Innholdsfortegnelse for 12/19/2016 i Open Magazine

editor@openmedianetwork.in LETTER OF THE WEEK It is not right for one to always react negatively to every national policy and change that is implemented. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi (‘Modi in the Age of Rage’, December 12th, 2016) decided to go ahead with demonetisation, it was clearly done with some thought and purpose behind it. Why would he just want to trouble citizens on a whim? Yet, there is so much of a hue-and-cry, so much whining and so much unwarranted criticism against this move. One cannot make an omelette without breaking a few eggs; in the same way, one cannot clean up an entire economy without having to face a few stumbling blocks. Yes, the implementation of this move hasn’t been as smooth as one would’ve liked, but one…

 NEVER BEFORE HAVE Indians of all incomes obsessed about money as they have since their prime minister dropped the demonetisation bomb on an unsuspecting nation. Yes, the buzz is all about willful vanishment of money. From paan shop to boardroom, money concentrates the mind. Our MPs were struck so hard by the November 8th nuke that they have refused to let Parliament run till the Prime Minister hears them talk— about what else, but money. That is, of the worthless variety. If Modi can disrupt the wider economy, goes the argument, our MPs can always be relied upon to disrupt Parliament, can’t they? Everyone is entitled to feel empowered, including the opposition. But it is the little Indian who is quietly, stoically, putting up with the pain. It turns out…

The thronging crowds will no longer see her smiling benignly from behind the windscreen of her air-conditioned Tempo Traveller, looking ethereal as well as distant under the thousand-watt-bulb that hung over her head. They will no longer hear her speak, mercilessly attacking her enemies, vowing to fight evil forces, assuring the enthralled crowd that MGR’s rule would be back. She had looked a redeemer, the very embodiment of Kali, the destroyer of evil. Now, somebody more audacious has struck her down lifeless. Perhaps the crowds remember the words of her resounding voice at the sight of a sea of humanity stretching out before her in Madurai six years ago, on 18 October 2010: “I received several threatening letters that I would be killed if I came to Madurai. They say…

BACK IN 2011, a computer system did something remarkably human. It beat two of the all-time best contestants at Jeopardy, one of the world’s trickiest quiz shows, where the quizmaster doesn’t even ask questions. In Jeopardy, he provides the answers, or clues, and the contestant’s task is to find the appropriate question. In order to defeat the two flesh-and-blood champions, the machine—an IBM computer system called Watson— had to be able to understand natural language, considered one of the most difficult things to crack for a computer. It had to be able to deal with the vagaries of human speech: cultural references, subtle meanings, idioms, riddles and turns of phrase. All of this without being connected to the internet. And then it would have to work out the various clues,…

IT IS MOSTLY WHEN I meet Subodh Gupta that I feel the greatest regret for never having made enough of an effort to learn Hindi back in school. My mother, who was born and bred in Goa, chose not to speak to us either in Konkani, her native tongue, or Portuguese, the legacy of her colonisers. English was the language of the future, of opportunity, and she wanted us to excel in it. The Devanagiri script was thus fairly alien to my writing hand, as were the tenses and syntax that comprised both languages. Living in Delhi necessitated my reacquaintance with Hindi, enhancing my vocabulary, though not my grasp of gender. My charm rather than language skills help me get by. I tell my interlocutors I can understand them perfectly,…

FEROZE THE FORGOTTEN GANDHI Bertil Falk Roli Books 304 Pages | Rs 695 ONE OF INDIRA Gandhi’s biographers suggests India’s history might have been very different if her husband had had an uninspiring but not untypical Parsi name like Sodawaterbottleopener. Some of Mrs Gandhi’s critics claim Gandhi wasn’t Feroze’s name to start with. Others make him out to be a Muslim. Far from glossing over these whispers, Bertil Falk, an octogenarian Swedish journalist, discusses them thoroughly to tell us that Feroze’s surname was spelt differently before his marriage. He also admits the possibility that his real mother may have been the sister of his putative mother. If so, who was the father? That’s not mentioned, reinforcing the suspicion that ‘the forgotten Gandhi’ might more appropriately be called ‘the unknown Gandhi’.…

A FEW PARTICULAR, and peculiar if you will, elements of the political character of the Tamil people are evident in their relationship to their leaders, some of it not on display in the instance of Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa’s demise. Like the propensity towards wanton violence in the face of grief, as if there always needs to be human accountability even to acts of nature like deaths. This is against both external targets (buses, for some reason) and themselves (suicides). It is a familiar enough phenomenon and also why we saw the drama over declaring the death of Jayalalithaa played out so long. As a result, the question of when she died will go into history as something of a mystery. Was it the previous evening when she had a…

Ever the pragmatist, by backing Modi’s plans for demonetisation, Nitish Kumar is playing to voters who praise his governance but are put off by his alliance with Lalu Prasad ON DECEMBER 3rd, Mavalankar Hall in Delhi was abuzz. Amid drumbeats, Janata Dal-United (JD-U) supporters from across the National Capital Region were gathering in large numbers. The occasion was the official launch of the party campaign in Delhi for next year’s municipality polls. Around 1 pm, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, the party president, was joined on stage by other senior leaders—Sharad Yadav, KC Tyagi, RCP Sinha, Ali Anwar and Sanjay Jha, among them. Bonhomie seemed to prevail. But then Sharad Yadav, the JD-U’s former president, took the microphone and mounted an attack on the Modi Government for forcing the misery…

IT IS 8 AM and Ibrahim is chain-smoking in a clandestine flophouse with his new business partners of convenience, Adam, Ahmed, Barka and Sidi. All but Adam are in their mid-twenties. They sit on a cheap plastic mat that does little to soften the cracked concrete below it. As soon as one of them finishes a cigarette, another tosses the communal pack of American Legend in his direction. When one carton is kicked, a new one is taken from the stack in the corner and ripped open without hesitation. Breakfast on this morning appears to be sugar biscuits, nicotine and caffeine. The near-constant fidgeting suggests that some members of the crew might have something stronger coursing through their bloodstreams. Ibrahim is not the leader of this impromptu team of entrepreneurs,…

IN THREE DECADES of treating people with diabetes, I have not come across a single patient who jumped with joy at the idea of being prescribed insulin. In fact, the joke among endocrinologists is that if you want to put an end to the conversation with an exceptionally demanding patient, advise insulin treatment. The next minute the consultation ends and the patient walks out, often never to return. Why do patients react so strongly at the very mention of insulin? The overpowering sentiment is the fear of injections, despite the fact that modern day insulin administration is remarkably simple and virtually pain free. Other cited reasons for avoiding insulin are the perception that it is the last ‘stage’ of diabetes, or an admittance of failure. There is also a myth…

THE INDIAN CONSTITUTION, as originally framed, was a document filled with compromises. The nascent republic could ill-afford to take a clear position on many matters, ranging from a unified tax law to special provisions for different provinces. One compromise pertained to the adoption of a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) that would give India a common civil law on matters such as inheritance, marriage and divorce. Given the more pressing political problems of the day, it was included in the chapter on Directive Principles of State Policy, not Fundamental Rights. Effectively, this allowed religious groups their own laws on those three issues. After decades of heated arguments, it appears there is no room for a political compromise on part of the Muslim community, representatives of which have long insisted that their…

It is said that nature abhors a vacuum and so does politics. The demise of J Jayalalithaa, a moment of grief for her state, is also an opportunity for politicians to eye that vacuum. Smaller political parties in Tamil Nadu have for decades been condemned to be side players in a drama where the DMK and AIADMK are permanent lead characters. This has changed. For example, Rajinikanth, always cautious in stepping over the line of politics, may finally feel ready to jump in. The BJP, Congress and other parties all fancy their chances now to extend their appeal. The effects of political vacuums are not always salutary. The one created by the overthrow of Saddam Hussein yielded an Iraq ravaged by civil war and terrorism today. 􀂄  WORD’S WORTH “Politics…

IT WAS MORE than 36 years ago, on April 22th, 1980, that Netrapal Singh Brijwasi met the late Dalit leader Kanshi Ram for the first time. “We knew nothing about him except that people would say ‘another Ambedkar has taken birth’,” he recalls. Kanshi Ram (1934-2006) had come to Mathura, Uttar Pradesh, for “Ambedkar mela on wheels”, an exhibition aimed at creating a visual memory of Dalit icons like BR Ambedkar, Jyotirao Phule and EVR Periyar, and to spread awareness of atrocities committed on Dalits. From the railway station, Brijwasi remembers, Kanshi Ram and one of his associates called Raame walked up to their local office with a heavy trunk each on their heads that contained the exhibition material. The rickshaw pullers at the station had asked for Rs 20…

HOW FUNNY WERE the jokes? They were very funny. We all held our stomachs, threw back our heads and hooted with laughter. But I cannot tell you even one of the jokes. The comedian wants them kept secret. They’re only for women, and that too for those with invitation. None of the content is meant to be put online; that’s the whole point of the ‘cult’. What I can tell you is that Disgust Me, by Sumukhi Suresh, which was performed recently in Bengaluru was—to rephrase the promo—a cult where we let go, laughed at that crass joke, and did not worry about looking appropriate. How to get an invitation: if you’re a woman, shoot an email to the team asking for one. Upon entry, everyone is given what resembled…

Back to His First Love Sushant Singh Rajput is turning out to be a real prick. No, honestly, he is! The actor is currently preparing to act in a stage adaptation of Italian author Alberto Moravia’s70s novel, The Two of Us, which imagines a conversation between a man and his penis. Sushant, in case you’re wondering, will play—ahem—the character that rhymes with slick. Few movie stars would follow up a Rs 100-crore hit with a stint in theatre, but Sushant insists he doesn’t think like most movie stars. When Takaddum, the film he was intending to shoot next with director Homi Adajania got ‘indefinitely postponed’, Sushant decided it would be a good time to take a stab at what he most loves but hasn’t been able to find time for:…