Just Jo

Commonwealth and Common Good

Jo — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:00:24 +0000

Yesterday on TEDIndia, Hans Rosling predicted that the average Indian would match up to the average American on 27th July, 2048 (yes, he’s even got the date). The Twitter stream was overflowed with Tweets rejoicing in the prediction. I am not sure if this is because of the TED organizers believing that “Indians are feel-gooders anyway, so let us just give them such feel-good statistics“, but I think Mr. Rosling has got a point there. We are matching up with America of the early days on many fronts. We are fast discriminating and ignoring some sections of people in our society. We are almost on the tip of a civil war. The central Government (with support from other political parties and corporations) has declared war on Naxalism which is sure to take the lives of it’s own people, including the innocent tribal people. I do understand the need for a military action against militant forces that threats the existence of a country, but it is going to be a mere exercise as a solution because the Government is doing almost nothing to root out the root problem – Though the Prime Minister himself has identified that very root problem.

There has been a systemic failure in giving tribals a stake in the modern economic process that inexorably intrude into their living places. The alienation built over decades is now taking a dangerous turn. The systematic exploitation and social and economic abuse of our tribal communities can no longer be tolerated.

That is what our PM has said some weeks back. And what is being done to solve that issue?

As Himanshu Kumar, a Gandhian and the only human rights activist on ground zero in faraway Dantewada where Operation Green Hunt is to be launched, says, “We can all be agreed on the premise that Naxalism is a problem, but why are these poor people attracted to a politics that will end in death? Have we created such a heinous system that death is more attractive than the deprivations and humiliations this system doles out? If that is so, why should I defend this system? All that these people want is food, health care, school, clothes and their legitimate right over their land. Yet, instead of weaning them away by strengthening the democratic process, if we are going to run our democracy only on the strength of weapons, I fear we are entering a dangerous and irrepairable state. We are headed for civil war.” Men like Himanshu should know. For 17 years, he has functioned like an ICU on the edges of a wounded society, providing education and health care, painstakingly drawing tribals into the electoral and constitutional process. The government, loath to undertake the trouble, has been happy to outsource its functions to him. Yet now, it is deaf to his wisdoms. Worse, it hasn’t even consulted him. [via]

And yesterday the Headlines India tweeted that “The government today more than doubled the budget for the 2010 Commonwealth Games from Rs.767 crore to Rs.1,620 crore“. Commonwealth seems to be more important than Common Good in this country. Such is our time.

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Sreemathi Teacher’s English

Jo — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:58:24 +0000

There is a YouTube video doing the rounds through emails in these days. Featured in the video is an English speech by P K Sreemathi, Kerala’s Minister of Health. The clip shows her struggling to speak in English and it was taken off a political satire programme broadcasted in Manorama News channel. The video is quite popular now and everybody is making fun of the level of softskills of our ministers.

I do agree that the politicians should learn how to speak in fluent English as there is no other language that they can use these days to communicate their opinion nationally and internationally. When they can’t speak on their own, they should at least attempt to read a written speech in such seminars or conferences just to avoid any embarrassment to themselves or to the people whom they represent. Here the minister has been made a point of ridicule, but I wonder how many of our local politicians/ministers of all parties actually know how to speak good English. Show me one, please (and exclude Shashi Tharoor for now).

English has become an important language to communicate in these days and times, but the reason for such ridiculing of the minister is our obsession with the English language. Though not many of us speak good English, we want the person next to us to speak good English or we make fun of them. Even “good English” has become a farce term these days as some people consider British English to be superior and most of the soft skills sessions in the IT and ITES or other corporate industries now ask people to unlearn the British English and learn it in the American way.

And if our media makes so much fun of a state minister, what would they do about a President if he speaks bad English or doesn’t speak English at all? Search “Sarkozy English Speech” in Google and see how the French president speaks in English. But French are proud of their own language and culture so they worry very little about this. But we celebrate/worship people like Ranjini Haridas who has made Manglish a fashion signature and keeps killing the language as the lead anchor in a popular television show.

Then what about the Malayalam media? How many people in the Malayalam television media know how to speak good English? How many of them can pronounce the English words right? I have seen in many instances where the interviewer struggles to speak English in our television channels.

And what about the rest of us, if I may ask? We are the people who can’t even rightly pronounce “audio” or “auditorium”. Just take a look at the people who work in the so-called elite service sectors, including IT. Most of them speak funny English, leave alone grammar. I remember attending an interview in a company that has offices in USA and North India, and the HR person spoke funny English and was struggling to find the right words. Are those the guys who represents a multi-national company?

So I think before we start making fun of an old lady (I doubt if the media would care a hoot if she belonged to Congress party), we, the young guns, should at least take a look at ourselves and ponder over the matter. I think Sreemathi teacher spoke better English than an average Malayalee. But my advice for her is to at least have a written speech next time.

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Is This It?

Jo — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:20:27 +0000

I went to see Michael Jackson’s (or I’d rather say Sony’s) “This Is It” on last Saturday with much expectation. But I was left disappointed. I brought along my 4 nephews with me, but even they were not so happy about the film/documentary. I thought I would get to see the glimpse of, to quote MJ himself, the “person, not just the personality”. But it is mostly just song and dance. Though you would initially get charged a little with some of his popular songs, the enthusiasm would soon die down as this is nothing close to what an MJ show really is (compared to what I have seen in his live show videos of course) . You would soon lose interest in watching him sing and dance. But the movie does give us a glimpse of what a great show it could have been if “This Is It” happened. And what a great performer MJ was, organizing every single detail of the show to make it sound/seem perfect.

The movie seems to be carefully edited. You do not see a tired, sick MJ in the film like the news reports after his death mentioned. You always get to see his happy face and his enthusiastic, energetic self. Also the movie is very badly edited, as scenes fading from one to another not leaving any emotional moments or something that emotionally moves the fans or the viewers. It also ends with a weird ending, not quite a tribute to MJ, who, if given a chance, would have done this a lot better. Like many of the MJ fans have mentioned, this movie seems to have been made just to make money out of Michael Jackson’s death.

To sum it all, the movie is not worthy of watching in a theatre. Perhaps in a DVD, yes, but that is only if you are a hardcore Michael Jackson fan and can trade some bucks just to see him sing and dance.

(Image courtesy: Wikipedia)

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Don’t play with the Holy Cows!

Jo — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:31:11 +0000

A few weeks back, the (Twitter) Minister of State Shashi Tharoor was in the news for his remarks on “Cattle Class” and “Holy Cows”. The supporters of Shashi Tharoor were quick to respond and to point out how we Indians do not understand the pun of English language or can’t take a joke for its humor sense. The good part of the whole incident is that people like me, who are neither well versed in the English language nor familiar with the phrases related to Air travel, could learn a new word – “Cattle Class“.

Shashi Tharoor’s aide(s) went a step ahead during this incident. They kept re-tweeting the supportive (only supportive) Tweets, indicating how we Indians have run out of (English) humor. Now on to the story – A Mumbai based journalist started a fake Twitter account (clearly mentioning that it is THE FAKE twitter account) of Shashi Tharoor and started tweeting political satire. No vulgar language, no insult per say. But those who saw humor in the use of Holy Cows did not quite understand what the word Satire meant. They contacted Twitter HQ and got the account suspended.

Techgirl writes:

On Oct 6, I started a Twitter account ‘Shashi Tharoor Fake’. The bio in this Twitter account had the word satire and the front page even linked to my satire blog techgirltalk.blogspot.com.

My Twitter account Shashi Tharoor Fake, started on Oct 6, has built up about 100 followers. Even the United Nations Information Centre was following me. By Oct 23, Shashi Tharoor’s team had contacted Twitter in USA to suspend my account.

Shashi Tharoor’s aides never emailed me to ask for clarification. Till today, Twitter has not given me an explanation on why I am locked out. Perhaps, if they had emailed me before cutting me out, this article would never have seen light of the day. Hell hath no fury like a female satirist scorned.

And she does not forget to mention that she is “a big fan of Shashi Tharoor” and “our country and polity needs such capable people“. But what about the people who are not his “fans” or who does not think so much about him? What if such people do political satire? Would be that be an even greater crime?

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If there’s a will…

Jo — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:44:14 +0000

[From YouTube] Campaign “Let’s Do It!” – a grassroot initiative to clean up the country from illegal waste in just one day. There was over 10 000 tons of illegal waste lying around all over Estonia and it was an outrageous plan — to clean it all up on one day! More than 600 volunteers were working to make it all happen with only 3 full-time employees. On May 3, 2008 with help of 50 000 volunteers more than 10 000 tons of garbage gathered and Estonia was cleaned up from illegal waste.

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Left & Right – United

Jo — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 11:20:55 +0000

The Varkala Murder case (in Kerala State) and the Police relating it to a Dalit organization have once again exposed the mindset of mainstream media, mainstream Left and extreme Right. The interesting thing is that the Left and Right (CPM and Shiv Sena) allegedly join hands along with Police to hunt down the Dalits in this case. Journalist BRP Bhaskar who has had a chance to visit the Dalit colonies in Varkala writes:

This FB friend voiced two other criticisms about the video, which was taken by a member of the fact-finding team. One is that there are no men in sight. The other is that the women refer to RSS, not Shiv Sena. The answer is simple. No men are in the video because they are all in police custody or hiding to avoid arrest and torture. The women mention RSS because they lack the sophistication needed to distinguish between different elements of Hindutva. [...]

[...]The major media institutions did not cover the Commission’s visit to Varkala, although they had prior knowledge about it. That, however, did not inhibit them from playing up the statements critical of the Commission’s visit. There was nothing to indicate that they had sought the Commission’s response to the allegations. Incidentally, Malayala Manorama and Mathrubhumi which have consistently ignored the police’s month-long Dalit hunt, found time to pursue the appearance of mysterious white drawings at the site of Sivaprasad’s cremation.

Also read: Chengara / Varkala : Beware of the Dalit – Insight Young Voices

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Celebrating Street Musicians

Jo — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:27:45 +0000

Indiavision television channel in Malayalam has a different kind of reality music show. They conduct a musical reality show called “Street Light” for street singers/musicians. And the final price is to get them a house. Quite interesting. The show is telecasted in Indiavision on every Saturday and Sunday at 8:25 PM.

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A circle of life

Jo — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:00:48 +0000

“I used to walk for kilometers to fetch the firewood for half the price of what was available in the neighborhood”. The mother told her son.

“I would walk with your elder brother lying on my shoulder, and the firewood on top of the head and rarely took the bus. Thus I could save 10 paise. I kept those 10 paises until I could make it to Rs. 200 and then I deposited that in the chit company”. Her son smiled, as he’s heard such stories of ‘living and saving within the limits’ from his mom earlier. He had just bought “Imagine“, a documentary DVD of John Lennon for Rs. 600 and a music album of the movie “Radio” for Rs. 160, just to see if Himesh Reshammiya is finally doing a good job on singing.

“I know mom. I remember one such time. We were going somewhere; You, me and two sisters together, I think. We walked all the way to the town and I wore a wooden high-heeled ladies chappal since my rubber slippers had nearly turned paper size. That pair of ladies chappals were discarded by our neighbor and given to us if I remember it right. It was a hot summer day and I couldn’t walk on the road without the chappals. So after some protests initially, I had to put on those chappals. And guess what? I still remember that chappal, it’s shape and color! I don’t think I would ever forget that.”

“Have you ever thought why I had to do that? I wanted us to live within our limits and without debt. And with the little I could save, I could manage our family and it’s expenses including some weddings.” Mom said. The son took her hand in his hand and looked at her affectionately. He knew he would never understand what she said.

“I’ve worked all these years.” She said. “I’ve worked right from the childhood, starting with the paddy fields of my family in the old days. And now I lay here, not even being able to walk without help.”

“Don’t be silly. Everybody gets old and now is the time for you to relax and rest a bit. And sooner you will be able to manage things on your own. This is just temporary.”

He looked at his mother’s pale face. Her eyes were wandering around the white ceiling of the room; she must have been thinking of the old days. He planted a kiss on her forehead and said in his mind – “Don’t you worry mom, I will take care of you to the best of my capacity. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.” Then he prayed to God to keep his sources strong as long as his mother lived. He said, “Dear God, I won’t complain if you give me poverty, push me to debt, leave me living in a hut – but please, please – only after my mother’s time. When her time comes, I want her to leave happily, in prosperity and peace.”

As he looked at her affectionately again, the mother turned a daughter and the son turned a father. A circle of life was just fulfilling.

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Sensationalism

Jo — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:00:19 +0000

_____’s first short film “The Temptation Between Our Legs” (23 minutes, English) was denied Censor Board Certificate.

That is one of the profile credentials of a young and upcoming Malayali film maker who is now making a Tamil movie. The denial of a censor board certificate is projected as the sole recognition of the director’s first short film. I was surprised to read it in between the other credible recognitions he got, but we live in a world where we all try to market ourselves to the core. And we know that the best tool to use is sensationalism. Well, nobody needs to teaches you that; particularly if you come from journalism.

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What has made DHRM possible?

Jo — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:29:06 +0000

On September 23rd, a 61 year old ordinary citizen from Varkala went for his usual morning walk and was brutally killed by a group of militants with swords. By evening, the police arrested a member of DHRM (Dalit Human Rights Movement) in connection with this murder, which was followed up by the arrest of 6 others from the same group. The victim had no proven political links and the police stated that this murder was done by DHRM “to get public attention and to prove their strength in ranks“. Police also said that they are inquiring to see if DHRM has any terrorist links.

The obvious reaction of the public to all this was the utmost anger towards such outfits which use the measures of terror to gain publicity. But then I read this article in last week’s India Today (Malayalam edition) about the Varkala incident. I was surprised, because it is not in India Today’s nature to present a view that is contrary to the public opinion and I read that weekly for their local news section in the first couple of pages and then the ‘masala’ section in the last pages. Saritha Balan, a reporter of India Today (Malayalam edition) has written in detail about the backdrop of the murder in Varkala. She says it is important to ask how such an organization like DHRM could influence a majority of the Dalit communities in Ernakulam, Kollam and Thiruvananthapuram districts.

Highlights of the India Today report:

DHRM stood for the well-being of Dalits as per some of the residents of Dalit colonies
Hundreds of families in the Muthaana, Thoduve colonies are living without the basic facilities
There is not even one cent of land for one house in Thoduve colony, where there are more than 600 houses
A family has to live in a ‘house’ that we can hardly call a ‘room’ by the public measures
Even the primary education is luxury here
There is not even a radio set for ‘luxury’

DHRM came to the scene in such a situation. As per some of the colony residents, DHRM gave them hope and they taught them to live responsibly. Most of the Dalit men were under the influence of drugs and alcoholism but DHRM conducted study classes for them. Saritha reports that an 8 year old Sandhya told her that DHRM study classes ask the children to study well and look after their parents.

“My husband would drink all day and was a total waster,” 29-year-old Kochumol, a mother of three, says. “He turned a teetotaler after attending DHRM study circles.” Soon, she followed him to these Sunday gatherings where, over five hours, Ambedkar’s life would be recalled and advice given on daily affairs. Cultural shows at the end were a big hit. Despite their meagre earnings as wage labourers — they call themselves ‘coolies’ — everyone would gladly pay Rs 30 for the events. [via]

The India Today report also quotes the colony residents and says that Shivsena activists have been threatening them. We can understand the concern of the political parties here. Communists who have been benefiting from the Dalit communities in Kerala since a very long time would not like another outfit to take the leadership of Dalits and contest in the elections. BJP and Shivsena alike would not like such a Dalit uprising as they have been trying hard to place themselves as the alternate shelter for Dalits in Kerala.

The DHRM has a notable influence among the Dalit community and they have contested elections from Attingal constituency and won 5217 votes in the last parliamentary elections. The question to ask here in this context is, did they (DHRM) have to do such a brutal murder in order to get public attention? They were already popular among the community that they work with and would they go ahead and make such a stupid decision to kill someone and get negative publicity? If it is not the DHRM, then who did that brutal murder? The questions remain unanswered until the final verdict on the case comes out. The DHRM members say that they trust the judiciary like we do and they hope the real culprits would be sent to justice.

Also read:

What is DHRM and why do they kill?
Ambedkar’s Lost Boys?

(Image courtesy: Tehelka)

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