Hearting Dilli: Sarojini Nagar

Of Monkeys and (monkey-like) dancers

Today is Friday, the day when we (happily) quit work at 1430 hours in order to make it for the weekly review meeting at 1500 hours. This also makes it an opportune day* to carry the camera to work-something I'd been really wanting to do, owing to the Langoors.

Let me explain. The area I work in, is overrun with monkeys (the rhesus kind). The area is also overrun with Very Important People, who see no reason to bear with these red-bottomed primates who like to jump on their roofs early in the morning (and hang around after, too). I thus entered office one-day, to find the P.A. of the Boss on the phone, with the Boss hovering behind. This is the conversation I overhear:

P.A.: Main ____ ka P.A. bol raha hun. Langoor kab ayega?
       (I am _____'s P.A. When will the langoor arrive?)

(Bear in mind that the Boss is a Very Important Person, too, and most of the P.A's telephonic conversations are with other personages who also fall under the Very Important category, about matters that, in a manner of speaking, are of national importance.)

This was followed by the concerned Government Body sending a langoor daily. But as the langoor was duty bound to service other kothis as well, it was unable to devote more than an hour towards being scary**.  Thus a letter was written, in shuddh hindi, to eight neighbours (yes, they're Rhesus-affected Important People too) detailing the monkey menace and why it made perfect sense for said neighbours to join the Boss in employing a fulltime langoor.

Now, as the colleagues say, we have been joined by a new co-worker (who earns almost as much as I do). A co-worker who dangles its tail, eats leaves and occassionally sits in such pretty poses that it might as well be demanding to be photographed. 

Unfortunately, the langoor came late today, and proceeded to begin its day by napping alongside its handler. There was no way I could shoot the langoor without appearing to be photographing the sleeping handler as well-a situation I wanted to avoid, for various reasons. Hence no Langoor photo this Friday.

What I got, instead, were these. Project Bandaloop was performing in Delhi today which, thanks to Shreya and the canteen timings of Max Mueller Bhawan, I was able to catch.

Take a bow, you crazy dancers!

There are better videos available that show exactly what they do, but the two second one I finally remembered to capture, should give an idea.

*Lesser hours to carry the damnheavybag.
** Langoors scare away rhesus monkeys

Hearting Dilli

 

Paper hands

A sense of humour

Mine can be very juvenile oftentimes and/or obscure.

One of the things I am currently finding very funny is the word 'Vyavdhan'. व्यवधान. Interruptions.

Particularly, in this context:

ी सभापित: देिखए आप लोग banners मत िदखाए ...(यवधान)... आप banners नहीं िदखाएंगे ...(यवधान)... आप लोग अपनी जगह पर वापस जाइए...(यवधान)... नरेश जी, अपनी जगह पर वापस जाइए, आप senior member ह...(यवधान)... Question No. 341...(Interruptions)...

The word has an odd echo that creates a sense of dramatic expectation. It pronounces itself like the classic BEES SAAL BAAD... does, complete with the dot dot dots, atleast in my head. Which is funny. Like laugh out loud funny. I find it even more amusing because I imagine whoever types out these uncorrected debates from the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha inserting it, feverishly, especially during scam times.

'Interruptions' lacks the flavour of व्यवधान. It's a bland word that in no way communicates the stomach-splitting-mirth-inducing happenings within the hallowed precints of the Parliament. Such as the placard holding, naara ripping that has been going on every day of the Winter Session this time. The TV in the office is usually left on all day, during session, but this time, as the sessions have been getting adjourned within a minute of the Speaker taking his seat, the office has been alternating between news channels and cricket matches. Thus, I only saw this placard holding and naara ripping yesterday.

Essentially, as soon as the Obituary references have been made, and on the sixtieth second of the minute's silence, democratic hell breaks lose.

Members from the Opposition race into the well, waving their placards and shouting WEE WAANT....J.P.C., WEE WAANT...J.P.C.

The MPs from the Government sit around a Minister who is trying to lay a paper on the table, as called upon to do by the Deputy Speaker*, and holding up their OWN placards calling for the sacking of Yedyurappa and investigation of scams that have occured in the Opposition's home turf. The mouths of these MPs move too (inaudibly, because of the JPC chant and Oscar Fernandes laying his report on the table), and this I chant-you-chant-we-all-chant-till-adjournment is excellent entertainment.

I shall now go to dinner, leaving you with the sum total of today's proceedings that were recorded between 11.00 AM and 11.01 AM. Just substitute 'Interruptions' with व्यवधान, as I did, and you shall enjoy the read so much more. (Also, now inviting, guesses on What Happens Next as far as the Winter Session, and UPA II, goes).

The House met at eleven of the clock,
MR. CHAIRMAN in the Chair.

-----

MR. CHAIRMAN: Question No. 201. ...(Interruptions)... Do not come into the Well of the House. ...(Interruptions)... पािण जी, अपनी जगह वापस जाइए। ... (यवधान) ... No banners, please. ...(Interruptions)...
No banners, please. ...(Interruptions)... No banners, please. ...(Interruptions)... आप अपनी जगह वापस जाइए। ... (यवधान) ... No banners, please. ...(Interruptions)... आप लोग अपनी जगह वापस जाइए। ... (यवधान) ...

The House is adjourned till 12.00 hours.

-----
The House then adjourned at one minute past
eleven of the clock.

*Who is really cute when he pleads begs with the honourable members to please allow some other honourable member to speak. And who I, for the longest time, imagined was called Munda.

By the way, this is a hilarious take on the Radia tapes and the deafening silence of the mainstream media post-expose.

All India Radia

Dear Lobbyists; thank you for falling out of the closet.

Because if certain pieces of good journalism hadn't yanked you out, we would still be under the impression that we live in a-sort of- free and democratic country.

Scandals are popping out faster than you can blink. First, the Commonwealth Games corruption expose, then the 2G loot, and related to that, the Niira Radia tapes. The latter, particularly, was a tremendous, tremendous expose, touching as it does huge names in the media, corporate honchos and their nefarious links with the government. We all knew that policy decisions were up for sale and that the Tatas, the Ambanis and Big Money ran the Government (which has, at its helm, a Prime Minister who played a key part in liberalising India's economy). But to see it laid out in the form of audio recordings and transcripts- conversations between a PR professional and lobbyist, willing journalist 'go-betweens' and the government... To in effect hear conversations where powerful people with Big Money outside of the government manipulate Cabinet portfolios and buy policy decisions... I'm trying to imagine how this particular expose can die down and fade away, and I cannot.

Television and print journalists from big media houses have been exposed (it is almost amusing to see them all put up explanations, defences and counter attack the story carried by Open Magazine...) for the-at best- dubious role they play. Big Money has been exposed for the Big Grip they have on how our country is run. In view of this, it was quite ironic to see the content of PM Manmohan Singh's speech at the forty third Indian Labour Conference. The man who holds big brownie points for being so educated, an economist, and an energetic friend of the corporate world, announced-officially-his endorsement of the restructuring of the Indian labour laws. Laws that are some of the most progressive and labour friendly laws in the world (atleast on paper-interpretation by the Courts are increasingly becoming a different story altogether), won after years and years of struggle, are deemed by the PM to not have had the " intended good effects that we would like to see on the ground". 'Good effects' by whose definition and what would the PM like to see on the ground? Legalisation of the process of creating big business that isn't required to ensure Decent Work conditions? “Is it possible that our best intentions for labour are not actually met by laws that sound progressive on paper but end up hurting the very workers they are meant to protect,” said Dr. Singh. 

Big Business whines about how the Indian labour laws don't let them hire and fire at will, a dispensible workforce apparently being indispensible to the growth of the business. They complain about trade unions, which, horror of horrors, actually have the audacity to pretend workers have rights worth fighting for. News channels (owned by Big Business) run dramatised stories of Workers Gone Wild who violently attack the management and play the Be Afraid card while announcing that enough is enough. Who do they think they are kidding? If our laws were really that literally implemented and in the spirit they were meant to- wouldn't most businesses-for a start- be operating with a permanent workforce? Paying atleast minimum wages? Taking care of OHS (occupational health & safety) issues at the workplace? Respecting the Indian Constitution by recognising the inalienable right of workers to organise?

Why are they so scared of trade unions and worker rights?Why must a country choose between Decent Work conditions and 'growth of employment'? Doesn't this say terrible things about the way we choose to design our growth?

Our activist Supreme Court is no friend of the workers. Just a few days ago, a Bench of  Justices Markandey Katju (of the 'keep' fame) and Gyan Sudha Misra upheld differential duty hours at the workplace. Their logic? That “It is not prudent or pragmatic for the Court to insist on absolute equality when there are diverse situations and contingencies. In view of the inherent complexities involved in modern society, some free play must be given to the executive authorities in this connection.” And this is just one example of the many anti-worker stance increasingly being adopted in the high chair of the judiciary.

If lobbyists can work their blackmagic on the Government, I'm wondering whether they haven't-gasp-touched the judiciary as well. After all, in the hypothetical situation where the buyer and end product (a workforce denuded of rights and hence pliable in the interests of Profit) remain the same, surely the intermediary commodities become the irrelevant pawns of this game? 

Please, Mr. PM. Let us not pretend that a restructuring of labour laws will benefit workers. We know who you are really gunning for.

Weekend Yoga

I'm hooked. I'm only two classes deep, but I feel GREAT:D


I like the fact yoga is not about inches or kilos or physical appearance. It is about a sense of both health and self-realisation.  

Gupi Bagha again

This is another favourite of mine from the film:

Gupi and Bagha are trying to stop a war, and escape from prison just in time to meet the marching troops. Gupi has been given a gift whereby when he sings, all men and women freeze in position: they can't move (usually). So Gupi sings to the starving army, asking them what they hope to achieve from the war. And in the end, they conjure up pots and pots of sweets (another gift), and the soldiers scatter to eat. War cancelled.

Gupi Bagha- Bhuter Naach

I've been youtubing more Gupi Bagha since yesterday. There is a scene in the movie when the two characters, Gupi Gayen (Gupi, the Singer) and Bagha Bayen (Bagha, the, er, I don't know what 'bayen' means in Bengali :P ) are caught in the middle of a lonely forest-at night-and catch a ghostly performing troupe. This is a clip of that performance, which is beautiful and pure genius-the idea, the music, the choreography. No child will ever fear ghosts after seeing this scene.

Baayen, I'm told, means someone who plays an instrument.

Health and things

I signed up for Yoga!

Yoga has always worked really well for me (and when I say 'always' I imply the yoga in the school curriculum and the random yoga one just ends up doing now and then) and I'm planning on making it and alternative healing an alternative to expensive (and hardly comprehensive) private medical insurance that I shall soon have to switch over to. My brother and I have always been covered by our mother's medical insurance (which is excellent and reimburses EVERYTHING), but as soon as I have a real job (which, as I'm 23, will be  sooner rather than later), I shall be brutally cut off.

I've recently been on homoeopathic medicines (I don't trust allopathy at all) for being exhausted much more than I should be. Whatever the doc's been giving me (steroids or not) has worked really well and really quickly. The doctor, incidentally, diagnoses by looking at the tongue and reading the pulse. He told me I sneezed a lot (I do) and am very restless (um, I guess.). The medicines seem to be a lot cheaper than your usual anti-biotics and much kinder to the system (except if it's laced with steroids).

So that's my health insurance plan and I'm very happy about it. Yoga, homoeopathy/ayurveda/unani/some other traditional cure, pranic healing(<-- sounds like a load of crap but it so isn't.). 

Now all I need to do is make sure I wake up in time for my 8AM weekend classes...

'Songs of Protest' by Sumangala Damodaran

The CD was released on 10 November, at the National School of Drama. I was there, for the performance, for the CD and for the photos. I've always wanted to shoot performers, especially musicians. One day, I will actually shoot good ones (the photos, not the performers!) :D.

To tell the truth, I expected more from the collection. The songs were beautiful, but they hardly embodied 'protest' music to my newly-into-protest-music ears. The renditions lacked the energy and mass participation I've come to expect from such songs, purely based on my diet of Salil Chowdhury, Debabrata Biswas and Hemanga Biswas. I am very glad to own a copy of the CD though, because one can't have enough protest music.

I've been told by my uncle that a lot of Bengali IPTA songs have been put online-somewhere. He has given me the phone number of someone who can tell me more, and I'm going to call him tomorrow.

The NSD complex is beautiful-even in the dark. I went to the event straight from work, lugging my bags, trying not to be directionally challenged. I felt like a tourist, getting (happily) distracted by installed exhibits and practicing students. I was trying to find Sanmukhi Auditorium. So was another gentleman carrying a guitar. I followed him, and then he followed me, until the auditorium was located. Only later did I realise that not only was he one of the musicians for the evening, but he was Deepak Castelino.

I love:

• Walking across the hypotenuse, squared, and mentally chanting: Pythogoras' Theorem! Pythogoras' Theorem!
• Saba Naqvi writing on politics.
• New York City
• Bad puns in headlines ("After Adarsh Chavan, it's Licence Raja". Licence Raj-a :D)

My collection of books started with Enid Blyton's Bimbo and Topsy. I love Enid Blyton. Birthdays meant new books and sick days meant lots of pillows piled on my parents' bed, and my stock of ten-fifteen books arranged according to series by my side. I'm pretty sure I faked sick a couple of times, just so I could line up all the books and read all day-alone-in bed.

A couple of years back a friend told me that he only read non-fiction those days. I didn't get it: how does one not read fiction? Fastforward to now: and I have become that person. Most of my recent reading has been non-fiction: Hunter S. Thomson's Hells Angels, Amitav Ghosh's The Imam and the Indian, Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leissure Classes.

It's not as if I like fiction any less: I absolutely love it; but a lot of what I want to read more about now is generally in the non-fiction category. I guess I am prioritising non-fiction over fiction because I find it so much more exciting.

Reclaiming the Metro

Day 1

I was quite excited about it. I was really looking forward to not being in the women's compartment. I headed to the opposite end of the train (which also meant I got to take the escalator :D) and, for the next fifty minutes, travelled with several men and a few women. I read this week's Outlook all through.

It was extremely ordinary, and I loved that.

In the evening, there were no single women in the last coach. Or atleast, the only ones I saw were with their male companions. I listened to music all the way.

On my setlist currently:

Avial
Apocalyptica
Indian People's Theatre Association (IPTA) songs (Salil Chowdhury, Debabrata Biswas, Hemanga Biswas, amongst others)
Some other Bengali music (Manna De, Bhupen Hazarika, 'Ujjal ek jhak paira')
Various versions of the Internationale
Bavra Man

I skip El Dorado every time it comes (at the end of the Bengali song list and before Apocalyptica). I'm glad I don't like Iron Maiden's new album all that much; atleast I won't feel so awful they won't be coming to India for the first time in three years.

I'm a little tired of my setlist. I shall retain the IPTA and Bangla songs, Avial, and download some Velvet Underground. I also want more Bengali IPTA songs, which are proving to be a bit elusive on youtube.

I love this song which I heard for the first time in Gupi Gayein, Bagha Bayein. This was one of the first movies we had on tape when I was a child, and nothing takes me back to memories created as a six year old faster than watching Gupi Bagha again. When I was six, my world had little furniture and lots of mosaic floor.

"He dragged her up his winding stair, into his dismal den, Within his little parlor; but she ne’er came out again!"

After expressing Strong Feelings* against the Pink Coach (the Delhi Metro ‘ladiej’), I find myself frequenting it.

Most of the times this is because the first coach is the coach I’m accustomed to travelling in on the Blue Line and other times because the only coach that is relatively less crowded on the Yellow Line is the women’s coach. And sometimes, when I’m on the phone and blindly walk into a coach, I find that I have sub-consciously walked into the women’s coach. This is precisely what I was afraid of-women's space being indirectly shrunk. And I have actively let myself choose to be shrunk into one compartment; I am not proud of myself.

From tomorrow, I shall make it a POINT to NOT enter the ‘Ladiej’ even if I’m dying to find a seat so I can doze, or I have to let three trains go before I am finally able to stuff myself into a compartment**.  

* I tend to Feel Strongly about a lot of things in life. It's not an attitude I cultivate; I'm just built that way. 

I like to think that I keep my Strong Feelings to myself most of the times. I mean, if I meet you at the Dentist’s, I will probably talk about the weather (I do that a lot too). I will even nod my head non-commitantly (which spell-check tells me is not a word) if you raise an issue I have a Strong Feeling/Strong Opinion about (and I’ve had a lot of practise of that at work). But if you invite conversation, I will share. I will also listen.  

** Stuffing oneself into the Delhi metro is common practise (after all, we ARE fourteen million!). Stuffing OTHERS into the train so you can get on- NOT COOL. Do you hear me lady-who-prodded-the-manymen-on-the-last-coach-like-she-was-stuffing-cottonwool-into-a-box?

Will you step into my parlour? Said the spider to the fly

(I wrote this a couple of weeks back. Decided to post it today.)

I have been deeply reliant on public transport, particularly mass transit systems as opposed to autos and taxis, since the time I started moving around on my own. I boarded my first DTC as an eighteen year old student, knees quaking, trying not to remember all the terrible stories I’d heard for years from women around me. I continued to be nervous for months, but eventually I grew to love the idea and experience and developed a deep fascination for public transport in general. When in Delhi, although not just in Delhi, one cannot talk about ‘women’ and ‘public transport’ in the same breath without evoking strong reactions. The recent DMRC move to reserve a coach on trains for ladies and children under twelve was one such strong reaction, which has in turn evoked further reaction. I, on my part, am extremely disappointed by this move.

Let me qualify my grievances with this policy decision by stating quite clearly that I am not against the idea of reservations and that I feel the concept of merit, as is flaunted by those who oppose it, is quite flawed. My opposition to the pink coach is because I feel it misses the point of safety on public transport altogether.

An all women's coach is nothing but a segregation of population based on gender and imposing a fine on a transgressing male makes that paternalistic segregation even tighter. In addition, it is as good, or as bad, as telling the female train passenger that they can only expect to be safe in that artificially created space. Interestingly, this segregation has been accompanied by a language of female empowerment, encouraging women to celebrate it, defend it and protect it from infiltration. The treatment of the coach has been such that the issue has subtly shifted from being about the right of women to safely use public transport, to that of the right of women to an all women’s coach.       

 This response to the challenge of ensuring safety on public transport has not only been a conservative one, it has been attempted on a mode of transport that is arguably ‘safer’ and easier to police than other available modes of public transport. Thus by choosing to make the metro the subject and site of ‘corrective’ policy, the DMRC and the Delhi government are already choosing the short term over long term, and the short cut to a real solution with teeth. 

I am still a little unclear as to the official reason behind this move. Newspapers reported that the Delhi Government made this recommendation based on a survey that revealed fifty percent of Delhi’s women felt unsafe while using public transport. A press release on the DMRC website states that "DMRC reserved a separate coach for ladies from 2nd October 2010 In view of the increasing number of lady passengers travelling on the Metro. The reserved ladies’ coach will be the first coach next to the driver’s cab in every train and children up to 12 years accompanied by lady passengers will also be allowed to travel in the reserved coach." So which is it? Safety of women or too many women (wouldn’t the latter contradict the former?) ?  

And while the powers-that-be deliberated on this reserved coach, what, pray, were their thoughts on the old and on persons with disabilities? They continue to choose to give more policy space to both a woman's biology and gender by ensuring that women have a separate reservation, whereas the old and persons with disabilities have to share their 'quota'. This is either an (erroneous) comment on the size of this particular population, or the powers-that-be are less interested in enabling the old and persons with disabilities to travel-who, frankly, need a seat more than ‘women’.  It also begs the question: when will the Delhi Government do a survey to see exactly how many disabled persons and geriatrics in Delhi are forced to stay away from public transport?

In a conversation with a male colleague on this topic, I happened to mention my personal experience as a daily commuter on the metro, where I have never felt uncomfortable because of my gender. But that's because you look like a boy, he said, referring to my ultra-short hair as if ten minutes with a pair of scissors is all it takes to ensure a life-time guarantee of no sexual harassment (wouldn't that be nice).  

Despite my short hair and presumed immunity to sexual harassment on the Delhi Metro, I'm not suggesting that all women must share my experience; however, simply removing women from the space they feel threatened in does not make that space any safer. Who knows, it might even lead to a situation in the future where the public will shrug even more nonchalantly  in the face of sexual harassment in other coaches and say, ‘you should have travelled in the women’s coach’. How can any form of ghettoisation be empowering in the long run?

No move for change is obliged to be single-step and unidimensional. The women’s coach will hopefully be a temporary measure. A multi-pronged strategy can accommodate a temporary segregation-not, most definitely, an intelligent, long term one.  For a start, it can be coupled with measures to control the number of people who choose to squeeze themselves into trains-Mumbai managed to do it on their bus system, surely we can give it a good try?