Oh Kashmir

Today morning I sat on the dining table for my breakfast and Jispa was reading the newspaper. One the page was this brilliant and lovely photograph which won the MCC Wisden photo of the year award. This was shot in the beautiful fall of Kashmir, and it captures the moment and its environment so beautifully.

This is the magic of Kashmir, I told Jispa. Then I explained the plight of the Kashmiri Pandit to her. Kashmiri is a place like no other. It is extremely beautiful and magical. The valley has snow and autumn fall. The weather in summer is lovely and the trees and lake all add to the magic that is like something never seen before. It is no wonder that Pakistan and India fight to retain this lovely piece of land. My personal suspicion when I have met people from Kashmir, both Hindu and Muslim is that they always considered themselves to be Kashmiri first and then accustomed to reality or religion as a state identity moved to be an Indian or a Pakistani. I think our geography and history strongly affects our culture and our sense of identity. Kashmir with its unique geography and its isolation form the rest of the country before modern rail and roadways meant that they tended to be different from the rest of the country with its own uniquely different identity. They managed to carve out a sub culture for themselves. The case in point being the Kashmiri Pandit. You can recognize them anywhere thanks to their typical facial features and the of course the Kashmiri nose. They were learned and educated. They prized education and were keen to inculcate this in their young ones as well. They were in seats of power in the Hindu Dogra kingdom that ruled Kashmir. They were amongst the few Saraswat Brahmins to freely eat non-vegetarian food, as they ingrained themselves with the local cuisine and culture. They are known to be foodies and connoisseurs of non-vegetarian cuisine. Then the insurgency took ground in Kashmir and terrorism and violence became an integral part of the Kashmiri life. Then on one ill-fated day – 19^th January 1990 when insurgency was at its peak, the Kashmiri Pandits were asked to leave Kashmir immediately.  They left in large droves leaving their houses and their lives behind. I have spoken to so many of my Kashmiri friends who where kids as they left. They speak about their wooden houses, two floors high with wooden cabinets and beautiful rugs. They speak about the beautiful chinar trees and the apple tree that they had in their plot of land on which they lived. They speak about letting them all go as they left the valley to other parts of India. Some of them left the houses on a ‘as is where is’ and the others left it to their Muslim neighbors and friends. Some of hem were burnt, the others forcibly occupied. These Pandits then ran away and many took refuge in Jammu in camps where they were given bivouacs, where they thought it would be temporarily before they could get back home. There was also a sudden mass clandestine exodus under the watch of the controversial Governor Jagmohan. After this exodus, no Pandit ever returned back to his home. The violence increased and ebbed, but now the Pandits set up their home across the country and rebuilt their lives. You have colonies in large cities like Delhi and Mumbai where you will pockets of Kashmiris as they settled down.

Once you spend ten years or more outside rebuilding your life, how can you go back? The government tried various incentives to get them back and supposedly only one has returned. With it an important part of history and culture was lost to Kashmir forever.

Now a new kind of violence in increasing in the valley. As the youth get educated, they need jobs and income. There is none being created. In Kashmir the land is fertile and plentiful. No one will die of hunger but people will die of subjugation, propaganda and unfulfilled ambition. When I went there the last time, around 12 years ago, the tourism industry had just started and the people were recovering from the terrors aftermath. I realized it then, that the people will now need industry and commerce to grow and live peaceful lives. They need to be more connected to the rest and not so insulated. Right now, the youth has picked up the ultimate weapon in its fight against the government. Not the gun or the knife – but the humble stone. A gun can be fought with a bullet and the person can be killed in response, brutally. But when the protestor is an unarmed youth with nothing but a stone, then any act of retaliation by the forces will be seen as excessive. The democratic foundation and moral high ground of the country rests on its ability to treat its populace with care and collective concern. Stone pelting is something that started the revolution in Egypt and the Arab Spring. Here it is creating a problem unknown to the forces who have historically dealt with the gun. With excessive media outreach, cell phone camera and instant news, can a democratically elected government be seen shooting at youth armed with a stone.

A new chapter is being written yesterday as I saw an image that completely caught me. An image of young school girls throwing stones at the armed forces.

Oh, my god. If young men pelting stones was bad enough, this is the ultimate sign of revolt. You can still fight through and lathi charge a gang with stones but can any government do anything with a bunch of school girls throwing stones at the security forces. What moral right will the government have in this case. What is its standing? This defiance cannot be quelled by might but only by discussion, dialogue and what I really believe – economics. Religion, freedom, beliefs, rebellion come from idle minds and poor pockets. As long as ambition is given freedom, these can be managed within structures without rise to violence. Trading nations don’t fight wars. Commerce abhors a war. This the same reason why in spite of the vice seen on every street corner in Bangkok, you will still find it relatively safe as a tourist. I walked around the streets at night and I saw illicit bars and rampant prostitution, I was solicited by every taxi guy but still I felt safe. It’s also one of the reasons that people suggest when you talk about the low crime rate in Tokyo. There is a debate – whether its effective street level policing or its the crime lords who ensure petty crime is at bay and the citizens feel safe while they extract money from the business. But if commerce is good to quell crime then it’s also equally awesome for quelling insurgence. If the adage that no war can be won on an empty stomach is true then the corollary is that no insurgence can be sustained in the land of plenty.

The politics of insurgence is wonderfully understood by those fueling it in Kashmir. They successfully got the youth involved in pelting stones and now this. Now we wait for the Indian government to revert. The army in the middle did something weird. They were in a situation where they had to go in and get their people who were stuck in a mob that was pelting stones. They did something quite innovative. They got one of the pelters and tied him to the front of the jeep as a human shield. 

Yes. The tactic seemed to have worked. You got out of the situation without firing a single shot, no one was harmed and the day was saved. But this is not war, this is a fight over ideologue over your own people. Can you do that with your own populace? Can the government so brazenly kidnap its own citizen and use him as a shield. That too a person picked up from the street without a trial. It’s not about what’s right or wrong at the time. It’s about how these instances can be used to fuel further hatred and the feeling of them versus us. In the battle of ideologue, PR is extremely important. You may have quelled the situation but you gave rise to a few more revolutionaries, a few more girls who were emboldened to throw stones.  What are the long term implications of your actions?

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In the backdrop of this, look at the lovely picture of a the youth of Kashmir playing cricket, again. It suddenly has so much more meaning.

I click therefore I am

There you are. My instagram feed is on the left of the blog. Blogging was a big thing at one time and then facebook came in and stole the thunder from ever one. On facebook for the most – I am a by standing voyeur. I don’t post much, don’t write much and simply like or comment on interesting stuff. It’s also an interesting place to catch other articles or videos gone viral. Then one day I heard about how facebook acquired instagram. Like a typical corporate guy – I was interested only after the economics got my attention. Once I got my instagram account – I was sold. It’s a dam cool software. With the touch to focus (the rest gets a little blurred) and a choice or predefined filters it makes photography so lovely.

I have been fiddling with it now for some time. It is pretty cool. Over a period of time I have evolved to have a style and language of my own. Many years ago V-nu and I had gone to the ardh kumb mela at Allahabad. We met a guy taking photos. We dint realize it at the time but the guy, Ben Lowy was a crazy celebrated photographer. He has been to conflict zones across the world and has been taking photos. Later on he had started his photo feed which was a series of photos that he would take from his iphone. I would always wonder how he would get the effect on the iphone. Once I started fiddling with Instagram I realized how he did it. Now I regularly follow my instagram feeds. It is a lovely liberating experience. I was always interested in photography but I found the camera very limiting. Who will carry a bulk load of equipment and worry about it all the time. V-nu would carry his equipment and then sit and change lenses etc, and I hated the whole thing. its too messy for me. Then you are always worried about equipment and worse – you stop living the moment. Once in Jaisalmer, I tried my best at capturing the perfect sunset and I realized that in that bit, I had failed to experience it. I had given up completely on photography after that. No camera for me.

The cell phone Instagram has helped me regain the photography mojo back. It’s nice to be able to click and most importantly – share your pics with people. I mainly do it when I am on vacation. I take pictures of the different experiences. I try and take unconventional ones. Interesting stories. Then I also learnt to write something interesting around it.  A picture with a context has far more to it than by itself. This too I picked up from another celebrated photojournalist that I was following. The things I have learnt is that – its ok to cheat with the phone on the picture. Cropping is ok – playing around and fiddling with the focus is ok, using filters is ok. No manually erasing stuff but everything else is par for course. These have helped me connect to people and helped people connect to me.

Very interestingly, there is this one chic from office. She sits in one of the branches and she hardly ever meets me. I would have never talked to her anything more than basic pleasantries. But she catches me on FB a lot and my photo feeds. I met her at a coffee shop the other day. I was with Jasmine and Jispa. She immediately was warm to Jasmine and wanted to meet Jispa and was warm to her as well. This is possibly the power of the media. The ability to stay connected in a new sort of way. Jasmine’s millions of cousins in the US are now connected to us and share the holidays with us. I try not to spam the feed. I try and make it relevant and interesting. After all you don’t need to know that I ate a chocolate cake yesterday and that it was YUM. I guess I use it for what I feel are more interesting interactions and my thoughts. It’s a language that’s mine and mine alone.

WE have not allowed Jispa on any social network site, but I relented on Instagram. Her feeds are private and by invitation alone and she needs permission before she posts. I was explaining to her the other day how one could look at a story while clicking a photo and how the focal blur can help in telling a story. The eye follows the focus and that the story you want to tell. We experimented with two simple coffee cups on a table to tell different stories.

This is a good skill to learn I guess. She has a camera which we bought recently 0 but that useless. She doesn’t use it at all. She uses the ipod touch for now, but her camera there is pretty much useless. I guess I may buy her a better itouch but I too worried about the kids using the itouch to be out of touch with the environment around them. So it’s a bit of a bummer. Lets see.

new thrills

Cricket season has started to good effect. As the B team we have actually won two matches in a row. It’s a great thing for the B team. We hardly ever won matches and we hardly ever had enough people to make the playing 11. This time around we have more than 15 players to choose from. It happens because we give enough chances for people to play in the 11 and when they play they get to bat or bowl. Now thanks to this everyone wants to play in the B team and the fringe players from the A team are trying to get themselves downgraded to the B team, so that they get to play. Hahah. Now that’s a nice win.
One day while coming in for a match I happened to come in early at Shivaji Park and I saw a coach talking to his wards. He was giving a lecture on batting. He was Lad sir from Bengal cricket club. Taking the opportunity I hung around to listen to him. It was an amazing learning experience. A lot of what he said reinforced what I knew but at the same time a few things helped me improve my game. I always knew that I must keep my hand and body close together but he taught how to. That day after his talk I immediately put the learnings to good use and scored quite a few runs. In fact a few boundaries I hit after being tired were completely thanks to the man. Keeping the bat close to the body helped me not get bowled. It was a learning I am not likely to forget. In fact I was going on so strong I thought I would hit the elusive 50 runs that I have never yet hit in the sport. But we were only two wickets down with five more overs to go. I could have gone on and fulfilled my dream but, thank god I kept my brains about. I knew that I had a bunch of guys wanting to bat. B team is about all those characters waiting to bat sitting inside the pavilion. I started taking suicidal runs, and it took some amount of runs to finally get me out. In bargain I got quite a few runs on board. That is the B team spirit. More get to play.
Here is the photo of the coaching session which I heard.


Hey - that’s a long time since I put a picture on the blog. There will be more coming. I finally upgraded my cell phone from the old trusty blackberry I had. It served me well for three and a half years. It was pretty high tech when I bought it and now in a short period of time it has become completely obsolete. And the way electronics are designed, I suspect they put in an auto destruct mechanism that shuts them out after a predestinated time. My poor handy phone sputtered through most of last year. I would handle the battery with care, the SD card refused to work. The camera didn’t work - everything went wrong except that – I got my mails in time and I could make calls. What more does a guy want?

Well, what more till I got myself the latest android. Now on my Samsung Galaxy, I click pictures, update my good reads account by simply scanning the barcode on the books, download and listen to my podcasts etc. In fact one day in the morning while Jispa was swimming I heard a podcast on Hayek vs Keynes on planet money , understood the difference, went online and checked out Hayek on Wikipedia, the saw two amazing rap videos that put both in perspectives. What an intelligent one hour, thanks to the new device I put in my pocket. Yes it also makes calls and the previous phone was somehow better and faster in that respect but hell, I am not complaining.

up close and personal

V-inu left his camera with me as it needs to be serviced for some minor issue. He also left his lenses. One of them is the favourite 50 mm f1.4 lens. Basically it’s a lens that gives some amazing depth of field. I got it to office to take some photos that we can put in the brochures. Some standard photos of telephones, laptops, handshakes, pens, globes etc... the standard clichés in all private banking brochures.
Its also a great lens for portraits. While I was fiddling with it in office I realised that I was taking some nifty photos of people up close. While some of the colleagues were enthusiastic, some others were really camera shy. After the enthusiastic ones got even more enthusiastic on seeing the results, the shy ones opened up. Then almost everyone was posing. Some will remain irritably shy. These are ones who seem to be so conscious of themselves and come up with the standard, I don’t look good in photos. I will somehow try to break them down today. But forgiven the odd one or two the others were so excited about their photos being taken. The results are quite nice and they love themselves. To see their smile is amazing. The glitter in their eyes when they see the screen is so heart warming. I think people are genetically tuned in to see their faces and other people faces. They love it. So I started shooting only close ups. The cheer that got spread was amazing. People clamouring to get their photos clicked. I so loved seeing them smile and laugh.
I am planning to click all these guys and then print them silently and one day in the morning, stick them all in the conference room on our floor. It would do wonders for their happiness that day. I am so sure.
So off I am clicking away. Will let you know what happens further.

lots to talk about

Wowie.. Finally some time to write something here. Been some time now. Work pressure starts from the moment I step in. lots of things happened from the last time I wrote in the blog.

I had been to Turkey for an offsite.i hardly took any snaps of the place. I find it quite boring to do so. I prefer clicking peole I know. So that’s what I did. In the process I clicked some nice snaps of people inoffice. Ofocurse th women make prettier subjects than men but, hell I am gender neutral. I prefer anyone who is expressive. In lesser light conditiond I prefer the women as they are ones who are quite ready to pose. Some reason is vanity and some reason is charm. But who’s complaining. I am clicking and loving it. The best thing about clicking is to click and then pass on the snaps to the relevant guys and if they love themselves then that’s more than enough. Most people are so critical of themselves when they see their photos. Give yourselves a break guys! We love you when you are expressing something, that’s all. You are pretty the camera is just capturing it. I got the idea for my desk board. I am going to only put up photos of people that I click. I would like to call it the wall of vanity. We might have more women than men there but, who cares. I have clicked an large number of nice photos of guys. Sab daalte hain.

The photos I really hate to click are the silly ass photos of people outside monuments. I have been there type of photos. If you see orkut profiles of people that the first thing that you see in Indian profiles. Pictures of people next to monuments / sights etc in phoren land. I guess it’s a huge mindset issue. Phoren travel is still aspirational and the fact that you have traveled might be a point of pride and differentiation. You are not going to see pictures of me in front of monuments for sure, atleast not in orkut profiles. Pagal gaya hai kya? I rather have pictures of the monuments in interesting angles. That’s my type.

Taxi’s seem to be an issue when I leave early to drop Jispa to the bus stop. So jasmine’s been ferrying us. I ask jasmine to drop us before so that Jispa and me cross the road and have fun walking and spending some quality time. Today I taught her to jump from a height that she was not used to. Street jumping. Good. She was walking up the steps on her own. They were a little high and she wante dot do it without my support and without touching anything with her hands. Slowly she managed. Then we learnt jumping by slowly giving less and less support till she jumped on her own. Time will come for her to jump on her own, to fall down, cry a bit, wipe her own tear and dust herself off. And I will have to let go. Another step in growing up. Different times of our lives as parents we will let go of different things. This is one small step. One small step.

Check the pics. The first one she is climbing, the second one she is about to jump. Its no small step. In five minutes she went from being terrified to bold jumping. I could actually see her conquering her fear. Go Jispa GO.