The Mosquito syndrome

The fourth estate, in many ways, is the barometer of a nation’s health as an independent, creative and fearless media fiercely adhering to the principles of justice is a definite bulwark to the powers of the state. Deeply reflective of the social, cultural and psychological moorings of the people, the media not just carries out the duty to inform but also shoulders the responsibility to shape the contours of public discourse that paves the way to the emergence of a more enlightened citizen.  While admirably fulfilling its primary role, it has, over the years, contributed immensely to the enrichment of the languages, the art and the culture of the country thereby refining and re-defining the aspirations of its people. Media has indeed been the harbinger, both of continuity and of constructive change.

But of late, a malignant ailment is fast eating into the very moral fabric of our media and that is its collective preoccupation, nay obsession, with the negative, the depressing and the sickening events that happen around us. Through incessant and senseless amplification of the crimes and their cover-ups by the crooks, a cacophony of disdain is unleashed that almost drowns down the sane and the sobering voices of reason.  And while the disturbing facets of the society are highlighted, events that cheer us up, achievements that could inspire the young to a higher purpose of life and individual feats that are worthy of emulation are largely left under reported or scantly treated in the nondescript columns on the inside pages of our dailies.   Thus, an honour killing is necessarily a front page news item when a breakthrough in frontier medical sciences is worthy of only a fifth page beat report; whereas the footage of the latest Maoists or terrorists attack is to be unendingly played on all prime time TV channels, the tireless and yeomen work of individuals and organisations aimed towards the upliftment of our tribal population seldom interests our visual media. The debauch and the wayward behaviour of a miniscule section of the society are projected as signs of progress and as a statement of upward mobility while the unflinching adherence of the overwhelming majority to the time tested values and codes of conduct are treated with absolute contempt. In an age where TRPs, web hits and eyeball retentions are the only measures of value and worthiness, all barriers of morality and decency are transgressed to score high ratings in these parameters of popularity. Our media today is fast succumbing to a serious malady which if left untreated is sure to deal a body blow to the very edifice of our traditional and family structures that has ensured security and continuity to our societies for centuries.

Like the mosquito sucking the blood of healthy people and spreading diseases among them, our media is guilty of sapping the vitality and the positive energies of our youth through an unrelenting focus on the frivolous, the flippant and the blatantly malicious aspects of our national life. Instead of being an instrument in channelizing the hallmark characteristics of idealism and selflessness of the young towards the task of nation building, the media today has a corrupting and demonising influence on them – a far cry from the salutary role it played in shaping men of sterling character during our freedom movement.

Instead of exhibiting the despicable nature of the mosquito, media should be more akin to a bee. Sucking only the nectarine honey and spreading lovely fragrance all around, the activities of the bee are so pregnant with sweetness that it invigorates all that it comes in contact with. Likewise, our media too should, through a conscious promotion of the vibrant and the inspiring, the challenging and nourishing aspects of our public life, ignite the latent goodness of the people and propel them to achieve excellence in selfless endeavours.  That is the vest that our media today need to adorn.

From the stinging mosquito to the humming bee, the media make-over is indispensable.

 Yours

Narayanan

education@BoP.in

The dissipated columns of glazed swanky residential apartments stand menacingly, overlooking a sea of squalid slums and shanty hovels. The elite upmarket school is bustling with the chatter of chubby pupils in spotless uniforms smartly creased by the tender hands of semi-clad children of the neighbourhood huts. The fancy headlight of the Lands Cruiser throws a blinding illumination on the footpath dweller as he scuttles his face away to a more benign direction! The stunning contradiction that is called India is mind numbing while the peaceful resignation and acceptance of the status quo could be very revolting, even nauseating, to the uninitiated on the reality of this nation.  

The vast mass of people who form, what has now come to be called as, the “bottom of the pyramid” or BoP in short, has been the subject of many scholarly studies. Theories propounded and postulates assumed on the nature and the cause of their poverty and definitive roadmaps proposed chartering which, their plight could be improved. The most magnificent of these scholars is Prof. C.K. Prahalad, who, instead of adopting a top-down approach of doling out largesse from outside, saw them as people quite proficient in shaping their own economic and social emancipation, given the right environment.  He argued that a more realistic method to improve their lot would be to increase their capacity to consume which in turn would enhance their ability to produce and thus contribute to generate additional income. He suggested, for example, that by making available world class hygiene products to the people at BoP, there would be lesser chances of people falling sick, freeing more hours and days to do productive work which would have a direct positive bearing on their incomes. Professor could thus convince many multinationals that there is a fortune to be made by serving this “bottom of the Pyramid” class which compelled them to package their products and services to the specific needs of this huge market. One rupee shampoos, fifty paise iodised salts, two rupee toothpastes, ten rupee mobile recharge and many umpteen products hit the stores in small sachets that re-defined the concept of rural marketing in the country. This “consumption led production led income generation” model of poverty alleviation has been the most singular and game altering contribution of our times that the generations to come would marvel at the foresight of Prof. Prahalad who passed away early last week. The world is truly indebted to this great genius whose hypotheses are based on sound business pragmatism and driven by compassion to the under-privileged.

While a consumption-led economic regeneration model would trigger great productive energies, it by itself will not be sufficient to permanently pull the people out from their impoverishments.  For, to consolidate the gains and ensure that people do not lapse back to poverty, there has to be a massive effort towards providing quality education, a task that, we as a nation can afford to ignore only at our own peril.  The enactment of basic education as a fundamental right is a recognition of the urgency of this task and many unique, novel and even seemingly bizarre strategies need to be adopted to bring to fructify this mission.

 Of the many initiatives that were tried out previously to bring the child to school and thus improve enrolment and retention, nothing has been as successful and revolutionary as the legendry noon-meal scheme.  Pioneered in the state of Tamil Nadu, it instantaneously led to a massive jump in school attendance and a rapid decline in drop-out rates. While more children in the classroom was a direct consequence of this program, with a meal a day, complete with dal and curry and an occasional egg, the nutritional status of the students showed marked improvement, a  huge spinoff of the program.  If one were to travel through the hinterlands of Tamil Nadu in the morning hours, he will not fail to see the sights of children marching to schools, not necessarily with a school bag but definitely, with a dented meal plate and a steel tumbler to accompany it.

But just as ridiculous as offering rituals in a temple where there is no deity, bringing children to schools where there are no quality teachers is making the entire state run education system, a public mockery.  And the one challenge that prevents primary education striking roots in the country is the near non- existent of trained and committed teachers, a yawning gap that requires out-of-the-box thinking and unconventional solutions to bridge. Given the numbers required, the traditional method of incremental training of teachers is just not enough. Do we have an alternate model to emulate?

 Some of the techniques deployed by few gurus in instructing their oriental teachings is worthy of closer examination and may offer a solution to the problem. The popularizing of Yoga by Ramdevji among the masses in a short period of time and preparing thousands of trainers in the art through a variety of techniques, including the use of mass media, is a definitive model that can provide valuable insights on transforming an idea into a mass mission.  If the intricate skills of yoga can thus be imparted en masse, there isn’t a reason why potential primary schools teachers cannot be trained in basic school education through the adoption of this method. But for this to happen, we need to go beyond the cliché argument of secular viz religious education and lavishly imbibe the spirit of these programs that ensure wide acceptance.

In short, we need to look for solutions closer at home than transplant an alien remedy that could prove worse than the disease.

Yours

Narayanan

A tribute to our MPs – Men in Parliament

 

Of the many virtues that men are adored for, it’s valour that stands supreme. In the face of formidable challenges, men of valour fight heroically, vanquishing every foe or perish themselves in the process.  While the thunderous army of chivalrous cavalry men pulverising the mightiest of armies dot our medieval history, it’s the indomitable courage of our countless countrymen, armed by the sheer strength of character and sacrifice, that broke the vertebrae of a mighty global empire and rooted out the foreign yoke from our land .And men of letters wielded their pen to inspire a generation script new annals, unparalleled in valour and never wanting in courage. From Shivaji to Gandhi, from Arjun to Bhagat Singh, from Tagore to Bharati, our national heritage is an uninterrupted stream of towering heroism of noble men. 

This heroism continued to find eloquence in the post-independent India as erudite men immersed themselves to the task of nation building and in structuring the many institutional edifices that nourish it.  An Ambedkar and his colleagues set upon to the meticulous crafting of the most comprehensive and inclusive constitution, the like of which the world has neither seen before nor thereafter, a Sardar Patel single-handedly embarked on a Bismarckian mission of annexing and unifying a scattered motley of princely states, and a Nehru unravelled the blue-print for the social, economic and scientific regeneration of a majestic country long subdued by alien dominance.  These astute parliamentarians were ably supported by the financial wizardry of a TTK, by the oratory skills of a Krishna Menon, by the non-partisanship of a Mavalankar and many such titans inside the house while men of the stature of Mahalanobis, Homi Bhabha and Vikram Sarabhai gave purpose and direction to the young nation from outside. Oh, what a masculine lineage our present parliamentarians have!

But the challenges thrown to our current MPs are much more over-arching than anything their predecessors had ever have to content with and tests their very character and the limits of their spirit of sacrifice. By asking the male MPs to vote for the women’s bill that, in rotation, reserves 1/3^rd of the seats in Lok Sabha and state legislatures for women, they have been virtually instructed to script their own political obituary. When called upon to decide on the question of Indian independence, Churchill famously remarked that he cannot preside over the liquidation of the British Empire. And now our own men in the parliament are called upon to preside, participate and actively vote for the liquidation of their own survival! A choice between one’s instinct for self-preservation and the larger national aspiration for gender equality. Will our MPs rise to the occasion?

 The answer is a resounding Yes. It’s yes because our men have always put national interests before selfish agendas. It’s yes because they have the ideal of a galaxy of stalwarts who selflessly propelled our freedom movement. It’s yes because we have a glorious tradition of honouring the women at all costs and that includes the subjugation of one’s self interests. And it’s yes because our men in parliament correctly gauge the pulse of the nation which is overwhelmingly towards giving women their due. It is this accurate assessment that resulted in the passing of the bill in the upper house. And it would again be for the same reason that it will get its accent in the lower house.

In all these the valour of our Men in Parliament is in ample display. The true MPs!

 Yours

Narayanan

An open letter to M.F.Husain

Mr. Maqbool Fida Husain,

It has been a week of great relief for many of us here in India as we believed that with the conferment of Qatar nationality for you, the controversy surrounding you would at least subside, if not end. But then it was not to be so. The media is now on an overdrive projecting you as a victim of a malicious campaign and that your blasphemous depictions of the venerated mother and other deities are nothing more than an artist’s freedom for creative expressions. Some call it a sad day for India while a few other headlines yell it as a national shame. As a lay Indian but nevertheless a proud Indian, I will try to explain to you why I feel terribly hurt, nay, deeply humiliated, by your artistic profanity, a sense of outrage that a large section of my countrymen share with me.

In one of the beautiful compositions found in the puranas, the sages invoke the mother as ” Shrimata Shrimaharagyi Shrimatsimha Saneshvari…”  ” The one divine mother of all, the great empress of the whole universe, great sovereign enthroned on the lion” thus capturing the extolled stature and the enthralling magnificence of Shakti, the feminine aspect of the Divine. The great seers goes on to describe her as “Nirlepa Nirmala Nitya Nirakara Nirakula ” “one who is free from all affectations of external contacts,  free from all impurities, who is eternal, who is not limited to and by any form and is never agitated”. She is “Nishkalanka”, the one without a blemish. And if you portray such a pristine purity in vulgar nudity and in disparaging union with a lion, will we not be hurt?

The Vedas describe Goddess Lakshmi as an embodiment of absolute bliss and the bestower of all prosperity and who is supreme over all created beings. “The Shri Suktam” glorifies her as “Chandra Prabhasyam Yashesham Jwalantim”  “who is beautiful like the moon, who shines bright, blazing with renown”.  And if such a one whose grace can confer all happiness, wealth and joy is depicted in derogatory nudity sitting over Ganesha’s head, will we not be hurt?

And when you paint Sita Maa, who is worshipped as the epitome of chastity, “Pathivritha Shiromani”, as sitting on the lap of Ravana, again in nudity, will we not be hurt? And when you trample upon and demean the most sacred relationship between her and Hanuman, will we not be hurt?

Your cursed brush has not even spared the motherland and your besmirched representation of her not only smacks of a vulgarity of the most debasing variety but also of a certain mischievousness. Does this also come under artistic freedom? We appreciate you for the honourable and the fully decked up representations of your mother, your daughter, Faiz and Ghalib in your paintings. But when this courtesy is not extended to our goddesses, will we not be hurt? Maybe you meant it to be so.

What Duryodhana could not do to Draupadi, you, Mr. Husain, though figuratively, did it to our goddesses and to our motherland.

A gross transgression!

Narayanan

Batting for Hockey

It’s pure wizardry with the stick. The ball rolls over it… to the right, to the left and again to the right in rapid succession as the player make lightning advancement towards the scoring post.  The great “Indian Dribble” is at once a menacing deception to the opponent, a mesmerizing rally to the spellbound spectators and a powerful technique which, when unleashed, yielded a rich harvest of goals. Introduced by the Indians way back in the 50s, it  changed the way hockey would ever be played and catapulted the nation as the undisputed champions of the game. Today, a mastery on the technique of the “Indian Dribble” is a definite pre-requisite for a player to be of any consequence in the game.

Come circa 2010, the great Indian hockey is at shambles and the rot is gender natural. The men and women of our national teams, instead of dribbling the ball, are now wrestling with the officials. With spates of accusations, unpaid monies, drastic resignations and boycotts, our hockey has everything to keep the masses entertained – off the field, that is. An inspiring film that injects passion to the game, though a commercial success, did little to change the mindset of men who matter.  Once a national pride, the sport today is being strangulated and is gasping for breath. And when the symbol of national honour is at stake, are we to remain just mute spectators?

Many argue that the decadence of hockey coincided with the rise and the rise of  The Cricket. The sport of the willow attracts all the sponsorships, monies, media coverage and ads while its players enjoy celebratory status. The nation lives on a daily dose of cricketing news and the T20 format ensures a round the year action that leaves little room for any other sport to capture our imagination. With an overload of critics, commanders, analysts and many other sundry “thinkers of the game”, it never fails to engage. A testimony to this is the media coverage on the exclusion of Pakistani cricketers from IPL which could perhaps only be compared to that of the 26/11 terrorist attack.

It is this very popularity of cricket that could now come to the rescue of hockey and salvage the game from total oblivion. If only the czars of the game displayed wisdom and magnanimity, the issues of  financial crunch that plague our hockey could be effectively resolved.  Yeah, hockey need to be cross-subsidised by cricket.  And we, as a nation, have always lived with cross-subsidies- we pay, for instance, more for our petrol so that the cooking gas is available cheap and companies support their weaker products by piggy-backing them with their strong brethrens. If it works well for our economy, shouldn’t it work better for our games? An hockey cess on every cricket match, on every telecast of cricket and a definite ear-marking of a portion of its profits for the development of hockey would breathe fresh life to it. Indian cricket today need to bat for the hockey.

Countries that have emerged as great sporting nations have done so only by a deliberate policy of synergizing their combined strengths to overcome their weaknesses. And it’s time now that India too leverage its commanding cricketing status to the advantage of other sports. With India hosting the World Hockey Cup this year, it’s just the right time to act towards this goal.

Chak De India, Chak De!

Yours

Narayanan

Small is beautiful but littleness is ugly

Poets, philosophers and commoners have all alike been entranced by things that are small and little, and the BIG difference they make - The small little cottage, the small little dot on the child’s cheek, the small little squirrel doing its bit in the lord’s mission and the small little pat on one’s back . Small little words of encouragement have triggered great achievements and small little but timely help have shaped great personalities.

What makes small so beautiful is its completeness. An infant who is happy within is a source of great joy to all around. The distant star twinkling with its little light is a delight to watch. And that small little smile makes Mona Liza so complete yet so enigmatic. 

But when smallness is sought to be achieved by amputating a larger whole, it becomes a tasteless waste. Such are the efforts of our politicians that they neither appreciate the value of size nor the pre-requisites that make the small beautiful. The clamour for carving out “Telengana” from Andhra Pradesh is such a course towards self- destruction that has the elements of the most sinister designs working behind it.  If  it comes to fructify, it shall spell the collective doom of both the regions.

This is so because , Telengana shares its water resources, that are so essential for the independent development of the region with the other regions. All the major rivers and water resources in Andhra flow through Telengana towards the Andhra region and one has only to look how Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are fighting for years over the Kaveri water, and the blue-print for future disputes, riots and violence are in front of us. Oh, a tragedy is just unfolding before our very eyes! 

Little politicians have total disregard for the welfare of the state or its people. For them, it is one more state with all the positions right from the chief minister’s chair, up there for grabs.  No price is too high if it means a direct shot at the Gaddi! Littleness is not just ugly but positively dangerous.

We can only hope that better sense would prevail and people will be spared an unending spell of hatred and violence.

Yours

Narayanan.K

Maa Tuje Salaam!

 ”Vande Mataram”  is again reverbarating, not as an inspiring national melody but as a controversy borne out of a view point of the most bigoted nature. The Islamic scholars of the country opined that the national song is unfit for rendering by a true Muslim and issued a fatwa that refrains the faithful from singing it. It is only Allah, the scholars concluded, who is to be venerated and no one else, much less the motherland.

A.R. Rahman’s iconic rendering of the song held the nation spellbound and instantaneously catapulted it as an all-time  favourite among the youth of our country. The  practicing Muslim in Rahaman didn’t find anything blasphemous when he thundered “Vande Mataram” to scintillating music. Nor did the people of India, muslims included,  ever shy away from humming the song. 

Allah is all-pervasive and there is no place where he is not. And by extension of this logic he cannot but be in the motherland too. And when you bow down to your motherland, you are in fact paying obeisance to that one supreme. No ”Namaz”  is complete without  prostrating on the earth you stand. Is it not an act of reverence to the land that sustains you?

It’s one’s motherland that is more desirable than even the heavens and the doors of ”Jannat” are forever closed to the one who disrespects his motherland. 

 Maa, Tuje Salaam!

Yours

Narayanan

The tale of two, nay three, Gujaratis

Pranava implies the primordial sound that transcends the trilogy of time, space and causation and a sincere practitioner of this sacred chant is assured of an eternal permanence, freed from the limiting and inhibiting nature of the worldly existence.

And when Pranav Mistry unveiled his “Sixth Sense” technology which literally brings the virtual world to your finger tips, what he actually did was to free the knowledge world from the shackles of patent-royalty-licence syndrome. Pranav would soon open-source this technology and with that happening, “Sixth Sense” would gain an omnipresence akin to that of the primordial sound that his name signifies.

With a few random and rhythmic moments of his hands and a pendent fitted to his finger, Pranav resembled more like a master conductor crafting the most rapturous music than like a techie hardwared to bytes and thereby to billions. And when this lad from Gujarat announced that it all for free and that money matters little for him,  he exemplified  the highest traditions of selflessness that has few parallels in today’s much maligned corporate world. 

Juxtapose this gesture with that of the other Gujarati,  the Ambani brothers, and you couldn’t have asked for a more contrasting personalities. The twosome brothers are now fighting each other in the Indian Supreme Court to decide who should get the best spoils of the gas reserves that they supposed to have discovered in the Krishna basins. One of them sees it as his fiefdom to amass unrestrained wealth by selling this national resource to the highest bidder and the other trying to grab a share of the cake. It just doesn’t matter to either of the Ambani brothers that the gas reserves has been there over a few millions of years, much before mankind appeared on the face of this earth. For this Gujarati brothers it’s money alone that matters!

Of these contrasts, one shall be consigned to the dustbin of history and no prizes for guessing the correct answer. And the other, glorified forever for going beyond the self.

Yours

Narayanan