THE BIHARI : A SUCKER FOR SEASONS

The Bihari : A Sucker For All Seasons

V S Naipaul in his Nobel Prize address observed that his novel The Mimic Men was not about mimics, it was about colonial men mimicking the condition of manhood, men who had grown to distrust everything about themselves. It shows how the powerless lie about themselves, how they lie to themselves about their own condition because lying is the only resource that they can command. The fact of the matter is that Bihar has been reduced to a colony for the rest of the country , catering to its burgeoning needs for cheap, uncomplaining labour .It brings up the bottom of any index of development and prosperity and yet the only way Biharis can rid themselves of their shame and ignominy is through fantasy. Bambai Mein Ka Ba, a dramatised rap , is our own version of The Mimic Men. In a classic case of lying to oneself about one’s own condition , a migrant sniggers at Mumbai for its mean, brutish life by making wild claims of prosperity and bluster of well-being that the migrant Bihari has left behind in his native Bihar .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKQlxa50GOE

But it is not only the powerless in Bihar who thus cope with conditions of poverty , mal development and lack of job opportunities . Even governments wedded to the concept of social justice, enjoying absolute power for more than three decades , are no less prone to fantasy and filibustering; by quoting figures to prove Bihar is doing just fine, thank you very much. I know I can be beaten down on figures , electricity, roads , hospitals , social empowerment, quality education are all available to the Biharis in some cuckoo land . But figures can be fudged , figures can be debated , inflated , manipulated , so let us deal with the corporeal , concrete facts- the plight of migrant labour from Bihar .The issue is topical, several Biharis are trapped in the tunnel that collapsed in Uttarakhand .

Uncertainty and vulnerability are the foundations of all political power: it is against those twin, vagaries of the human condition, against the fear and anxiety that they tend to generate, that the modern state promises to protect its subjects through planned strategies of economic growth . It is this promise that commands its citizens’ obedience and electoral support and keeps faith in the democratic hypothesis alive . For more than thirty years , Governments committed to social justice have been winning the trust of its voters with the same regularity as it has been betraying their trust in it ability or willingness to create avenues for employment.

According to an informed estimate close to two million Biharis migrate to distant states because of poverty and lack of opportunities. The last time I checked up, in the after math of Covid the only working data available were the NSSO figures up to 2007/8 as later figures were yet to be sanitised . Biharis don’t even constitute real numbers , they are imaginary numbers .

Seasonally Biharis travel – are transported like human cargo in overflowing trains- to every nook and corner of the country to satisfy the demands of the labour markets. Biharis are game for any job, from the most menial and hazardous to most intellectually demanding , because beggars cannot be choosers.

On a recent visit to Kashmir I found a Bihari selling golgappas at Betab valley in distant Pahalgam, another one was there, manning an ice cream cart near the Dal Lake in Srinagar . On a visit to the High Altitude War School, Gulmarg, I ran into some one who suspiciously liked look a Bihari because of his Khaini break . I fell back from the team that was escorting us to the museum to confirm my suspicion . He was indeed from Bihar and ,what cut the knife closer into the flesh , he hailed from a place which must be 15 20 kilometres from Ara which is where I come from .He was part of a detail which was stocking up constructions materials and other stores and supplies , preparing for the snow bound winter in coming months . I congratulated myself on my ability to spot one of my own kind from a distance – an underdog sniffing the presence of another underdog .

These human flotsam are in a continuous state of drift, they can be found all over the country . Wherever cheap and uncomplaining labour is required you will find Biharis in great demand . With such uniform distribution all across the country the law of probability ensures that whenever man made crisis or natural calamity strikes , it is bound to claim a couple of Biharis. Later in the evening at Srinagar , during the course of dinner I learnt that sometime back somewhere near Gulmarg four people were struck by lightning, one of them was a migrant labour from Bihar. They have been coming here , for the last several years and even the worst phase of terror held no terror for them. They are just everywhere , like hardy weeds, who will not die of sheer hard times , no matter how hard .

These waifs are victims of double jeopardy . Left out of the scope of state provisions at both ends – the “source” and the “destination” they discovered this to their horror during the nation-wide lockdown in wake of Covid 19. It was the moment of truth for the migrant workers. Suddenly so much indispensable manpower which had kept the mighty heart of Indian urban conglomerations beating became not only so much disposable waste but it was felt that it was dangerous to have them around. The much awaited state intervention for planned and regulated movement - either by the host States, home State or the Central government – was too little and too late in arriving . Staying put meant starvation and worse as all modes of affordable travel were suspended . So hordes and hordes of them chanced their luck and took to desperate measures of going on their own .

https://theprint.in/.../will-live-on-salt-up.../415516/

Thus began the long march, the kind that even us old timers had not seen . On occasion these migrants undertook a journey of 2000 kilometres on foot . There were epic stories of determination and filial devotion, like this girl carrying her father on her bike all the way to Darbhanga from Noida . In conditions of complete moral melt down and social chaos we came across demeaning stories of Biharis afflicted by hunger, of being reduced to mendicants on people’s charity . The media had a feast of its lifetime reporting on migrants’ plight, degradation and stories of suffering .

Layer after layer of the vestment of Bihari pride frayed, became a patch- work of rags, until the migrant labour crisis blew away even the fig leaf and Bihar stood in its entire nakedness and vulnerability . But the very next season Bihari migrant, dusted and done up , was yet again ready to be carted to those heartless lands which had discarded it earlier as objects of urban consumption which was past the use by date. Of course this time round they were escorted in airconditioned buses , some tasted the thrill of air travel for the first time. But again without any guarantees, without any insurance against such contingencies !The the lessons were learnt and forgotten quickly by all concerned- the victim , the callous employer , and the care- do - little supplier of cheap labour . The history of this infamous episode is written in invisible ink . ( Excerpted from a long writeup )

Sharing an old article which was published in Sunday Observer and Times of India, more than twenty five, thirty years ago. Video cassette recorders were quite the rage in those days as this article reminds me.

Revenge Now Reason Later

The office going creature, a sub-variety of the species Homo Sapiens,is seriously disjointed during long vacations. His biological clock, attuned as it is to the office- lunch- home- office syndrome becomes seriously flawed, once this routine is interrupted for any significant periods of time. He falls into a time warp where time seems to have been eternally dilated. Condemned to sit it out he keeps re-examining his watch, looking for signs of disrepair. By training and temperament, he becomes accustomed to spending the best part of his day working in the office which consists of creating more work for everyone around up and down. The emptiness in his life can be peopled only with files, endless palaver and gossip about matters concerning this activity. Leisure is something he has not learned to cope with. No wonder extension of service is so much coveted for its own sake in government circles.

Thanks to my children, who are keen video buffs, I was obliged to sit through two full-length Hindi films recently. The films were so similar in theme and content that all I have retained about the viewings is an undifferentiated . impression of blood and gore ,and a gloomy feeling that society is somehow coming unhinged.

Inddrajeet and Pratikar, the two films in question, had rape and revenge ( as the wages of the above act) as their theme. Rape and murder are not unfortunate calamities that affect the even tenor of life in these films. They are the normal common, workaday activities of young men who have nothing else to do by way of a vocation.

The norms of a civilized society and the appurtenances of the law-enforcing machinery are depicted on screen only to emphasize that they have become totally effete and irrelevant. In fact, the two films depict the police as accomplices, even active perpetrators of crime.

Cinematically, we have traveled far from the days when the cop chased the criminals and the heroine, and the audience empathized with every bit of his adventures. In a curious reversal of roles it is the police who must also be vanquished in order to ensure that the wheels of retributive justice travel full circle. The established apparatus of the law can no longer be relied upon to secure justice.

In Indrajeet the action proper begins only after the hero, Amitabh Bachchan, has hung up his gloves after a long and distinguished service in the police force. Impatient with colleagues who connive with evil doers, he also invites the hostility of a powerful politician criminal combine. Along the way he acquires an orphan whom he has brought up as his own daughter.

Indrajeet’s past deeds-trying to fight crime et al haunt his present. The gangster police combine abet the rape and murder of his daughter and also the killing of his son-in-law. Indrajeet’s effort to secure justice are bound to fail because of the obvious-police indifference. He then sets about clinically and methodically eliminating the assailants. In the last scene with upraised hands, he remonstrates on the propriety and ethical validity of his deeds with god himself and God himself appears to be on a sticky wicket.

In Pratikar the foster-mother-teacher (Rakhee), demands that her foster son, Krishna (Anil Kapoor) finish off the rapists and killer of her daughter. The long lost son of the heroine makes an appearance as a police officer in the latter part of the film. He becomes an impediment in the execution of the designs of Krishna as he would like the law to take its own course. But soon the police officer son throws away the fig leaf of pretence and enthusiastically joins in the murder and blood letting of the rapist murders. The not so subtle message is that the police, howsoever well intentioned, just cannot deliver the goods.

The standard finale to the films of former times, in which the police appeared in the last scene to collect the debris and escort the criminals to the doghouse has also been dispensed with. Are we to presume that society no longer believes in the efficacy, utility or validity of the legal system?

The police of course has been the butt of many a joke. Inefficiency occasional deviations from sobriety and a marked tendency to have their palms greased were accepted and well recognized stereotypes. But relief and redressal were still obtainable from the force at some level or the other. And if things got a bit too tangled the dependable and incorruptible CBI chap could be relied upon to make a dramatic entry and flash his I-card just when it seemed that all was lost. The audience could leave the theater satisfied and reassured at the affirmation of the victory of good over evil the law above the lawless.

It is this familiar sense of the ultimate victory of the forces of righteousness that seems to have dissolved over the years. With brutal and inexorable logic these films demonstrate the inadequacy of the legal method. The overdose of violence in intent in gestures and in deeds has a curious nihilistic tinge. The ethical dilemma is resolved, if at all, in favour of untrammeled violence.

These exaggerated themes of revenge and reparation have been with me ever since I saw the two films and I have been turning them repeatedly in my mind seeking the springs of their motivation; investigating the source of their visceral appeal on the masses; trying to piece together the logic of vendetta.

Are the films unrealistic and grossly exaggerated examples of ritual violence or do they in fact, reflect what is taking place all around as? After all art-even such an unashamedly escapist art form as commercial cinema-must draw its sustenance its themes and experiential content from life. The continued success of such films at the box office does indicated a strong measure of audience support. This has dangerous implication. As John Ruskin once remarked “Tell me what you like and I’ll tell you what you are”

One can, indeed visualize many scenarios where macho male posturing and senseless violence on the silver screen melts into the real thing mass killing of innocent railway passengers, pilgrims or down-town shoppers. To by standers, they may appear as acts of senseless insane violence but somewhere, some group or the other is bound to claim responsibility for these killings, dubbing it as an act of revenge against injustice.

Streets reverberate with the call to the faithful to vindicate and avenge a wrong done unto them in historical time . Every available square inch of wall space in cities and villages is taken up with scrawling vows to build the temple at the designated place. Policemen and their relatives are bumped off for alleged excesses; Sikhs perish in pogroms calculated to display the adoration felt by followers for a slain leader. All of us are on a tight schedule, duty bound to seek revenge or reparation, singly or in groups irrespective of consequences, uncritically embracing the most fantastic causes and grievances. Revenge now, reason later!

The motives for revenge are just about as logical or as full of contradictions as the patchwork themes in commercial cinema. The idea is to have some action-in cinema, with an eye on the box office; in public life, for personal influence, for office for vote banks. The leading characters in cinema and politics could do a trade off of their activities. The public man weaves a spell, mesmerizes and converts followers by his stratagems, by his oratory, by his capacity to manipulate the atavistic fears of insecurity by inflaming irrational desires and passions he has you by the throat. The thespian achieves the same result by his spellbinding performance. He forces you into a voluntary suspension of disbelief.

While the performance lasts, both appear as convincing and as real. Is that why men from the world of cinema are increasingly being welcomed in the sphere of politics and are finding themselves perfectly at home? The whole world is a stage after all and the sphere of public affairs is just another locale for another magnum opus.

At a time when revenge is the leitmotif of all our preoccupations, in cinema as in life, it is difficult to believe that only half a century ago, in this country, lived a man who shook the mightiest of empires about him it was said: “Scarce will the generations to come believe that such a man walked in flesh and blood”. The memory of his deeds, his vision of a deeply compassionate society ricochet on our minds preoccupied with that single obsession revenge in Ayodhya, in Rudrapur, in Srinagar or Sangrur. The whole nation is in the throes of this all consuming frenzy, each one of us has to enact his own little part in a complicated plot which is just a variation on the same theme.

Meanwhile in New Delhi, dignitaries visit Rajghat to pay their tributes to the man who was the apostle of nonviolence under the shadow of menacing Black Cat commandos with their weapons on the ready. It is just as well that Gandhi’s three monkeys are stone deaf, purblind and preternaturally dumb.

Helpless before history

Helpless Before History !

Let me tell you upfront: I am not a right winger. I am not a left winger either. I may also add that I am not a Muslim hater nor am I a Hindu baiter. I was not at the hot gates of Ayodhaya wielding crow bars and axes, nor was I leading the lynch mob clamouring for 'death to Kamlesh Tewari ' or rejoicing at the beheading of Kanhaiya Lal. The grief was mine, on all those occasions. So was the opprobrium for saying so. Painfully aware that to be ideologically uncertain in times of single truth constituencies is to court the enmity of both groups. I have all but given up joining debates where front-line fighters in the mental wars of our times are slugging it out. The gesture would be quixotic. We are a society which now lives by an old ditty that I came across during the Black Panther movement , “They say in Harlem Country / There are no neutrals here / Whose side are you on? / Whose side are you on?”

This question was put to me a couple of days back for the umpteenth time, whose side am I on ? I am on the side of my country. Till yesterday to be an Indian in India was the end of the matter. But unfortunately the times are out of joint ,that country has ceased to exist. Now you have to be the right kind of Indian. You have to love the authorised icons in a certain measure and you have to hate with the right degree of intensity objects and people who are not of the right kind. Between loving and hating there is no half way house. But hate does not go unrequited and in recent times there has been a frightening and competitive expansion of trained ignorance and malicious feelings . A sudden spread of impenetrable moral and spiritual darkness has engulfed us all, where you can no longer say right from wrong, but the pall of darkness provides hate mongers on both sides the cover to do their thing. They are inflicting by turns , one wound at a time , an wound for an wound , drawing blood for blood. I dodge the draft . That leaves me – and many other people like me – shipwrecked, stranded, marooned . Stateless refugees, castaways, drifting aimlessly, unwelcome at either shores because we cannot show our papers of allegiance. We are the new boat people.

PS :There is a context for these musings which I will share some other time

TALES FROM BANANA REPUBLIC

The book has had a chequered history. Finding a publisher subdued my desire for a while and stifled my authorial ambition somewhat. Then a publisher materialised out of the blue – I later realised he was a small time con man , possibly a plagiariser or quite simply a prestidigitator. He praised the manuscript to the skies, offered to publish the book pronto and then promptly disappeared- back into the blue. The collection of stories written over so many years remained in a state of suspended animation. In my own estimation the worth of the unpublished text waxed and waned . When I looked up to the models that I have admired, the great story tellers, peering down on me from the shelves in my library, I had an impulse to consign the fruits of my protracted labour to the trash bin.

My close family pooled whatever talent they had , from proof reading , editing, laying the book cover . I explained the situations to the renowned cartoonist Pawan jee of Pawan toon fame, and gave him the quips in the bubble and he cobbled some illustrations . The book was ready . But that was not the end of the journey .

I have been eager to get to this stage where I could talk about my book. But now that it is here before me, in fact it has been with me for quite some time now , I am overwhelmed by a growing sense of terror. In my own eyes it looks like an act of “incredible effrontery”, in Saul Bellow’s word. Offering one’s book to the reading public, submitting the fruits of one’s labour to the scrutiny of an audience, one can never be sure of what the reader wants, one can never be sure whether all readers want the same thing. Jean Paul Sartre devoted one whole book to the question : For whom do we write? And yet the question is still as open, as it ever was , for everyone who dares write. For whom do I write ? I write for people like myself , for kindred citizens, befuddled by the system, lost in this maze that is both maddening and easily lends itself to mockery .

Power is portable magic. It almost certainly transforms the holder of power but the exercise of power is a comic spectacle to behold. Achieved either by force or held through delegation, or deceitful manipulation, power manifests itself in much the same fashion but leads to hilarity in different ways . To see how easily the elite can be made to deny their ideals, to bend themselves to the purposes of power , to watch the coy and cautious moves of the civil society toward accommodation makes you laugh till you begin to cry .

Intellectuals , generally speaking , to whom the task to speak truth to power has been traditionally assigned , have become complicit with the violent realities of the situation, have crept into bed with power. Truth deflates the bloated ego of power like nothing else but telling the truth has never carried more risk.

“We only joke (about things) to avoid an issue with someone,” said Robert Frost. ‘Humour is the most engaging cowardice’. So it has fallen to the jesters of the world to take down the Humpty Dumpties’, toppling them to earth, belly down; to bring the high flyers crashing on terra firma , belly up.

Where is Banana Republic ?Nowhere and everywhere. Banana Republic has lost its historical context which referred to a specific economic and political trope created by and in service of US interests. Kleptocracy, legislators for sale, the phony majesty of the sovereign citizen, intolerance to the stories contrary to officially ordained truth are now the givens in democracies. Even Donald Trump apprehended that we may “become a corrupt banana republic controlled by large donors and foreign governments,”. To lend some comic relief Imran Khan recently bemoaned that his country was turning into a Banana Republic ! The meaning of Banana Republic has been enlarged to include a diminished democracy, a dysfunctional system, a deranged society .

Anchuria , the original banana republic was a fictional country created by O’ Henry , where , “Outside in the shade of the lime-trees the crew chewed sugar cane or slumbered, well content to serve a country that was contented with so little service.” We find a little bit of Anchuria everywhere, every day; in government offices , in banks , in customer care centres , even in the emergency wards of hospitals. When life begins to imitate art, artifice becomes redundant. To joke is to tell the truth and vice versa.

Ten stories linked by the common theme of fatuity - and corruption -of Power, Tales From Banana Republic casts an amused look at those who wield power and the ecosystem that flourishes around them, from the point of view of an observer who is not only outside the system but, in a manner of speaking, suspended somewhere in mid-air. The stories do not lampoon any particular person, certainly not any particular public figure , civil servant or police officer , though they frequently make their appearances in the stories . Dwelling on character traits that are shared by those in power, the Tales From Banana Republic attempts to capture the essence of the grotesque , the quirkiness, even the absurdity, in the contradictory and duplicitous exercise of power. It is some sort of Everyman of power .

अगर आप जीवन में सफल होना चाहते हैं तो लज्जा का परित्याग कीजिये, ग़ैरत को तिलांजलि दीजिये , शर्म हया को ताख पर रखिये और बिलकुल बेशर्म बनिये।सरे बाजार निर्वस्त्र हो जाइये। आप की निर्लज्जता आपका अभेद्य कवच है. सोचिये अगर दुर्योधन लंगोट उतारकर गांधारी के समक्ष प्रस्तुत हो गया होता तो आज भी उसके वंशज राज कर रहे होते। मन्नू भंडारी ने तो बहुत पहले ही सब कुछ भांप लिया था। “धोती के नीचे सभी नंगे और ससुरी इस राजनीति में तो धोती के बाहर भी नंगे. पर डा साहब एकदम अपवाद?धोती के नीचे भी धोती ही निकलेगी इस गीता बाँचनेवाले की, खाल खींचने पर ही आ सकता है इनका नंगापन.” ( महाभोज।) अतः अब सिर्फ नैतिक नंगापन से काम नहीं चलेगा , शारीरिक रूप से नंगा होना अनिवार्य है नहीं तो यह नेक काम जनता को ही करना पड़ेगा .

बेशर्मी मेरा बल है, निर्लज्जता मेरा सम्बल (या सिम्बल), छल ही मेरा कवच है, कपट मेरा कुण्डल. बांधे हुए यह जिरह बख्तर निकल पड़ा हूँ मैं कमान संभालने। देश हो ,प्रदेश हो , जिला हो , प्रखंड हो , स्वायत्त निकाय हो, न सही पांच ग्राम एक ही पंचायत हो, पर जन सेवा से मुझे अब कोई रोक नहीं सकता.

यह विनम्र निवेदन सिर्फ मेरे बेशर्म बंधुओं से है। जिन्हें थोड़ी बहुत भी ग़ैरत बची है उनके लिए मैं ईश्वर, अल्ला , ईसा , पवित्र गुरुओं से दुआ मांगूंगा कि उन्हें नए वर्ष में झोली भर कर बेशर्मी दे ताकि वे सफल हो सकें, समृद्ध बन सकें जीवन की हर जंग जीत सकें .

मेरे प्यारे बेशर्म बंधुओं ,

थोड़ी बेशर्मी दोगे मुझे उधार ?

मेरा वादा है पाई पाई चुका दूंगा

सूद सहित सा भा र ।

मैं जात नहीं पूछूँगा

मैं जमात नहीं पूछूँगा

मैं घर, बार ,आँगन द्वार नहीं पूछूँगा

न हि पूछूंगा कहाँ से कमाई बेशर्मी अपार

यह भी नहीं पूछूंगा

कि आप राजनेता हो ,

अभिनेता हो, अफसर हो किसी

नयी राजनैतिक पहल के प्रणेता हो

शिक्षक हो, शिक्षार्थी हो

शरणागत हो, या बस शरणार्थी हो

दे दो मेरे भाई, बस थोड़ी सी बेशर्मी.

बस थोड़ी और कृपा करो सरकार

मेरे आका ,मेरे परवर दिगार।

एक गोली भी दे दो मुझे, हकीमी हो

यूनानी हो अंग्रेजी हो ,आयुर्वेदिक हो, होमियोपैथी

झोला छाप नेचुरोपैथी कुछ भी चलेगा

बस हो कारगर

मेरा हाजमा दुरुस्त कर दे , पत्थर सी मज़बूती दे दे

जो सब कुछ , मतलब सचमुच सब कुछ पचा ले ,

अजीर्ण न हो , खट्टी डकार न हो , गंदी उबास न हो

बच्चों के मुख का निवाला हो ,बड़े से बड़े बड़ा घोटाला हो

हुंडी हो ,हवाला हो कोई भी गड़बड़ झाला हो

मेरी ईमानदारी पर दाग न आये।

बहुत बहुत आभार , मेरी नैय्या हो जाएगी पार

पर इस अंतरात्मा का क्या करूँ ?

कभी कभी यूँ ही, बस यूँ ही

कुनमुनाने लगती है ,

हंसुआ के ब्याह में

खुरपी के गीत गाने लगती है.

एक सुट्टा हो, थोड़ी सी मदिरा हो,

भांग हो, अफीम हो , गांजा हो , कोकेन हो

ताकि मुझे पूरा पूरा यकीन हो

I am the best , I am the best.

अंधे ,बहरे, गूंगे , नंगे ,बंठे बौने

खरीद रखा है मैंने लाखो में , औने पौने ,

मीडिया गोद में अखबार नवीस कांख तले

ठीकेदार ,खिदमतगार , पलकों की छाँव तले।

बस थोड़ी सी बेशर्मी कम पड़ रही थी.

आप का नया नेता आपके सामने है

चेहरा पर पूरी सफेदी है

लेकिन अंदर बिलकुल काला है

काले के बीच का उजाला ,

उजाले के पीछे का काला

ब्लैक एंड वाइट का खेल है सारा

अपने इस नेता को पहचाने ,

इसी का कहना माने

आइये अब हम सब साथ मिलकर उच्चारें

मेरी जय हो, मेरी जय हो, मेरी जय हो .

ONE BOOZE OF AN IDEA

The well laid plans of men and mice can go awry but when it comes to me ,I get the share of the mice also as far as my plans going awry are concerned . I sought some desperately needed support from my friends in a Facebook post, “Women Don’t Understand Manpower. Here is the link to an edited version of the post.

https://www.dailypioneer.com/.../pity-that-women-don---t...

My friends, all keen book lovers, were however indifferent or too timid to stand up for me but in our WhatsApp group our women friends sprang up spiritedly in the defence of my wife. Now my wife feels entitled to restore order to my hallmark chaos created by books and papers with consequences which are fraught, to say the least. Things came to a head after my missing book , Wittgenstein’s Poker, a riveting account of confrontation between Karl Popper and Wittgenstein in Cambridge, was discovered in

the refrigerator and my wife refused to accept responsibility for its unusual storage.

“Yes, it is I who go looking for cheese and chips, in the middle of night, a book in hand.”

Offence is the best form of defence, so I unashamedly peddled my lebensraum theory in respect of books . That is when she launched one of the most brutal attacks on me in recent

history. With an exaggerated courtesy she said, “So Herr Hitler, would you like your Wittgenstein served for breakfast with white sauce or black pepper? Would you have Lakatos for lunch and Dawkins for dinner or in the reverse order? The eggs,

poultry, milk, vegetable etc would be nicely sitting in your many book shelves. “ My wife is a minimalist and her easy shorthand, encodes all manner of attitudes and assumptions.

It was time to be tactful, some emotional blackmail could perhaps retrieve the situation.

“My memory was becoming that bit less reliable, I was going to be seventy one ,” I told her." My days, and even some nights, are spent chasing elusive memories, a forgotten name, a scrap of a poem, a dialogue from a play speaking to me in jumbled tones."

She immediately brought the issue of books strewn all over, anything that could support a book was supporting it, some were dangerously levitating , that I seemed to have

forgotten about.I must admit if the pages of partially read books, say two or three pages per book , were added, it would certainly make a decent two hundred page tome. Not a very impressive figure but it does make a pile. But I assured her that I was going to get back to them in good time, they were on my to-do-list.

That is when I was overtaken by my foot-in-the mouth syndrome. I adduced wisdom gleaned from Facebook .

“ You collect books to be read at the right time, the right place, and the right mood. Think not of the book you’ve bought as yet ‘to be read pile’. Instead, think of your book case as wine cellar.”

“That is one booze of an idea,” said my wife .

“ It is decided, your books go to the wine cellar. Since we don’t have a wine cellar the garage will do fine. No booze and so no books too”.

Oh, I forgot to tell you. My state introduced complete prohibition in 2016. Bihari civil servants, as a former civil servant I have voluntarily joined my unfortunate serving brothers, cannot drink anywhere on the planet.

I am a law abiding citizen and a meat eater too but if prohibited I will make do with vegetables. I love my occasional single malt but restrained by prohibition I seek solace in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, reading them aloud to myself to recreate the pleasures of the fabled elixir. Books (of verse) are a necessary accompaniment to the fabled elixir but the elixir has already

fallen to reformist zeal so it is only proper that books got stocked in the empty cellar. No booze and no books to go with it is like the elusive unified theory. Every issue is settled. My wife’s concerns are addressed, my anxieties on score of unread books are stilled.

And “thou” beside me watching your videos on I Pad and I making do with scrutinising property statements of civil servants and affidavits of politicians