Lokpal - Andhon Ka Haathi

THE pre-introduction debate on the Lokpal Bill in Parliament reminded me of a one act play I got opportunity to direct and perform long years back. Must have been the third year of graduation class, and the occasion the annual college fest. The play was called Andhon Ka Haathi, Hindi poet-writer late Sharad Joshi’s celebrated work, satirizing the prevailing political class of 1970’s. Joshi gave us the famous Vikram Aur Betal serial in our growing up years, and his works continue to get profiled on the small screen.

Briefly, the play revolved around a set of blind men and an elephant. The men try to comprehend the elephant with their understanding limited by only that part of the pachyderm’s body that they can lay their hands on. Anchored by a sutradhar – played by yours truly – the narrative revolves around juxtaposition of what the blind men feel to what the nation’s political class understands of the country’s ills.

Midway through the act, hoots and shout-downs made dialogue delivery impossible. If eggs and tomatoes did not come our way it was perhaps because the auditorium did not have a supply close by. The organizer of the show – an all size Gujarati-speaking Bongo – came to the blinds and frantically gestured to get our elephant off the stage ASAP.

But I digress.

As leader after leader from all shades of the political spectrum rose to speak in Parliament, it was clear what they were doing. Obfuscation. A right wing Sushma Swaraj could not but raise the issue of minority reservation and hence reject the Bill. The party is as yet to steady its view on CBI’s inclusion in the Ombudsman. A corrupt Lalu could not have but cautioned all MPs about how dangerous it would be if even ex-MPs were included as possible targets of Lokpal hounds. For the CPM, Basudev Achariya stuck to their stand that the elephant can’t but be shepherded only by the Parliament. Owaisi of the MIM of course could profusely thank the government for having brought in the Muslim reservation in an eight-member constitutional body.

All this while the treasury bench occupants watched with a certain contentment, even some glee. Manmohan could not have bargained for anything better than this to puncture Anna’ third leg of the Chameli revolution - our own version of Arab spring. Could someone smell Diggi’s hands in the till on this? We are yet to find out. Or perhaps, journalistic grapevine already knows it in Delhi.

Joshi wrote Andhon Ka Haathi in 1970’s. But as I watched the debate in Parliament unfold I thought it was being re-enacted again. Only that the shouts and hoots were kept out and one could not throw eggs and tomatoes on the television screens, even if one had supply at hand.

ZAFAR

When times change, how much they change lives...

THE Emperor of India had already slipped out of the Palace two days ago. As the triumphant British broke the siege and marched onto Red Fort on the fateful morning of September 19, 1857, last of the mutinous sepoys deserted their posts melting into the escaping hordes.

Zafar arranged a bullock cart, took his blind mother with him, and set out before dawn in search of a safer hideout. There were not many options. While escaping from destruction all around, the duo had to evade oncoming British, and in the rural surroundings take care not to hit any of the marauding Gujars.The cart took the road to Karnal and was out of Delhi at sunrise.

Having traveled all day Zafar asked the cart-puller to stop and decided to rest on the outskirts of a village for the night. Getting inside the village could have brought some help. But, equally, it might have led to loot and murder. He was not sure whether the village belonged to the Gujars or the more reasonable Jats.

Sleeping without food Zafar got up in the morning to find that the driver had decamped with the bullocks. Doors in the village in vicinity were knocked for help. The Jats obliged with food and shelter.

But not before long the greed for the boxes being carried by the old woman and the young man got the better of the Jat families and they dumped them after robbing them of the heirloom. In the scuffle the blind sister-in-law of the Emperor of India suffered a blow on her head and gave up her life in the jungle.

Zafar looked around, found a dried bamboo pole, and spent whole night digging a grave for his mother. In all likelihood the woman;s remain must have been dug up the same night by wild dogs or jackals and made food of. Zafar again began his furtive journey…this time to south and Mumbai. Of whatever was left with him, he managed to hitchhike on a west bound ship and landed at Mecca in Arabia. For 10 years Zafar lived like a fakir surviving on the alms from pilgrims coming from across the world.

But motherland was India and how could he live in Mecca even if it was the centre of universe? So began his journey via land and Lahore to return to Delhi that was now a British city. No more the capital of India. The proud Timurid would, however, not take an offer of royal pension, working instead as a cart-pusher transporting bricks for railways. Years must have passed before Zafar managed to buy his own cart.

It was a hot summer day in the year that Mahatma Gandhi’s name was rising on the horizon. Delhi was now the capital of India again. A deaf 80-year old Mirza Zafar was pushing his cart on the road between Grand Jama Masjid and the Red Fort. Just a furtive glance to his right to the looming red sandstone structure and Zafar continued his breathless push toward his destination. As he turned toward his left to get into a lane from the Chandni Chowk junction, a Ford convertible swerved past him, its left side grazing the cart and throwing him off the road as he tried to balance the weight of bricks.

Before Zafar could collect himself out rushed a man from the car that came to a screeching halt ahead of the cart. In his late thirties, foppishly dressed, drunk and abusive, businessman Kishan Arora could not countenance any obstruction when in hurry. Not the least when his destination was the terrace garden of lovely Mumtaz.
“You Haramkhor old man, are you supposed to push cart on this big road next to Red Fort? Is this your ancestral property?” Amid the rain of abuses landed a hail of big blows on the face of a still recovering Zafar. The Timurid blood had not faced anything like this since his escape from Delhi in 1857. One big blow in return left Arora with a bleeding nose. .
… … …

The matter went to court. If the judge was amused, he did not show it. The rest of the courtroom laughed. The old man continued unaffected with his harangue. “Only sixty years ago this man would have been my slave and I would have surely banished this man to oblivion for having done anything like this to a poor subject. You all would have been slaves to my orders.”

This story is of Zafar Sultan, a nephew of the last Mughal Emperor of India, Bahadur Shah Zafar. To be more precise, the son of Bahadur Shah’s younger brother Mirza Babur. As narrated in the book “The Last Mughal” by William Dalrymple. Shows how when times change, how much they change lives. Thats why thought of posting this.

Dumped

DUMPED you do get. The g-chat message said DND. I thought the standard do-not-disturb it must be. As it turned out the explanation was did-not-dump. Took it with a pinch of salt though.

Was flipping through the morning papers. Steve Apple Jobs has six more weeks to live. I-Steve has given more to the world than has taken of it. Yet he gets dumped. And brutally so. Am no gadget freak but have followed Jobs’ trajectory rather interestedly. This is unfair.

Morning papers again a few days ago. Page one anchor: K Subramanyam is no more. The grandpa of Indian strategic environment studies gave in after fighting a cancer for ten years at age 82. Had followed him for over 10 years, sometimes seeing him under the flash bulbs carrying a report in hand, or, at other times, trudging a lonely furrow in newspaper columns. Very consistent. Very prolific. His bespectacled face in the mug shot reflecting the crux of all sincerity carried in each word of the article. He would only state the lesson, leaving it to his audience take it or leave it. Without slightest pontification, littler possession.

And even as I was going through the article, sipping hot water from my Al Capone cup, images flitted through the television screen that was on. It was BBC. The quick movement of frames showed US presidents of past 30 years in succession. Only one constant in the pictures – Hosni Mubarak. Now dumped.

If there’s one person over past four decades who played sheet-anchor to United States in the Arab world, it was Mubarak. Yet one accident and he is dumped. No apology for the Egyptian dictator but comeuppance is one thing, getting dumped another.

Ultimately, we all get dumped. It sounds dramatic. But that’s what happens. Life dumps you without exception.

On way to office a copy of Valmiki's Ramayana is in car. Bharat has gone to Chitrakoot to get Ram back from his forced forest exile. Ram’s reply: “My dear Bharat, under the control of eternal Time, everything ultimately meets with defeat. Thus, no wise man should lament for life’s reversals. Union ends in separation, for as pieces of driftwood flat together and then disperse, family and society meet briefly and then depart for their separate destinations. As solid pillars gradually decay, causing a house to collapse, a man totters into old age and finally meets death. As a river cannot return to its source, everyone must follow the path of his father and forefathers. Why should one mourn for others when he himself is dying? A man’s skin becomes wrinkled and his hair turns gray. What can he do? He rejoices when the sun rises and rejoices when it sets, not thinking he has died a little.”

In other times it could have been dismissed as caramelized pontification. Not when such somber headlines hit in the morning.

POLO-I

IF the idea is to escape from civilization, why not do it when its at its raucuous most? So the journey is fixed. As the city busies itself in Modi-fied kite flying we plan to slip out to a forest. The destination takes some working. We want to go to Gir but as it turns out its a no-go area for a few days as our Union Minister for Environment and Forests, Jairam Ramesh, is going there for his first rendezvous with the Asiatic Lion.

So we head for the often talked about Polo forests in north Gujarat

First, how to reach there. Leave the NH-8 at Himmatnagar, skirt Idar town dominated by the Idar rocks (of Lava and Granite), and speed through the lush green fields on “Oh-its-like-butter” road to Polo at the tip of Gujarat’s border with Rajasthan. Its just 3 hours since we left Ahmedabad including two stopovers and we check into the forest guest house on the Varaj dam. The attendant staff is ready with food.

Post dinner, we go out to check the moon-lit jungle. The road leading to the top of the dam is through dense foliage. But it is only in the morning when we repeat the track that the full beauty of the nestled backwaters and bedecked hills is revealed. It is already leave shedding time and the reddening canopy is matched by the browned shrubbery below.

Along the way we spot three Hornbills, few Pittas, a couple of large Kingfishers, a small one in the classic pose sitting on a dead root focused on the waters below for fish, a fox sized Pond Heron, a bunch of noisy parakeets, engrossed-in-themselves pair of Treepies. Sunbirds and swifts we don't even count.

The ancient ruins of Polo belong to the 15th century. The temples are dedicated to Sun (and in a first, to his consort), Shiva and Vishnu from the Hindu pantheon, as well as some Jain deities. The Archaeological department could have done a little better with elaborating the history part.

The scale of settlement suggests of a population that must have been large enough to justify the size of constructions, and not allow this kind of forest to grow at that time. Or, conversely, the population took great care to preserve the vegetation for it to have survived so beautifully.

It was mainly of Jains, and other business communities, which perhaps mass migrated after an unending turf war with the local tribal populace, leaving behind the present day ruins. Testimony, nevertheless, to the once thriving culture that must have been both rich and colorful.

The architecture shows full integration with the rest of contemporary India despite being in the midst of no where. There’s no river justifying the size, and even the present highways miss the Polo region by a good margin through a difficult terrain. Perhaps that explains the short lived nature of the habitation.

To soak in the mood we give up the beaten track and chart our own trail. It takes us through an undulating terrain of dried up waterways that must be cascades during rains, and increasingly dense foliage as we walk toward the next looming hill. Half-a-km into the self made walk we stop and decide to let silence speak. The jungle speaks instead. The air, and the leaves. The water, and the insects. The flora, and the fauna. The elements. All alive and communicating peace.
A monsoon revisit is already being planned.


POLO-II



INCREASINGLY it seems, inflation is only an urban middle class crib. We want to eat desi chicken in the forest which one might think is not too much to ask for in the back of beyond rural hinterland. Wrong.

Ramesh, the attendant in the guest house says he would try if he can get one from the surrounding tribal hutments for dinner but it might cost as much as Rs 400!!! Our nod and two hours later he returns empty handed. Not convinced we set out in search of a home grown chicken on our own.

The result of our search leads to the conclusion that this article begins with. Of the five odd villages we visited on our hunt, one has turned Vegetarian under the influence of some Sanskritising sect. In the rest no one wanted to part with its roosters for no reason. Not needing the money?


At Antarsumba – the place of a tribal rebellion some three years ago – I try some pop-Economics. The man selling eggs says all eggs here come from the Anand hatcheries. Transportation means the cost price is more than Ahmedabad. Same goes for the vegetables.

As the vegetable vendor explains – with mobile phones in every hand, no local farmer sells directly in the village. The produce first goes to the town trader and comes back after three-tiered commissions and transportation costs priced in. The result is veggies cost as much or even more than the neighborhood super store in Judges Bungalow Road.

Yet, and this is the crucial part, the villagers are generally happy. Even confident. Women do not show any burden of the burdensome chores mending fields, farm animals, and humdrum life. A shopkeeper speaks Hindi. Asked why he is not limiting himself to the local dialect, he almost boasts – Aapke jaise bahut aate hain yahan!


The level of confidence and knowledge of English increase in direct proportion to the amount of local brew that has gone inside the system. The drive has to be careful lest a twisty walk of a happy tribal brings him under your wheels.

Back on the Expressway to Baroda, just before the Anand exit, is an Emu farm selling Emu eggs for Rs 500 a-piece and Emu meat for Rs 2,000 a kilo. And yes desi chicken. Want to know for how much? Rs 300! In some ways civilization is better it seems


POLO-III



The road to Polo...

Sun Temple...West facing

Backwaters...Varaj dam

Dense bamboo forest...

Spot the hornbills here...

Toran of the Sun Temple

Antarala of Lakhera Jain temples...

The large Jain temple behind Polo retreat...

Same...

Fort Idar...