Small Thin Indian Wedding

In a relatively short span of six weeks, CoVID has fundamentally altered the manner in which man, the social animal, interacts with each other. A pessimistic view of the pandemic would lead us to believe that some of these changes are irrevocable and are here to stay. A more bullish view would be that things would cautiously return to normal. It is quite likely that this pandemic or it’s mutant version(s) might keep resurfacing at frequent intervals. That might result in we marching towards “normalcy” with a permanent skepticism. It is quite likely that for a foreseeable future, our social and cultural lives might oscillate between gushing out to risky interaction and rushing back to unhealthy isolation.

It is difficult to hazard a guess how our society would look like if this becomes a defining behavioral trait. It would mean a fundamental, abrupt and enforced shift from the manner in which we have been leading our lives for past few decades – and hence will be painful.

Post liberalization, we graduated from grateful to impulsive to unapologetic consumers. Explosion of choices, increase in disposable incomes and easy financing set the wheels in motion for instant gratification. It wasn’t the accumulated wealth that precipitated purchase decision – prospective earning potential was the decision point. We see an impact on all three catalysts i) options are away from the table and we are back to essentials ii) even when the options return we may revisit discretionary spending iii) we may not have enough institutions to sponsor our profligacy.

Let me park the topic of change in consumer behavior for other day. I am more concerned with the impact on trivial and mundane decisions that we would make on a daily basis. Decisions like going out for dinner, heading to watch a movie, hanging out with friends and relatives or even window shopping in a mall. One possible outcome could be returning with a vengeance post lockdown and go on a spree like there is no tomorrow. Alternatively we could emerge out of the lockdown suitably chastened and adopt a restrained approach. I am more likely to bet on the latter.

How would a restrained society look like? It is difficult to envisage the scenario as restraint isn’t a word that was associated with our lifestyles till a few weeks ago. Will we see less crowded public places, more motorable roads, shorter queues? While it is possible that we might be able to ration activities where the choice is individual, how do we handle situations which have a collective nuances.

This is where we are most likely to see a more lasting impacting of pandemic, more so if we were to be hit by successive waves. Collective celebration, which are a part of our culture, any culture for that matter, might be mellowed down. Because we are a populous nation and have strong filial ties, we end up having more guests at a child’s birthday party than you would see turning up for weddings in some countries. Hence what we might witness could be more upsetting.

Can you imagine a Ganesh Chaturthi without the crowds, Eid without embracing half the vicinity, Holi without an element of physical touch? How do you do that if social distancing were to be the new normal? These are not a personal choices like avoiding restaurants. These are our social moorings, densely interwoven in our fabric of who we are.

And what about our Big Fat Indian Weddings? Will the Small Thin Indian Weddings even qualify as Indian weddings?

The Unsung Chorus

Comparing sportsmen of different eras is a difficult job and irrespective of the arguments that one musters to prove a point, there is hardly ever a consensus on the outcome. But that does not stop us from comparing the achievements of different players across different times and spaces  - both with and without the context. I am exercising my right to do so and definitely do not aim to settle the debate.

I intend to compare two sportsmen of the same era - albeit in different disciplines. I am not sure if that is easier or even makes sense. Plain tired of going through the comparisons; so here is my hat in the ring.

The trigger was Leander Paes’s victory in the 2013 Open Men’s Doubles, his 3^rd triumph in addition to 3 more Men’s Doubles Grand Slams, not to forget the 8 Mixed Doubles crowns too. 14 Grand Slams is an impressive numbers and the last one coming at the ripe age of 40, which makes it all the more important to sit up and take notice. After all we are talking Tennis where the road past 30 is a downhill ride, as Federer would agree.

Surprisingly speculation on Paes’s retirement hasn’t lit up the media the way we have been stoking the embers on the retirement of another champion of the same era. We have been extremely generous on Leander Paes and rather harsh on the Little Master when it comes to retirement talks. The lack of pressure that we pile on Paes could be because we do not value his achievements enough and that is exactly what I want to put in perspective. We have very little idea or appreciation for what we stand to lose once Paes moves on. 

Leander Adrian Paes and Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar. Two sporting giants that India has produced and they have interesting similarities as well. Both announced their prodigal talent to the world at tender age. Paes had won Junior Wimbledon and US Open and was ranked No.1 in Junior Men’s category. Tendulkar was dealing in triple centuries and had a world record partnership before even getting to first class cricket. Both of them kept the tricolor flying in various forums single-handedly before getting able support. And both of them continue to perform long after their companions and compatriots have faded into the oblivion. 

Who is greater among the two is going to be an academic debate at best and is not going to take anything away from their greatness. Nonetheless I am itching to dissect their career trajectory and achievements before coming to an informed conclusion. Who knows this season's KBC might have a question on who is the greater of the two and I want to have the right answer.

Let's begin with individual achievements. At the end of the day all sportspersons begin as individual contributors even in team games before over shadowing the teams and sometimes becoming larger than the game itself. The respective list of achievements is so exhaustive that for the sake of space I will omit some from their resumes - the kind of achievements that would be the sole claim to fame for many lessor mortals.
    

Tendulkar holds almost every world record worth holding. To cut it short, he probably holds the world record for holding the most world records starting with the word most :-). Do I actually need to spell it out in terms of matches, innings, runs, hundreds, by opposition, by calendar year… The statistical mountain that he has compiled over 24 years can dwarf any sportsperson in any sport across any era. Paes’s record does not appear as mightily imposing in comparison to the achievements of Tennis all time greats. With his 14 Grand Slam trophies he can huff and puff his way to the base camp and behold the sight of Mt. Tendulkar awestruck.

Historical context is the next dimension that I want to explore. India’s has some memorable cricketing achievements both with and without Tendulkar. Apart from Tendulkar there is a fairly impressive list of luminaries who can be compared with the best of the breed. India’s Tennis cupboard is comparatively bare in contrast and whatever little India has achieved in Davis Cup is predominantly courtesy Leander Paes. India was a respectable cricket opponent pre-Tendulkar and a formidable one during his time.  Indian Tennis was walkover itinerary with some noticeable exceptions here and there. With Leander Paes in the team, India started scripting upsets with stunning regularity. Tendulkar enhanced India’s respect in cricket, Paes earned it for India where none existed. Tendulkar sits on top of the pyramid of cricketing greats, Paes is the pole vaulter, significantly above the rest (conceding a high jumper status to Bhupathi).

Cricket is a team game with enough opportunities for the individual to shine. Tennis is a curious mixture of both. The singles are a test of an individual's abilities, doubles are about coordination and the Davis Cup is playing for a team while being out on the court alone. Paes comes out to be a better “team player” where he transformed a bunch of no-hopers to take on the best and laid them to rest. For all his greatness, Tendulkar’s did not single handedly win games for India the way Paes carried it off. To understand that better, in every Davis Cup tie Paes had 50% opportunity of impacting the result (two singles and one doubles) and he carried India through. Tendulkar is one of the 11 players and theoretically has 9.09% opportunity of impacting the result and would have required contribution of at least 4-5 more players to take India over the line.
   

Coming to their failures. Leander Paes has failed as a Men’s Singles player despite being able to defeat everyone worth his salt in Davis Cup ties. He will be rated great on the virtue of his Double’s performances and his name will not be taken in the same breath as Federer, Nadal, Sampras and the likes. Tendulkar doesn’t have a triple century, not even in first class cricket. His great rival Lara has three. Tendulkar has numerous valiant efforts but fewer gallant series defining innings. 

It is not Tendulkar’s fault that cricket is an 11-man game and he is all but a clog in the wheel. Similarly it is not Paes’s fault that as a country we are more passionate about cricket and he was not subjected to the intense pressure that Tendulkar has had to carry. It is not Tendulkar’s fault that cricket has an appeal limited in Commonwealth countries where as Tennis is truly global. These are the ifs and buts that provide a context while comparing but per se are meaningless. As a matter of fact, each of them cancel the other out and establish some sort of parity.

The jury is still out. But one achievement tilts it in Paes’s favor. At the summit of sporting excellence in Atlanta, it was Paes that caused the tricolor to go up for an individual performance after a gap of 48 years. Tendulkar doesn’t have an achievement of that scale and magnitude.

Paying Back in Instalments

Easy Monthly Installments or EMIs as we know it have become an indispensable part of our lives as they allow us to lead a life that we couldn't have otherwise afforded. It has been a game changer in many ways both for the producer and the consumer by manufacturing purchasing power on the basis of perceived potential and in the process doing a great deal of good by keeping the economy robust.

The habit is contagious. And I am not talking about becoming a shopaholic and fulfilling material desires through EMIs. The habit is contagious in the sense that we are implementing the same strategy for fulfilling non-material desires in the same way. Our generation makes a lot of life changing decisions hoping to pay back eventually. Just that we do not know the implications clearly. And when the payback time comes, it is not an easy monthly installment but a very tough one, which needs to be paid back daily if not hourly in a guilt ridden currency.

Some rates of interests are inflation indexed. With the passage of time they keep on going up and no matter how much you pay back, you can't even reduce the interest, forget paying back the loan. Each of us who have left our aging parents stranded in our remote rural homes, lets calculate the installments. Every day you call to inquire the health and well being, you know that your debt to your parents has grown even more. You know that their feeble limbs need physical assistance more than the gifted smartphone which they aren't even smart enough to handle. You know that their day minus the talk time of the call is hollow and they don't have any other conversation that they await. The truth is you can provide them everything else apart from what they actually need. You realize the bargain you made and pay this tough installment every day.

You moved away from the land where you took your first breath. The price is you will breath your last in a land that is not yours. You live with this feeling every day of your life and you can't even figure out what can prevent it from happening. You can't mortgage your present and move to a future that unites you with the past. You continue to be embroiled in the present hoping against hope for a miracle that will return you to your land. It is as possible as turning the clock back. And you hear the clock tick away every minute and you pay a tough installment every minute.

You have changed beyond recognition to the extent that you are no more the person you are or wanted to be. Your deepest feelings have receded away from you to some inner core which you can't even access in the course of a normal day. It is only in some tranquil or turmoiled moments you unearth them and realize what you have so irrevocably lost. You have lost your dreams and desires. You don't have the energy left to conjure up wishes anew. You end up with a bowl  in which you want someone to throw a fulfilled wish - and every time you se the empty bowl you pay a very tough installment.

You don't have friend anymore to talk to. Worse still, when you meet friends with whom you talked once, you don't have anything worth while talking. All you can do is to recycle the conversations about shared moments - and you have already done that more times than you can care to count. Left with no choice you are back alone and in every imposed moment of loneliness you pay yet another tough installment.

Key to our existence is spending, not just paying back the debts one after the another. But we aren't left with anything else in this currency to spend. The accruals from past investments are deficient and we borrow more. We run up more loans to keep ourselves going. By now we are past caring for the next tough installment.

Varun Gandhi - Tragedy and Destiny

Hi
Please find the link to my new article on Varun Gandhi.
http://www.zeenews.com/news549709.html
Request you to share your comments and feedback.
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Zeyaur Rahman

Post Electoral Scenario In Bihar

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My article on post electoral scenario in Bihar has been published. Request you to provide your fedback/comments on the same.
http://www.zeenews.com/news542623.html
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Zeyaur Rahman

Reverse Swing

Review of "The White Tiger"

More than winning the Booker Prize, I believe, the main achievement of the book is that it has reintroduced and reignited the debate in the mainstream about the underprivileged India. The India which was drowned in the din of India Shining, the India which was successfully wished away by Ad&PR blitz, so convincingly that the "haves" class of Indians in metro now find the real India fictional.

True enough we have had major developmental landmarks in the past decade, in Information Technology to name one and the effect has trickeld down, fairly down. Even rickshaw pullers can be seen carrying mobile phones. But is that enough or is that the only thing required? A mobile set connects you to the wider world, but it doesn't disconnect you from the "Rooster Coop" to use Adiga's analogy. You are very much rooted there and have to live with its evils.

To borrow another analogy, this time from our national passion, the game of cricket : economic development in the past decade has gathered a swinging momentum which has propelled the middle class to hitherto unexperienced levels of prosperity. But what about the other side, the rougher one. It has got roughed up more and it is a matter of time when the reverse swing will come into play and shatter the stumps, catching the batsman unwares, the way the protagonists' employer was on the Ridge Road.

Having said that, the book itself isn't great by any yardstick, neither in the choice of content nor in the treatment of the subject. If at all it is too real for me to adequately term it as a work of top class fiction. Since I myself belong to the Darkness of the Gangetic Plain, I am acutely aware that the plot of the story is mundane, to the extent banal for the people living there. Not many would even raise an eyebrow if the story were to be narrated to them.

This to me captures the chasm, the divide between the two Indias, more clearly than anything else. One India would not find any literary merit in the work as it is a everyday tale for them. The second India has been seduced into percieving the whole of India as something entirely different and it is responding with shock and unbelievable awe...is this still happenning in India...we thought we left that with the 20th century....and heaping prizes on the book for being an eye opener.

For someone like me, who has escaped from the Darkness into the Light, all I can give is a Sphinx like smile, having seen both the sides of the coin, knowing fully well that the two classes of India have been flowing together for millenia, will continue to flow for more millenia but like the sides of the same river, from the source to the mouth, will never meet.

Escape Routes

Everyone in my immediate circle is all too familiar with a Monday to Friday routine, with different timings of course, depending on the timezone in which our interactions with customers take place. Fridays offer more relief than hope, of having seen through, lived through another tedious week. The anticipation of a free weekend is palpable, almost tangible.

After one has exhausted the list of weekend activities that the most critical existential crises play themselves out. The many options that weekends offer are - get togethers at friends place, movies, pubbing/discs, hobby cultivation (books, photography, music) etc more or less in the same order as one starts graduating to the adult from the youthful phase of life. By the time one starts approachng 30, this routine is hardly exciting and there comes a phase when all that we mention under "hobbies/interests" in our profiles actually become revulsive. That is when the masks that we wear to delude ourselves slip off, the charades that we perform week on week to assure ourselves of our interesting/happenning lives expose the hollowness within.

What follows is complete emptiness, a sense of ever increasing void within ourselves and we having exhausted our quota of activities long ago. An all pervading sense of ennui engulfs our lives. We start spending more time in the technology enabled virtual world (chatrooms, networking sites, blogs) with our backs to the real world, feeling let down by its inabilty to fill the gaps in our lives.

That is where weekend getaways come into the picture, the leisure tourism as we know it now. Although it is not a panacea, it definitely helps us to break the monotony, recharge ourselves and feel revitalised. Slowly this has develpoed into a full fledged industry finding many obliged buyers like us.

The idea has its appeal for two reasons: one being versatility and the other being novelty.

There is something for everyone. Rafting, paragliding and outdoor activities for adventure freaks, walk in the moonlight in the woods, bird watching and candle lit dinners on cliff tops for the serious minded folks, or just a pleasant stay at exotic locales with sauna, spa and jacuzzi thrown in. Whatever be your taste, there is good chance that someone has already thought of it, if not, would be more than willing to customise.

Since this is a relatively new phenomenon, we generally do not find things getting repititive. A little bit of creative tour planning goes a long way in capturing as well as retaining the interests of the clientele, who get their money worth. Most of us in the highly competitive sector don't mind such welcome interruptions in our normal routine. Almost all of us look forward to and carry vivid reminisces of the time spend in a Nainital, a Mussoorie, a Kasauli and for our colleagues down south, Goa, Munnar, Ooty.

Obviously we can't have these every weekend. An honest question: what is right frequency? Once in four months at least... definitely once in six months. That brings me to the second question: how many of us have actually had the chance to plan a weekend get away of our own choice (not the corporate spoansored, pseudo compulsory team outings) even once in the last 12 months despite having longed for it almost every week?

Even with all the money availibilty, it is our inabilty to afford these in terms of time that is causing the problem. Did some one say time? Weekends are ours, right, two days every week.

That is the point. It is the systematic denudation of all our creative pursuits by our professional lives that has made us so lethargic to take any fresh initiative, hasn't left us with any energy to allow us to make a serious effort to even redeem or salvage whatever we can. This is the height of the existential crisis, wherein we not only feel trapped but get accustomed to the trappings of the trap so much that we seal our escape routes from inside.

And whenever we manage to shake it off and run away, our world treachorously follows us all the way. We feel a voluntary compulsion to call back at our respective workplaces just to assure ourselves that the world behind hasn't come down crashing in our absence. No matter how much we would rue the incoming calls from our office colleagues to find out the location of a particular file on the shared drive, we would be left with shattered egos if no one missed us.

Our itineries are fixed and customised to suit our tastes. Even before we leave we know when we would be back. When we leave with a return ticket in our hand, we are not leaving in the first place. We are leaving a part of us behind. The feeling of escape can never be total in such a scenario.