Somewhere near the beginning of 'Anna Karenina', Tolstoy depicts a tea-party scene in an aristocratic set-up. The topic under discussion is love marriage and it causes an old princess to wonder whether people still marry for something as outdated as love. You would think that one of the younger ladies would object to the remark, but all that happens is that someone among them ends up comparing love to Scarlett fever. If you get it once, she says, you're safe from subsequent attacks. Another lady goes on to talk about how her inoculation at the hands of a domestic help saved her a lot of trouble in later life; about how it equipped her to better wade through the mires of society. And so the discussion goes....
 
Prone as I am to drawing parallels, my own sip of tea brings to mind inoculation of another sort. I set thinking about the annual swine-flu shots for the family. However, given the already restricted social interactions ordained by Corona, I’m instantly nudged towards second thoughts. Then there also stands the standard argument of each year ushering in its own new strain of the virus. Clearly, the vaccine’s efficacy isn’t a sure thing.
 
 
I guess the attendees at Tolstoy's tea-party may have been mistaken. Love definitely cannot be compared to something as innocuous as Scarlett fever. The tea sippers would be more on mark if they likened it to an ailment more potent, an ailment with multiple intractable strains. Something like swine flu perhaps. Not very romantic, you say? But then, you’re obviously aware of that old saying about casting pearls before the likes of us.

​"I do my thing and you do your thing.
I am not in this world to live up to your expectations,
And you are not in this world to live up to mine.
You are you, and I am I,
and if by chance we find each other, it's beautiful.
If not, it can't be helped."
 
It was in college I first came across this passage by Fritz Perls. Obviously, the thing about it that had most appealed to me then was that last line: if not, it can't be helped. The damn thing had a delightfully dismissive timbre to it; a timbre affordable only to the arrogance of youth.
 
Incidentally, I happened to stumble upon the same passage last evening. This time, however, the phrase that held my attention was a different one. I simply couldn't bring myself to proceed past the beauty of 'if by chance we find each other'. Must be age I guess. I mean, what else can explain this sudden profusion in bonhomie and acceptance?
 
I think as we traverse that broad and nebulous border between youth and middle-age, many of us inadvertently end-up exchanging some of our baggage. Then sometimes, when we've walked far enough from that border, a chance tug from the other side makes us aware of the swap. Indeed, it was such a tug that I felt last evening.
 
I think if Gulzar were to paraphrase, he would say something like...
कल रात सुना है सरहद पर फिर चली है गोली,
कल रात सरहद पर झुर्रियों का फिर हिसाब हुआ है।

​A customer, while rummaging through the options on display, spots some Chinese crackers on sale. He promptly unleashes a righteous attack at the shopkeeper's lack of patriotism. The shopkeeper is equally quick with his 'आम आदमी की मजबूरी' defense, which sounds suspiciously rehearsed. The discussion then veers towards the system, the expedient imperatives, and the plight of the common man. And soon, all is amiably settled. The righteous but understanding customer leaves with his load of cheaper Chinese crackers.
 
The whole thing is pretty touching. You're reminded of the last act from 'Romeo and Juliet' where the apothecary reluctantly sells poison to Romeo.
 
Apothecary:My poverty, but not my will, consents.
Romeo:I pay thy poverty, and not thy will.

Like every rose has its thorn, the brood’s summer holidays have a hook. They arrive with the macabre shadow of the ominous vacation-trip.
 
Yes, I realise I blaspheme when I speak out against travel. I’m fully aware how sacrosanct that commodity is (one Pablo Neruda even goes so far as to condemn those who do not travel to a slow death.) And yet, I continue with my tirade. I attribute my travel reluctance to the twin reasons of impersonation and whim.
 
Let's first consider Impersonation. It’s clear that the ‘travel’ which Messrs Neruda & company endorse is drastically different from the ‘travel’ of the routine mortal. Neruda advertises journeys that are supposed to be about rest, recreation, and the broadening of perspective. In contrast, what the typical vacation-trip seeks is titillation and excitement. It seeks to cater to, what Huxley calls, ‘an almost insatiable appetite for distraction.’ But that’s just half the story.
 
Let’s hence move on to the second reason. Personal whim. In other words, plain laziness. And though this may seem like too feeble a foe for the mighty ‘travel’- the quintessential David to a Goliath – I fancy I may have stumbled upon an apposite slingshot. Friends, I invoke before you the futurist Nick Bostrom. Now Bostrom, while expounding upon why the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence has so far failed, expalins that there’s a very small time window within which civilisations can make an interstellar journey to an alien planet. This window comprises of the years between their discovery of radio waves and their being able to plug themselves into a virtual reality (one that’s at least as good as the real thing; a Matrix, if you will.) Because once you’re able to simulate a perfect reality, there’s no reason why you’d want to endure pain and death in a real world. And that obviously leaves very little incentive for long and boring interstellar travel.
 
Now, let’s shrink the Bostrom model. Let’s replace interstellar travel with journeys to distant lands. Also, let’s swap virtual reality with the available visuals and literature about those lands(enhanced, of course, by a fecund imagination and a capacity for extrapolation). Finally, let the travails of a long and cumbersome interstellar journey be substituted with baggage claim queues, tiresome visa applications, reservation woes, and pressurised cabins that won’t endure cigarette smoke. And there! We have the proverbial straw with which the sublimely lazy will strike the travelling camel’s back.
 
Strike, I said; not break. For there are few arguments that triumph over the domestic imperative. So even as one writes this, he needs to answer the wife on the dry-cleaning status of the blue jacket that she’s packing for the trip.
 

​Browsing through Hindu Law. Here are some interesting tidbits:
1.Is unchastity before marriage a ground for voidable marriage?
No. But pregnancy before marriage is.
2.According to doctrine of pious obligation, a son is required to pay all those of his father's debts which weren’t ‘immoral’.
Examples of immoral debt? Debt incurred for drinking, gambling, prostitution, etc. And oh yes, unpaid tax is also an immoral debt.
So basically, if you have a lawyer who can stave things off for long enough, things will end up fine.
Moral of the story: The screwing around doesn't matter. What does is the kind of protection you're using.

Leslee Udwin’s documentary for BBC about the Nirbhaya rape case gives us some ugly truths. As expected, Udwin makes no pretence of trying to put any of them in perspective. For hers is that familiar offering of the great Indian underbelly; and it’s meant to cater to that same clientele which so gleefully lapped up ‘The White Tiger’ and ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. Interestingly, it’s not a difficult recipe to whip-up.
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Toss into the pan some outrageously remorseless statements by an accused rapist(mind you, all diligence must be exercised to peel those statements clean of any perspective or context. Leave no trace of the interviewer’s questions in the narrative.) Now allow the statements to cook on a slow fire. Stew till the remorselessness starts to give-off an odour of absurdity. Then once you sniff that sweet smell, throw in the mainstay flavours: the exalted views of two particularly erudite lawyers. Add to this some cherry-picked segments from the policemen-conversations (ensuring that all frivolous bits are retained even as the swiftness of nabbing the criminals is lightly glossed over.) Throw in some youth-protest clippings that have been neutered to reek of farce. Finally, garnish with some slum-shots and serve hot.
 
So, does Udwin’s take call for outright rejection? I don’t think so. Her adoption of the Animal-Planet methodology (using the behaviour of a dozen specimens to draw inferences about a whole species) does not legitimise our use of selective vision. The fact that hers isn’t a complete picture does not imply that we in turn ignore the parts that are pertinent.
If anything, we need to look at that picture with extra care. We need to be wary of the incendiary undercurrents that run-through it. In particular, we need to be wary of the brushstrokes that touch-up the interviewed rapist. Because by escalating the rapist’s remorselessness to a degree that is absurd, the painter tacitly seeks to exonerate him. ‘Such a system will produce such people’ she almost tells us, sending freewill for a toss.
I’m reminded of the real-life kidnapping and murder of Bobby Franks - an incident that spawned two Hollywood movies (‘Rope’ by Hitchcock, and ‘Compulsion’ starring Orson Welles).In an endeavour to prove that they were above the everyday morals meant for ordinary humans(an endeavour inspired by Nietzsche’s Ubermensch), two teenagers in Illinois kidnapped and murdered a 14 year old acquaintance. This is how their lawyer, Clarence Darrow, defended the murderer in court. ‘...Is Dickey Loeb to blame because out of the infinite forces that conspired to form him, the infinite forces that were at work producing him ages before he was born, that because out of these infinite combinations he was born without that something? If he was, then there should be a new definition for justice. Is he to blame for what he did not have and never had? Is he to blame that his machine is imperfect? Who is to blame? I do not know. I know that somewhere in the past that entered into him something missed. It may be defective nerves. It may be a defective heart or liver. It may be defective endocrine glands. I know it is something...’
 
Sounds absurd? It shouldn’t. Darrow’s ‘something’, after all, is not much different from Udwin’s ‘something’. 

Based on a Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), Transparency International arrives at a ranking of the least corrupt nations each year. And each year, it’s the same suspects that make it to the top: Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Canada, Switzerland, Iceland, Holland, Singapore, Australia, Japan.....the list is well known.
Remarkably, ‘least corrupt’ isn’t the only list that these hero-nations star in. With just a bit of rank-juggling amongst themselves, they also monopolise the leading roles in another feature presentation. Yes, the said nations also happen to be the ‘cleanest countries’ in the world.
Hardly a coincidence, you might say. For it is only obvious that least corrupt nations should have the most efficient delivery of all public services, hygiene & cleanliness included. And though such an argument wouldn’t be entirely facile, it would by no means be a comprehensive appreciation of the situation. The argument fails to take into account the fact that neither cleanliness, nor a corruption-free milieu, can be state enforced; that both of these require an active endorsement by the majority population. And because they are brought about and sustained by the free-will of a million ordinary citizens, the said attributes cannot be said to result from one single occurrence i.e. an honest government.
 
That of course is not to say that a cleanliness-corruption correlation doesn’t at all exist. It does. And all it requires for it to be ferreted out are a few basic questions. So, what constitutes corruption? Or more broadly, what constitutes morality. What exactly is it that makes something ‘moral’ or ‘immoral’?
“Moral,” answers Hemmingway, “is what you feel good after, and immoral is what you feel bad after.” And while that may be as good a working definition as any, it’s definitely far from perfect. It slips up on account of its dependence upon the element of individual conscience. Because conscience, as we know, is hardly the sacrosanct touchstone that it’s touted to be. Conscience is little more than a socially induced habit that varies across time and space.(Aristotle’s conscience never pricked him about keeping slaves. And after they’ve slapped their respective wives, the conscience pangs of a feudal villager will hit him a tad softer than those of an elite Mumbai banker. Time and space!)
 
We’re therefore prompted to go exploring for another definition of morality. A definition more sociological, more robust, more inspired by the gentle Spinoza; a definition that draws its being from “....and the moral man desires nothing for himself that he doesn’t desire for his fellow men.” Morality, hence, isn’t necessarily the set of wings that fly you into heaven. First and foremost, morality is the lattice which holds societal structures together. Morality is common-sense equipped with foresight. A thing becomes moral because if a majority of people didn’t abide by it, the fabric of society would begin to abrade. For example, if a majority of people didn’t speak the truth, communication would have no meaning at all. If a majority of people weren’t honest to their jobs, nations wouldn’t get built.
 
Cleanliness, curiously, works on the same principles. It requires everyone to chip in. More importantly, it requires everyone to possess the awareness of that duty. Which is why it makes great sense to root for the Swachh Bharat Campaign. Should that campaign succeed, its core principles just might spill over to other aspects of our public behaviour. And we could well become the nation that we aspire to be.

Khanum jaan(Shaukat Kaifi, or 'Shabana Azmi ki mumma', as Lila Jha once called her) is the 'Madam' of one of the finest brothels in Lucknow. Assisting her is middle aged Husseini (Dina Pathak). What follows is one of those 'all in a day's work' kind of conversation between them where they discuss how depraved the times have become.
खानम जान: अब उस दिन का ही ज़िकर लो! सुल्तान बेगम ने अपने मीयाँ को एक लौंडी से बात करते देख लिया। सुना है उसे सीकचीयों से दाग दाग कर मार डाला।
हुसैनी: हाय, हाय, हाय! क़यामत के दिन मुँह काला होगा एसी बीवियों का।
And then it dawns upon you - once you're done laughing - how slimy a creature prejudice can be. As Shakal from Shaan would say 'बड़ा अजीब जानवर है ये'। अजीब indeed! Because very seldom does this जानवर make an entrance through the designated doorways of indoctrination. More often than not, it will simply slide in through the crevices created by company, environment, and of course, personal gain.
Here's hoping for an 'independence' from prejudice.

Lots of trending news about the achievements of ancient Indians. We have the great surgery, the Pythagoras theorm, and now, inter-planetary air travel.

It’s understandable - the all round mockery which these claims to greatness are attracting. It’s understandable because such claims, even when made in earnest, invariably contain traces of the syllogism “The ancient Indians were great. We’ve descended from the ancients. Hence, we’re great (or have in us the potential for greatness).” And God forbid that the syllogism be present in quantities greater than a trace! The whole thing then becomes evocative of Satyajit Ray’s ‘Shatranj ke Khiladi’. More specifically, the agonisingly comic scene where Sanjeev Kumar, hanging to the coattails of his allegedly  illustrious ancestors, remarks with a flourish “…unka kuchh khoon toh humari ruggon mein bhi daud raha hoga….”
But alas, there are facets to ‘humara khoon’ that we fail to fully appreciate. Facets more profound than air travel; facets which concern themselves with our very understanding of the universe; facets which quantum physics is still scraping the surface of.

Take for example the EPR(Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen) paper on quantum entanglement. In ‘entangled’ subatomic particles travelling in opposite directions, ‘spin’ of a particle acquires a value only when it is measured. Then simultaneously (faster than the speed of light), irrespective of distance of separation, the other entangled particle takes up an appropriate reciprocal value. And thus blends into unison the trinity of the observed, the observer, and the observation. Advaita anyone?
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Or take the more recent experiment where a sub-atomic particle was stripped from its inherent physical property. A beam of neutrons was so split that one beam was neutrons and the other beam their magnetic moment. A quantum Cheshire cat, if you will. It’s a new state-of-affairs where physical properties can be separated from their ‘carriers’; a state-of-affairs that force-alters our concepts of perception and consciousness. By illustrating that ‘quality’ and ‘physical property’ are not an inherent attribute of matter, the experiment hints at an underlying and all pervading substance of which everything is an attribute. It’s a substance of which both mind and matter are properties; a substance which manifests as both subject and object. Advaita again! And the Mundaka Upanishad. 

It’s of course possible to argue that juxtaposing the findings of Quantum physics with Vedanta is a case of reverse engineering. But we would do well to remember that be it Bohr, Heisenberg, Schrodinger or Einstein; the big daddies of quantum physics never shied from making public their Vedanta connection. It’s no secret that the ideas which gave birth to quantum physics were in fact incubated in a grounding of Vedanta.

And therefore, to the question pertaining to surgeries and air-travel, perhaps the most befitting reply is the one that was given by Niels Bohr to an aspiring physicist. ‘Your theory is crazy young man,’ Bohr had said, ‘but it’s not crazy enough to be true.’

​Erasmus tells of a Spartan practice which required young boys to be kept underfed. It was assumed that they would fill themselves up on stolen food. This was war training to increase their hardiness and foraging skills. Interestingly, the Spartans considered it extremely shameful for someone to be caught stealing. And hence, what we in effect had was a system that tacitly allowed (and expected!) misdemeanours, but insisted on being outraged whenever that misdemeanour became public.
So, do they still seem all that unique and original? The Indian public’s terms of engagement with their public-office bearers.