Unlike most people who fuss over kids, I have this huge soft corner for oldies. My heart goes out to the aged on the planet, especially India and especially my parents (Ok, I'm in confession mode).
I hate to see old men toiling on the roads or their privileged brethren living in denial after retirement. I hate to see old arthritic women being womanhandled by daughters-in-law AFTER they have been rendered feeble.
I feel perpetually guilty about not being able to spend enough time with my parents and more each time I read these emotional accounts about how somebody did not find the time for them and how we should pay heed to them lest we regret.
I don't know about other parents but let me tell you about mine. My mother was a homemaker who devoted her entire life to her three headstrong children, me being the most difficult. She was no whine baby though, having carved out an independent identity through her phenomenal social work. A huge fan of Mahatma Gandhi-- which explains my inclination too, she has a very strong sense of right and wrong-- which, I tell myself, explains my behaviour on this blog too! :-)
During the milliseconds she got to spare, she participated actively against all kinds of unfair practices -- animal slaughter, injustice to women, care for the elderly, poor kids, exploitation of labour; wrote copiously and intelligently on Gandhi, Jainism and other issues. Her abridged version of one of the most complicated texts on Jainism is highly recommended by Jain scholars, no less.
Hers was not reactionary activism (no `anti-dam till I die'); she always proposed a constructive way out of issues by spreading awareness, collecting public opinion, and was forever striving for a more human existence for the underprivileged. It could mean serving water, and sometimes snacks, to the thirsty municipal kids near our school at an inconvenient 10 am and a highly inconvenient 3 pm everyday; it could mean buying and carrying rations to her home for a poor, old lady who was ill-treated by her bahu; it could mean worrying the night away about a bird trapped in a jammed window or caring for the neighbour who has recently lost her son.
Iraq distressed her a lot. The day US attacked that country, she would update herself every hour on that ghastly assertion of power. She spent nights listlessly, mourning for the dead and feeling agitated at the mounting toll. ``Who is the terrorist here,'' she wanted to know.
To some measure, the three of us have inherited her compassion and a highly evolved sense of justice (Or so we happily believe.) but I cannot see myself going to her lengths to ease someone's pain. The other day I found her sitting on the bed after a bath looking pensive and staring into space. I asked her what the matter was. With a pained look, she told me, ``Look at those workers in the building compound (redoing the flooring). They have to work so hard. It's terrible.''
From then on, I would see each of these five workers peeling a mango at lunchtime and fiddling with a Rs 5 coin given for `tea'. I did not ask about their donor. No, we were not crorepatis. But my parents have always had this idea that what we had, we had to share.
With the result that though we were reasonably well-off (my dad was the first in our large extended family to go abroad in the 1960s) , we never over-indulged. We were given everything in pairs so that we could not want more, but as we grew up, we imbibed simplicity and did not covet material pleasures-- first, because we knew we could afford them and second, because we did not need them.
Her simplicity startled everyone. ``A Gujju and doesn't deck up or want to flaunt?'' everyone wanted to know. She was more into thought and effective action than appearance, I would tell them then (and tell them now about myself hoping they believe me). If the world saw a stunner in her, the fact was coincidental and incidental.
For a woman whose world was confined to running around her children, she is not just bright but extremely sharp. I have never been able to defeat her at chess, or beat her at multiplication even with a calculator. I have seen philanthropists scratching their heads over accounts and my mum giving them the answer in a blink. Her wit still has most of us rolling on the side for days.
So, what kind of a mum is she? As independent as her personality is, she is a world class care giver. Our friends were totally floored by her-they admired her intellect, flawless looks--classical beauty, glowing skin, and a disarming smile, her unassuming nature and humaneness. In the seventies, she was the first to introduce the world we knew to Chinese and Italian dishes much before they became a household name. She baked eggless cakes and biscuits that became a rage at a time nobody baked at home
She suffers me gladly. I don't remember a single occasion when she hollered at me or beat the hell out of me though I have given and give her ample occasions to. She taught by setting an example.
Each day, you'd find her waiting at the door at 10 am when I came home during school break. If I was late by five whole minutes, you'd find her at my neighbour's place inquiring if I'd been there. Ditto for 1 pm, when I arrived home.
Instead of forbidding us from eating outside food, she patiently explained to us the merits of home-cooked food and demerits of rekdis and stalls. Unlike other friends therefore, I was rarely tempted to eat out. It's the unattainable that has an irresistible lure, remember? It helped that she was a great cook and took serious pains to indulge us all --cooking potato poha for me and watana poha for my sister as one wouldn't have the other. Just for the record, she cooked four times a day, never recycling the morning breakfast for lunch and so on. What was left over was simply given away.
On the single occasion, I'd borrowed money from a friend for a rotten rasta ka kulfi, I was plagued by guilt. More so, because I repaid the friend after taking money from my mum's cupboard which was always unlocked. The same afternoon, I confessed. What did she do? She smiled, patted my head, hugged me and simply said, ``It's ok,'' aware that the message had gone home. No `why did you do that? you don't know what's good for you.'
She's always encouraged us to make our own decisions- even at the cost of going against her judgment. And for some baffling reason, she's always right even on trivia -- like pressure cooking is not good for health as research is NOW showing, like til oil is a a better cooking medium than groundnut as we all know NOW, or that allopathic drugs can have strong side effects which we have grown wiser about.
Her intuition is fine-tuned to our frequencies so much so that she can tell from our voice if we are feeling low, ill or plain bored. A fiercely independent person, at the age of 70, she ensures we are kept in the dark when she falls ill. She would rather struggle with the help of a paid nurse rather than call us to nurse her to health. But God forbid if any of her children fall ill. She paces the floor day and night, frets and fusses over us and ensures she's got rid of everything that dares to come between us and out well-being. She treated me for typhoid when doctors' prescriptions did not work.
My father is this unassuming person whom one's tempted to underestimate because he's so easy-going. All my childhood, I've helped myself to his umbrella when it rains, and lost it. On average, I have lost about two of HIS umbrellas every season. Usually, he comes to know when he hunts for it and doesn't find it. On his inquiry, I casually let on that I had taken it the previous day and forgot it in the train, cab or college. He nods and walks out in the pouring rain without any shield without so much as a ``Why?''. And, I wait till he buys a new one.
A wiz at biz, his extended family of grandkids call him, conceding his superiority. As for his tech skills, he surpasses all I know. I can decode routine SMSes from this 76-year-old man with stuff like, ``Rlx. m fine. tmrw going to off.'' But some fox me with their exaggeratedly abbreviated lingo and I need to call for help from my teenage neighbour who gasps,``He is too good!'' and rushes off to use it on others.
Like my mum, Dad is a man of few needs and an extremely pleasant temperament. His wardrobe comprises about five shirts and kurtas in all. But tell him about a needy soul, and he digs into his wallet generously. At a puja held at our home the other day, he realised that the soft drinks that had been ordered may not be enough to serve two of the carpenters at work. He promptly put on his cap, walked out to the store and came back hugging five bottles to his chest. I asked why. So he said, ``Let's them enjoy two each. Poor guys! They have been hard at work!''
Clearly, there is some discreet contest between man and wife who've spent 50 years together on who's a better sharer.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
This message is from and about Arun Bhatia, the well-known IAS officer who took on the system and was shunted out year after year. Because he spent about a decade on UN assignments, his transfers number only 26 (in 26 years spent in the country).
He has uncovered various scams in Mumbai and elsewhere: the urban land ceiling, corruption in malnutrition, etc. He paid the price for each scam with a transfer and a growing unpopularity within the IAS cadre itself.
He has the controversial distinction of probably being the only officer to have been unanimously voted out of office when he was Pune municipal commissioner. Such was the fear of him continuing.
I have known him since 1993, when he was the FDA commissioner. He is as well-mannered as he is articulate. There was a time when Pune was caught by the Arun Bhatia bug and couldnt do without him. Mr Bhatia is now retired and settled in Pune.
I have taken the liberty to pare this down a bit. Do share your thoughts, all
FORGIVE THOSE WHO CAN'T "WORK" WITHIN OUR SYSTEM
Said a distraught mother to her twelve year old daughter in a boarding school: "Why do you cry all the time, my baby? Look at the other children enjoying themselves."
The girl wiped her tears and looked at her mother, not without surprise. "Because, Mama, I miss you all the time. The others cry for a few days but I cry till the time comes for going home again."
It was then the mother's turn to cry.
Through all her years of schooling the girl was never reconciled to the separation from her family. Teachers, students and other parents said she was odd. But her mother understood and never questioned her girl again. And nor did she ever point to the other children. For she loved her child for the very reasons that others thought were strange.
Think now of the odd people in the bureaucracy who don't merge with the traffic but continue to struggle against the organisation. After three long decades in harness they have not been able to make peace with corruption and sycophancy. They remain agitated, rebellious and stuffed with criticism that comes gushing out at every turn in the conversation. They are the odd ones who will never settle down in the system. The mad ones who have to be transferred from place to place because they create conflict wherever they go.
The difference is that the school was not a corrupt bureaucracy. The similarity is that some people can never become acclimatized to their environment. And such people are not judged as quite normal.
It is not these people who are odd; it is the system. If children have to stay away from parents it is odd. If honest people have to smile in a corrupt organization it is even more absurd. The girl's mother did understand her child but who has the perception to understand the odd bureaucrat.
The context
Arun was posted as the Commissioner of the Pune Municipal Corporation and transferred by the government after a week. There was a public protest and some citizens went to court, defeated the government and had the transfer cancelled. However after a few weeks Arun was voted out of the corporation by the elected councilors and this time nobody approached the court. A section of opinion believed that Arun was too radical and should have been able to work within the system to improve the city.
The story
Arun was an old horse, now retired from a putrifying third world civil service in India (the corrupted IAS). The bones creak now and then but he still has the trained mind of a racer. There are many stories he could tell – one worse than the other. How money is made; how public treasuries are drained; how a country has been ruined. After a while you will cease to be alarmed and will become like the rest of us – self-centered, insensitive, afraid and, above all, useless.
So why is Arun writing this?
Because one day, in perfect harmony with the drowsy afternoon, while he was watching the fishing boats from the sands of Alibag, after three decades in the bureaucracy, after losing his promotion, after being transferred 26 times in 26 years, after being assessed as "mentally imbalanced" by corrupt but empowered superiors, after numerous notices and enquiries for bad and "un-officer like conduct", he justifiably believed the worst to be over. Till two men walked up to him. They were from Pune. One was a university teacher, grey and knowledgeable; the other, a young member of an NGO dealing with human rights. Both were exceedingly courteous and well informed about governance theory.
He was therefore horrified to hear the older one admonish him with the words, "Mr. Bhatia, you have let us down. The citizens of Pune poured into the streets to support you, they defeated the government in the High Court and brought you back into the Pune Corporation. But you just fought with everyone and had yourself thrown out again. Our effort in bringing you back achieved nothing."
The younger one continued, "We had empowered you. You could have done something for the city. But you were like a bull in a China shop. You smashed everything and didn't build any relationships to improve the administration."
The words stung. "Then why have you walked up to this bull?" he asked. "Just leave him to his bullish ways," he shot back in anger.
"No," they said, "we are your supporters. Don't get us wrong. We criticize your methods because we want you to be effective. We want men like you to win and not get pounded by the system."
That did make him feel better but he realized that the academic and the young rebel knew not too much about how the country was being run, how the "system" worked from within. He looked at the cloth pouch the young man carried and wondered what books he had read on the subject. It was necessary to inform people about the rot.
One shouldn't make too many enemies they said. So how does one do this if one wants to improve the system? If it is found that road surfacing is poor and money has been claimed on the basis of false measurements should one inspect only two roads and leave the rest? Prosecute only one engineer and ignore the remaining eight? If there is harassment in the passing of building plans should one instruct that the first five plans every month should be passed soon without bribes and the rest can be delayed so that enemies are not created in the building department? If builders violate rules and helpless purchasers face problems should corporation officials be told not to take action in more than ten cases every month so that they can be paid for their silence in the remaining cases? When vulnerable sections (single women, widows, elderly people whose children are not in Pune to defend them etc.) living in the high population density areas of the old city are bullied by neighbours who encroach, block ventilation or build toilets near kitchens and entrances of weaker neighbours, should the corporation officials be told to let sleeping dogs lie (for a fee) and turn a blind eye to the hundreds of complaints of this type that come pouring in?
The crucial question was, does one address all complaints and help all citizens or only some? Should some matters and victims be left as they are to allow the corporation to feed upon them?
Once the news spread that Arun's doors were open, the number of persons with complainants and problems that started arriving at his office rose to 120 per day, going up on some days to 300. It would have gone much higher. This is not surprising, given a population of three million and a corrupt administration. Arun had come to the Pune Corporation to help these people. Should he have told them that he would attend to no more than five complaints a day and the remaining applications would be destroyed? "You shouldn't have rocked the boat so much. You should have worked with the system; tried to muster support within the system," they insisted.
It became obvious that they had no idea of the real working of the system. If you aim at reform or change, the boat will always be rocked because there are strong vested interests (councilors, contractors, staff/officials, favoured suppliers of materials etc.). So by keeping the peace, by keeping everyone happy in the system one could stay in the post of Commissioner, PMC, for two or three years but nothing else would be achieved. "If you wanted me to do this you shouldn't have brought me back to this city," he retorted.
"On the contrary," he said, ``the citizens didn't sustain their support to me. They left my side just when I needed them most, just when I had developed a small core team of good men in the municipal administration, just when I was beginning to become effective. True, citizens did come out on the streets and a group went to court and had my transfer cancelled. I respect them and am grateful. But what happened just a few weeks later when the corporators threw (voted) me out? "
This was an old syndrome; it had happened before with Arun and with others. Protest against the transfer of good officers is seldom sustained by the middle class in India, too complacent and preoccupied with its own small world to see the rot around it. Too scared to try to do anything about it.
How does one keep both sides happy – the citizens on the one hand and the PMC corporators and staff, on the other?
Take another aspect of bad municipal governance. Does one try and enforce some priorities in budget making or not? When raw sewage (untreated shit) is sent into a river that could be made beautiful, when mosquitoes and disease invade us every year, should one not divert funds to sewage treatment plants, sanitation, toilet construction, and public hospitals? But corporators and their contractors (who also manage elections) prefer large civil works like stadiums from where funds can be diverted to private pockets, party coffers and elections. Arun tried to divert just 48 crores out of a budget of 1,000 crores and was thrown out of the post.
Then Arun told them the story. Eleven corporators had met him and said they would definitely vote in his favour on the issue of removing him from the corporation. There were some politicians who were happy because people's grievances had been addressed by him and pending work started in their municipal wards (urban electoral constituencies). But, very surprisingly, when the day came, they voted in favour of his removal. Later, they told him they were compelled to do this because of stern directives from their political parties. The logic was that even a single vote going in his favour would jeopardize the credibility of the elected councilors and indicate that the Commissioner was not insane or incapable of working in an organization or with politicians. A unanimous vote against him would be clinching evidence and would convince the media and the citizens that he was utterly and totally unacceptable to everyone, that he was too harsh etc.
"Their strategy had worked. Their version was swallowed by people like you." He said this closing his eyes and surrendering himself to the breeze that had been patiently wooing them, sometimes gently, sometimes petulantly, blowing their words out of range.
He has uncovered various scams in Mumbai and elsewhere: the urban land ceiling, corruption in malnutrition, etc. He paid the price for each scam with a transfer and a growing unpopularity within the IAS cadre itself.
He has the controversial distinction of probably being the only officer to have been unanimously voted out of office when he was Pune municipal commissioner. Such was the fear of him continuing.
I have known him since 1993, when he was the FDA commissioner. He is as well-mannered as he is articulate. There was a time when Pune was caught by the Arun Bhatia bug and couldnt do without him. Mr Bhatia is now retired and settled in Pune.
I have taken the liberty to pare this down a bit. Do share your thoughts, all
FORGIVE THOSE WHO CAN'T "WORK" WITHIN OUR SYSTEM
Said a distraught mother to her twelve year old daughter in a boarding school: "Why do you cry all the time, my baby? Look at the other children enjoying themselves."
The girl wiped her tears and looked at her mother, not without surprise. "Because, Mama, I miss you all the time. The others cry for a few days but I cry till the time comes for going home again."
It was then the mother's turn to cry.
Through all her years of schooling the girl was never reconciled to the separation from her family. Teachers, students and other parents said she was odd. But her mother understood and never questioned her girl again. And nor did she ever point to the other children. For she loved her child for the very reasons that others thought were strange.
Think now of the odd people in the bureaucracy who don't merge with the traffic but continue to struggle against the organisation. After three long decades in harness they have not been able to make peace with corruption and sycophancy. They remain agitated, rebellious and stuffed with criticism that comes gushing out at every turn in the conversation. They are the odd ones who will never settle down in the system. The mad ones who have to be transferred from place to place because they create conflict wherever they go.
The difference is that the school was not a corrupt bureaucracy. The similarity is that some people can never become acclimatized to their environment. And such people are not judged as quite normal.
It is not these people who are odd; it is the system. If children have to stay away from parents it is odd. If honest people have to smile in a corrupt organization it is even more absurd. The girl's mother did understand her child but who has the perception to understand the odd bureaucrat.
The context
Arun was posted as the Commissioner of the Pune Municipal Corporation and transferred by the government after a week. There was a public protest and some citizens went to court, defeated the government and had the transfer cancelled. However after a few weeks Arun was voted out of the corporation by the elected councilors and this time nobody approached the court. A section of opinion believed that Arun was too radical and should have been able to work within the system to improve the city.
The story
Arun was an old horse, now retired from a putrifying third world civil service in India (the corrupted IAS). The bones creak now and then but he still has the trained mind of a racer. There are many stories he could tell – one worse than the other. How money is made; how public treasuries are drained; how a country has been ruined. After a while you will cease to be alarmed and will become like the rest of us – self-centered, insensitive, afraid and, above all, useless.
So why is Arun writing this?
Because one day, in perfect harmony with the drowsy afternoon, while he was watching the fishing boats from the sands of Alibag, after three decades in the bureaucracy, after losing his promotion, after being transferred 26 times in 26 years, after being assessed as "mentally imbalanced" by corrupt but empowered superiors, after numerous notices and enquiries for bad and "un-officer like conduct", he justifiably believed the worst to be over. Till two men walked up to him. They were from Pune. One was a university teacher, grey and knowledgeable; the other, a young member of an NGO dealing with human rights. Both were exceedingly courteous and well informed about governance theory.
He was therefore horrified to hear the older one admonish him with the words, "Mr. Bhatia, you have let us down. The citizens of Pune poured into the streets to support you, they defeated the government in the High Court and brought you back into the Pune Corporation. But you just fought with everyone and had yourself thrown out again. Our effort in bringing you back achieved nothing."
The younger one continued, "We had empowered you. You could have done something for the city. But you were like a bull in a China shop. You smashed everything and didn't build any relationships to improve the administration."
The words stung. "Then why have you walked up to this bull?" he asked. "Just leave him to his bullish ways," he shot back in anger.
"No," they said, "we are your supporters. Don't get us wrong. We criticize your methods because we want you to be effective. We want men like you to win and not get pounded by the system."
That did make him feel better but he realized that the academic and the young rebel knew not too much about how the country was being run, how the "system" worked from within. He looked at the cloth pouch the young man carried and wondered what books he had read on the subject. It was necessary to inform people about the rot.
One shouldn't make too many enemies they said. So how does one do this if one wants to improve the system? If it is found that road surfacing is poor and money has been claimed on the basis of false measurements should one inspect only two roads and leave the rest? Prosecute only one engineer and ignore the remaining eight? If there is harassment in the passing of building plans should one instruct that the first five plans every month should be passed soon without bribes and the rest can be delayed so that enemies are not created in the building department? If builders violate rules and helpless purchasers face problems should corporation officials be told not to take action in more than ten cases every month so that they can be paid for their silence in the remaining cases? When vulnerable sections (single women, widows, elderly people whose children are not in Pune to defend them etc.) living in the high population density areas of the old city are bullied by neighbours who encroach, block ventilation or build toilets near kitchens and entrances of weaker neighbours, should the corporation officials be told to let sleeping dogs lie (for a fee) and turn a blind eye to the hundreds of complaints of this type that come pouring in?
The crucial question was, does one address all complaints and help all citizens or only some? Should some matters and victims be left as they are to allow the corporation to feed upon them?
Once the news spread that Arun's doors were open, the number of persons with complainants and problems that started arriving at his office rose to 120 per day, going up on some days to 300. It would have gone much higher. This is not surprising, given a population of three million and a corrupt administration. Arun had come to the Pune Corporation to help these people. Should he have told them that he would attend to no more than five complaints a day and the remaining applications would be destroyed? "You shouldn't have rocked the boat so much. You should have worked with the system; tried to muster support within the system," they insisted.
It became obvious that they had no idea of the real working of the system. If you aim at reform or change, the boat will always be rocked because there are strong vested interests (councilors, contractors, staff/officials, favoured suppliers of materials etc.). So by keeping the peace, by keeping everyone happy in the system one could stay in the post of Commissioner, PMC, for two or three years but nothing else would be achieved. "If you wanted me to do this you shouldn't have brought me back to this city," he retorted.
"On the contrary," he said, ``the citizens didn't sustain their support to me. They left my side just when I needed them most, just when I had developed a small core team of good men in the municipal administration, just when I was beginning to become effective. True, citizens did come out on the streets and a group went to court and had my transfer cancelled. I respect them and am grateful. But what happened just a few weeks later when the corporators threw (voted) me out? "
This was an old syndrome; it had happened before with Arun and with others. Protest against the transfer of good officers is seldom sustained by the middle class in India, too complacent and preoccupied with its own small world to see the rot around it. Too scared to try to do anything about it.
How does one keep both sides happy – the citizens on the one hand and the PMC corporators and staff, on the other?
Take another aspect of bad municipal governance. Does one try and enforce some priorities in budget making or not? When raw sewage (untreated shit) is sent into a river that could be made beautiful, when mosquitoes and disease invade us every year, should one not divert funds to sewage treatment plants, sanitation, toilet construction, and public hospitals? But corporators and their contractors (who also manage elections) prefer large civil works like stadiums from where funds can be diverted to private pockets, party coffers and elections. Arun tried to divert just 48 crores out of a budget of 1,000 crores and was thrown out of the post.
Then Arun told them the story. Eleven corporators had met him and said they would definitely vote in his favour on the issue of removing him from the corporation. There were some politicians who were happy because people's grievances had been addressed by him and pending work started in their municipal wards (urban electoral constituencies). But, very surprisingly, when the day came, they voted in favour of his removal. Later, they told him they were compelled to do this because of stern directives from their political parties. The logic was that even a single vote going in his favour would jeopardize the credibility of the elected councilors and indicate that the Commissioner was not insane or incapable of working in an organization or with politicians. A unanimous vote against him would be clinching evidence and would convince the media and the citizens that he was utterly and totally unacceptable to everyone, that he was too harsh etc.
"Their strategy had worked. Their version was swallowed by people like you." He said this closing his eyes and surrendering himself to the breeze that had been patiently wooing them, sometimes gently, sometimes petulantly, blowing their words out of range.
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