Adios to the night

Adios to the night

As the chill of the night bites deeper into my bones, I lay tucked up in bed waiting for the darkness to melt away into the still of the night, to be enveloped by the first rays of the morning sun like cream poured into a cup of tea, memories come fleeting through the channels of my mind, some that were worth cherishing and some not worth reminiscing. 

The days gone by had knocked on the conscience of my heart, tugged at my purse strings and countered the numerous silent arguments that churned in my mind. Events that had me engaged in rapt attention and happenings that cause me to flinch. I had begun the year chirpier than the past, since the New Year had bought along with it countless possibilities. Numerous and endless avenues seemed to open up promising a smooth road as if riding a racing car on a simulator.

But the agonising pain of dejection and defeat seems like a weight on my chest. The numerous occasions when it seemed so near yet turned out to be far out of reach. The initial enthusiasm turning into anxiety and disbelief, the self-pity that runs in our hearts after having failed to make the mark. The biting cold a reminder of these intense feelings that surface once again and bite with telling effect. Could things have been different? Could they have been done differently? Alas time has fretted away and what I am left with is a hope for the morrow, a morrow that will encapsulate these feelings in the New Year.  They hurt for sure, but at least let me try to purge it into the dark and still night.

However, the sweet memories or deja vu, the numerous occasions that I had exhilarated seemed not far away. The thrill of usurping power in office situations, the sigh of relief at being co-opted into prestigious positions, the warmth of quiet friendships amidst the din and gloom, the reciprocator high fives that went up each time I was able to register myself, and the deep sense of joy at attaining the unimaginable. These moments of happiness refuse to melt away into the darkness or the still of the night.

How about the moments of satisfaction or anguish at events happening around us? What about the moment of triumph? How we felt inwardly content at the happenings, though it did not relate to us directly. The feeling of contentment was a result of alleviation of suffering, of humanity having been the victor, of hopeless situations transgressing the boundaries of inhospitable and bumpy terrain that which seemed out of bounds to the protagonists not so long ago.  Or those moments of anxiety and anguish, would the truth bare out? Would the end be a happy one? Would truth prevail or would goodness go unrewarded?

The thought of death and destruction, so unwanted, so worthless, why did it have to happen? Couldn’t it have been stalled or negated? Why are those chasing death and destruction not for a moment thinking of the human race, why do we have to get into a bitter rage? If only we could have kept it a little under control, if only we could have implemented the numerous tricks taught to us by our peers and elders to keep rage under control. What If I had delayed the inevitable, what if I had tarried a little longer keeping my rage hidden?

The darkness engulfs me and I recede into a slumber leaving the question marks still hanging, but deep inside me knowing that the adios will not end with the passing of this year, it will remain a possibility at the end of the much anticipated and awaited New Year. What will definitely remain  with us is the joy the sorrow, the temptations, the delights, the sorrow, the mean actions, the cunning ways, the offsetting attitudes, the caring ones, the inbuilt rage, the cool tempers and the freshness of the morning when we wake up to the new year with new resolutions.

If only we are able to control our emotions, if only we are able to think clearer, if only we are more humble in our ways, if only we are more accommodative, if only we are more welcoming, if only we are indifferent to minor discrepancies, if only we could force a smile, if only we could spread our love, the New Year will be a lot more pleasant and the swan song at the end of the year will be less remorseful. This will make today’s adios more enriching and the anticipation more meaningful.

---WISH YOU ALL A WONDERFUL AND BLESSED NEW YEAR---

Robin Varghese- robin_vargh@yahoo.com

31^st December, 2013

 

Cleverer by half

Cleverer  by half

A lot has been said about the man, Arvind Kejriwal who was sworn in as the 7^th Chief Minister of Delhi today from the Ram Lila Maidan. Some call him opportunists, others call him brash and arrogant, and still others see in him a messiah of the common man, one among themselves who rose to prominence through unchartered territory and means untried. One who is destined to fulfil the limited aspirations of the common folk?

 

It remains to be seen if he can deliver what has been promised and to that extent the world’s eyes will be on this diminutive man, who plotted his way to the top.  I say plotted for want of a better word, because he plays his cards spontaneously. He is one who can spot a wedge and pry it open with his purposeful agenda. The man himself admits that he is a difficult person to be with what with his insistence on his methods which leave his followers with little choice.

 

That he has been successful speaks volumes about the man and his single minded determination to not let go of an opportunity. He has been able to pick on the gaps and turn it to his advantage when least expected by his opponents and critics. Wily, because he was always determined to reach the top using the legal framework and through legal means at the most opportunist moment. It would be foolish to think that he was never interested in any position of authority; the truth is he was always interested in growing but he used the pulse of the people and the helplessness of an electorate cleverly and with dogged determination to achieve his goals.

 

Even now he harbours a national agenda and is wily enough to be articulating his view points as that of the people, as if to suggest that if it cannot be done then it is the common man and his aspirations that would have failed and not him. He is a good hedger, able to hedge skilfully with the bets he places on his agenda.

 

Look at a few instances of somersault where he skilfully backtracked on his loud pronouncements only to roll back and propel the thrashed viewpoint in a new fashion almost cleverly hood winking the common man into believing that he has done something different. When the Anna Hazare movement for the Janlokpal began he took up the subject of corruption and how a strong Janlokpal bill would be the remedy as if it was a magic wand. They announced on stage that all politicians were corrupt, but within months he formed his own party stating the fact that he was challenged to change the system from within, so much so for politicians being corrupt.

 

Then look at the promise of reducing electricity tariff by 50% and providing 700 litres water free to every household in his manifesto, today he says that he has no magic wand and he needs time to bring about changes. He has already started to put across the viewpoint that if not 50% then a substantial reduction would be pursued. Again he said that he would not form a Government with the support of either the Congress or the BJP, but today he has very smartly used the Congresses’ letter written to the Lt. Governor as an excuse to form his own Government while propagating the view that whispers were growing louder that he was running away from his responsibilities.

 

This was the same man who had loudly viewed his take that if there is a hung house then re-election was the only alternative. This is the same man who once proclaimed from every available television top that both the main parties were corrupt and there was no way he would take their backing. Today he skilfully goes around this position and states that he is still not taking anyone’s support and all likeminded legislative members should support him in the interest of the nation. So shrewdly has he usurped the tag of the common man messiah that anyone who dares to differ will be tarnished as not siding with the upright and therefore leftover of the past, tainted and against the common man. The experience he has gained from being a street fighter stands him in good stead as far as understanding the pulse of the people is concerned and he is definitely a cleverer politician that the lot we have, and it is this that propels him to ‘push the envelope’ on every occasion without being challenged in the traditional way. 

 

It remains to be seen how he handles the enormous pressures that await him along with the preying eyes of the common man and the inquisitive media watching every step he takes while fervently praying for his success. However one thing is certain, no matter what ever may be the ultimate outcome of his stint as Chief Minister and his experiments with’ truth’, the common refrain is that he would be able to wriggle out of tight and seemingly impossible situations, simply because he happens to be a clever politician who is by far way ahead of the rest.

 

He has the knack or clever instincts of doing things the right way at the right time and is determined enough to shake off friends and opponents to pursue his own course even if it means parting ways with the likes of his onetime mentor and his ‘God’ Anna Hazare, even if it means rephrasing a thrashed agenda skilfully. All said and done the man has an extremely agile and ticking mind and it won’t be long before he becomes an inspirational speaker at top Management institutes.

Robin Varghese- robin_vargh@yahoo.com

28^th December 2013

Almost there

Almost there

The death of Nelson Mandela, and his subsequent farewell and burial was beamed live into our drawing rooms. Almost everyone agrees that the man was an inspiration to our souls; he was a proxy to many of us who only dream but fail to push those dreams into the realms of reality. Nelson Mandela also reminded us on what it takes to be compared with the great Mahatma Gandhi and what it takes to be chiselled into the pages of history.

Nelson Mandela has been epitomised not because he fought against apartheid or was the figure head of a struggle for equal rights. He was epitomised because of the method he choose for propagating his cause, the path of non-violence, the path of self-sacrifice. That is why he is compared to the very best, that is why he will be a part of history for ages to come. He has earned the distinction of being epitomised in a way that sets the rules for the future.

Actually if we think, most of us are Nelson Mandela’s in our own right, we have been fighting injustice to ourselves, to our family members, to our community, and some within the country and internationally, but none of us have been able to reach the standards set by this one man, because we have not inculcated self-sacrifice as one of the virtues. Imagine how lonely it would be to be placed in solitary confinement in a prison cell barely big enough to move around and stretch one self.

Imagine having to fight against one’s own consciousness to remain awake and alert to the outside world that is cut off from you. Imagine having to live with the cravings of an ordinary man and supressing it for the sake of his beliefs. Imagine being cut off from your loved ones, no touch or feel of your wife and kids. No soothing words, no high comments from your comrades, no proclamations of support, nothing to wake up to the morrow. Not for one or two but for an entire era for a torturous twenty seven long years.

How easy it is then to take a short cut, to fall victim to ones tormentors and their systematic chiding, to toe their line of deceit and short charge your own beliefs.  All one has to do is fall in line with the regime and lo! and behold he would have been a free man. How easy it would have been to serve a while and ask for freedom to be part epitomised into the minds of his people. All he had to do was ask and he would have instantly received with full gratitude to go along with it, but that would mean the end to his struggle and that of his people.

That would be the burial of his cause of seeing everyone equal in his country. That would be sending his ideals and beliefs to the gallows. That would be letting the world down.  It takes tremendous struggle, selfless sacrifice and a clear head to be able to withstand all this, even without guarantees that his cause would be fulfilled, that the climb would end someday successfully.

It was therefore very easy to fall prey to the guiles of the state as was in the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky who served ten years in person and was taunted as the next Nelson Mandela for having taken on the might of Vladimir Putin the Russian President, against whom he had started a political campaign. He fought on ceaselessly and without remorse for a better part of the last ten years all through various indictments. He saw his vast oil empire fall before his own eyes, shattered and torn apart. Embezzlement and tax evasion charges were brought against him and he was brutally repressed for daring to take on the mightiest.

Yet he turned out to be a lesser mortal, an ordinary mortal like ourselves, except that he carried on the fight a little longer than us, except that he sacrificed his comforts for his beliefs a little longer than us, but he was unable to go over the hill whence from the top he could have had a smooth downhill ride. That is in fact the danger of carrying on a fight to derive a logical conclusion. Many a time all of us are faced with the practicality and reality of life and we make a compromise, an adjustment and pat ourselves on the back for having carried the fight thus far, for having waged a lonely furrow thus long and for being able to withstand the forces of opposition this while.

 Where we and Mikhail Khodorkovsky have failed is that we leave the fight midway to tend to our own, we seek to find a justification to deviate from the original ideas, and we are forced out of the race by circumstances. This is where Mikhail Khodorkovsky failed and that is why he failed to find a place among the mortals that is why he ends up being one of us. The climb to the top of the cliff is daunting, stiff and full of trouble. Your cup of woes may seem never ending. Friends and family leave you by the wayside. Comrades may be seen at a distance, but the tenacity of your belief and ideals and your methods have to stand the test of time.

Then alone would you be able to stand at the top and have an easy downhill ride. Then alone can you flag your cause rather than join the numerous people who started the journey but saw reasons to stop before reaching the peak. To be a Nelson Mandela one has to be a lonely traveller with only your beliefs and ideals for company and incur the wrath of the majority, believing in not achieving anything for yourself but destroying yourself for the restoration of your fellow beings. For, though you lose everything in your arduous battle and strenuous climb to the top, you would have won your soul and the hearts and minds of your people, while being able to claim your place in history.

Robin Varghese- robin_vargh@yahoo.com

Dated: 24^th December 2013

A personal touch

A Personal Touch

The recent elections in the five states across the northern and eastern part of the country has found the Congress wanting. Various reasons are attributed to this lacklustre showing, some say that this is because the Congress did not project a Chief Minister candidate; others say the party had become too arrogant, still others talk about the wrath of the people towards the central government, its paralysis and seemingly stirring the corruption broth.

The Congress wanted to devise schemes and tell the people about them. In the words of Narendra Modi the Congress party is showing the lion its gun license upon being confronted, when it should be shooting the malice and doing so in a firm and decisive way. Various schemes of the central government have been rushed keeping in mind the elections and some of them have not been able to grow roots in the hearts and minds of the people leave alone deriving substantial solace in the form of subsidised food or wages as guaranteed. The schemes on paper or the ground will not be able to fill the empty and starving bellies rather practical implementation and unbiased distribution keeping siphoning and pilferages to the minimum.

Look at the BJP, whose chief ministerial candidates have done intense reaching out to the people around their individual states. The victory of the Rajasthan Chief Ministerial candidate and her party can be attributed solely to reaching out to the people, rather than offering doles to the people. The Madhya Pradesh Chief minister and aspirant had a personal rapport going with the electorate, that is why in spite of many cabinet colleagues being corrupt, he was able to sway the vote of the citizens to his advantage. The same goes for the Chhattisgarh Chief minister and aspirant who is perceived to be the man in touch with the people. Contrast this with the Delhi Chief Minister who was seen as progressive and forward thinking but lacked the common touch with the people.

She should take a leaf out of the Chief Minister of Kerala Oommen Chandy who is going out to the whole of Kerala and meeting people to know their problems and their woes. In every camp set up by him there is an unending serpentine queue of people waiting to see him and tell him their woes. Things that can be dealt with then and there are committed by the Chief Minister instantly. This has given a feeling of personal communication with the masses. The public conceives him to be a leader who reaches out to the masses and takes extra pain to mitigate their problems and redress grievances. The problems he faces and is accosted with during these camps are more often personal, nothing that falls within his chief ministerial duties, but a patient ear helps in drowning the tears of discontent and suffering. This is why all tantrums thrown in by the opposition LDF do not hold well and peters away in quick time. Mass contact programme should be more about meeting the masses individually rather than gathering them together at an appointed place and time and whispering sweet nothings in the garb of speeches.

Everyone is looking for a shoulder to cry on, and whoever offers one is considered a friend sympathiser or plain considerate. The end result or a positive redress of his/her grievance is not so important in comparison to a shoulder to lean on, a person who will listen to you, someone who would seem non-judgmental irrespective of the nature and severity of one’s cry.

 This is why the former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Mr Y S Rajshekara Reddy is still sought after today in the garb of his son Jagan Reddy. This is why Arvind Kejriwal is successful; this is why Sheila Dikshit in spite of being entrepreneur, inspiring and a progressive Chief Minister failed to carry the voters with her. If the Congress party wishes to put up a fight in the general elections scheduled for 2014, this is what its chief ministerial aspirants and central leadership must do, keep pace with the aspirations and woes of the people. Console them, Lend a patient ear, provide a warm hug or a handshake, be seen in their midst, rather than announce doles and lord over them from far quarters. At the end of the day what an ordinary citizen wants is not someone who can take away all his woes, but someone who seems eager to take away his woes, and for that the congressman has to be seen, with and amongst the people.

 Robin Varghese -- robin_vargh@yahoo.com

16^th December 2013

Missing the wood for the trees

Missing the wood for the trees

The curious case of the Indian deputy consular general Devyani Khobragade being strip searched arrested and processed with criminals and prostitutes for denying her maid Sangeeta Richard wages as per American law has been a hotly debated topic in the media and other relevant forums.

Panellists after panellists have been stressing on the need to defend the lady in question and seek repairable apology from the American side as also absolve her of the charges so that she can be brought back to India without any harm. Some others are discussing the reciprocator stand taken by the Indian Government, whether it is calibrated and on even keel, or what more needs to be done and a general feeling of tit for tit prevails.

I call it a curious case since, it is a well-known secret that maids sent from India are not paid as per American standards simply because it would amount to the maid seeking wages more than the principal herself, in the same way that American diplomats wives are working in the American school in violation of visa norms even while the Indian Government turns a blind eye.. This has been happening in the past and except for a couple of stray incidents in the past everything seemed to be hanky dory.

India being a soft state the panellists are arguing whether we should be seen as doubly bowing to the unreasonable needs of Americans serving in India, or should the extra benefits be withdrawn and make them at par with Indian officials serving in their country who have not privileges attached to their post.

As I write this post the Indian Government has cleared the barricades on the stretch of road that houses the American Embassy and its staff quarters. The exclusive parking has been turned into a public parking and the extra cautionary security protection stands withdrawn. Since it is only dawning in America the reactions are not forthcoming, but it is naturally going to hurt them since they are used to having their way, without reciprocating in any way. This is their way of saying that they are to be treated exceptionally without having to reciprocate in kind.

But even while all these strategies and counter strategies are being formulated and put into place, everyone seems to be sadly forgetting the source of all this chaos which is the maid herself, who is absconding for the last six months. One fails to understand why the American system is unable to repatriate her, even after the Indian Government has revoked her passport. The American system seems to be supportive of a seemingly rogue maid who has desecrated the Indian mind and national pride. The system has not even investigated official complaints from the Indian Government regarding blackmailing by the maid.

Not for once is anyone contemplating pressurising the maids husband who is residing in New Delhi, (breaking news states that the husband and two children of the maid has been discreetly sneaked into America even while the Indian courts contemplate punitive action against the maid) nor her relatives to force the maid to retract her complaint and to come back home. On the contrary reports suggest that the maid has been blackmailing Devyani with the demand of US Dollars 10000 and NOC to work in USA as well as Indian Passport. Absconders and rouges are treated differently under the Indian system and it should not be difficult for the Indian Government to bear pressure where it matters so that the maid relents.

Interestingly while everyone blames the American system, their arrogance and expectionalism, nobody seems to be pointing a finger at the maid whole had wowed to work for the consul general and return with her, when she clearly jumped her contract and absconded on reaching foreign shores and the lure of money. Isn’t the maid culpable of surrendering national pride? Shouldn’t she be ostracised for belittling the pride of her nation and isn’t this taking to the Indian psyche of immigrating to America and live the big American dream even if it means surrendering oneself to the forces of evil and deceit. And hasn’t individual aspirations of certain individuals not contributed to this problem? In fact the problem is about Indian and Indian mind set. The maid, who is looking for greener pastures and extra wages with support from the American legal system of help in bringing in her family, the prosecutor of Indian origin overzealous and wanting to prove his unbiased upbringing in order to be able to present this as credentials whenever he aspires for higher office, in other words promoting his aspirations at the cost of Indian pride. The origin of this episode is Indian and the American system has been used to conclude aspirations.

By debating the Vienna convention and reciprocal punitive action, we are conveniently side stepping the core issue of Indians wanting to live the American dream even at the cost of loss of prestige, family, shame in society or plain blackmailing one’s own citizen. So while we debate all issues the prime talking point should be about an Indian siding with the American system to degrade her country and its diplomat without so much as a thought to the irreparable damage to self-dignity and that of the country. And by not concentrating on this subject more prominently aren’t we missing the wood for the trees?

Robin Varghese – robin_vargh@yahoo.com

18^th December 2013