Breaking News!

 

Television gives you a hard time when you want to take it nice and easy. Turn the TV on, surf across channels and there will be nothing interesting either in entertainment or infotainment. So, you decide to stop at a news channel, as in these channels, something always keeps happening. But after about an hour of viewing its content, you go into depression. There will be screeching, shouting, calling names for the sake of debate most of the time and the rare bit of news that might filter through will lead you nowhere. You will come to know of increased perverts, declining moral values, glorification of the criminal mind, lawlessness and what not about the seamy side of life. This leaves you in a fix. What to do next?

Now, your brain is intoxicated, you can’t think positively or constructively about anything hereafter for a long time. Thanks to these channels, this is the story of how most modern men are spending their spare time.

A similar thing happened to me today and thankfully, all of a sudden, my remote button rested on NDTV profit. It brought back memories of a young Prannoy Roy, reporting on challenges ahead of the newly elected American president, George Bush (Senior) in a classic ‘The World This Week’ show, followed by a five minute talk on the new (!) technology of in vitro fertilization,  finally concluding with the sports update about Martina Navratilova winning another Grand Slam trophy.

My mind went back to those days, when we had to wait for seven days to see a white skin and visions of the Great American Dream on TV. Three minute news about Colombia’s cocaine mafia was the only information we could gather about Latin America. Though there was paucity of information, purity and authenticity were a hallmark feature of news at that time.

I recall the first time in my life I got acquainted with the word ‘breaking news’. It was in 2001…….the date, 11^th September.

After that event, there has been a revolution in the electronic media and today, even a fart can earn breaking news status by virtue of this new found entity. And I wonder what our so-called “responsible” society as a whole is doing about it! Let us take, for example, the Bomb blast in Hyderabad a couple of months ago. Within twenty minutes, everyone (from the Police chief to top politicians, even the physician) who should have been busy in his/her work was all over the small screen. How I wished I could tell them, “My friend, now is the time to act, to get hold of the elusive clue, to treat the suffering masses”, but most of the manpower was wasted in cheap worthless live dissection of something about which we didn’t have any definite information.

More worrisome are the RED HOT breaking news (few call it “developing” story). For example, about six months ago, there was a breaking news story that there had been an earth quake of 7.2 magnitude (Richter scale) in my home town Guwahati. Naturally, I was petrified.

I rang up my folks at home, there was some network problem, so I called a friend who lives in my neighborhood – he didn’t pick it up. I was worried and justifiably so. Then, I surfed through all the North east channels available on my “direct to home” package, all were showing the same news of an earth quake measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale!

After about an hour of anxiety and twenty frantic calls, I got to know that there was indeed an earth quake but it was very small in magnitude, so small that many people didn’t even feel it. So how could it be 7.2 on the Richter scale? It was only then that they confirmed the epicentre in Indonesia and it was 7.2 in Indonesia only. Some parallel tremors were felt in north east India. The item was not even mentioned in the evening news to follow.

My question is, “What was the hurry to break the news? Couldn’t they even verify the news before bombarding it into the monitor for the world to see?”                                                                                                                                                                               

It is becoming a nauseating hazard.

My dear news channels, may I please request you not to break any news, Let the seed of event mature enough, then decide to deliver it to the public with great watchful expectancy and masterly inactivity, like all my obstetrician friends do for each and every delivery…. 

TRYST WITH THE VANISHING SENSES

In today’s world, anything that we wish to be acquainted with, is available at the click of a button. Especially if we are searching for knowledge….With just a few clicks of the mouse or touches on the screen, or by typing on the keypad of a cell phone, we can have information about anything. So, we are getting to know everything without experiencing the subject. This tendency has led to the genesis of a virtual generation that lacks senses. Nevertheless, being human, we definitely experience sensations like sight, touch, hearing and taste, without our grey matter processing the object of those sensations. Most of us don’t have the time to feel our experiences. And the fifth sense – ‘smell’ has become confined to the aroma of food, perfume and a few unpleasant experiences only. We have given our soul to all sorts of gadgets, from TV, laptop to cell phones or video games, so much that there is hardly any time left for our brain to process basic human feelings. Our senses are highly ignored in these times of high tech communications. That is killing the world we know.

Does it mean that we have changed to such an extent that we have perceived the truth in a different way? Don’t we need to be acquainted with the world the way we used to know? Google anything: you have the information you want. Then save it in your laptop or phone till you need it. Let gadgets feel it for you, what is the need of something that is real like a book, or touch or eye contact?  

 A few years ago, I had paid a visit to a village in Maharashtra and the aura of that village changed my perception.

The name of this small village is Sevagram, situated near Wardha, a small town in Maharashtra. People knew this village as Shegaon till a hundred years ago. Life here was still, nothing happened, except the activities of daily living, reminiscent of village life of a bygone era.

Where morning turned into evening and evening into night seamlessly without incident, without novelty…..day in and day out

Harsh winter, Sprightly Spring, Scorching Summer, followed by Contemplative Autumn, the cycle repeating with time.

This routine humdrum was halted by the arrival of a Guest one fine morning in early April 1936. The Guest was one of the most important persons of the country, who believed that the heart of India lies in its villages. He called the villagers and sought their permission to settle down there along with his wife only for company. He was 67 years old at that time. In those days, the village was surrounded by forest on all sides. There was only one footpath or cart track to Wardha. No post-office or telegraph office existed. And there was utter confusion while receiving the letters from the post office situated in Wardha. So, it was decided in 1940 to name this village as SEVAGRAM or the “village of service.” However, slowly the pressure of work on this person necessitated his asking for permission to accommodate more co-workers in the village, till Sevagram Ashram also became a full-fledged institution.

And in no time, this sleepy little hamlet became the centre of India’s freedom movement. Independence was achieved in 1947, and that man was assassinated the following year.

But, his philosophy inspires everyone even today and Sevagram continues to function with that mindset. The village became home to the first rural medical college in India, the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences.

What is inspiring about this village is that it has a medical College, an Engineering College, all the aspects of (so called) modern technology, but it is still maintaining its ethos as a small Indian Village…

….Where you can feel your senses without any hindrance.

And what is more important is that you can smell the place almost as it was about five decades ago.

While walking through Bapu Kuti, I could smell the aroma in the atmosphere.

The dust, the air and the stillness in the atmosphere convinced me that I could feel the man Named Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who lived here all those years ago.

Then I looked at one of his quotes engraved, “Not mad rush, but undisturbed calmness brings wisdom.”

The Tale of Matryoshka Dolls

As we opened the Matryoshka layer by layer, the question that struck me was playing in the minds of Jayanta and Alice Robert as well:

 ‘How can it be?’

May be at a different time, place and magnitude….it was possible. What I am writing is like a parallel fiction, fact, fantasy or a juxtaposition of all the three…..

Jayanta was the protagonist from an out of the box movie made in the early fifties. Alice is a medical graduate, TV host, anthropologist-cum-writer. As for myself, well, I am yet to find out who I am…

All of us had a different set of Matryoshka dolls, but the question was the same…

For those who will accuse me of esoteric interference, let me tell you that Matryoshka is a Russian doll specially designed in such a way that one doll has a series of its replica underneath it. Just like a cabbage.

Had it been a story, I would have definitely made it a murder mystery because of the amount of hatred of the underlying dolls towards the doll at the surface. The reason for this murderous hatred is eternal - The longing for identity and existentiality. Each doll is unique, beautiful and complete, but the face that is celebrated is of the external doll only. The dolls that remain underneath have no recognition at all.

I was deeply disturbed by this underlying vibe that I had sensed among the Inner Dolls.

Half a century ago, Jayanta tried to bring all the dolls together by inviting the individual pieces of the whole system to bask in the sunshine on a chilly December morning. All of them rushed out into the open field with the collective hope of a place in the sunshine….

Dalimi from the Hills

Rahdoi,Seuti….and all #

And this diversity in the combination shaped the cloth that was weaved out of the various ethnic groups to represent Jayanta’s native place, Assam.    

Jayanta, or the person inside him was a dreamer. Because of some efforts like that of Jayanta, the Matryoshka still bears the same feeling of unity among its natives. But, over the years, the separatist feeling of the underlying dolls and their hatred has increased manifold. Many times, we fear that the Matryoshka model, that we are emotionally attached with, will crack at anytime. That was my initial concern, when I was inspecting the anguish of a radical doll beneath the Matryoshka.

But Alice carried the thought process to a different level. If we belong to the same human race, how can we all look, think and behave so differently? Why were there so many underlying layers in the anthropological Matryoshka she was looking at?

‘How can it be?’, sighed this medical graduate who had shifted her interest from Anatomy to Anthropology. She had explored every nook and corner of the globe in search of the answer and combined her knowledge of medicine and anthropology. With genetic mapping of all the races in the world, including aborigines of faraway places, she proved it beyond doubt, “All of us are descended from the same race that went out of Africa thousands of years ago.”

Then the question was raised as to why we are all so different in appearance. Say for example, ‘Why am I brown, and Nick is darker while Ms Alice is so fair?’

She had a hypothesis for this also: maybe due to the effects of the Ice Age. As for example, in Europe, only few of the races survived the extreme cold by hiding in caves, without sunlight. This probably led to Vitamin D deficiency and this vitamin is vital for melanin synthesis, the pigment responsible for skin colour!

Agreed, but how could one come out of Africa in that prehistoric era? Crossing the Sahara and the mighty ocean is difficult even today. She answered that query too.

From her ground breaking work, we can infer that the entire human race belongs to one small family that started its journey from Africa and swarmed over the entire planet.

Thus, it is not a question of identity that we have to address, but the sense of inequality among us for dealing with this Matryoshka revolt.

 ^{#: lyrics from a popular Assamese song that embark the unity among diverse structural organization of Assam.}

Of Jugads Versus Magic Realism

      

Don’t blame me of absurdity if I intend to compare these two things and come to a conclusion that both are one and the same thing. While magic realism is a highly precise art form, Jugad represents the Indian culture of way of doing things.

For those who are not aware of what Jugad actually means, let me introduce you to this peculiar Queen of the Road prevalent in Eastern UP and a few other places in North India. Poor economic condition, population explosion, poor roads and paucity of public transport are known facts here, may be that is the reason why Jugad has become so popular and ubiquitous here. Necessity being the mother of invention, indigenous automobile engineers (read mechanic in a roadside automobile repair shop) invented their own vehicle – Jugad in order to overcome these problems.  Assembling the available village amenities, like a generator pump for irrigation, the tires of a tractor and the steering wheel of an abandoned ambassador, they produced a Jugad out of these materials.

As the Jugad is not manufactured by a company, there is no need to pay road tax, or for that matter, sales tax as well, you only have to fill the diesel tank and the Queen is ready to take everyone for a ride. Be it a political rally or a marriage ceremony or taking agricultural products to the bazaar or the mill, Jugad is the multipurpose answer to our transportation problem.

It may be a little too dangerous, but that’s the way it is here.

With time, this Jugad has become an allegory of the Indian way of “arrangement” for anything under the sun.

If someone is sick, but there is no money or time for taking him to the hospital, the answer to the problem is Jugad (read Hakims and traditional healers practicing on the roadside)

If there is no electricity in your house, steal it by connecting some Jugad (read  house hold aluminum wire) to the livewire.

The examples are innumerable and in fact, there is a popular joke concerning this idea of Jugad. Once, the President of America visited India and he was really amazed to see the power of Jugad – One solution to all the problems he faced over the period of his visit. Right from starting an engine of a car (spoon), to opening the closed gate of the Qutub Minar, Jugad was a panacea for all dire situations. So while returning, when our prime minister asked him, ‘Do you want anything in particular as a souvenir from India?’, the American president was quick to ask for a Jugad. His response led to pin drop silence in the hall and a few of the bureaucrats managing the event sweated profusely from the tension.

‘Hey man, what’s wrong? Did I say anything inappropriate?’, President Sahib asked once again. The over anxious secretary hesitatingly pointed out, ‘Sir, we can’t provide you a Jugad.’

‘Why?’, asked the President.

After a long pause, the secretary muttered abashedly, ‘Because the whole country and in fact, this ministry also runs on Jugad only…..’

Jokes apart, this is how the country is running by means of the cheap, dangerous, unethical alternative named Jugad.

You might be tempted to ask me, ‘Even if we accept the existence of the concept of Jugad, where does magic realism come into the picture? In what way does it resemble Jugad?’

To make this clear, I want you to just listen to what critics who are not aware of what magic realism is, have to complain against this art form. They accuse magic realism of absurdity or incongruence, such as,  

“How can a tree talk? We want literature, not a fairy tale.”

“How can a boy who serves in a tea shop (Chai wala) win KBC by mere guesswork and also tell his life story while sitting in the hot seat? This is un(su)real.”

“How can a face look like a triangle in a painting?”

My answer is simple: Like life, every art form has its own limitations. While writing, we can explain what we think, we may give a vivid description of the event, but we can never recreate the whole feeling that we have experienced.

While drawing, one can create a visual experience, but he/she cannot draw or let the viewer feel what the other sensations like smell or sound was.

Even the most diverse art form – “The Motion Picture” cannot entirely depict the purpose intended by the creator.

So, in order to communicate his/her idea, the artist/creator takes the help of surreal things, as quoted above, which is nothing but a JUGAD.

It is as cheap an alternative as Jugad, but I find no unethical or dangerous issue in this kind of Jugad, compared to the parallel metaphor prevalent in India.