Crossroads..

If there was one tough moment, it was this one. I had just left home. Flying from one home to another. Visited Los Santos to see my parents. Mummy just had a knee replacement. Rehabilitation is not easy. It takes months. It was sad to see her walking in pain. More difficult still to see her learn to walk all over again. She who taught me how to walk once, was learning to walk all over again. I could not do much,except to watch with a sense of helpless angst. With a heavy heart, left home to fly back to another. With little Krishna in my arms, I had learnt to be strong. Strong enough to take difficult decisions. Just as I flew back, I received a call again. This time mummy had a seizure attack. It was difficult and more challenging still, as I could not say 'no, I can't come back' and neither could I take my Krishna along with me. So, it was time to act, time to fly back and this time without my little baby, he who means the world to me. On one side, there were these reflections from my past, my childhood, an old mother who taught me once how to walk, talk and made endless sacrifices to be what I am today. And on the other, was the little future in my arms, the one for whom I am the world. Krishna had not stayed without me for a single day even once. Completely pampered and loved, I was unsure if he had the strength to be without me. To ease my decision-making, smilingly my husband said that in their native language, they say, one should neither take care of the old as they die, nor the children, as they forget everything once they grow up. I retorted, so who should one look after. Teasingly, he replied, of course the young, as they will live long enough to remember the service that someone once did to them. The parable did make it easier for me to make a decision. Praying that Krishna will not remember in a few months time, that he was without mummy at some point of time and that sometimes papa-son should have a date too, I flew back once more. It was mummy who was in one of the most crucial stages of her life and perhaps she needed me much more, at this one precise moment.

As I sit and wait for the outcome of the operation, it is not the fear of the operation that fears me. More fearsome is the outcomes that the operation may bring along, any further challenges that life may have in store. Hopping against hope, I pray and watch; for hope is the quintessential enigma that keeps us all alive and living.  

Motherhood..

“What lies behind us and what lies  before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” Motherhood is the beginning of that inward journey. A joy in giving; the pleasure of absolute surrender. Before Krishna came along, life meant lots of travelling, long weekends, bagpacking and eating out. But Krishna’s arrival changed all that. Life seemed more quite in a certain sense. The commotion of travelling, penning down in the form of blogs, cosy pictures in exotic backdrops, facebook updates were now all a memory from the past. But so was the picturesque figure, endless eating without worrying about weight gain. Loads of bulging muscles, protruding tummy as though one Krishna has come out, but another one is still hanging in there in my pouch, was the new reality! No more short skirts, no more skinny jeans! Black was suddenly my favourite colour with long endless long gowns now constituting  a major chunk of my wardrobe. Transition to the world of motherhood was quite loud in terms of travelling, eating and dressing! And not to forget the endless comments from my husband about my weight gain. Interestingly, in all this commotion I was more happy. Actually happier then ever before. And given a chance all over again, I will be pregnant again and again and love to be a mother in this life, next life and the next seven lives. As you can see, my faith in re-incarnation is committed. It made me question what is happiness and what is that we seek to achieve. For me, on a personal level it mean motherhood. When that endless bundle of joy, comes running towards me, says ‘Ma’; wettens my cheeks with a saliva-full of kiss and every hug with a ‘kooing’ sound from him, leaves my eye moistened, I feel the happiest. And this happiness comes from inside, deep deep inside my heart. So fulfilling, so enriching that every breath of mine, that every heart beat makes just one wish and the wish is for him, he who makes me the happiest. My Krishna…. 

Madras High Court on Consensual Sex & Marriage: Rational Judgment, Irrational Exburence

The latest Madras High court verdict on sex & marriage has created uproars and comments across India. Humourous and varied tweets such as 'Buy kamasutra, get mangalsutra(the holy thread tied around the women's neck signifying marriage) free' to the new right question being 'when you lost virginity' and not when you got married are doing rounds on social networks such as twitter & facebook.

The public comments on the judgment are an interesting example of the irrational human exuberance and limited rationality we often display. Seeing as a possible infringement on their personal lives, individuals specially the self-proclaiming 'Modern' Indian youth are finding the judgment to be a worrisome precedent. Questions lurking an average teenage mind in the backdrop of the judgment such as if kissing is equivalent of getting married, shows a general state of mental flux and human tendency to generalize a fact-specific judgment.

It would have been rather wise to wait and read the entire judgment. The judgment needs to be appreciated in its contextual backdrop. The facts of the case are very peculiar presenting a certain set of circumstances based on which the court had to decide the relationship status of the couple(if I can take the liberty to use the word!) and the legitimacy of their children. The man and the woman(to use the liberally correct expression) had two children together and infact when the lady had gone for the caesrian during the delivery of the second child, the man had signed on the papers in the hospital giving written consent for the operation. It was in the backdrop of these circumstantial evidence that the court had to decide if the man and lady could be legally presumed to be married. The background of the parties also needs to be appreciated. In a traditional Indian backdrop coming from a conservative religious background, the man and woman in the present circumstance could not be classified as being part of the so-called modern Indian, who tweet and facebook every event of their lives; rather they are representative of a mediocre average Indian and the woman in particular who wanted justice by getting her marriage recognized. She was not a modern Indian or high flying corporate who could afford the luxury of loving and forgetting, she was not the affluent well employed who could bring up her two children on her own. Simply put, she was an average non-working Indian woman, who unfortunately was confronted with the challenging circumstances. The 60% of rural India and the rest of 40% of 'modern' India are two worlds. While the former suffers, the latter tweets and facebooks in their air-conditioned offices and homes. The two India live in two insulated worlds with two different sets of priorities and two different value systems. Worse still, they are blissfully unaware of one another's existence. So while one hails the decision as justice, the other apprehends it as an infringement on their liberties. None is right or wrong; it is just that the two live in two different worlds and each looks at the decision from their prism. 

The judgment reflects the challenging set of circumstances in which the Justice had to deliver the judgment and give relief to the suffering lady. And the irrational exuberance gives behavioural economists a reason to smile. After all very correct when they talk about our bounded rationality substantiated by the tweets and facebook status resulting from the decision. Overall a descriptive incidence of irrational exuberance!

Delhi on the Roads: Where no one is safe!

Driving it is said, can be therapeutic. But not on Delhi roads. Driving in Delhi requires a bird’s eye view, a cat’s sharpness, a bull dog like spirit and a lioness-like attitude. That’s my learning for the day.

Driving in my left lane on the flyover at normal speed in all serenity, thinking about the beautiful memories that the long stretch of MG Road always meant to me as a Delihite; I was jolted to the real world when a speeding Corrola lost control and hit me, centrifuging my little friend, Wagon R. I was shocked, stunned but my action in the next ten seconds would decide whether I would live or die or spend the next few months in another world of experiences: a hospital in Delhi. 

Driving in Delhi teaches one thing for sure: Think fast, act faster and yes, never loose control of the situation. Applying the learning, I quickly put my feet on brake, parked the car on a side and rushed to catch hold of the driver.  I was too angry and too upset to listen to anyone. The lawyer, the social activist in me awakened and I decided to fight it out. Unafraid I got down to confront.

What was to unfold in the next forty-five minutes, was my next level of learning in life. There were three sets of people: first me who was the victim and the driver who rashly and negligently collided his car into mine; second, the running traffic on the flyover where 100’s of cars were passing by, but not a single cared to stop to help a lonely lady fighting for justice in the midst of maddening traffic and third, a bunch of pedestrians who found it amusing and were kind enough to offer copious advise on why I should let the driver go and how in three simple steps I can remove the dent without making an insurance claim.

After shouting on top of my voice for over ten(yes, 10) flat minutes that the lawyer in me has awakened and I can fight for myself and neither the driver or myself are deaf or dumb or blind, the free advisor-pedestrians left. But there was a voluntary arbitrator from the neighboring state of Delhi  who stopped his big car and just refused to go. Another ten minutes of fight with him to let me and the driver resolve our dispute and being the victim I was better equipped to handle my situation and if he did not leave at once, I will ask the police to lock him up; did Mr Arbitrator leave.

Now began the comedy of errors. I was frantically trying to call the Control Room. Unable to connect, I called up Just Dial and said that there is a serious accident on certain road and if they could provide me with the contact number of the nearest police station; the first response I heard from the other side was, “Madam, do you do service or are self-employed”; I frantically shouted, “There is an accident, a serious one” and the call centre agent replied, “Oh I am sorry, but by the way are you into service or self-employed”. Flustered I hung up the phone. Continued with my Just Dial and calling up the Control Room Saga.

On the other side, the self-appointed Arbitrator took the driver of the speeding car in one corner and asked him to give all the possessions, which the driver actually handed over. This Mr Arbitrator pretended to be like the Big Brother and took away the other driver’s mobile and all the cash he had in his wallet  and finding the right moment, quickly sneaked away.  The Driver, as soon as he realized, came rushing to saying that the man has run away with his belongings. The soft woman in me woke up! Now I tried re-calling the control room trying to lodge a complaint that sounded as follows:”Sir, a speeding car crashed into my car. The negligent(and if I can take liberty to say, )Stupid Driver gave his belongings to the ‘Self-Appointed Arbitrator’ who had stopped and despite my repeated warnings tried to intervene and now has run away with the belongings of my injurer.” The other side thinking I am nuts, hung up the phone. But I did not give up. Like a devout, a true believer in the Rule of Law(if the lawyers stop believing in it, then who will! If I as a lawyer do not fight for it, then who will!) frantically kept dialing the PCR and some fifteen minutes later got a call back. The policeman on duty said that the PCR van was coming(remind you after Thrity Plus long minutes of my calling) and asked me where exactly was I located. I told them the exact location, the pillar number on  the right, the name of the building on my left  and the name of the road; but the policeman refused to accept that I was there and said I can not read, I am confused and I do not know where I am(Oh really!). Angry and frustrated, I hung up the phone.

All this while, the driver kept on wailing, ‘Madam, please forgive me, please leave. Now I have even lost my mobile and money. Justice has been done!’.  The woman in me gave in. Finding him a poor driver, and poor myself too(for even the police refused to take my calls), I felt it was better to let things go. In India, Delhi-Haryana border, the ecosystems of modern India, the metropolis, ‘Sab Kuch Chalta Hai(Everything is acceptable)’. And we left, taking with us some important lessons of life.

My car is dented all blackened from one side; my faith in police is bruised; the posh MG road and the flyovers look unsafe to me, and all the memories that I ever had seems over-shadowed by today’s incident  and unknown strangers who pretend to be good –hearted mediators seems suspicious to me.  If as a Lawyer, I found it better to give up the fight even before it began; I wonder what does this India, the Rule of Law means for a Common Man. Disappointed. Par koi gaal nahi, Saab kuch chalta hai!

This too shall pass. Even after a thousand years, Buddha makes so much sense on Indian roads, in our culture. 

Simple Living & High Thinking: A dream lost in a crisis-ridden melancholic world

A crisis every thirty years. Jobless growth, disparate global order, unequally developed world, brain drain and brains in the drain. This definitely was not the dream of Renaissance. The reawakening that started in the middle ages in Europe and luminously spread its light globally was more then just a European phenomenon. It was a new dawn for the Earth as a whole.

The world without borders(thanks to globalization) that we see today, the democratic, secular, egalitarian Nation States(most if not all) were positive developments in the roller coaster joyride of humanity. It was meant to be a well developed, egalitarian, scientifically advanced and open society.

Rabindranath Tagore in the Noble prize-winning Gitanjali wrote,

‘Where the mind is without fear,

And the head is held high.

Into that heaven of freedom my father,

Let my country awake’.

Coming from a Nation called India(in the modern parlance), Bharat(in a traditional context) and Hindustan(in the medieval era), where earth is seen not as a huge tract of land inhabited pre-dominantely by and for the two-legged creations, but as a mother that nourishes us, nurtures us and is a place to attain salvation, Rabindra Da dreamt of this beautiful world not just for India, but for all of mankind.

The divine and spiritual Vedic thought of ‘Vasudhev Kutumbkum’ that is all this world is one large and undivided family, is the driving faith for each and every Indian. For this is how you are taught to be and this is how you are meant to be.

Seeing the present day world, from this untainted lens of unity, the world today definitely looks less brighter and more gloomier. The polarization, globalo-phobia(the fear of further globalization), geometric population growth and disproportionately hungry stomachs confronted with concentrated wealth in the hands of few filthy rich run a chill down my spine. Ironically enough, the phenomenon is most palpably resonant in India, where Kabira once dreamt, ‘Sai itna dijiye jamme kutmb samaye; mein bhi bhooka na rahon; sadhu na bhukha jaye.’ (Litteral translation: Oh my Divine, give me just that much in which my family can peacefully co-exist; neither I or any of my family member stays hungry nor does any benevolent soul that comes to my home, goes empty stomach.)

In this melancholic milieu, silhouetted against the possibly fragmented, recessionary and polarized world, wonders my mendicant mind, is there a future for the seven billion humans on this earth and if the thoughts of Kabira will have the resilience to awaken our sluggish spirits enamored by the modern day comforts. 

Emerging India, Stunted Bharat: The diving poverty line

The intellectual acumen of our world-renowned policy-makers and economists setting a poverty line at  25(app. € 0,40 ) in village and 32(app. € 0,50)  in the city is remarkable. This makes 400 million Indians in a population of 1.3 billion, living below the poverty line. These are the official Indian estimates. According to estimates by Asian Development Bank, 651 million Indian are living below the poverty line. If the level is set at $2(or 90 ) a day, 800 million Indian are living below the poverty line. That makes over 80% of India. Seeing so much of poverty around and yet making a miser estimate officially, one wonders if we are getting immune to the concept of poverty, the poor and the down-trodden. And what is the State doing? Setting levels at lower and lower levels, so that we can pretend to have more in the middle class bracket. Perhaps a stratagem to indicate more inclusive growth!

All this makes one think, for whom is India developing. Are we on the desired path to growth. When we adopted our modern day Constitution on 26^th January 1950, the vision of the then founding Fathers was to have a State that was ‘Socialist’ in outlook. Accordingly Directive Principles of State Policy were adopted in the Constitution. They were given the stature of Directive Principles at that time because the Nation did not have the resources to make them enforceable rights. Thus, instead of being made Fundamental Rights; they were made the Directive Principles. It was believed that these Principles will be the guiding beacon of light for the incumbent governments. But even sixty-two years after the adoption of the Constitution, not much seems to have changed; atleast for those in the myriad of poverty.

The sad state of affairs and the charlatan representation of growth, leaves one wondering, if there are two Indias’ within one, divided by an economic line of poverty: one the Emerging India and the other a Stunted uncared for Bharat. 

Satyamev Jayate: Will it change it all? Or ‘Sab Chalta hai!’: From an Indian, Non-Indian lens

Today morning, I woke up to see my friends’ facebook update all resonating the same message, ‘Satyamev Jayate’. It’s no Independence Day, Republic Day or Gandhi Jayanti, so what makes everyone so patriotic suddenly. Curious, I searched the internet. Star Plus, it seems has come out of its ‘saas bahu’ closet and has finally realized the positive role it can play as a social media. Amir Khan’s two minute introduction with an indelible mark on the beach sands, that no wave can wash away reads, ‘Satyamev Jayate’. His words were not just his. The thoughts echo in each and every Indian mind, whether those in India & watching the show or those living seven seas away.

There is something about India that pulls me back. But there are many that pull me away. Every time I miss my parents, my home, that familiar environ in which I grew up, the smell of spices, the innocent laughters and the cute cuddling kids who come running towards you, I break down. Nostalgic, home sick, starving for the smell of spicy Indian cuisine, I want to take the first flight back home. And then flipping through the e-versions of Indian papers, I once again change my mind. Every page rotting with the smell of nepotism, bureaucracy, corruption and inefficiency is stark reminder that the dream of home lives only in forsaken hearts. And it’s not just me. Its millions of Indians scattered across the globe longing to get back home and yet, scared of the stark realities that exist. An old ageing man with no social security for the concept doesn’t exist in India; corrupt administrators who you have to bribe to construct your home or collect your own pension;  the age-old stereotypes of male-female divide and the cliché, I am so sick of fighting, ‘sab kuch chalta hai’.

As I watch in the closet of my room, embraced by the blue Alps, reflectively thinking if my home-coming will make a positive difference to my country, my family or the concept of Nation State has been broken down irreparably by the hammer of ‘corruption’, ‘sab chalta hai’ attitude;  I watch on the net ‘Satyamev Jayate’, with fingers crossed and a hope that truth indeed will triumph, ‘Satyamev Jayate’.