Beating the Heat

Pair of Wood Ducks, male and female, swimming across the National Zoological Park , New Delhi.

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Spring & Mughal Garden: Double the Splendor

Spring is nature's way of saying, "Let's party!"” Flowers in full bloom at Mughal garden, Rashtrapati Bhavan (President's House, New Delhi) Britishers and Mughals have left a common legacy in Delhi known as the Mughal Gardens. The garden was made and commissioned by Britishers but the design is totally Mughal / Persian. This striking 'mini-paradise' exalts the beauty of Rashtrapati Bhawan, the presidential home. The Mogul garden was originally commissioned by Lady Hardinge to beautify the Rashtrapati Bhawan to Sir Edwin Lutyens.

Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush The garden occupies an area of 13 acres, divided into three sections, sporting a blend of Mughal Planning with British Design. The garden is open to public only in February-March every year.

Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems The garden is basically divided into five parts, categorizing each with a theme. Lutyens combined the soft English borders, small flower beds and lawns to produce a virtual paradise. For this, horticulturist W R Mustoe was specially recruited in 1929 who converted the place into an oasis.

The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring: The Main Garden has two water channels each running north to south and east to west with six lotus shaped fountains magnifying its splendor, reflecting the Rashtrapati Bhawan. The lawns have Doob Grass, Moulsri, Putranjiva Roxburgi, Cypress, Thuja Orientalis and China Orange trees overlooking the channels.

Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people. The Circular Garden is also known as the sunken or butterfly garden. The centre of the attraction is the sunken pond with a fountain with circular rows of flowers around it. Since a large population of different butterflies can be seen fluttering, it was named butterfly garden.

Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself The Herbal Garden is a very recent addition. It has medicinal herbs from different countries and is truly a sight to watch. It has herbs like Ashwagandha, Bhumy Amalaki, Bergamot Mint, Bramhi and Citronella.

In the Spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness . . . it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair . . . in short, the period was so far like the present period . . . . Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;

And give us not to think so far away

As the uncertain harvest;

keep us hereAll simply in the springing of the year

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Temple of Learning: St. Stephen

St. Stephen's college, New Delhi, India: Here it’s all sparkling & emerald red bricked structure, with English speaking folks, supposed to be India’s best, established in 1881 by the Cambridge Mission in response to Government policy promoting education. St.Stephen college is one of the nation’s very best institute. Getting admittance into this college is some task
with cut-off percentage increasing every year.

Doorway to the chapel: Here you may assume you are in a century-old English garrison. Not factual, the construction is as new as New Delhi, constructed during the 40s. Don't be disillusioned. Continue hovering aimlessly. At St Stephen's, distinct to other Delhi colleges, anyone can go in, amble around, and lounge down on the grass. Yes, even stroll down the hallway. No predicament. But don't ogle at the classroom aperture. Harangue may be taking place. Studious & snobbish folks: Nonetheless, if nearby is a vacant hall, tread in. The unfilled bench and the portrayal of dead professors make the environs as hushed as a... well,
tomb If that's not spooky enough, try this: at the ground is an old well, now safe and sound inside a rounded construction. Gaze through the filthy casement and you will locate stairway going downstairs.

Corridor of wisdom: Having produced from Presidents (Fakhrudiin Al Ahmed, Zia-ul-Haq) to top journalists (Barkha Dutt, Sagarika Ghose), from sports person (Jaspal Rana, Kirti Azad) to writers (Khuswant Singh, Shashi Tharoor) it still continues to give gives India some of its best citizens. (See wikipedia LIST of famous Stephen’s alumni)Play time: I fully revere the stringent selection criteria employed by the college, which makes sure the high quality of our student intake

At the same time, I recognize that St. Stephen's has always understood that some of the most important elements of our edification occur in college outside the classroom, and that the remarkable young all-rounder with 92% marks is often a worthier Stephanian than the swat with 95 per cent. The Principal himself had authored an article titled `Marks Can't Be the Sole Indicator of Merit' on the St. Stephen's College web site (www.ststephens.edu). Someone St. Stephen's should be proud to admit; to turn him down over a few percentage points was folly indeed. At the same time St. Stephen's was, astoundingly for a college in Delhi, insulated to a extraordinary extent from the prejudices of middle-class Indian life. It mattered little where you were from, which Indian language you spoke at home, what version of religious faith you espoused. But at St. Stephen's, religion and region were not the distinctions that mattered: what counted was whether you were "in residence" or a "dayski" (day-scholar), a "science type" or a "ShakSoc type", a sportsman or a univ topper (or best of all, both). Caste and creed was no bar, but these other categories determined your share of the Stephanian knowledge.

Some fun : College's snobbery was still elitism in an Indian context, although one shaped, like so many Indian institutions, by a colonial legacy. There is no denying that the aim of founding St. Stephen's in 1881 was to produce more obedient subjects to serve Her Britannic Majesty; their idea of constructive missionary activity was to bring the intellectual and social atmosphere of Cam side to the dry dust plains of Delhi. Improbably enough, they succeeded, and the resultant hybrid outlasted the Raj.

The bright red brick structure: St. Stephen's in the early 1970s was an institution whose students sustained a Shakespeare Society and a Criterion Club, staged avant-garde plays and wrote execrable poetry, ran India's only faculty-sanctioned Practical Joke Competition (in memory of P.G. Warehouse’s irrepressible Lord Ickenham), invented the "Winter Festival" of collegiate cultural competition which was imitated at universities across the country

Harmony- college feast: Invariably reached the annual inter-college cricket final (and turned up in large numbers to cheer the Stephanian cricketers on to their accustomed victory), maintained a careful distinction between the Junior Common Room and the Senior Combination Room, and allowed the world's only non-Cantabridgian "gyps" to serve their meals and make their beds.

Fashion parade in Harmony: And if the punts never came to the Jamuna, the puns flowed on the pages of Kooler Talk and the cyclostyled Spice (whose typing mistakes, under the impish editorship of Ramu Damodaran, were deliberate, and deliberately hilarious.)

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Sleepy...Lazy Delhi

A foreign national at Old Fort: Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone.

A taxi driver takes a nap: Early to bed and early to rise probably indicates unskilled labor

Jumbo too: Jumbo has many excellent qualities, but once she goes to sleep, it takes a minor nuclear explosion to wake her up.

Insomania, now whats that?: Life is something that happens when you can't get to sleep, so sleep if something unexpected is expected

Death not to be proud of: How many of you have ever started dating because you were too lazy to commit suicide?

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DU’S MOST TALKED ABOUT FEST

A group performs at dance competition

Khalsa College girls brought back the school days

SRCC’s annual cultural festival, Crossroads, turned out to be a crowdpuller this year too. The fourday-long event had the college campus buzzing with activities. A plethora of competitions saw students from across Delhi University flaunting their skills. As Yogesh Jahanjarya, a final year student of DU, said, “Although many other college fests are going on simultaneously, I had decided that I would not miss SRCC’s fest. This is the place where all the fun activities happen.”
LIVE-WIRE: The college had invited KK for a live performance. The news of his performance had spread like wildfire across DU and students were jostling each other to get an entry. We overheard a student telling a volunteer, “Yaar, andar aane de na. Hum apne college mein teri bhi entry karwa denge!” Students went crazy as KK sang some of his most popular numbers. Pal, Aapki Dua, Tadap Tadap... had the students singing along. Pankaj, a DCAC student, said, “The fest was amazing. I wish KK’s performance had gone on for a little longer.”

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2008 on a winning note!!

The zeal to succeed is always ennobling; more so in the time of terror and recession. Saluting the undying spirit of West Delhiites, West Delhi showcases some thrilling success stories scripted by them in the year 2008. To remain optimistic and happy is a congenital human attribute. This is the reason why amid the gathering gloom over recession and the threat of terrorism, everyone is looking for a reason to smile and whoop it up this New Year Eve. There is no doubt that these are, to quote, Dickens, "the best of times and the worst of times.’’ But there is no taming the resilient spirit of West Delhiites. Their greatest asset is their ability to bounce back instead of getting bogged down in the quagmire of defeatism. And, no one personifies this trait better then our very own Sushil Kumar, Olympic medallist wrestler from West Delhi. A native of Baprola village in Najafgarh, Sushil this year became India’s fourth-ever individual Olympics bronze medalist, putting India on the medal tally of Olympics. For sure he can be rightly called the next nawab of Najafgarh after Sehwag. If Olympics saw the birth of a new star, same is true for international cricket. West Delhi’s very own Virat Kohli from Shankar Garden, near Vikaspuri did India proud as it won the U/19 World Cup (2008). Gautam Gambhir from Karol Bagh is another cricketer from West Delhi who is making his mark as an opener in both the versions of the game. After topping the batting average in the recently concluded test series against England, Gambhir has now jumped to 10th spot in ICC rankings. Then there is the speedster from Ranjit Nagar, Ishant Sharma, who has become a regular bowler for the Indian squad. He shot into international limelight early this year in Australia when he knocked the living daylights out of Ricky Ponting by dismissing him many times in one-dayers and test matches. In fact, he played a crucial role in halting the Australian juggernaut. Other prominent youngsters from West Delhi, who are all set to make it big in the field of sports in the coming years include Amit Mishra (Cricket) Arantxa Andrady (Tennis), Vishal Singh (Cricket) from Tilak Nagar and Shaun Andrady (Soccer) from Delhi Cantt.

From real to reel world, West Delhiites left their indelible stamp everywhere in 2008. Several youngsters made their debut on the small screen and came out with guns blazing. Take the case of Rishita Monga from Vikaspuri, who was crowned as ’Ultimate ibibo MTV i Superstar’. In this popular reality show she portrayed herself as Priyanka Chopra. With this popular crown 20-year-old Rishita finally announced her arrival into the glam world and is planning to make it big on the silver screen. Same is true for 15-year-old Sukanya Gupta, a talented singer from Rishi Nagar (near Rani Bagh), who is on song these days. This young girl has participated in a host of singing competitions including Sa-Re-Ga-Ma-Pa Little Champs and Sansui Antakshri. Adhar Mohla (DJ) from Punjabi Bagh and Mayank Anand (fusion player) from Janakpuri will also be in the big league quite soon.

In the field of academics, art and painting also, West Delhiites did not lag behind. Shalini Arora from East Punjabi Bagh became the recipient of prestigious BOLT (Broad Outlook Learner Teacher) award for here innovative software programs. Shalini is teaching Computer Science in DLDAV School, Shalimar Bagh. Sankha Samanta from Vikaspuri is known as the man who has made maximum number of stamps for Government of India. He has designed more than 1,000 philatelic items that include more than 250 postage stamps and 150 covers.

With 2008 all set to become history, it is perfect time to bid adieu to this passing year with a winning smile.

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No Horn Please

With the New Year’s Day being observed as a ’No Honking Day’, would North Delhiites play it safe? North Delhiites are not happy at the recent decision of the Delhi Police to celebrate January 1 as ’No Honking Day.’ Now, you may call it a typical case of status deprivation to use the educational jargon. How can it be possible? They are, after all, governed by the seat of their pants. In other words, they believe in instincts rather than logic or knowledge. You may cavil at their impertinence in having their way, but do you have the right to grudge them their freedom of choice and expression? If they don’t honk, they won’t be able to avoid collateral damage on roads. In fact, foisting such facile justifications come easy to North Delhiites. Rash driving is their besetting sin. After all, when all you have is hammer, everything looks like a nail. The first day of New Year is all about whooping it up; after all it is not everyday that you get to celebrate this particular occasion!

"There is no denying the good intentions of the traffic police in declaring January 1 as a ’No Honking Day.’ No doubt, honking is a nuisance on Delhi’s roads. But while driving on the road, how can you do without honking? At times, pedestrians cross the roads dangerously without even looking properly at the speeding vehicles,’’ says Sanjay Kumar, a marketing executive from Pitampura.

For 26-year-old Mohit Chabra, working with a private firm, ’No Honking Day’ may upset his applecart. He cannot imagine life without honking. After all, in Delhi, the more expensive car you have, greater is the need to flaunt your importance and what better way to do this than by mindless honking? "I will definitely try to abide by the rule; but I don’t think it is going to make any difference to the attitude of an average North Delhiite.

There will be people who won’t be even aware of this rule. And, if caught, the violators won’t mind paying the fine.’’

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Has the Kyoto protocol worked?

Agreed in 1997, the Kyoto protocol aimed to cut emissions of greenhouse gases across the developed world by about 5 per cent compared with 1990. It came into force in 2005, following ratification by Russia, which means the deadline for the legally binding cuts to be made is 2008-12. It was based on the “common but differentiated responsibility” approach to global warming, with countries most able to make cuts asked to do so. Many countries were allowed to incre ase pollution, including all those in the developing world. Most controversially, Kyoto introduced mechanisms such as carbon trading to help countries meet their targets in “flexible” ways — often in other countries — rather than by making cuts at home. Figures released by the U.N. last month suggest the world is on track to meet its Kyoto targets for greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride, hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons. Emissions by the 40 industrialised nations that agreed binding cuts in pollution are down 5 per cent on 1990 levels. But the drop has little to do with climate policies: the bulk of the decline is down to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent economic decline in eastern Europe in the 1990s. Without these so-called “economies in transition,” greenhouse gas emissions have grown by almost 10 per cent since 1990. Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. climate secretariat, said the figures showed emissions were rising once again in eastern Europe. “The biggest recent increase in emissions of industrialised countries has come from economies in transition, which have seen a rise of 7.4 per cent in greenhouse gas emissions within the 2000 to 2006 time frame,” he said.

Among industrialised nations, 16 are on target to meet their Kyoto obligations, including France, the U.K., Greece and Hungary, the U.N. said. Some 20 countries are off-course, including Canada, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand and Spain. Nations that miss their Kyoto target in 2012 will incur a penalty of an additional third added to whatever cut they agree under a new treaty in Copenhagen.Has Kyoto worked? “In terms of emission reductions achieved, the answer would be no,”De Boer said. “A 5 per cent cut is a pretty small step on what will be a long and arduous journey. On the other hand, Kyoto has had great success in putting an architecture in place. Monitoring and verification systems, carbon markets, technology transfer and funds for adaptation have all been mobilised by Kyoto,” he said. “I think this is a fabulous architecture that we can build on on the road to Copenhagen.”

There are seven key issues on the road to Copenhagen.
Global vision The world has yet to formally agree a goal in the battle against global warming. This could be a maximum temperature rise, such as 2{+0}C, or concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. More likely, it will be a vaguer ‘direction of travel’ such as the G8 pledge to halve global emissions by 2050
Mitigation The key issue - who will cut their carbon by how much and by when. To be meaningful, targets must be short-term, perhaps something like 25-40 per cent by 2020 for the developed world. Developing countries, such as China, could be allowed to increase pollution, as long as they reduce the rate of increase, and agree to take on proper reductions within 15 years or so.
Adaptation How much rich countries will pay poorer ones to cope with floods and droughts. And how the developed world can make sure the promised money is paid.


Technology How developing countries will access affordable clean technology to reduce emissions, such as carbon capture and solar power, developed by companies in industrialised countries.


Finance How developed countries will provide funds for adaptation and mitigation in the developing world, and how those funds will be managed.


Forests How developing countries with tropical forests can be paid to keep them intact — deforestation causes about a fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions.


Carbon trading and offsets How systems such as the UN clean development mechanism and the European emissions trading scheme set up under Kyoto can be strengthened and expanded.

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Feeble response

The fiscal stimulus package — costing approximately Rs.30,000 crore including tax revenue forgone — announced on Sunday complements the slew of monetary measures unveiled by the Reserve Bank of India a day earlier. The size of India’s fiscal package in comparison with those of most other countries is modest: to provide a contra-cyclical stimulus, an additional plan expenditure of just Rs.20,000 crore is proposed to be incurred during the remainder of the year. It is obvious that the relatively feeble response is due to the absence of sufficient fiscal headroom. In October, the government while coming up with an exceptionally large supplementary budget appears to have pre-empted the space for bolder measures. The bulk of the new allocations in that round had gone towards salary hikes for government staff, oil and fertiliser bonds, and other items of subsidy. It is expected that the combined fiscal deficit of the centre and the states will be in the region of 10 per cent of GDP by the end of this year. Besides, in a slowing economy tax revenues are bound to fall. The reduction of 4 per cent in the Cenvat rate for most products will stimulate demand. Export finance for labour intensive industries such as textiles, and gems and jewellery will become cheaper. Export incentives will be increased and insurance for risky markets facilitated through additional allocation of funds. Housing, especially for the low and middle income groups, is set to receive a boost from additional plan expenditure. A designated government-owned infrastructure company will raise Rs.10,000 crore by way of tax-free bonds. In India, as in most countries, monetary authorities have taken the lead in tackling the economic crisis. The RBI’s stimulus package is the latest in a long line of policy initiatives taken since September to encourage lending by banks. The central bank has, however, admitted that business confidence is low and the demand for bank credit slackening despite comfortable liquidity. The reduction in the policy interest rates — the repo and the reverse repo rates — might therefore remain just symbolic without much of impact on the ground. Also, the transmission mechanism from policy rates to interest rates charged by banks will be particularly weak at this time of great financial stress. The real problem is one of credit delivery, not credit availability. It is because of the obvious limitations of a purely monetary approach that the government has announced the fiscal package. The effort still falls far short of what is needed to avert a sharp slowdown.

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Terrorism PART 6, Great Indian Terrorism Crisis

The disembodied voice was chilling in its rage. A gunman, holed up in the Oberoi Trident hotel in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), where some 40 people had been taken hostage, told an Indian news channel that the attacks were revenge for the persecution of Muslims in India. "We love this as our country, but when our mothers and sisters were being killed, where was everybody?" he asked via telephone. No answer came. But then he probably wasn't expecting one.
Police look on as smoke rises from Mumbai's iconic Taj Mahal Hotel in the historic south of the city after terrorists stormed the building on Nov. 26. (For more pics of Mumbai Firing click Here)

The roots of Muslim rage run deep in India, nourished by a long-held sense of injustice over what many Indian Muslims believe is institutionalized discrimination against the country's largest minority group. The disparities between Muslims, who make up 13.4% of the population, and India's Hindus, who hover at around 80%, are striking. There are exceptions, of course, but generally speaking, Muslim Indians have shorter life spans, worse health, lower literacy levels and lower-paying jobs. Add to that toxic brew the lingering resentment over 2002's anti-Muslim riots in the state of Gujarat. The riots, instigated by Hindu nationalists, killed some 2,000 people, most of them Muslims. To this day, few of the perpetrators have been convicted. (See pictures of the terrorist shootings in Mumbai. The huge gap between Muslims and Hindus will continue to haunt India's — and neighboring Pakistan's — progress toward peace and prosperity. But before intercommunal relations can improve, there are even bigger problems that must first be worked out: the schism in subcontinental Islam and the religion's place and role in modern India and Pakistan. It is a crisis 150 years in the making.

The Beginning of the Problem
On the afternoon of March 29, 1857, Mangal Pandey, a handsome, mustachioed soldier in the East India Company's native regiment, attacked his British lieutenant. His hanging a week later sparked a subcontinental revolt known to Indians as the first war of independence and to the British as the Sepoy Mutiny. Retribution was swift, and though Pandey was a Hindu, it was the subcontinent's Muslims, whose Mughal King nominally held power in Delhi, who bore the brunt of British rage. The remnants of the Mughal Empire were dismantled, and 500 years of Muslim supremacy on the subcontinent came to a halt.
Muslim society in India collapsed. The British imposed English as the official language. The impact was cataclysmic. Muslims went from near 100% literacy to 20% within a half-century. The country's educated Muslim élite was effectively blocked from administrative jobs in the government. Between 1858 and 1878, only 57 out of 3,100 graduates of Calcutta University — then the center of South Asian education — were Muslims. While discrimination by both Hindus and the British played a role, it was as if the whole of Muslim society had retreated to lick its collective wounds.
Out of this period of introspection, two rival movements emerged to foster an Islamic ascendancy. Revivalist groups blamed the collapse of their empire on a society that had strayed too far from the teachings of the Koran. They promoted a return to a purer form of Islam, modeled on the life of the Prophet Muhammad. Others embraced the modern ways of their new rulers, seeking Muslim advancement through the pursuit of Western sciences, culture and law. From these movements two great Islamic institutions were born: Darul Uloom Deoband in northern India, rivaled only by Al Azhar University in Cairo for its teaching of Islam, and Aligarh Muslim University, a secular institution that promoted Muslim culture, philosophy and languages but left religion to the mosque. These two schools embody the fundamental split that continues to divide Islam in the subcontinent today. "You could say that Deoband and Aligarh are husband and wife, born from the same historical events," says Adil Siddiqui, information coordinator for Deoband. "But they live at daggers drawn."

The campus at Deoband is only a three-hour drive from New Delhi through the modern megasuburb of Noida. Strip malls and monster shopping complexes have consumed many of the mango groves that once framed the road to Deoband, but the contemporary world stops at the gate. The courtyards are packed with bearded young men wearing long, collared shirts and white caps. The air thrums with the voices of hundreds of students reciting the Koran from open-door classrooms.
Founded in 1866, the Deoband school quickly set itself apart from other traditional madrasahs, which were usually based in the home of the village mosque's prayer leader. Deoband's founders, a group of Muslim scholars from New Delhi, instituted a regimented system of classrooms, coursework, texts and exams. Instruction is in Urdu, Persian and Arabic, and the curriculum closely follows the teachings of the 18th century Indian Islamic scholar Mullah Nizamuddin Sehalvi. Graduates go on to study at Cairo's Al Azhar or the Islamic University of Medina in Saudi Arabia, or they found their own Deobandi institutions.
Today, more than 9,000 Deobandi madrasahs are scattered throughout India, Afghanistan and Pakistan, most infamously the Dara-ul-Uloom Haqaniya Akora Khattak, near Peshawar, Pakistan, where Mullah Mohammed Omar and several other leaders of Afghanistan's Taliban first tasted a life lived in accordance with Shari'a. Siddiqui visibly stiffens when those names are brought up. They have become synonymous with Islamic radicalism, and Siddiqui is careful to dissociate his institution from those who carry on its traditions, without actually condemning their actions. "Our books are being taught there," he says. "They have the same system and rules. But if someone is following the path of terrorism, it is because of local compulsions and local politics."
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, who founded the Anglo-Mohammedan Oriental College at Aligarh in 1877, studied under the same teachers as the founders of Deoband. But he believed that the downfall of India's Muslims was due to their unwillingness to embrace modern ways. He decoupled religion from education and in his school sought to emulate the culture and training of India's new colonial masters. Islamic culture was part of the curriculum, but so were the latest advances in sciences, medicine and Western philosophy. The medium was English, the better to prepare students for civil-service jobs. He called his school the Oxford of the East. In architecture alone, the campus lives up to that name. A euphoric blend of clock towers, crenellated battlements, Mughal arches, domes and the staid red brick of Victorian institutions that only India's enthusiastic embrace of all things European could produce, the central campus of Aligarh today is haven to a diverse crowd of male and female, Hindu and Muslim students. Its law and medicine schools are among the top-ranked in India, but so are its arts faculty and Quranic Studies Centre. "With all this diversity, language, culture, secularism was the only way to go forward as a nation," says Aligarh's vice chancellor, P.K. Abdul Azis. "It was the new religion."

This fracture in religious doctrine — whether Islam should embrace the modern or revert to its fundamental origins — between two schools less than a day's donkey ride apart when they were founded, was barely remarked upon at the time. But over the course of the next 100 years, that tiny crack would split Islam into two warring ideologies with repercussions that reverberate around the world to this day. Before the split became a crisis, however, the founders of the Deoband and Aligarh universities shared the common goal of an independent India. Pedagogical leanings were overlooked as students and staff of both institutions joined with Hindus across the subcontinent to remove the yoke of colonial rule in the early decades of the 20th century.

Two Faiths, Two Nations
But nationalistic trends were pulling at the fragile alliance, and India began to splinter along ethnic and religious lines. Following World War I, a populist Muslim poet-philosopher by the name of Muhammad Iqbal framed the Islamic zeitgeist when he questioned the position of minority Muslims in a future, independent India. The solution, Iqbal proposed, was an independent state for Muslim-majority provinces in northwestern India, a separate country where Muslims would rule themselves. The idea of Pakistan was born.

Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the Savile Row–suited lawyer who midwifed Pakistan into existence on Aug. 14, 1947, was notoriously ambiguous about how he envisioned the country once it became an independent state. Both he and Iqbal, who were friends until the poet's death in 1938, had repeatedly stated their dream for a "modern, moderate and very enlightened Pakistan," says Sharifuddin Pirzada, Jinnah's personal secretary. Jinnah's own wish was that the Pakistani people, as members of a new, modern and democratic nation, would decide the country's direction. But rarely in Pakistan's history have its people lived Jinnah's vision of a modern Muslim democracy. Only three times in its 62-year history has Pakistan seen a peaceful, democratic transition of power. With four disparate provinces, more than a dozen languages and dialects, and powerful neighbors, the country's leaders — be they Presidents, Prime Ministers or army chiefs — have been forced to knit the nation together with the only thing Pakistanis have in common: religion.
Following the 1971 civil war, when East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, broke away, the populist Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto embarked on a Muslim-identity program to prevent the country from fracturing further. General Mohammed Zia ul-Haq continued the Islamization campaign when he overthrew Bhutto in 1977, hoping to garner favor with the religious parties, the only constituency available to a military dictator. He instituted Shari'a courts, made blasphemy illegal and established laws that punished fornicators with lashes and held that rape victims could be convicted of adultery. When the Soviet Union invaded neighboring Afghanistan in December 1979, Pakistan was already poised for its own Islamic revolution. Almost overnight, thousands of refugees poured over the border into Pakistan. Camps mushroomed, and so did madrasahs. Ostensibly created to educate the refugees, they provided the ideal recruiting ground for a new breed of soldier: mujahedin, or holy warriors, trained to vanquish the infidel invaders in America's proxy war with the Soviet Union. Thousands of Pakistanis joined fellow Muslims from across the world to fight the Soviets. As far away as Karachi, high school kids started wearing "jihadi jackets," the pocketed vests popular with the mujahedin. Says Hamid Gul, then head of the Pakistan intelligence agency charged with arming and training the mujahedin: "In the 1980s, the world watched the people of Afghanistan stand up to tyranny, oppression and slavery. The spirit of jihad was rekindled, and it gave a new vision to the youth of Pakistan." But jihad, as it is described in the Koran, does not end merely with political gain. It ends in a perfect Islamic state. The West's, and Pakistan's, cynical resurrection of something so profoundly powerful and complex unleashed a force that gave root to al-Qaeda's rage, the Taliban's dream of an Islamic utopia in Afghanistan, and in the dozens of radical Islamic groups rapidly replicating themselves in India and around the world today. "The promise of jihad was never fulfilled," says Gul. "Is it any wonder the fighting continues to this day?" Religion may have been used to unite Pakistan, but it is also tearing it apart.
India Today
In India, Islam is, in contrast, the other — purged by the British, denigrated by the Hindu right, mistrusted by the majority, marginalized by society. There are nearly as many Muslims in India as in all of Pakistan, but in a nation of more than a billion, they are still a minority, with all the burdens that minorities anywhere carry. Government surveys show that Muslims live shorter, poorer and unhealthier lives than Hindus and are often excluded from the better jobs. To be sure, there are Muslim success stories in the booming economy. Azim Premji, the founder of the outsourcing giant Wipro, is one of the richest individuals in India. But for many Muslims, the inequality of the boom has reinforced their exclusion.
Kashmir, a Muslim-dominated state whose fate had been left undecided in the chaos that led up to partition, remains a suppurating wound in India's Muslim psyche. As the cause of three wars between India and Pakistan — one of which nearly went nuclear in 1999 — Kashmir has become a symbol of profound injustice to Indian Muslims, who believe that their government cares little for Kashmir's claim of independence — which is based upon a 1948 U.N. resolution promising a plebiscite to determine the Kashmiri people's future. That frustration has spilled into the rest of India in the form of several devastating terrorist attacks that have made Indian Muslims both perpetrators and victims.
A mounting sense of persecution, fueled by the government's seeming reluctance to address the brutal anti-Muslim riots that killed more than 2,000 in the state of Gujarat in 2002, has aided the cause of homegrown militant groups. They include the banned Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), which was accused of detonating nine bombs in Mumbai during the course of 2003, killing close to 80. The 2006 terrorist attacks on the Mumbai commuter-rail system that killed 183 people were also blamed on SIMI as well as the pro-Kashmir Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). Those incidents exposed the all-too-common Hindu belief that Muslims aren't really Indian. "LeT, SIMI — it doesn't matter who was behind these attacks. They are all children of [Pervez] Musharraf," sneered Manish Shah, a Mumbai resident who lost his best friend in the explosions, referring to the then President of Pakistan. In India, unlike Pakistan, Islam does not unify but divide.
Still, many South Asian Muslims insist Islam is the one and only force that can bring the subcontinent together and return it to pre-eminence as a single whole. "We [Muslims] were the legal rulers of India, and in 1857 the British took that away from us," says Tarik Jan, a gentle-mannered scholar at Islamabad's Institute of Policy Studies. "In 1947 they should have given that back to the Muslims." Jan is no militant, but he pines for the golden era of the Mughal period in the 1700s and has a fervent desire to see India, Pakistan and Bangladesh reunited under Islamic rule. That sense of injustice is at the root of Muslim identity today. It has permeated every aspect of society and forms the basis of rising Islamic radicalism on the subcontinent. "People are hungry for justice," says Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist and author of the new book Descent into Chaos. "It is perceived to be the fundamental promise of the Koran." These twin phenomena — the longing many Muslims feel to see their religion restored as the subcontinent's core, and the marks of both piety and extremism Islam bears — reflect the lack of strong political and civic institutions in the region for people to have faith in. If the subcontinent's governments can't provide those institutions, then terrorists like the Trident's mysterious caller will continue asking questions. And providing their own answers.

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St.Peter off duty?

Well, this is a park right beside my office and is maintained by our office. Surprising, its been over 5 years that I've been here and I've been inside the park loads of times, but I never noticed these gates and the creepers over it.I was actually waiting for my friend right here and was getting irritated cause he was over 15 minutes late and that's when I saw this sight. The sight was beautiful, with the sun going down on the top right corner. It looked like the park had an aura. Obviously, my camera could not do well and nor could I, but this is what I managed to capture. P.s., when I saw this sight, the first thing that came to my mind was-Is saint Peter off duty? Where was he and his famous register? It somehow reminded me of the sight of heaven's gate which they usually show in Tom & Jerry and other cartoons!

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The Pink Slip

Most literally. the biggest pink box.

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Lessons from Mumbai

The Mumbai terror attack has made the nation sit up and collectively think as to what preventive measures need to be taken. Some of the suggestions are, re-enactment of POTA, giving more teeth to the existing laws, setting up of a federal investigative agency to investigate terror crimes, having small units of NSG commandoes in each state, improving existing intelligence gathering machinery, strengthening coastal security and the like.All the above suggestions are very valid and need to be considered. However, what is more important is strengthening the police station set-up and improving the human resources already available. Many may not be aware that it was only the officers of the local thana in Mumbai who succeeded in nabbing a terrorist alive. When two terrorists first killed Karkare and his colleagues, hijacked the police van in which they were travelling and started shooting at the passers-by, the officers of the local police station erected barricades near Girgaum Chowpati. When the terrorists changed into a car and did not stop near the barricade, the assistant sub-inspector and his men shot at the occupants, killing the driver and nabbing the other alive. But for this act of the local police, in which a policeman was killed, we would not have immediately known about the how and why of this attack on Mumbai.

The police station is the basic unit in the system. Depending on the area and population, it may have a strength of anywhere from 20 to 200. It is the first point of public contact, and is the first place which should get intelligence about what is happening in the area. This is done by keeping regular beats, public contact meetings, posting pickets, etc. If a station house officer does not know his jurisdiction or the people who inhabit the area, he is unworthy of his job. What is unfortunately happening is that the SHO does not have time for basic police work since his time is taken for bandobust or security related duties. Beats, through which valuable intelligence can be collected, are rarely sent because of shortage of manpower or lack of it due to other pressing duties. Delivering its judgment on police reforms, the Supreme Court directed that the law and order and criminal investigation duties be separated. For this to be followed there needs to be a systematic manpower planning for each police station.


Every police station, depending on its area and size, should have two to 10 constables only for intelligence collection. The information brought by them needs to be assessed by the SHO or any officer senior to him and depending on its ramification, needs to be shared with higher ups. An intelligence network needs to be set up at the city and district level and all important matters need to be transmitted to the state level. Immediate preventive action can be taken thereafter.

Gathering information or intelligence is not an easy task and one needs to develop sources over a period of time. For this to happen two things are necessary, people-friendly policing and fixed tenure. Most people in India hesitate to approach the police. In fact, a lady in Mumbai reportedly saw a dozen young men carrying rucksacks get down from a dinghy at Cuffe Parade and was suspicious about them. Yet she did not report this matter to the police resulting in so much of bloodshed.

The SHO of a police station should have a minimum tenure of two years so that he or she is able to know his/her men and area thoroughly. This is not happening despite the Supreme Court order in 2006. Beat constables and special branch constables also need to be on the same beat at least for two years so that they can develop sources. Prevention of crimes can happen only through better intelligence gathering.

Capacity building of police officers needs to be taken up on priority. Constables and sub-inspectors are hardly sent for training courses once they are confirmed in service. The various skills that they possess are not identified and developed. Due to manpower shortage and law and order duties, men are not sent for training programmes. While assessing manpower requirements of police, a training reserve of at least 25 per cent of sanctioned posts need to be created, so that one fourth of the strength is always undergoing training.

The man behind the weapon is more important than the weapon itself. He must be recruited in a fair manner, he must have proper working hours and rest, (a recent survey conducted by the author revealed that most policemen work for more than 10 hours a day for about 350 days a year), and his persona must be allowed to develop. His skills need to be identified and constantly developed and he must be motivated. If a dozen terrorists with two month training can create havoc in Mumbai, cannot thousands of policemen at the disposal of society effectively tackle terrorism?

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Combating corruption

The Administrative Reforms Commission's recommendation that the Constitution be amended to provide for a Rashtriya Lok Ayukta draws attention to an issue raised intermittently only to be quickly forgotten — the need for a national ombudsman empowered to look into corruption in high places. The Rashtriya Lok Ayukta is really a Lok Pal by another name. The attempt to set up such an agency has had an extended and tortuous legislative history; since 1968, Lok Pal Bills have been introduced in Parliament on as many as eight occasions, but failed to mature into an Act primarily because of a continuing disagreement over whether the Prime Minister should be within the purview of the Lok Pal. In recommending that the Prime Minister be kept out, the ARC — just as the National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution (NCRWC) did in 2002 — seems to have been influenced by the view that permitting the Lok Pal to inquire into charges against the head of government will weaken the office and paralyse the administration. However, leaving the Prime Minister out will only serve to weaken the legislation and fail to send out the message that no one — irrespective of the office he holds — is above the law. The Lok Pal Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha in 1998 specifically brought the Prime Minister within the Lok Pal's ambit, but a subsequent draft altered this provision.
The other reason for the lack of movement to put a central ombudsman in place is the general apprehension in political quarters about the implications of establishing a watchdog armed with quasi-judicial powers. The overwhelming overt support for the Lok Pal conceals a slew of private misgivings about the creation of an ombudsman-like mechanism to address public grievances about corruption, nepotism, and arbitrariness. Apart from the setting up of a Rashtriya Lok Ayukta, the ARC has proposed that it be made obligatory for all States to set up Lok Ayuktas and that their structure, power, and functions be governed by common principles. Currently, they exist in about a dozen States, with varying degrees of power. While a uniform Lok Ayukta system would be helpful, it is important to address the problems that plague the functioning of these agencies such as the absence of financial autonomy and the lack of cooperation from State Governments. The recommendations on these ombudsman-like agencies are but a few of the suggestions the ARC has made in its voluminous report on "Ethics in Governance." But they do focus attention on putting in place an alternative mechanism — one that supplements courts and tribunals — to combat corruption in public life.

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Beyond the Bilkis Bano case

Justice was manifestly done in Mumbai with a special court sentencing 11 of the 12 found guilty to life imprisonment in the Bilkis Bano gang-rape and massacre case. This landmark judgment, which is bound to reinforce public faith in the judicial system, was preceded by a series of Machiavellian attempts to subvert justice by lending a friendly hand to the accused. One of the most heinous of the post-Godhra cases, a pregnant Bilkis Bano was gang-raped while 14 members of he r family were killed when they were trying to flee their riot-affected village during the Gujarat pogrom in 2002. The case might have been easily derailed if it wasn’t for the Supreme Court, which entrusted it to the Central Bureau of Investigation. In response to a petition from Ms Bano — who maintained that the Gujarat police were hand in glove with the accused, that evidence was being tampered with, and that witnesses were being threatened — the apex court also transferred the case from Gujarat to Maharashtra. But it was not such judicial intervention alone that saved the case from collapse. A heap of praise is due to Ms Bano, who pursued the case doggedly and with great determination, refusing to be cowed down by threats or tempted by inducements. The remarkable courage of this young woman sends a powerful message to the victims of other riot cases — namely, that justice is possible even when one is up against a State government that is hell-bent on circumventing it. Like the Best Bakery massacre, which was also transferred by the Supreme Court out of Gujarat, the Bilkis Bano case became a symbol of the communal carnage in the State. While there is reason to celebrate the intervention of the apex court and to applaud Ms Bano’s resolve, it is important to remember that this is but one of the several hundreds of pending cases relating to the Gujarat riots. Six years have passed since the dreadful incident that shattered Ms Bano’s life and it is a matter of conjecture how many more will elapse before the other Gujarat riot victims receive justice. The question assumes a worrying character given the country’s extremely poor record in providing justice to the riot-affected — consider the fate of the victims of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots or those who suffered in the Mumbai riots in 1993. The question must also be seen against the backdrop of the attitude of the Gujarat government, which had closed more than 1,600 riot cases — these were reopened in 2004 after the Supreme Court directed that they be reviewed. In a way, the real challenge for the criminal justice system lies in how it deals with the remaining Gujarat riot cases

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Controlling organised crime

THE SUPREME COURT'S directive to the Central Government to report within six weeks on the implementation of the Action Plan drawn up in 1998 to prevent sexual abuse of women and children is, at one level, indicative of the seriousness with which the continuing exploitation of vulnerable sections of society is viewed in the highest quarters. However, the apparent lack of progress in translating objectives into action, as may be surmised from the petition filed in the Court, must raise critical questions on a gamut of issues ranging from the efficacy of law enforcement, punitive action against perpetrators of crimes, to the repatriation and rehabilitation of victims of this form of exploitation. Trafficking in women and children has assumed alarming proportions globally and the subcontinent is a haven for international organised crime groups. Trafficking in humans is believed to be currently third in transnational illegal trade after arms and drugs. With appalling levels of poverty, illiteracy and unemployment and no form of social security measures to speak of for vast sections of the populations of the subcontinent, the susceptibility to the gambits of crime groups dealing in illegal drugs, weapons, money laundering and, worst of all, in humans is not hard to imagine.
The numbers of women weaned into commercial sex work, and of child or bonded labour, have steadily been on the increase over the years. If women have for long borne the brunt of domestic violence, and their family lives reveal tales of dowry-related disharmony, outside their homes, especially those among the socially and economically disadvantaged, they form the backbone of many an industry in the cottage, tourism, hotel and small scale sectors of the economy. With neither the guarantee of a reasonable remuneration nor protection from the hazardous nature of the different occupations they engage in, they are often ready victims of the constant pressure to find an escape route that perpetually eludes them. The vicious trap of physical and sexual abuse and exploitation that they fall into haunts them through the rest of their lives. At another level, the exposure of many transnational rackets in trafficking children and women has brought to light the extent to which Indian borders have become gateways to sneak in women and children from neighbouring Bangladesh and Nepal, or transit points to smuggle to destinations in West Asia. In many such instances, the complicity of the police and other law-enforcing agencies has meant that racketeers and middlemen often get away with forging travel and emigration documents.

It was against this backdrop that the 1998 report of the committee on Prostitution, Child Prostitutes and Children of Prostitutes acknowledged the minimal impact of law enforcement and proposed a comprehensive plan of action. It identified gender bias in law enforcement, questioned the manner in which brothel raids are conducted and children of sex workers rehabilitated and the absence of formal mechanisms for repatriation of illegal immigrants. Clearly, each of these reflects on the performance of the police machinery, the magistracy and even the courts in some instances. Thus, it is easy to see that the Supreme Court's directive to the Centre underscores the general failure of law enforcement in the domains of labour relations, gender justice and child protection. The simple lesson to be drawn is that the effectiveness or otherwise of enforcing the law in one area necessarily depends on applying the statute book in others. In relation to trafficking in humans, the Court directive should be treated as a wake-up call to ratify the United Nations Conventions relating to organised crime and enacting corresponding legislation to facilitate enforcement of international norms and, above all, ensure their effective implementation in all given instances.

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United We Stand

A woman prays for thosekilled in Mumbai Blasts out side Taj Palace
Rapid Action Force personel guard the site as people leave flowers outside the Taj Mahal hotel to pay respect to all those who died in terror attacks, in Mumbai on Sunday.
People hold a candle-light vigil, for the victims of the terrorist attack in Mumbai

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Sisters

Suvarna was still a bit shell-shocked from the frenetic wave and mouthed greeting from a stranger walking off the plane. Second looks had revealed it to be her younger sister.... "Thank God for tedious customs procedures," she thought wryly, "They allow one to absorb such shocks". Sudha's face and person had been barely recognizable, layered as it was in rolls of fat. The once-svelte figure, all of 5'3", seemed to have decreased in height in direct proportion to the widening of its girth. A once finely etched profile with a shapely nose was now lost to a multiple chin in a face still distinctly humorous, as of old. The clothes were elegant enough ..distinctly U S NRI, but those shoes ... ugh ... those awful shoes sent an involuntary shiver down Suvarna's spine. "How could Sudha spend money only such ugly things", she was just thinking and then caught herself in amazement as her sister extracted an exquisitely molded foot from "that awful shoe", arched the soles flipped her painted toes and proceeded to massage the sculpted heel. Sudha cast her a knowing look.

"Now you know why the guys go crazy ? Seeing these feet emerge from those boots...they see those beautiful doe-like Indian eyes, these famous pouting lips, these enormous melon breasts and then these sexy feet. They go crazy trying to figure out what's between the legs and how to get it......" she trilled, a shrill sound that jarred all the more, emanating as it did from that enormous bulk.

A delicately pained look crossed Suvarna's face. She glanced away; Sudha followed her glance to the reddening back of the chauffeur’s neck and giggled.
"Is this what marriage into a respectable business family has turned you into? I seem to remember you something quite different. Perhaps I should be glad that for me, Pa answered that famous Ad for a Green Card Professional. See the freedom it gave me ......"

Recognizing the onset of a flood of reminiscences, perhaps embarrassing, with that mutual understanding of old, they stopped to chat in private before reaching the house.

"What actually happened to you ? You never wrote about the divorce; thereafter all those men, I did not want to broach the subject in their presence when I was there."

"That's the famous old Suvarna tact coming to the fore. perhaps it was for the best,....for Pa and Amma anyway, it was best that they died so soon after getting me married. They never knew who they were really marrying me to"
Suvarna shot up an eyebrow. "The green card professional, handsome, 5-figure salary, own house, etc.etc etc..."

"Yes, Dear, you must remember the "Jhat mangni, pat bya wedding". They were so thrilled, so was I and so were my in-laws. Remember how the old man kept on and on 'Hamare wahan aisa hota hai, taisa hota hai' and all the rest of it...if only I had told them unke wahan ka beta kaisa hota hai".

The younger sister dived into her tale almost eagerly, getting it off her chest to some-one back home finally ......

Sudha's Tale: A Green Card Alimony

"We were in India for barely a week after the wedding and I almost went crazy trying to seduce my handsome husband, but no go. He didn't touch me on the first night...obviously it was too late and both of us dead beat. The next night he was sozzled, the third he spent with his Dad till I fell asleep and the fourth with his buddies for a delayed stag party. Then the next night the whole family stayed up catching up 'cause we were to leave the next day, so, .....pause for effect.... I reached the great U S of A a virgin... a bloody good damned married 8 days virgin! And you’ll never guess the next....

Dramatic Pause ---

At the airport, I was received by my husband's Husband --- he was a blood Homo. That handsome hulk, the professional Green card holder etc. etc. was a Homo, and his parents had never guessed !

Suvarna gasped aloud.

Actually he wasn't such a bad sort. He let me off quite gently, explaining that he owed it to his parents and that to make sure I got something out of it, he promised not to divorce me until I got my Green Card, which should take long enough to establish my credentials back home for having " tried to save the marriage ".

"Well," I thought to myself, "Here's pretty mess, what with me dying to try out sex. But the question was with whom? And believe me, seeing those two guys billing and cooing to make up for the three week absence drove me up the wall. In time, it was the thought of my boom-boom haw-haw father -in-law and his 'Hamare wahan’, which drove me off on a wild goose chase. It's a wonder I didn't turn into a nymphomaniac, the way I ran through boyfriends. It took me six months, six awful months of dreadful sex to surface and take stock of my life and its mess.
I couldn't write home, it would have been too much for Pa-Amma and terrible for Rajiv; he was actually quite a decent sort, even moved heaven and earth for my Green Card. Actually that was a real laugh. People offer green cards in dowry. I got mine as part of Alimony !! Along with reimbursement of every penny that Pa had spent on our wedding, my clothes, jewelry, the lot. He actually got me married, his husband gave me away...it was almost amusing.

"But", she reflected sadly," by that time, something was gone from inside me. I just couldn't take anything from anybody or hang on to anyone, I let the guys slip through my fingers, running through boyfriends, husbands, lovers, whatever.
Thank God for only 2 things, my work and no kids. The one kept my spirits alive and the other allowed me no regrets with each break."

The outpouring not only wrung her out emotionally, it seemed to have purged her, as if by confessing to the seaminess of her foreign jaunts, she had dipped in the proverbial Ganga. She took some huge gasps of air and downed the now-cold coffee in a gulp. "Now you know about my past in one go, let's go and let me unravel your present".

Suvarna's present : a Showcase for a Living Doll

It was a short drive home now. "A new road is being laid, so we’ll have to walk a bit" announced Suvarna apologetically. The gate was imposing enough, elaborately ornate wrought iron black, with a tall pole holding aloft a brass bell of the type found in smaller temples and a colorful plaited bell pull. Before Sudha finished thinking wryly whether the sound would actually carry into the house, she was inside the gate and letting out a gasp of pleasure.

It was a sight for sour eyes and vintage Suvarna -- obviously age had not withered he talent for creating small niches of beauty around herself, nor had money coarsened her taste.

Suvarna had not only collected her antiques but also used them well. The lawn was a bit more than handkerchief-sized; so adornment was restricted to the borders, with artfully placed artifacts interspersed with a variety of obviously expensive and well-tended plants, a carved elephant here, a robust horse there, a svelte apsara with her mates opposite.

A tiny pond boasted of a single lotus fronting the last step of a miniature temple atop a mini hill backed by large umbrella palms, which obliterated the outlook for any Peeing Toms next door.

The house was in a locality, Sudha recognized, monopolized by Old Money, where land was priced the Earth-Per-Square-Inch. Selling out would have been sacrilege and commuting from the new villa and farmhouse colonies totally chi-chi. So what could poor rich people do, but add-on value to their over-priced properties?

The marble bit walk ended on a marble veranda, if it could be called that, the entrance dominated by a Nandi sitting square in the middle, looking into a large hall, apparently the length of the house, divided into several conversation areas. Off on one side a stately staircase led upto to a landing fronting a set of rooms which ringed one large area of the hall. The arrangement was obviously replicated from the other side of the massive room, allowing another gallery of suites to overlook the other half. All very, very elegant, very, very old and equally luxuriously expensive.

~*~

Sudha sat pondering, waiting for sleep. Suvarna apologized for the absence of her offspring.

"They are entertaining in their own wing. You'll meet them tomorrow".

Dinner had been a somber affair; her famous Jiga, a tiger of the business world, had turned out to be a surprisingly tacit man, as spare of word as he was of frame. Graying fashionably at the temples, well turned out, courteous but silent. "Was it disapproving?" Sudha wondered.

The heaviness he generated was anathema to his father, a charming urbane host, with a white mane, a tiny belly and a twinkle in his eye, as he sparred humorously with the sisters. The affection for his daughter-in-law was unmistakable. After dinner, Suvarna had taken his arm and led him into the garden for his "constitutional".

Sudha declined " let me get to know my Jiga", she had said, not quite knowing what she had let herself in for. Later she was to conclude " this marriage has only survived because of the old man", as she sat delving in her old family knowledge.

Suvarna was several years her senior and at 18, she had made a brilliant match, doing her middle class parents proud. Sudha had been still at school when Suvarna finished with her childbearing at 21, with another milestone, the family heir and the traditional "Ghar ki Lakshmi".

Now, she was a classy mother-in-law, the epitome of Aging with Grace. Over the years, her looks had matured and she had apparently learnt to cultivate a style all her own. Gossip magazines had made legends of her sari and jewel collections, invitations to her parties were much sought after and the house had been subject of several photo features. All of which was very nice, but for that shadow behind the smile in her eyes when she countered her father-in-law's rallies. When she had come to drop her off at her bedroom, the younger sister could not resist asking " God, Sue, How can you stand it !!"

"What ? "

" The Sphinx... I tried every trick in the book to talk to your husband " she threw her hands up in the air expressively shaking her head in frustration. Suvarna"s only reply was a slight movement of her head and a tiny smile, half humorous, half ironic, as she let herself quietly out of the room.

Awaiting sleep, Sudha heard the two distinct wings of the house -- one settling down to sleep as the mistress sent in glasses of saffron and pista flavored milk to the bedrooms and the other, where the young people were obviously enjoying an evening of music.

"That is our Mastani room", the old man had told her. In deference to her querying eyebrow, he explained "Mastani was the mistress of Baji Rao Peshwa, who built a special wing for her at the Shanwarwada palace in Pune. It had been remarkably resurrected at the Kelkar Museum after the palace was burnt down. Suvarna spent hours there and then recreated it with some design changes for our musical evenings."

When she had peeked in the next day, Sudha saw the music parlor, divided into two sections by a semi-circular, low, carved screen, barely a foot high, waxed almost black. It separated the generous enclosure for the performers from the baithak for the audience....for was it perhaps, for some VIP guest to hold forth in the company of family to invitees seated outside?

"She had learnt the lessons of wealth well" thought Sudha, noting the pristine white of the fluffed pillows and bolsters, a quick and efficient change from the merrymaking into the wee hours.

Confidences

The visit fell into a routine. Sudha saw her older sister with new eyes. The Anglicized desi lass had make a remarkable changeover from Indian English to chase Hindi and even Urdu; philosophy, yoga, meditation, even riyas with a music teacher every other day, learned discussions and chess with her father-in-law who apparently escorted her to seminars and workshops in between preparing for the next party. But something was wrong. What ?

Sudha could not quite put her finger on it. Her relations were warm, even with son and bahu, the Sphinx supremely indifferent to all, especially Suvarna's ironic sallies.

"Show me those famous collections". Suvarna led her into her suite, another miniature haveli, executed in soothing pastels, carved jharokhas, mughal dado and priceless artefacts.

A thought distracted from the collection. "Tell me, how does the Sphinx fit in here?

"Where ?"

"In this room, I mean. Isn’t it too feminine for him?”

"This is mine. his suite is down the corridor"

"Really Su ... separate bedrooms. Since when ?"

"I took this over when my ma-in-law died and naturally did it over completely.

"What about Pa ?"

"He has his own suite next door, between yours and mine"

"Runs in the family, eh...does bahuji also ...?"

"Not yet, but who has seen the future ?"

"But why, Su ? it can't be his silences, can it...after all you had two kids together, haven't you ?

Suvarna seemed set to brush the question away. What had made her change her mind, that fateful day ?

"We last went to bed together when I conceived Mini. The kids ended our relationship," the silence became almost pregnant." Sujoy is what I call negative religious."

She answered the question in her sister's face. "What I call positive religion is that which brings, if not happiness, at least peace, a joy, a celebration in the creations of God, a helping hand, a lightness of spirit not necessary that one be overflowing in the milk of human kindness.

My mother-in-law's brand of religion was the negative one. fasts, tapasya, penance for all worldly joys -- even for conjugal relations. Can you beat that ? It is only necessary for procreation, she taught him that and he learnt those lessons well.

as soon as I became pregnant, I was shifted to her rooms, with their dark somberness and diya-battis day and night. My only escape was going home for the confinement and she prolonged that till Muna was almost eight months.
After that the dictum was "no sex as long as you are breastfeeding". Muna was a year old when she lifted her ban and what do you know -- first time unlucky, I got pregnant and back to square one. this time, the pregnancy was difficult enough for me to get too little respite from hating him for abandoning me to the tender mercies of his mother, to even miss sex.

"That pure white organdie," she pondered dilatorily, " sure hid a spiteful heart - she loved her son to distraction and hated all the rest of us, her husband, her daughters and her bahu, for distracting from his "Glory", whatever that was ....what was he ever , beyond an efficient money-making machine. If he ever even had to select his own wardrobe, he would be on the Worst Dressed List in no time...." meow, meow....

"Then," prompted the younger sister breathlessly, eyes wide open to absorb this new side of her older sibling

"Mini was breastfed for almost three years. Then one day, I read somewhere that women, " a broad smile broke out over Suvarna"s nostalgia, "with high fever should avoid feeding their babes. Can you imagine my excitement....swiping a cut onion from the kitchen from under her beagle eyes; I wrapped it in half a dozen hankies to smother the smell, carted it around shopping until I could safely tuck it into my armpit and then walked around for what seemed hours on the sunniest footpaths to work up a temperature! God, how disgusted I was with myself that day, for being such a healthy cow. When the temperature was raging, I headed home, but she caught me at the stairs and it was no go...I had to wait for my next period, have the ritual bath after five days and then only would I be allowed to "pollute" my husband. Madame’s orders...” she threw up her hands recalling the bygone despair.

Now I too learnt to be devious. This time, I waited beyond her prescribed five days. On the seventh day, Sujoy was due back from a business trip and I was not on hand at home to receive him. Spent the day shopping for a new sari to wear home after a full day in the parlor making myself over as a modern day Cleopatra...it was the works, massage, henna, facial, treatments, make-up , everything."

"Wow, "

"Just you wait. He was in the study with his father when I reached home and I literally sneaked into the house and straight into my room, to avoid bumping into her. He came in a good two hours later.... Two long hours of me on tenterhooks you can only imagine; and then..." she paused and the anguish of the recollection flashed across her expressive face.

Rejection

"What are you doing here ?"

"I live here, it’s my room too, isn’t it ? " she had replied with a quick nervous smile as she approached him with hands outstretched. Quickly before she could lose her nerve, she wound her hands around his neck and smiled shyly up at him.
But before she could go any further, he had picked up the offending arms with two disapproving fingers each and returned them to her side.

"Look, I don’t like or believe in this nonsense. Now we’ve got two children, no more. I can’t afford to waste anymore time and energy on doing extra pooja or penance instead of running my business."

Suvarna had been completely stunned, quite unable to comprehend what exactly her husband meant.

"What do you want me to do ?"

"Everything, look after the kids, help Amma with the house, do your pooja whatever, only don’t bother me with this sex nonsense. I want none of it."

" But......but ...what.."

He cut in ruthlessly, " no buts and no whats. You are my wife and the mother of my children, bahu of my parents. That you shall be to the end of your days. Only no more dirty sex for us...it's too unclean.

We have done our duty for the family by producing heirs...now no more," he stressed the point as he stalked off the dressing room to change and then promptly and peacefully fell asleep.

~*~

Suvarna picked up her tale somberly. " You can imagine my state, first it was a stunned silence, then oceans of tears and by morning I was at his feet, begging : where I had gone wrong.

But was he cold. He called in his mother to read me a lecture on morals, wifely duty to follow hubbie's dictats and the virtues of abstention etc. etc.; I don’t even remember what else, I was so plain stupefied I was reduced to a zombie wasting away in this very house, no life, no identity, no purpose, nothing just a flitting shadow...." she was lost for sometime in traumatic memories of the Ultimate Rejection.

"Then..." came the prompt, " something, someone must have brought about this transformation. You hardly look like a frustrated, sex-starved, teenage widow. Was it A lover, or lovers plural ?"

"One"

"How long ?"

"Many, many years"

"No-one ever found out , friends, servants, kids, hubby dear, sasu dear, someone?"

"We were very very discreet, the circumstances were such, couldn’t afford to be found out and then things also worked out right. Sometimes though, I wonder whether Mini has at least, suspected. And if so, whether she has discussed it with anyone. Sometimes, I see that querying look in their eyes, but they have never broached the subject and I have held my peace. Why spoil their relationship with their father ?"

"No-one ever saw or noticed the difference in you ? your being, your personality, everything ?"

"Of course, the changes are evident. but I learnt, at times painfully, to withdraw from all other personal relationships. It was dangerous ground, either way, I had no words to explain my actions or my motives to anyone, did I ?"

"Start at the beginning. how did it start, where did you meet him, who is he , what is he like, was he married, his wife ...?"

A serene smile lit up Suvarna"s face. " he is The complete man, a wonderful person, so vital, so alive, so knowledgeable, easy to talk to, to laugh with, to learn from.

He has taught me everything that I am today; turned my convent education around on its head and introduced me to Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu even French, to religion, philosophy and art. Made me read and meditate, explore the world and the depths of myself to develop my own personality and to step out of the shadows to take charge of my life. He used to tease me that he had converted me into an Indian."

"How did you meet, where ?"

"He just came upon me one day, drooping in my room, as usual I was weeping and could not explain why. Somehow, he seemed to understand, no words were required, perhaps because of his own shriveled up wife. He just took me into his arms to comfort me and that spark was lit. We couldn’t help ourselves, both of us were so starved".

"Here, in this room ?"

"No, in that one, Sujoy's. I was still there then, this one came much later."

"Then he was a known person, familiar enough to enter the family apartments ?"

"Of," Suvarna checked herself. "Yes, yes, he was "

"Then...?"

"What can I tell you. it was such a wonderful release from such a gray jail, a relief to get it out, to talk about it like a normal person to a normal person. Of course, we were very careful about synchronizing ourselves with mother-in-law’s satsang sessions and temples, but then it was not only sex. We went to other temples, museums and palaces in the cause of my re-education ."

" For how long ?"

" For months and months. I don’t know how long "

" How could you manage it ? " she started skeptically and then tuned into a new line of thought, "Even now ?"

" Of course not, not at this age. We’re too old for sex. But that affection and love and trust doesn’t just go away like that, does it ? It continues to mellow and to mature and to give perhaps even greater little pleasures".

"Yyou mean to tell me that this paragon just stopped having you and went off, out of your life just like that ? Not taking a thing to clear off ? What sort of a man was he "

" You said it, not I. Paragon, but fortunately, he is not out of my life. It has slowed down gradually, but we still look after each other, without any sex now."

" And no-one ever saw you or suspected a thing ?"

" My mother-in-law ..." the younger sister pounced " what about sasu dear ?"

" She caught us red-handed ."

Sudha let out a low wolf whistle " and in all these years, she did not breathe a word because she had stopped hubby dear from fucking you? I like that for irony."

"Not at all. it wasn’t that way. Actually, you know, for all her mean ways, she was, in her own way, a pious soul. and she really believed that sex was evil, a sin."
Suvarna was suddenly quite grave as she recalled the past.

"She must have been stunned when she walked in on us on that fateful day. And believe me, she was struck dumb and I mean really physically dumb. She had a stroke and couldn’t speak for sometime. Her eyes used to haunt me, made us guilty as Hell.

But for her, it must have been the worst possible retribution. How our sins catch up with us. After all that raving and ranting about sex, being unable to rail against me or to tell her beloved son....that was the worst possible punishment that could have been inflicted on her. "

"Ill bet. that bitch knew all the moves, didn’t she. so that is how she broke it up ?"

"Not at all. somehow, she managed to convey it to her beloved son before she died. Immediately after the ceremonies, he let fly. All the gaalis on record, good, bad, indifferent, all the adjectives in the bad dictionary, he just pounded away at me. But strangely, the more Sujoy railed, the less guilty I felt, the calmer I became.

~*~

Standing Ground

Then it had been Suvarna"s turn to speak, to refuse to bear his load of shit or guilt. After all it was all his mother’s fault, she had thrown back at him. Had she not twisted his mind, they could have been a normal couple, and this sort of a situation would never have arisen.

And then, what was it that had been taken from him, that had actually been his?

Nothing.

She bore his name, lived under his roof, ate off his table, ran his home, entertained his associates, raised his kids, even slept in his bed.

He had not wanted either her love or her body --- had rejected both outright, so why crib if someone else appreciated them. " Be happy, " she had thrown the words at him, "That I have been careful enough not to have you declared a cuckold publicly ".

At that, he had almost had an apoplexy and for a moment, Suvarna had run scared. then he stabilized and she saw his eyes narrowing in calculation, thinking perhaps of how he could benefit from the situation. The realization was an ice cold shower over her heated brain.

Suvarna decided there and then that she too would benefit from this situation, everyone would, including her children. Now with her life at stake, she learnt quickly to drive a bargain.

Sujoy was firm. " No divorce. I will not be humiliated in public and the memory of my mother must not be besmirched ."

" Fine," Sunanda parried, " No divorce, but I will not live at your mercy either. No blackmail please. I want an independent income at my disposal, from outside your business, in case you run that into the ground."

That had been a fell blow to his ego. "And no more living frugally in this glorified hut. If you want me to continue to be merely your Living Doll for show, then build a suitable showcase for that Doll."

She had wrenched from him promise of funds for the renovation of the entire estate, annual holidays for herself and the children, their boarding schools (so that they would not come across the truth), wardrobes, the works. Only one ground rule : you lead your life, I lead mine, but no-one must know that I am nothing except your biggest social asset.

~*~

Retribution

"He didn’t touch him ?" breathed the astounded listener
"He couldn’t. Not in a thousand years. All he did, all he was concerned about was to extricate total power to run the business as he though fit. Suited us just fine. He ran the business as he thought fit and we ran our lives as we thought fit.

I moved out of his room into this suite, erstwhile mother-in-law’s abode. It almost killed him to see me do it over, but I stood my ground.

But believe me, it was as if a heavy yoke had been lifted from our shoulders. As Sujoy got used to the situation, for the first time, I could afford to be seen with him as my official escort in lieu of a husband who was too busy making money. For the first time, I took the kids for a holiday and he was there too. Later we went abroad, lots of places where I picked up some of these beauties you see scattered around the house.

We became regulars at the seminar circuits, learning about all sorts of things, meeting people, making contacts that Sujoy often drove benefit from. But they were, " her tone became poignant, always only contacts, not friends, never friends. That was one luxury neither of us could afford.

And that twinge of guilt was always there at the bottom of our hearts. but Sujoy's distaste was always so comically apparent at home and so dispassionately disguised in company that it gave us a perverse sort of pleasure in flaunting and in tweaking his tale when he was helpless to react in public," she ended with a mischievous chortle.

" How did it end then ?"

" It didn’t. how do normal couples grow old, they just get more used to each other, know each other in and out, generally slow down and then a new pattern of life is set, with new fragrances which linger on...."

" But this was different "

" Not that different actually. Maana, we did not take those saat pheras with each other or produce Muna and Mini, but everything else was our joint venture, even raising the kids to whom he was more Father than their biological one; he even helped with the planning of those fabulous monthly does on which Sujoy places such a business success premium"

"Does Sujoy know that ?"

" What ?"

"That his sauten, or whatever it would be called, is planning his parties ?"

"There’s little he can do about it, without getting egg on his face; and if he wants to remain on that Best Party list and win and dine the Rich and the Mighty to sell his big dirty deals."

~*~

Hours later, Sudha had retired, only keep puzzling over some missing link, which seemed to be just there, out of her reach...

What sort of a guy was this ? she thought. his whole life spent with another’s wife, helping her to entertain her husband’s guest. And then, but what’s the deal, always hiding, never able to acknowledge each other out in the open ? Why ?

The riddle wouldn’t let her sleep...who, who, who...?

She recounted all that Suvarna had told her .... her husband’s rejection, the despair, coming out of it in the arms of a lover who moved in and out of her house and apartments without evoking any suspicion for months on end ! How could that be possible even given the large establishment. The mystery was curdling her brains, repelling sleep.

After sometime, she heard her brother-in-law mount the stairs, firm hard footfalls marked his progress down the landing to a door down the corridor which opened and then clicked smartly shut.

After a longish spell came the muffled murmurs as her sister came upstairs, no doubt holding her father-in-law’s arm after their constitutional walk in the open.

Another door opened and clicked shut, next door.

A little later, unrest made Sudha throw back her covers.

Who could it be, WHO?

Some pacing about her room later, she tapped softly at Suvarna"s door, determined to talk to her, scratch it out of her....no response; she let herself in softly " are you awake, Sue ?"

A single-shaded light cast its pale circle on the mirror through the open door of the dressing room.

And the images in the mirror transfixed the intruder.

Sudha turned her face about to the open connecting door between the suites and the bed beyond. Tiptoeing silently forward, the eavesdropper strained to listen in.
She couldn’t catch a word, but the tender look on her sister’s face, the gentle touch of her hand on the weathered cheek below it and the adoration in the eyes of the man were words enough.

Well said, Sue, old love did not just go away or die out, its fragrance lingered on.

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