The Script

Aasmani rang hai, aasmani ankhon ka
Aankhon mein udne do…

Strains of this melancholic tune played in her mind as she sat huddled on a bench in the little station at Mussoorie. This had been her home till a year ago when she left for Mumbai to join a prestigious financial firm as the risk analyst of a new project.
Beside her lay an earthen pot containing holy remains of her dead father.

Sadness filled her to the brim, and when she could not contain any more within herself it overflowed from her eyes.
Tears were magical things, she often thought.
When grief managed to wring out every ounce of happiness from your heart and stripped you of your faith in God, you are forced to believe that you deserve every bit of it.
The pain of this realization is so bitter that it transforms blood flowing through your body into water.

Aasmani rang hai, aasmani ankhon ka
Aankhon mein udne do…

Eyes like the sky have the colour of the sky
Let me soar in these eyes….

That was another time, at another place.
On those evenings, when the Electricity Board’s load shedding routine interrupted her home work she would wander out to the balcony to find her dad on the rocking chair humming Bhupinder’s songs.
She would silently rest her head on his lap and he would stroke her head.

Dad had missed Ma every day till he died. He would sing this to her, wishing fervently that she came back. She never did. So he joined her.
Tears came streaming down her eyes.

**************************************************************

Abhishek put his pen down. He had finished drafting the first chapter of his new script. He read it through. It was full of sadness and despair, just as he wanted it to be.

He had arranged for appointments with Aparna Sen and Honey Irani in the coming weeks. Aparna Sen had not made any movies since ‘My Japanese Wife’ and was on the look-out for interesting scripts. Abhishek felt adrenaline rise up his spine. He would have to finish the story somehow.

Like everybody else in his profession Abhishek wanted to be known for the scripts he wrote, but his secret desire was to be filthily rich. He believed that there could be no better time than now. Sadly, the competition for better scripts had also increased over the years.
The audience didn’t want to watch the same run of the mill, family drama or a story of the street rat with a golden heart. India was finally getting ready to accept the reality.
Musing thus, Abhishek sipped on his tea and lighted another cigarette, his 3rd for the day. The busy coffee house on the famous college street in Kolkata was where Abhishek had found most of his stories. He continued writing his story.

**************************************************************

And then she was turned down when she had asked for help.

‘The strong always help the weak. Amongst the two of us you were the strong one.
I have always depended on you for everything. How can I help you?’ he had answered.
‘But you are the only friend I have got. You can’t just move on, just because you have got a new bike, a new job.’ She complained out of desperation.

‘Chum. Never expect anything from anybody. That way you will always be happy’.

‘I can’t believe that you are saying this. After all that I have done for you.’ She spat out angrily.

‘I didn’t ask you to help me did I?’ he retorted lightly.

‘The truth is that I have been very useful to you’, she had replied back sadly.
Then she had hung up the phone. Not any more. She resolved firmly, holding back those tears stinging her eyes.

Slightly stooping over with her elbows resting on her knees, she waited on that scantily populated platform for her train which would take her back to Mumbai.

*******************************************************************
A few years back, a movie about a dignified, educated, young girl making it successful completely on her own would have been shunned by the audience as a off stream cinema, commonly called ‘art’ films.

Nowadays off-beat scripts were being well received by the audience. Movies like Khoya Khoya Chand and Hazaaron Khwaishen aisi were proof.
And with glamorous mainstream actresses like Bipasha Basu and Kareena Kapoor signing movies like Corporate and Jab We Met, the industry needed scripts which were close to life, more than ever now.

Abhishek would have Nagesh Kukunoor direct this script, if he was given a choice. He was impressed by Nagesh’s ‘Teen Deewarein’ and ‘Iqbal’ but the film which completely won his heart was ‘Dor’. Nagesh, Abhishek felt, would be able to show on screen exactly what he wanted to convey, instead of highlighting unnecessary avenues and hilarious possibilities of the story.

In any case, this time he was not going to approach mainstream directors to ruin his story by turning it into a meaningless, silly potboiler where the tumultuous heroine mid way would realize that she was actually in love with her friend and the friend would definitely be the hero who would soon realize something similar. The story would unfold with the characters wallowing in self pity trapping the audience into the greatest myth of all: To love means to depend on someone else for everything.

Abhishek had always mocked at this idea. As if one could love, like one could eat, walk or sleep.

His reverie was broken into by his ringing mobile.
‘Bolo (tell)’ he answered back.
He neatly arranged the papers into his file while speaking with Onnesha, his brand new wife of a month.
He slung his cloth bag and rose to leave. ‘Aare haaan baba…bhulbona, dhone paata, shorshe, tomato aar chaal…’(Ya…I won’t forget, coriander leaves, mustard, tomatoes and rice...).
He would have to think about a name soon for his heroine, a name that would symbolize courage, patience and character. Maybe Onn would have some suggestions.

***********************************************************************
Far away at the station in Mussorie, Indrani distracted herself by thinking about her favourite author, Ruskin Bond.
‘He must have been here so many times.’ She thought fondly. ‘None of the publishers felt that his stories were of any value. His mother ran away leaving his loving father.’ ‘Yet he wrote stories which endeared him to all.’
‘Surely you are in a better position than that, what say? ‘she consoled herself.
’Don’t worry, you too will go places’ she wiped her tears and rose to buy a newspaper from the book stall nearby.
‘Ankhon mein udne do...’ she hummed.

Perspective

There is a part of me which loves everything that is tiny and small.

Miniature models of cars or small perfume bottles,models of a construction project or a monument, bonsai trees, the fresh, newly sprung little green leaves and the soft buds of a flower, little curled fingers of new-born babies,new-born babies themselves; little children,little cards stuck on gifts,little charms hanging on a charms bracelet,little pendants with intricate detail,little pups,lion cubs and piglets with twirling tails...the list is endless.

Smallness always has an endearing quality and is never annoying. I have never been intimidated or threatened by things or people that have a littleness aspect attached to them. But to experience this adoration, I noticed, I had to become larger than it. I didn't think I was cute when I was little. I had to cross a certain level of experience and age to understand that.

Life when viewed from this angle is a series of moves from one level of greatness to another. Is it hard then to imagine one last level of greatness from where every other thing or person appears little and endearing, every situation or experience seems harmless and life's struggles non-existant?

The fact is that greatness is the natural destination for every species. It is this most important lesson that Man has learnt from Nature through his evolution over the centuries: To Grow.
But there was a little problem. He realised that no matter how hard he tried, he could never excel his Teacher. He would always be puny in front of the highest mountain, he would always be heavier than the waters of the deepest oceans and that a monkey jumping from one tree to another was enough to make a fool of him. He would always be scared of the lion, ugly when compared to a rose or a peacock during the monsoons. Man's greatness remained limited within boundaries. So he had to constantly prove his worthiness in his own eyes.The ego has helped him do this since ages and has brought him this far.

Today greatness comes with its own set of challenges. Great ideas make men great and their egos greater. Great wealth is often envied upon and great knowledge is being used for doing all the wrong things.
Does man need his ego any more? He has already scaled mountains and built liners to cross the seas. He flies in aircraft and has levelled millions of trees to the ground. Can greatness be thought of without being egoistic?


P.S: Blog post no.20

An Announcement

To all the men in my life who aspire to be saints and ascetics, to every person who advocates inaction or even detachment as the way to stay away from conflicts or struggle, thank you for showing me the other way.
But I will not allow your opinions to come in the way of my interests which are absolutely worldly in nature. For awesomeness shall be my life's goal every moment that I live. And passion for plain awesomeness cannot exist with non-involvement.

I will consider the alternate course only when I will have struggled to have a taste of everything life has to offer today. My struggle will be like the struggle of Man, who has had to do everything by himself to be whatever he is so far. I will work till I bring about change, I will climb the mountains, cross the rivers, laugh through all the tears, love till my heart breaks, be impatient, careless, and funny and love over and over again if I have too. It is only this way that I can do justice to Life.

Here's chucking all those words of wisdom and enlightenment I have read over the years,into the recycle bin. If these words speak of a Place where I have to go to, I have learnt all about it. But I will make my own path reaching that Place.They are after all just words, serene and peaceful albeit, but not of much use to me. Like the Medical Encyclopaedia in the book shelf back home,which gathers dust because all that valuable information was never of use to any of us(One Arts Major and Three Engineers in the family).Moreover, there are other words that help when I drive a nail into my finger while hammering, for instance ;).

And so, here's a toast to Being and Doing:

Thank you Youth for having allowed me to drink of your Fountain. It was refreshing!
Thank you Life, for being by my side as my faithful companion in all my endeavours.
And Get Ready Death, for I am coming to pick you up soon, for the ride of your lifetime.

A Talk on Microfinance

Some time back I attended a talk on Microfinance by Kalpana Karunakaran*.

There were around 20 other fellow classmates, all post-graduate students, gathered in the little classroom at six in the evening. Curiosity about Micro finance brought most of us there, after a long day of difficult sessions.

Kalpana, an excellent facilitator – we were soon to discover, started the discussion by throwing an open question: What do we mean by Micro finance?
The answers that came up included almost all aspects of micro credit –people in villages belonging to the low income group have no access to any form of credit, so they form small groups and borrow small amounts of money.

But what did the poor need the money for and why banks wouldn’t help them, how SHGs came to their rescue, how SHGs are different from MFIs - were questions which set our grey cells in Brownian motion.
What resulted from the interesting discussion were simple answers to the above questions. The following points summarize my learning from the talk:

What do the poor need loans for?

According to me, the main reasons why the villagers would need money would be issues that were comparatively expensive like buying farming equipment or marrying their daughters or emergency health related issues.
On the contrary, I learned that the low-income group families in villages mostly need the money for existence, survival and subsistence. The money that they borrow is used to buy food primarily (daily rationing), next for children’s education and medicines. In short, the money raised from credit is used for consumption-smoothing mainly. Investing in land, equipment and other assets or saving up for the daughter’s marriage comes much later on.
The next question on my mind was this:

Are banks really anti-poor? Why?

I used to think that less number of branches in rural areas is the biggest hindrance to most modern banks reaching out to the poor. But I figured out that it was not a major reason why banks and the poor didn’t fit into a single frame, at least not in the 21st century. In fact, one of the most important consequences of bank nationalizations that happened over two decades in India (1960-80), is rural branching.
Apparently, a bigger problem for the banks is the burden of managing numerous loans of small amounts. Also, there are numerous social issues. Gender becomes an obstacle for lending money as majority of borrowers in villages are women. Their lack of experience in filling up forms, operating and managing bank accounts further discourages banks from lending. Illiteracy and male-dominance in decision-making within the households of the patriarchic societies in villages act as further deterrents.
In short, large parts of India’s population, who make a significant contribution to the country’s economic growth, are financially secluded.


Self-help Groups to the rescue

Self-help Groups or SHGs is the way in which the poor come together and open up to demand loans from banks. A Self-help group essentially is a small neighbourhood group generally consisting of 15-20 women.
The first thing an SHG does is to make a saving. Every member contributes an amount to form a collection. A group leader is then selected on the basis of age or basic education. A bank account is opened next which is managed by the group leader. Members deposit their savings in the common account from time to time.
Soon after, they avail for a loan from the bank to be given to the neediest member of the group. A member is eligible for a loan if her need is greater than the cash in her hand.
Isn’t it ironical that the same bank that refused to lend money to a poor woman obliges willingly to do so once she is a part of a SHG? Not quite. In fact SHGs are valuable assets to many banks nowadays.

Why do banks need SHGs?

Firstly, the saturation of urban markets has forced banks to hunt for new markets. The rates at which banks lend to SHGs are much higher than the rates in the urban areas.
New Government Policies on Priority Sector lending makes it mandatory for banks to lend up to 40% of their credit.
Most importantly, SHGs almost never default as the bank is their life-line. And so they do not need collateral. All this combined with their high repayment makes SHGs a market of good business.

The Glamorous Microcredit

Microcredit is a service for poor people who are unemployed, entrepreneurs or farmers who are not bankable. Reasons why they are not bankable include the lack of collateral, unsteady employment, inconsistent income and a non-verifiable credit history. Because of this reasons they can´t even meet the minimal qualifications for an ordinary credit. Microcredit gives them more available choices and opportunities with a reduced risk. It has successfully enabled poor people to start their own business over the years, helping them generate and sustain an income which often begins to build up wealth and helps them to exit poverty.
3 promises of Microcredit (global foundation of Mohammad Yunus’ work)
• Alleviation of poverty
• Empowerment of women
• Viability of the lending institutions

The Grameen Model vs. SHGs

SHGs are user-managed, cohesive groups often promoted and even sponsored by NGOs and MFIs. The intervening NGOs educate the members about managing their money, and also take care of their account management and auditing.
In the Grameen Model MFI’s take the important decisions. They are the financial retailers. An individual can approach an MFI unlike a SHG which always works in groups only for the members who are a part of it. Besides microcredit, MFIs also offer other financial services like micro insurance, money transfer vehicles and micro savings for the low-income group.
In Mohammad Yunus’ own words:
“(Microcredit) is based on the premise that the poor have skills which remain unutilized or underutilized. It is definitely not the lack of skills which make poor people poor….charity is not the answer to poverty. It only helps poverty to continue. It creates dependency and takes away the individual’s initiative to break through the wall of poverty. Unleashing of energy and creativity in each human being is the answer to poverty.”

How do MFIs operate?

Sources of MFI Income include subsidized funding from MFI wholesalers (FWWB, etc.) and Commercial banks. The poor are not all equally poor and MFIs classify them as the following groups:
• Core poor
• Moderate poor
• vulnerable non-poor/upper poor
MFIs lend money to these different groups at different interest rates and survive on the operating profit margins. The fact that the interest rates are extremely high (up to 34%) leaves us wondering whether these MFIs leave the poor worse off than they already were before taking the credit.


*Kalpana.K is a senior researcher in Center for Development Finance, IFMR in the fields of Rural Infrastructure and Governance. Her area of expertise includes qualitative and ethnographic research and topical knowledge of SHGs and microcredit.

Don't Panic!

Diwali has always been symbolic of the triumph of the good over evil. In many parts of India, it also signifies the replacement of the old with new, which is why, in many homes, walls are white-washed and dusty corners are cleaned, new utensils and jewellery are bought and old clothes are doled out to the poor.

It is this latter idea that is my way of identifying with the festival of lights.
However, as Diwali approaches this time, I think about a different kind of cleansing - that of one's inner self.

If you are thinking that the rest of this blog would be a patronizing passage on morality and virtuousness or on the infinite powers of yoga and meditation(both are infinitely powerful, though), then you are mistaken.

On the contrary, I shall write about some techniques I discovered, to deal with pain. Although these techniques can be used by anyone, they might be more applicable to women, the reason being that women incorporate feelings into their actions and their decisions often involve the gentle heart rather than the shrewd mind.

I have focused on accepting the pain in every aspect and then moving on, not on what or who caused it.So here goes:

Cry, but keep the tears for the weekend

Take time off on a weekend to constructively deal with your pain.
Listen to your favourite sad songs, watch every tear-jerker, be a swollen-eyed mess, do everything it takes to mourn your loss. But resolve to get over it by Monday.Also, it would be better if nobody was around.You don't want to answer irritating, albeit well-meaning questions.

Keep it a Secret

Unless you have an extremely trusted friend or relative around, do not share your woe with anyone.
You do not want to be wrongly judged as being overly sentimental or thought of as weak or vulnerable, do you?(People will invariably judge you so, if you tell them your story)

Let It Go

Remember how Geet in Jab We Met helps Aditya heal his broken heart, by asking him to burn his ex-fiancée's picture and flush it down a commode?

What Aditya performs is a little ritual. Paulo Coelho explains the importance of rituals in the Tradition of Moon, in many of his books.

A ritual symbolizes that you are taking stock of the situation, and you want to get rid of everything related to the incident or person(s) that/who caused you pain, even memories.It is also a controlled way of venting out your anger particularly when there is nobody you can bash.

Be creative and design your own ritual.

An example of a ritual would be to write everything on sheets of paper. Then burn the sheets after tearing them to bits and pieces.


Empathize with and Empower others

Bond strongly with your girl/guy gang respectively.Fetch out old contacts and find old friends.Investing in them is like putting your money in a Post Office account. Old friends are people you can fall back on even after years.
Be there for them when they need you. Listen patiently, wipe a tear, be the shoulder,hug and encourage.

Shop for your favourite people

If there is a saree you have been wanting to buy your mom since ages, now is the best time to do it. All the show that salesmen put up for you would do wonders to heal that achy-breaky heart.

Contemplate over a cup of coffee

When you are in a position to re-visit old memories without feeling the pain, look back and think about where you went wrong.
Quit if you find yourself starting a mental blaming-game.
You can come back later.

Be hard on yourself once you realise your mistakes.

The mistakes could be anything like having done a half-hearted job, or not being able to balance personal and work lives efficiently or holding others' interests above your own to your own disadvantage.
Anything that makes you realize that your misfortune was your own doing.

Try a trivial but difficult penance. Something like staying away from something you love to eat for some time. Forgive yourself eventually.

Remember the title of this post always.

Finally, to all the people reading this, I have the following things to say:

Life, I realise as I live on, very rarely consists of absolute demarcations. Consequently, there is hardly ever a right or wrong thing to do, or a black or white character.There can be only good or bad experiences. Again there is no bad experience that cannot be looked at under a different light, as every experience teaches us something important.Never fear for there is absolutely nothing to be scared of.

Happy Diwali :)

A Few Good Men - 1

The Beach, sands, sea, fish, friends, fun, bikes, food, trees and all. Pondicherry happened again in an amazing way today.
Watch this space for pictures!

Epilogue
I returned about about two hours back to the IFMR hostel.

On arriving in front of the room,exhausted and sleepy, I find the door bolted with our huge Navtal.Both my roomies had gone home while I was biking on the highways of Pondicherry.
Darn.

Imagine this. It's one-thirty in the night and my hair is full of sand and I can taste salt if I lick any part of my body and my backpack contains a bottle of petrol and my soggy jeans and all I can think about is my bed.And I don't have my keys.

Don't Panic.
Growing up around two panicky parents I have learned this lesson too well. For my own good,The Hitch Hiker's guide confirms,thankfully.

I call up Divya and greet her with a round of cheerful scolding for leaving without informing, all the while ignoring conveniently the fact that I have my own keys which I had not taken along with me.

A sleepy,groggy Divya asks me to break the lock.
'We'll buy another lock' it seems.

So be it. I descend three flights of stairs and ascend back with a small rock in hand. I hammer hard at the lock for a while but apart from loud banging noises, nothing happens. Navtal won't budge.

I call Divya again. 'Hey, where's your house?'

Divya tried cajoling me to sleep in another room and said she would come to the hostel at the earliest in the morning.
All in vain. I had made up my mind. She lived nearby and I would bring her keys.
'Okay, but don't walk. Please take an auto', she gave in, quite worried.

I wake up the security watchmen and make him open the gate explaining all the while.I step out on the road again.

Chennai at two in the night is eerie. Not a single soul on the roads, an occasional car, no auto rickshaws whatsoever.
Plus I hadn't understood the directions too well. Whom would I ask?

Jab We Met

I was walking towards Loyola College, thinking hard when a bike stopped hesitantly at a distance.

Rider : 'You need a ride some where?'
Me : 'Yes'. Sheepish grin. 'Do you know where the Manilingam Ayyappan Kovil is?'
Rider : 'Yes, hop on. I'll take you'
Me : 'Are you sure it won't be a problem?'
Rider : 'Oh yes. I was going to Anna Nagar anyway.'

What followed was a round of clarifications with Divya over the phone and some address hunting and the key-getting, peppered with my narration of my crazy adventure and his bewildered guffaws.

Mr.Gopu, here's thanking you for being my knight-in-shining-armor on a nice bike! For once, I was truly a damsel in distress tonight.

Pay It Forward

Mr. Gopu is a graduate from NIFT but currently owns a furniture shop in Chennai. To have a look at his incredible work visit http://www.h2hindia.com/
He is also an adventure enthusiast and visits Rishikesh for rafting frequently.

On E.T and H.E.B

I respect people who raise their children responsibly. By the word responsible, I mean more than anything else, teaching them to think rationally and discern between 'Okay' and 'Not Okay', with fair judgment.

I appreciate the way my cousin sister was taught some lessons much early in life. For instance, in a supermarket, a kid would ask for a candy and his mother would gladly oblige. One questioning glance from my then 6-year-old sister, who had seen the entire episode, and my Kakima would understand what was coming next.

The next spate of her activities would involve hurried transactions over the cash register followed by a quick exit while continuously reasoning with my sister about how candy was bad for her teeth, and reminding her about school lessons regarding the same. On reaching home, she would slice a carrot and give it to my sister all the while talking about how strong her eyes and teeth would become after she ate it, and referring to Bugs Bunny if my sister needed more convincing.

Things are not very different when we grow up. Most of the times we think we know exactly what is missing in our lives, what is that one thing that would make us stop asking for anything else. It's our version of my kid sister's candy. Like the candy, which although fancy isn't particularly of much use and doesn't last too long, most of our wants are fleeting, and don't satiate us forever.

Yet we crave for that one perfect relationship, for that one satisfying job, for that little extra money, etc. and fret so much if we don't get these things.

Sci-fi and Meta-Physics books come to my rescue in such times.They subject me to the type of conditioning that my Kakima subjected my kid sister to.

It's amazing how the mere idea of extra-terrestrial(for lack of a better word :p) life, that highly evolved, extremely intelligent beings(H.E.B) exist; who are not too bothered about sex, who don't fight wars,who are not jealous of one another,who love unconditionally and hence share everything, makes my insecurities vanish into thin air.

Now in all probability, these evolved beings possess technology far advanced than us and maybe someone from somewhere can see what I am doing while I am not aware,this makes me alert all of a sudden.So, if I am in a sullen mood,this thought makes me snap out instantly.

On a starry night, lie on the roof and look at the stars. What you see is what these stars were like, many many years ago. If we were to look at the earth from their present form, all the oil in Iran is probably long finished, maybe Afghanistan is Ayn Rand's ideal capitalist nation(complete with a free economy and a free society:)) and I have died and re-incarnated 10 times over.

From this frame of reference, the much-hyped 'love' that everybody keeps only talking about on earth these days,is trivial.Trust and all the expectations it entails, is over-rated and unimportant and the ego can be used in place of the Adidas football in Fifa.

Sadly, real-life situations on earth involve people who aren't as open-minded, and I am forced to use ego as my Kalashnikov and get bruised in the process. But like Howard Roark famously says, 'It hurts but only to a point. Not anymore'.

P.S: You could start with The Hitch Hiker's series by Douglas Adams, Conversations with God (parts 1-3) by Neale Walsch and A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, although I cannot tell which is fiction and which is real out of these books. They could all come under science though ;)