Issue :   
December 2016 Edition of Power Politics is updated.  Happy Diwali to all our subscribers and Distributors       December 2016 Edition of Power Politics is updated.   Happy Diwali to all our subscribers and Distributors       
Issue:December' 2016

SIGNS OF THE TIMES

Oh, this hopelessness !

Humra Quraishi

The year seems to be ending on a rather dismal note! Today as I see tense looking people queuing up in front of banks , or sit clutching hundred rupee notes with a desperation of sorts ,or stand talking of nothing else but 'rupaiyyas', or else cursing their fate to be living in this chaotic era where nothing's seems to be going right, I'm reminded of the one-liner I heard from a Trilopuri based Sikh carpenter,Balwinder, who looked stricken with grief after the 1984 anti – Sikh riots and had kept muttering, "Ajeeb sa mahoul hai… ab kuch bhi ho sakta hai." (It is a strange situation… anything can happen.)

I'm more than reminded of this one-liner today in the winter of 2016 because I do sense a hopelessness on not just the faces of the masses but also in their gait and expressions and day-to- day living. If the smog didn't kill hundreds this demonetization will. Not just because of the lack of buying or selling prowess but by the irony of it all. Already semi- starved people have begun coming up with queries: Wasn't this government supposed to get back black money from offshore accounts? Wasn't this government supposed to expose the corrupt politicians and business tycoons? Wasn't this government supposed to drag back the likes of Lalit Modis and Vijay Mallyas who seem well -nestled in the UK? Wasn't this government supposed to better our lives but here we are all dying in these strangely twisted times …what sense does all this make?

Justice to the riots-hit

Political 'promises' of getting justice to the riots hit ,is one of those pending promises, and as the situation exists it will continue to remain in the pending slot ... A riot is a riot. A pogrom is a pogrom. A massacre is a massacre. Loot - maar - kaat takes place in each of these, whether the humans are from a this or that community.

Last week a book launched here in New Delhi on the anti -Sikhs riots of 1984 - '1984: In memory and Imagination –Personal essays and Short Fiction on the 1984 Anti –Sikh Riots ( Amaryllis ) carries essays and personal writings from several of us - Ajeet Cour, Kirpal Dhillon, Hartosh Singh Bal, Rana Chhina, Rizio Yohannan Raj , MS Madhavan ,Aditya Sharma , Jaspreet Singh, Mridula Garg and several others . My essay is also tucked in this volume but I'm focusing on the piece written by Preeti Gill.

Preeti Gill Titled 'A Question of Identity', Preeti Gill writes in that stark way , offloading her thoughts ever so blatantly. I quote from her piece - "When I look back on 31 October 1984, the first thing I recall with stark intensity is the silence of the street below my office in Delhi's Connaught Place. The sort of silence you associate with desolate, empty landscapes stretching vast and endless as far as the eye can traverse. Certainly not what you would expect the very heart of a throbbing metropolis, which is also the capital of the country, to look like in the middle of the day.
But as I descended from the first floor of my office building with a friend, it was just such a scene of quiet emptiness that greeted me and it seemed to bring into the gentle autumn air a chill, a foretaste of something terrible that was waiting in the wings to fly in and claim me. And I am not a fanciful person given to a vivid imagination…That evening, despite the kind of rumours making the rounds and the extremely hysterical and rabblerousing images on TV, my husband—a cleanshaven Sikh—and I left our house in Bapa Nagar to attend a dinner party at the home of a friend in faraway Greater Kailash. (My parents had just left for Chandigarh; my father had gone on deputation and was allowed to retain his house in Bapa Nagar, which is where we were staying along with my sister.) We did not expect trouble. This was our city, our country after all. What happened on our return journey, however, belied our expectations. It happened while driving down Delhi's Ring Road, somewhere near the busy Lajpat Nagar area and just before climbing the Lajpat Nagar flyover. That flyover is one of the oldest flyovers in the city. We had often sat there on balmy summer evenings, with ice-cream cones in hand, watching the traffic go by. That night, we suddenly ran into a crowd of men holding flaming torches, lathis, barchchas and the like. They seemed to emerge out of the dark, fearful and dangerous in their intensity. Just half an hour before this, we had been warned over the telephone by my sister, who had stayed home that night, that the television was full of disturbing news, that there was trouble brewing, and that we should return right away.."

Outstanding reportage

This time of the year is the PII- ICRC annual awards time for outstanding reportage and also photographs focusing on "Reporting on the Fate of Victims of Natural/Man-Made Disasters." This year Rubin Joseph and Santhosh John Thooval, both of the Malayala Manorama, bagged the first prize in the 10th edition of the PII-ICRC Annual Awards,and they'd focused on impact of endosulfan on children in Kerala …The first prize for the Best photograph on a humanitarian subject category was awarded to M u r u g a r a j Lakshman, Chief Photographer of Dinamalar, for capturing compelling images of the rescue efforts during the floods in Chennai.. Also awarded was B. Muralikrishnan, Chief News Photographer of Mathrubhumi, for an image showing an Afghan soldier, who benefitted from a hand transplant, expressing. his gratitude to the wife of the donor.

Strains from the Valley …

There's something incredibly special to the Kashmir Valley. It beckons! Continues beckoning till you actually reach there. And then it doesn't let you go away…Even if you sit miles away, physically away that is, your soul and emotions continue to be there…hovering around in the Valley. Memories grip even now, as I sit writing those philosophical relays I grasped whilst travelling in and around Srinagar.

Dr Mir Nazir Ahmad In the Valley, I have heard such offbeat strains to death that those set perceptions to it have long receded. In many Kashmir locales, graves are situated well within home compounds, garden stretches or the mohalla confines. As though the dead have not really gone away! Many times, when I visited my Kashmiri friends' homes after a considerable gap and asked about their children or parents or spouses, I was told of the 'departures' of several of them, and told in no ordinary manner but actually taken to the graves along with one-liners along the strain :"He belonged to Allah , gone back to his Creator, gone to a far better world than ours …resting in there !" I have heard mothers not just praying at their children's graves but as though conversing with them .Of course, one way conversations ! Each time I have interacted with an apolitical Kashmiri, those interactions cannot be termed ordinary .Extraordinary they turned out to be as there was an array of accompanying philosophy. What I couldn't locate in volumes after volumes, I have learnt through my years of interactions with my Kashmiri friends …their words enough to suggest that don't take pains and losses and upheavals and dents to heart as there's always a tomorrow with fresh arrivals! Each time I'm sad and sullen, I tell myself not to sit forlorn as tomorrow might drag along lesser hitting realities.
And whilst I'm keying in, nostalgia overpowers and strengthens its hold, as news came in earlier this week of the passing away of the Valley based doctor Dr Mir Nazir Ahmad. I'd first met him , though for seconds , in the 90s when he was heading a wellknown hospital of the Valley and I was there to report on the long list of the injured during rebellious outbursts. He was in the midst of a meeting and quite obviously didn't have the time to answer any of my queries. When I had persisted with my queries I was asked to leave …left somewhat upset and quite obviously determined never to ever try and meet this doctor. But few years later I met him once again at a popular chai café of Srinagar .Nah, not a fixed meeting but more along the destined strain. I was at the Residency Road when it had begun to drizzle and stopped by at this café for chai and toasts. Dr.Nazir was seated with one of his friends, at the adjoining table. And yes, this time he spoke and spoke along such a heady philosophical strain that he came across as no ordinary doctor but more of a philosopher –artistthinker.

When I was researching for my book on the Kashmir Valley I had visited his home.He had shown me the sprawling garden stretch , complete with trees of all hues and forms( including fig trees ) and a water fall. As we sat at one end of the lawns on that unusually hot afternoon I'd looked around, in the hope of spotting a table fan, he'd smiled ,"Nature sure to intervene …it will rain before evening sets in..." Within a couple of hours it had rained, with he quipping, "When things get unbearable we human beings become impatient and don't wait for Nature's interventions to play the vital role ."

Dr Nazir had so much to offload and he spoke with such detailing that each little anecdote or happening or incident became so memorable.