An Ode to India and Bharat and Hindustan
UP: Tis getting more and more confounding
One week before the results of the UP Election results, the bahubalis from Sahaswan and Bisauli, Mau and Farukkhabad were on the run to Mumbai-nagari. I’m informed by Mohammed, a taxi driver, “Sab maidan chod kar bhaag rahein hain. Behenji is going to be the next CM.” I tell him the exit polls on TV predict a late surge by the BJP. He says, “sab sharyantra hain”.
Of course Mohammed is proved right; and I’m mystified.
In the past three years, everytime I return from the hinterland of UP, I’m more confounded than ever before.
One blistering day, I’m invited to an old world mansion in a small town, Eastern UP. Its an interview with a publisher. We are discussing the virtues of V Sat and an ideal print run for a regional edition, when a six feet gentlemen descends, unannounced. Introductions done, but I don’t catch the name. His forbearance is Lucknowi. He sees a book of Pablo Neruda’s poems in my bag and banters: “Pablo’s adherence to his communist ideals was a result of his protracted exclusion from ‘bourgeois society’. Even Nehru Saab snubbed Pablo when he travelled to India. You know, he used to write with green ink, like me. Green is the colour of hope.”
The conversation moves on to the other greats. “I read Fyodor (Dostoevsky) when I was in prison. His description of Russian barracks gave me strength”.
I want to tell him that’s not what Dostoevsky wrote his tomes for. By now, the 6-footer has started berating self-destructive nihilism and cynical intellectuals.
Close Encounters of the Literary Kind
He tells me, he prefers Mir to Ghalib. He advocates drinking, gambling and having illicit relations with elite women as a surety for penning sublime Ghazals. He thinks, Faiz is over-rated and Iqbal (in spite of being national poet of Pakistan) is under-rated. He advises me to read Iqbal’s published as The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam if I want to comprehend why Pakistan’s leadership sought to prove that the Islamic way of life is the best code of conduct for a nation’s viability.
Basically, the 6 footer has an opinion on everything. Literature, architecture, politics, paan, kebabs, sattu, kite flying, cock fights, CM, PM, the Ganges. Its quite a performance which is culminated by a couplet by Jan Nisar Akhtar (Javed Akhtar’s father) Ashaar Mere Yoon Zamaane Ke Liye Hain / Kuch Sher Faqat Unako Sunaane Ke Liye Hain. (Although my poems are meant for the whole world / There are some couplets meant just for the beloved).
The Final Waah Waah
When he exits, my host nonchalantly informs me, that “the benevolent and erudite” six footer is one of the most savage mafia dons in UP. A few weeks, later the bespectacled six footer is in the news. He is inciting riots. I watch the news. The image doesn’t tally. In my mind’s eye, he is reciting a doha by Kabir.
Kahaan lagi jag maa roop upano, so sab roop tumhara
Kabir pogra Allah Ram ka, so Guru pir hamara.
(This column appears in the Mumbai Edition of Hindustan Times in the HT Cafe)
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13 Responses to “An Ode to India and Bharat and Hindustan”
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that six footer was Mukhtar Anasri???
Hello Ramu,
Who the bloody hell was this 6 footer. Do please give us his name.
people like 6footer have own interpretation according to ease for everything. They are bona fide self-seekers…
as always unique and stimulating post by Ramu ramanathan
but i have doubt that Mukhtar ansari posses such knowledge in fields of literature,art,urdu etc.:-?:-?
i think he is just a gunda with lots followers in gazipur.
And we sleep comfortably at night thinking that we have nothing in common with these six-footers.
sorry.
no names please!
but the guess is fairly close to the mark.
or may be it is not!
The seemingly overeducated goondah - I’m always fascinated by that archetype. I like these scenes of literary-discussions of the most random kind in the most unexpected places. Kind of creates an illusion that they have reached their goondahood after a lot of reading, reasoning and introspection, and there is an ideological purpose behind their megalomania.
I was a kid when I’d seen Om Puri go in Drohkal, “I’ve never seen a terrorist as well read as him”, and I thought back then that was so cool. Also faintly reminds me of an unrelated scene in your play Mahadevbhai - where Gandhi and Mahadevbhai debate over theatre and literature.
Also, Naseer’s character in OMKARA! Its subtle, but its there. For example: the scene in the jail; its very interesting to read the titles of the books which surround him.
Then there’s Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway; about how the don’s side-kick helps a hopeless playwright pen a play; and provide the best suggestions in a rehearsal.
Also the character of Kader Bhai in Gregory David Roberts book “Shantaram” is very similar. A larger than life, feared but benevolent mafia don with a passion for intellectual conversation and the arts.
Ain’t it true that most successful mafias or dons have been well educated and shown an interest in either religion or arts?
Ramu the fact is…most of the Bahubaleez or mafias in UP and Indian politics are result of student politics in universities…most of them are toppers in literature or law which shows is their speeches and diplomacy…
…so whether its Mulayam or Lalu, they are lawyers by qualification which has made them masterminds of corruption..
Ramu sir,this time i made sure that i dont miss out ur column in HT. so read it there. intersing. n yes i hav also met few of the university goonda types with their fascination for Ghalib!! in bengal though its more common. literature goes hand in hand with every kind of politics. And with power everyone gets corrupted. also from goonda to terrorist to revolutionary,the lines r so blurred.
We could also add the character played by Kadar Khan in Angaar to the list being discussed here…