'Love and Lust in Singapore' cover

The cover of 'Love and Lust in Singapore', which features one of my short stories, is out. It looks fabulous. The book should be in the bookstores by August/September 2010. Look out for it!

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The Death of the Indian Dream

In a brief essay on India, Aravind Adiga gets into the heart of the matter:

... The 300 million or so Indians living in acute poverty are being crushed by inflation. If they thought washing the floors, driving the cars and cleaning the windows of the middle class would open the doors to a better life, they know now that they were wrong. With prices rising, their savings are being eaten away. Higher food and fuel prices are being driven by big changes in the global economy that look set to continue. Even the most cheerful optimist in the past decade has seen the huge divide between the haves and have-nots, but the hope has persisted that it would somehow go away. Inflation has set like cement into that divide, solidifying the gap between the two Indias. The future for the country is two futures: rosy and grim. Indian companies will buy more foreign businesses and more Indian children will starve. In economic terms, India has become neither the U.S. nor Sudan, but something in between — a Latin American republic with an entrenched class chasm. Higher levels of crime and social unrest are almost certain to follow. For years or decades to come, we will not be able to talk of one destiny for all the people of the country.

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Bengal's Balzac

When I was asked to review Rajat Das’ debut novel (Paper Boat, Flame of the Forest) I approached the offer with skepticism. Why? I had little experience of reading a novel as long as 800 pages. Believe me, I have considered Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy many times in libraries and bookstores but that novel’s heft has always come in the way of my reading pleasure (and I prefer doorstoppers from Ikea). Man, don’t get me wrong. I love Seth, I love that Golden Gate man. What a charming writer! But I am happy having read his From Heaven Lake.

Similarly, I have great respect for grandpa Leo Tolstoy. But War and Peace? That’s for a time when I feel more grown up and a little less like Anthony Bourdain—intellectually footloose, carefree, and a little less ready for suffering—of any kind. Ditto for Don Delillo’s Underworld and Vikram Chandra’s Sacred Games (I tried the latter; it reads like well-written Bollywood kitsch).

I am one of those people who think a novel should be as long as Camus’ The Stranger. That novel is of an optimal length, a benchmark for me, apt for our attention-deficient generation. Look at some of the best loved novels by J M Coetzee, Hanif Kureishi, Bruce Chatwin, Junichiro Tanizaki and Ismail Khadare. They are not heavier than a Starbucks bagel. But they are great literature, good stuff to read. A good story is like a life well-spent: not how long it is but how good it is what matters.

You think I am just making some catty remarks, leaving my prudence in the basement of my foolish mind. But the fact of the matter is that I am trying to be honest. This brief detour of my toe-deep knowledge of literature, or my approach to reading, was warranted. I am no James Wood. Accepting one’s shallowness is humiliating but at the same time it’s liberating.

Now you know why I was so skeptical. Also, in an age when Joyce’s Ulysses is being read in twenty tweets flat, how can one save one’s brain from not developing a schizophrenia of sorts, attention divided between work, email, multimedia and social media (if you don’t believe me, read Nicholas Carr’s Is Google Making Us Stupid?). To tell you the truth, before this internet era, I was able to read Tagore’s novels. In translation. There, I have said it.

Coming to Paper Boat, my expectation was for a saga in the pre-Independence India, set in the undivided Bengal of the early 20th century. It already sounded boring because so many novels have been written tracing family histories in different parts of India. However, the novel’s title was intriguing. Paper Boat! Hmm…it sounded like a mini Titanic.

The novel claims it has been written in the Uppanyaas tradition of vernacular India—a novelty in this time of cheap thrillers and quick metro reads (though they have their own market, I admit). Clearly, here is an author with some gutsy ambition, I thought. The guy does not want an easy walk into the sunset, a rite of passage for many well-read and well-travelled Indians who find time to pen a novel or a memoir in their post-retirement days. Nothing wrong with that. Nirad Chuadhuri published his first novel when he was in his 50s.

So, with some expectation and with some trepidation, I began to read Paper Boat. I dipped in and out of it over weeks, even months (I am a slow reader and I read 3-5 novels simultaneously). What blew me away was the passion and hard work with which Rajat had put together this sprawling story. Even the language and diction that Rajat has employed in this work are in tandem with the era with which he is dealing in the plot—a pre-television era story with a pre-television era writing style. I could see his blood, sweat and sinews in the work.

In terms of plot, the story is about Nalini, a strong-minded feminist, who lives in Birat Gram. She is a beauty, a brilliant student, a fine debater: she is a perfect specimen of womanhood, flawless (that makes the character less realistic). There is a school romance, a near romp in the classroom and lots of talk among aunts and cousins about finding suitable grooms or brides. Then tragedy strikes and Nalini is on her death bed. But her daughter Rani tries to save her mother by performing an unusual feat. The story goes back and forth in time, narrating the story of Nalini, and at the same time, noting the social changes that take place in and around her in undivided Bengal.

This is a quintessentially Bengali novel: the author makes gentle observations, the characters are chatty, sometimes naughty too and there is enough intellectual banter to engage the reader.

What the novel suffers from is over-description. The novel starts with the description of the setting, the village of Birat Gram. It reminds me of Balzac. But Rajat’s Birat Gram is more complicated than Balazac’s Paris, in say, Old Goirot. Clearly, Rajat has overdone it and that richness of description, though beautiful, mars the flow of the story. The storm scene in the first part of the novel is marvelously written, but it tests one’s patience as it has been written in great detail.

This problem persists throughout the book. At one place, Rajat takes two pages to explain Bengali cuisine, and how it is different from European cuisine and so on. And here is an example of how meticulously Rajat describes a cottage: “The property was square-fenced, by razor wire in front, by brickwork at the back. The fence had horizontal rows of wires a foot apart. Columns of wooden poles, placed at intervals, took the weight of the fence. On the left, the fencing ended perpendicular to a sidewall; and on the right it ran six feet away from, and parallel to, the other side wall, ending further down at a wall that formed an L shape with the sidewall” (page 119).

Reading this passage, even a Martian would know what the writer is talking about. This level of description shows Rajat’s eye for detail but somehow it disregards the reader’s imagination.

Perhaps deliberately employed but the choice of Rajat’s narrative style makes readers like me go slow on the reading. We are used to reading novels in contemporary idioms. Read this: ‘Somnambulating to a washbasin at a far corner of the room, he splashed cool water on his recoiling face. He straightened up, to eye himself in the mirror hanging by a reluctant nail…’, page 55 (italics mine). Somnambulating? A reluctant nail? How about a shot of a reluctant tequila?

Another example: ‘To an informed, particularly from close range, mind, this gobbledygook palace was a cacophony in architectural noises,’ page 73. This stuff is deep fried in metaphors.

And this one is almost funny: ‘This aspect of her personality put the school’s code of discipline under pressure it hadn’t the hind experience to parry,’ page 92.

The novel is not just overwrought; it could have hugely improved with a healthy dose of editing (For example, ‘This lot was for those could not read…’, page 54; ‘He came to because rain, goaded by ferocious winds, was splashing his face’, page 57)– typos in the book that distracts one from the reading experience (Here is more: ‘But he not that someone’, page 59; ‘Her giggle was the single excess did not irk him spontaneously,’ page 115).

Nevertheless, despite its heft and turgidity, Rajat’s first novel is a remarkable work of fiction—it takes you on a tour of a time and a place that reads like a legend, with a cast of characters whose gentleness seem surreal in our insensitive times. Only you have to have the stomach for it.

The Taste of Rejection

I was reading some articles on John Le Carre when I came across this piece in The Guardian by Robert McCrum: Dear Mr Orwell, we regret to say ….

This is a good piece for new writers who are looking for some hope. Read it and you will stay optimistic about getting published (of course, after you have done all that needs to be done to write a good book, that is exhausted yourself in the process).

Here it goes:

Spotting new and original literary talent is not as easy as it can look with the benefit of hindsight. I can think of several well-known contemporary names whose work drifted hopelessly round literary London before finding happy homes.

There are some famous examples of books that were misunderstood or overlooked. One reader for JG Ballard's Crash wrote: "The author of this book is beyond psychiatric help." Someone else wrote that Norman Mailer's novel, The Deer Park, "will set publishing back by 25 years".

A classic is often a new tune and new tunes can be difficult to pick up. After a first reading of Lolita, one in-house reader wrote, in some perplexity: "The whole thing is an unsure cross between hideous reality and improbable fantasy ... I recommend that it be buried under a stone for a thousand years."

Sometimes it is the authors who get buried by rejection. John Kennedy Toole committed suicide before A Confederacy of Dunces saw the light of day, in a massive launch (slightly helped by the manuscript's backstory) in 1980. Many other celebrated writers, including Beatrix Potter, Joseph Heller, George Orwell, Stephen King, John le Carré and James Joyce, have all experienced the bitter taste of rejection at some point in their literary careers.

This game is not, and never has been, for softies. Thirteen publishers rejected ee cummings's No Thanks, until it was finally published by his mother. On the dedication page, cummings wrote: "WITH NO THANKS TO ..." and then listed the publishers who'd turned it down.

From time to time, literary journalists have fun anonymously submitting badly typed copies of first chapters by Jane Austen or Virginia Woolf, invariably scoring a near universal rejection. According to one biographer, Samuel Beckett kept a neat, handwritten list of the 42 publishers who rejected Murphy in his wallet for years. Beckett said that he kept the list because it comforted him to know that so many people were wrong about his writing. In Worstward Ho, he coined the perfect credo for the literary world: "Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better."

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Sex and the city: David's departure

Today I stumbled upon Ashok Banker's blog (one of my favorite blogs) and was shocked to read one of his blog entries: Falling Down: A Goliath Named David

I could not believe what I read about David Davidar--that he had been sacked by Penguin Canada over a sexual harassment case. A couple of years back, I had interviewed David when his second novel had come out and had also met him during a lit fest in Singapore. It was difficult to believe that a man of his stature would do what has been alleged against him by one of his former employees. The allegations and the lawsuit are disgraceful and it remains to be seen how David fights the charges “vigorously”.

Here's John Barber's story from The Globe and Mail, Canada:

A former employee of Penguin Canada has launched a $523,000 lawsuit alleging that company CEO David Davidar sexually harassed her repeatedly over the past three years, culminating in outright assault at the Frankfurt Book Fair last fall, and that she was fired after complaining to superiors about Davidar’s “twisted treatment” of her.

Lisa Rundle of Toronto, former director of digital publishing and foreign rights for Penguin Canada, is claiming damages of $423,000 from Penguin for wrongful dismissal and the “harsh, vindictive and malicious fashion” with which it allegedly treated her following her complaints against Mr. Davidar. She is also seeking damages of $100,000 against Mr. Davidar personally.

The allegations were made in a statement of claim filed with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on June 9, the day after Penguin Group chairman John Makinson and Mr. Davidar jointly announced the latter’s decision to leave one of the top jobs in the international company. They have not been proven in court and Mr. Davidar has not yet filed his defence.

In response, the former executive issued a statement Friday afternoon denying the harassment charges – but acknowledging that neither he nor Mr. Makinson had revealed the full story surrounding his departure earlier this week. “At Penguin’s request, I agreed to publicly state that my departure was voluntary,” he wrote. “The truth is that a former colleague accused me of sexual harassment and Penguin terminated my employment.”

Mr. Davidar said he intends to fight the charges “vigorously,” but declined to make further comments.

Here is the Canadian publishing industry reaction on David's departure.

Killing us softly

I may sound like an alarmist but these days I see more and more deadly headlines. No, I am not talking about the regular deaths in occupied Iraq and Afghanistan or even the storming of aid flotillas to Gaza. I am talking about cancer and dying birds and electromagnetic radiation (EMR) causing cancer.

Give me a minute and I will explain it all.

Recently, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced that cancer deaths could double by 2030. Cancer could claim 13.3 million lives a year by 2030, the WHO cancer research agency has said, almost double the 7.6 million deaths from the illness in 2008. In the US, according to one New York Times columnist, 41 per cent of Americans have cancer. Isn’t this an alarmingly high percentage? The question is: why is it so high?

Next, there have been headlines about the birds and the bees: parrots dying in Australia, peacocks falling dead in north India and bees expiring in some parts of the Himalayas. According to the study by a young Indian scientist, VP Sharma, a drastic decrease was observed in the brood area and egg-laying rate per day of the queen bee in hives exposed to EMR. He also found a reduction in the pollen-carrying and returning ability of the bees. This somewhat corroborates the University of Leeds study that found an 80 per cent decline in bee diversity, from 1980 levels, in over 100 sites across the UK and the Netherlands.

I agree this is a lot of morbid news. All this might be happening for a variety of reasons which could be environment or food or radiation-related.

But the next thing I am going to talk about is definitely about radiation—a by-product of the high-tech life that we are addicted to—and its hazards. And where is this radiation coming from? From innocent looking devices such as our cell phones and the cell phone towers that help in ‘connecting people’.

Kill zones

In the wake of a man dying of exposure to radioactive waste in New Delhi, India’s investigative newspaper, Tehelka, did studies on electromagnetic radiation in New Delhi and Mumbai, two of India’s biggest cities. The studies found radiation levels in the two cities over and beyond the safe limits in scores of locations in each city.

According to the newspaper, cell radiation is slow poison. Effects begin with fatigue and could end in cancer. It is near fatal for ones with pacemakers. For normal people, the effects can start with a headache to a tumour in 8-10 years.

The Tehelka EMR survey of 100 spots across New Delhi revealed that close to four-fifths of New Delhi is living in unsafe radiation zones. The newspaper says: “Only a fifth of Delhi lives and works in a safe zone and that is almost entirely the VVIP zone. This situation has come about because the authorities allowed illegal cell towers to mushroom all over Delhi, by not doing a thing about it.”

Further, 40 of the 100 spots surveyed in Delhi have extreme anomaly in radiation levels. Tehelka notes: “These are high risk zones, where the EMR was up to seven times or more than the safe limit. At times, the readings were so high that the instrument used to measure them stopped doing so. Thirty-one spots were unsafe zones and nine were borderline. Only 20 spots were within the safe limits.”

Because of the dangerous levels of radiation, the October Commonwealth Games in New Delhi could be the most radiation-filled ever, Tehelka concludes.

The situation is worse in Mumbai. Tehelka, with the help of Cogent EMR Solutions, surveyed EMR levels in 115 spots across Mumbai. The Mumbai results are even more shocking than New Delhi. “Well over nine-tenths of Mumbai is living in areas ranging from borderline radiation to extreme anomaly,” the paper reports. “Only four-fifths of Delhi fell into these categories. Less than a tenth of Mumbai is safe.”

In Mumbai, 70 of the 115 spots have “extreme anomaly” in radiation levels. This means, the paper explains, the levels are close to seven times the safe limit. These are high risk areas. The readings were so high at times that the device used to measure the radiation, a High Frequency Analyser, could not record the radiation anymore. Over 60 per cent of the spots surveyed fall into this category.

Thankfully, Tehelka’s study has prompted the Delhi High Court to constitute a high-level panel to ascertain if cell towers are a health hazard. The court has asked the Municipal Corporation of Delhi and the telecom ministry to form the committee of technical and medical experts, NGOs, cellular associations, and public-spirited persons. The committee is to submit its report on the harmful effects of radiation within three months, Tehelka has said.

I am sure the government agencies in Southeast Asia are mindful of the harmful effects of EMR on their citizens. Unfortunately, I have not seen any third party running independent EMR tests in Singapore or Kuala Lumpur or Hong Kong. I just hope things are not as bad here as they are in New Delhi and Mumbai.

http://www.mis-asia.com/opinion__and__blogs/bloggers/killing-us-softly

Sex and the City 2

Last Sunday I was so bored I decided to watch a movie in a proper theatre. Between Shrek 4 and some other kiddish or Chinese movies running at Shaw Plaza, I opted for Sex and the City 2. I thought at least there would be some comic lines. And of course, Sarah Jessica Parker.

There were none. Or at least not to my taste. Watching Sarah on a small screen and seeing her so up close on a big screen are two different matters. Within the first ten minutes, the romance was killed for me. As of jokes, they were pallid, disappointing.

The film is half formulaic crap and half an ad for Abu Dhabi. Here, in the film's title, City 2 means Abu Dhabi (which means City 1 was New York). If there will be a City 3, I can predict it will happen somewhere else.

First up, since when "Haan Ji" is Arabic for Yes? It is a Hindustani word. I don't know the exact Arabci word for it. It would be nice to know who fooled the writer/director of this movie (was it the Indian waiter, Gaurav?). Any way, it does not matter to the American audience if this was Hindi or Arabic. It was all exotic for them.

And the way the girls seemed to be impressed with Abu Dhabi was unbelievable. These were girls from New York, not from some goadforsaken hick town.

The film is full of stereotypes: a liberal New York where gay marriages are celebrated is pitted against a conservative Arab society. Half the film happens in Abu Dhabi and you are given a good touristy view of the place, with visits to the Souk and all. And at one point, a character in the film even cheekily mentions that Dubai is now dead and it is Abu Dhabi that is the new Middle East.

And for the film's plot, there is much ado about a kiss and a big breasted nanny who turns out to be a damp squib.

It is not a movie to be enjoyed on the big screen. For all its bling power, it still comes across like a made-for-TV product.

'There is no such thing in America as an independent press': Upton Sinclair

Now that the Washington Post company has put its loss-making weekly The Newsweek on the chopping block (any buyers?), I am uncannily reminded of Upton Sinclair. The man was a walking talking company--novelist, essayist, polemicist, activist, politician and what not. He also won a Pulitzer.

His influential 1906 novel, The Jungle, changed the face of the meatpacking industry in the USA in the early 20th century, finally leading to the establishment of the FDA. Now apparently FDA is controlled by food company lobbyists (read works of Eric Schlosser, of The Fast Food Nation fame).

Anyway, has the mainstream media really changed in the last 100 years? Is Newsweek dying because there are no readers for it, or is it that the powers that be have media like Google and Yahoo to do what Newsweek and Time did for them for 70-80 years or so (that is to chaperon public opinion).

Here are some quotes from Sinclair on the US media and journalists that still seem relevant:

It happens, curiously enough, that I have met socially half a dozen members of the [Los Angeles] Times staff. They are cynical worldlings, doing a work which they despise, and doing it because they believe that life is a matter of "dog eat dog." I met the lady, Alma Whitaker, who had written the account of my Friday Morning Club lecture. She had enjoyed the lecture, she said, but afterwards had gone to the managing editor and inquired how I was to be handled; she took it for granted that I would understand this, and would regard it tolerantly. I explained to her the embarrassments of an author in relation to an unpaid grocer's bill. As a result of what she had written about me, I had not been invited by any other woman's club in Southern California.

Also I met one of the high editors of the Times, an important personage whom they feature. Talking about the question of journalistic integrity, he said: "Sinclair, it has been so long since I have written anything that I believed that I don't think I would know the sensation."

My answer was: "I have been writing on public questions for twenty years, and I can say that I have never written a single word that I did not believe."

Sinclair on page 400 of The Brass Check:

As I have said, I know several of the men and women who help to edit [The Los Angeles Times]. These men and women will read this book, and I now request the general public to step outside for a few moments, while I address these editors privately. I speak, not in my own voice, but in that of an old-time journalist, venerated in his day, John Swinton, editor of the New York Tribune. He is answering, at a banquet of his fellow editors, the toast: "An Independent Press":

There is no such thing in America as an independent press, unless it is in the country towns.

You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to writes (sic) his honest opinions, and if you did you know beforehand that it would never appear in print.

I am paid one hundred and fifty dollars a week for keeping my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with--others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things--and any of you who would be so foolish as to write his honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job.

The business of the New York journalist is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell his race and his country for his daily bread.

You know this and I know it, and what folly is this to be toasting an "Independent Press."

We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping-jacks; they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.

Man Asia Literary Prize rules changed

The Man Asian Literary Prize today announced a new format, opening it to all novels by Asian writers published in English each year. The cash value of the prize will increase to USD 30,000.

The Man Asian Literary Prize will now be awarded to the best novel by an Asian writer, either written in English or translated into English, and published in the previous calendar year. In the past, the prize awarded USD 10,000 to the best Asian novel not yet published in English. With this new format, the prize will be the first of its kind to recognise the best English works each year by Asian authors and aims to significantly raise international awareness and appreciation of Asian literature.

Announcing the changes, the chairman of the board of the Asian Literary Prize, Professor David Parker of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said: “For the past three years, the Man Asian Literary Prize has been very successful at opening a new window for the world onto Asian writing that had yet to appear in English.

“ However, it can be a long time before winning novels are published and enjoyed by the reading public, a good example being the 2008 winner, the brilliant novel Ilustrado written by the Filipino, Miguel Syjuco, which has only just been published.

“The new format of the Man Asian Literary Prize will allow the literary community, media and general public to be fully involved in reading, discussing and comparing the books which the judges are considering, and will consolidate its position as the world’s leading prize for pan-Asian literature published in English.”

Under the new rules, publishers will be responsible for entries and will be entitled to each submit two novels by August 31 each year. Entry forms will be available from May 2010.

For the 2010 prize, judges will select a long list of 10-15 novels in December 2010, which will be pared down to a short list of about five or six in February 2011. The winner will be announced at a ceremony in Hong Kong in March 2011.

The Man Asian Literary Prize covers 27 countries and special administrative regions stretching from Afghanistan to Japan. Details of the new rules and more information on the prize can be found at www.manasianliteraryprize.org.

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George Orwell's 'Animal Farm': Not 'Just for Laughs'

George Orwell’s two seminal works of fiction, Animal Farm and 1984, were written in a tumultuous time. Animal Farm, published in 1945, was written as a Stalinist era dystopian allegory which made Orwell famous in the post-war world. 1984, published in 1949, another dystopian work of fiction, documented totalitarianism and its methods of controlling people—perpetual war, government surveillance and mind control.

Today, these two works of Orwell are more relevant than they ever were. If you take the Chomskyian view, not much has changed—only the Stalinist regime has changed to late capitalism, where the rule of the pigs has transmogrified into the rule of the corporate oligarchs—the war on terror is perpetual, technology is enabling the government to track their citizens with ever greater ease and corporate media plays as the mind controlling arm of the rulers. Democratic socialism (that Orwell subscribed to) is dead.

At such a time, when W!ld Rice chose to stage Animal Farm (adapted by Ian Wooldridge) to kick off its 10th anniversary celebrations, the expectations ran high. Would it echo the siege of our times? Would it mirror the globalised utopia that we live in today—trapped in our consumerism and relative powerlessness?

The good news is that the production lives up to the expectations. The adaptation has been well localized and it leaves the audience in no doubt that the play speaks to them about their own everyday reality (work hard, pay the rent-seekers, and work harder—a slippery slope of never making enough, never having enough). To establish this connection, there are hints galore and you don’t have to be too discerning to spot them.

The writer (Orwell and Wooldridge) and director (Ivan Heng) make us take ample note of the fact that tyranny is the fate of human beings. No matter how many times they overthrow a tyrant, there will always be a new tyrant who will rise from their ranks. Revolutions spring in our breasts the hope for a new future and every time, after the war has been won, blood has been shed, sacrifices have been made, this optimism is crushed by a new tyrant, rising like a phoenix in a new avatar, necessitating another revolution. There is no escape from this human fate—the cycle of revolution and tyranny.

There is also a comment on the role of organized religion (which is ironically so Marxist): Moses the Raven keeps referring to the Sugarcandy Mountain. I wish this oblique reference to a life of perpetual happiness in the heaven could have been made more direct and contemporary. Like in the scene where Squealer distributes the apples among the sheep (audience) and calls them organic produce. That is contemporization and it is wholesome.

The plot, as it were, is faithful to the book and the characters are selfsame—Old Major, Napoleon, Snowball, Squealer and so on. The actors have played their part so convincingly that you forget they are playing animals and that they are talking about things that are familiar to your bone. Pam Oei as Squealer gets the most laughs but then at times the play falls in the danger of skidding into the realm of comedy (as in a skit—in satire, we must remember, the desire for social change remains underlined). Lim Yu-Beng as the sinister Napoleon is impressive. Gani Abdul Karim as Boxer is believable but it is Benjamin (sorry, missed the actor’s name but the guy who plays the donkey) who takes the cake for me.

The static set of the Manor Farm is a bit simple, even boring. However, the music by the man in white Jenson Koh nicely complements it. In a particular scene, I like it when he walks on to the stage and creates a storm with his drum sticks. Bravo! I also like the ‘Who let the dogs out’ part—it gives the play a cool contemporary feel, sutures it to our present times (why did I think of Abu Gharaib when that song played on?).

As David Hare has said recently, in Stalinist Russia, the most powerful protest you could make was to stage Hamlet. In our globalised land, it could well be George Orwell’s Animal Farm.

Full marks to the cast and crew of Animal Farm for this powerful and timely production. It’s a must see for anyone who has a taste for reality.

When: 21 APRIL – 08 MAY 2010

Where: DRAMA CENTRE THEATRE, SINGAPORE

iPads in Singapore

From my official tech blog:

Last week, we ran an IDG story about Apple’s iPads selling well in Asia ahead of the official launch. The report mentioned that iPad appeared to be selling well in Asia despite the fact that Apple's official overseas launch wasn’t until the end of May.

The report was filed from Taipei. It said that the popular iPad was on sale at two stores near the main electronics bazaar in Taipei, the capital city of Taiwan.

Well, it turns out that Singapore is not that far behind Taipei in terms of iPad sales. This is not surprising at all because Singaporeans are gadget lovers anyway. Not too long ago, they had displayed their love for Apple’s products with serpentine queues when iPhone was first launched by SingTel here.

Personally speaking, it was only last week when I first saw an iPad in Singapore. I was attending a publishing workshop when I spotted an Indian entrepreneur, Manish Dhingra, director of Mediology, playing with the device. Naturally, many from the crowd, including myself, were interested to have a look at it, something that Manish graciously offered.

“I got it in the US,” he told me. Manish happened to be in the States when the iPad was launched and luckily he could secure a piece for himself before the stores ran out of the supplies (perhaps you know that iPads are manufactured in China).

During the workshop itself, one of my colleagues mentioned that some people were selling iPads through online forums in Singapore. They were selling the pieces with marked up prices. For example, the 16GB (without wi-fi) iPad should be available for around S$700 (US$499). It was being sold for S$1,500 and above! And people were snapping them up!

iPads at Mustafa

This Monday, my colleague Allan surprised me when he told me that he was getting his iPad from Mustafa. Mustafa, if you don’t know, is a very well-known 24 hours Indian specialty superstore in Little India, Singapore’s famous district for everything Indian. I thought Allan was joking. How could Mustafa be selling iPads? Was it even allowed?

A little later, a triumphant Allan returned with his black iPad. “I got it at Mustafa,” he preened. “Mustafa had imported around 70 pieces and now I think they are down to 3.” I’m sure it would all be gone by now, I thought as I was talking to him.

Allan’s wasn’t a bad deal. He got the 16GB wi-fi iPad for S$1,089 all right. Compared to the exorbitant rates being charged elsewhere, this is not a bad rate.

I did a little more research. Apparently, the iPad is being sold at many more places in the Lion City: Sim Lim Square, Far East Plaza, Lucky Plaza, Funan IT Mall, and City Square Mall. Moreover, some enterprising Singaporeans are selling new iPads shipped from the US on eBay. Naturally, they are charging a premium rate for them.

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Which principle do you follow?

Read this (from a Noam Chomsky interview) and think for a moment:

There are two sets of principles. They are the principles of power and privilege and the principles of truth and justice. If you pursue truth and justice it will always mean a diminution of power and privilege. If you pursue power and privilege it will always be at the expense of truth and justice. Benda says that the credo of any true intellectual has to be, as Christ said, ‘my kingdom is not of this world.’ Chomsky exposes the pretenses of those who claim to be the bearers of truth and justice. He shows that in fact these intellectuals are the bearers of power and privilege and all the evil that attends it.”

This is a nice interview and as ever Chomsky's views are thought-provoking. Even before discovering Chomsky, I was a skeptic. Where do you find yourself? Ask yourself that question. Here is more advice from the intellectual: “I try to encourage people to think for themselves, to question standard assumptions,” Chomsky said when asked about his goals. “Don’t take assumptions for granted. Begin by taking a skeptical attitude toward anything that is conventional wisdom. Make it justify itself. It usually can’t. Be willing to ask questions about what is taken for granted. Try to think things through for yourself. There is plenty of information. You have got to learn how to judge, evaluate and compare it with other things. You have to take some things on trust or you can’t survive. But if there is something significant and important don’t take it on trust. As soon as you read anything that is anonymous you should immediately distrust it. If you read in the newspapers that Iran is defying the international community, ask who is the international community? India is opposed to sanctions. China is opposed to sanctions. Brazil is opposed to sanctions. The Non-Aligned Movement is vigorously opposed to sanctions and has been for years. Who is the international community? It is Washington and anyone who happens to agree with it. You can figure that out, but you have to do work. It is the same on issue after issue.”

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Operation Green Hunt

I had difficulty sleeping the night I read this account of Arundhati Roy's meeting with the Naxals/Maoists in the forests of Dandakaranya (Walking with the comrades, The Outlook). The Government of India has unleashed or is to unleash, as reports indicate, Operation Green Hunt to 'contain' the 'Maoist insurgency' in India's red corridor.

The report lays bare the truth behind the so called 'Maoist insurgency' in India. Roy, a writer and activist, has done what self-respecting Indian journalists should have done years ago. But probably the Maoists would not have trusted the representatives of India's corporate media, so they might not have succeeded in getting what Roy has got in her report. With every new piece, Roy is pushing the envelop further -- and I am talking about 'the piece' purely as a writer of daring. (I expected something similar from gutsy writers like Pankaj Mishra and Amitava Kumar but where are they? Prof. Kumar has written a book on terrorism but I don't hear much about Mishraji.)

Roy's piece was simply hair-raising: one the one hand, she came across as a brave writer, a woman among armed strangers, comrades, deep in the forests, talking to them, living among them, walking on for hours without food or shelter, eating chutney of red ants, sleeping under start-studded skies in jhillis. It all came across as a romantic adventure, and I felt it difficult to suppress my guilty pleasure in reading the account as a romance.

But at the same time, I was feeling ashamed and angry. Ashamed, because it was about some of my own people, people of my country, who the government wanted to crush because they came in the way of 'progress.' I felt anger because I felt powerless to stop the Operation Green Hunt, the intention of the government of India to crush the revolt of the tribals. Government should find a solution by talking to the oppressed who have taken up arms when they have no other way of defending themselves.

Here is something from the article that I wanted to copy down as a reminder. It rings so true:

By institutionalising injustice in the way that it does, the Indian State has turned this country into a tinderbox of massive unrest. The government is quite wrong if it thinks that by carrying out ‘targeted assassinations’ to render the CPI (Maoist) ‘headless’, it will end the violence. On the contrary, the violence will spread and intensify, and the government will have nobody to talk to.

Then I read some of the comments posted by readers. I liked this one a lot:

Before I make this comment let me make this clear - I love my country India as much as anyone else. This is to make sure that I am not labelled anti-India as is done to anyone who speaks on its weaknesses these days. The Indian parliamentary democracy is rotten to the core. The election process is a sham, an eyewash in the name of democracy. Yes, the people do vote - more than the Americans do - but it is like selecting the least rotten potatoes from a sackful of rotten potatoes. It serves no purpose - the looters reach the parliament and start the loot of this nation. They pass every bill except the ones the citizens want them to pass - foremost being a strict anti-corruption bill. Now, some will say it is rotten but it is the best option for us. How on earth can a rotten item be the best option? Some say it will take time to improve the system but with the same breath they say India is a mature democracy. So, if a mature democracy has an immature system, isn't something wrong somewhere? "Chalta hai" is not just a cliched expression - it is a cancer that we all are affected with, which we all falsely believe to be our symbol of nationalism. Helpless at the functioning of the system, we say "chalta hai, hamara desh phir bhi achha hai". Yes, we can ask the tribals to fight elections but do we know that fighting elections is a multicrore business transaction? A few IIT people decided enough was enough and formed a party and decided to fight the elections. As was inevitable, they lost their deposits in the election and the party is no more heard of! If educated folks can't "fight the fight" of elections do we believe that uneducated innocent tribals stand a chance? The system has effectively driven this point into the minds of the masses - especially the middle-class - that to speak against the system is to speak against the nation, which is NOT. The nation is much more important than the system. The system can be changed several times to improve the nation. If one really loves the country, one must be willing to analyse every aspect of the system.
Reader Man
Kolkata, India

http://outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264738

Do you have any thoughts on this issue?

Theatre Review: Model citizens

I’ve not seen all the plays that Director Alvin Tan and Playwright Haresh Sharma have done together in the last 20 years but amongst the ones that I have seen, “Model Citizens” is one of their best—honest, direct and biting.

Weaving the plot around a crisis—the stabbing of a Member of Parliament (MP) in this case—the play exposes the angst of Singaporeans that often remains hidden from the public gaze or is seldom discussed.

With an all female cast (Goh Guat Kian, Siti Khalijah and Karen Tan), the writer-director duo tells a story that shows how women in a society like Singapore’s are affected by actions that men take. In a way, they want change in their lives but they are trapped in situations that are not of their making—they are silent sufferers in a system that seemingly has turned against their own.

Take, for example, the MP’s wife. She used to teach science in Mandarin in a school. She is not comfortable with English as a medium of instruction. But that’s exactly what happens when the government changes it policy. As a result, she can’t teach in school anymore. She marries the politician whom she had met in college and becomes a tai tai. She wanted to have more than two children but then again the law changed. The government said, have less children. As a model wife of a parliamentarian, she had to gag her desires.

She misses her roots and she wants to go to China but at one point she admits that even China has changed now. There is no escape for her from this life of boredom: an existential angst. An entrapment. She wonders if there is any point to return to China as Singapore might, in her cognition, one day become the capital of China.

The Indonesian maid’s character, played by Siti Khalijah, is the most developed character of the play. She has a different agenda. Coming from a poor country, her escape lies in attaining the Singapore passport. She wants to ensnare a Singapore man and then take Singapore citizenship—her guarantee of escape from the eternal grind of poverty and hopelessness. For this, she is ready to go to any length. She leads a dual life: by day she is a docile maid, by night she is a raunchy sex worker. Her lover, a cleaner, stabs the MP in a public meeting when his plea for help to allow him to marry a foreign domestic maid falls on deaf ears. He is then sent to an asylum, facing a long jail term. Her dreams of marrying the man come to an end. But she tries her best to help him—for her own selfish reasons.

Khalijah has played her role with dexterity. The only gratuitous scene is perhaps the one where she forces upon herself a miscarriage—but for that I think I should blame Haresh. What was he trying to evoke—the inherent dangers of being a prostitute?

The maid has a great relationship with her husbandless boss who treats her like a sister. The boss has lost her son and she does not even know why she lost him. She keeps remembering her son which is natural. At one point she complains about her children—how did I create such monsters—and then she keeps on fondly remembering the son. That was perhaps the only instance of a loose wire in the play; the whole thing was a bit unclear in the dialogues.

However, this is a very controlled play and showcases the maturity of the writer. The dialogues are crisp and biting. The three actors have done a fantastic job. I loved the structure of the play which starts with a crisis and then moves back in time, only to come back to the present moment and move the story forward to, unfortunately, a melodramatic ending.

Among other things, the play shows a clear disconnect between a ‘master class’ of rulers and the HDB-dwellers of the prosperous city-state—the ruling class being insensitive to the needs of the downtrodden, all in the name of progress and development, and controlling their destinies by perennially moving the levers of laws. What Haresh and Alvin seem to suggest here is that in the current set-up, the only way to become a model citizen is to join the system and enjoy the fringe benefits of belonging. It would be akin to killing oneself from inside but that is the price one has to pay for the luxury of belonging.

Dates:
3 – 6 & 11 – 13 March 2010, 8pm
6 – 7 & 13 – 14 March 2010, 3pm

Venue:
The Necessary Stage Black Box
278 Marine Parade Road
#B1-02 Marine Parade Community Building
Singapore 449282

Tickets are available at all SISTIC authorised agents, via the hotline at 6348 5555 or online at www.sistic.com

Hussain’s master stroke

When news broke that India’s pre-eminent painter M F Hussain has traded his Indian passport for a Qatari one, many in India got a shock. On Facebook and Twitter, in newspapers and TV studios, people expressed their sadness and displeasure at Hussain’s decision. But many, including some non-resident Indians, even rejoiced. Good riddance, they said.

The itinerant painter has been in self-exile since 1996 after being hounded by the right-wing outfits for his nude paintings of Hindu deities. Frail, at 95, Hussain changes his citizenship. The man could die any day. So what’s the big deal?

In his last days, Hussain chooses to die as a Qatari, not as an Indian. That is the big deal.

To me, Hussain’s relinquishing his Indian citizenship is nothing less than a national shame, a slap across the face of those Indians who have become so smug in their new-found material success that they have abandoned all regard for freedom of speech or for the larger freedoms constitutionally ensured for citizens in a liberal democracy. And a slap across the face of those who have silently supported them.

It is also a slap across the face of the Indian government that has shown progressive incapability of safeguarding any of its guarantees to the citizen. As Indian journalist Sadanand Menon has noted elsewhere, this has resulted from “democratic deficit,” a Chomskian term for describing the fatal inability of institutions within a democratic state to contribute positively towards sustaining democratic principles. As Menon has written, “caught between daily threats to his life and freedom on the one hand and an impotent state unable to guarantee his protection on the other,” Hussain chose to live abroad in self-imposed exile.

“I still love India. But India doesn’t need me. I am saying this with deep pain in heart,” Husain told Gulf Madhyamam in an interview.

Hussain wanted to return to India. He even apologized to those who might have been offended by his paintings. But the apology was never accepted, the hounding never stopped, the threat persisted. “When Sangh Parivar outfits targeted me, all kept silent. No one, including political leadership, artists or intellectuals came forward to speak for me. But I know the fact that 90 per cent of the people of India love me. They are with me,” Hussain said.

There a political argument (Brain Barry) that says that in democratic politics, it is better to be lucky than to be powerful. Hussain had neither luck nor power on his side.

“A painter at 90 deserves to be in his home—painting his canvas,” Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul of the Delhi High Court said in a judgment in 2008, quashing a bunch of cases against Hussain.

Hussain was not allowed to return home. Some he changed his home.

The lunatic fringe wins again

In Hussain’s abdication of his Indian citizenship, the lunatic fringe has won again—the same lunatic fringe that has become the de facto DNA of Indianness, the defining element of a fast-globalizing nation whose bottom feels the pinch only when it experiences an economic hurt. These are the same people who call Arundhati Roy a “slut” because she speaks for the rights of the tribals and the minorities. These are the same people who return Narendra Modi to power after watching over the massacre of several thousand Indians (minorities in this case). These are the same people who dance to the tune of the Thackerays in Mumbai, and beat up and even kill other Indians—Indians hailing from other states or Indians belonging to linguistic or religious minorities. A shade different, but they are the same people who kick up a storm whenever a Taslima Nasreen writes against the Islamic obscurantists.

And many are silent spectators or their tacit supporters. Just look at the reality that obtains in India today. According to Father Cedric Prakash, a human rights activist, a Muslim today, in Ahmedabad, cannot buy a house or own a shop in the western up-market part of the city. Muslims are mostly confined to ghettoes and they live in fear and insecurity—this is the same state that has Modi at the helm, who was touted as prime ministerial material by the likes of the Ambani and Tata and who has a superstar like Amitabh Bachchan to represent the state as its brand ambassador. I hear the same about Mumbai where even well-known film actors such as Shabana Azmi and Emraan Hashmi have been reportedly denied apartment purchases in posh areas.

Every time the lunatic fringe has mounted its attack, it has succeeded, be it the demolition of the Babri Masjid or the Guajarat massacre—without the fear of being punished. Today, this lunatic fringe seems to be more powerful than the court and the constitution, the government or its hallowed institutions. If it were not so, why would the injustices continue in a country that calls itself a functional democracy and derides Pakistan for being a failed state?

If Hussain’s decision signifies anything, it is this: India, a secular democracy envisioned by Gandhi and Nehru, is a failed state today. Hussain prefers a non-democratic state like Qatar to a so-called democratic India because what is the use of a democracy and a secular system that does not exist anywhere but on paper only, run by a “master class”, which has, in Menon’s words, successfully violated every principle of democratic politics. “I enjoy complete freedom in Qatar. Now Qatar is my place. Here no one controls my freedom of expression. I am very happy here,” the painter said.

The biggest culprit is the failure of the state to check the rise of the lunatic fringe and to inculcate the right secular and liberal values in its citizens. Nehru believed that communalism will die its own natural death when scientific and technological education is imparted and scientific temper cultivated. In the RSS schools, children are taught that Islam was spread in India by shedding rivers of blood. What will be the values and mindset of such children?

By abandoning the state’s education system to rot, generations of children have been raised with biased views against the minorities—so will the state stand up and take the blame for jettisoning its duty of shaping the value system of its citizens? If you don’t understand where I’m coming from, simply visit Singapore or meet Lee Kwan Yew. How could he raise a prosperous nation of multi-cultural and multi-ethnic citizens? What values did he foster and promote in the citizenry? For, to quote Russell Hardan, a New York University professor of politics, “it would be wrong in the shibboleth of our time, to say that the institutions could be neutral, that is, that they would have no effect on what values people sought. A massively coercive religious state could have great impact on individual values as seems to be shown by the cases of Iran under the Ayatollas, and of Afghanistan under the Taliban…An individual immersed in a licentious society can find it difficult to sustain personal adherence to a rigidly religious or moralistic value system. Some value systems therefore seem likely to require specific institutional supports, and it is prima facie false to suppose that any institution can be neutral with respect to all values or value systems.” (How Do You Know? The Economics of Ordinary Knowledge, Princeton University Press, 200; p.97.)

The Indian hypocrisy

Yet, in the long run nothing will happen. After bemoaning Hussain’s decision, everything will continue as it. The liberals would move on to the next issue. For the rest, there is no shame, there is no awakening. The sectarian value system will perpetuate unless the state intervenes.

As such, the future of secularism seems to be dark in India as long as the liberalism, that is by and large common in the elite, also gets bedded down in the consciousness of the children of the poor, who go to the god forsaken government schools, who read vernacular or newspapers with biased political views or are harnessed by a criminalized political system for vote-bank politics.

As Asghar Ali Engineer, a prominent Islamic scholar and an activist for inter-faith harmony, says in one of his essays, since most of the key posts in administration, in teaching and in policing, are held by upper-caste Hindu officers, many of whom are under the influence of the RSS ideology, the implementation of secular values and secular spirit of Constitution appears to be wanting.

Though Engineer does not feel that the future of secularism (in India) is despairing in any way, I disagree. If Hussain’s decision has shown anything, it is this. I would love to be proved wrong, but it seems that the road to true secularism, along with a clean and effective law and order system in India, is a long way off.

As for those who choose to remain silent, let them remember this: there are collective implications of individual liberty.

An edited version of this article appeared in The Asia Sentinel on 4 March 2010.

Also appeared in The Daily Star, Dhaka.

Postscript: After this article was published, many readers wrote to me how bigoted I came across as a writer.

I appreciate their point of view.

The following is for the readers who wrote to me:

Let me tell you that you have every right to be offended by Hussain's paintings.

Many people don't understand my perspective. I may not like Hussain's paintings for any number of reasons, including religious reasons. But nothing gives me the right to thrash him up, or not allow him to function or work in his own country. I would drag him to court if he offended me. Same with Rushdie or the Danish cartoonist--if I didn't agree with them, I would take them to court. But nothing gives me the right to attack these artists outside the court of law. Courts were invented to resolve disputes in a civilized way. That's all I am saying. Implementation of rule of law and equality before law is all I'm asking for. That will save everyone's rights. India's Constitution is secular, and once rule of law is firmly established in India, secularism will come into play too.

Love and Lust in Singapore

Three Singapore-based avid short story writers, Femke Tewari, Caz Goodwin and Joye Hoe, are putting together a collection of short stories by writers from around the world, living in Singapore. The theme of the collection is 'Love and Lust in Singapore'. The editors have kindly included one of my short stories in the volume.

To promote the upcoming volume, the editors have started a blog, featuring short interviews with the contributors. Some of the contributors include Jenifer Raver, Linda Collins, Peter Myers, Michele Koh, Dawn Farnham, Felix Cheong, O Thiam Chin, Claire Ellis and Marc Checkley, among others.

You can read my interview here.

Lose control

A few years ago, there was a Bollywood film song that became a rage in India. “Lose control”—that’s what it urged the country’s youth to do. The song purported to be the guiding philosophy of a bunch of never-do-well college kids.

Well, it is a bit unfair to pluck the song off its main narrative context but its refrain, “lose control”, pretty much signifies the zeitgeist of our times.

In the interesting times that we find ourselves in, we seem to be asked to lose control over everything that we have. The paradox of this development, if you will, is that what we have is private and at the same time, it is public too. The only thing is that either we don’t know about it or we don’t realise it. And it all happens in the name of privacy or security or the best of all the ruses, for the greater common good.

Why invasion of privacy?

But why do we buy into it? Because we are made to feel afraid of the unknown. Fear is the key.

This attack on the individual private rights is possible because we are always being kept in a state of fear—induced by catch phrases such as terrorism (real or cyber terrorism, the equivalent of yesterday’s cold war and the red threat) or climate change.

Follow the money—that’s what matters. If you care to look at it, the business side of this development is that a lot of people are making lots of money off this invasion of privacy.

If you see what terrorism is doing to the countries, look at their budgets. In most terrorism-infested countries, defence budgets are going up every year. India’s defence budget this year is about to get bumped up by 10-15 per cent, according to one report. Now look at the countries that are the largest defence suppliers to India. You will know then who is benefitting from terrorism’s perpetuation.

I will keep this discussion strictly to technology issues, even though I have a lot of points to make in this regard that touch other spheres of life—anything that is or was deemed to be private is now negotiable, more so your personal rights as an individual.

How private is your e-mail?

Take your e-mail or your social networking accounts, for instance. You think your e-mail is private? But if the government wants, it can pry into any of your e-mail accounts, without your permission or knowledge. That at least is true for India and the US.

In the past, a democratic government needed to impose emergency laws to open a citizen’s private letter. Not any more. Now opening of private letters, that is your e-mail, happens every day in the name of national security. And e-mail companies, that otherwise may not have much smarts to turn profits year after year, can actually mint money on the back of this scandalous scheme.

According to some reports, e-mail companies can charge as much as US$2,500 per user account to run surveillance on the e-mail account holder. Since all such operations are run clandestinely and the government agencies are not supposed to let their activities revealed or acknowledged, e-mail companies can rake up millions of dollars in collusion with the state agencies. With the overall bugbear of security, there is not much accountability any more.

But where is the guarantee that the state machinery will not abuse this power—power tends to corrupt anyway. The state surveillance sometimes leads to ridiculous situations. Take the recent example of the arrest of Shahzad, the alleged plotter of an Indian 9/11. The plotter, from a small town in north India, was supposed to have taken flight trainings in Bangalore. According to a report in Tehelka, an Indian weekly known for its investigative journalism, the alleged terrorist was caught after being monitored on the social networking site, Orkut.

I quote from the report: “It was claimed that Shahzad was using the social networking site Orkut to communicate with one Mirza Shadab Beg, who has been accused by security agencies of masterminding virtually every blast in the country since 2005. Allegedly, Shahzad would send regular messages to Beg on Orkut about the progress of his flying course. The alleged IB sources told the media that Beg had even left his mobile number (9990858218), asking Shahzad to call him.”

The newspaper report shows holes in all allegations against this accused: he never received any pilot training, and for an alleged terrorist who had a reward of half a million rupees on his head, it is unimaginable that he would communicate on Orkut. The report says: “When TEHELKA detailed this alleged plot to a senior UP ATS official, he burst out laughing at the idea that an absconder with a reward on his head would use a heavily monitored social networking site to communicate with one of the most wanted men in India, and that too without using coded language.

Drawing from their own experience, police said such open communication by members of terrorist organisations on social networking websites is simply unheard of. The chances of someone like Mirza Shadab Beg giving his number out on Orkut, they said, were next to nil.”

Some people are so miffed at the privacy settings of Facebook, for example, that they have filed a class action suit against the social networking site: “A class action lawsuit has been filed against Facebook over changes that the social networking site made to its privacy settings last November and December.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that the modifications have in reality reduced privacy protections for Facebook users rather than increasing it, as the company had claimed it would. ‘Changes to the privacy settings that Facebook implemented and represented to increase User privacy had the outright opposite effect of resulting in the public dissemination of personal information that was originally private,’ the lawsuit claimed.”

Read more

My Name is Khan: Everybody loves a good controversy

The ongoing protests by Mumbai’s Shiva Sena against the Indian superstar Shah Rukh Khan and his film “My Name is Khan” once again underlines the uneasy presence of lumpen elements in Indian politics and their tendency to use “icons” or national figures to project their politics of hatred and violence.

By Zafar Anjum

Can you imagine a top-of-the-line Hollywood film's release being threatened in Los Angeles by a minor political party just because its star said something in support of a foreign sports team? Not only that, imagine the story becoming the top story on the national TV networks. Sounds bizarre? Not in India. Bizarre is normal in India.

The continuing protests by Mumbai's Shiv Sena against the Indian superstar Shah Rukh Khan once again underlines the uneasy presence of lumpen elements in Indian politics and their tendency to use "icons" or national figures to project their politics of hatred and violence. Shiv Sena has declared war on "My Name is Khan," which opened Friday in Mumbai, starring the eponymous Shah Rukh, aiming to hurt the economic interests of the top Hindi film actor and teach him a lesson. Posters of the film have been torn down and cinema halls have been vandalized by Sena goons. Given the Sena's history of violence, some exhibitors were so intimidated that they refused to open the advance booking for the film—despite heavy security arrangements and assurances by the state government that law and order in the city will be maintained at all costs.

Mind you, Shiv Sena has a history of violence and its supreme leader, Balasaheb Thackeray, has never been put behind bars despite speeches inciting communal violence time and again since the 1960s. The Thackerays consider Mumbai their personal fiefdom. Their far-right regional political party has waged many battles, first against the South Indians, then against the North Indians and the minority community—all in the name of an ideology that Maharashtra belongs only to the Marathi community.

Apparently, Shiva Sena is not against the film or the actor per se in the current controversy. They are against remarks Khan made a few weeks ago favoring Pakistan's cricket team. The movie star, who also owns a private cricket team that participates in Indian Premier League matches, expressed his displeasure against the boycotting of Pakistani players by all IPL teams in a recent auction. (The teams said they did so for security reasons). Many commentators spoke against the undignified way in which the Pakistani players were excluded. But Shiv Sena hung on to the words of the superstar. Bad luck that he had his highly-anticipated film hitting the theatres two weeks later.

The Sena, which was losing ground to its breakaway faction, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena, decided to fully milk this opportunity—it had controversy written all over it: Cricket, Pakistan, a Hindi film starring a superstar involving a Hindu-Muslim love angle set in the backdrop of global terrorism. Shiv Sena was doing a Bombay—the Mani Ratnam film on Hindu-Muslim romance set in the backdrop of anti-Muslim riots in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid's demolition.

Everybody loves a controversy

The way the controversy has spiraled into a national issue raises many questions. And I have problems with all the major actors of the controversy.

First, Shah Rukh Khan. I am with him—he has every right to express his opinion in a country like India that prides herself on her democratic credentials. But my problem with Khan is that after expressing his opinion and after refusing to apologize for saying what he said, why develop feet of clay? There are alleged reports that he wants to meet Thackeray senior but the meeting has been spoiled by a ruling government minister. I hope it is not the case that the controversy was allowed to steamroll to generate unprecedented media coverage for the film and now that the publicity has peaked, it is time to call off the show. Khan should call Thackaray's bluff.

Second, Shiv Sena and its company. Mr. Thackeray, why only target Khan? Other celebrities and commentators have said similar things and have rightly got away with it. Is it because Khan is a Muslim that his remarks in favor of the Pakistani cricketers make his patriotism suspect? If latter is the case, then sorry, Thackeray, it is a cliché. The new and resurgent India rejects this kind of fallacious thinking—especially when organizations like the Times Group are trying to bring India and Pakistan culturally closer through their Aman ki Aasha (Hope for Peace) project. Will you then burn the copies of the Times of India too? No matter what you say, your brand of nationalism is so narrow that it should not be allowed to get out of the headquarters of your party. No wonder your party has been rejected by people but stooping to old tactics like attacking film and cricket stars would not win you new votes.

Third, the media. The media especially likes controversies and if it involves films and film stars, even better. The same old same old panel discussion is foisted on the tired viewers. The party spokespersons start blaming each other and all ghosts from the past are brought to life—1984 (anti-Sikh massacre), 1992 (anti-Muslim riots), 2002 (the Gujarat pogrom), 2008 (Mumbai terror attacks) and so on. TV hosts, anchors, please note. Ban the speakers from raking up the past—everyone has skeletons in their closet but two wrongs do not make a right. Talk about today, talk about now. Don't let politicians hide behind the wrongs of the past.

Last but not the least, the viewers. Don't get too much riled up by the controversy. This too shall pass. Support good cinema and free speech. And next time you go to vote, remember to teach those political parties a lesson that seek power through dividing people.

Published in The Asia Sentinel on Friday, 12 Feb, 2010.

Mukul Deva: A surgical strike

Indian thriller-writer Mukul Deva analyses global terrorism in his no holds barred, hard-hitting tetralogy with unflinching precision

A former Major in the Indian army, Mukul Deva was in Delhi when a deadly bomb ripped apart the Sarojini Nagar Market in the capital city. Many innocent lives were lost. This incident enraged Mukul so much that he decided to do something about it.

After serving the army for 15 years, Mukul had taken premature retirement to follow his passion: writing. Mukul had already set up a private consultancy firm and had written a few books on corporate training. But his dream of becoming an accomplished author of hard-hitting and gut-wrenching novels was yet to come true.

Only it became far bigger than he had imagined.

Mukul’s response to the Sarojini Nagar Market blasts found expression in his debut novel, Lashkar. From Lashkar to Salim Must Die to Blowback (releasing worldwide this January), Mukul set out on a quest to explore the dynamics of global terrorism that has become the bane of our time. The fourth title (Tanzim), completing this tetralogy on terrorism, is scheduled to come out next year.

Lashkar was released in 2008 and it became an instant bestseller in India. Salim Must Die was released last year and it also struck a chord with the readers. In a recent book launch in Singapore, Mukul pointed out, with the pride of prescience, that the terrorists who attacked Mumbai in 2008 charted the same route (Karachi to Mumbai) that Mukul had mapped out in his novel. Also, Mukul had pre-empted the Indian government by creating a National Intelligence Command (NIC) in his novel’s pages before the Manmohan Singh government actually created one to deal with terror threats.

The seeds of terror

salimLashkar begins with the blast in Delhi’s SN market and traces the origin of the blasts from the terror camps in Pakistan. Through his characters, Mukul shows that terrorism that comes from Pakistan is a proxy war between the two neighbors who have never trusted each other completely.

India and Pakistan were created in 1947, and from day one, the blood brothers turned on each other. Pakistan complained of being given a moth-eaten state, its eastern (now Bangladesh) and western parts separated by the monstrously huge terrain of India. Pakistan considers the state of Kashmir (J&K) as an occupied territory, a territory that rightfully belongs to the Muslim-majority country. At the UN, Nehru had promised a plebiscite for Kashmiris to decide whether they wanted union with India or Pakistan. That never happened. The two countries went to war on this issue—thrice. According to human rights activist and author Arundhati Roy, Kashmir is the most densely militarized zone in the world.

Last year, she wrote in an essay in Outlook magazine (“Azadi”):“For the past sixty days or so, since about the end of June, the people of Kashmir have been free. Free in the most profound sense. They have shrugged off the terror of living their lives in the gun-sights of half-a-million heavily-armed soldiers in the most densely militarised zone in the world.”

But that is not all. In the 1960s and early 70s, according to the Pakistani narrative, India helped Mukti Vahini, the group that finally made East Pakistan secede from Pakistan. A moth eaten Pakistan, whose heart (Kashmir) and limbs (East Pakistan) were chopped off by a ‘treacherous’ India wounded the young nation’s ego and psyche for good. Pakistan has used this Indian perfidy and perceived monstrosity (of India) as a justification to wage a constant war—a holy war—against India. India needs to be taught a lesson—that is what seems to be driving the terror machines across the border.

That’s also why, after the Afghan Mujahidins defeated the USSR in Afghanistan with USA’s help (money, training, and moral support), Pakistan diverted the zealots to the next holy cause of Islam—extricating Kashmir from the grip of a ‘Kafir’ Hindustan. The result was that Kashmir bled for decades and though much of the militancy is under control now, the human and military cost of India-Pakistan rivalry is egregiously expensive.

However, this cost means nothing to the Pakistani terror merchants—as long as the Americans keep sending their dollars to them. Mukul says at one point: “Almost every nation was aware that the Pakistani General’s claim that he had curbed all terrorist activity in his country was a blatant lie. The whole world knew about it yet refused to acknowledge it. The Americans went about applauding the General and praising him for his help in hunting down the Al Qaida.” A certain Pakistani General comes to mind while reading this.

Terrorism and its discontents

In Lashkar, through a character called Iqbal, Mukul shows how innocent and impressionistic young Muslims are recruited for the cause of the so called Holy Jihad. Iqbal comes from a lower middle class Muslim household in Lucknow and is recruited in a Pakistani terror network. Through Iqbal’s eyes, Mukul authentically shows us the terror camps in Pakistan and how the trainers, the merchants of terror, brainwash the young minds with the gibberish of holy war.

Through Iqbal’s character, Mukul uncovers the real agenda of the Pakistani terror establishment. From being a perpetrator of terror, Iqbal becomes a force of redemption. The turning point comes when Iqbal’s eyes open up to what terror can do to innocent lives. “I am sure that even a fool like you knows that jihad means to strive…to strive for purity within oneself and goodness in society,” a changed Iqbal says to a fellow terrorist at one point in the novel.

Iqbal's metamorphosis occurs because he learns many unsavory truths about the Jihad: “You think they are doing it for us?...They just don’t have the balls for a fair fight. They have lost every damn war with India, that is why they have inflicted this endless, aimless Jihad on India. They are trying to bleed India by forcing it to fight this constant low-intensity war.”

Mukul has kept the plot simple with a handful of main characters. On the one hand is Iqbal’s story that brings in the perspective of a reformed terrorist. On the other, there is Pakistani ISI’s Ex-Brigadier Murad Salim who devises terror plans on a global level. To counter the Pak attack is the Force 22 of India, helmed by the sharp and capable Colonel Rajan Anbu and his team. These characters move the plot which is meticulously and precisely woven with frenetic action in India, Pakistan and beyond.

The Indo-Pak conflict, seen in terms of Pak-exported terrorism and India’s counter-attacks, segues into a broader international Islamic jihad in the second volume, Salim Must Die. The action spreads from China to America and Europe and terrorism takes myriad shapes: from chemical weapons attacks to the use of mini-nuclear bombs (funnily called Chhote Miyan). The details are fascinating.

Mukul’s two volumes are so blisteringly fast paced that one forgets how well-researched the narrative is. He takes the reader on a thrilling ride and shares frank insights with him on terrorism. Not just Pakistan, this realistic writer also takes the USA and the Anglo-American oil conglomerates to task. Mukul proves that the so called war on terror is not about terror but oil: America consumes about 24 percent of the global oil production but it posses less than 2.8 percent of the reserves. Nearly 70 percent of world’s oil and natural gas reserves are in the Middle East-Central Asia region (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran are the top 3 oil-rich countries). “It is primarily because of this that in mid-1995, the US administration released a National Security document stating that the objective of the war on Iraq was to protect the United States’ uninterrupted and secure access to oil,” says the head of NIC in Salim Must Die. The book is full of such insights.

For those who follow the current affairs would love this series of military thrillers—the first of its kind in Indian English fiction—and would ask for more. It is only appropriate if his readers describe Mukul as the Tom Clancy of India. This reader can't wait to read the next volume in the series.

Firebombing of churches in Malaysia amid ‘Allah dispute’

Anu Garg of A.Word.A.Day writes a very relevant note today: The word religion derives from Latin ligare (to tie or to bind, as in 'ligament'), but it best serves as a tool to divide people. My religion is better than yours. My god true, yours false. What, we have the same religion? No problem, my sect is better than yours.

This reminds me of what is currently happening in Malaysia—a country where the so called “Islamic terrorism” is yet to take root. But first a little detour.

Today, my daughter missed her school bus. Perhaps we were late by a minute or so and the bus driver assumed that my daughter was not going to school today. He left without informing us. Usually he calls us if we are late for the bus—a practice that he follows. We trusted him on this practice. We waited for the bus to come. For what seemed like a long time, it didn’t come. When I called the driver, I understood what had happened. We had missed it.

I took a cab and dropped my daughter at the school. Then I started for my office. The cabbie started talking about the ‘Malaysia problem’.

What Malaysian problem, I asked him. I knew what he was hinting (the firebombing of some churches in Malaysia and the controversy on the use of the word Allah by non-Muslims) at but religious bigotry is the last thing that I want to talk about. That too first thing in the morning.

If you have to know the topic of the day, ask a cab driver. So, it was there like an elephant in the car and a discussion was unavoidable.

Coming from India, religious bigotry and violence is not new to me. There is a minority of people in every religion that despises people of other faiths and other sects and these people are used by politicians to incite violence for political gains. I suspected it is the same group behind the anti-church violence in Malaysia (I was reminded of the burning of churches and church workers in India by the lunatic fringe of the Hindu right). The British tactic of divide and rule is a tried and tested formula and it seldom fails.

The driver agreed with me. No religion teaches violence against people of other faith and their places of worship. It is the narrow-minded tiny minority that uses religion to divide people.

As far as the use of word ‘Allah’ is concerned, following is the stand of Dr. Muzammil H. Siddiqui, a Nadwa, Madina, Birmingham, and Harvard educated scholar and Chairman of the Fiqh Council of America (courtesy Saba Bhai): “There is nothing wrong if Christians or Jews want to use ‘Allah’ for God. In the Qur’an Jews and Christians are mentioned using the name Allah. Arab Christians always used Allah for God. The Arabic Bible has Allah written on almost every page.”

Now, how unreasonable is that?