Samaithu Paar (Cook and See)- Cookbook by Meenakshi ammal

Amma learned to cook only after her marriage.   As Appa was in a transferable job, she was cut-off from her family for most part of her life.  With no telephone, letter being the only mode of communication, her cooking evolved by trial and error.  Later when telephone became available, she would sometimes call her favourite sister-in-law to consult about a recipe.  For the most part though, she was dependent on Samaithu Paar (Cook and See) cookbook written in Tamil by Meenakshi ammal.  There were three volumes of this book with the recipes catering specifically to the Tamil Brahmin Community.  It was Amma's Bible.

Festivals were always crisis times because each festival has a prescribed menu.  Amma would frantically thumb through her Samaithu Paar book, trying to figure out which volume had the recipe, reading and re-reading as she tried to get a hang of it.  I would be co-opted as the the helper to grind spices or rice or whatever needed to be ground using the traditional stone grinder (called Aatu kal in Tamil. The apparatus consists of a stone base with the middle hallowed into a cup like shape and a stone pestle).  Together, and sometimes with Appa roped in, we would stumble through the prescribed menu.  When Amma  finally put it all together before Gods as offering, there would be a huge sense of accomplishment.  We had done it! 

When I went to US for Ph.D., I was presented with my own copy of Samaithu Paar or Cook and See.  My copy is in English as I cannot read or write Tamil.  There are no pictures, measurements are in obsolete terms, and recipes are written in very quaint language.  But it is a book that helped me start my life in the University town.  

Over the years, I have referred many cookbooks and food blogs but Samaithu Paar remains the book to be consulted in times of crisis.

Today was one such day as it is a festival called Thiruvathirai. I do not know much about its significance other than it is for Lord Shiva.  Festivals in our house were celebrated not for religious reasons but for the food. The traditional menu for this festival is a rice sweet dish called Kali and a vegetable stew called Kootu.  The past many years my Periamma (Appa's eldest brother's wife) was in Delhi and she would call me over to have the lunch with her. This year she is not there and I decided to make Kali and Kootu.  I looked up the food blogs, consulted my sister-in-law but the fear of the unknown remained.  So this morning, I took out the worn out copy of Samaithu Paar and with its gentle guiding managed to make both the dishes. 

 Sumitra came in just as I had finished cooking.  She was the first to taste both the dishes.  According to her it was tasty.  So mission accomplished.

 

What is in a name?

 Shakespeare said a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Indian politicians of course have a different take on it.  Calcutta became Kolkata, Madras became Chennai, Bombay became Mumbai and so on so forth.  Occasionally, there will be a demand to change the names of cities with Muslim names.  Of course, it became a reality in UP where Allahabad was renamed Prayagraj.

Shiv Sena, the ruling party of Maharashtra, has recently decided to do away with localities that have caste names. 

Tamilnadu has been ahead in this.  In 1979, MGR, then Chief Minister of Tamilnadu, decided to remove caste surnames from road/street names.  They also decided to remove the honorifics bestowed by the Britishers.  So Sir CV Raman Road became CV Raman Road.  Dr. Rangachari Road became Ranga Road (I do not know why Dr was removed.).  Dr. Nair became Doctor road (Nair being the caste surname had to be removed).  Sir Desikachari and his wife Lady Desikachari each have a road named after them.  Lady Desikachari road became Lady Desika road and Sir Desikachari became Desika Road.  My brother mourns his loss of both Sir and Chari (caste name) in one go.

In Delhi, road names give you a glimpse of the rich history-global as well as Indian.  After the assassination of Olaf Palme, Swedish Prime Minister, one of the roads was named after him.  JNU, of course, stands on Nelson Mandela Marg (Marg = Road in Hindi).  There is Pritiviraj Road named after Prithiviraj Chauhan one of the early Kings of Delhi, Lodhi Road is a nod to the Lodhi kings who ruled, Akbar, Shahajahan, and Arungzeb Roads were named after the Mughal Emperors.  Unfortunately, Aurungzeb is currently persona non grata.  When APJ Abdul Kalam, the erstwhile President of India, died, Aurungzeb Road was renamed as APJ Abdul Kalam Road.  It makes no sense as this road straddles Akbar Road and ShahJahan Road.  There used to be Dupliex Road (nod to the French Governor General) but it got converted to Krishna Menon Marg.  Similarly, Curzon Road, named after Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India, got converted to Kasturba Gandhi Marg.   And the biggest idocities of all was to rename Connaught Place and Connaught Circus (named after Duke of Connaught) after Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi by Shiela Dikshit, then Chief Minister of Delhi.  Fortunately, people are smarter.  We simply call it CP.  Then there are road names whose origins are lost in the mists of time.  We have no clue about the origin of Ch, Jhandu Singh Marg.

The best story of road name, however, comes from Kolkata.  At the height of Vietnam war, the Left Government of West Bengal decided to change the name of the road on which the US Consulate stood.  Overnight Harrington Road became Ho Chih Min Sarani (Sarani = Road in Bangla).  Needless to say, the Americans were not amused.

Press Freedom

For the past couple of days I have been watching the American Elections.  When Pennsylvania and Georgia started to swing Biden way, Trump gave a speech at the White House.  As usual he ranted that he had won the election and what was happening in those states was a fraud.  As he ranted, NBC anchor cut in and said that the President is peddling lies. 

And as I listened, I wondered if it was possible in India.  Nehru used to laugh at the cartoons poking fun of him.  But he was a rare one. When Emergency was declared by Indira Gandhi in 25th June 1975, The Times of India carried an obituary.  It was 22 words long and read:

"O'Cracy, D.E.M beloved husband of T. Ruth, Loving father of L.I. Bertie, brother of Faith, Hope and Justicia expired on June 26th."

In today's India it is impossible to imagine any of this happening. No TV channel or anchor will have the courage to do what the NBC anchor did.  The freedom of press along with other freedom (even the ones guaranteed to us by the Constitution of India) and institutions are either dying or are dead.

P.S. Appa said that he  did not know why it took so long to declare the winner.  The Tamil Newspapers and Thulasendrapuram declared Kamala (Harris has been conveniently dropped) the winner right after the elections were over.  Of course, Trump did not have Chittis backing him or breaking 108 coconuts in the temples.

Eta Dom

 Living on Janpath in the 1970s gave us easy access to the British Council Library, the American Center and the Russian (Soviet Union) Center.

Of the three, the British Council library had a very good collection of books.  Appa became a member,  I do not remember whether my brother also had a membership or not.  From my view point, it was a wonderful place for they had a children's section and I was introduced to the books written by Enid Blyton.  Even today, despite the obvious racist overtones, they still remain a favourite, to be dipped into now and then.

The American Center functioned more as an information center.  But they did have a small library. This is where we got to read Life with Father and Life with Mother, both written by Clarence Day.  I also remember that they had a book of American Plays.  That is how I read "The Philadelphia Marriage", Arsenic and Old Lace, and the Man who came to Dinner.

The Russian Center too was an information center.  They did not have a library but they made up for it by deluging the Indian market with affordable books published either by Mir (Peace) Publications or Progress Publishers.  These books were English translation of the Russian books and included both fiction and non-fiction.  That is how Tolstoy, Turgenev, Pushkin, and Gorky (after reading Mother I never got the courage to read any of his other books) came into our lives.

We were introduced to the American Center because the librarian had a problem with the telephone.  Those days telephone was not freely available and even if a person had a telephone, there was no guarantee that it would work.  Kidwai Bhawan Telephone exchange was notorious for its non-functional property and it was Appa's job to soothe the irate customers.  Of course we made many friends this way.  That is how the librarian at the American Center entered our lives.  Under his guidance we became members of the American Center.  He also provided us free subscription to Span, which was American propaganda magazine.

The Russian Center swam into our orbit because my younger athai (Appa's 2nd older sister).  Athai was a writer and she won the Soviet Land Prize.  She came to Delhi to accept the award.  She was learning Russian those days as the prize included a trip to Soviet Union.  Between her and the Russian Center, they managed to convince appa to subscribe to Soviet Land, which was their propaganda magazine, for three years.  We were non-aligned keeping with the fact that India was one of the founding members of the Non-aligned Movement.  According to my brother, Span was readable while Soviet Land was completely unreadable.  Both he and I remember that it used to contain folk/fairy tales which we would read.  I also remember that either that or Soviet Woman used to contain embroidery/knitting/cross stitch patterns for I still have some of the patterns that I saved from the magazine.

The subscription to Soviet Land included linguaphone to learn Russian.  It included a blue coloured 45 rpm gramophone disc and a book.  These arrived every month for 3 years.  Athai and appa were were enthusiastic but amma was skeptical of the project.  And she was right for appa never opened the book or listened to the disc.  It was quietly relegated to a project to be taken up after retirement.

But, my brother and I did open the first one.  Over the course of hot Summer days I learnt the Cyrillic alphabets and was introduced to the Russian family comprising of Mama, Papa, Anton, and Anna.  Then came Eta Dom or This is a house.

That is where I stopped. Eta Dom remains etched in my memory.

Few years back, with my parents becoming older, my brother and I threw away the linguaphone records, unopened and unlearnt.

Re-shaping Delhi

The Central Government has taken the onus to reshape Delhi.  

Delhi is an ancient city.  There have been seven cities.  The oldest is the area around Qutub Minar (quite close to JNU and in fact, we can see the tall building from my colleague's office).  The remnants of the Qila (Fort) Rai Pithora can be seen around Qutub.   The second city was Mehrauli, again near Qutub Minar.  Then came the city of Siri.  There is the old crumbling Siri Fort still standing.  This area was developed during Asian Games, 1982 and thus, ruined Delhi forever.  The fourth city was that of Tughlaqabad.  The Tughlaqabad fort still stands, though in very bad shape.  These four cities were far away from the flood plains of Yamuna River.  The fifth city was built on the flood plains by Firoz Tughlaq and is known is Firozabad.  The fort is now a cricket stadium.  The sixth city was built by Sher Shah Suri around Purana Qila or Old Fort.  The seventh city was built by Shah Jahan, the fourth Mughal Emperor.  He built the Red Fort on the banks of Yamuna and developed the area that is known as Shahjahanabad.  Incidentally, Shah Jahan also built Taj Mahal in Agra. 

When the Britishers decided to shift the capital from Calcutta (Kolkata) to Delhi, the eight city called New Delhi was built on the Raisina Hill.  This is still as Delhi Imperial Zone or Lutyens' Delhi as it was designed and built by Edwin Lutyens.  The two major roads were the King's way (known as Rajpath after Independence) and the Queen's way (known as Janpath after Independence).  When we moved to Delhi in 1972, we lived on Janpath within the telephone exchange complex called Kidwai Bhawan,

Those days Delhi was a small ra ra town filled with government offices, government officers' residences, and refugee families.  Being right in the center of the town had its advantages.  We would walk down to Rajpath to watch the Republic Day parade on 26th January.  At one end of Rajpath is the Rashtrapathi Bhawan (it was known as Viceroy's Residence during British Era).  At the other end is the India Gate which was built as a war memorial.  The space in between is covered with lawn and man-made ponds.  This is where, even today, people gather to enjoy a bit of greenery.

We would walk down to catch concerts  at Rafi Hall, Mavalankar Auditorium, and Kamani Auditorium.  Appa tells of the days in 1960s when he would walk through Parliament House and how one day he saw Nehru get down from his car and walk into the Parliament house. 

 On Rajpath, came up, I will admit, soulless buildings that housed the government offices.  But Appa for some time worked in Dak Tar Bhawan which I thought was a very nice building.  Opposite it was the All India Radio.  I remember my Athai (father's 2nd older sister) going for recording an interview.

Further away from the Central Part, we would cross the flyover across Safdarjung Airport and come into  residential areas where appa's colleagues lived.  We ourselves moved across the city once appa was transferred to a new office.

These are memories.

Delhi has changed over the years.  The first major change came in 1982 when major construction activity took place as Delhi host Asian Games.  Delhi expanded into and beyond Qutub.  It also expanded across Yamuna.  But the buildings remained.  I left Delhi in 1991 and came back in 2004.  However, I could still go to Janpath and retrace the paths and the roads where we once walked. The shops were still there- the book store where we would browse, the dry fruit shop where amma used to buy cashew nuts and raisins, Keventers'  the iconic milk booth where we used to eat ice cream once a month... So things had changed and yet not changed. 

But now the Government has decided to reshape the Lutyen's Delhi.  Specifically the Rajpath.  All the buildings are to be razed, the green space decimated and converted into buildings and it breaks my heart.  It will no longer be the Rajpath that I recognize and loved.

But the unkindest of all cuts is the building of the new Parliament House.  The current Parliament House is a circular building built by Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker.  This is where on 15th August 1947 India gained Independence.  It is where Nehru gave the speech "Tryst with Destiny" It is where the Constitution of India was adopted  (26th November1949) and came into force on 26th January 1950.  Of course the building is old and CPWD excels only in ensuring seepages but that does not mean that it should be abandoned or converted into museum. It is the soul of the country.  

But such things are beyond comprehension.   PIL filed in the Courts have been dismissed.  And so the eighth city is to be razed to build a ninth city.

Three Hundred Ramayana- Essay by A.K. Ramanujan

 I started re-reading this essay after the Nepal Prime Minister declared that Rama was born in Nepal.

Ramayana, one of the two epics, shorn of all the adornments, tells the story of Rama, the son of Dasharatha, King of Ayodhya.  Rama is the ideal man.  Thygaraja sings rAma Ni samAnamevaru or who is equal to you, O Rama.  He was a man, who, as Vishaka Hari tells in her discourse, lives by Dharma.  I do not know how to explain Dharma in English.  Appa once told me that it is not duty.  May be it is Principles? Morals?  I do not know how to say it in English.

To continue:

The people of Ayodhya adore him and want to see him as their King.  However, he is exiled to the forest for 14 years.  Obeying his father's command, Rama goes to the forest with his wife, Sita, and his brother Lakshmana.  In the forest, Sita is abducted by Ravana, the King of Lanka.  Rama wages war to get his wife back.  Ravana is killed.  Rama and Sita are reunited.  This coincides with the end of the exile period. Rama comes back to Ayodhya and is crowned the King.  The happiness does not last long.  Hearing slanderous statements about Sita, Rama orders his brother to kill his wife.  Lakshmana takes pity on Sita and leaves her in the forest where she gives birth to twin sons.  Later, his sons come to his court, and without knowing he is their father, sing the Ramayana before them. 

Ramayana is both a story and a religious text for Rama is seventh incarnation of Vishnu, the Hindu God.

The earliest written version is the Valmiki's Ramayana.  But as, A.K. Ramanujan, expounds in his essay, there are many versions (we cannot call it mere re-telling or translation) for each version is different in how it presents the story.  Each part of the country has its own version of Ramayana, incorporating in the local legends, motifs, and folk tales. In Tamil, we have Kamban's Ramayanam.  Amma used to say that her father would have tears streaming when he read the Sundara Kandam (the fifth book) of Kamban's Ramayanam.  My friend reads Tulsidas' Rama charitmanas.  In addition, there is also Jain version of Ramayana. As there is a Buddhist version.  Ramayana traveled to South Asia.  So the story is told in Bali, Java, Malaysia, Thailand, and Cambodia.   The Thai Kings have written their own version of Ramayana.  Incidentally, there is a Ayuthya in Thailand and the King is styled as King Rama.

The essay, however, was an eye opener for it opened me to a world of different versions of the story.  Each one engaging, each one providing a different perspective, each one making me think.

Reading the essay, I asked myself, how did I hear the story first?  I have no recollection.  What I do recollect is that we had to read the entire Ramayana as part of course work in school. It was a prescribed text book, taught to us as such.  This story was based on Valmiki's Ramayana and I read it in Hindi.  Later, I read C. Rajagopalachari's Ramayana which was based Kamban Ramayana.  Many of my generation would have read the story as told in comic form- Amar Chitra Katha.  Though to be fair, I recollect only The Story of Krishna (the eighth incarnation of Vishnu) and Krishna and Rukmani.  In fact the images of  Krishna and Rukmani story printed in Amar Chitra Katha is still imprinted in my mind.  But I think Amar Chitra Katha printed the story of Ahalya and Sabari (both stories within Ramayana).

I also remember by Bharatanatyam dance master taught couple of pieces based on Ramayana.  I also remember my master teaching a senior student Bhavayami raghuramam, a song composed by Swati Tirunal telling the story of Ramayana.  And there was of course M.S. Subbalakshmi's rendering of Namaramayanam.  Appa used to put this recording in the morning.

During the enforced Covid break, I watched Sita Kalayanam, a dance drama choreographed by Rukmini Devi Arundale and performed Kalakshetra dancers. It was available on You Tube.

The Ramayana, therefore, that I know is a mishmash of all these sources. It is my own version. 

The essay, unfortunately, was banned by Delhi University in 2012 because of protest by a vociferous group.  They said the examples that A.K. Ramanujan chose to explain in his essay hurt their sentiment.

I did not understand and still do not understand the protest.  In a country where multiple languages exist, where cuisine changes every few hundred miles, where the same 6-yard long cloth called saree can be tied in many different ways, where the same festival can be celebrated for different reasons (classic example being Deepavali which North India celebrates because Rama comes back to Ayodhya after 14 years exile while Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Andhra, and Telengana celebrate it because Krishna killed the demon Narakasura, and Kerala along with most of the North East States do not celebrate), I wonder why only one  Ramayana is or should be deemed to be correct.

 

New Education Policy

The Government of India (GoI) has accepted the New Education Policy (NEP).  The policy document reminds me of tender specification that we make for any thing that we wish to purchase.  Tender specifications are mandatory as per  GoI rules. We have to make them and put them up in public portal so that we get bids in a fair manner.  The problem, as Appa says, is that Tender document are made such that it can never be fulfilled.  This is exactly what NEP document is.  It is a lofty, aspirational document completely cut-off from the reality.  If GoI can deliver the aspirations of this document, I would be ecstatic.  However, I am not too hopeful.

I will highlight only two issues in this blog.

The first issue is that of caste.  It is conspicuous by its absence as KumKum Roy has pointed out in her column.  How much ever we would like to wish it away, it exists.  It exists solely to make life miserable for those who belong to the marginalized sections, the dalits, and the adivasis (Tribes).  As an upper caste and upper class person who had a privileged upbringing, I got a rude awakening when I attended the annual Asha India conference in a small UP village some years ago.  In the morning, a child handed me the breakfast.  I accepted it from the child and started eating.  Immediately, a man who taught at an NGO came up to me and asked me to follow him.  I was startled but went with him.  He took the plate away from me and asked me to wash my hands.  I was really puzzled.  Seeing me puzzled look, he explained.  That child, he said, is a Dalit and you are an upper caste.  You cannot accept food from him. Wash your hands.

I was aghast.  I took the plate away from him and walked off.

It was then I realized that despite all that our Constitution says, all the protection that is granted through various laws, caste as a brute reality exists. And Dalit and Adivasi children are going to be discriminated and denied education unless we actively try to change the scenario.  So it is very disappointing that the NEP does not even address this concern.

The second point is about the medium of instruction.  It is commendable that NEP acknowledges that children should be taught in their mother tongue. However, the problem is that we have many different languages.  The Constitution acknowledges only 22 languages.  Missing are many adivasi languages.  This issue was brought out very poignantly in the movie Newton starring Rajkummar Rao and Anjali Patil.  The school teacher, an Adivasi, laments that the children do not understand the textbook because it is in Hindi and the contents are so disconnected from their day to day life.  She says that she tries to explain the content in Gondi, their language, but it is difficult. 

Is NCERT, who are responsible for the textbooks, going to design and write textbooks that will cater to these children?

The next level of complication arises with migrant labour population as they move across states.  What happens when a child born to Bihari parents, who speak Maithili, move to Tamilnadu, where Tamil is spoken.  The two languages are not even remotely similar.  So how will we teach this child.  Of course, states like Kerala take special care.  The teachers make effort to teach Malayalam to non-Malayalam children. But how many states will make this effort?

Already Kendriya Vidyalaya (Central Schools) have said that the medium of instruction will be English and Hindi because these schools cater to children whose parents are in transferable jobs. 

So how is GoI and more importantly the State governments (for Education is on the concurrent list and thus, becomes the responsibility of the State) going to ensure that children are taught in their mother tongue?

Policy making is one aspect.  It is the delivery which is important.

Haldi (Turmeric) milk

When I went to purchase milk at the Mother Diary Booth today, I was surprised to find Turmeric milk.  It is priced at Rupees 25 and on an impulse, for I was little amused, I purchased it.  The milk has no flavour of Turmeric (Haldi in Hindi); it was too sweet and to add insult to injury it was butterscotch flavoured.  Exactly what Haldi milk is not.

Amma used to make us drink hot milk with haldi powder (or Manjapodi in Tamil) and pepper. whenever we had sore throat.  Sugar was never added.  The milk was given to us last thing in the night before we went to sleep.  Couple of days of it and the sore throat would disappear.  Growing up my brother and I never took cough syrups or antibiotics for cold.  Even now whenever we tell her that we have sore throat, she will instruct us to drink milk with manjapodi and pepper.

Nowadays, Sumitra, my maid, who is well-versed in latest trends, exhorts me to drink haldi milk everyday.  In winters we get fresh turmeric root in the market.  So instead of using the powder, she ensures that I grate the root, boil milk with that, and drink it every night.  This summer she got fresh roots for me from her native state, Uttarakhand.  But hot milk during summer is something I cannot do.  So I will wait for the temperature to cool down before satisfying Sumitra.

Amaltas (Laburnum)-The harbinger of Summer

Every year, around the last week of April or the first week of May, the campus lights up with yellow flowers.  And with the flowering of the Laburnum (Amaltas in Hindi), the harsh days of Summer starts.  I always watch for the Amaltas to bloom for it is a fascinating sight.  Through the winter and much of March/April, the tree is just bare branches.  It is just there, easy to miss.  And then the yellow blooms appear and the tree lights up.  It is so beautiful to see the tree covered in yellow. The green leaves appear later.

As the South-West monsoon sets in Kerala around last week of May and starts moving upwards, the yellow blooms fade and fall.  By June, when it is hot and sweltering, the tree covered only with the green leaves. By October/November, the green leaves fall off leaving behind the bare tree.  So the cycle continues.

This year, May was mild with lots of rainy days.  The Amaltas blooms lasted well into June, which is when I captured the following images on the campus:

The mild days of May has meant that we have not had any decent monsoon showers in Delhi.  Of course, Delhi never gets the kind of rains that Mumbai does but usually we have couple of days of pre-monsoon showers followed by monsoon showers towards end of June/beginning of July.  It is mid-July and we have not had any rains.

My brother and I were remembering my Periappa (Appa's eldest brother) who was a meteorologist.  He would always watch the temperatures and wind direction. Harsh temperatures followed by dust storms (aandhi in Hindi) meant that monsoon would be normal and we could expect good rains.  He would also say that the wind direction has to be from east for Delhi to get rains.

Climate change has of course changed everything.  For the past couple of years, monsoon season has extended up to end of September to early October. Delhi now gets rains only towards end of July.

Meantime, it is raining in Chennai when it should not.  Chennai (pretty much of entire Tamilnadu) should get rains due to the North-East monsoon. The monsoon season for Chennai is essential for filling up the reservoirs.

But then everything is topsy turvy this year!

Crash landing on you- Korean drama

My foray into TV dramas continue thanks to Netflix.  After finishing Pakistani offerings, I watched little bit of the Turkish drama - Resurrection: Ertugrul.  More about it later.  I turned next to the Korean dramas or Kdramas as they are known.

I picked Crash Landing on You because The Hindu recommended it.  It is a hilarious, improbable tale of what happens when a South Korean businesswoman ends up in North Korea due to tornado while paragliding.  Fortunately for Yoon Se-Ri, Captain Ri and his 4 men (each with a distinct personality) have goofed up on patrolling (one was having a hangover and the other was busy watching South Korean drama).  So, they decide to help Yoon Se-Ri get back to South Korea.  However, Yoon Se-Ri messes up and ends up in a North Korean Military outpost in front Captain Ri's house.  Meanwhile Yoon Se-Ri's brother would rather have her dead because their father has  declared her heiress to his business.  And so the roller-coaster ride begins with a nudge-nudge, wink-wink to all the South Korean drama tropes.  The story is also rather poignant and bittersweet because Se-Ri and Captain Ri, who as expected fall in love, cannot have a traditional happy ending.

The show shifts between North Korea, South Korea, and Switzerland.  And the show manages  to humanize North Korea.  Of course, there are the notorious State departments snooping on people, there are unannounced house raids (the scene where the village head leading the raid pauses outside the handsome Captain Ri's house to apply lipstick was just hilarious) , blackouts, electricity failure (the train from the Military outpost to Pyongyang stops suddenly mid-way due to power outage and it takes only 10 hours for the service to be restored) and all the things we have heard about.  In the midst of it, people live their lives worrying about the usual stuff-education of their children, tuition classes, making kimchi...the normal things that people around the world worry about.  The credit for this accurate depiction of village life in North Korea goes to the writers who consulted extensively with North Korean defectors for the show. 

It was while watching the show that I realized that some words are common between Korean and Tamil.  The first time I heard the second lead heroine address her mother as Amma, I was startled. I thought I had misheard her.  But when it happened second and third time, I searched the internet.  Turns out that Amma and Appa is how Koreans address their mother and father informally.  And Amma and Appa is mother and father in Tamil too.  There are other words- pul for grass, Na/naan for I, nee for you, nal for day...that are common between the two languages.

Why this connection?  There is no satisfactory answer.  Korean and Tamil do not belong to the same language group.  But there are stories of how Indian Princess married into Korean Royal family.  Was she a Chola Princess and therefore, spoke Tamil?  Does it indicate that there was maritime connection between the Tamil land and Korea?  I do not know. 

But as I continue to watch Korean Dramas, I find myself listening to the words.  Every time I hear something familiar, I pause, re-listen to the conversation, and then check the internet whether the word really means what I think it means.

To open or not to open

There is panic.  Yesterday when I went to buy juice, one of the employees stopped his scooter to tell me that I should not step outside the main gate and go towards Munirka as a case has been reported.  What if a case comes into the campus, he asked in a worried tone.  Then it will spread rapidly with the campus, he said.

Last Friday after a lot of deliberation the University to partially open up the administration building.  Paper work had piled up.  Bills had to be paid, salaries of employees appointed in projects had to be paid, and the funding agencies were demanding statement of expenditure and utilization certificate for the financial year.  So it made sense that the administration started functioning once more.

This Tuesday the administration has closed down again.  Apparently, one of the officer was exposed to coronavirus- we still do not know whether he is infected or not but someone in his locality was infected and he came in contact with that person- and therefore, as a precautionary measure the administration has been shut down once again. 

And as we move towards the end of the 4th phase of lock down, do we open up or do we not?  How much do we open up?  What happens if infection spreads?  How will we deal with it? Can our healthcare system cope with it?

The economy is now shambles. The worst affected are the migrant labourers.  The heart-rending pictures of the labourers making their way back to their villages- by cycle, by walking, and of late trying to get a seat on the train-tells us how their concerns were ignored before the lock down was implemented.  Many people who owned small businesses have been pushed into poverty. 

But the lock down has also taught me many things. Patience, and an acceptance that many times things will not go my way how much ever I want it to. 

Television shows during lock down

I am not a big fan of television or even movies as I find it difficult to sit through them without having crochet or knitting in my hands.  But lock down has ensured the unthinkable.  After my television stopped working (There is a problem with the remote and I have to call in the service people), I decided to shift to Amazon Prime and Netflix.  I remembered reading some good television shows and decided that this was the time to see them considering that the lock down keeps on extending.

So this blog is about some of the shows I really liked and disliked.

Gilmore girls- I watched two episodes and gave up.  Incessant banter and no character development.  I know that there are fans out there for this show but I could not watch it.  It was just Ugh!

The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel- Written by the same people who wrote Gilmore girls.  It was marginally better than  Gilmore Girls.  Season 1 was really good and I wished that they had stopped it there.  The show is about an upper class Jewish housewife who becomes a stand-up  comedian after her husband leaves her for his secretary.  Only he never disappears from her life.  He seems to be forever around.  And I could not figure out  how a professor in Columbia University could have such a lavish lifestyle. Of course, it is quite possible in Bollywood movies (In particular, I remember the awful movie called Hum Aapke hain kaun) and I assumed that it is possibly the same but it appears that the professor's wife comes from a rich background. Anyway, I saw couple of episodes of Season 2 and gave up.

Schitt's Creek- Marvellous.  I really enjoyed the improbable but warm, humorous story line.  What happens if a very rich family loses all its money?  This a Canadian TV drama. The Roses lose all their money and have to move to a small town called Schitt's creek which long time back they had bought as a joke.   The sitcom revolves around how the Roses adapt and grow as a family while living in Schitt's Creek.

Panchayat- Wonderful Hindi sitcom airing on Amazon Prime.  This is the first season of the production and shows an young man, who has slacked in Engineering college, accepting the post of panchayat secretary for want of better options.  He moves from city to the village of Phulera in Uttar Pradesh.  The panchayat head is a woman (it is reserved seat for women) who has happily ceded the official work to her husband while she takes care of their  home.  Nothing strange here as it is the reality in many cases.  Our hero has only one mission in life- how to get out of the village.  The only way out is to prepare for MBA entrance examination while dealing with the vagaries of the village.  The problems are commonplace- where should they put up the solar lights provided by the government (of course, outside the houses of each panchayat member),  how to placate the villagers with the insensitive family planning messages (the family planning messages were truly hilarious),  what name should be given to the newly born baby... the first season ends with the panchayat head (played by Neena Gupta) taking over her responsibilities (one has to see her learning the national anthem!).  I am looking forward to the second season.

Humsafar (Companion)- This is a Pakistani drama with Fawad Khan as Asher and Mahira Khan as Khirad in the lead.  Very popular in India.  The story is straight out of Mills and Boon with a wicked mother-in-law and a  cousin, Sara, who is madly in love with Asher and would do anything to marry him.  Asher ends up marrying Khirad, who also happens to be his cousin (her mother and his father are siblings).  As expected, they fall in love but the mother-in-law does not like Khirad because she is from a lower middle class background (her parents were teachers) while Asher belongs to an affluent upper class family.  The mother-in-law wants Sara to marry Asher.

In the first half, Khirad is naive and innocent, an easy prey for her mother-in-law and Sara, who engineer her downfall.  Pregnant, she is thrown out of the house while Asher does nothing to help her.  In the second half, Khirad emerges as a strong woman who holds a job as she brings up her daughter.  Needing money for the open heart surgery for her daughter, Khirad approaches her husband (I love the way she tells the secretary that her name is Umme Hareem (mother of Hareem) to gain entrance to her husband's office).  We know how that is going to end but I liked the way Khirad holds her own and reunites with Asher on her own terms.  Even as it ends in a happy way,  the viewers know that both Asher and Khirad will have to work very hard on their marriage and no one can walk over Khirad anymore. 

Zindagi Gulzar hai (Life is a garden)- Another Pakistani Drama which was also popular in India.  There are 26 episodes of this drama and the plot revolves around two sets of families- The Murtuzas and the Junaids. 

The Murtuza family is lower middle class.  The father has two wives.  His first wife gives birth to three daughters.  So he marries a second time so that he can a son.  The first wife lives separately, works a teacher and ensures that her three daughters are well-educated.  She also ensures that she infuses a strong sense of independence and at the core is a strong plea for women's education. However, the girls, especially the eldest one, Kashaf , develops insecurities because her father has abandoned the family.

The Junaids are obscenely rich (a la  The Social Butterfly written by Moni Mohsin for The Friday Times).  The father has a business and the mother works for NGO.  They have a daughter, Sara, and a son, Zaroon.  

Of course, we know that Kashaf and Zaroon are going to end up together.   The problem is that while there was a plea for girl's education in the first half, it was undone in the second half by bringing to forefront the patriarchy.   The mother, who has worked hard to ensure her daughters get good education, now has only one bee in her bonnet- get them married.  And Kashaf, who says she would rather be single, is guilt tripped into marriage just to satisfy the society.  She, of course, marries Zaroon.  Zaroon wants to marry her because she is what he considers an ideal woman- educated, has a job and yet is conservative.  She will look after him, cook for him, sew button on his shirt (there is a scene where she sews a button on Zaroon's shirt and all I wanted to do was to tell him to learn to do so himself).  It does not matter that both Kashaf and Zaroon had similar education and hold similar government jobs.  In the end the viewer knows that it would be Kashaf who makes the compromises.  That was problematic for me.

I want to end here by saying just as Pakistani TV shows are popular in India, so are Indian movies and shows in Pakistan.  If Fawad Khan and Mahira Khan are popular in India, Aamir Khan and Shahrukh Khan are popular in Pakistan.  As the governments entangle, the people would rather know what is it like across the border.  As I watched both Humsafar and Zindagi Gulzar hai, I found the themes resonating.  Home tuition, of course!  Traffic jams, of course!  Taps running dry, but of course!  Power cuts in the poorer section of the cities, nothing new!  Unaffordable health care, nothing new. And I whooped when I saw the pot-holed roads.  Both countries know how to mix bitumen in water and have the same road laying strategy. 

The great digital divide

We are now two months into lock down- one of the most stringent in the world.  Of course, the main concern for the educators is how we are going to complete the syllabus, when are we going to open, and as researchers, we are also worried about our laboratories.

When the lock down was announced, my students decided to freeze down the cells and store them in -80oC.  Some of the cells were stored in liquid nitrogen tanks.  After two months, we ended up losing all the cells stored in one liquid nitrogen tank because we could not fill it.  We moved the cells from the other liquid nitrogen tank into -80oC.  Of course this is summer, a very mild one but still intense.  This means we have to run Air conditioners non-stop.  Given the condition of wiring (the engineering department has not got around to changing the wiring system), we have asked one of the lab attendant (who has not been paid since the lock down began) to come to the lab every day and ensure that everything is okay.   Even then, my students and I are apprehensive- will our cells survive?  How long will it take to restart the lab?

This is just one aspect.

When the lock down began, the faculty started looking into ways of finishing the syllabus. Many of them have finished the course by sending the students power point slides, hoping that they can download it and study.  The first year Ph.D. students, however, have to write a term paper and a research proposal as part of their course work.  With great enthusiasm, we told these students to complete both the assignments during the lock down.  They immediately sent us an email saying that most of them do not have internet connection and therefore, cannot access research articles/journals.  Hence, all such assignments can be completed only after the lock down is lifted.  We were silenced.

One of my student later told me that the internet connection in her place only works intermittently.  Most of them time she uses the data card in her phone to download and access research articles.  Another student told me that he has written part of his thesis but  cannot send it to me due to erratic internet connection.

That brings me to the great digital divide.

Living in Delhi, it often escapes my attention that electricity and internet are not available 24 hr in other cities- especially the small towns and villages where most of our students reside.  Even in Delhi, children living in urban slums do not access to 24 hr electricity and internet.  They also do not have privacy.  One room is shared by all the members of the family.

Private schools and private colleges have been conducting online classes- but these are accessible only to a minuscule section of students. The government schools do not have required infrastructure to conduct online classes and their students do not have access to internet.  For us, in government universities- the infrastructure is available but students do not have access to internet.

Lillies and Roses

The weather continues to be kind.  Early mornings are still cold.  There is cold breeze through the day.  Best of all, with the cutting down in noise pollution, the birds are having a wonderful time.  I was woken up this morning by the peacocks.  Later I could hear the barbets and while coming back after purchasing groceries, I could hear the koel heralding the advent of summer.  It is simply wonderful!
Some years back, one of my upstairs neighbours planted lilies.  They bloom every year around this time.

I have four rose bushes-each one of different colour. Here are the white roses.

Cross-stitch in the time of lockdown

To me it seems as though the lockdown has been going on forever.  Since October, the school has been shutdown for one reason or other.
Last year, my friend's daughter got married. I could not attend it as amma was not well.  But a gift was certainly due.  It took lots of trawling, looking at cross-stitch patterns before I found the pattern I wanted to make.
The Art of Stitch is based in Malaysia and they shipped to India.  Best of all, they tracked the package.  This was important because in the past I have missed packages-they were not delivered and the online store was not willing to do anything about it.
I chose an artwork by Tanigami Konan.   He was a Japanese painter and the Art of Stitch studio had converted one of his artwork into a cross-stitch pattern.
I ordered the kit thinking that I would not have order the threads separately and worry about shipping.  Alas, if there is one thing that I did not like about Art of Stitch, it was that the threads provided with the kit was not sufficient to complete the project.  So, I had to ultimately order threads- fortunately, they were DMC threads and I ordered them from Lovecrafts.  Fortunately, the threads came without any mishap.
Of course, when I ordered the kit (Japan Dahlia), I did not realize how big the project was! I had asked for 18-count Aida as smaller the holes, the smoother the pattern.  But the smaller holes also meant that it was lot of work and eye strain.  I started in mid-December. The lockdowns helped as I could work on the design for a longer time each day instead of squeezing it between work.  I finally finished the project yesterday at 4 pm.  I enjoyed every minute of it because it was such a joy to watch the flowers emerge with each stitch.  Plus, there were no half stitch and back stitch involved- I hate both of them.
I missed amma because she is the one who takes care of all my cross-stitch, crochet, and knitting projects, washing them carefully and storing them properly.  I hopeless with both these aspects.  So I washed the cross-stitch wishing she was with me to help me out.
Here is the finished project, which will be sent to my friends's daughter once the lockdown is lifted.

An enlarged version to see the stitches:

Finally, the print by Tanigami Konan can be seen on pinterest.  I think the Art of Stitch artists did a wonderful job in recreating the colors.

Gardening in the time of lockdown

The University officially closed on March 21st though we are supposed to be on duty.  We have to conduct classes online.
The campus is now deserted as most of the students have gone home and everyone is cooped inside.
Nanku Ram, my gardener, called to inform that he cannot come because of the curfew, which means that I have taken over the gardening activities now.  Before the lockdown he had sowed the seeds for bhindi and brinjal.  He also planted bitter gourd, which is now beginning to climb up the fence.  Last year, we had a good yield of the vegetable.  I am crossing my fingers for this year.

We planted the dahlia plants late this year and they are now beginning to bloom.  The weather has also been very strange.  Even though we are now at the end of March, the summer has not yet begun. There is a cool breeze through the day,  it rained couple of days this month, and the dahlias seem to like it enough to flower. 

Few years back my mother had planted lemon seeds in a pot.  It has now grown into a full tree.  Two years back amma advised me to mix rock salt in the soil so that the tree will bear fruit.  Which I did so last year.  This year, I can see tiny fruits.  Yay!

Coronavirus and social distancing

With the number of cases of Coronavirus positive patients increasing, the University has finally closed down.  All the students have been asked to leave the hostel, exams and classes have been cancelled. Ostensibly this is till 31st March and I devoutly hope so.   I am kind of resigned.  The labs in the University has not been functioning since last November when the students went on strike.  We open and we close down.  Again and again.  This time we functioned at least for 2 months before closing down.

Every one has been talking about social distancing. It can be done if we have large enough flat/house.  What will Sumitra, my help, do?  She lives in one room with her husband and two sons.  There is a tiny kitchen.  The room has two beds, one refrigerator, one cooler (summer without one would be simply impossible), and one washing machine.  What social distance can the four of them practice?  This, unfortunately, is the reality for the majority of the people living in our country.

My colleague, extremely cynical at times, pointed out that this is an infection of the well-to-do.  The ones who traveled abroad carried it back to the country.  If, he said, it had been infection affecting the poor, no one in the country would have bothered.  Which is what happens with TB- the poor are majorly affected and kills more than what Coronavirus will do-but who talks about it?

A lab of one's own- Patricia Fara

I picked this book up in the book fair.  Bookstores are becoming scarce in India as the independent book stores are closing and we do not have anything like Barnes and Noble. 

Patricia Fara reveals the stories of female scientists, doctors, engineers against the backdrop of the first world war.  Women were admitted to colleges by 1869 in England.  However, the scope of their work was limited.  Most ended up as teachers.  However, when World War I happened, men were conscripted and what was initially thought as something would last only weeks or months ended up lasting for years.  This when the doors opened for women.  They worked in munition factories, they were engaged as engineers, as doctors and of course as nurses.  Patricia Fara examines the role of these unsung women in the war.  Intertwined is the Women Suffragette movement and women get the right to vote- not all women but some of them-during the war.
Of course, when the war ends the women are expected to take a back seat to men.  People expect things to go back to as usual but things have changed subtly.  Women no longer are willing to take a back seat.  There are still struggles (in fact it continues today also) but slowly there is a grudging acceptance too.
I really enjoyed the book- in fact I finished half of the book during the flight from Delhi to Chennai.  It was an absorbing tale.

The stories are limited to England but I was asking myself about India.  Of course, this was the time of Freedom struggle.  But it was also the time when child marriages were the norm and girls were not educated.  If the husband died, then the wife (whether the marriage was consummated or not) became a child widow with her head shaven and forced to wear the widow's garb.
The first college for Women was Isabella Thoburn College in Lucknow which was started in 1870 as a school and later became a college.  Queen Mary's in Chennai was started 1914.   Much before Queen Mary's was started, the first women graduate in Chennai was  Sister Subbalakshmi who attended Presidency College.  I remember reading her memoir in Imprint where she says that used to go to college in a rickshaw.  She was, in fact, a child widow but her father refused to shave her head. Instead he had her educated.  She later opened Sarada Vidayalaya in Chennai where my mother studied.
But education for girls remained a rarity except in few of the highly educated/enlighted houses.  The woman professor, most celebrated, was Janaki Ammal  who studied in Queen Mary's and later obtained Ph.D at the University of Michigan. 

Information about these early women is scarce or at least I have not come across the information.  Something to do later on.

Re: Site Visit

At the outset let me state that this blogpost is done on the behest of Asha Berkeley for whom I did the site visit.  I have removed all the names to protect privacy.

Last Saturday (30th Jan 2020)  I visited Mera Sahara in NOIDA.  Ever since we have to mark our attendance I have stopped doing site visits during the weekday. to far flung places.  For example, to go to NOIDA itself takes about an hour or more depending upon the traffic.  As I would not be in the University the entire day, I would have to take casual leave, which are limited and  I want to save them for my visits to visit Chennai. I do long for the good old days when we worked without fear.
So when Asha Berkeley approached me for a site visit, I asked them whether it is open on Saturday!  It was and so it was on Saturday that I did the visit.

I have been visiting Mera Sahara on and off for many years now.   This was my first visit in two years. One of the points I was very glad about was that they had not changed the location of the school.  Generally, NGOs find it very difficult to rent space.  The owners keep increasing the rent by 15% every year and after a year or so it become unviable to rent that space or else the owner will ask them to vacate because they have a more lucrative offer.

So, Mera Sahara for some time now is located in a 3 floor house.  The biggest advantage of this house is that it is secured.  Once the children, the doors are locked.  No child can leave the premise without specific permission.  The rent of the house is Rs 35,000 per month.  The owner has been gracious enough not to raise the rent for the past couple of years.  Previously, all the classes along with computer center and the Sewing school was housed in this building.  I think last year (because when I visited in 2017 they had only one building) when the funding situation was good, they rented another place and moved the computer center as well as the sewing school to this place.  I can see the logic- space was not sufficient for all the activities- but they have have to now raise additional Rs 20,000 per month for this center.  This stretched the budget.

 

Regarding the Mera Sahara school- They have pre-primary A and B, a creche, and classes 1 to 5.  This runs in the morning.  In the afternoon, they have also have a tutorial center and an adult education center.  Abut 170-180 children (both shifts) attend Mera Sahara.  The uniforms are provided by a company.  The mid-day meal comes from Sai Mandir. The children are also provided with some nutrition when they come in the morning as very often most of the children do not have breakfast.  Also with economic downturn, many of the poor families are now doing with one meal a day.

 

There are seven teachers and the school follows the UP board curriculum with some additions.  For example, after the CAA, they have mandatory for the children to learn about the Constitution of India.  Children from class 3 onwards also learn computers.  For this, they walk across to the new center (it is about 5 minutes away) where they are taught computers. 

 

One of things they really lack is space/place for children to play sports.  They compensate for this by having many other activities like music, dance and arts & crafts.  One of their teacher is very good at these things and she does it with the children.

 

When I visited, the children were preparing for the final exams.  The teachers were finishing the course work or giving them tests.

 

In the evening, they Adult education classes as well as tutorials.  The tutorial classes are run for children who are going to school but need help with the course work.  Some of the morning children also come to the tutorial classes. 

 

As I said earlier, one of the main things about this building is the security as the doors are locked once the children enter the building.  Nithari, in the past, has seen many child trafficking cases but in the past few years the rate of incidents have come down.  Mera Sahara engages with the community at many different levels and they have been working on this area for a long time.  So now they are seeing success in terms of reduce rate of child trafficking incidents.  The organization also runs Health Camp, Dental camp and they also managed to do breast cancer screening.  For these events, they work with the doctors and hospitals so that it is free of cost.

 

The children do pay Rs 100 for Mera Sahara but very often they pay for one month and then for couple of months they do not pay as the parents do not have the money.  The computer center also offers computer classes for other people in the community.  Again a nominal fee is charged.

In addition, they have also added open school program.  They hold classes for children who are enrolled in the open school. However, the open school needs to be registered with NIOS.  They have done this but the registration as well as examination fee needs to be covered by Mera Sahara.

 

They have also started a center in Kausauni, Uttarakhand.  There are 40-50 children in this center.  They started at this at the request of a villager.  He came to Mera Sahara to provide with weaving looms and went back to Kausauni.  And decided to start a school like Mera Sahara there too.  So Padmini and Vimla visited that place and for the past two years a they have put a program together.  The classes are held in the verandah of villlager's house.  This is free of cost.  They have two teachers and a ayah.  They also need a headmistress for the center.   Right now, the teachers are not being paid or are being paid very nominal amount.

 

I feel Mera Sahara has expanded their activities a lot. The financial situation is in dire straits. They used to get funds from companies.  However, the government is encouraging the companies to form foundations.  So instead of giving to NGOs, the CSR program has been converted into foundations. This essentially implies that companies can no longer support NGOs.

Mera Sahara wants to focus on Kausauni lot more because the children come from remote villages.  They are Dalit children being bought up single mothers.  The father are either away earning livelihood in the cities or they are in army.  Many of the children have lost their fathers.

It needs to be see how they overcome this financial situation and how they expand their activities in Kausauni.

Violence on campus- before and after

For past two days, there is an eerie silence in the campus.  Before Sunday violence, the campus was a bubbling pot.  On a walk, we would see students, animated, a bounce in their steps, in groups or alone, busy with classes, discussion, debate, arguments, sitting in dhabas, or just going about their business.
That was before.
After.
After Sunday, hostels have emptied out.  Students are scared to step out.  For the first time, it is dawning on us that the campus is no longer safe.  Anyone can come in and beat us up.
Sunday night was terrifying. The first intimation I had that something was wrong was when my student called up and send me a WhatsApp message:  There are goons on the campus.  Please be safe and do not step ou.
Then a colleague called up.  She was seeing horrifying images on TV and wanted to know whether I was safe.
It was then I realized that there was something terribly wrong.  I called up my students trying to figure out whether they were safe.  I was petrified when I could not reach one of them.  His phone was switched off.  Knowing his penchant for plunging into causes, I asked his whereabouts from other students.  None could reach him.  We tried frantically to locate him.  Finally, another student was able to reach him.  All was well.  At least for the time being. 
We remained huddled within our walls.
Next day I walked to my lab. As usual. Only it was not as usual.  Students were nowhere to be seen.  There was just an eerie silence.  The school was closed down.  We were supposed to hold the final exams of the previous semester.  It was off.  The students were too traumatized to give the exams.
I never thought I would see this day.
One of our student asked me:
How do we respond to this?
My answer:
I do not know.  I do not have words.

Hum Dekhenge- We Shall Witness

IIT Kanpur has formed a panel to investigate whether this poem by Faiz is anti-Hindu.  Apparently, students at IIT Kanpur sang this song while carrying out protests against the CAA.  A professor has taken objection to it and said that it is anti-Hindu. So IIT Kanpur has formed a panel to investigate.
To put it in perspective, this poem was written by Faiz Ahmed Faiz.  Iqbal Bano sang this poem in Lahore stadium.  This article in Scroll explains why the crowd erupted  when Iqbal Bano sang and why this poem remains a song of defiance.  Iqbal Bano's rendition of the poem is available on You Tube.  A translation is available here.

Happy New Year!