Literary Musings: Naipaul, The History of the Vanquished and the Search for Identity

“Most of us know the parents and grandparents we come from. But that would only be a fragment of the truth. We cannot understand all the traits we have inherited. Sometimes, we can be strangers to ourselves”.

I have just started reading the V.S. Naipaul book “A Way In The World”, my first Naipaul book in a few years. As a reader, it is a pleasure to be back. Nobody writes quite like “Sir Vidia” Naipaul, though many try. Like quite a few of Naipaul’s books, this one too is concerned with ordinary people caught in a no-man’s land as far as their identities are concerned. Like Naipaul (who was born of parents of Indian origin in Trinidad in the West Indies, and who then left for England in his teens), the characters of many of his books face a similar identity crisis. Are they Indians, are they West Indians, are they English, or are they all of the above? These various identities all manifest themselves in Naipaul’s finely etched characters, often with tragic consequences. Naipaul has spent a lifetime exploring the search for individual and collective identity.

And in all of Naipaul’s books, there is always a suggestion of huge underlying tragedies lying just below the surface. In his book “A Turn In the South” published in 1989 for example, which dealt with his travels in the American Deep South, it is the enduring legacy of slavery and the way it continues to affect Southerners of all races a hundred and thirty years after it was abolished. In “Beyond Belief” (published in the 1990s), it was about how Pakistan had failed to reinvent itself after Partition from India in 1947. A five thousand year old common history and culture was forgotten (and indeed reviled) overnight, leading to tragic consequences and for want of a better word, an amputated state with people who were suddenly told that their ancient heritage was irrelevant and worth abandoning.

In Naipaul’s view, these nations and peoples have never recovered, and have lost their own identities in the bargain. They are “wounded civilizations”. When Naipaul was deservedly (and belatedly) awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001, the Nobel Prize Committee said “Naipaul is (Joseph) Conrad's heir as the annalist of the destinies of empires in the moral sense: what they do to human beings. His authority as a narrator is grounded in the memory of what others have forgotten, the history of the vanquished”.

Of course, no writer I have read is able to write about such weighty topics and express these existential dilemmas as well as Naipaul. He has the ability to say so much with so few words. His writing style is economical, even sparse. Yet no one quite captures the essence of a person or place quite like Naipaul. A few writers, such as Paul Theroux (“Sir Vidia’s shadow”) have tried over the years. Theroux has his own compelling writing style, and it is evident that he is strongly influenced by Naipaul. However, Theroux’s sensibilities remain American and his perception and judgment of his environment is primarily from an American standpoint. Theroux also does not possess the historical perspective of the past that Naipaul does.

Naipaul is different. In his travel books, Naipaul is the eternal traveller, the observer, the perpetual outsider. He is a stranger to his surroundings and is yet intimately aware of them – an unusual combination. His knowledge of the past and local histories of the places he visits is astonishing. Being the perpetual outsider has its advantages as far as his writing goes. Also, his intelligence and perception of the reality he finds himself in (wherever he goes) is most acute. Combine this with his formidable writing skills, and you have an irresistible combination, a unique view of the world. While his writing is weighty and thought-provoking, it never comes across as self-important or presumptuous, maudlin or sentimental. There is no hyperbole or exaggeration, just a keen sense of the past and present and an eye for detail that is unsurpassed.

Naipaul’s skill and ability in describing a foreign place and its people runs in the family. His younger brother Shiva Naipaul was also a brilliant writer who wrote about travel and the search for identity in a very good book titled “Beyond the Dragon’s Mouth”. Read it if you get the opportunity. You will not regret it. Shiva died in tragic circumstances in 1985 at the age of only forty. After his death the British newspaper the Spectator established the Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize for "the writer best able to describe a visit to a foreign place or people...of a culture evidently alien to the writer". There are those who feel that Shiva would have surpassed his older brother as a writer had he lived.

But let me get back to V.S. Naipaul. His writing in many cases is prophetic – his 1989 book on India “A Million Mutinies Now” examines how India is almost always on the verge of imploding, beset as it is by caste, religious and linguistic tensions that are in some cases, thousands of years old. Happily, this particular prophecy about India has still not come to pass, though the recent riots in Mumbai bear evidence of what Naipaul writes about.

Of course, Naipaul swore never to return to India after his first visit there in the early 1960s, which led to the book “An Area of Darkness”. As a person of Indian descent, Naipaul was disillusioned with India and felt that India and its peoples had been traumatized by centuries of invasion and colonial rule. He thought of India as spiritually exhausted, an isolationist state clinging to the empty symbols and rituals of an ancient past whose spirit was dead. He swore never to return. But return he did, many times.

His subsequent books on India have turned out to be progressively more optimistic. He has admitted that in India, somehow the ancient past co-exists (sometimes uneasily) with the present. In no other country in the world has this happened. The “history of the vanquished” has still not been written as far as India is concerned. India is the only country in the world where the “pagan” past is still alive and well.

In his books, Naipaul often explores the idea of what can best be termed as ‘racial” or “genetic” memory. Possibly some ancient genetic memory was stirred in Naipaul on his initial visit to India. So though he was troubled and distressed by much that he saw in India and there was not much about his sensibilities that was Indian, could it be that some long-dormant genetic memory of the emerald-green fields and sugarcane plantations of his ancestors in Eastern Uttar Pradesh drew him back again and again to the land of his forefathers? Did Naipaul, the eternal outsider, finally get a glimpse of home? It is possible.

His ancestors moved halfway across the world in the late nineteenth century to escape the crushing poverty of the North Indian plains and to find a better life. It is possible that Naipaul came back a century later to the land his ancestors left and found home in the bargain. For a man who is an outsider wherever he is and whose world view was, is and remains bleak, it must have come as quite a surprise.

So if I wake up one morning from a vivid dream of sitting by the side of the Ganges River in Bengal, with the fog rolling up the river and the sky full of rain, with the smell of wet earth and vegetation and with fishing boats outlined in the hazy distance, if I wake up with the distinct feeling of intimately knowing a place I have never been to, I will remember V.S. Naipaul and his supposition of genetic inheritance and memory. Because home may be a place you have never ever been to before.

Getting Older: Caution!! Wrong Elephants

You are wondering about the title of this blog. What has getting older got to do with wrong elephants? And what exactly are wrong elephants in the first place? Both your questions are very valid, dear reader. Congratulate yourself on your perspicacity and your ability to cut to the chase and ask the really important questions.

So what exactly are wrong elephants and what do they have to do with getting older? Allow me to elaborate. They say that it is easy to notice aging, except in one’s own mirror. I have been waking up every morning for the last few years and as I look at myself in the mirror, nothing about my appearance seems to have changed very much (except my receding hairline).

However, I would be fooling myself if I think that age is not catching up with me. It is. I feel tired if I drink too much and stay up late the night before. I ache if I work out a little more than my normal routine. My body does not respond as nimbly and promptly as it used to when my mind commands. This can sometimes be embarrassing. When I play tennis, I find myself about two steps behind where I used to be when I was twenty five. My mind thinks it can reach a service return on the far side of the court. My body meanwhile says “Hey, hold it!! What the hell do you think you are trying to do here?” When I play air guitar, my leaps and scissor kicks are not as high as they used to be. I get the sneaking feeling that I am no longer a serious contender for the next World Air Guitar Championships. My list of complaints is endless, and the depressing part is that it is only going to get worse. There is no remedy.

When is he going to get to the wrong elephants bit, you are asking impatiently (though I know that you are very polite and patient and will wait until I do). A year ago, I went to my local optometrist as I seemed to be having problems with my distance vision. The optometrist was a kindly bespectacled grey-haired man with crinkly eyes, about forty five years old. I was forty then, but somehow he seemed ancient. No way am I ever going to get that old, I thought to myself. Poor man, I thought, he is forced to wear bifocals. After my eye exam, he looked at me and said smugly, “You are getting older. You are going to need bifocals soon”. As I mentioned, he wore bifocals himself, and there was an air of immense satisfaction in his voice. Welcome to the club, he seemed to be saying, you didn’t think you could escape, did you?

Partly because I didn’t want to accept the fact that I am getting older, and partly because I didn’t want to give my optometrist the satisfaction of being right, I chose to ignore his advice. Of course, it has come back to haunt me. Last week I was in India, trundling down the Mumbai-Pune expressway at a hundred and ten kilometres an hour. Dusk was approaching, the sky was clear, the weather was perfect and I was enjoying the sight of a fiery sunset over the hills of the Western Ghats. As we passed one of the rest stops at dusk, a large signboard suddenly caught my attention in the gathering gloom. “Caution”, it said, “Wrong Elephants”.

I was naturally mystified and intrigued by the message on the signboard. For an instant, the sign seemed to make sense at a metaphysical level. I felt like I was reliving an acid flashback (though I have never “dropped” acid). I felt like I was in a drug-induced dream, though I was completely sober. Wrong elephants, I thought to myself, oh yes, that makes perfect sense. Then the rational part of my brain took over. No, this does not make sense. What are wrong elephants, and why are we being told to be careful of them on the side of a motorway? And taking that argument one step further, what are “right” elephants? Do we need to be careful of right elephants as well?

Pulling myself together, I squinted and took another look at the signboard. It read “Caution, Wrong Entrants”. It dawned on me that my optometrist was right. I am getting older. He is waiting for me at the entrance of the Bifocal Club, full of superficial sympathy and support on the outside, while chuckling to himself on the inside. I will probably have to take up his recommendation of bifocal glasses soon, and my days of spotting wrong elephants will be over forever. I am getting older, and like that line from a song in my youth goes, “It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine”.

Sooner or later, I will be welcoming you to the Bifocal Club. It is inevitable. See you there.

Observations: “The Difference Between Being Admired and Being Loved”

Let me start this off by saying that I am not a big cricket fan. I stopped watching test match cricket some years ago. I didn’t get sucked into the hoopla surrounding India’s big victory at the 20/20 Cricket World Cup last year either (though of course winning that tournament was a sporting triumph for the nation).

But I did watch India beat Australia in the Perth Test Match a few days ago. It was an interesting game. This blog is not about cricket, in case you are wondering. It is about human nature, and about how what we admire and what we love are often two different things. I will use the Indian test captain Anil Kumble to illustrate a point. As usual, I will take a bit of time to get to the point, so do be patient with me.

Anil Kumble is one of the world’s quieter people. As a test match bowler, he has tirelessly served Indian cricket for seventeen years. Quite frequently, he has won matches for India with his bowling. In fact, he is expected to win matches for India with his bowling. But you never hear about him off the cricket field. He is not viewed as sexy or glamorous. He is not a barrel of laughs and he is not the life and soul of the party. He is not a macho breast-beater in the mould of some of his more popular team-mates. He is not on the list of cricketers chosen to model clothes by Indian fashion designers. He doesn’t attend parties that are reported on Page Three of the newspapers. He is not photographed cavorting with Bollywood actresses. He doesn’t endorse soft drinks or car tyres. In fact, you rarely see or hear about him off the cricket field.

Why is this? It is because as cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle said at the end of the Perth test match – “He is not viewed as advertising material”. Kumble is widely admired – for his intelligence (he is an engineer by training), his command over the English language (witness the interviews he gave at the end of the Perth test), his bowling (for reasons already mentioned), his courage, professionalism and temperament (he once came out to bat in a test match in the West Indies despite having his jaw broken the previous day) and his dignity and maturity (his management of the Indian team and the hostile Australian media at the end of the acrimonious Sydney test match a few weeks ago).

On the face of it, these attributes should make him one of India’s best loved sports figures. But that is not the case. He is admired, but not loved. There is a difference. We love our wayward, dashing Yuvraj Singhs. Never mind that Yuvraj Singh performs well only intermittently. Never mind that he seems to have grown a double chin and that his attitude and temperament are often called into question. The fact remains that he is apparently loved even when he fails, and even when his attitude on the field and his team playing skills are suspect. Consistent performances on the field are apparently not a pre-requisite for loving Yuvraj Singh. However, such performances are definitely a pre-requisite for admiring Anil Kumble. We expect him to be reliable, to win matches, to be humble, intelligent, mature. Anything less and people start baying for his blood.

Why do we expect so much from those we admire, but so little from those we love? I have used Anil Kumble only as an example, but I hope that you get my drift. Kumble is the diligent, reliable honest husband forever being cuckolded for the dashing, untrustworthy flamboyant lover. This is not only applicable to the cricket or sports world. It seems to apply to all spheres of life.

Why is it so? I do not know. Could it be the relentless and fickle media and advertising industries that build up and pull down shallow temporary heroes, while ignoring or taking for granted the real ones? That could be part of the problem. The news seems full of trivial, titillating stories about cardboard celebrities, while the real news that we should know about is often drowned by useless chatter.

Is this a recent phenomenon or has it always been with us? I suspect that it has always been around, though it seems to have accelerated in recent years, thanks to the media explosion all over the world – 24 hour news channels desperately trying to manufacture “easy” news where none really exists. This is not just an Indian phenomenon, it exists everywhere. In the United Kingdom for example, the tabloids outsell the “respectable” newspapers by a considerable margin. The same is true in the United States.

What is unnerving is that the idea that we as a society seem to have stopped admiring (and loving) genuine heroes, because they are quiet and reliable and well, boring. Qualities that we were taught were good as children (honesty, modesty, strength, dignity and integrity) are often viewed as yesterday’s news. They are not sexy enough to warrant our sustained attention. Nobody wants to read about what a decent guy Anil Kumble is. But everyone seems very keen to know who Yuvraj Singh is dating. Someone recently said that this phenomenon was “Page Three moving to Page One”.

As a result of this phenomenon, glory and adulation is showered on those who do not deserve it, while genuine heroes languish in relative obscurity. I am not trying to disrespect Yuvraj Singh here (if you happen to be a fan of his). He is talented but has not done justice to his talent. Kumble on the other hand, is not the most talented bowler in the world. Yet he has relentlessly focused and challenged himself every time he has stepped onto the field. He has done the most with the limited bowling talent at his disposal. His stamina and mental strength are phenomenal, and he has often triumphed in the face of daunting odds. Surely, this (in addition to all his other considerable attributes) should inspire love on the part of Indian sporting public?

Of course, there are those people who are both admired and loved – in the Indian sporting world, Kapil Dev and Sachin Tendulkar come to mind. But they are exceptions to the rule.

Like everyone else, I have also fallen prey to this – expecting too much from the people I admire, and too little from the ones I love (as well as taking them for granted occasionally).

So this blog is dedicated to the people I admire – you deserve our admiration as well as our love.

Economics: An Open Letter to the Prime Minister

Dear Prime Minister,

You must get many letters from people all over India. You are a very busy man, I am sure. I am just a fellow Indian citizen. I will not say that I am a “concerned” fellow citizen, because that would be hypocritical of me. Like most of our fellow citizens, I have been spending much of my time securing my own financial future, and frankly, I have done precious little to serve our great nation.

Much like most of our politicians, wouldn’t you say? The difference of course, is that I am a private citizen, and have not taken an oath to serve our nation. Our politicians have, and most of them abuse their sacred oath the minute they get into government office. But the purpose of this letter is not to remind you of such unpleasant facts, since you have to deal with these disreputable people every day. You know this much better than I do.

So what is the purpose of this letter, you may ask? I am getting to that. As a reasonably well-educated and socially aware fellow citizen, I feel I am entitled (and qualified) to make a few suggestions regarding how our country can be better governed. As a participant in our great if chaotic democracy, it is my right. I genuinely believe that I have something useful to say and that my views probably reflect those of the “silent majority”, those Indians who work hard, pay their taxes, and fervently hope that life will somehow get better for them and their families.

Over the last ten years or so, our country has made great strides towards prosperity. I read recently that the poverty rate has fallen from approximately 35% about twenty years ago to about 22% today. That is a very impressive achievement – not of the Indian government, but of the hard work and commitment of the Indian people who have seized the opportunity that partial economic liberalization presented them with. Of course, you were in some ways the architect of this, when as Finance Minister in 1991, you opened up the bankrupt Indian economy to the prevailing winds of globalization. Of course that decision was not made voluntarily, but under great duress, as the Indian economy at the time was tottering on the brink of collapse. Doomsayers (from your own party and of course from those “protectors of the poor” our leftist parties) said that Indian companies would not be able to compete. They said that Indian industry and entrepreneurs would be wiped out.

Fifteen years later, we can safely say that they could not have been more wrong. The Indian economy has been growing at a tremendous pace. Indian private sector companies have not only survived competition from their global peers, but in many cases, have beaten them. There are enough examples of this, as you are well aware. A new confident educated middle class has been created – people who study hard, work hard, pay their taxes and contribute immensely to the growth of this great nation of ours. I like to think of myself as one of these many millions.

However, there is much to do, as you are aware. Governmental reform is still non-existent. The government (which you represent) is still, lazy, corrupt, inefficient and unaccountable – a huge drain on our country’s resources. Why is that? As the Prime Minister, I strongly urge you to focus on governmental reform and not get diverted by non-issues such as how much Chief Executive Officers of private sector companies are making. I realize that this will not be easy – but then nothing worthwhile is.

One of five Indians still lives in abject poverty. A large proportion of the Indian population is functionally illiterate – they can sign their names, but that is about it. Our government-run primary education system (especially in North India) has ceased to exist. Our road, rail and port infrastructure remains in a shambles, obstructing economic growth. You must have noticed the pathetic state of the roads in Mumbai, our nation’s commercial capital, during your visits. A large proportion of our population does not have access to safe drinking water. The power situation in all our states is a disgrace. Apart from greatly inconveniencing us, it acts as a hindrance to economic and industrial growth, as many parts of our nation have to go without power for as much as eight to ten hours a day. I also know that despite this, electricity tariffs in certain parts of our country (my hometown Mumbai for example) are the highest in the world. Our forests and wildlife are vanishing at a rapid rate, many of our rivers are polluted and our environmental track record is a mess. Our judicial system is such that even the simplest litigation takes years (sometimes decades) to resolve.

The objective of this letter is not to blame you or your government. The objective is to suggest a few “high-impact” areas that you and your government could focus on to improve the living standards of a billion people. Of course, there are many vested interests involved who would not want this to happen – from politicians in your party and the opposition, our bureaucrats in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), and others such as your leftist allies. They are all part of the conspiracy to keep India poor and backward, because they benefit from it. By the way, I feel that our bureaucrats are much like the eunuchs in the ancient Persian and Roman empires. These eunuchs had no direct power and they fought no wars, but they had enormous influence on the way these empires were administered. They were “file-pushers” and the ones responsible for the downfall of these mighty empires. Sorry – as a student of history, I could not resist drawing that parallel. I am sure you see the similarity, dealing with stone-walling bureaucrats every day.

So what are the broad areas of policy that I request you to focus on? There are many. But I realize that it is not possible for you (or anyone) to focus on too many things. The three that make the most sense to me are: Infrastructure, Foreign and Indian Direct Investment and Primary Education. These are not radical suggestions and will not upset the apple-cart too much. But they will make a huge difference to our lives. They have been elaborated below:

1. Infrastructure: Here I request you to focus on and “fast-track” three things. They are:
a. Completing the “Golden Quadrilateral” highway system that was initiated with so much fanfare by your predecessor, Mr. Vajpayee. I also request you to find some way to improve the pathetic state of the roads in our major cities. I know that this is the responsibility of the municipalities involved, and most of them are extremely corrupt. However, there are ways that this can be done – by tying Central funds disbursed to actual results delivered on the ground, etc. You know how the governmental machinery works much better than I do. As a PhD in economics, I am sure that your grasp of economic history is very sound. You must know how the United States government introduced the “Food for Work” program in the 1930s, during the Great Depression. Millions of unemployed Americans were provided food and dormitory style housing in return for which they helped build America’s national highways. This highway network is still the most comprehensive one in the world – seventy years later. This “Food for Work” program provided food and employment to millions and also helped pull America out of the Great Depression. Why can we not start a similar program here in some of our more backward states?
b. Reducing power transmission and distribution losses - As you know, the business of providing electricity to consumers has two parts to it – power generation and power transmission and distribution. Adding new power generation capacity is a time-consuming and expensive business and will require much effort in attracting the necessary private direct investment. However, the second part – power transmission and distribution can be resolved much more easily. I have heard that about 30% of electricity generated in India is either stolen or not paid for. This is a staggering statistic. This is because of corrupt officials who take bribes from consumers who do not want to pay their electricity bills. How can this be stopped? Quite easily – turn over power bill collections to the private sector and pay them a small commission on the amount of money they collect. If Reliance Energy, for example was responsible for collecting outstanding power bills, I am sure that power theft (and distribution losses) would come down significantly. This would mean more money to invest in new power plants, building of new capacities, availability of uninterrupted electricity – a nice “virtuous cycle”.
c. Work is already being done on a “super-fast” rail freight corridor between our major cities, and that is a good step your government is taking. I know nothing about ports, so I will not venture an opinion on the modernization and enhancement of our ports. I am sure you have qualified experts in this area.

2. Foreign Direct Investment, Special Economic Zones and opening up the retail and insurance sectors:
a. Your allies in the ruling coalition government the leftists, have been fighting you tooth and nail on this. I am sure you are thinking – with friends like these, who needs enemies?? But the fact remains that if India’s economic growth is to be permanent, it needs to be all-inclusive and benefit people all across our vast land. The best way to do this is to set up Special Economic Zones in the hinterlands and offer companies tax breaks to set up shop there. Another way to ensure all-inclusive economic growth is to open up the retail and insurance sectors to private investment (Indian and foreign). This would create millions of jobs where they are needed most – in the Nandeds and Bhagalpurs of our country. It would provide a quantum leap to our economic growth and reduce the migration of millions of people to our large cities – which of course are already over-burdened, dirty and crowded.

Opening up the insurance sector would also provide huge sums of long-term funds that can be used for large nation-building projects such as irrigation, power generation, afforestation, etc. There is no down-side here; it is just a question of mustering the necessary political will to do it. Clear, transparent land acquisition policies need to be put in place as far as acquiring agricultural land for Special Economic Zones (SEZs) is concerned. The problems we have faced in this area are largely due to the lack of such a policy.

3. Primary Education For All: Most of us have watched with dismay as your government has repeatedly put its foot in its own mouth as far as education is concerned. We have watched with disgust as time and again, the topic of caste-based reservation has become a major political issue. If either you or your loved ones are ill, would you prefer to be treated by a sub-standard physician who shouldn’t have gotten into medical school in the first place? I do not think so. Reservations are valid – for economically challenged students, irrespective of caste, gender or religion. The caste system in India is a national disgrace and should be abolished, not perpetuated. It would be far better to focus time and money on overhauling the primary education system as it is currently exists. But you know the nature of the problem, I am sure. Even a layperson such as me has seen programs on the BBC and various Indian news channels showing how government-run primary schools (especially in Northern India) are bankrupt and without even blackboards or roofs on buildings. Many teachers do not even bother to show up at school.

How will our millions of young minds be educated if this is the case? How is the performance of these government-run primary schools currently being measured? As a taxpayer, I know that I have to pay something called an “education cess”. I have no problem paying this. But I would like to know how the money collected is being utilized. This is a reasonable request. This is also a problem that is easily corrected. The running of these schools in rural areas should be handed over to the village “panchayats” (councils). No parent would like to see their child illiterate. There should be financial incentives for parents to encourage them to send their girl children to school. I am sure you will hear howls of protest from the people currently responsible for running these governmental schools (the “eunuch” bureaucrats). But you need to cut the Gordian knot here and make a decision. It is also very important to focus on English being taught at the primary school level. 175 million Chinese kids (and adults) are learning English because it is the future as far as jobs and careers are concerned. This is true for India as well.

There is much more that can be done to benefit our great nation, especially in reforming state and municipal governments, since they are the ones ordinary people such as us have to deal with. That would be the subject of another letter. I realize that none of the changes I have mentioned above will be easy to bring about. But you have chosen to become the Prime Minister of our country and that job is difficult. You owe this to us – all one billion of us. If you can accomplish just these three things, we will be in your debt forever.

Also, I am not just an armchair critic. Show me evidence that you mean business in these areas – especially in primary education, where I feel I can contribute, and I will join you. I am not yet a parent, but I have friends who are, and I realize how difficult it is for young children to get admitted to good schools in India. If I ever choose to have or adopt children, I would want a better education system for them. So my decision is based on rational self-interest – just like the great economist Adam Smith used to say. I hope that rings a bell.

Sincerely,

Sandeep Gupta

Music: Your Favorite Beatles Album

Which is your favorite Beatles album? Everybody in the world has heard of (and heard) the Beatles, whether you like them or not. And they came up with such melodious songs and “hooks”, that almost everybody loved them – from grandparents down to toddlers. That of course, was part of the problem. Rock purists often felt that the Beatles weren’t “rebellious” enough, and that they coasted along (at least initially), content to be popular icons, not taking risks.

Nothing could be further from the truth, which was that the Beatles were ground-breaking pioneering artists in every sense of the term. Even their early “boy band” albums, where four kids are staring out at you from the album sleeve, even those albums – these guys were taking chances to come up with music that was different. They were putting it on the line. There was rebellion aplenty – enough to keep young malcontents such as me interested.

Apart from the melodies and lyrics (which were uniformly great), listen to the sound on these albums. It is enormous. They are a four piece band that sounds like a four hundred piece band. And even back then, in the early 1960s, when they had teenage girls going berserk over them, they sounded different from everybody else. For one thing, they invented a large part of what we call rock ‘n’ roll music today. They did not play the blues or soul or a mixture of the two (like their near-contemporaries the Rolling Stones and the Who were playing at the time). They played rock ‘n’ roll – it was a new art form, because these guys were inventing it. And they were making up the rules of the game as they went along. They sounded fresh and unique, even in the very beginning. Certainly, they had their own set of heroes who influenced them – Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Carl Perkins, Elmore James. But they didn’t make any attempt to sound like these guys. They always sounded just like…well…themselves.

By 1965 of course, they were heavily influenced by another pioneer – Bob Dylan. Their albums started sounding far more mature, dealing with sex, love, drugs and politics in a whole new way. But just as Bob Dylan influenced them, they influenced Bob Dylan, who had initially started as a folk singer. By 1965, Dylan plugged in his electric guitar and a whole new genre of music was born – folk-rock. But I digress.

The Beatles were very different from the Stones and the Who. Initially, the Stones tried very hard to sound like their blues idols - Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, etc., with some degree of success. The early Who tried to sound like the Godfather of Soul himself– James Brown, and failed miserably. Instead, they sounded like what James Brown would have sounded like - if he had been born white, English and hopped up on amphetamines. The Who looked and sounded like a bunch of anarchists – at least initially. A bunch of menacing looking fellows, not guys you would encourage your teenage son or daughter to hang out with. But -it was all fascinating stuff anyway. Of course, both the Stones and the Who found their own distinctive voices by the mid 1960s, and forged what we call “rock” music today. Not heavy metal, but rock (I hate it when people confuse the two).

But the Beatles sounded unique, right from the very beginning. They are not my favorite band– the Who is, and will always remain so. But I still respect and love the Beatles enormously. They never rested on their laurels. They always pushed the boundaries of whatever they were doing. From late 1964 onwards, every album sounded different from its predecessor. No two albums sounded the same. They were taking chances. With every album, they were defining and redefining the boundaries of popular music, pushing the envelope. And every time, they took their audience with them. It was a leap of faith that millions of people around the world were willing to make. They created the notion that popular music could be much more than disposable noise. They proved that popular music could be high art and at the same time, easily accessible and understood.

So which is your favorite Beatles album? I am sure you must have one. For me personally, it is a toss-up between three albums – “Revolver” (released in August 1966), “White Album” (released in November 1968 after their return from Rishikesh , India ) and “ Abbey Road ” (their last album in the studio, released in September 1969).

“Revolver” is something else entirely. It is the first “drug” influenced album. You knew these guys were going where nobody else had gone before with the music. It was that fresh, that exciting, that exhilarating. Even if “Revolver” came out today, it would be an artistic breakthrough. It sounds new and timeless at the same time. Lennon’s songs like “Tomorrow Never Knows” are scary and he is taking you down a road where nobody (not even himself) has been down before. You know the ride is going to be very exciting, but unpredictable. McCartney’s songs exhibit a new level of maturity – songs like “Eleanor Rigby” and “For No One”. And you know that George Harrison is beginning to challenge the Lennon-McCartney songwriting combination. He is beginning to come into his own as a songwriter and a guitar player on songs like “Taxman” and “I Want to Tell You”.

The double LP “White Album” came out in 1968 and was the beginning of the end. It is a Beatles album in name, but in reality, it is three guys making their own solo albums using the rest of the members as their back-up band. They have different, incompatible personalities by this point. McCartney is still consumed by being at the top of the charts, and remains a supremely gifted songwriter and musician with a genius for knowing what will sell - a true music professional. Lennon by this point wants to be an artist – he wants to be avant-garde. Harrison is resentful that his songs are not being allotted space on Beatles albums, because of the domination by the other two. He is also getting impatient and more and more confident in his own solo abilities. And Ringo? Well, Ringo is just happy that the Beatles are still together. In terms of its musical vision and diversity, no album ever made comes close to “White Album”. Every single musical genre of the 20th century (and earlier) is present on that album – rock and its various derivatives – rock ‘n’ roll, folk rock, blues, heavy metal, art rock, psychedelia, ballads – even vaudeville. It is an encyclopedia of modern day music, and is awesome in its scope and ambition.

Pretty much every song on that album sounds like it has been made (and played) by a different band. It is impossible to categorize this album – it is beyond definition. How many albums in the history of music can you say that about? No other band in the history of the world could have made this album. Once again, the Beatles were redefining the very concept of popular music, including what constituted the word “popular”. And once again, the audience took their lead and followed them down that road. The Beatles’ confidence in their own abilities was supreme. Their audience’s faith in them was nothing short of miraculous – and touching.

“ Abbey Road ” was the last album the Beatles made in the studio (though “Let It Be” was the last album they ever released). By this point, it was pretty evident that these guys were not going to last much longer as a band. Both the Stones and the Who had also matured, and were snapping at the Beatles heels – in terms of musical and artistic ability. But “ Abbey Road ” still has its moments where the Beatles leave every single band in the world behind – from the shimmering harmonies of Lennon’s “Because” to the entire suite of McCartney’s songs on Side B of the album, which pretty much invented glam-rock and paved the way for David Bowie, Elton John and Queen later. And George’s guitar playing on Side B of that album - I could write a book on it, and it still would not do justice to his guitar-playing prowess. The man grew in leaps and bounds between 1966 and 1970. By 1970, he (rightly) considered himself the equal of Lennon and McCartney – as a songwriter and a musician.

“ Abbey Road ” was also the first rock album I heard when I was fourteen years old. I remember how intriguing and different it sounded. Unlike much of the disco stuff that was floating around at the time, it sounded like it had real value, real heart. It meant something. It sounded like it was being made by people who cared deeply about what they were doing. It engaged the listener’s heart and mind. It sounded like it could sustain the listener for a long time to come. I still dust that album off now and again and listen to it, more than twenty five years later, to remind me how and when I got introduced to great modern music. It stands up to the test of time.

And that’s all she wrote. August 20th, 1969 was the last time that all four Beatles were in the studio together, for the recording of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”. More than anybody else, they changed the world. The whole thing was a grand, audacious experiment that failed. But they changed the world anyway, and it was worth the effort. When John Lennon said in 1962 that the Beatles would be bigger than Elvis, he was right. When he bragged in 1966 that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus, he was right. In 1970, when the whole thing collapsed like a house of cards, he said “We came out of the fuckin’ sticks to take over the world”. He was only telling the truth.

Thank you, John, Paul, George and Ringo, for the music that has always sustained us, and that even today, after all these years, still touches and enriches our lives in so many ways.

I will always love the Who, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Clash, Roy Orbison, Chrissie Hynde and many others. But - which is your favorite Beatles album??

History: The Golden Age and What Makes India Special

The golden age was first; when Man yet new,
No rule but uncorrupted reason knew:
And, with a native bent, did good pursue.
Unforc'd by punishment, un-aw'd by fear

- Ovid’s “Metamorphosis” (circa 8 A.D)

The ancient classical world dawned around the 8th Century B.C., when the great Greek, Indian and Persian empires were born. Of course, human civilization as we know it had been around for thousands of years before that. The Egyptian, Mesopotamians, Indians and Chinese had very evolved, sophisticated civilizations by 2000 B.C.

But the ancient classical world as we know it was born somewhere around the 8th Century B.C and lasted more than a thousand years. It was an era of great empires and philosophers, poets and prophets. Three great Indo-European civilizations were born – the Greek, the Persian and the Indian. In Greece, Homer wrote the “Iliad”, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle contemplated the human condition and philosophy was born, and Pythagoras proposed his mathematical theorems.

In Persia, Cyrus the Great created the first world empire – a mosaic of many cultures, religions and races, wrote the first Charter of Human Rights and Universal Law, and Zoroaster founded the world’s first monotheistic religion, Zoroastrianism, with its concept of duality – good and evil, heaven and hell. All modern-day Judeo-Christian religions have borrowed heavily from Zoroaster’s writings and teachings.

In India, the Vedas were recorded, the great epics the Mahabharata and the Ramayana were written, and the Buddha walked through quiet country lanes in Northern India preaching the principles of worldly renunciation and the concept of enlightenment. Ajatashatru and Chandragupta Maurya’s military campaigns created the first pan-Indian kingdoms. Ashoka the Great’s reign circa 220 B.C. ushered in India’s first “golden age”.

The ancient classical world represented one of the high points of human civilization – a time when humankind made great strides in science, philosophy, literature, poetry, music and military technology. It is a fascinating time in our evolution, and the explosion of ideas that took place then was unrivalled until the Renaissance, which came along nearly two thousand years later.

So was there ever a “golden age” of humankind as the Roman poet Ovid so beautifully writes about, or is this just romantic historical nonsense, propagated by those nostalgic for a past that never really existed? Was there ever a time when large numbers of people were at peace, prosperous and happy? Many different civilizations and countries proclaim that their own glorious past represents the “golden age” of humankind. I may be biased, but the Indian Empire of the Guptas was probably the most enlightened empire the world has ever known. Certainly, Indian history repeatedly refers to the Gupta Empire as the “golden age” of Indian civilization.

Why the Gupta Empire, you may ask (and you should). Because the Gupta Empire represented a near-ideal civilization that was strong yet compassionate, humane yet objective, traditional yet intellectually contemplative and curious. Accomplishments in art, philosophy, poetry, science, mathematics and astronomy reached new heights during the reign of the Gupta kings.

A brief run-down of the accomplishments of the Gupta Empire is warranted (to substantiate my claim). The Gupta Empire was established in 320 A.D. and lasted about three hundred years. It covered all of Northern India as well as modern-day Pakistan and Bangladesh. The rulers of the Gupta Empire included Chandragupta, Samudragupta and the great Vikramadiyta (who became one of India’s three greatest rulers, along with Chandragupta Maurya and Ashoka, both of whom had ruled the Mauryan Empire seven hundred years earlier).

The Gupta Empire excelled in the arts, literature, music, mathematics and most importantly for the welfare of their subjects, administration. They were no slouches when it came to defending their borders either. For three hundred years, they held off and consistently beat the Saka (Scythian Huns from Central Asia), their main enemies. The Gupta Empire’s army was very well organized, and they relied on the two instruments of warfare that stopped Alexander’s Macedonian armies in their tracks six hundred years earlier – the war elephant and the powerful Indian longbow. The Indian longbow, as I have mentioned in my blog on Chandragupta Maurya, was six feet long, and fired arrows that pierced the thickest body armor. The Gupta Empire’s armies also invented the highly tensile steel bow, which was the most powerful weapon of its time. The disciplined infantry bowmen of the Indian Gupta armies beat their marauding Central Asian foes – time after time. Of course, the trained war elephants and armored cavalry also played a part in their victorious campaigns.

In the field of arts, music and mathematics, the court of the Gupta kings had the “navaratna” or nine jewels – individuals whose contributions in their areas were outstanding. In the field of astronomy and mathematics there were Aryabhatta and Varahamihira, who invented the concepts of zero, infinity and the decimal system. The trading Arabs took the decimal system to Europe, where it replaced the existing Roman numerical system. Aryabhatta also calculated Pii to the fourth decimal. In the field of astronomy, he calculated the length of the solar year and the movements of stars and the planets. Nowhere else in the world was the study of mathematics and astronomy as specialized and advanced as at the Gupta Empire’s court.

In the fields of literature and poetry, there were legendary poets such as Kalidasa who wrote the play “Shakuntala” and Dandi. The exquisite rock sculptures and paintings at Ajanta and Ellora were also part of the rich cultural heritage left to us by the Gupta Empire. These are quite simply the most sophisticated, delicate and beautiful rock paintings and carvings in the world. They are now a UNESCO World Heritage site. In my opinion, they should be one of the seven wonders of the ancient world – they are that beautiful and exquisite.

The Gupta Empire’s trade with South-east Asia meant the spread of Hindu and Buddhist philosophy and culture to Thailand, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia and beyond. The motifs used in the construction of the Angkor Wat temple complex in Cambodia borrowed heavily from the concepts of the Gupta Empire’s artists and architects. The spread of Buddhism to Japan, China, Thailand and other countries can be directly attributed to the Gupta Empire.

The Gupta Empire kings were also humane and excellent administrators. They set up free hospitals for the poor across the empire. Many advances were made in the field of medicine – with doctors performing bone settings, caesarian sections and bone grafting. Many of these innovations in medicine were carried to the West by the Arabs, who traded extensively with the Gupta Empire. The major universities of the time at Taxila and Nalanda were also given grants and funding.

Last but definitely not the least, the “Kamasutra” or “Art of Love” was written and published during the reign of the Gupta kings. The Empire was known for its tolerance, open-mindedness and enlightened attitude towards sex.

The end of the Gupta Empire was part of the end of an era – the end of the classical world. Around the same time, the power of the Roman Empire was broken, as it finally succumbed to constant warfare on its borders. The Goths on the empire’s northern frontier and the Sassanid Persians on its eastern frontier battered away relentlessly, and the Roman Empire finally crumbled around the 7th century. A thousand years of history were at an end.

By the 5th century A.D., Rome had ceased to be an important city in the empire anyway, as the Goths under Alaric sacked and pillaged the city in 396 A.D. The Western Roman Empire ceased to exist in everything except name by the 5th Century A.D. The Eastern Roman Empire with its capital at Byzantium (also known as Constantinople and now as Istanbul) gained prominence, since it was the gateway to rich and populous Asia.

The Romans and the Sassanid Persians were mortal enemies for four centuries, and fought each other to a standstill. By the 7th Century A.D., the Persians were finished too. There was a new power rising to the South – the Arabs. The Persians were exhausted and fatally weakened by centuries of constant warfare with the Romans, and were in no position to withstand the Arab onslaught. The great Sassanid Empire collapsed suddenly without so much as a whimper, and more than a thousand years of Persian domination of the Near East came to an end. The Persians would never again be a dominant empire-building force.

The explosive growth of two new religions, Christianity and Islam, with their radical new ideas, saw the end of the classical world in the West. The new religions were proselytizing religions – a new phenomenon, since the pagan religions of the classical world were not. The zealotry of the early Christians and Muslims meant that some of their leaders were determined to wipe out all traces of what had existed before. This was a pity. Much that was great in the ancient classical world vanished forever, never to be recovered. However, sometimes great ideas never really die – they only come back in different guises. By the 10th Century A.D., Persia had a new set of poets and writers such as Rumi and Firdausi, who extolled the old Persian ways and heroes in his epic book “Shahnameh” (“The Book of Kings”). He wrote stories of Darius and Cyrus, Shapur and Khusrau – the forgotten heroes of another time – a time when Persia was great. Christianity also incorporated many of the principles of the old “pagan” religions into their own, such as the worship of the Holy Trinity and of saints (this was a substitute for the worship of the pantheon of gods in older pagan religions).

But the “Shahnameh” and other recollections of the classical world were only faint echoes of the true glory of an epic past. The past itself died forever everywhere – except in India. Only India was and continues to remain unique. Only in India does the ancient classical world continue to live, breathe and indeed flourish. While the ruins of Persepolis, Pasargadae and Ctesiphon (in Iran) and the Parthenon and the Coliseum (in Greece and Rome) are mute testimony to the greatness of the ancient classical world, the old ways and old gods are gone forever. The goddesses Anahita and Aphrodite no longer laugh and sport in the rivers and springs of the Persian highlands and Greece. The voices of Zeus and the Greek gods have been silenced forever. Delphi is a ruin and the Eleusian mysteries of Demeter no longer reveal the profound secrets of the after-life to eager seekers. The temples of Hermes and Helios have fallen into ruin and the smoke from a thousand sacrificial fires no longer obscure the azure skies of the Mediterranean. The ancient Zoroastrian fire temples in the snow-striped Zagros Mountains in Iran are in a state of disrepair.

The remaining monuments in these countries are just tourist attractions that draw people from all over the globe, reminding them of how graceful, beautiful and interesting the classical world really was, a time when our species was young, and the world was full of interesting discoveries and inventions, waiting for us to find them.

But in India, the ancient classical world continues to co-exist with the modern. Many of the symbols and monuments of “Golden India” are gone forever, such as the magnificent palace complexes of Pataliputra and Ujjain, Kanauj and Indraprastha. But the spirit of the classical world still survives and flourishes. Take a train ride from Mumbai to Delhi on the Central Railway in winter, and on a fog-bound morning outside the town of Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh, you will suddenly see the “chhatra” or roof of the main Sanchi Stupa rising from behind the tree-line by the side of the tracks. The roof of the Stupa appears to float in mid-air, thanks to the heavy early morning fog. The Stupa is a marvelous complex of buildings dating back to the third century B.C. Its construction was started in the reign of Ashoka the Great – India’s greatest king. But this beautiful complex of buildings is more than just a dead monument. It is still home to hundreds of Buddhist monks who wake up with the rising sun and chant ancient Sanskrit “shlokas” (verses) in memory of the Buddha – just like they did more than two thousand years ago. It is a living testament to another time in the world.

The classical world still lives and breathes here and elsewhere in India, a link to a great and ancient past and to India’s first golden age. It is a reminder of the thoughts and ideals that shaped our modern world and thinking. Remember that, because it is what makes India special.

Happy Independence Day!!

Music: Album Review - Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska"

Released in 1982, this is easily Springsteen’s most heartfelt and in some ways, bleakest album. It is also his least known album. Recorded at home with only an acoustic guitar and a harmonica for musical accompaniment, it is an American “dust-bowl” folk album in the tradition of Springsteen’s folk music heroes Woody Guthrie and the young Bob Dylan. The songs themselves are about ordinary working class people in tough situations in Middle America – a man who takes up a contract killing to pay his debts (“Atlantic City”), a policeman in a small town whose brother is a petty criminal (“Highway Patrolman”), a Vietnam War veteran who comes home to a dead-end job and a nervous breakdown (“Johnny 99”), a man remembering his dead father and his old home that no longer belongs to him (“My Father’s House”).

It is Springsteen at his most somber and earnest, and the songs are riveting. There are a few brutally honest albums in rock music. John Lennon’s 1970 “Working Class Hero/Plastic Ono Band” is one, the Who’s 1975 album “The Who By Numbers” is another, as is Bob Dylan’s portrait of a broken marriage – 1974’s “Blood On the Tracks”. This album falls into that category of honest, riveting albums.

There are no fist-pumping arena rock anthems here. Instead, in the tradition of Bob Dylan’s early work, Springsteen builds and breathes life into the gray, sometimes amoral characters in his songs. These are not just songs, they are short stories set to music. And like most well-written short stories, they can be mesmerizing. That is the beauty of folk music – it tells stories of ordinary people, folks like you and me.

The ambience is intimate, since Springsteen recorded all these songs at home without a back-up band. This album was released two years before his blockbuster “Born in the USA” album, which sealed his reputation as a superstar. Listening to this album, you feel that Springsteen is sitting in front of you on your living room couch on a cool fall night, with the fire roaring in the fireplace, singing his heart out – singing about hard times, ordinary people and the strength of the human spirit.

Sometimes, there are no easy answers to the horrors of life. The lyrics on this album are evocative, spare and sometimes chilling. On the title song “Nebraska” a murderer is about to executed, and is asked by the judge why he killed innocent people. He says:

“They declared me unfit to live,
Said into that great void my soul be hurled
They wanted to know why I did what I did,
Well, sir, I guess it’s just the meanness in this world”.

Springsteen may not be the best lyricist in the world, but he has always had a gift for capturing the spirit of working-class Middle America and its inhabitants. He builds a very convincing portrait of the quiet desperation that is the highlight of so many people’s lives. Most of his albums talk about hard times and redemption at the end of the road. On this album, he sings (quietly) about the hard times, but also about the fact that redemption is sometimes just not forthcoming. That is what makes this album compelling. Life can be hard, and sometimes, it just gets harder.

But human beings will always look for a reason to believe. And on the last song on the album, “Reason to Believe”, Springsteen is just like the rest of us in our vulnerable, weakest moments. He sings about the cycle of birth and death that is life and our never-ending quest to find meaning in our own lives and how we fit into the larger scheme of things:

“Take a baby to the river,
Kyle William they called him,
Wash the baby in the water,
Take away little Kyle’s sin
In a whitewash shotgun shack,
An old man passes away,
Take the body to the graveyard and over him they pray,
Lord, won’t you tell us,
Tell us what does it mean,
At the end of every hard-earned day,
We can still find some reason to believe”

We are all human, we are all flawed, and sometimes, in our darkest moments, when hope seems so hard to hold on to, we all need reason to believe – believe that life will get better, believe that the hard times and heartbreak will come to an end soon, that there is a grand purpose to our lives. Belief that there is a good future in store for us, belief that a kind hand gently guides our individual destinies. This song is a heartfelt yet ambiguous prayer to a deity that may or may not exist.

This is a beautiful, austere album, written and performed from the heart. Great art is always an unflinching reflection of the truth. The beauty of rock (and folk) music is its simplicity – great ideas, thoughts and ideals can be communicated in a simple way that makes it easy for people to understand, to connect. This is not true of many other art forms – even jazz and classical music are harder to understand, to interpret, to connect to. This is why I feel that rock music and its offshoots (folk music, blues music, even rap) tell stories in a way that are heartfelt and easy to understand.

Springsteen has always had a big heart and something interesting to say. He is not high-brow, he doesn’t try and impress you with his lyrical virtuosity, though his lyrics can be very well-written indeed. Over a long thirty year career, he has not just cranked out rock anthems for the sake of being popular. He believes that there is more to life than just being a superstar. He believes that in this day and age of instant (and often unworthy) fame and celebrity, good music can still make a difference and sometimes, save your soul. He is still willing to take chances and risks with his music, still willing to go out on a limb. He is a man with intelligence, character, grit and a conscience, and cares deeply about the world around him.

How many people in the entertainment business can we say that about?