From my neighbourhood to Wall Street

A lazy day when the phone rang and concerned family and friends told me of the series of bomb blasts in Delhi. My first reaction was, whats new, yet again, lives don’t matter anymore. It has been a series of 11 blasts since 2001 and nothing concrete ever came out of it. And now blasts in the capital in all the major hotspots and all we will see are media channels giving breaking news with funny dummy stories and visuals. And the ever hungry Indian consumer will watch that raising the channels TRPs. There will be blame games amongst political parties and increased allocation to the Intelligence and security systems of the country that anyways have not made headways in the last 7 years.

Thinking deeper I realized there was unrest in the country in almost all parts and we have become so immune to it. Life seems to be going fine for me, so how does it matter?

But the red alarm reels inside the head some thousand times when even I am flipping through the newspaper or television channels all that is there to the country today is reports of death of innocent human beings, be it as victims of some blasts, pro-freedom movement, police encounters or torching down of minority establishments.

At this level when I turn my attention to rage against the governance in this country, thanks to friends in the financial sector that I delved to read news on the global economic crisis. An establishment as revered as Lehman Brothers, one of the oldest investment banks of the world files for bankruptcy on September 14^th. It was a blow to the global capital market. When PWC was brought on board as administrators they reported there was no cash in the company post the fall. The shock had not been absorbed and Merrill Lynch was bought by Bank of America. Finally they became bank holding companies and the US government paid $700bn to tackle the worst economic crisis in decades. With the developed north crashing there is not much hope anyways for the developing south. Anyways the Indian aping of neo-liberal economy without much deliberation has brought us at the edge of the blackhole.

The economic crisis as the base of the Marxian base-superstructure theory, now poses a severe challenge to the already dwindling food and fuel crisis in India. As if the governments failure to generate employment for the exploding population of the country was not enough that now there will be major cut down on human resources by the MNCs. The shift of focus though doesn’t change the fact that inflation had reached 12.9%.

I had all of this reeling in my head when I went to attend the National Convention on Union Budget 2009-10. I was left flabbergasted with the numbers. Each sector thrashing out inadequacy in allocation, implementation, even conceptually the sectoral understandings seemed to be unclear and that having high levels of ramifications. I wondered about the complexity in the naivety. If experts even cannot develop a macro perspective, sincerely there is threat, of collapsing without even an alarm. The review of the MDGs at several parts of South Asia does portray a grim picture for India. But panelists here except for two did not give me holistic sense of the economic paradigm shift and its implications.

Though as I write this I realize the grassroots experiences are complex and there are several layers before we reach the policy level. How much can one embrace and how much can one choose to keep at the threshold? But can it be the dead end? Is there no solution to it? Or atleast the promise of respite somewhere?

The blow to Wall Street will have deep impact in India, and here people were advocating against remaining bystanders and fighting for marginalized factions of the society. Do they not know the overall implications? Do they not know that factionalizing at this point will only reap indefinable complexities? As much as it remains a serious concern, it frightens me to not see any able leadership developing in this country to be able to address these multilayered issues and crisis the largest democracy of the world is grappling with.

Coming back home, the encounter where the police apparently nabbed the masterminds of the Delhi blasts, the incident took place two blocks away from the place I live in. In the month of Ramzan when the whole community is fasting, this encounter took place in the bylanes of a crowded locality near Jamia Millia resulting in the death of a police inspector of the Special Cell and established the presence of terrorist cells in minority pockets. When I was on my way back home the eerie feeling in the lanes shook me from the roots. I felt scared of being an Indian, felt scared for the people who are family are Muslims and the majority wrath would not spare them, felt scared because every other young guy in that space resembles the faces which appear on the wanted lists. Scared for the age group thats the promise of the dawn tomorrow,the mighty young brains between 22-25 are taking up arms against global socio-economic discrepancies,I was scared because the area was prone to a communal clash in the batter of an eyelid.

The reports doing rounds of all the convoluted claims of nabbing terrorists comes later to me. What comes out first is the Muslim community is under severe crisis. Though I cannot not accept that communities at their levels have not thrashed one another and that is a blessing in disguise but the Muslim community who were anyways the point of attack by majority extremists is today questioning identities at all levels. With the blasts taking a national character, the global war to curb terrorism going full swing, India today is hiding from the danger that has no face. The communal violence inflicted in eastern, western and southern parts of the country by the Sena has not even received a strong reaction from the centre. I am deeply troubled by the complacent attitude. The backlash against the Home Minister definitely needs to be heard by the people in command. Have the Gandhis forgotten the trauma the country went through post the 1984 riots? Have they forgotten the series of assassinations in their family? So why is there no strong resolution to combat the communal tension in the country?

On the onset it might sound like those several blame games that every one is up against another, I understand this is far more complex than the words actually puts forth, but this calls for action, this calls for concrete ways in which the country can look at violation of human rights and not treat the present situation as a political game of ideology. Lets rise beyond creating opportunities from conflicts for human lives are not frivolous.

The array of natural disasters in the country already is sign of nature backlashing against the human civilization, lets not create spaces for the ugly head of man-made disaster to breathe into us the venom of intolerance and hatred.

24th Sept.New Delhi

I was not allowed to Be a Nobody…..

It isn’t the best of times, for some reason I am looking for something that I do not know of, only hoping I will get the clue soon. My craving for space took me to the space where the Japanese Takio drum beats filled up senses of the universe. The need to communicate reached an epitome, but somehow the reconciliation of being in constant interaction with silence and voices it seemed a distant dream. Met up with two friends and the next day being an off, like the sweet surprise in midair (! :)) it was decided that I spend it on something more concrete. And as always the inox s and the Fame s is the perfect place. Only this time the film was set in Parzan’s fairyland, Parzania! Directed by Rahul Dholakia, the film stars Nasser( an all time favourite) and Sarika(what a comeback) and the bunch of the alternative actors in mainstream Hindi cinema. Set in 2002 post the Godhra riots the film was too real to be true. In a mohalla where Hindus and Muslims coexisted happily how the fangs of ugly side of Hindutva destroyed lives, buildings, dreams and memories. The story was direct and simple-The impact of a communal riot in Ahmedebad on a Parsi family. Midst the riot how a family loses their child and has not found him back. The child by the way was named Parzan. What strikes me the most in the film is its outright message. And it’s been five years since Godhra, we all know what happened, how meticulously the riot was planned. But still the perpetrators contest elections, and run campaigns like Vibrant Gujarat. The most amazing aspect is how power strategizes itself to play with the psyche of the masses. Till then they were leading normal lives. And the bone of contention is, the system that has perfectly adapted itself to the rulers. Irrespective of the knowledge of the process, the protectorates becomes the tool for the perpetrator to literally manufacture violence.

Slightly deviating from the film, its been five years since Godhra. Some 40 citizen’s report has been prepared and presented. There have been 17 chargesheets prepared for the case. 134 people have been accused in the process without any proof of their involvement, and most of them are Muslims. Maulana Umarji, the main accused as a terrorist used to be a maulana and was a part of the Shiv-Sena! And there are evidences of how statements are being forged, how the system itself is betting against all those challenging them about authenticity. The complete absence of reconciliation is amazing. There are evidences that cannot be clearer than prosecution of the perpetrators. The complete state of denial by the political stand is astounding. And there goes Narendra Modi, the star campaigner for Gujarat who in Harsh Mander’s words ‘reinforced his masculinity through Gujarat’. If one goes back in time, Godhra did not see the establishment of relief camps. There was no involvement of international agencies who come flocking for relief otherwise. And the whooping amount of Rs.19 crore given back to the Centre is a little detail we might have forgotten. Justice is a far cry! There is no acknowledgement that Godhra was the worst form of violation of Human Rights.

Coming back to Parzania, it is a true story. Apart from the little flaws like the fluttering of eyelids of the dead it was a tight script and detailed screenplay. But the Nasser religious journey was a little overplayed! The supporting characters have given a solid grounding and small little excerpts from chapters on humanity. As usual with all biases in place Nasser was wow, more than that I guess I was surprised with Sarika. The Ash of yesteryears it was almost a discovery to see her perform so beautifully.
Coming out of the theatre had to be with a heavy heart and the three youngsters got into a passionate discussion about how and why and what can we do to change it. The film has been banned in Gujarat and the whole fraternity expect a few of them kept mum. Its being said when Yash Chopra could not get to release Faana, you must be kidding if you want Parzania up there. However I realized the film had done something deep, I hated my identity as a Hindu. Though the Gita is as intellectually stimulating as the Quran Sharif but I found the baggage very heavy to carry. The BMC elections are around the corner and there were orange flags all over the city, keeping my fingers crossed.
How I wish I was allowed to be a nobody!

27th January 2007
02:43 hrs.