Thursday, January 29, 2009

UNTITLED

Someday if I become a writer, whose writings get published and are read by others, I will write differently.

I will have more money

A new big house perhaps

Lots of things to stuff in in that house


May be I will be a better human being than what I am now.


Till then I remain insensitive, self-centric, and perhaps criminal




me:
the other day nantu was telling that his co. might just take abhijeet
Runa: hmm when?
me: on sunday
I mean he said that on sunday
Runa: did he talk to someone?
Coz abhijit is loosing confidence now
me: he said he was not getting the time - but got reminded by our talk that he is supposed to talk to someone
i told him that - losing confidence
Runa: ok
and what did he say then?
me: he is waiting for a propitious time I guess
Runa: who is waiting?
me: such things need a specific setting - time mood etc
Runa: meaning?
I am not getting you
me: i mean he cant just go and talk to any related person for a reference - there must be some corporate protocol for it
Runa: oh ok
like that
hmm may be
me: or else if its out of his way - that is it doesnt come under his scope than he will create such a space to deliver
I dont know though
Runa: but how does nantu da know that convergys might take abhijit when he has not spoken to anyone yet?
me: i didnt say he hasnt s[oken to anyone
he must have thats why he gave that feedback
Runa: oh...I assumed
:O
hmm ok...so it is looking a little positive from convergys then?
me: i get three such calls per day - i will forward them to abs
Runa: hopefully it converts well soon. Poor abhijit.
me: all for tech writing
Runa: yah do
Sent at 10:19 on Thursday
me: I ate a valium ten today after years
Runa: good
how are you feeling?
me: elated
only cough
Runa: ok
me: But otherwise i & my family is getting tensed with this over-lengthened stay of guests home
Runa: but then bhabhi was the one who was all gungho about getting rekha bhabhi to come to your place
me: not really tensed but apparently my wife is getting driled
thats the irony with women
of her class
Runa: not with women
in general
haan right of her kind
me: i tend to correct
Runa: who are not really clear as to wat they want and what they like
me: exactly
Runa: and just kill themselves trying to please everyone around
me: right
i wrote years back
Runa: what?
me: Rasoi me umra banati aurat ka dharma hota avasaad
avsaad means pain
Runa: hmm
me: I had a series infact
Sent at 10:25 on Thursday
me: and while I engaged in an acerbic exchange of comments regarding your blog on feminism, I cried helplessly for having got misunderstood
remembering so manhy of my such writings
Runa: when?
me: your feminism blogs - to all my male readers
Runa: hmm
me: lets talk over it at some other destined hour
Runa: haan
right now I am stuck with this time consuming, yet fruitless task
Sent at 10:28 on Thursday
me: the last statement (just in case you might forget) which I will take up in the next fracas-prone chemically catalyzed, partly-musical, partly-selfentertaining session would be a construction of yours in one of our last chats -
Runa: construction of me?
me: As I learnt of feminism - you commented - I would need clarifications on that - for my knowledge and information
Runa: I am confused and it will eat my head
so you better ask right away
because in the past few occasions you seem to talk more nonsense when drunk than I do
so better you don't ask it then
me: no no its not anything important - atleast in comparision to earning money
Runa: hmm
Sent at 10:32 on Thursday
me: the only nonsense I talked last time was about geographical distances
Runa: yah
Sent at 10:38 on Thursday
me: I was hurt by a fact that your analytical acumen prevented you from feeling a simple point that you were speaking something to a person who was emotionally charged due to a hurt inflicted his father , and to add to you seemed to be rationalizing the hurt, by comparing it to similar and definitely more grave assaults that have happened to your family by the same inflictor,
my reaction was emotional
Runa: yah...true...so was mine
me: so why were you condemning my outburst
against raju mama
Runa: I was also not liking the fact that though raju mama is what he is....your whole family was trying to play under the tag "we are helpless save us..."
which I find bullshit
me: so what alternative does my family have
give me one
Runa: deal with it like adults of the family
me: and specifically what is that
Runa: like others have done
me: what have they done tell me point
Runa: Ignore it
Ignored
me: how many times
Runa: since we all know he does not mean it.
my father has done it for very many times
but then again, it is a choice. he ignored it coz he still loves him
me: right and my papa doesnt - is the corollary right
Runa: but there is def no love when it come to raju mama, suchi nani equation
no....bade papa had it been left alone to him...would have forgotten it
me: at this point of time all have forgotten it
I am not at all bothered abt it now
Runa: yah....
me: I am bothered only about your choice of analytical lines which become egocentric to the extent of being called insensitive at times
this will show up in the arrangement of words
Runa: The thing is tukun da, for you all your behavior is to be excused on lines of emotion and blah...but sadly it does not come to be applied to us
me: Bottom line - I fault
AGREED UNCONDITIONALLY
Runa: :)
me: NEXT TIME YOUR FATHER IS HURT (GOD FORBID) I WILL SPEAK REAL VENOM AGAINST HIM
Runa: hmm
do that if it helps you....
me: JUST TO CHECK YOUR RATIONAL JUDGEMENTS
NOTHING HELPS ME THAN ME
Runa: just for the record....I never spoke any venom against bade papa. All I said was pitched against you and others like suchi nani, mina nani
me: AND MONEY FROM WHOMESOEVER I GET
Runa: To be sure, you can check with bulu and abhijit, if I ever said anything against bade papa.
Sent at 10:52 on Thursday
me: No need for that - i am an old dope so probability of distorted recollections are more with me
just happy to know that i am still a poet at heart ,
Runa: yah be happy.
me: thats cyclical
Sent at 10:54 on Thursday
me: i will let papa give you a call once
and let him narrate
Runa: It is....cause thing with you seen from my perspective is you always apply millions and zillions(exagerating)of conditions for yourself to be understood and not misunderstood and we are supposed to understand that and work accordingly. But when it comes to me, you do not take anything into consideration, that may be I was drunk, may be I was hurt by suchi nani and mina nani's overprojected pain....
me: I agree to that
Runa: Let Bade papa react naa...why is the whole family reacting I do not get this. I understand you all love him and all....but then let him deal with it.
Now, if I have a fight with bubloo and he abuses me ....are you going to fight for me?
me: at the first instance its not plain abuse
well lets not get along more
I take your point - if papa has a problem - let him react
I incarnate Indifference
Runa: no...that is also not what I mean
All i mean is, complain crib, be angry everything is fair....
me: How far did suchi nani & meena's cribbing reach -
Runa: but in doing all this be a little careful to not make out the other person as a monster
Bania para, our families,
especially in a place like raigarh, it matters what x, y, z is hearing and thinking
me: and how many such news do you have of raju mama's sledging towards suchi nani
Runa: if it was a bigger city relations fade...
Did I ever say that if raju mama is doing it it is fine
I am only telling you suchi nanis part, coz you empathized with them...and coz perhaps you could have a say there
when it comes to raju mama you or me have no say
and I do not have a person like you to whom I can let my venom (as you say) out
me: but these are different weapons of outburst - raju does it in ganja chowk , at public meetings, even at family drinks with us, with papa's friends in isolation - suchi meena and their kind do it in baniya para\
Runa: yah which is publis enough
public
and both of them are doing it in their capacities, in their circles
me: And who started it all
Runa: both
me: You mean to say suchi nani began speaking against raju mama some time in past to which raju mama reacted
Runa: for me both of them look playing equally cheap shots
me: Didnt I tell you the last time that - the line of we are helpless was coined by me
Runa: thing is When it comes to Suchi nani side of story there are more irritating characters attached to that side of the story....liek mina nani, which makes it more dirty....
me: Irritating to you
Runa: Yah, I know....and that is why I reacted....otherwise I would have choosen to look down on it,,,like I do most times
but I found it disgusting that it was one of your emotional liners
me: Ok fine - I took a practical decision - of snapping ties
cause there are better ways of living
Runa: yes....
do that if you think you can get even like that
me: I will give my try and effort
God has already blessed me - its for the world that the remaining blessings are left
Runa: yah if you think severing your ties with Raju mama and family is a good loss and help you personally then do it
me: Not with me
I am emotionally attached to that person
but on practical ground I will request him to severe ties with my family like he did it with Delhi ma's
Sent at 11:09 on Thursday
me: I might me wrong - But the crux of all this discussion brings me back to the feel of that day - you are defending a person who repeatedly threatened to hit my father with shoes
Runa: hmm yah good idea....if nothing comes out of it, atleast this will happen ki people who love some people from both the families, would be releaved of the whole tension in future
I am not defending or offending anyone
for me I love both of them
me: you are not intending to
Runa: I repeatedly said that day and repeating it again today, I reacted only against Suchi nani, Mina nai
nani
me: but you never know the effect an utterance in words - meanings metamorphose the moment they form words
But all this while I wanted to gain some information on your learning feminism
just that you commented on my talking nonsense over drinks that i drifted to this topic
Runa: hmmm and then you say I get egoistic
me: yes i feel that
Runa: :)
when you could not take one sentence well and started drifting
me: a day earlier when we still were having the same topic at your home and then at abs
your tone and constructions were different, and abhijeet uttered that he would have grown violent at such a situation while I didnt
Sent at 11:16 on Thursday
Runa: you did not?
oh not the day when we were drinking?
me: He was talking abt the incident betn raju and papa
no
Runa: hmm yah yah
No, I am sorry if you got a hint ki I have problems with you reacting
going forward, I will keep mu mouth shut when it comes you, suchi nani, your wife, and your kid.
When it is about bade papa i will speak personally with him
me: so when I was drunk, and the incident again started and I find someone who is trying to rationalize the hurt, I got hyper, and that perhaps made me talk all nonsense
Runa: No it is alright. I should not comment on anyones reactions....except my own....it is foolish
me: may be
Runa: especially, when it is about your wife and suchi nani you do not take it well at all
me: until it stops enriching your experience,
Runa: and about bhabhi I speak never with malice but only with concern
me: so do i
i love her out of pity
Runa: but then I caan understand you reacting emotionally
me: my mistake was - i should have understood your drunkenness that day
Runa: but then....I am reacting no different today as well
right
me: thats why i am talking this way
we could have wound things up by calling it an alcoholic mayhem
and enjoyable too
Runa: i think....it would be intelligent of me not to comment on Suchi, Mina, and your wife....you get all mixed up and extremly emotional
me: but you accused me of talking nonsense - and for most parts of my introspection i find you right
i wanted to chalk down a plan for the next session of drinks - but maybe I dont qualify
Runa: why?
me: Wasting alcohol on talking sense is not my forte - anyday
at the end of the day - let the gods decide
Runa: it is no bodys just a clarification
hmm
me: will now post this conversation on my blog
good one
Runa: hmm
Sent at 11:26 on Thursday
me: At times I feel - being so self-centric (as suggested by your comments here) how have I managed to write - may be its all a fluke for the last 25 years
all writings without a soul
Runa: You can really manage to piss me off.
me: why
Runa: because, you can use words against anyone(stressing on anyone) without any remorse, but for most of me...I cannot do that with you...
me: this again indicates another serious malfunctioning in my capacities - that of comprehension - I might have miscarried the element in your words here
Runa: Talking about soul....yes you do have one....but you sure are very self focussed....which for me is not a bad thing
but coming back to how one can be many things in one lifetime
coming back to your words "everything is temporal."
You could be both...withouth really showing any personality disorders
me: But underlining structures for others to understand me and evading all preconditions in understanding others is criminally authoritative of me
Runa: it is
so, what about it?
me: An endless hibernation
may be bharat chacha knows more of it
Runa: hmm
Sent at 11:33 on Thursday
me: I lost my already depleting confidence after this chat - not just out of self pity and remorse - but as an organic feeling - I resign to find myself a sinner against mankind
Sent at 11:34 on Thursday
Runa: very well
and I resign as one who is guilty of making a saint feel like a ghost
me: ok
different destinies
Runa: saint feel like a sinner
Sent at 11:37 on Thursday

Monday, January 12, 2009

Revisiting Democracy

There are various definitions of democracy I learned over my years as a student. I never paid much attention to any of them. Conversely they remained rather boring and ignored texts in my school books. On some occasions, I heard my friends debate over it and managed to discern some definitive features to the word. At another time, another day, I became helplessly forgetful. With worlds of beautiful things happening to my age then, it would have been foolish to attach more time to the understanding and defining of democracy. I wasted luxuriously in the company of women, music and dreams.
Fifteen years hence, at this age today, I learn of Barack Obama winning the US presidential elections. ‘Change has come to America’ one of the headlines flashes on a browser before me. My office buzzes with the breaking news as does the world, or so it seems. We start exchanging views, engage in speculations, get back to work. I think of ‘change’ and remember the word democracy.

Although a universally acceptable definition for the word is still contentious (and rightly so to be in the democratic spirit), there are a couple of principles inclusive to all its allied concepts. First that all members of the society have equal access to opportunities and second that all members enjoy universally accepted freedom and liberties. Fair enough, one must say because what’s more valid than a free society. That is to speak of a society where Mangal a sweeper sips his tea in the same hotel as Raghav a brahmin. Or Kaneez a girl studies in the same ranks as Omar a boy. Or in the same sense, Barrack Obama, a black becomes the president of America.

The change has certainly come in, I think before I write. My thoughts take me home, to that serpentine alley in Ganja Chowk, Raigarh. In the room facing the street, my daughter plays with her friends. Aged between 3-5 most of them belong to the same neighborhood. A heap of toys gathers at the center with children weaving their lives around it. At a distance, near the threshold stands Ria, our maidservant’s granddaughter. She reluctantly makes it to the swarm of children and manages to touch a plastic locomotive from the heap. A little later when all the kids are made to sit in a row to share the Puja Prasad, she involuntarily takes an obscure corner.
Born to a lower caste and relatively poorer family, Ria explains a different childhood to me. Once again I think of democratic rights.

This time the image is that of my student days. Back then in college, we generally noticed the scheduled tribe and scheduled caste students, making groups among themselves. It was noticeably rare that one of them shared time or space with us. Though theoretically we did possess the equality, but it usually felt as if we belonged to different worlds. I clearly remember the dementia of those times when during the anti-Mandal commission uproar, faces from the other world bore an expression of utter fear. Once when my girlfriend asked me about the Mandal commission and the entailing disturbance, I jokingly said – ‘it’s preventing that lovely black girl from snatching me from you’.

My girlfriend might just have supported the anti-reservation antics but coming back to my joke, I find it all the more serious. It remains a fact that for centuries the dominant class has fringed its binary, being both grossly exploitative in its intent and shrewdly manipulative in its approach. The past few decades of laissez faire have served well to widen the divide. Today in India we have fourth highest number of dollar billionaires in the planet and simultaneously we rank 126th in the Human Development Indicators which means its better to be a poor person in Bolivia (the poorest nation in South America). CEO salaries recorded an all time high last year while we have 836 million people living on less than Rs 20 a day. A new restaurant opens everyday in some city of the country, while in the last five years we added more newly hungry millions than the rest of the world. Our economic growth rate is said to attain envious proportions and yet farmer indebtedness has doubled in the last decade, from 26.2% in 1991 to 46.3% in 2001. Inequalities are bound to rise with unbridled capitalism and lack of a firm political will.
It’s as a result of this long-term uni-polarity of power that my maidservant’s granddaughter understands life from a window my daughter perhaps would never choose to peep through. Or in that case black girls would never ever snatch me from my girlfriends.

With Obama’s historic victory, the promise for a change has been agreed upon by many to arrive. My limited resources of intellectual capital prevent me to analyze the magnitude and nature of this deemed change. Secure within the laziness of a careless writer, I barely get to understand that he stops the misadventures like restoring democracy in Iraq and Afganistan and attends to rather urgent calls like re-structuring the American farm bill, where a reduction in subsidies to the cotton farmers alone could feed a million children more in Africa. Off late, sledging America on various grounds has been an order of the day in the developing world. May be the president takes account of such voices, and explores why in the first place did they arise? In short, he could re-visit the word democracy, and apply it with honesty.

As far as India is concerned, we have so many Americas within us; need to sort those out first. We need to ascertain that across the country in our homes, children like Ria have a stake, we need to gather that eyes of black women have dreams too.