Mālhar

The Trees Have Eyes

2025-02-02T22:44:00.002+05:30

I sit with the trees

and they sit with me
I see them
and they see me

I speak with the trees
and they speak too
I sleep with them
and they nourish my dreams

I rub their trunks
and the bark scratches back
I smell the leaves
and they catch my scent

I go to them in the summers
and their shade gives me respite
I go to them in the rains
and their joy gives me life

I go to them in the winters
and their nakedness gives me the strength
to not hide from my fears
and sit with them till they become my friends

And there comes a time
when we begin to know each other
We look at each other
and the birds look at us too

What trees are to me
I can hardly explain
For the trees have eyes
and I know they are with me
be it my joy or my sorrow
their spring or their autumn
We hold each other
as we walk together, finally.

Birds and Evenings

2024-05-13T00:55:00.005+05:30

I don't wake up early. That's never been me. At least, never consistently.

But I am an evening guy. I work well in evenings. I love being out in evenings too. And if I hear a few birds call out. Hey! Time to whip out the binocular, and the Merlin or BirdNet app and off I am. Trying to see if I can see or hear a new bird. A new visitor, if I am at home. Or to figure out the bird-scape, if I am in a new place.

I don't know why I get pulled towards birds. It's not quite the same with me for insects, or butterflies, or animals. Trees and plants come close, pretty close. But then I am hopeless at remembering trees, or anything actually, unless I see them everyday.

Birds are simple. From a distance. They hop, they sing and screech and sometimes just chatter or sleep, or gaze into the distance pointlessly. Kind of like how I like to spend my time. Maybe I like spotting them because they feel like me? Nah, too much. I just like them, who cares why! They are fun. From a distance.

I am sure they fight. Face hunger, and extreme heat, cold or wetness. Fear predators. Or just fear us at times. But I don't quite get to see all that in my evening leisure sprawls. My eyes and ears are peeled for some movement, a new sound, a new flight pattern, or a new color somewhere.

Rather stupid things make me laugh. Like when I saw the yellow-ish bum of a bulbul which has otherwise boring blacks, browns and whites all over. It's called a vent, the bum I saw. But it was Yellow! Seeing monkeys' red behinds used to amuse me years back. A bird with a yellow bum. Hah!

I also love tricking them. I think I manage to trick them. When I start my coo-oo-ooo whistle to catch the Koel's attention. Or try mimicing the mynah's chirp. Actually, it's puzzling and irritating them and joking around with them that I enjoy a lot. People say you shouldn't mimic birds, they might start looking for their mates and it might disturb them. But I ain't that good, that much I know. So I do mimic. And fun it is!

Though that stresses out my wife. When I try to irritate this cat that comes to our home every evening. I grab her tail and spin her around the smooth marble floor - the first time I cherished its smoothness in a long time, now that I don't have the body of someone who can slide with grace. I meant the cat's, not Annie's. Then the cat also follows me to the balcony if I am out watering plants and watching birds. Does she think she can get to some of them and make a nice meal? Maybe. Stupid cat. The birds aren't dumb enough to come to the balcony when you are there, dummy. Not that they come when I am alone too. But let's let that be.

There's a banyan tree right behind our home. A pretty young one I think, since its few aerial roots have yet to reach the ground. These aerial roots seem like the beard's hair of a grand-dad no? Maybe the length and number of aerial roots really is a good way to measure the tree's age. Much like someone's beard. Especially if it's white and long as that of Pai Mei from Kill Bill. (Oh I love the first movie. And the second. And the last. Just love them. The whistle in the Lonely Shepherd. And Bang Bang. Uma Thurman - now that's a GAL!)

So, Banyan tree. Come October and March, I swear I think there are more of these Green Pigeons than leaves in the tree. I step out into the kitchen balcony, soaking in the winter sun. Quite unaware of anything unusual. And I hear a soft innocuous whistle as if someone is idly teasing a friend. It seems as if it is coming from far away. I look up. Just leaves of the banyan. Nothing unusual. Another whistle, from a different direction this time. I swivel to look around again. Nothing. But then I see this branch laden with firm red figs. And before the stupidity could abandon me, there's a liud crack from somewhere and maybe a hundred birds are off. From this banyan. Where I could see nothing just a moment ago. I swear the tree seemed empty, of birds. These yellow footed rascals are so quiet. And so lazy. They are either asleep or they eat or they stare, yes, pointlessly. And they're so incredibly hard to spot amongst the green leaves too. Boy are those lazy bastards gluttons. How they swallow the whole fruit in one gulp. I got proof man! Lookie here -

Stupid, fascinating, lazy, and hardworking, singing friends you had in your childhood. That's birds. Maybe that's why I like being around them.

Oh, and I think kids are the same. Except the hardworking part. And especially the stupid part. And boy are they fun to be around :D

धूप शर्माती है

2017-11-16T00:07:00.001+05:30

धूप शर्माती है

संकड़ी पतली उस गली से, जहां सूरज आने से डरता है

६ बाय ६ के इस घर में, जिसका फर्नीचर लकड़ी का एक फट्टा है

गुल बिजली के उस खम्बे पे, घोड़े के चारे का जो अड्डा है

नज़र अपने को बचाती है

मैले भद्दे उस राह पे, जो पाक आशियानों का रस्ता है

तारों के जंजाल से, घर-घर जिससे बसता है

बिखरी उस दुकान में, चच्चा का चूल्हा जिससे जलता है

घडी रुक जाती है

शहाना की उस गुफा में, जहां खाना झुकके पकता है

सुमैरा की उस दीवार पे, जिसपर थूक बरसों से बरसता है

आज़ान के उस फरमान से, रहमत-ए-अल्लाह का जो रस्ता है

धूप कितना भी शर्मा ले,

नज़र बेशक अपने को बचा ले,

घड़ी चाहे न चले

पर कलम नहीं रुकती

पर कलम नहीं रुकती कि

छाँव मेरी सहेली है, नज़र से आंख मिंचोली खेली है, अतीत मुझे न पहेली है

पर कलम नहीं रूकती कि

रियाज़ मेरी जारी है, प्रयास मेरा भारी है, हंसी मेरी करारी है

पर कलम नहीं रुकती कि

सड़क के उस हाशिये पे, जहां दिल्ली ने मुझे फेंका है

वह सड़क भी मेरी दिल्ली है, वह गटर भी मेरी दिल्ली है

मैं खोयी पीढ़ी नहीं, कल का वर्तमान हूँ

मातम का तर्जुमा नहीं, आशा का फरमान हूँ

पीढ़ा की कोख में उपजी थी, बेतल खाई को राखी बाँधी है

हवा का पीछा करती थी, गरुड़ को धूल चटाई है

कलम नहीं रुकती

मगर, कागज़ क्यों अब भी कोरा है?

लाल स्याह निशान ने, क्यों मुझे बेरंग छोड़ा है?

अतीत का सर्वनाश तो, मेरे ही हांथों लिखा था,

अहम् के इस मायाजाल ने, मुझे ही क्यों झिंझोड़ा है?

मैं क्रान्ति की पुकार थी, ख़ामोश जलसों की ललकार थी

कुदरत ने मेरे ऐतबार में, क्यों काटों का मुखड़ा छोड़ा है?

ये क्या काल है जो मुझसे पूछ रहा है, मेरे लिबाज़ को नोच रहा है,

क्या तेरे इस विशाल मन में, पार्वती और काली साखी हैं?

क्या रेवा तट पर बैठ तू, हर सांस उसकी ले पाती है?

क्या रेवा तट पर

बैठ तू,

हर सांस उसकी

ले पाती है

----

यह कविता लोक नायक जय प्रकाश अस्पताल की बस्ती में उन बच्चियों को समर्पित जो रोज़ मेरा मज़ाक उड़ाती हैं, और उसी मज़ाक से न जाने क्या क्या सिखा जाती हैं। तुम्हे मेरा सलाम।

Bastille

2017-04-09T02:45:00.002+05:30

The bastards hid along long enough
The bastards, they been causing the gout
The bastards you could see all along
The bastards, assholes belching doubt

The bastards, they rocked and swayed
The bastards, had a merry go 'bout
The bastards swung and ho'ed
The bastards, ye, you and the lout

The bastards, the bas and the turds
The bastards, the termites, the grouts
The bastards, 'em with cards and the birds
The bastards, in leotards all up and about

The bastards, they barged in
The bastards, they knocked you out
The bastards, they kept you unconscious
The bastards, they each morn' sprout

The bastards, the nice looking ones too
The bastards, always won every bout
The bastards, make nary a splash
The bastards, the victors, they shout

The bastards, them of the insanities
The bastards, them fukcing about
The bastards, of limitless errors
The bastards of no differentials of pout

The bastards keep tumbling out of your closet, now
The bastards keep rolling 'em out
The bastards are feeling the heat
The bastards, them beginning to rout

The bastards, they be leaving you moments
The bastards, them faint, they shout
The bastards, they're funny that way
Now that the winter is passing,
Hey bastards, the spring is up and about!
The bastards are left it tatters
In the shadows they lorded over
Now revealed to be dolls in trouts

The bastards are rushing out
And foolishness rushes in
Whither and whether the new bastards
The bastards, a new show, a new rout.

Ghalib - Bazeecha-e-itfal Hai Duniya Mere Aage

2016-11-03T22:50:00.004+05:30

From here.

Ghalib at his natural best in this ghazal – “which represents a dazzling array of poetic interrogations, none of which contravene one another; instead, they draw the ghazal together to illustrate the workings of the many-minded Ghalib” – From the book “Ghalib: Epistemologies of Elegance” by Azra Raza and Sara Suleri Goodyear.

Here is the entire ghazal (14 couplets) in Roman Urdu with an English translation from the same book, for your enjoyment:

Bazeecha-e-itfal hai duniya meray aage
Hota hai shab-o-roz tamasha meray aage

The world is a children’s playground before me
Night and Day, this theatre is enacted before me

Ek khel hai aurang-e-Suleman meray nazdeek
Ek baat hai aijaz-e-Masiha meray aage

For me the flying throne of Solomon is a game
And only talk, the miracles of Christ before me

Juz naam nahin surat-e-aalam mujhe manzoor
Juz waham nahin hasti-e-ashia meray aage

I acknowledge the face of the universe as only a name
The substance of reality is but superstition before me

Hota hai nihan gard mein sahra meray hote
Ghista hai jabeen khaak pe dariya meray aage

Next to me, the wilderness is shamed into hiding in dust
The servile river grovels in the dust before me

Mat pooch ke kya haal hai mera teray peechey
Tu dekh ke kya rang gait era meray aage

Do not ask what my condition is without you
Just look at your own comportment before me

Sach kahte ho khud bin-o-khud aara hoon, na kyun hoon
Baitha hai but-e-aaina seema meray aage

True, I appear consumed by the niceties of adornment, but of course
An idol mirrors my reflection before me

Phir dekhiye andaaz-e-gul afshaani-e-guftaar
Rakh de koi paimana-o-sahba meray aage

Then witness the blossoming manner of speech
Just place a decanter of wine before me

Nafrat ke gumaan guzre hai main rashk se guzra
Kyunkar kahoon lo naam na unka meray aage

I was presumed hostile where I am merely jealous
Why should I say do not take that name before me

Imaan mujhe roke hai jo kheenche hai mujhe kufr
Kaaba mere peechhe hai kalisa meray aage

Faith retards me, where idols lure me
Kaaba is behind me, the church is before me

Aashiq hoon pah mashooq farebi hai miraa kaam
Majnun ko bura kahti hai Laila meray aage

I desire, my craft is to seduce the desired
The beloved Laila insults the lover Majnun before me

Khush hote hai par wasl mein yun mar nahin jaate
Aai shab-e-hijran ki tamanna meray aage

Joy prevails, but union need not signal death
Yearnings of the dark night of my soul came before me

Hai mauj-zan ik qulzum-e-khoon kaash yahi ho
Aata hai abhi dekhiye kya kya meray aage

Tears of blood create oceans of blood, if only this were it
And yet, what unknown fates must I still behold before me

Go haath ko jumbish nahin aankhon mein toh dum hai
Rahne do abhi saaghar-o-meena meray aage

Even when hands have no movement, sight retains vitality
So leave the accoutrements of wine before me

Hum-pesha-o-hum-mashrab-o-humraaz hai mera
Ghalib ko bura kyun kaho achha meray aage

He is my comrade, my confidant, my fellow carouser
Do not speak ill of him, Ghalib is good before me

*Part of archiving various Ghalib gazals sung by Jagjit in the TV series. Copy pasting from various sources.

Ghalib - Zulmat Kade Me Mere

2016-11-03T22:46:00.001+05:30

From here.

zulmat_kade mein mere shab-e-gham ka josh hai
ik shamma'a hai daleel-e-sahar, so khamosh hai

nai muzda-e-wisaal na nazzaara-e-jamaal
muddat huee ki aashtee-e-chashm-o-gosh hai

mai ne kiya hai, husn-e-khud_aara ko be_hijaab
'ai shauq, haan ijaazat-e-tasleem-e-hosh hai

gauhar ko ikd-e-gardan-e-khubaan mein dekhna
kya auj par sitaara-e-gauhar_farosh hai

deedaar, waada, hausla, saaqee, nigaah-e-mast
bazm-e-khayaal maikada-e-be_kharosh hai

'ei taaza waaridan-e-bisaat-e-hawa-e-dil
zinhaar gar tumhain hawas-e-na-o-nosh hai

dekho mujhe jo deeda-e-ibrat_nigaah ho
meree suno jo gosh-e-naseehat_niyosh hai

saaqee ba_jalwa dushman-e-imaan-o-aagahee
mutrib ba_naghma rahzan-e-tamkeen-o-hosh hai

ya shab ko dekhte the; ki har gosha-e-bisaat
daamaan-e-baaghbaan-o-kaf-e-gul_farosh hai

lutf-e-khiraam-e-saaqee-o-zauq-e-sada-e-chang
yeh jannat-e-nigaah woh firdaus-e-gosh hai

ya subh dam jo dekhiye aakar to bazm mein
nai woh suroor-o-soz na josh-o-kharosh hai

daagh-e-firaaq-e-sohabat-e-shab kee jalee hooee
ik shamma`a reh gaee hai so wo bhee khamosh hai

aate hain ghaib se ye mazaameen khayaal mein
ghalib, sareer-e-khaama nawa-e-sarosh hai

Line 1/2 - In this my place of darkness, there is this fervor and emotion of the night of grief. There is a candle which is the sign of the morning and that too is silent. Ghalib says in this my house(world) where darkness pervades and there is passion in me due to this night of grief. The extinguished candle is the proof that the morning has come by. As dawn approaches the candle is blown off. So though my world is still dark (and possibly more darker due to the candle being blown off), there is hope that the dawn is coming soon.

Line 3/4 - Neither the good news of our meeting nor the sight of such a beautiful face. It has been a long time, that there has been a peace between the eyes and the ears. The news of meeting makes the ears fill with joy, but makes the eyes jealous and the glance of her beautiful face brightens my eyes but make the ears jealous. It has been a long time now that there has been peace and quiet for neither the eyes get the see her and the ears get to hear the news and so there is harmony between them.(for there is nothing to be jealous about)

Line 5/6 - The wine has lifted it, the veil of the beauty of the self adorer. Oh! the desire indeed, there is the permission to surrender the senses. Ghalib says that the wine has lifted this veil of the self adorning's beauty. Oh! the desires of my heart, now you too have permission to sacrifice your senses.(an extension being that just by looking at the unveiled beauty, no one can remain in their senses)

Line 7/8 - I saw the pearl in the necklace of a beautiful person(my beloved). What height the star of the pearl merchant is!. Ghalib says I saw my beloved and the pearls on those lovely necklace she has. Look at the fortune(star) of that pearl seller. His pearls adorn such a magnificent beauty.

Line 9/10 - Appearance, promise, courage, bartender, a intoxicating sight. The meeting of thoughts is like a bar without a tumult. Ghalib says the mind is like a wine-house. Lot of things are competing for attention, the only thing that is different in this virtual bar(mind) is that this bar lacks the hustle bustle of the real bar.

Line 11/12 - Oh! the fresh arrivals at the chessboard of the desires of the heart. Be warned! if you lust for feasting and drinking. The poet says oh! you the un-experienced lovers who have just entered the minefield of the longing of the heart. If you lust for drinking and feasting, then beware!

Line 13/14 - Look at me if your eyes can bear the sight of a rebuked person. Listen to me if you have the ear of the advise listener. The poet says look at me, look at my state if your eyes can look at a admonished person and if you have an ear that is ready to listen to advise of others, then listen to me.(referring to himself as probably a rebuked lover who can give a word of caution to the newly minted lovers)

Line 15/16 - The bartender with his tricks & style is an enemy of integrity and knowledge. A singer with a beautiful song is a robber of power and understanding. The poet says the bartender with his magic of wine is the enemy of wisdom and dignity for these attributes take leave as the wine takes effect. And as melodious music plays, the power and senses also leave. The music makes me weak and lost.

Line 17/18 - Either at night we used to look, that every corner of the spread. It is the shirt of the gardener and the sleeve of the flower seller. The poet says at night, every corner of the spread (gathering) is full of flowers. The corners have become the shirt of the gardener and the sleeve of the flower seller for they decorated with full of flowers.

Line 19/20 - Enjoy the intoxicating gait of the bartender and the taste of sound of the flute. One is the heaven for the eyes and the other the paradise for the ear.

Line 21/22 - Or else come to the meeting at the break of dawn and take a look. Neither that joy of passion nor excitement and turmoil is there. The poet says come and take a look at the gathering at the break of the dawn. All that hustle bustle and commotion of the night is no longer here. There is no pleasure of passion/ardour nor there is excitement of tumult.

Line 23/24 - Burned by the scar of separation of company of the night. Only one candle has remained, and that too is silent. The poet says being burnt by the wound of separation of the companionship of the night. In this lonely night there was one candle left and that too has been burnt out and the dawn has still not arrived. The burning night of misery has no respite.

Line 25/26 - These topics comes mysteriously(or from the hidden) to my mind. Ghalib, the scratching sound made by the pen is the voice of the angel. The poet says that such topics/themes comes from the hidden/unknown (some higher power) into his mind. Oh Ghalib! the sound of my pen writing is the voice of the angel.

Meaning of the difficult word -
zulmat = darkness
kade = place of
daleele = proof
sahar = morning
muzda = good news
wisaal = meeting
nazzaara-e-jamaal = seeing a beautiful face
aashtee = harmony/friendship/peace
chashm = eye
gosh = ear
mai = bar
khud_aara = self adorer
hijaab = veil
tasleem = greeting
gauhar = pearl/gem
ikd-e-gardan = necklace
khubaan = a beautiful person/sweetheart
auj = highest point/summit
farosh = merchant
deedaar = appearance
be_kharosh = quiet/dead
waaridan = arrivals
bisaat = chess
hawa = desire/greed
zinhaar = be warned!
hawas = lust/greed
na-o-nosh = feasting/drinking
deedaa= sight
ibrat = admonition
gosh = ear
naseehat = advice
niyosh = listener
aagahee = wisdom
mutrib = singer
rahazan = robber
tamkeen = authority/power
gosha = corner
baaghbaan = gradener
kaf = sleeve
gul_farosh = florist
khiraam = speed
zauq = taste
sada = sound
chang = lute
firdaus = paradise
suroor = pleasure
soz = passion/heat
firaaq = separation
sohabat = company
ghaib = hidden/mysterious
mazaameen = topics
sareer = scratching sound made by a pen
khaama = pen
nawa = sound
sarosh = angel

*Part of archiving various Ghalib gazals sung by Jagjit in the TV series. Copy pasting from various sources.

Note to Drunk Self

2015-12-19T02:25:00.000+05:30

Stop fucking drinking. Or at least hide your damn phone when you’re drunk, I’m tired of cleaning up your mess. The second you cross the line from nice to lit you feel it’s time to pour your heart out to everyone who’s ever hurt you and their damn mothers. Stop. I made so much progress: closed chapters, tied loose ends, got the closure I needed from just about everyone (except that asshole who cheated on us and made us think we were the messed up ones so we wouldn’t suspect BUT we don’t want closure from him cause nothing he says will ever make it right, so fuck him), but now you’ve fucked it all up. You burned those knots wide fucking open, ripped the goodbye pages of those chapters, opened Pandora’s box I fought so hard to close. I was finally forgetting what the demons looked like, but now they’re dancing around me again. When will you learn some goddamn self-control? I’m tired of you. I’m tired of banishing you on these bullshit cleanses I know won’t last, where I pretend I’m happy and don’t need you around to fight my battles. And then I give in. And then you come around with no hair on your tongue calling everyone out for all the pain they’ve caused me. Let me fight my own battles. And stop confesing my love to people, I hide that shit for a reason. He doesn’t love us back, stop trying to change his mind with your poetic bullshit. Next time I invite you over, I’m hiding my phone so get used to talking to yourself. You did this to yourself, remember that. Please stop embarrassing me.

- Diana Ozoria

Every Evening

2015-10-20T22:27:00.004+05:30

I dream of an evening of cricket. of bowling quick. like srinath. left arm straight and high. right arm bent, wrist cocked, ball gripped firmly. of sweat pouring down. my shirt flying. body lean. both legs in the air, in that leap, that instant before the release, eyes strained, a stitch in the chest. agony. writhing agony to land the ball in that spot.
that moment. a full dusty field. 5 other matches going on, haphazardly spread about. each weaving its way around the other, expertly, guided by no one in particular.
the screams. the curses. a shattered brick, masquerading hopefully as the lone stump. no one is deceived. but no one bothers.
friends. merry making. laughter. loud slaps. a visit to the tadi. theka. home. food. tv. conversations, reminisces of the match past, mostly made up, an amalgam of dream balls not bowled, cover drives not yet played, spectacular running catches not yet taken. silences. slow silences. hurried sleep.

Dream. Everyday.

O Megh

2015-03-12T20:01:00.005+05:30

O megh,

kano chole jaao

chokher

opaare kothao

jodi

thomke dnarao

amio jaai,

amake naao

O dheu,
kano boye jaao

durer

sheemana chharao

jodi

thomke dnarao

amio jaai,

amake naao

Peechhe magar
chhutega ghar

chulha jalaati jo Maa hai meri

Takey jo raah

thaki nigaah

Kaise main chhod ke jaaun kahin

Agar tum hi
saagar ban ke behti zaraa

agar tum mein

samaa jaata yeh aasmaa

Bijlee pe chal ke
choonta baadal

lehron ko see ke

boonta aanchal

Royechhi

tomari chhayay

chhere to

jabo na tomay

tumi-o to

bhorechho amay

tumi chhara

jabo kothay

Aha...aayega woh pal...
aha...lehrein baadal...
aha...sab honge kal
Chalenge jo, hum tum donon

Tum se hi hai,

mera pata

duniya ho tum,

o meri Maa

Life...

2014-09-29T01:36:00.001+05:30

is a sexually transmitted disease with a 100% mortality rate.

- apparently an old joke.

Rush. Hush.

2014-09-28T14:13:00.002+05:30

Groping in a tunnel, Hear

A voice

Few cautious steps

Stumble

Falling again

A familiar drop. The same

old

rush

Glimmers of light

TEASE. Closed,

empty fists

Scream.

Solitary echo.

Hit the bottom, it

Hurts

Alone.

No flashes, deathly

Silence.

Something rots.

Need to

Flee.

Again.

Can't always be

Groping

In a tunnel.

Ardha Satya

2014-08-21T04:04:00.001+05:30

An eponymous poem from Govind Nihalani's Ardha Satya. The poem has been penned by Dilip Chitre. Picturised on the firebrand Om Puri and the ethereally serene Smita Patil. Uff...

Chakravyuh mein ghusne se pehle,

kaun tha mein aur kaisa tha,
yeh mujhe yaad hi na rahega.

Chakravyuh mein ghusne ke baad,
mere aur chakravyuh ke beech,

sirf ek jaanleva nikat’ta thi,
iska mujhe pata hi na chalega.

Chakravyuh se nikalne ke baad,

main mukt ho jaoon bhale hi,
phir bhi chakravyuh ki rachna mein

farq hi na padega.

Marun ya maarun,maara jaoon

ya jaan se maardun.
iska faisla kabhi na ho paayega.

Soya hua aadmi jab

neend se uthkar chalna shuru karta hai,
tab sapnon ka sansar use,

dobara dikh hi na paayega.

Us roshni mein

jo nirnay ki roshni hai

sab kuchh samaan hoga kya?

Ek palde mein napunsakta,

ek palde mein paurush,
aur theek taraazu ke kaante par

ardh satya.

While you gather your senses to go read the poem again, or better still hear its recital in the movie itself, a few thoughts -

I had always thought of Om Puri as an exceptional actor, but never placed him on par with Naseeruddin Shah. That has been rectified now. And only now have I come to know of the strong kinship and long relationship between these two giants. They were in the same class at NSD back in 1970!

Then there is this lady. How wonderfully etched are all characters in this film. How beautifully Smita gives shape to Om Puri's character, adds warmth and care to a movie that otherwise has to shift its focus between paurush and napunsakta. Om's ardha satya is visible for all to see. What about Smita's?

Is this movie mainstream or a parallel cinema masterpiece? Naseer himself has called this parallel in more than one interview, which should shut the door on this. But then he has calling it parallel while talking about Tridev.

Normally, I wouldn't bother asking this question. But I feel the urge to understand what was mainstream and what was parallel more than 30 years ago. Principally because it might help unlock one door that hides from me an understanding of human psyche. Can cinema offer escape, albeit a short lived one? Is projecting our vulnerabilities onto an unknown person, and hence viewing them and them alone, in all their glory and filth, without necessarily having to associate ourselves with them, also not an escape? Like this movie does so easily?

Hamaara jeevan ek chakravyuh to hai hi. Ab is chakravyuh se bachne ki jagah, use hi apna ghar bana lete hai. Wahaan rehane ke liye kuch samagri chahiye, jise bas bator sakte hai aisi kalakritiyaan dekh ke. Jab ye hai, to mujhe kisi aur cheez se, kisi aur cheez ki taraf bhaagne ki zaroorat kyon?

Kya hum apne aap se bhaag sakte hai bhala? Kya in baaton ka koi jawaab hai bhi? Kya ye bhi ek ardha satya hai?

Bittoo

2014-04-27T04:34:00.001+05:30

Every evening, I would lean on the balcony railing, pretending to pluck the arching gulmohar's flowers. Ma would freak out. Always. Mani would join me in mocking Ma. Mostly. Except for those years when we were on a break, of sorts.

The gulmohar tree does not shed its flowers in the balcony any more. The Grovers on the ground floor cut it down long back.

The Grovers. The Punjabis.
How could I have ever known that this one single fact would shape the course of my life? And take me far away from Ma and Pa.

I was the good boy, who would deliver Ma from this hole we called home.

I have made her numb now.
I call her once a week. We talk for 5 minutes. She has lost all hope of deliverance.

No one mocks her any more. Her resignation is too pathetic, even for Papa.

I am told it is all because of me.
And my zid.

Pa, I am not done yet.

I have more news to share.

I am sorry, sis.

If...

2014-04-20T00:08:00.001+05:30

If I knew

that today

would be the last time I’d see you,

I would hug you tight

and

pray the Lord be the keeper of your soul.

If I knew

that this would be

the last time you pass through this door,

I’d embrace you,

kiss you,

and call you back for one more.

If I knew

that this would be

the last time I would hear your voice,

I’d take hold of each word

to be able to hear it over and over again.

If I knew

this is the last time I see you,

I’d tell you I love you,

and would not just assume foolishly

that you know it already.

- Marquez

Cutting Me Down

2014-02-25T17:37:00.001+05:30

To start with...

heart races,

eyes light up,

cheeks flush,

smile persists,

butterfiles in the stomach,

the good ones, this time.

(mis)read signs,

believe in fate,

read horoscopes,

ignore bad omens,

daydream often,

the good ones, again.

And not too much later...

phone's silent,

inbox empty,

dreams are troubled,

silences taunt,

revisit old favorites,

pics and places.

dreams crash,

hopes dash,

old monk beckons,

all friends reckon,

moving on,

just doesn't get easier.

But a little down the road...

we start again.

From the top now.

PS: You thought this was about love, didn't you?

Maa Nee Meri

2014-02-18T02:45:00.003+05:30

A moving song by a very strange group called Swaang. Strange because it is a very eclectic group of actors, singers, composers, musicians, writers, producers and theatre people who all lend into music and drama the philosophy they are collectively synthesizing. Some of them are the talented Swara Bhaskar, Rohit Sharma (music composer, of Naham Janami fame), Ravinder Randhawa (composer, singer) and Shailendra Singh Sodhi (lyricist)

This song is called Maa Nee Meri, a reaction to the heinous crime referred to as the Delhi gangrape that was committed on 16 December 2012 in Delhi. The group felt that they just had to do something. This song is slowly becoming an anthem in itself.

The English translation of the lyrics are also shared by the band on the youtube page.

To mark the 1 year anniversary of the Nirbhaya case, Swaang and Majma ( a Delhi based cultural, rights and issue oriented group. I can't find anything else about them online ) together with Swanand Kirkire, Rabbi Shergill and a few more artists/actors organized a mobile concert called Jurrat, a unique initiative.

A couple more popular songs are a rendition of Faiz's Kutte, Lazy Lazy Legs (can't find a video for that, but what a title. Read more about it here) and Sursuri.

Quoting this article: "Swaang presents evenings of protest songs and poetry based on the writings of some legendary progressive poets like Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Sahir Ludhianvi, Dushyant Kumar, Paash, Gorakh Pandey, as well as some original writings of members of the group."

Follow the band on facebook and read more about them here.

Almost sounds like a new Indian Ocean. I am certainly going to be following them (and find out more about Majmaa too).

Signing off with a short video on the group

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJx0bBUr9ss

Naham Janami

2014-02-18T02:05:00.000+05:30

A beautiful hymn from the film Ship of Theseus. Music by Rohit Sharma.

Lyrics & English Translation

नाहं जाणामि कंपि देवं न दईवं , णत्थि इसरो णियन्ता।

णत्थि सग्गभूमि ण णिरयं।

णो जगकत्ता णो विकत्ताय ण य जगईसरो कोवि।

ण रक्खओ ण भक्खओ।

ण य कालाईओ आदित्ठो दन्दनाईओ।

कम्मुणो चेव दण्डं।

हं सयमेव सट्ठा भोत्ता य मे सुहदुह - पियाप्पिअसंजोगाण।

अप्पसरियो जीवो सव्वाण सुहुमतिसुहुमेसु।

नत्थु कोवि कयापि दुहिओ मया।

सया मे इइ संवेअणा।

सच्चस्स मग्गा बहवे, सच्चो य एगरुबो णवरं।

समया मे मणो दुव्विहअवस्थासु।

मम पत्थणा -निज्जरउ अन्नाणकंमं।

शुद्धसासयरुवो हं इइ अत्थु मे सद्दंसणंअन्ते- ण य भवउ चवियं

मे पयं मोक्खमग्गओ ।

There are no celestial beings I know of, there is no god.

Neither heaven nor hell.

Neither a preserver, nor an owner of this universe.

Neither a creator nor a destroyer.

No eternal judge.

There is only the law of causality.

I take responsibilities for my actions and their consequences.

The smallest of creatures have a life-force just like mine.

May I always have such compassion.

May I never cause any harm to anybody.

The truth is multi-faceted, and there are many ways to reach it.

May I find balance in this duality.

I pray, may my karma of ignorance be shed.

May my true self be liberated from the cycle of life and death.

And attain moksha.

New Eyes?

2014-02-17T14:19:00.000+05:30

I have this habit of reading angsty stuff with a lot of vengeance, often imagining myself in the place of the person who would/could have said the same. But they style has always been the same in my head. I would read it quickly, and picture myself as saying it equally hastily, with anger dripping from my tongue, in a sordid attempt to raise the din in my imaginary gathering, ensuring that even walls without ears would listen.

Funnily enough, I was in the middle of doing that yesterday night too, on a quote from Merchant of Venice, when I started imagining how Naseeruddin Shah would say it (Well, it was an interview of his that led me there in the first place). What a breath of fresh air! I automatically slowed down, put focus on modulating my voice and even let long silences in.

And this is after years of silent irritation of the habit of reading these hyperchgarged pieces so quickly, feeling some pain, yes, but probably missing out on imagining how beautifully one could construct it, dramatize it, subsconsciously of course.

May it be that that bridge hath been crossed. Or sighted.

Mr. Naseeruddin Shah. One more thing I owe you.

Shylock:
I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands,
organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same
food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases,
heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter
and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If
you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, do we not revenge? If we are like you in the
rest, we will resemble you in that.
The Merchant Of Venice Act 3, scene 1, 58–68

Maps Et Al

2014-02-17T14:09:00.000+05:30

Sometime back I had prepared this list of map and data visualization related projects that seemed interesting to me, while preparing for a workshop. Sharing with all.

Some were tough to separate across I & II. I just took a call. Here goes...

I. Simple putting together of data on a map -

http://voiceofkibera.org/main - The mothership
http://empire.is/
http://www.transparentchennai.com/maps/#
https://delhidigests.org/#
http://visual.ly/visa-mapper?view=true
http://flowingdata.com/2013/09/03/most-popular-porn-searches-by-state/
https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?vps=2&hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=213281544174043702623.0004b617c56e89532fff9&dg=feature
http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2013/07/21/silk-road/ - This style of showing information is quite amazing. Think of showing how your garbage flows through the city, or how any commodity you buy travels from source to the market, or how people involved in producing what you consume move to manufacture your commodity. (This is almost a photo essay in itself!)
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/02/27/us/natural-gas-map.html
http://www.nytimes.com//interactive/2009/07/10/world/20090711-xinjiang.html
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/08/28/us/2007_NOLA_GRAPHIC.html
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/09/13/us/20080913-ike-map.html
http://content.stamen.com/creepymaps
http://city.stamen.com/heat/
http://www.altsean.org/Photogalleries/ProtestsMap.php

II. Bringing out co-relations through maps:

III. Bringing out co-relations through non-map visualizations:

IV. Guides/Examples:

V. JLT. Fun :-)

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/08/05/sports/olympics/the-100-meter-dash-one-race-every-medalist-ever.html?hp&hp

VI. Ideas that I have had over the last 2-3 days, whatever I can remember now -

Ideas:

Green cover & economic status
Color code to see which member of parliament voted which way for ( a la http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/interactive/2013/feb/06/gay-marriage-vote-map-mp )

Women's reservation bill
FDI?
Land Acquisition
etc...

Color code constituencies to show:

MPs with criminal cases pending
Assets of MPs - Very interesting. Split by party, age, religion, no. of terms as MPs.

Long Ago

2014-01-02T06:05:00.002+05:30

The book of love is long and boring

And written very long ago

It's full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes

And things we're all too young to know

But I

I love it when you give me things

And you

You ought to give me wedding rings

Happy New Year Anhi.

Everyday Treasons

2013-11-25T23:19:00.001+05:30

Giving compromises

the garb of practicality,

the surrender

of our dreams

swept to a corner

by the waves of reason

afraid,

hesitating,

to stop

to take stock,

of our treason

Oppression and the Oppressor

2013-11-25T20:39:00.000+05:30

What follows is a fascinating conversation between a few excellent individuals on facebook. Recording it for posterity. I will continue updating it as the conversation moves forward.

Naveen Kumar V

The greatest oppression, is in being the oppressor.

Like · · Share · November 1 at 4:57am ·

7 people like this.
Kiran Gulrajani The oppressor is the oppressed.

November 1 at 7:12am via mobile · Like · 1
Paul Peacefulgoodheart Ashis Nandy says "there is one continuum of man-made suffering'

November 1 at 2:41pm via mobile · Like · 1
Ravi Badri Well I have to disagree on you with this Naveen. If I were from a historically marginalized and oppressed community, I would have accused you of being highly insensitive. If you are saying both the oppressor and the oppressed are in misery, I will fully agree with you with the caveat that they are suffering in very different ways and if we 'have to compare' them, their suffering are disproportionately different but both have to go through a healing process. How can we even begin to fathom the misery and suffering of someone who is a dalit or an adivasi or a person from a marginalized community and say that the suffering of someone with privilege is same as the suffering of the marginalized person.

let me explain this with a small example. in an discussion on race in a multi-racial group, it is not uncommon to see a white middle-class male or female come up with a very similar argument such as your to say that they are also oppressed. a friend in fact wrote a paper on this theme that was severely crituqued. ofcourse it is impossible to delineate the world into categories like oppressor and oppressed, and each one of us have elements of the two in us, it is also important to recognize the historical and structural oppression that certain groups experience and not take it away by saying that we from a historically privileged group are also equally oppressed.

November 1 at 4:07pm · Like · 1
Naveen Kumar V Hi Ravi, we will talk about this more in detail very soon. Our ideas of 'privilege' are significantly different. There is a deliberate reason (and world view) behind calling one form of suffering 'greater' than the other. i understand that most people from historically 'marginalized/oppressed' communities would find this insensitive. But it doesn't change for me, what i understand Truth as (however imperfectly). When Christ said "Blessed are the meek", he wasn't making promises for the future, but unveiling a profoundly subversive and empowering world-view. This i feel is the essence of the true Gandhian approach as well where power and privilege are completely redefined, with respect to their current dominant understandings. But how many of us are ready yet to wield this kind of power is a different question. All this is not to make light the extreme deprivation and violence the majority are put through. But there is a deep privilege in suffering as well. It is only whose who have suffered, who can love.

November 1 at 5:27pm · Edited · Like · 1
Paul Peacefulgoodheart this is a really important discussion you two and I would like to be there to hear you go further! My two cents worth: we shouldn't romanticize the suffering of the poor--it doesn't help them, it misses the debilitating aspect of poverty and it only focusses on the unjust side or the 'innocence' of it (and thereby we may romanticize the solution as Marx did). On the other hand, it is good to connect the dots between unjust suffering and self-denying privilege. If the privilege or the privileged is ever to become conscious and change itself it will have to become aware of its denial, the denial that my privilege is based on the suffering of others. Oh well...just thoughts. Keep me posted!

November 1 at 7:16pm · Like · 2
Naveen Kumar V Hi Paul, thanks for writing in. i agree the suffering of the poor is not to be romanticized, and that's not the intent either. However, there has been a dominant understanding or 'power' and 'privilege', advanced by modern civilization that i feel needs to be critically looked into. While their situation is quite hard indeed, i feel these dominant discourses of 'power' and 'privilege' further disempower the poor by making them victims. This is where i feel people like Christ and Gandhi are extremely important in their inversion of what power and privilege actually are. No doubt material deprivation causes immense hardship, but i feel the spiritual deprivation (of the oppressor) is worse. The oppressed, if they can be free of their victimhood, are in the best position to hold a mirror up to the oppressor. i do not see a non-violent revolution happening, without the oppressed waking up to their spiritual privilege. Their role is vital in the journey towards Sarvodaya. Beneath all this is the world-view that in the scheme of things, consciousness (or spirit) is hierarchically more important than matter. It doesn't mean that matter is not important, it has its rightful place in the Pancha-kośas, but that if we were to choose, as many of us are forced to in this civilization, then material poverty is far more desirable to spiritual poverty.

November 1 at 8:44pm · Edited · Unlike · 4
Naveen Kumar V This is a beautiful story of Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, who seems to have effected such an inversion of power and privilege. Who was more free, the Führer or the Father? More powerful.. (http://goo.gl/lJSdOQ)

November 1 at 9:10pm · Edited · Like
Ravi Badri Naveen Kumar V Tell me more about what you see as the dominant understanding of power and privilege. Is framing the poor as powerless as you mentioned the only problematic with this dominant understanding or are there other issues as well. please tell me more. I think that is the bases for this conversation.

November 1 at 9:08pm · Like
Naveen Kumar V I'll think about this more and write before leaving for Madurai, Ravi. Otherwise, we'll do it in person.

November 1 at 11:18pm · Like
Paul Peacefulgoodheart Yes Naveen, basically I agree and that is an important insight. My concern is more with the psychological processes (more complex than simply holding a worldview) by which both victim and victimizer come to believe in the privilege of one and the incapacity/poverty of the other. What holds all that in place on both ends is a kind of mesmerizing belief in privilege carried by one as if it belonged to him and deprived from other as if that were 'meant to be'. That is a very deep seated delusion--both ways.

November 1 at 11:22pm · Like · 1
Paul Peacefulgoodheart Have a wonderful rich time in Madurai and kiss the earth there for me

November 1 at 11:22pm · Like · 1
Naveen Kumar V Yes Paul, i agree. And ha ha, so sweet. Thanks, and Will do

November 1 at 11:25pm · Like
Ravi Badri Naveen Kumar V wouldn't it better if we carry on this conversation here as opposed to off-line/in-person ? that way Paul and anyone else who would want to join the conversation can do so.

November 4 at 7:18am · Like
Urmila Samson I'd love it continued here, as there is little chance of me being there in person. I don't need to join. Naveen is saying everything that I would have liked to say - only better!

November 4 at 7:28am · Unlike · 2
Ravi Badri waiting for your thoughts Naveen Kumar V

November 14 at 7:41am · Like · 1
Naveen Kumar V ha ha, oops sorry. We will certainly continue this thread, perhaps later in the day when i get to Chennai. Thanks Raviand Urmila

November 14 at 8:38am · Like · 1
Naveen Kumar V Hi Ravi, so the main issue with the current/dominant understanding of 'Power' and 'Privilege' that modern civilization promotes, is that it considers material deprivation and physical pain as the greatest forms of suffering. Those who are materially 'p...See More

November 16 at 12:18am · Like · 2
Ravi Badri I think we are mixing things up here Naveen. 'Modern Civilization' does not have a single conception of 'power' and 'privilege'. naming groups that experience material deprivation and physical pain as powerless and underdeveloped is usually seen in thedevelopment sector i.e., by NGOs, international-NGOs and framing privilege, and development is clearly problematic as you have pointed out. but then one usually does not come across terms related to 'oppression' in such a space.I have come across the word oppression in left/marxist literature which is also associated with historical materialism.

I haven't read marx closely to definitely say how does he define oppression. But from what I understand from my reading of liberal/radical literature is that oppression is not the same as material deprivation even though material deprivation may be part of it. Oppression seems to have more to do with social and cultural forces. A person working in the financial sector in new york and identifies himself as gay will consider himself oppressed. Here his experience of oppression has nothing to do material deprivation. So is the experience of a muslim bureaucrat, a dalit scholar or a woman executive who face discrimination. I understand oppression as a set of social norms, culture and actions by members of one or more dominant groups to keep the dominated group 'in its place' and in the process denying the member of the oppressed group his/her full expression of human potential and consciousness, destroying the spirit and denying the humanity in the being which is probably why it is called dehumanizing. Ofcourse there is suffering, ignorance and misery in the members in the dominated group that makes then carry out such forms of dehumanization. An outcome of all this social and cultural oppression can and often manifests through economic marginalization but oppression is not just material, it is also social and cultural.

Coming to power, the understanding of power has become more subtler and nuanced than before. Today power is not just about who has and who hasn’t; instead power is exercised in a relationship in many subtle ways and the oppressed also exercise their power by resisting in subtle ways. According to Michel Foucault, a French philosopher. one of the ways power is exercised is in the production of knowledge, in the process of naming something. The colonizer affirms and regained power by naming various aspects of indigenous life. This kind of privileging one kind of misery over the other in a definitive statement is also an exercise of power and this is why I responded to your original post. Such a definitive statement somehow has the effect of denying the misery of the oppressed group or has an effect of saying 'yes I understand your suffering but my suffering because of my spiritual ignorance is much larger'. It seems to come from a spirit of competition to say whose suffering is bigger. Why are we trying to put the two kinds of suffering in a hierarchy ? Can we acknowledge the different ways both groups are suffering and work in different ways with both the groups?

All of this brings us to the idea of liberation. Liberation in the individual context at least from the perspective of Indian philosophy has to do more with spirituality but in the social context, it has to do with the removal of those social norms, and behaviours that dehumanizes an oppressed group and helps in regaining an element of their human spirit. I agree with your analysis that looking at liberation only in terms of material or cultural or social without much reference to spirituality is very limited. This understanding could be incomplete but it is not incorrect and our job is to find ways to integrate elements from spirituality into the material, social and cultural.

I would suggest a close reading of Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire. I place it on the same league as Hind Swaraj. Some of his concepts may be difficult to accept but the core of his message that only the oppressed can liberate the oppressor when he acts from a position of lover, compassion, and faith is very relevant even to day. This position is not very different from what you quoted earlier of the Christ 'blessed are the meek".

November 17 at 8:04am · Like · 1
Naveen Kumar V Hi Ravi, i'll answer what i consider the main crux of our difference first, and respond to the other issues you raise further in the conversation. The below is just my understanding of things, and it could be wrong:

< kinds of suffering in a hierarchy ?>>

The gestalt of an individual's personality lies in the Vijnanamaya Kosha. The more distortions/wounds there are in this sheath, the more one suffers and causes suffering to others. These distortions however, are not permanent and can be straightened out through consistent Awareness practice. As the practice progresses, healing unfolds, and there is a consequent transformation of the personality towards greater compassionate and responsible behaviour. So in a sense, everybody is a work in progress. Every saint had a past, every sinner has a future.

However, this journey is not easy and requires tremendous hard work, energy, sincerity etc. Its a deeper morass and hence requires greater effort to pull oneself out of it. imo, its relatively easier to deal with material, socio-cultural-economic-political suppression when one has a healthy foundation at the Vijnanamaya (Egs. Gandhiji, Dalai Lama, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, Thich Quang Duc etc). But, if the foundation at the Vijnanamaya is unstable/distorted, then even if the person has 'mobility' or 'privilege' in the other spheres, he will still create suffering for oneself and others. Hence, i feel spiritual poverty is worse than other forms of deprivation/suppression.

20 hours ago · Like
Naveen Kumar V Thanks Paul, found this quote in your paper on Gandhi and Islam (in the latest edition of Ahimsa). Felt it adds to the dialogue here:

"I have been a sympathetic student of the Western social order and I have discovered that underlying the fever that fills the soul of the West there is a restless search for truth. I value that spirit. Let us study our Eastern institutions in that spirit of scientific enquiry."

- Gandhi, Amrit Bazar Patrika '34

It has been my claim, that the Eastern world-view while recognizing the necessity and importance of all realms of reality, still hierarchically places the subtle above the gross. Existence is a spectrum of unfoldment from the most subtle to the grossest, with each layer being engendered by the preceding layer in the hierarchy. 'Spirit' and 'matter' while denoting the two ends of the spectrum (atleast in the way i had used it), fails to capture the nuances and intermediary layers that lie in between the two. The theory of the Pancha(or Sat) Koshas do a better job of identifying these nuances. Thanks Ravi for pointing out that oppression is not just material. A distortion or deprivation at every layer/sheath contributes to the suffering felt by an individual (or group), and the distortions at subtler realms require greater effort to heal than in the gross realms. It's easier to a give a poor man bread and fish to eat (or teach him to fish), but next to impossible for a 'rich' man to enter the gates of heaven.

about an hour ago · Like

तब तुम क्या करोगे?

2013-11-20T00:04:00.001+05:30

तब तुम क्या करोगे?

- ओम प्रकाश बाल्मीकि

यदि तुम्हें,

धकेलकर गांव से बाहर कर दिया जाय

पानी तक न लेने दिया जाय कुएं से

दुत्कारा फटकारा जाय चिल-चिलाती दोपहर में

कहा जाय तोडने को पत्थर

काम के बदले

दिया जाय खाने को जूठन

तब तुम क्या करोगे?

यदि तुम्हें,

मरे जानवर को खींचकर

ले जाने के लिए कहा जाय

और

कहा जाय ढोने को

पूरे परिवार का मैला

पहनने को दी जाय उतरन

तब तुम क्या करोगे?

यदि तुम्हें,

पुस्तकों से दूर रखा जाय

जाने नहीं दिया जाय

विद्या मंदिर की चौकट तक

ढिबरी की मंद रोशनी में

काली पुती दिवारों पर

ईसा की तरह टांग दिया जाय

तब तुम क्या करोगे?

यदि तुम्हें,

रहने को दिया जाय

फूंस का कच्चा घर

वक्त-बे-वक्त फूंक कर जिसे

स्वाहा कर दिया जाय

बर्षा की रातों में

घुटने-घुटने पानी में

सोने को कहा जाय

तब तुम क्या करोगे?

यदि तुम्हें,

नदी के तेज बहाव में

उल्टा बहना पड़े

दर्द का दरवाजा खोलकर

भूख से जूझना पड़े

भेजना पड़े नई नवेली दुल्हन को

पहली रात ठाकुर की हवेली

तब तुम क्या करोगे?

यदि तुम्हें,

अपने ही देश में नकार दिया जाय

मानकर बंधुआ

छीन लिए जाय अधिकार सभी

जला दी जाय समूची सभ्यता तुम्हारी

नोच-नोच कर

फेंक दिया जाएं

गौरव में इतिहास के पृष्ठ तुम्हारे

तब तुम क्या करोगे.?

यदि तुम्हें,

वोट डालने से रोका जाय

कर दिया जाय लहू-लुहान

पीट-पीट कर लोकतंत्र के नाम पर

याद दिलाया जाय जाति का ओछापन

दुर्गन्ध भरा हो जीवन

हाथ में पड़ गये हों छाले

फिर भी कहा जाय

खोदो नदी नाले

तब तुम क्या करोगे?

यदि तुम्हें,

सरे आम बेइज्त किया जाय

छीन ली जाय संपत्ति तुम्हारी

धर्म के नाम पर

कहा जाय बनने को देवदासी

तुम्हारी स्त्रियों को

कराई जाय उनसे वेश्यावृत्ति

तब तुम क्या करोगे?

साफ सुथरा रंग तुम्हारा

झुलस कर सांवला पड़ जायेगा

खो जायेगा आंखों का सलोनापन

तब तुम कागज पर

नहीं लिख पाओगे

सत्यम, शिवम, सुन्दरम!

देवी-देवताओं के वंशज तुम

हो जाओगे लूले लंगड़े और अपाहिज

जो जीना पड़ जाय युगों-युगों तक

मेरी तरह?

तब तुम क्या करोगे?

Thanks Navin Ji for sharing this...

The Rape of Goa

2013-11-11T19:34:00.002+05:30

The following is a message posted by Claude Alvares on his facebook page following the interimn order of the Supreme Court in the ongoing Goa Mining Case, today, on 11th November, 2013.

Shows the depths to which the state govt is in cahoots with the mining companies who have been mining their asses off in Goa for decades now.

Read more on Claude's work as part of the Goa Foundation here.

WHAT THE GOA GOVT TRIED TO GET TODAY BUT DIDN'T

Some interesting indications of the significance of today's order of the Supreme Court on the Goa mining case are the following:

a) The Court disallowed the Monitoring Committee proposed by the Goa Govt and installed its own.

b) The Court rejected the public auction proposed by the Goa Govt and accepted the recommendation of the CEC and Prashant Bhushan that “E-auction” was the best route.

Several clues to what the Goa govt actually wanted are to be found in the affidavit it sought to file belatedly this afternoon. The affidavit is dated 9.11.2013 and is signed by the 32 year old Secretary (Mines) Mr Pawan Kumar Sain (who is so new to his posting he is not at all aware of what he is being made to sign). The affidavit achieved little because by the time it was sought to be presented to the Court, the Court had already commenced reading the operative parts of its interim order. In fact, the Court had already drafted its order when it assembled.

What did the now worthless affidavit disclose?

First, 15 of the 22 paras of the affidavit set out the proposal of the State Govt to keep the job of disposing off the stacked ore by itself through its own Monitoring Committee (MC). The State Govt's MC comprised Principal Secretary (Transport) as Chairman; Secretary (Mines), member; Chairman of the Goa Pollution Control Board, member; DIG Police (in charge of SIT), member, an environmentalist (to be appointed by the state govt) and the Director of Mines & Geology, as member secretary. The affidavit stated the State Govt had already taken a decision on the MC and it was now placing the said decision of the State Govt. before the Court.

The affidavit proposed this MC would take charge of the ore already mined and lying at mine-heads, stockyards, processing plants and jetties.

During the last hearing on 31st October, the AG had informed the Court that there were 11.56 million tonnes of ore lying around the State of Goa. The present affidavit however told the Court that the amount had gone up to 15.46 million tonnes. 1.22 million tonnes of ore had been found without disclosure of the same in monthly or annual returns, therefore it was completely illegal. Another 2.68 million tonnes was also found at different places and it was not reflected in the returns for being sold to traders. All this ore would stand confiscated in favour of the State Govt.

The affidavit then informed the Court that this 11.56 + 1.22 + 2.65 million tonnes would be sold by public auction which would be allowed to only those persons registered under Rule 45 of the Mineral Concession and Development Rules, 1988. (It does not take much to discover that a total of 47 persons have been so registered and they include all the persons involved in illegal mining in the State. Thus the auction would be fixed and the ore would remain with the illegal miners.)

The CEC objected. It said in Karnataka it found that e-auction got better price for the ore and the same should be done here as well. Prashant Bhushan also demanded e-auction. This would take the auction to a large number of persons interested and what is more, would be transparent as well.

The State in its affidavit said that all the money from all the ore it would auction through its MC would be retained by the State Govt., “as the ore lying at the site since 2007 upon expiry of the leases belongs to the state of Goa until such time the State Government decides on the Second Renewal Application pending with the State Govt.”

In its haste to file the affidavit, the State forgot that second renewals are only prospective and not retrospective, therefore it is highly unlikely that any of that money would ever be repatriated to the lease holders.

The whole scheme collapsed because the Supreme Court did not even bother to read the affidavit. Neither would it accept the suggestion of the AG that at least the DIG (police) member it had proposed in its own Monitoring Committee should be a member or a special invitee of the Supreme Court's Monitoring Committee.

The value of the 11.56 million tonnes of ore the State Govt declared on October 31 is approximately 6,600 crores at the rate of $100 per tonne. The value of 15.46 million tonnes will take the cash in the exchequer to approximately Rs.10,000 crores. If the Goa govt reserves all mining leases to itself and mines just 10 million tonnes every year through registered and competent agents – as it is proposes to do with the coal block allotted to it in Chattisgarh – it can raise its entire annual budget from just this one single item. Goans need not pay taxes for at least 100 years. But from the affidavit filed today, it still looks quite obvious that the State of Goa would rather still want all the cash from the sale of its natural wealth to go to the mining companies instead of it being reserved for the welfare of the people of the State.

A day by day account of the case can be found here.

The Great Gene Robbery

2013-11-03T01:11:00.000+05:30

In 1982, Dr M.S. Swaminathan withdrew from his position as Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Committee to the Cabinet (SACC) and deputy chairman of the Planning Commission – he was also earlier secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture – and defected to join the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) based at Los Banos in the Philippines as Director-General. The word ‘defected’ is used here on purpose: in no other country of the world would a scientist in such a strategically important position, privy to all the country’s scientific secrets particularly of those related to food, be permitted to leave and overnight become the employee of an institution controlled by two private foundations so closely allied to American capitalism and US foreign policy interests.

IRRI had been set up in 1960 as part of America’s efforts to control and direct rice research in Asia, even though American is hardly a rice eating country. A famous plant-breeder had once said, in regard to rice: ‘He who controls the supply of rice will control the destiny of the entire Asiatic orbit. The most important thing to the majority of the Asia is not capitalism or socialism or any other political ideology but food which means life itself, and in most of Asia, food is rice.’

Earl Butz, a former US Secretary of Agriculture, is notorious for one sentence that he uttered in a course of an otherwise utterly insignificant life: ‘If food can be used as a weapon we would be happy to use it.’

And today, as we near the end of the twentieth century, we have to admit that the research concerning the two major cereals that rule our lives – wheat and rice – is wholly directed and controlled by institutions set up under American imperialism.

In many ways Dr Swaminathan’s appointment to IRRI would have been considered a demotion. While in India, he had lorded it over a scientific establishment that employed thousands of scientists, in the Philippines he would have not more than 200 scientists under him. The principal compensation, however, was the money, income tax free.

Already this international institute, always run by American directors, was facing the collapse of its High Yielding Varieties (HYVs) strategy, as seed after seed fell victim to waves of pest epidemics. Urgently required was a massive expansion of IRRI’s rice germplasm, genes from which were essential for passing on resistance to the HYVs. The largest collection of rice varieties, of rice germplasm, remained in the Indian sub-continent. Swaminathan’s appointment was critical to this quest.

The IRRI is not a premier institute of science. It is a privately-controlled agricultural research centre. Even so, it is difficult to conceive of a man with Swaminathan’s record becoming its director general. Unless of course the person being appointed is known more for his ability to get things done than for his scientific work. Certainly no scientist with an equivalent scientific record would have found an appointment as director of, say, the Max Planck Institute, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), or the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR). I ask[ed] knowledgeable people in the Philippines how Swaminathan could have been appointed to the post of director general of IRRI. The most plausible answer was also the funniest.

There were apparently three applicants for the post. The first, a vice-president of the Rockefeller Foundation, insisted on coming to the institute with both his wife and his mistress, if he got the job. The second candidate, from West Germany, was found, upon examination, not to have a degree that he had stitched on to his name. In comparison, Dr M.S. Swaminathan whom an article in the 1979 Yearbook of Science and the Future, published by the Encyclopedia Britannica, put in the company of Paul Kammerer and Cyril Burt, two of the leading scientific frauds of the twentieth century, appeared white as snow.

*

India is rice country. Rice is a critical component of a complex eco-system, tied to legends, used as symbol, essential witness at religious ceremonies and rituals. Such an immense preoccupation with rice would, which is to be expected, call forth its own brand of competence to grow it; so we find a bewildering number of techniques, some of which even today place Indian rice farmers, some Adivasis, in a class far ahead of international science.

In the Jagannath Temple at Puri in Orissa, I was told, freshly harvested rice is presented to the deity everyday, and various varieties of rice, placed in pots, one on top of the other, with a single flame beneath the lowermost, still cook simultaneously. In Chhattisgarh region there is a rice variety called Bora, which can be ground directly into flour and made into rotis. Other varieties have fascinating names, like the kali-mooch of Gwalior, the moti-chur and the khowa; the latter, as its name signifies, tastes like dried milk. The dhokra-dhokri, with its length of grain over 14 mm is the longest rice in the world and the variety Bhimsen has the largest width; there is variety called udan pakheru – because of its long, featherlike structure.

There may have been as many as 1,20,000 varieties of rice in the country, adapted to different environments, and selected and evolved by farmers for specific human needs. These varieties are a product of nature’s desire for diversity, eagerly husbanded by indigenous and non-formal science.

The Central Rice Research Institute (CRRI), at Cuttack, had been working on the different problems associated with rice culture ever since it had been set up in the late 1950s. Dr R.H. Richharia took over as its director in 1959, and a number of competent scientists had come up with interesting work that sooner or later would converge into a strategy to produce more rice. Already in 1963, C. Gangadharan, a CRRI scientist had, for example, produced a mutant variety that was short-statured and produced high yields. The institute had also been working on Taiwanese and Japanese varieties. The work was slow because it takes time to discover which varieties are stable, and resistant to diseases and pests.

Gangadharan has placed the history of rice research in India into three major periods and the developments are highly suggestive. The first phase, from 1912 to the 1950s, concentrated on pure line selections, and by the end of the period, a total of 445 improved rice varieties, mostly the result of pure line methods of selection, were bred.

But what is interesting for our purpose and which starkly illuminates the major schism that would soon develop between indigenous science and ‘international science’ is the broad list of objectives of this early research. Gangadharan lists nine including earliness, deep water and flood resistance, lodging resistance, drought resistance, non-shedding of grain, dormancy of seed, control of wild rice, disease resistance and higher response to heavy manuring. Since pure line selection is itself based on natural selection occurring over centuries, there was no problem of incompatibility between genes and the environment, and therefore no pest problem.

The second phase was less promising. It involved the initially unsuccessful effort at hybridising the Japonicaand Indica varieties. The objective, writes Gangadharan, ‘was to transfer the high yielding ability and response to fertilisers that characterise the Japonicas into local Indica varieties which are adapted to local conditions of culture and to the prevalent diseases and pests. Japan had used chemical fertilisers from the beginning of this century and Japonicas showed a response under Japanese conditions whereas the Indicas had not been cultivated under high fertility conditions.’

Only four successes were reported from this programme. The problem was that the Japonicas were both photo-period and temperature sensitive and additionally the seed had been brought from some of the coldest regions of Japan. When these varieties were planted in the tropical environment, they not only gave different but negative results. The introduction of the Philippines semi-dwarf varieties put an abrupt end to this line of research. Later the CRRI imported seed from the milder, temperate region of Japan. This time the efforts were successful but IRRI’s control over the rice research programme would effectively keep these efforts out of circulation, and science.

Which brings us to the third phase inaugurated by IRRI, and also the subject of this investigation.

IRRI was established on the basis of a note written by a Rockefeller official in 1959. Both the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations put up the money to start the institute, which was established formally in 1960 and began functioning fully in 1962. From start to finish, the CRRI would be no match in an unequal battle all the way. The IRRI officials would literally buy rice scientists from different parts of Asia, and take over most of the outstanding talent simply because of IRRI’s ability to offer them salaries not only in dollars, but out of proportion to what they received in their own countries, and its ability to provide accommodation, and opportunities for educating staff children anywhere in the world.

By 1966, IRRI had come up with its first success. It is important to emphasise that whereas the CRRI had nine objectives governing its research, IRRI had only one. IR8 was a semi-dwarf rice variety, the result of a cross between an Indonesian tall rice plant and a Taiwanese dwarf variety. Distinctive of the plant was its ability to stand heavy fertilisation, and heavier yields, without lodging. (It also inaugurated a vast market for American fertilisers all over Asia). Without water, fertilisers and pesticides, IR8 did not perform extraordinarily better than the older rices. The disadvantage of the latter was solely that they tended to lodge when given extra nutrients, thus leading to losses.

The CRRI had, as mentioned earlier, been working with identical material and in fact had isolated dwarf varieties from Taiwan that were free from susceptibility to viral attacks. When the news arrived that the Indian government was planning, at the insistence of IRRI experts, to import the new IRRI seed in bulk into India, Dr Richharia, CRRI director, objected.

The government seems to have found Dr Richharia’s advice contradictory: earlier, it had been informed by the CRRI that Taichung varieties could provide a breakthrough in rice production; now Richharia was objecting to their import. The contradiction stemmed from the fact that bureaucrats and politicians have little grounding in genetics: they did not seem to understand that seed tested after numerous adaptive trials over many seasons, and then selected and multiplied, is radically different from seed imported in bulk from abroad. The latter, because of its mixed population, will contain seed carrying disease and which might be susceptible to pests. IRRI at that point of time was too keen to get its seeds grown on a large scale before decisions could be reversed, to subscribe to caution of any kind.

It was also the tremendous leverage that the Americans maintained over the Indian science establishment that enabled IRRI to ride roughshod over the protests of Indian scientists. Though the country was allegedly nonaligned in politics, most of its policies in science and economics were largely under the control of Americans. Thus the community development programme originated with Albert Myers. Douglas Emswinger of the Ford Foundation once boasted that he had better access to Pandit Nehru than any of the latter’s cabinet colleagues. Dr Richharia first came to know of his appointment to the director’s post at the CRRI from an American, Prof Claim. Dr. Robert Chandler, director of IRRI, reported directly to Agriculture Minister, C. Subramaniam.

Chandler, in his recent account of the IRRI, An Adventure in Applied Science, has admitted that he had never seen a rice plant when he took over as director of IRRI. Yet, it was at his instigation, and because he had been castigated once by Dr Richharia for bringing rice seed into the country without a quarantine certificate, thus violating the country's laws, that the government decided to retire Dr Richharia, at that time one of the world's leading rice specialists.

Once IR8 and TN1 had become fairly established within India and all rice research oriented solely in the direction of semi-dwarfs using these parents, IRRI would naturally retain the lead, with large doses of political clout and advertising to make up for shortfalls in science. Rice scientists from Asia, if they wished to make a career, would have to support the IRRI research direction.

One additional significant factor that seems to have made an impact on the government at the time was the disastrous harvests of 1965 and 1966. What weighed with the Government of India (and also former President Marcos of the Philippines) in choosing to uncritically deploy IRRI technology, was that the latter, for the first time, offered an almost automatic method of raising food that would place it within the control of the administration, taking it out of the hands of the peasants. If the government concentrated its resources in a few, well-endowed areas, using the HYV package, it could produce a sizeable output of food that would be independent of the whims of the monsoons. Again, the very method of agriculture, based on expensive inputs, required credit, and this assured the government that a good proportion of the grain thus produced would end up in the market, in the hands of government procurement agencies, and could then be used to keep prices stable in the cities.

Two major developments totally ruined the prospect of a promised land overflowing with rice and honey. The first was economic: the oil price hike of 1973 effectively limited a fertiliser-based agricultural strategy. It would make Green Revolution inputs so expensive that they would have to be subsidised by Governments if farmers were not to give up using them forever. The second major problem, also irreversible, arrived in the form of disease and insects. The growing of varieties with a narrow genetic base (all with the same dwarfing gene, dee-gee-wo-gen), upset insect ecology and invented entire generations of pests. Dr Swaminathan has himself made quite a shameless summary of the fate of IRRI varieties, in a recent issue of Mazingira. He writes:

‘It is difficult to develop a variety that has a useful life of more than five to six years in tropical environments unless genes for horizontal (more stable) resistance are identified and incorporated. Year round rice cultivation causes disease and insect organisms to occur in overlapping generations and increases the chance of new races or biotypes developing; thus new pest problems continuously arise. Variety IR8, released in 1966, suffered from serious attacks of bacterial blight (BB) in 1968 and 1969. In 1970 and 1971, outbreaks of rice tungro virus (RTV) destroyed IR8 yields throughout the Philippines. The IR20 variety, released in 1969, had BB resistance and RTV tolerance, and it replaced IR8 in 1971 and 1972. However, outbreaks of brown plant hopper (BPH) and grassy stunt virus (GSV) in 1973 destroyed IR20 in most Philippine provinces. Variety IR26, with BPH resistance, was released in 1973 and became the dominant Philippine variety in 1974 and 1975. In 1976, a new BPH biotype attacked it and IR36 was released; it had a different gene for resistance to the new BPH biotype and replaced IR26 within one year. It is now the dominant variety in the Philippines. Its resistance to BPH has held till recently, but it is now being threatened by ragged stunt and wilted stunt (both new diseases), as well as by another new biotype of BPH (No. 3).

In India, the situation was equally horrifying. All of Dr Richharia's predictions had come true. ‘The introduction of high-yielding varieties,’ noted a task force of eminent rice breeders, ‘has brought about a marked change in the status of insect pests like gall midge, brown planthopper, leaf folder, whore maggot, etc. Most of the HYVs released so far are susceptible to major pests with a crop loss of 30 to 100 per cent... Most of the HYVs are the derivatives of TN1 or IR8 and therefore, have the dwarfing gene known as dee-gee-wo-gen. The narrow genetic base has created alarming uniformity, causing vulnerability to diseases and pests. Most of the released varieties are not suitable for typical uplands and lowlands which together constitute about 75 per cent of the total rice area of the country.’

The IRRI counter-strategy against the pests involved breeding of varieties, with genes for resistance to such pests, taken from wild relatives of the rice plant and its traditional cultivars. All of a sudden it seemed critical that massive efforts be made to make as complete a collection of the older varieties: many of the traditionalIndicas were found to be important donors for resistance. Gene incorporation strategy, in other words, required vast germplasm resources, most of which were to be found in India. The recruitment of Dr M.S. Swaminathan would be instrumental in the task of collection.

In India, again, Dr Richharia stood in the way.

After he had been retired from service at Chandler's insistence, Richharia had gone to the Orissa High Court, where for three years, alone, he fought a legal battle that ruined his family, disrupted the education of his children, and brought tremendous strains on his wife's health. The legal battle was successful, for in 1970, the Court ordered his reinstatement as director of the CRRI. He had redeemed his honour.

In the meanwhile, the Madhya Pradesh government had appointed Dr Richharia as an agricultural advisor, and the rice man set about his disrupted rice work once again, with his usual zeal. Within the space of six years, he had built up the infrastructure of a new rice research institute at Raipur. Here, this extraordinarily gifted and imaginative rice scientist maintained over 19,000 varieties of rice in situ on a shoestring budget of Rs. 20,000 per annum, with not even a microscope in his office-cum-laboratory, situated in the neighbourhood of cooperative rice mills. His assistants included two agricultural graduates and six village level workers, the latter drawing a salary of Rs.250 per month. Richharia had created, practically out of nothing, one of the most extraordinary living gene banks in the world, and provided ample proof of what Indian scientists are capable of, if they are given proper encouragement.

An attack of leaf blight that devastated the corn crop of the US in 1970, and which had resulted from the extensive planting of hybrids that shared a single source of cytoplasm, and the continuous attacks on IRRI varieties, impelled IRRI to sponsor a Rice Genetic Conservation Workshop in 1977. Swaminathan attended it as an ‘observer’. The report of that workshop begins with the statement: ‘The founders of IRRI showed great foresight when in 1960-61 they planned the establishment of a rice germplasm bank.’ Nonsense. The certified aims and objects for the institute merely talk of a collection of the world's literature on rice. The workshop, being held 17 years after the establishment of IRRI, indicated that the germplasm problem was becoming important only now.

After the workshop, IRRI's covetous gaze fell on Richharia’s 19,000 varieties at the Madhya Pradesh Rice Research Institute (MPRRI). Not only had Richharia now uncovered a fascinating world of traditional rices, some of which produced between 8-9 tonnes per hectare – better than the IRRI varieties – he had also discovered dwarf plants without the susceptible dwarfing gene of the IRRI varieties. His extension work among the farmers would soon begin to pose a direct challenge to IRRI itself.

IRRI staff members journeyed to Raipur and asked for his material. Still moulded in the old scientific tradition, he refused because he had not studied the material himself. He was decidedly against any proposal for ‘exchange’, for this could only mean giving up his uncontaminated varieties for IRRI's susceptible ones.

So the IRRI did the next best thing: it got the MPRRI shut down!

The ICAR floated a scheme for agricultural development in Madhya Pradesh, particularly for rice. The World Bank contributed Rs.4 crores. The condition laid down was: close down the MPRRI, since it would lead to a ‘duplication of work.’ At a special meeting of the MPRRI Board, Madhya Pradesh's chief secretary who was not a trustee was present. He had been earlier connected with the Ford Foundation. A resolution was passed closing down the Institute, and the rice germplasm passed over to the Jawaharlal Nehru Krishi Vishwa Vidyalaya (JNKVV), whose vice-chancellor Sukhdev Singh also joined the IRRI board of trustees. Scientists were sent to IRRI for training in germplasm transfer, and Richharia's team was disbanded.

This time too, they locked Dr. Richharia's rooms and took away all his research papers.

On June 4, 1982, Dr M.N. Shrivastava, rice breeder, JNKVV, wrote to P.S. Srinivasan, the IRRI liaison officer, addressed it care of Ford Foundation, New Delhi, enclosing two sets of material as requested by T.T. Chang of IRRI: ‘First set (264 accessions) is from our early duration collection and second set (170 samples) is part of those varieties which were identified to be popular with the farmers of Madhya Pradesh and Dr R.H. Richharia, former director of MPRRI, purified them and recommended replacing originals with these purified versions.’

But with Richharia out of the fray, nature herself now jumped into the ring. It responded with the necessary mutations, and began to lay low the new pest resistant varieties, rendering even the strategy of gene incorporation, of temporary utility. And then, in a fashion that only those with some respect for nature's awesome ways would understand, it delivered the coup de grace.

The distinctive success of the HYVs lay in their being short stemmed, able to stand heavy nitrogen applications without lodging, when compared with the older varieties. The incorporation of more and more genes from traditional cultivars not only passed on resistance characters, but also the tendency to lodge. Ergo, modern varieties began to lose their non-lodging character, the main advantage they had against the older cultivars.Research Highlights for 1983, an IRRI publication, observes:

‘Modern rices produce high grain yields with large amounts of applied nitrogen. However, heavy applications increase lodging, which reduces yields. Additionally, as higher levels of insect pest and disease resistance have been bred into modern semi-dwarf varieties, lodging resistance has tended to decline.’

The green revolution in rice had begun to involute.

What then have been the ‘achievements’ of such corrupt and politically naive science? (One set of all IRRI germplasm has been sent to Fort Collins, the maximum security installation in the US, without the permission of the Indian government). Has such science achieved any of its declared aims? Bharat Dogra summed it up:

‘Starting from just five million hectares in 1970-71, over 18 million hectares or nearly half the area of (rice) has now been brought under the HYVs programme till 1982-83... Therefore, this crop must have received a substantial share of the benefit of the overall increase in irrigation and the increase in the overall consumption of NPK fertilisers. However, compared to the increase in the area under HYVs and the increase in fertilisers and irrigation, the production of rice has increased to a lesser extent. During the period mentioned above (1970-71 to 1982-83), the production of rice has gone up from 42.23 million tonnes to 46.48 million tonnes. Assuming the production of non-HYVs did not experience any increase at all and all the difference in rice production was on HYVs land, we get an increase in production of about 4 million tonnes as a result of extension of HYVs programme to nearly 13 million hectares of land. In other words, an increase of 0.31 tonnes was achieved with HYV per hectare. This is a relatively small accomplishment which could have been easily achieved even without the expensive HYV programme and its infrastructure by making better use of village-based resources.’

A 33-member official working group headed by K.C.S Acharya, additional secretary in the ministry of agriculture, has determined that the growth rate of rice production after the Green Revolution has been less when compared with the pre-Green Revolution period.

Millions of hectares of rice are now routinely devastated by BPH and other pests and no compensation is available to farmers who are induced to take to such ‘modernised’ agriculture. Such pest infestations have been introduced into the Indian environment. The IRRI officials knew what they were doing, and they did it for the cheap objective of wanting to assert IRRI primacy.

The unmonitored, hasty introduction of HYVs of seed has led to genetic erosion of tremendous proportions, as hundreds of priceless traditional varieties have been lost to mankind. It is only in the eighties that the IRRI has begun to acknowledge the true worth of the older varieties. What a curious circle of events!

The IRRI inaugurated the revolution in rice by holding in ridicule the basis of traditional agriculture – the traditional cultivar, itself the result of close trial and error experimentation by farmers over decades – and sought to displace it with its own product, the HYV. However, since the HYV was not closely adapted to any environment, it required extensive support, having attracted pest infestations on a mass scale. Protection could only come from the same traditional cultivars, which at the time of HYV propagation, had been loaded with abuse.

Is there a way out: how can such a state of science exist nearly 40 years after independence? Why does the director of the CRRI continue to remain as a trustee of the IRRI, which he has been since 1979? To continue and deepen the dependence? The IRRI has no future, politically, and also as far as research is concerned. Politically, its future was tied to former President Marcos, and Filipino farmers and scientists had already begun to demand its closure. As far as research is concerned, the IRRI has no new ideas, and is now eagerly visiting China to learn Chinese techniques of growing hybrid rice, the next frontier in rice yield enhancement.

The CRRI has ample talent to match Chinese science. It has still vital access to hundreds of indigenous cultivars (a recent count of rice collection centres indicated that there were about 44,000 varieties, whereas the IRRI has 70,000). What then should be done?

First, the CRRI should be upgraded to international standards, for that is the only sure guarantee of the funds it needs, and which it has been deprived of, ever since Indian politicians decided to back IRRI science. Today, the CRRI germplasm unit does not have even a jeep to operate its collection of rice cultivars.

Second, all further export of rice germplasm to IRRI should be banned, since germplasm is part of our national heritage, and its preservation is enjoined by the Constitution in the chapter on Fundamental Duties. Third, steps should be taken to gradually replace IRRI varieties, and all those having IRRI parents, with productive indigenous varieties in the fields. This is already happening in the Philippines: farmers are exchanging old varieties with each other, disowning IRRI seeds, aptly described as ‘seeds of imperialism’ and ‘seeds of sabotage.’

There seems to have been some awareness at the level of the government that the rice revolution had been grounded, due to environmental and economic factors. The late Prime Minister, Mrs Gandhi, had asked Dr Richharia for a rice production increase plan. After he submitted it, he heard no more about it. After an article by Dom Moraes on Richharia, the M.P. Government hastily set about attempting to find some funds to ask the latter to resume his work. Now that proposal has been scotched by the same forces that once got the MPRRI to close down.

More than 25 years have passed in this costly, wasteful, environmentally unsound, flirtation with the exogene. The sorry and sad record only serves to underline the principle – despite our continuing mesmerisation by western science – that for genuine development of any worthwhile kind, the indigene is still the best gene.

(Courtesy Dr Claude Alvares)

[This article was first published in The Illustrated Weekly of India, March 23, 1986; the issues remain relevant – ed.]