It is this sense of Dharma that makes one sit up and notice the work of others. The variety of such work is limitless – it could be a beautiful piece of music, a well made movie, a good game of sports, literature, an act of kindness, a small gesture, et all. The common thread binding all such things for each one of us individually is our own Dharma. When our Dharma agrees with something around us, we feel pleasure – simply because for a fraction of second or more, we feel the oneness of creation – that elusive unity that is rare but everything.

I am reminded of this on revisiting in a couple of hours the life’s work of Sachin Tendulkar – a man that dominated cricket in India like no individual has any sports (Sachin: A Billion Dreams). I am not overwhelmed by his achievements, I grew up with them. Nothing he achieved surprised my generation – for we believed he could do anything. Whether it was scoring a century of centuries or a double century in limited over cricket, he did it and we were overjoyed – but not surprised.

What made me sit up and notice Sachin is not his talent or his achievements but the immensity of effort it must have taken in this journey – and the honesty and integrity that would have been necessary to be able to keep walking the line. He was no maverick, he toiled hard. He applied himself, each day through from the age of 7 when he chose the game as his life’s work. What others see is the result, what the actor goes through is the process. And that process is sweat and tears, and some smile and a lot of joy intermittently.

Two questions come to mind – common when one deals with actors of great achievement. First, is the value of one’s work to be informed by one’s actions outside of that sphere? Second, is the process of that work already sufficient achievement for the actor or is “success” necessary for him to be happy?

In the eternal debate that the first question has inspired over centuries, I take the side of the work. For me, the work stands on its own footing. I do not see it as a subset of its creator. For me Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment will continue to hold a sacred position in literature – no matter even if it was revealed now that he committed the vilest of crimes. For me, Sachin’s cricket will remain forever a work of art that succeeded multiple number of times in flashing the divine to innumerable people – that momentary sense of oneness that is the secret of all pleasure. It will not matter how he ages. Therefore, Sachin the man does not interest me. His work does.

The second question is more difficult to answer. One has to live an alternate life to know whether succeeding in one’s effort or not matters to one’s personal happiness. Therefore, it can only be explored speculatively. I believe that the process is the secret to personal happiness. I believe if one applies oneself to one’s satisfaction, what you will end achieving out of it – a bit more or less – will be satisfactory. It will be respected and therefore valued. And when you value what you achieve, you are bound to be happy. I hope this is true, for the alternate would be too disheartening. It would be too crude, even for the consumerist world we have become.

I insist in my romanticism that the process is all that matters. For I believe that the Dharma of each is different, and it insists on distinct actions – some big, some small, some on the large stage of this world as an actor, some in the background without which the play could not be – but which remains hidden from view. Action of those hidden from the view is neither lesser nor it bring’s less pleasure. For if this is not so, one would suggest that the work of Sachin’s father was less than his. The work of Sachin’s wife and his brother did not matter. That their pleasure was not the same. I don’t think that’s true.

There is something that Sachin’s work should have taught us Indians in the last couple of decades. It should have taught us Dharma, it should have made us understand the meaning of applying oneself truly. It should have shown us what hard work can achieve, and inspired us to choose our own individual paths for life with honesty and integrity. Instead we chose to focus on the man. We chose to chant his name and branded him God and believed he was a magician. We turned a man’s life’s hard work into a sorcerer’s trick.

I wish that this movie, that compresses into two hours a million hours of sweat and work will let us see things differently. I hope we will be truly inspired to live life like he played cricket – with integrity and sincerity – and with pleasure.

Like it or not, I grew up. I started reading and pretty much got hooked to it. My childhood beliefs were violated in many respects, with total disregard to my innocence. While I had come to believe in the crystal clear position regarding Kashmir – as told to us from India by Indians, I encountered phrases like “India occupied Kashmir”. I took offense and grew violently Indian in my views regarding the issue. I came to then believe that the Villain had got the international community on its side and the poor hero (which still was the Indian state for me) was having a tough time proving the truth. It is probably in the nature of truth to be elusive, and India became more of a superhero for me to be standing on the right side of this ambition. However, the superhero status of India was challenged practically everyday – stories of military excesses by the Indian army, stories of Kashmiris not wanting to be a part of India, stories of Nehru’s quixotic enthusiasm in promising a plebiscite and India not honoring it, etc. My defence mechanism to these stories was the same as I had to deal with the allegation of original sin having marked the human race – these were just stories.

Then something happened. To put it precisely, Bill Clinton happened. He came to India in March 2000. Despite India’s insistence on Kashmir being an internal issue, requiring no international interference or debate, we always made an exception for Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam symbolizes money, the one point passion of all developing nations including India in the contemporary times. We bend over backwards to please them; therefore, when they talk Kashmir, we forget our stand and talk back. Clinton’s visit was literally a celebrated event in India. India wanted to impress. Like young couples want to do everything to impress when their parents first visit them in their new house, India was filled with joy and nervousness. The visit went well, except for a small irritant – 36 Sikhs were massacred in Chittisinghpura in Kashmir on the eve of Clinton’s visit. There are two theories on this massacre – first, and the comfortable one to admit, that Pakistani terrorists dressed as Indian military was responsible for it. The second theory is the not so innocent one; the kind of story which robs children of their heroes and superheroes (whether they are true or not), the kind that devastates the belief in Santa. This theory, in detail studied and supported by Pankaj Mishra in the New York Review of books suggests that this was indeed the Indian military working to create the headline for the next day’s newspaper that Uncle Sam would have in his hand when he lands in India.

The Chittsinghpura massacre was solved, like every single terrorist act has been solved when it happens in Kashmir but never when it happens in the mainland India. Within a week of any terrorist act in Kashmir, there are five young Kashmiri muslims killed and flashed to the media as those responsible for the act. The same happened here, though no one (except Indians) believed them this time. It was different. In a decade long history of violence in Kashmir, the militants had left the Sikhs alone. Their fight was with the Hindus and the Indian state and they did not consider Sikhs a part of that fight. To change that stand a day before Uncle Sam (whom the militants aka Pakistan wants to impress as well) lands to declare who is right and who is not, sounded improbable. There are many sides to this story and the truth, as elusive as it always remains, will never be known. But what is true is that The Hindu (a respected Indian newspaper published dominantly from the southern parts) reprinted the Pankaj Mishra article and unfortunately, I was robbed of my innocence. I did not believe, like a true Indian, that our army could ever do this. But I felt like a mother who spots a used condom in her daughter’s wastebin when she returns after a weekend away. Pankaj Mishra’s article has haunted me ever since.

The net effect of Mishra’s article was not that I changed sides, but that an element of doubt was planted in me beyond repair. From then on, whenever violence in Kashmir was reported and the perpetrators gunned down within a week, instead of being happy as I used to be, I felt a kind of bad aftertaste in my mouth.

Eventually, what started in the 90s continues till date. Violence in Kashmir is so common that it is not even worthy of a news clipping. Now, the only time Indians and the Indian media talk of Kashmir is when Kashmiris come out of  their homes to abuse India – the separatist movement as we call it. It has happened at very regular intervals in the last couple of years. Indian policy makers dispatch a group of citizens to talk. The principle remains, any solution to the Kashmir issue shall be within the frameworks of the Indian constitution. While this stand was respected and agreed to by a substantial minority till a decade back, today the Kashmiris spit on the Indian constitution – almost unanimously. The alienation is complete. It is only not apparent to the Indians who have guarded their innocence about Kashmir against all odds. The harsh truth is that an overwhelming majority of Indians don’t give a dead rat’s ass about Kashmir as long as no one talk’s about Kashmir not being an integral part of India. Kashmir for India is a valued possession, nothing else. It is like the first Barbie doll that most girls keep for life, even though it remains rotting in some obscure cartons of long forgotten memorabilia.

One citizen of India became vocal about her support to the cause of the Kashmiris a few years back. Thanks to the fact that she has a gift for stringing words together like very few do, she had won the Booker prize in 1997. India was proud of her – unanimously so. No matter if most of us never read a single page of her novel, we had an opinion of her – she was one of the very few Indians to have won the Booker and was a matter of pride for the Indians. She commands attention in international media due to this. This was again a matter of pride. All this is the reason why it is so painful when this pride of Indian changed sides. She started criticizing the Indian state. She became the voice of dissent. Net result – we stopped reading her and started criticizing her. It went to the point where the attempt is now more to dismiss her as a crackhead than to debate what she says. She is now the enemy of the collective of innocent Indian citizens. Problem is, they don’t feel that innocent anymore. Arundhati Roy’s criticism of the Indian state carries with it a not so subtle judgment on the Indian people and their apathy. As a result, Indians are literally up in arms against her. How dare she! Turning a deaf ear and shouting at the top of one’s voice, so as not to be heard but not to hear, is the first symptom of guilt.

I hated Arundhati Roy’s first piece of dissent when she attacked the Indian nuclear tests. She commented that nuclear weapons were human race’s proclamation to the gods that what he took ages to build, we could destroy in a minute. I disagreed. Nuclear weapons are evil, not even Uncle Sam would dare deny that. However, much before India had them, others did. And the world could be destroyed in minutes even if India did not carry those tests. However, a recent re-reading of that article made me see it in another light. The argument is not that India created nuclear weapons; the argument is that in choosing to do the tests, India sided with the evil. It accepted nuclear weapons. The argument is why not be like Japan when it comes to nuclear weapons. And it is a valid argument. It is like a child’s disappointment when their parents are seen taking the not so moral route and being ‘practical’.

Arundhati got very involved with the Narmada dam issue and wrote several essays on the extraordinary impact it would have on thousands of people who would be displaced. It was a valid dissenting voice which sided with the rights of the people, most of whom neither had the means nor the intellect to be heard, against the mad rush for ‘development’ and the capital it represented. She criticized the Supreme Court’s decision on the Public Interest Litigation on the issue and was held in contempt, though with a suspended one day sentence. That was symbolic of the Indian psyche – we are not sure if you right. We don’t want to believe you have a point. So we will proclaim that you are wrong, but won’t go so far as to punish you for it, because we need to have some semblance of justice.

Then Arundhati told the story of the Indian Maoists (more of a violent tribal rights movement) with amazing empathy. By now, no one cared. Maoists were the bad guys, they used violence. This gave the Indians the right to dismiss Arundhati as a dissenter for the sake of dissent. She was labeled as a media hungry crazy owl who doctored her opinions to be shocking so that it would attract attention. Maoists were not debatable, Arundhati was crazy and the Indians lived their lives in unlivable cities without any further concern. Who cares about some tribals who were denied basic rights. As long as they peacefully objected, our hearts would go out to them. Once they started killing, they lost the cause. No need to think of the fact that when they were peaceful none in India knew of anything about violation of their rights. When they made noise with bombs, they crossed a line and we stuffed our ears with ‘nothing justifies violence’. Was Subhash Chandra Bose justified? Shut up! Don’t talk crazy. And there goes all credibility of Arundhati Roy, for ever.

Arundhati, however, was not done. She now spoke on Kashmir. Behold! She made a call for the freedom of Kashmir from ‘Indian military occupation’. She did this two years back. Then now, just before the even more charming Uncle Sam (with an anticipatory Noble under his belt) arrives in India, Arundhati shared platform with the separatist leaders of Kashmir and herself gave a call for it – the unspeakable freedom of Kashmir. Woah! Talk of lines! This was way beyond the line of control. How could my sister argue I throw away my first Barbie? And to incite a mob to take it away from me? This was sedition – plain and simple.

As expected the Indian media, the Indian people (the one that doesn’t give a dead rat’s ass…) and of course the Indian politicians are up in arms against this seditious unruly idiot of a woman whom they had dismissed as a crazy owl sometime back. Not a word has been spoken about the debate that this must have triggered. Not a word about the military excesses we have made in Kashmir. Not a word about the life of the Kashmiris, which even if viewed from the Article 21 angle of the Indian constitution, has long been lost.

Indians are fighting a lost battle. They refuse to think outside the box, the box being the Indian constitution. Unfortunately, they now want to stop anyone else living in India to think beyond the box.

I say, we have crossed a line. We did in a creeping manner when for 20 years we allowed Kashmir to be wounded and to have no option but to lick their wounds. Even if we dismiss Indian excesses, which we should not, India has lost all moral rights over Kashmir by its apathy. The only manner in which it can and still holds on to that first Barbie doll is through an unacceptable military occupation. I thought this would shock the conscience of Indians. I thought at least by now, the Indian government will find itself alone. Maybe I had misplaced trust in humanity, specially those of the Indians. I believed that only people of America could live with a Guantanamo Bay in their backyard; my incessant pride at the Indian culture made me believe that we could not. It seems we can. Yes, we can!

Then came the release. Everywhere you looked, James Cameron’s Avatar ruled. Whether it was the newspapers, television, or the senseless pseudo-intellectual talk at workplace – Avatar was the point in contention. Surprisingly, everyone had an opinion. Amusingly though, most of these were negative. The only positive response I heard was from those who were truly impressed by the special effects and were ready to let go the rest.

Initially I avoided Avatar. I am not a sucker for popular stuff and often dismiss them as nonsensical. The pre-release hoopla had put me off. I am not a sucker for science-fiction either, and therefore, I thought I could let go Avatar. However, three months and countless number of bad reviews later, I decided to watch it for myself yesterday.

There is no point debating that the plot of Avatar is neither unique nor awe-inspiring. If we can let that be, I can hardly find any faults with the movie. There is almost a consensus that the special effects are dazzling and have succeeded in portraying, to the awe of audience around the world, a unique wondrous and likable forests of Pandora.

The essence of Avatar, however, lies in symbolism. The genius of the movie and its maker is that despite some of the best use of metaphors, the movie was not complex to understand and was an entertainer throughout. Despite this, if people did not find it to be anything except special effects, I guess something is wrong somewhere.

In my opinion, the movie is pretty obvious about what it portrays. The inability of human beings to look beyond material profits and the total lack of sensitivity towards its own environs will eventually lead to total destruction. And till the last day, human beings won’t change their opinions and keep blaming everything except the way they chose to establish their societies as the reason for this destruction.

The dislike of Avatar by most of these human beings is therefore not surprising. The symbolism that was staring them in the face was unlikable and to avoid it, they developed a distaste towards it. This is not the first time, it happens very often in the way things go around in our species. Most of the times, the funny part is, these people do not know that their dislike is a part of psychological defence mechanism of their prejudices.

In a mad rush towards destruction and the propaganda to justify it, it was good to see an ‘avatar’ of sensibilities.

When I first heard about Summertime and its theme, I was intrigued and awaited it patiently. It was due to release only in December 2009, but I guess the publishers wanted to cash in on the media coverage it got due to the Booker Shortlist and released it immediately after the shortlist announcement. As someone who has read and loved Coetzee’s work before, I was not complaining.

Summertime had to be a difficult book, for any memoir is difficult. However, Coetzee was no novice in the genre with Boyhood and Youth having been received well before. Still, Summertime had to be difficult. Unfortunately, that shows when you read the book as well.

Coetzee is a master of words, the nobel prize has confirmed it sometime back. For someone as accomplished in his art as Coetzee, his last novel was an inevitable experiment. A fiction that speaks through dated diary entries, without any character voice,  Diary of a Bad Year was an achievement as well. While Summertime is different for sure, it is that same experiment taken forward.

As someone who starts a story every 15 days and has never finished any, I do understand in my limited capacity the pain, discipline, and frustration of baking the final batter. You will see that Coetzee for some reason did not want to go through this process and has served you the batter with no apologies. Summertime is a half attempt. It is not that batter cannot be eaten, but cakes taste better. As one of the characters through whom Coetzee chooses to give a glimpse of himself remarks – Too cool, too neat, I would say. Too easy. Too lacking in passion.

One of the reason I found this was a lazy attempt  is because the other works of his that I have read have left me in awe of him. From that pedestal, Summertime lacks warmth. It is no news that Coetzee shares little about himself or his inspirations in real life. He, I believe, is from the school of thought that does not have faith in public images of authors. With Summertime, Coetzee has taken that inhibition to his fiction as well. While I empathize with the thought that an author’s life has little to do with his works, my question is – Why write a memoir/biographical fiction then?

4 women, 1 colleague/friend, few dated diary entries, and a few undated fragments are what he has chosen as reflections of himself. Summertime begins with the diary entries which give a glimpse into the thoughts of Coetzee in the period (1972-1977) in which the memoir is set. A young biographer is writing a book on the nobel laureate John Coetzee, a white South African author who has recently died in Australia. The second part of the book is an interview the biographer conducts with a women named Julia. She is married, a mother and just out of adventure, gets into an adultrous relationship with Coetzee. She lives in the same neighborhood where Coetzee stays with his father. This part is in the form of an interview, though the questions are few and short and therefore the answers are more like narrations.

The third part of the book involves Margot, a cousin and childhood love of Coetzee. The biographer had interviewed her and is now reading out the narrative that he has culled out from her

Coetzee at the Nobel Ceremony

answers. This, I believe, is the most powerful narrative in the book. Coetzee probably intended it so, as it is clear from the words Coetzee chooses to put in Margot’s mouth that she was the alternate that he never was. The only relationship where Coetzee admits some warmth is with Margot, the alter-ego which remained as cut-off from his real self as everyone else.

Adriana, mother of a young beautiful girl whom Coetzee teaches English in extra classes, is the most intriguing of all. In her testimony, Coetzee was in love with her and troubles her to no end. However, she cannot be trusted. Adriana is an emotion that intrigues Coetzee and he presents it to us in all its raw contradictions. He then moves to a colleague/friend who taught in the same university. He is the only person of the same sex that he chose to include, though very briefly, as his mirror. There is not much to suggest as to why is he the one man in company of four rather complex women from his life. You are only left guessing. The last mirror is a lady lecturer from France with whom he taught a course in African literature and had sexual relations for sometime. She is the one who talks about his writing, his books – but too little, yet again. It is almost like Coetzee wrote Summertime to tease his readers, his so called ‘admirers’.

Summertime is not as dry as it may sound from whatever I have said above. Despite all this, it is a book you will read through easily. It has underlying themes of life, of a father-son relationship, of the commerce of life and the soul that pays in the bargain. It is an insight into how lonely a thinking, writing soul can be. It also is a relevant insight into the complex psyche of the white South Africans who were not a part of apartheid but were silently accommodating nonetheless.

Summertime lacks nothing when it comes to Coetzee’s ability to put the right words in the right order to make the right strings in your heart or head play the right tune. But it does lack the richness of a Coetzee fiction. It is a biographical fiction by an author who does not want to tell you anything about himself after he started writing. With that disclaimer, it is not a book to let go. Though, if you have not read Coetzee before, go pick his other works. Summertime can wait.

From Flickr