A Noble Prize For Hyderabad

Legends and Anecdotes of Hyderabad : - 19

A Noble Prize For Hyderabad
by Narendra Luther

Not many people know that the discovery of malaria parasite was made in Hyderabad and that the city can boast of a Nobel Prize.

This discovery was made by Ronald Ross. Son of a general in the Indian army, he was born in Uttar Pradesh in 1857. His heart lay in art, music and literature but to please his father he enrolled for medicine. Even while studying it, he wrote a novel, stories, a number of poems and composed music. He also learnt Italian, German and French and studied the great poets of those languages in the original.

On his first visit to India as a member of the Indian Medical Service, in 1881, Ross was struck by the stark poverty and poor health of the people at Madras and wrote a poem which concludes by asking :

`Cannot the mind that made the engines make,
A nobler life than this ?'

In India he served at a number of places like Madras, Bangalore, Vizianagaram, Quetta, Calcutta Andamans and also Burma.

After 6 years in India he went to England on furlough and obtained a diploma in the then new subject of sanitation and studied bacteriology. On return to India in 1890, he was sent to Bangalore to tackle the cholera epidemic. He recommended a scheme of sanitation there in 1896 which, incidentally was the first sanitation programme in India. He said that the work of scavenger must precede that of the philosopher, artists and politicians !

He became aware of the problem of malaria in Bangalore. The medical theory at that time was that malaria was caused by breathing the damp air of the marshes. Ross began his serious study of the subject while on a holiday in Coonor and identified the two varieties of mosquitoes one of which - later identified as Anopheles - carried the germs.

Ross integrated the isolated findings of Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch, Laveran and Beauparthy to determine the process of transmission of malaria. He concentrated his efforts on the study of the parasite in the mosquito rather than in the patient.

His Methods :

Ross used to tempt his patients to be bitten by mosquitoes infected by malaria by paying them one rupee each. He would then let loose a swarm of mosquitoes (of which he always kept a bottle-full ready) into the mosquito-net under which the patient was made to sleep. To tempt the mosquitoes, he would wet the bed and the net with water. Then he dissected the infected mosquitoes and examined them under a microscope.

The Discovery :

His last experiment was on a patient called Hussein Khan. And it was the very last mosquito, a dappled Anopheles which showed itself as the carrier of the malaria parasite. Ross thus established that the parasite was sucked in by the female Anopheles, incubated in its stomach for 7 days or more and brought up into its salivary glands in the mouth from where it was injected through its bite to other human beings.

This great discovery of the process of the transmission of malaria was made on 20th August, 1897 at Hyderabad. This led to the methods of control of the dreaded disease.

In 1899 Ross took retirement from the I.M.S. and left India. He got the school of Tropical Medicine established in Liverpool and became a lecturer there.

For his monumental discovery Ross was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1902. In 1911 he was knighted.

A Boon to the World :

In 1906, in Ismailia in Egypt he controlled the breeding of mosquitoes by spilling oil over ponds by the side of the newly-dug Suez Canal. The construction of the Panama canal, started in 1890 and abandoned because of the large-scale prevalence of malaria and yellow fever in 1904, was made possible by applying his methods.

Mauritius, Greece, Cyprus and Spain also implemented malaria control measures under his advise.

Work Against Odds :

All his researches were carried on by him entirely at his own expense and despite obstructions from his superiors. Once his leave was not extended and he was posted back to his regiment where there were no facilities for research. That, however, did not deter him from his mission.

Versatile Person :

Ross was a person of striking versatility. He was a prolific writer of poetry, novels, essays and dramas.

His `Memoirs' written in 1923 are full of wit and sarcasm and it is not beyond him to have a dig at himself. His acceptance speech at the ceremony for the award of the Nobel Prize is remarkable not only for its brevity but also for his humility in acknowledging all those scientists, discoverers and inventors whose work he had built upon. He concluded it by referring to, "the dingy little military hospital, the old cracked microscope and the medicines bottles which constituted all the laboratory and apparatus which I possessed for the purposes of taking one of the most redoubtable of scientific problems". Sir Ronald Ross died full of glory in 1932.

Many countries of the world acknowledge the debt of gratitude to him. Malaria is a public health problem in more than 90 countries representing 90% of the world population. In India it was a major scourge till 1953 when a National Malaria Control Programme was launched followed by the National Malaria Eradication Programme in 1958 to banish Malaria within a decade. By 1965 the incidence came down from 75 million to 0.1 million cases. Then there was a slip - up and the level of incidence since 1977 has been 2 million cases annually. In the land where the great discovery was made, malaria continues to rage!

It is also sad to reflect on what we have done for Ross. There is a ramshackle building near the airport to which he referred in his Nobel speech. The road leading from Ranigunj to the airport was named after him but was soon changed to `Minister's Road'. In an ironic tribute to his memory of his work, swarms of mosquitoes inhabit his unpretentious laboratory tucked away near the airport!

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Mehdi Ali’s Irony of Fate

Legends and anecdotes of Hyderabad—48

Mehdi Ali’s Irony of Fate
By Narendra Luther

One of the rare men of conscience in the civil service under the Nizam was Mehdi Ali. Born in 1917, he was educated at Aligarh and joined the Hyderabad Civil Service in 1941. Things were hotting up in Hyderabad politically at that time.

Encounter with razakars

In 1948 he was posted as Deputy Collector at Madhira in the Khammam district. The razakars were every where and the administration also was afraid of them. They would enter trains, loot passengers and otherwise misbehave with them. Once they detained a group of Marwaris and accused them of smuggling gold in their jars which, on search, were found to contain only pickles. The police were on the side of the razakars and in spite of the intervention of Mehdi Ali, they were harassed for twelve hours before they were allowed to go.

Mehdi Ali’s boss was the Commissioner of Warangal. He was an Arab named Habeeb Mohammad. He had a good reputation, but after the ascendancy of the razakars, he became a fanatic Muslim. He used to declare that he would mix the blood of Hindus with the water of the Bay of Bengal. Mehdi Ali did not like his rabid views, but could do little as a subordinate official.

The Hindu population was so terror-stricken that a large percent of it moved across into the neighbouring Indian territory.

Arabs Loot

Under the Nizam the Arabs guarded the treasury in the district and talukas. They were very good at their job and were fiercely loyal. With deteriorating conditions, they became a law unto themselves. One night they attacked Dindkur village, which was about five kilometers from Madhira. The indulged in loot arson and rape. They even removed the mangala sutras of women, which are held very sacred by every married Hindu woman. The next morning a silent procession of panic-stricken women came to Mehdi Ali to protest about that and demanding action against the guilty persons. The police station was just opposite the residence of Mehdi Ali. At that time the officer in charge of the Police Station, Habeebullah was with him.

The Boss Annoyed

Mehdi Ali ordered the apprehension of the Arabs. The Police did nothing. The Arabs freely moved around and waited for the train at the railway station. When the train came they quietly boarded it with all the loot. Mehdi Ali felt humiliation and pain at the incident. He wrote to the commissioner protesting against the incident and general lawlessness. The Commissioner felt enraged that the Deputy Collector should complain about his brethren in faith. He wrote to the Government asking for his immediate transfer.

Kasim Razvi also had written to Mehdi Ali accusing him of harassing razakars unnecessarily, and threatened him with dire consequences unless he changed his ways. Razvi also added that if he did not mend his ways, he might soon see ‘Warangal’. Mehdi Ali did not understand the meaning of that expression. He learnt later that it meant that he would be sodomized.

Mehdi Ali was promptly transferred. However, luckily for him the Police Action took place soon and Hyderabad became a part of India. He thus escaped the ‘dire consequences’ threatened by the Razakar leader.

Promotion Denied

Soon thereafter, he resumed he resumed duty under the new dispensation. When in 1949, his turn came for promotion as collector, he found that his name was missing from the list of eight officers who were promoted. All the promoted officers were Hindus. Thereupon Mehdi Ali contacted Mulla Basith Ali who was one of the seven ‘Mirzas’ who had opposed the policies of the Nizam and had advocated the establishment of responsible government, and accession to India. Both met the Prime Minister of India, Jawahar Lal Nehru and complained about the injustice and discrimination under the new dispensation. Nehru did not believe it. Basith showed hi a copy of the order. On seeing that Nehru was shocked. He immediately rang up Bakhle, the Chief Civil Administrator of Hyderabad. Bakhle was naturally surprised on receiving a call from the Prim Minister of India. Nehru asked him if some officers had recently been promoted as collectors.

‘Yes, sir,’ replied Bakhle nervously.
‘How many’?
‘Eight, Sir.’
‘ Any Muslim amongst them?’
‘No, Sir.’
‘Why?’
We have done some screening, Sir, and we are trying to redress the imbalance against the Hindus.’
‘This is too much and too sudden. Go slow. Let them not feel that we are discriminating.’
‘Yes, Sir'. I shall review the decision’, replied Bakhle.

The list was revised. Three Muslims wee included in the new list. Mehdi Ali got his due promotion.

Unjust Aspersion

But he did not advance further. Some years when his name came up for the next promotion, he was overlooked. He could not imagine the reason. Vohra, an ICS officer who was trained along with him and who was in a high position in the Government of India told him confidentially that some superior officer of Mehdi Ali had recorded in his confidential roll that ‘his loyalties are divided.’

It was a most brutal cut. Such a remark against an officer who had the courage to oppose the razakars at the height of their power and who risked his entire career for the sake of justice to the oppressed! Thousands of Muslims had gone away to Pakistan after the Police Action. He too could have done that. But he stayed on. He was too shocked to appeal or agitate. How could a Muslim fight such an allegation? They were so vulnerable on that point. He just kept quiet and wondered at the irony of his fate.

When I met him some years ago, he was over eighty. He did not exhibit any trace of bitterness even if he felt any. He had a forgiving smile. Destiny plays strange games with human beings. Prejudice will never be eradicated from the human mind!


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The Romance of Public Garden - I

The Romance of Public Garden - I
By Narendra Luther


The City of Hyderabad, originally called Bhagnagar, was founded in 1591. Its founder, Mohammad Quli Qutb Shah had decreed that “it should be unique in the world and a replica of heaven on earth”. The word for heaven in Arabic ‘Jannat’ – also means a garden. Indeed for people in Arabia living amidst vast desert, heaven would mean lush greenery. In the mythical Islamic heaven, as described in the Holy Quran, there are many gardens.

Accordingly, the new city was a virtual garden. It had a habitation of less than 3 square kilometers surrounded by gardens and greenery covering an area of over 23 square kilometers.

Over the years however, with the increase in population, the gardens and greenery fell a prey to increased construction spilling on to the other side of the Musi river.

In 1864, the fifth Nizam, Afzal-ud-Doula on the advice of his prime minister, Salar Jung I, bought a piece of 54 acres of land from Raja Balakrishen. This was opposite the vast open land of Fateh Maidan (Victory Ground) where once the armies of Aurangazeb, had set up their camp during the siege of Golconda in 1687. Hence the name. This side was developed into a garden and was given the name of Bagh-e-Aam – ‘Public Garden’ in Urdu. In a corner of this garden a small zoo was also created.

Queen Victoria of England who was also the Empress of India celebrated the Golden Jubilee of her accession in 1887. To commemorate that, she gifted an iron bunglow to the Nizam which was placed in the Public Garden. It can be seen as soon on the immediate left of the entrance gate. Now it is difficult to recognize its original features. Steel mesh has been added to its frame and wooden partition made to create more rooms. The Public Gardens Department has converted its central portion into a meeting hall. The skeleton, however, is still original. There is no plate or plaque to give the historical background of the building as given above.

The Town Hall

In 1905, to celebrate the fortieth birthday of the Nizam VI, Mir Mehboob Ali Khan, the nobles of Hyderabad collected funds for the construction of a suitable building to be gifted to the Nizam. Incorporating the Rajasthani style of architecture, this building was completed in 1912. It was a pity that the Sixth Nizam died a year before that. It was called the Town Hall. Later it was converted into the State Assembly and the first popularly elected members of the Assembly had their session there after the first General Elections in 1952. From 1985, substantial alternations and additions were made to this building to provide adequate facilities to the legislators.

The most well-known superintendent of the Public Garden was a very witty man called Jamaluddin. He added a Chinese section to the Public Garden. His sense of humour and his jokes – and jokes on him became very popular. We wrote about him in the issue of July 1998.

The Doll’s House

A new building was constructed in the Public Gardens sometime later. Originally, the legend goes, that it housed the dolls of the daughter of the Nizam VI and was called the ‘Dolls House’. However, the princess did not like it because she believed that ghosts inhabited it. At the suggestion of the first Director of Archeology of the State, Dr. Ghulam Yazdani, the State Museum was set up in the building in 1930.

It is rather strange that such a good museum should be so little known to the public and to the tourists. That is perhaps because it is over-shadowed by the more popular Salar Jung Museum in the old city.

This museum has the largest collection of coins in the world after the British Museum. These include, besides Indian coins from the earliest ages, some Roman coins also.

This is the only museum in the country, which has facsimiles of Ajanta paintings prepared by Syed Ahmed and Mohammad Jamaluddin -- two artists of Hyderabad under the guidance of Italian artists.

The museum also has a number of sculptures belonging to the Hindu and Buddhist and Jain periods. It has also an impressive collection of bronzes from as early as the 2nd century B.C.

Apart from these, it has a number of manuscripts. Of those, there are three copies of the Holy Quran. One has the autographs of Emperor Shah Jahan, another handwritten by Aurangazeb and the third by his elder brother, Dara Shikoh.
3000-year old ‘mummy’

Out of the five Egyptian mummies in India one is in this museum. It belongs to a princess of Egypt who died during childbirth at the age of 18. Recent x-ray revealed that this 3000-year old mummy is in perfect shape and only one of its teeth has fallen!

The Museum has also a very impressive collection of arms including a jewel-studded sword of the Nizam and a shield belonging to Shah Jahan.
The Shahi Mosque

In 1936 a mosque was constructed in the Public Gardens. It had accommodation for 102 worshippers. The last Nizam used to come here with members of the family on every Friday and on every Eid to offer prayers. It was therefore called Shahi Masjid (The Royal Mosque). Now putting an acrylic shed on the open area has increased the accommodation.

On either side of this mosque there are two Niyaz Khanas –kitchens for feeding the poor.
The Azad Institute

In 1959 they were handed over to the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Oriental Research Institute. One of the buildings contains library and reading room and the other is used as an auditorium for public meetings. This institution has over 12,000 books and is used by a good number of persons including over 50 research scholars in different fields.

The Public Garden had its next landmark when the Silver Jubilee of the last Nizam was celebrated. About that and other developments, wait for the next installment.

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List of Scripts

SCRIPTS for films/ documentaries

Janwar ki Pehchaan
Unusual Hobbies of Hyderabadis
Rockumentary – a documentary on the rocks of Hyderabad
Bhagmati: A feature film in English& Hindi
Bhagmati: A bilingual ballet (Hindi & Telugu)
Raja Deen Dayal - in two parts

When the Nizam Wept

Legends and Anecdotes of Hyderabad : 30

When the Nizam Wept
by Narendra Luther

In November, 1930 a public meeting was held in the Victory Playground to celebrate the birthday of Prophet Muhammad. A young man was moving his audience to tears by his oration. Midway through his speech, there was a general commotion. Policemen on duty started blowing whistles nervously. Mir Osman Ali Khan, Nizam VII, had arrived unannounced to attend the meeting. The young speaker paused only for a while and then greeted the newcomer in an emotion-charged manner: “Oh crowned slave of the Muhammad of Arabia, come, let me tell thee about the style of governance of that emperor of both the spiritual and the corporeal worlds." Osman sat there completely mesmerized and like the thousands amongst the audience, washed by the flood of words coming from that young speaker, tears began to roll down his cheeks. He asked some of the telling sentences of the speech to be repeated, as people say ‘encore’ in mushairas.

A week later, on 25th November he received a firman. It read : “The royal personage was delighted to hear your sermon and on the auspicious occasion of his birthday is pleased to confer the title of Bahadur Yar Jung on you."
The young man was born in 1905 to Nawab Nasib Yawar Jung and named Saadi Khan alias Muhammad Bahadur Khan. He was descended from a Pathan family which had come to Hyderabad during the reign of the Nizam Sikandar Jah (1903-29) and was granted a minor jagir of Lal Garhi He was also a hereditary jamadar of the nazm-e- jamiat (commander of the Irregular Forces) of the Nizam.

Bahadur Khan’s mother died barely seven days after his birth. He was therefore brought up by his maternal grandmother upto the age of 14 and thereafter by his paternal grandmother. He was educated at the Madarsa-e-Aliya and Darul-ul-Uloom and acquired proficiency in wrestling, swimming, marksmanship, and swordsmanship. He was also very fond of shikar. He was married at the age of 14 to Talmain Khatoon, an older cousin. Right from school days he used to excel in declamation and became a popular orator.

When Bahadur Khan inherited the jagir on the death of his father in 1923 he also inherited a debt of Rs. 4.5 lakhs. Within four years he set the affairs right and having cleared all the debt, doubled the income from his estate to Rs.40,000 per annum. In 1926 he was elected president of the Society of Mehdivis and in 1927 he started the Society for the Propagation of Islam. In 1930 he was elected secretary of the Union of Jagirdars which had been established in 1892 but was moribund. He served in that capacity for four years and infused new life into it. He was fond of reading and knew Urdu, Arabic, Persian and English and had smattering of Telugu. Because of his oratorical skills he became immensely popular and also very close to the Muslim League leader, Jinnah whose speeches he often interpreted from English into Urdu.

In 1938 he was elected president of the Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Musalmeen, a society with a cultural and religious manifesto. However, it soon acquired political complexion and became aligned the Muslim League in British India. He soon rose to be the supreme and unquestioned leader of the Ittehad and imparted a new militancy to it.

Bahadur Yar Jung noted the peculiar political situation of Hyderabad. It was a State with an overwhelming Hindu population -- some 87% -- and a Muslim ruler. With the winds of change blowing all over and the talk of democracy and the demands for a responsible government, the control of power was bound to pass from the ruling Muslim minority to the Hindu majority. To perpetuate the existing state of affairs, heavily weighted in favour of the Muslims, he therefore propounded an ingenious theory. The Nizam claimed that, as a ruler, he was sovereign. Louis XIV of France had proclaimed in the 17th century “L'etat!-- c'est moi!" (I am the State). In 1938, Bahadur Yar Jung enunciated the doctrine of ‘Ana'l Malik', -- ‘We are sovereign’. According to this theory, sovereignty did not vest in the ruler, but in the Muslim community. The Nizam was merely a symbol of that sovereignty. Every Muslim in the State thus became a participant and a sharer in sovereignty. It thus sought to make it the vested interest of every Muslim to protect his sovereignty and its symbol, the Nizam. It became the official doctrine of the Ittehad and Bahadur Yar Jung insisted that Hyderabad should be declared a Muslim State.

In 1931, he performed Haj and thereafter undertook a tour of the Islamic countries of West Asia, and of Europe.

To make matters absolutely sure, the demographic balance of the State had to be altered. He therefore undertook a vigorous programme of conversion of Hindus into Muslims - particularly those belonging to the untouchable and backward classes in rural areas. He advised his band of missionary workers to aim not at the conversion of individuals but of whole groups. This work was done with particular zeal for three years and during that period he is credited with the conversion of 24,000 persons.

Bahadur Yar Jung thus reduced the Nizam from the personification of sovereignty to its mere symbol. He often said things which caused the Nizam discomfiture, and, not unoften, even offence. Once when he thundered against the British presence and their direction of administration in the State, the Nizam was compelled by the Resident to censure and to silence him and to be confined to his house for some time. The jagirdars were not allowed to participate in politics. To overcome that constraint, Bahadur Yar Jung renounced his jagir and title in 1940 and intensified his activities. That added to his popularity.

In 1944, he had gone to a dinner at the house of Hashim Ali Khan, a judge of the High Court and a close friend. Coming rather late, he ran up the steps and apologized to his host and other guests. Then he sat down and, as he took a pull at the hookah, he collapsed. His sudden and unexpected death raised suspicion that he was poisoned allegedly at he instance of the Nizam. But only whispers were heard. However, the Nizam joined the mammoth funeral procession the next morning.

Inspite of his politics, he was a friend of many leaders of other communities. Sarojini Naidu, for example, used to refer to him as her son.

His early death changed the course of history in the State.


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The value of dreaming

The value of dreaming
By Narendra Luther

While most of us accept the given order of things, some of us dream about changing that. Most of those dreamers keep on dreaming or venting their ire in cocktail parties or other small gatherings. Only a handful has the courage and tenacity to go out in the field and fight for improving the ‘sorry scheme of things’ around them. They make history. Some do so by taking up the pen and writing about issues and exhorting people to action. They thus mobilize public opinion. Others, either in tandem with such people or through direct action, proceed to change them by going to the public. They suffer no doubt in their fight against the ‘vested interest’ – people who believe in the rightness of the given system and are often its beneficiaries. Some of those who try to change the landscape fail. Some of them die before they can succeed. But their struggle does not go in vain. Others rise after them, stand on their shoulders and build up further. And one day things change.

Field of action

It has happened in the world of ideas, in social and political institutions, in the field of physical knowledge and in the realm of faith. The last phenomenon gave rise to various religions and sects and this process is not yet over. Every new idea begins as a heresy and ends up as an orthodoxy. The revolutionaries of yesterday become the reactionaries of today. Rebels against oppression of yesterday are the perpetrators of oppression of today or tomorrow. So the cycle starts again. The German philosopher Hegel believed that reality unfolds itself through ‘dialectical idealism’. According to that, an idea or a movement can be considered a thesis. Since it does not contain the whole truth, it gives rise to its opposite – antithesis. Out of this clash of two opposing ideas, a ‘synthesis’ emerges. In due course this synthesis itself becomes a thesis and the old cycle starts. But that is an upward moving cycle or a spiral. That is how all progress takes place. Karl Marx ‘applied the concept to the material world and called it ‘dialectical materialism’. Alongside, he propounded the concept of class struggle. Out of that was born the theory of communism. That is a state of society in which every one would work according to his capacity and get according to his need. It was a beautiful promise which changed the politics of the whole world and various practical suggestions made by Marx were tried out in a large number of countries in the last 150 years. Yet, the system built upon the thesis and its diluted versions collapsed within seven decades.

The elements of his philosophy however, still continue to inspire people all over the world. Marx also denounced private property and religion. Two millennia before that Plato the Greek philosopher had outlined the contours of his ideal ‘Republic’ in which even private family was abolished. There have been other philosophers in different times and climes who adumbrated a variety of ideas affecting social organizations and established modes of thought and worship. At one time slavery was an accepted part of social set up. Nero wanted to abolish it because he was in love with one, but could not. Eighteen centuries later Abraham Lincoln unleashed a civil war and accomplished that in the U.S. Yet segregation against blacks was removed only about a century later because of the courage of Martin Luther-King and the physical force of the federal government under a progressive President. Nero could not suppress the rising tide of Christianity. Mahatma Gandhi was not the first or the only one to campaign against untouchability. Different philosophers and social activists raised their voices against the evil practice since times immemorial. He succeeded in the case of leprosy but only partially in the case of untouchability. Thanks to the campaign of another thinker and activist, Ambedkar, its abolition got enshrined in the fundamental rights in the Constitution of free India. Yet it persists, as does the practice of child marriage and sati. Some ‘evils’ take time to be rooted out but a beginning is important and gives hope. The British philosopher and politician Edmund Burke warned people that for evil to succeed it is enough if good men do nothing. Yet on every issue you will find people not only sharply divided in two opposing camps but also those who are neutral or just don’t do or say anything out of discretion or inertia. Burke made that observation in the context of the French Revolution of 1789. That was born out of the oppression of the ancient regime and the writings of philosophers like Voltaire and Rousseau. The slogan of the revolution was ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’. Yet within a decade it ended up in anarchy and the rise of Napoleon who became the emperor of France and launched a series of wars to deprive the people of other countries of Europe of their life and liberty – the values which the Revolution enunciated.

A human trait

Examples of ideas and those who propounded or held them can be multiplied. The point I wish to make is that it is good to be idealistic – that is to have some anchor in some idea and a society based on ideals. The mission may never be completed in one’s lifetime, but a legacy will be left behind for others to cherish and to follow. That is the one distinguishing mark between humans and animals. Human can think and they should do so to try to find whether the existing situation can be improved. As sentient humans we need to look at the nature of things and conditions and to decide whether we are condemned to live with them or we can discard some and devise other, better ways, other mechanisms and institutions. Only such inquisitive and restless minds have led to new inventions and discoveries. They have the potential of liberating us from the daily drudgery of mechanical repetition of soulless tasks and providing the possibility of the development of our mental and spiritual life. Whether we do it or not is another matter. Plato described those human beings who did not indulge in the luxury of ideas as ‘happy pigs in a sty’. But if some one’s happiness lies in putting his snout in a sty, should we force him to be better?

Ideas are discomforting. They disturb social equipoise. They threaten the given order of things. They expose their host to unforeseen consequences. They rouse the status quoists to the defense of their cherished heritage of orthodoxy which, as George Orwell put it, is ‘not thinking’. It is comfortable. That is one way of living a safe life in which you don’t leave any fingerprints or footprints. You will never be pursued or caught, never cursed or blessed, crowned or crucified. You will ‘pass gentle into the good night’.

The choice is yours.

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My day out

My day out
By Narendra Luther

We live in an age of globalization and liberalization. While the term ‘liberalization’ applies to trade and commerce, globalization covers all aspects of our lives. It is a euphemism for Americanization. This process has been going on for a long time. But whereas earlier there was grudging acceptance of the creeping phenomenon, now – except for some fringes - there is an open-arm welcome to it and the wild consumerism which comes in its wake. I have lived through the days when whoever went abroad bought gifts of transistor radio sets or record players. In spite of heavy customs duty which was often in multiples of the price, it was great to have them. The affluent ones brought wristwatches and VCR’s. Ways were found how to evade customs duty on them. It took hours to clear the custom counter. The officials there took perverse pleasure in strip-teasing the returnees and frisking them as the police does now looking for any hidden arms or explosives. The suitcases were opened and the soiled lingerie strewn to public view while the suspicious hounds searched for a bottle of contraband liquor or perfume hidden under the pile of the over-stuffed bags.

Changed situation

My last two trips were a surprise. The customs man merely asked me if I had anything to declare and when I said no, he waved me on as he was doing to many others. Obviously his business was down. And I had become respectable – above suspicion! Now if some one coming from abroad asks out of habit what he could bring for us, we reply ‘nothing’ because we have every thing available here – that is, if we have money. Still, so as not to come empty-handed, they buy something locally before coming. They might as well say they brought it from China, because virtually every thing is now made in China.

There is another, more sinister kind of globalization that has swept across the country lately. It is a cultural invasion. I noticed it some time ago when ads began to appear in the media about ‘Valentine’s Day’ and my granddaughter asked me what I was going to give her on that day. I looked up the Internet to find out what all the fuss was all about and found that we were long past that stage. However, my granddaughter brought a card to me and asked me to sign it. I wanted to read it but she told me it was a surprise. When I refused to budge, she relented. It was meant for my wife and said on my behalf how wonderful she was and how much I loved her. When I came home in the evening, my wife put the card in front of me and demanded whom it was meant for. I said it was self-explanatory. She advised me sternly not to commit such foolery again. She further advised that I should not waste money on something which I could have conveyed verbally, however hard it might be to bring myself to do that. When I told her whose doing it was, the little girl was pulled up for putting wrong notions in an old man’s head. But all the supermarkets and even smaller shops were specially decked up for the festive day and I wondered how many husbands had been snubbed that day. It was all meant for the unattached ones. Then my granddaughter sent my wife a card on the Grandmother’s Day. It said that she was the best grandmother in the world. Millions of small creatures must have sent identical cards to their respective grannies all over the world.

These Americans are great in their inventiveness. Since they could not devise a new calendar, having come rather late into existence themselves, they did the next best thing. They dedicated all the days of the year to different people, occasions and institutions. ‘Mother’s Day was devised to remind every one that they were born of a woman who is called mother. Father’s Day was to blame the person who downloaded them. ‘Thanksgiving Day’ was to thank every one for whatever they might have done to them. Similarly, every possible relationship and institution was disposed of.

In India we have traditionally observed the Independence Day, the Republic Day, Mahatma Gandhi ‘s Birthday and the Flag Day etc. Nehru designated his birthday as the Children’s Day and Radhakrishnan’s birthday as Teachers’ Day.


Seniors’ day

The other day I was flabbergasted to see ads on various papers on the Senior Citizen’s Day. Being one myself, I wondered how I did not know about that. The ads were full of messages from the president, the prime minister, the minister of social justice and some others about how it was the Indian tradition to look after the elders and respect them. It also said that the government was concerned about them and was trying to do its bit for them. There was a joke also for the benefit of the seniors. It announced a run for seniors. How could those who find it difficult to walk, manage to run? Or was it the younger ones who would run for them. They are already running away from them. This business of running on most occasions hardly achieves anything.

There was no scheme or benefit announced for the seniors in the ads. Probably that would come later. Where is the hurry? The later the inauguration of the scheme, the less the burden on the exchequer.

In the West, special facilities are provided for the handicapped and the seniors. There are extra medical benefits for them, physical aids, special housing facilities, and concessions in most conceivable transactions. One reason for that is that the America propensity to participate in wars and even to initiate them has resulted in a large number of handicapped persons. Similarly, the welfarism of the West entailed in their social security system has increased the expectancy of life of the people. In 1950 the population of 60 plus in Europe was 12 percentage. In 2050 it will increase to 32 percent. Already the government and social thinkers are worried about supporting this increasing unproductive group. In India the population of seniors will double from 8% in 2001 to 18% by 2025. However, the number of working people will also double. Already organizations like Help Age India are involved in trying to ameliorate the condition of some of the seniors in need of help. In the West they are a constituency; here we are not yet that. And in a democracy that is a crucial consideration.

I try to work hard, eat less, keep irregular hours and don’t do other things that keep one in good health. I do so that I don’t live long and continue to cast avoidable burden on society. More than that I can’t do without committing a crime. I can’t reduce the life sentence of my fellow seniors. I advise them to do likewise voluntarily.

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