Obituary to Common Sense

An Obituary  Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as: - Knowing when to come in out of the rain;- Why the early bird gets the worm;- Life isn't always fair;- and maybe it was my fault. Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge). His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition. Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion. Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault. Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement. Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason. He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers;I Know My Rights; I Want It NowSomeone Else Is To Blame; I'm A Victim Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing. [Sent to me by Veena Lakhumalani]

SHOUTS & MURMURS: I WAS GANDHI’S BOYFRIEND

Now, now ladies, all this hullabaloo about the Indian Government trying to sweep Gandhi's letters to a certain body-builder under the National Archives closet.

According to a new biography by Joseph Lelyveld, the love of Mahatma Gandhi’s life was a German-Jewish bodybuilder named Hermann Kallenbach. “Your portrait (the only one) stands on my mantelpiece in my bedroom,” Gandhi wrote to Kallenbach. “The mantelpiece is opposite to the bed.”

Well, here is what my good friend Paulie Rudnik had to say about Mr G in that excellent spoofie column of his in the New Yorker.

I know that some people still don’t buy that Gandhi was gay, but let me tell you, from experience, Gandhi liked guys. I first met him when he came to see my ice show in Nepal, which was called “Holiday on Dirt.” 

Gandhi came backstage and he told me, “I very much enjoyed watching you pretend to ice-skate, in your tight pants.” I asked him, “Um, so why are you wearing a diaper?” And he explained that his outfit was a traditional Indian dhoti, and I said, “Well, you look like the New Year’s baby.” And he said, “You are so handsome when you are not speaking.”

Then he told me about how he made the fabric for his dhoti himself, on his spinning wheel and hand loom, and I said, “Whoa, are you, like, a Native American lesbian?” And he said, “I will tell you over dinner.”

So we do the dinner thing, and he’s all, like, “I’ll just have a salad,” and I go, “Wait, are you some sort of total vegetarian whatever?” And he says yes, that he doesn’t believe in killing living things for food, and I’m, like, “Excuse me, but I’m gonna eat the cow before it eats me.” And Gandhi says, “You are the only grown man I have ever met whose first name is Kelly.” And I’m, like, “Well, your first name is Mohandas, right? Maybe you should change it, so that people can relate more. You could be, like, Tim Gandhi or Gary Gandhi.” And he goes, “Oh, Kelly.”

But he’s kinda cute, you know, in a legendary-world-leader sort of way, and he’s telling me all about his philosophy of nonviolence—I mean, on and on, blah blah blah, until I just want to smack him. And so I say, “O.K., so what if someone, like, punches you—are you just gonna sit there?” And he says, “Yes. What would you do?” And I say, “If someone punched me, I would throw my drink at them. I mean, maybe you should try that with the British.” And he says, “You are so very wise, perhaps you should spell your name Kellhi.”

And I think that’s totally adorable, so I say, “Let’s go back to your place,” and he tells me that he’s celibate. And I’m, like, “Huh? ’Scuse me?” And he says that he believes in the purity of the body and the soul, and that sometimes he sleeps beside a naked young woman, and does not become aroused. And I’m, like, “Me, too.” And then he says that also he’s married. And I’m thinking, Kelly, here we go again.

So I ask him if he’s come out to his parents, and he says, “Oh, no, they’re all old-school Hindu and they wouldn’t understand.” So I say, “But wouldn’t it be cool if you could do a campaign with a poster of your parents hugging you, and the poster could say, ‘Staying in the Closet Is a Hin-Don’t’?” And then he tells me about how India has this, like, totally bogus caste system, and how they even have people called untouchables, and I’m, like, “You mean brunettes?” And he laughs and I say, “No, it’s not funny. You mean, like, brunettes?” And he asks, “Kelly, have you ever studied any world history?,” and I’m, like, “Excuse me, but I happen to be wearing an imported Italian cashmere sweater,” and he says, “You know, maybe I’ll think about a steak.”

Of course, he eventually dumped me for this German-Jewish bodybuilder, and I warned him, I said, “Hello, been there, and I know that at first it sounds hot, but pretty soon it’s all ‘Nein, I can’t stay out late, because I have to get up early for the gym,’ and ‘Nein, we can’t do your rally for South Africa, because we’ve got my cousin’s Seder, remember?’ And his mother will be all ‘So, Mr. Gandhi, I’m told you like to lie down in front of railroad cars, to demonstrate a political point. Can you make a living from this?’ ”

But Gandhi and I stayed in touch, because he really was a good person. And he’d give me advice on guys and stuff. Like, he told me, “I know he’s cute, with the mustache and all, but Stalin is not for you.” But do I listen?

Dateline Bihar: Monsoon and the Metropolis

The monsoons have finally broken over parched Patna, and here we are again - soaked, sodden, saturated, and showered – on an intermittent basis. In this city of clogged drains, rotting refuse, and shallow civic sense, every rainy day is quite literally, a washout. The mercury may have slid down a few millimetres, but the sludge, filth and stink factor has definitely reached a new high in Biharipolis. The putrid vapours steaming up from the decomposing garbage dumps of Patliputra, Pani Tanki, A N College, and Boring Road that savagely penetrate your nostrils may nauseate the timid tourist, but the intrepid inhabitants of Bihar’s capital saunter brazenly along, unmindful of the stench, the slime, and the floating muck.

Biharipolis does have its fair share of structural steel, glass and chrome, thanks to the sudden spurt of ‘building pride’ and the availability of cheap, illegally mined stone chips and cheaper half-starved labour; and on a muggy monsoon night, these air-conditioned beacons of plastic, pelf, and pleasure wink out over the dark, mouldy, murky, messy, maggoty, mosquito-infested patches of squalor and helplessness where the walking classes dwell. These brightly lit, multi-storied, mis-creations are emblems of the ‘new’ dispensation, representative of Biharipolis in a frantic bid for a toehold on the footboards of the bullet train to Development City.

The operative lexicon for Biharipolis in a hurry is the shortcut, the short-term, the short-sight, and the short-changed. Animal Farm replaces Jungle Book. The sty must be spruced up, Napolean decided, and Dalits being the least among equals, would henceforth be called ‘Great’, given a radio to listen to the latest Hindi hip-hop and suitably distracted from serious thought. From the bones of battered, backward, bifurcated, botched-up Bihar, would emerge a higgs boson of growth, at the speed of cola-lite.

The Jungle is cut down by the brand new SUVs on the ‘Su-shasan’ Super-highway. The traffic lights don’t work. There are no  red lights to stop the Rhinoceros Charge of the Building Brigade.

 And so, the metropolis erupts, boil-like, on the city and suburbia, across cottage, cowshed and cultivated patch, over slum and shanty.

Behold, Biharipolis, the city of a million, coming soon! Its tall towers will suck up a billion litres of groundwater a day, mostly to be flushed down water-guzzling toilets. Its Multiplexes and malls will provide fun for all in High definition 3D and stereoscopic seven channel sound, and the slumdogs that can’t afford a café coffee moment may thrill to free rides up and down the escalators, if they be non-smoking and neatly dressed.

In the meanwhile, the rain pours, the sewage overflows, the street dogs whine, the road outside the floods, and the electricity trips, and tomorrow lurks, silent and sullen.

-Frank Krishner

IACM 2012: A Report

[This report has been lying in 'draft mode since May 20... now it's out!]


Two hundred and fifty nine red candles flickered in the hot summer breeze and policemen cleared the way for them to move unobstructed through one of Patna’s busiest thoroughfares: the one that encircles its historic central park: the Gandhi Maidan. 

This was the 29^th International AIDS candlelight memorial, organized by us for the 8^th time in Bihar.

Some volunteers

This event, where we remember those lives lost to AIDS, takes place on the 3^rd Sunday of May every year. It’s known as the greatest AIDS grassroots event worldwide, with about 115 countries reporting memorials in about 500 places.

How does one organize a civil society event around an issue that is still tip-toed around? One searches for like- minded people, generous people, who will come together for a cause because they believe in compassion, brotherly love, and human rights.

The Patna IACM has always been a simple affair. A quiet coming together of people to pause for a moment, and renew their own commitment to try as much as possible to stamp out prejudice and discrimination.

The marchers

As a poem read out at the memorial said,

 “We are the victims/ not of an invincible virus  /  hunting the blood of man… We are the victims, not of a dangerous disease unleashing death on us …We are the victims, not of HIV/AIDS  / wiping mankind from the face of earth/like ripples of death spreading across lives.

We are the victims/ Victims of the virulent virus / Victims of the violent virus unleashed from the diseased heart of this infected world we live in.

Victims of a world, too prejudiced to see /that we are the victims /and they, our virus”

The people who made the event possible

 Mrs M Rizvi , who brought along several students from her school, Rose Bud. These students practiced a song and performed beautifully. Even though their school was closed for the summer vacation, these twenty kids came to say, “We believe that we should not discriminate against those living with HIV. We look forward to a time when there will be no more HIV infection.”

Mrs Rizvi and Ms Lal

The students of Kamala Nehru Shishu Vihar, sang ‘malik tere bande hum’ a bit out of tune and fumbled their words. The reason, their school had closed for the holidays, but they bravely appeared to do their bit, never mind that they hadn’t practiced.

The piece that set the tone of the evening was the beautiful Hindi song ‘Tera hai zameen, teri aasman,’ sung by the nurses from Holy family hospital – ‘O lord, yours is the land and the sky, you are the lord of everything and we are yours….’ Beautiful words.

Dr Diwakar Tejaswi handled the media, and Nitin Chandra one of Bihar’s regional celebrity film makers also was there to light a candle. Several college students from Patna Women’s College  brought along friends and family.

There were the Unicef Advocacy officer and Unicef HIV AIDS Officer; an official from Bihar State Aids Society, ten volunteers from the Indian Red Cross, and several photographers from the local media. Though some PLHA were present in the gathering, it was unfortunate that the Bihar Network of Positive people (BNP+) representative couldn’t attend.

The beauty of the event lies in its participatory nature: somebody contributes the drinking water, another pays for the ice. The rector of St. Xavier's gave us the use of his grounds and electricity. Sambad, the HIV helpline graciously printed all the banners.

The AASRA Angels: Asha Lata, Chandra Nisha, Shanti Ghimire, Manoj, Aaryan Raj, Mantosh,and several other youngsters and volunteers such as Prem, Danish, Amrit, Pranesh, Anugya, Aprajita, Shadman, manu Smriti, and Ajit handled all the aspects of the event. from registration, to decoration, to the final cleaning up after the event.

This year, some more events are planned as follow-up activity as soon as the scorching summer heat subsides.

Dateline Bihar: Paisa Vasool at the Cinepolis

Ask anybody about his favourite ‘time-pass’ destination this side of the MG Setu (now widely famous as the longest rickety and damaged river bridge in Asia) and they’ll point you to the P&M Mall near Patliputra Colony.

The ordinary working class Patnawallah usually identifies this towering edifice as “Beeg Bajaar”. It’s the number one destination for everyday folk, their kids, wives, significant others, country cousins, and visiting mothers-in-law. They just hop an auto to the ‘Beeg Bajaar’. In fact, the “Beeg Bajaaar” is the first refuge for the non-AC classes to beat the heat at the height of the long dry summer. Thanks to Bihar’s health minister, who promotes shopping malls as dispensers of free air-conditioning for the heat-maddened masses.

The other day, a trip to the P&M was planned.The objective was to experience first-hand that film on the coal-mining mafia at the Cinepolis. (The Cinepolis is where all the pretty young things of Patliputra and their gangly pimpled admirers go to hold hands, but that’s another story).

The Cinepolis is also where ‘the cultured class’ likes to spend its entertainment rupee. “At last Patna has a really great Multiplex. Such a nice environment. No rickshaw-wallah types. No rowdy behaviour. Such a good place for family entertainment. ” Don’t we hear these lines ad nauseum?

My smart teenaged cookie said, “Ideal time: the morning show, 9:50 am.” And why was that? “First, the cost is a mere  hundred rupees. All other shows are Rs 180 per person. Second, we get cola and movie for the cost of a regular ticket. Paisa vasool!”

Morning show: the Gangs of Wasseypur. Auditorium almost filled to capacity with males aged 16 to 30. I spot exactly three women in the audience, all ‘aunties’. Interesting!

The audience is composed of males in various stages of development: the pimply, gangly, types; those with budding muscles and off- the- shelf jeans; a few balding ones with soft midriffs. And then, from the very first frame of the movie, the ‘multiplex myth’ is shattered. There are catcalls, wolf- whistles, raucous guffaws, lewd and suggestive sniggers that erupt across the hall. My smart cookie is crimson with embarrassment. “But...this sort of thing doesn’t happen in Cinepolis!” he mutters.

The ‘Gangs of Wasseypur’ shattered the thin veneer of ‘pseudo-sophistication’ and social ‘glass ceiling’ created by ‘premium rate tickets’ and‘cola- popcorn combos’. Here was the ordinary Bihari male in his element, his everyday vocabulary of expletives granted legitimacy by the dialogue on the screen. To the country bumpkin from Buxar who took his first hesitant ride up the escalators - GoW : raw, raunchy, ribald and utterly fascinating – was both affirmation and empowerment. He’s attained Multiplex-dom!

And that, dear Cinepolis Clubber, is real paisa vasool!