The Sibbals

Success is in their blood

Sibal family.

This is a story that has its origins in Dingah village of Gujarat district in Pakistan, when 18-year-old Hira Lal Sibal married 14-year-old Kailash Rani of Bhimbar which is now a part of PoK. Mr Sibal went on to practice in the Punjab High Court in Lahore where his five children were born. Partition forced them out of their home in Lahore. Mr Sibal is nostalgic when he says, “We shifted from Lahore to Jalandhar, hoping that we would be able to return to our home after conditions improved. But that was not to be, so we moved to Shimla, and then when the Punjab and Haryana High Court shifted to Chandigarh in 1955, we did too”.

Sibal’s reputation as an advocate specialising in civil, criminal and election law is well-founded. He has been Advocate-General four times and was elected as the first non-official president of the Chandigarh Club, Rotary Club. He has been president of the High Court Bar Association twice.

Mr Sibal’s eldest son, V.K. Sibal, qualified for the IAS and opted for a UN deputation with the FAO. He is presently a judge with the Punjab Human Rights Commission. J.K. Sibal also qualified for the IAS and was assigned the MP cadre. After 18 years, he quit to return to legal practice in Chandigarh and is presently an advocate of repute.

Kanwal Sibal qualified for the IFS and rose to become India’s Foreign Secretary. He has recently been appointed Ambassador to Russia. The youngest Kapil Sibal also qualified for the IAS but chose the legal profession and went on to become a reputed Supreme Court advocate before he joined the Congress and is now a minister. Mr Sibal’s only daughter Asha is married to the former MD of Metalbox and former Chairman of BATA.

Mr Sibal’s wife, Kailash Rani, keeps a beautiful home and garden in Sector 5, Chandigarh. She has a photographic memory and follows a disciplined schedule, “Discipline is the quality I passed on to my children”, she says. Excerpts from an interview given to Bilawal and Punam Khaira Sidhu:

You must be a very proud father. What inspired your children to join the civil services ?

V.K. Sibal qualified for the IAS and set the trend for the others. I am indeed very proud of all of them as they are all good humans.

Were all of your son’s good at studies and academically inclined at an early age?

Yes, they all excelled in academics. I rarely had to tell them to study. They were all very motivated youngsters, who I knew would succeed in whatever they chose to do.

What schools did they go to?

They have studied at various schools and colleges in Shimla, Chandigarh and Ludhiana as we shifted from Shimla to Chandigarh. The youngest, Kapil, studied in St Johns and then moved on to St Stephens College in Delhi.

What were your sons interests/hobbies?

V.K. was an avid reader. There is hardly a book or an author he has not read. J.K. and Kanwal excelled in debates etc while Kapil was an all-rounder excelling in sports, dramatics and a cinema enthusiast.

Was there a lot of sibling rivalry?

Yes, but it was healthy and that is why each has tried to set the bar.

What are the qualities you ascribe to their success?

My wife and I tried to imbibe the qualities of discipline, honesty and perseverence in all of them.

How much has Chandigarh changed since you first moved here?

The changes have been dramatic. Chandigarh was a city of barely one lakh population and today it is over 10 lakh. It is dirty, polluted and crowded. The civic infrastructure and law and order set-up is under tremendous pressure.

What improvements would you like to see in the city?

Planned development of the periphery and satellite cities of Mohali and Panchkula can ease the pressure on Chandigarh. Each resident also needs to be aware of his civic responsibility to keep the city beautiful.

What is your message for the youth?

Work with sincerity and honesty to achieve your goals. Let it be like an obsession and you will achieve great results. As for the rest, destiny also determines your fate.

To a grandfather with love

REMEMBRANCE
To a grandfather with love
Punam Khaira Sidhu

He was an immaculate dresser, this graduate Civil Engineer from Kings College, London. He lay now calm and serene, at the end of life’s journey, dressed in his favourite suit and tie. His silver beard was neatly tucked into place by his devoted grieving family. His wife Satwant, a doctor, who had nursed him tirelessly in his last days, his daughters Jyoti, Guddi and Nina, their husbands, his sons, KPS Gill and Birendar and their wives and his grandchildren who stood huddled close to the pyre unwilling as it were to let go of the man of steel who had formed the backbone of their family for almost a century. He was 94.

As a young girl preparing for the Civil Services exams I thought I knew all there was about the Punjab river waters dispute. But that was until I had a talk with R.S. Gill. In 1947, as an OSD, he had dealt with the claims of Punjab on Pakistan before the Arbitration Tribunal was set up. The depth of his knowledge, his insights into the politics of the dispute, was a talk I will never forget. It was also a valuable first lesson in the machinations of bureaucracy and politics.

His achievements were prodigious by any standards. He had served as Chairman of the Punjab and J&K State Electricity Boards. He had worked on the Bhakra Dam project, the Beas project for the Pong Dam, the Upper Sind hydel project and the Jhelum hydel project and finally the Ranjit Sagar Dam. He was a consultant with various engineering colleges, IITs and projects as far as Kuwait and Libya.

But above all he was a much loved and respected man both within his family and for those outside like us. After my grandfather passed away, Rachpal Singh Gill was to our family the only grandfather we knew.

If he had to be described in one word it would be the Punjabi word “Syana” and the English word “sterling”. In addition to being wise, he was mature and farsighted. Perhaps that is why whenever anyone had a problem, he or she, consulted him. And he always found time for everyone. He was a stickler for discipline adhering religiously to his schedule. The timing for his meals, his bath, his walk, was strictly implemented. The only other person in my acquaintance who is such a sticker for discipline is Khushwant Singh, another prodigiously talented man. R.S. Gill was also a keen chess player. He was a keen observer of human nature with an unfailing memory for names and details.

The last time we visited him in hospital was when his pacemaker needed a change. He returned from hospital to make a full recovery until the final accident. An almirah under fabrication sat balanced precariously. He was taking a look at it when if fell onto him. He was in pain — multiple fractures including one on the neck of the femur. So back to the PGI it was. For his family who nursed him so lovingly, it was painful to see him suffer.

Yesterday there was an official party. But we were committed to visiting him in hospital. We missed the party to visit him and spend time with him. He held my husband’s hand and told him that he had read about his organisation’s work which was doing a fine job. He remembered my sons’ names and enquired about each of them. When I told him that we would pray for him, he said, “a grandchild’s prayers are always answered but, child, I don’t have the strength to fight this time.” I have never dared hug him when he was well, but I asked if I could hug him there in the hospital bed. “Of course”, he said. So carefully avoiding the tubes and all, I did hug him.

The news came the next morning that he had passed away. At night we were grateful for those precious moments with him. Goodbye Gill Uncle, we’ll miss you. To the grieving family we can only say we all stand with you in your hour of grief for the wonderful man we have all loved and lost.

Nank The Guru: Mala Dayal

Distinctive strokes
Punam Khaira Sidhu

Nanak: The Guru
by Mala Dayal. Illustrations by Arpana Caur. Rupa. Pages 48. Rs 195.

AS a parent of one teenager and one tweenie (pre-teen), I am often concerned by their lack of interest in reading books. Television and video games dominate their leisure time. If this generation is to be weaned away from their plasma screens and I-pods, the subject has to be a visual treat strong enough to grab their eyeballs and the text has be pithy and brief. Mala Dayal, the author who has been involved with developing, selecting, editing and writing material for children for over 30 years, has clearly imbibed this lesson well because, in this collaboration with Arpana Caur, the artist, she achieves near perfection. The Ardas offered by every Sikh is to invoke Lord’s blessings to bless him with the strength and the will to read and listen to the scriptures, "Bani padhan te sunan da bal bakhsho", which is indeed a fine introduction to the Guru’s legacy for a child.

In the space of 48 pages, most of the Janamsakhis associated with Guru Nanak Devji’s life find a place in this book in a language that is simple and lucid, yet conveys the essence of the Guru’s life and teachings through its simplicity. The prose is used as an effective medium for the Guru’s message. The teachings of Guru Nanak, the first Guru of the Sikhs who laid the foundation of the fine traditions of langar and exhorted people to rise above caste and material considerations because they were all children of one God, are as relevant today as they were when He composed the Japji Sahib, Asa di Var and Mul Mantra beneath the early morning sky in Kartarpur in the 1500s. This is a book a child or an adult can read in one sitting, yet gain a pleasing insight into the life of a visionary and a leader of men of all faiths. The author puts it succinctly through the saying "Baba Nanak Shah Fakir, Hindu ka Guru, Musalman ka Pir".

Mala Dayal, who is publisher Ravi Dayal’s wife, has dedicated the book to her father, the celebrated author Khushwant Singh, for whom this was a surprise Baisakhi gift this year. Caur’s painting of the Guru Granth Sahib, protecting her grandfather and carrying his belongings in a sack from Pakistan in her "Partition Series" has always been a personal favourite. The visuals in this book are in Caur’s trademark style of stocky figures with their strong folk motif underpinnings, the colours rich and textured to complement the elegant pared down text. The mala and khadava of the Guru have been used as a leitmotif throughout.

When I first browsed through Roopinder Singh’s Guru Nanak—His Life and Teachings, also by Rupa, my immediate reaction was: "Here’s a Collectors Edition at paperback prices". I remember buying several copies for NRI friends and family, who look forward to books, which will introduce their children to the Gurus and indeed to the Sikh faith and maryada. Mala Dayal’s Guru Nanak is another book in the same genre, though for a younger audience. It has evocative illustrations. As a parent, it is my sincere hope that this collaboration of author and artist will not stop at this single volume.

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Passage to England

Passage to England

Punam Khaira Sidhu on the Queen’s country and its sights, the attitudes and lifestyle of the Britons and the Asian immigrants

Victoria and Albert Museum

The London Underground

Hyde Park, a must-see on every tourist’s itinerary

WHEN we took off from New Delhi, it was with a head full of Noddy-inspired images, envisioning England as a country of villages with rose briars on gates, gnarled apple trees and green meadows with fluffy sheep. When we landed in Manchester, it was anticlimactic. There were lots of Indians and the Metropolis was just like Bangalore or Gurgaon except that it was cleaner, and much colder.

It was September and the country was experiencing an Indian summer. The sun did not set until 9 pm and the British, who are huge sun worshippers, were out all day in the briefest of shorts armed with large tubes of sun block. The houses did not have ceiling fans: with global warming raising temperatures around the globe the British Isles are a huge market for Indian fan manufacturers to explore.

Britain is a welfare state. The State steps in with free medical care through the National Health Service (NHS), free and compulsory education, free or subsidised council housing, benefits for unemployment, heating bills, child support and disabilities etc. The British public transport system is robust with buses, trams and trains. In the cities, the identically constructed semi-detached and terraced houses, made familiar in the Granada studios’ popular TV soap, The East-Enders, are occupied largely by the middle classes. Each area has its own market, surgery, school and pub. Residential areas in the UK are very stratified. You are where you live and are immediately slotted by your residential postal code. While students live near the cheaper City Centre, the more affluent live in country homes with gardens. That’s where you can see the rose briars and green meadows.

Welfare state notwithstanding, the Thatcher years have seen a cutback on the State’s role and deficit and there is no permanent employment only, continuous employability. Multi-skilling is the new mantra. The British are unfailingly polite and correct. Every telephone query is prefaced with a "How may I help you?" They are also very fair in their dealings regardless of the fact that Asians have swamped their tiny isle and pose a substantial burden on the welfare state. But Britons are reserved and most personal interaction is within segregated community groups. Chicken tikka may be a national favourite but notwithstanding professional achievements immigrants can only be second-best citizens.

University education is expensive and students work to support their education. Students stack shelves in stores, work at data entry and in restaurants cooking naans or noodles late into the night. Immigrant Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Chinese abound in the UK. Bangladeshi’s in fact are the backbone of the couture garment trade in the UK of which Petticoat Lane on the outskirts of London is an example.

The first generation Asians were relatively unskilled and poorly educated but they worked hard to put the second generation through university and into professions. Almost every Asian is a success story in his/her own measure. My friends in the UK IRS told me that Asian immigrants are also responsible for widening the cash trades in this credit card economy. Hence, whether it is the weekly grocery market, homemade goodies, or repair jobs, the Asians will do them and hope the taxman does not find their trail. Most Asians also moonlight ie do more than one job in their spare time.

Pubs in the UK serve bitter, lager and the Irish draught beer, Guinness, along with delicious home cooked samples of British cuisine such as Yorkshire pudding and rhubarb, steak and kidney pie and a large variety of sausages with the omnipresent fries flavoured with barbeque sauce and vinegar. Lunch is called dinner while dinner is called supper.

Football is religion in the UK. Britons have deep-seated club loyalties and the devout sport the club uniforms and sing the club anthem with fervour. Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool top the present rankings.

Rupert Murdoch’s Sun with its Page 3 topless model, is the tabloid with the largest circulation. Other tabloids include the Daily Mirror, Star and Daily Mail. The broadsheets, the Sunday Observer, Telegraph, Independent and Guardian still command a loyal readership.

The National Lottery with a top prize of millions of pounds has a draw every Wednesday and Saturday. A ticket costs a pound and can be picked up at almost all commercial establishments. The average Briton is tolerant of the royalty, but obsesses over the colourful Beckhams and loves business pashas like Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic fame who create jobs and wealth. Stores like Debenhams and Marks and Spencer stock quality at value for money prices and their blue cross sales are sellouts. Stella McCartney and John Galliano are the homegrown stars on the couture horizon.

Heritage is big business in the UK and large homes have opened their grounds to the public for a price. Heritage buildings are protected by strict conservation laws, which do not allow even a pin to be put on the fa`E7ade without invoking a penalty. We had the temerity, albeit in complete ignorance, to put a DTH antenna on the fa`E7ade of Brian Redhead Court, a 100-year-old building which housed our student flats, to get our daily fix of Zee TV. There was consternation and a show-cause and we were almost evicted.

Third generation Asians who know which fork to use are the Britons who meld effortlessly. But for the others being away from home seems to intensify their need to stay in touch with their cultural identity in what borders on paranoia. On festivals and weddings the fervour has to be seen to be believed: remember Bend it like Beckham. There are several gurdwaras and mandirs. Most are run by devout faithfuls but power politics does prevail. They also provide a hub for social activities and help-groups.

We battled homesickness constantly, especially through the cold days of winter snow and sleet. The sight of banks of daffodils did nothing for our spirits unlike a squashed marigold that a visitor brought along with parshad from India. I remember inhaling the fragrance of India in that little blossom.

The neighbours calling to borrow jamun for curd, the smell of mango blossoms, jalebis, endless cups of tea with hot pakoras: we missed them all. Staying in the UK was a great experience but as I have said earlier it is not in the Queen’s country but in your country of origin that you are King.

The Story of Gur

The delectable story of gur
Punam Khaira Sidhu

Sugarcane is crushed in small mills run on electricity

EVEN as we celebrated Lohri, the table in my home groaned under the weight of gur ki gachak, gur ki reori, and gur ki chikki. As my sons bit into the delicious confectionery laden with poppy seeds and groundnuts, they queried: "What’s this stuff made up of mom?" "Jaggery or gur," I pronounced. To which the next query shot at me was, "What’s gur?"

India produces 240 to 260 million tonnes of sugarcane, out of which about 50 per cent sugarcane is crushed in 400 large sugar factories, producing 11 to 12 million tonnes of white sulphitation sugar. These giant sugar factories use vacuum pan boiling system and sulphitation process, which is carried out by sophisticated machinery and equipment. Jaggery, which accounts for half of the sugar eaten in India, is made from the remaining 50 per cent of the sugarcane grown in India.

A dark, unrefined sugar, gur or jaggery is used not only in India but in the entire subcontinent. The finished product can have a solid fudge-like consistency, or can be made into a powdery substance called shakkar. It is used to make candies, and when crushed, used as a sweetener for tea, halwa, pickles, etc. Jaggery, which has a distinctive taste, sweetens and flavours the rich coconut milk and tapioca drink from Burma, moh let saung, and Sri Lanka’s famous Vattalappam. In Thailand, it is not just used for confections but also to add a touch of sweetness to hot curries.

Making gur is a family ritual in villages of Punjab. And my earliest memories of gur-making are framed in nostalgia. A huge pair of bullocks turned the mills that crushed the cane, and the juice from sugarcane was boiled down with several people helping to stir steadily thickening syrup. Sitting around the warmth of the fire and eating the hot fudgy gur underneath a starlit sky was sheer magic. Molten jaggery is cooled before it is shaped into small cakes Back to the present I was determined that my city-bred boys should experience the magic of jaggery-making. We drove down on the Chandigarh-Patiala road to find villagers making gur. The story of gur starts in fields where sugarcane is planted. Harvesting of the sugarcane starts after Dasehra. The harvested sugarcane stalks are crushed in small mills run on electricity. The juice collected is transferred to a large settling tank. A long-handled jharni is used to clean and separate the impurities. Then the juice is transferred to a boiling pan or karaha which is arranged on a tunnel-type furnace and the juice is boiled in it. The clarification process goes on while boiling. Herbal clarificants and soda bicarbonate are sprinkled in the boiling pan frequently as and when required and dirt accumulated on the surface is frequently removed by scumming. This indigenous process requires experience and skill for maximum recovery of jaggery. The thick slurry of cane is constantly stirred so that it may not settle or form a crust on the surface. As the water evaporates from the juice, sugar crystals are formed in the thick syrup. The molten jaggery is then ready to be transferred to a large shallow wooden tray. Here it is partly cooled and set before khurpis are used to make small cakes, which are dried in the sun on plastic sheets. Gur is not just the healthier alternative to sugar but studies undertaken suggest the potential of jaggery as a protective agent for workers in dusty and smoky environments. What about the dust and smoke pollution in our cities? We could do with a protective agent too. Add gur to your diet — Gur wale chawal, gur da halwa or just plain gur ki churi — and experience the benefits of a healthier alternative to refined sugar. I’ve made a beginning by gifting gur from the family farm to friends and relatives instead of sweets in winter. Like the European tradition of the ubiquitous cheese board that finds a place on every table, start a gur board. Plain gur, gur flavoured with kaju badam, or digestive gur flavoured with ajwain (caraway) and saunf (aniseed), take your pick.

Mulk Raj Anand's Short Stories

A teller of tales
Punam Khaira Sidhu

A Pair of Mustachios
by Mulk Raj Anand, Orient Paperbacks. Pages 110, Rs 95.

THINK Indian writers writing in English and the two enduring names from the 1930s whose books are still in print are Mulk Raj Anand and R.K. Narayan. Their works have been translated into several languages.

Born in Peshawar in 1905, Mulk Raj Anand's was educated in Lahore, London and Cambridge. He lived in England for several years. What could also be of interest to readers is that Mulk Raj Anand held the prestigious Tagore Chair at Panjab University, Chandigarh.

At the age of 30, he began his most prolific period. He wrote the Untouchable (1935), followed by Coolie (1936), Two Leaves and a Bud (1937) and then the adventures of Lalu Singh, a young Sikh during World War I, in the trilogy: The Village (1939), Across the Black Waters (1940), and The Sword and the Sickle (1942). It was a richly productive literary period for him. A book a year was no mean feat. The Private Life of an Indian Prince (1953), Confessions of a Lover (1972) and The Bubble (1988) were his other well-known works.

A Pair of Mustachios is a collection of cameos, each dedicated to Anand's friends and acquaintances. The stories are drenched in the sun and soil of the Indian landscape of the 1930s and 1940s. The tale from which this collection derives its name is the story of Azam Khan, a descendant of Afghan nobility, and Seth Ramanand "a lentil-eating bania". It's a vivid pen picture of the class system under siege. Khan, who lives off pawning his wife's jewellery, prefers to defend his tiger mustache even at the cost of losing his fortune to the wily merchant. Babu Bulaki Ram is the tale of the quintessential clerk, dreading his English Karnel Sahib. On the Border, Babu Bulaki Ram and The Informer have as their backdrop the winds of the freedom struggle sweeping across the Indian countryside. Every village still has a loveable liar like Labhu, the shikari, or a cobbler like Saudagar, whose desire to own the machine he worked on drove him to his death or even a confectioner like Lala Nanakchand, who thrived by "promoting quarrels" among the simple uneducated women selling milk like Basanto and Hiro. A Rumour is the story of every simple youth like Dhandu who makes his way from the village to the town in search of a livelihood and meets with tragedy. The Maharajah and the Tortoise is a tale where the Birbalesque Prime Minister stars in a parable which could have stepped out of the pages of the Panchtantra. In sum, it's a wonderful cocktail of the writing skills that characterise Mulk Raj Anand's work and craft. It should arouse in the reader a taste for the other works that comprise the literary legacy of this talented teller of tales.

Cellphone Monogamy

Cellphone monogamy
by Punam Khaira Sidhu

MEN typically have polygamous and peripatetic propensities. They are constantly upgrading and moving on. They coast through the whole gamut of toys for boys: Cars, phones, laptops, et al, and yes even newer mates with enviable facility. It was, after all, successful older men, trading in graying spouses for younger ones, who gave currency to the term, “Trophy Wives”.

Women, on the other hand, honourable exceptions notwithstanding, tend to have steadfastly monogamous affinities.

As with husbands, so it is with cellphones. Women find it difficult to upgrade, let alone move on. And it has nothing to do with being techno-savvy. Women surprisingly are very technology-friendly. And I’m not talking about the Carly Fiorina’s but your average Anne.

Women are, today, using more technology than their male counterparts. Take the everyday kitchen, dish washers, ovens, microwaves, food-processors, washing machines and refrigerators — they all add up to quite an overload of techno-logic. Also newer phones really do incorporate increasingly user-friendly technology. So upgrading actually means progressing, metaphorically that is, from stone-age dinosaurs to sleek new age design and comfort.

But women being women will typically think with their hearts rather than with their heads. Don’t be surprised then, if you see a Prada clad female executive or a Dior sporting power-femme clutching a shabby phone — it’s a manifestation of the “Monogamy Syndrome among Women” or MSaW. It should, I believe, pose a tremendous marketing challenge for the cellphone companies.

Of late some successful, single, older women, have shown marginal movement up the emotional evolution chain. No, they aren’t trading in old faithfuls. They are just trying to get a life, after being left behind. They are the ones who have found themselves “toyboys”.

But then not everyone is a Liz Taylor, Gina Lollobrigida, Demi Moore or even a Zeenat Aman, happily sporting a much younger male partner as arm candy. And having found a partner, they then tend to be embarrassingly monogamous. It probably has to do with wrinkles and grey hair looking better on a man than on a woman or then again just plain MSaW.

Would my mother trade in her graying better half for a younger model? Never! Her whole MSaW DNA should revolt at the very idea. So also with her cell phone. It suffers from battery problems, is chipped and worn around the edges and the touch-screen wont respond to touch. But she’s loathe to part with it.

And then my father who values efficiency over mushy sentimentality, bounced off an idea, “How about a little “toyboy” on the side, he suggested helpfully, eyes twinkling with merriment and challenge?”

Suddenly, Mommy seemed to look at her well-worn cellphone in a new light, and clearly the idea of having a reliable back-up on the side was appealing. “Why not!” she twinkled right back, as we watched slack-jawed.

Whoops! Is the Indian woman evolving or what, I ponder ? There’s hope then, that in time, they will get over their MSaW too. But the Punjabi males had better watch out. Women upgrading might spell boom-time for cellphone companies but doom time for MCP’s i.e. 90 per cent of the Punjabi male population.

Valentines Day Introspection

Rites de Passage: a post-Valentine’s Day introspection
Punam Khaira Sidhu

THERE was consternation in my brother’s home this Valentine’s Day. My cute teenaged niece couldn’t make up her mind about what to wear. Was is it going to be the red mini or the red trousers with the mini top. Choices, choices, choices! “Well whatever it’s going to be, it’s got to be red, with lots of skin showing” she said, as her father glowered menacingly. As she sat debating clothes with a set of cute, confused young girlfriends and her indulgent mom, I couldn’t help reflecting on how times had changed.

Red the colour of Karl Marx, and socialism is today the colour of all that represents capitalism: Coke, Cable TV and Valentine’s Day. A festival associated with a pagan ritual, the cruel King Claudius, and a tender-hearted priest named Valentine, has fusilladed into the latest icon for our consumer society. It is fuelled by card companies, soft toy manufacturers, candy, coke and assorted clothing manufacturers. They have clogged the channels on TV for the past month. The so-called Youth Channels, MTV and Channel V, the Star and Zee networks, Sony and even “sada” Punjabi channels such as Punjab Today and Alpha Punjabi were full of barely clad young things, espousing the cause of Saint Valentine.

Saint Valentine’s Day traces its roots to a pagan ritual associated with the feast of Lupercalia, commemorating young men’s rites of passage to the heathen god Lupercus. In ancient Rome, February 14 was the feast of the goddess Juno, who is associated with marriage and women. The next day i.e. February 15 would begin the celebrations for the Feast of Lupercalia. The lives of young boys and girls at that time were strictly segregated. One of the rituals associated with this festival was the drawing of names of Roman girls by boys out of a jar with a slot. The boy would then have, as a companion, the girl whose name he drew, for the rest of the festival. Sometimes these young ones married. Thus started the custom of young men selecting young women for Valentines.

At around this time, Emperor Claudius II of Rome was engaged in bloody battles. He found recruiting men into his army Leagues very difficult. Over a period of time, he began to believe that it was because men did not want to leave their wives and families. He, therefore, banned marriages and engagements. Valentine was a priest in Rome, in the days of “cruel Claudius II”, who married couples secretly. For this, he was sentenced to death by beating him with clubs and to have his head cut off. He suffered martyrdom, in the year 270 on the 14th day of February. Later the Christian Church in an attempt to do away with the pagan rituals in the Feast of Lupercalia, substituted the name of maidens with that of Saints. Pope Gelasius ordered this change in the lottery custom. Thus began the ritual of young men selecting Saints, as patrons, whose lives they would try to emulate during the coming year.

Out of the tradition for men to give girls they admired handwritten messages of affection with Saint Valentine’s name in it, emerged the present day Valentine cards. The first true Valentine card was sent in 1415 by a Frenchman, Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife, from the Tower of London, where he was imprisoned after the Battle of Agincourt. It was thought that birds also chose their mate for the year on February 14. Pigeons and doves are birds which mate for life and, therefore, came to be used as a symbol of “fidelity.”

Today, America celebrates this day with fervour. In terms of cards sent, it is ranked second in popularity only to Christmas. Children make a decorated box with a slot in the top for the Valentine’s day party at school. During the party, they slip valentines into their classmates’ Valentines’ Box. The first US made valentines called “Worcester valentines were crafted in the 1830s by a college student named Esther Howland. John McLaughlin, a New York printer, created the “Vinegar valentines”. These comic valentines were printed on cheap paper in bright colours and made fun of old maids and others. American cartoonist Charles Howard also popularised what were called “Penny dreadfuls” — comic cards with dreadful designs which sold for a penny.

There’s a Valentine day card for everyone — parents, sweethearts, spouses, teacher and even your dog! Cards, flowers especially the ubiquitous red rose, candy, perfume et all wrapped in red with glitter and long-suffering hearts pierced with arrows were favourite Valentine Day gifts.

The departmental stores of the city beautiful added wine, cheese and munchies to the list, this year. In the schools, the nuns and brothers and other principals had counselled their charges to show restraint.

The cops had geared up for where the real action was to be: “the geri route”. But the real dilemma was my niece’s and that of every nubile young thing: “What if they didn’t get a single valentine?” The even greater dilemma was that of cautious parents: “How to deal with rampant young teenaged hormones as they tried to do what advertisements and commercials expected of them?”!

Well, Valentine’s Day came and went. There were some hits and some misses. Cupids arrows have a way of finding their mark. My little niece and her friends also collected a lot of valentines but they showed restraint and came straight home after college for an all girls bash. My brother was a happy father this Valentine’s Day as he reflected, “At the end of the day family values and socialisation i.e. “sanskars”, still do matter. Not all the temptations and satellite TV can take that away from us”.

Valentines Day Introspection

Rites de Passage: a post-Valentine’s Day introspection
Punam Khaira Sidhu

THERE was consternation in my brother’s home this Valentine’s Day. My cute teenaged niece couldn’t make up her mind about what to wear. Was is it going to be the red mini or the red trousers with the mini top. Choices, choices, choices! “Well whatever it’s going to be, it’s got to be red, with lots of skin showing” she said, as her father glowered menacingly. As she sat debating clothes with a set of cute, confused young girlfriends and her indulgent mom, I couldn’t help reflecting on how times had changed.

Red the colour of Karl Marx, and socialism is today the colour of all that represents capitalism: Coke, Cable TV and Valentine’s Day. A festival associated with a pagan ritual, the cruel King Claudius, and a tender-hearted priest named Valentine, has fusilladed into the latest icon for our consumer society. It is fuelled by card companies, soft toy manufacturers, candy, coke and assorted clothing manufacturers. They have clogged the channels on TV for the past month. The so-called Youth Channels, MTV and Channel V, the Star and Zee networks, Sony and even “sada” Punjabi channels such as Punjab Today and Alpha Punjabi were full of barely clad young things, espousing the cause of Saint Valentine.

Saint Valentine’s Day traces its roots to a pagan ritual associated with the feast of Lupercalia, commemorating young men’s rites of passage to the heathen god Lupercus. In ancient Rome, February 14 was the feast of the goddess Juno, who is associated with marriage and women. The next day i.e. February 15 would begin the celebrations for the Feast of Lupercalia. The lives of young boys and girls at that time were strictly segregated. One of the rituals associated with this festival was the drawing of names of Roman girls by boys out of a jar with a slot. The boy would then have, as a companion, the girl whose name he drew, for the rest of the festival. Sometimes these young ones married. Thus started the custom of young men selecting young women for Valentines.

At around this time, Emperor Claudius II of Rome was engaged in bloody battles. He found recruiting men into his army Leagues very difficult. Over a period of time, he began to believe that it was because men did not want to leave their wives and families. He, therefore, banned marriages and engagements. Valentine was a priest in Rome, in the days of “cruel Claudius II”, who married couples secretly. For this, he was sentenced to death by beating him with clubs and to have his head cut off. He suffered martyrdom, in the year 270 on the 14th day of February. Later the Christian Church in an attempt to do away with the pagan rituals in the Feast of Lupercalia, substituted the name of maidens with that of Saints. Pope Gelasius ordered this change in the lottery custom. Thus began the ritual of young men selecting Saints, as patrons, whose lives they would try to emulate during the coming year.

Out of the tradition for men to give girls they admired handwritten messages of affection with Saint Valentine’s name in it, emerged the present day Valentine cards. The first true Valentine card was sent in 1415 by a Frenchman, Charles, Duke of Orleans, to his wife, from the Tower of London, where he was imprisoned after the Battle of Agincourt. It was thought that birds also chose their mate for the year on February 14. Pigeons and doves are birds which mate for life and, therefore, came to be used as a symbol of “fidelity.”

Today, America celebrates this day with fervour. In terms of cards sent, it is ranked second in popularity only to Christmas. Children make a decorated box with a slot in the top for the Valentine’s day party at school. During the party, they slip valentines into their classmates’ Valentines’ Box. The first US made valentines called “Worcester valentines were crafted in the 1830s by a college student named Esther Howland. John McLaughlin, a New York printer, created the “Vinegar valentines”. These comic valentines were printed on cheap paper in bright colours and made fun of old maids and others. American cartoonist Charles Howard also popularised what were called “Penny dreadfuls” — comic cards with dreadful designs which sold for a penny.

There’s a Valentine day card for everyone — parents, sweethearts, spouses, teacher and even your dog! Cards, flowers especially the ubiquitous red rose, candy, perfume et all wrapped in red with glitter and long-suffering hearts pierced with arrows were favourite Valentine Day gifts.

The departmental stores of the city beautiful added wine, cheese and munchies to the list, this year. In the schools, the nuns and brothers and other principals had counselled their charges to show restraint.

The cops had geared up for where the real action was to be: “the geri route”. But the real dilemma was my niece’s and that of every nubile young thing: “What if they didn’t get a single valentine?” The even greater dilemma was that of cautious parents: “How to deal with rampant young teenaged hormones as they tried to do what advertisements and commercials expected of them?”!

Well, Valentine’s Day came and went. There were some hits and some misses. Cupids arrows have a way of finding their mark. My little niece and her friends also collected a lot of valentines but they showed restraint and came straight home after college for an all girls bash. My brother was a happy father this Valentine’s Day as he reflected, “At the end of the day family values and socialisation i.e. “sanskars”, still do matter. Not all the temptations and satellite TV can take that away from us”.

The Small Cee

The small C
by Punam Khaira Sidhu

There was a time when advertisements for condoms featured sensuous young women like Pooja Bedi and Viveka Babajee. When these advertisements appeared on TV, my young sons usually looked away. The message was very clear: this was adult business as indeed condoms used to be.

But what happens when Rahul Dravid in all his clean-cut earnestness is pitching the message of condoms and staying AIDS-free on primetime? Rahul Dravid is a hero, not just for those who most need the AIDS message, but also for a whole generation of under 12s. When Rahul comes on screen, what you expect him to endorse is the big C:Cricket, or cricket memorabilia, healthdrinks, sportswear, or crisps, and the kids are all ears. They are not familiar with the product their hero is endorsing, but it confuses the brat audience and makes them as Alice would say,"curiouser and curioser" about it. Suddenly, condoms and AIDS are not adult business anymore.

Of late the talking point for cricket babies has been Rahul Dravid endorsing condoms, unabashedly. Naturally, there is trouble ahead, for parents and grandparents, of the legions of Dravid fans. Because the next logical question from inquisitive young minds is: What is a condom and what is AIDS ? Well AIDS is a disease, easy enough, but what of condoms? Yes, Rahul, wish you could help field those googlies. Grandma tries hard and says its a balloon. Grandpa says it's plastic underwear. Dad says it's a groin-guard cricketers wear. So when the bratpack gets down to comparing notes, the result is one confused and hyper-inquisitive bunch of young minds, looking for more.

Threshold levels for awareness are at an all-time high with satellite TV and the internet-enabled generation. Ten-year olds today ask questions about stuff we discovered in our twenties. But strangely, yet gratifyingly, no matter what the information or where they pick it up from, they still do seem to need adult ratification for it. And that's where I develop the heeby-jeebies. I'm mortally afraid of losing credibility and authority. It's a lose-lose situation: If you tell them a bird and bee story, you run the risk of appearing stupid and lose reliability. And if you tell them too much you impact on their innocent psyche, detrimentally presumably.

I have often wished some psychologist would publish a handbook on how to explain the tricky facts of life to growing children. There is help now apparently from TARSHI's Blue and Red books and Manjula Lal's I-File.

Outlook recently published the results of an urban survey of four Metros that indicates that one in four of 13-17 year olds has had a physical experience. Can you blame them? There is a constant barrage of suggestive messages being sent out through iconic satellite TV channels such as MTV and Channel V.

Even the Punjabi and desi channels carry repeats of videos of the “Kaanta laga” genre. Clothes and attitude are all invested with an “in-your-face” sexuality. I believe it’s time that parents and schools sat up and took note and realised the importance of calling in the experts. Whether it is counselling or workshops supervised by psychologists, some form of formal institutional input is both urgent and imperative so that the young ones can dispel their doubts about physicality and urges lose their novelty and curiosity value. More significantly, if the young are correctly informed, they can make responsible choices and decisions about their behaviour and relationships.

The small C

The small C
by Punam Khaira Sidhu

There was a time when advertisements for condoms featured sensuous young women like Pooja Bedi and Viveka Babajee. When these advertisements appeared on TV, my young sons usually looked away. The message was very clear: this was adult business as indeed condoms used to be.

But what happens when Rahul Dravid in all his clean-cut earnestness is pitching the message of condoms and staying AIDS-free on primetime? Rahul Dravid is a hero, not just for those who most need the AIDS message, but also for a whole generation of under 12s. When Rahul comes on screen, what you expect him to endorse is the big C:Cricket, or cricket memorabilia, healthdrinks, sportswear, or crisps, and the kids are all ears. They are not familiar with the product their hero is endorsing, but it confuses the brat audience and makes them as Alice would say,"curiouser and curioser" about it. Suddenly, condoms and AIDS are not adult business anymore.

Of late the talking point for cricket babies has been Rahul Dravid endorsing condoms, unabashedly. Naturally, there is trouble ahead, for parents and grandparents, of the legions of Dravid fans. Because the next logical question from inquisitive young minds is: What is a condom and what is AIDS ? Well AIDS is a disease, easy enough, but what of condoms? Yes, Rahul, wish you could help field those googlies. Grandma tries hard and says its a balloon. Grandpa says it's plastic underwear. Dad says it's a groin-guard cricketers wear. So when the bratpack gets down to comparing notes, the result is one confused and hyper-inquisitive bunch of young minds, looking for more.

Threshold levels for awareness are at an all-time high with satellite TV and the internet-enabled generation. Ten-year olds today ask questions about stuff we discovered in our twenties. But strangely, yet gratifyingly, no matter what the information or where they pick it up from, they still do seem to need adult ratification for it. And that's where I develop the heeby-jeebies. I'm mortally afraid of losing credibility and authority. It's a lose-lose situation: If you tell them a bird and bee story, you run the risk of appearing stupid and lose reliability. And if you tell them too much you impact on their innocent psyche, detrimentally presumably.

I have often wished some psychologist would publish a handbook on how to explain the tricky facts of life to growing children. There is help now apparently from TARSHI's Blue and Red books and Manjula Lal's I-File.

Outlook recently published the results of an urban survey of four Metros that indicates that one in four of 13-17 year olds has had a physical experience. Can you blame them? There is a constant barrage of suggestive messages being sent out through iconic satellite TV channels such as MTV and Channel V.

Even the Punjabi and desi channels carry repeats of videos of the “Kaanta laga” genre. Clothes and attitude are all invested with an “in-your-face” sexuality. I believe it’s time that parents and schools sat up and took note and realised the importance of calling in the experts. Whether it is counselling or workshops supervised by psychologists, some form of formal institutional input is both urgent and imperative so that the young ones can dispel their doubts about physicality and urges lose their novelty and curiosity value. More significantly, if the young are correctly informed, they can make responsible choices and decisions about their behaviour and relationships.

Reference to the Context

Reference to the context
by Punam Khaira Sidhu

REMEMBER high school literature class and the questions on “Reference to the Context” (RTC)? Well, RTC does have a place outside of literature class.

As a young revenue officer, directly after my training at the Direct Taxes Academy in Nagpur, I was posted briefly to Chandigarh .

I discovered that the outwardly uniform façade of a suited-booted official does not reveal much. City slickers like myself, with all the arrogance and impatience of youth, urgently needed to develop an empathy. As I grew on the job, I discovered that persons too need to be understood with reference to the context of where they come from and how they have made the journey to where they stand today.

There was the efficient Inspector who smelt strongly of dung that I put down to bad hygiene little realising that the young man had to cope with a perennial water shortage in his village and that his early morning duties included cleaning out the cowshed before he started for office on his trusty motorbike — all well before I had even opened sleep-heavy eyes to the new day.

And then there was the young UDC whose office notings made me run out of red ink. I was impatient with his grammar until I visited his home in the interiors of Haryana to attend his wedding. After a two-hour drive, the bumpy kutcha road was never ending, his home had just one “pucca” room, his primary school was under a gnarled banyan tree, and he had walked over 10 km, one way, each day to go to high school. I couldn’t help admire the young man’s perseverance and drive in the face of extreme adversity to get himself an education and then a government job. I was gentle in my admonitions thereafter.

But the woman who taught me my most valuable “RTC” lesson was my first peon Kamala. Each day she greeted me with the widest smile and left only after I had exhausted my probationary zeal, often well after office hours. I must confess to being judgemental when I saw her accepting “bakhshish” from the tax fraternity or napping on the job. It was when she fell ill and I visited her at home that I discovered that she had a husband who was bedridden after a stroke, a crippled son and two young daughters. Her day started at 4am and ended well past midnight. I wondered then how she kept the home fires burning and still kept that beaming smile on her careworn brow. Thereafter the occasional snore from her only told me that she had been up late, nursing her loved ones.

On Finding a Mali

On finding a genuine mali
by Punam Khaira Sidhu

Gardening as anyone will tell you is not everyone’s cup of tea. You need to know your grasses from your weeds and your aphids from your mealy-bugs. And more significantly the right poison to treat each. The advantages of grafting versus air-layering are not for the uninitiated. Take a simple matter like pruning a rose bush of its vagrant post-monsoon sprouting. It requires both knowledge and skill: knowledge of the woody and green stems and skill to clip the green ones at the right slanted angle so that you do not damage them. Its no wonder then that only a few blessed ones can claim to possess the legendary green fingers.

But this middle is not about gardening but about finding a gardener or a “mali”. You see most so-called malis in Chandigarh come from what they refer to as ‘dehat’ (UP and Bihar) and go through the process of daily-wager internship at Labour Chowk, do odd jobs painting houses, mending potholes in Chandi roads, weeding berms etc before they discover the upmarket status of malis in the spacious Northern sector homes. There of course, indulgent madams train them to clip hedges, mow lawns and even raise bonsai. A couple of entries in the annual Rose Festival later and they achieve iconic status. Also this is probably the only job apart from the Chandigarh IT Technology Park, where they get paid by the hour.

But coleuses rots and crotons wither, by the dozen, under these spurious malis. And naturally they can’t tell why, let alone resuscitate them. The real one, now, wouldn’t allow a plant to die unless it was hit by a missile. Even then he would, probably graft the fragments onto another and, save the genetic code. But after one such spurious worthy had laid some of my prized specimens to a premature rest, I decided to put my administrative capabilities to the test of finding the genuine article, a real mali.

Now the real mali knows and can pronounce the botanical names of even the most exotic and esoteric specimens of the plant and insect kingdom but can’t read hence clearly I couldn’t reach him through the “Classifieds”. My strategy, therefore, involved driving around my sector scanning healthy looking gardens and then addressing my requests and enquiries to the home owners.

The malis who responded to my fervent appeals, were put through my “Find a Genuine Mali Test” that went as follows: Can you paint? Can you repair roads? What are the winter flowers? How do you keep the lawns green through winter? etc ...Eleven interviews later, Eureka...! I do believe I might have found myself the genuine article. I am at peace now as indeed are my crotons, coleus and difenbechia. Amen.

The Gallant Bhaus from Majhas

The gallant Bhaus from macho Majha
by Punam Khaira Sidhu

Don’t go by their somewhat pejorative title: the “Bhaus” are as macho as they come. In fact there’s a theory that does the rounds of Punjab’s university campuses, where there is usually war between the “Kakaji” (Malwai) group and the “Bhau” (Majhail) group, that this epithet was coined by a disgruntled Kakaji.

You can spot a “Bhau” by the set of his square jaw — it’s their signature feature. Clothes, footwear, etc don’t matter, because they wear their attitude. Their ideals light up their gallant hearts, and their hearts; well naturally, they wear them on their sleeves. Flamboyant and quick tempered, they can be braggarts who love to show off but can morph into passionate crusaders and even visionary statesmen of which Kairon is a luminous example. Their tragic flaw is that they think with their hearts rather than their heads.

Majhails live in the shadow of the border. The daily strutting and shadowboxing of troops on either side, a la Wagah and Hussainiwala, sustains the fear psychosis of border life. This cocktail of fear and excitement imbues the Bhaus with the restlessness and craving for adrenaline, which is almost a part of their DNA. They have a fatal fascination for causes.

With so much angst, repressed energy and idealism at large its not surprising that almost every meaningful movement or cause has originated in Macho Majha. The Bhaus have always been the strong, zealous crusaders at the forefront of these, fanatically committed to whatever cause they subscribed to at the time.

Most adults living in Majha have seen the screaming sirens of at least two wars and the subsequent cold war ending with the Kargil faceoff. Many have seen their lands cut off in the process of cobra fencing by the BSF to secure the porous borders. Several have actually sneaked across the border and engaged in some clandestine smuggling of contraband and opium. Many a prosperous trader family has at least one Blackiya or smuggler to thank for the infusion of capital into the family business.

Land holdings in the Majha are shrinking and lack of meaningful investment in industry has meant that jobs are scarce. The young Bhaus seek education as a means to a professional career, preferably in the uniformed services.

Considering that even little ones as young as 10 are taught to hold a gun and aim straight at the Dushman, that’s not too difficult. Many an illustrious soldier of the Indian Army, police and the BSF can lay proud claim to a Majhail Bhau’s heritage.

Good food and drink is the key to the Bhaus’ simple rustic hearts. Bhaus are known to have stomachs lined with steel and can drink anyone under the table. Barrels of homebrewed liquor and contraband are washed down with gallons of lassi and milk the next morning.

But that’s back home in the Village. In the cities they bring business to the Paranthewala Dhabas. Not for them pizzas or KFC but Kake da Chicken. On campus, the Bhau is the Sir Galahad, offering to do chores for the fairer sex who are uniformly and respectfully addressed as Behenji (sister) and the men as Bhaji (brother).

This invokes the wrath of the Kakajis who have coined some dirty rhymes to jibe them.

The Bhaus stick together when out of their home territory but back home they can fell a brother over an argument. Tough, uncompromising yet conservative they are truly the Punjabi Knights, trying to preserve their own Camelot.

Love Stories by the Lake

Love stories by the lake
Punam Khaira Sidhu

WHAT is it about a water body that attracts lovers by the droves to its sides? Think of a love story and the picture that flashes on the mind’s eye is that of couples walking arm-in-arm by the Seine in Paris, the Thames in London, the Muskova in Moscow, and closer home, by the beautiful Sukhna.

The Sukhna Lake lies nestled in the foothills of the Shivaliks. For as the eye can see, there is uninterrupted greenery. At its outer edge, the sky vaults over to meet the lake at the horizon. The sky is like a huge concave mirror reflecting the waters of the lake, mostly a glorious palette of blue and gold. When it rains, the waters can turn muddy and the smooth surface of the water, becomes a mass of waves lashing the sides. As raindrops drizzle gently, an occasional rainbow, fractures the dull grey of the sky, connecting the heavens and the horizon.

The Sukhna by moonlight is spectacular. On a clear night, you can see the lights of Shimla, Barog and Kasauli in the hills. The streetlights cast long shadows over the waters. The stars spangled across the sky wink with silver reflections in the lake. There are hooded lights, mellow piped music and comfortable benches dotting the periphery of the lake. Do you wonder then that Love is definitely in the air by the Sukhna morning and night?

On my daily walk by the Sukhna, I dwell on the people thronging its sides. As I look around for the lovers by the lake, I mentally group them into four broad sociopsychological categories: the young uns, the newly-weds, the householders and the silver anniversarians.

The young uns; school and college going youngsters, are easily identifiable. Their interactions hurried, yet tentative, their eyes and heads bent furtively to avoid recognition, as they explore forbidden relationships. They are the ones who sit on the benches late into the night, their silences speaking louder than words ever can.

The newly-weds are identifiable from a mile. The young woman’s choora invariably a give away, as much as is the possessive air of her male escort. There is no furtiveness here; they are legally wed. Their gestures are open and articulate as they forge their conjugal bonds in the balmy ambience of the Sukhna.

The householders are the married couples where some years of togetherness have taken the shine off the conjugal bond. These couples are few and far between. Read at a psychological plane, love appears to wane with time and marriage. The men and women in this category come separately; there are hardly any couples. Spouses either do not have the time or the inclination, or else parental and professional responsibilities keep them apart. Couples in this age group, sitting or walking by the lake, are usually there to resolve differences. Husband’s counsel and assuage complaining wives, trying to defuse stresses generated by or in a joint family/family set-up. In either case most wives and husbands go about their constitutional separately.

The silver anniversarians are the older couples, most of whom would have celebrated or would be celebrating their silver anniversaries. Advancing years appear to yield to a comfortable companionship, a mutual inter-dependence. They walk together regularly and peacefully by the shimmering expanse of the Sukhna. They stop at intervals, to exchange greetings with their friends. There’s a warm aura of friendly companionship, an easy unspoken understanding between these couples where, as we put it in Punjabi, an akh da ishara is all it would take to convey the others intentions.

In this category falls my favourite love story by the lake. This silver grey haired couple drives up together in a vintage Fiat. The man puts out her wheel chair, then lifts her out of the car and settles her in it. He arranges her clothes, straightens her bindi and then wheels her out to the waiting vistas of the lake. Sometimes they just sit and talk, and other times he leaves her sitting there, watching the thronging crowds, while he completes a quick chukker. There’s radiance that surrounds them, a peace that transcends the noise, the bustle and the mundane realities of every day life. Its love at its best, “.....in sickness and in health, till death do us part”. Amen.

Guano: The Magic Ingredient

Guano: the magic ingredient
Punam Khaira Sidhu

IT’s the season of “guano” or bird droppings. A popular toothpaste starts the day with the bland colourless toothpaste presumably of its competitor. As the model sticks his bleary-eyed face out onto the balcony, there’s a “splat”, as a generous quantity of bird dropping lands somewhere. The message is that the competitor’s toothpaste is indistinguishable from bird dropping; not so its own, dressed up in technicolour stripes of blue and red.

A popular softdrink manufacturer spoofs its competitor’s campaign with a derisive mock-up of its kite-flying and paper boat racing multi-starrer commercial and looks skywards for rain but all they get is a “splat” of bird dropping “all taste no gyan” goes the byeline.

Cut to another cola war, where the protagonists in the advertisement add various ingredients to make the “grown-up drink” but find something missing in the taste until “splat” and the drink is proclaimed perfect with the addition of “toofani anda”.

Every season has its special leitmotif. The summer of 2002 will be remembered as the season of bird splat. Surely, a fitting symbol for falling standards in advertising and a Sensex that’s falling through the floor amidst dark threatening war clouds.

Before starring in Indian TV commercials, bird droppings have long been known to be an excellent fertiliser. In the Quichua language of the Inca civilisation, guano means “the droppings of sea birds”. On the rainless islands and coast of South American Peru, guano deposits collected rapidly. The Inca discovered their value as a rich nitrogenous fertiliser. Chosen caretakers were allowed access to this treasured soil fertiliser. Anyone disturbing the rookeries faced punishment by death.

Guano became a very important part of the development of agriculture in the USA. In fact, in 1956 the US Congress passed “an act to authorise protection to be given to citizens of the United States who may discover guano, under which any citizen of the United States was authorised to take possession of and occupy any unclaimed island, rock or key containing guano. The discoverers of such islands were entitled to exclusive rights to the deposits thereon, but the guano could only be removed for the use of the citizens of the United States.” Desperate measures, to ensure supplies of a valuable soil enricher for US farmers.

Today “guano” refers to both seabird and bat manure. Bat guano originates in the southwest deserts of the USA and Mexico. It is high in trace elements and nitrogen. Since it is so fast acting, it makes a great potting soil mixer. Today, those practicing Hydroponic agriculture are finding that guano and water are a natural alternative to chemical solutions. Evidently, there’s more to bird droppings than being the magic ingredient in cola wars. Perhaps we could offer Pakistan a lifelong supply of guano for a lasting package of peace.

Bureaucrats and Meetings

Always in a meeting
by Punam Khaira Sidhu

Call any bureaucrat on any given day, during office hours and chances are that the PA will tell you that the public servant is in a meeting. On one occasion, a friend recounts calling at hourly intervals to be given this stock reply every time. The business of government is evidently run through meetings and if the average babu is not attending one locally, he is off to Delhi. More business liaisons are forged in the Shatabadis connecting Delhi with State capitals than in offices. Political leaders, babus, all under one Shatabadi roof, break bread with businessmen, literatti and chateratti/causeratti, in the serene comfort of the Executive Class. Warmed croissants and paneer cutlets are downed over business plans and orange juice. Meanwhile, the all-important PA naturally informs the public that the ‘Sahib Bahadur’ has gone for yet another, yes you guessed it: ‘important meeting’! All this while, decisions affecting peoples’ lives and livelihood remain in animated suspension.

All-India heads of departments meetings are occasions for batch reunions and networking that can help plan great LTCs. Several days and many meetings are spent preparing for these meetings. It would be safe to say that if such a meeting were cancelled it would probably be more productive in terms of savings effected from the cancellation, than any item on the agenda. Savings would include expenses incurred on air fare and TA/DA claims, electricity, rentals for Vigyan Bhavan, mineral water, working lunches and the stationery: slip-pad + pen combo given away at these dos.

The latest set of meetings involved free travel, free board, lodging and local sightseeing, where the bureaucrats for a change, were placed higher in precedence to even the all powerful Ministers, i.e. as Election Observers. The results of the general elections were evidence that the observers played a vital role in ensuring that the elections were conducted both freely and fairly. But significantly, several airlines bottom-line should have received a healthy boost with EC’s “watchdogs” criss-crossing across the country to take observer meetings.

There is a Westminster joke that in meetings politicians take hours while bureaucrats take minutes. Hence back to home base, after the meetings, there are the “minutes” to record and circulate because, “He who keeps the minutes calls the shots”. Post meetings there are implementation and status reports to monitor, but only until the next ‘review’ meeting. It helps that bureaucrats work for an employer without a balance sheet. No other organisation has an inflating debit side without any corresponding addition to topline or bottomline: partly the reason why most States have yawning budgetary deficits.

Theodore Zeldin (1994) said that an opportunity is wasted every time a meeting has taken place and nothing has happened. But bureaucracy can make even business “best practices” come a cropper. That’s why, it is still believed that an opportunity is created everytime a meeting takes place!

Three Generations of women

Theme for a dream
Punam Khaira Sidhu

MY grandmother is 80. She lost my grandfather when she was 45 and has since raised and settled seven children, and 15 grandchildren. One might think that she has done her duty and deserves to live life on her own terms. But no; we expect so much of our elders. We expect them to devote their sunset years to helping us to achieve our goals, without ever asking if they too have a dream, pending fulfillment. My grandmother’s life is, selflessly, focussed around our lives. Her days are filled with prayers for our well being, she phones in to ask after all her children and grandchildren, and is always available to help us out of tight corners. Is she happy? I don’t know.

My mother is 60. After we, her three children, left home, she went through a severe case of the ‘empty nest syndrome’. She had been a housewife and kept a beautiful house and garden, and looked forward to my father’s retirement. My dad, thus far refuses to retire. He looks forward to going to work each morning with a bunch of vibrant young men and women. Of late, my mother has come to terms with her circumstances and her emotional needs. She is an active member of her several social clubs and kitties and often plays Mahjong from 9 to 5 with a set of ladies. The house, and garden, are efficiently run but not the focus of her life. She is working towards self-actualisation and tells us not to be judgemental of what she is doing. Dad was alarmed initially and told her that a woman’s place was at home and not as he put it in his Majhail slang, to wander like a guachi gaan (lost cow). Mom laughingly told him that she had always done what was expected of her and now it was time for her to do what she felt like. After all, isn’t that what he did?. Score one for my mom, the enlightened Indian woman awakening to her own aspirations. She deserves to have some fun. Is she happy? She’s getting there.

While observing the changing power equations in my paternal home, I saw the delightful movie Calendar Girls on a DVD loaned from the British Library. The movie, is based on the true story, of the residents of Kettlewell, a small village in the English County of Yorkshire. It tracks the efforts of the local WI (Women’s Institute) members to raise funds for a leukaemia charity by posing for an artistically nude calendar. The movie is heartwarming as it details how the endeavours of the women impact on their families and relationships. The women beautiful in their wrinkles and pearls and far from perfect bodies, find themselves unlikely celebrities. They are even invited to Hollywood, receive lucrative endorsements and collect over 578,000 pounds to fund a new wing of their local hospital and leukaemia research. Later they are back to WI’s boring routine and politics. But each one fulfilled with their fantastic achievement and the fun they had doing it.

After seeing the movie I recommended it to my mother who also works with a cancer charity. I also laughingly suggested that the volunteers could perhaps raise more money through something a little more adventurous than selling greeting cards. The dressing down I received still has my ears burning red.

Whether they recognise their own aspirations and follow them my grandmother and mother are my real ‘Calendar Girls’. My generation would not have tasted the fruits of education, careers and financial freedom without their steadfast support. One can only exhort them from my privileged position to go ahead and paint a picture or learn to sing or dance or even to swim or sky-dive or just go do what they want and have some fun doing it. Because in the end as the Yorkshireman who died of leukaemia and to whom Calendar girls is dedicated said, "Women are like flowers, every stage of their growth more beautiful than the last but the last phase always the most glorious, before very quickly they all go to seed...

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On the Wings of Family and Faith

On the wings of Family and Faith
by Punam Khaira Sidhu

It is not unusual to have rambunctious arguments in progress, in a home with one teenager and one 11-year old. Real acrimony is generated when I ask my young ones to assist me with some religious custom. My sons usually want an answer to what its nexus is with their everyday existence. They will usually retort, “Mom, Science tells us there is no God.” “Know why India cannot take her rightful place despite all the IITs and IIMs and riding the BPO wave? …..Because our socialisation drags us right back into the dark ages with puja and path.” “Where else will you find a society that worships machines (Vishkarma) rather than productivity? Having expended his teenaged angst, my son will usually do as he’s told but in weathering that little storm, I reinforce two important Indian values, family and faith in the almighty.

In time, the boys will appreciate that it is not the degrees or IQs of the doctors, engineers and the ubiquitous NRIs that has scripted many a “India Shining” global success story, but the EQ ie the Emotional Quotient of these Indians. EQ rooted in the time honoured Indian values of family and faith imparts the winning edge to all these players. Witness the Gujaratis, Marwaris and Banias’ legendary business families and the unique Indian business model: the family owned, professionally managed, corporation. Family and faith are the “It” Indian values.

Prayer binds the Indian Family. Much before the dramatic Tele-Mandirs glittering with icons or the ‘Tulsi worship’ in Balaji Telefilms sumptuously crafted ‘Saas’ serials there was, in most homes, a small mandir placed on a cupboard shelf or a tiny puja room. The family gathered in the morning and evening to pray. It was a ritual for some and a deeply felt expression of faith for others. But it was a practice that set the tone for the day. The family collected together, automatically reinforcing family ties. Arguments, tantrums just melted away as everybody joined in the recitation of the holy scriptures followed by “tilak” or “prasad”.

Even as the Left parties dwell on the absence of a security net for Indians, it would not be out of place to observe that life even below the Poverty Line in India is infinitely preferable to that in a country with superior development indicators. Employment, Roti, Kapda, Makaan, and capital for business, are all provided by the family. A family, where children have both parents, the sage influence of grandparents is a security blanket that no welfare state can provide.

Even as a new government takes over the reins, increasingly the average citizen is coming to terms with the realisation that if civil society is to flourish and we are to check the corruption associated with an all-pervasive State machinery, then every Indian has to rely on himself : Self-reliance rather than “Sarkar” is the secret to “India Shining”. And self-reliance is the temple built on faith and family.

Kool Kakajis from Hot Malwa

Kool Kakajis from Hot Malwa
by Punam Khaira Sidhu

LIKE the “Yuppies” and the “Puppies” the “Kakajis” are a very typical genre of the Malwa region of Punjab. You can spot them a mile off, tall, bearded and clad in snowwhite “Pathanis” paired with Nike or Adidas open-toed sandals. They sport bling-bling gold “Karas” and the very latest in toys for boys; iPods, Handhelds and Mobiles.

The colour of their turbans is usually indicative of their political affilitiation but that’s only until they don golf caps to tee off at the Golf Club.

Sartorial preferences apart, they have a very distinct lifestyle too. They are raised on vast farms in the Malwa heartland, in large joint families, by surrogate Mothers-cum-Nannies who, usually survive several generations and call both the Grandfather and the Grandson by the same euphemistic epithet: “Kakaji”.

Raised in large joint families, Kakajis are the quintessential boys who never grow up. Responsibility is dispersed; hence its not a sought after trait. Life is simple and easy as only inherited wealth and largesse can make it. Schooling is typically in the hill boardings, Sanawar and Doon being particular favourites.

It could be followed by the occasional degree in Commerce or Law, usually in the royal division. Education is not a priority, but a certain savoire faire and some old school ties and networking skills are desirable. After all, someone has to manage all those “killas” (acres) back in Bathinda, Faridkot, Muktasar et al.

Kakajis are usually into a lot of male bonding rituals such as “Shikar”, cockfights and “kabutar” (pigeon) flights etc. While they may not actually get down and dirty, they are responsible for introducing some of the most enlightened and modern agricultural practices in the country. They also display a natural flair for affairs of the State and that’s where the colour of their turbans and their old school-tie affiliations come in rather handy and make politics the next logical progression.

They typically have three homes, one back on the Farm, one in Chandigarh, where the wives take turns to attend to the children’s education or even just catch up with the city life and, of course, the mandatory summer cottage in the hills, to escape the vile Malwa “loo”.

Their cars now truly reflect both their preferences and bank balances. MUVs for the farm and the long dusty commutes from the Malwa heartland, and spiffier cars for city driving. They switch with facility between “thet” (colloquial) Malwai,Punjabi peppered with the choicest expletives to the Queen’s English, each language spoken with the perfect accent. But the same proficiency cannot necessarily be attributed to their written word in either language.

This is the season when the Kakajis flock to Chandigarh. You can see them in their signature “Whites” on the Sukhna Lake, in multiplexes, and in the clubs, accompanied by their little Kakajis who are back home for the

summer vacation and enroute to the Cottage in the hills or for the Sanawar/

Doon Founder’s Week. They are gentlemen of leisure who have travelled the world, but their food of choice is still “Kukkad”, whether its served up as butter chicken with “Nans” or on pizza a la Pizza Hut. So when you hear them call out to each other as “Baiji”, you’ll know it’s the Kakajis at work @ killa.network.