aditya kumar's weblog

I am trying a balancing act.

Back in 2003 when I used to write more often and rant endlessly on my blog there were more readers than what I have now. Then some things changed, I started writing less frequently although I felt that the quality of my writing improved and as writers do, I evolved to another level. In layman’s terms, I paid the price what Chetan Bhagat would if he tried to pull off an Amitav Ghosh (Nah, I am not suggesting that he’d be able to do that — he just can’t).

Now it has come to a point, where I do not feel inclined to write something here until it is “publishing material”. Or some writing that leaves me immensely satisfied as a (part-time) writer.

I am feeling free to be judgemental on myself, so here goes: I feel that is wrong.

Obviously, it is not necessary that every new post or piece of writing be superior in quality than the last. Somewhere I got stuck in that loop. As an aspiring writer shocasing his work on his blog, somewhere I started expecting my every new article to be better than the last. For a blogger, these things don’t do really much good. Once you fall in that iteration, your possibility of coming back to your natural self of writing becomes fainter in ever cycle.

Somewhere, it needs to balance out. Somewhere, as a budding writer and as an experienced blogger, you need to keep the urge of improving your writing while at the same time be true to your blogger senses.

For someone like me, it is important to be true to your blogger instincts because those are what bought me this far.

I am hoping meanwhile for the few readers to comment more often while I try to write more!

A few days after Anna Hazare’s now infamous April 5 Hunger strike, I saw a car, in the posh Koramangala neighborhood, with the sticker “I support Anna Hazare”. Instinctively, I wanted to run after the car, have a glimpse of the person behind the wheel and ask: Sir, how exactly do you intend to support Mr. Hazare? I didn’t do it; the thought came a few seconds too late while the car gained momentum.

In August, during the time when Hazare was in jail, various rallies were organized in the city. There was the gathering at Freedom Park. Some people decided to wear black on certain days. Some of them burnt effigies and had mashals in their hand while they carried a portrait of Hazare (with the Mahatma in the background). One evening, I witnessed one such rally in Koramangala, with people chanting slogans in the name of Hazare.

The same evening, not very far away from where I had seen this rally and strikingly close to where once I had seen this car with “I support Anna Hazare” sticker, I saw three traffic policemen manning a junction. One man, his two-wheeler parked by the side, on the broken pavement, with a bunch of notes in his fist. The officer had a firm grip on what lay inside his fist while the man was trying to free his arm, in vain. I do not know if I was alone in this but I certainly felt some irony witnessing this scene with the Hazare rally in the backdrop. That a group of Hazare supporters crossed the same busy Koramangala intersection at almost the same time must have done little to sanctify the surroundings and the scene.

A few weeks later on the same location, I saw the same policemen. This time they were preying on the two-wheeler riders that came on the wrong side of the road. 15 minutes later, I had spoken to two of their “victims”, both of them who chuckled while they told me they had just “paid up”. There was even a broker, as they told me, who helped bridge the linguistic barrier while negotiating deals.

Keeping Hazare and India’s fight against corruption in background, let me talk about a few other instances.

In one of the sub-registrar’s office, my wife had to pay a fee of Rs.200 for a stamp on a document. Until asked for, she never got any acknowledgement for the amount paid. When asked, she got frowns and was given directions to various windows across the office until someone obliged with the receipt (but not without giving a nasty glare). In another sub-registrar’s office in Bangalore, they reject your property registration if a bribe of Rs.14000 (for a standard area plot) is not paid (cash, of course) with your application fee.

Another day, on the way back from work in an auto-rickshaw, stuck in the evening traffic jam at Koramangala inner ring road, I saw an argument between a pedestrian, who had been walking on the pavement and a rider who had his two-wheeler on it. Now, Koramangala inner ring road is not the typical Bangalore road. For a 3 km stretch, there’s no shelter on either side of the road, only green bushes in an army land that encompasses both sides of the road. The road also has a slightly elevated pavement, all the way. That rainy evening and with that traffic jam that’s such a common occurrence, the rider, in a bid to outclass the lesser mortals using the road, had ventured into pedestrian territory and now wanted the pedestrian to make way for him. Only that the pedestrian was hell bent on not giving him room to pass. “This is for pedestrians. If you have to go, you hit me and go”, shouted the pedestrian, looking back, blocking the way. The rider, in return — with rage in his eyes, threatened to beat the pedestrian up.

Times like these, I end up thinking of the Koramangala car with it’s “I support Anna Hazare” sticker and my intention to ask that question. Admittedly, I have asked the same question to many of those who chose to wear black and were a part of human chains or went to Freedom Park. In most cases, the answer was simply that they planned to support Hazare by forwarding emails, giving missed calls, sharing videos. This way, many said, awareness will be increased. Many also believed that by doing this, they would be “morally” supporting Hazare.

Talking about Hazare: My problem with Hazare and his team is simply that they have projected the politicians and the people who hold state power as a completely different breed from us. It is like a giant beast that needs to be put on a leash. The lokpal bill, for now, is our projection of that leash. While creating this image, we – the citizens, have completely absolved ourselves of even, at least, trying to live our own lives in honesty and driven by moralistic values. The truth is, a society gets the Government it deserves.

In that regard, destiny has served us well.

If something in us instinctively makes us break the most simplest of laws that we can adhere to (and that includes our daily tryst with traffic signals), what right do we have to expect those who yield power in the State to be clean and models of honesty?

All these people: The policemen manning the Koramangala intersection, those who confessed that they paid bribes to the policemen, the two wheeler rider who had the audacity to drive his bike on a 3 km long pedestrian pavement and then threatning to beat up the pedestrian, those officers and clerks in various sub-registrar offices in Bangalore and the rest of us who use our own discretion while deciding to break red-signals — I am certain, all of them would say “yes” in unison if Hazare asked them their support in his movement. All of them are, afterall, fed up of a corrupt Government that runs this country.

But my question to them is – How can we claim to give moral support to a movement against corruption and be immoral at the same time?

From rediff’s article here, this quote:

“I don’t understand why the president of this country, who is the supreme commander of the army, doesn’t issue orders to shoot people like Prashant Bhushan. Anyway, we, the people of this country have some responsibility and we will teach him a lesson.”

I won’t quiz you around about who said these lines: Inder Verma, 24, self-proclaimed president of the State unit of Sri Ram Sene, who attacked Prashant Bhushan in his chambers within the court premises in New Delhi, earlier today (btw, this is the same Sri Ram Sene that once beat ladies entering a pub in Mangalore).

Apparently Mr Verma and his friends did not agree with some of the views Mr.Bhushan, a Supreme Court lawyer and a close member of the Anna Hazare group, had about Kashmir and Kashmiris. So they decided to tell a lie, gain access to his chambers in the court and beat him. Very convenient. This is a situation similar to when you and I have a disagreement on certain things. And then I decide to “teach you a lesson” – I enter your office and beat you up. If this does not enrage you, nothing will.

Anyway. These kids also threw away a bunch of pamphlets around. The last line goes:

“Frustrated from traitors and anti-nationals and motivated from A Wednesday movie” (sic).

I won’t say much but this is exactly the reason I have grown to loathe movies like “A Wednesday” and RDB (though elsewhere on this blog I once seemed to have an opinion that it’s a movie worthy of a watch, not anymore). In “A Wednesday”, Naseeruddin Shah’s character decides to “teach a lesson” to the Government and the Police, which includes detonating a few bombs at will. In RDB, of course, a few college kids also decide to teach the neta a lesson, the movie ending with the kids on a killing spree.

You can’t ban these movies. But the problem starts when people start taking inspiration from these flicks. Today, armed with a lie, Inder Kumar and his bunch of goons were able to access Bhushan within his office, not far away from The Supreme Court of India and Ministry of Defence. Tomorrow, they could arm themselves with a gun.

So this culture of arbitrariness, the judgement given by a man based on his own discretion and opinion, could make the difference here. For example, well, I feel this man has an opinion that I do not much like and that he deserves a punch, so I go to his office and punch him. Another day, I may feel that his opinions deserve a bullet, so be it.

Tehelka’s article here already mentions The Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena taking the responsibility of the attack. The group already has 4000 people associated with them on facebook. They claim, according to tehelka, that they are a group of people “who are ready to take any action” against the people it considers “anti-nationals & traitors”.

Ready to take “any action” against the people it considers “anti-nationals & traitors”. This culture of arbitrariness. Remember Rang De Basanti?

Update: A google search for Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga, the man who has claimed responsibility by The Bhagat Singh Kranti Sena reveals his state of mind. A few tweets from his twitter feed go by: (1) he try to break my Nation,i try to break his head.Hisab chukta. Congrats to all. operation Prashant Bhushan successfull (2)I will give my arrest tommorow.desh ko todne ki mang krne walo k sath aage bhi yhi kia jaega

Moreover, Bagga’s Google+ profile shows him associated with the BJP youth wing. Also, he had been arrested for a day recently when he and his group had protested Arundhati Roy’s recent book launch in Delhi. DNA reports, about Bagga and his sick bunch of goons here.

A month and a half and this blog, this space has been just neglected by me.

I’ll admit that there are numerous chains of thought that generate themselves in unintended writing breaks like the one I am just coming from. Some of them even question the very existence of this space.

But, of the many thoughts that have occurred to me during the past 10 days or so, the most encouraging has been the one that said – Don’t look too much into this prolonged sabbatical from writing and blog-posting. It’s just another thing that happens every once in a while.

I encourage you to take that as an answer as well, in case you’ve been wondering about my whereabouts.

So without giving you excuses or playing the blame game for this extended unannounced hiatus, I am just writing this post down to break the monotony of silence in this blogging space. I’m around, as I have always been.

ps: this new theme, as of now, it is an experiment. I may revert back to the old one soon. Or get another new one.

This week’s tehelka magazine carries an essay I wrote about Chinatown buses that burst into flames and Pakistan’s notorious ruler Zia-ul-Haq, among other things. This is a story that took a lot off me, mentally and emotionally. A prelude to this actually appeared on my blog, in October 2010 I wrote a writeup called “Of Chinese buses and tough questions” – it can be read here. The story can be read at tehelka’s website here. Though the headline there might suggest a serious religious angle to it, you will see that I ended up defending secularism. And it has absolutely nothing to do with patriotism as well.

Anyway, below is the unabridged version of the story. Again, I am thankful to Tehelka for publishing me another time (I wrote this for them last January). I am grateful to those who have wished me (and been critical), in person, on email, facebook and everywhere else.

Yours thoughts here and elsewhere, welcome.

The four hour bus journey from NYC to Baltimore hadn’t really lived up to the expectations. Maybe it was the bus, one of those that run from the Chinatown district of the city, that had put me off. Or maybe it was the blandness of the route. Being used to the twists and turns (literally) of a bus journey on Indian highways, I found the Interstate-95 a dull ride. But then, on a 6 month trip to America (which also happened to be the first), you look forward to interstate travel.

Months later, when I found out that the Chinatown buses have a reputation of bursting into flames while in transit, the thought of the bus-ride not living upto expectations occurred again. Only that, this time, I was glad it hadn’t.

So, while coming back from Baltimore to NYC, in the same bus that night with expectations hit rock bottom, I found myself with a middle-aged, South-Asian gentleman sitting on my left. Almost 50, neatly trimmed beard, metal rimmed glasses, fair complexion and grey hair. When he answered a phone call, I was almost certain that he was from Pakistan.

We got talking, as travel-culture in the sub-Continent warrants. My co-passenger, let me call him Bashir, had now stayed in America for more than two decades, owned a 7-Eleven convenience store somewhere in NYC. My recent purchase, Peter Hessler’s acclaimed book, “Oracle Bones”, an account of his experiences as a journalist in mainland China, was our icebreaker. Bashir’s old-fashioned rimmed glasses and a neatly trimmed beard gave him almost a scholarly-like look and so it was no surprise when he started talking, almost authoritatively, about Mao Zedong’s policies and Deng Xiaoping’s vision of China.

Having researched on the subject lately for something I wrote, it came to my mind, to ask Bashir his honest opinion of Zia-ul-haq’s Islamization of Pakistan – a defining moment in the history of our neighbour. The extent of it’s effect is probably better understood keeping in view the religious radicalism brewing in Pakistan today. Among other things, Zia-ul-Haq had gone about formulating an education policy around Islam, nurturing hatred for India and glorification of war. Bashir was quick to be dismissive about it. Instead, he chose to attack Bhutto, who in 1972, had started a drive to nationalize the major industries in Pakistan, resulting in a massive reduction of employment opportunities. Come to think of it, it was the same time Bashir had left Pakistan for America. He later continued to dwell upon how much his country had lost to it’s last tryst with Military rule, this time his object of ire being Pervez Musharraf.

We later spoke of our two nations, the trouble brewing in our own backyards. We spoke of earthquakes and tsunamis, examples of mishandlings by our governments. For someone visiting his country once in two years, Bashir was well aware of things happening in the sub-continent. We could talk on forever: about our countries, our culture, our hatred for politicians and our passion for cricket. A few times, he even advised me on life – his wisdom seamlessly flowing through his aging, bespectacled eyes.

We had little moments of silence but words now, though after much thought, were flowing fluently. This time, Bashir asked me my religion. I gave it my best shot not to appear taken aback and told him that I was a Hindu. I think we both knew we were treading a thin line – words now had to be carefully chosen. After a mini-lecture that endorsed Islam and lasted a little more than ten minutes, Bashir, in his heavily Punjabi accented Urdu, asked me to consider embracing his religion. To be honest, this was not a first. I had just had a mostly insightful conversation with this gentleman – for the little while that I had not, I have long learnt to politely nod my head on talks that revolve around religion. I added two words to the nod: I’ll consider.

A few moments of silence went by, this time a longer gap than usual, until Bashir spoke again. He was of the opinion that people of different religions (mazhab) can’t stay together. He said that secularism was a failed concept – a pretension of the larger world we live in. Not only was I disappointed, I was left appalled – that one statement was contradictory of everything I had known of him in the last few hours – his wisdom, his experience and his intellect. And Bashir was not a 20 something from Pakistan, fresh out of the radical and fearful times that the country is living in; Bashir had to be 50 something, who was born a Pakistani citizen and had come to America a young man, sometime in the late 70s. He had aspired to be successful in a foreign land and he had succeeded. He was a muslim who had been given citizenship by America and whatever his religion, America gave him rights that protected him.

Bashir was a direct beneficiary of the secular values that America believed in.

So, I paused. I thought a while. And then I said, attempting my best in clear, concise English:

“Bashir saheb, on the way to office everyday, I come across a street in my colony. It has a temple. A hindu one, with a big statue of our God Hanuman. On the same street, there is a masjid. There is nothing strange about this arrangement but you may be shocked to know that the masjid and the mandir, they share the same wall. I want to tell you that this is how secularism works in India. I am sure this is how secularism works in America. And I am sure this is how it should work anywhere else”.

It was dark outside, but I could see in the faint light, for a second, his mouth open. Bashir stared at me, stunned. I, for once in my bus journey, looked out of the window, on to the otherwise boring I-95.

Past few months I have been writing to editors in various media houses for considering my writeups for publication. My experience of writing to editors goes a long way back, back in 2002. Those days I used to write crap. Nothing else.

My experience has been that most of the editors have this disdain against freelancers — it is understandable because many of these freelancers (including yours truly) are not trained writers. They are people from other vocations who love to write (and many among them write well). But if the editors feel that they’d rather communicate, be at peace and feel at home with their journalism school trained, “own” writers-at-large, that is perfectly understandable. What is not tolerable and justified is their indifferent attitude towards freelancers.

A possible explanation for this could be that editors must be getting emails by the ton from freelancers and most of the submitted work may not be even good enough to get published. Somewhere there, is it not possible that quality submissions might be getting lost? Because it is in the mud that the lotus is found. Because it is in the mire, that at times, beauty is witnessed.

Anyway. In the past 4 weeks, I had a mostly one way communication with the editor of one of the most admired journals in publication. I have nothing against this publication because quite simply, they find the best writers to write for them. My only problem with them is that there was hardly any communication from their end, despite my repeated attempts to contact them. As a freelancer and a part-time writer, I thought I deserved a little more respect. Maybe I expected more, but the editor I was talking to, as I had heard, was a messiah for freelancers. Maybe he did read my piece but if it did not fit in his magazine or if he thought that the writeup was utter crap (like I used to churn out regularly back in 2002), a one-liner polite email would have done wonders. Nothing happened. So, at the end of a 3 week wait, I found myself writing this email (below) to the editor. In retrospect, I thought, I could be writing this email to any editor because barring a few of them, I have largely found the editors to be an arrogant, egoistic lot.

Dear Editor,

This is my Fourth email to you, and overall I think this is the 7th attempt in writing to get your attention. I won’t go about giving you a background of my previous correspondence with you. Instead, I would like to let you know a little about myself.

I am 30 and have been working as a programmer for the last 8 years. At around the same time when I started programming, I also started blogging. Somewhere while blogging, I started to get inspired by various pieces of narrative journalism. After many years of blogging and evolving as a writer, things started picking up and I was one of the bloggers for Globalpost.com since their inception until a few months ago when they stopped the service. I was interviewed by the BBC last month in my capacity as a social blogger. Four months ago, I was published by tehelka magazine.

Here’s the thing — I have been emailing editors of various media houses in the last 3 months. I have sent my story to only a couple of them though (including you). I have also tried meeting an editor who made me wait 2 hours in his office but once his assistant came to know that I was a freelancer looking for writing opportunities, I was told to leave.

Anyway, at the end of the day, it is by writing computer code that I earn my bread and butter. I am not one of you, who earns by the word or who has been to journalism school. I am, an urban, middle-class Indian. I am the guy editors write about in their glossy colorful editorial pages. I am the guy that forms the demographic dividend that Nandan Nilekani so boastfully talked about in his bestseller, Imagining India. I am the guy cheated by the Government and written about (with a liberal helping of pity) by the intellectual editors. Though I may not agree with many of the claims that these intellects make on my behalf, I do not take away the right that I have given to you and people of your fraternity – to let you be the voice of the common man.

So, I just wonder why, when one of these voices that you claim to represent, comes to you with a story, is it treated with such disdain and indifference? So much so that this voice even does not find an acknowledgement from you, let alone an acceptance. How can the media be so cold? How can you be so cold?

My story and my request to you for considering it for publication stands withdrawn.

With that, I rest my case. Thank you.

Sincerely,
aditya kumar

Few days ago, was introduced to an initiative taken up by Gul Panag about getting U2 to perform in India (Thanks to fellow blogger Shradha Revenkar for that). The soaponline.in website had a comment board setup and for starters, I put a comment there too (here, somewhere below, still online). Then, after being encouraged during a little chat on twitter by Gul herself, I wrote my U2 story.

Basically, I have a ticket for a U2 concert that is supposed to happen today, 14th July 2011, in Philadelphia. I had surrendered to my fate long ago, but this little story (for what it’s worth), Gul Panag said later on email, will eventually make way to U2. I don’t know what happened to it but here it is anyway.

I have a ticket to July 14’s U2 concert that is going to happen in Philadelphia. And yet my story manages to be a bit of a heartbreak.

My first memory of U2 is a picture of the band that appeared in, of all newspapers, The Economic Times, sometime in 2000. It was not the band that attracted me to the picture but it was another artist’s picture that appeared alongside their’s that caught my attention. Sheryl Crow had won the Grammy for her cover version of “Sweet Child o’ Mine” and so had U2, for their album “All that you can’t leave behind” (ATYCLB). “So these were the guys who had sung ‘With or Without You'”, I said to myself. I had just been enlightened with that song, thanks to the “Songs of the Millennium” collection that had just been released by Universal Music. The good thing of an album that is an assortment of the best songs is that not only are these albums value for money but they also, in effect, become the best advertisements of music bands they carry, simply because they showcase the best songs.

I bought ATYCLB’s audio tape with much skepticism. My allowance allowed me to spend Rs.125 (in today’s economy, $3 approx) on music, per month so I made sure that the money was well spent. My definition of a good album then was an audio-tape that one could play on and on, without the need to fast-forward. ATYCLB qualified as one.

About 6 months after I had seen U2’s picture, I was in a city called Pune, 4 hours from Bombay. In a new city, with almost no friends, I had 2 years of my education still left. One of those days, I bought U2’s Best of 1980-90 — it made sense because buying a “best of” U2 gave me a chance to look at the best that they had to offer without risking my monthly music allowance. A few hours after buying of that tape, I remember, leaning over the stairs of our old house in Pune, a Gothic like structure in shambles, with “Pride” blaring into my ears. I hit rewind a few times, because I remember telling myself that “Pride” had the kind of music that I could define as perfect. It was just the music I was longing to hear, almost subconsciously, because I had never heard anything like it. That evening, in Pune, I evovled to a different personal age of music.

Following that day, every month, tape by tape, I kept bridging the gap between the 1984 hit, Pride and ATYCLB. The sounds of “Achtung Baby”, were discovered. Bono once said that “Achtung Baby” was the sound of 4 guys chopping the Joshua Tree. It fascinated me no end – that a band could completely abandon the music that got them their greatest classic for something completely unconventional and then come back to it as U2 did with ATYCLB. There was a method in U2’s madness, in their contrasting genres while they experimented with Electronica, classic Rock and Pop. To untrained ears this was random but in truth it was anything but that.

For someone born in 1981, to appreciate the rock and roll (and everything else) churned out in 1984, in 2003 was a coming of age.

In Goa, my home, I once saw an advertisement of a U2 concert to be played on HBO. Cable TV didn’t have much choice, power supply was intermittent. And this had to be taped. On audio. It was the infamous Boston Concert, DVDs of which were later gifted to me by my gracious friends. That night, with guests in house wondering what I was upto, I connected my philips music system to the television, taped the whole concert with audio that was interrupted by advertisements and power cuts. This master-tape was then converted to MP3, edited and archived on a Compact Disc. This was my prized possession for years to come.

U2’s concert in Chicago happened. I heard Bono’s speech about his first impressions of America. About the American spirit that found inspiration on landing a man on the moon. My impressions about America were not the exact copy of Bono’s but we touched common ground. With my first article appearing in a major Indian news magazine, months after my first visit to America, I chose this inspiring moment to be a part of my writeup because this was now what Bono meant to me — Much more than a musician but someone who could inspire minds and people. Bono was, by now, an old friend right there in my headphones.

In 2010, I was summoned to be there for work in the US, for six months. I had a vague thought in my mind, that I might be able to attend a U2 concert. I did not know how realistic the idea was because a U2 concert was always a “big deal” for me. I mean, staying in the shadows, even if it was as an audience, I had started to be always in the awe of the band. To see them in real, in the flesh had by now, become a far fetched dream.

I landed in Newark on 1st May 2010. I checked in a traveller’s Inn, that was next to a 7-Eleven convenience store that evening. The next day, Sunday, 2nd May 2010, my first day in America, I fetched a copy of USA today from the store, among other things. Somewhere in the middle of the thick broadsheet, I came across a small, unassuming piece of news – that U2 was about to play a series of concerts on the east coast. NYC and Philadelphia among a few of them. My first morning in America, still jetlagged and it had brought in my life’s dream. I looked at the map and my options. A few phone calls and 16 days later, on 18th of May, I had a ticket to U2’s Philadelphia concert that was supposed to happen on July 12, 2010.

12 years of following their music. My first and possibly only trip to America. U2 at their best, on a tour. I had a ticket to watch them in the flesh. That was my one shot.

On May 21, 3 days after I bought my ticket, it was reported that Bono had undergone an emergency back surgery. On 13 July 2010, ticketmaster.com sent me an email, conveniently informing me that the concert was now rescheduled to July 14, 2011. I did not expect anyone to appreciate the irony in there but I did not know what to make of that email. Fate kicked my butt. All I could do was take a printout of the e-ticket, frame it and put that on the wall with the caption- “The closest I could get to U2”.

A few weeks back, a friend suggested why not sell the U2 ticket that I have? I could still have my ticket framed and the money back. Not a chance, I said. Bono’s having one less man for audience on 14 July 2011.