Forgetting yesteryear

The defeat of the Indian cricket team at the hands of the minnows, Bangladesh, and against the more formidable Sri Lanka, has drawn the ire of its supporters. They have gone overboard in expressing their displeasure at the team’s defeat, by organizing mock funerals for the players, burning effigies of the players, raising slogans against the player etc. I ask all of us to take a turn back, and observe our own lives. How many times have we failed at attempts in the past? So many of these failures have come when people - our friends and our family- have expected something from us. Did these people go around burning our effigies or shouting torrents of abuse against us when we had failed? In fact, these were the times when they supported and encouraged us the most. Why the difference when it comes to the team’s loss? The team has accepted defeat gracefully. Now it is time for its supporters to accept gracefully that the players are also humans.

The journey continues

In your years in this world,
you touched so many hearts.
You brought smiles to many a face.
Your convictions lessened
others misery.

You climbed to heights,
you would never be satisfied with –
your desire to continually improve.
You’ve left your mark in our lives.

You are remembered today.
In a years time, people would
accept this loss.
This void you’ve left, would
show its face in our lives
if not theirs.

I still remember the lessons you
taught me during this course.
I never told you how grateful I am
for these.
Today I may be late in this attempt
I have your words ringing in my mind.
You said ‘It is better late than never’.

I am not shedding a tear for you today.
you would never had enjoyed
seeing me thus.
Thanks for giving me this strength.

You are at the gate of another world today.
A higher force has felt that it’s time
you graced some other lives
in some other world.

Closed

You are watching the person facing you;
Looking in to his eyes.
He’s opening himself bit by bit,
letting you into places he has
let no one before.

But you still don’t yield.
You remain rock solid –
closed.

The rationalist in me

I had never believed that I was a quintessential rationalist. But I always had a thirst for knowledge, especially knowledge of the unexplained. I remember questioning every religious ritual (from something small like visiting temples to more challenging ones like avoiding non vegetarian food during months of fasting) I was put through. Some other features of our religion (and largely a part of the Indian culture) like the disregard shown to our feet (the prayer one says before one puts his feet on the ground, asking mother earth for forgiveness, for touching her with our feet exemplifying this) have not got an advocate in me. It was this rationalist in me that pondered on this issue – the issue of life after death – or can we say life before birth!

I believe a very simple principle – of good begetting good. I believe that life throws at you what you have thrown at it – both the bad and the good done For a staunch believer of these statements, the question of whether there is life after death (or more precisely life before birth) would give an indubitable answer – YES! I have only one argument as a vindication. Take a newspaper and read the accounts of little children dying or being inflicted with injuries, or of them being exploited, due to various causes and for different reason like war, disease, or simply ill-luck. Had these tiny tots done such grave mistakes in the few years they graced the lives of the people around, that they have been reprimanded thus?

One thought lingers in my mind – in what sense am I a rationalist?

The Breeze

I took up a seat near the window,
hoping to catch some light,
to do some reading.

The open window,
allowed a light breeze in,
which brought something along.

It carried with it,
the fragrance of the wild flowers
on the trees outside.

Distance made the
flowers look modest.
Their beauty and scent
augmenting their smallness.

It wasn’t a very strong scent.
But it succeeded in initiating
a desire in me.

A desire to refashion the whiff to
a continuous feeling.
That was not to be.

It is said that all good things in life
come in tiny packets.
It was true in this case.
If I had my longing satisfied,
maybe I would never have taken
pleasure in the scent
as much as I do today.

A small dose of the good,
with a discontentment -
a want for more,
is the most beautiful feeling,
second to none.

The Yellow Trees

The yellow trees along the street;
charming they were,
forming a delicate arch over the path –
Attracting birds;
Squirrels playing hide and seek
on their branches.
How many had noticed these?

A few birds – elegant, sweet,
but tiny,
perch on the stalk holding the flowers.
A subtle movement of their neck,
and they sip the nectar
from the yellow flowers.
How many had noticed these?

Open up your senses, look around;
in people, in animals, in birds,
and in these yellow trees.
When beauty is all around,
How can people complain of seeing none?
The ‘beholder’ is different,
and so are the people.

The other me

You stand at the shore,
trying to get a glimpse
of what lies on the other side.
It’s all water that you see.

You seem to give up so easily.
Or maybe you never really tried
to sail across the waters
to the real person I call me.

Once on the other side,
you would never feel the impulse
to return to where you stand now.
That’s a guarantee.

Love III

There are people for whom
we are much more than what
we actually are.
These are the people to whom
you normally turn a blind eye.

Life takes us through paths
where we keep yearning for
love from people –
not noticing the ones ready to love,
but lamenting on the ones lost.

Those who have loved us
have never expected anything in return.
But we’ve given them a piece of
our mind very often.
We’ve taken them for granted.

If life takes a bad turn today,
we mustn’t be left with guilt -
guilt of not recognizing true love;
guilt of being after love
when actually love was all around.

The inner you

I have seen you in deep thoughts.
I have wondered to where you travel.
It is the only time I see you without that smile,
reinvigorating the others on whom its grace falls.

You’ve built a fence around these thoughts;
kept them under lock and key.
A very few privileged or maybe none have taken a peek,
at this world so unlike the outer being.

I would like this privilege extended to me.
I do not know how many have asked for this.
I would like to delve into this world of yours.
Whether my guesses have been right, I could then see.

If it is a flowering garden,
let us both be captivated by it.
If there are somber, dark clouds,
maybe I could point out to their silver lining.

This is one thing I ask from you.
Let this world of yours be shared.
Let me love the inner you.

Gamble

I would have preferred the toss of a coin
as a deciding factor of my destiny.
At least here the probabilities equally divided.

I am unable to ease the ruffling of my mind,
trying to foretell my chance in this tale
which I began writing lately.

If the sun decides to shine on me,
it would be the graceful hand that leads me
out of my world that had turned grey.

If the forces decide against me,
I would end up loosing more than what
I would have gained otherwise.
It is a gamble – a risk maybe worth taking.
Would this turn out to be brighter days in the making?

Unsaid

Things still remain unsaid.
Be ready for the unexpected, the unseen.
Unsaid if it remains for good,
would be for my bad.
Look within me, maybe you’ll discover.
But let it remain unsaid.

People

I loved one person
without placing on it any limits.
And this is what I got in return.
Now, what can I expect from the
others around, whom I haven’t loved as much?

Identity and the Clash of Civilizations

The use of this phrase -‘clash of civilization’ - has come into being ever since the US and its allies started this full scale war against the perpetrators of the terrorist strikes against them. This phrase, which has become a cliché since then, emanated from the title of a book written by Samuel E Huntington, in which he describes the present crisis as being a clash between two civilizations – the Muslim world and the West. The author’s Harvard colleague, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, has debunked Huntington’s views on the conflict, and has given reasons as to why he thinks Huntington’s views are flawed. Both the economists have thrown each others’ theories overboard in the books that they have authored.

To have religion as the only singular means to identify a people calls for some serious deliberation, especially when imprudent world leaders have identified people thus. Shashi Tharoor in his book ‘India’ has indicated that the only thing singular about a country like India is its inherent pluralism. This was written in the context of India alone, but can be extended to include the diversities in the world as such. Both Tharoor and Sen have voiced their concerns regarding inciting communal intolerance in India (while Sen witnessed the riots at the time of Indian independence, Tharoor had been witness to the more recent riots in December 1992). Following Huntington’s theory, these cases of communal riots will have to be seen as a clash of the Hindu world and the Muslim world in India.

The diverse identities that the people of a community may hold remain unnoticed. Most of the time these other identities override the religious identity a person holds. For example, farmers belonging to different countries, different religions; have been united against the oppressive nature of the free trade policies that their governments have chosen. Similarly, social activists, breaking all the chains of religion, class etc., voiced their pleasure at Pakistan’s breakaway from the dehumanizing Hudood ordinance. The killing of a journalist in Indonesia or Sri Lanka, or the restrictions imposed on free journalism by certain authoritarian rulers, bring all journalists together, and thus their ‘journalistic’ voice is heard. Many instances like these may be listed, further exemplifying and justifying this claim of pluralism and diversity.

Rather than inciting hostility based on divisions created on religious lines, it would bear fruit, if attempts are made to use these other identities as a means to unite people. Above these common traits that the people of various lands, religions, class etc. may hold, there lies something that brings the whole world together; and that is the yearning for a happy and decent life. And you don’t get this at another’s expense.

Anup Nambiar

* This article has been influenced by ideas presented in the books ‘Identity and Violence” and “The Argumentative Indian” by Amartya Sen, “India – From Midnight to the Millennium” by Shashi Tharoor, an interview of Samuel Huntington published in a Gulf News supplement and various other news paper and magazine articles.

Brighter days

I planned to write on
the prospect of having
brighter days ahead –
something optimistic,
positive.
Very unlike the state
in which I found myself.

I had this want, from
when things had gone
slightly awry.

I wanted to get my mind
cleared of the thoughts
that had me fixed thus.

I had to invent this feeling
of happiness and optimism.
My mind did not
yield to this want.

I think I’ll leave this
want, for the moment.

I’ll give time for the
present feeling to sink in.

The walk

I was on the road
I had walked on so many times
during those days.
The walk brought back memories.

I was with darkness
and the stars above.
This time again with you
in my mind.

I wondered how nice
the previous walks on the
same route had been.

I always had something
nice to think of then,
when times had been better.

I wished I could change these
things which I myself had
deemed uncontrollable.

Promise II

I remember the exact words I had used,
when I promised you this.

This promise, turned tenet,
Guided me through time.

I recollect you telling me that
it would be me who forgets this promise.

Now see who has.

I was ready to give up some of my other dreams
As a last gasp impetus to this one dying.
Taught by some wrong decisions from the past
I realize that now there is no point trying.

Your Dream

I woke up at two thirty this morning.
My mind filled with a thousand thoughts of you.
I tossed and turned on the bed,
trying to catch some more sleep –
in vain.

I held onto the pillow beside me.
The pillow had been a being in my life;
That being you had never tried to be.

I reminisced about how you had entered
my world as just ‘someone’,
and had proceeded to become my life,
changing me for good,
without even realizing this.
These changes you brought about,
by your presence alone.

I can still feel your touch,
and smell your raiment,
and remember the feel of your deeply oiled hair.
I knew you would never see
the tears that has my eyes filled today
when I think of all this.

Our story is a joke for the others around.
Something on which people can laugh about.
I don’t see this as something bad;
at least I am being the cause
of some others’ happiness.

How conveniently you have forgotten;
maybe not me, but what we had on our way.
It might be my fault that I never saw
this thing that we shared
with callousness or insincerity.

I had put my thoughts into words
and had written about my feelings.
Somehow all of them managed to
miss the person they were intended for – you.

I imagined speaking to you for a long time; this morning;
something I hadn’t done for so many years.
I spoke about everything I had written now,
just wishing you would see
me telling you these things in a dream.

And maybe then realize.

Vegetarianism and the Environment

During the last few decades, food production has had a faster growth than the population. Nevertheless, nearly 840 million people (status in 2004) [6] face starvation today, and more than half of the 10.4 million deaths among children can be attributed to malnutrition. Feeding these people and the growing population has been a burden on earth’s resources. What’s more? The people from the more affluent background are in no way helping their cause. Their present eating habits only help to increase this burden on the resources. Some of the effects of eating a diet rich in meat and diary products are that it is a strain on the fossil fuel resources, it causes rain forest depletion, it aids soil erosion, water pollution, and reduces the availability of food grains for human consumption.

The animals that are grown for food production require to be fed with grains, soy and other corps. The production of these crops, their harvesting and transportation require energy. The transportation of these animals from the feedlots to the slaughterhouse, and of the carcasses, often in refrigerated trucks, to the processing plants and then to the groceries use fossil fuels. More than one third of all fossil fuels produced in the US go towards animal husbandry. The efficiency of fossil fuel use may be a factor of 2.5 – 50 times better for vegetable proteins when compared with animal proteins [11]. This factor has a direct consequence to the carbon dioxide level increase in the world. A report estimated that driving a hybrid car rather that an average vehicle would conserve a little over one ton of carbon dioxide per year. A vegetarian diet however consumes one and half tons less than an average American diet. Thus going vegetarian is in some ways better than driving a hybrid car!

The very requirement for animal feed on a commercial scale, has changed the land use pattern in many countries. For the 200 million beef export to the US, the Latin and Central American rainforests have been cleared with complete disregard (a land having the size of seven football fields is destroyed every minute, every day) [4]. In the US alone, 260 million acres of forests have been cleared for raising animals. The same effect is seen in China too. In the mid 1960s, 34% of the total maize (of the 25 million tons) produced was used to feed animals, while in the mid 1990s, 80% of the 113 million tons of maize was used to feed animals [12]. The next time you are having a hamburger remember that you have just been responsible for destroying 55 square feet of forests!

Besides grains, animals need water to survive and grow until they are slaughtered. One pound of beef requires an input of approximately 2500 gallons of water, whereas a pound of soy requires 250 gallons of water and a pound of wheat only 25 gallons [1]. Agriculture is a source of water pollution through the use of fertilizers. Thus, raising animals (and their food) also adds to problem on water resources. The manure created from the billions of animals killed for food often ends up in rivers and streams, killing millions of fish [1]. Livestock are directly or indirectly responsible for much of the soil erosion in the United States too. On lands where feed grain is produced, soil loss averages 13 tons per hectare per year. Pasture lands are eroding at a slower pace, at an average of 6 tons per hectare per year. But erosion may exceed 100 tons on severely overgrazed pastures, and 54 percent of U.S. pasture land is being overgrazed [5].

The earth has sustained so far, because meat products as a daily portion of ones meals, is still a western phenomenon (considering the number of non-vegetarians there). Meat products still remain a luxury to people in the poor countries. The advent of globalization has seen processed meat products, being sold in other parts of the world, including in some of these poor countries. When the people of these countries change their food habits, trying to emulate the west, it becomes a burden which the earth can not shoulder. Again here, the affluent in these countries will not have problems – they can buy their way out of trouble importing the necessities. It would be the poor who face the brunt of it all.

Anup J Nambiar

* I have generously used ideas and facts available at the web sites of the BBC, IIASA, FAO, Cornell University, EPA, American Journal of Clinical Nutrition and the World Rainforest Movement.

References

[1] http://vegetarian.about.com/od/vegetarianvegan101/f/waterpollution.htm
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_vegetarianism
[3] http://vegetarian.about.com/od/vegetarianvegan101/f/fossilfuels.htm
[4] http://vegetarian.about.com/od/vegetarianvegan101/f/forestclearcut.htm
[5] http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Aug97/livestock.hrs.html
[6] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3559542.stm
[7] http://www.epa.gov/rlep/faq.html#1
[8] http://www.newfarm.org/news/2004/0504/052404/air_quality.shtml
[9] http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2005/102924/
[10] http://www.wrm.org.uy/deforestation/indirect.html
[11] http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/78/3/664S
[12] http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/ChinaFood/argu/impact/imp_21.htm
[13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_vegetarianism
[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veganism

Facade

It is very difficult to feign a smile
when it is hurting inside.
This is what I have been doing,
since that star filled night.

I stayed locked up in my room
reminiscing about the moment
we had spent together.
Maybe loving each other,
without knowing or accepting it.

Her words kept ringing in my mind –
‘he had tried and waited for so long’ - yes true.
He did and he spoke overtly about it.
I kept mum, hiding the feeling within
for even longer; in the cauldron - my heart.
I just spoke the odd word about love.

Men don’t cry, I have heard people say.
I did not.
It is on paper I vent my innermost feelings.
This is where I find solace.

Someone knocks the door.
I fold the paper, and place it in
one of the books on the shelf.

I open the door.
I give the same warm smile.