Unbreakable India!

Raju Korti
Before I unleash my two cents on a conundrum called statehood, let me concede honestly that I have no claims to any authority on the issue. Any deviation therefore from substantivity begs to be excused on the premise that this is at best a fragile attempt at untangling the Gordian knot. But let me bring to you a small piece of history now that Telengana has been granted separate statehood after decades of heart-burn and struggle.
As a school-going boy in the mid-sixties, who couldn't understand head or tail of the issues of the day, I often heard my cousins in Hyderabad mimicking the votaries of Telengana -- their protests against the establishment. For that matter, they were as enlightened on the issue and its political ramifications.
Decades later, with more grey hair on my head, when I took a closer look at the issue, I learnt that the States Reorganisation Committee had recommended that the states be formed on the basis of the language spoken in the region. But devarifications lay beneath this simple exterior. Thanks to former union minister for food and civil supplies C Subramaniam who in the early eighties, explained the nitty gritty of the subject to me like a patient teacher would explain an addlebrain.  The nickel began to drop during my brush with political leaders from Vidarbha -- the eastern fringe of Maharashtra and geographically closer to Madhya Pradesh . They would often unmask their disciplined party face and submit me to their angst on how the region was grossly discriminated and given step-motherly treatment by their influential counterparts from western Maharashtra. It didn't occur to their directionless and spineless minds that mere jingoism and public display of emotion was going to get them nowhere. The leadership in Delhi, pussyfooting but deceptively sympathetic, played ball by setting up a committee to assess imbalances (economic backlogs) in Vidarbha, Marathwada and Konkan. The entire exercise achieved little except consume time and witness some rhetorical grandstanding between the protagonists and adversaries. What began with a bang ended up with a whimper and there were hardly any disgruntled noises thrown in when Chhattisgarh was carved out of Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand was sliced out of Bihar and Uttaranchal delivered from Uttar Pradesh's labour pains; right under their nose.
Those championing Vidarbha's cause on the determinant that the resource-rich region was viable; could never muster up cohesive political will. The Bhartiya Janata Party did espouse the cause but it was vociferously shot down by its own ally, the Shiv Sena. The Congress played its habitual dithering game although the region always threw its weight behind it when it came to elections. In contrast, the public posturing in Andhra Pradesh for a Telengana state was palpably stronger and that showed remarkably in the season of juke ballot box. When it came to translating its vote power, the politically intestate Vidarbha leadership cut a sorry picture, often falling in line with their party whips.
The reason behind choosing the linguistic state as the defining principle of the Indian Republic’s political architecture was not because any other type of political reorganisation would have threatened the country’s unity. That was not part of the discourse when the States’ Reorganization Commission went into the issue.
It was chosen primarily because it was the strong aspiration of people speaking the same language to stay together in the same administrative unit. These aspirations found expression even during British rule and are not merely a post-independence phenomena.
Opposition to the division of Bengal, and the creation of Orissa (Odisha) during British rule are enough to see the raison d’être of a linguistic state. From Bengal in the east along the coast of the Bay of Bengal, up along the coast of the Arabian Sea, up to Gujarat and then up till Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, India is politically organised broadly on linguistic basis.
However,  there is a running battle between smaller-is-beautiful or bigger-is better. Advocates of small States may have their bones to pick but where they fall short is in bringing any rigour to their criteria. Anything smaller than the existing State is small in their book. Is it small in area? Or in size? Or in resources? And how small is small?
Take for example the newly announced Telengana state. The BJP which has always batted for smaller States wanted Andhra Pradesh to be divided because of administrative convenience. But if the Telengana Regional Samiti is to be believed, a separate Telangana will be 12th largest State in the country.

Small states for administrative convenience and economic development’ argument will not run its full course and stop with making States small. Inevitably one day, sooner than later, we will have to face the question, ‘why not smaller countries for administrative convenience and economic prosperity’?
The debate over Smaller States Vs Bigger States, to me, is irrelevant. Both will be continued to be poorly governed until there is just devolution of funds and functions to percolate to panchayats or local bodies. If you looked at the issue from the point of view of providing quality living, education,  health and other basic amenities, it becomes less complex than it is made out to be.
We must also bear out that creation of separate states on developmental issues became a paradigm after the language model started falling apart. Europe is a striking example of division of states on linguistic basis and its vivisecting aftermath.
But never mind. We live in "Akhand Bharat".
   

 

 

Uncivic, to say the least!

Raju Korti
Each time I enter the hallowed (!) portals of the Grade II heritage building of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation in Fort, I cannot but help getting the feeling of being in a Princely State.
Everything about the set up -- its magnitude, its infrastructure and its people -- is expansive. It has an overwhelming and intimidating effect on those who cannot believe or imagine that a local self government institution can wear such a royal look.
At the cost of repetition, let me tell you that the BMC is the richest civic body in the country whose budget is even bigger than some of the state governments. And the sea of people who run the Corporation never let you lose sight of that for whatever amount of time you have brush with them. Having seen the place from much closer quarters than would be necessary for my comfort, I can tell you it is a place where even Mr 10% Asif Ali Zardari would contract inferiority complex. Some of the top officers make no bones telling you that the sleek mobiles in their hands are given to them by the Corporation. But they also temper it by saying "Kay aahe, ha Paalike cha paisa aahe." (Its the Corporation's money), just to keep your thinking straight so you don't end up saying "So what? That's our tax-payers' money."
However, if you thought that the civic body was all about itself, perish the thought. It swears by the concept of a true Welfare State. That is, in the considered belief that it is no less than a State itself. Much like the cash-rich Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the BMC is also all jumbled up about how it must spend the riches in its swelling coffers. So it keeps doling out largesse in the true patronizing style of a Welfare State.
Take for instance its latest Quixotic decision. It has decided to increase the compensation amount to the families of the people, who die during the Dahi Handi and Ganesh festival from the existing Rs 1 lakh to 1.5 lakh. The architect of this very considerate and giving move is the Leader of the House Yashodhar Phanse. The civic administration, equal to such generosity, accepted the proposal in all grace. The civic fathers also wanted the BMC to give other benefits like increase in the treatment amount to Govindas who suffer injuries during the Dahi Handi sport. Mercifully, the civic body  rejected the proposal stating that would put an extra financial burden on it. So thoughtful of them!
The metropolis turns into a sort of fair on Janmashtami when hundreds Govinda squads swamp the place for the adventure sport that sees crores of rupees at stake. Such is the lucre of the prize money -- sponsored mostly by political parties -- that Govindas don't mind risking serious injuries and even fatalities. Over the years, it has acquired the importance of a conventional ritual for the Govindas, many of whom also freak out eve teasing and littering in their collective drunken hijinks.
You must therefore hand it to the BMC for being so hospitable and philanthropic towards the same people who turn the city into a veritable garbage can in a span of just 24 hours.
Magnanimity, however, always does not ride on wisdom. The civic body's decisions are doltish and ill-advised. For one, Dahi Handi is neither government nor civic body enterprise. It is a festival that involves voluntary participation and therefore, it should be none of the BMC's bother who suffers injuries or fatality. It just hasn't occurred to its inane and incongruous officials the kind of monetary burden it would incur if at Rs 15,000 per head, say, more than 200 Govindas suffer injuries. And Rs 1.5 lakh if anyone of them dies during the course of treatment.
The BMC wants only those Govindas to be compensated who are injured in Mumbai. Who will vouch for and prove that? Dahi Handi sites are usually clogged with swarming, jostling people from even outside Mumbai and anyone can get injured for any reason.
One also wonders what is the rationale behind the civic body's largesse for only Dahi Handi. There are many who suffer serious injuries while burning fire-crackers during Diwali. The civic body must loosen its purse-strings for them as well.
The civic body's proposals are not only irrational, they are ridiculous and reek of populist and political motives. More so when as a struggling Mumbaikar you know it hardly makes it its business to address the poor condition of city's roads. It shows no concern for an unsuspecting citizen who dies in a bridge collapse but has enough money in its fat wallet to squander on the Govindas.
Are the Govindas national property?

(PS: This blog was inspired by my journalist friend Mahesh Vichare of Maharashtra Times, who wrote so eloquently and succinctly on the issue.)     

 

A birthday one two many!

Royal births, royal smiles!

Raju Korti
Now that the Duchess of Cambridge, Kate and her husband Prince William have heralded the arrival of a new royal scion, we must also thank them profusely for spawning -- albeit unwittingly -- an utterly predictable but platitudinous chain reaction.
You cannot but subjugate yourself to the pleasure of the most academic exercise of finding out who are/were the celebrity bigwigs with whom you share your birthday. Or the bigwigs who share their birthday with you, if you like it that way.
I was born on August 31, but the significance of the event never hit me until I realized that actor Richard Gere, physicist Ernest Rutherford and athlete Edwin Moses, to name a few, were born on the same day. It was a chastening experience that needlessly put me under pressure to feel -- if not realize -- that I must be as good. But let us appreciate that comparisons, though odious, are exciting nevertheless. After all, a little mental masturbation do you no harm.
Every weekend when I open the Sunday supplement of a "national" newspaper to know what's in store for me in the ensuing week, I first partake of the heady feeling to see the faces of those born with pre-eminence on the same day. And to compound your pleasure, there are other small mercies when you accept the salubrious fact that personalities like Barack Obama, Whitney Houston, Antonio Banderas, Pete Sampras, Alfred Hitchcock, Madonna, Sean Penn, Mila Kunis, Bill Clinton were just a few days here and there and would have been born on the same day had nature not conspired against me. With or within a whisker, destinies change and how! "We are all August born," is how I will choose to put it in mildest of words that you will not know I have coated with a generous helping of honey.
How often have I been told condescendingly by many that they remembered my birthday because I share it with some celebrity! Adulterated and dilute though the pleasure might be, it makes sense to look at the larger picture: That it was indeed my birthday and it was me who was being wished. For all the advances in Medicine, there is still no cure for a common birthday.
While the third in line to England's throne has finally been born, after a long nine months of speculation, conjecture and intense media scrutiny, I did some quick homework in the interregnum. If we assume an equal probability of being born any day of the year (not counting February 29th), every person shares birth date with about 1/365 of any given population. You sing 'Happy Birthday' on the same day as approximately 824,456 Americans, 3 million Indians, and 3.6 million Chinese. Now that's vicarious pleasure for you with a pinch of some simple arithmetic. You can ignore the latter at your sweet will.
As Kate Middleton squeezed out a son and the world went bonkers over the arrival of the Royal Baby, teen actress Selena Gomez lost no time in shouting from the rooftops that she has become the second most famous person to be born on July 22. That is if you concede to her that exalted status and allow her to bask in it. If you share the same birthday with her, and therefore with the Royal Baby, you may jump on to the bandwagon without feeling offended. There is a level-playing field here.
To me, its not the frills but the day itself. To  be born on the last day of the month is as much a blessing as a curse. When friends and well wishers demand a celebration, my hands are lost deep in my pockets, trying to locate the last of the rupee. Right, there are celebrities who share my birthday  but they are propitious and do not have to share my providence. That makes me one of a kind. Or so I would like to believe. :)

There is Pran and there will be others!

By Raju Korti
Indian cinema's desktop is dotted by any number of unused icons, but if there is one icon without whom you cannot boot in, it is Pran Krishen Sikand who virtually saw the evolution of silver screen through his 93 years.
Usually the rise to stardom of any film star is known to be punctuated with long saga of struggle. Pran who heralded his entry on the big canvas in its nascent days had nothing of the kind to confront with. It was as if he was ordained into the profession by God's decree. He had everything going for him. To begin with he came from an affluent family, and by the time he docketed his handsome frame  with the tinsel town, there were few to contend with in his craft. He was entertained to entertain. And entertain he did with the aplomb and style that set benchmarks for the clones that he spawned but never got anywhere close to the original.
Like many others those days who later changed tack to become baddies from heroes, Pran started with lead roles, but he never carried any label or baggage with him. He was always perfectly at ease with any kind of role and invariable infused life into it. However, it was the sharp malevolence that defined his persona and made him stand out as a villain peerless. From a cheap shyster to a blood-thirsty brigand and from a plundering zameendar to a sauve racketeer, he was the epitome of true libertine, evildoer.
What set him apart from those of his ilk and who never made any secret of their unabashed admiration for his archetypal-yet-unorthodox acting skills was he never had to make grotesque faces or be melodramatic to look a villain. He could throw a scare into you just by blowing a stream of smoke rings, narrowing one eye; face creased into a faint, threatening smile and with a voice you cut steel on. No dramatic flurry of hands or overplay of body language. He was a vampire all by himself and possessed the unique ability to get into your skin even when he overacted. Menace flowed through his veins.
Recall the dacoit Raaka from Jis Desh Mein Ganga Behti Hain (1960) where he looks so cold and brutish that you actually feel like shedding a few tears for the hapless Raj Kapoor when he says "Tera baap Raaka."
Remember how as the fiendish landlord in Saawan Ki Ghata (1966), the lecherous looks he casts at Madan Puri's sister when he walks up the stairs of a booze joint. Putting his hair back in place with a vigorous shake of the head, he x-rays the skimpily clad village belle and says "Kya baat hai". And when a poor Madan Puri says in a feeble protest, "Sarkar sarkar wo meri behen hai", Pran returns with a faint smile the same words on the edge of an audze: "Phir bhi, kya baat hai". No double entendres or innuendoes. Pran never had to take recourse to them. His rasping, dry voice spoke for him and he used it devastatingly to deliver a myriad of dialogues. I remember how he used a change in voice and delivery with gaps in dialogue to portray Halaku, (Halaku-1956) the grandson of Genghis Khan the Mongol warlord. The same voice could convince you as the well meaning Malang Chacha in "Raashan par bhaashan bahut hai par bhaashan par raashan nahi."
His eyes were his most eloquent facial feature. So expressive were they, he could also bring a touch of comic relief to his villain. As Naurangi Lal, his make-up, hairstyle and moustache were all based on Hitler. His look as well as his mannerism of “superciliously twitching his nose” made the  character a memorable one.
He had the penchant to portray every character with a distinctive personality and peculiar  mannerisms. They were all original and had Pran written all over them. It was an act that he patented over the years and virtually made it his copyright. His continuous smoking of a beedi in Dil Tera Deewana (1962) and straddling of a cigarette between his lips in Pooja Ke Phool (1964) will remain etched in movie-goers' minds.
Pran will probably be the only villain who could evoke diametrically opposite feelings like extreme public hatred and sympathy while he made life miserable for the characters on the screen. Like for instance when Kishore Kumar makes a mickey out of him and sends him on a wild goose chase in Half Ticket (1954).
Flashback Phir Wohi Dil Laya Hoon (1962): Asked whether he preferred the heroine or her "jaydaad" (property), he says "Mujhe ladki chahiye." And when his co-conspirator in the plot, an aged man, tells him "Bewaqoof ho, paisa chhodke ladki ko kyon haasil karna chahte ho?", he says with a lascivious smile "Tum nahi samjhoge, ye jawaani ki baate hain". The list is endless. The 400-plus films that he acted in should be considered a Bible for any actor wanting to essay an ideal villain. And to think of it, the man never went to any acting academy to hone his skills. He didn't need to. Acting was his haemoglobin.
Meeting Pran in flesh and blood could come to you as a culture shock, no less. When I met him a couple of times at his Khar residence in Mumbai, he was far removed from the man whose wicked ways had become part of the cinema's folklore. It was not as if age had mellowed him down. Off screen, he was an endearing man and gentleman to a fault.
A senior journalist friend close to Pran tagged me along and I was pleasantly surprised that the thespian himself landed up at the door to greet us. I was looking at a man whose face had creased into a benign, Bishop-like smile. While I sat a little awkwardly in his imposing presence, my friend broached a conversation in Punjabi, but Pran cut him short with a wave of his hand. "Aap ke saath ye bhi hain", he said, pointing a finger at me and my friend quickly lapsed into Hindi so I could butt in.
This was sometime in 2005-06 when Pran had retired into a peaceful life but suffered from bouts of indifferent health. He just leaned back against his chair and enquired about us. Strangely, it looked as though he was interviewing us and not the other way round.
As someone who had followed his career closely, I knew most of the things he told me. Still, in the two engrossing hours that I spent with him the first time, he took me on a nostalgic trip down memory lane and I learnt that he was an excellent raconteur too. He was articulate and weighed his words well. "I have been blessed to have ben treated by the industry well, but I do feel for all those who struggle to make a career in films. I wish the seniors take the newcomers under the wings and nurture them. There must also be respect for other artistes."
Pran recalled his meeting with Marathi actor Sharad Talwalkar who once walked into the midst of a shoot where he (Pran) and comedian Dhumal were doing a sequence. Talwalkar being Dhumal's old friend, called him out by his first name Antya (Anant). "Tumko Antya keh kar pukarne waali ye badi hasti kaun hai?" Pran asked Dhumal, wondering how anyone could use first name so easily. Few days later, Pran became close to Talwalkar.
Behind his impeccable deameanour lurked a man of conviction. Pran told me how hurt and angry he had felt when Kamal Amrohi's musical Pakeezah (1972) was not given the best music award. "Ghulam Mohammed and Naushad's music was sublime and they deserved to win an award but that did not happen. I was miffed with the commercial attitude of the industry. I went ahead and boycotted the function and also refused to be nominated for any award."
He took me by complete surprise when he told me that some of his memorable performances were drawn from real life characters. "My character in Khandan (1964) was a take off on Hitler, my role of a Maharashtrian in Aansoo Ban Gaye Phool (1969) was inspired by a man I had met in Pune, my Banne Khan Bhopali in Adhikar (1971) had a lot to do with the cycle-repairer I had seen in Bhopal, in Joshila my role was copied from Shashi Kapoor's father-n-law Mr Kendall and in Nigaahein (1989), I sported a beard like Sam Pitroda, Rajiv Gandhi's advisor."
An intense dog lover, he had quite a few big ones. He had named the Doberman and the German Shephered Whiskey and Soda. That was a concoction that he would treat himself to in the quietitude of his house that looked more like the house of an author than a film star. The Pran of real was an anti-thesis of the Pran of reel. Yet, the highest common factor in both was his zest for life and profession.
It will need one great effort to chronicle the life and times of this man who lived by the "Yaari hai imaan mera yaar meri zindagi" philosophy. With his death, the film industry has lost its pulse. The sole is gone, the soul shall prevail.
Pran is dead, long live Pran!



   

      

In poor taste!

Raju Korti
Among the key recommendations made by an international panel chaired by British Prime Minister David Cameron recently was the United Nations can and must end extreme poverty by 2030.
In a speech laced with regulation official-speak, Cameron sought commitment from the UN that it does all that it needs to rid the world of "extreme poverty" whatever that means to peoples of  different countries. Well, to be honest, I do not really know what distinguishes extreme poverty from other kinds of poverty, but that of course is not the issue I am labouring over here.
Cameron's rather expansive comment, if one made a liberal concession for its far-fetched nobility, took me back to what journalist Dr Baburao Patel -- his pen always dipped in acid -- once said while answering the question posed to him in his popular magazine Mother India.
The question was "Prime Minister Morarji Desai has promised to eradicate poverty by 2050. Do you think he can do it?" This was sometime between 1977-78 when people had voted the Congress government led by Indira Gandhi out of power post-Emergency excesses. It provoked the acerbic best out of Patel as it was meant to. Always taking potshots and poking ridicule at the stiff man for his experiments in auto urine therapy, Patel replied with his characteristic humour, "What poverty eradication? Morarji himself would be eradicated from this world in the next few years."
Not much was read into Morarji's pompous announcement. For one, though he was heading the Janata government then, he was after all, an old Congress guard. Besides, he was considered senile and his statement, at best, had populist overtones to it.
In 1971, Indira Gandhi used Garibi Hatao as an election slogan in a country where the gap between the rich and poor has always been remarkable. The slogan worked wonders for Indira's electoral fortunes to the extent that her son Rajiv also kept harping the same tune. It also led to a surfeit of anti-poverty programmes designed to give Gandhi an independent national support, based on rural and urban poor. It allowed her to by-pass the dominate rural castes both in and of state and local government; likewise the urban commercial class. And, for their part, the previously voiceless poor would at last gain both political worth and political weight.
The programs, though carried out locally, were funded, developed, supervised, and staffed by New Delhi and the Congress Party. As it turned out, Garibi Hatao did little and accomplished less: only a miniscule 4% of all funds allocated for economic development went to the three main anti-poverty programs. You didn't have to be an expert to know whether they ever reached the 'poorest of the poor', but it did help secure Gandhi's election. The slogan was a smooth bluff that the poor poor of the country couldn't see through.
The entire Garibi Hatao fiasco reminds me of the 1961 film Hum Dono where a middle class Dev Anand approaches heroine Sadhana's father Gajanan Jagirdar to seek her hand in marriage. The rich father tells the protagonist "Jisne kabhi bhook aur garibi nahi dekhi use garibi mein romance nazar aata hai. Tum kyaa jaano ke ye dhan dault paane ke liye maine kya kya nahi kiya." (Those who haven't experienced hunger and poverty are enamoured by it and think its so romantic. You don't know what I have gone through to earn these riches). Needless to say, a slighted Dev Anand walks out of her house and joins the army to get her out of his system. After the politicians, it is only the film fraternity in its affluence that understand how chivalrous the idea of poverty is. The poor are too impoverished to appreciate its aesthetics. If there were no poverty where would the rich stand?
Poverty sounds good in poems, in maxims and in sermons, but very inconvenient in practical life.
It’s as difficult to be rich without bragging as it is to be poor without complaining.