American Life 10

Hatemongering…

New York: It was a jaw-dropping piece of news. Gabrielle Giffords, a young Democratic member of the House of Representatives from Tucson, Arizona was shot in the head by a crazed assassin in a parking lot as she did her regular meeting with her constituents on Saturday January 8.

The shooting shocked America. Since March 1981, when John W Hinckley Jr took a shot at Ronald Reagan, I can recall no other such event. The Reagan shooting precipitated a national debate on gun control; this latest one raised issues about the polarization in politics that took hold when George W Bush was president.

For me, the news harked back to the night of May 21 1991 when I got a call informing me that Rajiv Gandhi was killed in Sriperumbudur in the southern state of Madras. My heart went out to the family, friends and staff of Giffords.

Giffords’ immediate supporters probably feel today as I felt on that stormy night in May 1991: the dream was over; political violence has a way of putting paid to ideals. I worked with Rajiv for many years and was devastated at the news of his death.

When Rajiv was assassinated, I told an interviewer from The Times of India that he was killed because of the hate atmosphere that was created by his opponents in politics and in the media.

Amazingly, this was among the issues being debated 30 years later in America. In a television discussion on January 12, David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, told the host Charlie Rose that hate mongering is an important determinant of political assassinations. In his cool, scholastic way Remnick endorsed what I told the Times in a fit of emotion some two decades ago.

The Giffords shooting brought to mind the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln, Mohandas Gandhi, John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi. Their opponents had launched a relentless and visceral hate campaign against them.

Among the many stories that emerged from the Giffords shooting, one was about Sarah Palin’s website on which she had marked targeted constituencies for her yet-unspoken campaign in 2012 with cross-hair targets and one of them was Giffords’ 8^th congressional district in southern Arizona.

In the middle of the reasoned debate about how a polarized hate atmosphere can move deranged people to target public figures, Sarah Palin, the erstwhile Republican vice presidential candidate, the Narendra Modi of American politics, weighed in; she accused the media of “blood libel.”

In turn, her detractors pointed out that her phrase “blood libel” was anti-semitic. The phrase has been used since Biblical times to reinforce the fundamentalist Christian view that Jews are the killers of Jesus Christ. Like Gujarat's Modi, Palin lacks sophistication, preferring the use of propaganda to work up her constituents; like Modi, she uses insulting and intemperate words to score over her opponents.

A recent example of this was in her tweet: "So how's the hopey-changey thing working out for ya?"

Contrast Palin's tilt in the debate to the much anticipated speech that President Barack Obama gave after the shooting. Rising above the clamor, he said that political differences are real but should not be allowed to become the source of violence. He reached out to his opponents and asked for a compact of civility that would foreswear hate.

Watching television coverage and debates on the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords, I was struck by several things. One, the coverage was wall-to-wall. Two, there was a liberal slant to it in that most reporters and commentators pointed discreet fingers at the right-wing cable and radio mafia for hatemongering. Three, Sarah Palin got embroiled in it.

It’s much like what the Indian media do except the Americans did it in a sophisticated, understated and well-researched fashion. No screaming and shouting and rumor-mongering, just well-reasoned arguments.

Conversations on public affairs in India are sophomoric with opinions based on prejudice rather than facts; debates are in the nature of high school encounters; the discourse as a result is usually twisted and misses the point. Indeed, if America is a post-doctoral democracy, India is still to get into college.

Though it may be not the most politically correct thing to say, fingers can be pointed at Mohandas Gandhi’s jibe. Asked what he thought of Western civilization, he said, “It would be a good idea.”

In that one smug remark, Gandhi dismissed the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment, movements that raised the West to unprecedented heights of prosperity and civility.

Consider 21^st century India: people urinate and defecate in public; female children are suffocated at birth; brides are snuffed out for lack of dowry; there is still hunger (India ranks number 94 in the global hunger chart); most people live without water and sanitation; cities are slums and villages dens of inequity and filth.

The legacy of Gandhi’s flippant remark can be observed in the immaturity of public discourse in India. Serious issues are subverted in the flush of smug opinions.

Copyright Rajiv Desai 2011

American Life 9

Let It Snow…

New York: Since yesterday, the weather service forecast, picked up in the local media, was a blizzard would dump up to 18 inches of snow on the city.

The last time a blizzard struck was over the Christmas holiday and left the city reeling under the devastating impact of more than two feet of the white stuff.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his city administration attracted a lot of criticism for the responsiveness of municipal agencies in the crisis.

That’s why, two weeks later, the mayor was upfront in the media, outlining plans to handle the upcoming snowfall. In the event, the blizzard turned out to be a non-story; it was nowhere in magnitude anywhere near the great Christmas whiteout.

Though some of the outlying boroughs like Long Island reported accumulations of up to two feet, Manhattan was spared the savagery.

Even so the mayor was out there, giving citizens a ball-by-ball account of the response by civic agencies early this morning.

He was out there, holding a press conference with his senior officials, urging citizens to lend a hand as the civic crews cleaned up the 8 to twelve inches of snow that fell.

As the day progressed and a sunny cold morning slipped into a cold, blustery and partly cloudy afternoon, the mayor’s efforts were given the thumbs up by citizens and the media.

It was an eye-opener for me; over the past couple of decades as a keen observer of the state of civic services in Delhi, I’ve been severely critical, dismissing all the main agencies as corrupt and inept.

Most of Delhi’s agencies are leaderless because in its wisdom the federal government, which is based there, created an incredibly complex chain of command.

Consequently, the agencies have had pretty much a field day over the past six decades; opaque and incompetent, they created neither civic services nor infrastructure; instead they feathered their own nests, appropriating funds and delivering nothing.

Since 1998, the capital has had a chief minister, a leader with a vision to grow Delhi into world-class city.

Despite the obstructive and corrupt bureaucrats who man the various civic agencies, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit has managed to deliver significantly in terms of public goods; the mendacity of the city’s bureaucrats can be seen in the shoddy work and corners cut as a way of embezzling public funds.

These thoughts clouded my head as I watched with admiration the huge effort, both before and after the snowfall, by Mayor Bloomberg in New York City.

What’s the difference in the two situations, I asked myself; in the Delhi one, we have morally challenged officials and goal-oriented ones in New York?

The more I think about it though I am convinced that morality and ethics are at the root of the two different approaches of civic agencies in New York and Delhi.

Delhi’s civic authorities seem to treat their jobs as a way to enhance both their social standing and their bank accounts; their counterparts in New York City see their positions as a public trust and work to make things better for the citizens they serve.

It may sound simplistic and naïve but that is the essential difference between two worldviews and is manifest in the incredible difference in standards of civic services and infrastructure between New York and Delhi.

But there’s more to it than just the contrast between the two cities; the issue is about the fundamentally different approach to government in the US and in India.

In India, government has more to do with privilege and perks than public service; it offers the well connected an opportunity to garner position and wealth; in the US, citizens of position and wealth are inducted to public service.

To be sure, just as in India, there is corruption here too in America; difference is that crooked public servants here are by and large brought to book and jailed; in India, usually they go scot free and seek protection from the law by becoming members of Parliament or state assemblies or patients in hospitals.

The noticeable lack of “development” that hits you between the eyes when you land in India is a direct outcome of these two startlingly different views of government: in the US, the government seeks to empower citizens whereas in India, the government actually disenfranchises them.

For instance, over the past few decades, the Indian establishment has talked ceaselessly about “sustainable development” and actually turned it into a weapon against industrialization, urbanization and economic growth.

Meanwhile in recent years, restaurants in major American cities have promoted a “hundred mile menu” that involves sourcing ingredients from within that radius; this simple marketing strategy saw the rapid growth of sustainable farms across the country.

This recent development underlines the fundamental difference in government in the two democracies: between empowerment and disenfranchisement.

It’s a sobering train of thought on the eve of my departure to Delhi, India.

Copyright Rajiv Desai 2011

American Life 6

All in the Family

Her email was cryptic. “We are going to bring in my sister's birthday at the Hearth restaurant in the East Village on November 2 and then observe the occasion on November 3 at En Japanese Brasserie in the West Village,” my younger daughter wrote. We read her message as we packed our bags to take an ungodly hour flight to New York from Delhi.

Our older daughter's birthday was a seminal rite of passage and her younger sister had chosen the restaurants with care. Our entire family including two daughters, our son-in-law, my wife and I were in the city in a rare togetherness. Several of my daughters’ friends also joined the party; to say the very least, the two events were hugely fun.

The Hearth is a special place because its executive chef Marco Canora describes the offering as “food rooted in the modern American kitchen with influences of our Italian heritage.” A celebrated chef, who has appeared on major television shows, Canora offers an “unpretentious, seasonally inspired” menu, not to mention a dry Martini that elevates the soul. All his ingredients are sourced from within a 150 miles of the city, from upstate New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

My veal was from Lebanon County, the heart of Pennsylvania’s Dutch region; it was “vegetarian fed with no hormones, no antibiotics and no animal products.” Best of all, it tasted great: mellow, creamy and delicately flavorful. Washed down with a red wine from nearby Long Island, it made for a perfect meal. What a super way to bring in a seminal birthday. It is a measure of the contwixted ties between India and America that our family celebration was in New City’s fabulous Lower East Side. Both countries are intimately bound by family ties that soar above diplomacy and geopolitics.

After dinner, we parted as the young people chose to hit the bars that light up the Lower East Side; my wife and I repaired to a quiet restaurant to listen to live Jazz over an after dinner drink. And we both left the thing unsaid, how fortunate to have a family celebration in the city that never sleeps. “I’m glad be part of it, New York, New York,” the edited refrain from the famous song kept buzzing in my head.

Next day at the Japanese brasserie was just as much fun. The restaurant features comfort food served in “Izakayas,” neighborhood pubs. But En is hardly a local diner. Housed in what was once an industrial warehouse, it a huge cavernous place where Japanese chefs have elevated simple food into a Michelin type dining experience.

Not being a huge fan of Japanese food, I sought safety in the crispy friend chicken that was totally excellent but my younger brat dissed on my “Kentucky fried chicken” and insisted I taste her pork belly dish; others plied me with helpings from the clay rice pot with salmon roe. OMG, I said to my daughters and the young people assembled there, this is fab, using my sixties idiom as a counter to their 21st century texting language.

And so we ate and talked and drank sake into the wee hours (11 pm not 3 am). For dessert, we shared some sort of an ice cream and also a cheesecake that I relished until I realized it was tofu and was forced to take a huge gulp from Siddharth's sake shot. My wife looked at me; she didn’t have to say a word for me to know she was saying, “Any excuse for booze!” But it’s Japanese, I told her, “That’s got to count for something!”

As we walked back to our hotel, my mind strayed to my seminal birthday many years ago. We had just closed on a condo in a 100-year-old building in Oak Park, a suburb that abuts Chicago’s West Side. It was indeed a happy birthday for me as we had dinner with friends and talked excitedly of our new home. A year later, our first daughter was born and the joy was unbounded. In New York on November 3 2010, our pleasure stretched from sea to shining sea. To be together as a family in the southern tip of Manhattan is a happiness that soars as high as the Empire State Building.

How lucky can you get!

Copyright Rajiv Desai 2010

Seeing Through the Potemkin State

Perhaps it is about getting older. Or that the excitement has waned. Increasingly the prospect of arrival in India fills us with apprehension as the cab winds its inevitable way to JFK or Chicago’s O’Hare. For me, America is a cultural home: the food, the music, the clothes, the humor, the aesthetics, the very idiom of language is all comfortingly familiar. Driving is a pleasure; walking the streets a delight and everywhere smiles and hellos…well, maybe not that many in New York City! But it’s less about extolling America than dreading what lies in wait at Delhi or any other port of entry to India.

Within seconds of landing, the harsh reality hits you between the eyes. The airport is shoddy, grimy and smelly. To exit is to confront a menacing crowd of people, straining at the barricades: vast numbers of drivers pushing and shoving; swarms of noisy families come to receive their near and dear ones; and various other categories teeming around the crumbling arrival terminal. True, such crowds gather at arrival terminals everywhere in the world but at Indian airports it adds another dimension to the chaos that reigns supreme.

Step outside and it is quickly evident there is no system to smooth the way for arriving passengers. You are left on your own to dodge honking and swerving cars torturing the driveway; and everywhere, smoke and fumes and rubble.

However, if you are an anointed “VIP,” as India’s public servants are called, you are whisked away through a plush private terminal to a private parking lot and into your car, all within minutes. Public servants don’t even wait for their bags; there are flunkies to retrieve them and deliver them to your house along the VIP route into Lutyens Delhi of the smooth, wide, tree-lined boulevards with flowering rotaries, manicured parks and expansive villas.

In stark contrast, the taxpaying citizen has to endure subhuman conditions in the terminal and bump along cratered tracks that pass for roads and deal with seriously demented drivers who whiz through the non-VIP parts of the capital as if possessed by demons. It is apparent that you have landed in one of the world’s least developed countries: Incredible India!

You get angry at the rank disparity. In America, things work smoothly for ordinary citizens. Yes, the economy is flagging and people are finding it tough to get or hold on to jobs. But the cities and communities are pleasant and there is a heady rush of egalitarianism in the very air. The entire political and bureaucratic setup in America is geared single-mindedly to the welfare of citizens. The accent on public service is pronounced and evident.

In India, you can have a top job or a fortune as a businessman but unless you are in the VIP zone of the cities and towns, you may not have reliable electric power, adequate water supply and any sanitation at all. Those who can afford it make their private arrangements; the rest suffer. Just in recent days, when it rained consecutively for two days, the capital was submerged. Questioned, a VIP dismissed the water logging and the traffic jams as an act of nature, a result of the heavy rains; he seemed criminally unaware of the problems people faced getting around the city. In his Lutyens Delhi, there is no flooding, light traffic and your workplace is but a pleasant drive of a few minutes.

This disparate order makes the chaos of India not just irksome but menacing. It is as though the system milks the ordinary individual who has a job or business to provide for the VIP. The random but deadly civil disturbances that plague India are spontaneous expressions of civic anger against the system that barely makes room for the middle class, leave alone marginal groups.

In huge swathes of India, the most deprived people have fallen sway to Maoist ideology and have taken to violence. No political party, not the hydra-headed government agencies, not the self-righteous NGOs can control them. Such civil violence will increase in frequency and scope as more and more citizens begin to see the disparity: not just the gap between rich and poor but between the privileged and the rest.

In the past few years, the elite have bought into the notion that India is set to emerge as a world power. Nothing belies the claim so comprehensively than the question mark that hangs over the staging of the Commonwealth Games next year. The controversy has shown up the Potemkin state, a cheap cardboard cutout fashioned by bureaucrats and politicians to fool themselves into believing the world power fantasy.

You don’t have to look too hard to see beyond the Potemkin mirage: dysfunctional highways and airports; garbage strewn cities and hapless villages; deadly traffic and pervasive pollution; the poverty of civic values and the sheer indignity of the human condition.

The slogan “Incredible India!” cuts both ways: one, the Potemkin way that the government intended; two, it is incredible that a modern 21st century democracy with one of the fastest growing economies in the world is in such a shambles.

An edited version of this article appeared in The Times of India, November 16, 2009.

copyright Rajiv Desai 2009

Father’s Day in New York

Will They Still Need Me?

“This holiday was one etched in sadness as well as thankfulness.” A pastor in the town of Monangah in West Virginia, perhaps the poorest state in the US, said these words at a memorial service for 360 men, who were killed in a coal mine disaster in December 1906. His Central United Methodist Church was the site of the first celebration of Father’s Day in 1908. The prayers were in honor of the fathers who died. The day was observed in different places at different times. It became official when President Richard Nixon proclaimed it a national holiday in 1972; the day fixed was the third Sunday in June.

Many years later, when I lived in Chicago, my first daughter was born. To mark the occasion, my mother gave us a plaque, which said “You should give your children roots and wings.” Four years later, my younger one showed up on a snowy, cold December afternoon. With two children competing for attention and resources, I became aware of the role of the father.

Fast forward to Father’s Day 2007: my younger daughter, a resident New “Yawker,” took me to McSorley’s, the oldest pub on the buzzing Lower East Side, where she lives, to quaff a few beers with her friends. She is focused on making a life for herself in “this city that never sleeps;” she works hard and when she has the free time, she and her friends make the most of “New York, New York;” as Frank Sinatra sang. His refrain: “If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere…it’s up to you…”

My older one is the take-charge type, who can fix anything from an insurance policy to an airline ticket; from a major PowerPoint presentation to pointed research. The venue for her achievements is Delhi; she enjoys her free time with her friends from all over the world who happen to live in Delhi. She travels the world with an easy sophistication that I never knew. Fathers should be so lucky, as I have been with both my daughters, who are happy to share their lives with me.

My older daughter’s roots and my younger one’s wings are a perfect foil for my mother’s advice. They both make their way in the world. They are off and running: one protecting the roots, the other projecting the wings. Yet there is a disturbing arrhythmia in my mind. My thoughts go back to the vacations we shared together and I hope we can do it again and again as we did for many years in Goa, in Southeast Asia, in Europe and in the United States. The sadness comes from knowing such togetherness will become less frequent in the years to come.

These sentiments are a luxury that today’s fathers enjoy. When I was growing up, fathers were remote persons. Whether liberal or conservative, they just did not get involved in their children’s lives. The authoritarian ones ran their children’s lives according to their worldview; the more liberal ones simply accepted things. If they couldn’t control their children or satisfy them with material or ideological baubles, they pulled back and became even more distant.

Father’s Day is when children honor and indulge their father. I’m a sucker for the syrupy sentimentality that goes with it. For me, it has always been a pause; a chance to remember the wonderful times growing up with my children; to recognize that the relationship with them is always ambiguous. You love them, let them be and hope for nothing in return. Most times, you experience pure joy; other times, there may be sheer aggravation. That’s unconditional love. Underlying it is a bittersweet taste: as fathers we tried to move heaven and earth to smooth things for our children when they were dependent on us. The haunting question is: will they still need me when I’m 64?

On a brighter note, some day I will have grandchildren on my knee.


A version of this article appeared in Bombay's DNA newspaper in June 2007.


Copyright Rajiv Desai 2009

New England Journal

A Triumph of Family Ties

Providence’s T F Green Airport bills itself as an international airport because it has flights to Canada. Stripped of its pretensions, it is really small and nice regional terminal that serves southern New England and is an alternative to Boston’s chaotic Logan airport. It is in Rhode Island, America’s smallest state, many of whose politicians are serving penal sentences. Despite its corrupt politics, the “Ocean State” is a laid back place, focused historically on fishing and sailing. So much like Goa.

Providence is one of the earliest cities settled in the United States, in 1636. It is a pretty little city settled on the banks of the river of the same name. To live in the city is to have the best of the both worlds: you have all the urban conveniences in a small town environment. Also, as one of the first industrialized cities, Providence boasts of old wealth as well as old immigrant cultures.

Its old wealth is well represented, not least by the Ivy League Brown University but also its playground for the wealthy, Newport, where the truly rich come out to cavort. Two years ago, I went boating in Narragansett Bay, which shelters the Rhode Island coastline from the vagaries of the Atlantic Ocean. Sailing in the bay, I realized that recreation is more fun than mere leisure.

Last month, I arrived there to spend the weekend with my nephew Nikhil, who lives in a Boston suburb, less than an hour from Providence. He met me in the terminal and helped me lug my bags to his car in the parking lot. The pleasant transfer experience stood out in sharp contrast to the chaos at Dabholim airport in Goa, which is India’s Ocean State. The chaos and discomfort of Dabholim is self inflicted. Apart from the inept and corrupt Airports Authority of India that “runs” the airport, there are dyspeptic security staff, officious airline staffers, touts and sloppy, uncaring passengers who pay no need to the demands of civil behavior.

At the T F Green Airport, the experience was as smooth as silk. It was all very civilized. In just a few minutes, we were buckled up in Nikhil’s car and soon, after a pleasant drive, we arrived at his place.

It was my last weekend stateside. And what better way to spend it than with Nikhil and my younger daughter who arrived the same day from New York City. Mind you, there is a significant difference in the years we’ve spent on this planet. Yet we had fun together. The question is: were they just being dutiful? In my own mind, the answer is a resounding no. My nephew and my daughter took the time from their relentlessly busy professional and social lives to spend the time with me.

For all the years I lived in America: making it to the office by eight in the morning and slaving until five pm, I valued my weekends; they were private. It took, as it still does, a superhuman effort to do much more than wake up late, watch television or throw (in those days) a video into the machine and vegetate. Given my near neurotic weekend mindset, I admired the fact that my hardworking daughter, who made the trip from Manhattan, and my equally busy nephew, graciously gave up a lot of much-needed downtime to spend the weekend with me. I loved every minute of it.

Most important, they made me feel warm and fuzzy. Amazingly, we did not go out to any of Boston’s great restaurants but spent the time together at my nephew’s house. When we went out, we went to Boston’s Fan Pier, to savor the flavor of the Volvo Ocean Race. It was breezy and cold but all kinds of fun. We spent a wonderful afternoon at the pier, listening to music, turning up our collar to what Simon and Garfunkel called “the cold and damp.” It was still daylight so our eyes were not stabbed by the flash of any light, neon or otherwise.

The weekend was a revelation. This next generation seems to have the same hunger as I had when I arrived in the US in the early 1970s. Difference is they have several things going for them: they demand things where we took what we got and made the best of it. More important, they feel they belong; no supplication. They lived through the George W Bush era but are really Obama’s children. We were the Woodstock generation with long hair and rock music, full of antipathy to the mainstream. They are the mainstream.

It ended all too soon. Sunday morning, we found ourselves at Boston’s Logan Airport; not to fly but to rent a car. We were heading to JFK, from where I was booked to fly to Delhi. Since 1999, I’ve been doing the road trip between Boston and New York. I know the route well. Plus my daughter, who was the navigator, had her Blackberry that told us instantly the smoothest way. We talked up a storm. She told me about her life in Manhattan and I asked questions, not as a stentorian father but as a curious George. All fathers should have the opportunity.

Eventually, we made it to JFK and took a train from the Hertz parking lot to my terminal. I still had an hour to kill. My plan was to go the lounge and have a glass of wine. But the daughter said she’d hang with me. So we stuck around the concourse until she said she had to leave. As I watched her disappear into the crowd, I sighed and walked into the lounge; there to have the wine.

What a cocktail: full-bodied red wine, rich memories of the weekend, a lump in my throat and misty eyes!

Copyright Rajiv Desai 2009