Book Review: One Way to Pakistan

A very nice book review by Deepti Lamba originally published on Desicritics on 10/30/07

Although the central theme of the book One Way To Pakistan is about the expatriate experience and the existence of sex slavery in Pakistan, but the demons of Islamic zealotries and political fascism that plague and paralyze the characters' lives in the post 9/11 scenario have been woven into the story quite well. The lack of freedom suffered by both men and women is brought to the forefront by the author, whether they are rich or poor; each fears the long arm of the law and suffers under its brutal tactics that begins with the ominous ‘First Information Report for police files for not following the law’.

To some, the Pakistani way of life may seem fraught with insecurity and religious intolerance, but in Harold’s book, while depicting such conditions he also shows that though a culture may be capable of following certain barbaric practices yet the spirit of human kindness continues to kindle in the hearts of those who are seemingly unimportant.

The characters in his book are complex people - some in position of power are predatory, some are social climbers and others just leading lives of petty crime like evading taxes, stealing electricity or tucking away a sex slave in a remote ancestral home. In the complex scenario, seething with repressed sexual tension entwined with religious prohibitions, Harold explores the concept of innocence, whether of the expatriate women like Gretchen or Celia who believe in basic human goodness in men and land up getting roughed up and mauled, or of the sex slaves like Ankh or Leila, sold into slavery or abducted, who continue to be more humane in their simple lives and try to survive even in the worst of situations and also of young unemployed men like Dost who teeter at the brink of cynicism and hopelessness.

In some ways this story could just as well have been set in India. While the urban centers are progressive and secular, the underbelly of our country is equally horrific where the rights of the vulnerable are easily trampled upon and rarely reported. Women and children frequently go missing from rural areas and are rarely reported. The recent report of the gang rape of a Dalit woman and the apathy of the political machinery shamed us into acknowledging the discrepancies within our own social fabric and the stigma the violated victim suffers from.

While the book’s storyline is dark, by virtue of being an excellent writer Harold transports us easily from the US expat mansions to the remote villages of the NWFP. Through his words we are able to feel the vastness of a land still untamed, and also the wild spirit of the tribes who refuse to submit to Pakistani rule and their war against USA.

Though the terrorism angle is brought in towards the end of the book, it does have relevance in the plot and is believable. The anger against the U.S. amongst the Pakistani people is palpable and the risks that the American women take, despite repeated warnings lands them in trouble time and time again. The question of assimilation itself does not arise when these people are basically visiting only for a short duration and it seems naïve to think that their one small victory makes any difference in the grand scheme of things.

In the end the book is about the insurmountable human spirit that endures despite all that life throws its way.

San Diego Fires, Chinese Smog and Desi Dung Patties

Originally published on Desicritics on 11/7/07

Finally! We are breathing more easily. I look out across San Diego Bay and the sky is clear for the first time in two weeks. Only a week ago I looked at the setting sun and saw an angry grey sky and an orange-red orb. The news on T V had little else on it, fires, thousand of square miles of wild fires which ravaged San Diego County, burning more than a thousand homes and causing a billion dollars in property damage.

There were satellite pictures of the smoke plumes that drifted out across the Pacific Ocean, driven by what we call Santa Anna winds which come from the east. These winds drove the fires and made the job of putting them out very difficult. The plumes looked like grey-white smears. Carbon emissions of the worst kind! It is hard to imagine how many thousands of tons of carbon were represented in those smoke plumes and what that did to the atmosphere. This was another contributor to global warming, and yes, an inconvenient truth.

The grey yellow smog that used to blanket the Los Angeles area has been reduced in the last ten years, but a vast amount of carbon fuel consumed by vehicles in California; vehicles are daily throwing tons of carbon into the air, our atmosphere. The simple fact is that the hundreds of millions of vehicles operating in the United States on a daily basis is a major factor in atmospheric pollution that continues to plague the earth. America continues to contribute a huge share of global atmospheric carbon. From time to time I glance at Visible Earth for NASA images to see what the earth looks like. What amazing images these are, smog and smoke plumes show up dramatically in various localities on our planet.

Almost one month ago, there were computer enhanced models of smoke which were spooky. Grey-brown in nature, they moved from west to east across Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh across the Himalayas into Tibet and onwards. Curious I checked and saw other such satellite pictures made last year and the year before. I read about the ‘smog’ that is rising from across the sub-continent constantly. China is upset because her own terrible pollution problem is aggravated by the grey-brown plumes moving in from the east. Kiran Nagarkar describes this phenomenon from Bombay in a report dated 11/06/07, “From Bombay with Smog.” He writes, “Bombay is already considered the world’s most polluted city. In ten years, it will become the most populated one.”

Justin Huggler writes in 2005 in “India Smog Hides Deeper Fear” that India is the fifth-largest producer of carbon emissions in the world releasing 50 million tons into the atmosphere a year, more than any European country. He explains that the main factor is the demand for power generation, for large cities like Bombay and Delhi. The big problem, he says, is that most of India’s power stations are still coal-fired, and the domestically mined coal is of poor quality, leading to carbon emissions. So, the need for electricity is the reason such vast amounts of coal are burned daily. But there are other areas of pollution that are unique to India.

Imagine five hundred million common folk who can not afford natural gas or kerosene, all cooking their breakfast and dinner. I can imagine.

As a child I squatted next to chulas and blew on dung fires with a pipe to heat the water for tea, the griddle to make chappati. Six of us, all kids, living in Taxila would follow the cattle to the fields, and I can remember the feeling of warm dung I picked up for my friends to take to their homes. I remember plastering the dung patties on sun facing walls to dry. My mom would ask me what I did while I ‘played with the Indian kids’ and my reply was always, having fun. I would always return home dirty, to her chagrin. My dad, a doctor, worked in the hospital operating on hundreds of people, removing their cataracts. That hospital had a large godaam which stored coal for fires and heaters. The dust from that coal was fair game for anyone to take away. My friends picked up small particles and swept up black dust to take home to add to the fresh cow dung. Round bricks were made from this mixture with finger holes poked in them to burn evenly. In America kids play with mud from time to time. I played making black dung bricks.

Imagine how difficult it is for poor folk to cook their food. Fortunately many of them have cattle; for milk, ghee, curds and yogurt, and the by-product, dung. The cow is really a boon to India, holy cow, it feeds people and then even helps do the cooking besides. Recently I read that there are perhaps four hundred million of them in India. Oh, oh, natural gas. All of this adds onto the picture I see on Visible Earth, images of Indian plumes of pollution that cover the land in a thick cloud, drifting eastward toward China.

“The clouds consist of ash, acidic chemicals and carbon, which come from the burning of fossil fuels and wildfire. One of the most intensely polluted and most studied brown clouds, which hangs over the Indian Ocean, has recently been found to consist largely of the smoke from dried manure used for cooking." (C.Venkataram et al. Science 307, 1454-1456:2005). Obviously such visible brown clouds drifting eastward become smoking international political issues.

So what do the Chinese burn? Coal. A report about this warns, “Beijingers Told to Stay Indoors As Smog Hangs Over North China”. Lots and lots of dirty coal is being burned, 6000 coal-fire heating furnaces and up to two million home coal burners in Beijing send the toxic mess up into the atmosphere; Olympic games here we come! The rural peasants also burn twigs, grasses, branches, leaves, anything that will burn, including cow dung. Entire forests have been denuded. The resultant? China has one of the worst air environments in the world. In the larger cities the skies were always grey; when I was there a few months ago and I was amazed that I seldom saw ‘blue skies smiling at me’. After a few days one gets used to it, except for the cough and sneezing and tight feeling in the chest.

Above the Amazon basin a smoke plume billows. Slash and burn. Slash and burn the rain forests to make room for farmers who need fields to plant crops. Millions of them. What do you say to a guy that wants a hectare or two to feed his family? Rain forests are natural air purifiers and they are going, going, --- The rain forests are the earth’s natural purifiers and they are rapidly being cut down by people in need. The issue is people need fuel, farms and food. People and more people with needs! From my perspective the greatest area of environmental pollution is the hot population growth, unchecked population growth that is straining the earth’s capabilities.

The San Diego fires threw up a lot of smoke. Top ‘world’ politicians throw up smoke screens or ignore the warnings in favor of continued economic development. Air pollution is certainly a factor in global warming that many wish to ignore. Making money, keeping the economy going is the cry. Even if the problem were taken seriously right now, we as global inhabitants are leaving behind us a legacy which will change the nature of life for our children.

The answer to the need for cheap and clean energy production may well be in the realm of nuclear and fuel technology for India’s “civilian program...” Nuclear Friends in Need, Yale Global Outline, July 12, 2007. No easy solutions. Few Indians living in the millions of small villages use electric stoves to cook food, nor will they in the future. God, what a lot of problems there are! Nero fiddled while Rome burns. We are global fiddlers too. I look back to my simple, carefree childhood with feelings of warm pleasure; a hot cow-dung patty in my hand. Fuel for thought.

India's Monkey Business

Originally published on Desicritics on 11/2/07

When animals are endangered we take immediate notice. But recently I had to smile a bit, perhaps wryly, that those endangered were not mammals such as Asiatic Lions, vultures or River Dolphins but human beings. “Man Dies, Attacked by Monkeys in Delhi” “Tourist’s Spectacles Stolen by Monkey” “Monkey Business in Indian Airport” “Monkey Man with Iron Claws.” On and on, reports of huge numbers of monkeys in Delhi, perhaps more than twenty thousand, on the rampage. Stealing, snatching, entering dwellings, acting so aggressively that in spite of a reverence for the monkeys, people were picking up sticks and stones, even swords to drive them off, ward off the pests. Even tourists were endangered! My goodness, please not that! Such monkey business gets the attention of journalists, it makes interesting press. We read and shake our heads and smile and think, oh well, yes there is a problem but what can we do anyway?

I read also that a high Indian official had banned the export and sale of monkeys to the United States because the treatment they received had violated the agreements for how monkeys were to be handled. Some reports stated that twenty thousand Indian monkeys a year had been shipped for medical research purposes, such as the development of Polio vaccine. Now exportation was to stop. No more monkeys to be sold, at high cost, to the States.

What is the solution to this overpopulation problem of monkeys? Avenues for addressing the problem have been suggested by researchers but are then quickly dismissed. No killing of monkeys because of religious beliefs, Hanuman, and respect for monkeys in India! Removing and taking so many monkeys to remote areas was impossible and too costly and involved risks to humans and monkeys alike. Introduce larger Langurs which would chase them away; no, this only multiplies the problem. Birth control measures for monkeys would be difficult to administer and involve risks, moreover, would be costly and the drug’s effectiveness wears off unless consistent measures are applied. Sterilization of large populations of monkeys seemed difficult because of the lack of appropriate technologies to administer to so many animals safely, such as in tablet form. Injections require capture, sedation and risks to handlers. Status quo; no killing, no way to prevent monkey births, no way to sterilize and no way to sell them to an eager market. (It will take five years before the breeding facilities in the States will be able to supply the annual demand for monkeys for research and medical development.) Sounds grim.

Perhaps there is hope, however; in drugs which could be inserted into food and given to monkeys that could sterilize them. So far there does not appear to be any such drug available. Implants and injections are used widely for sterilization, but orally administered drugs have not been developed and used as far as I can ascertain. Could it be developed and administered safely and not cause a social problem? So many aspects of our environment are controlled, actively and passively by new inventions. Why not invent a safe sterilization agent to help solve the monkey problem? Actions need to be taken because there are possible serious health issues involved in the monkey and human interaction equation. In such cases science could inform politics.

The latest National Geographic Magazine, October 2007 has an excellent article by David Quammen, “Deadly Contact”, discussing zoonosis. Briefly, zoonosis means, “animal disease” and in this article it refers to such diseases in animals which jump to humans, “when pathogens leap”. Ebola Virus, SARS, HIV and even Monkey Pox are horrific diseases that ‘leap’ from animal populations to human beings with terrible consequences. Quammen makes the point that it takes certain viruses to leap across species barriers and they evolve quickly and are...”unaffected by antibiotics, they can be elusive, they can be versatile and they can inflict extremely high rates of mortality, and they are fiendishly simple.” He points out that close contact ... “between two species represents opportunity for a pathogen to expand its horizon and possibilities.” Pathogens take risks for the “big payoff”. Pathogens do not literally jump from one species to another; they are transported, carried by animals to people who contact animals in intimate ways. (I can hear the rattle of the small hand-held drum on the top of a stick announcing dholna that the monkey wallah is going to put on a show. Or is it the man with the dancing bear?) Intimate contact, prolonged intimate contact between animal species enhances the opportunity for viral transfer.

Many deadly viruses have been involved in Zoonosis in Africa where very intimate contacts were made with monkeys and apes. Very intimate simian contact! People ate them. Bush meat is one means many Africans have to get animal protein. The monkey or ape meat is not always thoroughly cooked; the meat is handled with no regard for hygiene. Live animals, particularly baby animals, are kept when their mothers are slaughtered, especially apes and monkeys.

I was surprised by one thing that was emphasized in Quammen’s article. Bats! Bats can carry deadly diseases such as the Hendra virus. Certain bats carry and die of rabies but can pass this deadly disease to other animals such as cows, dogs or directly to people. Hendra, the newly discovered viral disease is deadly. Bats, fruit bats, chimgadar, hang around in colonies and leave droppings of feces and urinate on grasses and leaves. Other animals such as cattle, birds and monkeys ingest feces and become infected. People eat the infected animals, or get into close touching contact with them and become infected. Many people eat with their hands, and many do not thoroughly wash before eating after handling dead animals. Africa has had tremendous problems with the spread of deadly disease through human contact with animals, particularly monkeys and apes.

Monkeys are a really big problem in India and their close and frequent contact with people creates a situation that may be optimal for zoonosis, that is, if a given virus is present at the right time that allows pathogens to make that crucial leap. The problem, monkeys, is multiplying rapidly without control; good sources of food are available, human food, often provided by kind ‘faithful’ people. Bandar log are becoming more aggressive and their fear of humans has diminished so they encroach intimately.

It is not just the nuisance factor of having too many monkeys around too many human beings. It is a matter of public health and safety. Solutions to the monkey problem can be found through scientific means. It is a matter of using reasoned care for precious human populations by India’s leaders, informed by researchers and public health workers. This is a problem that will only get worse. Monkey business is serious business.

Indian Railways - Whose Legacy?

Originally published on Desicritics on 10/30/07

“The Indian railways traverse through the length and width of the country; the routes cover a total length of 63,140 km (39,462 miles). It is one of the largest and busiest rail networks in the world, transporting just over six billion passengers and almost 750 million tonnes of freight annually. Indian Railway is the world's largest commercial or utility employer, with more than 1.6 million employees. The entire railway reservation system was streamlined with computerisation in 1995.”
Indian Railways Network, WorldJute.com.

"What an amazing system, one of the world’s greatest! Six billion passengers is a lot of people to transport. Indian railways provide jobs to more than a million and a half employees! How in the world did it get so big, so important to the social, economic and cultural life of India?"
(See: Exploring Indian Railway, OUP India, New Edition, 1996, by Bill Aitken.)

Here are a few statements to consider.

India’s trains are a shining legacy of the British Raj, a track record of which they can be proud. The railway system unified India as little else did, sparking economic development and social sharing. The system of rails that ran from Calcutta to the Khyber Pass provided employment, training and a way of life for thousands upon thousands of Indians. The development of a railway system necessitated the construction of thousands of miles of steel tracks which sparked industrial development, galvanized the iron and steel producing industry. Trains became social levelers which broke down caste as millions shared crowded quarters. Trains facilitated the movement of vast numbers of Muslims who moved to Pakistan and millions of Hindus who moved to India.

Without the railway system the present economic boom in India would never have taken place. The British Raj left behind an efficient and smoothly operating infrastructure, India Railway, second to none in the world!

Sound familiar?

True? It depends on who writes the history.

“It is peculiar that so many educated Indians fondly remember the Raj. The British Empire ruled India for more than 200 years; British rule drained India of natural resources, induced famines by interfering with agricultural production and the distribution of foodstuffs, dismantled previously competitive Indian industries (e.g. shipbuilding, steel production), and acerbated poverty. The British parliament never considered conferring citizenship to Indian...” Indian nostalgia for the Raj; What’s going on?,

To the vast majority of Indians who travel on the trains such statements may mean little. To Indians who remember an India before partition, the statements may spark fire. To the steel developers, such as at Tata, the track record of the development of the railway system is a history of struggle against the policies of the Raj which supported English steel mills, English manufacturing plants, to the detriment of economic development within India. Indian cotton was shipped out to be processed into cloth in England to bring back to sell to Indians who could have produced their own textiles. As far as being a social leveler, travelers developed their own systems of segregation. Do you remember?

“Hindu Pani!” How often I heard the cry as a kid at the railway stations. I remember there was a third class, a second class, an inter-class and first class reserved compartments. I remember that only select folk were welcomed in the train stations’ catering tea-rest rooms. Being a gora sahib was all it took to be served there. When the British left India, the train system had been sorely neglected and it took the new Indian government some time to get it running well.

Wait, let’s give credit where credit is due; what was started by the British was a legacy, an enduring infrastructure that facilitated future development. I was traveling in Baluchistan by car some years ago and came across a beautifully constructed railway bridge. On it was the year of its construction, 1932. That bridge is still functioning very well, thank you, as are thousands in India that were designed by British engineers and constructed in the early years of the development of the railway system. Yet it was Indians that took it over who made it what it is today.

Trains played a huge role in the development of the United States. There are some parallels to the development of the Indian railways to that system.

Do you remember the legendary American golden spike that was pounded into the ties at Promotional Point, when the two railway lines met, one coming from the east, the other from the west. At that time, the old saying, ‘go west, young man, go west!’ took on new meaning. No longer did a lad with a gun slung across his shoulder, have to hike two thousand miles, fight Indians, and critters to get to the WEST. Now, for the price of a train ticket people could move, and move rather quickly for the time. The date was May 10th. 1896.

The transcontinental railroad unified America. It surely was an impetus in the great western movement; in the eventual development of California, Oregon and Washington. It enhanced the ‘gold rush’; it served the North in the Civil War. The railway became a social mixer; people of all walks of life used it for trade, for bilking others, for carpet baggers and snake-oil salesmen who used the train to find their markets. It made the slaughter of the American Bison a reality, since meat, skins and eventually bones could be shipped to the east by rail. Traditional folk, called Indians were strongly affected by the rail which brought droves of white men with guns into their territories, and eventually led to their being placed on reservations. “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” Remember Custer’s last stand? It is true that the railway provided employment for thousands to build the track system. Remember the role the Chinese ‘slaves’ had in laying tracks? They slaved for pennies a day and died by the hundreds and then, imagine, government policies cut off Chinese immigration in the Exclusion Act and made interracial marriages illegal. The rails carried mail, bullion, building materials and fancy dresses and booze. Goods were shipped all the way from Paris to ‘Californ-eye-aye’. It is the stuff that old Western movies are made of.

Thousands of miles of steel tracks had to be made for this American transcontinental railway line. The eastern steel mills roared; millions of dollars were made by tycoons who invested in steel mills, and they did not have to pay capital gains taxes. Yes, the railway was a significant factor in development of all types and opened communications from east to west.

I have traveled across the United States on trains and I give them a B- for impact and A for effort. Yes, today the trains still operate, many with government subsidies. Amtrak’s stock is owned by the Federal Government and employs some 19,000 people. (Compare this to how many work for the railways in India.) But Henry Ford certainly changed American’s ideas of how to get around. Cheap cars, Model A and Model T Fords became affordable and people loved having their own way of getting from point A to B. The vast majority of cars that fill America’s highways have no passengers, only the driver. Roads, roads, ‘grand trunk’ roads were developed from north to south, east to west and began to eclipse the impact of the railroads. ‘A chicken in every pot’ and later a car for every home were the slogans. Extensive roads brought the development of huge trucks called semis (sem eyes) which currently carry the vast majority of goods within the country.

In 1896 a gold spike was driven in America, celebrating the construction of a railway line across the country.

What was happening in India at that time?

“After the first passenger train run between thane and bori bander, almost six years later, on March 3, 1859, the first Railway Line in North India was laid between Allahabad and Kanpur. This was followed, in 1889, by the Delhi-Amballa-Kalka line. Both Bombay and Calcutta were competing for the first train run in British India. One of the major reason behind the introduction of the Railways in India help movement of freight, particularly cotton, from the interiors Gujarat and Maharashtra to the coastal cities like Bombay. In the early 1850s British cotton and textile industry was booming and it was decided to tap the Indian cotton market. Bombay had a stronger cotton market and advantage of neigbouring cotton producing states and won the race for the first train. The services in Calcutta began the following year.”(Spelling recorded as written)

India beat the Americans at the railroad game, or was it the British in India? I was amazed at the speed of the development of rail lines in India. (Howrah Station for Hoogly, August 15th, 1885.); a small beginning of only 24 miles, but by 1880, an Indian railway system had developed which had a route of 9000 miles! What a lot of track to lay, what brutal labouring conditions! And you think the Chinese coolies in America had it bad.

“The Railways became the pride of British India, but their construction aroused fears that contributed to the great rebellion, or mutiny of 1857-8.” (Illustration no.11) in The Lion and the Tiger, The Rise and Fall of the British Raj, Denis Judd, Oxford University Press, 2004.

Judd’s book The Lion and the Tiger is a good read, including the animal imagery. Yet Judd mentions the trains only in passing in his book, seems to avoid dealing with them and the controversies which surrounded them in India’s struggle for nationhood. I think that the railway system was a real Tiger, the Sher Khan of India. ‘Sher Khan’ is a reality, and could well be the name for the vast Indian rail system that has developed since the British left; all 39,462 miles of it! (Excluding Pakistan)

He does say, “Trainloads of waylaid and murdered refugees steamed into their final destinations, the flies swarming over the corpses and the stench of death hanging over the carriages like a miasma.” Page 188.

The trains got bad press in 1947!

Trains are very much an Indian institution. Billions of people use them. I can not imagine an India without trains. People of all ‘castes’, of all walks of life, of all social groups, move around in India on trains. Roads, such as the Grand Trunk Road may move millions, but the common man in India does not own a car and relies on trains, the grand trains, broad gage and narrow gauge, that service the sub-continent so very well.

In recent years, communications along the railways occur in local vernacular; signs are posted in English, Marathi, even the Devanagari script. (Rajendra Allekar, Vernacular Languages in Indian Railways). Schedules are computerized; trains have entered the digital age and few are steaming about it.

The old Indian trains with their grand steam engines foster nostalgia, memories of sounds and sights that remain with me for a lifetime. Hissing steam engines, clouds of black smoke filled with coal cinders that got in one’s eyes, clothing and food; toilets that gave one a view of the filthy ‘tracks of time’ clacking below, bistar bunds rolled out in the luggage racks, Hardwar monkeys during the great Kumbha Mela festival that swarm over the loaded carriages and steal passengers’ food, wails of the train whistle in the night answered by jackals, and buying aloo cholay, oranges and sugar cane from vendors through the passenger windows at a train station. Water any one? “Hindu Pani” “Chai, garam chai!” “Thande ande”

TRAIN TRACK TREASURES

Wails of passing Lucknow train
Cries of jackal, answer in yipping tunes
Black night, black, life sounds far, far
Away, away, sleeping children awake, listen
Stir on squeaky charpai, tomorrow, tomorrow
Six copper coins on the table near the bed
King George Two Annas, tomorrow’s treasure!

Shiny-topped tracks run hot, silvery, away-away
Listening ears against the metal, glistening eyes
Sea shell sounds, messages of distant motion
Rumbles of a metal surf, clacking waves of steel
Railgaree telegraphs, rumbling, excitement moving near
Excited smiles and nods; its coming, watch out, hurry!
Six coins placed, set carefully on the tracks

Hissing, chuffing, rumbling, puffing, hooting
Get away, away! Black and charging it comes
Annas neatly laid two feet apart; stand back!
Engineer waves and people hanging from doors
Shouting, wind blows dhotis, black smoke billows
Steam escapes in short pants, a track star.
Pistons push, push, huge iron wheels rumble
Coins flatten, flatten, flatten small chappaties!

Tracks, all shiny with birthday cake medallions
Six copper discs shine, sparkle brightly in the sun
Children shriek, pick up their track treasures
One by one, compare, laugh, rub surfaces
Smooth against their cheeks, stroking cool flat discs
Busy little fingertips explore, thumbs flip coppers
Spinning up, catch the sun, no heads, no tails.

Wails of the Lucknow train cry in the distance.
Harold Bergsma, San Diego, 2007