Month: March 2021

Multi-faceted Nation Builder: Remembering Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay

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She persuaded Gandhiji to give a call for women to participate in the Salt Satyagraha.

She campaigned with Jawaharlal Nehru.

She argued with Sardar Patel, and convinced him.

She worked with the Kanchi Shankaracharya to defeat temple bureaucracies.

She complained against Indira Gandhi (and paid the price!).

She toured with her theatre company and mesmerized audiences.

She acted in the first Kannada silent movie.

She was the first woman to run for a legislative assembly seat in India

She pioneered thinking on legislation with regard to women in the workforce, and the safety of children.

She led international thinking on women’s Right to Health, and for the first time, brought to attention the economic value of women’s work in the house.

She revived Indian crafts and ensured their survival.

She founded institutions that are part of our national fabric even today.

Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay whose birth anniversary we mark this week on 3 April, was a woman of her times and before her time. She accomplished in one lifetime what many will not dare to attempt in three!

Born in Mangalore in 1903, her parents were immersed in the nationalistic cause and were a major influence on her. Freedom fighters and thinkers like Mahadeva Ranade, Ramabai Ranade, Gopalakrishna Gokhale, Annie Besant were family friends and set the course of her life. While her father died early, her mother pushed, supported and moulded her into a redoubtable force.

She was married at 14 and widowed two years later. After this, she married Harindranath Chattopadhyay. After several years, they were divorced.

There were three distinct phases to her life’s work for the nation:

Her contribution to the Freedom Struggle: She heard of Gandhiji’s Non-cooperation movement in 1923 when she was in England, and promptly returned to India to join it. She joined the Seva Dal, was a founding member of the All India Women’s Conference, and helped organize the Salt Satyagraha movement in Bombay.

Her work with Refugees: Seeing the plight of the people coming in from Pakistan after the Partition, she became active in their cause. Convinced that self-help and cooperatives were the way forward, she set up the Indian Cooperative Union to work on resettlement and rehabilitation of refugees, and built the township of Faridabad on these lines, rehabilitating over 50,000 refugees from the North West Frontier, building not only homes but their livelihoods through training them in new skills.

Her work with Artists and Craftspeople: Passionately committed to arts and crafts in every form, she recognized how fundamental they were to India’s way of life and the livelihoods of crores of people. She understood that the mechanization route that India was taking would impact these negatively, to a point where they might disappear, and she took on the mission to revive, revitalize and conserve these crafts and livelihoods.

Among the institutions she played an active part in setting up were the Sangeet Natak Academy, Central Cottage Industries Emporia, the Crafts Council, All India Handicrafts Board, National School of Drama, and the India International Centre.

Kamaladevi was a prolific writer too, and her works, including her autobiography Inner Recesses, Outer Spaces: Memoirs may be the best way to learn more about her. A great starting point however is the lovingly written biography by Jasleen Dhamija’s Kamaladevi Chattopadyay. Brought out by the National Book Trust, it is a publication of less than 200 pages, which amazes you with how much can be packed into such a little book. And currently costing Rs. 100!

–Meena

Fire in the Forest

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As the Indian winter winds to a close, forests in many parts of India burst into flames. Nondescript trees that are hardly conspicuous for most of the year, come ablaze with crimson-orange flowers that lend them the name Flame of the Forest.  It is a forest fire that announces the arrival of spring.

It is the Palash tree that sets the forest on fire. It gets its name from the Sanskrit word Palasha which means both ‘leaf’ and ‘beauty’. The tree was earlier known as Parna tree, which also means ‘leaf’. Another Sanskrit name for it is Kimsuka which means ‘like a parrot’. This is the root of the other common name for it—Parrot tree.

The tree has many popular common names including Bastard teak, Bengal kino, Flame of the forest, Kino tree, and Sacred tree It is also called Battle of Plassey tree.as it is believed that the village near where this battle was fought was called Palash due to the abundance of these trees there. The British mispronounced this as Plassey, and so that is how the battle is remembered in history.

The tree is known by different names in different parts of the country: Palash, Dhak and Tesu in Hindi, Palas in Marathi and Bengali, Kesudo and Khakra in Gujarati, Moduga in Telugu, Purasu Maram in Tamil, and Pangong in Manipuri.

Its botanical name is Butea monosperma. The genus Butea is named after the Earl of Bute, who was a patron of Botany; monosperma, means ‘having one seed’. It is a medium-sized deciduous tree with a crooked trunk and branches. The bark is rough and greyish but the branches are velvety and dark olive green in colour. The large trifoliate, pale bronze green leaves are initially velvety but later turn leathery. The flowers appear when the tree sheds all its leaves. The orange-scarlet flowers grow in stiff clusters of three. Each blossom has five soft petals covered with fine hair. The orange petals curve backwards, with one of them in the form that resembles a parrot’s beak, giving it the name Parrot tree.

The curious formation of the flowers is often referred to in folklore. One riddle in Bihar asks

“What has: An elephant tusk, But not a tusk;

The body of a monk, But not a monk;

The head of a crow, But not a crow;

But a parakeet?”

Curiously, for all their beauty, the blossoms are scentless. This led to the analogy, in some old writings, describing a person with beauty, but without moral or intellectual qualities as a human Palash!

The Palash tree has strong cultural and religious associations. References can be found to this tree in mythology, legends, classical, and popular literature.

According to one legend, a falcon dipped its feathers in Somarasa, the drink of the Gods which was believed to be made on the moon. One of its feathers floated down to Earth and became the Palash tree.

The tree is frequently mentioned in the Vedas and its trifoliate leaves represent the Hindu triad with Brahma on the left, Vishnu in the middle and Shiva on the right. The plant is used in many Hindu religious ceremonies. In earlier days when a Brahmin boy was initiated into monkhood, his head was shaved and he was given a Palash leaf to eat; his staff was made of Palash wood. During the sacred thread ceremony the leaves are used as platters when a particular part of a ceremony is performed; the dry twigs are used for the havan or sacred fire of the Navagraha Pooja to pacify the nine planets on the occasion of Vastu shanti. Many religious songs have mention of the fruits and flowers of Palash being offered to Gods to invoke their blessings. A Buddhist legend has it that the Queen Mahamaya grasped a branch of the Palash tree at the moment of the birth of her son Gautama Buddha.

Poets and writers have been inspired by the form and colour of the Dhak or Tesu flowers. Jayadeva in Gitagovindam compares the flowers with nails of Kamadev or Cupid with which he would wound the hearts of lovers. Rabindranath Tagore in his poems described them as a celebration of life…”the flames of the forest have lit up in smiles”. The forests of Madhya Pradesh where the Palash is found in abundance are the setting of many a Rudyard Kipling tale. 

This decorative tree thrives well on a wide variety of soils including shallow, stony sites, black cotton soil, clay loams, and even in salt lands and water-logged places. The tree is very drought resistant and frost hardy, and is resistant to browsing. It grows back even when it is cut down to ground level; and grows rapidly in full sunlight. The tree attracts birds and squirrels, and can be propagated by seeds

The different parts of the tree have numerous uses. The young leaves are used for fodder, eaten mainly by buffaloes. The fibre obtained from the tree is made into ropes and cordage. The gum from the tree, called Kamarkas in Hindi, is used in certain food dishes. The flowers are used to prepare traditional Holi colour. A bright yellow to deep orange-red dye is also prepared, used especially for dyeing silk and cotton.

The leaves have traditionally been stitched together to make plates and bowls, and even umbrellas. In some tribal communities a prospective son-in-law was tested for his dexterity in making these plates and bowls. He was accepted if his father-in-law approved of the product! Today these leaf dishes are being popularised as eco-friendly alternatives to paper and plastic.

One of the commercially important products yielded by this tree is lac. Palash is an important host for the tiny lac insect whose resinous secretion was traditionally used to make purple-red dyes used to colour silk, leather and for cosmetics. Today this is refined to make shellac. Shellac has high commercial value; it used for many products including wood sealers and finishers; floor polishes, inks, grinding wheels, electrical insulations, and leather dressings.

The Palash has numerous medicinal values in Ayurveda. Different parts of the tree are used to treat a wide range of health issues from eye ailments to liver, urinary and gynaecological disorders.

The sturdy tree also has a valuable role in soil conservation. Farmers frequently use Palash with its binding fibrous roots to stabilize field bunds and for erosion control.

When we were children we used to play a game called ‘Fire in the Forest, Run, Run, Run’. This is one forest fire that invites one to run towards it, intoxicating the viewers with its colourful flamboyance.

–Mamata

Coffee, Bournvita, or Horlicks?

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…asked my mother hospitably, when our friends Kiran and Jagdeep dropped in of an evening.

I could see the surprise on their faces. While in South India, it is perfectly normal to offer drinks like Bournvita, Horlicks or Ovaltine to guests, it is definitely unusual in the North. Nevertheless, they opted for Horlicks and enjoyed the beverage…they had not partaken of it for decades! In fact, so taken were they with the idea that they went out and bought a bottle for regular use at home!

These beverages were part and parcel of our growing-up years. So great was the belief in the abilities of these drinks to aid our growth, health and well-being that bottles of Horlicks and at least one of the other malted, cacao-flavoured drink were permanent fixtures in the larder. And partaken not just by the children, old and sick, but everyone in between as a change from coffee or tea. And of course, offered to guests in some parts of the country!

What are these drinks which are (were?) such an integral part of our lives?

Actually, India is as integral to Horlicks, as Horlicks is to India. We are the largest market for the drink in the world! The origins of the drink go back almost 150 years to 1873 when James Horlick, a pharmacist, along with his brother William, founded a company called J & W Horlicks in Chicago to manufacture a patented malted milk drink. Originally it was positioned as an infant and invalid food; then added old people and travelers in its target; and in the early 20th century was sold as a meal replacement drink. As far as the India story is concerned, it was brought back to India by our soldiers who were part of the British Indian Army returning from Europe after fighting in the First World War. People in the Punjab, Bengal and Madras presidencies quickly took to it, and it was a status symbol in the 1940s and ‘50s. While there was only one type of Horlicks for many decades, today we have not only a plethora of flavours—from elaichi to kesar baadam, we also have age and gender segmented products!

One distinctive characteristic of Horlicks was that it just would not dissolve! What a lot of stirring it took! The strategy was to spoon the powder into the glass, pour in a little super-hot water, and stir and stir. One interrupted the stirring with small breaks of trying to mash the lumps with the back of the spoon against the side of the glass. Only after about five minutes of all this would the glass be filled up with hot milk and/or water. And even with all this effort, there would be lumps left at the bottom when one finished!

This was not such a problem with the other popular drinks.

Compared to Horlicks, Bournvita is much more recent, having been developed in the late 1920s, and entering the Indian market only in 1948. This malted chocolate drink mix was invented by Cadbury and got its name from Bournville, the model village developed by the Cadbury factory. The original recipe included full-cream milk, fresh eggs, malt and chocolate  and was positioned as a health drink.

Ovaltine was developed in Switzerland, where it is known by its original name Ovomaltine (from ovum, Latin for “egg”, and malt).  It came to the UK in 1909, where a misspelling of the name on the trademark registration application led to the name being shortened to Ovaltine. And the name stuck in English-speaking markets. Originally advertised as consisting solely of “malt, milk, eggs, flavoured with cocoa”, it has changed the contents and formulation over the years. In India and the UK, it no longer contains eggs.

Complan, unlike the others, is made entirely of milk protein, and was developed in the UK in 1942, during the Second World War, as an easy-to-carry nutritious drink-mix for soldiers during battle where they take only very limited dry ration. It was launched in India in 1964.

Another lesser-known drink was Ragimalt, of which I can find no trace today. The violent orange drink was lapped by pre-teens but was way too sweet for anyone else.

Many of these drink mixes have stopped being sold in many countries—for instance, Bournvita was discontinued in the UK in 2008. With changing fads and tastes, with changing understanding of nutrition, with newer allergies which seem to prevent our children from eating and drinking what was basic a few decades ago, with trends like veganism, one wonders how long these drink-mixes will be around.

Maybe time to go out and buy a few bottles before it is too late?

–Meena

A March to Remember

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Source: en.wikipedia.org

Last week there were a flurry of events to commemorate a significant March. It was on 12 March 1930 that Mahatma Gandhi embarked on the march that was to become a milestone in India’s non-violent struggle for Independence from British rule. The 241-mile walk from Sabarmati Ashram to the coast at Dandi in Gujarat was a symbolic protest against the prohibitive provisions of the Salt Tax imposed by the British. The Dandi March was the spark that ignited the flames of a non-violent resistance and protest movement, and caused the idea of mass civil disobedience to spread like wildfire across the nation. The movement culminated in India gaining Independence on 15 August 1947.

This year, the run up to the 75th anniversary of our Independence, was marked by the symbolic re-enactment of the 24-day Dandi March, following the original route that Gandhi and his band of 79 marchers took in 1930. According to newspaper reports all sorts of “events” have been planned around this, including ‘patriotic’ entertainment programmes where the marchers halt every evening; competitions and contests, and even a “virtual ultra challenge” to walk, run or cycle as per one’s convenience at any place and any time between the challenge dates.

In an age where histrionics make headlines, and memories are as fleeting as Instagram images and tweets, perhaps not many today would know the historical facts about the original Dandi March 91 years ago. This is a good week to remind ourselves.

On 2 March 1930 Gandhiji had written a letter to the Viceroy giving notice of his intention to launch a civil disobedience movement by symbolically breaking the Salt Law which in his opinion was “the most iniquitous of all from the poor man’s standpoint.” He was snubbed in return; which strengthened his resolve. He selected Dandi, a seaside village in Gujarat as the site for his symbolic gesture, and planned to walk the distance of 241 miles from his Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, along with a select band of co-workers. The date for setting off on the march was fixed for 12 March and 6 April was the date set for the ‘breaking of the salt law” at Dandi.

Gandhiji vowed not to return to the Ashram till his mission was accomplished; he was also sure that he would be arrested before he could complete his journey. On 11th March Gandhi addressed a gathering of over 10,000 people at the end of the evening prayers on the banks of the Sabarmati saying “In all probability, this will be my last speech to you. Even if the Government allow me to march tomorrow morning, this will be my last speech on the sacred banks of the Sabarmati. Possibly, these may be the last words of my life here.”

On March 12, 1930 at 6.30 a.m. Gandhiji, left the Ashram accompanied by 78 satyagrahis. These represented a cross-section of the people from all over the country: Andhra Pradesh, Bengal, Bihar, Bombay, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Kutch, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajputana, Sind, Tamil Nadu, U.P. Utkal, and even Nepal. The group included members of all communities. They fell in a broad age spectrum from 16-year-old Vitthal Liladhar Thakkar to 61-year-old Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi! The main criteria for the selection, that he personally made, was that the marchers were disciplined, and strictly adhered to the principles of ahimsa and satyagraha. Interestingly, the group did not include any women. One of the later historians attributed this to Gandhi’s concern that the British would taunt the marchers for being cowardly and “hiding behind the women.” He also anticipated that the marchers would have to face the physical aggression of the police, and did not want to women to bear the blows. But he encouraged women to participate and contribute to the struggle by taking up picketing of liquor shops and foreign cloth, and taking up spinning, as well as to make salt locally wherever they lived. 

The route of the 24-day march was meticulously planned; it would pass through 4 districts and 48 villages. An advance party of volunteers from the Gujarat Vidyapith were to go ahead and collect information about each village and its residents so that Gandhijji could plan his evening talks so as to be relevant to the local needs of the village where they halted. He admonished the villagers if their village was not clean and sanitary. In every village the volunteers registered new satyagrahis and received resignations from village officials who chose to end their cooperation with the British rule. The marchers slept in the open and depended on the villagers’ hospitality to provide them with food and water. Gandhi felt that this engagement would bring the poor into the struggle for sovereignty and self-rule. .

The group walked an average of 15 km each day, taking a mid-day halt, and reaching their night halt before dusk. Every sixth or seventh day was a rest day. The entire route was lined with huge crowds and decorated with arches, flags and buntings. Gandhiji led the group, walking with his customary speed and energy; he was indefatigable, spinning or writing letters even at the mid-day rest halts; he did not waste a single minute. He addressed public meetings and gave interviews until he retired at 9 pm. He was up at 4 am, writing letters, even by moonlight. After morning prayers at 6 am he addressed the marchers and answered questions, before setting off for the day.

His satyagrahis were expected to follow an equally exacting routine of prayer, spinning and writing their daily diary.  Even the advance party volunteers were not exempt. In a talk to volunteers on March 17 1930 he said: Ours is a sacred pilgrimage and we should be able to account for every minute of our time. Let those who are not able to finish their quota or do not find time to spin or write up their diaries see me. I shall discuss the thing with them. There must be something wrong with their time table and I should help them to readjust it. We should be resourceful enough to do all our daily duties without the march coming in our way.

Day after day, as the marchers covered mile after mile, of what he considered to be  “nothing less than a holy pilgrimage”.  Gandhiji addressed thousands of people; he urged them to join the civil disobedience movement in large numbers; to boycott foreign cloth, adopt Khadi, and desist from the evil of drinking. Every day, more and more people joined the march, until the procession of marchers was at least 3 km long by the time it neared Dandi.

On April 5 the marchers reached Dandi. Early the next morning, after prayers Gandhiji walked into the waters of the Arabian Sea; he bent down and picked up a lump of salt. The Salt Law was broken, and that simple gesture, triggered a groundswell of protest; across the country local leaders led people to the seaside to do the same; everywhere, in towns and villages, people made salt in pots and pans. The people of India had openly challenged the British Government.

A simple gesture, but one backed by a canny calculation of the tremendous impact that it would have; and a symbolic march that signified not just the determination of a nation to win their birthright, but equally the demonstration of a movement driven by the principles of discipline, ahimsa and satyagraha. As a nation that has, for 75 years, been savouring the fruits of this momentous movement, the best way to commemorate this would be not simply by symbolic events, but by reminding ourselves of, and adherence to, these principles. They are needed now, more than ever before.   

–Mamata

The Postman Does Not Knock Even Once

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When is it that you last saw letters slipped under your door by the postman? For that matter, can you recall where your nearest postbox is?

The Indian postal system has a hoary history. The official website of India Post informs us that: ‘For more than 150 years, the Department of Posts (DoP) has been the backbone of the country’s communication and has played a crucial role in the country’s social economic development. It touches the lives of Indian citizens in many ways: delivering mails, accepting deposits under Small Savings Schemes, providing life insurance cover under Postal Life Insurance (PLI) and Rural Postal Life Insurance (RPLI) and providing retail services like bill collection, sale of forms, etc. The DoP also acts as an agent for Government of India in discharging other services for citizens such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) wage disbursement and old age pension payments. With more than 1,55,000 post offices, the DoP has the most widely distributed postal network in the world.’

True, every word. Except alas, it needs a high school grammar exercise to be truthful: ‘Transform the verbs in present continuous to the past tense’. So the truth will read: ‘For more than 150 years, the Department of Posts (DoP) was the backbone of the country’s communication and played a crucial role in the country’s social economic development. It touched the lives of Indian citizens in many ways.

The post office has sadly lost its relevance completely–at least in the urban context. One can understand the supplantion of some of the functions: Telegrams are not relevant now that we have emails and whatsapp and phones for instantly reaching out; the phone at the post office which was used in the pre-privatization era has obviously given way to mobile phones in every pocket; money orders which we looked forward to so eagerly in our hostel days have been efficiently replaced by money transfer apps galore.  But we are still sending documents, packages, invitations etc. physically from one point to another. But we never think of using the postal system do we? By default, we use the private courier.

Private couriers came in with the promise of overnight delivery. At most, if it was the other end of the country, it was 48 hours. And that did work, for the first few years. And they do come over and pick up and drop off things. The Postman will definitely not come home if you have a package, even for a charge. And so we all started shifting to couriers.

But today, for all the fancy tracking and tracing systems, except for a few premier and highly expensive couriers, they take a good 3-4 days. And whatever the level of service, they charge a huge multiple of the value of stamps I think I would have stuck on a good old letter or package.

I am sure the Postal Department has a huge workforce. We see occasional announcements as to additional functions they will take on. But in day to day life, one seldom sees this happening.

A sad example of the public sector’s presence and importance diminishing in a key vital sector. I don’t care if Govt. of India sells all its PSUs—it probably should. But are there not some core citizen services where its presence needs to be maintained? Should these not be the focus of modernization, revitalization and re-imagination? Are we, as a country not the losers if India Post is not able to live up to its Vision and Mission quoted below?

Vision​​​

India Post’s products and services will be the customer’s first choice.​

Mission​

  • To sustain its position as the largest postal network in the world touching the lives of every citizen in the country.
  • To provide mail parcel, money transfer, banking, insurance and retail services with speed and reliability.
  • To provide services to the customers on value-for-money basis.
  • To ensure that the employees are proud to be its main strength and serve its customers with a human touch.​
  • To continue to deliver social security services and to enable last mile connectivity as a Government of India platform

–Meena

Whistle Away!

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Imagine that your school timetable had three periods a week for ‘whistling class!’ What is probably every child’s fantasy is a fact for children who live on La Gomera. No this is not an imaginary land but a real island in the Canary Islands. The island is part of an archipelago in the Atlantic ocean, called The Canaries, located 100 km west of Morocco. The Canary Islands are part of the autonomous communities of Spain. They were originally inhabited by Berbers who were conquered and enslaved by Spanish invaders in the 15th and 16th centuries.  

What sets the island of La Gomera apart is its unique ‘whistling language’ called Silbo Gomero. This is a traditional language which was probably used by the original Berber inhabitants, and then by the indigenous herders for communication among themselves; it was later adopted by local communities who used it as a secret language when threatened by the Spanish invaders. Accounts of 15th century explorers include mention of indigenous people who communicated by whistling. It is believed that these people passed on the language to the first Spanish settlers in the 16th century. Over time the language began to transpose Spanish words from speech into whistling.

Whistling is a perfect way to communicate on the island which is made up of deep valleys and steep ravines, and where houses are located far from each other. When people cannot easily meet face to face, and where written communication is not used, whistling is a way to send the community invitations for feasts, inform of births and deaths, and warn of danger. With favourable wind conditions its sounds could travel up to 3 km. As one of the island’s old whistlers explained “The thing is that here, learning to whistle wasn’t a matter of pleasure. It was an obligation, a necessity. If you didn’t know how to do it, you would have to walk to give a message. And as the houses are far from each other, and there were no roads or phones, whistling was easier than walking.”

Thus evolved a whistling language, officially known as Silbo Gomero, which substitutes whistled sounds that vary by pitch and length for written letters. It is basically the Spanish language in which words are replaced by 2 whistled vowels and 4 consonants. The whistle goes high and low to distinguish one sound from another. The whistle can also be broken to indicate the end of a sentence. In order to amplify the volume as well as to create the necessary distinction the finger is placed in the mouth. Whistling veterans each had their own favoured way to use the finger in the mouth technique—some used only the tip of one or two fingers, some used a finger from each hand, some inserted one bent knuckle into the mouth. But they all knew the language which the whistles produced.

Interestingly Silbo Gomero was a commonly used language on the island until the 1950s. It was used at home and children grew up with it. As with many indigenous languages the use of the language began to decline as native speakers grew old and died, and younger generations began to emigrate; educational institutions gave precedence to the modern Spanish which became the lingua franca of the island. By the 1970s and 80s, there were only a few whistlers remaining. By the end of 1990 there were only about 50 island dwellers who were fluent whistlers, and one entire generation, educated in Spanish, had missed being familiarised of the language.

But linguists and scholars continued to be fascinated by this language. There are a few other whistling languages in the world, among which are the language on the Greek island of Evia, in the town of Kuskoy, eastern Turkey, and in a town of the French Pyrenees. But Silbo Gomera is the one that is still used by the largest community of speakers, and the first one that has been studied in depth.

At end of the 90s there was renewed interest in Silbo. One of the reasons was the initiative to introduce it as a subject at primary school. Since 1999, it has constituted a required subject in the primary and secondary school curriculum. Today children learn it as a second language, where once it may have been the first language they used at home. But the initiative is noteworthy for its attempt at keeping alive a unique  tradition, especially in an age when technology has transformed communication in unimaginable ways.

An important international recognition and step towards its conservation came in 2009, when the Silbo Gomero language was described by UNESCO as “the only whistled language in the world that is fully developed and practiced by a large community,” and added to its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

For the few remaining guardians of Silbo Gomera, the whistling language is like the poetry of their island, even though it may not have as much practical use as it used to. They feel “like poetry, whistling does not need to be useful in order to be special and beautiful.”

The island’s initiative to include it in the curriculum is important in that it creates for children a living link to their heritage and history. As one school girl said “It is a way to honour the people that lived here in the past. And to remember where everything came from, that we didn’t start with technology, but from simple beginnings.”

For others it is the fun of learning a “secret” language through which they can communicate. In an age when mobile phones and electronic communication have reached even the remotest parts of the world, the young people of La Gomera are happily adapting to both kinds of communication—Tootle and Tweet!

–Mamata

A Wise Lady from the 12th Century Guides Education Even Today

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The Aathichudi is the alphabet primer with which every child in Tamilnadu takes its first step in education. It begins with: ‘A is for ‘Aram chaiya virumbu’. The phrase means ‘Intend to do good’. And this is the first thing that a child is taught. There cannot be a better way to start the journey of life.

And so the Aathichudi goes through the A to Z of Tamil, 108 lines in all, with short moral and practical aphorisms. It spans a wide variety of exhortations from ‘Control your anger’, to ‘Never stop learning’ to ‘Care for your parents’ to ‘Do not forget charity’ to ‘Do not allow suffering’.

If we think the ‘quote a day’ approach is new, let’s think again. The Aathichudi is a pithy moral-science textbook cum self-help book which was penned by the legendary Avvaiyar in the 12th century.  

Actually, there was not just one poetess called Avvaiyar  (meaning ‘Wise and respected lady’). There were at least three—the first was way back in the Sangam period (BC); the second probably in the 10th century; and the third, the author of the alphabet primer (among many, many other works) lived in the 12th century.

All of them were wise. They talked with kings and walked with common people. They effortlessly defied convention–they did not marry, they traveled alone across the length and breadth of several kingdoms, they advised kings. wrote poetry, and shared their wisdom. They shunned worldly wealth and power. They not only provided a moral compass to people of the time, but most of what they wrote is timeless.

How influential and independent these women were in their times—they were writing, advising, travelling, teaching, judging the literary works of others, acting as negotiators between kings to stop wars. Their works don’t just endure to this day; they are living documents which every adult, youth and child in the state can quote.

A few gems from Konrai Venthan, another of her works:

Oadhalin nandre vethiyarkku ozhukkam:  For priests, morality is more important than chanting.

Kutdram paarkkil suttram illai: Finding fault results in loss of relationships.

Kaip porul thannil meip porul kalvi: Education is the real wealth, more than the one in your hands.

Neraa noonbu seer aagaathu: A job not done well is not a job to be proud of.

Valavan aayinum alavu arinthu azhiththu unn: Even the super-rich should spend within limits.

Apart from being known to every school child through the Alphabet Primer, in Tamilnadu, the mass memory of Avvaiyar is, predictably enough, based on a film–one starring KT Sundarambal which was released in 1953. There are many, many stories and myths about the Avvaiyaars—from verbally jousting with Subramania (son of Lord Shiva), to being transformed from an attractive young girl to an old lady in an instant. This last was a result of praying to Ganesha, since Avvaiyar wanted to avoid getting into a marriage and family responsibilities, so that she could focus on her scholarly pursuits. There are besides, several statues across the State, including an imposing one at Marina (though how we know how she looked is not clear to me!). There are many college and educational institutions named after her.

For a long time now, people of Tamilnadu have been remembering her through the Avvai Vizha, an annual festival celebrated around mid-March, which is a gathering of scholars of Tamil and other subjects. This has, in recent times been taken over by the State Government. Besides this, the TN Govt. has instituted the Avvaiyar Award, to be given to ‘one eminent woman who has rendered excellent service in any one field such as Social Reform, Women Development, Communal harmony, Service for Language, Service in various disciplines in Art, Science, Culture, Press, Administration, etc., on the International Women’s Day which is being celebrated on March 8th every year’.

Avvaiyar even has a crater on Venus named after her—Feature 512!

But probably if she is looking down on us, what will please her most is that her work is still being used to lay the basics of literacy and education for children! And though she does not seem to make any explicit references to women empowerment nor set herself up as a role model, she will surely be happy that she is an inspiration for women through the centuries!

On the occasion of International Women’s Day…

–Meena

‘millennialmatriarchs’ was launched on 8 March, 2018. So this piece marks our third anniversary. Our heartfelt thanks to all those who have supported and encouraged us, and most of all, our kind readers!
Mamata and Meena

Zizzer-zazzer-zuzz Dr Seuss

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A small news item caught my eye yesterday because it had the name of one of my favourite children’s author–Dr Seuss; and it reminded me that 2 March is his birth anniversary. The news however was somewhat unsettling. It reported that after being in print for almost half a century, six Dr Seuss books will no longer be published because the estate of the deceased author consider that “These books portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong.” 

In an age that it overly sensitive to the portrayal of different cultures and races, and in the effort to be “politically correct” or “woke” as it is now termed, this seems to be the latest item on the list of vetting children’s books for “appropriate content.”

Curiously, Dr Seuss books have always been more about vocabulary than content. Several generations of children have been introduced to words by being read aloud from his books. It was the simple rhymes and rhythm of his verses that opened up the fun of language, and the characteristic zany drawings that accompanied them that attracted young and old.

Theodor Seuss Geisel was born on March 2, 1904, in Springfield, Massachusetts to German immigrant parents. He left home at the age of 18 to attend Dartmouth College, where he became the editor-in-chief of its humour magazine. He was kicked off the magazine’s staff when he and his friends were caught drinking in their dorm, in violation of the Prohibition era laws. But he continued to contribute to the magazine under the pseudonym Seuss, which was his mother’s maiden name.

After graduating from Dartmouth, Theodor left for England in 1925 to study at the University of Oxford, with plans to become a Professor someday. But as his notebooks from the period indicate, while he diligently took lecture notes initially, soon the pages were filled only with doodles and drawings. In 1927, he dropped out of Oxford and gave up his idea of becoming an academic. Later when he began to make a name as a writer he added ‘Dr.’ to Seuss, as a sort of joke, because his father had always wanted him to get a doctorate and become a professor. And Dr Seuss he became and remained till the end of his days, and even today.

Theodor had always loved to play with words and it was with words and sketches that he began his professional life. On his return to the United States, Theodor worked for a number of years as a freelance magazine cartoonist, selling cartoons and humorous prose pieces to the major humour magazines of the 1920s and 1930s. One of his best known assignments was the humorous advertisements for the bug spray Flit. He went on to create advertising campaigns for several large companies including the Ford Motor Company.

His new avatar as a children’s writer was born with the publication of his first book in 1937. In 1936, Geisel and his wife were returning from an ocean voyage to Europe when the rhythm of the ship’s engines inspired the poem that became his first children’s book: And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street. But his manuscript was met with rejection from publisher after publisher.

After the 27th publisher rejected his manuscript, Theodor was dejectedly walking on Madison Avenue in New York when he bumped into an old friend from Dartmouth, Mike McClintock, who that very morning had started a job as an editor in the Vanguard Press children’s section. Within hours, the men signed a contract. In 1937 Vanguard Press published And to Think that I Saw It on Mulberry Street. The book was an instant hit and Dr. Seuss began what was to be an extraordinary literary career.   

The outbreak of World War II forced Theodor to temporarily give up writing for children and to devote his talents to the war effort. Working with the Information and Education Division of the U.S. Army, he made documentary and animated films for American soldiers. He also illustrated political cartoons; but his heart was in children’s books.

After the war, Geisel and his wife moved to La Jolla California where he returned to writing children’s books, working hard for hours at juggling words and rhymes and colour palettes to create madcap characters and adventures. He also loved coining playful nonsensical words that were as zany as his characters: Yuzz-a-ma-tuzz, murky-mooshy, gluppity-glup, schloppity shlop—words that children would love to twist their tongue around! It was a few years before his best known book The Cat in the Hat would be written. And this has an interesting background.

In the early 1950s the most widely used early school primers were a series featuring a boy and girl named Dick and Jane who were too neat, clean, and well behaved to be true!. By the mid-fifties some educators began to debate how effective these were in laying the foundation for literacy, and encouraging and exciting early readers.

One of the people who were concerned, and were imagining alternatives was William Spaulding who was then director of the education division at the Houghton Miffin publishing house. In 1955 Spaulding invited Dr Seuss to create a book for six- and seven-year-olds who had already mastered the basic mechanics of reading. He reportedly challenged, “Write me a story that first-graders can’t put down!”

The additional challenge was that Theodor was given a limited list of 250 words that he could use for his story. Theodor decided to quash his frustration by deciding to pick the first two rhyming words that he found in the list and create a story based on those. The words were Cat and Hat! The next challenge was to write the story. It took Theodor nine months to complete The Cat in the Hat—a 236 rhyming word book which while doing its traditional job of a reading primer was also entertaining. It was the story of two children, bored and alone at home who were visited by a cat in a top hat and red bow tie, and their mad capers in one afternoon.

We looked

and we saw him

the cat in the hat!

and he said to us

‘why do you sit there like that?

i know it is wet

and the sun is not sunny

but we can have

lots of good fun that is funny!

When it was published in 1957, the book was met with immediate critical and commercial success. Reviewers saw it as an exciting alternative to traditional primers. Three years after its debut, the book had already sold over a million copies.

The enthusiastic reception of The Cat in the Hat led Geisel to found Beginner Books, a publishing company specializing in easy-to-read books for children.

If 236 words was a challenge he took on successfully, one of his most popular books, Green Eggs and Ham, was the result of a bet that he could not write a book using only 50 words. But he did!

Dr Seuss never began his stories with a moral in mind. He felt that this was the one thing that immediately put children off. He believed in talking to kids not at them. He also cautioned other writers not to patronize children. As he said, “They can smell a phony a mile away. They are the toughest audience to write for.”

However his writing was not just word play; all his stories have an inherent moral, subtly permeating the rollicking words and the insouciant illustrations. With their plot twists and rebellious heroes who do the unexpected, the books cover a wide range of social and environmental issues. The Lorax at one time became a much-quoted environmental fable. His art work had a unique style, generally devoid of straight lines, and characteristic droopy figures.

Dr Seuss became a household name. Between 1937 and 1991, when he died aged 87, he published more than 60 books, which have sold half a billion copies between them–more even than J K Rowling’s Harry Potter books! The books have been translated into many languages. Some of his books were also adapted and made into animated films, TV shows and theatre productions.

I have spent as many hours reading Dr Seuss to my children as they were growing, as I have spent in perusing his books again and again, even when the children had outgrown them. I am sure that similar members of the Seuss fan club have not been unduly tarnished by what today is being perceived as writing and images promoting racial stereotypes, or being culturally insensitive. With six Seuss classics, including his first book And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street ceasing publication and sale, it would be a pity if we were to return to the sanitized versions of children’s books like Dick and Jane.

You’ll come to a place where streets are not marked.

Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked.

A place where you could sprain both your elbow and chin!

Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?

How much can you lose? How much can you win?

(Oh, the Places You’ll Go!)

–Mamata

Thinking About Science

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A few days ago, on Feb 28, we marked National Science Day. This commemorates the discovery of the Raman Effect.

As we think about the state of Science in India, there are two historical documents I would like to quote as my contribution to this day, to remind ourselves of the vision of the early national leaders, as well as the scientific leaders of yore.

The first is India’s earliest policy statement on the subject, tilted “Scientific Policy Resolution’, brought out by the Govt. of India in March 1958:

‘1. The key to national prosperity, apart from the spirit of the people, lies, in the modern age, in the effective combination of three factors, technology, raw materials and capital, of which the first is perhaps the most important, since the creation and adoption of new scientific techniques can, in fact, make up for a deficiency in natural resources, and reduce the demands on capital. But technology can only grow out of the study of science and its applications.

2. The dominating feature of the contemporary world is the intense cultivation of science on a large scale, and its application to meet a country’s requirements.

3. It is only through the scientific approach and method and the use of scientific knowledge that reasonable material and cultural amenities and services can be provided for every member of the community, and it is out of a recognition of this possibility that the idea of a welfare state has grown.

4. The wealth and prosperity of a nation depend on the effective utilisation of its human and material resources through industrialisation. The use of human material for industrialization demands its education in science and training in technical skills.

5. Science and technology can make up for deficiencies in raw materials by providing substitutes, or, indeed, by providing skills which can be exported in return for raw materials. In industrialising a country, heavy price has to be paid in importing science and technology in the form of plant and machinery, highly paid personnel and technical consultants. An early and large scale development of science and technology in the country could therefore greatly reduce the drain on capital during the early and critical stages of industrialisation.

6.  It is an inherent obligation of a great country like India, with its traditions of scholarship and original thinking and its great cultural heritage, to participate fully in the march of science, which is probably mankind’s greatest enterprise today.

The Government of India have accordingly decided that the aims of their scientific policy will be

1. to foster, promote, and sustain, by all appropriate means, the cultivation of science, and scientific research in all its aspects – pure, applied, and educational;

2. to ensure an adequate supply, within the country, of research scientists of the highest quality, and to recognize their work as an important component of the strength of the nation;

3. to encourage, and initiate, with all possible speed, programmes for the training of scientific and technical personnel, on a scale adequate to fulfil the country’s needs in science and education, agriculture and industry, and defence;

4. to ensure that the creative talent of men and women is encouraged and finds full scope in scientific activity;

5. to encourage individual initiative for the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge, and for the discovery of new knowledge, in an atmosphere of academic freedom ;

6. and, in general, to secure for the people of the country all the benefits that can accrue from the acquisition and application of scientific knowledge.

The Government of India have decided to pursue and accomplish these aims by offering good conditions of service to scientists and according them an honoured position, by associating scientists with the formulation of policies, and by taking such other measures as may be deemed.’

The second quote is from an important document called ‘A Statement on Scientific Temper’, put out by the Nehru Centre, Mumbai, in 1980, which lays down what scientific temper is:

‘ATTRIBUTES OF SCIENTIFIC TEMPER

Spread of scientific temper in society is much more than the spread of science or technology. Scientific temper is neither a collection of knowledge or facts, although it promotes such knowledge; nor is it rationalism although it promotes rational thinking. It is something more. It is an attitude of mind which calls for a particular outlook and pattern of behaviour. It is of universal applicability and has to permeate through our society as the dominant value system powerfully influencing the way we think and approach our problems—political, social, economic, cultural and educational. 

Scientific temper involves the acceptance, amongst others, of the following premises:

  1. that the method of science provides a viable method of acquiring knowledge;
  2. that human problems can be understood and solved in terms of knowledge gained through the application of the method of science;
  3. that the fullest use of the method of science in everyday life and in every aspect of human endeavour—from ethics to politics and economics—is essential for ensuring human survival and progress; and
  4. that one should accept knowledge gained through the application of the method of science as the closest approximation to truth at that time, and question what is incompatible with such knowledge; and that one should from time to time re-examine the basic foundations of contemporary knowledge.’

There is no need to re-articulate anything. The path is clear. What needs to be done is to ask ourselves, why we are not there!

We can judge for ourselves whether the Science Policy articulated close to 65 years ago has achieved what it set out to. And agonize how to put the focus back on ‘scientific temper’ which is relegated to the archives as a quaint and old-fashioned term.

Definitely needed more today than ever before!

–Meena