Friends

There is enough said about the importance of family in our lives.
But don't you think friends play an important role too?
Coming to think of it, the existence, extent and depth of friendship in a society is an important indicator of the depth of its civilization.
Thinkers like Aristotle, Cicero and Montaigne have considered friendship as the pre-eminent human institution.
The need for friendship is atavistic. There are many who can live without marriage but there are very few who can be happy without friends. While the absence of justice and honor in our life can rankle but the absence of friendship is to be without the one thing that can salve all other absences.
Lovers face each other but friends stand side by side. So much of deep friendship is about thinking through important stuff together. What job to take? Whom to marry?.
Friends bring out better versions of ourselves. Haven't you noticed how unguarded and fluid we feel when you are around your friends? Wittier and smarter even?
Friendship is about forming a self-improving mutual admiration society of two. Very unlike Facebook which is mainly the mindless, mutual preening of a horde.
Friendship seems to be on the wane in modern times at least in the developed Western world. In the US in 1985 the General Society Survey found that people tended to have three really close friends. By 2004 a Duke University and University of Arizona Survey found that it had dwindled down to two. Something to do with the pace and stresses of modern life? The Frankenstein of proliferating media and entertainment consumption? The mass delusion engendered by an increasing number of Facebook friends, names on our mailing list and contacts on our smart phones?
For many of us who live in Belonger type societies like India might still not acutely suffer from a lack of close friends but in our dash towards achievement and prosperity we would do well to remember that life is a very ugly place not to have a best friend.

“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh?" he whispered.
"Yes, Piglet?"
"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's hand. "I just wanted to be sure of you.” ― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh 

              

A Practical Man

The eminent 20th century philosopher of language Ludwig Wittgenstein used to cite an anecdote to illustrate the gap between reality and our powers of observation and expression:
An old lady walked up to Mr. Wittgenstein after a lecture to ask him whether he believed that the Earth actually went around the Sun. "I certainly do" Mr. Wittgenstein said " It has been proven by science Madam". "Well" the old lady sniffed "It certainly looks as if the Sun goes around the Earth". " Well Madam" replied Ludwig, "tell me what, in your thinking, should it look like if it is the Earth which is actually going around the Sun?". The old lady walked away in a huff, determined to tell her bridge club about the obnoxious Mr. Wittgenstein.
For the past three months the chatterati in India have endlessly perambulated around essentially one topic:
Is Modi the real deal or is he just the latest carpetbagger to enter the ancient nest of quintessential carpetbaggers that is Delhi?

I cannot pretend to know the truth. And when I once-in-a-while listen to the chatter on TV and at the odd cocktail party I, quietly to myself, recall Wittgenstein's anecdote on perception and observation. Those living in glass houses see only a reflection of themselves.

So is Mr. Modi the real deal? Like I said I do not know. Only time will tell.

But one aspect of him I think I have begun to grasp. Above all he is a practical man.

Only a thoroughly practical man could have given the speech that he gave on the 15th of August. No invocation of the greatness of India. No grandiose schemes. No heavy panting of ideology or idolatry.
Just an agenda setting of stuff that you and me can do: discipline our sons and value or daughters, keep not just our homes but our neighbourhood clean and rise a little bit above our self-interest.

Stuff that our primary school civic sense lessons should have taught us but alas! evidently didn't. It might seem a steep climb from being a nation striving to meet standards of basic civic sense to becoming a nation of world-beaters.

But to the super- practical entity that I think Mr. Modi is, the curve that results from learning to be  a nation of clean cities, towns and villages is steep enough to take us to greater heights. It is the smallest wheel is a geared arrangement that will set the bigger wheel moving.

Think of Modi as a practical man and his politics also falls into place. A superbly practical man will play superbly practical politics, in other words realpolitik. No pussy footing around niceties and reputation.
T
here was one other Prime Minister we had who was. I think, on par with Mr. Modi on being a practical person: Mrs. Indira Gandhi. But she carried the baggage of Fabian, socialist ideology she inherited from her father - an ideology, that like any other ideology, came in her way of being practical in managing the nation's affairs. However her practicality was in full force when it came to her politics. The realpolitik that Mrs. Gandhi played was world class by any standards.

             
                     
      

Macaulay's Children

The chaps who have give us TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) also left us the legacy of Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay.

Lord Macaulay's lasting effect on  Indian society is captured in this extract from his infamous "Minute on Indian Education": 

 "We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population,"  

Can there be a more chilling elucidation of deep colonization?

There is a small and prosperous class of Indians who continue to benefit from Macaulay's vision. There is a Hindi phrase that is rife in India's heartland about such people: "Angrez to chale gaye. Aulad chodd gaye".

The polite translation is "The English left a long ago but left there children behind"" but the translation misses the true color and invective inherent in the Hindi phrase.

As I write this post I am acutely aware that I belong to the tribe of Macaulay's Children. People who owe their station in life partly due to their fluency and proficiency in English. 

My father's English too was good but his deepest expression was in his mother tongue Hindi which he was very good at. He was a private poet and his poetry was in Hindi.

My Hindi alas! is poor. I was schooled in the South where they had long ago decided that when it came to foreign languages they much preferred English to Hindi.
I am still ribbed by my uncles about a letter in Hindi that I, at the age of twenty five, wrote to my grandfather. A few weeks ago I asked my uncle to pull it out of his collection and read it again. Just to check. It was not just bad, it was deeply embarrassing. 

As I grow older and  perhaps wiser, I realize that in gaining all the advantages of English being the language I think in, I have lost immensely.

I had lost the ability to communicate at the deepest level. The ability to communicate to the gestalt around me and perhaps the gestalt within me. Simply put my communication channel is now confined to  a sliver of the society around me and I am condemned forever to seek literary and cultural stimulation in ethos that are in essence alien to my deepest nature.

If I could write in Hindi than perhaps I would be a good writer and go well beyond the stilted efforts that you dear reader, giving in to sporadic bouts of generosity, tolerate. If could write in Hindi than perhaps the books that have been rattling inside my brain and my computer (I am at work on two works of fiction that I have not been able to bring to any sort of satisfactory conclusion for years now) would have found expression driven by a deeper communion with the milieu I live in.
But then again, as far as my writing goes, it might be a case of "naach na jaane angaan tedha" that is "those who can't dance blame the dance floor" or to capture the essence of the saying in the somewhat more straightforward idiom of English "excuses are the last refuge of  mediocrity". Or as my friends in Bollywood would pithily put "Pappu can't dance saala".
Enough said about me.
 Do I have anything to say about the current hullabaloo about the deep set bias in the selection process for the civil services  for not just the language of English but the world view that an education in English entails? Now that is a deep one. Such indoctrination was the intent behind Macaulay's edict and  now six generation later the indoctrination still retains its potency.
I believe there are no shortcuts to producing antidote to such indoctrination. It takes time and an even deeper phenomenon.
Many of us who got into the IITs in the seventies were Macaulay's children. We deprived many a budding genius just through the fact that the Joint Entrance Exam for the IITs those days included a test of English. However despite this test in English there were geniuses who was not schooled in English but who got through because of their immense superiority when it came to maths and physics, the other two JEE subjects and the ability to quickly learn what was needed to past muster in English. And I can wager a substantial sum of money that in the decades of the sixties, seventies and the eighties most IITians who went on to make substantial hardcore contribution in the fields of science and technology were these geniuses who overcame the English handicap and nearly all of Macaulay's children went on to figuratively speaking "sell soap" laying waste our sterling education in science and technology.
A couple of decades ago English was dropped from the JEE. That has brought it it's own set of problems. Now the corridors at IIT are haunted not just by Macaulay's children but also by coaching class superstars whose ability to slog at the coaching classes falls well short of any originality of thought and action.
However the genius still get in and it is still the genius that makes true use of the education. And here to, as in all walks of life, the production and nurture of one genius is enough to justify the existence of thousands of cookie cutter carpetbaggers.
And if real merit finds its way to the IITs than I am sure it finds it way to the IIMs and the civil services.
I believe that the true antidote to any form of indoctrination and injustice is, as it has been through the ages, merit. Real, pure merit. The rest is just one form of injustice and indoctrination replacing another.

                  

Dear Love

Dear Love,
How does it feel to be so misunderstood and misused by so many?
Take the case of Lust your younger, dare I say more popular, brother.
Do people really confuse Lust for you or is it just a ploy to get Lust to have his way?
Either way it must be galling. And look how this deception has crept into the very interstices of language.
' Make Love' they say when all it is about is getting into bed with Lust while you wait,shuffling your feet, outside the door.
Perhaps you should reposition the situation in your mind.
Look these days it is all about being spoken about never mind such silly things like truth and context. In fact they say infamous is the new famous.
So look at it this way. You are actually winning. People are talking about you when they really have your brother in mind. That is good not bad! More power to you!
Just imagine if you were mentioned when you were really present. Most of the time you would be unspoken about. How boring.
So what if it is really you that keeps humanity sane. Doesn't pay the bills does it?
All that merchandise that is sold in your name is certainly not about the unspoken you.
The movies, the songs, the books , the flowers, the chocolates are basically sold on your account when all those billions, should have accrued to Lust.
So you see it is not bad. You get all the fame, all the fortune. All Lust gets is the pleasure of the chase, few minutes of frenzy and in the best case a bout of lassitude to follow.
So cheer up. And smile. Because when you do all humanity smiles with you
Lots of You.

The Importance of (now and then) Being (slightly) Unwell

A protagonist who is seriously ill and dying is a shop worn cliche of commercial Hollywood and Bollywood movies. Being seriously ill makes this already beauteous person even more beautiful. Even more alluring. Even more wise. You get the picture.

Like most movie cliches this one is also preposterous and requires a willing suspension of disbelief to endure.
However like most cliches, this one too has a grain of truth.

While being seriously ill is a physical and mental train wreck with no redeeming qualities, I believe being just that little unwell to be guiltlessly bed-ridden for a day or two is beneficial to both the body and the soul.
I am not talking about malingering, sick leave pretensions or hypochondria. A genuine mild fever where the good doctor prescribes paracetamol and rest is great. A prescription of mild pain killers and of course, rest for a twisted ankle is also good. A stomach upset is a bit messy, not ideal but in a crunch will do.

The extra day or two of rest, besides ridding you of the mild illness, does your body a whale of good. It is like well-spent maintenance down time. But isn't a good vacation also greatly restful, some of you who are perhaps perennially healthy might ask. No my friend. Modern vacations and even weekends are stressful. Running around in strange places, engaging in strange activities. And the overeating which is usually the result of stress or boredom or both.

At home in bed with a mild illness, eating right, returning the solicitousness of your caregiver with solicitousness, the quiet all round as everyone is out working and the happy contemplation of all the stresses that your colleagues at the office are at the moment undergoing. This is rest at its supreme, replenishing best.

And the soul? How is a day or two in bed with a mild illness good for the soul, you may ask.                      
Consider this. When did you last contemplate your life at leisure? Evaluated where your life is going and
whether you want to go there? Certainly not on the vacation in Europe last summer when you were evaluating the cost of the Euro and where you need to be next day. Certainly not last weekend while spending Saturday and Sunday helping your wife shop for dinner party on Sunday evening and certainly not during that Sunday dinner party.

But in bed with a mild illness in the familiar surroundings of your home there are no distractions. It is almost as if your life is sitting on the bed next to you  having a nice, friendly conversation with you. If that is not good for the soul, tell me what is?

The next day when you get back to work and your colleagues enviously and somewhat suspiciously remark on how well you look, give them a wan smile just like that crinkly eyed hero in the terminal phase of cancer did in last year's super hit.  

     

The Bubble of Power

You are the dramatic victor  of an astonishing election. You are now among the world's most powerful people. You are brimming with enthusiasm and resolve. 
And then it envelopes you. The bubble of power. 
You still see the world and hear it but through the bubble. The bubble seeps reality of it's edge. 
If you are the secure kind it adds a pink hue to everything you see and hear leading you to believe all is right with everything and everyone loves you.
If you are the insecure kind it adds a red hue adding everyday to your paranoia and you scheme and plot your little plots to set everyone and everything right.
And then one day the bubble bursts with a loud plop. And as you step out of it after years trapped within it, the very air seems to hurt you. As you stagger and struggle hark what is that you hear? Sniggers? But you thought they all loved you! The sharpening of knives? But you thought you had put your enemies permanently away!
I have never tasted power so the above is just me imagining what it is to gain great power all of a sudden. And what it is to lose it as suddenly.
Power is great drama.
 I avidly watch the Narendra Modi show unfold. Not just because what he does has import on the lives of all of us Indians. But because it is such a great narrative.
Will his genius overcome the transition from Gandhinagar to Lutyen's Delhi? Will he be the rare individual who manages to prick the bubble of power while he remains in power? Will he write history or be one of history's numerous footnotes?
It is going to be a great story. And you might be excused to think you can watch it unfold for free. But in reality there is no free lunch. Remember as the story unfolds it is also the story of our aspirations and dreams unfolding.

  
   
  

Mad Men

The brash boutique SC&P has sold itself to the establishment as represented by staid old McCann. Will Don Draper now get his mojo and life back? Darn! To know the answer to this and other gripping questions we will have to impatiently wait till the American spring of 2015. That is when the second part of the seventh and final (as of now) season of the seminal American TV series 'Mad Men' airs.
Why has 'Mad Men' garnered so much popular and critical acclaim?  In the US, a large part of the success could be attributed to the period it is set in and the meleiu it explores. Mad Men is set among advertising people in America in the sixties.The sixties were both the apogee and the nadir of the post-war American experience. The agony and ecstasy of being American, so to speak. As the post-war economic boom washed into the homes of every American, advertising and it's denizens on Madison Avenue came to represent the increasing servility of the avant garde to the popular.
A set of clever but unscrupulous people inveigled and then distorted anything out of the ordinary to serve the cause of the mundane and the ordinary. To showcase the sizzle to sell the steak. The fascination of today's American public with the lives of the men and women who populated Madison Avenue in its heydays is perhaps a fascination of tracing the beginnings of the consumer culture that is perhaps the central leitmotif of modern American society.
But then what about Mad Men's worldwide popularity? I believe Mad Men will be considered a landmark in television in decades from now because it will be the foremost representative of the era when the TV series became an art form to be ranked almond literature, music, dance, the theater and cinema. Mad Men is perhaps the first mainstream big-budget television series that gets into the he heads of its characters and, dare I say, it's viewers to create a stream-of-consciousness experience that goes deeper and beyond the specifics of the narrative. In doing so Mad Men transcends the limitation of the primitive stimulus-response-stimulus structure of the usual TV drama (as so painfully evident in Indian TV series) and gets into realm  of the full-bodied flavor of high quality literature, theater or cinema. Mad Men is not alone. Breaking Bad, a TV series set in New Mexico about a upstanding chemistry teacher's transformation into a ruthless criminal mastermind is mesmerizing and deeply affecting. I am sure there are quite a few more out there that I am yet to savor..
One final thing. I have worked in large advertising agencies, have been the founding promoter ofa small one and over the  past few years have been an adviser for a couple of mid-size others. How does the meleiu in Indian advertising compare to the one depicted in Mad Men? Well the human frailties and egos on display there are very much evident here. However the drama inherent in the process of creating and selling advertising here is only a pale imitation of that shown in Mad Men. That is partly due to the fact that in a TV series the mundane is hidden. And partly because the Indian economy is where it is. Still largely imitative, still largely stuck in the basics. I am sure as we, as a nation, find our own economic voice and realize our own potential for innovation  so will Indian advertising discover its very own voice, it's very own creative heat and drama. And perhaps one day it's very own 'Mad Men'