TALE WITHOUT A MORAL

Hello!, God bless you sons…. Deo borem korum ! I am Julius Rebello, Father Julius Rebello. Not to be confused with Julio Ribeiro, the feisty policeman, the…what do they say, Paadma Bibusan Ribeiro. But names apart, there remains one more bond of mine with the old man. Both of us were in the police force, he before his retirement, and I before my ordainment. Only one alphabet distinguishes our ranks held last. He was a DGP, and I, a DSP…

Lest I forget, a word about what brings me here. I met this precocious Catholic girl of seven who is apparently a writer of some consequence…better than me, may the Lord bless her. I think Maria D’Costa, or perhaps Maria D’ Silva, some Maria to be certain….as our Bishop the Reverend Mario Castelino assures us, Maria along with her male and female variants Mary, Mario, Mariah etc. etc. is the commonest given name on the planet. Makes remembering less of a pain at my age…This young lady mostly writes in the vein of Dame Agatha Christie, but with a Biblical moral at the end, and one day, after the Children’s Mass, somehow held me with her query, two queries to be precise. One, why is there no organised crime of the Sicilian variety in Goa, rather in India for that matter, and two, why are names like Brasi, Sollozzo or Gonsalves, names which lend a rare menace to crime fiction, so rare in the annals of Crime in Bharatha, that is India. God bless her! Pertinent queries, well-meaning, not meant to offend the priestly order. After all they were put to an ex-cop…Moreover a priest cannot refuse to address a human query just because it is outrageous, he must measure it up against the Lord’s word.  It is certainly the right of every writer to seek fertile pastures for his or her prose, and of course as the Latin proverb goes, ut sementem feceris ita metes- you reap what you sow…

But first I must address the question that should now be uppermost in the attentive reader’s mind. Is it not oxymoronic- a policeman-priest? Agreed, ‘tis a bit tricky, a policeman becoming a priest. But in today’s world there is a tragic resonance between the two professions, if I may say so. As the Jesuit Post succinctly puts it, both are today “mistrusted groups with accountability issues”. Take that!

Aside from the philosophy of it, two practical issues stand out. One is the working language, the essential tool of trade. The two worlds, one, that of the Lord’s Law, the other of Man’s Law, work on entirely different planes. The simplest way to put it, one tongue was created by God, the other…could you guess it?! The police vocabulary has by now been largely banished from my processes. As they say, cum ianuam claudit Dei opens a fenestra - id est, God closed a door and opened a window, or still better, the other way round. In the ultimate analysis, aside of prepositions, articles and conjunctions, I’d say the only word common to Churchese and the police lingo is Son!

The other conflict is more daunting, touching upon the difference between ethics, Christian and Secular. Suppose someone from the flock approaches the confession box and admits, within the Sacrament of Confession, to a murder. The Lord’s commands are crisp and clear.  If the subject is contrite and agrees to the penance decided by the priest, the latter is bound to forgive the confessor in Jesus’ name. Of course the confessor as a Catholic must abide with the Catechism of the Catholic Church. No exception is made, whether you are an ex-DSP or an ex-DGP or an ex-Sheriff or a Police Chaplain. I have myself spent sleepless nights on the horns of one such dilemma, wondering whether the fact of my being a recipient of Government pension would have any bearing on God’s expectations from me. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, particularly 13: 1-7 is quoted by many as the Bible’s word on obedience to earthly powers, but according to many authorities, the interpretation is taken out of context to ‘bolster the bourgeois attitude of later Churches’, especially the Lutheran, God bless the Lutheran brothers ! Commonsense would ordain that as Jesus made such a huge sacrifice for us, civic rules should be held subservient to His Gospel.

My referee Fr. Kunnankal of Our Lady of Remedios Parish, Betalbatim,  locally called the Malate Church, also must have wrestled with the selfsame dilemma, vicariously, before the Parish sponsored me for my ordainment at the Patriarchal Seminary of  Rachol.  The first question he asked himself was cur vis faciam?  Why should he want to do it, that too abdicating a respectable Government service? Basically my own father had always wanted at least one son of his to serve the Lord. Father Kunnankal adored the sentiment, citing a…a Malay-alee proverb which roughly translates to “you will earn equal dignity if you have a priest or an elephant in the family..” Yes, an Elephant! I had faithfully attended the Mass, participated in Prayer Services, received Sacraments, which helped. So, with His blessings, at Rachol I did the three-year Philosophy course, with the Government of India chipping in with a degree from IGNOU of Delhi, which I took as a good omen. From thence to my parish at comely Betalbatim for my year-long Pastoral Praxis, ending with the four-year Theology Course, finally emerging as a priest, sure, after a diaconal stint at parishes, some near, some afar.

So why no Sicilian mafias in our Nation? Let me don my old police hat for a moment then…Well!  In our great nation, thievery has been practised more as an Art, not as a Science. The University of Chicago once commissioned a study of urban drug syndicates of America, and were delighted, what else, to discover that they were organised exactly like the McDonalds franchises, and in India one won’t be surprised to be told that such and such McDonalds outlet is run like a Pa and Ma store. That’s the West for you! The Orient, whether it is the spiritual walk or the artistic sojourn, relies on Individualism. That interesting gentleman Rabi Sankar could be sitting alone on the top of the Everest practising his ragas, and enjoying himself in fullest measure. But a Western Classical presentation works like giant clockwork, every cog and chime playing its part without the isolated performer having a clue about the symphony as a whole! And seriously I am sceptical as to the omniscience of the gentleman who waves so frantically at the head of the whole caboodle…

Now permit me to lead you unto anno domini 1961. The year of the liberation of Goa from the Portuguese yoke, or the liberation of the Portuguese from the white man’s burthen, there are always two opposing views. I hark back Maria  D’ Sa, seven years of age, to this year of turmoil. Here I plan to narrate my little story which as the papers of today put it eloquently, ‘showcases’ the milieu dear Maria yearns for.  

So this happened in 1961, in the twilight period when India was rushing in to reclaim the Goan bride, and the Portuguese were leaving Indian shores in haste. To give an illustration of the scramble, on 9^th December 1961 the ship MV India arrived at Marmugao on her way from Timor to Lisbon : in spite of the instructions of the Government of Portugal to the contrary, 700 European Portuguese broke into the ship even as the Governor General Manuel Vassalo e Silva watched helplessly..

I was about the same age as Maria is today. It was a great upheaval, when the old order changed, yielding place to a new order, disorder, as many of my Catholic friends would aver. The mantle of western superiority our anglicised set dons is matched only by the xenophobia the Brahmin community of Goa glories in... The last word in this acrimonious discourse is what a perceptive Hindu Goan writer notes: I argue for a more layered understanding of the concepts of mimicry, hybridity and resistance in relation to identifications from these two communities, so he proposes. I don’t know what sense this makes to a non-Goan though..

Returning to our story, I don’t know what charm this childhood memory holds for me, but I can never walk past it. Perhaps the brattiness of the kid in the story strikes a chord, perhaps it has to do with the old Portuguese-Goan mystique, combined with the insecurity and peril that pervaded the times. Not that seven year old Julius had so much as an inkling of the issues, he was a contented lad growing under the benign shade of his grandparents.

Senhor Santiago Rebello and Senhora Ines Rebello were the parents of my dad, my Vovo and Avo, all the three of Portuguese stock, while my mother was a converted Brahmin. That makes me a Luso-Indian. The marriage ended in a separation, and I, sole product of the marriage, went on to live with my grandparents at Betalbatim, now known best for the Martin’s Corner. Grandpa and Grandma didn’t hanker after Portugal’s hospitality and now rest peacefully side-by-side in the cemetery at Our Lady of Remedios Church.

My Grandmother that is Avo Ines’s fond possession was a priceless set of exquisite  Portuguese filigree gold jewels, complete with a viana pendant, which was supposedly now serving the fifteenth generation in her female lineage, come to her as dowry. Pretty much of Betalbatim knew of its existence. In an unguarded moment, given the troubled times, the set was alas, stolen. The Police sergeant visited us suo moto but Grandpa, offered help, politely declined. The moment the police left, he made a couple of calls on the phone, and the phone replied soon enough. Grandpa spoke in Portuguese, which was alien to me, to my generation in fact, such was the schooling. He smiled grimly, donned his jacqueta and sombrero, and kissed Avo goodbye as he hurriedly stepped out.

The phrase he uttered as he hung up the phone sounded to me like “tram-carra-pour”, which rang quite exotic and amusing in my mind, and, as a kid would, I kept repeating it to myself, noisily wheeling and carting a little metallic tramcar that was part of my toy collection. The words had their own connotation for my Avo in the given situation and they apparently made her tense. She asked me to cease that bratty chant of mine. In return I asked what the words meant, she said “Lock the door”. 

I discovered the significance of those words years later when my Dad unravelled the tale to me. When the phone had rung back that day, a friend of Grandpa had called, informing him that he was now swigging feni at this small Portuguese café, and was witnessing noisy bargaining between two men over Avo’s famous jewellery, spread-out on a corner table. The exact words Grandpa muttered were “trancar a porta” which, intoned in his rustic dialect, sounded like “tram-carra-pour”... The friend had been instructed to lock the door of the café from outside.

The fate of the jewels became known to me forthwith on the evening of the theft itself. Grandpa had returned home with the missing jewellery in half-an-hour.

Hope that story assuages your curiosity to an extent, Maria, though I am sorry I can’t detect a moral in the story the way you so admirably spot in yours!

ACHARYA D D KOSAMBI

"Institutions such as schools, churches, governments and political organizations of every sort all tend to direct thought for ends other than truth, for the perpetuation of their own functions, and for the control of individuals in the service of these functions" - Phædrus

chalega- better than a
Padma-this-that-or-the-other!

If there is one person, whose legacy the writer would, in the eyes of posterity, love to inherit- or usurp if you please, it is DD Kosambi. If there is anyone in our era who qualifies for Shakespeare's dramatic words, it's him: 'His life was gentle, and the elements mixed so well in him that Nature might stand and say to all the world: This was a man!'

He was cast in the classic mould  as an hero. Just read the tributes paid to him by eminent personalities when he, a fitness expert at the height of his prowess, suddenly passed away in sleep, leaving people shocked and grieving. What is most adorable about him is the greatness and sheer breadth of his philosophical mind that allowed diverse antagonistic entities to coexist there in comfort-Bunyan,Charvaka, Bhratrihari, Marx, Statistics, Gandhi, Genetics, Archaeology, Atheism, Hinduism, Buddhism, humour, peasants, nuclear science, nature worship. Like Einstein he was different, a non-conformist with a difference. Did he not remark: 

Why should anybody ignore the beautiful lily of Indian Philosophy in order to concentrate upon the dismal swamp of popular superstition…Anyone with aesthetic sense can enjoy the beauty of the lily; it takes a considerable scientific effort to discover the physiological processes whereby the lily grew out of the mud and the filth..

Imagine- in spite his avowed animosity towards the Bhagvad Gita, he derived 'immense aesthetic pleasure from its power of expression and peculiar beauty'....Not many people can aspire to do that, for it involves felicity to take intellectual leaps from one concept to another, and be at ease with each. It comes only to monumental minds like Einstein whose thinking is in basically in terms of abstract, and then the abstract template or paradigm may be applied with equal ease and comfort to mathematics, to violin, to theology, to peasants, to love of pets, to cabbages, to Kings- or even as a sword in case of conflict! His mind worked with the sort of intellectual scalpel conceived by Phædrus quoted above, or in the language of software, he possessed an uncanny ability to programme quickly in machine language...whewww!

Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi- mind you, of amcho Goa again (b.1907 d.1966, a mere 59), master of all that he surveyed, made invaluable original contributions to Pure Mathematics as well as Statistics, but is best known as a Marxian Historian. Babasaheb Kosambi, as people affectionately called him. In the not too distant past, the Marathi male child would invariably be addressed as (choose one): Baba, Nana, Baban, Balu, Raja, Dada, Anna, Sonya, Tatya, Appa, and upon growing up the appellation would get suffixed with Saheb or Rao or Bapu, depending upon the station in life. Likewise, in case of the girl child: Baby, Tai, Jiji, Akka, Chhaku, Rani, Thaku, Manu, Didi...being Deccanese, you find the flavours both of North and South...

DDK also studied at Cambridge, Mass., Harvard etc. He taught Mathematics and German at BHU, then Mathematics at AMU, then Mathematics for 12 years at the Fergusson, served for 3 years at TIFR, then taught at University of Chicago and Princeton, returning to India thereafter for good, to engage in full time writing of commentaries and books on Ancient Indian History and Sanskrit texts. For some time he also served as Scientific Advisor to the Government of the Peoples’ Republic of China.

He fell out with Dr. Bhabha and left TIFR because “when scientists were debating the relative advantages of solar and nuclear energy, Kosambi argued for the sun whereas Bhabha preferred uranium and had the backing of Jawaharlal Nehru…” He wrote thus in favour of solar energy:

“The cost of research on direct utilization of solar energy would be far lower than for atomic energy. India has much greater supply of solar energy than most other countries; in fact, the problem is to keep the land from being blasted altogether by the sun. One difficulty is that the sun’s energy is not constant. There is the variation between sunrise and sunset, with nothing at all at night. Again, cloudy days make a difference. The problem of storage, however, is not too difficult. Better storage batteries can certainly be produced, to give long life without heavy servicing. Another method would be to pump water by use of solar energy, at whatever variable speed the sun allows, into high-level tanks (say on towers). The water can then come down by gravity through turbines which turn electric generators, and can be further used for irrigation. The advantages are that the fuel—the sun’s radiation—costs absolutely nothing, and there are no harmful exhaust gases or radioactive byproducts. Moreover, the installation can be set up anywhere in India, and will work quite well except perhaps in the heaviest monsoon season. The research is of no use for war purposes. That is why it attracts some of us, but does not attract those who control the funds…” (the parting kick in the para being for Bhabha- read http://permanent-black.blogspot.in/2012/06/unsettling-past-dd-kosambi-and-romila.html)

His taike on India’s population problem:

“Children are the sole means of support for those among the common people who manage to reach helpless old age. The futility of numerical ‘planning’ of the population, when nothing is done to ensure that even the able-bodied have a decent level of subsistence, is obvious to anyone but a born expert. Convince the people that even the childless will be fed and looked after when unable to fend for themselves and birth control will become popular..”

What monumental foresight – how much ahead of the times! We imagine he was not the recipient of a Padma-this or a Padma-that or a Padma-other because the Government had not the guts to offer one to him. You know what Baba would have said. He’d convulse in his virtual grave if someone tried to award one posthumously. We always believed that the Padma awards should be rechristened 'Pavlovshri' etc, for what are they  but instruments for seeking affiliation to the ruling classes' beliefs and morality (we can keep artistes out of the pale of these accusations, he, he). These awards are not meant for non-conformists like Kosambi, in whom one sees an aks i.e. عکس of Phædrus. But does this mean that our educators deprive our generations of information on this person, who is one of the greatest of Indians? Our opening quote is intended to address this conundrum which should leave compatriots curious about the method by which our society chooses its mentors. The ચોર of ચોરવડ is a super-hero and few know about DDK! If it were not for the democratic features of the net, the very traces of Kosambi, who himself discerned whole societies in a grain of sand, would ironically disappear. But for any of us who desires to know about D D Kosambi, each word ever penned by Kosambi is available for free-his life is an open non-copyrighted book..the best things in life are still free...but surely he has a cult following

The most poignant tribute, when he died, came from A.L.Basham, the famous British historian…here are some excerpts:

“When his attention turned increasingly to anthropology as a means of reconstructing the past, it became more than ever clear that he had a very deep feeling for the lives of the simple people of Maharashtra. When he described local festivals, and religious ceremonies or showed the excellent colour slides that he had taken of them, one felt that he would have liked to participate, to identify himself with the peasants worshipping at a village shrine or making a pilgrimage to Pandharpur…

“..one realized that the range of his heart and mind was very wide. He had a great love of literature in all languages. Once he impressed me by quoting passages from John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress from memory. I was astonished that he should know this seventeenth century English religious classic so well, and suggested that his taste for Bunyan was rather incongruous in a professed unbeliever. He replied that he loved Bunyan because his language was so beautiful and simple, he was a product of the popular culture of the time, and he imparted valuable moral lessons, even to one who had no faith.…..

“Impatient with hypocrisy, inefficiency, bureaucracy, dogmatism and intolerance, a man of very deep convictions and strong principles, with a very powerful will, he may have made enemies as well as friends…

“I am not qualified to pass judgment on his work in mathematics, and have hardly the right to assess his editions of Sanskrit poetical texts, which, according to the specialists, are marvels of their kind….

“As a historian he made very important contributions to the study of many aspects of Indian history. His statistical analysis of the punch-marked coins has produced one of the most convincing interpretations of these so far to have been offered. His An Introduction to the Study of Indian History is in many respects an epoch making work, containing brilliantly original ideas on almost every page; if it contains errors and misrepresentations, if now and then its author attempts to force his data into a rather doctrinaire pattern, this does not appreciably lessen the significance of this very exciting book, which has stimulated the thought of thousands of students throughout the world…..

Here is a passage form C.D.Deshmukh's autobiography of DDK (he,he,he,) which will be of interest to my poha brothers . You won't get the full picture about DDK till you read this:

This episode well illustrates his personality in those days. (q 12) Principal R.B. Joshi had said, ‘the students of the Holkar College of Indore had organized an excursion. They had planned to stay in Dr. Sukhtankar’s Bungalow at night and spend the next day climbing up and down the mountain seeing the waterfalls of Patalpani, Brahmakund, Mendikund, etc. Vishnupant Barpute, the chief of the Scout Movement in Indore was our leader. Damodar Dharmnanda, i.e., Baba Kosambi had joined us. ‘We all appreciated Baba’s company. All of us were curious about the way the son of a world renowned Maharashtrian, educated in America would talk and behave with us. In the beginning we would watch him from a distance because there was such a lot of disparity between him and us. We could talk in English falteringly while he would talk mostly in English fluently and that too in American English. He talked in Marathi too but only a little and it sounded quite unnatural. For an age of 16 or 17, he had a brawny and hefty body. His solid shoulder muscles peeping through the open collar of his Khaki shirt looked like the sloping sides of a pyramid. The portions of his arms below the half sleeves of his shirt, from the elbow downward were shaped like a sculpture. Attired in khaki shirt and khaki Knickers with a haversack flung on his back and a solid stick in his hand stirring around, his attractive figure arrested our attention. Despite these heroic qualities he talked so freely and with such ease that i felt he was one of us. His English became intelligible to us and we sensed the difference between spoken English and bookish English. He gave toffees that he had brought with him to all of us. He occasionally would take a toffee back from someone telling him, ‘Hi, you have one too many!’ and give it someone else. I heard this idiom for the first time and remember it ever since. At times he did not spare even Barpute from his banter.

‘When he took off his clothes for bathing in the Mendikunda, his form in perfect proportion like a Greek statue astonished us. He then started talking about exercise and showed us how to exercise and build the muscles of the back and the shoulders into perfect shape without using dumbbells, chest expanders and such other equipment. 

(Incidentally Vishnupant or Tatya Barpute is the writer's direct ancestor from paternal grand-mother's side. Their association arose on account of a common bond- Boy Scouts; it's the final seal of pojitivess, and YT proclaims- he is a Boy Scout too...once a Scout, always one- the logic goes reverse really- a Boy Scout is for ever...we remembering inducing Bharat Scouts, Daryaganj, Delhi 110006 to open a savings accounts with Chabiwala Bank, Janakpuri, Delhi 110058, when YT was the Branch Manager there.. in AD 1985...)



A senior DDK tends Bonzo in his Poona home: When employed in TIFR, DDK reputedly did up-down to Bombay daily in Deccan Queen

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Favourite Literature: a habit of his which did not meet the approval of western scholars including Basham, was juxtaposing  thoughts and skills of Sanskrit poets, on those of western poets of eras far removed, say Goethe or Blake, to the disadvantage of the former that is Sanskrit poets. Basham held his Marxism responsible for the alleged mis-judgement based on class-related content. Bring me my bow of burning gold quoted on the masthead of the blog is a virile and passionate sample of William Blake's poetry which Kosambi loved.

 

Read only short story DDK wrote for children, explaining the beginning of everything, with a touching passsage on the traditional practice of worshiping the Bodhi tree. Although a non-believer, he wrote on matters concerning sentiments with an earnest empathy that can be possessed by an ardent believer...therein lies DDK's greatness..

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BARC work environment: This establishment has a dark record of suicides. While reporting on the suicide by a young scientist Ms Titas Pal, in 2010, the Mid-Day, as a sequel to scientists' laments on the HR, wrote the following words:

The Niligri building where Pal stayed in flat no 1414, has a history of suicides. A BARC resident, on condition of anonymity, said that in 1996, the entire building was fenced with metal grills to prevent any suicide attempts.

Of Dumb Dailies and Smart Manipuris

We have heard people swearing by a certain news story, because The Indian Express published it. The reputation of Ramnath Goenka, who took on the might of Indira Gandhi continues to rub off on the Express in some measure. Shourie's exposes about   A.R. Antulay also contributed to the fair, fearless image. Now that Sir Arun Shourie has come out as something of an hypocrite (read Khushwant Singh report ), let us take stock of the Express:

In June 2008, the paper carried a story on the arrest of a Nazi war criminal in the Goan forests, trying to hawk an antique stolen piano ! This is the tribute paid by Reuter blog writer Jonathan Allen to India’s Fourth Column:    You would think a press release about a Nazi war criminal named Johann Bach being caught in the jungles of Goa after trying to sell a stolen 18th-century piano would be worth double-checking….

The Express report had quoted an intelligence agency Perus Knarp (which is nothing but an anagram of Super Prank) with the motto “Eht rea enp cabk skripc”, (The Pen Pricks are Back). Penpricks is a Goan blog designed to debunk the elite of the Indian Press, rolling in riches, thanks to the consumer revolution. The Penpricks  knew what suckers the biggies were and pulled off a smart one on them...On being criticized for reporting the momentous details without bothering to double check the facts, the Express instead of apologising, claimed that they had checked with the Karnataka Police, the ADGP in turn stating that the query did not strictly  concern his territory, but there were some unconfirmed reports from field staff...

This is what Tehelka wrote after the appalling incident, which would have been hilarious had it not been so irresponsible and crass:

The Telegraph and Deccan Herald ran the story, each adding some embellishments of their own. As another site points out, no newspaper has apologised, with The Indian Express blaming the hoax on faulty local intelligence and The Telegraph hedging its bets by claiming that ‘some blogs ‘ have described the story as a hoax. The real winner in all this is, of course, DNA. The paper ran the story a full day after it was revealed to be a hoax. Gives the whole idea of lazy journalism a cutting edge.

To be fair, the Indian Press is now a generic term, and all papers save a couple are mere names, indistinguishable in policy and principle and that principle can be summarised in two words: Profit Motive…When the DNA was launched in 2007, they had approached us for finance, and on being asked whether they saw space for a fourth daily, given the dominance of the TOI, Mumbai Mirror and the HT, they confided that they had the assurance of Mumbai establishments, BMC included, and that corporate subscriptions alone would translate into a circulation of 2 lacs! Look at that repulsive baingani mast…DNA is just a repackaging agency living off corporate charity ! Wrong DNA, ha, ha...!

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MANIPUR: 

When in charge of the Bank’s business-mandate in five North Eastern states (minus Assam and AP), interacting with Police was part of routine, given the sword of abduction hanging all the time over the heads of our staff. The DGPs and the ADGPs started counting us among friends, and would narrate intimate and often amusing tales from their past. The following tale was told to us by  a very able DGP, which being part of Chabiwala Bank’s hoary past, needs to be documented lest it be forgotten :

Boss when I was the SP of Ri-Bhoi district 25 years back, on 1st July 1988 if my memory doesn't fail me,there was a daring robbery in your Naya Bunglow branch, then it was known not as Nayabunglow, but Umsning branch. The amount looted was around  Rs. 5 lacs, which was huge in those days. We managed to recover the same, of course. The handiwork was that of three Meitei boys who had come with the resolve to loot this branch, which is outside the town. They stayed under the guise of college students in a rented house at Nongpoh, 30 km away…You know, the main source of funding for the UG outfits those days was bank robberies only. Boss, I have been to many states and countries, having spent several years abroad also. From my experience, I can say for certain that the plains tribe of Manipur the Meiteis, form the purest and hardiest breed of humans on the globe. (The writer also finds Manipuri boys the smartest, the girls the most beautiful, and the culture the most artistic and rich, in the North East.)

When we took them into custody, their landlady refused to believe the Police. We were told that the three were cited as role-models of the state’s Youth, so disciplined were they. Would wake up at 5.00, go for an hour’s jog, then do yoga, and spend their time reading and writing. They excelled in their studies and were quite clever. No bad habits. Sirji, we found meticulously drawn maps of your branch in their room, and they knew the topography of the branch better than your staff (which does not surprise YT at all). On the fateful day, it was dark outside, for it was past 4.00, and they came with big-big torches, reaching first for the main-switch, shutting out the power. The boys then had full control over the lighting, because all your emergency lights had become copper sulphate. That helped them disarm the guards, who were left paralysed, choosing not to shoot in the dark. It was cake walk for them. When they fled, the boys bolted the branch from outside. The wives of the officers were there on the first floor, where their residences happened to be, quite terrified, and after the heist, it is they who opened the doors from outside, freeing staff and customers alike...

They could be apprehended by us because three sturdy Manipuris stood out like sore thumbs in the sea of Khasis. Ya, and let me not forget an important detail I happened to stumble upon. Their leader is now the Finance Minister in the parallel Government run by Manipur’s major UG group. Only last week I read his interview in one of the press cuttings our Intelligence had gathered.

  

And now, for why I believe Meiteis to be the purest of ‘human breeds’. In the course of making these chaps sing we sometimes become harsh, everybody knows. As you see, I have no mean physique, no…? Not only did this guy not sing, but after I delivered a hard slap across his face, my wrist ached so badly, I had to apply balm and do physiotherapy for a month!

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The conventional dress of Manipur is simple and functional. The women wear Phanek, a wrapper usually with horizontal stripes around the waist, and an Innaphi covering waist upwards, like a dupatta. Men wear a Khudei which is a knee-length cloth draped in folds at the waist. Different communities have strict dress-codes for various occasions such as festivals, marriages and religious occasions. For instance, Meitei women dressed in starched, spotless white innaphis are married women headed for a wedding, and those wearing salmon pink, temple bound. All traditional dresses of the people here are hand woven. The Meiteis have 7 clans or Salais, each with a different colour code, like "Houses" back in School. Intra-Salai wedding is proscribed- shades of Khap... 

MANIPURI DOLLS:

AAJ MERE YAAR KI SHAADI HAI

THE PUNG CHOLOM: SUPERLATIVE: SEE DANCE BELOW:-

THE GOAN ALCHEMY

Super Soprano Patricia Rozario featured at the Birmingham India-Pakistan Golden Jubilee Concert in 1997 (you may or may not been born then), and boyyyy....the waves only she is capable of creating...!

Wish nacheez possessed the eloquence, nottosayofmusic , of Remo. This is what he said of the twister called  Bertinha, God bless her:

She had a weakness for Cliff Richard tunes, Remo says. But that evening, she spun out a song called Bebdo (Drunkard). Miramar Beach was hypnotised. "The Panjim citizenry stopped in its tracks, the sunken sun popped up for another peep, the waves froze in mid-air," Remo has written. "What manner of music was this, as hep as hep can be, hitting you with the kick of a mule on steroids? What manner of voice was this, pouncing at you with the feline power of a jungle lioness? And hold it no, it couldn't be yes, it was no was it really? Was this amazing song in Konkani?"

The Independent,  in April 2008 carried this despatch from Jessica Duchen:

For a while, Patricia Rozario would only sing in a sari. She wanted, she says, to make sure that her Indian identity was obvious. Her name originates in the Portuguese influence in Goa and she'd found that many people assumed she was South American or Spanish. Today no celebration of Indian culture in a UK classical music festival would be complete without her. The Mumbai-born soprano started out singing operatic music in India; now she's bringing Indian folk songs to her recital as part of a beautifully calibrated programme of music from West and East at this year's City of London Festival.

Some of the music is brand new, too: Rozario is well established at the forefront of the contemporary music scene. Her pure and versatile voice, which possesses astonishing beauty at the very top and adapts itself effortlessly to ancient and modern works alike, has been an inspiration to composers such as Sir John Tavener and Arvo Pärt. Her forays into Indian musical techniques have added another dimension.

"I have some regrets that I didn't learn Indian classical music as a small child," she says. "As I grew up in a Christian family, there was more of a focus on Western influences and we didn't know anyone who could have taught me Indian classical music. A lot of ....

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/classical/features/patricia-rozario-indian-summer-849127.html

The concert was eminently enjoyable, with an attendance of 4000 at the Birmingham Symphony Hall, with performances by Pt. Ravi Shankar, Sabri Brothers, Rajan-Sajan Mishra, and of course Our Lady of Goa...Not a soul had any doubt as to the occasion...no partition-wartition- only a shared enthusiasm for the Legacy of the Great Moghul, Mohammad Shah Rangeela...! 

Haminasta:

PATRICIA'S EXCERPTS:

GOAN CHEMISTRY

It’s a Truism, that Hindi Film Music has contributed much to ‘National Integration’. viz. while you may not follow the spoken part of a Hindi movie, Music supposedly has no language. Even Yuri Gagarin sang Mera Joota hai Japani….IK agrees and cites another observation in support of the integrative accolade, that much of the serious analysis of Hindi Film Music comes from Tamilians or Malayalis: aadi purush Raju Bharatan, then Ganesh Anantharaman, Raghava R. Menon, Kamini Mathai, Narayana Jayaram, Sangita Gopal and Sujata Moorti (Andhra?), also some Bengalis like Madhuja Mukherjee…Carl von ‘Bailiff…

Somehow reviewing film music seriously has not been considered very very -mince ‘elite’…or maybe academically fructuous… considered akin, perhaps, to writing reviews for WWF matches. May we aks, why then is writing about Cricket still considered sexy? In fact, the Hindu concept of karma has much to do with Cricket as she is played today- whatever is going to happen tomorrow is already ordained and written….by bookies..ya…One recalls the preface of Raju Bharatan's Journey Down Melody Lane....where he makes the following observation (on how he got the film music beat):

"...cinema coverage got to be contemptuously assigned to me – after all those intellectual heavyweights (manning The Illustrated Weekly of India in The Times of India Building at Bombay’s Bori Bunder) considered it beneath their dignity to handle something so demeaning as ‘films’!"

And pray what did Ustad Amir Khan feel about the best film music directors such as Naushad and C. Ramchandra? He asks Bharatan: ‘..what have these names you’re flaunting to do with music as an art form?’ 

(Bharatan, Raju (2010-09-01). A Journey Down Melody Lane (Kindle Locations 147-148). Hay House. Kindle Edition. )

Bhaiyya...!  You have gone on record saying Narayana can show up as a bhikshu, or ahem...Allahtala as a fakir....we are mere insaan... how can you say the classical God is disdainful of the sugam....?

IK is un-pretentious- a Witch’s Brew which welcomes, with open arms, all elements- the Damask Rose Fragrance, the Lorentz Transformation, Tuka’s Abhangas, Chabiwala Bank, Panditji’s taans, Meera’s simplicity, the Shillong weather, Madras Torture Commission…wagairah…wagairah…IK considers itself the spooky spokesman, he, he, he…of the lost tribe of Ustad Nizamuddin Khan, Pt. Khaprumama Parvatkar and Sebastian d’Souza . And Ashok Razdan. People who did not leave their visiting cards behind- they never thought of getting printed one. Watching their foot-prints is itself as delicious a game as Cloud Watching, the game that our friend Abhinav Gupt moots.

The blog’s eccentric eclecticism owes to the Delhi air of the 50s and 60s, when the Lahore westerly wind was allowed un-fettered access to Mera Bharat Mahan…punjabiyat hor wargi hundi si oas vele… you could see old school Arya Samaj ‘morality’  of the ‘Buniyaad’ variety, actually practiced, Aromas of India- roasted coffee beans, sambar powder, maach, rajma-chawal, alfonso, coconut oil, शेवंतीचे गजरे, ..had a free run of the criss-cross lanes and parks of Karol Bagh, New Delhi-5. We relish being in cultural cauldrons, as we have been saying. That’s why we are in the North East, I sayyyy…!

IK is certainly about meaningless diversions, granted, but meaningful interjections are also tolerated, ha, ha, ha…!

Let’s put the record straight insofar as the scholarship brought to bear upon Hindi Movies is concerned. What has taken one seventh of humanity by the scruff of its neck has to be a subject of serious socio-research is it not?…Gregory Booth (Peck illa…),for one, the NZ anthropo-sociologist has delved deep into the subject of Hindi Film Music. Just regard this passage from a paper “Pandits in the Movies: Contesting the Identity of Hindustani Classical Music and Musicians In the Hindi Popular Cinema” published on the Auckland University portal:

“Ustad Halim Jaffar Khan, who worked on Kohinoor, and other films with Naushad, explains that the singing in the scene was undertaken by Ustad Neyaz Ahmad “Naushad spoke to him about this scene. He said, “Please forgive me Khan-saheb, but for this scene please sing some taans and things, but in a comic way, a foolish way” (performed on screen by Mukri). Neyaz Ahmad agreed to do that”…in the same way that ‘blackface minstrels’ in the US epitomized and concentrated the thrust of white racism. Supposedly comic representation of Muslim classical musicians generates a subtle spotlight on  attitudes towards both classical musicians and Muslim Classical Musicians”.

Booth has a lot to say about the Indian brand of Secularism patented by Hindi Movies. For ethnomusicology and anthropological studies, Anna Moran is another name to reckon with. We however must live with Rajan Parrikar's take on the discipline of éthnomusicology: '..the racist term- when did you last hear the music of Beethoven studied under éthnomusicology..'- Well, well Rajanbua, Bruno Netti's wrote one such book, inter alia on the ethnomusicology of the European Composers called 'Thirty-one Issues and Concepts'. Moreover, the original sanskrit texts on 'Hindu' music were basically rescued by the Europeans, and our music subjected to systematic compilation. For instance the Chapter XXVIII on music in the seminal work on Indian arts, Bharat's Natyasashtra was first translated from the sanskrit by Frenchman J. Grosset. Captain Willard, himself a practitioner, wrote his seminal book on the music of 'Hindoostan' in 1834...! If you have to hear Parrikar's rare collection, you have to put up with some highly 'opinionated' opinions also, he, he, he,... The one we really loved was 'National A****M' or 'National Disgrace'? Those stars are important- they stand between us and Liberty, for while Parrikar can take potshots at this holy symbol from the safety of California, we can't, for we are no longer at Shillong. Just read this:   

 "I recall the trauma of my young days, forced to stand to attention to this unworthy, uninspiring, and above all, unmusical rubbish. Pakistan has a tuneful national a****m. (And they deserved to beat India in the recent Cricket World Cup solely on this account – that and the fact that their players looked like real athletes.) As does Sri Lanka. Even the tiny Kingdom of Tonga can claim a more evocative a****m."

That's what we call a real ''opinionated" opinion. It comes from Rajan Parrikar, the self--styled ambassador of the Grand-dad of Cultural Cauldrons! Amgele mogaacho Goa…!

Albert Einstein, when ‘forced’ to describe the Theory of Relativity in one sentence, had famously said: “Time, Space and Gravitation have no separate existence from Matter.” Elsewhere also Einstein had once posed the question to his audience- what would happen to Space if all matter was removed- Space itself would disappear, he proposed. What Matter is to Space, Goa is to Indian Music yes, G -O -A Goa. Count on what we say: aside of Caranatic, all performed music- Marathi Natyageet, Classical, Jazz, most of- all Hindi Film Music will disappear -wooossshhhh…..if Goa is taken away from our Music Universe….! Auchit podlom tujea mogan (Suddenly did I fall in love) is a line from the Konkani song Kedinch Chintunk Naslem (Never did I Think).

Suddenly it may have happened, but every ghati is expected to have his/her share of Goan Cousins. If you think marathis are dull muggles, not zindadil like say Punjabis, we'd say we have passed the taks of jiving and boozing to our Goan cousins! Our own cousins are in a sense opinion leaders of the family,  and we are really clued on to their psyche, or rather, we are one with them on many issues-‘ social justice’ issues for one. In general, Amgele boys, God bless them, will be quite mercurial- some will be mainstream guys like Dr. Vivek Monteiro or our Poona friend Joe Pinto, feisty Super Cop Julio Ribeiro, Mario Miranda, DD Kosambi, Emergency fixer Hiranmay Karlekar, Brothers Moraes, Prakash Shirodkar, Brothers O’Brien,..George Fernandes (he, he, he, he’s a Mangalorean), some will be insular like fictional Albert Pinto’s Australian Cousins, people perpetually planning emigration to Canada or Australia, some will be snooty, classifying their brethren at the Church Congregation into Original-Converts; Original-Converts- something which the Lord forbids.

Many have created institutions, but preferred to stay in the shadows- Da Cunha brothers ? Sylvester, father of the great female Indian Idol- noooo, not Madhubala or Indira or Katrina…we mean the Amul moppet- Utterly Butterly delicious- Bharat Dabholkar never tires of talking about the greatness of his Utterly Butterly predecessor …then there is RCVP Noronha, the native ICS topper, like they don’t make anymore, author of the racy “Tale Told by an Idiot”- who did so much for the tribals of Madhya Pradesh….they were all latent…avoiding public gaze…stepping aside for the scoundrels…he, he, he…! ‘Dogged’ Eunice De Souza, from whom we learnt about the real Jim Corbett…! The list is endless…then…contradictions abound…everybody in Goa knows true blue Goan Christian friends whose prized possessions are photo albums dating to their Gaud Saraswat Brahmin days…and finally we come to the subject of today’s entry…matter and music…just hold your breath: Mangeshkars, beginning Pt. Dinanath, Asha, Lata, Hridaynath- Anthony Gonzalves, Sebastian D’Silva, Kesarbai Kerkar, Kishori Amonkar, Prabhakar Karekar, Pt. Abhisheki, Pt. Khapru Parvatkar, Remo Fernandes, Chris Perry… the heart that beats in India’s breast is Goa…

PT. RAVI SHANKAR: PROUD OF PT. KHAPRUJI'S SHABAASHI

The mysterious tabla wizard mentioned in the post ‘Parvati Che Pt. Khapruji’, whose photograph was displayed, was none else than Khaprumama Parvatkar of Goa, and the person who started perspiring when he saw Mama sit in the front row was none else than yugpurush of sitar Bharat Ratna Pt. Ravi Shankar,. We have to believe the story for it is in his own voice on Parrikar’s site…

Whew…

As promised, we now touch upon the institution of ‘Arrangers’ in Indian Film Music. Merriam-Webster defines ‘Arranger’ thus: .

(music) a person who adapts a piece so that it can be played on different instruments, or sung by different voices .

Everyone has had occasion to muse upon the phenomenon of what can be euphemistically called ‘presence of external elements in Hindi Film Music’ –‘plagiarism’ is the ugly synonym…. Let’s say you are told  ‘Ai dil hai mushkil..’(CID) is a clone of ‘O my darling Clementine…’ ‘What about copyright..?’., and ‘Why are there no protests from the creators…?’ are the usual misgivings…So far as world-wide copyright period for music is concerned, it’s 50-70 years, broadly speaking…one does not bother to sue is another matter…but one can certainly raise a stink I sayyyy…! So why does nobody raise a stink…?

C.Ramchandra was once asked about Western influences on his music…eena meena dika..for example..he said something to the effect that: नाही नाही, उचलतो हा  बरोबर शब्द नव्हे. आता समजा तुम्हाला  मित्राचा सदरा  आवडला आणि तसलाच तुम्ही विकत घेतला- ह्याला काय चोरी म्हणावं…..?  (you like a friend's shirt, and you acquire a similar one..is that stealing…? Nooo…!)..inspired…yes!

Our Arranger friends played a unique role in the world of Hindi Film Music. The Goans led by Anthony Gonzalves, Sebastian D’Silva, Mark Machado, Chic Chocolate (Antonio Xavier Vaz) , Gomes brothers…also Manohari Singh, who represented the Eastern part of the country, were pioneers in this enterprise….

The ‘counter-melodies’ of Sebastian were to a large extent responsible for the coming of age of Shankar Jaikishan- for example the accordion that fills up the voids in ‘ai mere dil kaheen aur chal…’ of Patita was created by Sebastian (was a harmonium in fact, sounded like an accordion, such was the finesse). The music in ‘Aayega aanewala..’ (Mahal) and ‘Hum aapki aankhon mey…’ (Pyaasa) was created by Anthony Gonsalves.

The Goan musicians were crazy about Jazz and used to be regular players on the Chicago and New York Jazz circuit.  “For a Goan jazzman, the greatest accolade was to be told that he ‘played like a negro’ ”, says Naresh Fernandes writing for the arch-Goan site Goanet. He provides numerous other insights:

“ The pianist Johnny Fernandes, who later married Chic's daughter, Ursula, theorised about Chic : "In Goa, Mahars were grave-diggers. They'd also play snare drums and blow conches in funeral bands. When they came to Bombay, they became good jazz drummers and trumpet players." 

For Hindustani Classical, just replace 'grave-digger' with 'devdasi'...speaks volumes for the dynamic egalitarian culture...

Chic scored music for many movies as full Music Director, for instance Dev Anand starrer ‘Nadaan’ (1951).

“The bit parts in which Catholics found themselves cast on screen weren't an accurate portrayal of the vital role Goans played the Hindi film industry. Until the '80s, India had no pop music save  Hindi film songs. Millions memorised and hummed the compositions of C Ramachandra, Shankar-Jaikishan, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Naushad and S D Burman, whose names rolled by in large letters at the beginning of the movies. But the Sound of India actually was created by Goan musicians, men whose names flickered by in small type under the designation "arranger". It's clear. The Hindi film classics that resound across the subcontinent and in Indian homes around the world wouldn't have been made without Goans. Their dominance of the Hindi film world is partly a function of the structural differences between Indian and Western music. Indian classical music is melodic. The ragas that form the basis of Indian music are unilinear, each instrument or vocalist exploring an independent line. To move an audience, film scores must be performed by orchestras, with massed instruments playing in harmony….Goans, with their training in Western music, knew how to produce what was required.”

There was also Manohari Singh, responsible for the best in sax in Hindi Film music (‘tere mere sapne ab ek rang..’, ‘bedardi baalama tujhko mera mann…’ etc.)- who hailed from Calcutta.

The Arrangers, apart from being possessors of awesome talent, performed certain important functions. One, they excelled at notation of music, a critical missing element in Hindi Cinema before their advent. But most of all, they were lubricants of sorts- a bridge between Western Jazz, Western Classical, contemporary western popular music of all types- and the world of Hindi Film Music. The Arrangers straddled both worlds, and commanded goodwill in America, having contributed to the music that was home-grown in that part of the globe. That Music was common heritage, and hence the Indian Music Director could just take shelter behind the Arrangers, saying booo to charges of plagiarism. One hastens to add here that the complementarity (?)  between the two classes of musicians was so superb that each Hindi Music Director could retain his individuality while reaping the crop sown by the Arrangers! It took the genius of both the classes to create a remarkable genre of Music.

And it took the gallantry and self-effacement of the Goans to allow all the credits to be laid at the feet of the Filmfare Award Winners.

TAILPIECE:

Stepping aside for scoundrels: Explanation:

Nineteenth century Speaker of the US Senate Henry Clay meets party enemy Senator John Randolph on a narrow sidewalk over a muddy street, refusing to give way. "I never step aside for a scoundrel," Clay says. Randolph tips his hat, steps into the mud and says, "I always do."