company will report a much bigger shortfall. In the first half of the year, ended September, Coal India’s output fell short by 20 million tonnes. Simulta-neously, the government has been unable to secure assured supplies of natural gas or alternative fuels to mitigate the coal deficit.

Power generation is also largely a government monopoly run by similarly inept and corrupt public sector companies. Despite grandiose plans to increase power generation, the government will achieve only 50 percent of its target of the 20 years ending 2012. According to a Planning Commission official, if the power ministry had succeeded in meeting its targets, coal shortages would have been worse.

One of the risks of coal-driven power generation is environmental pollution. The agency in charge of ensuring this risk is mitigated, is the Union ministry of environment and forests, which in recent years has become a hotbed of populism. In 2009, the ministry announced a ban on all mining in forests and tribal areas. It also opposed hydroele-ctric projects in several parts of the country. Its views on nuclear power are also skeptical, led by fears of accidents.

Beyond that, because power supply is a concurrent subject, state governments are in charge of distribution to citizens. They supply electricity through state electricity boards (SEBs). Again, corrupt and inefficient, these utilities are mostly bankrupt entities. A 2001 Planning Commission report on the performance of these utilities says, “It may be noted that the information provided in the report is not always based on audited reports of the SEBs, as the accounts of many SEBs are audited with a considerable time lag.”

In several cities such as Mumbai and Ahmedabad, where the generation, trans-mission and distribution of power is in the hands of private companies, the cost of electricity is higher but the supply is reliable. I have lived in both cities and thereafter in the US, so my first experience of a power cut was in Delhi. Things improved dramatically in the capital after 1998, when the Sheila Dikshit government privatised power distribution. Just a drastic reduction in the huge (nearly 50 percent) “transmission and distribution” losses (theft) made more power available. 

India’s power conundrum provides a snapshot of the challenges policymakers face as they try to cope with the demands of a new India. The socialist command-and-control system simply does not work. As its hold diminished, businessmen and entrepreneurs have shown that without the dead hand of government bearing down on the economy, they can work wonders. 

But what the noted german social psychologist Erich Fromm called the “freedom from” moment, has passed. The “freedom to” moment of the modern economy calls for bold political leadership such as greater, crony-free privatisation and better-trained, more responsive and transparent government agencies.

Most of all, the burden has to be shared by citizens. This is not an area of focus in public debate. It’s not just politicians and bureaucrats who are responsible for taking India forward; citizens cannot absolve themselves from the responsibility of the “freedom to” opportunity.
Here’s what I mean: on a recent flight, as the plane landed and the seat belt sign went off, I was buffeted by a rush from behind as some passengers dashed for the doorway, hoping to disembark first. There was absolutely no reason to do this because in the end, we were all going in the same bus and we would arrive at the terminal simultaneously.  

My conclusion is that the men and women who sought to push their way up front were so focused on their personal agendas as to totally disregard their civic sense. It’s the same for the traffic on the roads, though the consequences are far more dangerous. This extends to paying taxes, avoiding bribes, evading building codes, littering, urinating in public and all the “me-first, devil-take-the-hindmost” attitudes that make it so hard to be a citizen in India, and transform public spaces into disagreeable environments.

(An edited version of this post will appear in http://www.educationworld.in, November 4, 2011.)