January 10, 2009
The Lands of Darkness
According to the Wikipedia, the original "Land of Darkness" is the Forest of Abkhazia, popularized by the medieval writings of Sir John Mandeville, where God created an impenetrable darkness around the forest to trap the Persion Emperor Saures' army that was persecuting Christian subjects.
The "Land of Darkness" is now a popular phrase, coined by Mr. Aravind Adiga, in his novel, "The White Tiger", when referring to Bihar. The book is definitely readable, but like most "Western" centric, Booker-prize aimed, Indian author novels, it uses the shock value of life in poverty-stricken, cow-belt villages to get into the Western mind. This is a great marketing strategy for many Indian authors and if it comes with a Booker, then that's icing on the cake.
I am actually writing this from the Land of Darkness, specifically from Patna, sitting in a hotel room, with a working Tata Indicom wireless connection, facing the Mahatma Gandhi maidan, where a large number of men and women of all ages are walking, waddling and running, a scene that resonates with what Five Gardens in Dadar looks like in the morning hours. And thought Patna is like any other tier II/III city in India, with dusty roads, hanging wires and crumbling facades, poorly connected by air, with a ramshackle airport and hotels that don’t recognize PAN cards as photo-IDs, people today, after the departure of the Great Socialist, feel safe, walk around freely and are out till midnight.
And yet sitting in the hotel room, reading today's, i.e. Thursday’s Times of India, I feel a gnawing pit in my stomach, as I realize that a small part of my earnings has just vanished without warning. The headline says "Satyam: A 7000 crore lie", followed by a description of the Darkness created by Mr. Raju Ramalinga, which knowingly or unknowingly, obviously needed some help from his management team, directors, auditors and various analysts. Imagine the Darkness that has suddenly enveloped those who had invested heavily into the company, or has covered like a shroud, its employees who seem to be staring into an abyss of unemployment with no possible job forthcoming in these recessionary times. Given the facts, I fervently hope that Satyam’s principal auditors are also soon consumed by a permanent Darkness for having allowed this to happen.
Then, as I put on the television to get a shriller picture from our loud financial journalists, there is news of the sacking of Mr. Durrani, Pakistan's National Security Advisor, for telling the truth about Kasab's nationality. Though Mr. Durrani lives in a country that has been perpetually hovering on the brink of Darkness, Pakistan is now slowly becoming a true Land of Darkness with the advancing Talibanization of large swathes of the nation.
In contrast, our terror-created Land of Darkness that was Kashmir, is now a Land of Light, more so after Mr. Omar Abdullah’s election. Though there were soldiers stationed on the road, every 100 meters or so, and the city looked right out of a 70s retro film set, when I went there last year, I found the people were upbeat and quite confident that the worst was over and those Dark times would never return. It is only a matter of time before the city is overrun by film posters showing shirtless, muscle-flexing Khans.
What contrasts. In the Lands of Darkness, there is light, while a guiding Light of the "India Shining" story has slipped into Darkness and worse, a country, whose destiny is inextricably linked with ours is slipping into a Darkness that will try and consume us as well. Such is the chakravyuh of life. Darkness to Light and Light to Darkness.
Posted by bhavinj at 09:03 AM | Comments (0)
December 27, 2008
What I Write About, When I Write About Running (with due respect to Mr. Murakami)
I once wrote about the shortage of running spaces in Mumbai and Matunga. This piece is about the “running” itself. I am not an expert runner, and have never participated in or won a race (unless you count primary school 100m races), but I do run regularly. And in a rare moment of star-like alignment, a bunch of things have come together.
I first started seriously running in the winter of 2002. Since then, I’ve been running irregularly regularly for the last six years, though I’ve never been able to bring myself to run a race. This year, after having successfully managed an “athai”, I decided to try the other extreme and registered for the half-marathon to be held on 18th January.
Yet, till the last week of November, I still wasn’t sure whether I would actually run the race. I normally run around 3 to 3.2 km in 30 minutes and anything more than this causes real pain. And so, I kept procrastinating; avoiding even thinking about the training for the 21 km race.
Then two things happened. I read Haruki Murakami’s “What I talk about, when I talk about running”. Three days later, the terror attacks happened.
Mr. Murakami is a Japanese fiction writer, whose work has been extensively translated into English and who I count as one of the top 10 authors of all time. His “running” book is autobiographical; Mr. Murakami started running when he started writing, in an attempt to exercise and has over the last 22 years run quite a bit, marathons included. I have millions of typed words to go before coming anywhere close to Mr. Murakami in writing prowess, but still; the writer-runner combination made me seriously think of starting the training for the half-marathon.
And now over the last month, I have been able to run longer and faster than ever before. Mr. Murakami got me started. The angst and anger are now the fuel.
Outwardly, we may also seem to have bounced back, but inside we are all still seething. People have been channelizing this angst in different ways; one friend is becoming an activist, another has gone into a Laphroaig haze and I've upped my running. Ms. Gina Kolata of the New York Times some time back wrote an apocryphal article on how Buddhist monks can run 300 kms by just chanting and meditating. I've started focusing on the anger; on the terrorists, on the events, on the enemy. This helps pump up the adrenaline and endorphins and over the last month, I've gone from running 3.2 kms in half an hour to 7.7 kms in one hour. I rest every other day to let the muscles recover, but then I am back on the ground again, pounding the mud relentlessly, arms swinging, focusing my thoughts into one singularity. It hurts badly at night; but as the old cliché goes, "no pain, no gain". All this may be coincidence, but it has helped. Hopefully I’ll be able to complete the half-marathon in under 3 hours. Hopefully; I run on mud, whereas the half-marathon is on concrete; I run at dusk, whereas the sun will be up by the time we are halfway through our race. And even if it takes more than 3 hours, one thing is sure; I am definitely going to complete the race.
And maybe, like me, the whole city should run. Run to show solidarity; to show the rest of the country and the world that we are capable of rising above all this together; that we are able to resist and overcome as we have done in the last two decades, all attempts to tear apart the fabric of our city. And those who can’t run, should come and cheer on the sidelines. Whichever way; on 18th January, the whole city should be out on the streets. That will be our statement to the world!
Posted by bhavinj at 08:20 AM | Comments (0)
