Our political aspirants are able to count their calories. No such luck for us.
WRITING AN editorial is no lean, sorry, mean business. But, at least, while we furiously key in our day's out-' put, we are free to chomp on oily vadas and sinful double-cheese pizzas. Thank God for such small mercies, after all, we work to eat, isn't it? But such high-calorie power meals are not for everybody: look at our hardworking notes for example. In the heat and dust of Indian elections, trying to keep as fit as a fiddle is an onerous task. So to increase their endurance levels, many of our netas regularly workout in gyms and play sports. And, munch on very little every now and again.
Take for example, Tamil Nadu Chief MinisteF M. Karunanidhi who has a strict regimen: he practises yoga regularly and the grand old man of politics has turned vegetarian. Our ex Health Minister, A. Ramadoss, who laun ched a stinging campaign against drinking and smoking, is a mean hand at badminton. Political lore has it that former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi used to only have cucumber sandwiches and nimbu pani when he was on pre-election yatras. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Leader of Opposition L.K. Advani also are not known for their fondness for calories.
What's secret of their supreme control over their diets? How do most of them manage to keep their urge to binge at bay while' people like us fall prey at every possible chance? One reason, of course, is the need to keep fit and sprightly: they can't afford to be caught with dipping energy levels at an election rally or while meeting people. But the real reason, a secret, we suspect is this: they want the power-dessert, while we stuff ourselves with the plain old dessert.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
The IPL is in Africa. Really?
Leave the stadium. Travel to black South Africa. There is much an Indian can learn.
'AH, INDIANS," said the woman, raising her eye brows and giving me a sly smile. "So we'll charge you 8,000 rand. It's only 6,000, but you'll get me to give it for much cheaper, eh?
The woman was white, South African, and I was startled. Being cheap is a stereotype we apply freely to certain Indian communities behind closed doors. I always knew these jokes applied to them, not me. Now, we were all the same to this woman from Johannesburg.
Can't you see I'm not them? Stereotypes flower swiftly in the fertile ground of irritation. You think I'm cheap? I think you're racist.
I didn't say that, of course. I was too startled. I smiled weakly, and I remember muttering something like, "Ah. Haha."
The other reason I couldn't have said anything, even if I had a strong repartee ready - not my strength, I always think of comebacks after I've been insulted - was that my friend of 17 years and host in Johannes burg was with me.
He is a Zulu, a black South African who grew up in Soweto, a township that came to symbol is the cruelties of extreme racial Samar Halarnkar injustice. As a youth, my friend had firebombed his high school, and he knew what racism really was. It's not something he likes to talk about now, and it's not something he narrates to his son and daughter.
But when he makes the trip back to Soweto - the hub of segregation, where Africans first said, 'enough', where his brothers still live in a cramped, little house he makes sure his children know of the days when kids their age were shot by police in the street, for, well, protesting white rule.
My friend, too, smiled at the woman and said nothing. This, after all, was the new South Africa, the world's rain bow nation, and everyone tries, however hard it may be, to get along. After all, the white woman meant no insult. She just didn't know better.
As the Indian Premier League (IPL) unfolds in South Africa, it's hard to avoid the feeling that we are really not so different from that woman.
To us, South Africa is an exotic tourist destination where the cricket grounds are fantastic, where there are many 'Indians' who will always cheer for India, where Indian food is freely available, where Cape Town is Eu rope and Durban, India. And Africa?
Well, there do seem to be a few black people. In our lighter moments we see them as exotic Africans in leopard skins with drums, brought in to entertain us. In our darker moments, we see them as the dangerous part of the South African experience.
For the record, South Africa is 80 per cent black, 9.1 per cent white, 8.9 per cent colored and just 2.5 per cent Indian and Chinese combined.
Indian travel pieces never reflect this demographic, urging those of us headed for the IPL to take the cable car to Table Mountain (hiking isn't for us), sipping wine in white owned wineries and. driving the Garden Route.
We forget South Africa's dark past and challenging present, something that should particularly inspire us here in turbulent India, where it's taken seven years and a Supreme Court order last week to begin the process of justice in Gujarat.
Last week I read another IPL travel story that referred to South Africa's 'reclusive' past. I would hide too if I did not allow 80 per cent of my country to vote and forcibly, trans location millions of them to dusty, distant 'homelands'.
If you are going to South Africa for the IPL, please do enjoy the wine, the Indian food, Gandhi's statue, the cheer leaders and Cape Town.
But do take the time to explore black South Africa. Swing by Soweto, now a tourist hotspot. There are B&Bs (bed-and breakfasts) for tourists, mainly African American, who want to experience history for a night or two. If you're uneasy about staying there, try the Holiday Inn perched above the Soweto Freedom Square, where thousands gathered to sign South Africa's freedom charter.
As you drive further into the 10-15 km long township, you will find the houses of Nelson Mandela and Arch· bishop Desmond Tutu, and you will also find the Hector Pieterson museum.
Hector was a 13-year-old boy who was shot dead on July 13, 1976, when the students of Soweto threw their textbooks out of the windows and danced to freedom songs to protest the use of Afrikaans as a teaching medium. The museum actually has some original placards from the march. Says one: "We're not fighting, don't shoot." But the police did shoot. Hector was one of the 200 Plus victims of the July 13 massacre.
Elsewhere in Johannesburg, you cannot but miss the chilling apartheid museum. Apart from unimaginable atrocities, you will learn of the Reconciliation Commission, how South Africa healed its wounds by getting for me racists to talk about their crimes, how it got former victims to listen.
Please visit. It would inspire us to deal with the many ghosts we cannot confront.
'AH, INDIANS," said the woman, raising her eye brows and giving me a sly smile. "So we'll charge you 8,000 rand. It's only 6,000, but you'll get me to give it for much cheaper, eh?
The woman was white, South African, and I was startled. Being cheap is a stereotype we apply freely to certain Indian communities behind closed doors. I always knew these jokes applied to them, not me. Now, we were all the same to this woman from Johannesburg.
Can't you see I'm not them? Stereotypes flower swiftly in the fertile ground of irritation. You think I'm cheap? I think you're racist.
I didn't say that, of course. I was too startled. I smiled weakly, and I remember muttering something like, "Ah. Haha."
The other reason I couldn't have said anything, even if I had a strong repartee ready - not my strength, I always think of comebacks after I've been insulted - was that my friend of 17 years and host in Johannes burg was with me.
He is a Zulu, a black South African who grew up in Soweto, a township that came to symbol is the cruelties of extreme racial Samar Halarnkar injustice. As a youth, my friend had firebombed his high school, and he knew what racism really was. It's not something he likes to talk about now, and it's not something he narrates to his son and daughter.
But when he makes the trip back to Soweto - the hub of segregation, where Africans first said, 'enough', where his brothers still live in a cramped, little house he makes sure his children know of the days when kids their age were shot by police in the street, for, well, protesting white rule.
My friend, too, smiled at the woman and said nothing. This, after all, was the new South Africa, the world's rain bow nation, and everyone tries, however hard it may be, to get along. After all, the white woman meant no insult. She just didn't know better.
As the Indian Premier League (IPL) unfolds in South Africa, it's hard to avoid the feeling that we are really not so different from that woman.
To us, South Africa is an exotic tourist destination where the cricket grounds are fantastic, where there are many 'Indians' who will always cheer for India, where Indian food is freely available, where Cape Town is Eu rope and Durban, India. And Africa?
Well, there do seem to be a few black people. In our lighter moments we see them as exotic Africans in leopard skins with drums, brought in to entertain us. In our darker moments, we see them as the dangerous part of the South African experience.
For the record, South Africa is 80 per cent black, 9.1 per cent white, 8.9 per cent colored and just 2.5 per cent Indian and Chinese combined.
Indian travel pieces never reflect this demographic, urging those of us headed for the IPL to take the cable car to Table Mountain (hiking isn't for us), sipping wine in white owned wineries and. driving the Garden Route.
We forget South Africa's dark past and challenging present, something that should particularly inspire us here in turbulent India, where it's taken seven years and a Supreme Court order last week to begin the process of justice in Gujarat.
Last week I read another IPL travel story that referred to South Africa's 'reclusive' past. I would hide too if I did not allow 80 per cent of my country to vote and forcibly, trans location millions of them to dusty, distant 'homelands'.
If you are going to South Africa for the IPL, please do enjoy the wine, the Indian food, Gandhi's statue, the cheer leaders and Cape Town.
But do take the time to explore black South Africa. Swing by Soweto, now a tourist hotspot. There are B&Bs (bed-and breakfasts) for tourists, mainly African American, who want to experience history for a night or two. If you're uneasy about staying there, try the Holiday Inn perched above the Soweto Freedom Square, where thousands gathered to sign South Africa's freedom charter.
As you drive further into the 10-15 km long township, you will find the houses of Nelson Mandela and Arch· bishop Desmond Tutu, and you will also find the Hector Pieterson museum.
Hector was a 13-year-old boy who was shot dead on July 13, 1976, when the students of Soweto threw their textbooks out of the windows and danced to freedom songs to protest the use of Afrikaans as a teaching medium. The museum actually has some original placards from the march. Says one: "We're not fighting, don't shoot." But the police did shoot. Hector was one of the 200 Plus victims of the July 13 massacre.
Elsewhere in Johannesburg, you cannot but miss the chilling apartheid museum. Apart from unimaginable atrocities, you will learn of the Reconciliation Commission, how South Africa healed its wounds by getting for me racists to talk about their crimes, how it got former victims to listen.
Please visit. It would inspire us to deal with the many ghosts we cannot confront.
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