Letter to the Senior

This past weekend I was in conversation with a senior friend. She had applied to various graduate-school fellowships but had found all her applications rejected. Life after Yale seemed a disconcerting world of uncertainty. She did not know what she was going to be doing and where she would be six weeks from now. Understandably, she was nervous and saddened.

I think though that my friend and other seniors, and the rest of us, who are confused and anxious about our careers—certainly all of us are—can take comfort and inspiration from the stories of at least two remarkable individuals here at Yale. They, to be sure, faced similar dilemmas as we do today when they were in college and their early careers. They took, however, what to us may seem unexpected and even irresponsible decisions, which I think would be useful for us to consider. For, surely, their decisions seem to have served them well.

Ambassador Marc Grossman, who made his first public appearance at Yale the week before spring break as the Jackson Institute’s newly appointed Kissinger Senior Fellow, is famous for his work as a diplomat. Most recently, he was the US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (S/SRAP). It wasn’t planning ahead his long-term career, however, that led him on a path to eventually become the nation’s top diplomat for a crucial region of US foreign policy. Instead, it was, as I found out over a conversation with him while working at the S/SRAP office last spring, “the desire to see the Taj Mahal.”

As a freshly graduating Foreign Service officer, Grossman had the option of selecting the region he wanted to work in first. He had wanted to see the Taj Mahal so India was the obvious choice. There was, however, no opening at the time in the Indian mission. The Pakistan mission, however, had available spots and being in Pakistan was the closest he could be to the Taj Mahal while not being in India. And so he went to Pakistan. He is often asked today, he recounted during our conversation, whether he had strategically chosen to make Pakistan his first diplomatic stop so that, one day, he could be the top diplomat to the country and the region. His response was always, “Give me a break.” It was simply a sense of adventure and excitement and the desire to see an architectural marvel that took him to Pakistan. And that is how his career began.

Professor John Gaddis’ career, too, as a group of us learned over dinner with the professor before break, has benefited from spontaneity. As a senior at the University of Texas, Gaddis, famous now of course for his books on the Cold War and the official biography of George F. Kennan, did not really know what he wanted to do. But then he took a history class and submitted the term paper. Much to his surprise, his professor told him the paper was publishable. As an underclassman, Gaddis had tried his hand at the things that seemed important to study, math and science, but found himself uninspired and unsuccessful; as a senior, all of a sudden, he discovered that studying history was something he was not only good but also quite enjoyed.

Senior year was coming to a close and still entirely unsure about what to do, he decided to, well… go for a PhD in History. “It was an act of desperation,” is how Gaddis described his decision at the dinner conversation. Nothing else seemed to be working. And studying and writing history gave him happiness, he found, so doing a PhD made sense. Over our dinner with him we all asked him about this and that but Gaddis constantly returned to the same theme: Do what makes you happy. Simple and obvious though it sounds, I do think we often forget to chase happiness in the way we aspire to achieve other things.

The spring semester and the academic year are coming to a close. Now more than ever it seems necessary to know exactly what we will be doing over the summer and after Yale—and how all of that would relate to what we want to do for the rest of our lives. At such moments, when obsessive planning and strategizing seem the norm and necessity, I think we would benefit by looking at Grossman’s and Gaddis’ early careers. What is common to them is the lack of excessive planning. They did not have it all figured out. Grossman, to make a drastic reduction, embraced adventure and Gaddis happiness. It might even seem to our cynical selves that they were naïve, not weighing the long-term impacts of their decisions, the pros and cons. But they seem to have had a lot of fun and are, well, extraordinarily successful.

We all love certainty. We like timetables and schedules. It’s natural to do so. And when this fellowships or that internship does not work out, our lives suddenly seem devoid of stability and certitude. But as long as we, especially the seniors amongst us, embrace principles such as spontaneity, adventure, and happiness as we seek our paths ahead, I think—I hope—we should be fine.

Two Nights

Looking about for comfort, I peeked into the bathroom of what was to be my boudoir for the next two nights—and was greeted by what at first seemed to be a komodo dragon. It was a lizard, all right, as my more settled eyes assured my mind, and my heart; it was goggling as well as, what seemed like, ogling at me. The sight of the slithering, slimy, and disquietingly alert creature on top of the pot evinced in me an unusual sort of discomfort—discomfort I decidedly did not require at the time.

I was admitted for an appendicitis surgery at a hospital in Varanasi. Thoughtful is not the adjective that would have characterized my disposition at the commencement of the two days. The only thoughts that were likely to cross my mind over the time were whether or not I would survive what was supposed to be a stint; and why did I, an entirely harmless and peace-loving organism, have to come down with an appendix problem. But as the hours sauntered, and one uninspiring occurrence—such as the komodo-spotting—followed another, I was forced into thoughtfulness.

My visit to the hospital was one of constant epiphanies. Epiphanies, these were, of not the sort involving flying angels and bow-wielding Cupids; instead these concerned the various miseries of human life. More specifically, they involved the horrors of being admitted to a hospital in small-town India.

As I was welcomed into the Operation Theater (OT), I was visited by sights and sounds entirely out of place of a theater of such a sort. An OT, one imagines, would be a realm of serious-minded MDs, sparse sound, instruments, machines, examination lights, and general scientific bravura. Instead, I felt I had entered the theater for a third-rate porn movie. Govinda, with his characteristically shiny, teethy and sheepish smile, was dancing suggestively in the Tele to some unspeakable horror. Amusement, you would think, is generally good at unexpected moments. It is the sort of thing that calms the mind--that relaxes. My anxiety, instead, was only accentuated when I realized that every single assistant/doctor in the room was gripped by the goings on in the TV. One, even as I was laying my body and soul onto the examination bed, asked me to join him and the others in enjoying the film. The surgery was to start in five minutes.

On a lighter note, the immediate thought that visited my mind, in a quivering manner much like one of Shakespeare’s ghosts, was that I hadn’t the slightest clue as to who would actually perform the operation. It was to be conducted, officially, by a reputed Dr. So-and-So. But what was to stop a third-rate, amused, Govinda-admiring Luddite from conducting the laparoscopy? Who was to know whether it was actually -So who did the cutting and the ejecting and the stitching? The anesthesia had done me in within moments of my entry into the theater; and so I, certainly, was not going to be a credible witness to the proceedings.

There were other troubles as well. For instance, even though I wasn’t in China, I became very concerned for my organs. They are not the sorts of things one typically worries about. But I suddenly found myself possessive towards everything from my pancreas to my kidney. So I confirmed, somewhat assertively, with the closest assistant/doctor: “Bhaiya appendicitis ka operation he karna hai na.” Sir, the operation has to be for appendicitis only, right? I don’t know what I expected from him, but what I got was “Haan haan, ghabrao mat aap”--Yes, yes, don’t worry--following which the source of these words gleefully restored his attention to the Tele.

The rest was an unremembered dream or, more accurately, an unremembered nightmare, and I woke by my family, back at the boudoir.

Hospitals in India, I found, are like classes at good universities such as the one in New Haven. You are exposed to visions and ideas and events you could not have imagined. Which is usually a good thing. Over my two nights at the hospital, however, I learned of ideas that were truly unusual: for instance, that there could be a connection between a building’s electricity and its water supply. The moment the hospital’s electricity would go, the water would follow. The moment it would return, so would its follower. As to the correlation between water and electricity—I haven’t the foggiest idea. But that was how it was. And as if I wasn’t already frightened enough of venturing into the loo, and being goggled and ogled at, I now had to worry about whether or not the electrons might decide to give up on me at a critical moment.

I also learned over the two nights that it is not easy to fool people, or to be fooled. The bed sheet of my room, for instance, had various stains—of multifarious colors and of all sorts of designs. My family asked an attendant to replace the sheet. We were told, in turn, that the sheet had recently been washed and bleached, and that whatever stains might have held on were surely minor and could, safely, be ignored. But these were not unobtrusive stains. One particular stain caught my attention. It wasn’t so much a stain as a mark. Without doubt, I quietly told myself, this was the remnant of male ejaculation. How do I know? Well, I know what male ejaculation on a bed looks like, and the mark under question sure looked like the kind I am talking about.

A last major lesson was of just how effective a few tips of a few rupees can be for inducing alacrity. Not once over my admission was a nurse far from calling. I survived the stay and, what’s more, can boast of having learned, experienced, and seen a thing or two—all over just two nights.  

Massage at the NCPA: Adaptation of the Vijay Tendulkar play enters its tenth year

“Learn to rise on the occasion, and not after it.”

This is just one of the many prescient, innuendo-filled observations in Massage (2003), a Hindi adaptation of Vijay Tendulkar’s Marathi original, The Masseur (2001). Massage was staged for the tenth consecutive year this weekend.

Over a span of two acts and two hours, the audience witnesses twenty-five characters. One actor, alone, plays them all. While minimalism—whether in the number of actors or the diversity of theatrical property (props)—is increasingly rare in theater today, Massage delights audiences for its very abstemiousness. “He’s amazing,” said Ruma Banerjee, a viewer, referring to the veteran film, television and theater personality Rakesh Bedi, the sole actor of the play.

The play illustrates the journey of the hapless though optimistic Happy Kumar, who enters Mumbai to become an actor. Kumar does find a job in the film industry, though as “fourth assistant director,” a position that, as he soon understands, entails being “a bina paise ka coolie,” a coolie without money. From fourth assistant director, he moves to an administrative job at a gymnasium, before settling to become a “freelance massagist,” a masseur based out of his home. 

Directed by Harbansh Singh, the play lampoons facets of city life, such as unsympathetic employers, unyielding competition, and corruption. It also illustrates the unusual circumstances an unassuming individual can find himself in, from being forced to massage his boss’ physically unpleasant wife, to having to humor an actress’ coercively amorous mother.

Through the performance, the audience convulses with glee. But the laughter and applause are a result, as Singh explains, not of crude jokes or colorful language, but perceptive wit and realistic humor. The play’s comedy revolves around day-to-day matters such as love, going to a toilet, living alongside one’s partner, the desire for physical litheness, and the abysmal reality of one’s shape. Both Singh and Bedi attribute the play’s merits to Tendulkar’s uncompromising genius, which they compare to that of Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen.

With its intelligence, wit, and reality, Massage, without surprise, continues to be popular even in its tenth years. Produced by Pratik Arts Theatre, it was staged at the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA) on the nights of June 16^th and 17^th. The play will be staged in various parts of the country and the world in the coming months, including at the Assam Drama Festival on August 7^th.

ONE YEAR LATER: REMEMBERING M.F. HUSAIN [1915-2011]

Since Saturday, June 9^th, two public tributes have been held in Mumbai to mark the first death anniversary of Maqbool Fida Husain, commonly known simply as MF Husain. The commemorations have sought to celebrate arguably the most recognized Indian artist in the world who, in addition to honors as diverse and considerable as his art, has won admiration for his unyielding élan. But the first death anniversary also possessed the uneasy shadow of that great Indian shame and the events surrounding it. In pandering to religious zealotry, India had expelled Husain in his final years.

TAO ART GALLERY EXHIBIT:

On the evening of the anniversary, Tao Art Gallery launched an exhibit titled Imaging a Legend: A tribute to MF Husain. A collection of images illustrates Husain’s idiosyncrasies, charms, and brilliance. The pictures capture, for instance, various among Husain’s well-known physical aspects. The long paintbrush he carried and used as a walking-cane finds its way; his elegant sartorial preferences are on display, as is his penchant for avoiding footwear. The images capture various intimate moments of the artist. Some, for instance, illustrate his childhood self, and others display his more evolved form at his nighty-fifth birthday.

Pictures depict Husain at work. He seems equally engaged with the canvas and brush at public stages, studios, and even a cricket stadium. Some photographs capture the artist with long-held associations: for instance Madhuri Dixit, his longtime inspiration, as well as his paintings of the equestrian form. There are pictures, as well, that present Husain in scenes and with personalities one would not commonly expect. One, for instance, captures him alongside Indira Gandhi.

Even as the pictures are eclectic, they possess at least one constant: Husain’s vigor for and celebration of life. A picture depicting a smiling Husain by his red Ferrari epitomizes the youthful exuberance that runs through all the pictures.

The exhibit’s curator, Niyati Shinde, who knew Husain for several years, planned the tribute with a specific purpose. “I’m a photo-historian, and the aim was to mark his memory,” she said. The idea behind the exhibit, she continued, is to “bring together carefully taken pictures of him.” The exhibit displays images from more than fifteen photographers.

Shinde has also had to keep in mind possible concerns. The gallery has received threat mail over the exhibit. Since the time Husain put brush to compromising interpretations of various Hindu deities, several Hindu groups have targeted events associated with Husain. One such instance took place at an event in Goa, two years ago, also organized by Shinde. Concerns over untoward responses to the present exhibit led Shinde to refrain from publicizing it too widely. “We purposely did not organize a wine and cheese gathering,” she joked, “though he (Husain) would have liked red wine to have been there.”

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JOY SHOES’ TRIBUTE:

Husain won hearts and designed places one would not commonly associate with him. Who would have guessed, for instance, that the design, lighting, and artwork of Joy Shoes, a shoe store in the Taj Palace Hotel, Mumbai, was all done by Husain? Every aspect of the shoe store seems to have a story associated with him. Munna Jhaveri, the owner of Joy Shoes, chuckles when asked about the footprint inscribed at the entrance to the store. “Oh, that is an old one. I took his footprints in 2004.”

Jhaveri and Husain were friends of forty years. “He offered to design the shop,” Jhaveri recounts. “I was shocked,” he exclaims, and then laughs. The shop in its present form is entirely Husain’s work. Jhaveri reminisces over Husain’s personable disposition. “He said let me do whatever I want with the store and then you would be at liberty to demolish it.”

To commemorate Husain’s first death anniversary, Jhaveri has been at work on sculptures depicting Husain. Two are ready, and on display at the store. Both are tributes to actual events. The first represents Husain with a nail and hammer in hand; while designing the store, Husain had insisted on personally nailing his artwork to the store’s walls. The second portrays Husain with his knees to the ground, crafting a sculpture on dancing girls; Husain often conducted his work with knees to the ground and Joy Shoes contains the sculpture on dancing girls.

When asked whether he had to endure any threats for commemorating Husain, Jhaveri dismissed the matter. “This controversy is almost finished. It’s not there now. It wasn’t there before also. No one cares.”

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Evidence, unfortunately, suggests otherwise. That only two public tributes were held for Husain in India’s most cosmopolitan city, of which one received threats, suggests various things. The one thing we can be sure about is that extremists are winning. Fear of extremists has increasingly silenced many among those who believe in aesthetic beauty and freedom of expression for their own sake. India had expelled some of its heritage when it expelled Husain from the country. Today, given the broadly muted response to his death anniversary, India should understand that it is increasingly allowing itself to be influenced not by its heritage, but by philistines such as those who threatened the Husain tribute at Tao.

Imaging a Legend: A tribute to MF Husain is open at the Tao Art Gallery up till June 24. It can be viewed everyday from 11am to 7pm. Munna Jhaveri at Joy Shoes is looking to put for sale a limited edition of his sculptures on Husain. While he has not finalized details, he is confident that the idea will be well received.

In Search of Satya: A need for more responsible presentation and viewing

Millions of Indians have marked their 11am slots for the next several Sundays to view Aamir Khan’s show Satyamev Jayate. Many of us are moved by the show, stunned by the raw truths it presents, hungry for change, and in awe of Khan’s sense of citizenship. Everyone has the right to react as he or she pleases; but the current frenetic and overzealous bout of passion for social change, resulting from the show, can have deeply counter-productive effects. In our quest for change and justice, we should not resort to oversimplifying issues. More importantly, we should not fall for seductive though intemperate prescriptions.

The issues explored in the three episodes of the show so far have been oversimplified by both its viewers and by the show itself. A conversation with many of the show’s most virulent supporters will reveal that the show’s first episode, which examined female foeticide, has convinced them that abortion, no matter for what reason, is a crime. These viewers forget that while female foeticide is bad, it is not the only reason for abortion. Amongst other, legitimate, reasons for abortion is unwanted pregnancy resulting from rape. In seeking to stop abortion of the wrong sort, we should be sensitive towards a woman’s right to abortion of the legal sort.

Similarly, while child sexual abuse, the subject of the second episode, is intolerable, it should be remembered that such abuse is sometimes a result of mental illness, and can be cured by proper treatment. As much as we are sympathetic to victims of sexual assault, we should also be sensitive towards perpetrators of assault—recognizing that they themselves might be victims, of serious illnesses. Given this more complicated reality, the show would do well to steer away from simplifying it, from presenting a clear black and white. Perpetrators of rape, even as they should be punished per the law, deserve the right to seek a counselor and work towards reintegrating into mainstream society. If the show’s emotive tenor, however, is to be taken at face value, chances are that perpetrators of sexual abuse will be dealt with some sort of permanent, public justice—a lifetime of ostracism.

The third episode of the show, which examines the Indian mania for marriage, accords blame for problems resulting from marriages primarily on those who demand dowry. There is no doubt that demanding dowry is savage and that those who do so often do it cunningly, slowly increasing their demands as the wedding day approaches, thereby putting greater pressure on the bride and her family. It is evident, nonetheless, that the bride and her family are at least as much to blame for giving in to demands for dowry. Dowry would not exist if no one agreed to grant it.

In addition to oversimplifying issues, the show and its viewers, with their passion for quick social change, are guilty of championing specious policy prescriptions. The doctor invited to the first episode of the show suggests that a solution to female foeticide would be to grant “exemplary punishment” to various top doctors guilty of the practice, putting them in Tihar Jail. Such an action, he says, would send a “message” to the larger community of doctors that female foeticide would no longer be condoned. While one can understand the doctor’s good intentions, impassionate dispensation of justice of the sort he suggests, and which the show tacitly endorses, will itself be unjust. It would be wrong if the same letter of the law were applied differently to a group of guilty individuals—cherry-picking and convicting some of the most powerful with “exemplary punishment,” leaving the many others with a “message.”

In a vein similar to that of the doctor, a large public sign presently placed next to a popular restaurant at the Marine Drive area of Mumbai reads: “Save Girl Child. Hang Doctors who Practice Sex Discrimination.” Such a response is childish, even petulant. It is as if the person who placed the sign was heretofore entirely ignorant of female foeticide, and has suddenly awoken and demands immediate, even vigilante, justice. The sign, like the doctor on the show, rightly demands that criminals be immediately dealt with—but the manner of dealing suggested, again, is questionable.

The most glaring prescriptions for change are brought up in the show’s third episode. In order to curb extravagance and needless excess in weddings—which sometimes leave families with vast debts—it would no doubt be admirable were social and religious authorities to encourage measure. But it is quite another matter when such authorities coercively demand that everyone in the locality celebrate marriages, in the words of Mausim Ummedi from Tanzeem Khuddam E Millat, with “no band, no baaja (instruments), no baraat (celebratory dancers), and no dahej (dowry).” Akhtar Kazmi, also affiliated with Tanzeem Khuddam E Millat, espouses a similar authoritarianism. If there is extravagance in a marriage, he and the people in the locality refuse to attend it. In other words, his is a system of making a pariah of a family that does not toe the line. Coercive parsimony of this sort, that every marriage be sparse—“ek jaisee shaadi hoti hai sabki (everyone’s marriage happens in the same way),” as Ummedi proudly delineates—seems to belong to the Soviet Union, or to Communist China. Such practices are inimical to individual decision-making and individual freedom. It is one thing to encourage frugality and another to enforce it. With Khan having nodded to Ummedi and Kazmi, it seems that the show endorses their authoritarianism.

Satyamev Jayate, despite its shortcomings, is a sincere show. None of the criticism is to suggest that Khan and Satyamev Jayate have not been successful in raising awareness and encouraging debate. The show’s unenviable project of mobilizing people towards fighting serious challenges is admirable. These challenges, however, are sensitive, and have to be dealt with in a delicate manner. The show attempts to explore them holistically, but its appreciation of their complexity is insufficiently sophisticated. It would be incumbent upon the viewer, as well, to be cautious, and to maintain skepticism and independence in thought. Khan and the viewer should recognize in particular, among other shortcomings of the show, that the personal stories presented are bound to be at least a little one-sided: the show gives only the victims a voice; the alleged perpetrators are not permitted a defense.  

This article was published by firstpost.com on Saturday, May 26, 2012