What to say when someone dies!

"The Death of Marat" Oil on canvas by  David, 162 cm x 128 cm, 1793 , Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium

Let me confess at the outset that I really do not know what one should say when someone dies. I have mumbled something meaningless at times; more out of nervousness and a blank mind than anything else. At times I have kept quite and avoided the subject even at the cost of appearing disinterested. Even when someone close passes away I find words hard to come by. They feel intrusive and inadequate to say the least. My favourite uncle  had an accident  years ago. He passed away after a couple of days in a vegetative state in an ICU.  He died young. What sort of words could have brought relief to his wife and  little children at the time? Decades have passed since. I  still get an empty feeling just by thinking about it. Imagine the pain and emotional turbulence his immediate family went through. Actually we really can not be in their shoes , but we must say something ; most of the times! It is expected of  the living!

 There is a lot of help available in the form of books and even on the internet that teach you the correct etiquette and verbiage that may be used on such occasions. You may do like David did by  painting the picture above about his friend's death.  This will avoid words altogether. They also invented obituaries a long time ago. A formal way of saying the right things and sympathizing with the bereaved. Newspapers are full of such messages and one can learn from it easily. It is noteworthy that most of the obits will use the words like ''sad demise". People who talk about the dead are sad at the loss. You realize that not everyone gets to read their own obits like Mark Twain did. He corrected people by saying that " the reports of my death are exaggerated." He could since he was alive. Most other people are dead when their obits come out. They can not confront you , they can not correct you and they can not object. You have to be balanced. you owe it to yourself.

Even when Osama got killed in the commando raid, believe me it was a sad event. There is nothing happy about it. The fact that you had to kill another human being is  sad in itself. But sadder it was to see people dancing and making merry afterwards.If you look back at the newspaper headlines from  the day Hitler's body was found after he committed suicide in his bunker, you'll not see any  exuberant and graceless words. One could sense relief  that finally the war is nearing its end but no more. But then it was another era. Electronic medium did not exist. TV was in its nascent stages; no one had heard the word internet and no one needed to "trend on twitter". 


I even find the whole chest thumping showoff and harsh commentaries that came out after Kasab was hanged quite tasteless and unnecessary.  He had to pay for his sins and he did it with his life. I can not understand why anyone would not consider this a sad event? A young person who could have been a productive member of society ;who could have been a help to his struggling family and taken care of his mother in her old age, was guided along a wrong path with the result that he turned into a terrorist and a mass murderer that had to be put to death. What's so merry about this that you'll distribute sweets ? Obviously it is difficult to say something in praise of the dead in such cases , but is it so difficult to just zip up? There is a lot of confusion about who actually said " It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt", but it is worth pondering.

Bal Thakre evoked strong emotions when he was alive.  Millions followed him and a lot more despised him. Eventually as is the law of nature he passed away. Somehow all of his intellectual and political adversaries who did not dare to say harsh words for the fear of retaliation when he was alive, came out with strong and  blanket indictment of his life even before his body turned cold! History will of course evaluate Bal Thakre in a  more comprehensive fashion than his critics or his supporters ever can but a sense of balance and dignity immediately after someone passes away is definitely a good idea. Millions are not born and millions do not die everyday. Each of them is an individual and each of them deserve their life to be celebrated and their death to be mourned.

A strange incident happened as well where an immature set of comments by two nobodies on Facebook was considered worthy of arresting them by police. These ladies certainly ought to get some extra help about what to say when someone dies  but it is nothing compared to the coaching required of the police officers who decided to arrest them. Luckily the courts have thrown the prosecution's case out of the window but the officer's  skill levels of policing and threat assessment have proven lower than zero. They should be retrained for a desk job or at least transferred to traffic duty. It would also be wise if they learn the difference between plain stupid, objectionable and prosecutable , when someone says something about dead! It is their job.

 

Loose Change.

Life is a series of changes. Dead things are the ones that do not change. They deteriorate. We all seek change and throughout the ages young men and women have had dreams of changing the world. World does change. It has changed even before my own eyes and it is changing as we speak. The question is what is it changing into? Is the world really a better place than before?

As a young man I believed totally in the power of art and expression. We truly believed that music, drama, paintings and the written word will change all of us into a better human society and balanced individuals. It will enlighten and allow us to have smoother personal and social interactions. We trusted that it will pave the way for an equitable society. We all wanted to be the agents of that change!

That was years ago! It does feel that those thoughts belonged to a stranger I do not know! It was a time when kids would band together and perform "Ramlila" in the local park. Younger ones would insist on buying a 'Hanuman' mask from the vendor who came on a bicycle. Today they all want an iphone. It was the time when a poor student such as myself could invite himself to a performance of Wadali brothers on the lawns of Sangeet Natak Academy and sit next to Shabana Azmi on the grass! Try doing such a thing today! Well, it can't be done any more. There is a solid wall of commerce and security standing between. It was a time when the librarian from their reference library would let me take frightfully expensive art and design books home over the weekend for my assignments on his own responsibility. He was a good soul and he trusted me to bring them back safely on Monday morning before they could ever be missed. He just wanted to help. Internet ensures that students do not need such help any more and trust ...... Let us not even go there, it quite out of fashion!

Younger generation has a constant refrain that older people lapse far too easily into the past. They are right in a way, past is not a good place to linger although It is not such a bad place to visit ! If you see that past troubles are repeating themselves with more and more virulent strains of the same; you've got to dig deep for some solutions. Ram got sent away for fourteen years but when he returned the darkest night was brilliantly lit like a day in his welcome. It is the sign of the times that hardly anyone cares any more if he returns or not; much less give him a welcome. Ram a symbol of respect, truth, love, propriety, equality and care for public will has less and less impact on our personal and social life. Of course we have not forgotten to party hard and long during Diwali.

Sita of public good stands abducted. Ravan of corruption and inequality is still attacking Ram and seems to be winning. Lanka may or may not get burned but Ayodhya is smoldering. This is not what we dreamt ! Launch of windows 8 does not necessarily make this a better world. A new BMW M6 in the drive way does not either. However if every child can go to school and does not have to roll beedi's in a sweat shop, it would be. If we could put a roof over every homeless, it would be a better place. If people could get access to clean drinking water it would be a great change  It is not asking for a lot but even this little requires setting our priorities and ensuring that public resources and lands are used for public good, not for personal profit. Even when we have to sell them, public exchequer must get a fair price for it......... dream; dream on!

Maybe our efforts were not enough so our results are not what we set out to achieve and now life's large bills are mostly spent for people of my generation. Just some loose change remains. But it remains still and I want to be the same naive young man who believed that a story and a picture will change it for the better. It will and it must. Ram had to float stones for a foot bridge over raging seas and fashion a winning army out of mere monkeys. Without minding the handicaps, lack of resources and personal setbacks he pressed on, engaged Ravan and won! Why can't we fight  back with loose change? We may not dispel the darkness entirely but we can certainly light a lamp.

May thousands of lamps light your way. Have a great Diwali and  God bless you all!

Picasso's Protest!

"Head of a weeping woman" A study by Picasso in preparation for "Guernica"

 On 31 st October 445 BC , Ezra read the book of Laws to Israelites in Jerusalem. In 1541 AD , Michael Angelo finished painting "The last judgement" after four years of hard work. In 1815 Humphrey Davy patented his famous safety lamp for miners but in 1922 Mussolini became premier of Italy on this day.  In 1952 first thermonuclear bomb was detonated at Marshall islands  and the day in 1984 did not prove to be  very auspicious either.  

Indira Gandhi was shot dead by her own body guards. Tragic and treacherous as it was, what followed  this murder was cataclysmic ! Reverberations are still felt as they were last week, when K. S. barar was knifed in London. Completely innocent individuals were killed by crazed  mobs in retaliation of Mrs. Gandhi's murder.  Totally unrelated businesses and property was destroyed and set to fire by vandals. It was mindless and senseless violence. What made  it worse was the fact that the mob targeted their own. Individuals they lived with ; individuals they interacted with and did business with on a daily basis . There was no shame , no sense of responsibility and no sense of propriety.

It was also my first brush with riots. My first hand experience.  As the news of violence filtered in through the state controlled media, I got anxious about the safety of several people I knew. One of them was my class mate who lived in seriously affected central Delhi. My home was 20 km. away but I set out on my old bicycle to check on him.  Eventually I reached my friend's home after two hours of cycling and rang the doorbell. I could sense someone looking out of the spyglass in the door but the door would not open. Nothing happened for the next  ten minutes or so, in which I rang the bell a couple more times. Each passing minute made me more anxious and I was sure some great calamity has befallen them.

Eventually my friend opened the door a crack on safety chain. After initial greetings and purpose of my visit was clear to him, he let me in and quickly bolted  the door back from inside. I was glad to see them safe and only  months later as we were wolfing down bread pakora with tea in our canteen he confided that for those ten minutes they were debating if I have come as a friend or a foe.  It really took a huge leap of faith for them  to open the door that day!!

Really !! What were they thinking ? Could I have done any harm to them at all ? I wish the answer was no , I could not have . Not true though ! Their fears were genuine. I could actually have had them all killed  that day or at least bring utmost devastation to their family with the flick of my index finger. For a large part of that 20 km journey to their home I had travelled alongside a murderous crowd. Crowd that was looking for a target - any target. I could have pointed them. That set of crazies did not need any more encouragement than that. They were already put in a violent trance by a vitriol spewing leader type of an individual who was exhorting them in the name of "netaji". Promising money, unlimited booze and complete protection from law ! Those that have lived in East Delhi know who "netaji" was and it was not Subash chandra Bose. Thankfully I kept my sanity that day , otherwise it would have been very easy to be a part of that gang of criminals being egged on by power hungry politics.

Guernica is a small  village in Spain that was bombed by the German and Italian war planes during the Spanish civil war; resulting in devastation and extensive civilian casualties. Much like the drone attacks in FATA . Picasso's protest against it was the famous painting of the same name. Unlike suicide bombing , terrorism and wanton rioting that politicians encourage; this protest has endured the test of time. Sadly Politicians have not changed their spots so far and we the people are as gullible and culpable as ever.

You'll see this again and again as in Satanic Verses case. Very few had read the tome before such a hue and cry was raised against it. People who have declared bounties on the writer's head and who have recently raised the amount higher proudly claim not to have read it yet they want him executed. Book is banned in several countries where dozens of violent incidents and several deaths have  taken place during this time. Similar is the case of The recent "Innocence of Muslims" movie excerpt.I have seen the entire movie and it is certainly an affront to movie making. Yet the way to protest it has been to kill US ambassador in Libya and rioting in several cities in several countries! How mindless can you get? What logic a Pakistani has to burn down his own city and go on violent rampage against his own. All to prove that Islam is a religion of peace! All of which they did when they celebrated "yaum e ishq e rasool"(day of love for prophet), recently. Didn't  someone tell them that they have proved exactly opposite of what they set out to prove? Thank their political leadership that  in order to project their own power they made that imbecile producer of the movie look good and what is worse- right !

Riots are about politics. Normal people do not riot. They indulge only when politics dehumanizes them and denudes them of decency. It orchestrates criminalizing the population and takes their power of thinking away. Having said that an individual must be  responsible for his own conduct. Almost 100 years ago an author ; pen name M.A. Chumapati  (real name is not very clear), wrote a book named "Rangeela Rasool". It was published in 1920's by Mahashya Rajpal of Lahore. The book dealt with a rather personal aspect of the founder of Islam and hence it became controversial. Rajpal , the publisher never revealed the name of the author; although he was taken to court for denigrating a faith. Eventually court acquitted him of all charges although the book was and remains banned to this day.

In answer to this book another book " Muqudus Rasool" was written but that response was not considered quite enough. Politics came into picture and started poisoning minds. A young man Ilm- ud -din became crazed enough to walk up to the publisher Rajpal and stab him to death. It reminds one of the film maker Theo Van Gogh's murder but the story does not end here either! This was a great opportunity for politics to queer the pitch again and squeeze every possible benefit out of this incident . Ilm -ud-din was caught and brought to justice for murder. His defence was led unsuccessfully by none other than Jinnah himself ; the founder of Pakistan.  The murderer received death penalty. The date was 31st October 1929.

 Reportedly a mass hysteria was created and thousands were exhorted from pulpits to attend Ilm -ud- din's  funeral; which they did. Major ideologues like Iqbal and other leaders exhorted his praises to the gathered masses and a common murderer was thus fashioned into a martyr. As soon as Pakistan came into being Ilm-ud-din was declared a gazi (religious martyr) and a mosque inside Mianwali jail; where he was hanged; was named after him. In addition to that several other memorials ,hagiographies, dramas , TV shows, books etc,were officially commissioned. He became a shining beacon for all generations to come.

Story would have ended here but several decades later  another crazed young man named Mumtaz Qadri aimed his gun and shot to death Salman Taseer. Governer of the same province Ilm-ud- din belonged to. Ironically Qadri , a police commando was tasked with protecting Salman's life. In an environment where  Ilm-ud -din is a hero worth emulating how could Qadri  not be influenced by what is right and what is not? He did not want to be left behind.  He wanted to be a hero as well; so he executed the person he was charged to keep safe! As his own will dictated he became a law keeper with no regard for law!  The Lawyers of the high court garlanded him and showered flowers on him for committing murder in keeping with the same upside down criteria of right and wrong ! He is a bigger hero than Ilm-ud-din. It was shocking but I am surprised that  anyone could be surprised by it . The seeds were planted years ago! Ask 14 yr. old Malala Yusufzai. She will tell you if she recovers from the bullet shot point blank in her head ! What kind of beasts do this? Actually it is none other than you and me! We are responsible.

 You reap what you sow and you can never kill an idea by killing a person. The book "Rangeela Rasool ", has survived murder of it's publisher for that last 100 years. That as well as "Satanic Verses" is available online very easily. I saw "innocence of Muslims" online  just because I got curious to see what is it that can generate so much violence? Otherwise I would not have bothered being an audience for it. Remember an idea can only be countered by a better idea! Malala Yusufzai's idea of educating girls is a better idea than the terrorist's idea of burning girl's schools and shooting up kid's. 

 Protest if you have to. Only remember; hardly anyone knows the commanding officer of the Condor Legion, Oberstleutnant Wolfram Freiherr von Richthofen, from the Spanish Nationalist Command who actually commanded that terror bombing on Guernica. Everyone on the other hand knows Picasso and his protest " Guernica". It will endure for 1000 years - maybe forever.

Indian Ideal !

Ratnakar lived many centuries ago. There is some doubt as to exactly when; but we are sure he existed because he left behind a most respected literary text consisting of 24,000 verses. He is also credited with producing the first verse (shlok) ever created in the Sanskrit language. For this reason he is also referred to as "Adi kavi"- the first poet or the poet of poets! I am of course referring to Maharishi Balmiki! The writer of the Ramayana! Not only is he revered by every single sect of adherents of the Hindu faith; there are sects named after him as well, where his stature is God like.

It was always not so, at least in the beginning. Just like Buddha started life as Sidharth, a simple ignorant prince; Balmiki started his life as Ratnakar, a merciless highway robber. As it is generally believed. Again there are competing narratives about his social status. Some say he was born a Brahmin but most believe him to be from  a seriously disadvantaged strata of the society. Details are obscured by antiquity but that's not very important. The fact that even a robber can turn his life around given the right impetuous and right encouragement is.

As the story goes, Ratnakar one day came upon permanently itinerant sage Narada in the jungle and  proceeded to rob him. While in the act he got impressed  by Narada's complete devotion to God. Ratnakar decided to give up his life of sin. Sage Narada taught him to meditate on the name "Ram" and Ratnakar kept at it for years, forgetting every thing else. To the extent that ants covered his entire body with an anthill. Eventually sage Narada freed him from the anthill and declared him to be a ‘Brahmrishi’; a most learned sage. Maharishi Balmiki was thus born .It is firmly believed that God Ram was pleased enough to admitt sage Balmiki in his holy presence.

Like all ancient stories most of it can not be proved. You belive in it or you do not. Even if it is just a story weaved around a poet writing an epic; it is a good story. It is a great story and it is believeable because it can happen. Events like this happen a lot of times. Yes, even in today's age and time! Luckily they can be proved!

If you are incredulous, consider this: A child is born to a barber in a small town. As he grows into teens and early adulthood he is drafted to work in the shop alongside his father to supplement family income. Starting out from that cripplingly disadvantageous position just a couple of weeks ago this boy manages to catapult himself to become a popular singer of national fame ; much like Ratnakar did to become a poet of poets . Rings a bell?

I am talking about Amit Kumar of Amritsar- the finalist from Indian Idol 6. Just six months ago as he was shaving a customer with a radio blaring in the backgroud he could not have imagined that he will capture a nation's heart and so soon. It was beyond his wildest dreams. But it  happened. It is likely that sage Narad is still roaming somewhere in the universe. He just does not make a stop over on earth in person. He seems to have outsourced his job of motivating to the Radio ! It taught Amit to hum and induced him to pursue singing.

As for God Ram, we can not see him with our physical eyes. Probably we do not deserve his holy presence yet. That does not mean he is not working for us. Every one of us has a 'God Quotient 'and Ram resides in all of us. In the case of Amit Kumar, many individuals participated in completing God's work - starting from Amit's father.  Many kudos to him that despite hardships , challenges and against his better judgment, he allowed his son to take time off from work and spend precious resources on learning some rudimentary music. Of course God's hand can be seen in the actions of  the people who selected Amit for the competition. Thanks is due to people who judged him fairly, professionally and without prejudice. And people  encouraged and coached him at every step. Reportedly millions of ordinarily people like you and me voted for him and I believe it is none other than their 'Godness' that induced them to do the right thing. Guests on the show gifted Amit a bike; another one gifted him a guitar.  This is not only because he was needy, but because he deserved it. Amit did not win the title but he won a lot of hearts. He is a success story and it is fascinating  how an ordinary apprentice  barber from an obscure hair cutting saloon became 'Oye Amit" as one judge put it; or 'sajan' as another put it. I see the hand of God in all this.

So  there is a lesson for those  of us who are ready to kill or be killed in support or in opposition of reservations. Yeah ,I know they  will not get it, they tear each others clothes even in parliament ! I personally have no doubt  about that story of Ratnakar the robber  who became a revered poet-sage. Amit’s story proves that It can happen to anyone - us too. We just have to find our own sage Narad to rob.

Our Share of India !

Courtesy : Niagara Falls Public Library

My car has an Indian Flag on it for which I have no answer to my son's question as to  why do I keep it even though I carry a different passport? Why indeed? My answers do not convince the young man even a little bit.

A decade ago I had to learn driving an automobile again for reasons that are no longer important. My in - car instructor was a lady from Fiji. It took me some time to get used to her english but I got the hang of it after a few days.Very close to the end of our third or fourth day I made a small driving error. I was expecting her usual lilting english rebuke but what she did instead was far more astonishing. She started speaking in Hindi! I nearly hit a light pole with shock. Her accent, grammer, choice of words and form of address were so classical, chaste  and absolutely correct that It would have put a professor of hindi to shame. She was carrying her share of India in her head.  Probably from her childhood since it was her grandfather who had  left India nearly hundred years ago from a village near benaras. Her India is India as it was in the last century, learnt at the feet of her Grandfather.

Some years earlier a thirty years old Uzbek man tried to pick up a conversation with me in Tashkent during an exhibition that I had designed. I was immediately struck by his speech. He was not speaking Russian as usual . He was addressing  me in what he thought was Hindi.... It of course was quite unintelligible. Eventually I found out that he considers himself an Indian since at some unrecorded time in  history his ancestors had arrived from India. He did not know from where , he did not know how many centuries ago. But his family told him  such and thus he believed in it . This individual has a regular Uzbek name but he wanted me to address him as  "Suresh Vatkar". Some months later he sent me a letter written in Devanagari . This time he made a lot of sense. He has India in his dreams and had finally managed to teach himself the language.  He also wanted me to find a match for him  in India and  is the only individual I know who wants the right to  permanantly immigrate to India. Whatever good was ever written in books and journals about India is unquestionably  true for him. His India is an ideal place with no warts , no problems and where he will be home.

About one thousand years ago Muslim invasion of their lands made some groups in central western and northern India move west towards Persia. Eventually these groups landed in different parts of Europe. Unfortunately their ill fate followed them. They were enslaved in eastern Europe and kept beyond the pale of society in the west. Thousand years later they are still outsiders. They are  the Roma; gypsies in local parlance. Children of India who India has forgotten about and who have only a faint memory of  India . It is only in their language and social customs  that we find India alive.It is believed  that  Nazi killing machine killed more Roma than Jews and they killed millions of Jews on record.  One can only imagine what catastrophe Roma  have suffered. For them India is a far far away place , unseen , unknown and maybe on another planet. Planet they can not travel to. Although they have been constant travelers for the last thousand years. Their share is death ,destruction ,oblivion and marginalization..

Around 1500 AD Columbus "discovered" India. It was of course  not "India" but America. So the name stuck to native people of America and they came to be known as Indians. They have no idea why they should be called such and neither have I. No body discovered anything. America was already there and it belonged to the tribes that lived there . It was just snatched out of their hands and they were  given a  new name in return ; becoming pawns in the hands of their masters. Their share is just a name.

After a census was undertaken in 1961, they found 1652 spoken languages are being used in India. At the last count there were 23 official languages in which different levels of the government conduct their affairs. Simply the highest such  number in the world. 1,241,491,960 number of people live in India in 28 states and 7 union territories. Hundreds of tribes , several castes and sub castes;different faith groups and political  shades are all jockeying for a piece of it. It is surprising how anything works at all. And nothing much does anyway. Sources put India's total installed capacity for electricity generation at 203 Giga watts. Close to 33% of this electricity is lost in transmission and distribution. Whatever is available is mismanaged so badly that recently the whole electric grid failed. Not one but  three grids and that too twice....in just  one  week. 75% of the entire nation went dark. Traffic lights failed , trains and metro stopped in their tracks, production stopped, offices closed. Nearly 80 million people were affected . This was their share .

India launched her first satellite  "Aryabhatt" in 1975 but in 2012  only 28 % of Indian homes have a source of drinking water. 72% of population have no idea when can they  expect to get access to drinking water. It is an entirely different  story if the existing supply is adequate or even safe  in the first place for people who have access to it.  This is their India. India that exploded a nuclear device earlier in 1974,  today  has 3 million homeless in the capital itself  and this number rises to a mind boggling 78 million nationwide. Several individuals regularly make the Forbes list of  richest people in the world but 300 million  have no job and no income.This is their share.

India has nearly  2 million IT and ITES  professionals. They bring in 100 billion US dollars in revenue. Nearly 50,000  H1B  visa are available for them every year to go and work in  the US. Silicon valley is littered with them. These numbers are proudly touted by every organ of the government however the last I knew Government of India is stilll trying to find the number of manual scavengers  in India! 21% population  of  UP is considered dalit and backward; however when someone amongst them came to power all they got was 414 badly made elephant sculptures  and 11 life size statues of their benefactor. Conservative estimate puts the total cost of this exercise alone to 3000 million INR. This is when 13000 schools in the same state have no toilet. Diarrhea is a leading cause of childhood death there. Something that can be treated with a little salt and sugar dissolved in plain water - they do not have it!  This state also has the dubious distinction of being the home to the highest number of child labourers in the world.  2,700,000 children in another state  Bihar  do not go to school. 60,000 schools in this  state have no teacher. This can go on and on. There are 26 more states to go and 7 union territories as well!. This is their share of India.

Someday my son will understand about my car flag. That's my share of India and I happen to be the lucky one!

You have to die?

In 1890, just a few months before he shot himself and commit suicide, Vincent Van Gogh  was invited to a show  in Brussels, where he sold  one of his  paintings. His first and the last one before his death . He received 400 francs for it. Roughly US $ 1600 in today's money. He could have lived on those funds for a month or so. That painting Red Vineyard at Arles, proudly hangs  in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. Today however, his paintings are regularly snapped up for over hundred million dollars a piece. Amazingly; in terms of adjusted to inflation price actually realized for a work of art ,Van Gogh  comes out ahead of such colossal giants  of the art world as Titian, Rubens and Picasso. If you were to make a list of ten most expensive paintings ever sold, Van Gogh will figure twice on it. That's surprising for me too!  His entire life's earning however was  those 400 francs.

It all started with Jesus ; maybe even before that . But Jesus was a very despised individual most of his life. Romans hated him so much that they nailed him to a cross alongside two common criminals. His own  community pegged him as a presumptuous upstart and an insolent trouble maker. Very few among them would give him the time of the day much less listen to what he had to say. Till he died that is; rest of course is history. Later on Christ's follower and regent  Pope Urban VIII  nearly hanged Galileo but mercifully stopped at incarcerating him.  Till death! All of Galileo's theories and propositions were junked as  hearsay and falsehood. Pope learnt nothing from the life of Christ and Galileo was  right about his theories. After his death Galileo got anointed  the father of modern physics and you probably had not even heard of Urban VIII. At least I had not.

Michael Jackson was no stranger to fame and fortune.  Reportedly he had  an expensive life style that ensured that a lot of month got left over when his very substantial pay ran out. He was living on debt when he died not very long ago in 2009, in pretty strange and hazy circumstances . Since then his estate has earned over a billion, yes over a billion US Dollars by  his music and other investments. MJ made more money dead than alive. It is the kind of serious money that would have repaid all that he owed a couple of times over and still allow him to live a life of splendid splendour till the end of time! But Dang it ; had he lived he would  be in debt still.....


I like to imagine that I have an ear for music. I mostly prefer classical kind. "Gazal", is a classical genre of music which is based on Indian "raga" system. The music is set to lyrics which are always powerful, mostly mystical and very meaningful. A good Gazal must start with strong evocative poetry and sweet soulful music. Its final rendition by a singer is its crowning glory. It is said that you need to sing a Gazal with your heart and not your voice. Recently two of its greatest exponents passed away. Jagjit Singh died not too long ago  after a brief illness and Mehdi hassan last week, after a long illness. These legendary  gentlemen command an undisputed iconic status for the connoisseurs of the genre.


Now we have a couple of local radio stations. One proudly declares that they are about "more music and less talk". Nevertheless one has to send in several requests before one of  the show host would play a number sung by these  artists. Even when they do ,it is played  partially.  I understand that invariably these songs tend to be of a longer duration and the radio hosts have to cram as many songs as they can into their allotted time slot . Time that is left over after playing ad jingles and this makes them very reluctant to play a full number. Additionally they prefer to play catchy, new and flashier songs with a lot of beat and rhythm .This they honestly believe  will appeal to a younger demographic . Not the classical stuff ,mostly liked by old fuddy duddies.  I do not agree with them but it does not matter too much since there is internet and I have my own collection but still...

So these two fine artists are with their maker and suddenly the airwaves are clogged with their numbers. Long forgotten songs and  the ones I did not even know existed , have been put on air endlessly. I am of course besides myself with joy. No complaints but a question begs to be asked - Were you waiting for them to die?  Either they are great singers , or they are not. Either  your target audience likes their music  or it does not. Nothing has changed. Their music is as before , your audience is as it was  and the commercial constraints are exactly the same. Only thing different now is that the artists are dead. Why did they not merit a fraction of this attention before now ?


What does it say about our human society ? We shot  Gandhi thrice before we declared him to be an 'apostle of peace' and we insist on placing fresh flowers on the graves of  individuals who did not merit a piece of stale bread  from us, when they were alive! 

They must die first. They have to ; especially artists . Seriously!

Patriots and Traitors !

The infamous "Tebbit test" was supposed to separate wheat from the chaff! It is an observational test where your loyalty to your country is measured by whether you support the home team or the visiting team in a cricket match. Fairly upright and honest British citizens of South Asian origin fail this test almost universally.  There is no such concept as the Tebbit test in North America; however there is a vague concept of " Being American", and "Canadian Values".  It is hard to define what these concepts actually mean but whatever their meaning , citizens of Asian descent and specially from the Indian subcontinent find it hard to measure up to those standards. Critics will immediately point out how they insist on dressing in a Salwar Kurta right in middle of New York city and how a lady dressed in a western style skirt will feel totally out of place in a mall in Brampton, Ontario. There are similar concerns about food habits ( smelly, spicy....)  ; their insistence on watching Bollywood flicks ( silly song and dance) and speaking Punjabi, Hindi , Urdu, Gujarati.... etc. etc.

Other than making childish jokes about miserly corner shop Patel and big Pakistani families collecting welfare; generally these traits are well tolerated by the society. Certainly at an official level US is a melting pot ( although all that's melting is their economy)  and Canada is  officially a multicultural society. It is helped in part by the fact that Neither the US nor Canada have any worth while Cricket team and  South Asian countries hardly  count in  Ice Hockey or Basketball. So no clashes occur to test loyalty there. People can support who ever ,when ever and nobody will question their allegiances!

Most of the Pakistani's have retained their Pakistani passports even as they eagerly count the days when they become eligible to apply for the US/ Canadian ones. No one delays applying for it even for a day. Indian's can not retain their Indian passports, so as soon as they acquire the US/ Canadians ones; they  move heaven and earth to apply for an Overseas Citizen of India  card. Yet the respective US and the Canadian governments do not suspect their loyalties or hold back any  rights of the citizenship. Bravo! This kind of trust in their fellow citizens automatically generates loyalty. Why it is important is because these very same people who fail the Tebbit test happily; who stick their neck out for their respective lands of origin get treated with disdain by those very dispositions as a matter of course and with complete disinterest on their lucky day. All one has to do is to walk into any mission of their land of origin and the complete weight of an inefficient bureaucracy gets thrown in their face. Trust, helpfulness, clarity of rules and regulations , human rights, equality , respect for an individual and empowerment are not the words that can easily come to mind.

Actually it is no different from what any other citizen of these countries experiences every day of their life in their home countries . There they have to fight  to be treated with dignity or to be dealt with according to the rule of law and trusted as an equal citizen of the land. Sadly it does not happen very often. There they have a ruler and then they are the ruled . Although people constantly change roles from ruled to ruler depending on  situation to situation. A  taxi driver will think nothing of fudging the meter  and grossly over charging the rider. Yet the same Taxi driver will get fleeced on the next intersection by the traffic constable , who has a quota of tickets to fill for his boss. The boss who has to supply a decent efficiency figure howsoever  fictional  it maybe , to his own boss. The taxi rider on the other hand will consider it normal to pay a bribe to the local lineman if that means he can cheat on his electricity bill. The lineman will  share this bribe with his  engineer who in turn gives up a portion for the executive engineer; who has to arrange for a hefty sum to pay off his boss or he will get transferred to boondocks.  Everyone is engaged in usurping everyone's rights. In this situation whoever carries a bigger stick  prevails. Truth , fairness , rule of law and decency becomes a constant casualty. They cheat each other , they cheat their society , they cheat their families and they cheat their country . Incessantly. If this is not treason what is?

This is how regular traitors are made out of regular patriots . Ironically western system on the other hand takes a " Tebbit traitor" and creates a patriot out of him by simply providing clear laws and equal treatment. I am reminded of all this by the recent act of the Pakistan government where they slyly sentenced Dr. Shakil Afridi  to 33 years in prison for assisting CIA in its search for Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. The good Doctor made an error of judgement but should he not  have received a fair trial instead of a Kangaroo court where he could not even receive legal assistance ?  The question should also be asked when Scores of Pakistani generals helped CIA capture several other Terrorist leaders in Pakistan ,what crime did Dr. Afridi commit ? Afia Siddiqui,  a pakistani national  was captured and handed over to US without a trial  by the same authorities. Why is that not an act of treason ? How did Osama find safety 200 yards from the top Military college of pakistan? Who helped him for years and years? Why is that not treason? And when you are screaming from the rooftops that you want to capture Osama ; here is a good citizen who thought he will help.   Now that he has succeeded; why should he not be awarded? After all he helped your ally take down your enemy. Why does this not call for a"Nishan  e Pakistan"? Or was Osama your ally and Obama your enemy while you professed the opposite; confusing everyone.


Well the reasons are not  very difficult to fathom. As usual the rules are  not made clear on purpose. The governments say one thing and mean quite another. This allows them to interpret them in any which way they please. Terrorists are not terrorists if they can be used by them but people are not to be kept in loop about this dangerous policy. On top everyone will not be treated equally. Army is the sacred cow and people are so expendable!  With the result a doctor who until a fortnight ago was the epitome of a patriot  valiantly fighting disease and taking care of his people's health, has today turned into a Traitor deserving a life sentence.  It does not matter that bigger and worse traitors than him are roaming large  in every neighborhood.