Profit from rising oil prices?

At a time when rising oil prices are spelling misery for a lot of people, there seems to be a perverse touch to this call to investors: http://www.valueresearchonline.com/story/h2_storyview.asp?str=100024

A forest and its people

(Am recycling an old travel piece. The reason? Have been thinking of Joseph, Douglas et al for a while. I wonder how they're doing. It's been a long time.)

It is a fine morning and as I peer out of the window, the azure waters of the Indian Ocean lap at the shores of Malindi, a little tourist town on the Kenyan coast. This delightful town, an important yesteryear port, has an interesting Indian connection: this is where Vasco da Gama is believed to have hired a guide who led him successfully to India in 1498, thereby capping the long search for a sea route from Europe to the sub-continent. After two days of rain the sky looks gay and friendly, and I think I can finally move out of Malindi. I have been staying at the dharamshala attached to the Malindi Swaminarayan Temple. It is the month of May, which is the slack tourist season, and the town is enveloped in tropical ennui. But it gives me the opportunity to make friends with the temple keeper, David, an elderly African who has been around for more than twenty years. To my astonishment, I discover that it is David who cleans out the sanctum sanctorum, lights the incense and adorns the deities everyday. He has been doing this ever since the temple priest passed away some weeks ago. A new one, who must belong to the Swaminarayan sect, is yet to be found. Till then, for all practical purposes, the priest at this Hindu temple is a Christian African who takes immense pride in his work! I see this auspicious confluence of religion and race as a good omen and set off to the village of Gede.

Gede is 18 kilometres south of Malindi and is known for the Gede Ruins, the site of an Arab-African settlement that is believed to have flourished between the 13th and 17th centuries. This is now a Kenyan National Monument and is managed (remarkably well, one must add) by the National Museums of Kenya (NMK). My own interest in Gede lies in NMK but for a different reason. The NMK is the site of a ‘kipepeo’ (Swahili for butterfly) farm and on the day of my visit, is teeming with farmers from nearby villages carrying butterfly pupae for sale. The pupae are exported to live butterfly exhibits in Europe and serve as an important source of income for the farmers. The butterfly farm is an outcome of the remarkable Kipepeo Project, a community-based butterfly farming project developed with the specific intention of getting local communities to develop a stake in the conservation of the neighbouring Arabuko Sokoke Forest.

As a matter of fact, it is the Arabuko Sokoke Forest that has drawn me to Gede, about 120 kilometres away from the port city of Mombasa. For Arabuko Sokoke is the largest remaining fragment of rich tropical forest that once stretched across the East African coast. About 42,000 hectares in size, the forest is rich in biodiversity and is regarded as the second most important forest for bird conservation in mainland Africa. It is the home of the enigmatic Clarke’s Weaver bird (Ploceus golandi), which is found nowhere else in the world, and of the Sokoke Scops Owl (Otus ireneae), which is found at only one other site, in north-east Tanzania. These are only two of the more than 230 bird species recorded in Arabuko Sokoke. Also found here are three rare, near-endemic mammals: the Golden-rumped Elephant Shrew (Rhynchocyon chrysopygus), Ader’s Duiker (Cephalophys adersi) and the Sokoke Bushy-tailed Mongoose (Bdeogale crassicauda omnivora). The forest also supports a population of the African elephant (Loxodonta africana).

As much as I am interested in its wildlife, I am also interested in the people living around the forest. These are mainly the Giriama, an indigenous people who are believed to have originated from present-day Somalia, which lies to Kenya’s north-east. From Gede therefore, I move onward to the village of Dida, which hugs the Arabuko Sokoke Forest in the southwest. I plan to be there for a few days.

The road to Dida is a dirt trail often cutting across the forest. The forest hangs low on either side and travelling here at twilight or later can be quite eerie. My escort is an immensely friendly forester who gets me engaged in a conversation on elephants. He keeps me riveted with anecdotes that illustrate the pachyderm’s intelligence. Among his stories is one of a villager plucked off his bicycle and dashed to the ground as an act of revenge. I swallow, and utter a silent prayer to Ganesha, hoping that I will remain in his good books, at least till I leave the forest.

In Dida I am entrusted to the care of the forest guard, Douglas, who beams as he receives me, having been informed by radio of my arrival. He lives in what turns out to be one of the few concrete structures in the village. It is also very old and looks as if it might collapse any moment. I consider invoking Viswakarma, the divine architect. There is no electricity in Dida, as in most other villages around the forest. However, as I step into the house, I can see that Douglas has taken great pains to make things comfortable for me. His own bedroom has been made over to my disposal with a couple of small kerosene lamps to light it up at night.

One of the first people I meet the next day is Joseph ‘Radio’ Kajomo. 35-year old Joseph has an honest face and an earnest way of talking that makes me take to him instantly. He volunteers to take me around the village and I accept at once. For the next few days Joseph is my constant companion. He carries a small radio with him all the time, which is the only connection to the world in these parts with neither electricity nor newspapers. I am taken to his house where he proudly throws open a battered trunk containing his proud possessions - books. His star possession is an old encyclopaedia set, purchased eight years ago from a second hand bookshop in Mombasa. It cost him 15,000 Kenyan Shillings (approximately 9,000 Indian rupees), a small fortune that he repaid from his farm income in instalments over eight long years.

One of the butterfly farmers whom I met in Gede the previous day lives in Dida. A message of invitation is sent out for me to Douglas, who arranges for me to meet Felix and his wife at their house. Felix is 43, has a gentle beard and a generous grin. I learn that he was once an inveterate small-time timber poacher, who went to prison thrice. After being introduced to butterfly farming though, he has turned over a new leaf. Butterfly farming helps supplements his income from growing maize and plantains. He is now strongly in support of protecting the forest. Felix’s grin grows wider and wider as I am being told all this. “From thief to conservator,” he says, “that’s my story!”

Joseph takes me around Dida and its neighbouring villages, Kafitsoni and Kahingoni. The houses are all located far apart and it takes quite some walking. We talk as we walk; when we fall silent the radio crackles to life. I meet some interesting, even inspiring, people. One of these is an elderly widow, Kadzo Masha, with a reputation for industry. Beginning as a widowed landless labourer, Masha raised her children well and was able to buy land for her family through sheer hard work. At 74, she works daylong on her farm and keeps a beautiful home. I ask Joseph to tell her that she reminds me of my grandmother. Masha is very pleased. “God bless you”, she says.

The staple food in these parts is warri, boiled flour eaten with baked kidney beans. I partake of this simple but filling meal at the home of Thomas Barawa, a village elder. He explains that the people are suffering ever since their entry into the forest was forbidden some years ago, on grounds of conservation. They are now forced to depend on the market for basic necessities such as firewood and charcoal; their nutritional status has fallen since they can no longer enter the forest to hunt small animals, pluck fruits or collect honey.

Before I realise, it is time for me to leave. I want to pay Douglas for all his troubles but he declines. “You are like my brother”, he beams at me, his hands resting on my shoulders. “I cannot take money from you.” Douglas supports a family of three children - they live in his village further south – on his meagre salary. I am overwhelmed by his gesture. As for my guide, Joseph, I dare not even mention that I would like to pay him. It would be an affront after the camaraderie that we have developed. Douglas and Joseph see me off on a rickety minibus to the town of Kilifi, where there will be a connecting bus to Gede. My friends in Dida may be poor, I say to myself, but they have something that money cannot buy. Dignity. I look back towards Dida and say softly, “I came, I saw, I was conquered.” Never mind if Caesar turns in his grave.

(An edited version of this piece was published in The Hindu Magazine, 8 July 2007.)

Nishant

I’m not a film critic, nor do I aspire to be one. My solitary foray into the business of appraising a film happened six or seven years ago, when I took on the formidable Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa, extended my critique onward to Kaaghaz ke Phool, and in the impetuousness of youth, sent it by post straight to The Hindu, which had only the preceding week published an atrocious (as it seemed to me then) review of the same movie by the eminent writer, Meenakshi Mukherjee. As if this was not enough, I was cheeky enough to enclose along with my essay a covering letter that in its tone hovered dangerously over the thin line that sometimes separates would-be-smartness from impertinence. Had I rummaged through the rubbish-bins of Kasturi Building, 858, Anna Salai, Chennai, a few days later, I might have found material that looked distinctly familiar (unless of course, someone in a fit of disgust had taken the trouble to reach for the shredder). The only gain from the whole exercise came from the bit of looking-up that I did, mainly some insights from Nasreen Munni Kabir’s biography of Guru Dutt, which was yet to hit the bookstands at the time.

It is therefore with some trepidation that I choose to record some of my impressions of Shyam Benegal’s Nishant. This 1975 film is the second of what is considered his quartet (the others being Ankur (1973), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977)), which, as I understand, met with reasonable success in breaking ground with mainstream cinema without suffering an undue discount in terms of viewership. The occasion for watching Nishant came about through my discovery of the Konangal Film Society, a group of cinema-lovers in Coimbatore that holds regular movie-screenings. The discovery was reinforced by the draw of the authorship of Nishant’s screenplay, which rests with the fiery Vijay Tendulkar who passed away recently.

Nishant may loosely be translated as ‘the end of the night’ (निशा + अंत) or better still, in the context of the movie, ‘the end of darkness’. For it is indeed the darkness of debauchery and terror, flowing from the haveli of the zamindar, that engulfs the village in which Nishant is set, and which is seemingly dispelled when the village turns against the zamindar. However, while the end of the zamindar may mark the end of darkness for the village, such a luxury is not available to the central character, a violated woman who is solidly restrained by the fetters of social norm that rule out her return to a respectable existence. A question-mark as a suffix to the film title may not have been out of place.

The film is nourished by the splendid performances of the cast, which includes Amrish Puri as the zamindar, and Anant Nag (of later-day Malgudi Days fame) and young Mohan Agashe as his villainous brothers. Naseeruddin Shah is cast in an uncharacteristically tentative role as Vishwam, the youngest of the zamindar’s brothers, although his character is pivotal to the way the story unfolds. Girish Karnad is slightly wooden as the schoolteacher. Shabana Azmi as Sushila, the schoolteacher’s wife, delivers a fine performance. Smita Patil, as Vishwam’s wife, shows promise.

It is interesting that in exploring the complexity of relationships and the bearing that social mores have on them, Nishant seems to completely overlook the complexity of societal make-up in rural India. The film presents us with bipolar opposites with the diabolical zamindar on one side and the rest of the village on the other, ignoring the heterogeneity of caste and class divisions that typify an Indian village and pose a daunting impediment to any attempt at mass action. This neglect is enhanced by the uneven temporal balance of the film. While the first half proceeds at a leisurely pace dwelling at length on minutiae, the call to rebel and its execution is accomplished in double-quick time.

The choice of the elderly temple priest as the medium that incites the village to revolt is curious. As was perceptively pointed out by one of the viewers in the discussion following the film, the priestly class, particularly the practising priest, has scarcely gone down in history as a bugler of incipient radical change, and is more often than not found on the side of the reactionary.

On the whole, however, Nishant does sufficient justice to a lay-audience – among which I count myself - that seeks out the film in the hope of a compelling experience. Backed by some excellent cinematography and Benegal’s ciné-vérité, the film is a remarkable product of its time. Its refusal to dumb down the viewer makes it deeply provocative and rouses one to think along not-so-comfortable lines. Which, at least in part, is what good cinema should be about. Isn’t it?

Tag: The man who knew infinity

Songs of sixpence has been tagged by Mampi. The tag asks me to quote sentences numbering six, seven and eight from page 123 of the book nearest at hand. In my case, the book in question happens to be The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan. Now before you jump to conclusions and accuse me of engaging in an exercise in narcissism by reading a biography of my namesake, let me make it clear that the book has come into my temporary possession absolutely by chance, thanks to a friend of mine who fell for the charms of Nalini Chettur, the keeper of Giggles, ‘the biggest little bookshop’, in Chennai. This friend already has several books piled up waiting to be read, so he passed it on to me, mistakenly thinking that I possibly had more time at my disposal. I say ‘mistakenly’, because I have my own pile of unread books. Nevertheless, I gave The Man Who Knew Infinity top priority because it has to be returned, and allowed it to jump the queue of books begging for my attention. To my delight however, I believe I do not have much cause to complain and might even want to hug my friend for his act of generosity. Having traversed about three-fifths of it, I find the book quite engaging. Anyway, here goes:

He devotedly studied his Wisden, the cricket annual crammed with bowling averages, test-match results, and other arcania of the game. In 1910, the minutes of a Cambridge club would alliteratively cite his command of “the University Constitution, the methods of Canvassing, Clarendon type, and professional cricket.” As a young Fellow of Trinity College, he’d play a bastardized form of it in his rooms, with walking stick and tennis ball.

The lines are from the fourth chapter, and as you have probably guessed already, describe Godfrey Harold Hardy, the celebrated Cambridge mathematician who was responsible for dragging Ramanujan out from near oblivion as a lowly clerk in the Madras Port Trust and into the hallowed portals at Cambridge. The book is as rich in biographical detail of Hardy as it is of Ramanujan. As is evident from the lines above, Hardy was a great cricket enthusiast. In fact, he was very much unlike the picture that one may carry of a mathematician: he was extremely good-looking, an excellent speaker and a fine writer. Nonetheless, to partly justify the slightly stereotyped perceptions of a mathematician, he had his share of eccentricities. He was known to refrain from shaking hands and to walk down the street face down, without exchanging greetings with acquaintances among passers-by. For a flavour of the man, I take the liberty of quoting some more lines from the book:

In The Case of the Philosopher’s Ring, a Sherlock Holmes mystery written half a century after the death of Arthur Conan Doyle, the characters include Ramanujan and Hardy. In it, author Randall Collins pictures Hardy as a sort of White Rabbit hopping around the Fellows Garden at Trinity in white flannels and cap, cricket bat in hand, frantically searching for his cricket gloves, crying, “There’s a match due to begin, and I can’t find them. I’m late! I’m late!” In a prefatory note, Collins abjures all claims to historical accuracy. But in Hardy, he’s close to the mark.

The Man Who Knew Infinity is written by an American, Robert Kanigel, and he writes about the considerable difficulty of having to straddle two worlds very different from his own – those of South India and Cambridge - in researching the book. Indeed, his description of life in (South) India when he is discussing Ramanujan’s early days, needs to be taken with a pinch of salt (his denigrating description of sambar as ‘a thick lentil soup stocked with potatoes’ still rankles!) Yet, in tackling two highly complex personalities of the twentieth century along with their daunting mathematics, one must accept that overall, he has done more than a decent job. After this, I am more eager than ever to lay my hands on David Leavitt's The Indian Clerk.