Sikkim Flower Show

An International Flower Show was held at Saramsa Garden at Ranipool, near Gangtok, Sikkim, last weekend. We drove up on the inaugural day.
When we crossed the border from West Bengal into Sikkim at Rangpo, we saw that the check post and entry gate were decorated with large numbers of potted petunias.
Musician Welcomes Guests at Rangpo
We were surprised to see a little squad of men with masks and chemical sprayers. They sprayed the wheels of our car, and then asked us to get down and cross the border on foot -- walking over disinfectant-soaked sheets of sacking -- and I was reminded of those movie scenes of prisoners entering concentration camps. Meanwhile they gave the insides of our car a good blast with their sprayers. Why, we wondered. 'Bird-flu! Bird flu!' was the answer.
Our cars were stopped again, just after Ranipool, and we were told we'd have to walk the rest of the way to Saramsa (almost 3kms). The prisoner motif popped up again when a policeman at the parking lot allowed us to use the toilets in what turned out to be the local station's lock-up! There were large crowds walking down to the flower show.
Saramsa Garden, viewed from the highway 
'Only VIP cars allowed.' The 'VIP!' word filled the air. This seemed to be a rather ambiguous and inclusive term. It covered people like tourists (especially overseas visitors), government officials and participants! We were welcomed at the entry gate after our long trek as some variety of 'VIP' on the strength of our touristy hats.
It didn’t take long for us to realise that the show did not have much 'international' participation. What it did have was participation by a small number of Indian states, horticultural departments, nurseries and professional horticulturists of the region.
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They displayed some wonderful orchids, roses, liliums and anthuriums. There were beautiful exhibits of exotic flowers imported by private businesses in Delhi and other places among the stalls, but that wasn’t quite what we had expected.
The real marvels were the plants growing in the Saramsa Garden itself - Primulas; Sikkim's special flowers, pansies, petunias, cinerarias, and klanchoes, in beds after beds, in borders and niches.
  Primulas
Petunias
The local paper explained that the farmers of the region had been handed out seeds some months before the show. They brought back thousands of flowering plants, which were bought off them and then placed all over the garden. Really ingenious as a cooperative effort - and the farmers benefited from the show thanks to this bright idea!

With some of the Beauties of Nagaland!





















My planter husband inspects the exhibits!!

Red and White

Easter is a big flowering time in the garden. Ever since I can remember, we had Easter lilies (Hippeastrum) growing at home. Huge trumpets of red lilies and lovely succulent white ones. These gorgeous lilies bloom once a year, and only for a few days.



All lilies are really easy to care for, and they propagate like anything, if you take the trouble to separate bulb clusters and plant out the bulbs. We had a clump of them growing here when we moved into Moraghat -- in a little bed behind the bathrooms, at the back of the house! They were removed carefully and planted out in the front, and for the last eleven years, they've bloomed in thousands. No credit to anyone. They are hardy plants, and are just waiting for a chance to thrive.

My friend Lesley had another variety of Easter lily, Amaryllis, growing in her garden in Gandrapara. She gave us a few bulbs, and now there's a profusion of these, waiting to burst into bloom. These are pure white in colour and have a lovely fragrance. Up in Sikkim at Saramsa Park last weekend, I saw them in another colour. They were in beds as big as small lawns, and only one or two of those hundreds of plants had opened a few buds. They were in the colour that was called Crimson Lake in our school paintboxes. To think that that garden must be in full bloom now!



Over the last few years, our Easter lilies have bloomed and disappeared well before Easter. Sometimes, however, they bloom as late as April, in time for our Vishu Kani. Today is Good Friday, and they're just beginning to peep out. The red always bloom first, and when they have almost all wilted, the white ones come out. It's as if they're telling the story of the Passion (suffering) and the Resurrection of Christ.

P.S.Today is the first Sunday after Easter, and a number of white lilies are out in the garden.

Time Out

There are some evenings that make you feel as if time has stood still. Yesterday, 20 March, was one of them. The hush that fell all around shortly after sunset was almost sacred. One couldn’t disturb it. Looking around, I got the feeling that I could have been anywhere, and of any age; seventy, or seven, and it wouldn’t have made a difference. The stillness, and that moment, which were bigger than time and space, would have had the same effect on me. A huge, nearly full moon rose in the silence. It was pale, and grew golden by the moment. The tree behind which it rose grew darker, until it became a silhouette. Suddenly the electric lights came on, and it was all over.

Dahlia Daze

Dahlias are the chief attraction in gardens during the cold weather across the plains of North India. Most people in the Dooars manage to grow a few every year, regardless of where they live: town, tea garden or busti. They have the luxury of space, which city dwellers lack.



Dahlias are easy to grow, but anyone wanting to grow blooms of good size and shape has to make a special effort. Dahlias are propagated from cuttings taken from tubers, or bulbs. This has to be done in the first week of September. The little seedling plants are carefully nurtured and protected from rain for about six weeks until they're ready to be transplanted into well manured and aerated soil. Here we have to be extra vigilant at the time, because of freak storms that strike in late October and early November.



Once they're in their beds, the plants have to be fed carefully. Sunlight and water are the chief 'food' of the dahlia plant, and regular manuring is required. The flowering season begins in December and carries on through March. Dahlia plants could grow up to six to eight feet in height.



The largest of blooms could grow up to a foot in width, while the smallest could measure just two inches across. There are thirty six species of Dahlia, and the variety seems endless.



The one that has flourished in my garden this year is the miniature hybrid variety. These plants are not grown from cuttings, but from seeds. The seeds were sent to me by my brother Raja, from Delhi.



The tallest plant is no more than a foot and a half in height and the blooms vary in size from two and a half to three and a half inches across.
Strictly speaking, neither plants nor blooms are 'miniatures'.
There are many colours in the lot and some flowers are bi-coloured too. Some have a single layer of petals while others have multiple layers, almost looking like lotuses.



What sets them apart from everything else in the garden is the perfection of each flower. Here are some pictures of this year's beauties. Sitting among his flowers is the proud 'Dahlia artist', Mithu Oraon.




(See http://seventhchords.blogspot.com/2007/09/same-garden-some-other-time.html)

Blues for Tea

My friend Raj enjoying a quiet moment at a picnic in Telepara Tea Garden

Last weekend we had the Annual General Meeting of our Tea Association, and almost all the families of the tea garden managers and assistant managers in the Dooars were present. It’s a time for friends – old and new, old and young. Dolly, who’s almost fifteen years younger than I am, is a joy to meet. She's young and fresh and her two lively little ones keep her active and smiling. I always look forward to seeing her at this big get together every year. It’s the only time we meet, since we live so far apart.
We finished exchanging all our news, and then she said, 'We value you and your husband because you represent an era when etiquette and values mattered. There are not too many people left from that time.'
That knocked me out. To someone of Dolly's age, I suppose I would look ancient! When my girls were little, how elderly the senior manager's wives, our Burra Memsaabs, appeared to me! What Dolly was saying sounded like what I used to say to some of the older ladies just a few years ago. I've hardly been here too long -- is twenty-two years a long time? Not to someone of my age. And am I a representative of the good days of tea life?
How much -- how little -- of the good old days have I seen?

Sitting by the fire in the evening, I gave some thought to the values which were talked about when I married and came to tea in 1986. Unfair practices or self-advancement were never tolerated at our clubs, and anyone guilty of such offences was booed down, ridiculed and later avoided by everybody. Toughness was considered a desirable quality, as it was understood that plantation life was tough, for both men and women. Toughness and honesty went together. Outspokenness was positively encouraged. Fights were common at the club - the men would 'sort out their differences' outside, and then have a drink together afterwards. High standards of quality were sought in the organisation of club dos and ladies' meets. There were no professional caterers at the time, and the ladies were all given their share of the cooking to do. Recipes would be handed out, since more than two people might be making a portion of the same dish. Shoddiness was unpardonable, and no one made excuses to the senior ladies who'd delegated responsibilities. Their word was law, and they in turn ensured that they appreciated every effort that the younger girls made. Inclusiveness, generosity and sharing were encouraged by example. I'm not glorifying the past, but people did have ideals then and they tried their best to live up to them. Those who didn’t try at least talked of doing so.

The ladies whom I admired were really remarkable. They were gracious, they laughed a lot, and they enjoyed every minute of all the good times we had - cheering the boys energetically at football and cricket matches, playing tennis and golf under the hottest sun or through miserable pouring rain, working for hours decorating the club house for children's parties, slaving in their hot kitchens with hot headed cooks to produce delectable feasts, throwing open their bungalows to everyone; and never pulling rank. They were all-rounders; good at games, good at gardening, cooking, baking, sewing and knitting. They lived in Burra Bungalows which were run with smooth efficiency, and almost all of them had to send their children away to boarding schools from the time they were seven or eight years old. They took it in their stride. They lived most of their lives in tea without televisions or telephones, and with newspapers that arrived two days old. Some of them lived in gardens which were completely out of the way, deep in the interior, and accessible only through mud tracks that passed for roads. They could only meet people one day in the week, when they left the garden to go to the club.

Anyone who got on the wrong side of these Burra Memsaabs and had to face their wrath was to be pitied. I have seen one Burra Memsaab refuse outright to cater for a games meet unless the budget was revised - and the secretary of the games association, who had been trying to cut corners everywhere, was almost weeping when he was told to 'manage' on singharas (samosas) and jhal muri from the town for his money! And this was after all the cards had been sent out inviting nearly two hundred people to the event. He revised his budget, apologised to the lady, and was humbly grateful to her for everything ever after.

One of our Burra Saabs and Memsaabs organised the company picnic every year. I remember one particularly well. We had to reach Lankapara Burra Bungalow early in the day, and then we were all loaded into lorries to reach the picnic site on the banks of the Torsa. The merry making finished at sundown, and back we got into those lorries, tired and dreading the long drives home. We weren't allowed to go home, though. We were all -- fifty to sixty people, men and wives, with children, babies and ayahs-- invited into the bungalow by Anjali, the Burra Memsaab, who'd been with us at the picnic all day and must have been more tired than anyone else. All the chairs in the house had been arranged around a brightly burning bonfire in the centre of the lawn. The drawing room had mattresses laid out for us to make our children take naps or for us to stretch out for a bit before starting another round of festivities outside. Bearers went around with hot milk for the babies, whose bottles had been collected and boiled in the kitchen earlier. Anjali's daughters served us all tea and coffee after we'd washed our faces and freshened up.

Our men were also served liquid refreshments which, strictly speaking, they didn't need.
The same men had been worked hard through the season. The company always organised games and picnics in the cold weather so that they could relax and enjoy life for a bit before staring off all over again. 'Work hard, play hard' they said, and back then, they meant it.

That is the biggest difference between those days and today, to my mind. Recreation, rest and relaxation are given low priority today. Traditions, ideals and values are abstractions. It takes something tangible to make them attractive, or even meaningful to young people. People ask repeatedly why ‘good boys’ are hard to find and why standards are going down in tea. The answer is simple. If boys are to be drawn to a career in tea today, companies need to offer them better pay packets, better housing, more holidays and more goodies to make up for the absence of city lights and the lost glamour of those old days.

Mrs. Dobson : A Tea Garden Story

She had yellow eyes, black hair and very dark skin. She always wore white and was much taller than the other tribal women; almost five feet five inches. She carried a stout bamboo stick at all times. Everyone said she was mad. She looked terrifying. We all knew her as ‘Mrs. Dobson’. No one knew what her real name was. One Mr. Dobson had been the ‘Burra Saab’ of the tea garden many years ago. He had presumably found the yellow-eyed woman irresistible. He’d gone back to England around the time when all the British sahibs left tea for good.

Mrs. Dobson lived in a little ‘kutcha’ house. Her house stood all alone. No one in the garden wanted to live anywhere near her. She left home every single day at around four-thirty in the evening and walked all the way to the office, tap-tapping her stick on the road, smiling fixedly and with bright eyes. Others on the road gave her a wide berth. She knew she frightened people, and she was proud of it.

A tea garden office is a busy place in the evening. The work is centred outdoors during the major part of the day, and the focus shifts to the factory and office in the evening. Burra Saab and his Chhota Saabs also make themselves available to the workers to listen to their problems and complaints.
Mrs. Dobson would head straight for Burra Saab’s office and call out in clear tones, ‘Pyaare Lal!’ Burra Saab’s name was not Pyare Lal. She called him that because it was a term of endearment, meaning, ‘Loved One’. Since she’d been the beloved of one Burra Saab in the past, she gave herself the right to address all his successors in equally intimate terms.
The Burra Saab was a tough man, but he liked to stay away from heckling women if he could. And this one was no ordinary woman. She was completely unpredictable, and quite menacing. No garden worker would ever tangle with her; no one would step forward to take her away. One of the Chhotta Saabs would quickly intervene and tell Mrs. Dobson to talk to him instead. She’d start off in loving terms with him as well. ‘My dear brother-in-law,’ she’d say, with her mad smile, ‘Make my son a man, wont you?’ The youngest Chhota Saab once sniggered at this, deliberately choosing to misunderstand her request for her son to be given a full adult wage. She turned on him to ask, ‘Oh, you laugh, do you? Had my Pyaara Dobson been here you would never have dared to insult me!’ The youngster shut up at once.

Mrs. Dobson was always made out to be a bit of a joke when they told stories about her, but everyone admitted it was scary to be in her presence. There was one Chhotta Saab she never could frighten, though. The fiery Mohan Saab would shout at her and send her back home everyday. She’d go, muttering, ‘This Pyare Mohan! Ever since he came here, I am made to look like a dog!’

Mrs. Dobson did not work in the garden, but she had a house to live in, and she received her quota of rations, tea and firewood, bamboo or thatch whenever she needed them. This benevolence was nothing unusual in those days. Mrs. Dobson, for all her madness and wild mutterings, managed to keep house for herself and her son who was what is called a ‘laata’ – not too intelligent. They pulled along, somehow.
It was said that a Postal Order from the U.K. arrived every Christmas in her name. Mrs.Dobson was handed over the money at the office meticulously every year.

One evening, she tap-tapped her way into the bamboo plantation and surprised Burra Saab and the Visiting Agent or ‘Company Saab’ from Calcutta who were out on an inspection.
Her face lit up when she saw the two men, while they shrank from her. ‘Pyare Lall!’ she exclaimed, ‘and my dear Company Saab brother-in-law!’ She went forward eagerly, but unfortunately for her, Mohan Saab was in attendance. He ran forward and jumped in her path, and Burra Saab and the Company Saab moved on quickly, continuing with their tour while poor Mrs. Dobson, her scene quite ruined, was yelled at, in tones louder than her own, and actually threatened with a sound thrashing. She made a quick about turn and hurried away, cursing ‘Pyare Mohan’ under her breath.

One year at Holi the Burra Saab, Chhota Saabs and all their families had gathered at Beech Bungalow, the Senior Assistant’s place. There was much laughter, and lots of beer, pakoras and tuneless singing. Suddenly everyone heard that loud familiar voice and looked up to see Mrs. Dobson’s face leering at them from over the boundary hedge. This was awful. She’d never turned up at any of the living quarters, ever. She knew the merry making would stop as soon as she started her performance. ‘All yours, Mohan!’ said the Senior Assistant under his breath, but Mohan Saab was already off, running at full speed towards the menacing woman. Everyone was quiet, waiting to see what would happen. The Holi revelry had had a good effect on Mohan Saab. He was in top form. He reached Mrs. Dobson in no time and roared wordlessly at her. The silence grew intense around his listeners while he shouted at Mrs. Dobson to clear off. Mrs. Dobson dropped her plans to disrupt the festivities. She turned around and started hurrying away, while Mohan Saab continued to shout threats at the top of his voice. The tension was over, and everyone on the verandah laughed and laughed – and not only at the defeated would-be party pooper. They were going to rib their colleague and have him re-enact this performance time and again!

Another time, she followed two of the young Chhota Memsaabs who were out on their evening walk. They heard her stick tapping behind them and quickened their pace. She was a very strong woman, and outpaced them in no time. ‘Mohan’s Radha and Rukmini!’ she jeered, turning and looking into their faces. Mohan was another name for Lord Krishna, and Radha and Rukmini were his two wives. The Chhota Memsaabs were really embarrassed, since neither of them was the wife of Mohan Saab. ‘When my beloved Dobson was here, I too would rush to the bungalow as eagerly as you do!’ she continued. The girls confined their walks to their bungalow compounds for many days. Mrs. Dobson’s evening walks, however, went on as scheduled for many years.

Mrs. Dobson died some years ago. I don’t know if the man who once loved her and sent her money at Christmas was informed of her death.

Time Is On My Side

Does it pay to be slow? The world is in a hurry. Everyone wants everything at top speed and no one has time to wait. This is an age when people's lives are packed with activity and no one has time to sleep for long or to sit about doing nothing. And as for those who do nothing, they know that very few people waste any time on them! Which is why it was refreshing to read about an exhibition in Bogota, Colombia, which celebrated a week of laziness.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7173527.stm

'A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.' wrote W.H.Davies, the hobo poet.
John Lennon sang, in the beautiful ‘I’m Only Sleeping’

'Everybody seems to think I'm lazy
I don’t mind, I think they're crazy
Running everywhere at such a speed
Till they find
There's no need, there's no need.'

And, even better,

‘When I’m in the middle of a dream
Stay in bed, float upstream, float upstream.’

It doesn’t pay to be slow -- but it just might be a good thing if you choose not to worry about what pays! (And this is definitely not a campaign to ask people to slow down at the work that they are paid to do.)
Maybe nobody actually likes waiting for trains or buses, at airports and restaurants, at the dentist's or the doctor's, but there are people who don’t really mind when they have to. How restful it is to empty the mind. How much more refreshing it is to let it fill with the impressions of the moment. It is nearly impossible to empty the mind entirely, but one could come close to it at certain moments before sighing deeply and picking up those burdens of daily existence again.
Why pick them up at all? Or why not carry just one burden a day? The Reiki Way teaches how to take just one step at a time, and each of the Reiki resolutions is made with the prefix, 'Just for Today'. One is 'Just for today, I will not worry'. It isn’t possible to do too much at one time without worrying, or panicking even, and definitely not without getting stressed out. Deadlines give you a heady rush, but that feeling takes away more energy than it gives.
There is a poem about some dry leaves by the roadside that are whirled into movement by a passing truck. They start believing that they have a life of their own. Once the truck has moved on, they lie dead and motionless again. The poem beautifully illustrates the emptiness of actions that have no meaning. All activity is not physical. There is a life of the mind, as well. Reading a good book, listening to a good piece of music, or watching a good sports performance can energise and enrich us. So can conversations with friends. So can a good daydream. ‘Stay in bed, float upstream, float upstream.’

Some people want to slow down; to stop to think, to savour and assimilate one experience before moving on to another. Most people today keep moving, investing every experience with intensity and never flagging. They have enough energy to make up for those who stop to dawdle, or take time off to rest and just be somewhere. You might meet holiday makers of both kinds. For many, a holiday means exchanging one set of activities for another, while some resolutely stay put at one spot, lazing and gazing. We cannot mock at either kind.

Everyone today realises how important it is to take a break. There is a lot of awareness about the value of relaxation, and people take to Tai Chi, Yoga, Art of Living, meditation or Reiki. Tai Chi teaches slow movements. Yogasanas, among all the things they do for you, also actually slow down breathing to a point where it is shallow and minimal. Reiki treatment slows down the breathing rate in no time at all and automatically brings about complete relaxation within minutes.

All this is not meant for young people. The young like to sleep or rest or ‘chill’ as they would have it, only so that they can move on to do more things.
Something like Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses’:
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life!


My dad used to talk about how things should be done in a measured manner. He didn’t exactly say it like that -- I wish I could recall and reproduce his exact words, but he illustrated how things could be done with thought, and in a considered, deliberate way so as to make them meaningful. A daily routine became almost a thing of beauty. He enjoyed life hugely, laughed and made others laugh, and made a little happiness go a long way. When we were younger and we wanted to do a whole lot of things at the same time, or have several treats or goodies at once, he would advocate a little at a time - whether it was cashews, or plantain chips, or anything at all. He'd ask us to stretch the pleasures out, to make the happiness last awhile.
With middle age, and a natural slowing down, I recall his ideas with joy since I can understand them so much better.

There's much to be said for moderation.
There are people one comes across who career off from some hectic schedule of activity to a 'Vipassana' meditation camp where no activity or communication is allowed for fourteen full days. This crazy zigzagging between spiritualism and partying is like binge eating followed by crash dieting!
There are many people who cannot take too much. Not too much company, not too much food, not too many activities, and not even too much rest.

What of those who have no choice? The elderly, the very ill or the unemployed must have a very mature understanding to value the quiet life when it is the only life open to them. It takes wise people to value solitude and repose even when they have not been chosen consciously, but are a part of life as it is for them.

You Cant Always Get What You Want

The papers have been reporting a furore over the outcome of yet another reality show on television. The losing finalists have alleged that the result was unfair and have filed a police complaint against the TV channel.(http://www.topnews.in/rakhi-abhishek-files-written-complaint-against-star-plus-29894)
The fondness for 'reality shows' is symptomatic of a world in which it is believed that everyone is entitled to win; that anyone can become a star. That isn’t a very realistic belief, but it is fostered from an early age.
Parents allow their children to win every game that they play against them. At children’s parties they ensure that every child wins a prize for something or the other. No one is left out when the goodies are handed out. Losers don’t have a place in today's world. Winning is so important that it is facilitated in the make believe world, every time.
But it doesn’t stop there.
There are schools where every child wins the 'Best Student' award -- by rotation. Children who take exams and don’t get the marks they expected accost their teachers and demand a review of their work. Parents often join them in heckling the teachers and the school authorities. In one extreme case, the parents of children who'd failed an examination gathered outside the school and refused to let the gates open until the results were 'reviewed'. The school gave in and promoted half of the failed students. (http://publication.samachar.com/thetelegraphindia/northbengal/thetelegraphindia.php)What would those young people have learnt from this experience? That they are good enough to decide what they deserve and then get it by any means?
No one is willing to be judged by their capabilities or their limitations, but everyone wants to be accepted at their own valuation. How is it possible?
'Judge not, lest ye be judged' has given way to, 'Judge not me, for I am judge enough'.

Surely the adults who grow out of this kind of childhood will have expectations of winning everywhere. We are a civilization that is waiting for prizes, freebies and goodies at every corner; because we think we are entitled to them. We are unable to handle disappointments, or worse, defeat. Take a look at the raging mobs that take to the streets after lost elections or lost cricket matches. Take a look at the numbers of disappointed students committing suicide after exam results are announced. Take a look at the rising numbers of cases of depression.

The older religions preached acceptance. At its worst, their outlook was fatalistic, and human beings were perceived as helpless victims in the hands of the gods -- who were very often personifications of the elements. Life on earth at the time when these beliefs were taking shape, and indeed even much later, was a daily struggle for survival : for food, for shelter, and for medicine. Human endeavour often met with defeat. Tragedy strengthened the human spirit and the resolve to fight and win.

In an age when every material thing appears to be so readily available and within reach, it becomes difficult to accept that there is still much that can’t be bought or had for the asking.
Expectations are big, and so are disappointments. The new lifestyle gurus preach the old mantra of acceptance, equanimity and austerity. Will we ever learn?

Rover:Circulating Library

When I met one of my great nieces, a charming three year old, I thought she was just the right age to have a pet dog or a kitten. Jaisri, her mother, told me how much she'd like it too, but she also said it would be very difficult to keep and care for a pet in their flat in London. It would be even more difficult to find someone to care for the pet when they went away on holiday.

Now that is a point. Who would take on someone else's dog for a few weeks?We had a friend, Dada, who kept a Great Dane. Dada's leave was due and he went to another friend Joy's place to ask him if he could take care of his dog for a month when he was away. Over drinks and dinner, Joy, a really good natured chap, agreed. Dada invited Joy around to make the necessary introductions. Joy took one look at the valued pet and told Dada that he, Dada, could stay with him for a month, or two, or even six, but as for the dog, well, why didn’t he just send the dog on leave instead? Joy told the story with great enjoyment, stretching his arms out wide to show us how large the Great Dane was!

There are some people who dislike animals and some others who swear a home with a cat or a dog smells distinctly nasty.It isn’t easy for dog lovers to understand how anyone can dislike, or worse, actually be afraid of dogs! I was terrified of dogs and swore I'd never have one, when I was in my twenties. My husband, Mohan, who doesn’t believe in wasting time with words, simply brought a pup home one day and made me forget my fear of dogs completely in a few weeks’ time. That was really gutsy of him -- had the experiment backfired, I wouldn’t have let him forget it in a hurry. It isn’t possible to do things like that in a big city where living space is limited, where all the adults go to work, and where a family travels a lot.

My Dad once propounded the idea of a sari library for ladies who believed in never repeating a sari to a party. That was a very long time ago. His term 'Sari Library' was a hit, and I remember how tickled his listeners were! Why not a Pet Library? How wonderful to be able to borrow a dog! To take a dog home for some time every day!

First, there would be training; in this case not for the dogs alone but for the people who wanted to take them out. A trainer would teach you the basics of caring for dogs, and you might have to clear a test before you became a regular member. There could be a short term issue scheme, where a dog could be taken out for the evening, just to play with, for a few hours. Then there could be a scheme – for advanced readers -- where a dog could stay with a family for a few days and nights. It could be brought to their home every day first, and then be fed a meal, in its own bowl, over there. It could then be moved in, with its own bedding, for the number of days settled upon. A trainer from the Library could look in once a day to see that all was well.Experts would be on the lookout for additions to the library, and they would pick up little pups to train to go 'visiting' once they were old enough. (Even the new additions to this library would be, well, dog-eared!)

The Pet Library could also work well for people who wanted to find temporary homes for their pets when they were away on holiday, and for those who just wanted someone to walk their dog in the evenings!

I hope someone is enterprising enough to pick up this idea and make it work!I can only foresee one problem and that is of a child, or children, refusing to return the pet to the library! How would one explain the idea of temporary ownership of a dog to a child? That would call for some thought. Parents, work your way around this one.

Reflections of an Evening

In Delhi, in the seventies, we used to look out for sunsets in the monsoon and post-monsoon months of August and September without fail. In a big and dry city like Delhi, rain was incredibly energetic. It was always a bonus; it brought high spirits, and it spelt romance. Spells of rain never lasted too long, and when they ended by evening, we got the additional treat of a sunset to enjoy and remember.

Evening curfew for a young girl like me in those days was lighting-up time. As soon as the street lights came on, I had to be home. What lovely late evening twilights we had. The light would fade slowly and grandly out of the sky, lingering until the clouds and trees were dark silhouettes. In my imagination, those banked up clouds on the horizon, black and purple masses, were mountains. The return home at the street light hour was followed by prayers in the back verandah. The puja was in the store room that opened off it. The back verandah would be lit only by the fading daylight and the storeroom was beautiful in the dark. It was comforting and yet exciting, and there were many smells that filled it: the sharp smell of the scrubbed brass villakku or the smoky smell of burnt oil wicks, the scent of goodies stored in big biscuit tins, and agarbatti, which dominated, and then took over my senses with its calming effect so that my troubles -- homework undone or a test the next day-- would be washed away. Only the comfort and the safety of my parents' home would remain.

It was remarkable that one could connect to nature in such a profound way in the heart of Delhi.

That was a long time ago, and the habit of enjoying a few quiet moments gathering one's thoughts at the end of the day remains. On some evenings, the day seems to die, and it has a melancholy feel. On other days, there is only a feeling of peace. Today, I was sitting outside our house and looking at the Bhutan Himalayas, purple and black masses against the Northern sky, and I dreamed they were the clouds of my Delhi childhood. One peak stood out sharply defined, perfectly symmetrical, and in the foreground, a gulmohar leaf swayed in the silent breeze. It could have been a calendar picture of Mt.Fuji with a leaf etching in front.

It rained all afternoon after an incredibly hot and sticky morning. The thunder was deafening and it was a really dramatic, high intensity storm. It cleared the air magically. By four o'clock, the sky was washed blue and the hills stood out in clear relief. I walked down to the National Highway -- a straight road leads to it from my house - at about five o'clock, with my head turned right to see the hills. They were silhouettes; I couldn’t see the trees on them at all, but I could see the ranges layered out distinctly. Where the sky met the hills, it was a lighter blue than anywhere else; almost whitish, and luminous. The silence that settled around this spectacle made me imagine it was a pre-dawn scene, as if something big was about to happen soon.
Back from my walk, I sat outside on a swing, with our patient and undemanding dog Simba at my feet. There was a gentle breeze blowing. Birds had returned to their nests and fallen silent. A truck rumbled past on the highway, but it wasn’t an unwelcome sound.

The sound of children playing somewhere in the distance was missing today. It is a typical evening sound. Once I was among children who played in the evenings out in the open, watching anxiously for the lights on the lampposts. Then, as a young adult, I remember sitting and daydreaming on the front steps in the evening and listening to a sad song about a lonely man watching the children play. I sit alone now and the children who played in this garden when they were little have left home. Home and childhood may seem very far away to them too. The complete tranquility and simplicity of those childhood years is lost for ever, but at moments such as these, one can recapture traces of it.

One Day in Ancient Greece

So, King, the soaking
Philosopher in his tub
Puts you in the shade.

Same Garden, Some Other Time

(Diary Entry for March 19th -- A Thank You Note to Raja, my garden's patron/sponsor, which never got completed or sent. No doubt I was lazing in the sun gawping at the flowers.)

This year I've felt as if I lived in Buddha Jayanti Park, with the abundance and profusion of flowers around here. The Phlox, Calendulas and Snapdragons are each one and a half times the size of normal blooms. It is a garden of enhanced sensory delights, with everything bigger, better and brighter than its everyday self. It’s like 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’, or 'Magical Mystery Tour', or some garden Lewis Carroll may have created where a flower could turn around and stretch its limbs luxuriously or even growl if we get too close.

Keats was a great guy for descriptions and I think he must have imbibed some of the stuff that gently assists the imagination. He could sit for hours and stare at a patch of sunlight on a wall, perfectly entranced. This was in Italy, where he went for the sunshine when he was dying of tuberculosis. I learnt all this at Mrs Malathi Verma’s lectures in college.I listened to her with my mouth open I’m sure.

Keats has captured the stupor that arises out of satisfaction. That comes to mind when I roam around a garden which is full of overpowering scents as well as the slight, not unpleasant smell of the first trace of rot that sets in with fulness. 'Ripeness' was an idea that Keats loved. The beauty of excess is one of a kind. He talks of trees whose boughs are bent with the weight of fruit. To watch the profusion of flowers overflowing from pots and boxes, to see stalks that are bent over with the weight of their over ambitious and utterly voluptuous blooms is a delight to be savoured in the same spirit; in the atmosphere of self indulgence.

His 'To Autumn' is all about the beauty of a natural idyll where every growing thing in nature has reached its prime and is just moving past it. The word that comes to mind is 'surfeit'. There is this marvellous sense of having over indulged.The bees themselves in Keats' poem are opiate and drowsed.The repeated cold spells we've had through late February and early March have kept our blooms alive and bursting out of their beds and borders. Had we had normal weather, the plants would have been scorched by an already relentless sun. Funny to think that that is really the reverse of what happens in Keats’ poem, where extended sunlight is a bonus!

Idylls in the Park

The best ever, the garden where I wrote this piece

Anyone who has access to a garden or a park is lucky.

I think of a garden as a thing of wide open spaces, trees, shrubs and flowers. Only a lucky few own such places. A walled patch of grass with a few rigid flower beds is no substitute. An ideal garden should not be perfect. The mind must be as free to wander in a garden as a body is. A garden must nudge the wanderer’s imagination, and not overwhelm the mind with impressions. It must not aim for perfection, or it loses its individual character.

Jane Austen uses the analogy of gardens most effectively to illustrate her ideas on morality and human nature. In Pride and Prejudice, the gardens at Rosings, the stately home of Darcy's forbidding aunt Lady Catherine de Burgh, are monumentally artificial and reflect both snobbery and sterility. On the other hand, Darcy's home, Pemberley, is a place where the natural order prevails and where Nature takes precedence over design. Pemberley becomes a metaphor for all that is good in England and in society. Jane Austen abhors artifice in natural surroundings as much as she does in human nature. In all her books, a perversion of the natural order reflects a perversion in human nature.

Indian Sage makes up this beautiful border

Of course, there are anomalies inherent in the very idea of a garden – it is something cultivated after all, and it requires skilful cultivation to preserve the appearance of the natural. In all fairness, human nature must be similarly 'cultivated' with education and good manners.

A good garden should have nothing artificial in it. Fountains, bridges, walkways, arched gates, and so on simply ruin a good garden. I would exclude ponds from this list if they are water-lily or lotus ponds and are in use as such. A garden, I feel, should follow a strictly natural course; that is, it should have in abundance the vegetation that is natural to the region.

Experts who have studied the trees of Delhi have discovered that a large number of alien species were imported over time by successive rulers. However, the 'sarkari' roundabouts, gardens and parks of Delhi are good examples of sensible selection and planting.

All of North India has a cold season, the season of flowering annuals. Gardens everywhere display bright and beautiful blooms, starting with chrysanthemums from mid-November, and going on to dahlias, calendulas, asters, pansies, phlox petunias, and sweet peas, that bloom till March. I stop with a few names because I could go on in a breathless litany. When I was younger, I lived for the cold weather season, when I could start planning and planting my favourites, including some flowers I remembered from my childhood home like hollyhocks, sweet sultana and verbena, and linums and Californian poppies that reminded me of the gardens in school.

As the years have gone on, I have begun to appreciate the true value of 'native' vegetation in profusion in the ‘off’ season – say during the height of the monsoon when flower beds are empty. Ixoras, hibiscus, musandas, cannas, ground orchids, arum lilies, portulacas, coleus, begonias and sanchezias, stray balsams and crocuses in huge batches of pink, white and yellow simply grow without any assistance. The 'common’ variety of gardenias that are used for Puja fill the bushes with white blooms and we don’t miss the hibiscus and frangipani that grow only when there is sunlight. Heliconias and tiny ornamental bananas grow like a small forest without any help at all.


Unseasonal chikoos were the sweetest surprise of this year’s monsoon, and huge green limes added colour and flavour to dull grey days. There were guavas, but the parrots in our garden are as bright and lovely as the fruits, and they get to them before we can. I like the idea of the garden being a home to birds and other creatures, as well as a refuge and source of delight to human beings.

Where Simba ran free and was laid to rest in 2018

The Guilt Hormone : An appeal to women to stop revelling in guilt!

(Published in The Statesman, 6 February 2006. Copyright Gowri Mohanakrishnan)

Why do we women feel guilty about so many things? We almost seem to enjoy taking the blame for anything that goes wrong, and we constantly try to appease those whom we imagine we have wronged. Invariably, these feelings arise in connection with our husbands and our families!

I just spoke to a fifty something grandmother who is an amazing woman, mother and sister -- my sister, in fact. She is brilliant at her work and at home, and she makes new friends every day--and keeps them. She built her career from scratch, starting to work full time for the first time at the age of thirty-six. She is now an expert in her field and works six days a week when she's not working seven, for about ten to fourteen hours a day. She travels extensively, inside the country and out, and sometimes does four trips a week if the need arises. Her work centres around cancer patients, and she brings hope, happiness and very often a chance of life to thousands of people. She was feeling guilty that she doesn’t spend enough time at home!
As someone who hasn’t worked full time in the last twenty years, I've always admired her drive, her energy, her discipline and her sense of commitment. Also her confidence and her complete lack of vanity. She can do with three hours of sleep in a night if someone--friends, family or anyone connected with work--needs her. She keeps in touch with patients over the phone and answers every call with a smile in her voice, no matter what time of the day or night the call comes in. And there are scores of calls in a day.

I'm amazed at the complete absence of the self congratulatory in her character, but I am stunned at the way she pulls herself up when she feels she has hasn’t done enough. I sometimes think that if she'd been a man, she'd have come home grouchy, stomping and yelling at everyone to keep quiet, switch off the TV and answer the damn phone for a change! I can’t understand why she feels guilty about anything. Once, she told me she felt bad that she didn’t make all her Diwali sweets at home as she used to before she started working. I asked her how many women she knew who made their Diwali sweets at home had done even a fraction of the things she did, and how many women made Diwali sweets at all when you could go out and buy them. And were Diwali sweets that important anyway?

It isn’t silly or funny that cooking-- or not cooking--is one of our greatest guilt trips.
I have apologised to one or the other of my children at the end of a meal which didn’t really taste just like mother (and gosh, in some cases my mother, not theirs) usually makes and I have actually promised to make it up to them! Now the important thing here is that the guilt doesn’t arise out of an accusation, it comes from within. What gives birth to it? Generations of voices in our blood, telling us we have to be good, we have to take care of home, husband and children, and put ourselves last? Possibly. The woman I'm talking about is loving, caring and competent and doesn’t have anything to reproach herself with. But the guilt has woven itself into our characters and really, life seems to lose something without it!

Guilt alone is pardonable (Oh great, now we have to feel guilty about feeling guilty!) If we feel a twinge of it, we can pull ourselves up and tell ourselves to snap out of it and quick. It's appeasement we've got to watch out for. Sometimes you slave and kill yourself over something that nobody really wanted or expected. And you end up feeling that no one appreciates what you do. That leads to a whole new set of complications.

Some solutions:
Tell yourself -- and others, when required -- that you are a person, not a service.
Remind yourself that no one is paying for the service, it is all about caring and sharing in a family.
If it must be called a service, well, then somedays service can and will be lousy; it tends to be in so many places. Everyone is entitled to make mistakes.
If some people are impossible to please, stop trying to please them.

And last, put your feet up once in a while and reflect.

Samsing

Copyright Gowri Mohanakrishnan

We have some beautiful old bungalows in the Dooars. Not all of them are cared for as they should be, because they belong to gardens which have, sadly, closed down.

Living in tea as we do, we tend to let ourselves be ruled by a code. It's not 'done' to barge in to a garden without informing the manager beforehand, not if you're going to take a look at a bungalow on his property. But what do you do when there is no manager? You barge in anyway. I first heard about the beauty of Samsing Bara Bungalow soon after I got married, twenty years ago. Someone asked my husband to be sure to take me there, as it was 'One of our best bungalows in the Dooars'. Samsing had belonged to Duncans, the company for which my husband then worked, and it had been sold a short while before I came to Dooars. People I met from Duncans spoke as if they'd lost a limb when they spoke of its loss. Soon after, however, the GNLF agitation took off and Samsing was one of the hotbeds of trouble. Perhaps Duncans was better off without it anyway! No one spoke of it now. Samsing borders on Darjeeling. Now that I've seen that border for myself, I realize that crossing over from Darjeeling District into Samsing Tea Garden would have been the easiest thing for the troublemakers to do.

To my surprise, our driver knew how to get there. My brother, who is a keen traveller and who shares our love for the Dooars, was with me. Within an hour of leaving home we were at the garden. I felt a little foolish, not at the thought of going off just to see a bungalow and not someone living in it, but at the thought of having lived so close to this place for so many years and never having been there! Chulsa subdistrict is one of the prettiest places in the Dooars. The Dooars wind from the banks of the Teesta eastward, bordered on the North by the Himalayas. Darjeeling District ends when you cross Chulsa forest, and the hills to the North are then Bhutan hills. Chulsa's gardens are up on a hill, and you get a lovely view of the plains from many of them. I'd been told that Samsing offered something even better, a view of the Darjeeling hills.

Once we entered the garden we started climbing downhill. I'd imagined we'd go higher and higher and probably find the bungalow on a peak. We wound down until we were just a few hundred feet above ground. We saw a large number of happy looking schoolchildren on their way home from school. There were signs of life and occupation everywhere, and it didn't look like an abandoned garden. We found that we'd reached the bungalow sooner than I expected. Like many Bara Bungalows of old, it presented its rear to approaching onlookers! There was a lovely old set of gateposts, solidly built, and surprisingly, freshly coated with choona. The gates were locked but were opened as soon as the driver uttered the magic words, 'Bagaan ka Memsaab aaya hai.' The road wound up from the gate, to bring us to the front of the bungalow.
It came as a shock. We were at the edge of a precipice. The front lawn just fell away into a gorge, and this huge hill loomed in front of us. What a location for a bungalow! It seemed to stand at the edge of the world. Ahead, there was this beautiful hill, with one face sloping down into the plains, covered in tea, and the remaining area terraced into paddy fields. We were quiet, and struck with wonder. That hill in front of us must be a part of Darjeeling. The bungalow servant who'd been sweeping the compound confirms this. The garden on which we look out is Kumai, which is at one end of Chulsa forest, but falls, interestingly, in Darjeeling District.

I turn to face the bungalow. To my relief, it isn't a crumbling old ruin. Far from it. It is a chang bungalow, and there are beautiful arches supporting the structure, no ugly stilts. The lower portion is covered in a beautiful dark green creeper. Grand steps lead up to the verandah and the house looks majestic. Its proportions are pleasing to the eye. It is majestic, but not pretentiously imposing. In short, it looks like someone's house, where you might live or visit, and not just a bungalow.

If you could allow yourself to see the house in your mind's eye as it might have been many years ago, with its roof freshly painted and potted plants all over the verandah, you'd think what a proud hostess the lady of Samsing would have been.

The house must wait, while we walk out on the lawn, towards the edge of the compound. Mercifully the compound isn't fenced in. There are blooming bougainvilleas there instead, and what we in North Bengal tend to call a 'Bhiew Point'. When we reach the middle of the lawn, we hear the river. I wonder what it must have felt like, for all the lucky people who ever occupied this house, to live in the Dooars and look out over Darjeeling, and to have the Murti river flowing in a gorge hundreds of feet below you, at the edge of your own garden!

We reach the view point and look down into the deep gorge and see the lovely river rushing past. Again, I get the feeling of being at the edge of the world. There is nothing now but the hills and their silences, and the gurgling music of the river. It is a moment of perfect peace. I wish I could hold this forever. That is not to be, of course.

Here is the eighty five year old mali come hurrying out from somewhere at the sight of visitors. He wants to talk about old times. The words, 'bagaan ka memsaab aaya' have worked their magic again. He is delighted when my brother greets him with a smiling namaste and congratulates him on his lovely garden. The old man shows us the camellias he'd planted and tended. There were so many colours then, he said, and now all the bushes have been pruned and never bloom at all.

With a silent apology to the spirit of the house for intruding, we climb the steps and enter. We cant help stopping to gaze at the lovely view again. But there's much to look at in the verandah, too. The tea table is lovely, large and circular, with beautifully carved legs. There are matching chairs. All they need is a bit of restoration. The floors are wooden, lovely and even, with no sign of warping or damage, even though they haven't seen a tin of polish in many years! A TT table stands in the verandah. One can imagine what happy afternoons children would have spent here. We could see the steps that had been cut into the lawn leading to the tennis court on the right. All that's left of it is one wall.

In the drawing room, we ignore the torn curtains and sagging upholstery and look instead at the beautiful French windows. We come across another delight—a chest, which a Chinese carpenter had made. The former paniwala who's showing us around opens it for us with some pride and shows us that it used to be a liquour cabinet! The dining room has some lovely old pieces which , we are told, were the work of the same 'Chinia Mistry'.The French windows in the drawing room and master bedrooms must have filled the house with light and air, and there must have been so much to look at, out in the compound.

Each room has a fireplace and all the bedrooms have skylights. The skylights are interestingly constructed, and no direct rays of the sun would have entered the rooms. Each skylight is carefully covered in wire mesh from the outside—surely to keep out bats and birds! The chimney stacks on the roof are beautiful too. We were pleasantly surprised to see that all the walls were freshly painted. This was done courtesy a film unit, we are told, which was stationed here some weeks ago to shoot a Bengali film.

The kitchen, at the end of the house, is beautifully sunlit. What feasts must have been prepared here for catering at Chulsa Club! What grand parties Samsing would have hosted! It looks like a house where people lived happily. There is a sense of its being ready for occupation again in spite of the shabby curtains and unpolished floors.

We in tea are a little behind the times when it comes to evaluating the riches that we hold. In a world that's raring to buy nostalgia, aren't we sitting on a gold mine? 'Shall we buy this house?' asks my brother. Just the house, not the troublesome garden, of course, he adds. Well, just suppose we did. And we had a tea bungalow running, you know, for tourists who'd be willing to pay a packet for the entire tea experience, with all its ceremony and style.

Breakfasts at nine, complete with fruit and juices from a newly invigorated Mali Bari. Carefully planned lunch menus, curries alternating with cold spreads. Bearers in spanking new livery, with the Samsing crest. Someone dressed up as Burra Saab coming stomping in and changing out of his kamjaari shoes, eating his meal and entertaining the guests with tales of the leopard in Section No.6. Only to dash off in his jeep again, to cool his heels and rehearse the dialogues for his next appearance, at tea time. English tea, presided over very correctly by a very proper Burra Memsaab, but served with Indian hospitality, nice and warm. Can you picture it all? We laugh at the way we let our ideas carry us away, but we realize there is a market for this kind of thing, and that it could well save Samsing!

I wept for a lost world when I stood at the view point overhanging the Murti. Sometimes a place can do a lot to you. It doesn't really need people in it.

Tee Time Tale

(Published in The Statesman, December 26, 2005. Copyright Gowri Mohanakrishnan)

In all my forty three years, I've never won a prize at games. And today, a beautiful November Sunday, I won at golf (category: Novices and Beginners). It amazed me and it has stunned my family into a respectful silence.

I spent my entire school life trying to get out of the way of basketballs, soft balls and cricket balls that classmates aimed at me. With one hand holding my spectacles in place, I would run to a corner of the field and look out anxiously for missiles. There was a reason why I didnt get into trouble with the PT and games teachers. One rainy July morning when we were in Class V, PT had to be taken indoors in a classroom. The teacher gave us a dictation test of sports related words. I was the only girl who could spell 'Calisthenics' and 'Eurythmics' in a class of forty. That didn’t actually win me exemption from the dreaded ball games, but the teachers tolerated me and ignored me until I passed out from school. It was a great relief to me.
I'm no sportsperson, and I'm a terrible traveller as well, which is why it is hard to believe that the prize that was awarded to me was for the best Long Drive.

I didnt play the match. Those who did played 36 holes over two days. I only entered for the long drive, pitch and putt competitions at the insistence of friends who wanted me to do it for a lark. I wasn't so sure. Go and make a fool of myself on the golf course in front of all those people? I said yes, anyway, getting carried away by all the high spirits and good natured fooling that always goes on at Ladies’ Meets. My old friend Lizzy has a kind heart and she knew I was really feeling terrified deep down inside. She took me aside, pressed a club into my hands and spoke to me calmly and patiently before sending me out into the field. Her words played over and over in my head. 'Eye on the ball. Forget everything else. Just keep your eye on the ball.' My guru's advice paid off.

It was Wodehouse's stories that first attracted me to golf. His golfing stories capture all the beauty of the links: the expanse, the sense of leisure and the silences. The golf courses in the Dooars, where I live, are all located below the foothills of the Himalayas, and two or three of them lie along riverbeds. There is a sense of nature in repose on these courses and I have enjoyed many walks on them. Needless to add, when there were no golfers sending balls whizzing around me.

There is a woman in a Wodehouse golf story who is a tennis player. The hero, a strong, silent four handicapper worships her, but vows to make her a golfer before he weds her. On her first session on the course, she tees off without a care. To her amazement, her ball sails away for yards and yards. She is hooked to the game for life.

I too hit the first ball without a care. After all, I had nothing to lose. Everyone knows I'm no golfer. I saw it sail away into the distance in a perfect arc as if it had a life of its own. Disbelieving and filled with wonder, I attempted the next shot. And went to pieces, trying to live up to my own performance.

Shot number 2 was disqualified. At number 3 I pulled myself up a bit -- with friends yelling encouragement -- and managed to achieve contact; a feat in itself, and distance, if not direction.Direction -- yes, I have a sense of one as of today. I have an answer to that question that all unemployed people dread, 'What do you do ?' I shall say, 'I play golf'.

A Late Reading of Henry James' The Portrait of A Lady

(Copyright Gowri Mohanakrishnan)

Isabel Archer is a woman of high intelligence who meets a series of people who feel that she has a great future. She hasn’t the means or the opportunity to make this happen. She doesn’t even desire it. A number of people, who begin to love her after they get to know her, become providers and facilitators. She lacked exposure; she is taken under her aunt's wing and she travels abroad. She lacked means; she is bequeathed a fortune. She lacked opportunity; a number of well endowed patrons and suitors offer her all they have. She is empowered.

None of her friends, relations or acquaintances believes she has a fault. Her creator, however, distances himself (and the readers) from Isabel and we see her with all her faults. This is the strong point of this novel. Isabel is wilful, opinionated, misguided and blind to several things which are obvious to characters with far less intelligence. She has lofty ideals and her goal in life is an idealised abstraction of perfection. She loses touch with reality, transferring her perceptions to other people's minds. She isn’t so much the innocent abroad as the self deluded victim of her own flawed, blinkered vision. However, these are only aspects of her character.

In spite of every opportunity and sufficient means, Isabel proceeds to make a horrible mistake and marry a fraud who only wants her fortune. She makes errors of judgement and befriends all the wrong people. A few years after a brilliant future was predicted for her, her young life is a mess, and all prospect of happiness ruined.

There are people who do things, and there are people to whom things happen. For the first time, I saw this novel as the tragedy of the people of the second kind. Could Isabel have prevented the disaster which overtook her life? Can anyone control the direction which life takes?It isn’t just the flaws in her character which lead to all her suffering. It is also the series of unfortunate events that follow one after another. Things 'happen'. Besides, the world is full of 'other people', and their actions affect every individual. No one can control the entire world around them and if things go wrong, it isn’t always for want of trying.

And yet, at every point Isabel had a choice and made the wrong choice. Would the right choices have guaranteed that she lived a life without sorrow? That's too metaphysical a question for this train of thought! The people who care for Isabel feel betrayed by her unrealised potential and unfulfilled promise. The seeds of greatness are gone to waste. There are many Isabels in real life. There are artists and performers, or sportspersons or leaders who never quite make it to the top or anywhere near there. For those who watch them with a sense of expectation, it is tragic.

Of course, both greatness and tragedy are perceptions, not absolutes. Isabel was perceived to be great. Readers of the novel perceive the conclusion as a tragedy. The character herself may think otherwise.

Cricket : Only Make or Break?

Why does cricket bring out the worst in our characters? Why is there such a disproportionate involvement in the outcome of the World Cup matches? Why is there such an exaggerated display of public idolatry? It is matched only by the equally huge waves of hatred against fallen idols when they fail to perform. Why does the public need icons whom they can love and hate at the same time?

The miserably tasteless and jingoistic TV commercials in the run up to the World Cup are followed by an outpouring of wrath and hatred against team members at the first defeat that they suffer. Everything is larger than life. The emotions, from euphoria to rage, are unnaturally overplayed and expectations from the players are exaggerated. Undoubtedly, the players should do their best; they should play honestly and honourably, and above all, for the sake of the team and the country. Let's pause and remember that it is a game, and that victory and
defeat can surprise any of the teams!

There is this tidal wave of hatred and violence against the absent cricketers and sometimes there are attacks upon their homes. The burning of effigies and posters has now become such a thing of routine that it is almost considered acceptable behaviour! Scathing and vituperative remarks are aired everywhere about the volume of earnings of each player from endorsements. Allegations that a player's attentions were all diverted towards his endorsement campaigns are aired freely and resentful comments are made about the 'lavish' lifestyles of these 'stars cricketers'. It reflects very poorly on the Indian national character.

Why do the television news channels give so much coverage to the screaming, outraged men who burn effigies and posters in a wild ecstasy of rage? It is a frightening image. There is an ugly aggression in the men as they turn upon symbols of the absent targets of their emotion. These are probably men who brawl and beat their wives, or terrorise all the members of their families in their little tin pot kingdoms at home where their victims shiver and shuffle around them, dreading their displeasure and submitting to the misery of routine oppression.

A cricketer who plays for the Indian team does earn a lot of money but the public doesn’t pay for it all. Why not turn this inner rage and frustration against those who must learn to fear it? This anger is dangerously destructive and it betrays an inner sense of inadequacy and under achievement. It should be sublimated into a positive energy which is directed against evil forces that can and should be eradicated from our social and political environments. I'm talking about those who are elected to public office, who promise to work for the public good, and who are paid from taxpayer's money. Why doesn’t the public react with righteous rage when these 'stars' cheat and rob and fail to perform at every occasion?

Reign of Error -- or, Rule of Flaw ?

(Published in The Camellia, April-June 2007. Copyright Gowri Mohanakrishnan)

The number of people who speak bad English with ease never ceases to amaze me. They are often as fluent as their language is flawed; they are confident and completely unselfconscious. Many of them are on television and FM radio, addressing thousands and thousands of listeners, and they are either unaware of the mistakes they're making, or they just don’t care. This is in contrast to the many who still bother to check up with a reliable source every time they're in doubt over the meaning, pronunciation or usage of a word, or have to use some new or unfamiliar word.

And then, there is the amount of badly written English that is all around us. Our newspapers and magazines provide scores of examples every day. Do you grit your teeth or wince every time you read the words ‘Whole Seller' , 'inspite', 'despite of'', 'as because’, ‘ more better' or 'Wel-come'? I even came across ‘the latter of the three'. Sometimes the repeated instances of wrong usage confuse me and make me wonder if I'm the one who's in the wrong. The most recent example of this that I've come across is 'calling it quits' which now seems to be used to mean quitting. Doesn't it mean the same as 'bury the hatchet'? But when errors abound around you, it is easier to assume that you are mistaken and that everyone else is right. And eventually, the mistake which irked us at one time simply passes into daily usage and nitpickers like me carry on collecting new examples to share with fellow sufferers!

Whatever anyone's response to the incorrect use of the language, there is a question which comes up : how important is it to speak and write perfect English ? Secondly, what is perfect English? Is it-- or isn’t it -- enough to make yourself understood, to communicate facts and convey information correctly? Must we condemn Hinglish or Punglish, and then Japlish, Chinglish and Spanglish as well? Purists are a tiny minority and the English language has relaxed its rules so as to become more inclusive. It wouldn’t proliferate or evolve if it didn’t. It is a most democratic language today.

English is everywhere around us, not only in recorded forms of speech and in print, but on shop and road signs and packets of products of soap, salt and biscuits. So even people who have never been taught to read English identify these products with ease and learn to read these names, at least. It is quite a remarkable thing when you think of it. Suppose one of the by products of the Freedom movement had been an eradication of all the signs written in the coloniser's language?

There was a time when English was only for the privileged classes. Members of the privileged set received a good education and a good deal of exposure to the culture of England. They developed to some extent an English outlook arising from their familiarity with English books and ideas. So there was this Indian self, and an English sensibility that many people developed. In British India, and for some decades after, there was much confusion in the minds of educated, thinking, individuals. V.S.Naipaul has made this conflict of dual identities one of the key issues in his wonderful novel, A House for Mr. Biswas, which I read again and again in my youth. I would have died before I read a Tamil magazine, however. An entire world is now shut out for me because of this refusal to learn to read my mother tongue. As youngsters we were dedicated enthusiasts of Western Music as well. (And that is where America displaced England in our hearts.) It shocked me when I realised some years ago that this post colonial conflict of identities is a complete non issue in today's world. By the time my children grew to the age when I wanted them to read A House for Mr. Biswas, I realised there was nothing there that they could relate to or find relevant.

Besides, it is America, and not England, the country of our former rulers, that has become the centre of the English speaking world.

The use of English, correct or incorrect, doesn’t interfere with anyone's sense of ethnic or national identity any longer anywhere in the world.

We Indians have a very deep love for this language. There's a sense of national pride in the numbers of English speaking people in the country, as opposed to countries where the majority of people speak only their own language. People who speak in English in our country are still a privileged lot, in a way. They are trusted and respected. They command instant attention when they speak. They’re considered 'smart'. Knowledge of English is seen as the gateway to a better life, generally.
That is why there are generations of children of uneducated parents who attend English medium schools. They receive instruction in English not only as a subject of study, but as the sole medium for learning about and understanding the mysteries of the universe. I have taught children like these and they often submit essays where every sentence is a set of correct words strung together incorrectly. At every step, the child thinks in the language which is spoken at home, and then translates. It is a laborious process and it makes for laborious reading. It is foolish to try and teach them the Queen's English. We must hope for simpler and more functional versions of the language for the sake of children like these.

I wish I could forget my days of English Language teaching and completely ignore all the mistakes that just leap out and scream for my attention every day.

P.S.
16th March, 2007
I was happy to read the piece below in today's 'TheStatesman'. It makes an appeal for an easy to learn brand of the English language based on the needs of the students. Here it is :

‘Teach Hinglish & Chinglish’
Press Trust of India LONDON, March 15: Newcomers to Britain should not be taught English but cultural mixes such as Hinglish, Chinglish and Spanlish which should be part of the curriculum, a think tank suggested today. The Demos think-tank considered “Imperial” English out-dated and believed it should adapt to the global reach of the language. It said the English taught in schools should have a much more global flavour. It said the government’s call for newcomers to learn standard English are misplaced. “Instead, they should be encouraged to learn blends such as Hinglish (Hindi/Punjabi/ Urdu-English), Chinglish (Chinese-English) and Spanglish (Spanish-English) which is widespread in America, where it is also called Tex-Mex.” Earlier this week, Commons leader Mr Jack Straw said Asian women should learn English before being allowed to settle in the UK. Without it, he said, they would find it impossible to integrate or work. But the Demos report said the language is no longer the preserve of the English, who are “just one of many share-holders in a global asset”.

Jubilee Joy

(Copyright Gowri Mohanakrishnan)

In the Picture, l to r: Twerps/Kumar, Baggy and Kit-Kat of Eng Hons Sec A, 1980-83.

Last year, 2005, was a double jubilee for some of us. As LSR turned fifty, we, who first entered its gates in 1980, could recall happily that it was all of 25 years since we joined college. Five of us from English Honours (Sec A) 1980-1983, got together in Delhi after many years and made a trip to LSR in the blazing heat of a June afternoon. The university admissions were on, and we knew we'd have to make another trip to meet friends and faculty. For the time being, it was enough to say hello to the well-loved buildings, to chant the college prayer in front of the auditorium, and to run on to the lawn. We ran, as we did 25 years ago, because that lawn always made us so happy.

Possibly an earlier generation had had its thoughts shaped by a coffee house. For us, it was the lawn. We spent every moment of our free time there. The 'teachers' on the lawn were our seniors and friends. Our gang would engage in serious or utterly ridiculous debates on topics of diverse nature. There were occasional musicians with guitars, putting in some serious practice between classes. There were 'SPICMACAY types' who went around advertising afternoon 'baithaks'. My first lessons in singing seconds were on the lawn.

There were demonstrations on 'How to Divest Yourself of Irksome Inner Garments Unobtrusively in Public if The Winter Afternoon Sun Gets Too Warm'. There were serious Eco Honours types who waited on the lawn until the Reading Room opened at 2.30 p.m. They were not always serious about everything. Some of them were always good for a rendition of 'Chapel of Love' with seconds. I wonder now why we chose that maudlin 60s number for our lawn and 'special' (we sang it on the bus as well) anthem. It probably started off as a parody in the first place. (One of the things that shocked me when I visited Delhi last year was the discovery that there are hardly any 'U'specials running now.) Sometimes there'd be a game of Scrabble, and the Hindi Subsi class for which we had ostensibly stayed back would be forgotten completely.

The lawns taught us acceptance in a big way. No one, just no one, could be elitist. If they were, they just didn't have any friends. And in our youthful arrogance, if sometimes we showed off, we were first ignored, and then firmly made to shut up.

We were like children in a garden. There were a few unhappy souls in the college -- impossible as it sounds -- and these people were absolutely disgusted with our lack of dignity. It didnt bother us. We never let go of our childhood, except in our Discussions on Life. They were often very intense and always left us in need of sustenance. Some eight or nine of us would pull out 20 paise each to buy a community masala dosa from the canteen. One bite to each contributor, and one for Subramaniam, the canteen dog, thus named because of his very obvious love of dosas. Whether we were dayskis or hostellers, we were always ready to eat, and eternally short of cash. The Canteen, as it was known then, had a pretty limited menu, and the food wasn't always great. Yet, we were always ready to eat there, especially when someone else paid. Some people actually talked of doing Canteen Honours.

Irreverence was a way of life with us. I think (Sangeeta) Kumar/Twerps summed it up succinctly when we were musing together about our days, 'We were so attitude-less!' The teachers accepted this irreverence even if it exasperated them at times. On occasion it was actively encouraged as a source of creativity. It was understood that irreverence was not the same as disrespect. I guess they knew that we knew where to draw the line.

We would wait mercilessly for the editors of the weekly wallpaper to pin up their offerings on the main notice board. They, poor things, waited until there was an afternoon lull in the corridors, but we lurked, pens uncapped and ready, to add our comments to every piece of writing in the space provided for feedback. 'Spellingses' we once wrote, 'ar hiley orriginle and inspyring.' I don't think we had any intention of being nasty. We were just celebrating the freedom of expression. Even today, I'd say that's the biggest thing LSR has given me; the urge for self-expression.

We did conform to some things, and the fashion code was one of them. Youth always conforms to its own norms. Our designer wear came from Janpath or from the State Emporiums. FilmSoc types wore paintbrushes through their artistically twisted 'jooras'. Serious academic types wore jeans, with oversized men's shirts which must have belonged to their fathers and hawaii chappals, and they carried jholas and registers and had pens tucked into their knotted hair. Ethnic was in: pretty cotton skirts were teamed with Kolhapuri chappals, payals and danglers in the ears. Interestingly, the make-up look of the day was the no-make up or the natural look. It was symptomatic of the spirit within that was free -- especially free of artifice.

What could embody that spirit better than the 'Fresher of the Year' competition? It wasn't a Miss LSR contest. The young women of LSR were wise beyond their years. Instead of saying anything about beauty or brains, and without resorting to trite phrases like 'woman of substance', they just held a contest where participants were given a free rein. In our year, the theme was 'Your Favourite Character from Fiction'. Not one of the participants saw it as a chance to 'dress up'. The girls were remarkably original and outrageously hilarious. Shalini Subbarao chose to be Jughead, and, in the manner of true actors who strove for verisimilitude, tearfully chomped her way through a burger filled with nothing but sliced onions -- the only filling the canteen could provide at 2.30, when the contest was held!

The following year, the theme was The Age of Punk. I remember Promilla Puri expressing her anguish to our class over the choice of something that sounded so decadent. And yet, no objection was voiced by any member of the staff. The girls had decided on a theme, and they could go ahead with it.

I also remember a couple of freshers coming to us and asking if we had any feathers to loan them: they had chosen to interpret Punk as 'Pankh', the Hindi word for feathers, and they were planning to go as birds!The winner that year, Meenakshi Rishi, symbolised the uninhibited, freethinking and wildly imaginative LSR girl. She turned up on stage in a dhoti and shirt, a huge twisted turban, a curly moustache, and carrying a solidlathi. There was a blanket thrown over her shoulder. She said she was the official representative of P.U.N.K., or 'Phaltoos Under territories of Nangia and Karnal'!!

Twenty-five years ago, the Silver Jubilee celebrations were held. There was excitement in college from Day One of the academic year. Princi, Dr.S.M. Luthra, wanted everything to be perfect. Mrs. Indira Gandhi, then Prime Minister, was to be the Chief Guest. On the first day of rehearsals, Uma, my friend and fellow Students' Union member and I were dispatched by SML to 'Call Meenu'. The college President Minu Dhand was sitting with SML, so we correctly interpreted that to mean that we were to go to the staff quarters, where Meenakshi Gopinath, lecturer in Political science, who was then on study leave, lived.

As we walked there, Uma told me how her mother, herself a senior lecturer in the University, had always said that 'young Meenakshi' would one day become the Principal of LSR. And Meenakshi has been the Principal for over seventeen years now.

We rang the doorbell and felt a little foolish saying, 'Ma'am, Dr.Luthra sent us.' Ms Gopinath smiled and asked us in. The house was fragrant with sandalwood and tastefully decorated with little pieces from Kerala. Meenakshi herself was dressed in a Kerala mundu. She came back with us and took charge immediately. She was competence itself: it took her less than two days to train a choir to chant Sanskrit shlokas. She split them into five sections and positioned them at different places and elevations in the audi. The effect was quite awe-inspiring and the acoustics were amazing.

SML knew how to get the best out of people. She couldnt be bothered with appearances. To use Kumar's words again, she was 'totally Attitude-less'. We were probably more deeply influenced by her than we realised then. There was a child like quality in her, an impulsiveness that was so endearing, and this complete enjoyment in everything that she did. No wonder we could be so free and fun loving ourselves; the Princi herself was so happy to be in LSR! She loved a good laugh. Someone did a take on her one College Day. The sari, the hair-do, and the Punjabi accent, the 'Thought for the Day' which she read out on Monday mornings at assembly: everything. I can't forget the look of pride (in the performer) and sheer enjoyment on SML's face as she watched.

She admitted to pampering our batch because we were young enough, she said, to have been her grandchildren! I wish SML had lived to be a part of the Golden Jubilee celebrations. She would have loved it if the Principal had sent a couple of Students
Union members round to 'call Dr.Luthra'.

Are We Dead Meat to the Media?

A PIA plane carrying forty-five people crashed yesterday and there were no survivors. Along with reports of the tragedy, we have another set of gory photographs appearing in the leading dailies. Pictures of charred bodies, barely recognizable as human beings after the fire has consumed them. Worse, there are pictures of body parts. Death by fire must be incredibly tortuous and painful. Whenever we hear of accidental death we tend to put ourselves in the place of the victims. This could happen to us, too, because it could happen to anyone, we think. The utter helplessness of the victims is disturbing. And what the victims' families have to undergo during the process of identification preys on the mind. We don’t need photographic reminders of the horror of untimely and accidental death. But this horror is laid bare to the public repeatedly by our print media and television networks. Why?

Can you imagine the impact on little children who see these images on television or in newspapers and magazines? Wont they have nightmares? The images are enough to disturb the peace of the strongest minded. In the interests of gathering fodder for news, and in competing with rivals to be the first with breaking news, is not the media losing sight of basic human decency? Is this sympathy for the victims? Or is this voyeurism and violation of the worst kind? Is nothing sacred or inviolate any longer? Apparently not. We are just dead meat for the media.

The dailies and television networks, which carry these pictures, have no right to divest the accident victims of dignity in death by publishing pictures of charred, broken and mangled bodies. They may be bodies today, but they were loved ones yesterday. I ask you to recall with what ruthless regularity we see pictures of dead bodies of terrorists, criminals or their victims--alas, equal in death--which are blood soaked, mangled, gruesome and horrific.

Death is the ultimate reality in life and there is no true wisdom without accepting this fact. On the one hand, people today seem to be obsessed with the idea of fighting death as the natural end to life. It is as if we want to seek a cure for death. In many cases, the elderly long for death as that natural conclusion to life's labours; a long wished for and well earned sleep. Today's life prolonging therapies offer an extension of life, but they do little enough to alleviate physical and mental suffering. Death is natural, whether it comes suddenly or expectedly. We have to learn to accept death as a fact of life, but that doesn’t mean that we become blasé or brutal about it, either. We must pay the dead the respect due to them.

We cannot permit this violence of the lens to continue. I appeal earnestly to all who think alike to join me and to use their influence where possible. There must be some moral code, some ethical guidelines that our editors and television programmers must follow.