Yet another one on the monsoon

Year after year it seems like there is a meteorological reality-show to see how wrong they can get with their predictions on the advent of the monsoon. Infact, psepologists (esp the kind that appears on news channels), astrologers and and our meteorology dept should send

atleast one team (I am sure they will have many) to the now drab ‘Great Indian laughter challenge’. I remember reading reports that it was going to be an early monsoon. And the real story started only a week after even the usual dates.

And when it indeed starts raining, their expectations of 'heavy showers for the next 24 hours' almost repeats everytime it rains. And as if the rain can sense this building expectation it decides not to rain for 4 days consecutively. And when you almost start forgetting your umbrella, there it comes!

Like every other season in India, people tend to greet the monsoon and hate them as well. And usually it is an exercise in unison. They greet it when it appears and starts hating it when a few days later it affects their regular office commute. For a few, like school-schildren, the glee re-appears every time a holiday is declared.

Despite all this, the initial days of the monsoon is a great treat to watch…people looking up into the sky with a subdued sense of glee, some- hiding the glee behind their umbrellas, some offering ‘lifts’, people running with their shoulders hunched in brisk steps from one canopy to the other-covering them with whatever they have in their right hand (or the hand itself) which covers exactly 1/3^rd of the

forehead. And there are the people with ‘I can wait, but pity you’ smirk on their faces jostling for space in the steps of the footpath…or leading to a store that suddenly sees a spurt in visitors. I can imagine the shopkeeper’s exasperated silhouette against the famed Gandhiji’s quote saying "a customer is the most important visitor on our premises"

During my schooldays in Kerala (Loyola School, Thiruvanthapuram), the rains were expected on the day the school re-opens after the summer vacation … on June 1^st or 2-3 days before/after. It was almost like a natural law. After the tech renaissance of the past decade, the meteorologists started getting over zealous…and started predicting cloud movements. It was almost like the doctor talking about bowel movement when the patient was complaining of constipation.

Back to school days (was never good and old), it was almost a test of optimism to walk out in your new shoes, bag, uniform and other paraphernalia when the rains were almost about to burst out…the only saviour being the new umbrella/rain coat. The most dismaying part was the new shoes. If they could, they could fold up together while you walked out and made a fervent appeal not to take them out in the rains. Poor sole! And the un-heard appeal was thrown along with the shoes into the rain drenched football ground. What fun. The walk back home all cold and huddled under the umbrella straight into the bath without my aaya seeing me was one great adventure that Enid Blyton would have started a series on.

Inside the Loyola School bus, the cold look that your 'window-seated' seniors gave you, every-time you lifted the the window-shutters to see whether your bus-stop has arrived, worked as the only teaser. And the pride with which the driver looked at us, partly adjusting his perch on the seat when a poor soul on the road jumped aside and shielded himself with his umbrella from a puddle when the bus sped past him. It should be another great catch 22 - the dilemma to shield oneself from the rain or the splash from the puddle.

Rains again became an implicitly awaited event while in college-the hot & humid summers never let the brightly coloured jackets (never helped to keep one dry) out of the home. It was even spectacular when the bike made its entry. There was an unseen emergency to reach home (or wherever) when it started drizzling. You could never reach anywhere and in the end just formed an excuse for a hot chai, gossip and a smoke. And every time my bike started, it almost became a good omen to hear my dad or mom shout out to be back before it rains. Due to lack of exposure on any of the other four seasons, the fondness for the rains just grew over the years.

Apart from nostalgia, there is something inherently mystical about the rains. Despite the eager prayers for a good monsoon, there is always the catastrophic tales of lives lost due to mud avalanches, sea erosion, floods, cyclones et al. In Mumbai and elsewhere roads giving way to trenches have become a specialized media subject. Every year we only re-question our sensibilities by questioning the civic administration. Every monsoon almost erases our current frustrations and presents us with new ones. That includes candle lit vigils on terrorist attacks or our exasperations with the administration.

Since the time the rain clouds started gathering in the horizon, the rains were always revered for its power to give birth. But there always seems to be an air of uncertainty… almost unstated preparedness for something unfortunate. And when that happens, every monsoon seems like a season only for memories. The dilemma then is to whether let the old memories get washed away by the rains and make way for new ones or to hold on to the old ones and ignore the present.

Vote for What?

What is so great about South Africa, that makes it in-vulnerable to an election?

Or what is so bad in India that makes it vulnerable to IPL?

South Africa had their general elections on 22^nd April. The day when Deccan Chargers won their 2^nd match  thanks to Adam Gilchrist & Rohit Sharma’s exploits. (Click for match info)

While elections  - and the fear of a security lapse were the main concerns to shift the IPL to SA, how come it could be managed so well in SA.

This debate would have already suffered the fate of a once fearsome cobra ending up as a soup in a street side ‘thela’ in Cape Town; but guess the after-taste is keeping the cobra from a peaceful digestion.

Agreed that the magnitude of elections, the size of the electorate, the cultural diversity, civic apathy etc are insurmountable walls of difference between the two countries.  Just statistic is enough to kill the debate on similarity of the two nations - India is twenty times larger (over 1 billion people) than South Africa (45 million people).  South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world. India is 7^th largest.  South Africa is ranked 25th in the world in terms of GDP (PPP) as of 2007. And India is ranked world’s twelfth.

But despite the differences, the sheer range of geo-political as well as socio-economic issues that the ‘aam aadmi” grapples with are similar. South Africa has one of the highest rates of income inequality in the world. South Africa has eleven official languages and multiple ethnic cultures. According to a survey for the period 1998–2000 compiled by the United Nations, South Africa was ranked second for murder and first for assaults and rapes per capita (India is fast catching up though).   Total crime per capita is 10th out of the 60 countries in the data set. South Africa has the world's largest HIV/AIDS population, 5.3 million or 11% of all South Africans, according to official figures. It has the world's ninth highest murder rate. On its borders it has Zimbabwe, whose implosion it has undertaken to help reverse, not least because that collapse has added an estimated 500,000 refugees to South Africa's already stressed social system. And in the 15 years since the formal end of apartheid, social inequality and the number of South Africans living in poverty have actually grown.

Corrupt, illiterate and criminal are just some of the qualities that are synonymous with the Indian politician. But look at who SA got as their president hopeful (and incumbent)-  Jacob Zuma has six wives. His financial adviser was jailed for bribing him, he likes to sing, he grew up herding goats and completed just three years at school, but rose to prominence as an ANC guerrilla and intelligence chief, serving 10 years in prison with Nelson Mandela.  (There might be good side of him. But that’s not interesting. ;-).   Despite the gravity of the AIDS problem  in SA, Zuma himself has notoriously, displayed even greater ignorance on AIDS, claiming in court that after having sex with a woman who knew to be HIV-positive, he protected himself by having a shower.

For a country who could stage the IPL in 4 weeks  (29 days to be exact) and an election to tot, they are also hosting the British and Irish Lions rugby team, and later this year cricket's Champions Trophy, another refugee from the perceived dangers of the subcontinent. Next year, it will be football's World Cup. 

Cultural biases notwithstanding, there are differences that are glaring enough for a statistician who is looking for logical and functional base to dismiss the ‘similarity’ theory. But between a nation who just entered the 15^th year of (full) democracy and a nation who celebrated its golden jubilee 2 years back, these statistics are enough to de-motivate one’s faith in the world’s largest democracy – and our capability in doing what we think is possible. Despite the “vote” campaigns that ricochet on the idiot box and the toast of this year’s social campaigns, voter turnout in the first phase of the 2009 Indian elections was still dismal. While in South Africa,  the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has put the final voter turn out at 77.3 percent, one the highest voter turn-out in the world.

To look back at a statement from our hounourable Union Home Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram. “It will be difficult to provide para-military forces for 40 matches and elections too,” he said “I don’t want the forces to be stretched.”  And juxtapose this one last statistic - India has the 3^rd largest armed forces in the world. South Africa figures 63^rd. (check here).

For me, the issue is larger than staging the IPL.

Since the first Pak incursion in October, 1947, internal security has not moved beyond the jingoistic rhetoric based on most recent setback. IPL has been moved out of India, the India-Australia Davis cup is the next in line. And as time passes by us, I would imagine that the minimum deterrence required for a nation to stand up to internal or external threats seems to be only waning. And we just seem to trudge along with our collective conscience of an impotent nation.  

I have only become more cynical about the political will of the nation that first had its general elections in 1951. Election manifestos and poll agendas are only added on to the initial “roti, kapda, makkaan’ campaigns… literacy, primary health care, potable water, electricity, roads, female infanticide… the list only seems to be growing, No goals ever seem to be achieved…poll planks notwithstanding, even the planning commission’s 5 year plan seems like an ‘to-be-continued’ Government omnibus.  

The thought refuses to leave me every time I watch an IPL match - in a multi party see saw in India, hope for a political will seems misplaced. (incidentally ANC the majority party in SA had a 66% share of the parliament).  

But then it is also not about absolute majority. Read a quote of ANC spokeswoman Jessie Duarte, She said "You don't need two-thirds to govern a country. You need political will to do so."

With the curtains slowly descending on the campaigning for the general elections 2009, that doubt only seems to grow…why should I keep flushing down my vote?  

The reluctant blogger. The genesis.

There’s no originality in the title. I agree.

As words form sentences hereafter, it becomes more hazy as why am I doing this than doing anything else.

In the course I am also presenting my set of reasons to find a place in virtuality. 

The sense of “am I doing something great?” has always crossed my mind. Bereft of any pursuable vocations and most of the time in a crude primordial seizure of multi-tasking, (“One thing at a time” is a non-existent figment of an anonymous writer’s fable) the vocation of publishing a commentary never was a serious thought. Recording my personal memoirs or “Diary writing” was a risky proposition… I was too scared of being honest…and was extremely prone to violent shivers and trembles as I visualized my closest friends guffawing over my flights of fantasy.

I could not surmount the barrier of self-publishing. My fantasy was still about giving sound bytes to earnest journalists who surround me while they jostle and heckle each other to capture the words as they leave my mouth and evaporate. (in slow motion)

In the midst of the fantasy and in between certain heightened fiction reading interludes, there was a sense that I could make up for my lack of attentiveness by writing something odd. It never really took flight as a pursuable vocation till I chanced upon the reality that what happens around us is often not dictated by how we really want them to be. Being fed and clothed in the farcical communist idealism of Kerala politics, the sense of cynicism can be forgiven, I presume. Through course-corrections and adjustments in our expectations, we just trudge along, some to look back and some, never. It made eminent sense to record these.

And what you feel about something can change with time. And when you trace your initial thoughts on some issue, you suddenly become startled at how even your personal opinions change and evolve over time. There were also times when you have a point of view that escapes the opportunity of the ‘right time’. Logging those thoughts in atleast abates the sense of intellectual nausea. (wanted to call it ‘crapnausea’). The obvious downside being the time when I revisit them and feel embarrassed at my intellectual crassness.

Self publishing was also about soliciting acknowledgements. Narcissism is probably an extreme word for this- but there are scientific studies that highlight tendencies in facebook profiles. (Study: Facebook profiles can be used to detect narcissism).  I do not know of a single word that would communicate a heightened need for an psuedo- intellect- alter- ego combined with some self indulgent cynicism - the real motivation behind my virtual existence.   

My primary interaction with web-logs had happened much earlier - through an article in a general interest magazine on blogging and I distinctly remember Ajit Balakrishnan of rediff.com, extrapolating his reasons to get his views heard. Later on many CEO’s and opinion leaders had jumped into the bandwagon. Blogs even started opinionating my most enjoyable past time of reading current affairs publications. And then I discovered Orkut. Later with web 2.0, the possibilities of having a virtual identity –an alter ego became very strong and (now as I look back) is probably the greatest force multiplier in breaking the apathy towards blogging.

Thereafter, during certain dried up patches at the workplace helped by a lot of “personal internet time”, the seeds of “It's raining crap” was sown. The reasons for the nomenclature is best explained in the blog header.

2 years and 18 posts. The greatest dilemma is figuring out ways to keep it going. Especially now that I have exhausted one more. And that too, after almost a year.