Another World AIDS day has come and gone and the epidemic shows no sign of abating. On the contrary more and more people are turning out to be HIV positive. In Africa, the problem is almost getting out of hand. While in India, inspite of having the second largest number of HIV infected cases in the world the government is not pursuing an aggressive enough strategy to spread more awareness about the disease. The government claims that the infection rates have fallen sharply this year compared to last year but many counter this claim saying that the government is relying on faulty numbers. Whatever the actual numbers maybe the truth is that AIDS is spreading throughout India. What is more worrying is that HIV infections are going up in the rural areas, regions where the rates of infection are lower compared to the urban areas.

The main problem in India is the lack of awareness about the disease and the resultant stigma society has attached to it. AIDS patients are literally ostracized by the community and even their family members. Since sex is not talked about openly and attempts to do so are frowned upon taking the message to the masses has had limited success. What we need is a more proactive approach from the government, a firm commitment both in terms of money and resources to educate the general public about use of condoms, high risk behavior and the need for precautions.

Time is fast running out. The number of AIDS patients is set to double by the end of this decade if the present infection rates continue. With more than half of India’s population set to be below thirty years of age in the next decade it is imperative that the government, NGOs and people come together to fight this debilitating menace.

(Go here for a more detailed article on the history, current situation and possible outcomes of the AIDS problem in India).

There comes a time in every writer’s career when they are plagued by the question, “what do I write about now?” Such was the dilemma Vikram Seth found himself in after the publication of his novel The Suitable Boy, the longest single volume novel ever published. The fear of never being able to write again haunted Vikram. His mother, Leila Seth, asked him to interview his great-uncle Shanti Seth, which he did. Those comprehensive interviews have resulted in Vikram Seth’s latest novel, ‘Two Lives.’

The two lives in question are Uncle Shanti and his German-Jewish wife Henny. This incident was narrated by the author himself at the Penguin India book launch of ‘Two Lives’ in Chennai on October 13. The event, the first of a five-city promotional tour, was held at the Taj Coromandel and was well attended by the usual mix of dancers, socialites and other assorted culture vultures.

The author read extracts from his book for an hour. The book covers a period of time from the 1930s to the 1970s. Shanti Uncle migrated to Germany in the 1930s and lived with Henny’s family till he was forced to relocate to England due to World War 2. Henny joined Shanti in England after she fled Germany in 1939. Their friendship blossomed into love and they got married.

Vikram Seth went to live with his uncle and aunt when he attended boarding school at Tonbridge. He could thus observe them up close and the result is an extraordinary story about two ordinary people. The book covers a wide sweep from Nazi Germany, Britain, Auschwitz and the holocaust, Israel, post-war Germany and 1970s Britain.

The author talked about how he found aunt Henny’s letters in which she had poured out her grief over the loss of her mother and sister who perished in the gas chambers. When questioned about whether ‘Two Lives’ was his most personal work he replied that although all his books had some element of the personal, reading through aunt Henny’s letters was an emotionally draining experience. According to Seth the best stories are the ones that happen around us, just waiting to be told. And because the two people he wrote about were not famous he was not constrained by the regular rules that apply to memoirs and biographical accounts. Maybe that’s what makes ‘Two Lives’ so special.

The people of Bihar have finally woken up and given Laloo Prasad Yadav the drubbing he deserves. I often used to wonder how they tolerated him and for such a long time. Granted, he was the master of caste politics and, until now, had managed to successfully potray himself as the protector of the backward castes and minorities. But on any scale of development he had dragged Bihar into the pits. From a resonably governed state it became the worst governed state in India. No rule of the law, private armies, caste wars, rampant kidnapping, breakdown of infrastructure, everything pointed to a government that did not care for the people and was only concerned with staying in power.

I’m no suppporter of the BJP and I wish they were not part of the coalition as this might again lead to the communal clashes that were common before Laloo Yadav came to power and (to his credit) put an end to such violence. But Nitish Kumar seems a much better alternative than Laloo and it is nice to see that at last someone else has been given the chance to govern Bihar. I hope he does not waste this golden opportunity. He won the elections mainly on the lack of development agenda. If he can deliver on that and improve the law and order situation at the same time he will mark the beginning of a new era for the people of Bihar.

Q. Can you tell me something about your batch at FTII?
A. I was in the 1963-66 batch. Kumar Shahni was my batch mate, John Abraham was junior while Adoor Gopalakrishnan was a year senior to me. We lived in a very different era. The 1960s was a decade of great ferment and unrest. The environment at FTII was very loosely structured, perhaps it was something to do with the times. At the institute we all believed that we could make films expressing our individual vision. John worked with me on my first film Uski Roti.

Q. What was the narrative style of your first few films?
A. One of my major influences was the French film maker Robert Bresson. Bresson’s films reflected a particular strand of Christian belief called Jansenism which manifests itself in the way leading characters are acted upon and simply surrender themselves to their fate. I believe that cinema is not so much visual as it is temporal. But most film makers concentrate on the spatio-visual aspect. This has led to certain problems. What time reflects is more contemporary than the arrangement of a set of visuals. I do not want to focus on this visual aspect in my films, but want to make the temporal aspect primary.

Q. Did you use music in your films?
A. Film expresses itself through images and sound and to that extent I don’t believe that music is that important to the narrative. I have made a few movies that incorporate Indian classical music. I am inspired by the form of Indian classical music and have used this form in my films. Hindustani music is spontaneous and has highs and lows and climaxes. I like to elaborate on the narrative, just like music.

Q. Did you want to convey a certain message to your audience?
A. No. I made films because I wanted to make films. I didn’t do it with the intention of giving the audience a message. The act of making a film is a social act.

Q. You were part of the new-wave movement of films in India. What were the concerns of the movement and how far did the message penetrate the audience?
A. The new wave movement was a parallel movement to the mainstream cinema in India. We wanted to find a form that corresponded to contemporary reality. Usually, the mainstream films used a medieval idiom. So obviously there was a discrepancy. We tried to create something new.

Q. Were you disappointed that your films didn’t achieve mass appeal?
A. No, not at all. I was well aware that my films would have a limited audience. We were up against a distribution system that manufactured an audience by feeding them the same mainstream formulae. Though my films didn’t get released commercially, there were a number of film screenings.

Q. But there was a lot of debate about your films in the media.
A. Yes, at that time there were a lot of write-ups in the media about them. Journalists felt that it was important to let readers know about the parallel film movement, even though most people wouldn’t get to see my films commercially. Times are very different now. There is absolutely no debate or discussion about what kind of a world we are living in, no attempt to understand it. I was in America at the start of the Iraq war and I couldn’t find a single T.V. or radio station that spoke out in clear unambiguous terms against the war. The entire media toed the line of the American administration.

Q. Why did you stop making films?
A. For the last five years I’ve been teaching music, especially the dhrupad style, and exploring its form. I am thinking of getting back to film making now.

Q. You have also made documentaries. What difference do you see between your films and documentaries?
A. The dividing line between my films and documentaries is thin. Some of my films, like Siddheshwari, are like poetic documentaries. Another documentary, Arrival, is about labour migrating to cities.

Q. What do you have to say about Paheli?
A. The very meaning of a Paheli is that it can be solved whereas a Duvidha can’t be. In my film, the woman couldn’t choose between the material and the spiritual husband. So in that sense, for me the problem still continues. In Paheli, the woman makes a choice. I guess that’s why the film makers called it Paheli.

Much of the Indian blogosphere is up in arms against the IIPM, a college offering mainly MBA degrees. I will not go into the details of the controversy here. Go to Desipundit if you want to read the details and for an excellent summation of the various viewpoints aired on this issue. But what irks me the most is an educational institution behaving in such a Hitlerarian manner, launching personal attacks and sending dubious legals notices.

Lots of people were wondering why bloggers were being targeted in particular. Would they have resorted to such cheap tactics if a major newspaper had come up with the expose? No, I think not. I think they are attacking bloggers because they think it is easier to browbeat individuals. Perhaps they feel sending legal notcies (of dubious value) will frighten bloggers, most of whom are young people barely out of their twenties. Perhaps, they thought they could limit the damage done to their name by bluntly supressing dissenting voices.

Hello, will you please wake up and smell the reality? The last time I checked India was still a democracy. And to beat a cliche to death democracy means dissenting voices. Instead of resorting to underhanded tactics more befitting a gangster IIPM should look at how false their many (exaggerated) claims turned out to be under the magnifying glass of a courageous reporter. Or, are they so scared that they have nothing to defend that they have to resort to such scare tactics?

It is also gratifying as a blogger to see so many different bloggers coming together for a just cause. The claim that blogging can change the world may not be too far from the mark when I look how this issue is being taken up. As far as I know this is the first time that the Indian blogosphere has banded together for a cause. Let us hope this leads to a change in the way IIPM has been dealing with the issue. At the same time let us bloggers also exercise considerable restraint in how we deal with this whole affair. Let us not run amock with our emotions and egos and crucify the institute. The fact that the future of innocent students at the institution is at stake should be a sobering thought for all.

Reading this made me think about the effectiveness of imposing a dress code by an educational institution, particularly on female students. More importantly, is it right for an educational institution to impose such restrictions, which smack of sexism? The arguments most often given to support such a stand are about how ‘proper’ dressing prevents sexual harassment of women and leads to less distraction of their male counterparts. But this, once again, is looking at things from a typically paternalistic viewpoint.

To argue that a woman who dresses in modern clothes will serve as a distraction or make her more prone to sexual attacks is forgetting one important point here. It is the male who is essentially a problem here. The Indian male, for the most part is still caught in a time-warp where a woman dressing in, say a sleeve-less or low waist jeans, would make him automatically assume that she is loose and not to be respected. It is a problem which stems from a society that has taught men that only women dressed conservatively are to be considered respectable. So for an educational insitution to attempt to ‘protect’ female students from this essentially male problem reeks of hypocrisy and narrow-mindedness.

This begs another question, touched upon nicely by the above article. Is it right for a place of learning, meant to promote egalitarian values, to impose such cultural mores? Who is right here? One does not attend a college to learn how to dress. On such potentially divisive issues it is best, I feel, to leave the matter to the students and their parents. Let them regulate themselves. Externally imposed restrictive orders will only make matters worse.

A petition seeking dissolution of so-called parallel Islamic Courts has been filed in the Supreme Court of India, resulting in the apex court issuing notices to the Center, All India Muslim Personal Law Board, Islamic seminary Darul Uloom, and the High Courts of various states.

If this establishment of the parallel religious courts turns out to be true then why not throw open the gauntlet to others? Let us flush our constitution down the toilet. We can give the Sringeri Mat similar legal hold over Hindus and the Church over the Christians. Let us integrate religion into the State. What fun that will be!

Hindus will be banned from eating beef. Reservations will be abolished and the Brahmins will rule again. Abortion will be illegal for Christians. Women, in general, will become second-class citizens. Now, let us all contemplate this brave new world in quiet and peace.

Siddarth Varadarajan has done a nice interview of Amartya Sen for The Hindu: Magazine about his new book, The Argumentative Indian. In the interview Prof. Sen talks about how India has had a long tradition of secularism and democracy and how “…these have tended to be blotted out, because we often trace these ideas, which are seen as Western, to the manifest presence of the British. My book, to some extent, counteracts this.” He also points out the need for greater public discussion of economic policies and how employment guarantees could be used to reduce poverty. He counters the argument that China is a threat to India and instead illustrates how engaging China is better than containing it. You can read the complete interview here.

For once here is someone who talks about the true tradition and heritage of India in an objective manner and is aiming to counter the Hindutva propaganda in the best way possible. He does not have the cynicism of a Naipaul nor does he give in to jingoistic nationalism. His arguments are level-headed, objective and logical. I, for one, am eagerly awaiting the wider release of this book.

In its latest issue, the science journal Nature has produced a special Outlook section on the current state of science, and in particular life science research in India. The articles are uniformly well-written and objective with very little of the usual condescension shown by Western scientific establishments towards Indian science. Together, they give us an insight into how research is done in India and the many problems plaguing it. From a scientific culture which frowns upon independent thinking and instead rewards conformity and obedience to the lack of accountability and appropriate funding, from the lack of proper regulatory frameworks for critical areas like stem cell research and human clinical trials to the heart-warming stories of a handful of research institutes leading the way in life sciences the issues are many.

To name a few; India is still way behind in research spending as a percentage of GDP even when compared to other developing countries like China, Brazil or South Korea. Ayurveda is another crucial area where India is sitting on a goldmine of traditional medicine that could be a potential source for new drugs if only the traditional knowledge is subjected to rigorous scientific analysis. The education system also needs to be upgraded and revamped. The present emphasis on only the theoretical aspects of science should be changed and equal emphasis needs to be placed on the experimental aspects, which are what makes a good scientist in the long run. This is one crucial area, I feel, where science graduates from India in general are behind their Western counterparts. I am a product of the Indian scientific education and have experienced first-hand the deficiencies of the existing system. Most of the crucial experiments in Genetics and Molecular Biology were either demonstrated to us or worse only described. We rarely had hands-on experience over techniques which would be considered standard laboratory work elsewhere and this was in a central university where the standard is much much higher compared to state universities!

But do not despair yet. Things are slowly but surely moving ahead in the right direction. The success of independent research institutes like National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad, National Centre for Cell Science, Pune and few others is reason enough to hope for more change. Scientists from these institutes regularly publish in high-impact, peer-reviewed international journals and their numbers are steadily increasing from year to year. Start-up biotech companies like Biocon, Avesthagen and established pharma companies like Dr. Reddy’s, and Ranbaxy are also growing in strength and stature. All that India needs now is good support and direction from the government in terms of funding, less bureaucratic hurdles, and last but not the least, for a critical mass of life-scientists to develop to give research the right push. This could usher in the next revolution, for after IT it might just be the turn of BT!

The state of lawlessness in Bihar seems to have no bounds when one reads this. I wonder if India needs nuclear weapons and a seat in the Security Council when some basic human rights of her citizens cannot be protected.