A Day in a Life

On 30th April 1975, after an indulging indiscreetly in chhole bhature at Bhimsain’s Bengali Sweet House, I came down with a particularly bad bout of hepatitis A. I spent the month of May suffering exhaustion and abominable abdominal pain, and condemned to the most miserable diet, especially boiled potatoes, for which I still have a loathing. The only redeeming features was that I could eat mangoes and drink unlimited volumes of nimbu-pani and home-crushed cane juice (what kitchen equipment Amma used to extract it I have forgotten, but surely it was some magical art she learnt in her childhood, eating charuku grown in her family fields on the banks of the Tungabhadra). I had read through all the books in my shelf and my level of boredom must have reached such heights that I found myself scanning the schedules of the local trains and wondering what it would be like to travel to Baghpat or Hapur.

The invitation from NVK Murthy to spend a month with his family in Bombay was a welcome break. I was extremely fond of Kittu mama and his family; Krishna atta was a darling, and we were very close to his daughters, particularly Janu and Anu, who would come after school and spend the afternoon and evenings more than a couple of times a week before they had moved to Bombay. The holiday in their Hyderabad Estate apartment on Napean Sea Road was to be one of my most enjoyable childhood vacations, and an important one as I completed my twelfth year.

My holiday was cut short by the declaration of the Emergency, when my mother thought the situation in the country was likely to go out of hand, particularly with threats of railway strikes. Poor Kittu mama had to use all his charm and connections to get me a train ticket urgently. He managed to arrange this, and found a colleague who was travelling to Delhi on the 26th of June whom I could accompany.

Being away in Bombay in June 1975, I perhaps missed seeing my father going through the prelude to one of the most stressful periods of his professional life. What he went through is recounted by Bishan Tandon in his PMO Diary-I, from which the following extract is taken:

As I was leaving for office, Sharada [H Y Sharada Prasad] phoned to say, “You must have heard, it is all over. We will talk when you come to office.”  He sounded very dejected.

On reaching office I went straight to Sharada’s room.  He told me in detail whatever he knew.  Last night the PM had summoned him and Prof. Dhar to her house at 10pm. Barooah and Ray were already there. When Prof. Dhar and Sharada reached there, the PM told them, “I have decided to declare an Emergency.  The President has agreed. I will inform the Cabinet tomorrow.” Saying this, she handed over the draft of the Emergency proclamation to Prof. Dhar.  He and Sharada were stunned. They had been summoned only in order to be informed and for their advice on the propaganda to follow. She also told them to prepare a draft of her address to the nation.  They were at the PM’s house till about 1am. The cabinet was to meet at 6am.

All those ministers who were in Delhi attended the cabinet meeting.   The PM told them what she had decided to do but not one of them protested, not even faintly.  Only Swaran Singh raised some administrative issues.  The arrests were not discussed at all.  One of the ministers said that he had heard about the arrests but the matter was swept aside. Even Prof. Dhar had no idea about these arrests. Sharada said that all the main leaders of the opposition, including JP, Morarji, Charan Singh have been arrested.

Sharada also told me that Sanjay was in full control of the PM’s house.  After the cabinet meeting he [Sanjay] called Gujral to one side and scolded him for the poor propaganda effort. He told him to send every news bulletin to the PM’s house henceforth: Gujral told him that from the functional point of view, some official should be deputed for this. He could be stationed at the AIR, where he would be shown all the bulletins.  He suggested Sharada’s name for this but Sanjay put Behl on the job.

VR [V Ramachandran] also joined us. After hearing Sharada he said that Indira too would have a `guided’ democracy.  Sharada said yes in a very low tone. 

He was very tired.  Since June 12 he has had to work the hardest in the PM’s secretariat because the PM’s entire strategy is based on propaganda.  But more than physical tiredness, he was in mental agony.  I have never seen him like this.  He must surely have wondered if this was what he had gone to jail for in 1942. He is a journalist. After independence this is the first time that pre-censorship has been imposed. 

Ghachar Ghochar

GHACHAR GHOCHAR (Review written on 21.6.2017)

GHACHAR GHOCHAR sounds like it comes from Bengali (Bangla), a nonsense word that Sukumar Ray may have invented. The title of Vivek Shanbhag’s highly acclaimed novella makes sense once you understand it means a hopeless entanglement, the ghichad-michad in which you find wires or naadas (or your chuddies in a twist), and when you pronounce it quickly, not with a ponderous elongation or emphasis. This is not (as NYT gauchely titled a review) The Great Indian Novel but a slim novella about "money control”, the disfigurement of the lives of a family that transits from having very little to having more than its members can handle.

The effortlessness of Srinath Perur’s translation is remarkable — unselfconscious and unobtrusive with no dramatic effects, but with just the right level of local flavour (“iron box”) to make you hear the contemporary Kannada of Shanbhag’s original below the English at the surface*. There is no stilted dialogue, even when the conversations are apparently formulaic. Apparently formulaic, since so much of what is said by the characters often connotes something else.

This is a story with no dramatic twists and turns, and no magical realism. There is drama, the kind that lies menacingly below the quotidian. This is a tragedy but not of the spectacular kind. No deaths, but loss. Rather, the unravelling of melancholy family life which has transited from the ``lower-middle class poverty’’ (that many of us have seen in our lives) to an arriviste prosperity (towards which we seem to be working) takes on a greater sadness because of its very banality. The descriptions of the old little house and the furniture, particularly the observations about the ants, are superb. They glow, not conspicuously like deliberately set jewels, but with the warm richness of fine observation.

The narrative is not without its flaws. The narrator and his observations seem far too sensitive for someone who is given to fleeing the domestic conflicts and retreating to Coffee House. The narrative is too narrowly focussed on his family, with little about neighbours and friends, schoolmates and teachers — figures who normally loom large in our lives and memories. The waiter Vincent hovers too prominently in the beginning, only to disappear though the main course of the narrative — although he briefly reappears at the end. The conclusion leaves us with a sense that something has been lost forever, but without any empathy for the narrator, without us sharing his sense of bewilderment and hopelessness.

But in a summer where we will be ministered over-the-top yappiness of the utmost variety, this understated masterpiece is the book I will be pressing into the hands of friends.

(*) I don’t read Kannada, though I understand the language well enough to appreciate some of the literary nuances; I suppose I got a smidgeon of this from my father, who was considered a Kannada man of letters, having translated several works from his mother tongue to English, most notably some novels and the autobiography of the polymath Shivaram Karanth.

The Subhas Chandra Bose Legacy Needs a Dispassionate Study

One of India’s most charismatic and iconic heroes Subhash Chandra Bose was born 125 years ago.   Here was a man who epitomised a tragic heroism, a person of immense ability and bravery, who sacrificed comfort and a secure future as a civil servant to travel of a difficult path of taking on the British government, going to jail several times in the freedom struggle, then falling out with Gandhi, escape from his beloved motherland and tragic death in exile.   He represents  everything that our ordinary selves are too craven to do in our quotidian lives.

Yet it is all too easy to be swayed by the Bose legend.  Several people were so inspired by him that they named their children after him — some even in a full form — I’ve heard of someone named “Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Reddy”.

I myself grew up memorising all the Indian National Army tunes as a six year old, and singing along with the choirs at Teen Murti Bhawan on nationalist events in the 60s and 70s. 

 

 Kadam-kadam badhaaye ja, 

Khushi ke geet gaaye ja, 

Yeh zindagi hai Qaum ke, 

Tu Qaum pe lutaye ja.  

 

Without having to face the rigours of a war and the harsh conditions of the 40s, it’s all too easy to get fascinated by the INA, to get children dress up in costume and enact imagined scenes, to weep on hearing Bose’s brave declarations made over the Azad Hind radio.    And 75 years on as an independent country, too many people whose ideology has nothing to do with Bose’s can lay claim to his legacy are given to saying that Bose is not given his due as a leader by the previous governments.  Narayan Murthy, a co-founder of Infosys, even claimed that in Delhi there is not a single road named after Bose.   [False: the very road in front of the Red Fort, form where the PM addresses the nation on Independence Day,  is called Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Marg.  There are several Subhash Nagars, Netaji Nagars, and stadiums and institutes named after Bose in Delhi alone.]

In response to a quotation I had posted (of Nehru’s first speech from the Red Fort, where he specifically recalled the role of two individuals — Mahatma Gandhi and Subhas Chandra Bose)  and something I had written, a noted scholar commented  that this  "should be sobering for all those who revere Nehru and demonize Bose".

In what I had written, I was actually arguing for a more honest and nuanced evaluation of the Bose legacy, something that is actually somewhat problematic for a modern secular democracy.  This is something difficult to do today, with hot tempers and ill-informed debate, and deeply entrenched beliefs that have no basis but some ill-defined grudges and false identifications. 

I wrote the following in that context — let it be clear that I find a lot to admire in Bose: in the man and his personality, in his immense intellectual ability, in his far-sighted visions especially for science, for planning, for his systematic approach to the problems the country faced, for his deeply-held sense of fair-play and his through-and-through secular ethos. 

All that said, Subhash Chandra Bose is not someone I idolise. It is absolutely inconceivable to me (today) that someone like Bose --- well-read and politically active on the Left, and who had travelled in the 30s through Europe  --- could have missed something as obvious as the sheer brutality of the Fascist regimes of Spain, Italy and Germany. More so since Nehru, who was, in the Congress ranks and Mahatma Gandhi loyalists, one of the very few who had political and personal sympathy for Bose and who kept in touch with him regularly, spoke and wrote extensively on this matter throughout that turbulent decade.

In retrospect, however, one can say that Bose unfortunately had a rather shallow approach to a true social-democratic path -- which involves empowerment of the common people in the decision processes (and not merely popular will as evinced in elections).  From his writings in the 30s and 40s, it seems he was all too enamoured of the use of State power and Nationalist sentiment (see his fascination for Il Duce, and even Franco.. and then his going first to Hitler, then to Tojo, and finally  -- it is said -- to seek Stalin's help). See also his writings where he explicitly advocates a dictatorship in India.

He also seemed much too fascinated with militaristic power and was given to dressing up in uniform, even as a civilian at the 1928 Congress session — when as "Commander-In-Chief of Congress Volunteer Corps", he got himself togged out with military uniform and insignia, leading to Gandhi calling it a “Bertram Mills Circus”.  His arrival in a caparisoned chariot as President of the Congress at Haripura would have further irked the Mahatma.   I think that his distaste for Bose's theatrics led Gandhi to underestimate his subsequent bravery, innate sense of honour and willingness to doggedly fight the British even in the hardest of circumstances.

Let's also be clear, while he was all togged up in uniform, Bose was not a fighting man.  He was a leader of the imagination, but not a general.  Among the few genuinely capable military leaders and tacticians in the INA was Shahnawaz Khan, who fought all the way to eastern India (and the decisive twin battles of Imphal-Kohima). Even at its peak the INA, with ~40000 troops had perhaps only about 12000 who were fighting fit, the rest were support volunteers and the like. I would go with the estimates Hugh Toye made in his book.  This was certainly not a force that could have made a difference to capturing India. It is true however, that after the War, the INA's actions gained hugely in the popular imagination with the British badly "misunderestimating" the sentiments that the Red Fort trials on grounds of treason of three captured INA officers would raise.

Bose’s alliances with the Axis powers has a much darker side to it, which is difficult to gainsay.   There are many other really ethically troublesome (if not gruesome) aspects to the alliance with the Waffen SS of the Legion Freies Indien (950th Infantry Regiment) and their terrible acts in the last phase of the Western war. As also the horrific torture and treatment by the Japanese of Indian army PoWs (in Singapore, in Rabaul, etc.) who did not join the INA (of which Bose ought to have been aware).

All this said, there is no denying that Bose was an inspirational leader, an innately honest and decent human, secular to the core, who at the end translated his words into his actions, however misguided we may feel them to be (with the benefit of hindsight) in a broader political sense.  I think Nehru certainly recognised that essential decency, spirit and courage, even if he concurred with Gandhi on the problematic aspects of the socialist-nationalist ideology espoused by Bose (which lived on in the confused politics of his party, the Forward Bloc). 

I don't think it ever was Nehru vs Bose contest, but more Gandhi's distaste for Bose's showiness, and Bose's impatience with Gandhi's non-violent tactics that led to the (Gandhi-) loyalist conservative side of the Congress (Patel, Rajendra Prasad, ...) having a general distaste for Bose’s politics. Yet in all their profound political disagreements, there was respect accorded, not only in words but in deeply cherished sentiments. 

I always found it fascinating that Nehru personally contributed money (not GoI money) to Bose's immediate family. {BTW, in 1982, my parents got to meet his widow Emilie in Vienna at the residence of Manju and Ambassador SK Singh, and according to them, she had frankly had had enough of the claims of the Bose aficionados in India that he was still alive, and that the Govt of India had conspired to keep him out of power, etc.}

The tallest leader I ever saw

Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan ("Bacha" or Badshah Khan).

 

(c) TS Satyan. Photo found in my parents' album

1969. My mother took my brother and me, catching a bus from Moti Bagh to somewhere in "bungalow" New Delhi (1) where he was staying when he had come for the Gandhi centenary celebrations. She had to hoist me up to see him -- even though he was 6'7", the crowd was so thick I couldn't see him.

When he saw my mother, with two children (~9 and ~6), he walked across the room and took off two large cloth garlands and gave them to us, the tip of his nose touching my mother's head in blessing.

(Written some time ago).

(1) Anil Nauriya informs me that during his 1969 visit Badshah Khan stayed at 5 Rajendra Prasad Road, a building that does not exist any more.

Let me tell you what I mean

I was paradropped into Season 9 of The Blacklist, something the better half has been watching over the years. I find the premise and plot rather contrived, but have to keep that opinion to myself.  Anyway, after watching an excruciatingly tedious and hackneyed episode which contains just about every tired trope in formulaic US TV dramas last night (Dressler’s back story), I declared that I had had enough and was headed to the bedroom.  

“What are you going to do?”

“Get into bed with Joan Didion”

OK, that doesn’t sound like the right thing to say to a spouse.  

Let me tell you what I mean. There is a slim volume of Joan Didion’s essays that had been demanding my attention for the past fortnight.  I needed to have finished reading a book this calendar year.  This was a psychological need.

A writer friend, who believes me to be better read than I actually am, asked me last week what I was reading. I parried with a description of my visit to the neighbourhood bookshop and my conversation with the proprietor, someone to whom we have gone for the best part of 3 decades for our Tsundoku fix, but who opened up only now about the sheer awfulness of what our country has become when we exchanged notes on how the children were doing. The Didion volume was one of the many books that I had picked up to add to my co-library (a term I prefer to Nassim Nicholas Taleb's “anti-library").

Not that I have not been reading, and not that I have not been reading stuff of sheer excellence.  I have been engaged in going over the draft chapters of a superb book which will be brought out soon by ACM Books (of which I am an Editor-in-Chief).  The book is edited by Krzysztof Apt and Tony Hoare and is on the work of Edsger Dijkstra and how it has influenced developments in the science of computing.  This volume follows a book on Tony Hoare himself (edited by Cliff Jones and Jayadev Misra) that came out a few months ago.  Two other draft books which I have read through recently and which I expect will come out in the next few  months are similar volumes on the works of Tim Berners-Lee and of Whit Diffie and Martin Hellman. 

Any way back to Didion and Let me tell you what I mean. The writing is pure her, the voice is unique.  The selection of essays is excellent, even if the overly long foreword by Hilton Als reveals too much about what is to follow.  There are sharp observations on people in A Trip to Xanadu (on the Randolph Hurst mansion), Pretty Nancy (wife of Gov. Reagan), Everywoman.com (Martha Stewart) and on American society (in Getting Serenity, in Fathers, Sons and Screaming Eagles and in Alicia and the Underground Press).  There is insightful analysis and yet tender portraits in The Long Distance Runner (Tony Richardson) and Some Women (Robert Mapplethorpe and his photographs).

My personal favourites in the volume however are the essays dealing with writing. Her writing.   Starting with On Being Unchosen by the College of One’s Choice, which should be required reading for all parents who want their children to go to the most prestigious colleges. Telling Stories is about about the college course that got her writing stories (or rather almost did not), and the fate of three short stories she wrote in one particular year.  Last Words on Hemingway and whether the unfinished works of a writer should be shared with the world is quintessential Joan Didion.    

And most of all Why I Write.   Why am I writing this?  Because of Why I Write.