The Miller Woman's Well - A Tale by Munshi Premchand

Chaudhary Vinayak Singh was visiting Gomati, the miller woman, who was lying in her deathbed.  Gomati said, "Chaudhary, this is the only wish I have nurtured in my life."

Chaudhary replied in a somber manner, "Have no worries, Kaki.  Your wish will certainly be fulfilled.  I will put workers on the job right away.  God willing, you will get to drink the water from your well.  By the way, did you count how much you have been able to save for this noble task of constructing a well for public use?"

Gomati closed her eyes and strained her memory hard.  Finally she opened her eyes and said, "Dear, I have but little idea of how much I have.  Here, take this pot: It is all that I have.  I do hope that this will suffice and you will not have to go around seeking contributions."

Chaudhary weighed the pot in both his hands and said, "Yes, Kaki, we will make do with whatever we have.  People here are such misers!  They won't give a pinch of food to a hungry man, let alone contribute to a charitable cause.  You indeed are an exception.  You are donating your lifetime savings to this most noble task."

Gomati said with just a hint of pride in her voice, "My dear, you were only a kid when my husband passed away.  All his savings were spent on his treatment.  God must have loved him much for nothing could keep your Kaka from meeting his Maker at that early age.  I took to working on my flour mill for a living.  In those days I could mill half a quintal of grains every night with these very hands.  People wondered how could I do it.  What propelled me was this desire to construct a well in the name of my deceased husband.  People crave for sons and daughters so they may be remembered by and through them.  The well will immortalize your Kaka in the public memory."

Having entrusted Chaudhary Vinayak Singh with the task and her lifetime savings, Gomati passed away that night.  Her last words to Chaudhary were, "For God's sake, don't delay the construction of the well."  During her life, Gomati used to hide her money like a woman would hide a scar on her face. Chaudhary found two thousand rupees in the pot.  He could hardly believe that the old woman had saved a small fortune for the task.  She had carefully chosen Chaudhary for the task because was head of the village and known for his integrity.

To be continued ....

Pakistani Awam

I have little knowledge of Pakistan and its people except what I learn through various media.  And I must admit that what I learn through media isn't something to go gaga about.

Recently the media is agog with a news about how irate passengers turned back an ex-minister and a legislator who had kept an aircraft waiting for them for two hours beyond its scheduled departure time.  And this has made me look upon the Pakistani awam with a new found respect.

Of course, such delays seldom take place in India.  Whatever delays do take place on account of VIP movement here are because of their movement in their official or chartered planes or those belonging to their cronies, and not because of any movement by them in or out of a plane patronized by PLUs (People Like US.)  Those who have to suffer the ignominy of travelling in a plane shared by cattle-class public seldom think of themselves as VIP enough to cause such unconscionable delay.

Having said that, I must admit that I am not too sure if the Indian awam, under similar circumstances, would have just as boldly stood up to and chased away an offending VIP.  And even if they did I am not too sure if the offending VIP would have backed out.

I salute the Pakistani awam for being boldly assertive against VIP culture and do hope that they will display similar assertiveness against mullahs, terrorists and other state and non-state players who have been holding up their journey to peace and prosperity for decades.

Mardani

Watched Mardani and found it entertaining.  Indian cinema has consistently been reinforcing the belief that systemic changes are not possible and the only resort available is personal heroics.  The heroics in Mardani are performed by the heroine, Rani Mukherjee.

Our heroine finally and physically prevails upon the villain running a human trafficking gang.  Thereupon the villain smiles and says, "Go ahead and beat me if it gives you any satisfaction for that is all that you can do:  This is India and people like me with the right connections always go scot-free in the end."  Surprisingly, the heroine acknowledges the observation as a fact and then hands over the bruised and defeated villain to his victims.  Then she walks away after making a loud observation that it is precisely for this reason that many criminals get subjected to "public outrage."  The victims beat the villain to death.

The chief minister of UP has much appreciated the film and exempted it from the hefty entertainment tax burden.  Is that an encouragement for using "public outrage" as the only available weapon against well connected criminals and an admission that government and law are helpless in the matter?

U++ or One-upmanship

It seems to have begun with JL Nehru.  We were made to believe that he worked almost round the clock.  His daughter had justified use of luxury airconditioned cars in an era of strict socialism on the ground that she was working ALL the time.  Now our Pradhan Sevak, numero uno mazdoor, has promised to outdo all of us by working one hour more than us.  The big question is what happens if we start working round the clock, 24 hours a day?

The answer to that question was provided to me quite some time back by a very aggressive boss.  He demanded an impossible throughput from the training system.  It was demonstrated to him that the system will fall much short of the target even if all the resources were deployed for 24 hours a day.  He said without blinking an eyelid, "In that case work 36 hours a day!"

With a view to spare our PS such mathematical absurdities, I have stopped working altogether.  In fact I did that four years ago.  Thus, as far as I am concerned, the PS would have fulfilled his promise by working one hour each day.

My own experience in a PS Bank has convinced me that using hours input instead of objective targets as a measure of performance is the surest sign of an incompetent and lost executive.  This has caused untold miseries to the working class.  It is time that people at the top stopped fueling this myth.

The Independence Day Speech

The Independence Day speech this year by the iconic PM of India befittingly broke the confines of bulletproof glass as also the shackles of a neatly typed out speech.  And hence it comes as a surprise that the PM chose to remain silent on the biggest malaise afflicting the citizens at large, sapping their vitality and putting them in dire straitjackets!  He had no comments to offer or promises to make on the twin evils of widespread corruption and criminalization of politics.  Same goes for the mind boggling figures of black money stashed overseas.  Was it not the pent up frustration of the public with the mounting corruption that led to a decisive rejection of Congress and a majority for BJP?  The very atypical conciliatory notes in complimenting all the previous governments in bringing the country to where it stands today (!) also come as no little surprise.  Didn't Modi thunder his way to a total majority by crying himself hoarse about what the Congress governments have done to the country over six decades?  And he is so overawed by the competence and knowledge of the all-pervasive bureaucracy that he doesn't have even a word of advice to them to work as humble public servants under the Pradhan Sevak?  The only criticism he had for the earlier government and the top bureaucracy was a lack of coordination that manifested itself as multiple governments within a single government.  I cannot figure out what to make of such mushy statements coming from someone hailed as the Iron Man!  Will such pacifist attitude ever enable us to weed out corruption in places high and low, and steep deterioration in the sphere of politics?

Again, it is quite okay to chide the citizenry for their unhygienic habits, lack of toilets and discrimination against girl children. But are these also not manifestations of poor governance and total lack of accountability on the part of the government machinery?  Have governments provided dustbins at public places for disposal of garbage?  Do we have enough public toilets in public places even in the cities?  Don't we have to charter our course carefully when going on an outing with the family so that we return to our home or a place with a clean toilet in time?  How many parents and doctors have been penalized for aborting female fetuses or for giving dowry or deaths related to dowry?  I am sorry to say so but such exhortations remind me of knee-jerk reactions from local corporators when approached with a complaint about poor sanitation.  They would lecture you on hygiene and cleanliness and add that if everyone could keep the drain and the sidewalk in front of his own house clean, there would be no need to complain!

A friend who shares the worry has something positive to comment in the matter.  He says, “….. he is a pragmatic person. He knows that corruption is so interwoven into the fabric of our society that if starts to pull out those skeins, the entire fabric may come undone. He has to do it gingerly. This is the best explanation I can offer. Time will tell. How things change at the ground level will ultimately decide if he has been working on corruption too.”

However such gingerly approach and caution was conspicuously absent when dealing with the appointment of a retired bureaucrat, or in dismissing a particular governor for misdeeds, or in changing the Collegium system for appointments in the judiciary after a particular claimant was vetoed out.  How come that strong, swift and decisive actions are warranted only when someone has crossed the path of someone powerful but not on life-and-death issues facing the country?  Are we witnessing a resurrection of Indira Gandhi?

Like most of us, I have great hopes from the PM.  And I do hope that my apprehensions and I are proved decisively wrong.  And yet I cannot help wondering whether we made a mistake in rejecting the AAP phenomenon.  We turned it into a sinking ship that is gradually being abandoned by all but a handful.

The Ring of Truth

The title of the post is the title of a book that I had the opportunity to read recently.  It is authored by Medha Upadhyay who hasn't entered her teens yet at the time of writing this review!  I have known Medha since her childhood.  She had all along impressed me as an academically inclined girl who was fond of penning down tales and essays.  And yet, despite this familiarity, her maiden published work did come as a surprise to me.  I am wonderstruck by the story woven by the young author around the eternal struggle between the good and the evil.  Here they fight for gaining control over a divine ring that can empower them to achieve their goals.  The narrative and also the style are spellbinding. As the struggle progresses, the evildoers do succeed a couple of times in abusing the power to bring about misery but the good, aided by divine forces, ultimately prevails.  The author invokes the images of the Mother Divine too in the battle to wrench away the ring from the evildoers.

It is an eminently readable books for both kids and grownups.  The author shows great promise and is sure to make a mark in the creative world of literature.  

A Question For Shabari And You

Yesterday night my grandson unwittingly managed to offend his Dadi by brushing aside a vegetable dish that she had prepared thinking that he will relish it.  So at bedtime I recited to him the story of Shabari who spent a lifetime awaiting arrival of Lord Rama.  And when he did arrive, she had an offering of fruits for him.

As the story goes, Shabari would take the first bite from each fruit and then offer only the good tasting ones to the Lord, rejecting the rest.  And though the fruits offered to the Lord got defiled, He nonetheless ate them with great pleasure because of the love with which the offering was made.

As I was about to explicitly make the point that what is offered with love must be accepted with love, my grandson preempted me by saying, "Okay, okay, I got the point and I won't do it again.  But tell me why didn't Shabari use a knife to slice off a small piece for tasting?"

Any answers?