Green Poetry by Salil Chaturvedi

Quietly

I take the cool water

out of the machine

and the cheese and the fruit

and the bread,

all these I take out of the machine

which has been keeping

them safe for me,

running quietly

on electricity that has

been entering my home

also quietly,

having been tapped from dams

that have large catchment areas

under which lie a cache of mud huts

dissolving quietly.

A River Until Smile

A river until smile

that’s dazzling until feather

flying crazy loops giddy

swimming deep being a bubble

hopping pretty flowers freaky

tickly raindrops on our traces

floating clouds until valley

tender sighs popping faces

twisty winds until giggly

dancing light liquid bodies

inside out until shiver

That Magnesium

That magnesium lies

at the very centre

where chloroplasts accumulate

and photosynthesis takes place

where poems are written

and symphonies composed

where people love and

murder each other

where dancers perform

and mothers bring up their children.

At the very centre

where the magnesium pulsates,

trees grow, birds fly,

tigers hunt, the moon shines and

deer come to take a drink.

That magnesium is what people mine

when they kiss,

and they kiss deeply

to get to the purest ore.

That magnesium is where the Dalai goes

when he closes his eyes,

where all questions bury themselves.

That magnesium blinds you,

because once you’ve seen it

you cannot see anything else.

That magnesium glows

at the very centre

of a story,

of a song,

of a life.

The Grave of Two Friends 

It’s an awfully

large tombstone

for a tree so small,

and the little bird’s call,

so big,

this mall.

Kaziranga

I went into a forest,

in and in

and in

Where did

the soil end,

                             and the tree begin?

Where did

the tree end,

 and the bird begin?

                   Where did

the bird end,

and the sky begin?

I went into a forest,

I went in and in

and in.

  

Five Metallic Fingernails

Five metallic fingernails

A hollow palm full of mud

Shining steely ligaments

Caterpillar tracks skid and run

To bright yellow baby trucks

To open mouths, a meal of soil

Shining gold of setting sun

Ghetto kids cheer the toil

A mullah’s far away azaan

Wagtails on the sliced edge

A deep hole in the earth is pounded

Something’s lost when something’s founded.

These Trees

These trees,

these tall exclamation marks!

sprouting from the brown pages of the earth,

branching into lignin coated sentences.

Sometimes letting fall

commas of leaves,

em dashes of twigs,

full stops of berries,

and asterisks of flowers.

One of these days

I’ll ask the butterflies –

The close readers of this fine,

Oh-so-fine print.

Salil Chaturvedi is a wonderer and a wanderer. He blogs at saliloquy.

If I were my own teacher: confidence, colour, and voices

Today, we are pleased to run another report from Gandhi Fellow Kabir Arora on his experience in a Jaitpura school. I think Kabir would agree that ideas are like plants; they can be transplanted or spread through seeds to many minds,  but just like plants, they will look a bit different depending on the soil in which they grow, and the care they are given. 

In other words, learning is not mimicry, and minds are not empty cups or blank slates. At root, all learning is a creative process, and all of us are ultimately responsible for tending our own minds and the ideas that grow there.  Because of this, learning requires the participation of the learner as well as the teacher; without this, it just won't happen. Good learners figure this out.  They understand that what goes on in their minds matters.  Without this understanding and the confidence that follows from it, rote memorization really won't take you very far. Learning your tables isn't much good if you don't understand why you'd want to multiply.

In this installment of his report from Jaitpura, Kabir Arora spells out some of what this means on the ground.  Confidence, colour, pride, voice...these are much more than nice-sounding words; they are what make real learning and thinking possible.  They are not the icing on the cake or even the cake--they are the main course.

****

Colourful articulation...

“If I were my teacher, mathematics would have been fun to mess up with!”

Learned how to unlearn! Key insight to move further in life. Children have lot to teach to our modern world filled with violence and hate. Their innocence can help in building “One world”, curiosity to prepare a base for rational society and scientific development.

Realized: “If I were my teacher, mathematics would have been fun to mess up with!”

Children:
Every child has a whole world inside filled with imagination which needs to be articulated. If done so, can help in making the class interesting. One way of sharing the ideas is using one’s voice, but colours make it beautiful.

We always make our copies and books colorful. I tried blank white walls of my own classroom for colourful articulation. Grids, butterflies, elephants, birds’ etc. part of their imaginary world were out on the wall. That gave them a confidence. A feeling of pride! Satisfied with their art work, they want to share what they know.

Our education system is saturated, no space to absorb, and consequently tiny voices remain unheard and die out. Words like “Dungar”, “Chirdkali”, “Choosa”, “Mand de”, “Chhant” don’t find space in their books. The state says “Marwari” is a dialect of Hindi, though linguist don’t agree.

In traditional system most of us desire for a silent class, but my own experience forces me to

Fearless minds.

disagree with the notion. The class is chaotic when students get an opportunity to share what they know; this helps them in learning something new and relating it to their own life. Silence in the class is observed on the occasions when the environment is full of fear, students know nothing or they are not able to relate it to their own reality. On my part I always tried to provide them an environment “Where the mind is without fear”, pen enough to absorb their thoughts.

Myself:
To begin with I learned how to move as “I”. The induction unlocked the long dead memories of my own childhood; I used to think the hard drive of brain has been formatted when it comes to childhood. I was wrong, sweet memories are still living in the subconscious mind.

Not an attention seeker (though sometimes love it), I make myself invisible many a times. In the classroom, doing this was tough initially, later on I tried it again; kids amused me with their team spirit (in my superficial absence) which we miss in our surroundings. For the first time in my life I felt attached to some external force. Trying to find my own self in sward world, solitude is something which I have started longing for; Loneliness gives me a sense of freshness. Aimless traveling, pointless.

*****

For more on Kabir's experience, see also:

Journey Just Begun

A Gandhi Fellow in Jaitpura: Introducing the School

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Delhi Bluelines: In praise of old buses

There's a lot not to like about Blueline buses, but this week the government is picking on them for all the wrong reasons

One night in mid-September, Mrs. Batti and I emerged from the Habitat Centre and started walking toward the Jor Bagh Metro station.  After a few minutes it began to rain lightly, and we realized we'd forgotten our umbrella.  When a Blueline bus came lumbering up the road, we flagged it down.

Mrs. Batti does not care much for Blueline buses--they are frequently crowded and in the late evening hours, men often outnumber women by as much as  40 to 1. Still, that night was very nearly perfect: the conductor smiled and gave us his seat; the bus made good time; and combination of old Bollywood tunes blaring inside--and rain sparkled streets outside--was nothing short of magical. By the time we got down and began the 10 minute walk home to our flat, we really didn't mind getting drenched.

You won't find a Blueline lumbering up that road this week or next--the Delhi government does not deem them to be worthy of our new 'world class' image, so they've banned them from coming anywhere near Commonwealth Games venues. The government says they've put plenty of new DTC buses on the road, but the newspapers report the waits at Delhi bus stops are longer this week, and I believe them; on Friday at 8:15pm, I waited nearly 30 minutes for a 419--unusual for that route and time on the BRT--and when it arrived, it was almost impossible to squeeze on, and harder still to exit. What happens after the CWG is anyone's guess, but my bet is that the days of Bluelines in central and south Delhi are numbered.  And I've got to say that a small part of me is going to miss them. 

The great thing about Bluelines--in addition to their unique character--has been that in recent years when you really needed a bus, more often than not it was a Blueline that came along and rescued you. Maybe you'd have to step out in the middle of the road to flag it down; maybe you'd even have to run alongside to jump on board, but Bluelines have moved lakhs of people every day for years in Delhi, and you have to give them credit for that much at least.

Having given credit where credit is due, let's be clear about something else: Blueline buses were a bad idea from the start.  Although I never liked the media's 'killer bus' campaign --it seemed to be too much of a 'call to riot'--there is no question that running a poorly regulated, for profit system alongside an underfunded public one was a recipe for disaster.

Safety has been the worst problem with Blueline fleet: in their drive to get more and more passengers, the drivers of these buses often go much too fast, and/or fail to stop properly while passengers get on and off. Of course, not all accidents are the result of rash driving; sometimes the buses can't stop in time because their breaks simply don't work due to poor maintenance. Our Delhi Struggle has an interesting analysis of the economics of Blueline safety problems, as does Rediff. But whatever the reasons, the results have often been horrifying.

The government has been promising to remove these buses for a long time, but so far, they've failed, in part because the Delhi Transport Corporation hasn't got nearly enough buses to move the number of people waiting at our bus stops. But Tehelka has also revealed that much of the Blueline buses' staying power has to do with the fact that some Blueline owners are very powerful and well connected.  Many people think that after the Games, Blueline operators will be shifted to the city's 'fringes', where they will be less visible to tourists and rich people, and where safety isn't such a concern.  In fact, this process is underway; the government has already begun issuing new permits for Blueline buses to operate on the edges of the city.

Yes there are many reasons to phase out the Blueline buses. But improving our 'image and look' for the Commonwealth Games is not one of them. A 'world class' bus system does not mean every bus must be sleek and new.  Rather, it requires some practical things: safe buses, well trained drivers, room to breathe, reasonable commute times, and facilities for people with disabilities. There is room in a good public transportation system for some well-maintained old buses.

We aren't a rich country, and banishing poor people and old buses to far away places won't change that, just as 'view cutters' won't change the slums they are designed to hide. Delhi is a great city.  It has a lot of real problems.  Let's get to work on fixing those--for real--rather spending our energy on whitewash.

CWG 2010 Kick Off: Come out and play?

In a September rain, a few blocks north of Nehru Stadium.

Sometime in mid-September, I was speeding south in an auto.  We were on Khel Gaon, not far from Nehru Stadium, when a hard rain hit and a boy came running out onto the footpath, smiling and waving his arms.  Seconds later, when I snapped this picture, he was clearly having second thoughts--that rain was colder than it looked! 

The Commonwealth Games are opening today.  My sense is that most people hope it goes well. But I think we all feel a bit like the boy in this photo: what seemed like such a good idea earlier hasn't turned out the way we expected.

As for that boy, I'm not sure who he was, or where he came from.  He could have been a child of a CWG labourer--there was plenty of road work going on nearby; he could have been taking a break from a job selling magazines or flowers.  But whoever he is, you aren't likely to see him or any of his friends in Delhi for another two weeks: the streets have been mysteriously cleared near major Games venues of people (and buses) that don't look sufficiently 'World Class'.  

Of course, I guess we all knew that the slogan 'Come out and play!' was never referring to these kids--or their parents.  Still, it doesn't feel right--probably because it's not right. And it's not just the corruption and the incompetence that we've seen in abundance. It's the basic perversion of priorities that has allowed us to put pride and show before all else. 

****

My son previewed this essay and said I should add more--'it cuts off too quickly....maybe you should say more about how unfair it was to deport all those beggars.  Isn't that against the law, anyway?'  

He's right.  I should say more.  But forgive me this once: I'm tired, Mrs. Batti is out of town, the house is a mess, and one kid's got a fever. I wouldn't be posting anything if I hadn't already drafted it last week, anyway! Besides, I've been writing about these Games for a long time, since well before they became controversial, in fact. If you want to read more, you'll have to read one of the many excellent essays you'll find here, on our special CWG page.

Celebrating Mahatma Gandhi with Children's Author Subhadra Sen Gupta

The text-book version of Mahatma Gandhi--and most other historical figures, for that matter--is typically pretty flat.There are many reasons for this, but you can't really blame the author's of text books alone.  Our system of education requires our children memorize vast amount of content, but does not ask them to think deeply about ideas. It is enough to memorize names and phrases.  My son's fifth standard SST textbook, for example, covers the modern freedom movement in four pages. Two paragraphs are given to the Non-Cooperation Movement, including this beauty:

During the Non-Cooperation Movement, leaders such as Rajendra prasad, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, Sarojini Naidu, Maulana Azad, C Rajagopalachari, Chittaranjan Das, Motilal Nehru and Jawaharlal Nehru participated actively.  (My Big Book of Social Studies, by Pushpa Jain, p. 107).

We ask our children to commit to memory long lists of names, but we forget to ask them to evaluate and analyze the ideas, politics, and passions that inspired and informed the people that led the movements that made this country what it is--for better or worse. We forget to tell them that these leaders, like all of us, had flaws, that they often looked at each other critically, and that we, in turn, will only move forward if we learn to think critically about our own society and the history that gave rise to it.

In the long run, we need to remake our system of education. But for this Gandhi Jayanti, I'll suggest something more modest. Next time you're in a bookstore, go buy Subhadra Sen Gupta's Mahatma Gandhi and read it with your children.  If you don't have a child, then go buy the book for a child of a friend or relative. 

The Gandhiji in Sen Gupta's book is shrewd, complex and funny. Sen Gupta clearly loves Bapu, but by presenting him as a complex character, she allows young people to engage with his ideas on their own terms. Later, if they encounter less sympathetic portrayals of Gandhi and the movement he helped organize and lead, they will be in a better position to evaluate those ideas as well.  A good understanding and analysis of our history will not help us predict our future, of course, but it can help us to understand our present. 

I realize that the bookstores are mostly closed today. So I asked Subhadra Sen Gupta if we could run an excerpt of her book here at the Dhaba--something about Gandhi the environmentalist. She sent the section below, from Chapter 7, and she even agreed to give us an interview, which we'll run next week.  

As you read, think about the similarities between Gandhiji's ideas and the ideas that inform the best of the environmental movement. Ideas are great that way--unlike paper and plastic, they can be recycled indefinitely, and they often get stronger in the process.

BAPU IN THE VILLAGES

It was while walking from village to village in the Champaran district of Bihar that Gandhiji came face to face with rural poverty for the first time. The hopeless lives of the villagers shocked him to the core. Kasturba who was with him met a family where the women possessed only one sari and lived in that one dirty garment till it was in tatters. They saw the empty huts without a stick of furniture, kitchens with few pots, the filthy streets with open sewers and the constant fear of hunger stalking the land. Gandhiji never got over the experience and the welfare of Indian villagers and finding a solution to their poverty became a constant challenge for him.

He was the first national leader to go deep into the countryside where he sat and listened to peasants and what he heard turned him into a crusader. For the rest of his life he worked ceaselessly to improve their lives. He knew that this was the real India where 85% of Indians lived and it was pointless talking about freedom, democracy and human rights when people were not sure of getting even one meal a day. How could they become a part of the freedom struggle when they were illiterate, burdened with work and afraid and did not even understand what democracy meant?

During his wanderings Gandhiji noticed that farmers sat idle for many months every year once the sowing of crops was over. This was when he wove in the idea of khadi into the old Swadeshi campaign. He spread the message that Indians were not only to use Indian products but those made in villages. He started the All India Spinners Association and began to distribute charkhas encouraging village men and women to spin thread and weave cloth. He also hoped that it would revive India’s dying textile industry which had always been based in the villages.

Today when the world is dazzled by the intricate craftsmanship and variety of Indian textiles remember, it all began with Bapu distributing charkhas to villagers and making leaders start spinning daily to spread the message. From the delicate ikats and pochampallies to the gorgeous patolas, tangails and maheshwaris – all these traditional weaving arts were under threat. They were being systematically killed by high taxes and cheaper British factory products. The weavers of Dacca who were famous for their fine muslin were dying in slums because they had no work. The khadi campaign slowly breathed life into these beautiful crafts.

It is hard to imagine Bapu as a fashion icon but he sent a message when he was photographed walking into Buckingham Palace in his dhoti and chaddar. He was always a shrewd judge of the message a picture could send and knew that when a man from a colonised nation wore his traditional garments to meet a king he was being fearless and also proud of his own heritage. What he was saying with his impish grin was that his khaddar chaddar was just as good as the king’s medal encrusted uniform! The khadi campaign made the wearing of handlooms both patriotic and trendy. At political rallies people saw the handsome Maulana Azad and Jawaharlal Nehru in natty achkans and Subhas Bose in an elegant flowing dhoti and began to wear khadi. When Sarojini Naidu swished up on stage in kanjeevaram saris in brilliant peacock hues, suddenly the socialites of Bombay began to discard their French chiffons for handlooms.

Gandhiji wanted villages to be self-reliant – growing their own food, weaving their own clothes and making their own pots and pans. He spoke constantly about living simply and believed that we should only use the earth’s bounty as much as we need. He opposed the senseless cutting of trees and the destruction of forests. He said, “The earth has enough for our needs but not enough for our greed” and remember he said this at a time when no one was talking of the threats to the environment or the dangers of climate change. And he showed this through his own simple life. All his earthly possessions could be packed into a single cloth jhola bag. He travelled light. There were his dhotis, chaddar, his rosary beads, tin bowl, plate and spoon. And also his spare glasses, false teeth and a copy of the Bhagwat Gita.

From the time he returned to India in 1914 his life became one of ceaseless work as he travelled across the land, often walking. At every village where he stayed he would talk of how the villagers could improve their lives. He tried to break their apathy by teaching them about hygiene and cleanliness, guided them towards cooking nutritious meals, the need to build schools to educate their children, the equality of women and against untouchability. He was keenest on hygiene and the need for clean toilets because he knew that if the sweepers did not have to clean them, then slowly the stigma of untouchability would fade away. Sadly even today many village homes lack toilets.

Even during the Dandi March, at every village where they stopped he spoke of ways in which villages could become self-reliant – dig canals, build roads and schools, clean their streets, start small scale industries like weaving, making baskets, pottery, metal and leather work. What is really amusing is that the government, that did not trust Gandhiji at all, even looked at his social work with great suspicion. Officials and the police were convinced that under the guise of social work he was in fact building up an army of rural Satyagrahis!

If you think villagers always listened and obeyed Bapu you would be mistaken. Many of them looked at him with suspicion and were angered by his talk of the rights of the lower castes and of women. Also many of them did not know how to help themselves and Gandhiji realised that he needed volunteers from the cities to go to work in the villages and among them were people like Vinoba Bhave and Baba Thakkar. So all the Non-government Organisations (NGO) working in villages today are really carrying on the work he began. Today’s Khadi Gramodyogs, Cottage Industries emporia, Dilli Haats and crafts melas are really a continuation of his campaigns and they provide livelihood to millions of crafts people.

The village improvement campaigns he called “a plodder’s work” – slow, laborious and needing endless patience but he persisted with it for thirty years. The poor were never far from his thoughts. It is easy for a politician to strut into a village, stand before a microphone, give a lot of advice at the top of his voice and drive off in a big car. Do you think they are taken seriously? The villagers listen politely to his “bhashan”, shake their heads in amusement and go back to their hard lives. They do not trust politicians.

Bapu walked the talk. Not only did he live simply, he also moved to live in a village. He chose a tiny village called Segaon near Wardha in Maharashtra and in 1936 built a hut there. Segaon had no shops, no post office or school, no roads and forget about electricity or telephones. Slowly a whole community of people interested in social work grew around him, all of them working in the nearby villages and they included a Japanese monk. This ashram was named Sevagram and the Congress leaders had to travel there to meet Gandhiji, at times trudging through ankle deep mud during the rains.

Bapu also decided that the Congress workers should experience village life first hand. So the next annual session of the party in 1936 was held in Faizpur, a village in Maharashtra. The pandal was like a bamboo village designed by the famous artist from Shantiniketan, Nandalal Bose. Delegates were served village food, lived under thatched roofs and they had to do all their sweeping and cleaning and Bapu made sure the Brahmins picked up the brooms. It was his way of introducing future ministers to their real constituents!

Critics of Gandhiji say he was against science and technology and wanted to go back to some ancient pre-industrial time but that is not correct. He was just very suspicious of technology and rightly so. What he did not like was our belief that any new technology is automatically good for us. Every industrialist and his factory are not for the benefit of the nation, take a look at our polluted rivers and our smog filled air and you know he was correct. An industrialist is in it for profit and he is not thinking of the people at all and in most cases industries just make a few people very rich.

Often industries also deprive people of their livelihood - take our tribals who are losing their forests because of the mining industries and this has spurred on the Naxal movement that is leading to so much violence. What Bapu wanted us to do, is judge every technology on its merits and decide whether we really need it or not. He wanted the people to decide, not the bureaucrat or politician. As he used to point out gently, even the charkha or a potter’s wheel is a machine but it does not pollute, it does not take away people’s livelihood, instead it offers them a source of income.

He often spoke of turning “waste into wealth” and was passionate about recycling things long before the word entered our vocabulary. He would use pencils until they were reduced to tiny stubs. He collected all the letters he received and they came by the hundred every day. He opened out envelopes and used the blank sides of letters for his replies. Both his ashrams at Sabarmati and Sevagram were filled with trees, had kitchen gardens and there were cows and goats being tended by the children.

Gandhiji’s ideal village was of a “perfect democracy based on individual freedom” and his villagers would grow their own food, have a school, an auditorium and a medical clinic, good roads and shops. Everyone would find employment in the area and no one would be not forced to migrate to the cities. Here elementary education would be free and children of all castes – girls and boys would study together. People called him a dreamer but in fact he was a supremely practical man devising practical solutions to poverty. And he was not afraid to fight for his dream.

From Puffin Lives: Mahatma Gandhi (2010), by Subhadra Sen Gupta.
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