New Year Inspiration

While most of the world was depressed counting the number of corona cases and deaths every day, Sandhya, the college student, had celebrated 2020 writing a blog every day of the year. This was her New Year Resolution on 31 december 2019. Yesterday she wrote, "366 days and 366 posts. I have written so much, so widely- exploring books, thoughts, experiences, food, and much more! The journey of blogging everyday has been a happy spark in the otherwise dull year." She says, "I've been experimenting now with not just book reviews, but other subjects like movies, interesting ideas that bounce around my head"

 

Sandhya started her blog in April 2010, when she was twelve years old. She wrote 295 posts till 31 December 2019. She has now added an incredible 366 in 2020. It is not just amazing in quantity. Her blogs are inspiring, moving, educative, thought provoking and entertaining. 

 

She is a child prodigy. She had devoured books eagerly like the kids go after ice cream and chocolates. She relishes poetry, novels and non-fiction, besides her own subject of law. She studies law at the National Law Institute, Ahmedabad. 

 

Her reading list includes PG Wodehouse, Charles Dickens, Steinbeck, Ayn Rand, Crichton, Harari, Che Guevara and Einstein. In her own words, " I read fiction and non-fiction, classics and contemporary writing, thrillers, humour, sci-fi, tragedies and comedies, poetry and prose, and quite a few plays. I read new authors, and old ones. I read books on shoes, horses, rabbits, beasts, bandits, and humans; read on businesses and their success, and one even on its failure. I read fantasy on one side, and memoirs on the other. I read the small ones, the medium, and the big, covering the popular ones and the barely known. I read some history, and some chemistry, and a little lit of law, too". She has read over sixty books in 2020 and hopes to cross hundred in 2021.

She started serious reading since when she was five. Eloor library in Chennai was what nurtured her reading. She says, " I remember going there every weekend, and picking up four or five books to read through the week. In fact, that is the library that has literally seen me grow into the reader I am today. From the Beetle series, that had just a big picture and a single small line in a page, to binge reading series like the Famous Five, Amelia Jane, Sleepover Girls, Harry Potter and Hardy boys, to slowly exploring H G Wells, Robert Stevenson, and the children’s classics section that held Heidi, Hans Brinker and Silver Skates, Treasure Island, Little Women and the likes, to obsessing over the racks of Agatha Christie, Perry Mason, Robin Cook and Dan Brown, to graduating into Shaw, Dickens, Tolkien and the likes, as I grew older, the library has given me everything!".

She loves short stories. She says, "Short stories are wonderful. I love them. They can introduce you to a new author, they can turn a day around, they can make you marvel at the clever narrative, and make you fall in love with some of your favourite characters all over again"

 

She wrote her first novel " Wizile" in 2012, when she was in school. She has written two more novels (Much Of A Muchness and Sir Antiquarian) and another book on football.

 

Sandhya has a gift of English language with a rich vocabulary. She writes fluently and spontaneously. But what is more interesting is that she has developed strict discipline and focussed mission with which she lets her talents to flourish and soar.

 

On her record of 366 blogs in 2020, Sandhya reflects, "This year has been all about me writing my way through my thoughts, and anything at all that comes to my mind. Sometimes the thoughts are deep, sometimes just off the surface; sometimes the thoughts are original, sometimes borrowed (with due credit always given); sometimes it's ranting, and sometimes there are solutions. But, 2021 can't roll the same way for me- it's high time I move on and focus more on the content in the coming year. So, writing regularly for a year now has made me realize what I want to focus on writing more about. Of course, the books, the thoughts, the fun rants- they're all here to stay, just that I look forward to regulate them more so that I plan out time to write the stuff that I have been meaning to, more often."

Sandhya is not only a reader and writer but a guru too.. She advises five lessons for aspiring writers :

1. Don't be scared to start

2. Focus one day at a time.

3. Set small landmarks, and celebrate small victories.

4. Roll with it.

5. How you see things around you, changes when you work on yourself. 

 

So what are her plans for 2021? Having succeeded quantitativly exploring many subjects, now she wants to narrow her focus this year to write stories and academic posts. She ' loves writing short, concise, thoughtful academic posts in law, and even on academics itself'. She has asked her readers to give suggestions for reading and writing and welcomes comments on her blogs in the website http://sandhya.varadh.com/

 

I will go beyond Sandhya’s 2021 plan with the prediction that she has the promise of a literary figure in the future. My favourite author Mario Vargas Llosa has written a manual for aspiring writers in his book " Letters to a young novelist". In this, he says, " a person develops precociously in childhood or teenage a penchant for dreaming up people, situations, anecdotes and worlds different from the world in which she or he lives, questions real life ( raison d'être of literature) and become rebellious. Such inclination is the first sign of a literary vocation. But there is an abyss that the vast majority of human beings never cross between the propensity to retreat from the real life into imagination and the actual practice of literature. Those who do cross and become creator of worlds with the written word are the writers, the minority who have reinforced their penchant with an exertion of the will called as ‘Choice’ by Sartre. I believe that Sandhya has exercised this ‘choice’. 

Sandhya is my inspiration for 2021. Happy New Year...  

 

 

 

Birds and birdies...

Golfers dream ... birdies, eagles and albatrosses..

Birds and birdie-seeking golfers fill the golf courses with their colourful feather and costumes as well as songs of joy and cries of pain..

DLF Golf Club has published and gifted to us (members)copy of a Coffee Table book " The birds of DLF5 Golf Links. There are 101 species of birds such as pochards, koels, pigeons, herons, cuckoos, swallows, coots, hornbills, kingfishers, parakeets, warblers, bulbuls, mynas and cormorants sharing the golf course with the players.

Some birds are water-based, some reside on the trees, some in the bushes and some migratory visits from other places. The book gives details of the birds as well as the places in the course where they can be spotted and at what times.

The 200 acre-course of 27 holes, with large and deep lakes, water falls, running streams, thousands of trees and shrubs, provide ample space for the birds to find food, drink honey from the flowers, lay eggs, bring up chicks and regenerate their species. The birds fill the course with their melodious mating calls, chirps, whistles and songs. During the rainy season, the peacocks dance around to attract the males. In summer they jump into the water to cool themselves and in winter take sun bath in the fairways. There are a few instances when the birds mistake the ball for egg and take them away..

The course is surrounded by a thousand acre Aravalli hills which provide extra space for the birds to fly out and in. The golf course with its green grass, colourful flowers and blue water bodies stands out like an oasis amidst the arid Aravalli forest of thorny bushes and stone-filled reddish soil.

The photographer Andre Jeanpierre Fanthome has made the birds come alive with his powerful lense.

The birds, players and balls have some things in common. The birds have colourful feathers while the players wear colorful costumes. The birds sing in joy and cry in pain and the players do the same depending upon the outcome of their shots. The birds lay their eggs under the bushes while the balls tend to go and hide in the bushes. The birds are attracted to the lakes for fish while the balls have an irresistible pull from the water.

While some birds fly, others run on the surface or swim in the water. Some golfers fly the balls high, others cannot get them up while a few let the balls swim and sink..

When the players are lost in the bushes searching for their balls the crows find their sandwiches in the golf carts.

Players imitate the peacocks after making birdies while those who made double bogies try to hide like ostrich.

Golfers like the fairways, greens and holes. But the balls and birds like the bushes, trees and water..

The scenery of lake and the music of waterfalls and streams look so pleasing and soothing to the eyes ..which get wet when the ball falls into the water. The only consolation after losing the ball in water is when the opponents also do the same.

They say that the level of water in the lakes keeps rising ..with the tears of players who lose balls....and the thousands of balls which keep filling up the bottom of the lakes..

‘A Promised Land’- book of Barack Obama

 Barack Obama could have made a career as a successful writer, if he had chosen writing instead of politics. This is evident from his book “ A Promised Land” in which he has displayed  his creative language skills, gift of storytelling, poetic sensibility, intellectual depth, and philosophical ruminations. Obama attributes his learning to a number of authors who had influenced his own writing and inspired him. He keeps the readers interested throughout the thousand pages of its length with his stories, analysis of events and cerebral reflections. He delves deep into the grand political issues while at the same time paying attention to small details and giving graphic description of people, places and situations through his observant eyes and rich imagination. 

 

Obama has approached his life of achievements with a deeply introspective and detached manner in his signature style of self- criticism and self-deprecating humour. He is a rare politician who openly admits his weaknesses, limitations, dilemmas, gaffes, flaws and failures. He tries ‘constantly taking stock to make sure I wasn’t buying into the hype and remind myself of the distance between the airbrushed image and the flawed, often uncertain person I was’. He has not been carried away by the glamour and power of the POTUS ( President of the United States). He concludes, ‘for all its power and pomp, the presidency is still just a job and our federal government is a human enterprise like any other, and the men and women who work in the White House experience the same daily mix of satisfaction, disappointment, office friction, screw-ups, and small triumphs as the rest of their fellow citizens’. He confesses, ’The work, I loved. Even when it didn’t love me back’. For him, ‘each day had its share of aggravations, worries, and disappointments. I’d stew over mistakes I’d made and question strategies that hadn’t panned out. There were meetings I dreaded, ceremonies I found foolish, conversations I would have rather avoided’. 

Here is an example of his self-criticsm, " By nature I’m a deliberate speaker, which, by the standards of presidential candidates, helped keep my gaffe quotient relatively low. But my care with words raised another issue on the campaign trail: I was just plain wordy, and that was a problem. When asked a question, I tended to offer circuitous and ponderous answers, my mind instinctively breaking up every issue into a pile of components and subcomponents. If every argument had two sides, I usually came up with four" e lede!” Axe (his advisor) would practically shout after listening to me drone on and on and on". He then started making his statements brief and go with the absorption capacity of the audience.

 

He has not filled the book with just about himself. He has given generous credit to numerous people who inspired him, supported and advised him at all levels including his butlers, security men, secretaries, drivers and gardeners with whom he had sincere conversations and shared experience and jokes. He shows genuine interest in the lives of others and expresses appreciation for other people’s achievements and sacrifices. 

 

Obama gives pen portraits of people describing their face, body and appearance with apt descriptions such as ‘tall and angular, with a jutting jaw, deep-set eyes’, ‘face of an Irish boxer’, ‘ long, hangdog face and throaty midwestern drawl’, ‘ruddy-faced with a whisk-broom mustache’,  ‘voices soft as the patter of rain (Japanese emperor and his wife), ‘smile brushed with melancholy’, ‘raspy-voiced, lip-biting Arkansas charm (Bill Clinton), ‘the man was all muscle, sinew, and bone, with a long, angular face and a piercing, avian gaze’,’ broad-shouldered and sturdy with a Roman nose’.

 

Here is his take on some of the world leaders he had met:

 

British PM David Cameron – ‘possessed an impressive command of the issues, a facility with language, and the easy confidence of someone who’d never been pressed too hard by life. with a youthful appearance and a studied informality (at every international summit, the first thing he’d do was take off his jacket and loosen his tie)

 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel- ‘I found her steady, honest, intellectually rigorous, and instinctually kind. But she was also conservative by temperament, not to mention a savvy politician who knew her constituency’.

 

French President Nicholas Sarkozy- ‘was all emotional outbursts and overblown rhetoric. With his dark, expressive, vaguely Mediterranean features  and small stature he looked like a figure out of a Toulouse-Lautrec painting’.

 

Sonia Gandhi – ‘striking woman in her sixties, dressed in a traditional sari, with dark, probing eyes and a quiet, regal presence’.

 

Rahul Gandhi – ‘has an unformed quality about him, as if he were a student who’d done the coursework and was eager to impress the teacher but deep down lacked either the aptitude or the passion to master the subject’.

 

PM Manmohan Singh- ‘a gentle, soft-spoken, wise, thoughtful, and scrupulously honest and uncommonly decent man’.

 

On the substantial political issues faced by him, he gives clinical and comprehensive analysis approaching the issues from all angles besides his own. He gives meticulous details of the issues, the various options to deal with them, the challenges in finding solutions and the compromises he was forced to make by the Republicans and other players. 

 

Obama reveals the powerlessness of POTUS on three issues: impunity of the Wall Street bankers, the all-powerful Israeli lobby and the multi- billion dollar military-industrial complex.  

He is of the view that ‘Wall Street really did increasingly function like a trillion-dollar casino, its outsized profits and compensation packages overly dependent on ever-greater leverage and speculation. Its obsession with quarterly earnings had warped corporate decision-making and encouraged short-term thinking. Untethered to place, indifferent to the impact of globalization on particular workers and communities, the financial markets had helped accelerate the offshoring of jobs and the concentration of wealth in a handful of cities and economic sectors, leaving huge swaths of the country.’  He was outraged when the AIG executives pocketed 170 million dollars of bonus after the company was saved from collapse by the 70 billion dollar rescue by the Treasury department with tax payers’ money. These were the same executives who had caused the subprime lending crisis with their reckless greed. The regulatory system and legislation was gamed by the Republican leaders and lobby to ensure impunity for the fat cat bankers. Obama expresses his anguish saying, “ many of the people most culpable for the nation’s economic woes remained fabulously wealthy and had avoided prosecution mainly because the laws as written deemed epic recklessness and dishonesty in the boardroom or on the trading floor less blameworthy than the actions of a teenage shoplifter”. The all-powerful POTUS could not touch them except expressing his anger in private.

 

He was equally helpless with the immunity enjoyed by Israel which got away with inhuman atrocities against the Palestines because of the unconditional solid support by the US under the power of the Jewish lobby. The Israeli PM Netanyahu simply ignored Obama and went over his head to the Congress to get whatever he wanted. With his offensive tactics, he put Obama on the defensive and made POTUS powerless.

 

The generals and the arms manufacturers pushed for more wars and intensification of the ongoing wars for billions of dollars of profit and trillion dollar business. The military-industrial complex did not care for the peaceful and non-violent diplomatic methods preferred by Obama. This reminds me of the interview in which the Chinese tech billionaire Jack Ma was asked about for his opinion on the loss of US jobs to China. He said, “ The US had spent around two trillion dollars in the destructive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, If the money was used for constructive domestic development, the US would not have had any unemployment problem”. Obama reflects, “ I found myself imagining what America might look like if we could rally the country so that our government brought the same level of expertise and determination to educating our children or housing the homeless as it had to getting bin Laden; if we could apply the same persistence and resources to reducing poverty or curbing greenhouse gases or making sure every family had access to decent day care”. He admits, “we meddled in the affairs of other countries, sometimes with disastrous results; we had invaded Iraq, broken that country, helped spawn an even more virulent branch of al-Qaeda”.

 

Since the right wing Republicans constantly attacked and teased Obama as incapable and unsuitable for being a commander in chief, Obama had to prove to them that he could also do what Bush did. This explains Obama’s regime change  war in Libya and killing of Qaddafi as well as the raid and killing of Osama Bin Laden.

 

Obama has handled the ‘black man issue’ upfront in some places and subtly and discretely in other contexts. He preferred to send his vice president Joe Biden to negotiate with the Republican leader Mitch McConnel because of his ‘awareness that in McConnell’s mind, negotiations with the vice president didn’t inflame the Republican base in quite the same way that any appearance of cooperating with (Black, Muslim socialist) Obama was bound to do’.  Obama has analysed and come out with the reasons for the backlash in the ugly form of Trump and right wing extremism. According to hi, the anti-intellectual and anti-reason movement started with Sarah Paulin when she campaigned as vice presidential candidate along with John MacCain. Unable to match the intellectual discourses of Obama, she took to trivializing and trashing Obama’s wisdom and erudition. Trump took it from where Sarah Paulin left and made a career out of attacking the black man. Obama says, “ antipathy had migrated from the fringe of GOP politics to the center—an emotional, almost visceral, reaction to my presidency, distinct from any differences in policy or ideology. It was as if my very presence in the White House had triggered a deep-seated panic, a sense that the natural order had been disrupted. Which is exactly what Donald Trump understood when he started peddling assertions that I had not been born in the United States and was thus an illegitimate president. For millions of Americans spooked by a Black man in the White House, he promised an elixir for their racial anxiety”.  Obama clarifies, ‘I recognize that there are those who believe that it’s time to discard the myth—that an examination of America’s past and an even cursory glance at today’s headlines show that this nation’s ideals have always been secondary to conquest and subjugation, a racial caste system and rapacious capitalism, and that to pretend otherwise is to be complicit in a game that was rigged from the start’.

The book ends with the chapter on the daring raid and killing of Osama Bin Laden in 2011. I look forward to reading the second volume of the memoir Obama is working on. 

I have read and reviewed his earlier books which were also equally inspiring:

Audacity of Hope

https://floatingweed.blogspot.com/2009/02/audacity-of-hope-book-by-barak-obama.html

Dreams from my father

https://floatingweed.blogspot.com/2009/03/dreams-from-my-father-obama.html

He wrote those two before he became President. But in this book he wanted to offer readers a sense of what it’s like to be the president of the United States. He has done it candidly and lucidly. Still I like better the part of his story before he became president. His narration of his emotions and feelings in chasing his dream and the struggle he went through are more fascinating and poignant than his writings on his presidential years.  

 

In the last four years, President Trump has made US as a laughing stock and insulted the intelligence of people with his shameless, wicked, indecent, racist and juvenile statements and actions. It comes as a relief and a source of confidence and optimism that the same US which disgraced itself by voting for Trump, had elected and reelected a black man with a muslim name. Obama's success becomes even more admirable and amazing after seeing the disastrous presidency of Trump who had unearthed the ugliness from under the ground.

Obama could not have achieved the success alone by himself. He could have become a successful lawyer or writer with his talents and skills. But to become the President, he had to move the whole country, which has a built-in system to discriminate the blacks even from voting, let alone get voted. He had to get past the torturous systems of primaries, no-holds barred debates, dirty tricks of the opponents, scrutiny of the media and above all the formidable candidature of Hillary Clinton. Obama was supported, helped and guided through the process by thousands of Americans who believed in him and worked hard much before he became famous. He also got the votes of many Republican states and whites. Most importantly, credit is due to the old rural white folks of Iowa who elected him in the very first primary giving him the much needed critical moral boost in the beginning of the game. This is why Obama calls the country as “A promised Land”.

 

 

Thirukkural and the ‘India Way’ of diplomacy

 Thirukkural and the ‘India Way’ of diplomacy

  

India, as a civilizational power coming back on the international stage, must draw inspiration from its own ethos and epics and express itself in a distinct ‘India Way’, says Jaishankar in his book “ The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World”. He has made this clear in the preface itself with a couplet from Thiruvalluvar, the ancient Tamil poet. 

 

‘Wisdom is to live in tune with the mode of the changing world’

In Tamil it reads as,

“எவ்வ துறைவது உலகம் உலகத்தோடு
அவ்வ துறைவ தறிவு”.

 

From Thirukkural, Jaishankar goes on to Mahabharatha which holds lessons to deal with the complexities of the uncertain world. The dilemmas of statecraft permeate the story, among them taking risks, placing trust, and making sacrifices. It gives  the most vivid distillation of Indian thoughts on statecraft with a graphic account of real-life situations and their inherent choices. The courage required to implement policy is, perhaps, its most famous section – the Bhagavad Gita in which Krishna provides strategic guidance, diplomatic energy and tactical wisdom in navigating challenges. Focusing on the importance of the sense of duty and the sanctity of obligations, it is also a description of human frailties. 

 

Jaishankar emphasizes that brand differentiation is especially important for a rising and aspirational power. He calls for introduction of our own diplomatic terms into the discourse as it is intrinsic to the process of India’s international emergence. 

 

He sums up the foreign policy strategy in one sentence, “India should engage the US, manage China, cultivate Europe, reassure Russia, bring back Japan into play, draw neighbours in, extend the neighbourhood and expand traditional constituencies of support”. 

 

The India Way includes among other things:

 

- pursuit of multiple approaches and multiple alliances and partnership with global interests

- Keep up the many balls up in the air and reconcile commitments to multiple partners with skill. There will be convergence with many but congruence with none. In this world of all against all, India’s goal should be to move closer towards the strategic sweet spot. India must reach out in as many directions as possible and maximize its gains in the new world matrix of many sides, many players and many games.

- respond with engagement than by distancing; deal with contesting parties at the same time with optimal results; engage a broader set of partners more creatively; forge convergences and manage divergences taking advantage of the opening of a world of multiple choices at different levels; assess the disruptions underway and the trends that accelerate, mitigate or counter new directions.

-make many friends, few foes, great goodwill and more influence with a stronger competitive spirit and a sharper strategic sense.

- Constant advancement of goals and interests, using all pathways that the world has to offer. And since that often means plunging into the unknown, it requires both judgement and courage. 

-  take on global responsibilities and act as a constructive player 

- move over from the Delhi Dogmas of passivity and pessimism stuck in the past history and dilemmas of defensive and argumentative mindset.

 

With his experience as Ambassador to China, he says that India should learn from the rise of China which should sharpen India’s competitive instincts. China has risen as a formidable global power drawing on its own cultural attributes. China Way has elevated dissimulation to the highest level of statecraft. This is exemplified by popular aphorisms such as, ‘Deceiving the heavens to cross the ocean’ or ‘making a sound in the East to then strike West’ or ‘decking trees with false blossoms’. Unlike in India, there is neither guilt nor doubt in dissembling in the Chinese mind. In fact, it is glorified as an art. Its virtues are repeatedly lauded in the Three Kingdoms epic, where many of the decisive encounters are won by trickery rather than by force. Using the above strategy China has been winning without fighting, while the US is stuck in fighting without winning in recent years. 

 

Some of his prescriptions for specific foreign policy issues:

 

China: In dealing with China’s might, India should use “ Nimzo-Indian Defence”, moving from the past strategic posture similar to the “ Indian Defence” in chess. The border and the future of ties cannot be separated. India should not give free pass to China to make use of the open Indian market while keeping its own market protected. One of the ways to deal with China is try to create multipolar Asia with a stable balance.

 

US: The playbook of dealing with US needs rewriting in view of the new priorities and problems of US and its growing tensions with China. India has to maintain a narrative of its value in the US and customize it for the President of the day.

  

Pakistan: There is no one-time fix. A mix of fortitude, creativity and perseverance with prompt Uri and Balakot responses to counter mischiefs. It is important to note the minimal space Jaishankar has devoted for Pakistan which has become a disproportionate morbid obsession for the Indian media and TV talking heads. India needs to focus on the larger picture without being distracted too much by the Pakistani nuisance. 

   

Policy towards neighbours: simple answer in two words.. Generosity and firmness.

 

Non-alignment:  it suited India in the days when the country was weaker and was caught in the cold war between the two potent super powers. There was comfort in group mentality and non-involvement. But multi-alignment is the new India Way. It is more energetic and participative.  

 

Policy towards the West: India has both the ability to work confidently with the West when required and differ with it when its interests so demand. As India goes up in the international order, it will advance its own narratives, and, on occasion, question Western ones.

 

Jaishankar has avoided a favourite and passionate foreign policy subject of many Indians: permanent membership of United Nations Security Council. Some in India get carried away with the outrage at the injustice of keeping India outside this organ of power. Even the Ministry of External Affairs have wasted energy on this issue by sending special envoys to the capitals of Belize and Haiti seeking their support. Big powers such as France and UK take India for a ride promising support and getting return favours, sure that that the day of reckoning is very very far. India should keep strengthening itself and wait for the day of disruption of the world order when it should be ready to kick open the doors of UNSC. 

 

In the past, India’s foreign policy has made some mistakes or missed opportunities due to passivity, delays and dilemmas in decision making. Jaishankar draws attention to Satyajit Ray’s movie “Shatranj ke kilari” (chess player) in which two Indian nawabs are engrossed in a chess game while the British are taking over their Awadh kingdom. The new India has to be alert to the changes in global politics and be prepared to make its own moves promptly as a proactive player.  

 

Jaishankar ends the book with a chapter on the Chinese-origin corona virus which has made the world even more uncertain than the disruption caused by China’s rise in the world. In its systemic impact, the corona virus may be the most consequential global happening after 1945. It adds to global turbulence by encouraging policy departures across geographies. This opens up opportunities for India whose value to the world will probably increase even further after the virus. He concludes the book with an optimistic and diplomatic message, “Let us take it as a sign of the (corona virus) times that the world has discovered the virtue of Namaste, the India Way of greeting with folded hands”

 

The India Way is a timely message to the new India which is becoming stronger and is seeking its due place in the world. The book is not a mere academic analysis or erudite exercise. It is the call of a serving External Affairs Minister with experience of four decades of distinguished career as a diplomat. He has a unique opportunity to practice what he has preached in his book. He is lucky as a policy maker to have the confidence of a politician as prime minister who shares his vision for India’s future in the world. 

 

Jaishankar argues that as India rises in the world order, it should not only visualize its interests with greater clarity but also communicate them effectively. That’s what he has done in the book eloquently and authoritatively. The book will be read carefully by the foreign ministries and think tanks around the world.  He has not shied away from commenting on sensitive topics such as the Trump phenomenon, American parsimony or the Chinese strategic deception. 

 

Jaishankar is the first Tamil to become External Affairs Minister of India. He had made use of his mother tongue in interactions with the Tamil Tigers when he was posted in Sri Lanka during the crucial period of IPKF operations. His father K Subramanyam, from Tiruchirappalli, served as IAS officer in the Tamil Nadu cadre. After shifting to the Central government in Delhi, he became the leading defence and security expert and was known as the doyen of India's strategic affairs community. Jaishankar’s son Dhruva is also a brilliant expert on international affairs. 

 

Jaishankar’s bold, dispassionate, candid and clear articulation fits the description of diplomacy by  Thiruvalluvar in his poem  

 

கற்றுக்கண் அஞ்சான் செலச்சொல்லிக் காலத்தால்
தக்கது அறிவதாம் தூது. (Diplomacy is articulation according to the need of the time with profound knowledge and without fear)

 

The toss of a lemon – novel by Padma Viswanathan

This is the story of Sivakami, a rural and traditional Tamil Brahmin and her extended family through several  generations in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  She gets married at the age of 10 and gives birth to a son Vairam and daughter Thangam. A the time of her delivery, the midwife tosses a lemon, a practice done to announce the birth of child to the husband and other males waiting outside the room. The men note the exact timing of toss of the lemon and and give it to the astrologer for writing the horoscope of the child.

 

Sivakami starts her life in Samanthibakkam village where she is born and spends the rest of her life after marriage in Cholapatti, the village of her husband. Cholapatti is twenty minutes by bullock cart from Kulithalai, the nearest town from which one can take the train to Trichy, the district headquarters.

 

Sivakami becomes a widow at eighteen with two kids when her astrologer-husband dies as predicted in the horoscope. She brings up the children and manages the agricultural lands of her husband with the help of a lower caste supervisor Muchami. She marries off her daughter Thangam, also at an early age, to an adventurous boy Goli who becomes a Revenue Inspector and does some business ventures on the side. Her son Vairam gets college education in St Joseph College, Trichy and eventually settles down in Chennai. Goli has an affair with a devdasi whose daughter becomes a film actress at the end.

 

Sivakami lives the austere life of a widow wearing a white saree without blouse, as prescribed by the tradition. She eats food prepared only by herself. She keeps herself generally invisible and untouchable. She is not allowed to wear silk sarees and jewellery. She is prohibited to put vermillion dot on the forehead or to have flowers on the hair. She gets her head shaven periodically by a low cast barber before day light. She takes bath in the river in pre-dawn darkness and returns before light so as to spare her neighbours the sight of a widow, a sign of bad omen. She is not allowed to be present in auspicious ceremonies.

 

The author brings out the orthodox Tamil Brahmin rituals and rural scenes vividly. There are pallanguzhi games, four course meals on banana leaf, bullock cart journeys, bathing in Kavery river, acute but unspoken tensions and politics within joint families, servants for domestic help and for farm work, poonul ceremonies, Golu (exihibtion of dolls) during Navaratri festival, cotton dhotis for men, silk sarees for women, silk paavaadais for girls and kudumis (tufts) for boys. There are strict practices of purification through bathing and other rituals after contacts with lower castes. There are the typical TamBrahm expressions in Sanskritised Tamil. Some young Brahmins including Vairam rebel against Brahminical exclusiveness and start mixing with non-Brahmins. 

 

While the story is mostly about the life and struggles of Brahmins, the author gives slight touches of the external world. She gives glimpses of Dravidian movement against Brahmin domination and the national Independence movement for freedom from the British rule. There are debates about the larger social issues of superstitions, prejudice and blind adherence to unjust and irrational traditions. The non-Brahmins celebrate Ravana as the hero to spite and ridicule Rama worshipped by Brahmins.

Brahmins from the village migrate to the cities and to the west, leaving village agraharams (Brahmin neighbourhood) empty and deserted. There are several such ghost village Agraharams around my own village Alangudi Mahajanam, which is sixty km from Kulithalai town, going along the route of Kaveri river. A few old Brahmins still move around like ghosts in desolate streets with haunted houses. 

 

The only problem with the novel is that it is too long, running into more than six hundred pages. In the first two hundred pages, Padma builds the story and raises the expectations of the readers. But thereafter she keeps repeating details of marriages, pregnancies, births, deaths and ceremonies one after another without any exciting action, suspense or drama. One gets lost in so many names and details of their routine activities. The story flows placidly and monotonously like the Kaveri river in Trichy area. It looks like the way in which old grandmothers weave and repeat stories putting their grand children to sleep. 

 

The long story of Sivakami reminds me of ‘Sivakamiyin Sabatham’, the famous epic novel of Kalki which is longer. But Kalki keeps the readers anticipating with excitement before each chapter till the end. But one should give allowance to the fact that this is the first novel of Padma. Her second novel “The ever after of Ashwin Rao” is shorter and more gripping till the end. She takes control of the story herself with her own experience, creativity and imagination. 

 

With this novel, Padma has followed admirably in the footsteps of R K Narayan in opening up South Indian society to the international readers in the English language. Narayan did it during the colonial times with the help of his literary contacts such as Graham Green who introduced him to publishers in London. But Padma has struck it competitively on her own in US as any other American writer. It is admirable that Padma's novel has got positive critical reviews from mainstream American media and literary circles. The Americans and westerners are struck by the success stories of South Indians such as Sunder Pichai and Satya Nadella in Silicon Valley. The nomination of Kamala Harris, born to a Tamil Brahmin mother (Shyamala Gopalan), as a Vice presidential candidate in this year's election will add to the interest in South Indian culture. She said, "My mother instilled in my sister, Maya, and me the values that would chart the course of our lives. She taught me that service to others gives life purpose and meaning". This is the philosophy of Sivakami, the main character in the novel.

Padma has used the same simple and direct story telling method of Narayan. There are no complicated expressions, mysterious meanderings or Freudian analysis. The story moves directly and chronologically with clear descriptions of characters, places and events. The stories of both Padma and Narayan are authentic portrayals of the traditional South Indian society. Both have succeeded in making effective use of the English language to bring the culture and people alive and natural.

The only difference is that Narayan had lived all his life among his Malgudian characters, while Padma’s experience is second-hand. She was born and brought up in Canada. So she has no direct personal experience of what happens in the story. Her Tamil parents had emigrated to Canada from Trichy. She now lives in Arkansas working as a professor of literature and creative writing. Padma says that the novel is based on the stories she had heard from her own grand mother as well as from her relatives. 

Padma has gone beyond the Tamil and English speaking worlds. She has translated a Brazilian novel " Sao Bernardo" into English. The Portuguese used in Sao Bernardo is provincial from the rural northern interior part of Brazil and spoken hundred years back. Padma has done a remarkable job of bringing the Brazilian characters alive with her expert translation skills.

 

In this novel 'Toss of a lemon', Padma has sprinkled a lot of typical Tamil expressions and words such as kanna (darling for boy), puja (worship ceremony), jimikki (earrings), kolam (design of connecting dots through lines with rice flour in the front of the house), pazhaya sadam (rice fermented with water overnight), siddhas ( itinerant ascetics), tiffin, iddli and dosa, sambar and rasam , pacchadi (yogurt and cucumber), veeboothi (sacred white ash applied in forehead), chithi (aunt) and Aiyo (expression of shock, surprise or pity).

 

Kamala Harris used the Tamil word "Chithi" (aunt) in her address while accepting the nomination as Vice Presidential candidate. The words ‘Aiyo’ and ‘Aiaiyo’ have recently got included in the Oxford Dictionary. My golf buddies in Delhi shout ‘Aiyo’ when I miss long putts and scream ‘Aiaiyo’ when I mess up short ones.

The Great Tamil poet Bharathiar, who wrote

தேமதுரத் தமிழோசை உலகமெலாம்

பரவும் வகை செய்தல் வேண்டும" 

(the sweet melody of Tamil should be spread around the world), should be smiling from the heaven and cheering for Kamala and Padma....

 

The ever after of Ashwin Rao – novel by Padma Viswanathan

I read this novel after having liked Padma Viswanathan’s translation of a Brazilian novel “Sao Bernardo”.

“The ever after of Ashwin Rao” is about the familiar issues of cultural challenges and adjustment of Indians in the west pulled by their old Indian roots and pushed by the western culture. Ashwin Rao, the psychiatrist, goes to Canada to interview the families of the victims of the Air India crash from the bombs placed in the aircraft by Sikh extremists. Ashwin, who had lived in Canada earlier, spends most of his time with the Tamil Brahmin family of Prof Sethuraman who help another professor Venkat who lost his son and wife in the crash. In facing the tragedy, both the professors renew and intensify their faith in Shivasakthi a guru in India. The children of Sethuraman, born in Canada, have adopted seamlessly to the Canadian way of life while respecting the Indian mindset and traditions of their parents. But Venkat drives his wife and son crazy with his strict and stubborn patriarchal domination and control. Ashwin himself continues as a bachelor unable to decide and commit to the love offered by a Canadian woman and later the interest shown by an Indian widow.

Padma has connected the story to the Golden temple incident and the anti-Sikh riots in Delhi following the assassination of Mrs Indira Gandhi as the events which hurt Sikh sentiments, build up extremism and the bombing of the plane. Padma’s detached points of view on these tragic political events of India give a fresh outsider’s perspective different from the standard patriotic Indian narrative and the criticism of foreigners. Padma has not dared to dive deep into the Indian socio-political issues, given her own limited understanding. She has, however, dug up deep into Canadian issues such as racial discrimination and indifference to the bombing. Her comments on Indo-Canadian duality and dilemmas are authoritative and profound. She is even more authentic in the portrayal of the spiritual Tamil Brahmin characters confronted by Canadian materialism. She has used many typical Tamil Brahmin expressions to give authenticity to her characters. 

Padma’s talents as a creative writer and imaginative story teller come out clearly in this interesting and enjoyable novel.

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”, FDR in the movie “Warm Springs”

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”, the famous quote of Franklin D Roosevelt (FDR) resonated with me in these days of fear of Corona infection. While researching on this, I came across the film “Warm Springs” which is about FDR’s paralytic stroke and how he overcame the disability and fear and became one of the greatest Presidents of the United States.

The quote about fear was not just a rhetoric of FDR’s inaugural address, written by clever speech writers. It came from the bottom of the heart of FDR himself based on his own personal fears after he was disabled by paralysis in August 1921. During his summer stay in the family vacation home at Campobello Island in Canada, he went for a swim in the lake. When he came back, he had pain in the legs and hips. He went to bed. But he could not get up or stand or walk thereafter. The doctor diagnosed it as Infantile polio which was prevalent at that time among children but hit the adults also rarely. He was paralysed from waist down and lost the use of his legs. He needed help to dress, undress and to use the toilet and bathroom. He was devastated and devoured by dark fears.

At that time, he was a strong and healthy 38-year old ambitious man with a promising future ahead. He used to play polo, golf and tennis. He enjoyed shooting, sailing and rowing. He had studied at Harvard and Columbia universities and became an Assistant Secretary of Navy in the Federal government. He had attended the inauguration of his uncle Theodore Roosevelt as President. FDR was a rising star and had dreams of a promising future until the tragedy struck in 1921.

Besides suffering from severe pain, FDR felt anger and shame. He felt angry when other people sympathized and pitied.  He was ashamed since he was considered as a “cripple” a stigma at that time. So he left his family and went away to Florida and spent time in his house boat. There he heard of the “ warm springs” a resort in Georgia which had thermal springs which helped with hydrotherapy. But when he went there, he was even more angry.  The sight of other crippled people around him made him disgusted. The resort was poorly maintained and restricted the use by the cripples only during off season. The healthy rich people who used the thermal resort during the season did not like the presence of the cripples. When FDR insisted for using the springs during the season, he was given separate timings and he had to use separate room for dining since the healthy guests did not like to see the cripples in the main dining room. FDR felt humiliated.

It was at this time that a physiotherapist arrives to the rescue of FDR. She helps him with exercises and more importantly changes his mindset. She helps him to get out of his denial mode and mental paralysis. She makes him accept and live with the reality. She makes him feel comfortable with his own body besides feeling at home in the crowd of other disabled people. It was only then that he starts a new life. He starts joining the group activities and begins to laugh and enjoy their company. He invests his own money and buys up the resort and improves the facilities. Even after he left the resort, it continued as a reputed rehabilitation centre in the country. In fact, his life insurance money after his death was pledged to the trust which ran the centre.

Born in a wealthy aristocratic family, FDR had lived a privileged life. It was only after his own physical suffering and seeing the misery of other fellow polio victims that FDR discovered true compassion and genuine empathy for the disadvantaged. These new virtues of FDR motivated him even more for his New Deal policies to make life better for those unemployed and impoverished by the Great Depression.

When he was fighting the pain with shame and anger, the last thing on his mind was politics. He just wanted to get away from every one and wanted to live privately. Even his possessive mother favoured his retirement from public life. But his friend and political advisor Louis Howe kept insisting for FDR’s return to politics. Eleanor, his wife, also supported it so that he could divert his mind from his private suffering. So reluctantly, FDR agreed to go back to New York and revive his political career. He won the election to be the governor of New York state in 1928. He then contested and won four consecutive elections to Presidency, a record in the electoral history of the country. He lead US at the most challenging and traumatic times of the Great Depression and the second World War from 1933 to 1945.

FDR’s handicap was kept as a kind of secret from the public. He did not want the people to see his disabled condition and ensured that he was never seen using his wheel chair in public. His public appearances were carefully choreographed to hide the secret of his handicap. He would walk a few steps on the stage with the help of metal braces from hip to foot on both sides and holding on to clutches or cane. He usually appeared in public standing upright, supported on one side by an aide or one of his sons. The press and photographers also quietly collaborated and never talked about his handicap or published photos of him in wheel chair. Thank God, there was no Trump or Fox news at that time. The only time he moved around in wheel chair publicly was when he visited the hospital with wounded and amputated soldiers. He joked with them that he did not need legs to become President.

Throughout his public life after 1921, he had the constant fear that he might fall while trying to walk with the help of braces. He feared that his secret of disability might be exposed and political career finished.  

  

There was another secret too. Before the paralysis, FDR had fallen in love with his wife’s social secretary Lucy Mercer. When his wife Eleanor found out and confronted him, he wanted divorce. They had five children at that time. But the strong-willed and widowed mother of FDR ruled out divorce as a stigma for the family. She threatened to cut off FDR’s inheritance. So he agreed to continue with the marriage and stop seeing Lucy. This happened just before the paralytic attack. But many years later, FDR started seeing Lucy again secretly. In fact, she was with him when he died in 1945 at a southern resort, while his wife was in Washington DC. 

The old fox had even more secrets. He had enjoyed the company of many young women and had secret affairs, even as President. Perhaps, the handsome and virile FDR felt the need to prove himself even more after the disability. What is remarkable is that his children knew these escapades and were even accomplices to keep the old man happy. Eleanor came to know about these after FDR’s death. 

Both in public and private lives, FRD kept his sufferings to himself fiercely. He did not want to share his feelings of fear, pain and grief. He suffered silently and stoically. He was lonely and tried to avoid as much as possible help from others. He always pushed his boundaries of disability, bearing pain and taking risks.This made him stronger mentally. He went beyond concealing his suffering. He went out of his way to look cheerful, charming, lively, playful and humorous in public. These relentless efforts for external appearances became ingrained as habits gradually and became mark of his personality.

The successful way in which FDR managed to overcome his disability, pain and fears gave him extra self-confidence when he competed with his opponents in politics. This is the secret of his extraordinary success to have been elected as four-term president, a record in American history. 

The poignant and powerful movie of FDR’s story in “ Warm Springs” is inspiring to stay positive and optimistic at this unprecedented testing and distressing time of Corona virus which has paralysed people mentally imposing the disability and handicap of social distancing. 

Confession on my birthday

I thank all the friends who greeted me on 10 May with birthday wishes. But I have a confession. 10 May is not my date of birth.

Beg your pardon. I don’t know my actual date of birth. My mother, who is illiterate, does not know. My semi literate late father knew the cards in rummy which caused his loss but did not care to record my date of birth. No one knows. No birth certificate from hospital. I was born at home in the village.

So how did I get the date of birth? It was given arbitrarily by the village (Raramuthiraikottai) school teacher when I got admitted in the first grade.

My case was not unique. Most of my classmates were also given date of birth by the teacher.

Every year the teacher will round up the village kids around the age of five and arrange an admission ceremony on the day of Saraswati Pooja, a festival celebrated for Saraswati, the goddess of learning.

Our elementary school of about thirty students had two teachers. Our school was a single room thatched hut where all the students from class 1 to 5 sat in the same room on the floor. The classes were separated into different corners or wall sides. Everyone could hear and see what is happening in the other four classes.

None of us celebrated birthdays in the class or school or street. It was unheard of among my village friends. We never got new dress for birthdays. We had to wait for Diwali festival, when everyone got new dress.

We never sang “happy birthday to you” in the village. We learnt ABCD English in the fifth grade.

After class five, some of my friends and me joined the Higher Elementary School (grade six to eight) in the neighbouring bigger village Mariammankovil, about four kms from ours. The school got upgraded to High School when we passed out from eighth standard. So we continued for three more years and finished eleventh grade. We never had any birthday parties in the school.

Then I moved to Pushpam college in Poondi, four kms walk from my village. Even my college friends never had any birthday parties. Funny eh?

I did not celebrate on 10 May 2020. I have never celebrated in the last 67 years. I don’t feel like it. I feel shy.

I do not get a sense of joy or a celebratory feeling with the song in English “Happy birthday to you”. It feels unnatural. In Tamil culture, many things are unsaid; wishes unexpressed; greetings undeclared. But unstated feelings are understood and implicit.

I pretend to be modern, cosmopolitan and 'passionate about Latin America' but deep inside, I am still the same boy from the village, filled with insecurity, ignorance, uncertainty and the fear that some day I will be exposed for my incorrect date of birth or that others will find out my about my true self. The truth is..I don't know my date of birth nor my true self... and I ask myself as in the song of Bhaagapirivinai film of 1959,
“ ஏன் பிறந்தாய் மகனே…..ஏன் பிறந்தாயோ “ ( why were you born son.. why were you born )