Tale of experience

Systems and rules are for the fools, and it needs power of imagination to fool the system.

Piyush Pandey’s writing is like an onion with endless layers that seamlessly unravel clues in simplicity of everyday living. Such is the beauty of his writing that it takes the reader along, making he or she traverse the distance as if it has been one’s own. 

The only difference being that we allow memories of encounters with the likes of cobblers and carpenters to fade away. He, instead, retrieves them at short notice to seek imaginative insights and fresh perspectives. He does it with ease and ability because he hasn’t allowed the ‘child’ in him to die, which has made him an extraordinary ‘man’, albeit an ad-man. 

Pandeymonium is loaded with intriguing insights and creative ideas, offering subtle but profound reflections on how indeed professionals must guide their lives. Aren’t a vast majority trapped in preconceived notions and unknown fears to break new ground, lamenting instead that the system sucks their creative energies? Don’t be scared of systems and processes, echoes Piyush, there are ways to fool them. This reminds me of veteran journalist and distinguished editor Pran Chopra who often used to say “Follow the rules to break the rules”. Systems and rules are for the fools, and it needs power of imagination to fool the system.

Primarily written for advertising professionals, as the title page suggests, the straight-from-the-heart narrative of experiences can capture the attention of any avid reader. Quick to read and easy to grasp, it is a book about letting big ideas fly on the wings of imagination. It is a book on generating and shaping convincing ideas. It is a book about building relationships with those with whom you have nothing in common. Finally, it is a book about going underwater and marveling at the iceberg that you don’t get to see otherwise.

Each of his award-winning creations has an interesting story lurking behind. Be it the series of Fevicol commercials or numerous Vodafone Zoozoos, Piyush has applied his cricketing skills to step out of the crease to score the maximum. For stepping out, one needs to be confident about the idea. Quite often, a lot of professionals are insecure about their idea. The less you share the idea, the less the possibility for a good idea to become great. The caveat, however, is to use those sounding boards with whom you can share and confide. The genesis of a big work comprises a big heart, big vision, big belief and big faith. 

Pandeymonium brings together the power of ideas and perceptions to win clients and the audiences. Having demonstrated it through his work, the author wonders why should anyone feel deprived when one’s own learning has given some important weapons — the power of imagination, the power of your pen, and the power to communicate effectively. Important as it is, to be sure about one’s idea is not to worry about accusations and suspicions. 

Born into a family with eight siblings, Piyush spent his formative years in Jaipur before moving out to do his master’s at St Stephen’s College, Delhi. A passionate cricketer, having played in the Ranji Trophy, he integrated all his experiences of life in carving out a prestigious position in the ad world. Sporting a prominent Walrus mustache, his weary smile on the cover page reflects a face of creative conviction and satisfaction.

Piyush’s autobiographical journey is all about small experiences, interactions and encounters in life. Each experience is worth its weight in gold, provided one knows how to draw insights from it. The take home message from the book is that we each have a story to tell, but the story can only be great if the story is humane in nature and can touch hearts.  

Pandeymonium
by Piyush Pandey
Penguin, New Delhi
Extent 244, Price Rs 799

This review was first published in Deccan Herald on December 20, 2015.

Beyond the statistical fog

GDP may have worked despite its fallibility till now, but it is unlikely to serve henceforth as the economy gets driven more by innovation, services, and intangible goods.

It is a ‘made up entity’ that has become the rallying point for governments to reflect their economic prowess. Usually expressed in single digit, it needs sustained nurturing, lest governments can be toppled and fresh elections enforced. Since it was formally coined in the 1940s, GDP has continued to engage best of economic brains to develop a standard measure of a country’s economy. Yet, this familiar piece of jargon means little to most people because the health of the country’s economy often has little bearing on peoples’ lives. 

No wonder, it can decide elections but can't make people happy and it can make news but can't erase income inequality. GDP is a powerful teaser that has thus far remained artificial, abstract and complex. Providing a much-needed historical perspective on this elusive bit of static, Harvard Economist Diane Coyle argues that GDP has remained a piece of ‘static’ in the hands of the ‘state’, and must not be confused with social welfare. At best, it creates a self deceptive image of contributing to overall welfare. In reality, much of the welfare activities, for lack of mathematical expression, do not get counted in it. Ms. Coyle has been grateful to Cabbage, her dog, who may not have contributed to GDP but greatly to her welfare! 

Since the making of physical commodities count toward national income, green forests holds zero value whereas chopped trees add to the GDP. Environmentalists therefore believe that GDP leads to an overemphasis on growth at the expense of the planet, obscuring the wrongs of the capitalist market economy. Such assertion is not without reason, as spending on pollution-abatement equipment adds to GDP but the negative effect of pollution doesn’t pull GDP down. GDP may have worked despite its fallibility till now, but it is unlikely to serve its purpose henceforth as the economy gets driven more by innovation, services, and intangible goods.

While the author remains ‘affectionate’ towards GDP, as the title suggests, she nonetheless argues that it is flawed and search for its alternative has been ongoing. However, alternatives ranging from the Measure of Economic Welfare (MEW) to the Better Life Index (BLI) haven’t evoked enough confidence in replacing the ubiquitous piece of static. Welfare has been the leitmotif of the proposed change, but counting intangibles has remained a challenge. Even more challenging is to count value of zero-priced goods like online music, search engines, crowd sourcing, and so on. These do contribute to productivity, and even loss of jobs, in many ways without being captured in GDP statistics.  

Wading through the murky world of number crunching, Coyle presents a fascinating biography of GDP which, despite its inherent fallacies, continues to remain the greatest innovation of the 20th century. Yet, as the Greek tragedy unfolds, the so-called irrational exuberance has led to self-delusions and inadequacies of regulatory bodies, leading to financial crises. Since market-led global capitalism is sweeping the whole world, GDP need to be sanitized from overt influence of market manipulation. The financial crisis has pressed the urgency button to rethink economic valuation of products’ quality, zero-priced goods and services’ efficiency. 

As the economy is driven more by innovation and services, accounting activities operating outside the tax net and production matrix has become imperative. With boundary between growth and progress, and between leisure and work going through significant transformation, GDP will lose relevance if it doesn’t translate into increased happiness. For GDP to remain relevant it must resolve the well-known paradox of a widower who marries his house maid. His marriage leads to reducing GDP as he longer pays her the wages, but should the happiness both gain be left unaccounted for? In this engaging and witty book, Coyle leaves the reader with the challenging optimism of life beyond the prevailing statistical fog. 

GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History
by Diane Coyle
Princeton University Press, UK
Extent: 160, Price: US$19.95  

This review was published in The Hindustan Times dated Nov 21, 2015.           

Intolerance, a new social order?

What you read, see, and eat (and even think) is under gaze of self-styled moral custodians of social and cultural behaviour.

If freedom of expression is what democratic societies aspire for, then the use of ink to smear faces and the might of pen to spew hate can only reflect violent behaviour. Though uncalled for, such incidents have become more of a norm than exception in recent times. Triggered by ideological underpinnings, intolerance is threatening to emerge as a new social order. Make one mistake or crack a joke on the social media, and a merciless gang is likely to ruin your life.

What you read, what you see, and what you eat is under gaze from self-styled moral custodians of social and cultural behaviour. Why is it that the ‘otherness’ of the others has become so disturbing that the disruptive forces have gone on an overdrive to shame them into submission? How is it that there has been sudden spurt in public shaming as a new social vocation, that is not only sweeping the social media but its coercive nature is increasing in speed and influence? 

From authors to anchors, from academicians to activists, discontent is brewing among public figures to stay off social media, especially Twitter, to avoid invective.  Since social media offers anonymity, there has been general escalation in such hostilities. Researchers have found that anonymity not only shields ‘abusers’ but helps people aligned to a particular ideology to commit acts of violence that they would never dream of committing individually.

The act of shaming others, as this is understood, has been used in the past to correct peoples’ behaviour albeit in a transparent manner without being anonymous. Never before it has been used the way it is currently being practiced; it has indeed gone global in recent years. Public shaming has become a potent tool, called ad hominem attack, wherein unknown attackers take on the criticiser because they are unable to defend a criticism against their ideology.

Is it that the internet has given power to those who otherwise would be powerless or has this tool of social networking gone into those hands whose sinister aim is to manufacture consent? Need it be said that most of us are vulnerable to shaming, chronically ashamed of how we look, or how we feel, or what they said, or what they did. For Jon Ronson, the author of ‘So, You Have Been Publicly Shamed’, shaming has only been working because the shamee is playing a part in being ashamed.

Following on many high-profile recipients of public shaming in recent years, Jon has drawn some interesting observations that reflect upon our current predicament with what is normal and what is not. 

Are we not defining the boundaries of normality by tearing apart those who are out of it? It would seem so as we are unknowingly creating a world where the smartest way to survive is to be bland. One will hesitate to accept such a world where making the others look stupid abounds.

The trouble is that not what all ‘others’ say or feel is stupid all the times. Take the case of Ravish Kumar, host of a daily chat show on a private television channel who has been at the receiving end of hate mongers on the social media sites for his differing opinion on recent political developments. While the average male does receive his share of virulent remarks, the choicest threats are often reserved for women. There are many people, both men and women, around who are being forcibly shamed into submission.

The question that begs an answer is: has the social media created a new opportunity for locating other persons’ flaws (even if there is none) or has it been a psychic trait that is now fully blown? Since people often wear emotions on their sleeves, public shaming can have deleterious effect on many of them. James Gilligen, who served on many UN high-powered committees on the causes of violence, concludes that shaming can lead to deadening of feelings which can provoke serious act of violence in many cases.

Curiously, it is easy to declare other people insane than to admit one’s own insanity. For good or bad reasons, there are cases where people have not only lost their jobs for virulent campaign on the social media but many had to hide themselves from public gaze for several months. Internet is a tricky beast and social media a moving target. What it does though is make an iota of lie into a mound of truth. Since no one checks on the authenticity of what gets posted, the same goes viral in seconds.

In a culture where we feel constantly under surveillance, people are becoming afraid of being themselves. This is undoubtedly a disturbing trend. While hosts of de-shaming services are now available that ensure that much of the malicious content doesn’t appear in internet searches, the challenge is to address this deeper psychological malice from both sociological and political perspectives. 

Unless act of public shaming is nipped, humiliation can have far-reaching impact on individuals as well as the society.

So, You've Been Publicly Shamed
by Jon Ronson
Picador, UK
Extent: 278 pages, Price: Rs 599

These reflections were first published in Deccan Herald on October, 29, 2015.

The forgotten princess

Avoiding self-pity, the forgotten princess emerges as a woman of courage and conviction as she conducts herself independently for fourteen long years of separation from her husband. 

One wonders why Valmiki devoted only four lines in Ramayana on Urmila, Sita’s sister and wife to Rama’s devoted brother Lakshman, who was asked to stay back while her husband escorted his brother and her sister to the forest for fourteen long years? Legend has it that despite being ready to accompany him, Urmila was advised against it as her husband would have little time for her, other than serving the couple in the forest. She was found missing from the rest of the epic, apparently in deep sleep, only to be woken up after fourteen years to witness Rama’s coronation. 

Unseen and unheard, Urmila is considered one of the forgotten heroines of Indian literature by Rabindranath Tagore. Valmiki may have considered Urmila as a minor character, but in his poetic version of the epic, noted poet Mythili Sharan Gupta has made Urmila the central character in Saket. Even in Telugu literary play Urmila Devi Nidra, Urmila has been placed on a higher pedestal than Sita as an ‘ideal wife’. Intriguing, however, is how must have Urmila negotiated the situation when she was neglected by those two whom she loved the most, husband Lakshman and sister Sita?  

In her absorbing narrative recreated out of mythology and folklore, Kavita Kane narrates the story according to Urmila in Sita’s Sister. Despite being left out and let down, Urmila did accost Lakshman on his unilateral decision, wondering why he would need to go when he wasn’t exiled. Even while accepting the inevitable; Urmila does not shy away from seeking her legitimate rights knowing well that her sacrifice will help Lakshman earn nobility by serving his brother. Yet, she avoids wallowing in self-pity and emerges as a woman of courage and conviction as she conducts herself independently over the following fourteen years. 

Urmila may have been wasted away in sleep, as folklore has it, for fourteen long years, but the author fleshes out a hitherto unknown character of Urmila by using the metaphor of ‘sleep’ as an interpretation for ‘self-realization’, dismissing the symbolic representation of sleep for a married woman sans her husband is supposed to sink into. Instead, she excels herself as a devoted daughter-in-law, an astute administrator, a talented painter and a great scholar.   

Sharing space with respected scholars like Vashishta, Markandeya and Jaabali at the prestigious brahmanyagna, Urmila questions the rationality of religion and its influence on the nature of religious truth rather than seeking the divinity in religion. Waking out of her proverbial sleep, Urmila discovers herself not just the woman of passion as her name so defined but one whose heart and mind had come together in intellectual and spiritual enlightenment. Could she have discovered the scholar in herself without experiencing pain, separation and detachment? In fact, her separation from Lakshman became her meditation, her spiritual birth and her salvation.  

Sita’s Sister discovers many facets of Urmila, which never got a respect of place in the grand narrative. In her fresh interpretation of the epic, the author delves into the life of a woman who is forced to put her life on hold. Like a tower of strength, Urmila not only tended her feminine duties towards women in the palace but lent administrative hand in the affairs of the kingdom in the absence of Bharat. Her role gets acknowledged by members of the palace as the one ‘who made it the home one wants to return every single day’. Urmila performed the dharma of a wife, a daughter-in-law but never got an answer to her nagging question ‘what is the dharma of the husband to her wife’? 

By giving a fictional spin to the grand old story, the author peeps into the life of one of the prominent unsung characters and offers insights into her mind and her actions. Urmila offers contrasting images of parents’ home and the one she gets married into. While she enjoyed freedom of thought and action at her parents’ place, the royal palace in contrast was just to its people but cruelest to its own family members. Yet, she rarely resented her existence in the palace. Dissension to her was part of seeking light at the end of the tunnel. 

Valmiki had reasons not to delve deeper into the psyche of Urmila who, in her own way, helped everyone in the royal palace to smile. ‘Learn to smile, that small curve can straighten lot of things’. Sita’s Sister is an immensely readable and absorbing story that lets the reader get to see other side of the story, relevant to our times. 

Sita’s Sister 
by Kavita Kane 
Rupa, New Delhi. 
Extent: 311; Price. Rs 295

This review was first published in Speaking Tree (The Times of India), on Oct 18, 2015.

A symbol of prodigious tolerance

The narrative strengths of epics and legends lie in their varied renderings, to suit changing times and diverse thinking. 

It is through such individual interpretations that epics not only retain their contemporary relevance but are kept alive across generations. No surprise that there exist as many as 300 versions of Ramayana. As long as these multiple awakenings are viewed without prejudice and subjectivity, these can contribute to enhancing the philosophical underpinnings of the texts. 

Ramayana is not only a story of the saintly Ram, the morally upright Sita, the dutiful Lakshman and the devilish Ravana, but it is as much a philosophical discourse on moral issues as an epic battle between the good and the evil. Ironically, the glorification of war to annihilate the ‘evil’ subsumes subtext of mental tussle its many characters have had to undergo to uphold the fabrics of a so-called ideal society. One amongst them was Angad, who had to overcome moral predicament of supporting Ram, who had killed his father Vali. How young prince of Kishkindam may have negotiated the burning fury of revenge in discharging his duties towards the state, under his uncle Sugriv’s regime who was accomplice in the killing of his father remains a riddle? 

To forget Angad in our understanding of the epic is to be callous with both mythology, as well as history. In The Vigil, translated from the Malyalam modern classic Oorukaaval, Sarah Joseph explores the distress and dilemma of Angad, who had to suffer ignominy and the insult heaped on him by his father’s killers. Not only was there a denial of justice, but the young boy was forced to carry on his shoulders the one who had killed his father. Was that the price Angad had to pay in the quest for building the ‘Ram Rajya’?

By giving a fictional spin to the grand old story, the author offers a comparative assessment of the historical and political dimensions of the three kingdoms of that era – Ram’s Ayodhya, Angad’s Kishkindam and Ravana’s Lanka. Much like in the present, it offers the familiar story of forcible annexation, territorial expansion and political control. Kishkindam was as much humiliated as Angad. Its lush green bamboo forests were destroyed for making quivers, and for meeting the requirements of Ram’s army the region had to suffer an unprecedented famine. 

Angad was firm that war could not bring any greatness to his country. Yet, he was forced to take part in it because avoiding the war could have brought greater misery to his people at the hands of Lakshman. By connecting the events of the bygone era with the happenings of the modern age, the author brings some of the contemporary ethical, social and environmental concerns to light. The unheard viewpoints reflect that there is more in the story than mere song of the victor.  

Notwithstanding his own humiliation, Angad was witness to the shocking humiliation Sita had to go through at the hands of Ram. In responding to her husband’s accusations after the war, Sita had gently reminded Ram that he has only thought of her as a body without a mind. Angad saw the consent to Sita’s fire ordeal as an act of injustice, to which he had become accustomed to in his life. These are fresh interpretations the book raises, some of which may remain questionable, letting the reader get hitherto unheard viewpoints to draw his/her insights on the contemporary relevance of the greatest epic of all times. 

Angad is a peripheral character in the epic, yet viewing the story through his eyes offers radical interpretations of the episodes. Angad found solace in the company of Maruthi who instilled much needed tolerance in his young mind: ‘there is some right in the opposite point of view too’. Much of what Angad might have gone through remains unsaid and unwritten, yet he emerges a gentle, caring and dreaming hero without whom the story of victory could not be completed.

The Vigil 
by Sara Joseph 
Harper Perennial, New Delhi. 
Extent: 287; Price. Rs 350

This was first published in Speaking Tree (The Times Of India) on October 4, 2015. 

She's funny like that

Indian husbands worship their mothers because they have seen cows being worshiped throughout their growing years!!

Twinkle Khanna writes so beautifully that you read her words slowly, relishing them, enjoying them and rolling over them till a radiant smile gets imprinted on your face. Her control of language and her choice of words display an exceptional poise for a prose writer, making you wonder why she spent those forgettable years in the film industry. By her own admission, that part of her life has long been boxed away. Good for us! 

Else, the writer in her would not have been discovered, which shines like a twinkling star with this debut book. Her astute observations do not spare anybody, be it the babbling rickshaw-wallah or the man of the house, or be it the stubborn canine or the eccentric mothers. Holding multiple portfolios – a home maker, an interior decorator, a star’s wife and a valued daughter-in-law – and still being able to amuse herself is a curious case of taking life as it comes, one day at a time. And she has allowed her self-deprecating wits to get the better of her. 

She lets you feel relaxed as she takes on some of the compelling concerns of most daughter-in-laws. Far from being mama’s boys, says she, Indian husbands worship their mothers because they have seen cows being worshipped all over. For her, nothing is more sacred in life than ‘laughter’ and nothing is free in life except ‘bad advice’. Yet, she avoids being preachy as she goes about discovering the amusing aspects of everyday existence. 

Mrs. Funnybones is an exercise in self-discovery nonetheless. It is unlike most run-of-the-mill-humor stuff as it is intelligently laced with nuggets of reflections on life-matters. Reflecting on the suicide by two teenagers, the author wonders if we ever try to teach our children that it is okay to fail in life. Isn’t life just like flying kite? Sometimes it flies effortlessly, and sometimes it is tough to keep it afloat. Life is all about waiting for the wind to change in your favor and once it does, don’t let it go. 

Twinkle Khanna

And, once the wind blew with an offer for her to start writing, she didn’t let go. What Ms Khanna has produced out of her newspaper columns is an effortless writing at its best. She lets lose her funny bones, generating humor in every conversation and pulling humor out from each incident. From sexy Kim Kardashian to six-pack Hrithik Roshan, from Pliny the Elder to Plato the Mathematician, there is room for everyone in her breezy narrative. She thinks there is nothing more challenging than to look at life upside down, perhaps the only way we can ease past the blinking screens we have created around us. 

Twinkle comes out as an intelligent critic too, taking a shot at our deeply ingrained perception around rituals. Talking about the annual torturous fast for women, called Karva Chauth, that is performed in order to magically lengthen the life of their other halves, she wonders if female of its species does it for the tortoise who without doubt outlives all of us. And more often than not, it is the women who have longer lifespan! 

But women are often at the receiving end of men’s follies! For being asked to open the top button of her husband’s jeans as he walked down the ramp – as part of the advertising gimmick – she was served a police notice for indecent behaviour in public. She wonders why opening a single top button became the crime of the century, when scores of men publicly unbutton or unzip to pull out their dangling bits to irrigate all kinds of walls on offer. Hypocrisy gets a perfect kick on the ass, as she doesn’t leave anything for another day. 

One hopes that Mrs. Funnybones is a work-in-progress, with more to tumble out of it. 

Mrs Funnybones
by Twinkle Khanna
Penguin, New Delhi
Extent: 235, Price: Rs. 299 

This review was first published in the Deccan Herald, September 27, 2015

Genie out of the bottle

Drone-led covert war against terrorism is loaded with hitherto unheard social and political implications

                                 
With wars increasingly being fought between states and non-state actors, weapons armed with artificial intelligence have replaced erstwhile indiscriminate bombings with targeted killings. Fought with armed drones that target holed-up insurgents, precision bombing may have given asymmetric battlefield advantage to the state actor, notably the US; the political and psychological implications of secret drone warfare are far more complex. Backed by published literature, recorded interviews and onsite visits, Chris Woods, a former BBC staffer, has produced a definitive account on multiple implications of the covert war against terrorism which, President Bush thought was perfect in bringing ‘Sudden Justice’ to its enemies.

Such justice system is not without its hidden costs, though. The claim that the ‘find, fix and finish’ nature of the targeted drone warfare saves civilian lives is grossly misplaced. For fear of legal and political retribution such casualties are often under-reported, however, not without inflicting collateral damage on military and public installations. In one such counter-offensive in May 2011, the Taliban assault had killed 16 people on the Mehran naval base (used for launching drones) in Karachi inflicting damages worth $200 million in a single day. Each counter-offensive leaves a clear message -heavy dependence on drone strikes will experience lethal blowback.     

In his eye-opening narrative, the author contends that tactical disregard for noncombatant deaths could prove doubly dangerous as terrorist and militant groups are fast acquiring technology to build their own drones, challenging the United States’ monopolistic claim as judge, jury and executioner in unmanned warfare against non-state actors. Not without reason a group of scientists, led by Stephen Hawking, have recently argued against misplaced faith in weaponised artificial intelligence. Since cost of reproducing autonomous weapons is not prohibitive, it will set an inevitable arms-race that will be impossible to reverse, and the proverbial genie will be well and truly out of the bottle. 

As the world heads towards the third revolution in warfare – after gunpowder and nuclear weapons - the nature of killing has transformed to unravel a host of ethical and legal concerns. Killing men on the ground by assuming their guilt and denying them criminal trial could hardly ever be justified. The United Nations has routinely described covert drone strikes as extrajudicial killings, even though Washington insists that it (the UN) had no jurisdiction over the matter. However, Washington’s arrogance will be under test when several other countries would gain access to their own armed drones.   

As drone strikes move war out from on-field combat to on-screen maneuvers, its ripples are felt by those who are engaged in grueling working hours witnessing virtual horrors of the actual warfare thousands of miles away. Woods says that a six-month stint in Afghanistan for manned crews could be as long as three years for those in heavily guarded war-rooms in Nevada or New Mexico. Being exposed to horrifying images of killing causes psychological pain and suffering on military personal which psychologists describe as ‘Prolonged Virtual Combat Stress’. This stress is beginning to take a heavy toll on those who are repeatedly exposed to the horrors of remotely piloted combat. 

Sudden Justice offers detailed insights on the technological revolution leading to asymmetrical warfare; the stories of precision bombings; the inconsistent value of local spies; the development of countermeasures by the militant groups; and the legal and moral implications of coveted drone warfare. Researched over a period of 30 months under a grant from the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Woods has written as much about the development of drone technology as about the human dimensions of this evolving form of warfare. 

Ever since armed drones made their debut in 2001, the respective US Presidents have cited secret air war as their greatest achievement. However, the question that needs to be asked is whether the secret drone wars in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan have lessened terrorist activity – or instead have achieved the opposite. 

Sudden Justice: America’s Secret Drone Wars
by Chris Woods
Hurst & Company, UK
Extent: 386, Price: £20

This review was first published in Deccan Herald on September 12, 2015.

Knowing less is equally alarming

This book is for those who not only think that climate change is an urgent problem, but also agree that getting the world off fossil fuels is difficult. 

If you support either of these two positions, this book should be compulsory reading for you. Because if you agree only with the ‘first’ position, then you are fooling yourself that getting off fossil fuels will be simple. And, if you accept the ‘second’, then you have not yet accepted the fact that climate change is the defining problem of our generation. 

Unlike any other environmental problem, climate change is not only uniquely global, but is uniquely long-term, uniquely irreversible, and uniquely uncertain. Thanks to over $500 billion a year on fuel subsidies, the world has already spewed around 940 billion tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, busting the 400 ppm mark with a potentially devastating 2°C rise in global temperature. Worst still, a 10 per cent risk of a 6°C rise may not be ruled out if business-as-usual scenario persists in this century. Digging deeper into the science of climate change and cutting across heaps of misguided solutions, Climate Shock argues for not only cutting down on emissions, but paying the true costs of releasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 

Wagner and Weitzman are convinced that unless 7 billion inhabitants collectively bear the cost of pollution, the planet will continue to get dangerously warmer. Not only getting 7 billion to agree is impossible, but inter-governmental co-operation for cutting down on emissions and taxing carbon has been no less daunting either. Everybody’s problem is nobody’s challenge. Merging academic research with the economics of climate change, the authors contend that each ton of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is worth $40 of environmental damages which need to be ‘paid for’ if the economy ought not to take a plunge. In addition to restricting emissions, carbon taxation alone can help everybody to contribute to fixing the problem.  

Written and re-written over the last decade, seven chapters constitute only 2/3rd of the book while the remaining accounts for extensive notes and a rich bibliography. Rich in insightful analysis, the book goes beyond the scary narrative of melting glaciers, rising sea, intense hurricanes and untimely floods in weaving a picture of potentially viable alternatives. The authors are worried that multiple implications of climate change may cloud our cognitive abilities, which may end up proposing geo-engineering solutions to the problem. From releasing solar rays reflecting particles in the atmosphere to enriching oceans with iron pellets to sequester excess carbon are the technological solutions that are fraught with uncertain implications, many of which will further complicate global weather patterns. The authors argue that delayed affirmative action will only fuel impulsive geo-engineering solutions which the world can ill-afford.  

Climate Shock is loaded with all that we ought to know about climate change, from pre-historic evidences of climate change to post-industrial age carbon dioxide accumulation in the atmosphere, and from uncertain certainty of global warming to economic implications of guarded optimism. What we know about climate change is alarming enough, what we don’t know enough is even more alarming. Whether or not we agree, the planet has been witness to similar rise in temperatures some three million years ago when sea level had risen by up to 20 metres, and camels lived in Canada. History is unlikely to repeat anytime soon, but the scenario is scary. 

In a world where growing knowledge confronts as much ignorance, Climate Shock comes up with thought-provoking clarity on the defining environmental and public policy issue of our time. It wades through individual and community action to thwart the inevitable, but argues in favour of moratorium on carbon emissions with an add-on carbon tax to create a carbon economy that steers the world clear of risks and dangers of climate change. After all, climate change is largely an outcome of environmental conditions that can and should be managed. 

Climate Shock may not be a page turner, but it is overflowing with analytical insights and simple suggestions to transform the way we live and manage ourselves. As much we insure ourselves from the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns like accidents, fires, earthquakes and even hurricanes, the world needs to rally together to ensure mankind against the most unlikely of environmental consequences on account of our own follies. Unless questions are raised on fossil fuel subsidy (almost $15 a ton) that helps us involuntary pollute the atmosphere, we must keep ourselves and the future generations ready for an irreversible Climate Shock. 

Climate Shock
Gernot Wagner & Martin L Weitzman
Princeton University Press, UK
Extent: 250, Price: Rs 1,270

This review was first published in Deccan Herald on August 9, 2015 

A social confession box

Bollywood cinema has held a mirror on the society, reflecting its overt and covert anxieties, contestations and aspirations

Bollywood cinema is a creative paradox. On a familiar plot, which consists of a love story, half a dozen songs, big dance numbers and a stylized villain, it creates visual dramatization of public fantasies, over and over again. Unless the familiar narrative goes haywire, its mass appeal has the ability to capture the audience, because it has evolved as a sub-culture within the diverse cultural strands in the society/country.

Bollywood cinema is an enigma too. On a similar plot, Mera Goan Mera Desh, released in 1971, attained moderate success whereas Sholay, released four years later, created cinematic history. What made Sholay a blockbuster is open to multiple interpretations. Did it work among audiences as it helped quell post-emergency fears of a system’s collapse or did it appeal to the masses as it offered an alternative narrative of looking at criminals as solutions? Gabbar became the uncontested hero, a masculine symbol that defied the system. Through the 1970s, a corpus of films captured this new found imagination of defying the law a’la angry young man. Perhaps, this was a cinema in response to the social crises of that time!

Bollywood cinema has been socially responsive. Through its existence over last hundred years, it has continually captured the diffuse aspirations of an evolving nation. With social responsiveness as its defining feature, the cinema has examined the contours of change in its myriad manifestations. Through in-depth analyses of blockbusters of the tumultuous decades of 50’s, 60s and 70s, Priya Joshi, a professor at the Temple University, argues that rather than narrowing the notion of  ‘India’, popular cinema has continued to expand it. During these decades in which the nation was made, unmade and remade, cinema has continued to remain the most potent social force.

Joshi’s argument lends credence to the popular perception about Bollywood cinema being a kind of confession box, wherein people get chance to speak their mind on cultural taboos or matters of political repression. Even in an overtly teenage love story like Bobby, released in 1973, the subject of ‘dowry deaths’ was taken up. Trishul, released in 1978, took a radical step in proposing 'illegitimate father' (as opposed to 'illegitimate child') as an unheard social identity. Overall, Bollywood cinema has dealt with some of the most challenging aspects of Indian life, from generation gap to class tensions, and from political corruption to global terrorism. In doing so, it has helped ordinary viewers understand the intricacies of life, as much as drawing inspiration to come out of it. 

Bollywood cinema has held a mirror on the society, reflecting its overt and covert anxieties, contestations and aspirations. Each of the blockbusters in the book, Awara, Deewar, Sholay, A Wednesday, and 3 Idiots, represent important milestones conveying the tensions and politics of its time. There are several layers of social reality captured in each of the blockbusters, giving visual expression to the collective psyche of the masses. Need it be said that cinema has often been a critique of the state and the nation, showing ‘truth’ that hardly gets spoken.    

Providing wide-ranging literary, theoretical and socio-cultural perspectives, Joshi picked on blockbusters to decipher their mass appeal and to make the readers comfortable with her narrative explications. She has gone beyond the script in her analysis, adding new dimensions for re-viewing these blockbusters. Through her incisive analysis, the author lends hitherto unknown perspectives to many high voltage scenes in these blockbusters. No wonder, some of these movies have had subtle impact on shaping individual minds. 

While the blockbusters of the bygone era have played a prominent role in managing the misery and euphoria of an evolving nation, the post-liberal arrival of corporate capital (and perpetuation of narcissism in society) has ripped cinema of its social substance and political edge. It is indeed worth asking if the new genre of popular cinema will distance itself from the public fantasy?  

Bollywood’s India: A Public Fantasy 
by Priya Joshi
Columbia University Press, New York
Extent: 191, Price: US$ 30 

Thoughts, Philosophy, Action!

There are compelling reasons for the enduring value of the BhagavadGita as a spiritual and as a philosophical text, for addressing ethical, moral, theological and metaphysical issues at any time

Ever since Charles Wilkins, under instructions from Bengal’s Governor General Warren Hastings, rendered it into English in 1765, as many as 1,891 translations of the BhagavadGita in 75 languages are currently available across the world. While its enduring value for addressing contemporary ethical, moral, theological and metaphysical issues needs no additional validation, the question that warrants critical attention is how relevant the teachings of this timeless classic is for the present generation.

The Bhagavad Gita: A Biography
Richard H. Davies
Princeton University Press, UK
Extent: 143 pages. Price: $ 24.95

This question has been best addressed by Pandurang Shastri Athavale. In 1954, at the Second World Philosophers’ Conference, held in Japan, Athavale had impressed the audience with his rendering of the teachings of the Gita, but many had wanted evidence of such ideals being put into practice in India. Refusing a lucrative offer from Nobel Laureate physicist Arthur Holly Compton to spread his ideas in the United States, Athavale returned home to create a community peacefully practising and spreading thoughts and the message of the Gita.

Thus was born the Swadhaya Movement, which aimed at developing ‘universal brotherhood under divine fatherhood’ among its followers. An estimated five million followers practised spiritual devotion with selfless karma, through a series of simple but workable social experiments. For linking philosophy with progress, Athavale was bestowed with the Templeton Prize, and for steering a social movement in the process, he received the Magasaysay Prize.  

As a one-of-its-kind post-Independence initiative, Swadhaya refined daily practices of millions by connecting them with the ideals of vedic philosophy. Athavale had picked up from where M K Gandhi had left off. While Gandhi’s nonviolent reading of the Gita contributed significantly to achieving a moral high ground against the British, Athavale’s reading of the principle of non-attachment from the text empowered his followers to engage in constructive work. Till his death in 2003, Swadhaya had flourished for half a century. 

In its biographical journey, the Gita has gone through multiple interpretations and Swadhaya has been one innovative social experiment that went beyond the convention of oral explications and musical adaptations.

In his recently published A Biography of the BhagavadGita, Richard H Davis, who teaches religion at Bard College in the US, provides a comprehensive, detailed and lucid account of the ways that the Gita has lived over the centuries. In recent times, however, the breadth and variety of Gita performances range from private readings and neighborhood recitations to dance performances and public discourses. Traversing its multiple interpretations, Davies concludes that this classical text will continue to reincarnate itself in many ways.

Who Wrote the Bhagavad Gita
by Meghnad Desai
HarperCollins, New Delhi
Extent: 192 pages. Price: Rs 299

Taking on the issue of the authorship of the Gita, noted economist Meghnad Desai offers a humanistic critique on the classical text in his book, Who Wrote The Bhagavadgita. Desai’s central argument rests on the fact that read in the present context, simple truths of previous eras can be seen to be flawed. Despite holding some of the messages of the Gita (like its casteist and misogynist connotation) against the spirit of the present times, Desai considers the Gita as a divine text that is beyond any reproach. The trouble, however, is that like other religious texts, it can be interpreted in different ways to justify diverse actions.

Counting social inequality and rampant corruption as the two major ills affecting society, no less than a cultural revolution is needed to alter the entrenched notions of indifference and opportunism. Could the Bhagwad Gita be the driving force to lift masses from their moral and social abyss? One wonders why indeed it cannot be, given that the Gita was invoked to free the nation from colonial rule, as also the path to self-purification through nonviolence. Drawing inspirations from the Gita might vary; the core message delivered by past masters like Vivekananda, Aurobindo, Tilak, Hedgewar and Gandhi has been that the Gita embodies in itself ‘a philosophy of action’.

The ‘action’ will undoubtedly be determined by the actor, in his understanding and interpretation of the classic text. Since the text was written by more than one author and was addressed to different audiences, argues Desai, the nature of the composition is highly intellectual. Liberty of interpretation is an unwritten aspect of the Gita, which gives the reader freedom from entrenched beliefs in search of eternal truth. It does so without underlying the necessity of intolerant exclusion of the truth underlying in other philosophical systems. That is the enduring value of the BhagavadGita.

This commentary was first published in Speaking Tree (The Times of India) on July 12, 2015. 

Caught in the crossfire

The stories of human sufferings in an unjust world are often subsumed in dominant political-economy discourses that focus on resource extraction as a means of so-called human development. 

Charlie Hebdo killings may have moved the world but continuing massacre in Congo has largely gone unnoticed. The decade-old conflict between the government forces and the rebels, which some observers call ‘Africa’s World War’, has consumed millions of lives. Despite the presence of a transitional government in recent years, people in many parts of the country remain in fear of continuing death, rape or displacement.

Dealing with the crises of survival amidst the horror of bloody war in Congo, human rights activist Lisa Shannon, author of the much acclaimed 'A Thousand Sisters', has pieced together stories of survivors in Mama Koko & The Hundred Gunmen.  Far from being silenced by the whirlwind of tragic history, the survivors offer compelling testimony to the strength of human spirit in the face of unimaginable adversity. Risking her own life, the author has documented her subjects’ unending ordeal that may serve as a call for global action to end human carnage in central Africa.

The story is set in Dungu, a town located at the confluence of the Dungu and Kibali rivers, which has been a war-zone ever since Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) relocated from Sudan and set itself up in Garamba National Park in 2008. LRA ranks may have dwindled in recent years but the spiral of violence has killed more than two thousand people and displaced half a million population. The collapse of local government and failure of international peace efforts has made locals vulnerable to attacks and distrusting of their own leaders and army.

Caught in this crossfire is Mama Koko’s large family, their lives paralyzed by some hundred gunmen camped at the edge of the town. With death stalking the family members, they nonetheless gather courage to narrate their horrifying tales to Shannon and contribute to her human rights campaign for protecting the women in Congo. Interrupted by sounds of gunshots and disrupted by news of encounters, Shannon learns that ‘the choices under pressure are the only true measure of character’. The harshness and beauty of humanity co-exist in this war-torn region, offering portraits of the indomitable human spirit.

Mama Koko’s son Nico may not have perished had he not been wearing the fancy wrist watch gifted by his sister Francisca. But that was not to be as the Congolese army officers wanted it after one amongst them had spotted the precious watch on Nico’s wrist while he was out in the Bangadi market. With little support from its own army, the family had no time to grieve as the marauding rebels were not too far to annihilate them. Striking a balance between personal tragedies and impersonal forces, Shannon has held herself back from direct engagement while reporting the gruesome events unfolding before her.

It’s never easy for a writer to negotiate the bloody shakeup of history. Far from being silenced or rendered speechless by the complicated political transformation, Shannon chose to narrate the compelling stories as vital testimonies to reflect on the role each one of us can play. On purpose, the author stayed away from the complex history of the ongoing system of violence in Congo. Through the personal story of Mama Koko and her family, discerning readers are encouraged to deepen their understanding of Congo and Joseph Kony’s endurance as a self-proclaimed prophet, rendering Joseph Conrad’s Heart-of-Darkness, published in 1899, a contemporary meaning.

Shannon’s emphasis in Mama Koko and the Hundred Gunmen is on extraordinary tale of a marginal family, caught amidst the crossfire for power and control. The cruel irony is that the story is set in a country that is one of the most mineral-rich regions on the planet. Ever since the repressive regime of King Leopold of Belgium took control of Congo in the nineteenth century, the Congolese men and women have been the victims of unending wars for ownership of their country’s future. Shannon must be credited for bringing to life the stories of human sufferings in an unjust world, which are often subsumed in dominant political-economy discourses that focus on resource extraction as a means of so-called human development.

Mama Koko & the Hundred Gunmen
by Lisa J. Shannon
Public Affairs, New York
Extent: 213, Price: $24.99

This review was first published in Deccan Herald on June 28, 2015

All smoke, no fire

Could environmental issues be left to the call of the politicians and technocrats when the issue is essentially linked to people and their daily survival? 

Need it be said that integrating environmental concerns into the mainstream of economic growth is beset with unresolved complexities, leading to unwarranted conflicts. No surprise, therefore, that for the present-day growth-obsessed state politics, ecological concerns are no more than middle-class ‘lifestyle environmentalism’ aimed at stalling economic progress, which the growth-jihadis have unhesitatingly started calling a conspiracy to keep the country in a state of perpetual poverty.

Notwithstanding the fact that successive governments have been hostile to the environmentalism of its times albeit selectively, during his 25-month tenure as the minister of environment, Jairam Ramesh remained firm in acknowledging that the dissenting voices of non-governmental organisations were essential to the democratic processes, and not part of some foreign plot to destabilize the country. Could environmental issues be left to the call of the politicians and technocrats when the issue was essentially linked to people and their daily survival?

Green Signals chronicles the time spent by the author behind the “transparent door” (he apparently installed transparent doors wherever he had been a minister) which led to the transformation of an enviro-agnostic into an enviro-believer minister, and Ramesh doesn’t seem to have any regrets on this unintended conversion because he was tasked to rid the ministry of its “corrupt” and “managed” image. To this end, and much to the displeasure of his cabinet colleagues, the minister not only heard every word of dissent, but engaged with multiple stakeholders to let them into the policy-making process.

Far from scoring any brownie points from among competing interests, Ramesh was at the receiving end of their wrath instead. While the growth zealots dubbed him as anti-development, the conservationists accused him of not backing intent into action. By his own admission, the rate of environment clearances could only be reduced by about five per cent, from a high of nearly 99.99 per cent in the past. Holding public hearings on controversial Bt Brinjal, saying “no” to bauxite mining in the Niyamgiri Hills, and setting up the Madhav Gadgil Committee on Western Ghats didn’t add-up to conjure an eco-friendly image for the minister. 

This was bound to happen given the precarious balancing act the minister was trapped into, between contradictory pulls and pushes. Green Signals can be easily read as an exercise in self-defence by the then environment minister, but it could also be seen as an unfinished agenda of change that Ramesh had embarked upon. That his short-tenure evoked strong responses stands testimony to his out-of-the-box approach in putting in place a system within the ministry that made choices on the basis of hard facts and information without losing on transparency and accountability, the key anchors of the new approach in decision-making. 

Within a democratic system, trade-off between environment and development is determined by the political economy of growth. No wonder, the environment ministry cannot act at his own behest without taking the chief ministers, the cabinet ministers and the prime minister on board. Quite often, Ramesh had ended-up rubbing the wrong side of his colleagues in other ministries which were entrusted with the task of taking the country high on the growth trajectory. Green Signals is an honest record of a minister negotiating the twists and turns involved in trying to ensure ecological security amidst growth fundamentalism. 

It is clear that Ramesh was not keen on keeping diverse stakeholders, both within and outside the government, in good humour. Instead, he tried to find ways to make high economic growth ecologically sustainable. In doing so, he sought to move away from the binary approach to green clearances for projects to a three-way classification — ‘yes’, ‘yes, but’, and ‘no’. Such an approach warranted a need for acknowledging diverse perspectives and for appreciating good science within the framework of constitutional provisions, such that predictability of outcome and possibility of conflict could be avoided. 

Ramesh was seized of the fact that hard choices by the state will lead to public grievances, for which he played an important role in setting up the National Green Tribunal (NGT). The functioning of NGT indicates that it will take a lot of doing on the part of subsequent governments to “undo” the institutional changes he could bring about in his short but momentous tenure. Conservationists ought to be kind to him because the impacts of his decisions are likely to last longer than his short stint with the environment ministry. 

Green Signals is a rare gesture of honouring the democratic obligation of reporting back to the people about what went behind the “transparent door”, which will go a long way in writing the history of environmental decision-making in the country. 

Green Signals: Ecology, Growth and Democracy in India 
by Jairam Ramesh
Oxford University Press, New Delhi
Extent: 616, Price: Rs. 850 

This review was first published in Deccan Herald on June 14, 2015

The race has just begun

As old tasks get automated away, the challenge is for the economy to not only invent new jobs but to equip people with new skills as well. 

One can either marvel the rapidly evolving digital technology or bemoan its dreadful aftermath. The pace with which work of science fiction is becoming a business reality, rapid spread of automation has revolutionized disease diagnosis and transformed online retailing, among many other technological strides. However, the flip side is that payroll processing software, factory automation, computer-controlled machines, automated inventory control and word processing has triggered technological unemployment, pulling millions of people out from the comfort of their jobs. And the digital revolution is just about bracing up for the second machine age. 

Accomplished experts in information systems and economics, Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew MacAfee unfold the reshaping of our lives and economies in the wake of rapidly evolving digital technologies. Spread and efficiency notwithstanding, the authors contend that automation has made humans redundant in many spheres of life. Productivity and profits may have soared but wages are falling and unemployment is rising. As old tasks get automated away, the challenge is for the economy to not only invent new jobs but to equip people with new skills as well. 

Given that the full impact of digital technologies has yet to be felt, the time to act is NOW. Dazzling personal technologies, advanced diagnostic infrastructure and smart communication devices only showcase the limited bounty of digitization. Artificial Intelligence, argue the authors, is now ready to unleash the second machine age. It is a blessing, however, that computers have yet to catch up with humans on ideation, large-frame pattern recognition, and complex communication. Till that happens, and it is unlikely to happen anytime soon, cooks, gardeners, repairmen, carpenters, dentist and maids should live in peace as they are unlikely to be replaced by machines.  

Digitization is creating both possibilities and potential, but ultimately, the future will depend on what choices are made and how prosperity gets shared across the society. Drawing on latest research and up-to-date trends, Brynjolfsson and MacAfee wonder if mankind will reap unprecedented bounty or embrace greater disaster that technology, by default, harbors. The line is thin and the challenge enormous. 

The Second Machine Age is an optimistic take on the future that awaits us. Undoubtedly, artificial intelligence will cut down costs, improve outcomes and make lives better, but only when the organizational transformation would be ready to absorb the full benefits. Left to businesses alone, entrepreneurs and managers will substitute capital for labor for maximizing profits. Unless there are policies to favor inclusion of the workforce in the second machine age, companies like the Foxconn, a Taiwanese multinational electronic company, will continue to purchase robots to work in the company’s factories. 

It is not an either/or scenario but one wherein new collaborations would need to be designed to harness the best of both - brute processing power of the machine and ingenuity of human ideation. Futurists have rightly said that you’ll be paid in the future based on how well you work with robots. It is now getting clear that if humans fail to race with technology; our species will be able to destroy itself. It is one race in which we cannot have fewer winners and more losers. If that were to happen, Arthur Clarke’s prophetic words will come true: ‘The goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play’.

A terrific book about an exciting future, that is no less scary! 

The Second Machine Age
by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee
Viva Books/W W Norton
Extent: 306, Price: Rs 995 

The Yoga of our times

Yoga, as it is beamed through television channels today, is not what was written by Patanjali in the first centuries of the Common Era.

Yoga, as it is beamed through television channels today, is not what was written by Patanjali in the first centuries of the Common Era. Consisting of fewer than two hundred verses, the Yoga Sutra has virtually nothing to say on the postures and the stretching and breathing exercises that the contemporary yoga gurus have reduced the philosophical text into. In reality, Yoga Sutra is a classical work of moral philosophy, guiding men to become morally perfect in the world.  

One of the six Indian philosophical systems, Yoga Sutra is an investigation into the relationship between spirit and matter; an account of workings of the mind and ways of knowing what is true; a study of cause and effect in the workings of the universe; and a guide to salvation. The compact definition of yoga, as Patanjali had postulated, is composed of four words: yoga=citta-vritti-nirodha. A simple translation should read something like: yoga is the stoppage of the turning of thought. Since the workings of the mind are both the source and the potential solution to the problem of suffering, yoga liberates the subject from the distorting effects of the mind-stuff for attaining salvation. Drawing inferences from a dozen classical commentaries on this book, David Gordon White, a professor of Comparative Religions at the University of California reconstructs the rise, fall and rise of this perennial classic in the biography of The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali.   

White brings to light the astonishing fact that Patanjali’s classic work was not only forgotten in India for hundreds of years but its first discovery in the West was viewed with disdain too. It is believed that the onslaught of Islam in the northern part of the sub-continent, somewhere around the sixteenth century, had led to forging a new religio-philosophical paradigm between the theism of the Puranas and Vedanta philosophy that excluded all non-Vedic traditions including Yoga. Yoga Sutra’s glorious days had lasted from the seventh to the eleventh centuries, during which its popularity had stretched from Central Asia to Indonesia. Its subsequent resurrection by the British Orientalist Henry Thomas Colebrooke in 1823 saw its popularity surge in Europe and America, and predominantly in English. Could this be the reason that the yoga of India’s past bears little resemblance to the yoga practiced today?

In following the strange and circuitous journey of this timeless classic, from its ancient origins to its modern resurgence, White offers critical views on the manner in which Vedanta-inspired intellectuals of Bengal had mainstreamed Yoga Sutra. Notable amongst them was Swami Vivekananda who not only seized upon Yoga as an ideal platform from which to assert the antiquity and superiority of Indian science over the West, but used its popular demand in the United States to finance the humanitarian work he had planned for India. Vivekananda’s appropriation of Patanjali’s work set the die for much of what has followed down to the present day. However, none can take away credit from Vivekananda whose work had fashioned yoga as a cultural symbol, in harmony with the religious and intellectual aspirations of educated Indians.    

Whether or not authorship to this classic could be attributed to Patanjali is still being debated among cultural-historians and scholars, the dramatic revival of Yoga Sutra after a long hiatus remains somewhat of an enigma nonetheless. With the classic having been translated in as many as 46 languages, its readership is no longer restricted to an intellectual elite. However, the sub-culture of ‘yoga practice’ has made it reach even further. White’s exhaustive research presents authentic treatise on the remarkable journey of this classic till now, without drawing any roadmap on its future. While scholars will continue on grinding the Yoga Sutra, a mass-based sub-culture of yoga practice is providing solace and inspiration to millions. 

Based on fascinating historical documentation, Prof David Gordon White provides insights on the profound philosophy of Yoga Sutra, which is as important to comprehend as getting the breathing exercises right. To that end, White helps to bridge the theory-practice divide. 

The Yoga Sutra of Patanjali 
by David Gordon White
Princeton University Press, UK
Extent: 172, Price: £16.95 

This review was first published in The Hindustan Times on May 16, 2015

City's Double Life

To strike a balance between religious obligations and human desires, a majority of Tehranis are forced to lie to ensure survival

Life in a city is about survival, and Tehran is no different. Survival is as much an evolutionary feature as an act of desperation, moreso when a city seems torn between tradition and modern, conflict and resolution, and truth and lies. To strike a balance between religious obligations and human desires, a majority of Tehranis are forced to lie to ensure survival. And they do so for no fear of retribution, an instinctive response to an oppressive regime that believes in interfering in the most intimate affairs of its over twelve million citizens. 

Deception has become a way of life for Tehranis of all age groups. While children are trained to deny that daddy has any booze at home, teenage girls hide their promiscuity by passionately vowing their virginity. And if this is not enough, it is a city where gangsters rule the streets and the Mullahs are known to visit prostitutes. Moral policing by the state has led the pathology of subterfuge percolate across every corner of the city. Drawn from across the spectrum of society in the city, eight characters personify the compelling stories of deceit and deception. There are intimate stories within each story, depicting the past which cannot be escaped and a future that is equally inescapable. 

The stories are located around the famous Vali Asr Street, which runs through the middle of the city, pumping life through it and spitting it out into the deepest corners of the city. These are real-life stories of ordinary people forced to live extraordinary lives: the assassin Dariush, the porn star Leyla, the gangster Bijan, the blogger Amir, the socialite Farideh, the thug Asghar, the militiaman Morteza, and the housewife Somayeh are connected by a common thread – they are all busy either running for or running from their lives, literally. Ramita Navai got to know these people while living and working as a journalist in Tehran that helped her draw intimate portraits of their survival strategies amidst unimaginable circumstances. 
 
Like each of the eight characters most Tehranis are in constant conflict, on a quest to find their real selves and to free them from the repressive environment. Far from being judgmental, the author remains empathetic towards the protagonists as she finds them irrepressible warm ‘no matter how tight the regime turns the screw’. Even their over-indulgence in drugs and sex is contextual; an irresistible response by a majority who consider themselves always doomed, lied to and betrayed. A panacea for everything from aches to boredom to joblessness, opium has become a classless drug smoked along the length and breadth of Vali Asr and beyond. It gives temporary relief to ten million drug addicts in the county, even though two million are chronic addicts. 

Sex, on the other hand, is an act of rebellion in Tehran, a form of protest. Only in sex do many of the younger generation feel truly free, asserts Navai. They have ultimate control over their bodies, if nothing else in their lives, and they have made it the weapon of revolt. It is a backlash against years of sexual repression; of having to continually lie and hide natural desires. This is a shocking portrait of a city where despite the ominous presence of a repressive state, the traditions and values are getting eroded. Political intrigues and religious beliefs have only trumped the glorious heritage of a picture postcard city. There is a hidden city within the facade of the city. 

Ramita Navai’s writing is intense and powerful, engrossing and engaging, navigating through the lives of those who are torn between hope and despair, between twists and resolutions. In drawing an honest, intimate and true portrait of the city, the author finds a strange connect with the characters she has drawn on the pages of City of Lies. Despite the painful assertion that the limitations of life in an Islamic Republic require everyone to hide aspects of their selves, the author finds herself strangely in love with the city. So much so that she kept returning to the city long after foreign media had been banned from the country.  

City of Lies is a courageous writing at its best. Written with passion and flair, the author has painstakingly unmasked the city that lies shrouded in lies. People will demonstrate, citizens will be executed, lovers abandoned and police corrupted but Vali Asr will remain a constant, stitching together the bloodlines, the clans, the kindness, the prying and the meddling. 

Though complaining is a way of life in Tehran but not many seems to be complaining as yet. Strangely enough, neither are they mourning though Tehranis are known to make excellent mourners. City of Lies leaves the reader groping for an answer to the prevailing psychology of its inhabitants. Will they be ever liberated from the intricate web of lies or have they resigned themselves to their falsehoods? 

City of Lies 
by Ramita Navai
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London
Extent: 301, Price: £18.99 

This review was first published in the Deccan Herald, May 3, 2015.

Prescribed living invites doctors’ prescription

Mass production, mass consumption and resultant mass monotony has resulted in mass depression.

Realizing that the French people would judge him for how happy and satisfied they felt with life during his presidency, Nicholas Sarkozy had hired some of the best brains to construct a measure of progress that went beyond GDP, and instead took into account the wellbeing of its people. It was in 2007 and since then many developed countries like Germany, Australia and Canada and some states in the USA have adopted new ways of measuring progress. The trend has slowly catching on.  

The wellbeing measures may not be perfect, yet it reflects a growing realization that economic growth and its manifestation of materialism is making millions of people joyless, anxious and, even worse, depressed. Far from resolving economic stagnation, mass production and mass consumption has resulted in mass depression. The resultant mass monotony of mass produced products has accentuated demand for new products which in turn has triggered status anxiety leading to over-consumption and over-stuffing. Diminishing marginal utility notwithstanding, multiple influences work on people to stuff their wardrobes with clothes they may not wear and homes with products which are put to use once in a while. 

Like obesity, stuffocation is turning out to be yet another epidemic. Lifting the veil on why we live the way we live, trend forecaster James Wallman constructs the compulsive history and the obsessive psychology of over-stuffing and its dreaded consequences, both on the environment and well being. It was the future president of United States, Herbert Hoover, who had planted the idea of ‘creating desire’ through advertisement as early as in 1925. By revolutionizing the counterintuitive idea that becoming prosperous is not by saving but by spending, the sagging future of the US economy could be revived. The result was a society where people thought of quantity of stuff first, and quality of life as only an afterthought.  

While sympathetic to excessive consumerism, Stuffocation provides insights on the emerging trend of de-stuffing wherein materialism is consciously being replaced with ‘minimalism’ through creative and imaginative experiments. More and more people are now realizing that they would be better off if they lived more simply – with less stuff. In numbers, around 40 million in the UK and 240 million in the US are actively ‘de-stuffocating’, opting for a life with fewer material things. That ‘prescribed living invites doctors’ prescription only’ is slowly dawning.  

Using true life stories Wallman demonstrates that consumerism has become a virtual game of snakes and ladders. The constant advertisement bombardment leaves us feeling always at the bottom of the pile looking up. And that, in a meritocratic system like ours, leaves us feeling anxious, stressed, and depressed. Yet, there are the likes of Nicodemus, Millburn and Cantwell who have devised ingenious solutions to possess only as much as was needed. Howsoever enlightening new way of living might seem, status quoist would find it less inspiring.  

Wallman is pragmatic about his manifesto for change. The solution to stuffocation is more than just throwing out the stuff and slowing down the materialistic machine. More than anything else, it needs a cultural transformation, a change in human aspirations. Stuffocation is not only inspiring and persuasive, but provocatively clever.  

Stuffocation: Living More With Less 
by James Wallman
Penguin, UK
Extent: 358, Price: £9.99