An Indecisive Indian

Railways and Art:  Wheels within wheels now!   I have worn the badge of an Indian Railways officer for thirty-five years, yet the full, unbridled drama of a moving train struck me only one hazy, languid evening somewhere between Hindupur and Bangalore. It was during what we prosaically call a  window trailing inspection —though there is nothing prosaic about it if you have a soul. The end wall of an inspection carriage, or saloon, carries glass lookouts that offer a living, breathing, cinematic panorama of the world slipping away behind a speeding train. Technically, you sit there to “inspect” the track and stations. In truth, I often sat there simply to drink in the rush of it all—the sheer exhilaration of life unspooling in a reel of light and shadow.   I have read, time and again, that locomotives and trains were magnificent—if slightly unsettling—creations. Sensational machines that, since their birth two centuries ago, have inspired art in every imaginable for...

Hindi hain hum, watan hai Hindostan hamara Who's not familiar with these great lines from Iqbal. And these pre-shiqwa and Jawab-e-shiqwa lines of Allama have been the hallmark of contrived, and yet at once natural, Indian nationhood. But do we all understand what it means? At least not those who have been entrusted to promote Hindi as Rajbhasha. All central government Ministries and Departments have a Hindi department to promote usage of Hindi in official work. Unlike the popular perception that they promote "klisht Hindi", that's not the case. Bolchal ki Hindi is also fine, although some may frown upon it. So far, so good. But I detest the way they work, or rather have been programmed to work. Complete bureaucracy. A letter with merely the no. or the signature in Hindi is counted as a Hindi communication. But you can't ridicule it, else you get hauled up by some Hindi committee or suchlike. A example. Some ten year or so earlier, every Hindi meeting ...

The brighter side of India Everyday, we run into forwards with pictures, extolling the brighter side of India. The theme invariably being the same…."there is so much good and progressive in our country so why look at the negatives all the time”. Well, that’s not bad. But the problem is that we don’t want to look at the negatives. To the extent that we tend to ignore, discount and mostly brush it off. Unfortunately, in reality, it is precisely this kind of attitude which seeks to hide the truth. Undoubtedly, there is lot of good in our country. Lets’ be proud of that. But let’s be ashmed about what’s not so good. Or rather abysmal. Consider: An average European village has better infrastructure than an avearge Indian big city. As for cleanliness, while we have to search hard for a clean finished (most places in Indian cities do look half-finished) part in Indian cities, it’s much more difficult to find a dirty place in a city in other parts of the world, not merely Eur...

I recently sent this post in a group on the subject of purity of Hindi, which so many of us mistakenly support...... No spoken language can be purified artificially. In and around Delhi, a spoken form started emerging some eight hundred years ago, developing basically on the Khadi Boli. The Grammar remained inherently akin to Khadi Boli (retaining the distorted words from Sanskrit which already existed);  words from Persian, Arabic and Turkic languages kept getting assimilated. This spoken language was variously called Rekhta, Hindi, Urdu, Hindustani etc.   There was no such individual language as Hindi in eighteenth century of Meer Taqi Meer, when the language started getting literary inputs. (the languages of Tulsi and Sur are taught as Hindi today but these were basically Avadhi and Braj.  Khadi Boli, by the way,  did not have a strong literary tradition and Braj was the language of choice for lettered people) Later, with the advent ...