MYSTERIES OF LIFE

There are many serious mysteries of life; for example, whether there is God or not, where do we go after death, whether you get reward or punishment for your deeds in this world or the next, and whether you go only when your time comes or is it left to chance?

This article is not about that. This article is about those everyday mysteries of life that we cannot find answers to; or at least cannot find easy answers. Ours is a world of research on anything at all; eg, a billion dollar research on finding out what makes a woman buy what she does when she visits the mall. So, how is it that adequate reserch has not been done on the following even though, in varying degrees, these affect us all:

• How is it that when some other child cries incessantly we find it so repugnant; however, when our own Tinku cries it is music to our ears?
• How is it that fathers don't want their daughters to do with their dates that they themselves wanted to do with their dates when young?
• How is it that when you think you can't take anymore life surprises you with the reminder that what you had until then were good times and the worst is yet to come?
• How is it that there is no breeze until you open your newspaper?
• How is it that the vehicle ahead of you is slow like a snail but the one approaching from behind is in indecent haste?
• How is it that your dog invariably senses the mood you are in; but your spouse never does?
• How is it that your boss decides to go home early when you have decided to work late?
• How is it that the telephone numbers of Enquiries at Railways and Airlines are always engaged?
• How is it that everybody you have met has lost money at the Stock Exchange?
• How is it that guests invariably arrive early when you haven't dressed up after cooking but make you wait for hours when everything is ready?
• How is it that when you have paid in advance the vendor finds it so hard to remember the time of delivery but his memory shows tremendous improvement if he discovers you owe him money?
• How is it that buses are too few when you have to wait for them but the roads are littered with them when you have to drive?
• How is it that when the electricity is there the fan hardly provides any air but after the lights go off you have problem in lighting a candle due to excessive breeze?
• How is it that you remember the telephone number of your ex-flame even after years but have problem remembering your present number?

REAL BEAUTY - A FEELING OF PURE JOY

Somerset Maugham, the great novelist I used to read in my school and college days, could never understand the brouhaha about Beauty. According to him a glass of beer on a hot summer day was beautiful.  “Beauty is an ecstasy” he wrote, “It is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all”.

Rabinder Nath Tagore, on the other hand, felt that real beauty is to be felt and not just seen, because:

“Eyes can see only dust and earth,

    But feel it with your heart, it is pure joy.

    The flowers of delight blossom on all sides, in every form,

        But where is your heart's thread to weave them in a garland?”

So, then, how does Beauty elevate from ‘something to satiate hunger’ to feeling of ‘pure joy’? The answer was provided by the Hindi films lyricist Hasrat Jaipuri writing for Badshaah (Monarch), a 1954 movie:

“Tu maang kaa sinduur tuu aankhon kaa hai kaajal
Le baandh le haathon ke kinaare se ye aanchal
Saamane baithe raho shringaar ham karen
Aa niile gagan tale pyaar ham Karen”

((My Love,) you are the vermillion in my hair, the kohl in my eyes,

Come, claim me as your own,

(to lead me around the holy fire of betrothal)

Your sitting in front of me completes my make-up

Come, lets love under the blue sky.

Real Beauty, therefore, according to me, involves at least two people: the object and the beholder. It doesn’t exist in the absence of either.

Real Beauty also has a certain degree of innocence attached to it. William Wordsworth brought out in the lyrical ballad ‘Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower’:

“The Stars of midnight shall be dear
To her; and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face”.

Does this mean that Real Beauty is just an abstract for me, a dream or fantasy, an ideal to reach; but untouchable, unreachable? Nay, quite the opposite. I feel that Real Beauty is actually found in seemingly most ordinary things and people and animals. Indeed, if I were to come across an exquisite object or being that looked remote and isolated, like a ‘twinkle-twinkle-little-star- how-I-wonder-what-you-are’, I may be fascinated by it; but, I’d hesitate to call it beautiful. Real Beauty to me is like a gentle rain: it has to touch me, drench me, change me, want me to walk in it. Real Beauty, I believe, makes all beings and things more beautiful by its touch, by its presence.

Unless you revel in misery or forlornness, Real Beauty must also make you smile. At what? No, not at anything or anyone but simply smile, acknowledging the beauty of God’s creation.

In our recent life, in our family, our yellow Labrador Roger was the most beautiful being in our lives. He looked at you with such pleading, beautiful and innocent eyes that one had no choice to hug him, fuss him, kiss him. Unobtrusively, he made such a place for himself at home and in our hearts that we couldn’t imagine life without him.

Recently, when he died at the age of twelve, and we cremated him, for quite some time the entire family sat on a cement bench in front of the crematorium. A few days later my elder son Arjun rang me up and said, “Papa, so many of our beautiful memories are connected with Roger that even the period when he was not with us appears to have his presence”.

That one sentence, I would think, describes Real Beauty better than an essay. Real Beauty transcends Time.

Real Beauty also must have a degree of tenderness; a vulnerability that anyone would want to protect it against. As Ben Johnson said, ‘It is Not Growing Like a Tree’ that makes a plant beautiful:

“A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May,
Although it fall and die that night—
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see;
And in short measures life may perfect be”.

If it is Real Beauty in a being, the feature that I’d look for the foremost is the Eyes. Eyes are windows to a being’s world. Since there is a saying that beauty like ugliness is skin-deep, I feel eyes bring to fore the inner beauty of a person. If that not be so, why is it that many blind women have the most beautiful eyes? They say when a woman is pregnant her eyes become beautiful. It is a fact that what she imagines her child to be gets reflected in her eyes. Who could have said it better than Byron:

“She walks in beauty, like the night

   Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that's best of dark and bright

   Meet in her aspect and her eyes,”

A beautiful person, hence, must have beautiful imagination and deeds. These are what gets reflected in the person’s eyes. Was Mother Teresa beautiful?  Indeed, she was. She imparted beauty to everything that she touched. At beauty pageants, for example, every girl wanting to win the title, has a quote from Mother Teresa.

Being the romantic sailor that I am, Real Beauty must also hold a certain enigma for me; connecting me to yonder, to life and beyond. As Robert Browning said in Cristina:

What? To fix me thus meant nothing?
But I can't tell (there's my weakness)
What her look said!---no vile cant, sure,
About ``need to strew the bleakness
``Of some lone shore with its pearl-seed.
``That the sea feels “---no strange yearning
``That such souls have, most to lavish
``Where there's chance of least returning.”

And lastly, one beautiful look can enslave you for the rest of your life. You just see her standing there and like Beatles you are hooked:

“Now I'll never dance with another
Since I saw her standing there.”

You carry that beautiful image with you wherever you go.

DO OUR FLIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS REFLECT OUR CULTURE?

There is a recent ad that is a telling commentary on the disgraceful hurry that we, as Indians, show whilst getting out of the aircraft on landing. So, even when the air hostess is requesting people to remain seated until the aircraft comes to a complete stand-still or not to open overhead lockers, any number of people are already vying to get a head start over others. This is an exact replica of people waiting at the traffic lights or at railway crossings; the farthest away wanting to be the first ones to cross.

Recently, we have tried to do up our airport terminals. Some of these, like Delhi and Hyderabad, have become really good. You would like to soak in the displays and just relax waiting for your flight. But, nay, an endless volley of announcements would keep you from relaxing or even concentrating on your newspaper. Some of these are deliberately made loud and piercing so that Mr ABC, for whom half a dozen "last and final calls" have been made, would miraculously make his way towards the aircraft so that the aircraft can take off within an hour of its scheduled departure, which is the nearest we can come to an on-time departure.

Once in the aircraft, since you have opted for a reclining isle seat, you would think that there would be respite from announcements. It is not to be. The very reason they ask you to shut down all electronic devices is that after hours, you will still not have time for yourself. You should constantly be paying attention to everything that the cabin crew and the Captain have to say to you.

Enough of announcements? No, with my experience of having been a "guest" at various domestic flights, and keeping in mind the conduct of the fellow passengers, I feel that following announcements may be added to the existing ones. All these are based on actual incidents:

• We told you that in case you need anything you shouldn't hesitate to press the overhead call button. However, please remember there is no need to test it every now and then. Also, please don't let children play with the button.
• Please don't throw the orange peel on the floor, especially in the aisle.
• Please don't go to the pantry to pick things on your own. We confirm to you that it does not help the cabin crew.
• Conversing with people three rows behind you or in front may disturb other passengers.
• Jackets/pouches in fronts of your seats are specific for each seat. Please ask the person directly behind the pouch before reaching out to take magazines and newspapers or even headphones from the pouch.
• Please refrain from playing transistors, portable music players, and cell-phone music without headphones.
• Holding hands of couples across the aisle may hamper movement of other passengers. We are sorry for the inconvenience caused.
• Whilst sitting down and getting up, please don't jerk back the seat in front of you with great force especially when refreshments have been served.
• Please avoid putting legs on the seat in front of you even if your feet don't smell. If your feet or socks do smell, please don't take out your shoes. If you are not sure whether they smell, assume that they do.
• Spread your newspapers, magazines etc in such a way that they don't hamper the other passengers especially if they are watching in-flight entertainment.
• The flight is only about one hour forty minutes or so. Hence, you don't have to stretch your legs in the aisle or walk briskly up and down.
• Isle seat does not give you the right to spread your legs in the aisle especially when the air hostesses are serving meals.
• Please avoid sneezing when the person sitting next to you is being served coffee.
• Please remember that toilets are to serve the needs of other passengers too.
• If you are fond of singing, please pass your visiting card around to passengers around you so that they can come to your office or home to listen to your performance. Your talents are wasted in the aircraft.
• When you find an overhead locker full, please don't start re-adjusting the entire locker to make space for your box of mangoes. This will keep the other passengers from reaching their seats.
• It won't help if you vent on the cabin crew your unhappiness over the flight having been delayed.
• Please don't insist on speaking personally to the Captain of the aircraft if you want to air your grievance about the service in the aircraft. Someone has to fly the aircraft too.
• Each flight carries a limited number of pillows and blankets; and certainly not one per passenger.
• We would appreciate if you can finish the coffee/tea/water poured in your cup rather than giving these back to the cabin crew when they come to collect the trays.
• If you have your baggage in a locker far behind you, it would be better to let other passengers already in the aisle to disembark before venturing your way against the general flow of people. Please bear with us that the total time taken from first to last passenger is never more than five minutes.

Thank you; it was a pleasure (we are great liars) having you on board and we look forward to being given an opportunity to serve you again (like a hole in the head).

OSAMA, OBAMA, O MAMA

They finally found him not in a cave in a mountain but in a huge mansion in Abbottabad, a few hundred metres away from Pak Military Academy. I was reminded of this scene in Mel Brooks' Silent Movie in which they are looking for Burt Reynold's house whilst standing in front of a huge mansion with a large sign atop the house with his name on it that even the blind would have had difficulty in missing. Obama wasted no time in taking credit for it. This was reminiscent of Al Qaeda, LeT, JeM and other terror organisations quick on the draw for taking credit for terror killings and explosions in a city square or temple.

The comparison doesn't sound very right, is it? Well, the fact is that when Godse killed Mahatma Gandhi or James Earl Ray killed Martin Luther King or Oswald killed John F Kennedy, there was so much of contrast between the personae of the killer and the killed that the world was in total shock. A retaliatory killing of the killer was thus a non-event. He wasn't a hero by any stretch of imagination. However, in the present case by defining the terrorist act of 9/11 as 'War on America' and later the retaliatory actions as (Global) War on Terror, both the players had become adversaries or contenders in War, bringing them, willy-nilly, on an equal plane, except perhaps for their methods. Even in this, if the methods of one adversary are totally above board, in keeping with international norms and UN conventions, and with due regard to unnecessary killing of civilians and innocents; then only the adversary has moral ascendance over the other. Else, if both parties follow the good old English dictum 'Everything is fair in Love and War', then neither party has a right to moral ascendancy or ethical superiority or jus ad bellum (justification to engage in war) or pass judgement on someone's jus in bello (whether war conducted justly).

Ankur Sood, in an article ‘Establishing A Philosophical Foundation for the Osama Movement’ (p 112, World Affairs, Spring 2007, Vol II, No. I) brings out that all major religions (including Buddhism) admit that violence in any form may be used to resist and defeat an oppressor. Based on this philosophy, it is not just Al-Qaeda and Iranian Revolutionary struggle that find justification in indulging in violence; but, come to think of it, the so called civilized world too. Take for example, how the US has ascribed to itself ‘the right of self defence’ by carrying our drone strikes in Waziristan or armed struggle (by proxy) in Libya. The intrinsic thing wrong in this kind of doctrine is that if others too follow this doctrine, it would be the case of ‘an eye for an eye’ making the whole world blind.

In Oct 2010, on the eve of Obama’s visit to India (a begging bowl visit?) I wrote an article ‘Is America Losing Legitimacy of Power?’ I had given a number of examples how US obduracy, double standards, and desire to protect ‘American strategic interests’ by all available means had begun the (moral) decline of this great power. Subsequent events proved me right.

Lets come to the third part of the title: O Mama, ie, what does it mean for us in India?

Ever since the Partition, Pakistan sought to internationalise the Kashmir issue. India wanted to sort it out by mutual dialogue. Pakistan was hell bent on mediation by its ally US. Having lost in all wars it fought with India, it tried out the terrorism tool (Death by a Thousand Cuts). It had witnessed the success of it by the Mujahedeen’s (sponsored by the US) victory against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Thus, post 1989, such terrorist attacks against India increasingly became routine. Pakistan’s importance to the US was dwindling post Soviet pullout from Afghanistan. But 9/11 came as a blessing in disguise for it. The ‘no-brainer’ given to Musharraf by Bush suddenly propelled Pakistan as a leading ally in the (Global) War on Terror. India kept insisting that Pakistan was the major Originator of Terror globally but US turned blind eye towards it to facilitate its operations in Afghanistan. US was also annoyed with India for having conducted nuclear explosions three years prior to that. Pakistan enjoyed siphoning off funds from the US as “compensation” for its contribution in GWOT.

What were the side-effects of this arrangement? Well, Pakistan lost its sovereignty in exchange for promise of security and money and importance. Even before the Operation Geronimo by the US SEALS, the US forces were, at will, using Pakistan territory for launching operations either within Pakistan or in Afghanistan. Skeletons that emerge from the Pak cupboard now reveal that Pak Army was not “surprised” by these but was party to it.

Pakistan sponsored 26/11 Mumbai Attacks made US sit back and take notice of the Pakistan’s tacit involvement in the terrorist attacks; more so since it came out that the terrorists specifically targeted American tourists. However, as the David Coleman Headley episode brought out, it is India that was ‘surprised’ and not the US. Soon, American operations in Swat and Waziristan became more important than the cross-border terrorism that Pakistan was subjecting us to. Indirectly, it provided India too with ‘security’ in that as long as US was involved in AfPak, it would not tolerate Pakistan re-starting any major mischief (the Kargil variety) in Kashmir; not because of Indian interests but because it would take the focus away from US AfPak operations.

Let’s now, for a moment, turn back to Osama and Obama. It is more than likely that OBL’s presence in Pakistan did not surprise the US (come to think of it, it hardly surprised Afghanistan and India). In that case, the timing of the US operations would suggest three things: one, to tick off success and provide it with reason to pull out of Afghanistan; two, US Presidential elections next year; and three, to finally acknowledge Pakistan’s role as a major sponsor of global terrorism.

The first and third have serious ramifications for us. After the indirect deterrence provided to us is compromised, what is to afford us deterrence against full scale terrorist attacks emanating from Pakistan with, as is always the case, tacit support from Pak Army, which is dying to take the focus away from its perceived failure to protect Pak sovereignty? Post 1998, Pakistan perfected what Uday Bhaskar termed as NWET (Nuclear Weapons Enabled Terrorism). In the face of it, India, very quickly lost the deterrence value of its own nuclear arsenal by NFU, ambiguous statements and capability to absorb nonsense emanating from across the border. Deterrence value of Pak nuclear weapons was, however, enhanced by its irrationality and proven irresponsibility.

So then what is the solution?

I think the first step is a realisation that US is neither a solution nor the enabler of one, despite the current change of heart in US media about India. The second more difficult step is to convince Pakistan of the same. It would appear shocking, at first glance, but, despite their failure, Pakistanis are our ilk. Perhaps if we were to make our democracies (of/by/for 'common' people) more representational and stronger we would be better off. As far as imperialism is concerned we should endeavour to convince Pakistan to keep these forces at bay by a) Realising that they are still following the 'divide and rule' and to sort out our differences by ourselves b) Economic development c) Making a dream of one Asia or at least one South Asia be realised and become as strong as, say, EU. For this, politicians and strategists in both the countries have to eschew suspicion and promote people to people contacts. Recent events have provided us with a unique opportunity to pursue these goals. If we fail, it is my guess, unless I am proved totally wrong, that after Pakistan breaks up (within a decade) such a realisation will in any case seep in despite the imperialists' efforts to ensure it does not.