India Chronicles Episode VIII

Kashmir (The problem state):

While boarding on a rather dangerous adventurous trip to Kashmir a song that I recently heard was constantly humming in my ears. The song was titles 'Ab ke hum bichade to shaayad kabhi khwabon mein mile' , meaning, 'Now that we are parting, I hope we meet in dreams in the near future' and little did I realize that I was going to experience the embodiment of that song in Kashmir. So, what is this Kashmir that is being talked about so much in the news

Where is it:

It is the bordering state with Pakistan. A meager population and no significant economy to tip the scales it lies on the north west frontier of India. During the division of India into India and Pakistan in 1947 Kashmir remained a point of dispute and it remains unresolved until today. As a result there is no international border out there, just a line of control. To the west of the line of control is POK: Pakistan occupied Kashmir and to the east is IOK: India occupied Kashmir. To the north there is a small COK (China occupied Kashmir), but, for convenience sakes lets ignore that part for now. Historically Kashmir has been predominantly Muslim with a minority Hindu (upper caste) population.

Why its a flash point:

In 1947 when India and Pakistan separated, there was a dispute in four - five princely states on whether they should go into Pakistan or stay with India. Since Pakistan had declared itself a Muslim state, predominantly Muslim regions such as Hyderabad, Kashmir etc were on the decision scale on this issue. While a plebiscite was conducted in Hyderabad, there was no such vote in Kashmir. India's will to take Kashmir was more overwhelming since Nehru (the then prime minister) hailed from the state. He would, at no cost, lose his homeland to the Pakistani's. So, cleverly, India decided that the then Maharajah (who was a hindu) was the head of state and also unilaterally decided that he would have the authority to speak for the Kashmiri peoples. Obviously, the king was on the Indian side and annexed Kashmir into India. I would guess that the special amendment that gave Kashmir pseudo-independence was part of a deal brokered between India and the muslim leaders, so, they would stay in India. This deal gave no rights for India citizens to buy property in Kashmir !!! This was very baffling at the time as well, but, then that was the only resort for Nehru to gain Kashmir.

The 1990's:

In the 1990's when political tensions flared between India and Pakistan, the Pakistani government intentionally infiltrated the borders of Indian occupied Kashmir. They smuggled arms into fanatic jehadi territories and posed as friends of the Kashmiri people. The Pakistani governments support to the Kashmiri people was public and overwhelming. Even today, American arms are systematically smuggled into Afghanistan and then into places like Pakistan or Chechnya for instance. Bin laden and co are its biggest buyers. The black market for American arms is wide, expanded and out in the open. At times the arms they get are more sophisticated and newer than the ones with the armed forces. At this time, the highly educated elite Hindu Brahmins (upper caste people) of the region held all the high governmental and non-governmental positions. They were wealthy and were the self proclaimed elite of the region. This led to hatred for Hindu's in the region. The Kashmiri muslim youth was not sufficiently employed and the special status given to Kashmiris lead to their increased isolation from India. Elements from the Pakistani society found this as a great political agenda for elections. Their Indian counterparts responded in being. As it became an ego issue, the thoughts of Kashmiri people were ignored and a proxy battle between India and Pakistan began in Kashmir. Kashmir was in unrest as militancy increased with the call to freedom. At times the Kashmiris were divided between independence and seceding into Pakistan. They were unsure about the treatment they will be meted out if they actually joined Pakistan. The Indian armed forces went in full swing and crushed the insurgency in about 5 years time spending close to $ 1 MM a day on sustaining the army there. I was in Kashmir in 1992 when bombs were bursting everywhere and there was a shootout everyday, but, with my college brain and friends decided to return without getting to Srinagar, the capital city. In this time, all the Hindu's in Kashmir were murdered or forced to flee causing the most unwritten exodus from Srinagar into India.

How was it now:

When we decided to tour the area we were told by all the tour companies that they take about 8-9 tours to the state every day. We were inspired by this figure and since there was no major insurgency going on, decided to venture in. From the time we landed, there was a feeling of arid strangeness about the place. You could clearly recognize that this region had been through so much. There we no tour companies that we could see at that time. At the hotels that we stayed, people told us that they had been occupied by the army for 10-12 years when the insurgency was at its peak. At times, the hotels had also had shootouts and attacks due to the same reason. The visible scars onthe amenities in the rooms showed the kind of wear and tear that a war torn ravaged area shows. There were troops everywhere. Every soldier was heavily armed with an automatic weapon and/ or assault weapon. The conspicuous presence of the soldiers was both comforting and unnerving. It was a grim reminder to us that fighting can break out here anytime. I talked with one of the soldiers in one marketplace and asked him about insurgency and his response was that nothing had happened there since they were taking 'care' of the people. He, in fact, pointed me to this middle-aged man sitting in a cafe nearby and told me that in the next few weeks he was going to dissapear in the near jungles as he had gone overseas for training. (Pakistan for insurgent activity and financing).

We also had to pick the best day to land in Kashmir. Oct 27th, the commemoration of the Indian army's arrival in the state. This was celebrated by the armed forces and a total strike was called by the people. From a nature perspective, Kashmir has the charm of an untouched landscape. The volcanic Himalayan mountains are pristine with clear glacier water flowing through them. Global warming has also affected some of the glaciers as they have melted to move away from the foothills. As a result one has to climb a little to get a glimpse of them. The three cities we visited were wonderful from a photographers angle. The people we met were subdued and fatigued. Almost all the people I talked with (openly) wanted independence from India. Through years of struggle and poverty and a decade of military suppression and aggression, the people's resolve had only grown stronger.

The love and hate relationship:

The Kashmiri people want Indian imports of apple, saffron & wool, the three primary produce of Kashmir. They also want the indian economy to pour in tourism dollars into the state and yet they don't want to be part of India. The mind is at battle with the heart.

The Iraq analogy:

In many ways the Kashmir situation is like the Iraq for the US. The army cannot leave a disabled state and risk years of their work go to waste let alone let the insurgents win. The army cannot stay forever and spend tax dollars without result. The situation is a bad quagmire of the worst kind.

The solution:

The solution according to me is very simple. It's not as complicated as clashing ego's might claim to be. 'Leave Kashmir'. Let is get its independence. How difficult was it for the USSR to split. If states behave like independent entities, its time for mature societies to part ways. An independent Kashmir will be treated like an orphan by Pakistan and India will put an embargo on tourism and imports. The Indian economy is bustling so much that tourists prefer Switzerland anyways. The mountaneous north also offers similar attractions which are now thronged by tourists. In other words, India will not miss Kashmir for any reason since they can surely live without saffron, wool or scenic mountains. An independent Kashmir will die within months without India as Pakistan has increasingly moving towards complete millitary anarchy under musharraf.

Me:

Im an atheist and a non-nationalist. To me, all faith is blind faith in obsolete values and virtues that are negotiable and unsustainable in the modern world the foundations to which are crumbling with education and the realization that science always sufficiently contradicts the miracle believers. Lines drawn in sand that constitute international borders are nothing but that... lines drawn in sand and lets not forget that. They are just 'LINES DRAWN in SAND' with our own hands. There are no nations in this world. These are politically created entities for rule of law and nothing else is the truth. Arguments on faith and disputes on land end with peace no matter how long they might continue or how many people have to die in the midst. So, why try to get along.

India Chronicles Episode VII

Lost on time:

My apologies for not writing in sooner. I got a few hints over email that it was time to update my blog, but, I was struck with a very personal crisis of sorts in the last quarter of 2006. So, I had more important things to address over updating my blog. Here comes the first episode of 2007.




Rudest people in the world

Last month a survey published by the Forbes magazine rated Mumbai’s people as the ‘Rudest people in the World’. There were a lot of flaws in the poll as experts were quick to point out, none of the Chinese cities were surveyed. They just conveniently chose to ignore the most populous country in the world. Anyway, I do think that the angle from which the poll was taken might have concluded accurately. Mumbaiites are probably the rudest people in the world, but, on the incorrect scale of measure. We do not have etiquette for wishing people every now and then. We do not have etiquette for offers of help or offering help or thanking people. We are so reliant on the English to teach us that that we have adopted the English words in the etiquette conveniently. So, for example, no one ever says ‘Suprabhat’ for it’s much more hip and convenient to say ‘Good Morning’ or even ‘Dhanyawaad’ since it’s easier to say ‘Thank you’. For some reason, through history no one taught us etiquette in the western respect. I have often wondered why it hasn’t really caught up here and have concluded that people take others for granted most of the time. If I open the door for someone I don’t expect a thank you for that although I must admit one thrown my way occasionally makes me feel good for a moment. Simply putting it, we don’t believe in the science of etiquette in the western sense.

Political posters (It’s always who you know)

At every street corner irrespective of the size of the city or the time of the year or the year itself one notices these painfully obstructive obnoxious political hoardings. India has several political elections at different levels. There’s the federal government election, the local state government elections, the governor elections, the local municipal corporation elections and others. So, in India, we are voting most of our lives and that too voting for people we know are not going to be any different than the one whose face is printed next to him. What happens as a result is the continous production of political posters. These political posters carry subliminal messages and are very hireachial in nature. For instance, for a local municipal election, if you represent say the republican party in the US here is how the election time poster will be printed. It will be about 20 feet by 40 feet in size, so, it is capable of dragging rain clouds and convert them into rain. On top will be the pictures of Bush & Cheney, just below them would be Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, John McCain etc. Below those in a separate line will be the faces of Rudy Giuliani, Schwarzenegger and the likes. Below those would be the pictures of the local guys of lesser importance and then in the bottom most lines there will be the brown nosers and donors. At any time, so many pictures are cluttered in any election poster that the political party symbol and the actual candidate is lost in the midst. To avoid this confusion, they sometimes print the candidates photo in the middle of the poster with a bright aura behind his head. On other instances, they blur the others and keep the candidates picture in the clearest focus. The worst thing about these posters aside being really really ugly is the fact that there is no ownership to them. There is no real accountability towards the installation and removal. Someone usually plants these things during the course of the night and they are never removed. They are taken down by some accident or by the breeze. They form an unfortunate and ugly part of all skylines. Ironically, no one protests over them due to fear of political backlash.

Speeches (members of the dias):

Indian’s are rather poor at public speaking and that’s mostly because they tend to lack a sense of humor. Hardly many people try to make their speeches light and funny or even try to add a note of humor in their words. It’s unfortunate that this is the case and hence, I mostly avoid public speeches entirely. One of the sacred elements to public speaking is an unbroken and very annoying tradition that has been practiced for years by every single speaker. The tradition of referring to every single person on a stage. If you have more than one keynote speaker and to that add your endnote speaker, you will have four or five speeches at any ceremony that will begin in this way. “Respected Chairman of the committee Mr XYZ, Respected Asst. Chairman Mr ABC, Asst. to the Asst Chairman Mr. RTY, Member of the board Mr. HGY, Coordinator of the something Mr. KLM, Local politician Mr FTU, Local social worker Mr. SDF, organizing committee members, members of the society & my dear friends” !!!! Every single speech including the vote of thanks has to begin with a reference to everyone on the stage. They are never clubbed together in the speech. At a recent ceremony I attended, I actually took the time to count how many minutes each speaker was spending on this aspect and to my surprise it was on an average three. There were 6 speakers and cutting this crap could have easily shaved 20-25 min off the whole boring ordeal… Get a hint Indians.

The flight to Bangalore:

I visited Bangalore, the Information technology capital of India yesterday. There was nothing special about the flight until I got to the airport. There were two flights departing from the terminal I was in. One was bound for Delhi and the other for Bangalore. There was a mix of the hip townie crowd and a bunch of sobers. As soon as the delhi flight took off all the cool dressed people were gone and what was left behind was a whole load of programmer stereotypes. I don’t generally like to stereotype people who dress like their profession, but, this was one instance I could not ignore. A typical programmer, Indian programmer, is usually from southern India, has a dark thick moustache, marginally graying full head of firmly combed and lightly oiled hair, a beer belly, a pair of jeans, unsuitably white pair of sneakers and a T-shirt that loudly & clearly proclaims what company they work for. Note that this is usually always a T-shirt and almost never a polo shirt. Those cheapie programmers cannot afford the more expensive variety (sorry). Anyway, the flight that I was on had a zillion of them. One dude was flashing his Veritas shirt while the other was flashing the Oracle one, one was sporting his IBM shirt while another was flashing his Aviva. It was like a race and my Michigan State University shirt was losing out rapidly. I just could not compete with them. I later realized what these people were doing in Bangalore. I visited this city nearly 20 years ago and in these years as with most other Indian cities, things are out of control. Huge malls surround you when you walk on the street, massive traffic snarls are commonplace and a distance measured in time. I think the city is so polluted that they display the ppm of oxygen in every breath of air you consume. I happened to be lucky to live near an IT park. Driving down the street to my customers place was like driving on 236 towards San Jose. Every company known in the bay area had a massive campus in Bangalore’s IT park. I was amazing to see how much money & confidence these people had poured into Bangalore in these last few years. It seemed to me that if you are an IT company that setting up a shop in Bangalore was not a choice it was a necessity. Having granted tons of open land, these American firms from the Intel’s to the Dell’s from the Aavaya’s to the Zenith’s had set up massive campus sites each rivaling their US sites. So much has changed in Bangalore since the last time I visited.

The Red lounge

India boasts of having the largest movie industry in the world, Bollywood. Bollywood is based in Bombay and it produces about 1200 movies a year, about 400 more than its nearest rival Hollywood. It also boasts of a reach that is about three times that of Hollywood. Bollywood movies are watched from Turkey to Indonesia, from Russia to South Africa, by Indian and local audiences. They just haven’t crept the Atlantic as of yet. Out here the superstars are names like Amitabh Bachchan & Shah Rukh Khan, names that you won’t hear in the US. Anyway, to compliment the biggest movie industry was the novel invention called the ‘Red Lounge’. Aptly named from its Red-light'sh color scheme, it is part of the fanciest theatres in town. The ticket prices are about US $ 10 per seat and believe me they are worth the experience. It can be considered every movie-goer’s dream come true. The theatre is filled with about 200 lazyboy recliner chairs. Yes, the ones in the first class of aircrafts. Sometimes, they have individual seat speakers to provide the extra oomph in sound effects. There is a whole dining tray assembly on your seat which holds drinks, coffee and popcorn. An usher takes your order for popcorn & drinks at your seat and brings it there during the progress of the movie. The seat reclines to become a bed if the movie is that boring. The ushers also provide you with fleece blankets if you get too cold. You can also special order stuff at your seat. We like the red lounge because it serves three purposes. Not only is it the best way to watch a movie, it provides for a comfy bed in case the movie turns out to be boring. Indian movies are generally about three hours long and if the movie turns sour in the first hour, trust me, by the end you are pulling your eyelashes one by one and enjoying the pain instead of watching the movie. It also serves as a kid friendly theatre. They sleep for hours on the lazyboys and are not disturbed by the Dolby surround thumps at all. I forgot to mention, since the movies are so long there is an intermission about half way down. It’s a half time of any sporting event where people are allowed to stretch, walk out for some fresh air or buy some more fattening popcorn. The Hindi movies are severely criticized for being too long, too censored and too fake. While all these allegations are true, they tend to entertain a large subset of the populations in many countries that have a taste for these things. Hindi movies are very G rated or at the most PG-13. There is never any form of nudity and hardly any kissing. Swearing is also very rare. As they like to describe it, it is wholesome family entertainment. You could be caught thinking how these people make gangster movies without nudity, swear words and violence. I have noted that if the story is really strong and is supported by powerful acting & a well written script, you really don’t need these things to be convinced that a gangster is a gangster in a movie. It probably becomes a little unnatural at times, but, it isn’t impossible to make a movie without these aspects and yet keep it near real. The standard of movie making has improved significantly over the last ten years. Hindi movies have now started addressing more serious closer to life topics instead of filming PG-13 versions of girls gone wild.

Stuck in Musical times (music then and now)

Have you ever taken a record and put the needle exactly where you’ve wanted it? Have you been able to repeat that once? Several times in succession? Well, Indian’s have; and Im talking about musical tastes. It is the one thing that reminds me of when I was in India nine years ago. The music that was played in clubs, in stores, in shopping malls & in public places is still the SAME !!! It’s like I never left this place or this place reset it’s musical taste to exactly one point in time in history every two years or so.They still love Bryan Adams here and ‘Please forgive me’ or ‘Everything I do’ are still the most popular numbers played on radio. It’s bizarre how and why Indian’s refuse to move out of the pre-1997 era. It isn’t that other artists aren’t available on CD’s. It’s just that this population finds it hard to experiment with what’s worked for them. I’m planning on introducing gangsta rap this new year. I’m sure Ill be the most unpopular DJ in town.