Society

Last Stop Calling

If ‘last but not the least’ ever needed an exemplar, this would be it. A small sampling

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Last Stop Calling
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If ‘last but not the least’ ever needed an exemplar, this would be it. Many readers confess to beginning their weekly read backwards, with our last-page Diary, listening in on the impressions and insights of writers as they flag cities across the world, not to mention morsels of gossip, jokes and anecdotes. Delhi figures often, and not just because of Editor, man and dog. Part-travelogue, part-commentary-on-our-times, part-memoir, the sum of its many parts is an enjoyable page that revels in its jotted-down-on-the-go feel. A small sampling.

Delhi Diary
Vinod Mehta Front(al) Nudity | January 28, 2002

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Is  there something about the prospect of war that gets the adrenalin pumping in some people? In the past weeks I have met numerous, apparently reasonable and humane, individuals itching for full-scale hostilities with Pakistan. “Finish the problem once and for all” is the favourite mantra. When you quiz them whether the problem in question is terrorism or the Pakistani state itself, they are ambivalent. Most insist that cross-border terrorism will never cease until Pakistan has been sorted out—whatever that means.

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Those who talk glibly of war are not oblivious to its horrors. They are not unaware of the nuclear status of the two countries. They are not unaware that Pakistan has a formidable and fierce army which even in defeat can cause severe damage to India. Still, the impatience with diplomacy, the impatience with “just talking”, the impatience with “inaction” mounts. Why can we not drop a few bombs on Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi even while trading telephone messages for restraint with Messrs Bush, Blair and Powell?

It is deeply puzzling. The Indian middle class watches so much TV war these days that it has probably got desensitised to the devastation the real thing inflicts. Given the awesome arsenal India and Pakistan possess, I would have thought that the case for war as the weapon of the very last resort is self-evident. Yet, people talk so casually and, yes, so longingly of war. The Mahatma must be turning in Rajghat.

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Sagarika Ghose | Manhattan In Jatland | December 4, 2000
The dress code, the invitation card instructed simply, was ‘Manhattan’. The address: Outer Gurgaon. We wheezed into our brave black clothing and set off past the cauliflower fields towards Wall Street. Thick smog enveloped the clusters of crumbling villages along the kutcha road. Will they have salmon and avocado as usual? The road was a winding dirt track, chickens squawked as we passed. Where the @#$% was the invitation card? A herd of livestock floated into the car headlights. A cow lowed through the chilly smoke. The shepherd motioned for us to cut through the vegetable patch, past a tempo lying casually on its side. We clambered back onto the highway. A sudden ravine opened up on either side. Oh god, what’s this, a waterfall? Thud-thud-thud! In we splashed into a rocky stream of oily water. Unexpectedly, we arrived. A New York townhouse rose out of the cow belt. A liveried doorman stood at the arched stained glass doorway, keeping the rural wasteland at bay. Host and hostess appeared in Fifth Avenue chic: beautiful, affectionate. Welcome to Manhattan in Jatland.

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J.N. Dixit | Perfect Protocol | April 3, 1996

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We were to participate in the non-aligned meeting to be held in Lusaka (Zambia) in 1970. Sardar Swaran Singh, then foreign minister, used to chair briefing sessions of the Indian delegation for this summit. At one such meeting, Sardarsaab turned to the then foreign secretary, T.N. Kaul, and asked whether we had a region-wise break-up of members of the non-aligned countries—from Asia, Africa and elsewhere. Mr Kaul obviously did not have this kind of nitty-gritty information at his fingertips and looked at us to provide the information. As I raised my pencil to catch the attention of Sardarsaab, he said in Punjabi Hindi: “Dikshat, tu joint secretary Narendra Singh nu dus; Narender foreign secretary nu batayenga; and foreign secretary mujhe batayenga.” Deputy secretaries were not supposed to break the chain of command even in discussions. They had to be put in place.

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Andrew Whitehead | Mobile Puja | March 27, 2006
We marked the first day in our new office with blessings from a pandit. About 20 of us sat cross-legged as he invoked Ganesha’s blessings. Then, we got the call. You know what it’s like when everyone’s been told to turn off the cellphones, but someone forgets. The ringtone blares out, but nobody owns up. That’s what happened amid the shlokas and coconuts. The ring was in a ghastly western-classics-with-a-swing style, and about as appropriate to a puja ceremony as Kajra re would be in Westminster Abbey. The pandit bravely continued his imprecations. The culprit continued to sit it out. Then came an act that has come close to restoring my faith in religion. The pandit reached into his breast pocket, and brought out a smart, compact, noisily vibrating handset. While continuing his ministrations, he took a quick glance at the caller’s number. And then he broke off from the prayer to take the call. Our astonishment turned to peals of laughter.

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Chennai Diary
Sadanand Menon | Revolution By Other Means | March 30, 1998
One important ‘rite of passage’ in Chennai that did not invite any media attention during the run-up to the elections was the way the ‘revolutionary maiden’ delivered a ‘revolutionary’ shock to street graffiti-watchers in the city, by suddenly attaining ‘revolutionary motherhood’. The ‘puratchi selvi’ of 1996 elections, even six weeks before polling this year, was reincarnated in gigantic wall graphics, in shimmering black/red/white acrylic, as ‘puratchi thaay’ (revolutionary mother), ‘ambu thaay’ (loving mother), ‘deiva thaay’ (divine mother). Ms Jayalalitha sure knows the art of ‘revolution’ by other means. Anyway, this is a role that sits well on her now, as she revels in this new image of ‘Mother Courage’, clucking around her brood of assorted MPs from assorted local parties, deeming to speak on behalf of an ‘orphaned’ Tamil Nadu.

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Calcutta Diary
Sandipan Deb | Telly My Future | December 20, 2004

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When in Calcutta, I keep myself amused by watching astrology channels, packed with soothsayers—from bloodshot-eyed tantriks to sleek laptop-toters—answering phone-in questions. Sample 1. Young man on phone, after giving his date of birth: “Sir, I have a girlfriend. Can you tell me about her character?” Tantrik: “She’s very sentimental, no?” Young man: “Yes, sir.” Tantrik: “You won’t be able to handle her. Forget her.” Young man: “OK, sir, thank you, sir.” Disconnects. Gushing compere: “Guruji, you could divine his girlfriend’s character from his birth date?!” Tantrik (eyeballs rolled upwards): “It’s all Maa Kali’s blessings! Maa! Maa!” Sample 2. Man on phone: “My business isn’t doing well.” Astro-palmist: “How can it do well when you have such a bad temper?” Man: “But everyone tells me that I am too meek to be in business.” Astro-palmist: “Don’t argue! It says here in your chart that you have a very bad temper.” Man: “But I can’t even admonish my staff when they don’t listen to me!” Astro-palmist: “Please don’t waste my time with your lies. Anyway, business is going to be bad for two more years. Next caller please.”

Aizawl Diary
Indivar Kamtekar | Totem Pole | June 27, 2005

The Mizoram state museum on MacDonald Hill is celebrating International Museums’ Day. The five-rupee entry fee has been waived. Each visitor gets two toffees, providing some consolation to swarming schoolchildren. There’s an interesting model of the zawlbuk or bachelors’ dormitory, and a forlorn set of musical instruments. The most striking exhibit is a bullet-riddled electric pole, with a notice proclaiming that it was located, during the insurgency, in the heart of Aizawl. I know that in 1966, Aizawl passed out of the Government of India’s hands for a while, and was even strafed by the Indian air force as a result. Nevertheless, I’m surprised to find such memories enshrined in the state museum, along with the bamboo baskets.

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Goa Diary
Frank Simoes | Sand Castles of Sin | February 28, 2000
Elderly paedophiles with kindly expressions and pockets full of tenners prowl the vaddos. Packs of Caucasian nymphs, indefatigable sexual trophy hunters, scour the beach bars for native exotica. Snarling skinheads negotiate drug deals under the palms. And for those who take their pleasures where they lie, Rajasthani gypsies of uncertain gender ply an ancient trade in the mangroves along the beaches. The detritus is hazardous to one’s health. The sand is booby-trapped with discarded condoms and syringes. The detox clinics overflow and aids is the flavour of the moment.

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Jail Diary
Kumar Badal | Road to Perdition | February 3, 2003

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It is 5 pm, July 17, 2002, and I’m near Dasna jail in Ghaziabad. Most things don’t matter now: it doesn’t matter that I'm a journalist with tehelka.com, nor the fact that I have been accused of abetting poachers whom I only wanted to videotape in the criminal act. It does not even matter that I have a wife and a two-month-old child. What matters is the fear inside me. At gate no. 2 I am frisked, their clammy hands all over me. No papers are allowed inside. So, they take away my currency notes. At gate no. 3 they frisk me again; they now take away my toiletries. At gate no. 4 I’m searched again. They confiscate my cigarettes, they light up right there before me. I walk to a roundabout; it’s where the deputy jailor sits. Around it are 12 barracks. I am in hell. I’ve been assigned barrack no. 5. It has a small compound, and it’s milling with people. They stare murderously at me. I look away. I have never talked to killers. I’m granted bail on January 13. Prisoners crowd around me. They have heard it on FM. On January 15, some accompany me through the four gates to salvation. They have tears. I’m a heap of emotions.

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Karachi Diary
Mani Shankar Aiyar | Identity and India | March 5, 1997

I am discussing India and the Pakistan problem of identity with a Karachi editor. An urbane young man with a wicked sense of humour. “Most Pakistanis,” he says, “believe that if India had not been divided, Javed Miandad would not have been able to play cricket.” “But what about Azharuddin?” I protest. He smiles, “Allah ki badi shaan hai/Azhar Mussalman hai!” I giggle. “It helps, though, that the role models of your new generation are all Muslims: Shahrukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Salman Khan....” “Yes, but we’ve always had great Muslim film stars,” I riposte, ticking them off on my finger tips: “Nargis, Madhubala, Meena Kumari, Waheeda Rehman.” “Ah!” he suavely interjects, “but then it was your guys getting our girls; now it’s ours getting your Juhi and Madhuri and Manisha!"

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Oslo Diary
Ramachandra Guha | Nobel Longings | October 27, 2008

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After my talk, a lady comes up and introduces herself as a doctor, and an advisor to the Peace Institute. The names I had mentioned were all very good, she said, but surely it was time that the Nobel peace prize went to an Indian? She mentions the name of a fellow townsman of mine, a man who has grown long hair, given himself four fancy initials (HH/SS), and whose name is also that of a very great exponent of the sitar.

The Norwegian doctor had heard that this man had brought peace to Kashmir, and had promoted organic agriculture in thousands of Indian villages. She had been asked to promote his candidacy for the prize, and indeed the man himself had been to Oslo several times recently. She asked me if I would give my opinion on the matter.

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I answered that so far as I knew, there was no peace in Kashmir. I observed that what the West refers to as ‘organic farming’ we knew as rain-fed agriculture—and that it is nothing new. Where there was no canal water and where they had little capital, millions of Indian farmers had, for the past thousands of years, grown crops without the use of any chemicals (and without any spiritual counselling) whatsoever.

Finally, I suggested to the doctor that if not giving Gandhi the prize was a scandal, awarding it to my fellow townsman would be an even bigger scandal.

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Baghdad Diary
Paul Danahar | Ashen Sands | February 17, 2003
The 10-hour drive through the desert to Baghdad is perhaps one of the most boring journeys on the planet. This time around, it was just me and an Iraqi taxi driver. He spoke no English, I speak no Arabic. How did we break the ice? Aishwarya Rai, of course. Like much of West Asia, Iraqis love Bollywood and this man was no exception. So, after we both agreed that Ms Rai was indeed the best-looking thing alive today, he pulled out his film library and we settled down to a marathon movie session, courtesy of the dvd player screwed on to the dashboard. In fact, Bollywood is so popular here it's even entered the language. When deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz lost patience with Richard Butler, who was running the inspection team, in 1997, he threw his hands in the air and declared that Butler and his team were “behaving like an Indian film”. Which has been explained to me by an Iraqi colleague as meaning something that is totally chaotic but in the end utterly predictable.

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Tehran Diary
Nandini Mehta | Hail Hejab | October 11, 2004
After two weeks travelling in Iran, I have been converted to the hejab. How quick and convenient—to throw on the long overcoat over one’s nightdress and go down to the hotel dining room for breakfast; how liberating to be released from the tyranny of blow-drying or dyeing one’s hair, and ironing clothes! Could it be that a lazy housewife invented this dress code, and then conspired with the mullahs to impose it? 

New York Diary
Naresh Fernandes | Down at the Chapel | September 24, 2001

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The church at the end of my block opens its doors to passersby who may want to pray for the missing or express gratitude for being among the survivors. The pastor also hangs a white sheet of paper on the door for people to scribble on....  Soon, they are taping up some more sheets and implorations sprout across the entire front wall, as high as human hands can reach.

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“Thank you that Karen and Mara were late for work at the World Trade Center.”

“We ask you to bring Rachel home.”

“We pray for the firemen at Squad 1 down the street and their dead colleagues.”

“We pray for wisdom in our response.”

“We pray that there may not be any retribution.”

“We pray for tolerance to end ignorance and terror.”

In a cafe called Arabesque, men with creases on their foreheads chug on hookahs and watch the evening newscast on a satellite feed direct from Egypt. “I don’t understand why they are trying to blame us for yesterday’s terrorism,” one man says. “Don’t they realise that we came here so that we could leave the violence behind?”

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A couple of miles away, the manager of a Middle Eastern restaurant called Bedouin Tent insists that New Yorkers are too sophisticated to hold their Arab neighbours responsible. “We have been flooded with takeout orders,” she says by way of elaboration. “We have 31 orders and only two delivery boys.”

Budapest Diary
Sanjay Suri | A Roman Touch | February 21, 2000
We were lucky the President left early, before he could see what Bollywood had done to his country. That President Arpad Goncz had come to the screening of Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam was something of a coup managed by Lakshmi Puri, Our Lady in Budapest. Half the film had been shot in Hungary, and so the President was pleased to come. What he didn’t know was that the film was pretending that Hungary was Italy. I don’t know many presidents but I suspect they don’t take kindly to such things. 

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New Year Diary
Vinod Mehta | Some News Pepper Please | January 10, 2005

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The year dead and gone did not just see more dumbing down of the media, but we are now confronted with a new genre of dumbing down. A Congress minister in the upa was telling me he has stopped going for studio discussions because frequently there is no premise to those discussions. Recently, he was rung up and asked to debate the news that Manmohan Singh had threatened to quit.

“But the news is not true. You can check with the PMO,” he responded.

“So, you are saying he is not planning to resign?” says the channel.

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“Yes.”

“So, you are saying he has never contemplated resigning?” persists the channel. “Yes.”

“Even in passing he has not thought of resigning?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, but why don’t you still come to the studio and discuss the issue.” 

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