Chai Chalk Chatter

My initiation to Dr. Tharoor’s literary work was with ‘Pax Indica’ and while I have come quite a long way from those days, I still enjoy what he writes. It was his ‘Why I am a Hindu’ that shaped my critique of an essential part of my identity which I guess was again negated with Kancha Ilaiah’s ‘Why I am not a Hindu’ but I guess this is a tussle which every thinking human will always have in their life. Coming to the most recent addition to Dr. Tharoor’s endeavor to provide direction to the idea of India, I think ‘The Battle of Belonging’ is a worthwhile contribution. It’s not that I agree to all he has written but we exist in a state of evolving discourse and as such not making any contribution to that discourse would be more demeaning than producing something which is evidently intended to keep up the spirit of an old diminishing elite. There are certain arguments in the book though, that cannot be denied – the most important one being the transformation to the idea of India. I b...

Dr. S. Jaishankar's 'The India Way' puts into perspective the evident anti-Globalisation and rising Nationalism(s) around the world. In doing this it highlights the growing multi-polarity that the world order is experiencing. The book, in my opinion, tries to position Indian Nationalism in the context of the globalization discourse by drawing on India's civilizational nature of 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam' and in it exploring the combination of Globalisation and Nationalism which would otherwise be an oxymoron, given the western understandings of the respective terms.  The incumbent Indian Foreign Minister goes on to explore Nationalism(s) and how the term could mean different things for different Nations - I believe our Minister's diplomatic career is to a great extent revealed in his assessment of Nationalism. Of the many thoughts that I have read on the idea of Nations and Nationalism(s), his is probably one of the least radical thoughts that I have come acros...

I have been a critic of the populist version of Hindutva and that is my position but even so, I understand the necessity of the same for the larger dialectic. They are the antithesis of populist liberal thought. In fact, all such thought cannot be categorized as 'good' but then again 'good' is a very ambiguous term which is determined by way too many factors. It would be safer to consider acceptability - all liberal thought is not acceptable to all and it is very wrong on the part of a select few to decide what is progressive and what is not. So, my position does not give me the right to assert what is right and what is wrong but my opinion and my position are as important. This is an entitlement the Constitution of India gives me and as a citizen, I am entitled to it. Likewise, an individual who holds even the most extreme right-wing opinions has this same entitlement.   On Hinduism, Dharma and Indian Civilization While there is an ensuing debate about Hinduism being a...

While many of my friends in South India probably know about this small settlement but I am very sure my friends up North and elsewhere are not familiar with the existence of it. It is quite fascinating to note that even the Danes were not far behind in the European quest for new markets and colonies. Unfortunately, it has been a very long time since I visited this small settlement but going through my archive of old photographs, I genuinely feel my friends in other parts of the country and elsewhere ought to know about this intriguing piece of history.     Tranquebar is a small settlement about 300 km south of Chennai and local public transport is easily available. The Danes settled here in the early part of the 17 th century. The settlement does not really have much to offer and with very few people it infact felt like a ghost town. Of some of the attractions that the settlement has to offer is the fort Dansborg, build in 1620 which boasts of being the second-...

In my attempt to seek refuge in the thought of being a Bengali, I am not quite sure if I have imagined my community, my conviction is challenged every time I am faced with a dilemma as is prevalent of the times. These are trying times, a time when the entirety of the Citizenship Debate is under consideration. These are times when even the most logical, moderate and learned mind become polarized into asserting what they think is right or wrong but writing this particular piece, I guess I am doing the same too. Mine is an existential crisis which I believe is a product of my readings and contemplation of the concept of Imagined Communities (1986) by Benedict Anderson. Anderson has been able to make me question the concept of ‘the community’ and this is perhaps the reason why I fail to understand a very learned friend of mine when he/ she/ it (let’s try to keep it gender neutral for concerns of anonymity) says, reacting to the observance of the ‘birth anniversary of Rabindranath T...

The history of regional politics in India starts with the Dravida Khazakham (DK) that asked for a separate South Indian State owing to widespread resentment and subsequent protest against the imposition of Hindi. It was this assertion that lead the Central Government to adopt the three language policy and the official Language Amendment Act, 1967. In its more radical form, it could be argued that the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi was a direct result of the sending of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) into Sri Lanka. The atrocities committed by them in the Northern Part against the Sri Lankan Tamils and the alleged support of the Tamil Nadu Government, that led to the inaction and security lapse on its part – leading to the eventual assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. In essence, the existence of the all India cultural mainstream has led to the rise of regionalism among all ethnic groups that do not associate with the Aryan race, be it the Dravidians of South India or the Mon...

The young man asks me - “Bhaiya, I understand Irom Sharmila did a lot of great things but didn’t you see how the people reciprocated?” “What was the result of her long protest, which was so selfless and all for the people?” “Did she manage to get the AFSPA removed?” I had no words to respond to that. I was rather perplexed in sheer amazement at the display of such nihilism on the part of such a young man and it took me some time to gather my thoughts but nonetheless, to defend my argument, I replied. I replied by saying - “See, it doesn’t matter what the protest achieved, the very fact that people across the country knew that someone was going to such extremes to protest against a repressive state apparatus serves the purpose of such a protest”. After all, it was an act comparable to what Bhagat Singh and Batukeshwar Dutt had done by throwing that puny bomb at the Central Assembly in Delhi, in order to make the British realise that “It takes a loud voice to make the deaf hear”. Th...

I was reading an article on scroll.in, shared by a friend on Facebook. This small piece of writing was initially meant to be a comment on her post but when I started putting my thoughts to words, it became too long for a Facebook comment and in fact became a culmination of the thoughts that the respective article managed to congregate, in my mind. For the original article, please follow: http://bit.ly/2uaC8xp I grew up in the traumatic 90's and the early 2000's. Even as a kid, more importantly a non-tribal kid, being called a 'Dkhar' (an outsider) was a very normal thing in the beautiful Scotland of the East. Children tend to have their own quarrels but them being of the racist nature, at such a tender age speaks about a cultural conditioning drowned in hate. I remember the incident discussed in the article and I also remember the shattered glasses. It was like the Scotland of the East's very own 'kristallnacht', except that it was in broad da...

When the world stood still to watch the demise of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, we the Shillongites - with our fancy cellphone cameras and loud mouths created a celebration of the sad moment. Yes, I was there and this, out of utter disgust, is what I have to say.  At least, the crowd, gathered outside the hospital, where our beloved ex-president breathed his last, were present there and that is the least amount of satisfaction that I can get out of it.  The only contention that has remained with me even after a year of the passing of such a great visionary is the fact that - we as humans of Shillong couldn't give him the fair amount of respect that he undoubtedly deserved, even at his death. We shamed the memory of the man by sticking out those fancy cellphones and recording the entire event with flash lights on. Where was then, the civility and the mannerisms that we Shillongites, so astoundingly boast of? Yet again when the world mourned the death of the gr...

Sitting by the seashore on a Sunday evening and admiring some photographs stuck to the walls led me to think of an encounter with this amazing American lady who had been staying in India for the past 7 years. In conversation, she revealed that she owned a boutique and a roof-top food joint, in the beach town of Pondicherry. It was she who introduced me to the concept of Cultural Sensitivity. When I went all out complaining about the existing moral policing in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry (obviously being from North-East India, moral policing with reference to clothing is the first thing that a first-time traveler would notice, while traveling to so-called mainland India) and as to how ethnocentric they were. She told me only one thing, “Hey boy! You have come to their place and not them.” At that time I didn’t quite understand the gravity of those words. With time, though, it all became clear, the idea of ethnocentrism is actually both ways; the fact that I perceived the loc...