Mountain of light

It is the year of the big elections what with both US and India going to elections this year. Its interesting as one compares the two democracies and sees how they countdown to the big day. It in some ways also serves as a reminder on how behind we are in the road to being a mature democracy. When George Bush came to power he was in some ways considered a minnow to politics and no one gave him a chance to make independent decisions outside of his coterie of advisors. There was ofcourse the famous Florida recount and loud murmurs of election rigging and what have you. I remember a friend in Washington telling me that when Bush came to Washington after winning the elections there was a big banner put up proclaiming. Welcome to the thief or something to that effect. I remember being horrified with the American public for picking up a man like him to run the US and in effect the whole world and worse of all, my favourite magazine The Economist backed him as a choice over Al Gore. This was the end of the world for as far as I was concerned. Four years down the line George Bush has belied all expectations and until a few months back very few doubted on his chances of running a second term. Call it good fortune, call it forgery of WMDs, call it spin doctoring but the man was and is a strong candidate for re-election.
Given this backdrop you would assume that very few Democrats would want to sacrifice their presidential aspirations in running against him. But no sir! They were queuing up as if it was the exclusive premiere to Lord of the Rings. They were angry Democrats who vowed to throw him out of power even if this was the last thing they did and they were egged on by even more angrier supporters. Some of these supporters have international exposure and are quite ashamed of the jibes they get for being Americans and all because of their current President. Most of these supporters are putting their money where their mouth is and if Bush still comes back to power then at least it wouldn’t be because of lack of effort from the Democrats’ side.

When Prime Minister Vajpayee came to power the general feeling was that this government would not last for five years and the fact that the BJP had little or no experience of being in power and that coupled with their temple agenda was a recipe for disaster. The Congress was waiting in the sidelines for the government to topple under its own weight and all it would have to do was to just walk in and stake its claim to glory, after all the power has always rightfully belonged to the Congress! Five years on the government has survived pretty well. It has survived a half-war from across the border and has unleashed a massive India Shinning campaign just a few months before it called for early elections. This is a sign of a very confident government which can do no wrong which is headed by a Prime Minister who has the Midas touch. Nothing affects this government.. communal riots, video exposes of corruption, scams everywhere, fiscal jugglery and its politicians mouthing all kinds of obscenities and everyone and sundry. This government gets away with murder and then has the gall to put out an India Shinning campaign. It is like an election campaign on taxpayer’s money.
Given this backdrop one would assume that the opposition would be raring to go at the party with a difference and its allies with all that it has got in its arsenal. It would have used these five years to garner support for this campaign and come election there would be no stopping the opposition from steamrolling the government. If only that had happened... I would have been the happiest person on earth. We would have seen an equal campaign from both sides and important issues being raised and debated about in various forums. Except as things stand now the current government is slated to come back to power and it is mainly because of a lack of effective opposition. A case in point - few days back was the second anniversary of Godhra and the opposition sat quiet through it almost as if it was afraid of antagonising the Hindus! The situation is so bad for the Congress that anyone who votes for it knows that her vote is a lost vote because even though it might help to win the odd seat, the party has no hope in hell to come back to power and what that does is that it pushes the fence sitters to the BJP and that makes the margin of defeat look even more bigger. Also the BJP will come back with such a swagger almost as if to say that the end justifies the means and whatever they have done over the past five years has been vindicated by the people and they have been voted back to power. I can’t bring myself to vote for the BJP no matter how good are the credentials of its local candidate. It is a mental block and if there ever was a mental block I was proud off then here is one. I am also not against BJP coming to power but what bothers me is the lack of an effective opposition which just lets the ruling party stomp its agenda through unfettered and uninhibited.

Looking at the map of the Indian subcontinent I see that India and Pakistan are the two biggest countries in that geographical area and that they also probably share the largest border and both of them put together are probably the most populous region in the world. These two countries share a common history, culture, language, dress and also a common future. I say a common future because the only way each of these countries can really grow is by growing together or they will decay together. While India may be a larger country with more resources it also has more mouths to feed and house. Yet living in India I know so little of Pakistan. This has been something which just struck me a few years back and ever since I make a conscious effort to read the Pakistani media as much as possible.

Growing up, all that I knew about Pakistan was about the three wars that we have fought, about the terrorism it sponsors and about how the whole country is out to annihilate India and finish the unfinished agenda of partition. Then there were these cricket matches which were more like mini-wars and the country’s pride on their cricket teams. All the talk has been about hatred, war and mistrust. The few voices that did try to talk otherwise were shouted down and the candlelight vigils at the border were shunned as being too soft and totally away from ground realities. I for one was totally confused and didn’t know what to make of this all. I certainly don’t believe the government and its news agencies for the truth and there wasn’t too much coming from the independent and foreign press so it was a state of confusion for me on what exactly was happening on the other side. People who had been across the border talked about the warmth they received in the bazaars, people inviting them over to their houses for meals and asking to take back messages for their loved ones in India. But these contacts were few and far between and while the government sourced information was all pervasive.
But then the ground realities have changed now. We are now talking of lasting peace. We are talking of people to people contact as compared to eye to eye contact across the border. Again, I don’t know enough to comment on what has brought about this change but I certainly am not complaining. For an Indian government to talk about peace with Pakistan in an election year is a huge step forward and that in a way also reflects the confidence of the nation in solving the problem and also probably the electorate is become tired of having this problem having dragged along. Most of us haven’t seen the partition or been directly affected by it and so the stakes are not as high as compared to the generation before us. I do hope that these peace talks mean that the vested interests in peace have become stronger than the interests in war. Maybe it means now that there is more money to be made with cross border trade, holding cricket matches and by getting a gas pipeline to India via Pakistan than by selling arms to both armies. I am perfectly fine with people making money in the middle by doing business deals. Given the pits our relationship is in we need to take what we get. I am also perfectly fine with Vajpayeeji eyeing the Nobel Peace Prize. I mean the man deserves to at least eye it if he doesn’t yet deserve to receive it! This process will only get strengthened when economic benefits start flowing to the common people on both sides of increase trade between two sides. If Indian companies invest across the border and employ local Pakistanis then both the governments will think twice before initiating any sort of drastic action against each side. A case in point being US and China where politics has taken a back seat to business.

I have always wanted to travel around Pakistan, interact with people across the border, and discover our common history and culture. It’ll probably be in a lot of ways like Nepal where I didn’t feel at all that I was away from India, but that in a lot of ways was also due to the welcoming and friendly Nepalese who make you feel as if you’ve always known them. Lahore is less than 2 hours flight away from Delhi and wouldn’t it be wonderful if both countries can get their visa procedures streamlined to issue visas on arrival at the destination. I’ll be on that flight with a copy of Kim in my hand going all over Lahore and then tracing my way back to India through the Grand Trunk Road.

It’s been done before and I don’t see any reason why it can’t be done here.

We as human beings inhabit and rule this earth and sometimes in our daily humdrum of lives very convieniently forget (or overlook) our fellow inhabitants like birds, animals, plants. Most of us don’t think about them until we are reminded of them by something sensational like cows in the middle of a road or a snake in a residential area or birds inside our roofs desperately trying to build their nests. Faced with such infrequent encounters we usually become awkward and don’t know how to deal with them. We certainly don’t feel comfortable with them sharing our space and we are pretty sure we don’t want them inside our living rooms.

So we decide to shoo them away, veer our automobiles around them or just c all the municipal department to deal with the vagabond animal who probably is even more scared than us. There is this usual talk of about how human societies have encroached upon animal preserves and how there used to be leopards and cheetahs here only decades before us. But what never comes
to fore is how uncomfortable we are with animals in their various forms. Should we stay when they are near us, should we pat them, can we beningly look into their eyes without signalling confrontation? How do we communicate with them when we can’t talk and are they even interested in even communicating with us. What will we tell them? Or even more interestingly what will they have to say to us? Will they have a few things to say to us about marginalising them in their own planet and about polluting the nature so much that they can’t live in what little space is left for them?

Its amazing how these thoughts were crossing my head as we made our way to Sultanpur bird sanctuary on the outskirts of Delhi. We were accompanied by two bird lovers who came armed with their binoculars, memories of past bird watching and book reading and ofcourse a very good eye to pick out birds from the middle of nowhere. Most of these are migratory birds who come to Delhi in the winters escaping from hasher colder climates in their
native areas. They all camp around this small lake in groups, pairs or by themselves. They just sit patiently for hours and hours and sometimes decide to take off when they feel the mood to show off their beautiful wings or maybe when humans come too close to them for a dekho. These are birds that I had only heard of or maybe read about. The place is very quiet and peaceful and only intersperesed with bird calls, the distant sound of highway traffic and the excitement of our wonderful companions on a bird s
ighting. Out came the binoculars and then the gush of recognition and then some information about the particular species. If the bird was not recognised then a mental note was made to go home and look it up in the books.

Those birds in someways reminded me of how we were as a race centuries ago. We were nomads who would migrate to different places in search of moderate weather, fertile lands and even animals to feed on. No passports, no visas, no tickets. You wanna go somewhere, just pick up your belongings and go. People were self-sufficient and they lived off the land for their needs of clothing, shelter and food. Birds and animals to me signify that nomadic lifestyle.

Its only after going to this bird sanctuary that I realised how much of nature that I miss out on in the routine that my life has become. There is so much on offer and so near me. I realise that I miss the bulbul that used to be a regular feature near my house every spring and early summer. I didn’t realise how much I had gotten used to it until 1 year i didn’t hear the call at all. I wonder what happened. Maybe they cut down the mango tree and the bird decided to cut its links with us. “You’re not worthy” may have been its reaction. As a kid I remember watching parrots perched on the tree ledge or even a group of them flying overhead. Wonder what happened to them, or maybe they are all there and I am the one who either has no time or my mind just has switched off. I don’t remember the last time I stopped to listen to a bird call that I had not heard before or atleast not heard for a while.

My nightmare is about the day when internet and television will just take over all our senses and we won’t need to step out of our living rooms to experience a bird sanctuary or even a walk in the great outdoors. That is when virtual reality won’t be virtual anymore. That will probably be the peak of our evolution and I guess the only way from there will be downhill.
Except I dont think the birds will be complaining about the lack of attention. They will be only too happy to star in the latest Playstation movie.