The laughing broom

Thou Hast Made Me Endless- Part VII

From RAJAT DAS GUPTA, Calcutta

[The following poem is the preamble of the book Prahasini (Satirist) in Bengali by the Rabindranath Tagore written in 1939, two years before his death at the age of 80. While the poet endowed us with his superb literature, music and philosophical thoughts, albeit being a personality of highest dignity, he could easily come down to the level of lesser mortals around him and amuse them with the sparks of his brilliant wits whenever occasion would arise. The Poet was a guest of Mrs. Maitrayee Devi at Mangpu (a hill station near Darjeeling) a few times towards the end of his life. She collected all the wonderful dialogues of the poet as she could in her book ‘Mangpute Rabindranath’ (Rabindranath in Mangpu) translated by herself from the original Bengali into English with the title ‘Tagore by Fireside’. As the book records, the Poet was amazingly mobile between the highest aesthetic/philosophical thoughts and the lighter humor.]

The laughing broom of the comet at times
Sweeps fun down the Universe to our climes
Speeding past the bewildered Sun’s dominion
With flashes of wit to lose into oblivion
Takes leave the Universal jester.
Along my life’s orbit, I know not why
The crazy comets at times do pass by.
Rushing in the void the tail of rigmarole
With momentary frolic without a goal
Shaking up the hood of the somber.
At times the world relaxes
Either in hilarity or amuses
Glitters laughter brilliant,
Yet not lasting, in an instant
Blots out its trail;
The night in meditation on its dark seat
Scatters meteors in its freakish beat
Countless sparks of wit it does fling
That booty beyond reckoning –
Discharges in a few hours’ frail.
In this Universe there are matters crazy
Creator’s amused affection thereon I do fancy,
Mirth and frolic, God’s gift so
Inscribed in my dignity do go;
At heart I know, it is precious;
So much senile I shall be never
To call caddish fun and laughter;
If so the old will grunt
With God I’ll merrily share its brunt;
Grant it forthwith and not turn serious.

* * * * * * * * * * ** *** *** * ** * ** ** * ** * *

Poem from the book ‘Khapchara’ (Crazy) written to the Poet’s friend Rajsekhar Bose in 1937.
[Translator’s note: Rajsekhar Bose of Tagore’s time is still popular among the Bengali literati for his spoof literature which he wrote under the nickname Parasuram (a legendary sage of ancient India, notorious for his bad temper). The poet here upholds nonsense as a valuable part of human life as a design of God. In Hindu mythology Brahma is considered as the God of Creation, having four faces. In other words, man is of myriad character encompassing humor and frolic. In this poem the Poet gives a witty explanation of the four faces of Brahma.]

If you find this senile
Shedding his pretensions awhile-
Naughty seems to be,
Blabs successfully,
Notice his childish fruition
And lapses in dedication
Towards Vedas (*), not solemn (* 4000 year old scripture)
Like the Atlantic Ocean,
His words
Tend to farce;
Brain crazy,
Mind borders lunacy,
And so you condemn
His education as vain –
Why the Creator, I’ll ask
Has four faces, for what task?
One for philosophy
To preach homily;
The other for Veda accent,
That too well meant;
The third is for poetry profuse
Our mind in emotion to muse;
Then, the last one you must know –
Is the preserve for “Ho! Ho!”. (=laughter)
Wild folly all fences to overflow;
At its push
In my brain all nonsense ambush,
And spiral up to rigmarole
Without a goal.
A disciple of that four faced
I happen to be; so has been said;
However much that may amuse you
Support documents, not a few;
Creation plays my fancy, you may see
Yet, I tilt for ramble with no less glee.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

RAJAT DAS GUPTA: Calcutta: e-mail: rajatdasgupta53@yahoo.com
rajarch@cal3.vsnl.net.in
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941 AD) the Nobel Laureate of 1913 was introduced to the West primarily through the collection of English translation of some of his poems/songs captioned as ‘Gitanjali’ (=Offering of Songs).More translations of his works followed by the poet himself and others after he had won the Nobel, including poems/songs, dramas, short stories etc. However, such efforts were sporadic and sluggish, mostly on individual initiative, which still remain so.As a result, a vast volume of the poet’s works remains un-translated while, it appears, it is an impossible proposition to translate even a substantial part of the poet’s total works to permit those, not privileged by the knowledge of Bengali language, a reasonably broad view of his myriad creations where unfathomable perceptional depth of top grade aesthetics runs through, literally true to his song “Thou hast made me endless / Such is Thy pleasure”.Notwithstanding this, an upsurge of Tagore translation took place in the last decade of the twentieth century by virtue of a good number of eminent poets/translators e.g.William Radice, Joe Winter, Ketaki Kushari Dyson, to name a few, all of whom left their valuable contribution to this oeuvre and my book THE ECLIPSED SUN is a modest addition to this. I have put stress on a few aspects of the poet’s works, particularly those in his twilight years, which seemed to me quite inadequately covered so far. The followings are presented mostly based on this book.

Tagore the wag:
Preamble: While Tagore was an embodiment of supreme dignity, spirituality and aesthetics, his mobility between that height and the mundane, including very refined practical jokes, was indeed amazing. I am tempted to refer here quite elaborately to Maitrayee Devi’s ‘Tagore By Fireside’ (a translation by herself of her original book in Bengali ‘Mangpute Rabindranath’ i.e.’Rabindranath at Mangpu’, a hill station near Darjeeling which was the workplace of her husband) based on her diary she maintained while Tagore was her guest intermittently between 1938 and 1940. Her book is a unique literature of its kind. In no other writing one gets the poet so closely as in this book, through the eyes of Maitrayee Devi. The undernoted incidents/quotes from this book will hopefully be found relevant to the following two poems.
There was no dearth of scandal mongers against Tagore which disturbed very much Maitrayee, a great devotee of the Poet, whenever she would hear all these. Once, when the Poet was in Mangpu, she heard the scandal that the poet must have champagne every evening (the fact is, the Poet was a teetotaler and also that wine & alcohol are taboos even now among the hoi polloi in India). Overcoming her inhibition one day, she reported the Poet about this baseless scandal. The Poet answered, “Ah, no less than champagne! But even after hearing all these, I find no improvement in your hospitality!” Maitrayee’s reply was- “Hell!”
Another such scandal was that the Poet never allowed those women to come near him who were not beautiful. Having this report from Maitrayee, the Poet said, “But those who speak thus, must not have seen you!’. Indignant Maitrayee said, “Such insults on appearance and age is intolerable!’. The Poet said, “But I never told you anything about your age! (It seems, on some earlier occasion he did.) I know well that you can’t be older than 45!” (At that time Maitrayee was only 25 years old). Now, thus he mollified the still indignant Maitrayee – “But why are you still cross? Just think how nice an arrangement it would have been had I been really so (i.e. averse to women not beautiful). Santiniketan would have been free of the womenfolk there!” (Only Tagore could be intrepid enough to dismiss all of them as ‘not beautiful’!)
Once again in Mangpu, Tagore conspired with a few of his associates to play a practical joke on a female relative of Maitrayee, whom all of them (including Tagore) addressed as Mashi (which in Bengali is the address for one’s mother’s sisters, but may be applied to any woman around their age. For jest it is applied to much younger girls also, as in this case). Mashi was terribly afraid of insects which were then abundant while it was monsoon time. In the morning the poet predicted the girl that it would be a bad day for her, pretending that it was his astrological reading. On persistence of the girl for more details of the impending mishap, the Poet replied that it might be of any kind which could not be precisely foreseen. Then, in the words of Maitrayee Devi:]

“Early in the evening, at about dinner-time, I was waiting to give the Poet some medicine, when I suddenly heard a piercing shriek and a loud crash of falling crockery. I ran into the dining room to find Mashi standing on a chair, thoroughly distraught, with the dining table in complete disorder, while the others, whom the Poet used to call his three lords, were eating a huge beetle with much gusto. Then it came out that the beetle was made of chocolate. The great lord had ordered it from a confectioner’s in Darjeeling, and then by previous unanimous agreement it was placed ready on Mashi’s plate neatly covered with a serviette. I came back to the Poet’s room and found him laughing to himself to his heart’s content.
‘Mashi, didn’t I predict that the day would end badly for you?’
‘Amazing! You were also in this conspiracy?’
‘Really, I am also in it, am I? That is too bad, it really has gone too far – please do not release the news to the Associated Press, for the Poet Emperor (The poet is referred in India as the Poet-Emperor, The World Poet, The Great Poet etc.) would lose his prestige altogether, specially in our Guru-ridden country! Had I sat on a high pedestal, behaving like a proper preceptor and now and then showered sermons from the high, who would have been the loser? Those who fix themselves on the top do not realize how much they lose.’
Words, that are limited by fixed meanings, seem inadequate to express how all the fine and sensitive touches of his personality revealed themselves to us, how we found him at once detached and absorbed. Even when absorbed in deep thought, engrossed in serious writing, he would return to us in a moment. He was interested in our smallest pleasures and pains, our trivial problems of our everyday life, watching over us with affection and anxiety. He did not stand like an onlooker on the bank, but came right into the middle of our life stream and felt its flow. Yet, in a moment, he would be off on a voyage to some far away region. At one moment he would talk on ordinary topics and regale everyone with humorous conversation, but the next moment he would relapse into a silence that would change the whole aspect of his personality, as if a door had closed, leaving us outside it, to gaze into a mystery we could never aspire to reach. Sometimes, in moments like this, we have felt, at least I have felt, that I should not speak at all, even if there should be something urgent to say. The tranquility that emanated from him at such times cannot be transmitted to my readers through the medium of language. Sometimes he would sit for hours without moving a hair, a hush would descend over the trees, over the dark masses of bushes; at such times all noise, even the voices inside the house, would disappear from consciousness, something would reach out to me from that absolute stillness. I longed to sit at the feet of my Guru in those tranquil hours, but it was not an easy thing at the beginning; for ordinary persons like us to be able to sit in perfect stillness for a while needs training. One’s back would start itching, or toe would go to slip, something or other would tickle somewhere, making it absolutely necessary to change position. In the beginning, I was amazed to see him sit in the same position for hours, forgetting the existence of a body. Sometimes in the early hours of dawn, I have found him sitting thus, quite unmindful of the centipedes that were crawling up and down his arm. And then I would be confronted with a problem, not knowing whether to brush them away or leave them undisturbed. I find it impossible to express not only what he was, but also how I saw him. I can take down a little of his conversation, but how I can explain that eloquence of his silence, which was a deeper expression of his personality, as I felt sitting there in an ineffable companionship, filled with a glow of well-being that baffles all description?”

Living Digitally

Shamelessness or transparency?

From The Statesman
ND Batra
Last week a flamboyant student Andrew Meyer raised a ruckus at a meeting held at the University of Florida by Senator John Kerry, who in 2004 lost the presidential election to George W Bush. During the question answer time, Meyer in a length tirade accused Senator Kerry of being a wimp for not challenging the results of the election.
“There are multiple reports of disenfranchisement among black voters on the day of the election in 2004. There was also voting machines, electronic voting machines in Volusia County Florida that counted backwards… Didn’t you want to be president?”
The campus police took the unusual step of using electronic stun gun to subdue Meyer, who went on shouting, What have I done, what have I done, let me go… Soon the video was YouTubed and has been seen millions of time.

The world is becoming a digital theater, a place of grand and cruel and some time comic gestures in cyberspace. A well-rehearsed and structured tableau of victims and perpetrators in action, for example, could be uploaded for instant global spontaneous reactions, of curses and condemnations, of revenge and retributions. Anyone who wants to make an impact would develop a digital strategy to be on the centre-stage.

Terrorists digitise gruesome killing and let loose the images in cyberspace. In 2004 American television withheld from the public how the 26-year-old American telecommunications contractor Nicholas Berg’s head was chopped off in one fell swoop. But sooner or later those who loved the macabre and heinous surfed the net and discovered on their own the digitisation of terror. And millions did, as if it were another reality show.

In times like these when we are deluged with unceasing barrage of commentaries from talking heads and pundits, digitally capsulated significant moments tell the real story with telling effects. Whether you hear the click or not, somewhere a cell camera might have taken a snap of the moment that might become a witness to an atrocity or crime; but before the image finds its way to an inquiry commission or a court, the public would have the chance to see it in cyberspace, where court gag orders don’t always work.

Shortly after the picture of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by the US troops were published in 2004, the Daily Mirror, a London tabloid, published photos of Iraqi prisoners being abused by British soldiers, which subsequently turned out to be fake. Instead of verifying the accuracy of the pictures in the light of mounting public criticism, as a responsible editor should have done, the Mirror’s editor insisted that the pictures were genuine and the newspaper’s account of the abuse was accurate. Though the editor lost his job for publishing fakery, there’s a lesson to be learned that in the Internet age the responsibilities of media gatekeepers, anchorpersons and editors, have become all the more crucial. Sometimes the camera blinks and lies: digital distortion and manipulation is easy. By the time the Daily Mirror realized its error the damage had been done. Apologies cannot erase digital memories.

Databases exist in perpetuity. In the pre-digital era too faking photo was not difficult but now cut-and-paste can be done with a few clicks and uploaded for the world to see. Imagine if that had been done during the Nazi concentration camps, Holocaust might have been a different story. The Vietnam War is enshrined in two images: A little Vietnamese girl running scared and stark naked on a highway after a napalm bomb attack; and the other, a Viet Cong prisoner being shot point blank. If instead of a digital camera, which has no negative and needs no development, an analogue camera had been used at Abu Ghraib prison, someone probably would have stopped the picture development for fear of exposure. The words wouldn’t have captured the sexual humiliation and degradation of Iraqi prisoners whose only fault was that they were captured and wouldn’t respond to military intelligence experts’ extreme interrogations. Torture of prisoners of war and others has been an ignored but universal practice, regardless of Geneva Conventions, but now that unobtrusive cell cameras can not only capture the outrage but instantly put it on into cyberspace, thanks to wireless satellite uplinks within the reach of most of us, transparency and instantaneity have become a modern condition and a diplomatic hazard.

When Abu Ghraib prison atrocities were uncovered, some practitioners of dark humor said that the torture chambers of Saddam Hussein were under a new management, the United States Management, and it’s business as usual. The liberators have become torturers, instead of spreaders of democracy in the Middle East. Probably this kind of reaction was uncalled for and excessively vituperative, but you might say, what better way to tell that Americans had lost their way in Iraq.

Republican diehards were shocked that someone allowed those sadomasochistic pictures of prisoners to be shot at all. And worst still, they bemoaned why no one ever stopped them from finding their way into the media. They forget that in the digital age, it is impossible to stop information or images from being shared.

The Internet is a shareable, collaborative and un-censorable medium. Whatever can be digitised will find its way on the Internet, where brazen shamelessness, some call it transparency, is the norm.

(ND Batra, professor of communications and diplomacy at Norwich University, is the author of Digital Freedom. He is working on a new book: This is the American Way.)

A total surveillance society

China surveillance copies USA

From the Statesman
ND Batra

George Orwell’s 1984 failed to materialise, but Keith Bradsher of the New York Times recently wrote how Wall Street has been colluding with the Chinese authorities to turn China into a total surveillance society.

Bradsher wrote: “China Security and Surveillance Technology, a fast-growing company that installs and sometimes operates surveillance systems for Chinese police agencies, jails and banks, among other customers... has just been approved for a listing on the New York Stock Exchange... the latest signs of ever-closer ties among Wall Street, surveillance companies and the Chinese government’s security apparatus.” Another company that trades its shares on Wall Street is China Security and Surveillance.

Just as China is supporting genocide in Darfur through its oil trade with Sudan, the United States is supporting the suppression of human rights by allowing Wall Street to funnel funds to “install surveillance systems providing Chinese police stations with 24-hour video feeds from nearby Internet cafes... Hedge fund money from the United States has paid for the development of not just better video cameras, but face-recognition software and even newer behaviour-recognition software designed to spot the beginnings of a street protest and notify police.”

China says something similar is happening in the United States too. Search companies like Google, Yahoo, AOL and others collect and archive huge amounts of personal data from which can be profiled the behaviour of the user.

Last year, America On Line (AOL), an Internet search company, inadvertently released from its archives millions of search queries done by more than 600,000 users during a three-month period. Thought their names were not released but it would not have been difficult to put together the profile of searcher #167845, for example, and what possessed him or her. The American people are quietly submitting to whatever brings them a feeling of assuredness. Protests against intrusiveness by the government and businesses into our personal lives have become muted.

We are slipping into a low-intensity surveillance society. Every time there is a terrorist attack, we feel that the government might be right. Chinese are no different. Online surveillance devices are being increasingly used by businesses to track users when they surf their websites. Tracking is done unobtrusively and the user can never suspect that he is being watched; nonetheless, the practice is questionable, especially when the website does not declare in its privacy policy.

But who cares in China or Tibet?

Most of us are familiar with cookies, small software programmes the advertisers put on our hard drives to track where we surf so that they can customise the most appropriate advertising message for us to achieve target marketing, reaching the right person with the right message. But a web bug can be programmed to collect whatever data is required without the knowledge of the user. When you look at your online mutual fund statement, or a pornographic site, the web bug too could be monitoring it. So when a Chinese searches for Falun Gong, Catholic Church or the Dalai Lama, do you know what might happen to him? Some American companies claim to inform their visitors about the tracking devices they use and for what purposes. Users can opt-out, but most of them don’t know whether the option is available, nor do many of them pay attention to the privacy statement.
In China, you cannot opt-out.
Surveillance technologies are not limited to the Net. Several companies are using biometrics, face recognition, radio frequency and global positioning system (GPS) technologies, to keep a watch on their properties and track suspects. Many car rental companies in the United States use GPS to keep track of their rental cars. If a car is stolen or is involved in an accident, the company would know the exact location of the car. GPS also enables them to check the speed of a rental car.
Many airports have started using digital fingerprint identification technology to conduct background checks without any protest from employees. Face recognition technology is being extensively used not only in airports but also in ballparks, banks and other business establishments. If a suspect turns up, his face is digitally matched in seconds with the image database.

The US Customs and some airports are using low-dose X-ray machines, such as Body Search, to electronically scan a person for drugs, bombs and contrabands. Body Search electronically strips a person naked and projects the image on the screen for scrutiny without the person being asked to take his/her clothes off - all in the name of security. Hundreds of air travelers, including women, are randomly subjected to electronic Body Search.

An interesting security tracking technology is the radio-frequency identification tag (RFID), which is attached to a suspect’s baggage as he checks in. The tagged baggage is automatically routed to a security area where it is screened with special cameras and sensors for explosives and other hazardous materials. Along with our baggage, we too might have to wear radio-frequency ID tags so that we can be monitored as we move from one airport to another, from country to country via GPS.

Only if we could put an RFID tag on every terrorist!

Nonetheless, the United States is an open society. One can always go to court to seek a remedy against the state as well as corporate America. What can the Chinese do? Go to the Olympics, of course. Or McDonalds.

(ND Batra teaches communications and diplomacy at Norwich University and is the author of Digital Freedom. He is working on a new book, This is the American Way.)

Sweet is the Earth's Dust

Thou Hast Made Me Endless- Part VI


Poem: “Madhumay Prithibir Dhuli” (Sweet is the Earth’s dust) of the book AROGYA (=Recovery) written on the 14th Feb. 1941, the year of the Poet’s death at the age of 80.

[Translator's (Rajat Das Gupta) note: In his various essays marvelously interpreting the perceptions of Upanishada (the oldest scripture written/compiled by the sages in India 4000 years back), Tagore illustrates us that everything from the dust of this earth to the stars and planets of the cosmos are imbued with Anandam (Divine Joy) and Amritam (Immortality). This poem conveys us the same message.]

Sweet is the Heaven; so the Earth’s dirt
That I’ve lifted close to my heart –
As my supreme hymn
Life’s ultimate to deem.
All gifts of Truth day by day
That I had, have no decay;
So at Death’s threshold
Resounds the Mantra (*) age old (*= religious hymns)
With the joy of eternity
Resplendent, defying all losses petty.
With Earth’s last touch
For final flight as I’ll perch –
“My forehead I’ve anointed” – I’ll declare
“With Your dust; seen the eternal glare
Beyond the havoc of the tempest
Deluding the Immortal’s joyous form truest;
In Your dust that is manifest –
So on it my head I rest.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Poem No: 18 of the book Sesh Saptak, written in 1935.

[Translator’s note: The following quote from the Poet’s essay Dukkha (Sorrow) from his book Santiniketan will explain well the implication of this poem – “The hymns of our prayer include – ‘I bow down to the Euphoric and the Benevolent’. But, our homage is to the former and not always to the latter. Because, the Benevolent is not necessarily euphoric always, but also grievous. We accept only happiness as His gift and count our sorrows as the result of ill luck.

So, we, the grief fearing , like to hide in various shells of our creation to save ourselves. But, the result of it is, we deprive ourselves of a full exposure to Truth.

If we always coddle our mind from the blows of grief, our living on this earth is then incomplete which never nourishes our health and vigour. The man who on this earth never had a grief, has not received his total dues from God, and his subsistence for his journey remains deficient.

Our dues of grief is not necessarily justified always. We shall have to accept also whatever we call wrong or unjustified. Man cannot develop himself on a refined calculation of his legitimate due and even if one can, it is not to one’s ultimate welfare. We should be capable of gracefully accepting even wrongs and injustices.

But, are all the advantages that come to us are calculated ones? There are occasions when we get more than the price we pay. At that time we don’t think that we don’t deserve it, but usurp the undue advantage without hesitation. Only in case of sorrow we try to balance justice and injustice. The fact is, our recompense is never based on refined calculation.

Process of life is based on acceptance and rejection; centripetal and centrifugal, both the instincts are equally glorious to us. Our faculties of intellect, aesthetics, welfare and all that comprise human superiority, go on the maxim that we should accept as well as sacrifice…..Those who accept all injustices, pain and grief without hesitation, not only strengthen themselves but also become serene, fully exposed to the abrasions of this world, all unchaste in them wear out.

So, be prepared heart and soul – bow down to Him who causes sorrow; only then you will gain health and strength; that will mean bowing down to Shiva (Lord of Destruction) and the neo-Shiva.”

To strive for such a mental male up is the way out of the distress which we tend to cherish when we feel that we have been wronged.]

Do we desire our grief to terminate?
Is it our pride or hate?
But our pain most intense
Carries not Truth’s permanence –
Such a confession true though,
Only hurts our Grief’s ego.

Life scatters all its hoard
On Time’s charioting road
Under its ceaseless wheel
Faint out the severest woe or weal.
Death of our dearest,
Leaves only demand earnest –
“Forget me not” –
While passing into naught.

But countless are demands of life
Which put our minds in strife;
Amidst the present day babel,
That past appeal rings not a bell.

Though the words might remain,
Gone is the pain,
Yet, the pride of Grief
Denies Life its leave –
In its impertinent ardour
Bolts door to Life’s messenger;
In the sprouting soil of Life
Distressed Grief in its hype
To precinct the benefice will assert
To coddle its beloved desert.

With Death’s hoard piled,
His suit against Time filed;
Only to compound frustration
In this futile petition;
Burial in self dug sepulcher
Becomes its intense desire.

All ego is serfdom;
Grief’s is a hard one;
Society, wealth and fame,
In love of these is addiction same,
But it is deepest indeed
In our grief morbid.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Poem No: 10 of the book Prantik (At The Border) written on 8 December 1937

[Translator’s note: Following quote from the Poet’s book Santiniketan well explains the underlying philosophy of this poem –

“One day gods were terror to man. To please whom for a comfortable life or whose displeasure brings disaster, could not be decided by man. To please the power with which there is no spiritual link, humans gathered to worship it with animal sacrifice and such rituals. That worship out of fright is not a festivity. Just as when we are in the hands of the dacoits, we say, ‘we give you whatever I have, but please spare our life’; similarly, to keep pleased the invisible power, on earth man said that day, ‘We’ll give You everything, please don’t put us in crisis’. But that is not a gift of Joy. Once you perceive the God of Joy, there will be no fear. This God of Joy means ‘More’ – that surpasses all; whatever I had or understood, He is more than that; whatever I had not or had lost, He is more than that too. He is greater than wealth, honour and comfort. So, in the worship of ‘More’ man has joyously said, ‘take my wealth, life and honour’. To know this ‘More’ within one’s heart and outside, is not for mundane comfort. The day man has realized that he is not a beast neither his God is, that he is great and so is his God, he has accepted utmost sorrow. That day man became victorious, a hero and so it was celebrated. Just as a bird on the verge of darkness founts its song of joy at the very touch of the sunrays, so does man when divinity touches him; he declares, ‘I am the son of the Immortal’; says he, ‘I have got it!’, with the strength of which he perceives the Immortal within himself, fears no more, and death cannot daunt him; facing the danger he says, ‘my journey is ahead; stop I won’t; I have no defeat; O Terrible, Your grace is boundless’.”]

O Lord of disaster, from your court
The messenger of Death came all to abort.
Snatched me up to Your vast domain
Through dense dark, naught to remain.
In the folds of the dark deep
I noticed not the invisible lights peep,
That illumine awake all inborn
From the shade of Self’s blinding vision. (*)
The holy song of that light
From the depth of my being to radiate bright
I had my invitation
To resonate at the border of Creation.
In my strive to poetize the Ultimate,
My songs on the life’s stage could not vibrate
Creation’s music of dreadful pain, (**)
Thus I returned in vain.
But some distant day it may be so pliant,
The poet’s message will drop silent
As a ripe fruit in heavenly joy
In the basket of eternity free of his ploy;
As life’s last price for ultimate redemption
On final journey for final revelation.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

(*) It seems to imply that Man’s ego obscures his vision of the total truth.
(**) It seems, the poet’s remorse is that he could not capture in his literature the
mysterious intent behind God’s creation to culminate into the animation
world through dreadful cosmic metamorphosis.



Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941 AD) the Nobel Laureate of 1913 was introduced to the West primarily through the collection of English translation of some of his poems/songs captioned as ‘Gitanjali’ (=Offering of Songs).More translations of his works followed by the poet himself and others after he had won the Nobel, including poems/songs, dramas, short stories etc. However, such efforts were sporadic and sluggish, mostly on individual initiative, which still remain so.As a result, a vast volume of the poet’s works remains un-translated while, it appears, it is an impossible proposition to translate even a substantial part of the poet’s total works to permit those, not privileged by the knowledge of Bengali language, a reasonably broad view of his myriad creations where unfathomable perceptional depth of top grade aesthetics runs through, literally true to his song “Thou hast made me endless / Such is Thy pleasure”.Notwithstanding this, an upsurge of Tagore translation took place in the last decade of the twentieth century by virtue of a good number of eminent poets/translators e.g.William Radice, Joe Winter, Ketaki Kushari Dyson, to name a few, all of whom left their valuable contribution to this oeuvre and my book THE ECLIPSED SUN is a modest addition to this. I have put stress on a few aspects of the poet’s works, particularly those in his twilight years, which seemed to me quite inadequately covered so far. The above are presented mostly based on this book. RAJAT DAS GUPTA: Calcutta: e-mail: rajarch@cal3.vsnl.net.in

Covergence

Blabbermouth blogger star of new web series - web - Technology - smh.com.au


'The social network announced today it had secured the exclusive international distribution rights for Quarterlife, a new series from Emmy award-winning producers Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick...'

Inserted from <http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/blabbermouth-blogger-star-of-new-web-series/2007/09/13/1189276881132.html>

Women in Cyberspace

Oh dear, you’re so valuable in cyberspace

From The Statesman
ND Batra

Savvy businesses see cyberspace as a repository of valuable information left by surfers that could be turned into databases for target marketing, which eliminates wasteful advertising and lowers costs.
A company like Google is much more than a search engine; it is a gigantic information sucking and manipulating device, a global mind that profiles people and places and cultures.
Cyber profiling is emerging as an important business tool for reaching the right customer through narrowly focused and targeted popup and banner advertising and e-mail marketing. But since most of the domestic buying in the United States is done by women, data miners and cyber profilers are concentrating on websites aimed at women, which has been raising some serious concerns in academic circles about information privacy. Nevertheless, users don’t seem to care much about their privacy. Convenience is all.
Once cyberspace held so much promise for women, wrote Ann Bartow in University of San Francisco Law Review, that it was the closest women could come to be accepted as equal to men in brainpower. “In cyberspace, we would not be judged by our bodies. No one would know when we have bad hair days. We would not have to wear make-up and high heels. We could be even ‘men’ without hormones or expensive surgery. Then we began shopping and chatting over the Internet. Shortly thereafter, we learned that anyone in cyberspace could ascertain our gender, ages, incomes, education levels, marital status, sizes, consumer purchase proclivities, aspects of our health, and employment histories, and the number, ages, and genders of our children, and that this information could be used to sell us goods and services. Now, instead of brains in boxes, we are ‘eyeballs with credit cards’.”
That’s a great disappointment for women who thought that the anonymity of cyberspace would enlarge their freedom and empower them vis-à-vis men. But what is true of women is equally true of men. Instead of reaching new thresholds of freedom and equality, both men and women are giving up privacy through profiling.
May be privacy has become an overrated virtue in cyber age. It is no great surprise that advertisers and marketers have begun to use the Internet in befriending women because they control effective spending at home. Only in the matter of high expenditure items like buying a new house, car or going on a vacation, men throw their weight around.
Mostly the woman’s voice is decisive. Advertisers of course have known the truth about women all along. In the 1920s radio began to develop as a mass medium with a potential to reach millions of women, most of whom did not have jobs and stayed at home with children and extended families. Companies like Proctor & Gamble that sell household products developed daytime serial dramas to entertain and keep women listening to soap commercials. That’s how daytime radio dramas came to be called soap operas. In the 1950s when television started to dominate American homes, soap operas moved on to the new medium and they have continued to retain their popularity, in spite of the fact that most women work today.
“The Guiding Light,” the oldest daytime serial drama, began in radio in 1937 and was transferred to television in 1952. You can see the last seventy years’ visual history of American women in this remarkable soap opera, which along with other daytime dramas is moving to the Internet, YouTube and other platforms. Soap operas dramatise women’s problems ranging from date rapes and workplace harassment to raising children and keeping up with husbands in a culture where sometime “I Do” is quickly followed by “Now I Don’t”.
Those who do not succumb to the charm of slow moving daytime dramas cannot resists the temptations of Oprah Winfrey, her talk show, her “O” magazine, and her Oxygen Media, where TV and the Web converge. She has become probably the most glamorous and sexy platform where women come and go talking of democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama today and Islamic jihadists’ guiding light Osama bin Laden tomorrow. But every time they log off her website, they leave an immense stream of date behind. Women are incredibly desirable not only in cyberspace but also in the media because ultimately they control the shopping cart. It’s that simple. Women love to shop and they shop for everything. Men do not know even the size of the shirt they wear, though they may be particular about their beers and wines and vodkas. Home Shopping Network and other interactive television shopping malls run on the power of women, which is increasing everyday as more women enter the global workplace.
The future of cyberspace as a medium of e-commerce is growing.
More and more businesses are building high quality websites where women feel comfortable and do not mind shedding valuable data that can be aggregated and collated into reliable individual profiles.
Imagine every woman having her own personal boutique in cyberspace where everyone knows her tastes and preferences and where all her problems can be solved. So when Jane enters iVillage.com or Oxygen Media portal, she could join women’s chat group and make new virtual friends; explore fitness and beauty, food, working from home and parenting; find advice about her job and tips about marriage, dating and love; and publish her personal story on the Web.
As women become comfortable in their own personal cyber retreats, they will be scanned lovingly of all their personal data, including the size of their breasts, but unlike at the airport, where touching and probing and electronic scanning can be so humiliating, in cyberspace it will be so entertaining that they would love it. If women are turned into databases, can men be far behind?

(ND Batra is the author of Digital Freedom and Professor of Communications and Diplomacy at Norwich University)

India and terrorism

Something like US Patriot Act will save India

From The Statesman

An Indian minister was quoted in rediff.com, as saying: “Do you want us to keep vigil on all the chaat-eating people? How many chaatwallahs can we guard?” What a contemptuous disregard for the hoi polloi! How shameful!

Terrorism is a local and national scourge and it must be fought at every level with imagination, intelligence and persistence, with all the available resources, as the United States has been fighting. Americans are convinced that terrorism can and must be prevented whatever the cost. The Indian minister would not have survived a day in the United States. Nor should he in India.

Whenever an attack occurs anywhere in the world, the US Homeland Security authorities redouble their vigilance, and update their plans to meet any contingency. It could happen here, they acknowledge the reality, but it must not; and that’s the steely determination writ large on their faces.

Days before the Mumbai train attacks last year, for example, the authorities had discovered a plot to blow up the underground tunnel system that connects New Jersey with New York City. The discovery of the plot was not a serendipitous occurrence. The Homeland Security is always on the lookout for terrorists in order to pre-empt any kind of attack. Apart from the Federal government, every state has a list of potential terrorist targets for which there are contingency plans. The Federal government and state governments work hand-in-glove to fight crime and terrorism.

Islamic terrorists in India whether they belong to Harkat-ul Jihad Islami, Students’ Islamic Movement of India, Lashkar-e-Taiyaba or some other terrorist group know that nothing serious would happen to them even if they were apprehended. Politically and financially they must be well provided for; otherwise they would not have been in business so long. Uncover their local supporters, most of who will be politicians, and eliminate them. In the United States and increasingly in Europe, there has been a paradigm shift. The policy has been not only to nip the evil in the bud but also to eliminate the evil at the prenatal stage by establishing an early awareness system. An early awareness system is different from am early warning system.

Unless India adopts and ruthlessly executes a policy of total elimination of terrorists and their local supporters, which means using all the available means to hunt them under the law, poor Indians will be wondering where the next target will be. India needs to re-balance its priorities, human rights and domestic security.

The idea that what’s anticipated can be prevented especially applies to terrorism of which the Hyderabad bombings were the latest manifestation. Pre-emption is preventing acts at the inspiration, aspiration, thinking stage before they become a concrete reality. Al-Qaida and other Islamic terrorists have not given up on the United States. They keep trying. Last year the US Congress renewed the Draconian anti-terrorism law, The US Patriot Act. The Department of Homeland Security’s constantly changing alert system has made life somewhat uncomfortable. Personal liberties have been affected, especially in big cities, though most of the United States is as free as ever. Airline travel security checks take longer. But on the whole there is no fear mentality in the United States. You wouldn’t feel afraid of walking in the streets of New York or elsewhere. Living in the United States is safer than anywhere else in the world.

The US Homeland Security doctrine is very coherent, pragmatic and highly ethical; and it is simple: choose the lesser evil. It is better to put a few thousand people in jail than let terrorists strike, which might put thousands and thousands of people into a state of constant fear. By protecting a chaatwallah, you protect everybody. Think of a chaatwallah as a canary in the mine.

The Patriot Act, which allows intelligence and law enforcement authorities to go into places of worship, the working of charities, telecommunications of suspected militants, and libraries is not what a free society should do; but it is a lesser evil than letting Islamic terrorists take advantage of constitutional freedoms to commit mass murders.

Fighting terrorism is not a saintly act, as President George Bush knows. Superb intelligence gathering, pre-emptive and preventive measures and anticipatory disaster plans could go a long way in minimising the damage, if India wants to take terrorism as seriously as the United States does, and politicians are prepared to pay the price. President Bush’s popularity is down the gutters but he keeps fighting terrorism. He wants to protect everyone.

Although its origin lies in religious fanaticism and a blind hatred of non-believers, at an organisational level terrorism must be considered as an enterprise that manufactures dread, customised for each city and town. Hit and disrupt the terrorists’ supply chain anywhere, if it is a decentralised operation.

In the United States, law enforcement authorities have been given expanded powers of surveillance including wire-tapping and e-mail scrutiny. Most Americans approve President Bush’s domestic surveillance practices to fight terrorism, though his overall approval rating has sunk very low.

Open societies need not be handcuffed by their enlightened doctrines when law enforcement authorities try to locate and destroy terrorist cells functioning openly or clandestinely in their own backyards.

The struggle against terrorism is going to be a long drawn-out relentless campaign from which India cannot escape. India has no choice but to keep fighting, but it must fight both with political will and intelligence. Unless India vows to protect every chaatwallah, India will never be safe.

(ND Batra, the author of Digital Freedom, is working on a new book, Dr Apu Comes to America)

US-India bridge of friendship

A bridge of friendship

From The Statesman

The civilian nuclear deal is a bridge to the world of sophisticated technology not only in the United States but also in Japan, Europe and Russia. Access to high-end technology depends upon trust.
The world can trust India.
Indian diplomats had to overcome strong opposition in the US, which cut across party lines as well as scholarly and journalistic communities. By letting India bypass the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and benefit from “full civilian nuclear energy cooperation,” President George W Bush made a most courageous act of statesmanship and took a firm step in establishing long-term strategic and economic relations with India. The Bush administration has accepted India as a “responsible state with advanced nuclear technology,” recognising it as an exception to the rule, and that India should “acquire the same benefits and advantages as other such states.” India is at par with China and other nuclear powers. Why does the Indian Left want it otherwise?
The pragmatic partnership to let India grow and play its rightful constructive role in global affairs is not about containing any other rising power; it is about having faith in India to develop as an alternative model of economic growth without compromising fundamental freedoms. That’s how Japanese Prime Minister Abe’s metaphor “Arc of freedom and prosperity” should be understood.
Rapid economic growth of the Indian economy, 9-10 per cent a year for the next few decades, primarily through the efforts of its rising entrepreneurial class, will lift millions of Indians out of poverty. An economically dynamic India on a perpetual growth curve will make the containment of any rising Asian power unnecessary. More the number of equal players in the Asian theatre, less will be the possibility of a single hegemonic power rising and dwarfing others.
The deal will remove hurdles in India’s search for alternative energy sources to fuel its growing economy. Moreover, as Ratan Tata told Karan Thapar of CNN-IBN: “Over time this will give India tremendously powerful position in the knowledge industry, in research and development, in high technology.”
From a poor agricultural power to a great knowledge power is every man’s dream in India. India must go beyond information technology outsourcing and capture the corporate global, as it has begun to do.
After successful negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), India will be able to buy nuclear fuel for its existing nuclear power plants and shop for building scores of new ones.
In the course of time as trust in partnership increases and diplomatic relations improve further, a whole new world of sophisticated global technology, European, Japanese and American, will be opened to India, enabling it to leapfrog decades of past sluggish economic growth. In return India has agreed to do what other nuclear powers have been doing under the nonproliferation treaty, that’s, open some of its civilian nuclear power plants to inspection and continue to observe abstinence on nuclear testing. Its nuclear deterrent will remain off limit.
Critics in India who fear that the deal would create co-dependency relations with the US need to consider how China has benefited from strong economic partnership with the US without compromising its sovereignty.
Of course there is no such thing as absolute sovereignty in an interdependent world.
There is more power in the American shopping cart than in all the Chinese manufacturing plants, as the recent crisis of confidence in the safety of its products shows.
China had greater sovereignty in the days of Mao Zedong than today when it has more than a trillion dollar in foreign exchange reserves.
A country’s currency is a symbol of its sovereignty but China has tied up its currency, Renminbi, to Uncle Sam’s dollar. Whither sovereignty?
The Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline will not be enough to meet India’s gargantuan need for energy. Clean coal technology, nuclear energy and solar power are practical alternatives for which the US has opened its doors to India.
France gets 80 per cent of its energy from civilian nuclear plants. In the next 15 years China plans to build 30 new nuclear power plants at a cost of more than $50 billion.
Why should India be left behind? India needs hundreds of billions of dollars of foreign direct investment in building power plants and world-class infrastructure to increase its manufacturing base in order to create employment opportunities for its youthful millions. Nuclear energy would reduce excessive dependency upon oil from the Middle-East, a most unstable region.
Prime Minster Manmohan Singh was very perceptive when he said that Indo-US partnership is based “both on principle as well as pragmatism.”
Democracy, multiethnic diversity, and human rights are some of the values that bring the two countries together, but equally important is the fact that India, Europe and the US need one another for fighting global terrorism.
As the recent bomb blasts in Hyderabad show, terrorism is alive in India. India cannot fight terrorism alone.
Whether it is the Congress or BJP that rules India, for decades to come India will have no choice but to put a single-minded focus on one primary goal: speedy economic growth, which the partnership with Europe, the US, Japan and Australia will hasten.
The Indian Left might force a hasty general election, but that will not be the end of the civilian nuclear deal. The next political party in power will pick up the threads and consummate the deal, perhaps the greatest achievement of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, whom historians will rank with Jawaharlal Nehru.
(ND Batra is professor of communications and diplomacy at Norwich University and is the author of Digital Freedom)

The paradox of freedom

The never-ending battle of ideas

From The Statesman

On his recent visit to the United States, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: “We must undercut the terrorists’ so-called ‘single narrative’ and defeat their ideas. At home and abroad we must back mainstream and moderate voices and reformers, emphasizing the shared values that exist across faiths and communities.”

No one can ever say that the battle of ideas has been finally won. When the Soviet Union, for example, collapsed in 1989 and the Cold War was over, it was not the end of the battle of ideas but the beginning of a new one.

Many people see history as a linear progression, something rising from the bottom and going to the top. But one can also imagine history as an uninterrupted landscape, where past, present and future co-exist in a dynamic tension, where the battle of ideas continues. Even if militant Islamic jihadism is beaten, some new dangerous ideology will arise that threatening peace and our most cherished ideals of freedom.

China is presenting its own model of development - development without democracy - and its explosive energy born of nationalistic mercantilism is becoming an attractive ideology.

China has a powerful narrative: Harmony and peaceful rise, without the noise and chaos of democracy. The whole world is watching with fascination.

Some people, especially those trained in advertising and public relations, believe that all that the United States needs is a new image and therefore it must re-brand itself, just as corporations do. That shows poverty of thinking.

To a great extent a corporate nations like China can control its message and its image because it is the sole source of information about itself. But you cannot control the image of an open society because there are so many independent actors, institutions and corporations; for example, Hollywood, US military, corporate America; Guantanamo Bay, Wal-Mart, Microsoft; all contributing to the US image abroad. And now add to all this hotchpotch of impressions the daily carnage from Iraq, the horrific images of people being blown up daily. The US image abroad is an “emergence” and its quality depends upon how much of the United States is present in a country. A country that is exposed to only Hollywood violent movies and video games is likely to have a distorted image of the United States. But add to it a GE, university campus, cultural centre, and apparel factory; you see the image of the United States in that country begins to change.

Keeping the emergent nature of the image, it should not be difficult to understand why the public image of the United States differs from one country to another. The image depends upon the quality and the extent of its presence and its usefulness to the country. Even the smartest public diplomacy campaign won’t change perceptions overnight, especially when the United States is deeply engaged in multifarious actions abroad. Events might occur beyond its control, which could further blur the image in some countries. No quick-fix crisis communication would help.

China’s presence in the United States is huge but the recent recall of millions of China-made toys following the scandals of tainted pet foods and defective tyres has tattered its image of a reliable manufacturer. No amount of corporate public diplomacy will help China unless it realises that good products are manufactured by countries where free Press rules, where there is political and corporate transparency.

The always-on 24-hour global communication, blogs, instant messaging, chatrooms, and news cycles make it impossible for practitioners of public diplomacy to devise a central strategy to impose a message discipline, as it can be done in advertising campaigns for a product or a political candidate. Nor is public diplomacy like a political campaign, where negative campaigning could kill an opponent with a devastating effect. In an environment of uncontrolled communications, you might still control the message, but you cannot control the meaning when instant alternative interpretations, Al-Jazeera, for example, are available. Each nation is different, so what works in Turkey may not work in Indonesia or Uzbekistan. The challenge is to find the right vehicle to embody the message for a specific local audience.

Al-Qaida has used local clerics to champion and spread its Jihadist message. Public diplomacy practitioners must use local leaders to champion and advance their cause and they should do in such a manner that it makes the local people feel good about themselves, while at the same time generating goodwill toward the country that is using information culture to foster goodwill. There was a time when Hollywood was the best cultural export, but now many people believe that the US popular culture, due to proliferation of senseless violence and explicit sex, creates negative impressions in foreign audiences, in spite of the fact the world has been spending billions of dollars importing American entertainment, filmed and taped programmes, as well as box-office hits.

The paradox is that in spite of negative feelings about American popular culture that it depicts profanity, nudity, mayhem and crime, piracy of popular cultural programmes, even in the Arab and Muslim world, remains unabated. In any case, practitioners of public diplomacy, who want to win over the hearts and minds of the people in the Arab world, should not count upon Hollywood’s popular culture as the nation’s goodwill ambassador. US corporations, educational institutions, and non-profit organisations represent most precious American values such as individual initiative, innovativeness, entrepreneurship, freedom of speech, and competition. Wal-Mart, Microsoft and Warren Buffet embody as much of what America stands for, as does Hollywood. America is what Americans do at the workplace, its ultimate source of strength.

Will China with its model of nationalistic mercantilism without freedom and democracy ever match the soft power of the United States, Europe and India?

(ND Batra, professor of communications and diplomacy at Norwich University, is the author of Digital Freedom, published by Rowman & Littlefield)

India is the place to be

Young, vigorous and creative at 60

From The Statesman

Last week, the Wall Street Journal carried a front-page story about how Kishore Biyani adapted India’s culture of order-in-disorder to transform his company Pantaloon Retail (India) Ltd. into the largest retailer in the country.

Biyani’s shopping malls are crowded and Indians love them. Unlike Americans, Indians prefer crowded places where they can hear and smell each other. India has reached the tipping point, a state of collective will when the forces of economic growth have begun to dominate society. The call of the marketplace is trumping everything else, including religious and ethnic communalism.

The way to prosperity is not through OBC but through entrepreneurship. For quite some time, India has been exciting the world’s imagination and many investors have begun to have a fresh look at the country and explore its potentials.

Many global investors in fact are excited that there is another avenue of growth and diversification where they can put their resources to productive uses instead of putting all their hopes in the Far East.

International investors want growth with protection for their shareholders and India seems attractive because its legal system, including property and contract law, is well developed. Tata Consultancy Service, Infosys Technolgies and Wipro are not the only companies for which India has become a world leader.

There is the growing field of biotechnology, petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals, where, for example, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd., Ranbaxy, Reliance Industries Ltd. and others have become international brand names. These companies are creating a global buzz, an image of India that it is full of talented young people, who can perform competitively. India’s self-esteem is rising and so is the motivation to excel.

Today a young Indian with a PhD from an American university may want to work for Chevron but soon he will find that Reliance Petro is much better. He will return to India as thousands of others are doing.

The sentiment that India is the place to be is spreading. India has entered a new threshold of knowledge economy and is gradually emerging as a global hub for specialised knowledge processing for global corporations.

Knowledge economy depends upon extracting and creating new knowledge from data bases and is in a sense value-added outsourcing. Although India is far from becoming a full-fledged knowledge economy, this is an emerging trend, apart from other growing fields such as auto, genetic engineering, and high-tech healthcare that will hasten the transformation of India in the next decade.

Probably the most exciting field of growth is healthcare, which, according to a Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) study, will add 7-8 per cent to GDP and create nine million jobs by 2012. But much more needs to be done to sustain India’s 9 per cent plus growth than giving the industry fiscal incentives by setting up special economic zones.

One of the biggest hurdles for rapid economic growth in India, according to several observers, is the red tape; it takes myriad forms, such as expectations of illegal gratification, fear of the loss of bureaucratic power due to privatisation and apprehensions about foreign direct investment, as the recent protests against the entry of Wal-Mart shows.

The primary goal of rapid economic growth and its ultimate measure is poverty reduction by generating opportunities for employment, especially for the rural population who mostly depend upon agriculture. For millennia rural India has been held hostage to nature’s vagaries, but it need not be so. Technology can break nature’s stranglehold and break its curse on the poor.

Don’t be surprised if the little chirping thing, cell phone, might bring about a rural revolution in India.

Most of the rural workers should be absorbed into agro-industries, manufacturing and service industries, and that again will necessitate massive investment in building new infrastructure and modernising the existing one.

That is why the coming of global retailers like Wal-Mart into India is so important.
Let Pantaloon and Wal-Mart compete for the Indian shopping cart.

Growing prosperity in India and rising expectations abroad “that India can do” are creating compelling conditions for the government to put its act together. India must get out of the political inertia, upgrade its clogged roads and overcrowded airports, eliminate frequent power outages and scuttle the red tape.

India is becoming an integral part of globalised economy and is clearly thriving on the synergy between multinational corporations and its indigenous strengths, which come from a high quality of education from its top universities, democratic institutions that create transparency, and the ingenuity of its people for innovative solutions to complex problems. Ingenuity means transcending a system’s limitations by finding an alternative route to reach the same goal. A creative and ingenious mind becomes restless when he hits a wall and asserts, there has to be another way; and he improvises by transferring intelligence from one application to another. But individual entrepreneurial ingenuity has its limitations.

Bangalore could transcend the limitations of its poor infrastructure, power and transportation by building captive power plants and satellite communications to reach its outsourcing clients in the United States and elsewhere. Now the challenge is whether India’s ingenuity can be applied to undertake collective action to build reliable highways, ports, railroads, power plants and airports. Corruption is a serious problem in every society.

The source of corruption is unaccounted exercise of power, of course. Elected officials can be removed, though one might say cynically, only to be replaced by another bunch of corrupt people. But democracies do have methods of dealing with corrupt people in high places. There is a two-fold solution to the problem. Public accountability through media exposure, especially the Internet and television, as the American experience shows, is a strong corrective. Secondly, privatisation could act as an antidote to corruption because it takes power away from bureaucrats and gives it to entrepreneurs and corporate leaders. But they too, as the American experience shows, abuse power.

Nevertheless, if laws were enforced rigorously, the corrupt would find their rightful place in jails as many American CEOs have discovered. Fighting corruption is a never-ending process, as is the case with poverty. The responsibility of the Indian government is to create conditions that encourage risk taking and reward entrepreneurship.

It is only through free spirited entrepreneurship that India can meet the challenge of becoming India that the whole world can look up to.

(ND Batra is professor of communications and diplomacy at Norwich University. He is the author of Digital Freedom)

Tagore:Thou Hast Made Me Endless

Thou Hast Made Me Endless – Part V

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941 AD) the Nobel Laureate of 1913 was introduced to the West primarily through the collection of English translation of some of his poems/songs captioned as ‘Gitanjali’ (=Offering of Songs).
More translations of his works followed by the poet himself and others after he had won the Nobel, including poems/songs, dramas, short stories etc. However, such efforts were sporadic and sluggish, mostly on individual initiative, which still remain so.
As a result, a vast volume of the poet’s works remains un-translated while, it appears, it is an impossible proposition to translate even a substantial part of the poet’s total works to permit those, not privileged by the knowledge of Bengali language, a reasonably broad view of his myriad creations where unfathomable perceptional depth of top grade aesthetics runs through, literally true to his song “Thou hast made me endless / Such is Thy pleasure”.
Notwithstanding this, an upsurge of Tagore translation took place in the last decade of the twentieth century by virtue of a good number of eminent poets/translators e.g.William Radice, Joe Winter, Ketaki Kushari Dyson, to name a few, all of whom left their valuable contribution to this oeuvre and my book THE ECLIPSED SUN is a modest addition to this. I have put stress on a few aspects of the poet’s works, particularly those in his twilight years, which seemed to me quite inadequately covered so far. The followings are presented mostly based on this book.

RAJAT DAS GUPTA: Calcutta: e-mail: rajarch@cal3.vsnl.net.in
Poem: Garthikani (Anonym) of the book Prahasini (Satirist) written in 1938, 3 years before the Poet’s death.

[Translator’s note: The poem is a reply from the Poet, while he was in Kalimpong, to the letter from a girl who had written to him in poetry (It appears, the girl has a long face as she heard that the Poet at the hill station was being attended by too many ladies around and, for that reason, she prefers to be aloof not to add to the Poet’s disturbances, enough of which he was having already, and the Poet in his letter was trying to mollify her). Maitrayee Devi’s book Mangpute Rabindranath (i.e. Rabindranath at Mangpu, a hill station near Darjeeling which was her husband’s workplace, translated by Maitrayee Devi herself into English with the title “Tagore by Fireside”) gives translation of a few lines of this poem while she depicts the Poet’s vivacity even at his old age, when he was her guest at Mangpu, as follows - ]

“I despise that hapless wretch who grows decrepit
Just because of age.
So even if I am at my last breath
I tell you not about my falling strength.

The truth of these lines was known to all, who knew him personally. At the age of eighty, the Poet remained an image of youth- no physical weakness or disability or illness could touch his mind. During these days, when he was filling our home with such gay laughter and entertaining repartee, and was reading out to us hour after hour in the evenings, he was not keeping well physically. An illness was slowly spreading its roots inside him. He sometimes had fever, but didn’t care; and if others expressed concern, he would resent it. He suffered but concealed his pain by an ever springing flow of poetry, a fountain of songs and merry laughter. That human existence can glow with such unbounded happiness and warmth, we would have never known, had we not seen him. The few days that we had the good fortune to be near him, we lived as life should be lived. Our youth would never have been so affluent, if we had not been near him. “Even if at my last breath, I tell you not of my failing strength!” – the truth of this we experienced every day.”]


High pitched and aimless your chatter
In this solitude my peace does shatter.
My onus, the Grandpa designate
On what plea do I negate?
You daring, in rhymes have written your letter,
Be paid in your own coin, that is better.
You knew well in your mind astute,
Prose would never my pride dilute.
The pen was a horse of mighty breed,
Though now aged, it limps a bit indeed.
There to you is my loss of face,
May I hide it and pass with grace.
Your pen trots lightly hence
Mine will pace in the same cadence-
Though breathless, yet I’ll not daunt
To keep it up lest my age you taunt.
Yet, in my heart is the apprehension
Of pride shattering Lord Madhusudan. (=Lord Krishna)
One who feels old just for age
On that unfortunate is my rage.
So, even though my soul seeks exit,
Betrayal of fatigue I do not permit.
But what confuses me,
You take a poet always as silly!
They do disturb me, people various
In ways very diverse;
That I endure them you’ve seen clearly
For that reason you keep wary,
You said so tenderly
Which I do note, not lightly.
Yet, I know, you know this,
Disturbances come in varieties.
With the poets the God has been kind,
So, the sweets the sisters bring I don’t mind.
Some compose sweet words flattering,
While some fetch milky sweets endearing.
In cuckoo voice some pitch an acrimony,
Some enchant just in musical harmony.
So, I think, if God out of sympathy,
Just to protect my tranquility
Would all these hassles free,
This parched life would a bigger torture be.
Let me explain with a simile –
The mountain there- the poles of electricity
Struck on its chest, emit light
More to prick human sight.
If the moon will so mortify,
To emit its bright fight shy,
Would it be a good plight,
Does mere heat always bring light?
That is my letter all about,
No, not as my vigor has run out;
Only I am wiser – it’s no fake –
Now realize, shelling words without brake-
Those may be widened with chatter,
May be flattened either.
Too much is with too little at par,
Rather than shout, better to whisper.
Unaware of this, the Bengalis miss
Both their price and lungs’ ease.
As outcome of their shouting mania
Bengal environs always with hysteria.
The unsaid itself is the art,
Mere chatter is that is overt.
Look here, your name latent,
Excels the price of fame’s patent.
But what a farce by Bharati - (=Goddess of Learning/Art)
Chattering is not arty –
To explain it, I’ve already yielded an epic,
Will the Goddess of Art excuse this act heroic?
The truth needs confession,
The row that senility has caught Rabi (*) on – (* Rabindranath)
In protest thereof is this challenge thrown,
All the chatter from my mouth blown.
So I talk on, not a moment to spare,
This is like dying my hair –
The grey inside hidden
By the outward green (implying freshness)
In feeble voice so I battle,
Why juveniles alone tittle-tattle?
To a brat I’ll surrender not
That ego I still have a lot.

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Listen to Rabindra Sangeet

India: Free and Fearless

India at 60 is home sweet home

From The Statesman

Freedom from fear is the freedom
I claim for you my motherland!
~ Tagore

For what avail the plough or sail, Or land or life, if freedom fail?
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is so much common between India and the United States that I can’t love one without loving the other.

Freedom deeply rooted in secularism makes every one a productive citizen in the United States. The reason is simple: When an individual cannot assert his superiority or make a special claim on the basis of his race or religion, he has no choice but to show his natural born abilities and talents to succeed, which has turned the United States into a merit-based society, more or less. It is gradually happening in India too, especially in Bangalore and Bollywood, where only the most creative and brilliant minds can shine.

The idea that success, in whatever terms it is defined, is possible for any one with talent, from Wall Street to ballparks, Silicon Valley to musical bands, is the essence of what is essentially the American Dream. It is a secular version of: “If you knock, it shall open until unto you.” The price of not knocking at the door is that you are left in the cold. There’s no choice but to try and try again and succeed.

Secular freedom has proved productive not only in economic terms but in every which way you can imagine. It breeds in you a sense of equality, dignity and self-worth, and your heart cries out, Go and take the risk. Every field of human endeavor in the United States teems with talented people drawn from various nationalities, cultures, races, and colors. Americans are so unafraid of the otherness of “others,” though it has not always been so if you recall the burning of witches to Japanese-Americans’ incarceration during World War II and the McCarthyism of the Cold War era.

The foundation of secular freedom was laid in the United States with the Declaration of Independence. It happened in India when Jawaharlal Nehru evoked India’s “Tryst with Destiny” at the mid-night hour on the 15th of August 1947. It has been a long struggle to keep up with the demands of secularism, freedom and equality in the USA, as it has been in India. It isn’t over yet. It will never be over.

But India is full of new hopes and new dreams. It has been a long struggle when you consider how much it has taken for African-Americans to reach their present status. A generation ago it would have been impossible to think of an African-American occupying one of the most powerful political positions in the United States. The rise of Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of the United States demonstrates the truth that freedom has many possibilities, as does the rise of a woman, Pratibha Patil, to become the President of India.

A country that joyously accepts Sonia Gandhi and Mother Teresa as its own is a most blessed nation and a great hope for mankind.

In the United States, now it is time for Hillary Clinton to show women the way to the White House. But the elevation of a few from the dungeon of invisible oppression might also give a misleading impression that all American Blacks and Hispanics are upwardly mobile. Far from it.

The painful truth is that racial profiling is a common occurrence in the United States, which prompts the police to shoot first then ask a question.

In India the equivalent of racial profiling is caste-and-religious profiling. A Muslim might be under suspicion for no reason except that he bears a Muslim name. Sometimes I wonder if Bangladeshi Muslims living in India were to assume Hindu names, would they be still regarded foreigners and illegal infiltrators? Just a creative thought.

But consider this: that a large number of Indian restaurants, with Indian names, in the United Kingdom and the United States are actually owned by Bangladeshis and they are doing extremely well. This proves the point that prejudice is sometime very shallow. Like the United States, India has a long way to go to eliminate blind and irrational prejudice, though the most heartening aspect of it is that no one is giving up the fight. Look at the slow transformation of political parties including BJP in India.

Acceptance of diversity has become a necessary condition for political survival both in India and the United States, another fascinating parallel between two great democracies founded on diversity, multiculturalism and secularism. For me freedom has no meaning unless it breeds equality in the sense of equal opportunities for everyone, a level playing field where a person can prove his best and give his best and be rewarded for it.

Consider it from India’s national interest. You can’t have a strong market economy on a perpetual roll unless the best people are allowed to come forward and compete for economic opportunities.

India needs brains and the marketplace does not care whether the brainpower comes from a Sikh, Muslim, Christian, Parsi, Dalit or Brahmin.

Open marketplace, of goods and ideas, not one’s caste or religion, should determine the competition and reward the best. The government’s obligation is to build infrastructure, maintain law and order, and take care of the poor because the marketplace does not solve all problems.

The government should get out of the way of the people and let them create wealth for the nation.

That is the only way everyone from Kashmir to Kanyakumari will call India: “Sare jehan se achha yeh Hindustan hamara.”

(Dr ND Batra, the author of Digital Freedom, is working on a new book, This is the American Way).

IF YOU CAN'T FACE YOUTUBE, GET OUT OF THE RACE

Facing the YouTube generation

From The Statesman

Hardly has the conspiratorial expression “Let’s Google him” settled in as a sizzling hot potato on the American tongue-in-cheek civic discourse when there is another linguistic gatecrasher “YouTubing” into American culture and consciousness, as last week’s Democratic debate showed. The YouTube questioning began with a street expletive, “Wassup?”

It was a remarkable event technologically speaking since this is certainly the beginning of a new era when television and the Internet have begun to converge into a seamless medium used by the Internet hoi polloi and potential voters who asked all kinds of questions ranging from gun control and global warming to healthcare, sex education for children, gay marriages, Darfur (Sudan), and Iraq war.

Experts could not have asked better questions of the candidates, and as author James Surowiecki might have said, it was a sample of the wisdom of the crowd made visible by YouTube. Therefore, to say that it was nothing more than another digital town hall meeting is to miss the point: the challenge of the emerging new media to traditional media gatekeepers and professional pundits. It was a surge from the earth gone flat; and there will be more to come.

The questioners it seemed had already “Googled” the Democratic presidential candidates’ past track records on various issues and using their home videos equipment they personalised controversial issues and uploaded them to YouTube for the debate, which was in actuality candidates’ reactions to questions rather than they debating among themselves.

But there were faces, ethnically heterogeneous, the Democrats could not ignore. Nor will the Republicans when they confront the YouTube generation on 17 September at St. Petersburg, Florida, though one of them, Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts, said in an interview: “I think the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman.” But Republicans cannot escape the tech savvy YouTube generation or they will be left behind.

Out of 3,000 questions ranging from the serious to the absurd, CNN, the all news cable network, selected 39 for hosting to Democratic presidential hopefuls, who had gathered on the campus of the military college, Citadel, South Carolina, deep in the Bible belt. An animated video clip of Snowman with his snowball kid created a stir when it asked a question about global warming, which even former Vice-President Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth could not have done better.

Then there was a gun-toting wise guy who held an automatic guerrilla-style gun and calling it “my baby” asked whether it would be taken away if a Democrat were to occupy the White House. “He needs help. I don’t know if he’s mentally qualified to own that gun,” said Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, one of the eight candidates on the stage. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the issue of gun control receded into the lower depths of American consciousness, though gun violence has not abated.

But Senator Biden missed the irony: The assault weapon guy was mocking the Second Amendment, the American people’s right to bear arms like “my baby.”

Regarding questions about Iraq war and withdrawal of US troops, Democrats as expected were united in condemning President George W Bush in misleading the country and mismanaging the post-war operations. Moreover, they were equally united about how soon to withdraw, soon enough but in a phased and gradual manner in order to protect the troops and not leave a hellhole behind, which Iraq has already become. Some set tentative dates while others were judiciously ambiguous, which showed once again how deeply confused and divided Americans are about Iraq.

In response to a question whether he or she would meet with the leaders of Syria, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea in his or her first year as President in order to promote diplomacy, Democratic candidates took this as another opportunity to hit at the Bush administration’s reluctance to use diplomatic tools for advancing national interest.

Senator Barack Obama, a leading candidate among Democrats and the biggest challenge to Senator Hillary Clinton’s ambition to go to the White House, sharply rebuked the Bush administration saying that it’s nothing short of ridiculous to believe that not talking to countries is a kind of punishment to them. He said he would readily talk to them as John F Kennedy and Ronald Reagan continuously did with the Soviet Union.

Senator Clinton’s thoughtful and measured response to the question made her look and sound presidential. She said that she would not rush to meet with them in her first year without knowing what their intentions were and certainly she would not like to give them a chance to use the meeting for propaganda purposes. The President of the United States cannot behave like a used car salesman ready to talk to anyone.

The reason why some Republican candidates are reluctant to face the YouTube debate format is that they are not sure what kinds of questions might get into the YouTube pool and what questions CNN might select.

To minimise the CNN effect, questions could be randomly selected. Politicians are control freaks and do not want to lose control over their professionally designed, customised and controlled messages, which they can drumbeat through television commercials and for which they have to raise millions of dollars. In this sense, the Internet is a very different medium because it empowers people. In the future instead of holding a Press conference, politicians might be asked to hold a YouTube conference.

(Dr ND Batra teaches communications and diplomacy at Norwich University and is the author of Digital Freedom)

Corporate CEO as diplomat

The art of being a corporate diplomat

From The Statesman

The days of autocrat corporate CEOs are gone.

Even a powerful man like Rupert Murdoch, the most powerful global media tycoon who is trying to take over Dow Jones, the company that owns the **Wall Street Journal**, is conducting himself as a superb corporate diplomat. It is not easy wrenching control of one of the most influential global newspapers from a family (the Bancroft family) that has owned it for more than hundred years. Whether he succeeds or not, it will be a good lesson for practitioners of corporate diplomacy.

Writing in **Harvard Business Online**, Michael Watkins, says: “The rise of corporate diplomacy is a global phenomenon, but it’s being driven by different forces in different regions. In the United States, one driving force is the decline of the imperial CEO resulting from the constraints imposed on senior executives by Sarbanes-Oxley and activist boards.”
The necessity of being a good diplomat arises from the fact that there are other powerful forces, not only NGOs and the government, but public interest groups and influentials who make it their business to mount a challenge when they see a corporation growing too big or indulging in unethical practices.

There is another important reason for doing corporate diplomacy. Since the foreign policies of a country can put a damper on its international commerce, multinational corporations must have their own corporate diplomats and protocol officers for business development abroad, as POSCO and other international corporations are doing in India, for example.

Corporate diplomacy is crucial to the credibility of a company in explaining, positioning and carrying out its business, especially in these times when the image of the Unite States abroad is not bright. International commerce depends upon the goodwill of the public, which must be continuously built so that it works as a shock absorber when some unforeseen calamity occurs and crisis communication strategy has to be deployed. The creation and the development of this intangible and valuable asset, the public goodwill, is the function of corporate diplomacy.

In the 21st century, doing business in a foreign country must be much more than making profits. In his keynote address to Owens Corning Executive Summit at Tampa, Florida, Bill Shireman, President and CEO, Future 500, said: “The world is demanding a lot of the modern corporation.” When a company captures market share, he said, it also captures mind share, the deep support of the people. When the host population perceives a corporation as a good citizen, it produces collateral benefits for the home country.

A good corporation in a foreign country can become a goodwill ambassador for the home country. On the other hand, when the local population perceives a country as hostile, foreign businesses could be hit hard. The foundation for grassroots public diplomacy, which is more than show-and-tell visits by celebrities, must be patiently laid as China has begun to do. Resentment against US foreign policy has been contaminating the image of US corporate brands, especially in Arab-Muslim countries, which requires corporate America to do its own public diplomacy.
Doing effective global corporate diplomacy requires local knowledge, competencies and tools for implementing strategic communications to deal effectively with foreign publics. The overarching goal of corporate diplomacy is to develop an effective corporate voice and to learn to use all available means of persuasion, media and human networks, to shape public opinion as well as policies of the government in the host country. KFC, McDonald’s and Coca Cola cannot depend upon their international brands to survive in hostile environment. They must engage local communities in meaningful activities that enhance the quality of life. They have to engage in creative business-to-people diplomacy.

Global business needs a new kind of corporate diplomat, one who must be responsive and effective in communicating with different publics, interest groups, activists, governments and stakeholders in international settings by using various media forms - print, radio/television and the Internet. The corporate diplomat must be able to create a powerful corporate identity that serves the mission of the corporation as a responsible global corporate citizen and at the same time support the culture of the host country.

Developing intercultural sense and sensibility will enable the practitioners of corporate diplomacy to develop culturally sensitive best business practices throughout the supply chain. Special focus must be placed on: developing strategic communications for foreign media; maintaining brand reputation; developing rapid response crisis communication strategies; developing corporate advocacy for environment, open trade and free markets; using philanthropy and community relations to counter negative sentiments; dealing with foreign bureaucracy, influentials, activists and opinion leaders. Above all, emphasis must be on maintaining corporate integrity abroad; and being a good global citizen. A corporate diplomat is a renaissance person, an enlightened opinion leader whose job is to educate stakeholders, including customers, lawmakers, the news media and NGO’s about the company’s commitment to social responsibility.

Developing a multicultural mindset, ability to use intelligence and tact, tolerance for ambiguity and contradictions, and being articulate and media savvy are some of the attributes of being an effective corporate diplomat

(ND Batra is professor of communications and diplomacy at Norwich University. He is the author of Digital Freedom: How Much Can You Handle?)

Let history judge George W. Bush

Bush stands firm like a rock

From The Statesman

President George W Bush - not public opinion polls - is the prime political mover in the United States. Foreign policy of course cannot run on public opinion polls, which go up and down so often that it will be politically unwise to be solely guided by them.

National leaders some time take measures that are unpopular, nevertheless, necessary according to their perception of the problem the country faces and their political vision. The hope that the excesses of the Bush administration, if any, will be corrected by the Democratic control of both houses is yet to be fulfilled.

Some thought Democratic Congress would redirect the president’s policy of keeping the course in Iraq, but Bush keeps going. He says it his job to conduct the war, not for Congress. He will listen to the generals, who haven’t given up on Iraq, not yet. The generals hope the new strategy in Iraq needs time to show results.

Democrats realise that they have failed to make a strategic use of their newly attained political power to persuade the president to find a workable solution how to stabilize Iraq and bring about troops withdrawal without damaging the US long-term interest in the region. They don’t have veto-proof strength in Congress to tie up the president or force him take actions against his best judgment.

Democrats are also feeling helpless for failing to put forward their own national agenda to strengthen their control over Congress as well as prepare for winning the White House in 2008. Iraq is playing as much a significant role in the 2008 presidential election as it did in the mid-term elections. Iraq is keeping the country divided. No one believes that Iraq, Afghanistan or terrorism would go away soon, which means that Democrats whether they control Congress or the White House or both in 2008 will have to deal with Iraq and international terrorism, even when they claim that the mess was created and aggravated by the Bush administration.

There is a broad national consensus, nonetheless, that the United States cannot just pack and run away from Iraq. Not only Iraq would continue to be a bloody hell for decades but also the United States would never recover from its humiliating shame and failure, if US troops were withdrawn without a plan for peace and stability. The limited goal has been to control Sunni-Shia sectarian killings and bring about a reasonable level of law and order and political stability that could justify withdrawal of the US troops from Iraq. Unfortunately it has not been happening.

Of the several benchmarks Congress set for evaluation of progress in Iraq, only a few have been met satisfactorily.

While Kurds in the north who have enjoyed autonomy since the first Gulf War due to the no-fly zone restrictions imposed on Saddam’s regime by the United States are not ready to give up their gains including the region’s oil wealth, Sunnis aided by some neighbouring Arab countries and Shias with the full backing of Iran are locked in a deadly struggle for supremacy. Division of the country into three separate independent states would leave the oil wealth with Shias who dominate the south and with Kurd who control the north, leaving Sunnis empty but full of bitterness and vengeance, which would not bring sectarian violence and terrorism to an end.

Negotiations based on equitable distribution of oil resources and a federal-type political structure that keeps balance amongst three regions as the basis for reconciliation and unity and national reconstruction has not made much headway.

So when Congress leaders especially Democrats ask the president to get out of Iraq quickly, they are not being realistic. Getting out of Iraq will not be the end of Al-Qaida, which has become resurgent as the recent events in Pakistan’s Lal Masjid and the arrests of eight terrorists, most of them doctors, in the UK shows.

Writing in **Foreign Affairs**, Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis said sometime ago: “The terrorists of September 11 exposed vulnerabilities in the defences of all states,” which necessitated for Bush to preside over “the most sweeping redesign of US grand strategy since the presidency of Franklin D Roosevelt. The basis for Bush’s grand strategy, like Roosevelt’s, comes from the shock of surprise attack and will not change. None of FDR’s successors, Democrat or Republican, could escape the lesson he drew from the events of 7 December, 1941 (Pearl Harbor): that distance alone no longer protected Americans from assaults at the hands of hostile states. Neither Bush nor his successors, whatever their party, can ignore what the events of 11 September, 2001, made clear: the deterrence against states affords insufficient protection from attacks by gangs, which can now inflict the kind of damage only states fighting wars used to be able to achieve.”

Terrorism breeds in failing states. Pakistani military rulers know that breeding and financing terrorists can bite back. Britain and other European countries too have begun to realise that Islamic terrorism is growing in their midst and must be purged whatever the cost. Even lionising a glib satirist like Salman Rushdie can be hazardous.

No one will disagree with President Bush that war against terrorism is a struggle for civilisation. He has many successes and has made many mistakes, but now it is a question of consolidating the gains in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is unthinkable that the US will totally withdraw from the Middle East and Central Asia. Strategically speaking, there’s too much at stake in the region and the US Congress must realise it.

(ND Batra is professor of communications and diplomacy at Norwich University. He is the author of Digital Freedom: How Much Can You Handle?)