Crowing about an uncommon bird

A file grab from wikipedia

Raju Korti
When you have precious little to do with a mind desperately seeking to go into an overdrive, your eyes look for something that you have been seeing ever since you can remember but never actually registered. It is better to have a fair intellect that is well used than a powerful one that is idle.
So in tune with my latest talent for discovering engaging pastimes that don't cost a dime, I have found one that consumes most part of my day wherever I may be. The object of my riveting attention these days are the much reviled, despised crows, especially the ones that flit around and perch themselves on the huge tree that faces my bedroom. It is extremely rare that you get to look at a crow straight in the face, eye-to-eye. But having encountered its X-ray gaze on a numerous occasions, I have come to the unassailable conclusion that much of the revulsion people have for this condemned species of birds is misplaced and unfair. It is actually a sharp, intelligent and quick-on-the-uptake bird that has a canny knack for survival compared to the songbird variety that corners all the admiration.
I am pretty sure that those who look down on crows as intellectually-challenged birds have had a lost childhood and since my adulthood makes for no concession of my kid years, I will recommend crows like I am their hired attorney.
My respect for crows grew when as a growing kid I first read the meandering stories of Pandit Vishnu Sharma's celebrated work Panchatantra where he dedicates one full technique of existentialism and life to the philosophy and intelligence of the crows. In my prime stage of youth, I read writers who often compared the hair colour of beautiful women with that of a Raven.
Wittingly, I became more conscious of the ubiquitous presence of this bird with a petite 7-inch frame and it became a hobby of sorts to try and look at it straight in the eye. It was both knowledge and revelation that it had many feathers in its smooth pate visible only to the discerning like me.
Mark Twain took my esteem for crows to the next higher level although his famed eulogy has frills of derision to it. I will reproduce his words to allow you to draw your own conclusions:

"In the course of his evolutionary promotions, his sublime march toward ultimate perfection, he has been a gambler, a low comedian, a dissolute priest, a fussy woman, a blackguard, a scoffer, a liar, a thief, a spy, an informer, a trading politician, a swindler, a professional hypocrite, a patriot for cash, a reformer, a lecturer, a lawyer, a conspirator, a rebel, a loyalist, a democrat,, a practitioner and propagator of irreverence, a meddler, an intruder, a busybody, an infidel, and a wallower in sin for the mere love of it. He does not know what care is, he does not know what sorrow is, he does not know what remorse is, his life is one long thundering ecstasy of happiness, and will go to his death untroubled, knowing that he will soon turn up again as an author or something, and be even more intolerable capable and comfortable than he was ever before."

Quite a hefty package that! Twain has actually used "he" in place of "it", which to my understanding is an indirect admission of the crow's ability to stand heads and shoulders above the man with the love-hate traits that he so profoundly describes. And mind you, the icing on the cake comes when you realize that it is the Indian crow, not the American crow that Twain is at pains to labour over. You can decide finally which is the variety that eats the crow. In my kindergarten days I learnt it through a simple but lasting legend of a thirsty crow who stumbles upon a pot of water at its bottom. Unable to draw water, "he" puts pebbles to make the water level rise and then quench his thirst. There cannot be a better example of wit and brevity than this justified fable:

Ek kawwa pyaasa tha, ghade mein thoda paani tha
Kawwa laaya kankar, paani aaya oopar
Kawwe ne piya paani, khatam ho gayi kahaani.

For those who are vocal in their discrimination of the two poor cousins koyal and the crow -- there is little to discriminate on the colour of their skin -- the latter has a range of cawing vocalization. After hours of careful observation I have found out that "he" flies with a minimal movement of the wings and caws hoarsely with the throat puffed, head bowed and tail dipping. Ornithologists may not have been able to decipher "his"calls and postures, but I am sure "he" has an equally derisive thing to say to the man: Kawwa ban ne ki koshish mat karo (Don't try to be smart like me).
Just one word. If your head is reeling after reading this great piece of literature, please pop a Crowcin. 

From Cricket to Ashes: Richie Benaud, OBE

Small screen, large persona: Richie Benaud

Raju Korti
If there is one regret that I will consciously carry to my grave it is of not being able to meet the legendary Richie Benaud. My heart-burn gets only accentuated when I realize that I had the privilege to meet and hold a cart-wheeling conversation with the most articulate of commentators from the BBC Test Match Special and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). John Arlott, Brian Johnston, Christopher Martin Jenkins, Don Mosley, Henry Blofeld, Alan Mcgilvray, Freddie Truman, Trevor Bailey and Richie Benaud were the kind broadcasters who could keep listeners spellbound on the radio with a free-flowing narrative that would conjure up vivid pictures of the actual Test match in progress. That kind of thrall and photographic description doesn't obtain today even with a large screen and given the garrulous breed of commentators today who spout a lot without conveying much.
Now that Richie has died at 84 peacefully in sleep, the world of cricket commentary has lost its sardonic wit and eloquence. I have only faint memories of the man since he hung up boots in 1964 when I was barely eight years old with an elementary understanding that there was a ball that meant to be hit with a willow. That was a different era with players of a different caliber and mindset. It was cricket in those days!
Truman, Bailey and Benaud were experts who could analyze the game with a clinical precision a seasoned physician would have envied. Truman was blunt and brutal who often sautéed his comments with a giggle to match. Bailey was so crisp, it would be a lesson in editing. With him, all words were carefully measured and weighed before they got the Bailey Status. Richie's words carried the seasoning of a dry, laconic humor without being prosaic. But of course, his legacy extends far beyond the microphone. He was also an exceptional all-round cricketer and one of Australia's finest captains. Splitting his time between Australia and England, he became the face of cricket in both countries for more than four decades, his trademark cream jacket becoming as synonymous with the sport as leather and willow. When asked to sum up his commentary style, he said his mantra was: "If you can add to what's on the screen then do it, otherwise shut up." There is a lesson for all those commentators, especially in India for whom commentating is mostly describing the field position and reading out the score-card.
Arlott, Johnston and Jenkins who were in a class of their own, often said they always looked up to Richie because he was peerless with the mike. In that sense, Richie had the satire of Arlott, the wit of Johnston and the free-flowing recountal of a Mcgilvray and yet, he was a class apart. He had this unique ability to introduce a high emotion quotient without being too temperamental about it. It was only a Richie who could comment with a non-chalant, blank face, "So Glenn Mcgrath is out on two, 98 short of his hundred when a Truman would have said the same thing with a worst giggle.
Quiet and authoritative, Richie's pun with words and knack of coining a memorable phrase made him a popular subject for affectionate mimicry among cricket fans in England and Down Under. His signature greeting of "Morning Everyone" became a household refrain, while his delicious delivery of the word "marvelous" seemed to make everything seem well with the world. Only he could pronounce "s" like "sh" and sound it so stylish. Talk of gift of the gab! He had patented the art of turning one-liners into cricketing folklores. It came through so breviloquently when after dashing his car into a brick wall in 2013 he said with his trademark wit, "I am more worried about the car than my own health."
I do not believe that Richie had anything left to prove, but it rankles to know that a man who left an indelible impression on the game should have departed in such an unsung manner. Tributes and accolades will keep pouring over the next few days, though for the man who was perhaps the most influential cricketer and cricket personality since the Second World War.
I will say this for him: His was the voice of conscience in a sport tainted by politics and driven by self-interest. Richie Benaud was so Australian and yet, arguably the most justifiable mascot of Cricket. There will never be another Benaud.
 

An extravagance called mobile phone

Raju Korti

As someone who is always high on grandiose ideas but always cash-strapped to execute them, let me assure you in my limited wisdom that there cannot be a cheaper indulgence than to observe people. It is the most under-rated pleasures of life muzzled and overtaken by worldly pleasures that money buys you.
Observing people, their demeanor, disposition, body language, mannerisms and speech can be as exciting and entertaining as it can get. It is not as if you eavesdrop on them or enjoy being privy to something that should actually remain in the domain of their personal privacy but when pastime comes to you merely on your natural instincts to keep your eyes and ears open, why shoo it away?
One such frolic comes from a breed that cannot live without its cell phones. In a country where cell phones have become a sort of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), you will find people engaged with their contraptions in trains, buses, assorted public places, offices, homes and even toilets. Over the years, this breed has given me some of my finest moments of fun and pain. It is as if cell phones are their life line. I have detected a sense a deprivation in people whenever they misplace, lose or leave their cell phone behind (at home). This feeling of being dispossessed stands out particularly  when you realize that some 15 years ago the cell phone was more of a status symbol with only the well-heeled being able to shell out Rs 20 per minute per call. I come from a generation when even a landline was a luxury. It was with a sense of trepidation and awkwardness that we had to knock at the doors of someone who had a phone and allow us to make a call. Some were gracious enough and some acceded, reminding us with a stern face that we must leave Re 1 for the call made. Those were the days when communication was better despite less interaction. Today, it is no big deal to see two persons talking to each other in a local train in the same compartment, jostling against a milling crowd.
I once saw a man in a Gents First Class compartment of a local train speaking fast and furious to someone for more than an hour -- from Borivali to Churchgate -- reeling out a complex maze of calculations. Each time he spoke, he would hold his mobile phone close to his mouth and the minute he was done with, he would put it to his ears. He was an atrocity even by Mumbai's standards. When he finally got down at the last station, a visibly enraged co-passenger said to me: "Some people turn the compartment into an office. No discipline at all." I just nodded dumbly, having withstood the ordeal of that utterly uninspiring conversation of which I couldn't make head or tail. But not all such conversations can be dim-witted.
On one occasion I saw a man in his mid-thirties who just giggled and guffawed on his cell all the way for the same length between Borivali and Churchgate. Obviously the man at the other end must have been blessed with a terrific sense of humor. He was still giggling when he disappeared from my sight after getting down the train. As a journalist, I realized one could communicate without a single word.
Apparently I have the natural skills to court such people. One late night while travelling between Colaba and Dadar in a bus, I had a 50+ man sitting next to me and explaining -- of all the people -- his sister-in-law how he had downed five pegs and was still in his senses. I could make out that because he kept addressing the person at the other end as "Bhabhi". From the way the conversation went I could realize his sister-in-law was both outraged and worried with his drinking adventure. But the man airily allayed her fears saying that he was a gentleman in comparison at a time when people drank through the whole night and finally passed out on some footpath or a gutter. As I glanced around, I could see everyone in the bus was partaking the vicarious pleasure of that fabulous piece of conversation.
Most people are oblivious two persons can't see each other while conversing but they are all a flurry of gesticulations and show of temper. In one case, a man seemed to be having a normal  conversation on his phone when he suddenly blew his top. The person at the end had probably blown his fuse. Getting up from his seat violently, he burst into a series of  obscenities, raising his fist. For a minute he looked he was going to beat the living daylights out of someone. His rage was punctured by an elderly man who just patted him gently and asked him to calm down.
By far the best sight I was treated to was in a public loo. The man spoke animatedly, balancing his cell phone in his left hand and you-know-what in the other. After he had relieved himself, he walked out -- still talking -- zipping up his pants in full public glare. And then the number of times you see jaywalkers crossing busy through fares, talking with phone in one hand and warding off honking vehicles with the wave of the other. The streets belong to them, so run over them at your own risk! 
The first thing many people do when they settle down -- wherever they are -- is to whip out their cell phone and start fiddling with it, sometimes as early as five in the morning. While it could be a fair allowance for someone to check out for messages, quite a few get hooked on to games with weird sounds. These are the ones who are in a state of nirvana, for, they are blissfully unaware of what's going on around them engrossed as they are in playing games. You keep looking askance at them only to realize they are not even aware of your presence. There are only a very few who talk in voice not to disturb others and keep their conversation to the necessary minimum while there are also exhibitionists who will talk loudly enough to bare their entire horoscope. It is actually more by design than default.
I have two cell phones, the combined bill for whom works out less than Rs 500 a month. My friends can't figure out in the world how I manage to keep myself in check when they work up a bill upwards of Rs 2000 with just one instrument.
India is the second-largest mobile phone user with over 900 million users in the world. It accounted for over 10% of the world’s online population, according to a statistics issued by the Ministry of Telecommunications. No surprise that where people cannot have a proper bowel movement unless they carry their cell phones to the toilet.
I remember what Ghulam Nabi Azad, then a Congress minister, had said in a speech: "Our major policy objective is to reposition the mobile phone from a mere communication device to an instrument of empowerment." That objective has certainly been achieved.

Putin's machismo and the spectre of a war

Sabre rattling or more?

Raju Korti
For a self-proclaimed "trouble-maker", Russian President Vladimir Putin has flirted with trouble long enough to have actually fallen in love with it. His remarkable stint with the KGB and subsequent years in Politics have honed his talent in the craft with a carefully cultivated image of masculinity that Putin revels in underplaying.
In tune with that machismo image, the Russian President -- as is his won't -- has now issued a threat to the Americans without mincing words. "Try taking away Crimea away from us and we shall treat you to a nuclear war," Putin said with a nonchalance which to me, sits pretty compatibly on his deadpan face.
The Crimean Peninsula is a chunk of land mass to the south of Ukraine, now in the eye of an international political storm that involves two key players Russia and the United States. It became an autonomous Republic of Crimea within an independent Ukraine early 1991. Sovereignty and control of the peninsula got mired in a territorial dispute between Russia and Ukraine with Russia signing a treaty of accession last year and absorbing it into the Russian Federation. That accession fell foul of Ukraine and most of the international community. In some ways, this development to many was reminiscent of Kashmir's accession with India.
Putin's "meddling" in the affairs of the neighboring countries hasn't gone down well with the NATO countries led by the Commissioner of World Police, the United States. His role in Cold War, oil deadlock and Syrian crisis, to name a few, certainly shook the American self-arrogated right to dabble in world affairs. That doesn't come as a surprise at all.
From tagging dangerous animals to stopping wildfires, to playing half-naked with guns on vacation, Putin may not be among the most popular guys in the world, but he sure makes the world sit up and take notice. Even the ultimate pennant of masculinity Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't draw the kind of interest he does. Little wonder then the Americans try to demonize him and blink each time Putin rides rough shod and cocks a snook at their perceived superiority. The Americans are watching with gaping eyes as Mr Intrigue has now directly threatened to nuke them in case they harbored any ideas of meddling in Ukraine.
The Americans have by now very well realized that the authoritarian leader who didn't stop at "eliminating" his adversaries back home and who brazenly withstood allegations of a rigged election, couldn't care less if his country was eventually suspended from G8 for annexing Crimea.
The Ukrainian crisis was, of course, compounded by a trigger from within. Putin just took a cue from the exiled Ukrainian President who sought Russian military intervention to quell the revolution that threatened to rip it apart. The Americans watched helplessly as Putin managed to get an authorization from the Parliament to deploy troops in the region and gain a complete toehold in the Crimean Peninsula. In a referendum, considered bogus by the West, an overwhelming 90% plus voters demanded that they secede from Ukraine. If the Russians were hurt by the economic sanctions imposed upon them, they didn't show it. The Russian move to grant political asylum to Edward Snowden (who leaked classified information from the NSA) rubbed more salt on the wounds.
Under Putin, Russia's ties with NATO and the US were even more tumultuous. From a cautious beginning, Putin first supported the US war on terror where many saw a new strategic partnership building. All such hopes were quickly razed to dust when the US extended NATO's presence to Russian borders and the two nations relapsed into their old ways of scratching each other's backs.
Putin has made it clear that the NATO encroachment in the region by supplying weapons against pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine will invite a nuclear backlash. A potentially dangerous situation.
I would like to make parallel case studies here. Former US ambassador to India Daniel Patrick Moynihan had once described Kashmir as the world's most dangerous place on the premise of not entirely unfounded fears that it could trigger of nuclear conflict any time. Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has worded it differently by saying that "For the West, the demonization of Putin is not a policy; it is an alibi for the absence of one." Kashmir and Ukraine are evenly poised in terms of world peace or the absence of it. In Kashmir there are players with unsound mind while in Ukraine there are players who know what entails. As insanity keeps unfolding, both sit on a bomb and pretend it will only keep ticking.

Lengthening shadows of AAP

Arvind Kejriwal. Freedom from opposition!

Raju Korti
When charity becomes the opium of the privileged, you get a breed of leaders like Arvind Kejriwal. The Convener of the Aam Aadmi Party is presently presiding over one of the most disastrously conducted political experiments that has reduced the party to a theatre of the absurd, and an outfit with fulminations and machinations much in the mould of the Janata Party in 1977.
Although it was seen coming, the swiftness with which the party's National Executive has chosen to kick out and turn Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, two founding members into persona non grata, shows that Kejriwal and a bunch his incongruous party men have learnt little or nothing after they frittered away their first chance at power with a minority government that lasted barely 49 days. Yet, their ill-fated electoral debut bolstered by the presence of activists like Anna Hazare and Kiran Bedi, came in for as much public sympathy as criticism. The impression then was it was a nascent party with lots of promise and trying to come to grips with itself. As it turned out, the party and its leaders did not and could not develop the temperament of a ruling dispensation. You couldn't fault the baffled electorate of Delhi if they were unable to decide whether they had chosen a ruling party or an opposition party.
The whiff of change that came from the party that promised corruption-free and open governance finally succumbed to the hokey pokey seen across all the parties. It was an irony of sorts that while stridently espousing the cause of Lokpal Bill, the Kejriwal lobby had the audacity to ask its own internal Lokpal to skip the National Executive on the specious but untenable excuse of "avoiding confrontation". So the party that held out great expectancy and transparency witnessed a series of unsavory developments with allegations flying thick and fast. And all this when Yadav and Bhushan were at pains all along to explain the people that dissensions were a given in any democratic set up. The ferment in the party spilled over to even the ruling BJP at the Centre with Kiran Bedi -- among the most prominent face -- switching loyalties with the BJP. As was only expected, Bedi sank with BJP in Delhi. Surprising for a party that boasts of an array of "intellectuals" in its fold! Shazia Ilmi, another known face kept grudging that she never got her due despite her credentials as founder member, a woman and Muslim. She quit because she was denied a contest from Delhi and packed off to Rae Bareilly to fight a lost battle against Sonia. Her walk-out was followed by Captain C D Gopinath and Medha Patkar embarrassed to see the party crumbling even before its construct. The AAP was besieged by the coterie culture rife in other parties. I am reproducing these vignettes only to show that this couldn't have been a party that swore by the common man.
For reasons of expediency Yadav and Bhushan stuck around. To Yadav's credit, he was perceived as a think tank with the kind of socialist leanings the party should have desperately leant on. But good people rarely take off in politics and Yadav's humiliating defeat in Haryana only made matters worse for a party that never seemed capable of extricating itself from endless bickering.
Come to think of it, the AAP concept wasn't bad at all as initially it touched a chord with the masses in a very short span. Its leaders, however, had no clue how to handle success. The grassroots were weak and organizational management was next to nil. The volunteers on whom the leaders piggy rode were never consulted and transparency became a casualty as Kejriwal started emerging as a superego. The subtle move to wrest all powers from the Parliamentary Affairs Committee and vest it in National Executive was an obvious maneuver to insulate Kejriwal from any opposition in the party. The expulsions and the sordid drama in the Executive proved that beyond any shadow of doubt. The AAP's world -- justifiably or unjustifiably -- didn't have any plans for other states. It came across as a national party with regional outlook that derived its moments of glory in believing that Delhi conquered was India conquered. Kejriwal's so called attempts to arrest the party's slide were pathetic to say the least. Worst, they were construed as events that suited him and meant to eliminate dissidence.
Taking a very conciliatory view of Kejriwal and his party, I had written in September 2014:
It is tough to be Arvind Kejriwal these days. The man who stirred the conscience of the nation not long ago is now witnessing to his chagrin that the ground from under his feet has slipped so quickly and how. Looking at the shambles in which the Aam Aadmi Party finds itself in -- a situation of its own making --  it appears that the outfit needs to pull out a rabbit from its hat to undo the damage done in the wake of a series of rapidly unfolding events after AK quit as the chief minister of Delhi in a huff.
For major part, AK cannot shirk his responsibility as a leader. It is now obvious that he presided over a team of self-serving people who had no clue in hell what the party actually wanted to do or where it was headed. In the process, he frittered away the advantage with a chain of self-goals. In the kind of politics practiced in this country, a cavalier approach to leadership and governance is not particularly advisable. In the run up to the phenomenon he so painstakingly tried to create, it didn't occur to AK's wisdom that being a good bureaucrat is one thing and being a political leader is quite another. A good politician knows when to beat a tactical retreat, but AK kept compounding his errors with more errors. Take for instance his obdurate stand in seeking bail in the defamation case against Nitin Gadkari and then doing a somersault to bow to the dictates of the circumstances. A cursory look at the way AAP and its exuberant leadership has meandered in the recent months, is an eloquent commentary on the political inexperience which was sought to be made up with a peremptory outlook in dealing with party matters.
Internal bickering is a malady with all parties without exception. Like the proverbial goldfish, AK had no place to hide given that his every move was scanned and scrutinized. Although this may sound like a hindsight, AK messed up his chance with power. Thereafter, the party slid into a downhill so much so that it has a huge job on its hands to extricate itself from the morass. The sordid story was complete when rats started deserting the sinking ship, Shazia Ilmi and other disgruntled souls showing amply that they had stuck around only to extract their pound of flesh. AK himself seemed ill-equipped to stem the rot. The fall was as swift as the rise was meteoric.
To begin with, AK must learn to handle people and situations with restraint. Dharnas and campaigns cannot be the resorts of those in the saddle. You cannot fault people if their perception of AAP is that of a party that doesn't know whether it is in power or out of it. The electoral result is not just about one man capturing the imagination of the nation. If success is the Heads, failure is the Tails of the same coin. The AAP story begs the question: What went so terribly wrong for a party that seemed to be riding a crest a few months ago and is now threatened with the prospect of sinking without a trace? Lack of political acumen, inadequate man-management skills, one flip flop after another or sheer over-enthusiasm and over-confidence?
I am afraid, I read it correctly and to be honest, I am not too enthused about it.


  

Absolute freedom without absolute responsibility?

Raju Korti
Before this blog suggests anything to the contrary, let me attest that I am as vociferous a protagonist of freedom of speech and expression as anyone else who masquerades as a "liberal" on the social networking sites. But unlike the euphoria generated by the Supreme Court verdict on scrapping Section 66A of the IT Act, I am taking it with cautious optimism.
The apex court yesterday held that Section 66A of the Information Technology Act is unconstitutional in its entirety, striking down a “draconian” provision that had led to the arrests of many people for posting content deemed to be “allegedly objectionable” on the Internet.
“It is clear that Section 66A arbitrarily, excessively and disproportionately invades the right of free speech and upsets the balance between such right and the reasonable restrictions that may be imposed on such right,” said the SC Bench. The definition of offences under the provision was “open-ended and undefined”, it said. I need not cite the examples that have hit headlines in the recent past where the section was invoked, leading to a furore which to me is superficial.
As arbitrary as the provision sounded, Section 66A also provided a remedy against several cyber crimes like stalking, bullying, threatening through SMS and email, phishing and spamming, among others. You do not have to visit the cyber crime cell of the police to know that these crimes are on the rise in a technology-dominated age. The solution is not to scrap the provision but to amend it suitably without taking away the fundamental right of Freedom of Speech. The apex court ruling has not dwelt on this aspect at all. The present IT Act, I believe, does not have enough teeth for many cyber crimes that have been left out.
For the champions of freedom of speech and expression, the apex court ruling is an absolute victory but I am afraid that the very fundamental ethos of any freedom is not getting the same mention in the same breath. With unbridled freedom comes unbridled responsibility. My personal take is Freedom is an anti-thesis of itself. To think of Freedom in isolation is tantamount to chaos if you understand the word "chaos" not quite in the same manner as political scientists do.
Quite simply, the word Freedom has been followed more in breach than practice primarily for the reason that one's concept of freedom more often than not is in complete contradiction to someone else's Freedom. Is Freedom what it is when you uphold someone else's Freedom or trample it? Whose Freedom is it then?
The issue according to me is not Freedom itself per se but the maturity and responsibility with which it needs to be handled. The way political, social and cultural winds have blown -- and continue to do so -- across the world shows that mankind does not have the post-pubescence to deal with what is pompously referred to as Freedom. All that it has served to do is to show that it is a cracker with a dangerously short wick whose burst only leaves some excitement and casualties behind.
Quite expectedly, the focus now has shifted to the "reasonable restrictions" the Indian Constitution places on Article 19 (1) which lists Fundamental Rights among which Defamation is one. It is apparent to me that there are any number of people on social networking sites harbouring the misconception that you can write no holds barred with a unilateral right to castigate. These also include so called liberals who cannot take one word of criticism -- let alone criminal defamation -- in their liberal stride.
I remember my journalist friend Mayank Chhaya making a very pertinent point on Facebook when some of the Censor Board members expressed their displeasure about not being able to exercise the kind of autonomy they expected. Wrote Mayank: Censoring others is what you do for a living. What about their autonomy?" People demand Freedom of Speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought that they seldom use. Abuse simply cannot become a euphemism in the guise of Freedom of Speech. It then becomes freedom of extortion and blackmail.
Nothing is absolute. Not even time. Semantics are at best, a waste of time or an idle pastime. For everything else, there is a raging debate. Freedom of Speech is a double-edged weapon. So if it is taken away and the dumb and silent are led, like sheep to the slaughter, its grant also leads to a situation no less. It is a great concept if you revel in utopia. So here in my limited judgment I will compress the concept: I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an ass of yourself. 

A salutation to my Tai

A heroine if there ever was!

Raju Korti
It is easy to run the temptation of using a series of cosmetic platitudes when you describe someone who you look up to and idolize. And when that someone happens to be your near and dear, the exercise is peppered by a high emotional quotient.
Take a look at the angelic, infectious smile on that face in the picture. The owner of that beaming serenity was my  sister fourteen years older than me -- old enough to cuddle me in her lap and sing lullabies to me when I was a toddler. It was well before she bore three children -- now past their thirties -- that I had seen in her a gifted mother who managed her family in a society that is often reprehended for its patriarchal leanings. Personally, it was a two-fold loss to me. When she passed away a day before, I felt orphaned because she was a mother, father and sister all rolled into one -- each office handled like she was born for it.
I have been in the business of writing long enough to realize that great biographies and tributes are not necessarily of the great people. Often, they are about unsung people whose proficiencies are taken for granted. It is as if their craft is a disqualification. But all through her epic saga of struggle and pain I could still see what potential she packed in her fragile 5 feet two frame. She was probably ordained among the few that the Gods -- if they exist -- would fight shy of replicating.
Gentle to a fault, she was an astonishing package of every virtue you could think of. A living example of human existence in its pristine form, she came across as too surreal but that's how she spent all her life. Exceptional woman with exceptional qualities, she was kicked up about life. There was no corruption in her world. Braving all odds with a genuine smile, she inspired everyone around her. All through her 73 years, no one ever saw her complain, crib, grumble and gossip. It was probably an in-built mechanism she had developed to insulate herself from the pain that first destiny -- and then a plethora of ailments -- inflicted upon her all through. Not even death could rob her of that serenity she had patented as her own. In the large circles she was known, stories about her dignity, grace and benevolence had already become part of folklore.
Even in the evening of her life, she wasn't the one to recline and watch TV soaps. Despite an affected vision, she would rather spend her time solving crossword puzzles with books and newspapers held almost close to her retina. Her cooking was as flawless as it could get with minimal ingredients, never even once faltering in her proportions. She rarely needed any resources when she was resourcefulness personified. In her simplified comprehension about life, the biggest bonding came from mere talking to people.
I remember how charged up she was to come on Facebook and Whatsapp. True to her nature, she only wrote good thoughts. "There is enough cynicism and negativity as it is. The world isn't so crooked," she said to me once, knowing very well that it wasn't true. But she was too good-humored to look at the darker side of life. Excited that she had been gifted with a smartphone barely a few months back, she was keen to be on Whatsapp and it was perfectly in sync with her complaisant nature when the first message she dashed me off was not about herself but her concern for me. "Kasa aahes tu? Jevlas ka? Tabyetichi kaalji ghe" (How is you? Had food? Take care of your health). The word "self" didn't exist in her lexicon. Till her last breath, she remained a giving person always concerned about others. Having always taken her seemliness for granted, we siblings learnt she was a much more nobler soul from friends, relatives, neighbours and even rank outsiders. She had this unique quality that endeared her to all and we ordinary souls in the family were often awe-struck when people lavished praise upon her each time her name came up. Apparently there was nothing in her that merited any attention but anyone who came in contact with her was just smitten by her persona and dignified, smiling visage.
The last four years were hell for her with almost every second day spent on this medical test and that or being admitted in one hospital or the other, but there was not a murmur of grievance. She would go to the doctors all alone, dissuading others and asking them to carry on with their work. Bombarded by steroids and potent medicines her body was wrecked beyond repairs but the smile on her face never revealed the pain she harboured. To us unsuspecting siblings, reality sunk only when we saw her battered and bruised body on the ICU bed in grip of saline drips, oxygen masks and a maze of tubes. Even in her bouts of unconsciousness, she would mumble and tell us all to stick together and live like good human beings. Souls as noble as her descend on Earth by a freak of nature. And consciously, although unsuccessfully, as I try to ward off my gushing tears, I sense her oozing affection telling me "Why do you weep? I am very close to you here." That makes the pain of losing her excruciatingly unbearable. How does one live when the meaning goes out of life? If you have a sister and she dies, do you stop saying you have one? Or are you always a sister when the other half of the equation is gone?
As journalist my writing has usually courted the morbidity that obtains in the society today. So it took some effort to write about someone who probably deserved all this eulogy although it would appear to some as a brother's tribute to his sister.
Here is an ode to her resilience and nobility though I have never ever dabbled in poetry.

Helpless as I was, what could I have done
To help you through your darkest hours?
I wish I could take away all your troubles
And gotten rid of your demons.
But I was blind, I could not see,
And now you are gone forever.
A crippling wave of grief,
Relentless, merciless and endless has hit us hard,
And in its might, I am hurt, devastated and shattered.
We shared so much, but I misjudged,
And did not see your struggle and sufferings.
If I could change, what fate held out,
I would do it in a heartbeat.
You will have my throbbing heart as your permanent abode
No matter where I go or where I will be
Till death unites us again.
Constantly thinking, never to be the same,
Tears gush forth, just hearing your name.
Silence is not golden anymore,
But an unending spool of memory.
The nights are sleepless, dreams out of bounds,
Crying in my pillow inconsolably, to you I beseech.
Surrounded by kith and kin, I feel forlorn and desolate,
My heart is so empty, this pain I must own.
I wish I could fall back in your lap, hug you,
And just see your face,
But now I have memories to stand in your place.
Gone but not forgotten, that's what they say,
If only you could have stayed.