'Lekin' versus 'Teesri Kasam'

 Old, acclaimed Hindi films both. I do not mean to write about them but about their songs and accompanying dances.

Zuthe naina bole is a very fetching song from Lekin. Hridaynath Mangeshkar has set it in raga Bilaskhani Todi, one of the most melodious ragas, and has got Pandit Satyshil Deshpande to sing it with Asha Bhonsale. The song and its video are available on You Tube. The accompanying dance sequence by Hema Malini is however, very disappointing. Her actions are wooden and stilted. She must be a dancer with little imagination for she confines herself to a few repetitive, set actions and facial expressions.

Go back to these 3 famous song and dance sequences in Teesri Kasam:

Pan khayo sainya hamaro,

Hai gajab kahin tara tuta and

Raat dhalne lagi.

Shankar Jaikishan and Asha Bhonsale have excelled themselves here. And Waheeda Rehman! So natural, so graceful, with a spontaneous smile on her face and the rhythm playing through her whole body! Typical actions and gestures but she gives them a magical touch. Simply mesmerizing.

Surely old is gold.

Whither cantonments?

 Cantonments, scattered all over India, are reminders of the British Raj and I have fond memories of them.

Nagpur's Sudder Bazar area was spacious with well laid- out roads. The main city areas of Mahal and Itwari on the other hand, were very congested.

Pune has not one but three cantonments - Pune, Kirkee and Dehu road - attached to it. A lot of history is attached to the east (Pune cantonment) and west (Pune city and Deccan Gymkhana) divide in Pune. Without knowing it, we landed in the eastern part of Pune fifty years ago and we have absorbed the camp - that is how Pune cantonment is known - culture.

The ethos of camp is best captured in Farrokh Dhondi's 'Poona Company'. Gambling, betting, taking pot shots at the nationalistically minded denizens of the city, making money in trading and small business, sticking to the knitting of one's close community - Parsees, Irani's, Jews, Anglo-Indians and Goanese Christians, Muslims including Moghuls, Sindhis, Gujrati's and Jains - were the features of this ethos. St. Vincent's School and its Jesuit priests, Gulati hall with its few cultural programmes and later Nehru Memorial Hall defined the (little) intellectual core of this culture. Sports were more important than studies.

Parsees, Christians and Muslims looked down upon Jains and Marwari's as spineless, sissy people and Marathi people were all 'Ghatis'. This narrow culture flowered against the backdrop of posh areas like Main Street, East Street, Cahun road, race course, Empress Garden and Koregaon Park. Camp culture gave importance to money-making rather than intellectual and cultural pursuits. However, it is cosmopolitan and at the level of everyday activities, this culture is helpful and welcoming.

Main Street had shops like Regal Stores and Marz-o-Rin. At one end of the street was the charming West End theatre and then Dorabjee's - the first departmental stores - (It is actually a superstore.) in Pune, a stone's throw away. After the departure of the British, the Indian army, steeped in the British discipline, dominated the camp as the head quarters of the Southern Command. So there was discipline and cleanliness. English was widely spoken and understood.

Some parts of Camp and Kirkee are simply beautiful. They instantaneously evoke the past. Sudhir Patwardhan has immortalized parts of Kirkee in his paintings.

Residents of Pune Camp were very proud of their heritage.

Alas! Time has not been kind to the cantonments.

Pune has grown by leaps and bounds while the boundaries of cantonments have remained fixed. Cantonment boards sustain themselves on grants from the central government and on their own, they have a measly Entry tax on vehicles and property tax for revenue. The central government has reduced the grants after GST became operational and there are frequent delays in getting the money. PMC, on the other hand, makes good money through property tax because its boundaries are expanding and there is new construction everywhere. New construction is restricted in cantonments.

Thus Pune camp is today a shadow of its past. The Shivaji market which was gutted has not been fully restored. All roads are full of ditches. Shops on Main Street are closing down. There is double way parking everywhere. Residents have fanned out to Fatima Nagar, Wanowrie, Kondhwa, Hadapsar and Yerawada. Footpaths have been encroached upon and cantonment board people ignore complaints of residents.

Toxic work culture

 

Toxic work culture

Literature on people/ human resource management is full of platitudes. It is also very upbeat and positive, overly so. My own experience about people management is that it is very demanding work and one has to be truthful and honest while dealing with others, no matter what the short run compulsions are. I also found that it is better to restrict one’s interactions to a small group.

On the backdrop of a lot of motivational goodness in the literature, a recent article about toxicity at the workplace caught my eye. (The Times of India, Pune, 1 Feb 23: ‘Productivity got boost from WFH, but toxicity grew too’ by Sujaya Banerjee)

The article states that toxic work cultures are disrespectful, abusive, unethical, non-inclusive and very competitive. Their features are:

·       Lack of freedom to speak up, to experiment

·       Poor communication in the organization

·       Micromanagement by seniors

·       Lack of trust and

·       Poor experience at the workplace.

It was a short article but it caught my eye. It resonated with my experience absolutely.

My own work experience is pretty limited. I began my career in a large, professional manufacturing organization when I was singularly ill equipped to work. Instead of acting on this realization and quitting quickly, I hung on for three and a half years. Then I was in a semi-government organization for donkey’s years. It is the latter that I am talking about.

I taught in a college, funded by the state government but run by a private trust whose life members constituted the management. The college had a nice, compact campus at a very good location and its staff and students were cosmopolitan. A number of institutions ran their show in the campus and my college was the newest member.

I had to spend a lot of time to get tenure in the college. By then drift had set in. Students stopped taking the examinations seriously and they also stopped attending lectures which were pretty boring. The subjects of Commerce were also very boring and were taught mechanically, without any explanation of their background and forward, sideways linkages.

Students’ absence was something nobody talked about. Instead, ostrich-like, the faculty looked inward and concentrated on backbiting and watching each other’s moves for career progression. Progress was never defined in academic terms. It was only administrative i.e., taking over office work, examination work and finally becoming Principal.

Due to government regulations and reservation rules, the faculty got divided into 2 groups, a handful of tenured teachers, surrounded by a large group of temporary teachers, part-timers, leave vacancy teachers etc. The latter were made to slog in the hope of getting tenure but just a few could manage to. Because there was no accountability to students, permanent faculty had plenty of time on hand and it resorted to groupism. Reserved versus general category teachers was the basic divide to which were added more angles of subjects, departments, facility with languages, general outlook etc. etc.

The salary scale was meagre but it was periodically revised as per successive pay commission rules and the positions were pensionable. So there was plenty going for these tenured jobs. There were few separations. People dug their heels in and tried to sabotage working from within. As the first principal of the college retired, there was dilution in the effective power in the hands of subsequent principals.

I only concentrated on teaching and I was attracted to research. It did not take long for the established group to keep me at an arm’s length because my motives were not understood. Each of the features of toxicity mentioned above was experienced by me. I felt suffocated, alienated in the college. I found the culture non-inclusive, closed and discriminatory.

My part-time post-doctoral research fellowship was the last straw for the in-group and because of it, I was made to feel like a pariah. I retaliated by totally ignoring the group. I got isolated but I did not mind. I concentrated on my own work. There was another, younger teacher who excelled in teaching. He too, quit in sheer disgust.

In the college, I could work on my own. In corporate jobs, people cannot and they cannot afford to be shunted. So, they take to copying their seniors and that makes the workplace even more toxic.

Given the highly competitive nature of corporate workplaces and given human psychology (highly educated, experienced persons can also be very mean!), inclusion of these negative but crucial aspects of working, will make human resource management literature more realistic.

Adverse sex ratio

 So what is to be done to solve this problem? (Continuation of post of 2 January 2023)

• Create more jobs. Demographic dividend is going waste as young people do not have jobs and cannot contribute to society.
• Empowerment of women so that we do not go backward and get rid of female foetuses.

After reading yesterday about the agitation of men who cannot get brides, I have been thinking continuously about this situation. I have become aware of the myriad ramifications of the issue.

So I read with interest this news item in today’s newspaper:

A newly married man recorded the phone conversation of his bride and came to know that she was planning with her relatives to decamp with valuables from the marital home. The man had paid a large amount as bride price already. He complained to the police and the lady, raised as an orphan, was caught.

There have been quite a few cases of newly married women running away with their jewellery.

When an imbalance or disequilibrium exists, touts will first step in to exploit the situation.

Progress throws up difficult problems!

Maharashtra Times, 1 January 2023 featured a disturbing article. It is published with a photo of bridegrooms in Solapur who took out a public march to draw attention to their plight of not getting  brides. The marching men were in the age group of 28 to 40 and all hailed from rural areas. They have been trying but unable to get married for a long time. The article claims that almost every village in Maharashtra has young men who are unable to get married. Sadanand Deshmukh had mentioned this problem in his Sahitya Academy prize-winning novel Baromas.

Most of these men do not have jobs. However, they are economically active. Many are engaged in farming, in agro-based industries, in small businesses or are followers of political leaders. Just a handful are dependent on their parents but feel that with marriage, their prospects would improve.

I remember times when getting their daughters married off in time and avoiding social approbation was the biggest priority of parents. How did this complete about turn happen?

There are many reasons.

• Girls are better educated and want husbands who have equivalent or higher education. Girls have made good use of educational opportunities open to them and they are striving to be economically independent. Boys have lagged behind in rural areas. Many have just matriculated or done graduation in Arts. These courses have no job prospects. Girls shun these boys.
• Girls do not want to live in villages and small places. Urban life is hectic and crowded but it is considered open to new ideas and liberating in many ways.
• Girls prefer husbands with steady jobs. They frown on farming because of its risks and uncertainties. There are cases of young men taking up indifferent jobs in towns just to get married. After marriage, they leave the jobs and return to farming. Then the girls approach courts to dissolve the marriage! There are cases of young men who are prosperous farmers and earn handsome income from farming but they too, find it difficult to get married.
• Female infanticide was practised on a large scale in rural and semi-urban areas in Maharashtra a decade and two ago. There was rampant misuse of amniocentesis tests till women's organizations agitated against the practice. So the sex ratio is adverse in all the districts, advanced and backward, in Maharashtra. Therefore there is a real shortage of girls. Because of this shortage, looks and financial background of girls do not matter any more. In fact, older, separated and divorced women are also acceptable in marriage. Issues of caste, religion and region are also not important!

The article makes a plea that this has become a pressing social problem and it must be redressed satisfactorily. It does not outline how it is to be done.

A few years ago, I read reports of Jat farmers in Haryana facing a similar problem. In a few cases, Keralite women travelled to Haryana for marriage and in spite of linguistic, cultural barriers, the marriages were successful.

There was also a movie starring Tulip Joshi who had to become a modern day Draupadi after she marries into a family of five unwed, grown up brothers. The image of Tulip Joshi, all pale and confined to her bed is seared in my memory.

Jersey island

 In an earlier post (DVD of 2 April 2022) I had mentioned the old dvd series Bergerac which was very popular on BBC two decades ago. It was shot on the island and there were many shots of the ferry bringing passengers and locals to the island.

It all came alive in my mind last week but for the wrong reasons. There have been two instances of bomb blast and fire in Jersey in the last fortnight. The locale seen on television has not changed at all.

Male libido and French connection

 The Times of India had reported from Bangalore a few years ago that the Indian wife of a French diplomat had filed a case against him with the police for abusing her daughter. The lady had explained that she was heavily pregnant and when her daughter of less than two years had complained to her that 'Daddy hurts' she had ignored the child. Later her maid reported that 'Sir' used to take his daughter and lock the door for long periods. Then she became aware, scared and started noticing. Her husband took cover under diplomatic immunity and fled the country as soon as he got wind of the police complaint.

Feminist groups have always maintained that women are not always safe at home. There was a big jump in cases of domestic abuse during the recent two Covid lockdowns in India. The right glorifies home and hearth for women but reality is otherwise.

Two days ago I was watching a French movie on TV Monde Asie channel on TV. It is a free channel and I like French movies and their whole approach. The movie was already on when I started watching it. A young woman is admitted to a mental hospital and is not allowed to visit her two young daughters. Her charge that her husband is abusing them is not accepted even when she had managed to get a video of one such act. Her parents in law decide to look after their granddaughters. One day, when accidentally the grandfather goes to the bathroom when the elder granddaughter is in the bath, she cries out. The grandfather immediately understands although the grandmother keeps denying and pressurizes him to consider the consequences. The grandfather was aware of his son's tendencies in the past and had always known but thought that the son was now reformed. He is disturbed and he calls the daughter in law.

Again I do not now what happened in the end but probably the outcome was positive. What has stayed with me is the aggression and duplicity of the son. Others must also be like him.

The more I think of what children, especially girls, go through in life, I shudder.

The French movies are bold. They portray life in all its aspects, warts and all. With us, when Ghashiram Kotwal was to be staged in the then east Germany, a dominant opposing voice was that blemishes in our history should not be advertised. But then how will progress be possible?