Iraq Documentary on the TV

This morning I saw a documentary done by Italian news channel Rainews 24 on the use of chemical weapons in the allied forces attack on Falluja in November last year. The documentary showed satellite pictures of use of napalm-like phosphorous bombs called MK77, interviews with american soldiers confirming use of chemical weapons, a letter of someone from British defence ministry to their labour party MP Linda Riordan saying that it was true and such bombs have been used and finally, shots of burnt up bodies with their faces contorted in ghastly rictus smiles of agony. I almost puked.

My first thought was, how can they show such pictures while people are having breakfasts and getting ready to leave for work? A bit later, I could appreciate that without those pictures, it would have been just another story on "false accusations" against the "pro-liberty and pro-democracy liberation forces" of Bush and Blair.

OK, so you can say that I am a tubelight and that so many persons had been already saying it for months. So, wake up and welcome to the real world.

 

Yet to think that USA did use chemical bombs on a city where it knew that lot of civilians were present, and these are banned by Geneva convention (though the Americans never signed that convention), was like a sobering cold shower. Of course, the Americans were cynical, they were selfish, they were doing it all for their personal gains but they would stoop so low?

A colleague who had seen that documentary this morning said, "Even if Berlusconi government was perfect for everything else, just for this thing, for having dragged Italy into this war and for making us all accomplices to this shame, I won't vote for this government."

Another colleague said that this means that there is no difference between Bush and Bin Laden and terrorists are justified. I don't agree. I don't think any terrorists are justified, whatever their name, nationality or cause. At least the American soldiers who spoke during the interviews, or those who must have passed the satellite images for the documentary, did not agree with it and could act by sharing those images with the world. That is much better than the dictators on the other side, where no voice of dissent seems to come out. But that credit goes to individual Americans and certainly not to those in power.

Yet, even today the Indian news papers are still talking about the report of some American commission expressing concern about the atrocities against minorities in India This report also mentions the role of Al Qaeda in the chemical attack in USA ... and I think that these guys are real hypocrites.

In the end, I ask myself if killing twenty or twenty thousand makes any difference? If killing by gunfire or a sword or a chemical bomb makes any difference? You are dead any way. It is just that your dead body is more hideous and puke-provoking and so people can't easily forget your image and salvage their conscience by saying "it is just collateral damage"?

For me, killing even one person for war or for terror, is one person too many. I am against all terrorism, including when it is justified as "they did not have any other option" - suicide bombers killing innocents are brain-washed into believing that they will go to heaven.

 

Soldiers knowing killing civilians are another kind of terrorists, the ones who follow the orders blindly.

***

Geneva Days - Morning Alarms and the Sex Workers

For so many years, I have been going to Geneva (Switzerland) for work. Usually it meant short trips, reaching the hotel late at night, going for a meeting at the World Health Organisation (WHO) on the next day and then, take a train back to Milan as soon as the meeting finished. I hardly ever went out and Geneva seemed a clean, orderly and dull Swiss city.

Every thing changed in 2001, when I was working at WHO and stayed there for 5-6 months. The first month was passed in a hotel, but it was very costly so I looked around for a room. Almost all the weekends, I would travel home to Italy as my son was in school and my family had stayed back in Bologna.

 

This post about my days in Geneva - I want to record my memories about this stay, so that In future, I can come back and remember them.

My Room in Geneva and the Morning Alarm of My Neighbour

I found a room in Rue Sismondi, close the Geneva Central Station, it is one of the roads going towards the left bank of the Leman lake.

 

My American landlord, had an apartment at the top floor. She had occupied the stairs going to the top floor, putting there her book-racks and knick knacks. So the only way to go to the apartment was through the elevators, that opened in a small corridor. On coming out of the elevator, on the right was the part where my landlord lived with her Tunisian boyfriend. On the right we were three guests in three rooms, sharing the bathroom and the kitchen.

I think of those days as the days of silence or more precisely, as the "days of not talking". You respect the privacy of others, you don't look at them or talk to them, was the rule of the house that I quickly learned, these are also the Swizz rules of living.

 

If by chance I ever met the other guests, I would mumble a slow Good day or Good evening, the other would nod and that was it. In those four months, I saw only one of those other guests, a sad man in worn out clothes.

 

The other guest's presence was felt and heard, but I never saw him. He lived in the room next to me. Some evenings, I heard him through the wall, talking on the telephone in German. He sounded like a young man. And, I heard his alarm clock in the morning every day. It would start ringing every morning at 4.45 AM and it kept on ringing for about 15-20 minutes, till he finally woke and switched it off.

 

My first few days in that house were really traumatic. In the quiet of the morning, the alarm bell seemed to be ringing just under my pillow and it made me wake up with my heart thumping. Evidently, his sleep was deeper, since it went on and on. Then, even I too got used to it. When it started to ring, I would get up, eat some yogurt, read some book, listen to the old man in the other room wake up and shuffle around. When finally our neighbour woke up and the alarm stopped, I would switch off the light and go back to sleep.

I had heard that Swiss are very particular about noise, pollution, order, etc. but no one ever said any thing to that guy about his alarm!

Sex Shops and the Sex Workers in Rue Sismondi

Rue Sismondi is the area of the sex shops and prostitutes. I was very curious about the things displayed in the sex shop-window, but I was also embarrassed to go in and look at them properly. The use of most of the sex-toys was easy to understand, but there were some strange looking things as well, and I would look at them from the corner of the eyes and wonder how they were used!

The prostitutes lived in the houses in that area, and after a few days, on my return from work in the evenings, I was mumbling "Good evening madam" to them also. The prostitutes mostly left me in peace, hardly bothering to stop their chatting and laughing when I passed. Once I did have a closer encounter with two of them. I was coming out of the supermarket, when one of them, tall and dark, wearing a flaming red gown, that was open on the side till the top of her legs, she raised up her leg in front of me, stopping me in my tracks. Raising her eyebrows, she smiled provocatively. I panicked. "Je suis marieé", I blurted out, I am married. She laughed loudly and said that she didn't mind. Thankfully, the other girl standing next to her, said something to her and they allowed me to walk away.

One of the prostitutes on our street was an old lady of about seventy-eighty. A loud gash of red lipstick on her lips, blue coloured eye-shadow around her eyes and snow white hair, she looked like a witch, in her spindly legs and a brown-leather mini skirt. Who would ever go with her, I wondered but perhaps elderly men preferred her? One early morning, I was supposed to catch a train and it was snowing and really cold. I saw her in her miniskirt, standing under a doorway, shivering and yet, hoping for a client in that terrible cold morning. It was one of the saddest things that I have ever seen.

That stay in Geneva has changed my relationship with the city. Every time I go back, walking along the lake, the science museum, the wonderful botanical gardens are my favourite activities in every visit.

***

Families - Picture Exhibition by Uwe Ommer

I am back in Geneva, Switzerland. A few years ago, I stayed here for about 6 months, when I was working with the Disability and Rehabilitation (DAR) unit of the World Health Organisation (WHO), so the city is very familiar to me. I am here for a DAR meeting on Community-based Rehabilitation (CBR).

 

One evening I went for a walk along the Geneva lake and found a beautiful photo-exhibition on families by Uwe Ommer. This post is about this exhibition. The image below has a Sikh family from India.

 

 

The left bank of the Geneva (Leman) lake is a well-known exhibition area, with public sculptures and photo-exhibitions. Since the city hosts many U.N. organisations including the Human Rights Commission and the agency for refugees (ACNUR), often the exhibitions are related to some U.N. theme.   

Introduction

October has been so hectic for me, full of travels - coming from somewhere, unpacking the bags, only to pack them again with clean clothes, and going some where else, five cities in three countries in last three weeks. The travel to India, just ten days ago, seems like it was last year.

In all this running around, there is big family new, Marco's marriage is fixed. He will get married in Delhi on 2 January.

It seems he was born only yesterday. To think of him as married makes me feel relaxed, as if an important milestone has been reached. Perhaps that is why, I found the photo exhibition of Uwe Ommer in Geneva (Switzerland) on 60th anniversary of United Nations so moving.

 

 

Uwe Ommer lives in France and she had travelled to large number of countries around the world to take pictures of families. 

India in the Family Exhibition 

India is represented by two families. The family of Phoolwati in a village near Udaipur. She is a widow and lives with her brother's family (in the image below).

 

 

And Lucky's family from Delhi, a sikh businessman, is in the image at the top. Lucky's son proudly holds a bat with name of Sachin Tendulkar in their picture.

Families from Other Countries

Below, you can look at some of the other families in the pictures clicked by Uwe Ommer.

***

The Invisible Indians

GK II and Alaknanda are among the posh colonies of south Delhi. Every house has cars, some have guards outside and the houses are big and beautiful. There is an army of invisible persons, running around like ants, opening doors, collecting refuse, cleaning cars, taking out the dogs to walks, cooking dinners, selling vegetables, repairing all kinds of things, etc. that holds up this world of well to do. If you stay here long enough, you stop seeing them too. I am here only for 5 days and I see them all around, these invisible Indians, with hope in their eyes, an occasional envy and a rarer anger.

 

Do the poorer Indians accept much more easily and placidly, this living in close vicinity of the rich? Why? This is the question I have been asked in countries like Brazil and Kenya, where the rich need to be afraid when they venture out of their homes.

 

I have been to slums in many cities in India, including in Delhi and Mumbai, but I don't recall ever feeling afraid of being attacked or robbed at gun-point. OTH, going out to slums in Brazil or South Africa or Kenya is scary. A few years ago, I was coordinating a multi-country research project on persons with disabilities living in slum areas. I remember that persons working in slums of Manila, Jakarta and Mumbai, were really shocked during our visit to a slum in Salvadaor do Bahia in Brazil, we needed to move in a group and surrounded by persons from that slum community.

 

So probably, it is in Asia, where people are more accepting of inequalities while in Africa and Latin America, people react to inequalities with violence? Is it a cultural thing or because of our histories or because of religions? What do you think?

***
I was at the Bookworm in Connaught Place, when I saw her. She must have been fifty. Slim, her eyes lined with kajal, her greying hair in a single plait, a tatty worn out purse in her hands. She seemed to be speaking to me. I looked around, I didn't know her.

 

"Pagal hai saab", the boy at the bookshop told me.

"Buy me something", I think that is what she said, in English. "She is educated", the boy in the shop said. She started to dance, moving her hands gently, nodding at me, listening to the music coming from the shop next door.

I came out and she came forward, "Come on, buy me something. It is festival season, everybody is buying something, I also need to buy. I need some shoes. Look at these, these are completely worn out."

I was afraid of her and I hurried away.

"It is disgusting, every body can buy and I am left like this. No one to help me", she called after me.

While I walked away, I was talking to myself. Stupid. Why can't you help her? It is so little for you. Offer her an ice-cream, perhaps? I turned back, but she was gone.

***
I was in auto-rickshaw on Barakhamba road. The construction of a metro line is going ahead furiously and the traffic moves in bits and pieces, getting stuck after every few meters. At one such stop, she came to me. Light blue sari, middle aged. "Please help me buy medicines for my child." She held a paper in her hand. "I am not a beggar. I work here but I don't have enough money to buy medicines", she began to cry, "my child will die."

I gave her a ten rupee note. "It is not enough for buying medicines", she said,"I don't want money, help me buy the medicines for two days."

"That is all I have", I said, lying. 10 rupees is just 20 cents. May be I can ask her to come in autorickshaw and go to a chemist shop, I thought. The traffic started moving and the auto moved. Her face streaked with tears looked at me, as I left her behind.

 

It was my fear of being called a stupid.

 

When people ask for help, how do you find out if they are genuinely needful or they are conning you? Play-acting that you are in great need to con people is the worst thing anyone can do, because it means that when someone is in real distress, people do not believe them.

 

  ***

Dusshera and the New Delhi Metro

Saw the burning of Ravan-effigy in Delhi this time after I don't know, how many years. I think that the last time I must have seen it was when we used to go to DCM Ramleela grounds near Rohtak Road, 30-35 years ago. After that I had seen it in the TV. But to be there in the middle of the crowd, feeling the excitement and the anticipation, the first wave of heat as the effigy takes fire, the deafening noise of the fire-crackers... is some thing else. Mika was there with me and we cluctched each other's hands when the flames suddenly engulfed the effigy.

On the way back, near the temple, trucks with the Ramleela actors was passing. Ram and his sena were on one truck and Ravan and his sena were on the second truck. Even these kind of processions were such old memories and I felt thrilled in spite of myself.

***
The days of India-stay are rushing past so quickly. Today I hope to go and see Anita Ghai, my friend, who is a disability activist and a university professor. Rajouri Garden, where she lives seems so far away but I am hoping to travel by the new Delhi Metro.

Took the metro for going to Delhi university the other day. The train is exactly the same as they have in Rome - they must be buying it from the same source! And the travel is so quick. Metro network has changed the way we used to travel in Delhi. The advantage is that one can reach the outskirts of Delhi, that would have taken a couple of hours at least, in less than half an hour. However, from my experience with London metro, I think that metro travel means that you have no idea of the places you pass through, you form an imaginary idea of the city which is very different from the real city. But that is probably a small cost to pay for the saving of time.

 

***

Here are some images from the burning of Dusshera effigies from Alaknanda in South Delhi. 

***

No Sex Please, We are ...

I arrived in Delhi on 10 October, three days ago. Here are some glimpses of how India is changing and yet unchanging, going in one direction and then in another. We are Indians and so no sex please, is followed by songs and dances with explicit sexual references.

I spent some time in CP going around the central park, where a group Hijras (transgender women) were asking for money. They have so few possibilities of finding any kind of employment, so I can understand why need to ask for money.

 

 

* 

 

Explaining the way to the taxi driver, a young man who has come recently from Bhagalpur in Bihar, made me realise that my memories of Delhi are getting rusted. I was confused between Vasant Kunj and Vasant Vihar.

 

As the taxi passed through the Mehrauli road, it was clear that if India is indeed shining, its light has yet to reach certain parts of the capital. May be the cellphones and satellite TV and digital cameras have arrived, but the signs of old smelly confusion, narrow roads, shops encroaching on the streets, heaps of garbage, wandering cows, traffic with horns-blaring, brash and aggressive car drivers, poor kids standing at crossings and asking for alms, etc. are all still there.

 

Mahipal Pur, the village where I used to come for my preventive and social medicine posting in the village health centre in 1976, is now an unending stretch of houses, shops and traffic.

As the taxi turned towards Munirka and the flyovers of the outer Ring Road, it was good to feel the changing face of urban India, even if the quality of roads, pavements and railings over the new flyovers seemed to be not very good. These two Indias, the shining one and the one still in the dark, live close to each other, at times mixing together.

*
While people in Tamilnadu have forced actress Khushboo to apologise for her "insult to the Tamil womanhood" by talking about pre-marital sex, the song-and-dance routines on the Indian TV have become more daring.

 

I saw a girl on the TV, showing her backside, moves it seductively and then slowly enlarging her buttocks with her hands while singing a remix version of the old Rishi Kapoor-Jayapradha song, "Daphliwale, daphli baja..", and I am flabbergasted by this unexpected meaning to the old song. How naive I must have been not to see the dirty meaning of the song before, I thought. Or perhaps, all songs can be dirty, all words can be bent to give them another sexual meaning. Every thing is about sex!

The promos of a new film are even more shocking. They are for a new film by K-lady Ekta Kapoor, the lady who makes all the serials about Bhartiya sabhyta like the "Kyonki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi" kind of serials. They have yesteryears' star and Kapoor's father, Jeetandra's face splashed on them. One scene has the hero, Aftab Shivdasani, standing up with his bleeding finger held in front of his crotch being licked by a girl on her knees, another girl looks at them from behind and thinks that the girl is sucking something else. This promo is repeated about 15 times during the day, without any warning that it is for adults or any such thing.

This sexually liberated India coexists with Bajrang Dal-Shivsena-controlled "no sex please, we are Indians" kind of India.

*
There were pandals every where in Alaknanda in south Delhi, for Durgapuja. For Dushehra, big Ravans are standing in each park, full of loud crackers, waiting to be burnt. 

 

In one park I saw the Ravan Puja. It was being performed at the feet of Ravan's effigy and at the end, people took turns to touch Ravan's feet and held their hands in prayer in front of it.  I have been to Ramleelas all my life and I had never realised that there is a puja in front of the Ravan also and people ask blessings to it before burning it! Isn't Ravan the bad one, why are you touching his feet, I wanted to ask them but then I stopped myself. May be that is the American or western way of thinking.

 

We know that Ravan was a great vidwan, perhaps, it is good to pray to him, recognise the good parts of him and then burn him for his bad deeds. It is completely different from the way they think of devil and satan in the west.

*

Watching a performance of the Birju Maharaj's dance troupe against the background of Purana Kila was a highlight of this Delhi visit

 

* 

Homelands and Old Friends

On Sunday I am going to India. For 8 days. Meetings and appointments will eat away most of the time, and the remaining will go for shopping and chatting in the family. It is the prospect of the journey and my own ambivalent feelings about it, that I am thinking about.

Perhaps, I am tired of being a stranger to my own land?

 

The excitement of going back in the initial years, I still remember it. Waiting for months, counting the days, thinking of all the things that I was going to do. Call Munna, call Rahul's home, call Naresh, call Devender, see Rajkumar,... calling up on all the friends was high up on the list. So what is Ravi doing? Did you hear from Anil? Have you any news of Narayan? There was so much catching up to do about all the old childhood friends.

Last year I saw Munna after 8-10 years. Rahul I had met him after ages. When we meet, all the words come out tumbling and rushed, in the beginning. And then they start to dry up. Perhaps, it is because there is no continuing dialogue, no exchange of things happening in our lives. My old childhood friends have become strangers to me.

To visit old houses, old streets, is the same as meeting old friends. They have changed. Some times there is a completely new building. In Rajendra Nagar, all the old houses have gone, in their place there are 3-4 storied buildings and streets choking with cars, blocked with iron railings and no one seems to know me any more. The old shops are gone, along with the shopkeepers.

The circle of things that included familiar persons and places gets narrower each time. In the end, it is just an anonymous city with anonymous people and I am a stranger in my own town.

 

In the end, it is just close family persons with whom a link remains, and a feeling of familiarity in Connaught Place and old monuments like Lal Kila and Qutab Minar, because I still recognise most of them - I can pretend that nothing has changed.

And there is hardly any excitement, no counting of days. Perhaps, it is because I am not spending enough time there, all my visits are short trips, running around for work and not having time to spend with people? May be it is just this day, the rain and the autumn leaves falling down that makes me feel sad, and tomorrow, it will be all right once again.

This gaping hole in my being, I will close my eyes and it might go away. A bad dream.

***