TEA BY THE ROAD IN INDIA: A REFLEXION ON SOCIO-ECONOMIC ANTHROPOLOGY

  

TEA BY THE ROAD IN INDIA: A REFLEXION ON SOCIO-ECONOMIC ANTHROPOLOGY

Last month I was in India. From Patna We went to Ara, a small district town, by car. The distance by road is about 60 km; part of the road is in a very bad state with big pot holes.  My driver said it would take about two hours provided there were no problems at Koilwar Bridge. The double-decker bridge on the river Sone is just over a kilometer long. This

magnificent, rickety bridge was built in 1868 and is still a vital link for the National highway and Indian Railway. It frequently gets clogged by the shear density of the traffic and not infrequently by the motorcades of a politician or a senior bureaucrat.  When we reached there, traffic was at a standstill. The driver found out that we would have to wait for about an hour. “Not bad” he appended cheerfully.

We decided to have tea from the roadside tea stall nearby. Not that I really needed a cup of tea but just felt the nostalgia of having garam chai (hot tea) from a roadside café. The tea is made here in a very large pan containing a mixture of milk, water, tea granules and sugar. After the first boil it is left

constantly simmering on a coal fire.  It used to be served in kiln fired earthen tumblers called kulhar or chukkar.  The pot imparted a sort of smoky, earthy test to the tea.

 Today, instead of chukkars the driver brought some plastic cups. He asked me to hold one while he poured the tea from a jug. As more of tea poured in the cup, it got progressively heavier and I had to grip it with more force to prevent it from slipping through my fingers. The plastic cup started collapsing under the squeeze of my fingers and thumb.  And suddenly the hot milky tea almost spilled over. I had to let it slip through to avoid burning my hand.  It fell on the ground with a thump.

I felt irritated and ashamed at the same time. The driver poured another cup, this time holding the cup himself and gave it to me. I held it gingerly, finely tuning the squeeze force of my fingers, just enough to counteract the pull of gravity and a bit less than the force required to collapse the thin wall of the plastic cup. It was a difficult task; I did not enjoy the tea that much. Not the same taste.

Whoever initially decided to serve boiling hot tea in a flimsy, incredibly thin walled plastic cups must have a sadistic temperament. The manufacturer also must be incredibly greedy. I am sure there are health and safety laws in India and the businessman must have agreed to them to get a license!

“Anyway why did we change from the chukkars?”

 “The plastic cup costs much less” said the driver. The whole cottage industry associated with earthenware has died over the last few years for the lack of demand except in a few designer shops and restaurants in large cities.

How did a common, everyday utensil changed into an expensive object of luxury? Answer seems perplexing but is very simple. It is a result of the economics of greed and mass consumerism. The ever onward march of socio-economic progress!

WHY BOLOGNA?

 This year, summer was good in England, not too hot, not too cold, sunny days outnumbering the cloudy ones. It did not feel sensible to go abroad and miss the expansive greenery and the exuberant kaleidoscopic blossom  here. But as the autumn started putting its foot in the door, it became suddenly cold and grey. My desire to catch a few more days of sunshine and warmth became intense like an alcoholic at the closing down time at the pub.  It seemed right to get away from our routine and familiar surroundings for a few days and charge our batteries in preparation to the coming winter.

Choosing the place to go was difficult when there were so many places to choose from. Bibha and I discussed for a few days to decide what we wanted. “Discussed” is a much milder version of what we actually did!

Anyway, we finally decided on what we wanted.

·       Short holiday, 4 to 7 days…. Bibha

·       Away from well-trodden tourist spots…. Prem

·       Warm but not too hot….Bibha

·       Not too far: within 3 hrs flight at most… Prem

·       Relaxing with sightseeing i.e. not a beach holiday but not a big city either... Bibha

·       Served by British airways so that we can use our Avios points (Air Miles).... Prem

It seemed like asking for too much.  But, thanks to the internet and a numerous cups of coffee I came up with two places, Porto and Bologna. Bologna felt much more exiting and less touristy. One other factor was in its favour; availability of good vegetarian food. I am a carnivore but Bibha is an unadulterated vegetarian. Therefore, Bologna it was.

It did not disappoint us. This little town is gem of a city. Bologna is described as la rossa, la grassa, la dotta : the red, the fat and the learned. 

The red, because most of the buildings have typical red tiled roofs and also  for the city's connection with leftist politics. 

The fat, because the city is culinary capital of Italy. The most famous Italian sauce that comes from Bologna is Ragu sauce. It is the life of Spaghetti Bolognese. Bologna is also famous for its meat filled Tortellini and vegetarian Tortelloni.

  

 The learned, because it has the oldest university in the western world, established in 1028 and still running. One of the famous names from Bologna University is Luigi Galvani (1737-1798), every doctor in the world who has ever dissected a frog knows his name.

 The weather in late October is great 16⁰C to 23⁰C, mostly sunny.

 What more does one want from a city!

We went by train to two nearby cities Parma and Modena. From the former come Parmesan cheese and Parma Ham. From the later comes Balsamic Vinegar. Modena is also the home town of Lamborghini and Ferrari

 One of the peculiarity of Bologna is its  porticos. These are 

  veranda like structures running all over the town almost 40 kilometres all together. The longest continuous one is 3.5 kilometres long! They were built in middle ages to enable students and their teachers to walk unhindered everywhere in all weathers. We just walked in the porticos for hours on end. In different areas, they have different architecture and different building materials. They are so fascinating.

We would love to go there again but there are so many other places where we have not yet been!

TIME: KAAL VS RITU (PERCEPTION VS REALITY)

Yesterday we went to the town centre by bus. When we reached near the bus stand our bus was just leaving. Next bus came in 3 minutes as scheduled. But it seemed that we waited much longer.  When coming back we reached the bus station early. The bus was due in 30 minutes. Thought of going to Starbuck for coffee but it seemed that there was not enough time. We just waited at the bus station. It came on time and we reached back home.

Strangely, 3 minutes wait seemed much longer at our local bus stand whereas it certainly seemed less than half an hour while waiting at the city centre. Was it because there was much more activity at the main bus station to keep our attention diverted compared to our local road side bus stand or was it that we were more eager to go to town centre than coming come?

But this phenomenon of stretching or shortening of subjective time does happen even for carefully controlled tasks. A short duration task is overestimated and a long duration task is underestimated. If someone asks you how long you took to shave this morning, most likely you will overestimate the duration. On the other hand, if you are asked how long you took to mow the lawn, you are more likely to underestimate the duration.  It does seem strange but our subjective time does stretch or constrict with duration of the tasks. 

Karl von Vierordt (1868) was first to put forward this observation academically.  It is known as Vierordt's law. When asked after finishing a task, people always overestimate the time it took, if the task was of a short duration where as they underestimated if it took longer.  Vierordt’s work was with how people remembered the duration after they had performed the tasks. It was dismissed as an error of memory for a long time but recent studies have shown that it happens even contemporaneously while one is actually performing the task and also in predicting how long a task would take.

This manipulation of time by our brain is quite common. We always overestimate the duration of red light at the road crossings and underestimate the time it takes us to get ready in the morning. So when we reach late at the office we blame the traffic not our getting up late!

Even if we do not look at a clock, we do have a sense of time: an inherent internal clock in our brain. Depending on whether it is running slow or fast our sense of time gets distorted. It has been shown to tick faster when the energy consumption of the brain is higher and vice versa.

When you see or hear something unexpected the brain tries to process it in more detail and that needs more energy. Our internal chronometer ticks faster and the subjective time is stretched.

When you see a bold coloured or fast moving picture with loud music in a commercial, it seems that the advertisement lasted much longer than it really was.  With television time costing a fortune, advertising agencies are getting more adapt at exploiting our internal clock.  

Just the opposite is used by the customer call-centres, they put soothing low beat classical music while you are waiting. They hope that customers would feel that waiting time was shorter than what it actually was. The same technique is employed in the waiting lounges at railway stations and airports.

We all have a few friends who always turn-up late. Now we know they are not intentionally adhering to Indian Standard Time but their internal chronometer is set at a slower pace!

The concept of duality of time is of course not new. Ancient Indian philosophers called it Kaal and Ritu. The former is abstract, universal, running always at the same pace. The later is subjective, variable and perceivable. Kaal is reality; Ritu is manifest or percept.

OUR FIRST LAW OF FALLING MANGOES: A TINY GLIMPSE OF MY SELF

OUR FIRST LAW OF FALLING MANGOES: A TINY GLIMPSE OF MY SELF

I was having a cup of tea in the garden yesterday. Nice sunny morning. Just a few white clouds to accentuate the depth of the blueness of the sky. I pulled my chair under the shade of the apple tree. I looked up the tree and right at that moment an apple fell down on the grass below. I have seen apples fallen on the grass but I never saw the act of actual spontaneous falling  before.  Witnessing the exact moment when the apple was falling lifted my spirits and put me into a happy mood.

 I remembered a summer afternoon of my childhood. We spent our summer vacations in the village at our ancestral home. We were part of a big joint family with a number of cousins growing together. My uncle, the eldest brother of my father, was the head of the family. He lived permanently there and looked after the house and the fields. On an afternoon, he took   two of us children to our mango orchard. It had about 15 to 20 mango trees of different kinds and a few other trees.

 The fruits had started to ripen. Uncle warned us not to climb on the trees and not to throw stones on the fruits. 

 "How are we then going to get any mango?"

"You are only to collect the ripened mangoes that fell from the trees by themselves." 

My cousin and I sat there, in the middle of the orchard, rapidly darting our glances in all directions. We ran as soon as a fruit started its descent from the tree. I usually spotted it first but he ran faster. We both usually reached near the fallen fruit together and a small skirmish followed interrupting the sleep of our uncle.

After a few episodes of interrupted sleep, he made a law. We both were to sit together back to back and each had the half of the orchard under surveillance. Any mango falling in your part of orchard was yours. Any one going in other’s territory will get a slap.  This was our first law of the falling mangoes!  

It seemed the best solution for a while but soon we started our skirmishes at the disputed common border.  Uncle’s sleep again disrupted and this time we got a few slaps each irrespective of who was at fault.  It may have seemed unjust at that time but now and here, it brought up a smile to my lips.

The intriguing fact is that I felt happy on seeing the falling apple before I recalled this long forgotten mango rule.  It seems childhood memories do have a profound effect on our state of being. 

I can now appreciate much better the story “Oil” written by the Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabatay. I read this just a week ago. The protagonist says, “To this day, I have been extremely sensitive to the smell of oil. I simply believed I hated the smell. But when I heard my aunt's explanation, I realized, for the first time, that my own grief was contained within the story.” 

The childhood memories do form a considerable part of our autobiographical memory, which greatly influences the character of our self. Childhood memory or any long-term memory develops huge holes but the brain makes a coherent narrative that we call Autobiographical memory.  Autobiographical memory is what we recollect and can relive of personally experienced past events rather than actually or exactly what happened.

 I am not sure that the incident in the mango orchard happened exactly the way I remember but this is how it came to me and that is how it will stay. I am glad to be acquainted with a bit of my Self.  

PRESERVING OUR PRESENT: SANS CEREBRE SNAPPING

  

Last month we were in China for about two weeks. We visited Beijing, Xian, Guilin and Shanghai. Tons of sightseeing, some amazing and awe-inspiringly beautiful scenes and some not so good. We met many people, some became good friends.

We took a lot of photos. I really mean lots. I had a 32 gigabyte memory card in the camera which we nearly filled with about 4000 photos, 400 a day. I used my phone camera as well, adding another 200 photos. It seems we spent more time seeing the country through the lens of the camera than without. It was not just us, everyone was doing the same.

Not so Forbidden now

In past before the days of digital camera We were constrained with number of snaps available on the film loaded in the camera and the cost of developing the photos. We used to take time, first in deciding whether something is worth photographing and then in composing the picture as best as possible. Now, because it is virtually free, we just take snaps of anything and everything. Instead of spending time in composing, we just rely on taking multiple snaps and hoping one of them would be good.

With the ubiquitousness of the smart phones and digital cameras, this decade has become the most photographed period in human history. Our children and grandchildren have more photographs in a year than what a box office Hollywood star had in his or her entire lifetime before the age of digital cameras.

Preserving memory of Mao and Me

Why do we take photos? I think it is because we earnestly wish to pause the present. Time is relentlessly moving; present immediately becomes past and moves away in oblivion. We try to overcome our fear of getting lost in this great void by trying to preserve the present. Our memory is the earliest tool we developed to do this. The digital camera is just an extension of our memory. We hope that our present will thus be here when we are a thing of past. You might ask “How long for?” The answer is literally and truly in the clouds.

That is where I back up my photos, on the cloud storage. It will be there even if I lose my desktop. One can see the photos anywhere, on any computer, anytime as long as there is an internet connection. At the moment Google and Microsoft provide free and unlimited storage for the pictures but I am sure soon they will say “enough is enough”. Until then we continue our happy sans cerebre snapping.

SAND FROM SAHARA AND MANGOES FROM INDIA

In the last week of March, I was in London to attend the 1^st birthday of my granddaughter Evani. I stayed overnight. Following day, I came to my car, parked outside for the drive back to Manchester. To my surprise, the car looked as if someone has painted it reddish brown overnight, and not just the body but the glasswork too. I just had my car cleaned two days before!

At a closer look, dried mud drops that were almost confluent covered the whole exterior. I cleaned all the glass. The patches rubbed off quite easily and fell down like fine reddish yellow paprika powder.

Soon it was on all the news channels, the red dust was actually sand from Sahara desert in  Africa more than 2,000 miles away. It was a combination of strong winds and very high sand storms in Sahara that carried the fine sand particles to upper atmosphere. The global winds carried it towards Britain. It was my luck that it rained on that particular night when this loaded wind reached London. The car wash businesses made a killing that week. The sand particles were in such a high concentration that it caused respiratory distress to many people.

This was nature’s way of reminding us that we all share the same planet. You cannot ignore an event just because it is happening in a remote place 2000 miles away.

I was reminded of this again just after two weeks when we celebrated “Satuaan” on 14th of April. Most of the festivals in India are closely integrated with the particular foods that are consumed on that day. Satuaan is no exception. We eat Sattoo that day which is produced by grinding roasted desi chickpeas. It is a festival to celebrate the harvesting of Chickpeas crop in our part of India. You do not need to cook sattoo, just add water. For a savoury dish put some salt and for a dessert add sugar and ghee (clarified butter). 

Traditionally the salty Sattoo is eaten with crushed raw mango mixed with salt, chilli and coriander. The mangoes have just appeared on the trees at this time of the year.

Bibha made Sattoo by grinding the roasted chickpeas and I brought raw mango from the local Indian grocer.  The mangoes were much cheaper than previous years. Mr Patel the grocer told me that this was due to a bumper crop in North India due to a prolonged winter.

So, a drawn out winter in India, 5000 miles from here has helped me to offset the feel bad factor of the economic depression. Sharing the same planet has its advantages too!

Well, whether it makes us happy or sad, we cannot ignore the fact that our destiny is tied to the whole planet not just a bit of it. We better learn to take care of it as a whole rather than just our tiny corner. “Vasudhaiva kutumbakam” is not just a philosophical concept, we need to practice it too. Our leaders have to rise above the political and tribal boundaries that we have created over the millennia to achieve that global perspective. 

THE TREE AND I: A LOVE AND HATE RELATION

There is a big oak tree in front of our house about fifty steps from my front door. One of my neighbours, who used to be a professional gardener, thinks that the tree is about 80 yrs old. In oak-speak, it has just become an adult. In summer, it looks majestic with its large dark green crown. It looks happy and generous, lets the birds, squirrels, and sometimes cats play on and around it.

In winter, the branches are bereft of leaves and the tree looks shy and awkward in its nakedness.  It looks a bit ugly but I do thank it for being considerate and letting the sun pass through and reach my windows. If it remained fully covered with leaves our house would be very cold in winter in deed.  I would certainly be very cross with it. 

In autumn when the leaves turn yellow and golden, it looks beautiful but soon the leaves start falling and it becomes a hard job keeping the lawn and the driveway clean. It makes so much mess that I do feel like getting it cut down.

 Just on the heels of the thought of cutting this tree down comes a pang of guilt and shame. This tree was here long before my house was built and surely, it intends to be here long after this house and I are gone. What right have I got to kill it? We think that the tree is in our land so it belongs to us. This is only true in a system made by us humans, in our courts and in our land registry offices. The trees have not signed a treaty to abide by this set of rules. In fact we have not even bothered to ask them. What a colonial arrogance of gigantic proportion!

Surely, we both the tree and I are governed by the laws of Nature. As we both depend for our very existence on the Nature, we cannot but abide by its directives and edicts. And who do you think the Nature will favour: me or this oak tree? The tree has been here longer, does more to help the wider and local community and environment and is certainly much more considerate than me.

I am hoping that Nature is not like many human governing systems that have a revengeful and vindictive thought-police because at some  moments when the sky is cloudy and gloomy I still think ( just think) of getting rid of it to get some more light. 

HONESTY: THE MISSING LINK IN PROTAGORAS PARADOX

Protagoras was a philosopher and teacher in ancient Greece in mid 5^th century BC. A young man named Euathlus came to him to learn law and rhetoric. He entered into an arrangement with Protagoras that he would pay his fees once he won his first legal case. Protagoras normally took his fees before starting the course. However seeing how keen and bright Euathlus was, he agreed to it.

After the completion of the course, Euathlus started his practice but did not show much eagerness to win a case. Thus, he avoided paying the fees to Protagoras for many years. Protagoras decided to sue Euathlus. He argued, “If I win the case, I will get my money from you. If I lose, you will still have to pay as you have won your first case.”

Euathlus was cleaver. He countered, “If I lose, then I do not have to pay you as stipulated in our original contract. However, if I win then by the judgement of the court I am not obliged to pay you.”

This is Protagoras Paradox. One can lose but still win! In addition, it seems true for both the plaintiff and the defendant.

The problem arose here because none of them was being honest. They were using morality and legality as separate attributes and using one or the other, as it suited them. When the court ordered in their favour, they forgot their moral contract and when courts ruled against them, they clung to the moral contract conveniently ignoring the legal judgement.

In a democracy, the people have to hand over an immense power and control to elected individuals. For democracy to succeed and flourish these elected representatives have to be trustworthy and that they will have to be honest. Honesty does not mean mere compliance with the legal framework of the land or moral edicts. 

Many a leaders now, when caught in a scandal, justify their action on the ground of one or the other. They proclaim themselves right on legal or moral grounds as it suits them.

The daughter in law of a defense minister of a country was paid a certain sum of money from an arms manufacturer who signed a huge contract to supply armoured tanks. A major national newspaper published this accusing the minister for bribery and calling him dishonest. The minister said that neither he nor his daughter in law has done anything illegal. The manufacturer has just paid her for the liaison services that she had provided. He sued the newspaper and won a large compensation. 

Even though he was morally wrong, he justified himself legally. The paper was legally wrong but justified itself morally. This is Protagoras Paradox. It would not have existed if both the parties were honest.

In public life or even in personal life, whom will you trust implicitly: a person who does not do anything illegal but morally his dealings may sometimes be dubious or a person who has high moral standards but may not always be on the right side of the law?

If you look closely, you will find both types of people in your personal and public spheres. I believe people from either camp can be trustworthy and honest. Honesty does not depend on whether one is able to justify his actions legally or morally or even both. I will trust a person implicitly who tells the truth, the truth that he himself believes to be true. Moral and legal rationalization will come into play later when judging the consequence of his action. 

“In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.” — Immanuel Kant, (1724-1804) 

                                                                                                 

"Ah, if only the world was perfect!" -- Me

FENCE : NATURE = GREED : BENEVOLENCE

On Christmas Eve, we were watching a thriller on the TV in the lounge and suddenly there was a big thud. It gave us all a start. I looked out and to my horror; five panels of our fence had fallen on the driveway. It was very windy and raining. We could not go out and do anything so we continued to watch the film. As soon as the film finished we went out and tried to lift the panels but we could not. The panels are heavy and they had become heavier with thorough soaking by the continuous rain for the last few days.  With Christmas and New Year, I do not think we can get any workman to fix these in a hurry.

This fence is not really for any protection, no one is trying to encroach on our garden or stealing our plants but still not having a fence made us very uneasy. May be it is just because we had become used to seeing the fence all the time since we moved in this house some 20 years ago  and it had become a habit, a part of the norm.

Alternatively, maybe, it is something deeper in our psyche.

The desire to put a fence around ones' property is so universal. Not just the humans but also many of the animals do it.  We all carve out our little spaces so as not to feel insignificant in this vast Universe.  We try our best to individualise our surroundings, mark little territories to impose our pathetic sense of possessiveness and self-importance.

Nature is benevolent and does not approve of this. It tries to remove the barriers and make everything available to and for all. The fences fall, the houses collapse, the towns turn into jungles and the countries vanish from the map but we still jealously erect our fences and try to keep a bit of this vast universe just for ourselves. We grab bigger and bigger spaces and to protect it erect higher and higher fences.

If everyone had their fare share of space, based on need rather than greed (innate desire to possess more) there will be no need for fences. However, in a capitalist society with its high emphasis on the individual’s material achievements, it is a futile dream. Inequality in terms of material possessions does produce envy and societal discordance. The fences are here to stay.

 I have to go now and look in the Yellow Pages to find a builder.

Note: With the help of our guests who came to celebrate Christmas with us, we managed to lift the fence and temporarily fix it, thus averting the need to get a builder immediately.

However banal it may seem but the feeling that "my space is secure" is back. Now I can enjoy the rest of the festivities. Happy New Year to you all too.