Kanavu: Dreams and Memories

Kanavu is a tribal school in Wynad, Kerela. I first heard about this school a few years back when the Kanavu children visited my kids' school and we were all invited for a live demonstration of Kalaripayattu - a martial art form from Kerela. The large football field was the chosen site; that day there were dhurries, mats, chairs arranged around a central clearing. It was evening time, children were running around in traditional clothes, young girls in sarees, boys in kurta. At the appointed time, the Kanavu children filed in and the audience fell silent. The large boulders shone pink, copper in the evening light, birds twittered around, intensifying the silence, suspense. What followed remains etched in memory, to be later recollected, relived. Young children demonstrated the basic movements, leaps, combat moves, with a confident air of the proficient, moving progressively to the older group who leaped, swooped, swirled, clashed, combated, their sticks clanging, daggers glinting, knives flashing, their metal whips cracking like lightening in the encroaching darkness-in ever faster, fiercer, breathless combats, of non-choreographed grace and deftness,agility and skill, that had us gasping in awe, fear, for their safety-and all ending with a shy, open grin at our ever enthusiastic applause.

It was night when they finished. Stars lit the dark sky-I wandered over to the school principal and asked if anyone could learn Kalaripayattu? was I too old? I still remember what he said, "anyone can learn, if there is true desire". Maybe my desire was not true enough, my faith not strong enough, my resolve to follow Kanavu (which means-dreams)too weak and easily forgotten in daily cares.

Yesterday, a friend wrote to say Kanavu is in trouble. Their source of funding has run out- but the school still exists and is now run by two young former students. It's good that Kanavu exists-that the dream still exists. Life would run dry, barren if dreams disappeared, in this case dreams of children-young warriors.

Here's a Kanavu story carried recently by Tehelka.

Beauty of My Hands

Today I fell in love with my hands. Lean, strong, calloused, my shovel, my forklift, my gardener, mason, handyman, worker, cook, artist, writer, lover, mother's hands to stroke her kids, hands that meditate, swim in strong strokes, expressive hands that gesture, talk, brown hands, with green veins, short stubby nails, warm, red, able hands-today I loved my hands that gathered dirt from gutters after the first rains, soft, dark, moist, sweet smelling of composted greens, fed it lovingly to the plants in my garden, dug holes and planted trees...my hands did all this for me...today I fell in love with my hands.

Horror of Horrors!

Last night, the first rains hit us in Bangalore-today the residence campus wore a sparkley look of a well scrubbed child-glistening, moist, clean-very clean. I decided to walk back home from one of those rare ventures out of the walled, green world that I live in...into the real world of chaotic traffic, noise, puddles from the afternoon rain. The mood was upbeat, almost daring - to wander out, far, in a drizzle full of evening light.

The walk back home took me past a campus gate thats usually locked-today it was open-I was happy to be able to reach into the campus, sooner than expected, anticipating a dark, drippy walk through the familiar forested areas-a quiet, meandering to the back end of my home. What I saw belies imagination, of the worst sort, a living nightmare-the forest had vanished! Large tracts now lay beaten, brown with large concrete frames rising from it. Monuments were being built, monuments to egos larger than mortal frames, egos seeking to imprint their transitory existence into concrete immortal blocks, of steel, glass-green now vanished, vanquished, scheduled to reappear- isolated into tiny islands of manicured lawns, well appointed bush, a correctly angled tree, imagined in the minds and offices of architects, city planners employed to creatively orchestrate this destruction.

What assumed rights leads to such behavior, the megalomaniac tendencies of human race, to destroy to create- more and more out-of-proportion with our rights, our race? With what callousness do we wipe out-the rights of life, of species, big and small-of trees that breathe? birds that sing? flowers that bloom?

Beyond the horror of destroying a living, green, forest, what does a scientific institute like ours hope to achieve? A large bill board advertises the nature of the project and its cost. Various science departments are being relocated from their old, functioning buildings of aged, mulled, stone, to swanky spaces-also a guest house for the foreign dignitaries. We must remember, that who we are, is not what we do, but how we clothe, the face we show - to an audience of 'international' (read first world) peers. The cost of these set of buildings-about Rupees 48 crores!!Will these new buildings enable/ guarantee better science, productivity? studies of more socially relevant, environmentally sensitive topics, which the nation needs? With what right does our government appropriate such vastly inappropriate sums of national funds to irrational, irrelevant, non-contexted science that does not raise us from poverty, illiteracy, inequity which grinds into the pores of daily life-grits the flavor of our existence?

To provide context, it requires about one lakh to do watershed development for a village, similar or less to open a balwaadi for primary education. Basic health care and a first aid centre between a few villages is still an unheard fantasy!
So, one can either have 4800 of such programs, or 4 fancy buildings for IISc!! And note, much more is being built for empire expansion within this campus! I am only talking about the project that I crossed today-other side of the campus is a bigger mess using probably, bigger funds!

The question is, how much of this activity has the attention of what fraction of our enlightened faculty?? Did they know and not care? or not know? or not want to know? Why do the students not protest? Are there no angels, sentinels to guard what we so wantonly destroy? To keep us off the destructive path? Who will save us?

Abandoning a Book -and Ending a Suffering!

Ever since last year, when I read a book review of Pankaj Mishra's "An End to Suffering", I had been captivated by the imagery of landscapes that this book promised to explore;lands where buddhist thoughts, influence, had migrated, taken root and flowered into its own distinctive cultural and spiritual strain, that in turn, colored lives and landscapes of these regions. The book dealt with travel, buddhism, and promised lyrical prose full of light, shadows in remoteness, inner and geographical, to satisfy even a picky reader like myself.

So it was with excitement that I bought this book, and then savored the denial, a refusal to read, a delicious postponement of yielding in to what was anticipated to be a major influential literary event of my recent life.

Finally-the D-day arrived-an empty day, where tasks had been swept away, family out of the way, a long stretchy day of promised leisure, enough food, a diwan, and the book-a pot of jasmine tea, I was ready.

The book's prologue started with a rickety bus ride into himalayan oblivion, full of glowing images of countryside, tall mountains, deep valleys, people...beautiful, beautiful...Mishra's ability to draw his reader into his mindscapes and thereon to the worlds that he moved through is magical. I curled up a little more-now totally caught in this web of words, mind, lands, mind-lands, that only poets habitat.

It was with surprise that the next few chapters that unfolded delved immediately into the prosaic, academic,'scholarly', dry, historical treatise of early buddhism, and the detailed accounting of the western 'discoverers' of this religion and their lives; the preceding historical evolution of the aryan influence on the existing social structure, leading to that moment of Buddha's birth, and emergence of his philosophical ideology as a means of liberation from social, individual, suffering; and finally the chapter on 'Death of God' where ideas of modern, western, existentialism, found space with discourse on poverty in India, her lost youth....the book died for me before God did. Where did all the color disappear, the light, the story of journeys!! Why did such a remarkable writer stoop to such dull documentation-why cant histories be stories, interwoven, alive??

Liberating Palestine-A Gandhian Approach

Even as Palestine continues under the grips of violent occupation, and responds in kind with extreme bloody versions of 'Intifada', there is quiet revolution spreading across the country, which seeks to change the entire tenor of the country's struggle for liberation. Palestine's non-violent resistance is a Gandhian expression of its struggle for independence from Israel occupation, oppression, using methods of boycotts, civil protests, in a peaceful manner-towards just that end-peace in the region.

Check out the inspiring article by Aimee Ginsburg in Outlook:
www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?sid=1&fodname=20080317&fname=Palestine+(F)

Crossing Notes

Today,two notes
crossed each other-
he, dark and young
she, gray, a monk
his notes of strength,gaiety
hers of sombre propriety
his song of season's renewal
her's of quiet withdrawl
they, strangers-
gazes locked in
recognition,
a moment, a spark,
identification,
of kindred heart-
today, two notes
crossed each other.

Border Security Force-Another Incidence

Bang! Bang!
shots point blank
at close range-
a prisoner
taken into custody
shackled and tied
no question of flight
in a fake 'encounter'
by protectors,
custodians
of our rights,
our strength
our might,
our freedoms-
machineries of our fears
instruments of hate
have turned their face
upon their creators
become monsters,
destructors,
of innocent and small-
in cruel games
that apall
like children
squashing roaches
swatting flies
tearing butterflies
imitating power
impotency
being entertained
by pain
without due process
of conscience and heart-
no public protest
at death, violation
of right
to life
to hope
happiness
small but true
a short story
lived through
now cut abruptly,
brutally,
torn and shred
beyond repair-
who can fight
the might of
the Border Security Force.
-------------------
In the March 4, 2008, PUCL reporting, Mr. Basudeb Sarkar was taken into custody and shot in chest and killed, in a fake encounter with the BSF.