Gupta Goes Greek

The first public park that I ever accessed in my life is the one in front of Indira Ideal School in Janak Puri, New Delhi. My parents took us to that park ever since we could walk. Even when we had to cross two big sewage drains to get there. We never lived in Janak Puri. It was unaffordable. Probably still is. Perhaps even more. But that did not deter us.

This is also the park where boys went to play cricket on Sundays, where women went in groups to socialize, and where men went joined groups to do laughter yoga, or do group morning walks. This is also the park that girls from our part of the world went through on their way to the government school from their homes, which were again across one or two wide open sewage drains.

Fortunately, most of the time, the drains did not come in the way of friendship between the people from ourside and those from theirs. My mother too was welcome in the group of women that included richer aunties from Janak Puri. The difference in affluence was not made blatantly explicit. People knew about it, and that was it. They still exercised together, sang together, yoga together, and occasionally ate together.

Something changed in over last two years – beginning around the time of covid. The Janak Puri Community decided to categorically deny access to the Indira Ideal School Park to anyone outside Janak Puri. And more specifically to those from Raghu Nagar, Sagar Pur, Vashish Park, Dabri – essentially all the ones from this side of the drains. Walls were raised and gates were locked. The fact that sewage drains are not as ugly as a decade ago and that the hideousness of those open sewage drains has been covered by concrete roads did not counter the doubts and fears of Janak Puri people when it came to life and death situation created by covid. Adversity often clouds the judgment of people and fear takes over. They strongly believed that we from this side of the road (not drain anymore) are more likely the carriers of coronavirus because we were less hygienic. We are a threat to their lives.

For almost two years, my mother and father had no access to those parks. Even when lockdowns were eased off and some movement was allowed, my parents still were home-bound. No wonder they admired the harsh Canadian cold more than warmer Delhi winters because in Toronto, they were free to go anywhere and their Pincode or income status did not determine where they would be welcome. There was already loneliness for them during covid because of less home or indoor visits of neighbors and relatives. It got only worse by this denial of access to open space of the park where my parents could still meet others in a covid safe space. For old and retired people like my parents, parks really are their daily social haven. But somehow, people in Janak Puri were ignorant of this social, mental, and physical need of many like my parents or probably felt that these needs mattered more to them.

Now, when many people in Delhi are vaccinated and people are less worried, the seniors of our part of the world are even more eager to come. Seeing this demand, the people of Janak Puri melted their hearts as much as allowing them to come to the park only between 5AM and 7AM. They want them gone by 7. Their hearts are swelling with the pride for this favor they have done. Around 7AM, one Sikh guy, who claims to be “Mayor of Janak Puri” or some Pradhan, begins to hound the women away. Then women go to some other makeshift park to talk more and count their beads or do their chanting. In fact, the physical access in terms of unlocking the gates or dropping the walls has not been put in place. Some patches of Janak Puri boundary have naturally crumbled and my mother’s friends climb the crushed boundary wall to get in there.

How have countless men, women, and youth of our area just accepted this? Public parks come under municipal government, which in this case is MCD and I am not aware of any law that defines access to these parks based on the pin codes of the visitors. Some Janak Puri folks claim that they pay maintenance fees for the parks and these dirty people from Sagar Pur and Dabri come to enjoy the benefits. How have my parents’ friends, neighbors, and relatives, who otherwise want to nuke Pakistan or Muslims through their WhatsApp forwards, not questioned this access denial?

From so far away, here in Toronto, I feel helpless and despaired when I hear these stories from my mother. One of the key reasons I left India was the frustration I got in fighting so many battles with governments and just hitting the wall. I have been advised countless times to pick my battles for my own sanity and focus on a few. But why has no one on the ground picked up this battle? It’s been almost three years now that I have been hearing of the access suspension, can someone please pick up this battle, please?

When Covid hit the world, one of the earliest and most immediate changes was how people greeted each other. It was not a conclusive change, but more of an exploratory change at that time. The most common business greeting of a handshake was questioned because of fear of the spread of infections. Let alone the less formal and warmer greeting of a hug. Humans had paused the handshakes but were still exploring an alternate. I guess it was awkward, more so in the western world, to meet someone and say those niceties of “Hello” or “Nice to meet you” without any touch.

Some alternates that were tried out were touching the heels or ankles or feet. Fist bumps from colleges also found their way into professional and corporate settings, perhaps with the assumption that the back of the hand is likely to touch our eyes or face or food. The one that stayed on was touching elbows. I hit my elbow with my colleagues. Joe Biden did the same with Kamala Harrison. It wasn’t a hit on day one. Sometimes I would miss the target and elbows would slide or graze past each other or just go into the air tangentially. But we all got a hang of it.

It wasn’t contactless nevertheless. Albeit, that point of contact was least likely to be used for anything else. So, Covid safe. But did it have any meaning? Humans arrived at a handshake after several millennia of their existence. An elbow greeting seemed very unnatural and made up to me. Well, who said changes come easy!

Let’s explore another contact-less greeting, that is way older than even a handshake and definitely way more meaningful than an ankle or an elbow exchange.

Namaste!

For the uninitiated, the physical aspect is really straightforward — fold your hands, bring the folded hands close to the center of your chest, bow a bit with humility, take a deep mindful breath and say the word Namaste.

But it is much deeper than that. The thing that you are greeting and whose existence you are acknowledging is not just the physical human body that your eyes are seeing or other senses are observing. You are using your physical body to allow your inner consciousness to acknowledge the existence of and connection to the inner consciousness of another living being.

Little too dense? Let me unpack.

As per the Hindu wisdom and I like to believe in that, this entire world is made of one big giant ball of energy. It goes by other poetic names too — consciousness or divinity. Every piece of matter in the universe contains a piece of that same energy. Externally, we may look different. Something is a little green plant. Another thing is an animal with black and yellow lines on its skin. Another thing is a human walking with two legs. Another thing is that human with brown skin. Another one is a human with Mongolian features. All these external features of appearance might distinguish us for the purpose of identity, but inside all of us is really the same consciousness.

And really — the same. Prime Minister Modi or erstwhile President Trump or your barista in the cafe down the street or you or myself — we all have the same consciousness. We take birth, get a piece of that, and die return to that big ball. Nothing new is getting created and nothing is lost. Somewhat similar to high school physics — Energy can neither be created nor be destroyed.

Imagine a lake of pristine water. A cattle comes gulps some water to quench her thirst. And then you come and drink some water from that lake. The three of you — the lake, the cattle, and you — would look different, but you got the same water in you.

Where does Namaste come into the picture? Well, when we are doing a genuine Namaste, we ought to, for a moment, however shortlived that moment is, sincerely acknowledge that we are related and that we are the same, and really get past the differences that our minds and thoughts create every day. That applies to even the people that our minds and thinking brains tell us to despise. We create the feeling of otherness every day unknowingly. Some coworker said something hurtful, and that person becomes an other. Some neighbor or friend has political beliefs different from ours and they become other. Just imagine the amount of disdain we have for some political leaders.

But Namaste encourages us to get past that and focus on the connection and ignore the differences for a moment. Even if politically conservative fella meets a liberal political leader, when they are doing Namaste, then in their hearts, they are offering reverence for the divine energies of each other. In that beautiful profound moment, the exchange really is not between a Frankie Smith and a President Obama, it is an exchange between two little forms of consciousness.

Namaste is a Sanskrit word that literally is made of Namah + Te, translating into “I bow to you”. The divine energy in me is bowing to the divine energy in you. In that moment, identities and identifiers of thoughts, beliefs, appearances, race, class, and every other label or category that humans have invented — disappear.

So what say, do you want to try this covid safe, contactless and very deeply profound and meaningful greeting? It offers you a brief moment for being present and breaking away from the stress before the moment and the ones that might come afterward. It allows you to reset the relationship with another person if that was going downhill a second ago. It can really bring the world closer by reinforcing the connections over differences.

With gyms closing down, and temperature dipping way below zero, where does one get an opportunity to move and sweat? I had just gotten a trainer to finally learn to lift correctly when gyms began to close down due to the rise in Omicron in Canada – not the note I was looking to begin this year with.

Yet, I wanted to keep my resolution of a new year of staying healthy mentally and physically through exercise. So I took to stairs. I can very well do exercises of HIIT anywhere, including inside my condo unit. But now I live with my parents. I just feel that exercise is a private time. Either alone or amidst a group of anonymous strangers feel the right setting for exercising. Further, with sweat dripping around and three people in a not-so-large condo, it just becomes a mess.

So this morning, I decided to do a stairs exercise, which is simply climbing down and up the stairs. But I wanted to put my brains too to work and not do plain exercise. So, I climbed up and down in a pattern similar to alankars of Hindustani classical music.

Sa

Sa Re Sa

Sa Re Ga Re Sa

I am progressively adding a new note and marching back from the new note.

Similarly, I started with the 43rd floor. I went down to the 42nd floor and climbed back up. I then went to the 41st floor and climbed back up.

43rd

43rd 42nd 43rd

43rd 42nd 41st 42nd 43rd

But I noted the inability of the brain to remember such short-term information. Many times, when I would be coming down, I would not remember if I was supposed to climb down until this floor or the floor further down. Because the mind was regardlessly distracting. Either way, it probably did not matter much. The goal was to do this pattern till I reach 33rd. And once I would reach 33rd, I was to do 5 rounds of 43rd to 33rd and back.

As I had finished the first pattern completed one round of the next pattern, I could hear sounds which is surprising because usually, I do not see anybody on the stairs. I noted a member of cleaning staff in the staircase cleaning the stairs. I had reached the 42nd floor in the upward direction. So instantly I did a pivot in my strategy. Instead of continuing to move up, I turned around and went down till the 23rd floor this time and resumed the rest of the pattern between the 23rd and 33rd floor.

I wanted to spice up the upward climb. So on some floors, I would run and climb every stair and on some floors, I would skip alternate stairs.

Finally, as I was completing the fifth round and nearing the 33rd floor, I saw another man doing the same exercise!

I guess I ain’t the only one finding creative ways to continue to move amidst the pandemic.

Workforces moved from emails to more real-time communication tools like slack hoping to reduce emails. But we tried to fix only the symptom and rarely the cause. Now instead of a large number of emails, we have a large number of unread chats on Slack and Microsoft Teams. The problem remains the same and we continue to miss important messages and files.

The root problem was the volume of communication. It is like how municipalities are trying to fix the problem of garbage through recycling.

Well – why have that volume of either garbage or emails or communication in the first place? Did we ever think about that? Companies try to sound green by adding this in the footer of business communication – “Think before printing this email”.

How about – “Think before sending this email!”

Is every email or chat we send out absolutely necessary? Before asking for information via these platforms, do we check if we already know where to find that information? Before pressing the send button, do we try to think if I could combine a few other related information or asks in this same communication instead of multiplying the chats or messages in the recipient’s inbox?

Just because it is free, we use the platform liberally and many times mindlessly. Even though it is not costing paper or trees, it is causing mental overload! And all the same, problems that existed with emails.

This evening, I was going for my music class. As I turned onto the Janak Puri Road, the one I take every day, I saw it blocked. I was already late for the class. It was quite a nuisance to see this tent pitched in the middle. I went around it and noticed two police men. Turned out that some BJP meeting was planned to take place in that pandal. I asked the beat officers if the organizers had  permission to hold this assembly in the middle of the road. He said that he did not know. I went up near the stage. The meeting had not started yet. Few people were seated in the chairs. I enquired with one of the guys in the front to learn who the organizer was. He said, “I am the organizer, tell me”. I said, “Do you have the required permission to hold this event at this place?”. He asked why I wanted to know that. I told him that I am a citizen and if a road that I use every day, and specially the one I pay tax for, is used for purposes other than vehicles or pedestrians, then I had every right to know that. He pulled out a paper, and told me that that was the permission letter. As I began to read that, some other saffron clad man snatched that from my hands and asked me who I was. I tried to tell him the same. He asked me to leave and kept asking who I was. The organizer told me to come with him to the beat officers, they would show me the permission letter. I told him that they didn’t have that, that was why I came to him in the first place. Regardless, he brought me back to the constables. As we got there, some other men reached there and told the officer that I was disturbing their assembly. I explained the situation. Some guys hit me. The two constables did nothing. When they tried to charge at me again, constables tried to intervene, one of the men succeeded anyway. Police officers asked me to leave. I asked officers if they were going to press charges against those goons. He asked why I was talking inappropriately. I couldn’t believe this, a group of men just punched me in front of them and they are not saying a word of censure. There was some verbal duel. I asked him if this was why he wore uniform, to just watch? An offense of culpable homicide happened just happened in front of so many eye witnesses. He asked where the eye witnesses were and told me that he would arrest me if I spoke further.

This was a meeting to ask for votes. This is the foundation of electoral democracy in a city – municipal elections. If the idea of ‘development’ is founded on violence and injustice, do we want such ‘development’ ?

One Modi, if at all he genuinely wants to fix this high headedness, cannot fix this arrogance and sense of impunity across the party and supporters. Manoj Tiwari, the head of Delhi BJP already has been seen showing the same attitude of hierarchy. Unless this intolerance of questions goes away, unless these political parties begin to respect ordinary voter and his questions, there is no way I can vote for them.

PS: Not voting for BJP or Congress does not simply translate to a vote for AAP. Any voter can dislike or like more than one political party or leader. Not to forget that there is always the option of ‘None of the above.

PPS: I went to a similar assembly some weekends ago, where AAP candidate was going door to door with his supporters. I asked him questions. Sure enough, he was visibly discomforted. But not once did him or his supporters dare to even touch me. And there was no police there. Rather, I got him to sign an undertaking that if he failed to deliver, he would quit.

 

Like every other evening, I took the e-Rickshaw on Friday evening from Uttam Nagar east to Dabdi. The driver was a young man , 23, from Begusarai, Bihar and his name was Aman.  As usual, I took the shotgun seat next to the driver because the drivers have amusing stories to tell. Therefore, while looking ahead and talking to this cheerful gentleman, I didn’t know who all were sitting in the 4 seats behind us. Aman amused me by telling the story of how his girlfriend from last 5 years turned bewafa! And he got married at 21 and became a father at 22.

At C 1 Janak Puri signal, some passengers deboarded. My pleasant evening mood was suddenly disturbed by the sound of a rather violent pat that I found was on Aman’s hand. There was a passenger, apparently of African origin, who had given Rs. 100 and Aman didn’t notice that as he was busy narrating his stories to me and assumed it was Rs. 10 note, which is what passengers often gave because the ride was priced flat at Rs. 10.

Aman apologized, of course in Hindi. And gave him the rest of the change. He again made some mistake in counting and there was one Rs. 10 note less in the change. The passenger yelled again, this time rather more loudly and hit his arm. Aman realized his mistake, apologized again and gave the Rs. 10 note. The man left talking to himself.

I don’t know if that is how that man or other people of his community usually talked or he was high on something, but I found this demeanor very disturbing. I can tell from my gut feeling, and not because Aman and I have common identity – Indian, that it was an honest mistake. Incidentally, this happened, just when he was telling me that he does not like Delhi because people are very rude to him.

I do not know where that man is from. If it’s Nigeria or some other place. I don’t want to believe that all people of his country or continent behave like that. For all I know, on his part, it might as well be very natural. His talking to himself could also be natural – we also do that in anger.

But the only point I am making is that there is a possibility of another side in each of such cases of conflict. Before jumping to any conclusion, we may want to hold our judgments and keep our mind open, absorb information, if we absolutely have to ( we can always have the option of not going to facebook or avoiding news of any kind!) and later have any opinion. Each conflict is different. Assuming that all Nigerians in India are into drug peddling or all Indians are racists is quite a dangerous proposition.

Interestingly, when I told that man that he should not have hit Aman, the lone woman in the rear seat, an Indian, advised us that we should stop harassing Nigerians.

 

 

In politics, there are two ways to impress the people you govern. Words and Actions. Ideally one would expect words to be a short term ploy and actions to be instrumental in creating long lasting impression. Empty vessels are known for making more noise. Actions are assumed to be louder than words. Sometimes, it works out like that. Often it doesn’t. More so, in the times when social media shapes national opinions. Surprising as it sounds even in the case of nations like India where population active on social media is negligible compared to the total population.

In the spring of 2014, if my memory isn’t failing me, I met Dr Gayatri C Spivak at a seminar at Columbia University. During a group discussion, I asked her why Aam Aadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal was doing populist things like chanting Bharat Mata Ki Jai when he was supposed to lift political conversation above any rhetoric. ( I’ll leave the discussion on Bharat Mata ki Jai for another conversation. )

What she replied  shaped my way of looking at political words. She explained that he was up against Modi! The amount of resources that BJP had, including Modi’s brand was exorbitant. So, Kejriwal would do all that he could, hopefully in ethical limits, to fight this out.

I interpreted that in this manner. Political parties or leaders should not be taken seriously on what they say. They need to be judged on what they do. Their saying is more or less inconsequential. They do that for short term political gains to get power or to sustain power .

In the US elections last year, or even in the past, so much dirt was thrown by all, including Democrats. I witnessed same madness in Loksabha Elections in India 2014. At that time I used to wonder how would Modi and Kejriwal would ever meet in person when they have poured so much of bitterness for each other in public. Incidentally, in India, we still don’t see top political leaders debating directly. So we don’t see the nasty talk that Trump and Hillary engaged in directly with each other on national TV. Can you imagine Modi directly saying to Kejriwal – तुम मूर्ख हो। . I was aghast though when during a debate Trump so effortlessly called Hillary ‘stupid’ !

So many things that Kejriwal says like an uncontrolled stereo are to sustain a public opinion against BJP and keep it in his favor. These are the need of the hour because we live in times when just DOING good work or even SPEAKING about the good work done isn’t enough. All parties engage in trash talk, in putting allegations (false or true), in belittling other parties’ belief and in many other kinds of toxic things. Different political parties or leaders have different methods to engage in this. While Kejriwal does it himself,  Modi has a fleet of people and technology and police to do it so that his image stays clean. Around the world, general people aren’t objective enough to see through this. Yet. Simple example – imagine a teacher who gives quality education in a school in an Indian village. A simple way to bring the teacher down is spread such information in public as the teacher eats beef or he is gay or is having a love affair with an upper caste girl or any such things that are considered ‘blasphemous’.  And that might be true too. In the knowledge of such information, all the good teaching work would vaporize.

Thankfully, we haven’t gone that dirty yet in political narratives. We still try to respect private lives. But we are not far from there. If the current pace and intensity of dirt continues, we shall soon be there!

So the point I am trying to make is that when Kejriwal alleges that Modi is corrupt or when BJP says Kejriwal is a liar and takes frequent U-turn or when parties make such allegations, remarks or tweets, which by the way are golden for media, then we needn’t take these seriously. They do it to balance the amount of trash against each other. It’s unfortunate but true. Apart from competing in who does better work for public welfare, they also need to compete in who says more stupid fictitious things or dumps more trash. I must clarify that some of this trash might as well be true. But they come out in an unstructured way without any serious intention to follow through. No wonder these disappear as soon as they come. There are never follow-up actions. If AAP claims that Modi takes bribe, then apart from making #ModiTakesBribe trend, why don’t they file a complaint with Vigilance or FIR and follow-up and keep people informed about progress and ultimately take it to a conclusion? If BJP and its supporters believe Kejriwal is corrupt, then arrange to get him convicted. They even have police and CBI under their influence. Why do you think they arrested AAP MLA’s when they ultimately found nothing. They too probably knew that nothing could be found. Doesn’t hurt to book them. It would fan the public sentiment against them and keep the toxicity against AAP at the optimal level.

What should ultimately matter are the decisions and executions. The projects for public welfare or even against public welfare. Those are what everyone, including news media, should focus, discuss and debate.

Why would media not report on work carried by an MLA in his constituency? When a government decides to start a mining project and auction frequency spectrum, that needs to be discussed. When education minister in Delhi starts a new project, that needs to be reported. When union government brings out a blueprint for fighting corruption, that should be debated and discussed.

But Kejriwal living in X house or Y house or Modi wearing a shirt with his name – how consequential are those on regular people’s lives? If Modi or BJP says AAP people are Naxalite and should go back to forests, are those comments important? When Delhi CM constantly claims that BJP and INC are in cahoots, is that important when not a single conviction is happening? These things are at least not worth producing hundreds of articles and telecast five thousand debates on TV.

Of course, these are of great consequence for page views and TRPs. That’s why I often observe that in media business you end up doing what is profitable and not necessarily what is right. Sure, sometimes the right thing to do also happens to be profitable.

Now there has to be a line that should not be crossed in the crossfires of allegations and comments. Case in point is politicians and influential leaders saying things that have a potential to cause violence or rift in society. Those should be reported and reported again. General people, lacking objectivity will believe such things as well and resort to violence. Comments on religion, faith, gau raksha, and fatwa can cause serious problems to peace in society.

In short, if us people start seeing through words and filter out the noise and pay attention to only the relevant information, that can encourage politicians to engage less in trash talk because they would see that those efforts aren’t bearing fruits. We need to stop liking, retweeting and sharing irrelevant sound bytes and videos to help reduce this madness.