How the poor become poorer

This is not a paper on the theories of Economics. It’s not even a debate this time. It’s a true story, a painfully long story.

Often people wonder about this clichéd phrase 'the rich become richer and the poor become poorer'. While the rich becoming richer is a very easy phenomenon to understand, 'the poor becoming poorer part' needs some thought.

Ropan is a cobbler in a Leprosy Hospital. He is supposed to help leprosy patients (ah yes Persons with Hansen's Disease) with their Micro Cellular Rubber (MCR) footwear. I say he is supposed to, because he hardly works. He is one of those 'typical' case study material. Defaulting at work, alcoholic, wife-beating, gambling and add upon it 7 children. Yes you read it right - seven!! I knew him when I used to work in Bihar. I was asked to counsel him. Like all well-meaning counselees, he would nod with a smile, with a mouthful of khaini and went back to his ways, ever so often. The hospital authorities did not want to take any 'action' against him as they saw, in cinematic language 'the seven small children' behind him. He used this shield and felt that he could walk around scot-free.

Not for long.

It’s been more than 5 years since I left the hospital and Bihar. Ropan, I heard had never changed his ways. The hospital authorities had had too much of him and finally gave him a choice of either transfer or termination. Ropan opted the transfer - to a non-descript place called Salur in Andhra Pradesh, where they speak as much Hindi as the number of test victories the Indian cricket team manages to achieve overseas - close to NIL. Of the seven children only 1, the eldest (girl) had managed to complete schooling during their time in Bihar. The rest are yet to complete school education. 5 of those children have not gone beyond class 6. The youngest is 8 years and the eldest is 18 years. Government education in AP means Telugu, of which they cannot fathom a syllable. Their education now stands still. During their one month of stay in AP, the parents fought incessantly and with schooling not helping, the mother and the 7 children decided to come to Delhi to find 'their ways' in this wild city.

They tried to find houses near relatives, but the children didn’t like the experience. They now live in a truly Dickensian neighbourhood, in a run-down dilapidated shack with no 'eyes on the future'. The girl is a talented singer. But her mother doesn’t like her doing the rounds with the 'choir' party. She is on the verge of singing in a studio. The church they have been going have been very helpful in finding a job for the girl, but the mother is not very approving of the 'sir' who found her the job. To top it all the mother is an illiterate and still can’t get her grips with life in a big city. The elder children lament that her mother just doesnt seem to understand that they will not be safe with their 'safe' relatives. The naughtiest of the 7 children, is already careening on the edges with anti-social elements.

While we were speaking on the terrace, eagles were hovering above us near one of the biggest poultry farms I have ever seen. Here is a family, with innocent small children thrown open to the vultures and the eagles of this world waiting to prey upon them - in Delhi, of all places! The word 'vulnerable' was standing right before me crying between alternative sentences!!

Aisha the eldest and Akshit, the next who has not even finished class 11 are now left with bearing the huge responsibility of this huge family.

I spent about 3 hours with this family - which is teetering on its edge. I walked away with a well of emotions - sad, angry, disappointed, confused, troubled - but with hope. I am not able to walk past this story. Not another file to be stowed away for ‘further’ study.

Arent we, the 'Social Work' types, supposed to be making a difference in lives like these? On my way back I was asking more questions with few answers.

Thats why I wrote this.

I am exploring opportunities like vocational education/job for the elder children, hostel for the kids, monetary support etc., - but want to tread with caution. They are still not orphaned children, although their state would qualify for it. They exist in a set-up where the concept of family has just vanished into thin air.

If you guys have ideas, suggestions, contacts, networks or even questions that could help, do let me know.

Sara Sara Saara kaathu - English translation

I found that many people had required a translation of this beautiful song. I coulndt locate this on the net, so I decided to do it myself. People can suggest improvements where needed.

Šara Šara Šaara Kathu Veesum Pøthum
Šir ah Paarthu Paesum Pøthum
Šara Paambu Pøla Nenju Šaththam Pøduthey..

When the cold wind blows and when I look at ‘Sir’ and talk
My heart thumps like a rattle snake


Ithu Ithu Ithu Pøna Nenju Thaika
Otha Paarva Paarthu Šella Møththa Šøtha
Èzhuthi Thaaraen Møøchu Utpada..

I will write all my property including my breath to you
For you to stitch my broken heart with just a glance at me

Tea, Pøla Nee.. Ènna Aen, Aathura..

Why are you waiting for the heat to get cold as if I am ‘Tea’
Enga Ooru Pudikutha? Enga Thaani Inikutha?
Suthi Varum Kaathula, Suttu Eeral Manakutha?
Do you like our village? Is our water sweet?
Does the liver cooked in the village air, smell good?

Mutta Kozhi Pudikava, Moonu Padi Šamaikava?
Èlumbugal Kadikaiyil, Ènna Kønjam Ninaikava?

Shall I catch a desi chicken, shall I cook three measures?
So that you will think of me, when you bite the bones

Kamman Šøaru Rusikava, Šamacha Kaiya Kønjam Rasikava..
Mødakathan Rasam Vachi Madakathaan Paakuraen..
Retta Dhøsa Šuttu Vachi, Kaava Kaakuraen..

Come and taste the rice and be enamored by the hand that cooked it,
I have prepared rasam to allure you,
I have prepared two dosas and am waiting for you

Mukkanna Nøngu Thaan Vekkiraen..
Mandu Nee Kangayen Kaetkura..

I have kept three-eyed palm fruit.
But you fool, want its outer shell (with nothing inside)

Pullu Kattu Vaasama, Buthi Kulla Veesura..
Maatu Mani Šaththama, Mansakul Kaetkura..

You seep into my mind like the smell of stacked grass
You echo in my heart like the sound of the cow bells

Kattavandi Oattura, Kaiyalavu Manasula..

You are riding a cart, in my palm-sized heart

Kai Èzhuthu Pødura Kanni Pønnu Maarbula..
You are signing your name on the breast of this virgin

Møønu Naala Paakala.. Oøril Èntha Pøøvum Pøøkala..
I haven’t see you for three days and no flower has bloomed in this place

Aatu Kallu Kuliyila Urangi Pøvøam Pøønayai..
Thanna Vanthu Parthuthan Kirangi Pørenya
Like a pussy cuddling inside a grinding stone
I come out, see you and swoon off

Meenuku Aengura Køkku Nee..
Køthavae Theriyala Makku Nee..

You are a crane longing for the fish
But you fool you don’t know how to peck..

Kaatu Malligai Pøøthirukuthu Kaathala Kaathala
Vanthu Vanthu Oadipøgum Vandukenna Kaachala..

Oh my love, the wild flower has blossomed
Is the bee sick from visiting this flower ever so often??

Fearfully and wonderfully made

A film like Endhiran reminds me why so many people exclaim with the psalmist that man is fearfully and wonderfully made. I have never realised that it is an oxymoron that something can be made fearful and at the same time wonderful. Chitti is simply that. The first half of the film shows that he is wonderful and the second half shows that he is fearful.
Throughout the ages science has often posed a challenge to creation and Endhiran is the final frontier of trying to superimpose emotions onto a robot. Dr. Vaseegaran is faced with the same perplexing questions which God often faces - of placing a 'free-will' into his most advanced creation 'MAN'. God can do everything by might and power as beautifully demonstrated in the film 'Bruce Almighty', but not 'force' somebody to love. Chitti again reiterated to me that any all-powerful creation cannot create or extract love from another human being; that even God is helplessly waiting at me for the reciprocal of his love shown to me.
The Bible recounts in just its 6th Chapter in the 6th verse, that God repented for having created man - that that verse is found in page 6 of the Tamil Bible is a curiouse case of coincidence, a topic for another day. But how can God 'repent'? Why would God feel sorry for a wrong doing, if that is what repentance means? Those questions are answered in Endhiran. Vaseegaran as the creator, leads us through those emotions.
To me the real hero of the film is Shankar, the director. He had the guts to dream a dream and has achieved it, providing further inspiration to the dreamers. It will always be a debate if God was right in providing free-will to man, if Vaseegaran was right in providing emotions to Chitti. If there was no free-will there is no free, unrestrained love. And God valued that free-love so much that he would stake the whole world for it.
Endhiran is a beautiful portrayal of the struggle between power and love. Even in real life, much has been talked about jodu ka gulaams and hen-pecked husbands. When you come to think of it, every man of the house could whack his wife and get work done, but will that evoke true love? I am sure it wont. It is the cruel path of sacrifice, understanding and patience that will do it. For those reasons a man and a woman are fearfully and wonderfully made - to live with and for each other. No Endhiran will be able to match that.

An act of God

I am writing this from Dubai en route to Chennai. The past week has been nothing but devastatingly wrecking and devastatingly wonderful. The volcanic ash cloud from Iceland had been severely thwarting my travel plans for the past week and a half. And it did cause immense chaos to thousands of air travel passengers around the world in a scale never imagined before, reminding us all what a small world we live in. A pinprick here and the whole balloon is affected. Interestingly I was finishing my eight month internship at this same time in the UK. So anticipation to meet family was extremely high which heightened the personal crisis for me.
Among all this chaos what was funny was the recurrent occurrence of the phrase ‘act of God’. It was extremely funny as the western world has long abandoned any serious mention of God in the public place. It truly was an act of God. No human force could stand before it. Million-dollar airlines had to bow their knees before an all-powerful Volcano. UK would not have uttered the word ‘God’ so much in recent times, as insurance companies kept reiterating that it was an act of God and they had nothing or little to offer.
On the other hand the fact that I am sitting here in Dubai on the date I was supposed to be here, is in itself an act of God for me. That my flight departed on time, when that was a serious question mark on it for the whole of last week is furthermore an act of God. I remember the song, that God will make a way. By the roadway in the wilderness he will lead me. Rivers in the desert will I see. The roads in Dubai are in fact streaks of pathway between wilderness and the waters in the deserts from the plane above did shine there glimmer between the deserts.
While I am writing this rosy picture, I also remember the thousands of people, who could not find a roadway in the wilderness, who did not see the rivers in the desert for the past ten days. Would I have been writing this blog if I was one of those hundreds of thousands stranded in an international airport without food or lodging? How did God act for them? Rather, why did God NOT act for them? Or was there God through this entire melee? How do we know? If only the ash cloud had moved North instead of South a fraction of the current affected would have been affected. If it had moved in a north-easterly direction not a soul would have fluttered. While it taught us all important lessons about volcanoes and aeronautical engineering, what does it teach about God? What fun could have God possibly had in stopping people attending marriages (some their own), funerals, meeting their beloved ones and scores crying in airports in utter desperation? If it is an act of God, why would he act this way? More questions and fewer answers.
As for me it did teach a lot of gratitude. You never know how much something means to you, until it becomes a matter of life or death to you. While I had become inure to flying, after hopping into a number of planes over the past eight months, for the first time, I am grateful to acknowledge the dynamics behind a flight taking off on time and landing safely. Something as remote as a volcano called Eyjafjallajøkull in Iceland which people would have never heard and would never be able to pronounce even if they wanted to curse it, can wreck or ruin their life in Beijing or Chennai tells us that we are really walking on thin ice daily. And maybe we should not take things for granted. Every blessing, every good thing might be actually an act of God. As for the catastrophes - are they also an act of God…. I don’t know. That would be one of the first questions I would ask Him, when I see Him in person. That is one flight I am pretty much sure will not be disrupted by a two-bit volcano. I will be with my Saviour in the Heavenly heavens.

Church: Why bother?

For ages mankind has tussled with the notion of religion and the meaning or meaninglessness it brings to everyday life. Notwithstanding any of these tussles, I went in search of a church here in Tanzania. I eyed a particular church but settled for the one which came the nearest on my route. It had none of the paraphernalia of a church. It was a make-shift school building, which they had hired to gather to worship. An unobtrusive worship service which had 5 adults including me and 4 children running around. One girl had studied English and was my translator for the day, trying her ‘best’ from Swahili to English.
To me it was just another Sunday morning worship in a church, just a different location. But not to the church members, especially the pastor. The moment they saw a visitor step into the church their hearts bubbled with joy. They did not expect me to stay for long. When they saw that I did stay through till the sermon, they were exhilarated to no end. That small church with no musical instruments, no proper chairs or tables, no AV equipment, was the last to expect a visitor and when they learnt that I am from India, the pastor was on the verge of tears. To him, I was God-sent, a blessing to his church. He repeatedly blessed me, which was a little embarrassing, for just choosing to sit in their church.
Most of the western world, has long abandoned church and any form of religion. “Christians do horrible things during the six days of the week. Come Sunday, they buckle a Bible under their armpits and strut along to church proclaiming godliness. What a shame!” they shrug. One of my friends gave a very profound reply to that oft-repeated trite against Christians. He said, “Christians go to church not because they are holy; but on the contrary they acknowledge their unholiness and are trying something concrete to do about it”. I would apply that to every seeker of God, while in no way condoning the hypocrisy involved in religion.
I asked the girl who translated for me if she had an English Bible. She said “No, but I woood like if I haad one”. I gave my English Bible to her and walked away. I came out of the experience trying to unravel the cosmic experience of it. God chose a person from India, who is currently, based in London to go to Tanzania and hand-deliver a little girl her much-wanted English Bible. When I learnt that my common everyday act can be a harbinger of blessing to others, it did give a chill through my spine. I walked out of the church empty-handed but filled with joy and blessing in my heart.
I went and sat in that small church in a sleepy village in Tanzania on a Sunday morning, not because I was holy, but because I wanted to seek God among fellow-seekers. Surely I don’t understand many things, like the Haiti-earthquake or even the poverty of my earnest fellow-seekers in that small church. But if I understood everything, I would stop the seeking, wont I?

The ordinary and the extraordinary

The other day I watched the film Slumdog millionaire.

Irrespective of its 8 Oscars, it is not a kind of film you can rub your seat off and walk away and forget before the popcorn digests out. It asks some compelling questions, particularly if you are an Indian, even so if you are presently living in the land of the film's director. I was watching from both those perspectives, which was an interesting and a precarious one.

Against much nationalist cry of portraying India negatively, the truth is that there does exist a slum as portrayed in the film. The film was not made in an erected-set, but real-life slums and roads, amidst the squalor and wretchedness of places which our fellow-brothers and sisters call 'home'. There are other ways to explain away the slums, but that is a debate for another day.

The film is a climax to a stage in India's growth where "India is at the centre of the world" (direct quote from a character in the film). Westerners view this fast-changing India with as much intrigue as chagrin. After about 115 minutes of the movie, when you reflect on what the movie actually wanted to say - "hope" is what clamours above many other close contenders.

From the sidelines of the movie, I unearthed an artiste called MIA who is my today's epitome of hope. MIA is the stage name of a Srilankan singer called Mathangi Arulpragasam. She incidentally was nominated for the Oscar for 'O..saya' with AR Rahman, making it a தமிழ் sweep of some sorts, which few people would have noticed. 'Paper planes' is another song from Slumdog Millionaire which is rarely talked about compared to 'O..saya' and 'Jai Ho'. That song is a MIA song which AR Rahman has used in this movie and also remixed. All this bloomed on me only when I saw the film and heard the songs in the context (typical of ARR songs!). When I read about Mathangi's life I couldnt find a better epitome of hope. Technically, a refugee - who went on to become a global rap and hip-hop star. More and more incidents like these are etching that strong belief in me so deeply that, you dont have to BE anybody to achieve anything. Anybody can achieve anything. The moral of the story is "It doesnt matter where you start from, but it does matter where you are going and where you reach". This theme is of course,more glamorously paraphrased by Silambarasan in one of his movies.

Unknowingly like a dog returning to its drinking bowl, this theme seems to recur again and again in my blog. Maybe years of pessimism needed this spell to instill some hope in me. While I am saying this, I need to recognise that we should continue doing the ordinary stuff, however boring - for the extra-ordinary to occur. Susan Boyle became extra-ordinary, because for more than 30 years she was doing the ordinary job of singing in clubs and pubs. While I have become more or less convinced of the pronounced role of luck in people's lives - both the presence or absence of it - luck by definition requires a basic degree of perseverance, I guess. We could say Frieda Pinto of Slumdog Millionaire, is very very lucky to reach there. But she had to have a basic requirement of being a model (the ordinary) to get noticed to catapult her into the extraordinary (of a Hollywood star). That motivates me. What I do today, may seem boring, repetitive and monotonous. But I have to continue doing this consistently and better every other time - for something extraordinary to occur, if at all!

For the record - Danny Boyle has been directing and producing films for the past thirty years!!! Were the 8 Oscars pure luck or a gift to somebody's perseverance? Difficult question, eh! Likewise AR Rahman wins an Oscar for what I would say is a Kindergarten rhyme by his standards, when so many of his masterpieces did not reach those heights at all.

I am now learning that those 'ordinary' masterpieces were needed to lead him to that 'extraordinary' Kindergarten rhyme, promptly titled 'Jai Ho'!!!

இன்னிசை மட்டும் இல்லையென்றால்.......

I am beginning to learn why more art and literature have born out of grief, bereavement and sorrow than joy and mirth. Another song which swept me off my feet and again it is to do with pathos. For some mad reason, unfathomable even to the best of my rational cognitive abilities, these songs give me an intoxicating effect. I know I am walking through a scary path and I still enjoy the thrill of being absorbed into this vortex. As I dont know the effect of drug, alcohol or smoke's intoxication I imagine it should be somewhere comparable to this(Other more experienced veterans could enlighten me!). The first kick - the thrill of the adventurous journey - the spiral of the vortex - and the want for more and more and more and more!! Although most of the times I am caught unawares, I can tell its coming..Premonition, may be! or Providence!

For a 100 songs which people murmur during their daily chores, less than 10 would be a chirpy song I guess. MSV once said that their is no melody without melancholy. For some reason people like a longing, ஒரு ஏக்கம், sometimes not even knowing what they are longing for, but all the time loving that ஏக்கம். Although I am not a fan of overtly mushy, emotional songs - songs like எவனோ ஒருவன் were written for moments like these - and I am living that moment. In a quaint sense this phase has been a very nourishing, creative phase. And almost every other time, a sense of pathos accompanies that by serendipity or by default. Or maybe by design. When I think of the world's greatest books and literature written from prison cells - alarm bells are ringing for me!!! "எந்தன் சோகம் தீர்வதற்கு இதுபோல் மருந்து பிரிதில்லையே" This intoxxxxicating மருந்து called கலை."கேட்டு கேட்டு நான் கிறங்குகிறேன்"

I am unearthing these songs which I have heard many times before, like a lost treasure and dusting them down to sit and drink them, literally, particularly during a dry, parched season. The same unnoticed words hit me like a spear now, wrenching the deepest emotions out of me. Cinema for all its vulgarities and commerce, can still be a veritable celebration of arts on a grand scale is a soothing fact during these troubled times, in a world driven by self-aggrandizement and avarice.

God has given me many crutches to help this staggering journey of mine here. I am thankful for all of that. "ஆனால் நிச்சயமாவே இன்னிசை மட்டும் இல்லையென்றால் என்றோ என்றோ என்றோ இறந்திருப்பேன்". For a person who was never able to deal with loneliness, one of the reasons I married at 25, I value these crutches greatly. I appreciate their meaning. I revel in their use. Through a medium like this I recommend their use to others. சில நேரங்களில் நானே யாசிக்கிறேன், நானே வாசிக்கிறேன், யாசித்ததை வாசிக்கிறேன், வாசித்ததை யாசிக்கிறேன். சில நேரங்களில் சில மனிதர்கள்ன்னு இதைத் தான் சொல்றாங்க போல.

I am recording these emotions, more like a journal for me. When I come out of this phase and read them, they might sound silly, as it might to present readers, who are not into this inebriation. But atleast they would remind me of a person who would well out with tears at the slightest provocation.

"அந்தக் குழலைப் போல் அழுவதற்கு அத்தனை கண்கள் எனக்கில்லையே"