Rome Impressions

Make Poverty History

Few weeks back while travelling in a train in the UK, I found myself sitting in front of a seemingly learned white gentleman who was deeply engrossed in reading through a folder that might have contained essays by his students (assuming that he is in teaching profession). The nature of those papers did not intrigue me; what did intrigue me was a band on his wrist: Make Poverty History. No, it was not for the first time that I had seen this band. I was aware of its existence as much as of the poverty itself. The global call to wear the white band, if I am not wrong, was in 2005 when millions in the UK alone displayed the band-istic solidarity. And I must admit that for the first few seconds or may be for a minute or two, I was completely mesmerized, in fact, I was in awe of this gentleman, whose impeccable deep-in-thought reading posture meticulously matched by his golden rim glasses transposed the meaning of the words scribbled on the band to a completely different level: to a philosophical nexus of capitalism and corporatism of our modern world that not only produces but also makes poverty somehow acceptable. And simultaneously it also reinforced the idea that some people feel and believe that it can be eradicated. These thoughts empowered me. I felt that I am part of his world, the world that conveys deep meanings through simplest of the simple mediums. I felt that I do want to march ahead, with hands in hands, and wrists in wrists, to bulldoze the ramparts of ‘business of high politics’ and ‘politics of high business’ where poverty is both produced and caricatured. Well, if you’re now awe-struck at the twist of this phrase, I will let you know a little secret: these are not mine; I borrowed them from Gregory David Roberts’s Shantaram, a book which also talks about poverty and philosophy – a philosophy wherein every object or idea is in transition to achieve a higher plane of resolution and the poverty which is not shameful of its existence. It is the poverty which is aware of its limitation and resilient of its strength, which both performs and mimics itself at the margins of the society and yet provides crucial linkages to the mechanisms of the society that is pretty much mainstream. It is the poverty which is residing within the web of the poorers and yet which is tied to the strings of power and prestige, money and charity that influences or rather constitutes it from outside. While in the train I was not encountered by these thoughts although I had read the Shantaram months ago. What also kept me preoccupied in my banal devilish thinking was not the belief in emancipation (that was momentary, as emancipation, very akin to desire, itself is. Echoes of limitations of Buddhism?) But the idea fiddling in my mind was that if Poverty becomes History then we all will be rich. If this sounds like a mistaken generalization, then, I further qualified my thought: may be not rich but richer. Still this relativism, I argued in my mind, would mean that we need another band: Make Lesser Rich More Richer, or, Less is More and many more, some interesting and some uninteresting one-liners, kept swimming in my head until I naively realized that the few hundreds amongst those millions on the streets of the UK must have bought their shirts or trousers from the Primark whose in-house and off-shore manufacturing must have involved a few hundred of Bangladeshi children working 16 hours a day and wishing to get richer.

Prague Impressions

Berlin Impressions - II

Berlin Impressions - I

List of people who ought to be killed

Sounds ghastly, isin't? Well I was skimming through my old notebook which I was carrying with me the last year while travelling. In a corner I had noted 'people who ought to be killed'. As I recall, it was written while waiting for my flight at the Heathrow airport, and of course, I always utilise such opportunities to 'observe' people around me. Surely, you guys also do it :). So, here is the list of the people who ought to be killed:

1. Parents, particularly Indians, who at public places like airports, railway stations and cafes, think that their kids are the smartest, of course along with the kids, should be killed.

2. Parents, again mostly Indians, who smile either shamefully or shamelessly at co-passengers or ones sitting near them, to cover-up their child's embarrassing deeds.

3. Those who think travel means stuffing their kids up till their necks. (Kids who incessantly cry and nag for choclates, chips and cola should be killed first.)

4. In the same vain, people who try to 'force' conversation on you while travelling, by showing utter disrespect to gauge your mood should be killed.

5. Parents, and here non-Indians are warmly included, who don't force their kids to ride cycles, at least until the age of fifteen.

Ok, before human rights activists declare me a mentally deranged 'terrorist' I should stop.

Ameen.

English please!

The other day I was at a friend’s place. I was asked to entertain myself on my own for some time as my friend was on a call. And the germ of this post was sown inadverntently at that very moment. No, it did not happen because ‘empty mind thought intelligently’ but because of observation that in spite of my friend’s impeccable English I did not hear a single English word in her conversation with her brother.

And on extending this exciting revealation as a flashback to my more than an year stay now in Germany, I was thrilled to recount many instances when I did not hear any English word being used by my German friends in their conversation, unless they felt guilty of letting me feel left out. And, then I was at a newer understanding of ‘being Indians’. Indian is a generalised category and here I speak only of ‘we typical’ English educated middle-class. I also must confess here that my understanding here is limited to northerners and easterners, but blinded by flashing success of the IT hoopla in which southerners have taken a lead, I am almost sure this applies on them as well. So here is this observation: we Indians feel ashamed of speaking in our mother tongue for more than three minutes or at best five sentences. (The remarkable exceptions are Bengalis.) To gloss over our deficiency, we came up with one more proof of our stupidity: Hinglish. One stray example is: “You know it’s so diffuclt to gootho aata (you know it is so difficult to knead flour).” The examples could be multiplied. The fact is that we don’t even make a try and the reason is simple: we don’t want to try. Speaking English and in English amongst ourselves massages our complexes of superiority, and structurally in the same logic help us look down upon those who can’t manage to do so. I am completely leaving aside here the even funnier ego-boost-exercise at picking up on regional accents. The language in itself is bread and butter of that mentality which we inherited from British colonial rule and are happily promoting and sustaining it. No Brits, I am not blaming you. On contrary, I am congratulating you on knowing us so well. We love to be showy, and you gave us the most important tool to show off.