Dibyendu's WallScript

I   Communalism, nationalism, the rhetoric of statehood — such grand words have echoed through India’s political chambers for decades. Today, even the bereaved lips of a martyr’s widow are made to mouth the slogans of nationalism, her sorrow drafted into the ledger of political gain. Nothing inflames the public heart so swiftly as the narcotic of nationalist emotion. Modern men and women, who were slowly turning secular, cosmopolitan, indifferent to the walls of caste and creed, have again and again been dragged back into the trenches by the fundamentalists’ lash. In a country of many faiths, many tongues, many castes, democracy finds no easier leash than nationalism. And so, religion and caste become the tickling feather, the ready bait with which elections are won. These are the blunt instruments of our so-called secular statesmen. The bitter harvest of this politics was seen most recently in Tamil Nadu.   II   Who are the guardians of democracy? Are they seasoned custo...

In their private conversation after the Agra summit, the leaders of India and Pakistan admitted at least one truth: however much goodwill they might personally possess, their intentions must perish before the crushing weight of domestic compulsions.   The General’s overzealousness, the Prime Minister’s enthusiasm, nearly a hundred million rupees expended for the summit — and yet, the net result was zero. The discerning had foreseen this emptiness written into its fate. Still, the people of both countries, carried away by excessive optimism, nourished a belief that something tangible might emerge.   At the end, what did we learn? The General demanded the liberation of a freedom-seeking nation; the Prime Minister demanded poverty eradication for the welfare of all his people. Both arguments, both aspirations, deserve admiration. Yet the sum of all events collapses into the wise man’s bottom line — a big zero. Which means: the summit failed.   The General’s Position   L...

What, indeed, is the great agony of the Indian middle class? A Western traveler, who had recently come wandering through Calcutta, posed this question to me. A young artist from the city had introduced me to the gentleman—a Finn by origin. It was the first day of the monsoon, the afternoon sky drowning under relentless rain, and knee-deep water had gathered at the crossing of Exide. I wondered what the plight must be at Panchanantala or Sukea Street. We stood at Nandan, conversing about art and literature, when suddenly he asked: “In your view, what is the great middle-class Indian agony? What do you think of it?”   The question pierced me with that peculiar mixture of embarrassment and melancholy so typical of the Indian heart. It seemed, in that instant, that in our national life nothing worthy of pride remains—only suffering remains to be discussed with the foreigner. Not joy, not cultural refinement, not history, not our aristocracy, not our artistic sensibility—no, he wished t...

So then, is it I myself who pushes you away, beloved? Or is it that I failed somewhere, unable to learn the secret script of your eyes? Think of those glances—layered with fire, each fold concealing a spark, each flicker burning into the marrow of my being. And yet, perhaps the fault is mine alone—whether in understanding you or in failing to do so. “Jo kahi gayi na humse, woh zamana keh raha hai” —“What I could not say, the whole world is speaking of”—wrote poet Kaifi Azmi for the film Pakeezah . On this day of separation, that song returned to me like a wound pressed anew. The grief of losing a pure, immaculate beloved is no small matter. Such grief could drive a tender-hearted man to leap off the Howrah Bridge or throw himself upon the tracks of the Metro. Enough—let it be. For this sorrow is not slight, especially in this famished, bone-dry city, where every headline seems to belong to an accident reporter, monopolized by the newspapers. Yet here I sit, not to write of accidents, b...