Something is rotten in the state of Karnataka

Update: A few days ago, the order prohibiting the Shastri couple from talking to the media was removed. They have now spoken to some Kannada TV channels. 

Something sinister has been happening in Karnataka since the last couple of months. For those of you not in the know, and there are many of you thanks to curbs on media reporting, I present below a timeline of the events and my thoughts below. 

August 26: Two cases are filed. In the first one, Seer Raghaveshvara Bharathi Swami accuses a couple - Diwakar Shastri and Premalatha Diwakar – of blackmail in Honnavar, Karnataka. The couple was promptly arrested and their bail plea set for September 10. This couple was associated very closely with the Ramachandrapura Math – of which the seer is the head – for long years. Premalatha, an acclaimed singer, used to perform at various Math events and her husband held some positions at the Math.

In the second case, the couple’s daughter filed a complaint in Girinagar police station, Bangalore, alleging that the seer sexually harassed her mother. Subsequently, Premalatha herself lodges a similar complaint, accusing the Swami of rape. In her complaint, she said that the Swami raped her many times over the last three years or so.

The seer makes appearances on some Kannada TV channels claiming his innocence.

Swami is not arrested.

Link: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bangalore/Seer-accused-of-sexually-abusing-woman/articleshow/41026373.cms

August 27 - 31: Media pretty much blacks out all reportage on the case. We hear later that there is a order from the Honnavar magistrate prohibiting media organizations from maligning the Swami(!). But surely, it didn’t ban reportage of the case? In any case, the big media establishments suspiciously fall silent. Smaller, non-mainstream newspapers though carry on reporting.  

Swami is not arrested.

August 31: Diwakar Shastri’s brother commits suicide in his village near Mangalore, Karnataka. In his letter, he states that he killed himself as some people close to the Math were pressurizing him to ask his brother and his wife to withdraw their case.

Link: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/428563/harassment-case-against-seeramp8200complainant039s-uncle.html

September 7: Bangalore police issue a notice to Raghaveshwara Bharathi. He says he’s observing Chatrumaas, can’t appear before the police before September 9.

Around this time, Swami makes another appearance on TV proclaiming his innocence and throws an open challenge to people who want to fight the Math. Please note that the Honnavar magistrate's ban on media reportage doesn’t obviously apply to the Swami. He can go on air any time and say what he will.

Swami is not arrested.

Link: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/140907/nation-crime/article/police-serve-notice-raghaveshwara-swami

September 8: Swami petitions the High Court to quash Premalatha Diwakar’s case against him as it as ‘false’. Court reserves order.

Swami is not arrested.

Link: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/429843/hc-reserves-order-pontiff039s-plea.html

September 10: High Court stays arrest of Swami, but says police can investigate.

In Honnavar, meanwhile, at the bail hearing in the blackmail case, the Swami’s lawyer tells the court that the Diwakar couple should not be released because the couple face a threat to their life, hence jail is the safest place for them. This has to go down in history as the most ludicrous plea to not grant bail.

Swami is not arrested.

This is till where I followed the case day-to-day. By mid-September, the Diwakar couple did get bail despite all machinations to the contrary. Of course, there are conditions, one of them being that they cannot say things injurious to the Swami’s reputation.

Another major development was for the Advocate General of Karnataka to take up Premalatha’s case. He challenged the validity of the High Court’s order which was preventing the police from arresting the Swami and the media from writing about the case.

On October 9, the High Court finally lifts these orders and dismisses the Swami’s appeal to dismiss Premalatha’s case. The police are free to arrest the Swami, but of course, they don’t. by the end of the same day, the Swami manages to get an interim bail of a month. He also secured bail in the other case of the suicide of Diwakar Shastri’s brother. The family has accused the Swami and his followers of being responsible for his death, because of their threats to him.

A couple of days ago, the CID began interrogating the Swami, while he is still out of jail. This is where the case currently stands.

Here are some questions that the government, the judiciary, and the police of Karnataka state have to answer:

• The most obvious question, being of course: why have you not arrested the Swami yet? Before the High Court issued the order preventing the state police from arresting the Swami, there was a clear window when they could have followed the due course of law. Why didn't they? Why did the police issue a notice to Swami, when the law requires to just go and arrest a rape accused? How is he different from the Nirbhaya accused, Tarun Tejpal, Asaram Bapu, Nityananda or any other man who has been accused of rape and then arrested? Would you have allowed these others to walk away free if they had similarly said they were observing Chaturmaas? Or, some other religious practice? Were these others issued notices? Last I checked we are still a secular country, where we treat everyone equally before the law, irrespective of considerations like religion. Has this changed now?
• Why did the Honnavar magistrate ban media reportage of the case? What interest does the magistrate have in protecting the ‘reputation’ of a rape accused? Also, what is the jurisdiction of the Honnavar First Class court to issue such an order? This one beats me.
• Why were the Diwakar couple arrested promptly on August 26 and refused bail till mid-September? The speed with which police moved to arrest them casts real doubts on what fuelled their speed.
• Even after the Diwakar couple was released, why were they prohibited from speaking to the press? Is is too late in the day to be naive and ask about freedom of speech?
• On October 9, when the police/CID had a clear window to arrest the Swami, why didn’t they still do it? Were they waiting for him to get the interim bail? Nice teamwork there.

Meanwhile, our middle-class, herd moralities have kicked right in and they are making the same cliched, dripping-of-patriarchy comments, like:

How come Premalatha never complained before, but is only protesting now? People who ask such a question obviously have no idea what it means to be exploited by a man of power and good for them that that is so. I, for one, am amazed that Premalatha has emerged sane and brave enough, after her incredible ordeal, to actually fight this case.

Also, the Math’s followers seem to think their Swami is infallible. Reailty check: the Swami is still only a human being, capable of the same follies and vices as all of us. And, if he is innocent, he can prove that in a court of law. But for that, of course, he needs to be arrested.

Another crucial differentiation they need to make: the Swami doesn’t embody the Math. And, there is no attack on the Math, as the Swami would have you believe. It’s a rape complaint against a person, so let’s treat it as that.

Next, as happens with so many rape complainants in India, the investigation often starts with them and not the accused. And, by investigation, I not only mean one that is instituted by agencies of the state, but also the whisper campaigns against the victim and her family. Premalatha has been interrogated by the police multiple times for long hours by now. Meanwhile, people from her own community and close social circle are busy questioning her character because of the sole fact that her complaint was so graphic.

Such attitudes make me burn up with rage so much that I don’t even know where to begin.

Is it okay if a heinous crime is committed, but not okay to report it?

How does the character of a woman who complains of rape come under scrutiny? What does character have to do with this, anyway? Are we implying that only women of low or uncertain character are raped? That is, promiscuous women can be raped? And, what is the definition of this character, I’d really like to know. In any case, what’s the character of these men like? 

There can be no doubt that it is such attitudes of otherwise educated and well-placed people in society that must have made Premalatha put up with the brutality. And it all begins with disrespect of women right from the womb. Now that it’s become difficult to kill female foetuses, we cant wait to kill little girls as soon as they’re born.

If they escape that too, we then begin conditioning them about how to be ashamed of their bodies. If a man on the street leers at you, there must be something wrong with your dress. Maybe you dressed too well, maybe you wore the wrong clothes, maybe you look too good, maybe you’re so irresistible that you have no business to be on the streets. But never, ever, is it the fault of the man. No wonder, that we hear that rapes happen in India, not Bharat. I wonder what clothes were the Badaun girls wearing when they went to pee in the fields. Surely, not T-shirt and jeans.

I am not so much worried about whether or not Premalatha will get justice. Something tells me she will. But what makes me frigging mad is our unabashed eagerness to vilify women who come out against powerful men in our society. It’s 2014, people, don’t you think it’s time we actually started using our brain power to think logically and act fairly? It’s now coming to close to two months since the Swami has been accused of rape. That he’s still not arrested should strike everyone as odd and reeking of something rotten in our systems, whether or not they they think of him as innocent or guilty. And that something rotten is people’s brains and hearts: zombie-like, we refuse to think and don’t flinch a bit when attacking women whom we should actually be grateul for, for taking the courage to step out in the open and standing their ground.

Still, for all that has happened in this case, I believe Premalatha will get justice. Kudos to her and her entire family for their courage and tenacity. And, I post this video to inspire them further (English translation of the lyrics here). Plough ahead, sister!

Oggarane misses an opportunity

Oggarane is a step above the usual Kannada movie fare, but I would stop short of calling it unusual. It did have the potential to be better than it is, though.

It starts to be a movie on mature love, but mid-way it can’t resist the temptation of mixing it up with the song-and-dance routine that must accompany young love on screen. The use of the food motif, too, could have been carried throughout.

What irritated me were the different ways in which the significance of marriage is portrayed for the leading man (Prakash Raj) and woman (Sneha Prasanna). For the man, it is a simple need for companionship but for the woman it is loaded with vulnerability. For God’s sake, man, when will we get rid of this clichéd crying of the lone, unmarried woman? Do people who write up these storylines even know that the majority of women in India are actually breadwinners in their family? And, I am not even talking of white-collared professionals, but the women that you see at construction sites, in the fields, and on the roadside. The husbands of most of these women have either abandoned them or spend their days in a drunken, wife-beating haze.

As a cub journalist, I once came across a village in rural Bangalore district, where I met so many abandoned women that I was tempted to give a hackneyed title to the story such as ‘The village of abandoned women’.
And, that’s for the utterly poor.

Then, there are the self-supporting professional women of the middle class who are in a discreet way made to feel inferior to their married peers, in spite of being achievers in their work lives and leading fulfilling personal lives. Is marriage the way to nirvana for women, while just being an emotional option to the man? Sheer nonsense. Most of us do feel the need for companionship at some point in life, but everyone need not and does not seek it out in the same way.

The other WTF moment was when the caricatured gay character in the movie tells the leading lady that she must act decisively and not miss an opportunity to land Rai. He hints that he’s still single because God erred in deciding his fate (that is, his being gay is a mistake). At this point, I began to doubt if the people who made this movie live in this real world. If the director frowns upon homosexuality, why even have a gay character in the movie? Just for a few laughs? How is that even fair?

What has stayed with me from the movie is the below song by my favourite singer, Kailash Kher, and the fact that product placement has firmly made its way to Kannada movies. Otherwise, it’s an easily forgettable flick.

Why should we have to choose

My generation of mothers is not the first one to have a full-time job and raise a family. I can’t speak with any authority of what their work-life balance looked like. This post is only about Indian mothers like me in this day and age, who live in cities, are looking up in their careers, and want to be always there for their children. In short, those who do not want to be forced to make a choice between work and womb.

I have seen our types tackle work and motherhood in about three typical ways:

1. Give up job as soon as they become mothers or even get pregnant.
2. Hold on to a part-time job and become full-time mothers.
3. Neither give up job nor motherhood and come to resemble a full-time circus.

I belong to the third group. My child is now two years and three months old and the worst seems to be over, in terms of sleep-deprived nights at least. And, though I willingly continued working full-time after my maternity leave, I’d be lying if I said I never thought of giving up the job or at least consider a part-time option. It took all the grit I could muster to get to work day-after-day, irrespective of how the night had been and how my own health was. And I didn’t feel that gritty or that inspired every day.

The silver lining was my child herself. She is a remarkably manageable kid and made it as smooth as possible for me, but it only went so far. Yet, I am grateful as she could have easily been more difficult.

I work from home for an American company, which had its pros and cons for me, the new mother. I was technically always around the baby, if she needed me. Initially, within the first year, this worked quite well, but as soon as she started to talk and crawl around, she’d ask for me and this would tug at my heart. Working for an American company also meant that I had to devote evenings for calls with my colleagues. So, in the morning, I would be busy with the baby. I’d start work at noon or so, go on up till dinner time, then take over the baby from the family, and immediately post-dinner start the lullaby routine. As my daughter reached the 1-year milestone, she seemed to keep awake for longer and putting her to sleep in the night could take anywhere from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours! On tougher days and there were quite a few of them, I had to put in an hour or two of work, after she went to sleep.

Yes, I had my family to support me but as anyone who has relied on family will know that it’s not like professional help. That is, you can’t ask them to follow the schedule you want and have to accommodate their need for rest and non-baby time, too. For the working mother, of course, there is no down-time, except for 5-6 hours at night at best.

I can hear all those mothers out there who did get professional help in India and learned that it was hardly professional, after all. And, this is where Indian working mothers are severely handicapped from their Western counterparts. Of course, not all help in the US or UK is great and when they are, they come at very high prices.

But in India, at least as far as my own experience goes, it’d be highly risky to leave your baby under two years under the full-time care of a stranger with no family member around. Unsurprisingly, mothers choose the well-being of their kids and give up the job. Work-from-home options are few and far between and even when they are, they rarely match up to the pay and perks of a cubicle job.

My situation has made me think of why there are so few, quality childcare options in India and what employers are doing about it. It’s not that we don’t have playschools or cribs, but there are not enough good ones, in terms of security, cleanliness, nutritious food, trained teachers, and a teacher-child ratio of not more than 10 children per teacher. At least, not that everyone is aware of. And, if you want childcare at home, you hardly have a choice with the ayah the agency is going to send you. In an earlier generation, the domestic help would double up as daycare provider, but that’s not to be counted on today.

Why don’t we see some start-up energy in this service? I feel there's immense scope for a company that provides professional childcare, full information of their staff and lets you choose and then rate them in a transparent way? Or an app that lets you compare childcare facilities available in your city? I know that a few employers in India provide crib facilities at the workplace and offer flexible work options, but why aren’t there many more? (NASSCOM seems to have a dedicated report on the topic, but it’s behind a firewall.) Why doesn’t it become a norm than stay something fancy that only a few women can avail of?

Many women in all classes of society have to leave their homes and work for a livelihood. They have often no one but their in-laws or parents to care for their children. Those who don’t have this support often disappear from the workforce. This report that I found rightly says this is not a problem with ramifications only for the productivity of India’s workforce, but that of the world’s, as many of the white-collar jobs that Indian women do are actually for global companies. Perhaps we can never dream of anything like the family-friendly policies of Nordic countries, when our country is supposed to have a surplus of workforce, but let’s not forget that by losing women, we lose highly skilled communicators, multi-taskers, problem solvers, and the possibilities of varied viewpoints.

All the education, rigorous training and competing with men comes to naught, if childcare is not provided. Do we have a discussion of these problems in feminist studies? If anyone knows, please enlighten me. Because, this really is the problem of the educated, middle-class, modern Indian woman. 

Speedy environmental clearances aren't necessarily a good thing

Prakash Javadekar, Minister of State for Environment and Climate Change, announced yesterday that the government would strive for environmental clearances within 60 days and would take the process completely online. The media is taken up with the first part of the story, that is, speedy clearance, but I haven't seen a report that brings out the irony of this announcement coming on World Environment day. 

The Center for Science and Environment lists the steps involved in environmental clearance. It says, "Once all the requisite documents and data from the project authorities are received and public hearings (where required) have been held, assessment and evaluation of the project from the environment angle is completed within 90 days and the decision of the ministry shall be conveyed within 30 days thereafter." 

It also notes that "In India, the role of the public in the entire environment clearance process is quite limited. Public consultation happens at a very late stage when the EIA report is already prepared and the proponent is about to present it to the review committee for clearance."

In such a scenario, what does it mean to speed up this process? Don't 'deemed approvals' sound ominous to anyone? Is public consultation, coming as it does towards the end, going to be the casualty of such speed? Are environmental clearances really the stumbling block to development as they are made out to be? Is it okay for us to race ahead when climate change is already here and when the Supreme Court specifically asked for a regulator to be set up to monitor the whole process of environmental clearance? 

If there's red tape in the process, yes, please get rid of it. But don't sacrifice or shortchange necessary steps such as public consultation. 

This government wants to 'set the pace' or at least wants to be seen as doing so, to contrast itself from the Congress style of governance. But what's actually happening behind these 'new-age' measures? Anyone care to slow down and explain?

I am back (hopefully)

My last post on my blog was long, long ago. Blogging was one of the casualties of me graduating into more responsible positions, personally and professionally. To some extent, Facebook is responsible, too. Before motherhood, managerial positions, and social media, I was a creator of content. I would react to news, trends in society that concerned issues close to my heart.

Afterward, I only became a passive watcher on the bylines of social content creation, as I became busy getting my dal-roti and tending to a baby, while juggling late-evening conference calls, and managing a team virtually. I'll blog soon about what I have learned as a full-time employee and mom. I know that women out there in similar situations such as mine are always looking for some affirmation and encouragement - at least, I did.

I am now hoping to make a blogging comeback. The posts may be shorter, but they'll appear with some regularity.

Bring the 9 pm bulletin back

Where has it disappeared – the 9 pm news bulletin? After a long day of work, when I switch on the TV for my daily dose of news, all I get is opinion. Frequently, it’s one or two issues that hog prime time space with the same people from the same political parties going at each other’s necks. Does anyone really watch these tired old debates day after day? Where is the national news? And the less said about international news the better.

TV journalism (?) has taken a turn for the worse over the last couple of years and channels have willingly become platforms for political parties to boo boo each other. It works out well for both the TV channels and political parties: the former doesn't have to go in search of news stories and the latter are all too happy to have one issue catch the public imagination rather than have nosy journalists pick up stories from all over the place.

I remember how news bulletins at prime time used to have clearly demarcated slots for national, state, and city or local news. Now, the discussions that last nearly an hour leave no space for real news, except on the tickers. Why is this so? Am I the only one complaining? Or, have the channels assumed that people are anyway going to tune out and into a movie or a reality show, so why bother working hard for a news story?

There are no serious news stories being done, no exposes, no investigations. (But hey, there’s Arvind Kejriwal for that!) Just a passive sitting back with lobbyists from all over the place and let them do even the talking for you. News anchors seem to be present only to coordinate the ad breaks in between the shows.

Real reporting only seems to happen when there is a terrorist attack or some sort of natural calamity or an election, perhaps. Social media can easily take over some aspects of reporting such news events. Mainstream journalism in India is content with giving up its adversarial role and happy to be at best a stoker of controversies. If they have to be obsessed about the same issue, they could at least do less of discussion and more of digging around, perhaps? But that would mean work and making people uncomfortable. 

Motherhood that looks and smells good

Bhargavi, when she was about a month old. 

Often, it’s the simple things in life that people don’t understand and miss out on.

Recently, I visited a credit card site in the course of some work and saw an image of a young couple obviously in love. The caption used words to the effect that said that the credit card made it all happen or some such thing. It’s an all-too familiar hook that advertisers use to get up close with the customer, but the problem is that people actually fall for this, and sometimes even without knowing it.

We begin to believe that we need the wherewithal to express love. We begin to believe that everything needs to be templatized in a follow-the-herd spirit. Hence, we ‘equip’ ourselves by buying whatever can be bought in preparation for the roles we must play in life, but when the time comes to actually don that role, we chicken out. Because, reality is much more than money can fathom.

Why I am thinking this way? Just today I heard from a friend how someone she knows was following the motherhood template: she had the posh crib from a pricey shop, a 24-hour ayah in place, and so on, but no time or intention to actually be a mother.

Motherhood is a one-way journey: once a mother, you’ll always be a mother. You can’t go back to the place when you weren’t a mother. You can’t expect that your baby will grow up overnight once your maternity leave ends. Motherhood isn’t always glossy. It’s wet, it stinks, and it’s sleepless. Yet, there can’t be a better feeling in the world than to be a mother. Now that I am a mother I can easily imagine how some mothers must feel when their children become uncaring and turn away from them. That’s truly sad.

What I said about motherhood applies in many respects to other roles in life. After the wooing with diamond rings and what not and the grand wedding, there comes the reality of actually having to live with the person – warts and all – day after day. No holiday from that. How many of us are ready for this?

Really, the most important lessons in life are ones that no one’ll teach you, but you’ll learn nevertheless.
If this post sounds like a lot of meandering, that’s because I am. Sometimes, it just feels nice to speak your mind, rather than collect and compose thoughts. Almost relaxing.

The Black Swan

I saw this movie immediately after watching this clip, which basically warns against falling for narratives or stories. But how do we do that? We are all made up of stories and spew them by the minute. Yet, he (Tyler Cowen) has a point: when we tell a story, we inevitably tell it through our filter. So, any story leaves off something off the 'original' and takes on a little of the teller. A story also becomes in some way 'of' the story-teller.

So, it was in this frame of mind that I watched Black Swan. Saying anything about good vs. evil narratives is quite a self-conscious effort, post-Cowen's clip. But here goes.

The movie The Black Swan is all about white and black; good and pure juxtaposed against evil and sinful/lusty. But only until a point – after which good melts into evil and vice versa.

Nina needs to play both characters – the white swan and the black swan – equally well. She is a natural at playing the white swan, but when it comes to its dark counterpart, her performance pales, freezes. Because, however vulnerable her public, white self may be, it exercises great control over her self-mutilating, repressed side. This side can only come to its own at night, or when she is safe from the prying eyes of her over-protective (and perhaps abusive?) mother.

The role is a challenge to Nina quite simply because in real life, she is the white and black swan. With much difficulty, her white swan-self has kept the black swan out of her public, conscious reality. If she must play the black swan to perfection, she must come dangerously close to her hidden, tucked-away side. And, that’s a risk, and she knows it.

The best stories (hope Mr Cowen is not listening) or at least the ones I fall for are those that leave you with no answers, that meld white and black to an indistinguishable point.

Take Macbeth, for instance. Is Lady Macbeth entirely to blame for her husband’s deeds, or was she just the spark that kindled the murderous rage within Macbeth himself?

It is also a sad commentary on the temporal nature of show business. Youth-beauty-talent-the quest for perfection and eternal fame – and the descent into depressing reality.

Nina, of course, has her cake and eats it too. She delivers a perfect performance – black and white – and then dies – just as the plot requires. She does not live to deliver a lesser performance. Considering the toll that the black and white swans take on her, it’d be perhaps difficult for her to ever play the role again – let alone with perfection. Eternity is perfect, and her role was to remain eternal.

As with most personal, non-work things I write these days (or don't), this too requires much more elaboration than that in this post. But here I must end for lack of time.

Delhi Belly

I watched the movie a month ago but found the time today to blog about it. I enjoyed the movie immensely and was surprised to find people scandalized and shocked by it. So, here's my quick defence of the movie:

Why do you like Delhi Belly?*
Its spontaneity, creative dialogue, and, of course, its celebration of oral sex, especially that rendered to women. Let the tribe of 21st century men grow!

But, DB is full of swear words! How can you like it?
Grow up. And, if you haven't done that yet, don't go to movies labelled 'A'. And please give adults their space, too!

What if children hear such words or see the movie?
I read my first adult fiction when I was perhaps in Class VI. Many of us have peeped into the forbidden adult world way before we were supposed to. It didn't hurt us, I should think. At least, it didn't hurt me. Children are not supposed to see this movie, of course, but if they do so sneakily and they will, there's no stopping them. It's a difficult world to grow up into, no doubt. But before we get too worked up about children learning adult stuff from a movie, what about the endless violence and mind-numbing zombie-like make-believe world celebrated in our movies? That's family entertainment, eh?

Why is the movie in English?
Why shouldn't it be? But DB has a Hindi version, too, which has done much better than the English one.

There's hardly any Delhi in the movie.
Meaning? Did you come to the movie expecting a quick tour of Delhi? Not that they didn't show any Delhi, either. So, cheapskates, get your free Delhi ride yourself!

*These were actual questions I heard discussed on various forms of media.

Time is fiction.

Where do the minutes and hours, rolled up into days go?

What is memory, but traces and hints of these mysterious days?

The bane of memory. If not for it, there’d be no search for the absentee days.

If not for memory, everything’s hearsay. Subject to incredulity. For, beyond belief it all seems.

Why such consciousness of the self? Why not be unburdened by existence?

Why is the past such a comfort sometimes? Even when it is inexplicably lost.

Why does the past seem simpler? Definitely more decipherable, more manageable than that to come.

Why can’t the minutes and hours just mind their business and stay where they are?

Get real: time is but fiction. A tragicomedy at that.