Brexit – Revelations to a Commoner

Since last two-weeks, like every other ‘civilised’ human being of the globalised world, I too became a follower of the historic (or hysteric?) ‘Brexit’ samachar. In the ‘Globalised’ world, one needs to be aware of the important incidents taking place 10000\20000 kilometre away in order to be called as ‘knowledgeable’. So I did – who does not want to be adorned with such an attractive title like ‘knowledgeable’? Even though like many of “Bong middle class” panellists, I also do not have a first-hand knowledge about England or Great Britain or UK – but won the right to contribute in their decision making process by knowing some people of the geography as friends \relatives or by feeling attached to them through our ancestral professional association with the once rulers.

Every one of us is well aware of the recent developments in global politics. Everyone knows that global politics, same like all other global trends, is not a static phenomenon – it never was. Only thing constant about global politics is ‘Change’. And everyone is aware of Newton’s Third Law (or an idiomatic expression?)  - “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” What then, made most of us imagine that 1) global politics will become static after the concept of ‘globalisation’ evolved and accepted by most of the counties in 1990s? And 2) the very much action-oriented ‘Globalisation’ will never face a ‘reaction’?

I remember meeting a friend in western region of India. This time I was staying at her home. This was my third visit to the city.  At that time, some uproar broke out against the unfriendly approach of people of that city to migrant labourers from another state. I obviously was eager to discuss the issue with my liberal friend. I asked her how the situation was. And she started, as usual – “see these are poor people having no work in their own state; that is reason they are migrating – we should always have our sympathy with them. We are all Indians after all...” I received an answer which could make peace-preaching religious leaders happy but I am not a religious leader – was not satisfied at all.  So I continued, “But migrant labourers bring lot of troubles too – even if you tell that influx has nothing to do with increasing criminal activities, you cannot avoid seeing shanties mushrooming everywhere. Is your city infrastructure ready to take the load? Do you find there is no social impact?” Few of my lines were enough to make her open up – beyond my expectation! She took the queue – “You know what a mess is this!  The whole city is getting dirty...they use streets as public toilet. Footpaths are being encroached – and if you and me tell them to develop clean habit – they are going to call you intolerant! You know it’s us who are responsible for all these. Every builder - contractor wants to recruit the cheapest labourer possible and its only people from your region who are ready to work at that rate.”

  - I knew where the discussion was heading towards. Who are responsible for all those “mess”? Wild development plans – to which we all “experts” are directly or indirectly attached, money-yielding economy, without which “we” are jobless and, job-creation machinery which tries to recruit all of a growing population as ‘resource’ (whereas we cannot think of surviving without being a resource) – both of us knew we cannot get rid of any of the development options – even thinking of returning to the standard of living practiced three hundred years back is impossible. So, on the one hand we will continue attracting cheap migrant labourers to fulfil our dream of Globalised development and on the other, once the migrant labourers we import reach a sizable number – they will try to influence and if possible change our cultural vision so that it suits them the best. And “we” won’t be able to accept ‘other’ people propose ‘our’ girls to cover from head to foot because their culture wants it - conflict remains never ending.

Our very optimistic Globalisation plans never thought of side-effects. Probably none of the optimistic plans do. When the side effects come – we search for a remedy. Interesting is, in case of a global problem in a globalised world, even one’s searching for own remedy makes his\her neighbour feel threatened. The new medicine one is trying may work or fail – but neighbours become more concerned about the experiment.

We have already developed a habit of thinking global - there should not be any difference between Gujarat and Assam, we should be able to speak the same language in USA and France; everything should be standardised (remembering some of my USA-returned superior’s remarks for being forced to recruit a German\French language professional :D) ...what will happen if the concept we have developed does not work for ever?  What if some of the places\ people\ country tries to look for some other option? A plan’s not working eternally is threatening – Very threatening!

Neither Ram, nor Ganga -

Rough translation of a poem of Nirendranath Chakravarty, a contemporary Bengali poet:

He knows neither Ram, nor Ganga –

Acquainted with neither the soil nor its folks.

To him Constituency is the soil and –

Voters are the folks.

The news of the village of Rampur's -

Lying under seven feet water -

Could not disturb his sleep;

Since Rampur is not included in his Constituency.

But the news of about three kid’s and -

A few age-shaken old folk's washing away in Ganganagar

Forced him take help of sleeping pills.

Nevertheless after getting up,

He felt refreshed.

He knows that -

Kids are not entitled to cast vote and -

The nearest polling booth is -

At least two and half kilometers away from village;

Old folks do not walk to cast votes in general.

Written in 1977-78

Hindu-ism? – A brief Observation

Defining Hinduism has been an issue of debate among friends since last few years. And even in this case, I am puzzled by the suffix ‘ism’ attached to it, as always I have when I see an effort to ‘mix ‘en match’ in very Indian concepts with those originated in some other part of the globe.

Remembering one of my Professors whom I found looking furious one day as he was sitting in our college staffroom. I was little shocked seeing the angry face of the usually calm person. I kind of poked him – “Sir, you told you would give us a lesson Vasa (a Sanskrit playwright from centuries back) and the professor burst! – “I am in no mood of teaching you anything! What are you students learning these days – go learn from your American Gurudevs! Anyway you will learn what you intend to learn!” I was at a loss, but knew there would be some interesting story behind. So I kept on waiting there. As expected, he continued after some time, “You know what they (some students union affiliated by particular political party, who used to run a magazine) have told me? They told me to write an article to prove that Ram was a historical character who was alive twenty thousand years back!.....”  That was my first lesson on how history is used to prove of disapprove things – how politicians use historical theories for political benefit….of course not all politicians are Ram-worshipers but almost everyone use one or other (mythical?) character to prove the sanctity of their politics. Here comes the scope of ‘ism’. To catch people’s attention, one needs to be a follower of some or other ‘ism’.

Does ‘ism’ go with the concept of ‘Hindu’? Is there any preacher who started preaching the ‘ism’ of Hindus on a particular day of a particular month or year? Is there any particular god or prophet whom one has to follow to become or remain a Hindu? The answer to all of these are no, no  and no.  Who tells what the core idea of the ‘ism’ is? – Answer is “many” and “none” – but the polytheistic concept is developed through thousands of years. Did those “many” speak of the same moral to be preached universally? Answer is “no” – but this a collection of different and sometimes contradictory ideas developed by many ‘sages’. (We define all our poets, philosophers, political theorists, playwrights, grammarians and even physicians and architects as “sages”. Bengali Ramayan refers even King Janak, father of Sita as “Sage”). Can there be any ‘ism’ without a universally accepted moral at the core? I did not get any reply from the “ism” preachers till date and still waiting.

Then came another group of ‘ism’ followers with an idea that what ‘The Vedas’ preach is Hinduism and what is not in Vedas  cannot be accepted as part of “Hinduism”.  I would humbly request these “followers” to go through Veda texts available - these are no preacher’s material like testament anyway! Yes, these include poems addressing many gods starting from Fire to Hiranyagarbha, (also the ‘Dice’-god!), but there is no reference of the gods called Ram or Krishna or Kali or Shiva – presumably none are part of ‘Hinduism”? Vedas speak of only “Yagna” – no reference to Puja.  Puja not allowed in Hinduism? The major chunk of Hindu festivals organized today will not get ‘approval’ from Vedas we see!

What is Hindu-ism then?

I would prefer the drop the suffix –“ism”.  There is no harm to do some brainstorming if the suffixes like “view” or “concept” seems inadequate.  But Hindu philosophy speaks of a concept which does not need the followers to visit a particular god’s temple or worship a particular god or listen to a particular prophet. Therefore different members in the same family enjoy the privilege of worshipping or not worshipping a god of own choice. This is a concept which does not impose dress-code on followers; neither imposes any restriction on food.  (Our Neo-Hindu friends perhaps do not have any idea that eggs and fish and chicken and mutton and beef are food for a number of Hindus, only thing is they are scattered in different parts of the country, instead of concentrating themselves in particular areas – in fact non-vegetarians outnumber vegetarians in ‘Hindustan’.). Well, you have a right to starve too, if you want to prove yourself to be pious in some regions. (remember how I found it amazing that people in some states have rice boiled with ghee as food on ‘day of fasting’, whereas ‘fasting’ in Eastern region of the country means going without food and water for at least twenty-four hours.!). As a whole, Hindu thought process celebrates inclusivity – includes all of monotheism, polytheism, atheism, violence, non-violence, heterosexuality, homosexuality, desire, abstinence, formed, formless and what not – one can follow any principle of own choice and still remain a ‘Hindu’.  In my opinion, its thought process that vouch for ‘liberty’; ‘Liberty’ that encourages followers to think and decide on their own.

Yagnabalkya took a method of “netibad” to explain the nature of Brahma in Brihadaranyak-upanishad. His answer to every question ending with “is that Brahman?” is “it is not.” (na- iti). This way, when every entity in the world fails to qualify as “Brahman” - what is left out of the scope is defined as “Brahman”. I think Hindu-view of life can be defined perfectly only by this method of Yagnabalkya’s. What do not come under the scope of any other religion or philosophic concept can be regarded as ‘Hindu” thought process, the incomparable one - Is the definition adequate? 

But what is the Scope of natural languages in Business?

Friends accuse me of being too lengthy while explaining things. Hence a summary of the article on translation activities on India:

Natural Language is integral part of people’s culture in any particular geography. Natural Language does not express people’s IQ or coding skill but their cultural identity, existence, choices and aspirations. That was reason the most successful Mogul emperors as well as the British translated most of the literary texts, scriptures, legal and all others kinds of texts available in their colonies – we know of the extensive work British rulers had done in translating texts (18\19th century) in the fields of Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit. Among many other supporting factors, “Reading” the subjects and native employees through their language and literature helped them to succeed.

Let’s look at the resemblance of a business administration in a global enterprise to that of an imperial Government. Business these days runs in a world where globalization is, more than a choice. It is only option for growth of an enterprise, irrespective of whichever part of the world the enterprise comes from. Global business does recruit people from different parts of the world same way a colonial Govt did. They have to manage people from different cultural backgrounds from different geographies. They have to sell goods and services in different parts of the world. Analyzing customer’s requirement becomes the first step in the steep road of global sales same way as creating own acceptability was a challenge to Moguls or East India Company. Is it possible to define what kind of service of product would perfectly suit to customer’s need without understanding customer’s cultural existence which is best expressed through their language and literature?

The world of business unequivocally takes the shape of a Mogul empire to some extent where number of decision makers is many, leading to a joint decision making portfolio instead of one emperor show – but at the core of it resides the idea of managing many people from different cultural existence – sometimes numerous, depending on the nature of the industry. If scenario is similar, can we completely avoid deploying similar applications (with modifications, of course) and still win?

I remember - once I was discussing the importance of developing the habit of practicing couple of languages in global business environment with one colleague. My point was - this could serve both the purposes of 1) understanding and communicating with customer and 2) in-house need of creating a comfort zone for new joiners from different countries. His first question to me was –“Why do we need to learn foreign languages other than English? I speak English – why don’t the French and German and Japanese learn English like us?” My next 10 minute’s lecture on impact of colonialism on Indian languages worked some or other way I guess, while his next words were, “See, if English could do it, we will also do it! See some day you will translate SAP into Hindi; none of your Badshahs and Sahibs exists anymore.” 

I could not continue the same discussion with my young colleague any longer - seeing his face glowing with pride in having one language of his own -  dreaming of establishing own empire where he could make non-Hindi speakers translate technical documents into his language……………….

Kolkata’s Durgapuja - a Successful Case of Corporatization

Kolkata’s Durgapuja – a Successful Case of Corporatization

If the Durga temple of Aihole (550 AD) is believed to be the oldest Durga Temple in India, we certainly cannot consider this Hindu Goddess to be very young. But quite surprisingly, worshipping the Goddess turned into the biggest annual festival in another part of the India - in the Eastern side; that too, presumably not before 16^th century.

History of Kolkata’s Durgapuja goes back to 1690s and since then, the festival became part of Bengali life through many ups and downs. There are lot many aspects of an annual festival in any of the community’s life. But Kolkata Durgapuja has some unique features.

Recent surprise added to this annual festival of Bengalis is probably “Corporatization”.

With the improvement of general economic situation and increasing excitement about globalization, a new touch of glory was added to this annual festival in post 1980's.

But the dramatic twist in this came with the introduction of themes in 1990's and the emergence of corporatism in the whole event. Corporate houses representing different industries started using the festival as advertiser’s canvas. Again, Durgapuja took the lead role in the show that was playing another power-shift in economic history of Bengal. The makeshift pandal was no more a beautifully decorated shelter for the idol, but representation of Bengal's cultural life, people's understanding of global history, politics, economy and current affairs. Painstaking craftsmanship deeply engaged for months was absolute necessity for themes like ancient Egyptian temple or Harry Potter's world. Naturally, individual donations were no more adequate to meet the huge cost. At the same time, count of footfalls in the Durgapuja venues made placing hoardings and banners near the pandal a necessary option for brand promotion. None of the FMCG and consumer goods and service companies doing business in this part of the country could ignore the opportunity. In addition, big puja organizers introduced theme-based festival to increase visitor's attraction. In some place, the pandal looks like Rajasthan Dilwada temple, in some place it resembles to White House. The light artists from Chandannagar and Hooghly (approximately 50000 people in this area are engaged in this business) also developed matching skill in light designing over the ages. Anything from Amartya Sen's receiving Nobel Prize to river pollution control includes in the range of splendor and spectacle they offer. Obviously, business houses and corporate sector found an excellent possibility of product promotion here. Sponsoring pujas depending on their theme, social message and scale of popularity became an unwritten norm for Kolkata Durgapuja festival. 

A Business standard report in 2007 says that corporate sponsorship could amount anything between 20,000 to 3,00,00,000 depending the size of the puja. The most prominent Durga puja sponsors that year included the English daily The Telegraph of ABP group, Nestle, CESC, and Times of India, who have cumulatively sponsored over 200 pujas in Kolkata. For these corporate groups, initiating new Durgapujas in newly growing localities was a profound way to increase customer base. Organizing different other activities like quiz, musical evenings etc besides usual worshiping brought scope for customer interaction and motivating potential clientele as well. “360 connect” including on-ground promotion, hot-spot activity, leaflet activation, sampling and stall activity came up as a concept applicable; especially for Durgapuja event management and sponsorship which attracts approx 3 crore visitors on Kolkata streets. Within couple of years, by 2012, we found presence of almost all business sectors covering FMCG, CDIT, electronics, apparel, mobile networks and apps, automotive, banking etc in the puja sponsor's list. The market forces made the festival a mega corporate event. Same way as the 19^th century neo-wealthy class organized Durgapuja to establish them in Bengali society; the 21^st century corporate houses found organizing\sponsoring Durgapuja the best option to establish their brand image.

In 2012, Indrani Dutta reports in The Hindu:

“Multinational Standard Chartered Bank has joined hands with the police to support the volunteers who are roped in by the city police to help manage the traffic and the multitudes which throng the 2000-odd pujas in the city and around. The bank will provide T-shirts to the volunteers. Says Dheeraj Ahluwalia, General Manager, Marketing, India and South Asia: ‘This will provide visibility for our brand as the T-shirts would sport the bank logo’.”

Some firms like FMCG Group Emami decided to adopt a direct approach to both product and brand promotion. It will sponsor the oil required for cooking the bhog (rice offering made to Goddess Durga and her children) at a few pujas at the housing complexes. ‘With this unique 360 degree communication plan, we hope to gain an instant emotional connect with our target group of Bengali mothers,’ says Debashis Bhattacharyya, General Manager, Marketing, Emami Biotech Ltd.”

In 2014, the lighting division of Phillips, the Dutch diversified technology company, selected two big puja locations, Mohammed Ali Park and Suhrid Sangha in Rasbihari Avenue to display the advancement of their LED lighting technology  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w01RlOGeGP8); of course by decorating and sponsoring these puja venues. Even jewelers came up to support exclusive puja-venues. The idols in Ekdalia Evergreen club, Gariahat were covered with 18carat gold jeweler and the idol in Sreebhumi Sporting club at Laketown with diamond jeweler worth Rs.10 crore.

Even FDI turned into a reality for Durgapuja. Alliance Françoise, the cultural institute, subsidiary of French Government not only sponsored the Pallimangal Samity's puja in Anwar Shah road to depict the theme of 100 years of Indian cinema, but also send French artists to work with local artisans for the project in 2013. In 2014, Germany crossed the limit of the city of Joy and selected one suburb Puja to tie up with.

We are sure – Kolkata’s Durgapuja will be celebrated many more years – being witness of many more changes in the history of commerce and industries in the country.

Tagore on Bengali Roopkatha - Fairy Tales of Bengal

Bengali version of fairy tales, i.e. Roopkatha is hardly translatable into English, not only due to immense cultural difference between East and West, but also because of the language the tales are told in. The charm and subtle nature of one folk-language cannot be captured in another language. There lies limitation of languages; we are rarely able to enter into the world of the country folks from geography unknown to us.

There is where my childhood dream of translating Dakshinaranjan Mitra-Majumdar’s Thakurmar jhuli (Grandma’s satchel) - collection of fairy tales of Bengal suffered a big jolt after I actually started working as a translator. But I found the preface of this book written by Tagore in 1908 so appropriate to be considered as a message to translators, that I could not resist translating that part.

Queens waiting for the Parrot-faced ship

Tagore on Bengali Roopkatha:

Is there anything else more indigenous than Thakurmar jhuli? Unfortunate is, even this fascinating satchel is being imported as product of Manchester factories these days. The foreign “Fairy tales” have turned out to be the only option for our kids. Our own Grandma Company seems to have gone bankrupt. You may even find Martin’s ethics or Burke’s notebook of French revolution in their satchel, but where are the Prince and the Nobleman’s son? Where did the Byangomaa-Byangomi and the jewel of the seven kings from the land past seven seas and thirteen rivers disappear?

The tradition of folk festivals, plays, storytelling and elucidation of myths is dying like a drying river. Even the Bengal villages, where these streams of folk flavours used to flow in various branches, are converted into dry desert. The adult minds are being twisted to self-centred deformed ones; but why are our children being punished like sinners deprived from savouring joyfulness? Why is their bedtime so silent? Their reading desks lit by kerosene lamp are crammed with buzzing sound of reading scary foreign spellings. How are we fancying keeping our kids alive by feeding them only chickpeas while completely depriving them from their mother’s milk!

Tales are written in the books nowadays. Where did the tales told by our affectionate mothers vanish? Where are the tales from hearts of the ladies of our land? 

The heart of the Bengal mother was the source of our fairy tales – the Roopkatha, which have been continuously flowing through the minds of our children throughout the history marked by many uprisings and changes in the ruling clans here. These tales are born from the deepest eternal affection, which has raised everyone from the wealthiest king to the poorest peasant in this country, enchanted all of them showing the bright moon in the sky, comforted all by singing lullabies.  

That is reason listening to these stories do not only make Bengali children delighted, it makes them absorb themselves in the eternal flow of Bengal’s deepest affection.

I was hesitating to open the “Thakurmar jhuli” written by Dakshinaranjanbabu. I had a doubt if the steel-sharpness of modern Bengali language did sever that tune of affection. It is difficult to sing in that tune while composing in today’s bookish language. I did not dare taking up this task. I have tried to make an educated storyteller write these stories. Even though written by a woman, under the influence of the foreign pen, those fairy tales lost their fairy-spirit in spite of the tale’s remaining intact – thus making the eternal tale very modernistic.

But Dakshinababu’s effort is commendable! He picked up our grandma’s words and planted them in written form; still their leaves remained as fresh and green as ever. He maintained the simplicity of the old language and unique style of our fairy tales with a fine and natural articulation.

I would propose that, a school for modern grandmothers of Bengal should be opened immediately, so that they can adopt the book written by Dakshinababu, which would in turn help them retaining their past glory in the world of our children’s dreams.    

My dealing with a complex topic - feminism

To be honest, I feel little uncomfortable with a word ending in “ism” – this suffix added to a word restricts the realm of the word I think. Take an example of the name – Marx. Who would deny the contribution of the Karl Marx in Western philosophy? But the moment the theory constitutes the area of “Marxism” – it’s for Marxists! Many of us would avoid going close to the fence surrounding the area.

    

Radical thoughts are part of the advancement of civilization. Wasn’t using fire to cook raw meat a radical thought? Wasn’t Copernicus’s idea considered radical in his time? But do these examples encourage us to become followers of “Radicalism”? I doubt!

Almost everyone loves to become patriot, but what about PATRIOT-ISM?  The value of own land and culture is immense to every person. But who defines that one national culture\ interest is so superior to others that its followers should be entitled to impose that standard everywhere in the world? Which route the followers would take to prove that superiority?

I think same happens with the word “Feminine”. We all are comfortable with femininity. But the moment it becomes FEMIN-ISM, we know the topic forces us to look at things conforming to a particular point of view. It excludes people from entering the area of discourse; creates a field for gladiators denying the universal nature of femininity.

One friend suggests me to write for some “feminist” magazine where I have to follow the standard of their style and language. At that very moment, I remembered Chapal Bhaduri – the man who used to transformed himself into a woman representing wonderful women characters from the world of Indian history and mythology. I remembered Kelucharan Mohapatra - his beautiful face of the mythical Radhika I once fell in love with. I remembered the bright pensive face of the male professor, who was going through the painful long process of gender change, sitting beside me and praising my skirt – “I love your dress. Once I become a woman, I will be able to wear dresses like you.” Am I allowed to write about them in the feminist magazine? Or my area of discourse needs to be borderlined by certain physical attributes of persons? Am I supposed to support the causes of the person having a female reproductive system and not hesitating before killing a hundred people in the company to ensure a promotion for herself? Or does the expression of “feminism” also include the subtle face of femininity manifested in persons born with male reproductive system?

 Chapal Bhaduri

Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra

Dictionary meaning of FEMIN-ISM tells reveals this is a “theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes” led by the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities. How many other than some fringe political groups like ISIS deny that equality? Stopping a women from becoming a political or social leader because of her gender is rare notion these days; the world has seen many of them in different countries – more in so-called underdeveloped countries that in so-called developed ones. Only a few countries prevent a women from being an economist or pilot if she wants to and have the capability to become one.

I stay in a country where Durga and Kali and Lakshmi and Saraswati - all females take significant stature among the worshiped deities. Do Siva, Ganesh or Kartikeya create larger scope of business than that Durga, Kali, Lakshmi and Saraswati do every year? I do not have statistics but I have doubt whether the female deities really need to fight against males to establish own equality.

How many of registered Indian companies offer lesser package to their female employees than the males? I do not know of any. Statistics tell IT sector in India hires more women than men at entry level, 51 % as per a recent NASSCOM report. 22% of women applicants get final offers whereas only 15% of male applicants receive offer letter. We cannot deny women laborers face issues in unorganized industry sectors, but male laborers too face lots of troubles there - may be different, but life is not trouble-free for any of the genders.

Right now, when I am writing sitting on my desk – I hear a neighbour couple fighting over some domestic issue. And I hear only the high-pitch voice of the young housewife cursing the man - seems he expected her to cook in the absence of domestic help - not a job for “equal” housewives for sure!

Domestic violence is a hot topic no doubt. If a woman feels that she has been a victim of domestic violence and files a case for separation, the law of the country probably tells that she is entitled to claim a considerable chunk of the man’s earnings. I was wondering if there is a similar law to protect men who are subject to domestic violence. Or it is difficult for a single person to decide how much “equality” is still needed.  

Like most of the favourite topics dominating the discussion of section of academia and accomplished women in Indian drawing rooms, the root of “Feminism” also lies in some other part of the globe. There is no harm in cultural exchange between different geographies. In fact, exchange keeps civilizations alive. But it seems better to go through the social, political and economic status of women in the history of those parts of the globe to understand their context behind starting a movement before finding similarities between them and us – eventually finding examples from my geography which could fit to their context. 

I think we need to go through the history of feminism in the western part of the globe before jumping into their movements. How social, economic and political issues made a section of society feel the necessity to establish own equality with men, make them demand the right to take up same professions as men, change the choice of cloths too  - in turn making them the primary decision-makers for consumer goods in 85% of households. Once a subject of empowerment-advertising campaigns, women are no more "next-emerging" market, but a force controlling the market in all the countries where western economic concepts flourished. Shall we look at feminism through the same glasses we have been using since a hundred years or try to use a different pair of glasses now?