I’ve for long felt the need of setting up a forum for my website visitors and provide them with a chance to unfold their mind. This task has now been completed with the launch of Proaudience Community Forums. I understand that a small community has evolved around my website over the last year and half and it now requires being given a voice, hence forums. This  would also allow me to casually post links, issues, and news items and communicate with my readers more regularly. Forums may seem empty as of today, but it will get busier very soon. I’d keep adding newer threads and categories in the forums in the days ahead.

Over to forums and happy debating!

डॉन आज बहुत खुश है, क्यों कि आज वह पूरे चालीस बरस का हो गया. लेकिन उससे बैर मत मोल लेना. उसकी बंदूक का निशाना आज भी बरकरार है…होशियार!

Don Aaj Khush Hai, kyonki aaj vah poore chaalees baras kaa ho gayaa. Lekin usase bair mat mol lenaa. usakee bandook kaa nishaanaa aaj bhee barkaraar hai…hoshiyaar!

I woke up feeling I should be singing Kishoreda’s “Main Hoon Don” aloud on completing my 40th year this morning. Didn’t myself know the rationale behind this desire. Not to forget, rehearsing Kishoreda’s 11000 volt songs is not possible in my neighborhood anymore, which is more congested these days as compared to what it was 18 years ago, when we moved in. The next door apartments and windows that did not exist to stare at me then, and neither were those shops lining up next to my balcony, are firmly placed around my home today. Some of these came years later thanks to some under-hand-deals between the authorities and builders. Apart from housing blocks, the number of kids went skywards as well – some elders have taken a break from this world as well, but about that later – and those loitering around in those years have started taking up various roles in today’s life.

Gone are days when you could reenact Kishore, Rafi and Mukesh without ever being conscious of its ramification. Only a handful of buffaloes and stray dogs perished next to my home listening to it silently. Of course, the kids of my household enjoyed being part of my reenactments, but they have been compelled to go busy as well due to ageing. There is a new entrant, an eight year old niece of mine, who still finds it worthful to play innocent. But, most of the time I have to remind her how Kishoreda was different from his own copycats. She may still find Himesh Reshamiya’s “Ek Haseena Thee” more hummable though, as compared to Kishore Kumar’s, I strongly suspect!

Therefore, reciting KK’s original wasn’t my plan of ideas this morning, but blogging about the same was indeed, so here we go now: the mark of 40 can be unique in a man’s life. On one hand, you are not that much old that you should start to think about your retirement plans, but at the same time, you wouldn’t live as blindly either as you would have done a decade and half ago. Many notions that might have been part of your conscience then would either be gone today or be highly infeasible to carry on with. You would have fallen in tandem with the ways of life by this age, and adopted newer ideas to make it sound more complete. This enlightenment of yours may not be known to others though. They might still examin you from their own beliefs, nothing wrong with that either. But, they should also know – from someone who recently turned 40 and was more awakened – that they shouldn’t be messing around with him now, and also who the real boss was in their visinity and behave accordingly…the real Don resides here…lol…

I didn’t know turning 40 could bring DON-HOOD upon you, until I became one myself! Here is KK’s own DON bite to have a toast on this occasion!

Lila’s mother Susan Manning, sister Marie and brother Bhisma mourn as her body is prepared for cremation. File image courtesy of Theage.com.au.

I had written about the tragic death of Anand Lila Salter in Vrindavan early this year. Lila salter, the 17 year old Aussie girl, who had spent a major chunk of her life in India along with her kins and friends in the holy Vrindavan, was killed by a local stalker she knew well in February this year. Her family had asked for police protection in view of the impending threat to her life. Yet the administration failed and the unthinkable occurred. The killer, who was in a one-sided emotional bond with Lila, later committed suicide. So, it became a shut case for the investigators. Not so for Lila’s family and friends though, as they have been arguing for some valid questions to be answered.

They have launched a Safe Vrindavan Campaign, dedicated to Lila Salter now, and are looking forward to help from like-minded people from all over the world. The campaign involves signing of a petition addressed to the Indian President, seeking to see steps being undertaken for preserving the sanctity of Vrindavan and providing its Indian and resident foreign tourists with the safety and due respect they deserve.

If Vrindavan could not be made safer, if those willing to adopt Indian way of life and its culture could not be guaranteed about their safety and respect, then what should we be so proud about in India? This question becomes more significant, in view of the ongoing furor over Christian missionaries and their activities in this nation. The BJP, RSS, VHP and Bajrang Dal may have some genuine concerns to raise about forced conversions (this author believes they do have, but he doesn’t agree with the way VHP and Bajrang Dal decide to behave). But, how would they justify the continuing apathy at Hindu religious places in India? What have they been doing to make Vrindavan, Varanasi and Ayodhya safer and suitable for spiritual seeking. They may have a strong objection against a section of Muslims and Christians, but they haven’t helped the true Hinduis either! It is no secret that many Hindu holy places are thronged by religious middlemen and hardcore criminals. There aren’t any vote banks for the likes of Mayawati and Mulayam Singh to be edgy about in Vrindavan. But, neither have the Hindutva organizations done anything in all these years.

I hope all of you join and forward this LILA SALTER CAMPAIGN FOR A SAFE VRINDAVAN to as many poeple as you may know about. They ask for Vrindavan – a religious and cultural place of immense significance for all Indians – being made better. This isn’t about Hinduism or Islam or Christianity alone. Why wouldn’t you join in or won’t be willing to help them?

Somebody forwarded the following jpg in Gujarati tonight. It was fun reading through, but so did come along mixed emotions. I don’t know what the basic schooling reminds to you or not, but my early days at the Baherampura Hindi Prathmik Shala run by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (mid 70s-1981) came back calling to my mind. It was, like most SARKAARI schools, a wholesale picnic spot for those enrolled to be part of it. My parents were teachers, so they did not deem it necessary to send me to far flung places. There weren’t many Hindi schools in those days either. They preferred teaching me at home, while overlooking the nature of place I’d been enrolled to.

It was also the era of Sholay, Amitabh Bachchan, Dharmendar and Gabbar Singh. My class would get divided into small groups (gangs rather) and reenact all famous blockbusters of that time, hurling cries of “Are O Sambha”, “Kitne Aadmi The” and “Tera Kya Hoga Kaliya” loud in the air. MASTERJI (rather PANDITJI, as we kids called our class-teacher) would disappear soon after taking the roll call. I had my own small gang set up, which would slip out to play cricket at a pre-chosen venue. It was total entertainment for all us kids, until we got thrown out due to aging. It came at a huge price, though. Very few could read and write properly by the time they enrolled into high schools. Only a few could go beyond high schooling. Most came from poor households, so they did not have any desire or means to study anyway. I had my teachers back home, who compelled me to carry on until I had post graduated. My elder brothers, also a product of the same junk PATHSHALAA, went on to complete their PhDs.

Following lines made me somewhat emotional in this backdrop tonight. Emotional since they brought back the nostalgia of my childhood, and also because they reminded me of the stark realities of having India’s haves and have nots to my mind, this despite so many years after Independence.

Image Courtesy Sydney Morning Herald

I came across the following story in Sydney Morning Herald, (also check…and this) and ended up writing down the following letter to its editor:

I have been logging on to your website each night, in fact very late by the Indian Standard Time, hoping to get the mainstream Australian viewpoint about the ongoing India-Australia cricket series. It became more of fun, speaking precisely, since the days of infamous SCG test match, as the two sides, cricketing and non-cricketing both, begun taking digs at each other. And it was worth going through the whole drama, your view points included. However, the last two days brought a completely different notion to this author’s mind. Not due to any of your journalistic errors, in fact you were well on target in describing about the 17-year old ‘Lila’ Salter of Vrindavan, which left this author numb and saddened like many others.

I have personally been through it, and know how it feels like awaiting one of your kin’s imminent demise. But it sounds more hurtful, when you look at how the events unfolded and how far dignified the bereaved family had proved out to be, despite being harmed in such a sinister way. They came from a remote world, and yet made India, its religion, language and culture part of their lives, more than what many of my fellow Indians might do, I know it. The fatal attack on Lila was tragic, one wouldn’t disagree about it, but it leaves me saddened more in India, because I value her compassion and the respect she had for my way of life. The realization, we failed to protect her and pay back for the warmth she came smiling with all the way from Australia, will keep us haunting for long now. May god bless Lila with eternal peace! May god bless her family with resilience!

——————

According to the latest report, she is now dead.

The sky is the limit, they say it for those who can really climb up to make at the top in life. However, I found it frightening to even look at the same blue sky, as this story of mine must say! I got this shot captured through my cellphone camera, while walking down the SG Highway in Ahmedabad, this late afternoon. It left me wondering with mixed emotions. The first thing I could ask was, how do they manage it? Neither did they have any safety apparatus to evade or survive emergencies nor was their climb up the tower any smooth. Or am I making too much out of nothing by writing this? Do electricity firms show such disregard for their own workforce in other nations as well? Yeah, men do fall and die in a city like Dubai or Shanghai, where the reality has seen overheating. But, they also get better equipment and insurance to survive on there. However, we are faced with the Indian scenario in this case – most probably state owned firms – that see no logic in taking care of their own workforce – a meagerly-paid one. This sums the other side of India’s emergence as a major economy. I have myself been investing in the share market after the market crashed worldwide, hoping to gain some quick bucks. It is exciting to take part in the money-making process. However, there is an unaccounted queue of endless poor Indians that will not be spoken about by this success story. Btw, I walked along to notice how they had already completed this risky maneuver at several other places.

The phrase pro-audience carries two correlated meanings. The first one is to look out for the like minded people to share one’s ideas. Unless you had a group of people willing to listen to you, it would be futile to speak your heart out. More than futile, it would be intruding and intimidating in nature. The second meaning of the same phrase is to payback your listeners in the same spirit they came showering at you; which also means to try to entertain them while keeping their sensitivities, likes and dislikes all into your account. It doesn’t mean you started being populist or began forcing your ethos upon them. On the contrary, being proaudience means, speaking up things in as much balanced ways as you can; specially if you knew, you were about to hurt your audiences in some manner, then you would also try to see from their view points, if not completely agree with them.

While observing theater in Ahmedabad a few years ago, I had seen audiences going back dejected from theater shows. They would come hoping to watch inspiring, live acts unlike what they might get to see in front of the television and cinema screens, but would end up completely being overlooked in the end. Obviously, those on the stage were performing just to achieve academic targets and not to use the same as a tool for communication. They would stage the same adaptations time and again, lecture on the bygone virtuosos, invite other theater groups into discussions, clap and felicitate each other on the slightest provocation, grab various grants, including those from the state, and that’s it! Nowhere will the audience matter in this whole exercise. Nowhere will they try to come forward with original ideas, so that the listeners felt privileged. Even the theater critics would write down raring words about the same stage productions later that the audience may have found lackluster in mood, in general.

In these circumstances, I started toying up with the idea of a pro-audience stage where the stage would do its best to take into account of the audience’s view point as well. Even though, my encounters with the stage got fewer during the last few years, the mood and spirit of the phrase “proaudience” has kept accompanying me all along. It applies now to my own attempts at gathering an audience for my own weblog. One can not fool all the people on all occasions, somebody said so. Therefore, I’ll have to take care of various view points as I go on unfurling my own thoughts now. Hard to do so in practice no doubt, with the kind of diverse subjects I’m planning to move forward with. Sports, society, politics, cinema, theater and meditation are some daunting areas that I’m going to dig into in the coming weeks and months, specially from the Indian perspective, and it’ll always be hard to be in the pro-audience mold, one knows. But, I’ll try out my best and we shall see where we find each other in the later course of this sojourn.

It’s the first day after Deepawali in Gujarat today, which goes in tandem with the new year in the Gujarati tradition. Proaudience.com couldn’t have dreamed up of having a better launch as against this. Let us finally start speaking out to the outside world with these first few lines. While Gujarat celebrates the festival of lights and hope along with millions of its other fellow Indians, we are also hoping to have a content-full future ahead for this particular web-magazine. More will be posted about this website’s nature and its projected audiences very soon. Stay tuned until then and thanks for joining with us for now!