Friday, October 28, 2022

The pernicious effects of war



By Shevlin Sebastian 

Leaders throughout history have always stressed the need for their countrymen to march to war, to defend the nation against the ‘enemy’, to uphold values and to preserve society. War is glorified and praised. Soldiers are honoured and cherished. But what is the experience of a soldier at war? 

Here is a longish extract from ‘Goodbye Darkness’, American historian William Manchester’s memoir of the Pacific War in World War 11, where he describes his killing of a Japanese soldier:

‘My first shot had missed him, embedding itself in the straw wall, but the second caught him dead-on in the femoral artery. 

‘A wave of blood gushed from the wound; then another boiled out, sheeting across his legs, pooling on the earthen floor. Mutely, he looked down at it. He dipped a hand in it and listlessly smeared his cheek red. His shoulders gave a little spasmodic jerk, as though someone had whacked him on the back; then he emitted a tremendous, raspy fart, slumped down, and died. I kept firing, wasting government property. 

‘Almost immediately, a fly landed on his left eyeball. Another joined it. I don’t know how long I stood there staring. I knew from previous combat what lay ahead for the corpse. It would swell, then bloat, bursting out of the uniform. Then the face would turn from yellow to red, to purple, to green, to black. 

‘A feeling of disgust and self-hatred clotted darkly in my throat, gagging me.  

‘Then I began to tremble and next, to shake all over. I sobbed, in a voice, still grainy with fear: “I’m sorry.” Then I threw up all over myself. I recognised the half-digested C-ration beans dribbling down my front, smelled the vomit above the cordite. At the same time, I noticed another odour; I had urinated in my skivvies. I pondered fleetingly why our excretions become so loathsome the instant they leave the body.’   

This extract has been reproduced in the book, ‘War is a force that gives us meaning’ by Chris Hedges, a foreign correspondent for 15 years with the New York Times. He covered conflicts in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans.

His book can change your attitude toward war. It shows what really happens at ground level. Chris’s first-hand description of the war in Bosnia is unforgettable. The unbelievable cruelty and depravity that soldiers displayed was difficult to digest. 

Here is a quote by Chris: “Once we sign on for war’s crusade, once we see ourselves on the side of the angels, once we embrace a theological or ideological belief system that defines itself as the embodiment of goodness and light, it is only a matter of how we will carry out murder.”

One thing that became clear from reading this book is how powerful are the forces of evil that live quietly within each one of us. And when these forces awaken, they thrust you into the heart of darkness. 

The book, published in 2002, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Non-Fiction. And is a must-read as the world heads for a possible nuclear apocalypse because of the Ukraine War. 

Here are some quotes from the book: 

Civil war, brutality, ideological intolerance, conspiracy and murderous repression are part of the human condition. 

Soldiers who kill innocent people pay a tremendous, personal, emotional, and spiritual price. 

The cost of killing is all the more bitter because of the deep disillusionment the war usually brings. 

Killing unleashes within us dark undercurrents that see us desecrate and whip ourselves into greater orgies of destruction. 

The ecstatic high of violence and the debilitating mental and physical destruction that comes with prolonged exposure to war’s addiction. 

We dismantle our moral universe to serve the cause of war. 

In the rise to power, we become smaller, power absorbs us, and once power is attained, we are often its pawns. 

Killing is a sordid affair. Those who are killed die messy, disturbing deaths that often plague the killers. And the bodies of the newly slain retain a disquieting power. 

The eyes of the dead are windows into a world we fear. 

Modern war is directed against civilians. 

Force easily snuffs out gentle people, the compassionate and the decent. 

States at war silence their authentic and humane culture. By destroying authentic culture — that which allows us to question and examine ourselves and our society — the state erodes its moral fibre. A warped sense of reality replaces it. 

Cliches, coined by the state, become the only acceptable vocabulary. Everyone knows what to say and how to respond. It is scripted. Vocabulary shrinks so that the tyranny of nationalistic rhetoric leaves people sputtering state-sanctioned slogans. 

The nationalist myth often implodes with startling ferocity. It does so after the lies and absurdities become too hard to sustain. They collapse under their own weight.

Contradictions and the refusal to acknowledge the obvious become too much for a society to bear. 

 Nationalist cant always end up sounding absurd.


Wednesday, October 19, 2022

The magical world of books





 Photos: The American Centre library in Calcutta; the National Library  

 By Shevlin Sebastian 

The other day, I received a few cartoons regarding the foreignness of physical books for children on WhatsApp. In one, it showed a boy sitting at a table, with a book in front of him. His mother tells him, “Just open and read it. You don’t need a password.” 

As I forwarded it to a family group, I realised I may be the only person in our family to read physical books and to go to libraries. 

I began visiting libraries in my teens and fell in love with them. On hot summer days, on my weekly holidays, I headed to the American library, first on SN Banerjee Road and later on Chowringhee in Calcutta.

The air-conditioning was superb. The library was so spacious, with carpeted floors and large glass windows. This calm environment helped keep away the manic energy of the streets, the heat, the dust and the pollution for a while. 

As for the books, what a treasure it was. 

American publishers designed their hardcover books so well that one could only stare at them with wonder. And then to be allowed to take four books home on a library card. Wow, what a treat. It was, to quote a title of one of American literary great John Cheever’s books: ‘Oh what a paradise it seems’. 

I was also an ardent fan of Pulitzer-Prize winner John Updike and would be awestruck at his productivity. Over 50 novels, short stories, art and literary reviews. His long-time publisher, Alfred A Knopf, produced some of the best designed books in world publishing. And still does. I may not be sure, but I think they used the Garamond typeface a lot. Which is a font that is pleasant to look at and soothing to read. Nowadays, whenever I write, I use Garamond at 14 points on Google Drive. 

Apart from the books, there were the magazines. I read ‘The New Yorker’, ‘Esquire’, ‘The Atlantic’, ‘Ebony’, ‘Time’, ‘Newsweek’, ‘Vanity Fair’, ‘People’, ‘National Geographic’, ‘Sports Illustrated’, and ‘The New York Times Magazine’. There were so many more, but these come to mind only. 

Some of the other libraries I visited included the British Council library on Shakespeare Sarani (another air-conditioned oasis), the Ramakrishna Mission library in Gol Park, and the National Library in Alipore. 

Undoubtedly, the most beautiful campus belonged to the National Library. It had spacious lawns and tree-lined avenues. You could sit on the lawns and enjoy the sunshine and the greenery with a couple of book lovers (of the fairer sex) during the depth of a Calcutta winter, which was usually in December and January. When it got too cold, we went off to the canteen to have hot cups of tea. And continue with the adda. 

Most people think that patrons of libraries are morose and dull. That they are all nerds. But under that placid exterior, some of them are daring, bold, and uninhibited. In a conservative era, before cell phones and the Internet, they did the unthinkable. Some were even more daring than the in-your-face shows-off in college. But nobody suspected it because they carried these books in their hands and had that studious look on their faces. 

Indeed, several fooled their parents, too. 

So, one parent would tell another, in front of their teenage daughter, “Oh, Moushumi is a quiet girl and very studious.” 

Moushumi would immediately smother the mischievous smile that was forming on her face and nod piously. 

Apart from these delightful encounters, books have given me immense pleasure over the decades. They have enabled me to interact with the minds of the greats of many professions, be it politics, literature, arts, spirituality, history, religion, film, sports, psychology, and philosophy. Even now, every night, I try to put in at least half an hour of book reading. 

In Kochi, where I live now, I am a regular visitor to the over 150-year-old Ernakulam Public Library. In terms of facilities, it’s no match compared to the libraries in Delhi and Calcutta. But they are doing a good job of getting the latest books. 

The last book I picked up a couple of weeks ago was ‘The Escape Artist’ by British journalist Jonathan Freedland. It tells the true story of how two Slovak Jews escaped from the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland during the second world war. Their aim: they wanted to inform the world about the genocide taking place. It was a heart-breaker of a story.  

The other library in Kochi, which I am frequenting much less these days, is the EMS Cooperative Library in Kakkanad. It has a beautiful building with a park beside it. But the books are old and out-dated. The pages are yellowing. Rarely does the administration buy new books. And the park has fallen into disrepair because of a lack of maintenance. 

I also buy books online. Sure, Kindle is an easy alternative, but I never enjoyed electronic reading. Sometimes, when a prominent personality mentions a book that has influenced them, I check out that book. 

So when double Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel passed away on September 22 at age 70, I began reading about her life and career. I came across a Guardian newspaper story which highlighted Hilary’s rules for writing, in point form. The second point said, “Read ‘Becoming a writer by Dorothea Brande”’. 

When I checked the book online, I noticed it was first published in 1934. That was a long time ago. What surprised and intrigued me was that it has remained in print since then. Since there were cheap editions, I ordered one on Amazon. 

I have read many books on writing, which focus on plot, character development, setting, theme, point of view and dialogue. But Dorothea’s book was the only one I have read so far which spoke about how a writer should work with the unconscious mind if he or she wants to produce memorable material.

No wonder Hilary recommended it. Because if you read her books, you realise how she has mined her unconscious mind. In the Wolf Hall trilogy, Thomas Cromwell, the Chief Minister of King Henry VIII came across as a living, throbbing human being. 

Another stalwart who uses the unconscious a lot is Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. Dorothea said that for literature, to be powerful, it has to emerge from the unconscious. Writing from the conscious mind lacks vitality and depth. I asked myself a question: could Leo Tolstoy have created the 500 characters in his magnum opus, ‘War and Peace’ using only his conscious mind? I felt that would be difficult. He would definitely need the unconscious for this. 

All this was nice to know. And also depressing. 

Because, how many people can access the unconscious? Sure, every night, the unconscious sends us numerous images in the form of dreams. But in the daylight, how many can access it? The unconscious remains remote and inaccessible. Only a handful of the gifted are able to enter easily. 

Wolfgang Mozart (1756-91), the Austrian piano prodigy, was one of them. The rest of us, including I, are plodding away, plucking small fruits from the lowest branches of the banyan tree of creation, not being given this sublime gift by the Gods.

Despite this lack, writing has provided solace. 

For many years, shyness and an introverted nature had crippled me. I remained tongue-tied in public and in private too, especially in front of relatives and strangers. Through all those years, I kept reading. So, thousands of sentences kept ricocheting through my brain, with no outlet at all. Finally, one day, I got a job in journalism and began dealing with sentences. The sentences from my head rushed out, and I used the tip of my fingers to lead them on to a page during the typewriter era and later onto computer screens. I fell in love with writing. And I found my voice. 

And I have to thank my parents. They let me be. They gave me space. They didn’t put pressure on me to change. Maybe, they instinctively realised each person has to listen to their drumbeat. For some, the beat is loud and crystal-clear very early in life. For others, the drum beats take a long time to start. 

To each his own. 

And my parents gave me the same love during my inarticulate and articulate phases. At the celebrity level, Robert Federer, father of one of the greatest tennis players of all time, said, “Roger is for us, Roggie. Our son and that is what he will stay, and that is what he is.”

Ideally, parents should avoid intervening and trying to speed up the developmental process in their child. It only results in havoc in the child’s mind. As a result, the journey towards finding one’s destiny becomes messy and agonising. And sometimes, it ends in failure. 

(Published in The Story Cabinet)

Tuesday, October 04, 2022

Atlas Ramachandran is no more. A look at his life and career



Renowned businessman and film producer Atlas Ramachandran died on October 2 at Dubai at the age of 80, following a heart attack. A high-flying entrepreneur his jewellery business came crashing down, when he was arrested in 2015 for non-payment of loans he had taken from banks to the tune of Rs 1000 crore.

He was sentenced to jail for three years. Thanks to friends who helped to meet his dues, Ramachandran was released two-and-a-half years later. When Dubai-based lawyer Arun Abraham visited him in hospital just before he passed away, he was optimistic about re-starting his business.

The following piece was published in 2012 when he had just opened an outlet in Kochi.

Trusted by millions

Dr M M Ramachandran, the founder-chairman of the Atlas Jewellery Group, talks about his memories of Mahatma Gandhi and other luminaries. He also speaks about his life as an entrepreneur, film producer, distributor, exhibitor, actor, and philanthropist

By Shevlin Sebastian

On the morning of January 31, 1948, Dr M M Ramachandran, the founder-chairman of the Atlas Jewellery Group, remembers his uncle Dr. Sethu Madhavan come running to the family tharavad in Thrissur, tears streaming down his face. “Bapuji (Mahatma Gandhi) has expired,” he said. And the entire family, comprising Ramachandran’s parents, uncles and aunts, cousins and relatives, burst into tears. Ramachandran was only six years old. “Our house is close to the railway line. On the trains, people were shouting and crying.” They had heard from passengers coming from the north that somebody had assassinated Bapuji the previous evening.

“No Indian should forget the ‘Father of the Nation,’” says Ramachandran. “As a child, my parents taught us about the ideals of Gandhi and read excerpts from his monumental work, ‘My Experiments with Truth.’ He was an idol for me.”

He also has memories of the late Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. “The Prime Minister came to Thrissur a few times and gave speeches at the Thekkinkad Maidan. I would sit in the front row. Security was casual in those days. He spoke in English and was a gripping orator,” he says.

Ramachandran is also a fan of Nehru’s daughter, the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. “Her biggest achievement was the liberation of East Pakistan (Bangladesh) from West Pakistan in 1971,” says Ramachandran. Of course, Indira’s biggest mistake was the imposition of the Emergency on June 26, 1975. “That was when freedom was suppressed,” says Ramachandran. “I have lived through an eventful period of our history.”

Ramachandran, himself, has had an eventful life. He grew up in Thrissur, as the son of a poet, V Kamalakara Menon. Ramachandran’s grandfather was a contractor in Cochin State and was the first to introduce cement in construction work.

“He knew all the difficulties of doing business, and wanted my father to have a government job,” he says. His father got a state government job and worked for several years. Meanwhile, Ramachandran passed his B. Com from Sree Kerala Varma College. But jobs were scarce in Kerala. Unemployment was rampant. “My elder brother had a minor job in Delhi,” he says. “So, I went there in search of one.”

In the capital, Ramachandran saw ‘No Vacancy’ signs everywhere. Then the Canara Bank opened its first branch in Delhi, and they took Ramachandran in as an apprentice with a small stipend.

“In six months, they made me a clerk,” he says. And within two years, he became an assistant accountant because he had passed the Certified Associate examination of the Indian Institute of Bankers with distinction. But Ramachandran continued to sit for bank exams and got selected as a probationary officer by the State Bank of India and was posted to the State Bank of Travancore in Kerala in 1966.

“Thereafter, I worked all over the state,” he says. “Instead of going as a tourist, I went at the bank’s expense.” He worked for seven years with SBT.

In 1973, the economy was in free-fall. The petrol price jumped from 3.5 dollars per barrel to 10.6 dollars. “I had an official jeep, and my car,” he says. “Despite that, I used to travel by bus. By the 20th of the month, I would exhaust my salary. I would request my father to send me some money.” Ramachandran felt he needed another job.

He saw an advertisement in a newspaper by the Commercial Bank of Kuwait for a walk-in interview at the Connemara Hotel in Chennai. He went to Chennai by train. There were 2,000 people in front of the hotel gates, which were closed. “Somehow, I entered and became one of 200 persons who wrote the test.”

Thereafter, Ramachandran was one among five who were called for the interview. The interviewer asked, “Where is your passport, Mr Ramachandran?” It was then that he realised that there was something called a passport. “I began perspiring,” he says. “They told me not to worry. You are selected.” Thereafter, Ramachandran applied for a passport and departed for Kuwait in March 1974.

They sent him for six months of training to Athens and two months to Philadelphia. He took over as the credit manager for domestic branches and later as international division manager. In addition, the bank asked him to train other managers. And for this second job, Ramachandran received an additional salary. “In those days, I was the highest-paid Indian,” he says.

One day when Ramachandran was returning from the bank, he saw a sizeable crowd in front of some Indian jewellery shops. “I was young and curious,” he says. “I stopped the car and asked the reason for this. They said, ‘Don’t you know that the gold price has fallen? We are all queuing up to buy it.’ I was taken aback. There was such an enormous demand for gold. An urge arose in me to do some business rather than be an employee.”

In the bank, Ramachandran was handling the New York and London branches. “I had to recommend loans. The smallest of the loans was 5 million dollars. I was running a tremendous risk. If something went wrong, the management would hold me responsible. I thought that if I start a small business, even it is small, I could be my boss.”

But he had little savings. So, Ramachandran went to the chief general manager of the bank, H J Kwant, a Dutchman, and secured a loan of 20,000 dinars. This sufficed to pay the money for a shop in the brand-new Souk Al Watiya in Kuwait. “No Indian dared to take a shop in such a posh place,” he says. “I had money left over to buy only 2 kilos of ornaments but did not know the business. The only way to learn was from a goldsmith.”

Luckily, he befriended a Madhavan from Pallam, Kottayam. “He was not prepared to tell me the secrets,” says Ramachandran. “I told him I am a bank manager and he would lose nothing by passing me his knowledge. So, he told me the details.”

Ramachandran’s jewellery outfit was a success from the very beginning, thanks to a stroke of luck. His shop was next to the only church in Kuwait: Our Lady of Arabia.

“The Indian maids were in plenty, especially from Goa,” he says. “They told me, ‘Jesus will bless you! It is good you have opened your shop nearby. Now we can come to church, buy the gold, and have a lot of time left for chitchat. Otherwise, all the time will be wasted to go downtown. We will bring all our friends.’”

And they kept their promise. And all they wanted was a sovereign chain and a cross. “I made my money on these sales,” he says.

Today, Atlas Jewellery operates in seven countries: Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, India, and the United Arab Emirates. In the UAE, there are 24 shops, and the maximum sales are in Dubai.

“Our customers are mostly Malayalis,” he says. When asked for the reasons behind his success, he says, “Give them the best. They will come back to you. My products are authentic.”

What is 22 carat? It is 22 divided by 24 = 916.666. If pure gold in the ornament is 916, and the rest is alloys, it is called 22 carat. “Instead of 916, we keep 920 as our base,” he says. “In all the tests conducted by the government, it should pass. When conventional soldering is done, other elements might get added, as opposed to the cadmium soldering technology used by Atlas Jewellery.”

He says that the Malayalis in Dubai, before they leave for their annual vacation to Kerala, would buy jewellery from several shops. Back at home, they get it tested. “I am very happy to say that when they return to Dubai, they say, ‘Sir, only yours was 22 carats. We will bring all our friends and relatives to you.’ So, I made my name by word of mouth.”

Ramachandran also instinctively understood the power of advertisements. “Those days dealers would tell me that gold should never be advertised,” he says. “People should come and ask for it. I said, no, like any other product we have to advertise. I was the first to cooperate with the World Gold Council to advertise gold.”

He was also the first to distinguish between 22 and 24 carat gold. “I would have arguments with the dealers,” he says. “I would tell them, ‘Ornaments are only 22 carat, so why are you charging 24 carat?’ When I started Atlas in 1981, I gave separate prices for 22 and 24 carat gold.”

Incidentally, the word ‘Atlas’ came up by accident. When he went to get a licence from the Ministry of Commerce in Kuwait, he suggested many Malayali, Indian, and English names. The official said, “Myseer (which means ‘impossible’ in Arabic). This is an Arab country. Give me Arab names.” So, Ramachandran asked the official to give a name. The man said, “Khud Ya Atlas (Take the name Atlas).”

In Dubai, Ramachandran was much respected, because of his contribution to the annual Shopping Festival. In 1996, the government of Dubai - under the directive of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice-President and ruler of Dubai - invited four people from the gold industry and asked for suggestions. 

Ramachandran, who later became the chairperson of the Festival Gold Promotion Committee, came up with the idea to give away one kg of gold on a raffle basis every day. “It was a runaway success,” says Ramachandran. “This concept attracted a lot of tourists during the festival and I secured an illustrious name in the government.” In the inaugural festival, 43 kgs of gold were given away.

Thereafter, over the years, Atlas has diversified into real estate, advertising, photography studios and healthcare. In 2010, the company opened a multi-speciality hospital in Ruwi, Oman. In 2010, Ramachandran was ranked 35 on the list of the 100 ‘Most Powerful Indians in the Gulf Co-operation Council countries.’

And, finally, on August 25, 2012, Atlas finally arrived in Kerala with a showroom at Edapally, Kochi. Asked why it took so long to come to Kerala, Ramachandran said, “The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) was only set up recently,” he says. “People were selling 18 carat gold marked as 22.”

Ramachandran made a television programme called ‘Swarna Nirangal’ (The Colours of Gold), in which the anchor shows an advertisement which states, ‘I will give you 916 gold.’ Then the anchor asks, “If this is a 100-year-old company, which claims to be giving 916 now, what were they giving earlier?”

Ramachandran was excited by the response to the Kochi enterprise. But despite this he is worried about the economic future of Kerala. “Where is the agricultural and manufacturing activity? Montek Singh Ahluwalia (deputy chairman of the Planning Commission) said that if Kerala does not cultivate rice, the heavens will not fall. I don’t agree. We must have agriculture. It is our culture and we must not forget that.”

Another worry is the rise of religious fanaticism all over the world. “Religion appears to play a very important part in the life of people and nations,” he says. “It is meant for the well-being of people. But people think that the way to salvation is through one particular religion. It has led to a lot of destruction.”

The opposite of destruction is creativity. Few people know Ramachandran is a creative person. In 1988, Ramachandran set up Chandrakanth Films for production and distribution. The first film, ‘Vaishali,’ became a box-office hit running for 111 days and is now regarded as a classic. Later, he produced ‘Dhanam’ and ‘Sukrutham,’ and directed ‘Holidays.’ He has also acted in ‘2 Harihar Nagar,’ ‘Arabikatha’ and ‘Anandabhairavi.’

Apart from that, he is also providing scholarships for deserving students in Kerala and the Gulf countries and makes regular donations for traditional arts and culture in Kerala. In fact, he has done a doctoral thesis on traditional arts and culture. “In my spare time, I am trying to promote akshara shlokam,” says Ramachandran, who is also a director of the India Vision television channel.

All in all, Ramachandran has lived like up to his company name: an Atlas who has lifted the globe, on his shoulders, and in his own individual style.

(Published in Express Ensembles, September 23, 2012)