Probalda wrote back on my mother-tongue day rant; I stand corrected.
And I have wicked pleasure in putting in the commas and dot the T's (or is it i's). I am like Telemachus, able in my own way...
Like I said, or if I haven't said I say now, Probalda is God's gift to Humaninties:
I wrote, erroreously, that: There is an interesting story about how this day was picked up for the mother tongue day. Four people died in Dhaka, fighting for separation from Pakistan – on the grounds that their language was Bengali.
Probalda says:
Seven died; we only get four (middle class) names, namely, Barkat, Jabbar, Rafik and Salam, [believe me, dear readers, Prof Probal Dasgupta is writing from memory - not checking references on wiki - shank] but we are told that three others died; not clear to me if all of them were lower class. [hazaar chaurasi ki ma, wo weilest du?]
This happened in 1952.
Wiki says: International Mother Language Day originated as the international recognition of Language Movement Day, which has been commemorated in Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) since 1952, when a number of University of Dhaka students were killed by the Pakistani police and army in Dhaka during Bengali Language Movement protests.
[Of course Probalda is right; and it is not surprising that I get my facts awfully wrong. But the thing about Prof Dasgupta is that he can make facts interesting, a knack which lot of academix don't have... Now, at this hour, don't get me started about mixed up academic folk.]
Back to 1952
At that early date, nobody is asking for separation of East from West Pakistan; the thought would never have crossed their minds.
They died because they were demonstrating for the right of Bengali to be accepted as a co-official language with Urdu. Note that Bengali was spoken by considerably more than 50% of the population of Pakistan. [The unified Pakistan, that is - Shank]
[Again, I got it wrong, and I stand corrected, in writing that]: the people of East Pakistan (erstwhile East Bengal) fought for independence on the grounds of language; four people, apparently, died in police firing on this day (21 Feb.) and it became the international mother tongue day.]
Probalda goes on: The relevant events are apparently not as well known as they should be. [This is his way of telling me - Shank, his 'chela', that you should get your facts right before you open your trap :)] Anyway, P.D. goes on: In the 60s, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, fought for simple democratic rights (in the face of West Pakistani oppression of the east which was siphoning off all the resources away), refusing to build industries in the east, and so on, (standard colonial behaviour); Mujib languished in jail and was often tortured. In 1970, after much hesitation, the military regime held national elections; the results were announced in winter (I recall December, may be getting the month wrong); in a parliament of just under 300 seats, 169 seats belonged to East Pakistan, and Mujib's Awami League had won 167 of those seats. He had an outright [overwhelming - Shank] majority and should have been asked by Yahya Khan to take office. Instead, Yahya Khan temporized [guys, like many of you, I would have said, what on earth does this word mean? and then I checked out: "to act to suit the time or occasion : yield to current or dominant opinion" - shank] and then invited Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to take office -- Bhutto's PPP had won something like 84 seats. [Bhutto's daughter, Benazir Bhutto, later became Prime Minister, got corrupt - or her husband was corrupt, and she was assassinated a few years ago - Shank] Given this flagrant violation of norms, mujib led protests; these went unheeded. [There was a stalemate for more than 6 months in Indonesia circa 1999, when Megawati Sukarnoputri won the elections outright, and someone or the other 'temporized' and got an old blind man into the president's seat - Shank]
Here I (shank) would like to add a tidbit I know: companies that produced match boxes in (current) Bangladesh had to ship them to Islamabad, or some place in today's Pakistan, to get them shipped back after a small sticker pasted saying they paid excise duty. Imagine a match box of one rupee's worth (today) going across the continent!
Over to Probalda: The background was a Dcember 1970 cyclone, lots of loss of life, Pakistani authorities ignoring the whole thing and causing more tragedies, by such ignoring. Popular anger peaked. On 7 march 1971, Mujib announces that he is now struggling for an independent East Pakistan as there is no hope that the unified Pakistan system can deliver. [What can any goddamn demonocrazy deliver? is another question, which I will write aboutlater - shank]
On 25 March, the pakistani army begins its systematic
repression.
They killed three million people in those eight and half months, and raped two million women. [Probalda doesn't mince his words; and never gets his facts wrong. What if he is careless about commas and dull teaching 'periods'; he has minions and binions to help out on that score. Just let me, sir, and I will take care of the 'mechanics' of writing - any day!]
While language was the basis on which Mujib - ur - Rehman was able to cement political unity in East Pakistan, there is no direct connection between the language movement of 1952, a time at which they all believed in the idea of Pakistan, and the independence struggle of 1971, a response to the throttling of democracy.
You know what, dear readers? If it hadn't been for my goofy observations on the Mother Tongue day (and my cheeky mood that made me send a link to Probalda), I don't know if this cogent summary of what happened in East Bengal - names and all - would have come to light. Oh, yes: you could read a bunch of articles, books and stuff; but, a summary of it in three paragraphs! No, the credit goes entirely to my rant...
As on many occasions, if not always, I stand corrected. And it is Prof Probal Dasgupta's job to put me on the right track. Well, I don't know or care how he likes his job.
I don't like mine. But am I complaining?
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Mecaulay’s Children, Orphans, and Bastards
Lord Mecaulay, of the infamous Minute on Indian Education, according a good friend: anticipates that the ‘native interpreters’ – the English-speaking elite – will go on to enrich their native languages and enhance the literature and scientific knowledge of India thereby. He didn’t suggest that English could suffice for India by any means, or replace its native regional languages.
I believe that Mecaulay fantasized is more like it; it never happened. Enriching Indian language through an understanding of English was the mandate given to the CIEFL (now called the EFLU). A decade later, they set up the CIIL. And this miserable joint comes up with a pathetic publication called muse india (go google for it), after three decades of existence...
All the English elite I know personally are out of this country. And some of them don’t even teach their children Telugu or Hindi, or whatever is their mother (native) tongue.
But, I think, it doesn't matter: English is what gives us an edge over China. Otherwise, we would be as badly off as Bangladesh or Ethiopia.
English rules. So be it. That is not the point: if someone wants to revive the regional languages (native languages), I am all for them. Like if shivsena in Mumbai, and the Kannada Rakshana Vedika in Bengaluru want to make sure that the shop signs include a word of Marathi or Kannada, along with a big English display, I think they have a right to do so. I lost friends pushing this point across and I am willing to make enemies too…
My friend, Daniel, made an excellent observation, that Mecaulay was not against native or regional languages, but against Sanskrit and Persian - which were as irrelevant as Greek and Latin. And right he was (I mean Mecaulay); and of course my friend, Dan.
A friend of mine visited me in Singapore; she was a Teow Chew (a brand of Chinese; I should be calling it a dialect, but I am not a linguist really) from Bangkok. We went to a restaurant and the guy was a Tamil. I spoke to him in English and he took the order. Then she said: Why didn't you talk to him in Indian? I said there is no Indian other than In-glish.
We got talking more; she said, wistfully: you were lucky to have the Brits run your country for so long (Thailand, and strangely enough, Finland) are the only countried which were not really 'occupied' during the second world war. I said why? Oh, your English is so good.
I did not tell her that it was not the Brits really who should get the credit, as far as my eloquence in English was concerned, but a certain affable Madrasi. If I were to be rude, I would perhaps call you a Bangalorean... Well, the affable madrasi, and to be rude, Bangalorean is none other than Daniel, who pretty much taught me to speak ‘the language’ (I say this because Sharon Prabhakar once famously said that pop music is not popular in India because people don’t know ‘the language’). For the uninitiated, Sharon is the wife of the son of a bachelor Alyque and mother of some broad who is in the flicks – Shazahn.
Mecaulay was absolutely to the point when he said that if Sanskrit and Persian were such cracked up languages, why are people asking for scholarships to study them. Of course, it hurts when he says that all of Indian literature would be accommodated in two shelves and blah. But as one gets older, one gets to be a bit forgiving. He did not have time to go through the welth of literary and scientific texts - nor did I - available in Sanskrit.
Over to someone who knows better.
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/macaulay/txt_minute_education_1835.html
Here is ‘the language’ again, in Manu Joseph’s diatribe against Indian languages and lovers of mother tongue:
well-paying job in the country that does not require a good understanding of the language. Higher education here is conducted entirely in English.
And Manu is happy about this:
“A villager has more respect for a brand that is written in English,” said Dhruman Sanghvi, a company director.
"English is the de facto national language of India. It is a bitter truth." says Manu.
For Manu, this is the sweet truth; he should be at least honest about his opinions, if he gets the facts f*** wrong.
Lord Mecaulay, of the infamous Minute on Indian Education, according a good friend: anticipates that the ‘native interpreters’ – the English-speaking elite – will go on to enrich their native languages and enhance the literature and scientific knowledge of India thereby. He didn’t suggest that English could suffice for India by any means, or replace its native regional languages.
I believe that Mecaulay fantasized is more like it; it never happened. Enriching Indian language through an understanding of English was the mandate given to the CIEFL (now called the EFLU). A decade later, they set up the CIIL. And this miserable joint comes up with a pathetic publication called muse india (go google for it), after three decades of existence...
All the English elite I know personally are out of this country. And some of them don’t even teach their children Telugu or Hindi, or whatever is their mother (native) tongue.
But, I think, it doesn't matter: English is what gives us an edge over China. Otherwise, we would be as badly off as Bangladesh or Ethiopia.
English rules. So be it. That is not the point: if someone wants to revive the regional languages (native languages), I am all for them. Like if shivsena in Mumbai, and the Kannada Rakshana Vedika in Bengaluru want to make sure that the shop signs include a word of Marathi or Kannada, along with a big English display, I think they have a right to do so. I lost friends pushing this point across and I am willing to make enemies too…
My friend, Daniel, made an excellent observation, that Mecaulay was not against native or regional languages, but against Sanskrit and Persian - which were as irrelevant as Greek and Latin. And right he was (I mean Mecaulay); and of course my friend, Dan.
A friend of mine visited me in Singapore; she was a Teow Chew (a brand of Chinese; I should be calling it a dialect, but I am not a linguist really) from Bangkok. We went to a restaurant and the guy was a Tamil. I spoke to him in English and he took the order. Then she said: Why didn't you talk to him in Indian? I said there is no Indian other than In-glish.
We got talking more; she said, wistfully: you were lucky to have the Brits run your country for so long (Thailand, and strangely enough, Finland) are the only countried which were not really 'occupied' during the second world war. I said why? Oh, your English is so good.
I did not tell her that it was not the Brits really who should get the credit, as far as my eloquence in English was concerned, but a certain affable Madrasi. If I were to be rude, I would perhaps call you a Bangalorean... Well, the affable madrasi, and to be rude, Bangalorean is none other than Daniel, who pretty much taught me to speak ‘the language’ (I say this because Sharon Prabhakar once famously said that pop music is not popular in India because people don’t know ‘the language’). For the uninitiated, Sharon is the wife of the son of a bachelor Alyque and mother of some broad who is in the flicks – Shazahn.
Mecaulay was absolutely to the point when he said that if Sanskrit and Persian were such cracked up languages, why are people asking for scholarships to study them. Of course, it hurts when he says that all of Indian literature would be accommodated in two shelves and blah. But as one gets older, one gets to be a bit forgiving. He did not have time to go through the welth of literary and scientific texts - nor did I - available in Sanskrit.
Over to someone who knows better.
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00generallinks/macaulay/txt_minute_education_1835.html
Here is ‘the language’ again, in Manu Joseph’s diatribe against Indian languages and lovers of mother tongue:
well-paying job in the country that does not require a good understanding of the language. Higher education here is conducted entirely in English.
And Manu is happy about this:
“A villager has more respect for a brand that is written in English,” said Dhruman Sanghvi, a company director.
"English is the de facto national language of India. It is a bitter truth." says Manu.
For Manu, this is the sweet truth; he should be at least honest about his opinions, if he gets the facts f*** wrong.
Frost @ Midnight...
One Acquainted With Darkness…
“I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat. And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet when far away an interrupted cry came over houses from another street, but not to call me back or say good-bye; and further still at an unearthly height, a luminary clock against the sky… [that is the moon, I was told – ed.]
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. [I was one acquainted with the dark side of the right.]”
I don’t know if this is plagiarism: this is what Frost almost said. I cut out a few words here and there, which one should not do. I took the liberty to add a line in the end, which one must not do. But then, where is poetic justice in this world today? It is all poetic liberty, nay, licentiousness.
I am one acquainted with the darker side of things: like anger and passion. Yes, passion is dark and deep, like the woods the great poet was wandering through. I am bum chums with people of different persuasions and orientations – with beasts of a different breed. Of course all of us are beasts. Of different shapes and breeds; of rights and wrongs.
I have indulged in darker deeds than writing blogs and cursing people whom I dislike: I have been acquainted with forbidden substances and deeds. Oh well, I have had a not so bright past, and I don’t care if my future will be bright either. It is the will of god.
International Mother Tongue Day
This week, on the 21 Feb., we had the international mother tongue day. There is an interesting story about how this day was picked up for the mother tongue day. Four people died in Dhaka, fighting for separation from Pakistan – on the grounds that their language was Bengali (Urdu was imposed as an ‘official’ language on them – oh, how I cringe to used the word ‘official’ with reference to language.)
Interestingly, Pakistan was divided on the grounds of religion, and the people of East Pakistan (erstwhile East Bengal) fought for independence on the grounds of language; four people, apparently, died in police firing on this day (21 Feb.) and it became the international mother tongue day.
Today, many Indian elite are ashamed to let it be known that their children speak an ‘Indian’ language. Karan Johar, the son of a bachelor, is happy about not being able to count beyond 30 in Hindi, but is pleased as a punch to spit out some unimaginative, dirty line in French – Vouz les vous, or something of that manner. On a national channel…
Many Indian parents feel, and a friend who moved to Bangalore from Delhi actually said, that local languages can ‘pollute’ their children and hamper their English language acquisition. And so this gent, who thought the maid servant was invading their home with Hindi – moved to Bangalore. This is so obviously not true: if the right environment is provided, children can easily pick up 3 or 4 languages, not get confused about who to talk to in which language. So if the mother is a Telugu speaker and the father a Bengali – the child would never utter a word of Telugu to the father, and vice versa. And if they happen to live in Delhi, they will manage in Hindi outside the home…
Exceptions of course occur. I once found myself talking in Telugu to Sunil Sinha, who knows only English and Hindi. We used to converse in English mostly, maybe with a bit of Hindi thrown in. Perhaps it was because we were so close that I slipped into Telugu (which is my ‘home’ language). That is just one exception in the past 30 years during which I have been operating in Telugu, Hindi, and English. An exception, as the cliché goes, that proves the rule.
Mother do you think I should run for president?
Mother do you think they will try to break my will?
… and misinterpret my testament?
“I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat. And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet when far away an interrupted cry came over houses from another street, but not to call me back or say good-bye; and further still at an unearthly height, a luminary clock against the sky… [that is the moon, I was told – ed.]
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. [I was one acquainted with the dark side of the right.]”
I don’t know if this is plagiarism: this is what Frost almost said. I cut out a few words here and there, which one should not do. I took the liberty to add a line in the end, which one must not do. But then, where is poetic justice in this world today? It is all poetic liberty, nay, licentiousness.
I am one acquainted with the darker side of things: like anger and passion. Yes, passion is dark and deep, like the woods the great poet was wandering through. I am bum chums with people of different persuasions and orientations – with beasts of a different breed. Of course all of us are beasts. Of different shapes and breeds; of rights and wrongs.
I have indulged in darker deeds than writing blogs and cursing people whom I dislike: I have been acquainted with forbidden substances and deeds. Oh well, I have had a not so bright past, and I don’t care if my future will be bright either. It is the will of god.
International Mother Tongue Day
This week, on the 21 Feb., we had the international mother tongue day. There is an interesting story about how this day was picked up for the mother tongue day. Four people died in Dhaka, fighting for separation from Pakistan – on the grounds that their language was Bengali (Urdu was imposed as an ‘official’ language on them – oh, how I cringe to used the word ‘official’ with reference to language.)
Interestingly, Pakistan was divided on the grounds of religion, and the people of East Pakistan (erstwhile East Bengal) fought for independence on the grounds of language; four people, apparently, died in police firing on this day (21 Feb.) and it became the international mother tongue day.
Today, many Indian elite are ashamed to let it be known that their children speak an ‘Indian’ language. Karan Johar, the son of a bachelor, is happy about not being able to count beyond 30 in Hindi, but is pleased as a punch to spit out some unimaginative, dirty line in French – Vouz les vous, or something of that manner. On a national channel…
Many Indian parents feel, and a friend who moved to Bangalore from Delhi actually said, that local languages can ‘pollute’ their children and hamper their English language acquisition. And so this gent, who thought the maid servant was invading their home with Hindi – moved to Bangalore. This is so obviously not true: if the right environment is provided, children can easily pick up 3 or 4 languages, not get confused about who to talk to in which language. So if the mother is a Telugu speaker and the father a Bengali – the child would never utter a word of Telugu to the father, and vice versa. And if they happen to live in Delhi, they will manage in Hindi outside the home…
Exceptions of course occur. I once found myself talking in Telugu to Sunil Sinha, who knows only English and Hindi. We used to converse in English mostly, maybe with a bit of Hindi thrown in. Perhaps it was because we were so close that I slipped into Telugu (which is my ‘home’ language). That is just one exception in the past 30 years during which I have been operating in Telugu, Hindi, and English. An exception, as the cliché goes, that proves the rule.
Mother do you think I should run for president?
Mother do you think they will try to break my will?
… and misinterpret my testament?
Thursday, February 17, 2011
confessions of a new age editor...
Probalda,
Please forgive me for making this public.
I intend this for publication, and I will try to keep this as impersonal as possible.
What was I running away from...
Meaningless meetings at cafe coffee days,
at 50 bucks a shot of caffeine...
where nothing happens over a cup of coffee except a whole in the pocket
[pick pocketters have better ethics]
"Sir, I want the table..."
"Take it away..."
"No sir, someone wants to sit at this table..."
[In other words, get the hell outta here.]
company-sponsored buffet lunches at expensive joints
oh the expense, and then queueing up for darned food like prisoners
what was that stuff again? Runde de la prisonnaires?
Van Gaugh's Prisoners in a circle...
Wannabe-s who think they arrived,
as soon as they get a parking lot in raheja mind(less) spce
In the lounge women come and go,
talking of the Davinci Code...
Running away from...
Power lunches, where you pay through your nose (because it is not sponsored!)
Unlimited internet access at home and at work
And fraudulent email messages...
Someone told me, someone told me, that the Gods believe in nothing!
Women talking of their children and spouses and spices that go into
this or that dish
Utter ignorance of the reality outside the cubicle world...
sheer incompetence, self-preservation, and arrogance
Et muss etwas geschehen!
Et will etwas geschehen (forgive my rusty Deutsche)
And then in the end you sell soap (or try to...)
the heimat, the Irish kind, oh weilest du, mein Prof Tharu?
Stylish people in dirty sport shoes
Gyms in the premises that no one uses
Beer Fridays and buiscuits on the house
Cakes on birthdays and flowers on anniversaries
the ersatz bold and beatific
online activism and the hungersite.com
muttering cabbages on the menu
samosa (mutter sotto voce) at evening snack
Dommari girls, acrobatic exercises by the roadside
Two or three rupees thrown at them
and Backs being patted
claps! windows down. Move on...
Running away from...
hackerdom, the cathedral and the bizarre
fron the open source community and the guy who
sold his soul to Novell (darn I can't recall the name)
Pekka himmanen or Linus Torvalds? the whole bunch of them
the kagaz ki duniya
yeh documents ki kashti
But there is no running away
That is where my day begins...
God save me from the rich and ugly
God, why did it have to be this
Or penury; and disease; and death
Why does it have to be all or none?
How does it matter who cries when I die?
Why don't ya gimme food and let me rest
And not toil for crumbs that cost a bomb?
God, feel free to email me:
Sankarar@gmail.com
Please forgive me for making this public.
I intend this for publication, and I will try to keep this as impersonal as possible.
What was I running away from...
Meaningless meetings at cafe coffee days,
at 50 bucks a shot of caffeine...
where nothing happens over a cup of coffee except a whole in the pocket
[pick pocketters have better ethics]
"Sir, I want the table..."
"Take it away..."
"No sir, someone wants to sit at this table..."
[In other words, get the hell outta here.]
company-sponsored buffet lunches at expensive joints
oh the expense, and then queueing up for darned food like prisoners
what was that stuff again? Runde de la prisonnaires?
Van Gaugh's Prisoners in a circle...
Wannabe-s who think they arrived,
as soon as they get a parking lot in raheja mind(less) spce
In the lounge women come and go,
talking of the Davinci Code...
Running away from...
Power lunches, where you pay through your nose (because it is not sponsored!)
Unlimited internet access at home and at work
And fraudulent email messages...
Someone told me, someone told me, that the Gods believe in nothing!
Women talking of their children and spouses and spices that go into
this or that dish
Utter ignorance of the reality outside the cubicle world...
sheer incompetence, self-preservation, and arrogance
Et muss etwas geschehen!
Et will etwas geschehen (forgive my rusty Deutsche)
And then in the end you sell soap (or try to...)
the heimat, the Irish kind, oh weilest du, mein Prof Tharu?
Stylish people in dirty sport shoes
Gyms in the premises that no one uses
Beer Fridays and buiscuits on the house
Cakes on birthdays and flowers on anniversaries
the ersatz bold and beatific
online activism and the hungersite.com
muttering cabbages on the menu
samosa (mutter sotto voce) at evening snack
Dommari girls, acrobatic exercises by the roadside
Two or three rupees thrown at them
and Backs being patted
claps! windows down. Move on...
Running away from...
hackerdom, the cathedral and the bizarre
fron the open source community and the guy who
sold his soul to Novell (darn I can't recall the name)
Pekka himmanen or Linus Torvalds? the whole bunch of them
the kagaz ki duniya
yeh documents ki kashti
But there is no running away
That is where my day begins...
God save me from the rich and ugly
God, why did it have to be this
Or penury; and disease; and death
Why does it have to be all or none?
How does it matter who cries when I die?
Why don't ya gimme food and let me rest
And not toil for crumbs that cost a bomb?
God, feel free to email me:
Sankarar@gmail.com
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
The Story of Biryani...
Biryani has been much in the news lately, thanks to the rather intemperate and unwarranted remarks on the kind of Biryani prepared by people of the coastal Andhra Pradesh. It does not matter whether the ‘Andhrans’ can make tasty, spicy biryani – to the discussion on forming a separate state. If Andhrans make tasteless biryani, you don’t have to make tasteless remarks on that, Mr KCR!
Indeed, no one said that the ‘Andhrans’ taught culture to the Telangana folks. It was really the leaders of the first Telangana movement (back in 1969) who said that the people of coastal Andhra don’t know tameez and tehzeeb. Back then, a lot of them addressed public meetings in Urdu – and claimed that Hyderabad’s cosmopolitan culture would be compromised in the composite Andhra Pradesh. In addition to the dialectal difference between the kind of Telugu spoken in Telangana and Andhra, the leaders of the first Telangana struggle belabored the point of their superiority on account of being able to speak in Urdu, which is but a mixture of Hindi and Persian!
And now let us get back to biryani. For long, I believed, like most Hyderabadis, that biryani is a Hyderabadi speciality. And one day, my HR manager at Citec (Ms Shraboni Majumdar) clarified that biryani was basically an alien preparation. Here is what wikipedia says:
“Biryani was originated in Iran (Persia) and it was brought to the South Asia by Iranian travelers and merchants. Local variants of this dish are not only popular in South Asia but also in Arabia and within various South Asian communities in Western countries.”
And there is this interesting thing about Lucknow biryani:
“Lucknow and biryani have an almost symbiotic relationship. The Lucknow (Awadhi) biryani is the footprint that the Muslims of the Mughal Empire left on the northern part of India. It originated in the village 'Bare Next' and although it originated in the North, Virani Biryani has also picked up flavors of the South. The Awadhi Biryani is also known as "Pukka" Biryani as the rice and meat are cooked separately and then layered.”
There is Calcutta biryani, there is Sindhi biryani, there is Kozhikode biryani and even Thai biryani. And of course, there is Hyderabadi biryani.
As I have already stated, there is nothing to boast about making great biryani. Or even sending it to terrorists holding the Hazrat Bal mosque to ransom.
Three cheers KCR!
Three jeers to Mayawati
It was indeed shocking to see the footage of a security officer cleaning the shoes of U.P. Chief Minister Mayawati. Well, three jeers at her…
Indeed, no one said that the ‘Andhrans’ taught culture to the Telangana folks. It was really the leaders of the first Telangana movement (back in 1969) who said that the people of coastal Andhra don’t know tameez and tehzeeb. Back then, a lot of them addressed public meetings in Urdu – and claimed that Hyderabad’s cosmopolitan culture would be compromised in the composite Andhra Pradesh. In addition to the dialectal difference between the kind of Telugu spoken in Telangana and Andhra, the leaders of the first Telangana struggle belabored the point of their superiority on account of being able to speak in Urdu, which is but a mixture of Hindi and Persian!
And now let us get back to biryani. For long, I believed, like most Hyderabadis, that biryani is a Hyderabadi speciality. And one day, my HR manager at Citec (Ms Shraboni Majumdar) clarified that biryani was basically an alien preparation. Here is what wikipedia says:
“Biryani was originated in Iran (Persia) and it was brought to the South Asia by Iranian travelers and merchants. Local variants of this dish are not only popular in South Asia but also in Arabia and within various South Asian communities in Western countries.”
And there is this interesting thing about Lucknow biryani:
“Lucknow and biryani have an almost symbiotic relationship. The Lucknow (Awadhi) biryani is the footprint that the Muslims of the Mughal Empire left on the northern part of India. It originated in the village 'Bare Next' and although it originated in the North, Virani Biryani has also picked up flavors of the South. The Awadhi Biryani is also known as "Pukka" Biryani as the rice and meat are cooked separately and then layered.”
There is Calcutta biryani, there is Sindhi biryani, there is Kozhikode biryani and even Thai biryani. And of course, there is Hyderabadi biryani.
As I have already stated, there is nothing to boast about making great biryani. Or even sending it to terrorists holding the Hazrat Bal mosque to ransom.
Three cheers KCR!
Three jeers to Mayawati
It was indeed shocking to see the footage of a security officer cleaning the shoes of U.P. Chief Minister Mayawati. Well, three jeers at her…
Friday, February 4, 2011
Ulysses and Lotus Eaters
Say No To Merger…
We will look at the possible merger of the Praja Rajyam Party with the Congress in a while but let us start this blog with a look at Odyssey, the equivalent of Ramayana in Greek mythology.
I have four brothers: one of them calls himself a pragmatist. But he is worse than a pessimist. The saying goes that the optimist looks at the glass half full and the pessimist, half empty. My brother suspects that there is poison in the glass; sometimes, he believes there is no glass at all and that it is his hallucination. He is worse than a pessimist.
Odysseus and Penelope
When the Greeks went to war with the Kingdom of Troy (the famous Trojan war), and returned victorious, King Odysseus, the greatest of them all was missing. It turns out that his ship (and those of his fleet) floundered on the high sees and went through a lot of hardship – all of which was narrated with great élan by Homer in his Illiad. Odysseus returns after 18 long years (which is kind of similar to Ram’s vanavas).
Meantime, Penelope, Odysseus’s wife, was under pressure from suitors, who according to custom were eager to marry her and take over Odysseus’s kingdom (Ithaca). They said she had to choose one of them because Odysseus must be dead by now. According to modern law in most countries, if a person is missing for 6 or 7 years, then his property can be passed on to the legal heirs. In those days, a wife was part of property; a legal heir is a suitor whom she chooses.
The story goes that she told the suitors that she was weaving a wedding dress and as soon as she finished that she would choose one of them. She, apparently, weaved by day and unweaved by night, and kept the yarn thing going for all those years. Also, when people brought news to her of Odysseus being reported seen or heard of in some strange island or kingdom along the way, on his way back, she is believed to have shown pessimism on those occasions, saying – No, I don’t think he will ever come back (although she believed in the heart of hearts that he would return one day, and so kept on weaving and unweaving her wedding dress).
Penelope was afraid that if she acknowledged optimism, the perverse Greek gods will somehow try to screw her happiness. Sorry to bring in a personal note here, but my brother, the worse-than-optimist, is like Penelope; he seems to believe that if he wishes something to work out well, the pervert gods will screw him.
But God is not pervert: he may not be omnipotent, blah, blah, but he is benevolent.
Lotus eaters
Tennyson wrote two contrasting poems: Ulysses and Lotus Eaters. Ulysses is another name for Odysseus, the Greek hero aforementioned. After returning to his kingdom, Ithaca, according to Tennyson, he feels bored with the humdrum of running the country – meting out unequal laws unto a savage race – and leaves the burden of ruling the country to his son Telemachus (who is able, says Ulysses, in his own way), and marshals his men for new adventures.
Lotus eaters, the other poem, that contrasts with the spirit of adventure shown by the aging Ulysses, talks about the island of lotus eaters Ulysses/Odysseus comes across on his voyage on the way back home. The lotus eaters sit all day idle, chewing what seem to be stems of lotuses (maybe magic mushroom of a bygone era?) They don’t work (god knows how they get food and other necessities of life. But they are cool. They are, in a word, not go-getters. The lotus eaters are, basically, come-what-mays.
Well, I need to spend a whole blog on this Ulysses vs Lotus Eaters business, later…
Say No To Merger…
Everyone in the Praja Rajyam Party seems to be eager for a merger with the Congress. But my considered opinion is that Mr Chiranjeevi should desist from the temptation and hold on his own. The PRP is a big entity, with a large support base and a vote share. By itself, it would be in a better position to dictate terms to the Congress: an electoral understanding is best for PRP. Of course, the Congress and Madame Sonia will put a lot of pressure on Mr Chiranjeevi to merge his party with Congress.
Mr Chiranjeevi would do well not to yield to these pressures and keep his party as a separate entity. I don’t know if this sane advice will reach anyone’s ears within the PRP, but if it does, I should consider my blog to have more than served its purpose.
We will look at the possible merger of the Praja Rajyam Party with the Congress in a while but let us start this blog with a look at Odyssey, the equivalent of Ramayana in Greek mythology.
I have four brothers: one of them calls himself a pragmatist. But he is worse than a pessimist. The saying goes that the optimist looks at the glass half full and the pessimist, half empty. My brother suspects that there is poison in the glass; sometimes, he believes there is no glass at all and that it is his hallucination. He is worse than a pessimist.
Odysseus and Penelope
When the Greeks went to war with the Kingdom of Troy (the famous Trojan war), and returned victorious, King Odysseus, the greatest of them all was missing. It turns out that his ship (and those of his fleet) floundered on the high sees and went through a lot of hardship – all of which was narrated with great élan by Homer in his Illiad. Odysseus returns after 18 long years (which is kind of similar to Ram’s vanavas).
Meantime, Penelope, Odysseus’s wife, was under pressure from suitors, who according to custom were eager to marry her and take over Odysseus’s kingdom (Ithaca). They said she had to choose one of them because Odysseus must be dead by now. According to modern law in most countries, if a person is missing for 6 or 7 years, then his property can be passed on to the legal heirs. In those days, a wife was part of property; a legal heir is a suitor whom she chooses.
The story goes that she told the suitors that she was weaving a wedding dress and as soon as she finished that she would choose one of them. She, apparently, weaved by day and unweaved by night, and kept the yarn thing going for all those years. Also, when people brought news to her of Odysseus being reported seen or heard of in some strange island or kingdom along the way, on his way back, she is believed to have shown pessimism on those occasions, saying – No, I don’t think he will ever come back (although she believed in the heart of hearts that he would return one day, and so kept on weaving and unweaving her wedding dress).
Penelope was afraid that if she acknowledged optimism, the perverse Greek gods will somehow try to screw her happiness. Sorry to bring in a personal note here, but my brother, the worse-than-optimist, is like Penelope; he seems to believe that if he wishes something to work out well, the pervert gods will screw him.
But God is not pervert: he may not be omnipotent, blah, blah, but he is benevolent.
Lotus eaters
Tennyson wrote two contrasting poems: Ulysses and Lotus Eaters. Ulysses is another name for Odysseus, the Greek hero aforementioned. After returning to his kingdom, Ithaca, according to Tennyson, he feels bored with the humdrum of running the country – meting out unequal laws unto a savage race – and leaves the burden of ruling the country to his son Telemachus (who is able, says Ulysses, in his own way), and marshals his men for new adventures.
Lotus eaters, the other poem, that contrasts with the spirit of adventure shown by the aging Ulysses, talks about the island of lotus eaters Ulysses/Odysseus comes across on his voyage on the way back home. The lotus eaters sit all day idle, chewing what seem to be stems of lotuses (maybe magic mushroom of a bygone era?) They don’t work (god knows how they get food and other necessities of life. But they are cool. They are, in a word, not go-getters. The lotus eaters are, basically, come-what-mays.
Well, I need to spend a whole blog on this Ulysses vs Lotus Eaters business, later…
Say No To Merger…
Everyone in the Praja Rajyam Party seems to be eager for a merger with the Congress. But my considered opinion is that Mr Chiranjeevi should desist from the temptation and hold on his own. The PRP is a big entity, with a large support base and a vote share. By itself, it would be in a better position to dictate terms to the Congress: an electoral understanding is best for PRP. Of course, the Congress and Madame Sonia will put a lot of pressure on Mr Chiranjeevi to merge his party with Congress.
Mr Chiranjeevi would do well not to yield to these pressures and keep his party as a separate entity. I don’t know if this sane advice will reach anyone’s ears within the PRP, but if it does, I should consider my blog to have more than served its purpose.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Only the Paranoid Survive: I am Paranoid…
Andy Grove of Intel wrote a book titled Only the Paranoid Survive. I believe him and I know that I am paranoid. Does it mean that I will survive? If I will, then for how long? And what if I did not want to survive so long and die soon? These are the questions that bother me all the time.
Six years ago, when I saw a psycho at Abhaya hospital in Bangalore, he started asking me questions and was taking down notes copiously. My problem was that I was drinking a lot. He asked me why I drank so much. I thought hard and deep; I never thought about that. I had a lot of ‘disposable income’ and I didn’t know how to get rid of it – is the obvious answer but that didn’t sound right. After some meditation, I said: It is because I want to die soon (sooner than later). Drinking is like slow-poisoning myself, because I don’t have the guts to commit suicide.
The psycho did not look up from his notes. He did not jump on this wonderful insight I had given him into my mental make-up. Nor did he ask me why I would want to die sooner or any such thing. I think he went on to ask me which brand I drank habitually. But this opened up a new corridor of introspection for myself. I thunk about it and thought about it ever since for a long time. I reached the conclusion that I wanted to die soon(er) to find out if there is life after death. That is another question I keep thinking about a lot.
The answer to that is easy and difficult. All you need to find it is to die, so it is easy. But then once you are dead, and find that there is no life after – there is no coming back. Or, if there is indeed life after death, and you don’t care so much for it, too, you cannot come back. So it is really difficult to say. But there is a way out: instead of finding out the answer, you can choose to “believe” that there is life after death (or otherwise). As far as you know, if you put your mind to it, this belief will be the answer.
I am paranoid…
The people of Gaul (in Asterix comics) are afraid that the sky would fall on them. For long, I was paranoid about a fan in the main hall of our house in Machilipatnam falling on somebody’s head. There is a clear and present danger of monkeys entering the place where I live now; I am paranoid about my mother getting seriously hurt by a bunch of crazy monkeys. I have a hundred worries like that and yet I survive. Or because of those I survive?
Will the PRP merge with the Congress?
Here is my take: No, the Praja Rajyam Party will not merge with the Congress. Or, should not. The reason is, as long as the PRP remains an entity in itself, Mr Chiranjeevi will have a hold over his flock – mainly the second rung leaders. If he merges his party with Congress, his second rung leaders will get mixed up with the Congress netas, and a different dynamics will result.
The Congress culture of pressure groups and localized bonds and understandings is widely known. Mr Chiranjeevi will have no hold over his own men because they get mixed up in the larger Congress dynamics. Whereas he can identify dissent within his own ranks and act appropriately if he keeps the PRP as a separate entity. If he knows what is good for him and his party, he would not merge with the Congress – now or ever.
Is anyone listening in the PRP?
Six years ago, when I saw a psycho at Abhaya hospital in Bangalore, he started asking me questions and was taking down notes copiously. My problem was that I was drinking a lot. He asked me why I drank so much. I thought hard and deep; I never thought about that. I had a lot of ‘disposable income’ and I didn’t know how to get rid of it – is the obvious answer but that didn’t sound right. After some meditation, I said: It is because I want to die soon (sooner than later). Drinking is like slow-poisoning myself, because I don’t have the guts to commit suicide.
The psycho did not look up from his notes. He did not jump on this wonderful insight I had given him into my mental make-up. Nor did he ask me why I would want to die sooner or any such thing. I think he went on to ask me which brand I drank habitually. But this opened up a new corridor of introspection for myself. I thunk about it and thought about it ever since for a long time. I reached the conclusion that I wanted to die soon(er) to find out if there is life after death. That is another question I keep thinking about a lot.
The answer to that is easy and difficult. All you need to find it is to die, so it is easy. But then once you are dead, and find that there is no life after – there is no coming back. Or, if there is indeed life after death, and you don’t care so much for it, too, you cannot come back. So it is really difficult to say. But there is a way out: instead of finding out the answer, you can choose to “believe” that there is life after death (or otherwise). As far as you know, if you put your mind to it, this belief will be the answer.
I am paranoid…
The people of Gaul (in Asterix comics) are afraid that the sky would fall on them. For long, I was paranoid about a fan in the main hall of our house in Machilipatnam falling on somebody’s head. There is a clear and present danger of monkeys entering the place where I live now; I am paranoid about my mother getting seriously hurt by a bunch of crazy monkeys. I have a hundred worries like that and yet I survive. Or because of those I survive?
Will the PRP merge with the Congress?
Here is my take: No, the Praja Rajyam Party will not merge with the Congress. Or, should not. The reason is, as long as the PRP remains an entity in itself, Mr Chiranjeevi will have a hold over his flock – mainly the second rung leaders. If he merges his party with Congress, his second rung leaders will get mixed up with the Congress netas, and a different dynamics will result.
The Congress culture of pressure groups and localized bonds and understandings is widely known. Mr Chiranjeevi will have no hold over his own men because they get mixed up in the larger Congress dynamics. Whereas he can identify dissent within his own ranks and act appropriately if he keeps the PRP as a separate entity. If he knows what is good for him and his party, he would not merge with the Congress – now or ever.
Is anyone listening in the PRP?
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