Here's a piece from Le monde. To me, its mostly mumbo jumbo. All I can recognise are two names: Tushar Gandhi's and mine.

If anyone cares to translate, she will get a favourable mention on this blog. (What else can a journalist offer?)

Tushar Gandhi, profession arrière-petit-fils

Gandhi, c'est lui. Lui que les journalistes appellent pour obtenir des informations sur la vie du Mahatma. Lui qui commémore, à Bombay, le 60^e anniversaire de son assassinat, mercredi 30 janvier. Lui que les marques du monde entier contactent pour être autorisées à exploiter l'image de son arrière-grand-père. "Je suis son emblème. Un peu comme la mascotte des Jeux olympiques. Une mascotte qui ne fait pas de sport, mais qui est dans tous les médias", avoue sans honte celui qui veut défendre la philosophie du Mahatma dans une Inde en pleine modernité.

Tushar Gandhi est loin de ressembler à son illustre ancêtre. Sa voix grave et son corps massif sont à l'exact opposé de la maigre silhouette de son arrière-grand-père. Cela n'empêche pas certains de ses concitoyens de lui toucher les pieds en signe de respect. "C'est comme s'ils croyaient toucher ceux du Mahatma. Cela me met très mal à l'aise."

Tushar Gandhi ne sait pas exactement où il est né. Sa mère a accouché il y a 48 ans dans le compartiment de première classe d'un train reliant deux gares du Maharashtra, dans la région de Bombay. Mais ses origines tiennent dans son seul nom. Dès sa plus tendre enfance, son arrière-grand-père, remplit son existence. Il réclame des histoires de princes et d'aventuriers à sa grand-mère ? Elle ne fera que lui conter les épisodes de la vie du Mahatma. Il veut répondre aux coups donnés par ses camarades de classe ? Sa grand-mère lui intime l'ordre de ne pas leur répondre par la violence. Voilà pourquoi, lorsque sa mère vient le chercher à l'école, elle le retrouve souvent en train de se faire battre par les élèves de sa classe. "Ces événements auront eu au moins le mérite de me rapprocher de mon arrière-grand-père", concède-il en souriant.

Tushar Gandhi n'a connu que les cendres du héros de son enfance. Le souvenir de la poussière sacrée lui glissant entre les mains le rend encore tout tremblant. "Mon corps vibrait", se souvient-il. C'était en 1997. Il venait de découvrir l'une des rares urnes contenant les cendres du Mahatma, dans le coffre d'une banque de l'Orissa. Au terme d'une longue bataille juridique avec l'administration indienne, le coffret était finalement vidé à la rencontre de deux fleuves sacrés, le Gange et la Yamuna, comme Gandhi l'aurait souhaité. Lui qui détestait les reliques et avait la hantise d'être idolâtré.

Pourtant, en Inde, Gandhi est bien devenu un dieu. Les musées qui portent son nom ne cessent de se multiplier dans le pays. "Gandhi est vénéré, mais ses idées sont inconnues et son rêve abandonné", déplore son arrière-petit-fils. Pour propager sa philosophie, il a créé un site Internet regroupant toutes les archives existant sur Gandhi.

Inévitablement, la vie du Mahatma se confond avec celle de Tushar Gandhi. Lorsqu'on l'appelle sur son téléphone portable, l'hymne préféré du Mahatma est diffusé en guise de tonalité. Dans le salon de son appartement de Bombay, où il vit avec sa femme et ses deux enfants, l'image du petit homme frêle enveloppé d'une tunique banche est partout. En photo, en figurine de bronze posée sur le téléviseur ou encore en dessin sur une porcelaine installée sur le buffet.

Pour transmettre son héritage, Tushar Gandhi n'avait sans doute pas d'autre choix que de s'imprégner de l'existence de celui qui avait coutume de dire : "Ma vie est mon message." Il a quitté son emploi de graphiste pour se consacrer entièrement à la recherche des plus petites anecdotes concernant son arrière-grand-père et mieux le faire connaître. On apprend ainsi que l'illustre ancêtre a été un précurseur dans la protection de l'environnement. "Il avait l'habitude de coller les lettres l'une sur l'autre pour écrire sur le verso vierge. Ça le terrifiait d'imaginer que l'on pouvait gâcher autant d'arbres. Le seul fait que nous n'ayons pas conscience des conséquences de nos actes individuels l'inquiétait", assure-t-il.

Gandhi n'appartient pas qu'à l'histoire. C'est aussi une marque gérée avec soin par son arrière-petit-fils qui, après avoir tenté de l'exploiter commercialement au bénéfice de la fondation Mahatma Gandhi, créée en 1997, y a renoncé sur fond de polémiques. Aujourd'hui, il autorise uniquement les publicités qui ne sont pas en contradiction avec les principes du père fondateur de l'Inde. Lorsque le constructeur allemand Audi lui a demandé l'autorisation d'utiliser l'image de son arrière-grand-père pour une publicité, le refus a été catégorique : "Vous imaginez Gandhi vendre une voiture de luxe allemande ? Si la voiture avait été hybride, respectueuse de l'environnement, j'aurais certainement accepté." En bon gestionnaire de marques, Tushar Gandhi défend la sienne : "Gandhi est la marque la plus populaire au monde. Soixante ans après sa mort, il est le seul homme susceptible de déclencher un acte d'achat partout dans le monde."

Le pouvoir évocateur de cette marque explique l'entrée en politique de Tushar Gandhi. Il a été contacté par le Parti du Congrès, auquel appartenait le père de l'indépendance de l'Inde lors de sa lutte contre la colonisation britannique. Mais ça a été rapidement la désillusion. Le parti a refusé de l'investir dans le village natal de son arrière-grand-père, au motif que sa caste lui aurait fait perdre de nombreuses voix, alors même que Gandhi, tout au long de sa vie, avait combattu la ségrégation des castes. "Tushar n'aurait jamais dû rentrer en politique. Tout l'art de Gandhi était justement de faire de la politique sans être un politicien", regrette Seema Kamdar, une journaliste basée à Bombay.

Désormais, Tushar Gandhi consacre son temps à des projets humanitaires dans les villages, "ces lieux désertés par le boom économique du pays", et multiplie les conférences. Certaines de ses déclarations choquent et sont sévèrement critiquées. Lorsque, par exemple, il avoue publiquement qu'il n'est pas végétarien, comme l'était son arrière grand-père. "Une offense gratuite et inutile lorsqu'on fait partie de sa famille", déplore Jitendra Desai, membre d'une organisation gandhienne basée à Ahmedabad.

Son livre sur l'assassinat de Gandhi a suscité les réactions les plus violentes. Let's Kill Gandhi ! ("Tuons Gandhi !") met en cause un groupe de Brahmanes, la caste des prêtres hindous, dans la préparation de l'assassinat de Gandhi. L'effigie de Tushar a été brûlée et il a reçu des menaces de mort. "J'ai clamé haut et fort que ce serait un honneur d'être assassiné, comme mon arrière-grand-père, pour avoir défendu mes idées", répond Tushar Gandhi. Ce qui l'inquiète davantage, c'est plutôt ce cauchemar fait récemment, et dans lequel le monde entier avait oublié Gandhi. Sans sourciller, il ajoute : "Si cela arrivait, je préférerais mourir."

Julien Bouissou, Le Monde, 31.01.08

http://www.lemonde.fr/asie-pacifique/article/2008/01/30/tushar-gandhi-profession-arriere-petit-fils_1005359_3216.html#ens_id=1005283

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What is a human being that does not hurt?
I am extremely hard-hearted about people without a heart and all heart for people who are soft and sweet. :-)
This is not my interpretation about myself but what everybody says about me and I think this is more or less true. Whether right or wrong, I am terrible with people I dislike and I am quite nice with people I find genuine.
I am a reasonably good judge of character but I have made mistakes. The first was in college, when a friend sweet-talked me to penetrate my highly popular group (we were rowdy as hell, never mind my serious bespectacled demeanour)
I realised a day before our class 'social' I had singlehandedly pulled off that she was just so jealous of me. Just as you see in the movies, I was wounded before my big day.
My mum saw my face. She quietly came to me, patted my back, and said, "what's wrong?" I said I never expected this girl to stab me in the back like this. It hurts.
Mum heard me out and calmly said, "It's terrible but you are much bigger than this. Don't let her affect you." There was nothing extraordinary in her words but she was extraordinary. Her energy and power of emotional empathy soothed me so much I instantly felt better and stronger.
On the day of the social, the hurt was there, my eyes welled with tears and for the first time, my friends saw that I too was vulnerable. They rallied around me, and the next thing I knew, I had simply blotted her out of my life. Just like that.
She was around that day, but she had stopped existing for me. And the social went off beautifully. I was compering, performing and coordinating but I didnt remember her a single second and my event was a runaway hit, the talk of all college.

Wily nily, this has become standard strategy ever since. Each time somebody misbehaves, or hurts me, I wipe that person out of my consciousness. It's often interpreted as arrogance but I seriously don't see the person at all for me to think about him or her.
Once, one of these riff-raffs got antsy and demanded,"Why are you behaving like a royal highness, and pretending I dont exist?" And I didnt know what to say to her because I never really went out of my way to ignore her. It happens by default.
Some part of me decides that I shouldnt be wasting time on this worthless person, or it tells me, "He/she doesnt value you." So off he/she goes.

The only time I kicked serious ass was last year, when someone spread some utterly laughable rumours about me. Well-meaning friends saw through it and told me. Ill-meaning friends latched on and spread the word.
I was shocked and hurt that someone could be so malicious but lost no time in hitting back. Usually, I dont hit back because, as I said, to me, such people are beneath contempt and once I blot them out of my life, there is no question of wasting my energy on a non-entity. But this time, I just felt like doing it. So attack I did and the person smarted under it forever, not expecting a non-violent person like to me to get ferocious.
Sometimes, these guys spice up your life.

People get hurt all the time. When some of them confide in me, I tell them to ask themselves one question: "Have my parents brought me up with so much love and care so that I spend some precious moments of my life agonising over this person who means nothing to me?" And pop goes the anguish. Yes, some of it stays but then this gives you tremendous courage to cope.

Try it and tell me.

You guys are going to call me absolutely `middle-class' (I love Ratna Pathak Shah for the way she says it in `Sarabhai vs Sarabhai') for this. But I genuinely believe DD National is the best Indian channel we have. IT has some singing shows, but the bulk of its programming is super stuff--series of cartoonists, how they work, series on rural issues, programme on health issues, educational material for children, lessons on morality and sensitive films.
Each time I click past DD National to Star, Zee, Sony, Sahara and what-have-you, I find someone or the other saying, Oh this contest means the world to me, I want to fulfil my mother's dream or I want to give my dog the best car in the world, and some sundry judges (often, has-beens such as Chunky Pandey, Raveena Tandon or Sonali Bendre and the nightmarishly omnipresent Malaika Arora-Khan).
Someone is praising a contestant or someone is fighting and someone else is crying copiously. Are these guys for real? Can't we have some real reality, people?

It's that time of the year again when we worry about a drought-like situation in Maharashtra, and probably many other parts of the country.
For a Mumbaiwalla, scarce rains means water cuts in the last four months of the year. For a farmer, it means debt and depression. He has spent all his expensive capital (at an interest rate of 30 to 40 %) on the seeds, and has sweated and toiled to sow them. Now he is waiting for the rains to do their job.
If it doesnt rain by July 31, the government will declare a drought in some areas. And when there are no rains, farmers despair and hope their region is declared a drought. Why? So that they can hope to get work on some EGS scheme (work for eight hours for a paltry 50-100 rupees or so) and they can put roti on the table.
Declaring a region drought-hit is not the end of his worries.
1. He may or may not get work on a scheme. It's not guaranteed.
2. The EGS schemes are run by a highly corrupt administration which makes up names of people on the rolls or, if it feels more adventurous, makes up an entire scheme itself. The farmers therefore may continue to starve while the official records show everybody has got work. In case an IAS officer decides to undo the wrong, she is transferred.
3. The money from EGS is erratic. A debt-ridden farmer may sign on a slip of paper saying he earns Rs 100 per day but he may get only Rs 50-60 in hand. The remainder is taken by those people for services granted
And, we are still not talking about what if the region is not declared drought-hit
And, we are still at the farmer's survival; we are still not talking about his heavy duty loan for the seeds which drives him to commit suicide.

Does the sickening Congress wheeling-dealing on July 22, or Rahul Gandhi's `brilliant' speech (how much are we going to fuss over him?), or even all those endless but mindless reality shows make any sense to you now?
Don't you think we have lost all sense of reality somewhere, that reality is not all about dancing and singing?

It's incredible how so many people are giving the clean chit to Manmohan Singh. "He is a good man," goes the refrain. But hello? Whom was all the horse-trading for? All the Rs 25 crore-50 crore getting wheeled into different corners of the world and all those heavy duty abstentions, cross-votings were intended to bail out this man who has somehow emerged dudh ka dhula even after sitting on this muck.
How can a person who allows someone to commit a murder be clean? Didnt Man know what was being done to save his disastrous government? Or are we saying we should go blindfolded when a murder is being committed in front of your eyes?
Why are we so daft?

So many people have been asking me why I quit mid-way. And a small number is also curious to know why I refused to take up a job for a while.
Let me begin at the beginning. And this is one record, off the record, whichever way you look at it because there is none other. I was fed up. I was fed up of what I and everybody else around me was dishing out in the name of journalism day after day. We were all glorified clerks, rushing for a story - please, please, any quote will do -- and dashing it off before the deadline.
We had this list of usual suspects we always spoke to for a quote. There were activists, doctors, lawyers, officials, politicians, even industrialists who were ever ready to give us a byte or quote. They made up the dial-a-quote diary. And believe me, they are all psychos, crazy to see their name in print.
Each one of us is guilty of making heroes and heroines out of them. Shabana Azmi is one. Shobha de is another. Pritish Nandy is the third. There are many more whom I dare not name for I too have used them often.
That's what eventually go to me. That I was writing worthless crap and the paper wanted me to write ONLY worthless crap.
Add to that a totally Worthless Person to coordinate work with and I threw my hands up.
Call it mid-career frustration. I didnt give it up all at once; I tried to set things right, complained that we need to get some quality into the paper. But then, no paper was talking about quality, so why us? Nobody was listening. All they said was relax, we will change things, we will change the WP, we will not let you leave. That was their bottomline. Mine was change everything.
As I had been ill the year before, I was already low on patience and felt like a break. I could have jumped from one frying pan into another, but didnt want to. AT ALL.
So, after months and months of hesitation at the idea of being without a job, I simply quit.
The sabbatical has been the best thing that ever happened to me. It did me a world of good, refreshed my spirits, nourished my soul, recharged my batteries and got me doing things I wanted to. All sorts of people came with all sorts of really flattering offers, and I picked what suited me. Now, I am not talking about those right here but basically, I realised there is a whole world out there which you havent explored.
So, if anyone out there thinks a job is the only way to live, get a life.

I seem to be making it a habit. And now, its positively embarrassing. So I shant apologise for the hopeless delay in writing to you this time. I would rather say thanks for bearing with me. Ya, believe me, I have been losing fans and friends because of my absolute inability to write here.

Now, cant afford that for too long. Guys, please come back. I promise to behave next time.

Am going to be politically incorrect this time. Too much bottled up within, you see.

Am seriously irritated with the way we urbanites decide we are superior to the rural or tribal people or even animals. Why? We speak English, right. We take bath, we have these big, neat houses, an 'education', we eat at a dining table, we go to the gym, know all about raindances, cardio and aerobics, sushi, spanish food, russian coffee, and what-have-you. Our kids go to IB schools or boarding. And, of course, we love dressing up like the west.

In some inexplicable way, that makes us superior to someone who gets his hands dirty toiling on the fields, doesnt get power to run his fan at home or water to nourish his field, lives off roti and onion or just roti on leaner days, cant afford to send his kid to the municipal school beyond 5 years because he needs an additional hand on the field, speaks a coarse dialect of an Indian language and spends a lifetime struggling to make two ends meet .

Heard two-three journos the other day talking (in clipped tones, why that is such a fad I cant fathom) about how Maharashtra chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh insists on talking in English. Said one in a well-cultivated nasal twang that made her voice sharp and highly unappealing, "When I met him, I kept talking in Hindi and Marathi but he would insist on talking in englisss. He knows ours is an engliss publication. And God, he simply cant speak a wordddd.. Uf."

Am equanimous about politicians but whenever I have spoken to this CM, he has happily spoken to me in Hindi and Marathi and when I have spoken in English (I have these spells of blanking out on Marathi), he's responded in that language in a completely legible way.

Considering the exposure of these almighty journos to politicians including the CM is even less than mine, it got me thinking about why they were doing this. It's the age-old problem of reverse chivalry. We have settled our thinking that east or west, English is the best. And anybody who doesnt know the language is doomed.

And God, am I glad I speak it! Imagine how I would have fared had my parents decided to send me to an Indian language school. I know very bright journos earning Rs 20,000 a month after 15 years in the field and not getting half the respect I get only because they went to a non-English school. Naseerudding Shah had once said the same thing about Om Puri: that Puri was a superior actor but not given his due because, well, he was not the suave, English-speaking Shah.

You are reading me today because I am speaking from a position of strength as we see it. Had I studied in Gujarati and timidly complained about discrimination, I wouldnt have got half a ear.

Believe me, it gives me no pleasure to be better-off than them on this count. I think it's terrible the way a country of one billion plus simply sinks its head in the sand, not just with no self-respect but also with lots of shame at being what it is. And what is it that brings this hopeless identity crisis on? I have no idea.

Try speaking to someone in the first class compartment in Hindi and she will give you an offended or a withering look. It's happened with me. When someone speaks in Hindi, I end up answering in English if I think it's an educated person. Years and layers of conditioning that will probably never come off.

We can, however, do something. We can try to be conscious of it each time we run someone down simply because he can't speak English. We can also try to see that we speak an Indian language when we speak to a stranger outside our professional circles, if possible. It's ok if your English gets a little forgotten in a process. Better than to forget a history thats millions of years old. And your own identity.

Who knows, we could actually get some sense of self-pride back along the way, and learn that we arent really too bad after all.

Can sense that pent-up anger rising. So, let me calm my nerves while u take a commercial break. I will be right back.

Sorry for this belated posting. Thanx a million for noticing and plodding me to get back. The thing is I get word-weary. Have had too much of words from childhood to a career that grew on the strength of my words. That’s one of the reasons I simply upped and quit a full-time job, and don’t feel inclined to do a column. Imagine churning out 1,000 words week after week not because you have something to say but jabardasti.
Tragically though, I seem to be never able to get out of wordsmithing. Whatever I do revolves around words, words and more words. Sigh! So, I periodically lay off the blog every few days for a breather…now, I feel like new!
Last week, we had an unlikely visitor. It lay coiled like a black rubber band underneath a table in the unused bedroom. I had already turned the entire house upside down looking for him (or was it her? We’ll settle for `him’ in deference to our male-dominated world, as we don’t know) and was acting on the hubby’s advice of sprinkling phenyl (yes, phenyl) all over to get him out of hiding.
I was dousing the bedroom in this super-smelly liquid, spraying near the bedframe when I spotted him. He was tiny and thin. He had spread himself along the skirting and lay there Zen-like. He would have lain there forever, motionless, had I not summoned people for a look. Once he realized he had company, he stirred, very gently, and gave us the much-needed confirmation that it was indeed him.
All hell then broke loose as we screamed, shrieked and scrambled to the phone, and the security van arrived with three men holding a huge flashlight and hockey sticks. They tried to prise him out of his comfort zone. While they managed to coax him onto the hockey sticks, he refused to make the logical progession into a carry bag. Not even when they sprayed phenyl on him. Instead, he simply bared his fangs. The tiny fellow gave a dekko of his small but distinct hood and everybody took a co-ordinated step back.
It was indeed a baby cobra, the security guys confirmed, that had crawled through the non-existent crack in my main door and slithered purposefully to the farthest corner of our reasonably big house. We would never have known, had not our neighbours been around to witness this housebreak. An earlier inspection by the security guys had yielded nothing as he was virtually invisible to spot.
I shudder to think what would have happened the next morning when my maid swept under the table thinking it’s a long earthworm, or even a rubber band?
But then, such is life. You never know how much of it is left even as we spend every moment asking for more.

In the film `Gandhi', Kasturba has a dialogue which goes something like this, ``Our people are starving because we are wearing clothes made by foreigners.'' Mahatma Gandhi then makes the historical exhortation sparking a bonfire of Lancashire mill cloth that could supposedly be seen right up to England.
Even as we continue to debate the relevance of the epostle of peace and non-violence in these post-modern times of high-value stress and complex economics, this statement has a certain currency that's hard to ignore. There is a sense of anticipation about this side of India. The GDP is seriously looking at a euphoric 10 per cent, much like the sensex (till the day before); the economists and the world have approved of us-- our increasingly globalised environment in which Monsanto has a field day, supermarkets and malls stock only MNC brands, movies in multiplexes are out of reach for the lower middle class, and a consumerist lifestyle propped up on loans and the strengthened rupee to give us a leg up on the social ladder.
Sure, we need to be bullish -- our industrial performance is glowing, we have given the world Nano (after the zero), the gross personal wealth (no pun intended) of the Ambani bros spurs many on to similar marathons, the sundry takeovers of foreign companies achieved and planned but never dreamed, the no-end-in-sight BPO boom, and so on.
But there is another India we have lost sight of, which is not with us or within sighting distance. They are still grappling with bread-and-butter issues, even as we bake cakes by the dozen.For the past ten years, more are more of Them are being driven to suicide. The scene in the countryside is grim: rotting onions, poor yields due to scarcity of power and water, private loans that grow into an endless debt trap and the inevitable albatross of a daughter's wedding.
The fact is that we have doggedly refused to look right and left and perhaps, behind us. It doesn't matter to us that, in the anxiety to impress the world outside, we have rode roughshod over our own. We have not paused to see whether we are all moving together.
Our incomprehensible approach to growth is one of the reasons Gandhiji is so, so relevant today. In one of his initial speeches at an INC meeting, he had pointed out, after Mohammed Ali Jinnah made a stirring speech demanding direct action, that we need to identify with the farmer, the villager and see what he wants. A bunch of people sitting on towns and cities cannot decide India's future, he had argued.
He could well have been making the point today, except that few would bother to hear him out. We have as agriculture minister a man better known as the president of the Board for Control of Cricket in India. Each time a cricketer or cricket is in crises, or egos are being rubbed, Sharad Pawar materialises, either on the right side or the wrong, either making a point or never getting at it, but always, feverishly, on the job. His job as a minister doesn't actually take a back-seat, it is simply never on the horizon. If he could, he would probably ask all farmers to stop worrying and play cricket, a la Marie Antoinette.
As for the governments, they don't even give a farmer the freedom to call his suicide a suicide. Government norms make it almost impossible for a hapless farmer's death to qualify for a `suicide' status.
The intellectuals of the world will froth forever over the topicality of the Mahatma but to those who can see the disconnect, we never needed him more than now-- as early as yesterday.

This is a must-read.

Saw P Sainath on the Lok Sabha channel on TV the other day talking about something extremely close to my heart.

Listening to him was such a novel experience, wired as the brain is to expect trite and more trite baloney from all channels these days, whether they peddle soaps, news or reality. And here was a senior journalist who has travelled across the length and breadth of the country telling us in grim pictures how we have utterly and completely lost all sense of reality and sanity, how the threatened existence of Shah Rukh's pony tail assumes much more national importance than a similar plight of almost half our countrymen in another part of the world.

Dividing these two worlds is this very tangible, visible line that permits a one-way movement: stepping over the threshold in our charmed land of plenty (and sponging up some more of our seemingly infinite space) becomes necessary for many of the deprived lot on the other side but, on the happening side of the divide, we are too happy chasing our material dreams to look behind and check whether the larger lot is catching up.

What he said makes nonsense of our nauseous evolution to the top of the human pile as most see it. He asks the most pertinent question of the century: Where is our sense of outrage? Indeed. Though only some of the text of his speech is reproduced her and not really in Sainath's words, it's mostly him paraphrased, or edited or changed in some way simply because I couldn't keep pace with his speed (sigh! getting older) and also because I can't any more understand my shorthand! With apologies to Sainath for producing the text in slightly arbitrary form, with some missing links (deliberately left as they are because I feared introducing some meaning that may not have been meant) and with some new links (wherever I thought the import/meaning could stay undisturbed), here it is. The errors and misintrepretations are all mine and may please be forgiven:

``India ranks 126th in the human development index and has a life expectancy less than Bolivia's, the poorest country in Latin America. We have around one lakh billionaires even as 800 million continue to exist in the same country on less than Rs 20 a day. There is no such thing as an Indian reality. There are multiple realities.

Our impressive growth rate is just one of them. While the Indian CEOs's salaries are soaring, farm income has declined. The average monthly per capita farm expenditure, according to the NSS, is Rs 503, close to Rs 477, the BPL figure for India. About 55 % of this amount is spent on food and 18 % on clothing. Fuel and other needs make up the rest. This leaves precious little for education or health in a country which has the sixth most privatised health system in the world.

In terms of food, the average rural family is actually consuming 1 kg less than it did 10 years ago. We can clear an SEZ in six months but not land reforms in 60 years. Tenancy and other issues continue to dog the farmer even today. The compensation (doled out by the government during crises) often goes to the absentee landlord and not the farmer.

Globally, coffee prices are booming but the man who grows it in Kerala is committing suicide. Farm data, which started getting recorded only in 1995 by the National Crime Records Bureau, shows that there were 1,12,000 suicides between 1997 and 2003. Ironically, two-thirds of the suicides occur in one-third of the country's population, and mind you, in cash crop areas (not food crops, as commonly misunderstood). In the last 50 years, we have driven people to cash crops and now we are paying the price for that growth -- we are governed totally by the volatility of price movement.

Maharashtra, with a huge base of cash crop cultivation, is the worst affected. One offshoot of this haphazard `growth' is that the number of women farmers in this state is increasing because the men have migrated. But, if the woman farmer or the elder son looking after the farm commit suicide, it is not regarded as a farmer suicide because the land is not in their name. Yavatmal, with an astounding number of suicides, is facing this problem acutely. For any suicide to be counted as the farmer suicide in government's logbooks, it has to be committed by the farmer in whose name the land stands. Again, private money-lending debt is not accepted, only bank debts are. So the hapless farmer's suicides is not considered a farmer suicide.

In our official documentation of farmer suicides, we record the last cause such as fight with the wife, etc., even though every suicide owes to a multiplicity of causes. Debt and other cultivation issues rarely figure as immediate causes, further blotting out facts. There were 2,832 suicides in Vidarbha in 2006, according to police station records, but only 538 were deemed eligible for the compensation doled out by the government. Most suicides are accounted for as farmers' relatives.

For a farmer, farming has become too expensive. Cultivation costs are extremely high. From Rs 2500 per acre in ...., it has jumped to Rs 13,000 per acre for farmers who are using the new Bt brand of cotton seeds. We are moving towards corporate farming. Agricultural universities are doing research for Monsanto.

Let's look at Vidarbha.Today, the Vidarbha issue (suicides) is being kept alive only by stringers and local journalists of the area. There are 17.64 lakh households (families) in Vidarbha out of which 4.31 lakh, that is 75 % of farmer households, are in maximum distress. Three lakh families have serious problems getting their daughters married. It's an explosive situation.

I happened to witness a most heart-wrenching and, at the same time, enriching moment in a farmer's house in Vidarbha. The farmer had no money to marry off his daughter and decided to get her married with a few other girls to save money. When he saw he didnt have Rs 300 to buy her a wedding dress of Rs 300, he sank into a depression and committed suicide on her wedding day. The bride was naturally shattered and refused to go ahead with the wedding, But she was persuaded, because the family couldn't afford to postpone it! They had already spent all they had on the preparations.

There was a worse, more heart-wrenching moment, to be lived when the father's funeral procession crossed the daughter's wedding procession. The bride wept copiously, uncontrollably. I cannot fathom what must have gone through her young mind to be married in such circumstances. But we read mostly about lavish weddings such as that of Lakshmi Mittal's daughter.

There was one moment though that I felt proud of witnessing. The entire community had

pitched in bit by bit to buy the bride her dress. All of them were poor farmers, trapped in similar economic strife, but they had the humanity to save a dying situation.
There are three reasons why suicides shoot up. Someone called me the other day to say I can buy a Mercedes Benz at 6% interest without any collateral but farmers are committing suicide because they cannot get a decent interest rate for a loan of Rs 8,000. Where's our sense of outrage?

Secondly, health is the second largest component of rural debt. There is no one to bail him out.
The spiralling inputs costs are the third factor driving farmers to kill themselves. A whole new class of moneylenders has emerged -- companies selling seeds and other inputs for the farms have now got into the picture.

Hi everyone!

Came across a senior citizen recently whose cataract operation was botched up by a charitable eye hospital in the city. An all too common occurrence no doubt, but that's precisely why we need to take a close, hard look at what ails our delivery systems.
If you ask me, there's only one word for what's wrong with all our work-- we're too damn unprofessional in our attitude and behaviour. It's bad enough to be shoddy and lazy in our thinking but it's far worse when we project that in our behaviour as well.
What helps such unprofessionalism thrive is our general laidbackness as consumers. That's why we get the quality we do and have to fight every inch of the way in the courts, which of course are another story.
Coming back to the case in question, the elderly man began to see three of everything, saw flashes of bright light, and generally had disturbed vision. He consulted two eye surgeons, who told him the operation had damaged his eyes. His case papers record the fact that the operation was conducted by an intern of the charitable hospital and not the surgeon himself.

While he sank into depression, I called the hospital superintendent and told him the story. Barely had I completed the second sentence than the manager barked, ``How does he know this surgery was done by an intern? His eyes would be closed. He's talking rubbish.''

First demonstration of offence being the best defence, (a textbook no-no when it comes to customers.)

Having by now understood the score after dealing with so many such cases, I yelled back. He shut up a bit, heard me out and said he needs to see him. I requested the senior citizen to see this gentleman who seemed to be clearly thinking a way out of the mess.

Sure enough, when the senior citizen visited the hospital, he was forced to see the medical director of the charitable hospital, who gave him a clean chit and said there was nothing wrong with him and a change of glasses would do the needful.

When I called again to say there were three expert opinions on record saying the hospital had gone wrong once, and that the hospital could accept and pay up the costs of his future operations and treatment, the superintendent directed me to a trustee of the hospital who had been briefed.

Though, as a journalist, I neednt have done so much calling, I called the trustee and asked him for his take. He turned out to be a shrew. Knowing well he was cornered, he opted for orchestrated aggression. ``You don't have to teach a doctor how to treat my patients. We do so much charity, we treat people free, we get lakhs in donation, how dare you teach me?''

I was momentarily taken aback and said, ``I am not teaching you anything, only asking you if you will compensate him for the damages he has suffered.''
``How can I say that without looking at his case? How can you call me up saying you are a journalist? You're blackmailing me!''
Huh! ``But I didnt- I havent said anything about blackmailing you. I am only saying-''
``I have reputed, US-trained doctors working in my hospital. What do you mean by saying you'll expose me? This is not right. I have 25 years in this field, own a 30-bed hospital, I am..''
``But I am not saying anything about exposing you. I-''
``What do you mean, you are a journalist, So you can write what you want?! You're saying you'll expose me. I will not blah blahhhhh.''
``Will you hear me out? Hello? Listen please. What's your problem? No. Hello? I have to tell you I am a journalist because I am one! How does that amount to-''
``You cant call up and demand compensation. You're going to expose me? We have the best doctors blah blah.''
``But the best doctors goof up. The consumer courts are full of such cases. And here, it was an intern-''
``Oh, so you want to take me to court? You're threatening me? You'll expose me?I dont tolerate this blah blah.''
``But I havent said anything about the court. I only-''

Somewhere during the course of these parallel tracks of monologues, I realised I was defending myself for things I wasnt guilty of! Wisening up to this defence mechanism at last, I began yelling at him as well. This continued for while and when I found I was not getting anywhere with this Shylock, I decided to hang up with these grand words, ``You should thank me for giving your hospital so much time on such a simple case. But since you dont spare any sympathy even for your patients, I shouldnt expect anything better.''

I rest my case. My only worry is I may need an ENT surgeon. The word, ``expose'' keeps ringing in my ears.

We visited another world last week.


It was dense with tall, green trees, the earth was red and pebbled, the horses hawed and neighed and galloped all the time, and an army of monkeys walked along chirping continuously. The majesty of the mist-capped hills held us spellbound, the gentle nip in the air teased and titillated, the snowy sky dropped dew even as the moon slithered away with practised ease.

We came back to earth every few hours for replenishment. And the lavish Gujarati thali seemed to soften the blow.

Afternoons were spent on nowhere land as the peace and quiet within and without grew to lull us into a satiated slumber. A sharp zing of ginger in the tea, sipped on a swing, would equip us for another road of discovery. Each time we walked to an end, the visual tapestry unfolding before us would hit us anew. Mostly, it was the ridged terrain that compelled awe in our highly unyielding selves. Sometimes, it was a quaint, old dam that defined one side of the green waters framed by lush trees, or an ancient temple which was all yours for all the time you need.

I have been a virtual resident of this many-splendoured land in my childhood, when a week-long vacation was a must for the family every few months. We travelled first class, stayed in the best hotel in peak season, rode horses like maniacs till the horse tired of us, and, then, ran with their hooves till dusk broke to dawn.

When we did walk, we locked arms and blocked the road, chanting in sync, ``I left, I left, I left my wife and 48 children in the ....'' (for the penultimate step, you took a step backward, and psyched everyone around out of their wits.)

All the while, we would be bathed in the red dust that continually rose and settled on the stony paths all leading to some panoramic points. Echo Point, Monkey Point, Sunset Point, Sunrise Point, Charlotte Lake, Louisa Point, Rambaug Point, and some ten others-- each sharply rivalling the other in the regalty of the view it proffered.

As kids, we had to reckon with the monkeys hanging close to our rooms, waiting for a half-chance to swoop on the mangoes in the crate that inevitably accompanied us in the summers. Outside the hotel, they hopped around you, and, making a mockery of your self-belief, scratched and snatched that peanut packet you had held in a tight fist. I firmly believe that we have a huge hand in the continuation of this ancestral tribe.

Riding was a high that has never since been breached. Our loyal horseman would pick some thoroughbreds, who were either preparing for the Mahalaxmi race track or were done with it, and we'd set off for a wild run, winding up on at least one occasion each time with a heart-pounding gallop on the deserted race course of the place.

At times, the horses got moody and wanted to nick at you. Mine tried that once mid-trot, stopping right in middle of the bazaar and turning its long neck to have a go at my legs. Even as I tried reining him in, someone cut across the road and took charge of my wayward ward.

I am loathe to be back in this concrete hell even though I no longer sit on horses, or do I covet monkeys as much (I see enough of them in the city). What I do miss are the red soil, the imprints of hooves on it, and the smell of horse and horse shit in the air. I miss the easy ambience where nobody cares what you wear because it all looks red anyway. I miss the lazy walks and the tread along the edge of endless cliffs. Most of all, I miss watching the sunset without feeling guilty for doing so.

In case you still dont know which place I'm talking about, it's called Matheran.

What is the point of all we do?

Hey, does it ever hit you that we are all caught in a web of our own making, that we strive and strive endlessly to meet ends that we need not have set in the first place. And at the end of the day, what's the fuss all about?
I often wonder about the number of people who go around saying, ``I was determined to do this..'', ``This..award..post..blah blah.. means the world to me,'' ``My children are my world,'' ``I can't think of giving up what I have,'' ``I had to prove a point..'' etc. etc.
Does anyone of them pause to think: what is all this effort and involvement in aid of? Like everyone else before us, we too shall perish, and with us, shall perish our priorities, our pet peeves, loves, lifestyles, everything.
All we shall be left with is Shunya, Nothing. Except your soul and your karma, if you believe in both or either. So, why chase a mirage? Your material world may or may not disappear but you will. That's a given. So why spend so much energy figuring out whether your neighbour's having an extra-marital affair or not, whether your children will stand first all their lives, whether your face will radiate the same glow forever, whether people like your cousin more than you, whether your colleague earns more than you. Why agonise over ways to make it big, ways to be recognised, ways to scheme your way up the corporate ladder when all of this will come crashing down one day-- the day you are not there. Believe me, even our precious children will not be there forever, terrible as it sounds.
There's no one on this planet yet who has never gone away. Unless you're talking of the cockroach (Now there is a strong possibility It will endure).
I must be some kind of a freak that I keep pondering over this facet of life --our deaths-- and never cease to be fascinated by the amount of effort we put into irrelevant things completely believing that, like diamonds, life is forever.
I am often berated for never remembering everyone's names, lives, what they told me, what they were wearing, and what they do for a living, etc. etc. And I automatically blame my disgusting memory for behaving so peremptorily that only I seem important in my scheme 0f things (and sometimes not even I.)
But over the past few years, I have begun to appreciate my lack of interest in people and their lives as a tacit acknowledgement of our transient lives. When nobody will last, why take the pain of behaving as if everything everyone does is just so important? What, seriously, is important in a world of make-believe where the only permanent thing is change?
Many get foxed at my lack of ambition-- for not plotting to become something. This ties up with the same problem-- what do I have to prove to whom and for what? Why pursue some ephemeral end for someone else? Part of the problem, of course, is my comfort level with myself. I have never felt the need to prove anything to anyone and believe it's only those with feelings of inadequacy who have the urge to achieve something.
In my mind, I am what I think I am (sorry, Descartes, but this is not really anything to do with you). So why worry about what others think?
To be sure, I labour over most things I do, but that's because it's a job to be done and a shoddy job is simply not happening. If I do it right, there are no brownie points to be scored or points to be made to any one. If at all, I find a challenge, I do feel kicked, and go all out. But there's never any idea even at the back of my head, or the fringes of my hair, that if I succeed, people will notice me. It's nice if they do, of course, but if they don't, it's fine too.
No recognition outlasts you unless you are a trail blazer like Mahatma Gandhi. And even that will last at the most till the end of time on this planet.
Even the midst of a big project, I pause to think what the worth of it is. I continually ponder over the ultimate aimlessness of our existence. Perhaps there is an aim and we're still to discover it. Or perhaps, as some say, salvation is our goal and we don't know.
I don't know. Do you?

All my endearing Anonymouses!

I didn't know there were so many people in the world called Anonymous. If you take a name poll, you'll probably find this name dominating the list. There are at least a dozen on my blog, all with interesting comments to offer but for some reason, anonymous.

All my life, I have been told the temptation to see your name in print, like Adam and Eve, is primordial. But, the said temptation probably exists on Earth and my blog, I suspect, is drifting in outer space, where aliens suffer from no such evil Apples.

So be it, guys!

The typical victim can sometimes be the stereotypical villain..

There are so many default victim categories entrenched in our minds-- the poor, the downtrodden, the worker, and of course the woman. In any given situation, we readily believe that the rich and mighty are the villain. No CBI inquiry is needed to establish their guilt, nor can it change our minds on the matter. The guilt is firmly established in our minds and that's where it stays for the rest of its life.
The only attenuating circumstance which can make us condone a wrongful act is if the perpetrator is a film actor. Sanjay Dutt not only gets special treatment in jail, he also gets hugged by the law-enforcers, never mind that he is convicted of possessing an illegal weapon that could kill several in a blink, and that he has barely escaped a stiffer conviction of being a terrorist. Saif Ali Khan and Salman Khan can kill people and maim them but when they step out of their homes, the world awaits their next step.

Typically though, the underdog is perceived to be the victim. So, if a tabloid newspaper in Mumbai, respected for its laidback, old Mumbai flavour, shuts down because of a dispute between its CEO and the owner, we can clearly see the CEO, who was playing journalist, is the victim. Especially since she wrote a moving account of the owner forced her hand.

All owners in the world are rogues, especially newspaper owners. This is our a priori understanding of the world. (For the benefit of those who shun philosophy, let me explain. Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher, divided all our knowledge into two groups: a priori and a posteriori. The first was what we are born with, is immutable and unchangeable while the second is derived from experiences.)

I am not saying here that it's the other way round. No. I am not privy to what's cooking at this tabloid. But I am sure the owner, rightly or wrongly, has a point of view which few care to hear out.

It is true that a journalist is an extremely powerful person and most powers quake at the thought of taking him on. But in this one instance, inevitably, he changes sides, and becomes the wronged --when his owner takes him on. History is unfortunately replete with instance of journalists being crucified by their paymasters.

It is therefore a given that everyone sides with the journalist, who is unequivocally seen as a crusader Ram against owner's Ravana. So, in this instance, the media's most enduring creation, Shobha De, expressed solidarity with the CEO; the media at large tut-tuts in sympathy and the owner never gets asked if he has a say.

Please be advised that I have used the example for illustrative purposes only. It's grave irony that the media, which places a premium on fair play. has decided to play such an unfair game. My point is a crib about how if it's journalist vs owner, the latter is always wrong. It doesn't have to stand to reason.

Regrettably, I have seen the other side of the coin. Yes, I have seen several corporates exploiting their woman employees, even high-ranking executives. I have seen women journalists facing sexual harassment at the hands of their male colleagues. I have also seen how the office suddenly becomes hostile to a woman who complains of sexual harassment. She not only faces finger-pointing, hostile stares and much shaking of head every day, she is persecuted even professionally and often forced to leave her job. Most men happily point to her smart dressing style as the culprit. The man's libido, it appears, is a God-given gift to be unleashed on anyone who remotely interests it.

At the same time, I know of at least one instance when the owner, always a symbol of rich/powerful and therefore the `sinner', is actually being exploited. I know of a sexual harassment ccomplaint by a woman against her boss only because he wouldn't show any interest in her and was, possibly, very tough on her. It's another matter that she had to quit her job and suffer ignominy as well. But the fact remains that the case was motivated.

Typically, the company has conducted no inquiry against either. And her boss today is one subdued man who walks with his head down and baulks at the prospect of speaking to a woman colleague. Justice, anyone?

The all-important domestic help, doubtless, falls in the Always Victim category too. I used to know this maid who cried on my shoulder about a family she was working for. She told me the man of the house had attempted to molest her once when his wife and mother were on a holiday and had told her to keep coming at the same time every day before his child came home from school.

I bought into her story promptly. I told her to simply stop working there and offered to find her another job. I not only found her another home to work in but also gave her a decent advance out of sympathy. Since she earned a piddly sum from that household anyway, I didn't see why she would want to stick to it. But she did, and whats more, I found she was visiting him the same time every day too. When I confronted her with it, she expressed shock, ``What?! I stopped going there after that day.'' Since I don't like being taken for a ride, I decided to get to the bottom of this.

I visited the household at the time she was supposed to be there and caught her there. The wife and mother were present too. And they told me they never left the house together because the man was handicapped! So much for the down-trodden.

There can be other ways of making you look like an ogre, as I personally experienced to some grief. My new domestic help, a shrimp of 19 years, decided to disappear just before Diwali after taking a month's salary in advance, leaving me high and dry. My Diwali cleaning therefore proved costlier with new bais coming in every day till I kept a new one permanently.

The shrimp surfaced 20 days later, to demand why I had kept another maid. When I told her I had no choice as she had not informed me, she began screaming her lungs out and demanded a month's pay. When I reminded her that she had already taken her month's pay, she screamed, ``But that was for the previous month!''

I was speechless and felt a wave of anger rising within me. I asked her again to shut up but she wouldn't, forcing me to yell back. Soon, she had tears in her eyes which drove me completely mad. I slammed the door shut even as she carried on with her victim act.

One look at her pitiable face and it would be easy to be convinced of my act of cruelty. The next thing I know, my new maid was imploring me to give her her pay! I tried to tell her that it was she who actually owed me money as she had taken advance pay. But my logical rants seemed too weak in the face of this compelling performer who had them eating out of her hands.

I didn't give in, of course, but managed to earn the tag of a tormentor for no fault of mine. I haven't since dared to indulge my neighbour in friendly chatter for fear of an inquisition that will eventually paint me all black. I already behave like the guilty party.

Now you know why I sometimes sympathise with the perpetrator. Sigh!

Moral of the story: Appearances are deceptive. The truth is not always out there...

Here's a long agony-ridden SMS

Have a voice and want to sing? Want to dance with two left feet? Aspire to be a leader? There is an easy road to the hall of fame (and fortune, for the unnamed beneficiaries in the fray). All you need is a healthy bank balance or a wealthy family/ friends who can SMS-power your way to glory. There is a mini-revolution happening out there in which, it seems, everyone has a stake.. you either participate or you SMS. It's another matter that each SMS can set you back by Rs 5 to Rs 7, depending on the deal the producers have worked out with the telecom companies. Every channel and her aunt is prospering on the newly discovered virtues of the Short Message Service. If you think there are only three talent shows showcasing the nation's vocal virtuosity, you are obviously not keeping count. Forget Zee TV's `Sa Re Ga Ma Pa', Sony's `Indian Idol', or Star's `Voice of India', there is the `Bathroom Singer' and at least a dozen more on the regional channels on the SMS spree. Flick up and down the remote and each time, as if by magic, the screen morphs into a new singer, a new set and a new show, channel after channel, language after language. Just when you thought you simply have to wait out these contests to get some meaning back into TV, there comes one more: `Nach Baliye-3'. Aha! This one expects you to cast your SMS vote right from the start. No elementary elimination by the judges. You simply vote and vote after every single episode for your favourite celeb. Celeb? You mean Rakhi Sawant, Kashmera Shah, and someone called Vikas Something. So what if you have never heard of them, or heard of them in wrong contexts? They have partners and will dance. On the time-tested principle of no-one-can-have-his-cake-alone-on-TV comes `Jhalak Dikhla Ja'. Another SMS war that scales up and up in concentric circles to dizzying heights as the competition screams its way to a crescendo. Surf at your peril, there is simply no escape from them. Everyone has risen to the SMS challenge, so to speak and mastered the art of appeal. ``Please, please mujhe vote kijiye,'' they go, moving many a hard-hearted viewer towards his cell. I should know; I have fallen for the bait. Once. Television has utterly and abjectly surrendered to this loathsome technological innovation. Several lakhs of notes... oops... votes change hands and before you know it, some -- not necessarily a contestant -- have become millionaires. The SMS is like a rocket that jet-propels its payload of participants (and several others) into a new orbit. Inevitably, the new orbit enables further movement only through SMS-derived oxygen. Television being the prodigal kin of the print media, I used to arch a brow and scoff at the mindlessness of it all. Dumbed down it may be, perhaps heavily so, but print would never fall prey to such low brow gimmckry. Nah! The print, alas, proved to be dumber -- or, the lure of the lucre proved to be stronger, depending on which side of the fence you're on. A top-of-the-line newspaper is today scrambling for those SMS votes for a `deserving' leader. Yeah, leader, as in `leader of the country'. Go ahead, cast your vote freely. Election Commission, move over, the telecom companies are here. We will no longer need to go to the dreary polling booth to cast our votes; we may simply thumb our choice in. It's another matter that in the new version, a single vote won't do. You need to keep voting furiously till your favoured contestant reaches her destination. It's a small matter if you get bankrupt in the process and gray in the hair. What about the poor, did you say? Huh, where are they? Are there any BPL (below poverty line) wallahs without a cellphone? If there are, nobody's heard of them, darling. What are you if you can't afford to SMS? It's nice for the aam janta to be playing God. Only, one small voice keep buzzing at the back of my head: why us, pray? Are we all equally equipped to judge voice quality, sur, rhythm, dancing or the so-called `X' factor? Yeh public hain, yeh sab nahi jaanti. I am also a bit confused about the point sought to be made: if you really meant to empower us, why allow us to cast any number of votes? Surely, my opinion is as important as everybody else's and vice versa. Why, then, should my 1,000 votes eclipse your single vote? This discrimination makes nonsense of our democratic fundamentals, but also devalues the product in the bargain, with money muscling in to crown the winner. Last year, a couple participating in Nach Baliye, Shweta Kawatra and Manav Gohil, were said to be buying mobile phones for their relatives to vote them into the next round. Of course, they dutifully refused committing such blasphemy but, is anyone surprised? A certain Ms Lata Mangeshkar had gently snubbed these arbitrary talent contests and suggested that real talent is in singing new compositions. But her voice is drowned in the clutter of currency raining down every minute. The SMS has the hypnotic sway of the Pied Piper. Have money? please sms. I am hugely sceptical whether SMSes are really counted by anyone except the telecom companies. I remember `Indian Idol', which started this mayhem two years ago with its first instalment, categorically refused to share any data on the number of votes polled by each participant, citing exclusivity and contract conditions. A lot of us back then were curious about this novel format and wanted to know how many were taken in by this pattern of selection. So, we asked them about the votes polled by the two finalists on that contest but were turned away. VoI shares the margin by which one loses or wins but I'm not sure if they will open up their ledgers for public scrutiny. It's strange how all winners are male, how the north-eastern states seems to be the flavour of the season (remember the threats held out in case Debojit Saha didn't win `Sa Re Ga Ma Pa' contest last year-- he did), and most importantly, how the judges' favourites' always get top billing. Toshi, a participant who lost out early on VoI, was brought back through a veto vote by a select panel of judges. The next thing we know is that he is not only back, he has scored the maximum number of votes in the next round. Sure, there were local protests over his exit; but I dont know if all of India saw this as an emergency and sat up to vote him back with a vengeance. I suspect a lot of drama on the screen is the handiwork of TRP-starved producers. Should we be losing money so that our favourite participants makes it big and rich? As it is, they are a wee bit over-priced. Most of the Indian Idol contestants left me, with my unabashedly pedestrian tastes, cold. There should be more to reality TV than a phone line that is open certain days every week. If an alien were to land in India, and land plumb in front of a TV studio, he is likely to be launched into an over-heated SMS market: ``Is he an alien or not? SMS your answer to alpha beta gamma delta. Sorry, we have run out of English numerals and will henceforth be using the Greek alphabet for all SMS communication. Rest assured, we are in the process of booking the Chinese alphabet for future use so that neither you nor we run out of work. Keep watching.''

P.S. If you have any comments to offer, pl SMS. Send as many as you like, in keeping with the spirit of things.

Modi and his nine lives (in the media)


The nail has hit on the head. So, the communal riots of 2002 in Gujarat had the unofficial backing of chief minister Narendra Modi, no less. Aha! It's that time of the year again. Tehelka has stung. Only, this time, it has stung at the same place. Ever since 2002 happened, the world and its media have been shouting from the rooftops about the role of the Gujarat government in engineering the communal carnage. There were quotes, victim accounts, eye-witness stories, etc. etc. filling page after page to prove how Modi's gang of operatives killed in broad daylight.
What Tehelka has achieved therefore is a far cry from a tehelka. It is a meow. What's new, sir? If Modi has been painted communal in this story, Tehelka's fantastic sense of timing has got itself tainted as well in a.... huh, what's the colour of the Congress? Why now, Mr Tejpal, bang on the cusp of yet another stirring election?
Make no mistake. What Babu Bajrangi and his goons allegedly did is unacceptable, unpardonable, and grossly perverse. There can be no two ways about it; there can be NO justification or tolerance for stabbing a pregnant woman who has done no harm except to belong to a certain community. One cannot condone such subversive acts in a civilised society. If, after doing what he allegedly did, he thinks nothing of it, there's something seriously wrong not only with this person but also with society at large which nurtures such evil. An act of violence, committed in a moment of insanity, should drown the perpetrator in remorse. But a flagrant flaunting of such a heinous act strips him of the veneer of humanity.
It's therefore not about whether what happened was right or wrong. It wasn't right. But then, the other side looks equally bad. What kind of person gets into a compartment, sets fire to it so that all the innocent men, women and children get burnt? Why is it that the Godhra goondas are still at large? No one in their right mind will buy the conspiracy theory. It has much too many holes. What kind of society allows such mindless violence to go unpunished? That's particularly strange considering it happened in Modi's Gujarat. It's also an important sidelight that such a carnage on a majority community can happen only in India.
And, if we condone the first phase of the communal riots of 1992-93 in Mumbai started by Muslims as the outcome of the demolition of Babri Masjid -- which incidentally is different from burning or killing people, why cannot we accept that the post-Godhra riots were a backlash from the Hindus? If the demolition of a non-functional mosque in the distant north can spark a conflagration in Mumbai, can't the burning of innocents cause a flare-up in the immediate neighbourhood? It's such double standards of pious Hindus that I find baffling. There's no question of justifying either. Both are wrong -- the razing of Babri and the Godhra tragedy. But if we are logical and `unbiased,' the aftermath of each incident is as reprehensible or justified as the aftermath of the other.
I find it self-contradictory when we accept the communal riots of 1992-93 in Mumbai as an empathisable offshoot of the Babri Masjid demolition but find the Gujarat rioting unacceptable. Yes, the official backing, if any, by the Modi regime is something we need to get alarmed at but the fact remains that Modi did not stir up the mass hysteria overnight nor did he actively seek out people to go on a rampage. His role, if there was any, was allegedly that of a caretaker who is believed to have looked the other way. He was, by no means, the perpetrator. And, from one account cited below, he didn't entirely look the other way
In both riots, one critical fact has been overlooked by all sides-- the saffron, Muslim and secular hate-mongers. Many Hindus too lost their lives in both Mumbai and Gujarat riots. The much-revered Srikrishna Commission, which probed the riots of 1992-93, has religiously documented the casualties in both communities-- the stats speak louder than all the newsprint and footage. It is a travesty of truth to project or pretend that only Muslims have faced the wrath of a saffron backlash. The Hindu toll, too, was quite high. So, what saffron trishuls are we talking about, Mr Singhal? And, thank God they were not used.
In Gujarat, according to answers given in Parliament by the UPA home minister, 790 Muslims and 254 Hindus were killed and 2500 were wounded. Certainly more Muslims paid for their lives for the Godhra carnage than Hindus in a land dominated by Hindus but it is clear they didn't take it lying down.Even as the media played out the misery of the hapless Muslims in relief camps, there were over 40,000 Hindus in relief camps by the end of the first week of riots.
As human beings in an ordered society, we need to tolerate. We should tolerate difference of opinion, religion, customs, practices and beliefs. But one has to draw the line at being doormatish. it's rather hypocritical to view ourselves and the world through different prisms. Few possess the art of self-criticism that Indian excel in; it is of great value but only so long as it doesn't peter out into masochistic self-loathing.
Even if you choose to be so, at least be factual. There are several inherent inequities that stand out in a sensible evaluation of both the situations-- 1992 and 2002. Let us look a little closely at some facts-- first, the impression that all of Gujarat was in flames. Officially, only 60 `locations', not necessarily villages but areas, were struck by rioting. You could argue the number is negotiable. Probably. But look at the fact that all the 200-odd industrial townships in Gujarat continued work as usual without a single day's loss. That takes care of the inflamed reportage.
While ruling parties usually have the wherewithal (read: clout) to get around the flak in the form of an increasingly coloured coverage of every communal or religious event, it's the police who haplessly carry a permanent scar on their credibility, time and again.Were both Mumbai and Gujarat state commandeered by a biased police? According to the Srikrishna Commission report which is certainly more secular than the secular, police opened fire 153 times in the first phase in which 30 Hindus, 133 Muslims and 11 others died. In the second phase, it opened fire 308 times in which 80 Hindus, 90 Muslims and one other person died. Two police officers, and five policemen were killed while controlling the riots, and about 500 policemen including officers injured. It certainly doesn't sound like a one-sided affair, and we are not counting the number of missing persons or unidentified bodies here.
Yet, bafflingly, the police were heavily upbraided by the Commission for its supposed bias. While failing to pinpoint a categorical, doubt-free incident in support of its tall claims, the commission records its appreciation of the sterling services rendered by the police at different places. It also bring out equitable inaction in some instances (!) as in the fact that the police did not act not only against the allegedly inflammatory writings in the `Saamna' and `Nava kaal,' but also kept silent on some ``communal Urdu writings'' circulating during this period.
In Gujarat, the police was derided for being a `biased' protector. Consider this factfile: On February 28, 10 Hindus had been shot dead and 16 Hindus had been wounded in police firing. On March 1 (the next day), another 24 Hindus were shot dead and 40 Hindus wounded in police firing. In the first three days alone, out of a total of 611 deaths, 101 were caused by police firing -- of whom 61 were Hindus and 40 were Muslims.
As for the common myth happily perpetuated by the English media that Narendra Modi did not call in the army, B P Singhal, an ex-DGP who claims to have been continually intouch with the Gujarat state police, gave this chronology to a news channel (Aaj Tak): the Godhra carnage took place on February 27, the Hindu backlash started the next day and the army was doing a flag march on the ``forenoon of March 1''. This means, within a single day, the chief minister had summoned the army, as recorded by The Hindu as well. So, what was the channel's reaction to this revelation? `Why no action was taken on February 29, 30, 31?' it wanted to know! Even if 2002 had been a leap year, it appears our man in the TV studio would not have been appeased.
Similarly, the post-demolition pogroms were not all a play of passion. The commission says about the January 1993 rioting, ``a number of individual Muslims and Muslim criminal elements appear to have indulged in violence, arson and rioting.'' In Bainganwadi, for instance, the attacks on Hindus ``appear to have been masterminded by Gharya Aslam and Abdul Ghani Kamruddin Mulla, two notorious characters of the locality.'' There were instances of private firing by Muslims too. Some Muslim criminals like Aslam Koradia and his associates ``moved around the locality (Pydhonie) on motor bikes and fired indiscriminately at people on the streets.''
None of this exposition of facts is intended to imply a condonation of anything that happened. Rather, it is an attempt to point out the whole picture instead of a pick-and-choose reality that is daily projected on our TV screens and often, nowadays in the newspaper. I fail to comprehend how there is no similar outcry over the 1984 riot against the Sikhs-- the only pogrom that was more of a genocide than a riot. Are Sikhs less equal than the Muslims? Whatever happened to the secular sensibilities of the country?

The urbane Englishman generates 450 kgs of waste annually, according to a local UK report. Happily, a Mumbaikar generates 260 kgs. Nothing to pat your back about, but good enough to give us the advantage of sniggering at the whites.

Come to think of it, though we find it hard to believe, we are actually better off than our evolved cousins in the west in practically every department. We don't sit with our shoes on the table; we dont block all air out and switch on the AC (traditionally, that is. I can understand the English and other Europeans needing to shut the draught out but why do we do this in tropical India?), we take bath every day (well, many of us); we don't smother our flooring with carpets (I have never understood the need for these extremely unhygienic -almost filthy- practice. Even Gandhiji spoke out against them); we greet people better (with folded hands rather than a kiss, hug or a handshake which, again, are oh-so-unhygienic, apart from not being half as polite); our meals are far healthier; our clothing lets us breathe (research has shown the lungi and the dhoti are the best forms of apparel for the lower male part as it lets the organs breathe and stay cool. I dont understand the sari though, except for its sex appeal); we respect our elders (or are supposed to); we worship nature and abstain from killing animals or birds for food (quite a few of us); and our traditional educational system is far more holistic and professional (than the Macaulay brand of degree-totting that it has become today).

There is lots more we need to do: we need to understand women ARE equal (we don't need to be treated as such); we need to stop littering the streets, and most of all, we need to arrest the consumerist culture from spreading any further.

Wherever you go these days, you land at a mall or a multiplex. We have little need for either. either. The supermarkets have the best foreign or MNC brands but no local brand for cornflakes. They refuse to stock any soap produced by a cooperative or a small scale unit. Their fruit and vegetables are artificially coloured and cost 30 % more than the neighbourhood hawker. They survive on brands and therefore don't give a damn about the pathetic quality of wheat, rice or other essential fare they are forced to sell. By the time you are through with the mall, you're lugging two huge sacks in your hands, mostly full of unnecessary stuff.

You need to carry this home yourself whereas your neighbourhood grocer would have home-delivered the entire stuff had he only known.

Discouraging malls is of essence to protect our established system of commerce --the damn malls are wiping out the grocers everywhere. It is also critical for all-round economic progress in a growth model fuelled by local enterprise. Given the vast reach of khadi and the native Indian entrepreneurial skills, our cities, towns and villages are saturated with thriving small-scale units that produce everything from soaps to cornflakes, to clothes to phenyl to wooden furniture. If all consumer products and consummables go upscale (i.e., are slammed with a brand name), it will throw the well-established networks, and thereby the economics, out of gear. These units will be wiped out-- they already are getting wiped out in big numbers as HLL, and its like-minded rivals take over businesses after businesses that they know little about except that two principles work everywhere -- economies of scale and cutting costs at all costs. MNC success stories are jigged up by these simple tenets of MBA wisdom. Quality, as a result, take the first backseat in their scheme of things.

Now, for the multiplexes. How many of us really love these shut dens of misery that look bright but drive you blind simply by having the screen bang in front of you. So, you trade the larger cinematic experience -- the charm of sitting in a huge auditorium with attendant atmospherics of film-watching like the cheaper popcorn, the clapping, cheering and hooting -- for a supposedly better viewing in a small enclave with people who just about manage to stand up for the national anthem, stay politely non-committal throughout the movie except when their cellphone rings, and wiggle in their plush seats forever to give you way when there is none. That the popcorn comes for a princely Rs 50 and the pint-sized stale samosa sell for Rs 40 doesn't help matter much.

Sorry if I have hurt your sentiment, guys. I belong to the old school of thought which sees a movie as a mystique; and its stars as ethereal entities-- not to be touched, seen or even whispered about, and certainly not munchies to be devoured every day at the breakfast table. There was a halo around the older stars whether they deserved it or not; the newer lot believes in wooing reporters and editors through saam daam dand bhed. Any trick in the trade is fair to stay visible to beat the morning attack of insecurity/anxiety.

Isn't the way you see a Rajesh Khanna or a Raj Kapoor very different from the way you see Shah Rukh Khan (with the hideous ponytail and yucky six-packs)? It's no thrill to see those dimples in your paper every day, every single day. It certainly doesn't help that he can't act.

Now that we are done with the loathsome fellas, lets talk about the subject of the day. Ahem! How wasteful are we as metro citizens? First, look at our use of disposables: it has shot through the roof. We use plastic cups, glasses and bags for everything: liquids such as water, beverages and juice is served in paper/thermocol/plastic cups in all takeaways. We buy packaged juice, packaged cornflakes, packaged milk, packaged soft drinks. Our groceries, veggies, etc. come in plastic, whether from the grocer or the mall. Granny's old cloth bag is just too downmarket, never mind if our upmarket ways makes the world a nightmare to live in, bit by bit.

Offices everywhere use disposable cups with a vengeance. In the good old days, you had a simple steel glass placed atop an earthen matka. Today, the office dustbins are venomously cluttered with plastic.

Each house today has one PC, one laptop, one car, one or two TVs, three to four cell phones, a washing machine, with a home theatre or two thrown in. Consider the electronic waste (called e-waste) generated by a single family which will keep changing its cellphones, TVs, cars as and when newer models float in. The older models could get re-used once but then what? They are summarily consigned to the dustbin which sees more of inorganic and hazardous waste these days than the old-fashioned, and harmless, dudhi ka chilka.

There is a policy under way at the union level to dispose of e-waste but I'm not sure how it will work. In spite of having faced the problem long before us, the US and European Union, among others, are still grappling with their mountains of e-garbage, let alone the other forms.

For the environmentally conscious, let me remind you that while paper does degenerate and is organic, it is made from precious resources such as wood. So, it's not enough to say we use paper cups; these can be re-cycled only once or twice, with some waste built in each recycling.

The only answer, therefore, is to live a simple life, cut down our needs to the minimum, eat healthy, and walk instead of taking the car for a 10-minute drive to work. In other words, follow Gandhiji zealously!

I haven't even begun talking about carbon emissions and depletion of fossil fuels.

P.S. I think the move by EU to impose a carbon tax is quite asinine; it blinks at the problem which, I fear, won't go away... And we still organise debates on whether Gandhism is relevant today. Sigh!

``Young people are more engaged with the Internet.'' ``TV and Internet would leave little time for newspapers everywhere.'' These are the prophetic words of Marcus Brauchli, managing editor, Wall Street Journal.
I dont know anyone who will disagree with this fundamental truth. Ever since TV invaded media turf in the early nineties, we were periodically warned to keep pace or fade out. ``We are competing with TV, dont forget,'' the editor would say gravely time and again.
That ended up being THE trigger behind the regrettable dumbing down of journalism in print. Most bosses fought shy of publishing a story/ article that was serious, long, academic, doomsaying, or, worse, all of the above. ``Readers want a quick read, they are now used to TV'' they would argue. Cut your marathon by half, I would always be told. `Say your thing in 250 words,' is the new mantra of new age journalism. And while at it, keep it light, fluffy and smart. If it also has any merit by the way, so be it.
No editor wants to play God and miss the bus. There were honourable exceptions like the late C R Irani, owner and editor of The Statesman, which at one time was a revered Bible for those who wanted to learn English. Amar Singh (ya, the same) once told me how he was advised to read The Statesman (the Junior Statesman was a hot draw) to improve his English. I dont know if it helped or being with the impeccable Amitabh Bachchan only brought home his lack even more. But at least a few dozen people told me the same thing about the paper.
Even today, there are a number of amazing Anglo-Indian journalists working with the Statesman. During my time, even their telephone operator sounded classy. Each time Willy (who has since retired) answered the call in his rich baritone, in the right accent and just the right inflection of pride, `Statesman,' my heart would do a flip-flop. A pity both of us were married. (If not Amitabh, Willy came a close second.)
Irani was a task master, a perfectionist and above all, a journalist to the core. The word `journalist' today does not inspire the same awe as it did when I started out. It implied an extremely knowledgeable mind, sharp intellect, uncompromisable integrity, unwavering commitment, raw guts, relentless drive, unbiased attitude and responsible reporting. I leave it to you to find out which parts have since fallen off its dictionary meaning.
Irani, though, had all of these and more. Ironically, he was the owner of the paper as well, which means he stood to personally gain from every ad placed in the paper. But unlike today's editors, he was first and foremost a journalist. I remember a highly controversial story a colleague and I had broken in The Statesman about a supposedly ``missing'' CBI report indicting one of the biggest Indian companies. We dug out the report and showed the world it was not missing. The next thing we knew, the company concerned had pulled out of a huge ad campaign (and not a one-off ad) it had planned with The Statesman space selling team.
As I was pretty new in the paper, I got a bit nervous when I learned of this. A month later, Irani walked into the Mumbai office, and called for me. As he had never met me, I panicked. ``There goes my job,'' I muttered to myself and braced for the battering ram. He'll holler at me for daring to write so brazenly and throw me out.
I knocked and entered his imposing cabin with sweaty palms. He looked up, grinned when I introduced myself and gestured to sit down. Very warmly then, he told me we had done a great job and that he was proud of the story. ``You must follow it up, keep an eye on it,'' he told me passionately. Still not sure this was happening, I said I would. Then, he launched into a long session about his pet peeve: Bofors. How the Gandhis and Quattrochi are bullshitting everyone, etc. etc.
During the hour-long chat, not once did he mention the word, ``ad''.
He couldnt care, explained my bureau chief. He cares only for news, and journalism of the old order. Personal profiteering over professional integrity was for the lesser mortals.
I have still to met someone with an intellect as sharp as his. Once he called to convey an extremely complicated story about an airline booking racket. After communicating the brief in three lucid lines, he asked me if I had any questions. I had none. It was only when I began working on the story, I understood how difficult it was to explain the story to people. Even after laborious explanations, most people I approached would still have queries. Each time, I tried, sighed and mentally invoked Irani's clarity of speech.
Over time, I grew to understand that Irani not only cared about news, he was extremely disgusted with the pettiness he saw all around him. He never let personal likes and dislikes come in his way. It was fine by him if he lost a few lakhs or crores of rupees in the process of chasing a good story. In his eyes, it was a good deal.
Though reputed to be tough as nails, he softened before people whom he valued.
I dont remember a single occasion he came down hard on me; he kept encouraging me at every opportunity and sought me out a couple of times he thought a good story was waiting to be told.
When I hesitatingly wrote to his personal email ID (which was taboo) proposing to write for the Edit page, (I was already bombarding the Op-Ed page regularly), he wrote back saying I should. I wrote one on a Harshad Mehta development and it was carried by the hawk-eyed editors practically without any change.
On his next trip to Mumbai, Irani walked into office and first called for me. When I entered, he beamed, jumped out of his chair, and actually came around to hug me. The peon serving him tea stared open-mouthed. Soon, word spread and I felt like a heroine. What did he say? Well, he was simply happy at my enthusiasm and with my first piece.
Irani was a rare editor who took personal pride in his employees. To him, we were not fulfilling a contractual obligation, but serving the larger cause of journalism as his flanks. Even after an illness restricted his movements, at 74, he continued to be driven as ever, more than any one I know or have heard of. Newspapers were a form of crusade for him, not en enterprise as it has become for everyone else I know.
When I quit Statesman, it was only because I felt I should also look at the material side of things. After all, I was no Irani-an. The one memory that still disturbs me to this day is his bitter response to my resignation. I never got in touch with him thereafter.
Today, The Statesman may not be the same but in my heart, it embodies the ethics of journalism as no other paper does because of a single man who lived by his values and died by them.
To me, Irani will forever be the true Statesman. May his soul rest in peace.

Here's a powerful address by the indefatigable Vandana Shiva which addresses some issues very close to my heart. Please, ppllllease read it. Will post my comments later.


How to Address Humanity's Global Crises? Challenge Corporate Power, Embrace True Democracy


By Vandana Shiva, AlterNet
Posted on October 1, 2007, Printed on October 1, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/63541/


Editor's note: the following remarks were made this September at a conference on "Confronting the Global Triple Crisis -- Climate Change, Peak Oil, Global Resource Depletion & Extinction," in Washington DC. For more information, visit the International Forum on Globalization's website.



Before I came here I was very fortunate to join the group of scientists and religious leaders who made a trip to the Arctic to witness the melting of the icecaps. An entire way of life is being destroyed. You've seen the polar bears losing their ecological space, but the highest mobility in that part of the world is the dog sledge. And they can't use it. They're locked into their villages because the ice is now too thin to travel on it. But it's still there and therefore not good enough for them to use boats.



The same melting is making the Himalayan glaciers in my region, the Ganges glacier, recede by 30 meters a year. In twenty years time, the Himalayan glaciers will have reduced from 500,000 square kilometers to 100,000 square kilometers. And given our rainfall patterns, in the hot summer season when we have a drought, it's only the melting of the glaciers that brings us water. So we're talking about one-fifth of humanity, twenty to thirty years from now, having no water in the grand rivers around which the grand civilizations of Asia have been built.



And where did this start? All this feels so timeless, but it started with humanity getting at the fossil fuel, which was never supposed to be touched… But that model carries on. And globalization now is industrializing every activity of every human being's life across the planet. For me, globalization is really expanding the use of fossil fuel.



And so while on the one hand, when we talk climate change, we're talking about reducing emissions, the entire economic model is based on increasing emissions. It is based on increasing emissions by destroying small-scale peasant farming and introducing large-scale industrial agriculture. It's increasing emissions by making every one of us dependent on our everyday needs to come from China.



Everything today is being made where it can be made most cheaply, which means where sources can be exploited the fastest and workers can be exploited the highest. And at one level, that's what's being reflected in China's double-digit growth and India's nine percent growth. It's basically converting our resources into commodities, to be sold around the world.



But that conversion requires the wastage of human beings on a scale we've never seen. In India right now, the relocation of industry for example; industry like steel that's shutting down in Europe and America, is relocating to India. Automobile companies that are shutting down in the West are moving to India; they're talking about making 50 million cars in India annually. Only four percent of India will ever own them. The rest will either be exported or that four percent will have eight cars rather than two. Already my landlord has five in a family of three. Those cars need minerals, they need steel, they need iron ore mining, they need aluminum, they need bauxite mining. And every inch of the land in India is today serving a global, fossil fuel economy that's on fast forward.



It needs land; land grab is the biggest resource crisis. Land you can't create, you can only exhaust. But peasants are saying we will not move. That's what they said in Nandigram, 25 were shot dead and they refuse to move. In Dhandri, where women were raped and attacked and refused to move. In place after place, the tribals, the peasants in India are saying this our land, this is our mother, and this is where we will be. And when the money for compensation becomes bigger and bigger-- I love this action-- the Nandigram peasants sent a letter to the chief ministers to say, "How much is your mother for sale. How much will you take for her? Because this land is our mother."



And the globalization of agriculture has really become genocidal. It's hugely responsible for increasing greenhouse gases, whether it's from the nitrogen fertilizers of the fossil fuel in the mechanical energy that's used, or in the long distance transport and food miles. But on the ground it's killing people. Long before it will kill us through climate change, it's killing people, physically killing people.



150,000 farmers have been pushed to end their lives in India because of Monsanto seed monopolies. Monsanto was collecting 2,400 rupees as royalty for a kilogram of Bt cotton seed that they were selling for 3,200 rupees. They're in the courts right now; we've challenged them, we've joined one of the state governments. They're saying we have a right to this monopoly and we're saying our country has never given you this right. They assume they got it in the United States and therefore they have it everywhere, whether the law allows it or not.



Or Cargill, wanting to grab India's wheat market, having signed an agreement through the Bush Administration with…Right here in this city, decisions about agriculture are being made here, in Washington. A two-year old agriculture agreement. So Cargill eventually got India's wheat markets opened up. And the international wheat price is $400; Indian farmers are getting $200. And this double price is ultimately a subsidy that we are giving in addition to the subsidy your farm bill is providing to these corporations.



Retail: India is a huge, huge land of bazaars, of huts, of markets. Every street is a market. Hawkers come down in the morning, get us our vegetables to our doorstep. Of course, that's not very good for Wal-Mart so they're manipulating zoning laws, shutting down hawkers, shutting down businesses in town, so that we will have a Wal-Mart model. But that means 100 million people out of retail and we don't know how much more carbon emissions, while Wal-Mart talks about going green…



So here you have globalization adding to emissions and it needs to be a continued part of our work. And you've got false solutions that were laid out by Jerry [Mander]. But the false solution that I think we need to pay particular attention to is the dominant solution in terms of carbon trading. Because at the philosophical level, at the world-view level, it's the second privatization of the atmospheric commons. The first privatization was putting the pollution into the atmosphere beyond the earth's recycling capacity. Now with carbon trading, the rights to the earth's carbon cycling capacity are gravitating exactly into the arms of the polluters. The environmental principal used to be the polluter must pay. Carbon trading is transforming that into the polluter gets paid.



[Sir Nicholas] Stern, who did the Stern Review, has clearly said it is an allocation of a full set of property rights to the atmosphere. And PricewaterhouseCoopers -- who was very notorious in trying to privatize, with the World Bank's help, Delhi's water supply, and we defeated them two years ago in that project -- has said that trade in carbon emissions is equated with the transfer of similar rights such as copyrights, patents, licensing rights, commercial and industrial standards.



One of the things we have always said in [the International Forum on Globalization] is that the enclosures of the commons is one of the deep crises of resource depletion. Once resources move out of common management and public care, they will get further degraded. And if you really look at the clean development mechanism, it's all about dirty industry; it's about HCFC plants being accelerated, new plants being set up in China and India. The biggest recipients of CDM credits in China and India are plants that are depleting the ozone layer. Sponge iron plants coming up in the tribal belts of India, in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, and Orissa. And clean seems to have become such a confusing word. We would have thought that we know what clean is. And suddenly, everything dirty is clean.



Including nuclear. Nuclear, not just as nuclear power, but nuclear as strategic use of nuclear power. I don't know how many of you have followed that the United States signed an agreement with India. Now it isn't really that United States signed an agreement with India because you did not sign that agreement and I did not sign that agreement. Our Prime Minister came at the same time that they handed over our agriculture. Monsanto, Cargill, and Wal-Mart, who sit on the board of the agriculture agreement, they also signed this nuclear agreement.



Which has led to the Hyde Act; section 103 of the Hyde Act calls for securing India's full and active participation in U.S. efforts to dissuade, isolate, and if necessary, sanction and contain Iran if it proceeds with its nuclear program. Iran has been mentioned 15 times in a bilateral agreement.



So the nuclear agreement with India is definitely not about clean energy; it is about something bigger. And in India, right now while I'm here, we are having the biggest democratic mobilization against this agreement. First of all because Parliament did not clear it and second, because we don't want to be a client state of the empire -- we want our non-alignment defended -- and thirdly we don't want $100 billion market created for the defense industry in the United States. After all, you are going to have a big mobilization tomorrow against the war. And we don't want to be a part of U.S.'s wars without end. We are, after all, the land of Gandhi, the land of nonviolence, the land of peace, the land of ahimsa.



We have to begin with solutions where we are, while we defend our democratic rights. I work primarily on agriculture. The globalized, industrialized agriculture is a very big part of the pollution that we are dealing with, a very big part of the crisis we are facing. But ecological, bio-diverse, local agriculture is part of the solution. Both in reducing emissions, in increasing absorption of carbon, and most importantly, providing the adaptive capacity to deal with climate chaos. This year in Navdanya, the movement I started for seed saving, we started saving seeds that can deal with the drought, that can deal with the floods. We've been saving seeds that can deal with the cyclones and hurricanes and distributed those seeds after the tsunami. Those seeds are available, they merely have to be saved and distributed rapidly enough before Monsanto comes up with yet another false solution; that without genetic engineering and seed patents we will not be able to respond to climate change ...



I just want to end by saying that we have basically two options. We have the option of letting the remaining resources of the planet be fought over viciously through militarized power or we can move rapidly to the ability to rebuild our ecosystems, share the limited resources the planet can provide us, and create good lives while doing it. But to do that, we'll have to get out of many reductionisms.



The first reductionism being the reductionism of energy. We've suddenly moved to thinking of energy as something we can consume, not as something we generate. And I think that generative concept of energy -- we call it shakti in India -- is something we have to reclaim, because the solution to pollution and wasted people is bringing people back -- deep into the equation of how we produce things, how we work the land, how we shape community, and how we exercise our democratic rights and rebuild our freedoms.



And of course, we'll have to get out of the mindsets that treat the laws manufactured by the market as immutable and unchanging. And the three concepts that are constantly referred to as something that can't be touched are: economic growth. You can't make any change that will touch the nine percent growth in India, the ten percent growth in China. You cannot interfere in the unregulated market -- even though every step of trade liberalization is an interference in the market, every step of creating an opportunity for Cargill and Monsanto, is an interference in the market. And the third false sacred, is unbridled consumerism ..



The problem of climate chaos to me and the problem of appropriating the resources of those who need those resources for ecological security and economic security, is ultimately a question of ethics and justice. And that issue of ethics and justice can only be addressed if we recognize some very basic facts and reorient our practices of what we eat, what we do on our farms, our homes, our towns, our planet.



We need to reinvent our eating and drinking, our moving and working, in our local ecosystems and local cultures. Enriching our lives by lowering our consumption, without impoverishing others. And above all, we need to subject the laws that govern production and consumption to the laws of Gaia; the laws of the planet. The laws of a planet that can give forever in abundance for our needs if we do not allow the narrow minded, mechanistic, reductionist, greed based system of industrialism, capitalism, globalization to make us imagine that to be inhuman is the definition of being human.



Activist and physicist Vandana Shiva is founder and director of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology, and Natural Resource Policy in New Delhi. She is author of more than three hundred papers in leading journals and numerous books, including "Monocultures of the Mind: Biodiversity, Biotechnology, and the Third World and Earth Democracy." Shiva is a founding director of International Forum on Globalization.