Gardens of Secularism and Soapboxes for Orators

I was referring neither to caste nor ethnicity, but class when I made that observation. The class interests of that group that RSS represents.

ussa

#13 by ussa

[gujjubania, does your name reveal all that is narrow minded, self-centred and bigoted about you? Even the Mahatma must have feared the class superiority that you appear to represent. Indeeed he was assassinated by a member of your class. Lest we forget.]

Actually, Mahatma Gandhi himself was a Gujju Bania. He was assassinated by Nathuram Godse, a Maharashtrian and, if I am not mistaken, a Brahmin.

jay I think you made one interesting comment that was not attacking or a putdown. That was the point about many sites in Kerala that represent a mythical consciousness about diverse faith being essentially unitary.
If you have read Giambattista Vico on the subject of myth as literally constructing social institutions, like marriage, the family and occupations, this will perhaps be even more interesting for you.

It is too bad that emails are so limiting, though some among us try to overcome that as best we can, by trying to see the other`s point of view, as having resonance with our own.

To have one`s work read is in itself a privilege so I thank you.

ussa

Thanks for your replies --

Saima, Zareen, Saminasha, Umer Murtaza, p.mishra, gujju bania, G. Toheed, ironman, jay, gujjubania, dostmittar


Co-residents at Chowk, based on a considerable number of responses not just to my article, but to may others, across Chowkpur, aka, chowkistan, aka chowkville, whatever...
I am gravely concerned that Hindu males, suffused by patriarchialism and caste privilege,and unwilling to concede power that should be shared, will stand in the way of radical social egalitarianism in India. This is my basic underlying concern in my article about public space and civic modernity in India.

Saima, Zareen and Asha (saminasha, did I get your name right from your monikker?), I immeditely felt that feeling of proud and rising sisterhood that nearly always characterizes South Asian women`s relationships with one another. Of course jealousy, envy, anger and all the other epic emotions, but there is no denying the visceral feelings of amity and shared subordinate herstory that South Asia`s women feel. My lovely Pakistani friend in Manhattan, Amtul Husain of Lahore and I will sudenly burst out laughting together at some behavioral subtlety of a common male Pakistani friend. We are joined at the heart, hip, breast, but mainly the brain, I guess. I enjoy equally the afternoons after lunch with a young sister in law in Chennai. Again the laughter and sly knowingness in which we hurt no one, least of all our male relatives and friends. I think harsh South Asian patriarchialism, whether Muslim, Hindu or Christian, Dalit or indigenous (read tribal), has partly made possible this precious sisterhood.


So yes, as you do, I think all our public spaces are heavily gendered. When I undertook fieldwork on a faculty research grant this past summer in Erumeli, in Kottayyam district in Kerala I was repeatedly asked ``You came all alone? Where is your husband? Where are your children?`` You are staying alone in your lodge? Who will take care of you?``

Saima and Zareen, you are wondrous writers! I feel privileged even to have a response from Saima. Have I missed an article from Asha? Zareen, I hope you found my comment on your excellent piece. Saima`s remark on `egalitarian` , hell yes, I am proud to be on a path where I have no more than the next person. My sons joke ``Mom can leave any place in fifteen minutes.`` I give away most of the money I make. Of course I am not stupid, I don`t want to be at the mercy of any government for my livelihood.Of course I am privileged to have had a home and education.
But to have when others don`t, I find that painful. I

I have a question. Are any of you women and men going to be at the World Social Forum in Mumbai Jan 16-21? Please let me know.

More comments:

Umer Murtaza, thanks for the reminder about the board. I appreciate that.

Ironman, no, thankfully, I am not the ex-CM`s relative. But my late father founded the Center for Earth Sciences in Thiruvananthapuram, and there is a Professor Karunakaran Memorial lecture every year. Anil Kakodkar, M. S. Swaminathan and Kasturirangan his have keynoted there so far.
We are not politicians but scientists.

gujjubania, does your name reveal all that is narrow minded, self-centred and bigoted about you? Even the Mahatma must have feared the class superiority that you appear to represent. Indeeed he was assassinated by a member of your class. Lest we forget.

G. Toheed, I agree a nominal fee to enjoy a public space as in Lahore (a city I dream of visiting) might be acceptable but what about those millions who cannot pay and need it most? The tragic cost of conflict between our nation-states is slightly more than a strip og green with a bench or two! Our governments and municipalities have chosen to kill rather than foster the public space.

dostmittar, yes, I agree, middle class South Asian persons do indeed, and are fortunate to have the leisure to use such limited public spaces for exercise, as we have. But I agree with Saima that egalitarian public spaces have been severely curtailed. Commerce now dictates our public social interactions to an unprecedented extent.
Isn`t this regrettable and one that has to be reversed? I would often sit down on filthy public steps next to beggars just to make this point. I think South Asians` public spaces can in time be a revelation to the world because our societeis are so rich with social interactions. But only if we want them and build them of course to reflect our new civic modernity.

Of course I don`t think I have the answer. But it seems so very regrettable, a true loss, that our municipalities are not providing the simple amenities that make life livable and sociable for all people, not just the privileged who are increasing living in gated communities in India.

Saminasha, yes, I agree, I noticed a ``glut of SUVs`` already in our Indian cities! Thanks for the warning. have refused to ride in one, to the embarrassment and chagrin of some of my Indian relatives who proudly own them. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. That`s my point.

#6 pmishra, pl. don`t assume I am a ``young person`` for that is ageist and I am sure you would not wish to be that! I am pleased to be older and striving to be better by the day! Thank for your kind words about ``good criticism`` in reference to public space, but I am sure you can recognize that language (which you take issue with me for) is a critical instrument for constructing the very space we are discussing.

Language is the thin line that separates me from the higher primates, and it is also the tool that helps me recognize I am one of them! Get it? Our humanness is largely derived from our language. Language shapes what we perceive. Our language makes us human. Humans are hardwired for language, we make language and are made by language.

jay, I have no idea what drives your denigration of others, as individuals and as collectivities? Is it self-loathing?

Chitra,
Now that you are in kannur, make a trip to kattilapally, you have to go past valapattanam river, 3 kilometers towards taloparamba. There is a festival every year, mostly attended by hindus, school going children, because it is believed that the place where a muslim fakir is burried bestows good marks. I went there every year while i studied at azikode secondary school and later at SN college kannur, at I can vouch the belief is true, I did get national merrit scholarship all the way to my masters.
You talk of seclar values in kerala, may be a visit to kattlapally will should open your eyes and you will not have to ask stupid questions to others.
Alternately why cant you take a bus trip from kannur to calicut, there are at least two muslim dhargs where every bus driver will stop, put some coins, as it is believed that the dead muslim will help to prevent accidents.
Whay cant you go to velankanny church to find that it is filled with hindus, wishing good health for their children
The essence of hinduism is choose the god based on performance, the god that delivers is always in demand, and superficial and shalow can call it secularism..

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``And any other definitions of urban (and rural) spaces that foster cooperation and tolerance, encourage debate and celebrate the public sphere. Any ideas? ``

For the frequent shallow visitor to kannur, who asks so many stupid questions and others still tolerate cannot get the essence of tolerence when that is what the malayalees are dishing out to you. The urban space that you are looking for is primarily the home to which one can walk in with out fixing the appoint ment a month earlier and share the chaya and a few banana chips.
If you were not to jog during the non-peak hours and instead cared to step ou in the evenings, you will see the street corners crowded, and that is the meeting place. A state with the highest density of population, where one cannot step out without bumping into another, this frequent visitor accosted by begging relatives and friends, is looking for a meeting place, sorry a secular meeting place. The schools colleges the factories the paddy field are not secular enough for this frequent visitor conversant in all of the south indian languges. Why no change your name to farzana karunakara to reflect the secular views.

Chitra, here is a place you can probably jog with no one bothering about you.


Jogging track fee



Near my house in Sialkot is a jogging track named Chaminda Ground. About three years back the cantonment board started charging a three-monthly fee of Rs50 from every visitor. Then they continued raising the amount to Rs75, Rs100, Rs150 and, finally, to Rs200. Now they have started charging Rs200 for a month. The three-month scheme has been dropped.

I think the fee is rather high for quite a number of people, specially those who go for a walk occasionally. Moreover, a heavy membership fee is not only discouraging people from a healthy activity but also depriving them of their basic right to breathe in the fresh air.

At least the charges should be reasonable enough so that everyone can benefit from the facility. I also suggest that either the fee should be reduced to the minimum or it should be received on a daily basis. Like in Race Course Park, Lahore, where you can enter the park by buying a two-rupee ticket. It will benefit both - the management who need money to maintain the track and the people who will find it easy to pay a nominal amount for a day.

G. TOHEED

Sialkot

Hi Chitra,

Thanks for a very well written article. Such a pleasure to see other Keralites on Chowk! I do not agree with Jay`s response. I think the article is written with a sense of empathy for fellow human beings and democratising public spaces. Am I right if I say that there is a suggestion in your article that public spaces in Kerala are also gendered? I particularly liked the bit about chatting with other people. My favourite passtime on long auto journeys in Delhi was to talk to the driver, after of course haggling with him over the fare at the start of the journey!I look forward to reading more such pieces.

Zarine

Welcome to Chowk!

Good observations on how class and gender play out in public spaces. Wait till you guys get the glut of SUVS that has clogged our highways in the US...

Silly article written by an over-educated young person of south asian background. In keeping with the shallowness of this class, the simple observations that are the basis of this article are overlaid with all kinds of pretentious ``univeral`` statements.

(1) Most indians who are privileged enough to have sedentary jobs go for walks, practice yoga etc.

(2) Indian cities are badly designed and poorly organized. Only in the last decade is there some new concern about having and mantiaining pleasant publc spaces. This is a good criticism but lost in the rush of 100-rupee long words.

Chitra:
I too have found people in Delhi using cars for short distances. But I have also seen them doing their walks. Go to any public park in Delhi in the morning and it is full of people doing their `parikrama` around the park, doing yoga or other group activities. And some of the best partks in Delhi - Buddha Jayanti Garden or Nehru Park were developed in independent India.
I suspect the Marxists in Kerala do not have any money left over from paying their bloated, overpaid bureaucracy to spare any change for public parks:-).

Ms karunakaran,

This is a pathetic discovery of kannur by an individual seeking the so called roots in kerala. May be you should start reading about kerala history, about secularism read Cheraman Perumal, and probably visit the cheraman mosque in kodungallur. Wants a civic centre for the people to meet in a secular setting??what a foreign idea in a state that created Baffakki Thangal, a muslim of similar status to E M S naboodiripad in marxian poiltiocs in kerala. May be you have to understand the value system of keralites before you make all these discoveries.

When you see a keralite fishing, it is not a hobby to catch fish and put it back, he wants to eat it, mostly sell it to make a living.
If you find a lone person rowing fast in a small boat, do not mistake it to be a kayak, to build his health, he is going in a hurry to fish.
If you see one with torn clothes , it is not a moden free spirit anti establishment statement, he is poor.
If you find one running on the road, with you as the exception, he is doing to catch a bus, or to go somewhere urgently.
It is a pathetic sight to see some one with no clue about the social setting, doling out prescriptions.

My simple reaction is wow!

I am delighted to meet a fellow egalitarian. (being normal passes for eccentricity these days). I am unable to understand the reliance on vehicles to engage in a normal life. It is normal to walk on the spaces of this earth--and engage in dialogue. The town square and the meeting ground that was a necessary part of public life has disappeared to become a trading ground or road. I echo your consternation: Must we buy in order to be?? It is shocking, outrageous and almost criminal that our engagement in public life is restricted to a purchasing transaction. Our dialogue with each other nil. Our sense of us, diminishing and waning like an old moon. Is there anyone who cares enough to change this? Anyone who can question 2 hour commutes to reach work. Or the lack of time that rules our life and its options like a slave master. In the 21st century the relative abundance of food should have freed us to pursue other more wonderful things but alas food is not food anymore. Is this the freedom that the industrial revolution purchased?

Hey Chithra,

Sorry for taking up your space.

To those interested: Please go to the `publish and discuss articles on social and cultural issues` board for further details.

Thank you.
Umer M.

Chitra,

Are you from kannur? Don`t tell me you`re the ex-CM`s relative!