Hawala Haul Halted?

 Out of bad, they say, sometimes, the best emerges. The current Iran idiocy can be an example thereof. Why do i say so? Let me see if I can explain.

It is an open secret, frankly shared unofficially and informally in those twin cities that Hyderabad is one of the hawala centers, and hence has huge monetary dealings, most of which, such unofficial sources say, are most questionable in nature. 

Hawala is a monetary transaction that respects the word of mouth. In the initial phase, may be, hawala could have been most honourable, high-minded and honest dealings. 

The nerve center of the hawala trade apparently is the Middle East countries, it is maintained in Hyderabad. Equally vociferously, it is argued that hawala money is all "haram" money. 

Remember, for instance, the Telgi scam? Even when an official document, the  stamp paper, was involved, there was an 'efficient' network, apparently invisible, which distributed counterfeit stamp papers, and siphoned off crores. Imagine, given such realities, the possible money laundering, the tax evasion, the black money, and the criminals involved in the hawala connections!

Now with the entire Middle East being off the bounds in a major way, the hawala haul has to be halted.  The crooks involved must suffer, if they have not found out some alternative solution, which, given their criminal proclivities, they might have. 

Yet they must face financial loss as well as losing clout and power. Every which way, this is great news for India, right? Hence the initial assertion; namely, bad may at times lead to the best! 

Pratima@Such crooks siphoning off huge sums shamelessly lead a luxurious life which, too, must get curtailed to some extent, even if they would have stashed away illegal money for generations apparently. The bad and the ugly need not forever be in good conditions!

Quote of the day:                                                          "You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from," concedes Cormac McCarthy. 

Word of the day: hawala.                                          Hawala is an informal method of transferring money, relying on a trust-based network of brokers. It operates outside traditional banking, and is commonly used for rapid, low-cost remittances in South Asia and the Middle East, though it is often illegal due to lack of regulations. 

Suno, wo chaa gayi!

 1971 was the year. The Bangla Desh war black-outs could not blur the lure of "Monica". Why, to manage the black-outs and power-cuts, there used to be special matinee shows of "Caravan". Helen's sensuous cabaret which captured the lascivious words for which the 'poet' Majrooh Sultanpuri felt ashamed began with "dekho, wo aa gaya". 

It was Asha's zingy, youthful, seductive voice which captured the R. D. Burman sorcery of zany rhythm and high pitched excitement. Fast forward now to 2025. "Dhurandhar", the mega block buster. Yet again the same enchantment with the same song! Hence the best tribute to the ever youthful, vibrant, versatile voice of Asha Bhosle would be "Suno, wo chaa gayi thi, chayi hai, chayi rahegi". She was/is/will be forever! The "RIP" is a mere formality!

Controversies never ever tired of chasing Asha. "Dum, Maro dum", her award winning iconic declaration of total emancipation, was for a long time off the then very few (formal modes of ) platforms. She had solid doubts about the way Khayyam wanted her to pitch her notes in "Umrao Jaan". 

The less said the better (as the truth value of such imagined wor(l)ds would be known only to the real actors) about her much gossiped about sensational personal life, be it her elopement with Bhosale or liaisons with O.P. Nayyar or R.D.Burman, or her much-touted rivalry with Lataji.

What survived, survives, and will survive despite a difficult life is her lyrical, smooth, enchanting voice full of a soft strength. Like Lataji, she emoted with her singing. Her range included the hyper talented Nutan, Geeta Bali, Wahida to the beautiful beyond words Madhubala or Sadhana to the naughty Helen or the sweet cute Asha Parekh, and many, many, many more. Remember her 2024 release with her granddaughter or the 2025 Adnan Sami collab?

She sang all possible genres in very many languages, both filmi/non-filmi  versions, worked with practically all music directors, she jammed with international sensations. Yet, personally, my all time favourite is her natya sangeet. She re-created, nay, immortalised the Deenanath Mangeshkar magic in her own unique way.

In my opinion, that is the way she led a tough life, too. Every rejection, each rebuff, any reduction thrown at her, she magically, mystically, memorably managed to transcreate in to a 'moment-ous' victory.  "Still I will rise" will be the best homage to Asha, whom I do not mind thus intimately referring to with love (no "ji" for her, right?) even when she was older than my mother!

Pratima@ Her Marathi songs are simply superb, be it the folk "gomu sangti ne" or the gazal "kenvha tari pahate" or the greatest childhood song "baba anik aai yatil kon awade" which all of us have sung umpteen times in our own way, right?

Quote of the day:                                                         "Music, when soft voices die/vibrates in the memory," says Shelley.

Word of the day: enchantment                              Enchantment refers to a feeling of great delight, fascination, or a magical spell. Like the spell-binding effect of Asha's notes!

Throwback Tales

 April might be the cruellest month according to T. S. Eliot. Yet, for most school and college going students, it is the nicest month. Results are yet a fortnight away! The vacation has not as yet started getting booooringly loooooong. 

Summer is setting in, bringing along the koel's song and mangoes, musk melons, water melons and "thanda thanda, cool cool" drinks (I am referring to the innocent ones. Please! These days, there is no knowing actually!) 

And thus set in the times for reading! Throwback tales indeed! Panchatantra, Aesop's Tales, Sindabad, Gulliver, all sorts of fairy tales, even the Ramayana and the Mahabharata in the abridged, simplified version. What wonderful days indeed! I have literally grown up on books. 

My parents gifted us books on all occasions. I adored the gift. Why, we had the monthly subscriptions of "Chandoba" as well as "Reader's Digest". Just trying to remember those days when Birbal and Tenali Ram were my best buddies is a throwback to 'wonder-ful' times in all senses of this term. 

Sure, I started reading Literature early enough. By sixteen, I was in to the world of Austen; by eighteen, Camus' "The Outsider" was my read! As I was doing French then, I had tried reading a bilingual edition, not terribly difficult, given Camus' lucid prose. 

I need not list all such adolescent adventures, be it Sophocles or Shakespeare. Yet I love my childhood reads a lot. The sense of  innocence, wonder and enjoyment they induced, the subtle seeds of ethics thus planted, a unique perspective on life they gifted, these throwback tales are indeed a world apart. 

In today's times of cartoons and the online reels, I do not know how much children read these days. The world has, moreover, changed drastically, so much so that "Shyamchi Aai", one of my most beloved books, may now appear senti, pompous, and "boring"! 

Why, it is, moreover, fashionable (actually downright stupid, however chic it might be considered) these days to dismiss the fairy tales as politically incorrect! Fairy tales do NOT create a false world. None is a Peter Pan! We all grow out of our 'Snow White' days. The childhood reads, however, create  fantasy wor(l)ds that forever enrich us in imaginative, incredible, infinite ways! 

Pratima@ In fact, at times, they give a unique paradigm to our adult attempts. During the Corona period, I wrote seven vignettes on the Corona times which have been included in an international anthology. To bind them together, I initially used the Vikram-Vetal narrative in an ironic way, which suddenly added a unique depth to the vignette series.

Quote of the day:                                                          "Books are a uniquely portable magic, " says Stephen King. 

Word of the day:                                                            Skimming (getting the hang of the general outline) and scanning (paying careful attention to minute details) lead to better comprehension/understanding of a(ny) text. 

Flash Mob

 Mob! A term we often associate with a mindless violent group, right? Newspapers often have headlines such as 'the mob went on a rampage', 'the mob lynching', et al, which reflect our violent era currently worst on show in the notorious war whose exact status at present is most uncertain, right? 

Flash mob, to which our title refers, however, is the exact opposite. It refers to an impromptu group dance. It is always at a public space. Often it responds to a sensitive issue such as the status/stage of democracy  (the first ever flash mob dealt with this theme in Hongkong) or women's status (often tried in many places across India).

The current craze for reels, however, seems to take away the idea-tional content from such an event, and it seems to be reduced to a group dance in any space vacant enough to accomodate a 'gang' as such 'friends' call themselves! The crazier the song, the better so long as  it has a whacky rhythm! 

Honestly, such horrible dance attempts go viral these days that "any savage can dance" dismissal by Jane Austen's Darcy in her much celebrated "Pride and Prejudice" no longer appears a privileged rebuff! 

What all prancing and cavorting seems to be going viral these days! An old woman approaching her seventies dancing to the vulgarest song or kids shaking any and every part of their tiny bodies in the most sexualised way to raunchy songs! Any wonder Epstein's are aplenty anywhere and everywhere! 

'Play a wonky song with a feral rhythm, and will dance'  seems to be the mindless motto of most. In brief, currently dance is hardly classical, mostly mob, and horribly flashy. No longer is needed a stage either. Any and every public space can be a podium, or whatever.  What say?

Pratima@Anything for the sake of the reel(ing) effect sums up the absolutely simplistic, quite comic,  and rather sad attempts at gaining public attention in a mindless, chic way, right? Dance away, dullards called reel stars, and humanity has nothing to lose except glory n grandeur!

Quote of the day:                                                       "Vulgarity begins when imagination succumbs to the explicit," days Doris Day.

Word of the day: populism                                        Vulgar populism, often characterized by "flaunting the low," uses coarse language, bad manners, and anti-elite rhetoric to bypass the traditional culture. It relies on (melo)dramatic, often offensive, performances to differentiate the loud from the conventional, polite, discreet cultural praxis. It creates a direct connect with the majority/mob as the loud message conveyed is often simplistic, sentimental, and often vulgar.

Solution(s)

 The Mumbai traffic may not be as chaotic as the Pune traffic. In Mumbai, says everyone, drivers and riders follow the lanes. In Pune, however, discipline is something most all forget while on road. People jump signals, cut lanes, and all simultaneously want to go in all directions at smaller crossroads/intersections where there is neither a signal nor a traffic constable controlling the traffic. 

What could be the solution(s) to the traffic woes in Pune? One of the toughest problems when it comes to Pune traffic is that the nodal roads in Pune are narrow, and possibly cannot be widened. Let me give a concrete example. Look at the Tilak Road. 

One of the toughest roads to navigate is this narrow strech which cannot possibly be widened. There are any number of schools and colleges all along the route, beginning from the Abhinav Kala  College near Madiwale Colony to the New English School on one side of the road as it intersects with a lane from from the Shastri Road. 

If this simple solution, road widening, is out of question, what are the other solutions? Many many more tunnels, ring roads, two/three tier fly-overs? 

May be, the best solution would be improving the public transport. The metro, for instance, clean, on time and not expensive does have a good response, right? Even the A/C buses are preferred.

Even then, these are the dressings on the wound, right? The real problem lies in controlling the private vehicles, right? When loans are easily available and the interest rates, unlike the FD rates, are not dismal, citizens' apparent buying power knows no limits. Literally lakhs of new vehicles enter the market each year!

They say, In Pune, the number of vehicles is more than the number of citizens which, too, grows exponentially, given the internal migration from interior Maharashtra such as the Khandesh, Marathwada and Vidharbha regions.

May be, the real solution is de-urbanisation. Major industries should reach far and out, beyond the Mumbai-Navi Mumbai-Pune belt. Existing local industries in those cities/towns should be supported. Agriculture, despite all possible problems since P. Sainath listed them in the nineties, needs continued support. Such are the real solutions which are being taken up on war footing, I am absolutely sure.

Pratima@ The mindset needs a change, too. The officials must, for instance, complete all the monsoon preparations  before June. If citizens refuse to use the public transport because it is not exactly convenient, and connecting buses/autos are not easily accessible for a metro, for instance,  such solutions could be be made available with a 'win win' approach. What say?

Quote of the day:                                                        "Every problem has in it the seeds of its solutions," says P.V. Neale.

Word of the day: Decongestion                               Decongestion refers to the process of making a place less full of traffic and/or people. London, Paris, New York and other such mega-metro cities decongest by charging a heavy tax for private vehicles in the central part(s), it seems.  Fines for traffic rules' violations are very heavy, too, apparently. 

Grumpy n ole Mr. Trump?

 Mr. Trump! An ole grump he may appear to be. There are namesake old movies called 'Mr. Grump' which laugh at a pair of extremely old neighbours. These two do not at all think, but forever act n talk. Since it is a movie or two, their crazy old capers do not harm. Instead we laugh at their childish crankiness in the reels.

I refuse to believe that the Mr. Trump our real world is currently afflicted with (at present with a much pre-decided pause, worth it though!) is one such eccentric. Do not you believe me? Well, it seems, like a good director (remember, he was in to show business in a big way?), he even wrote the message the Pakistan P. M. was to share with the whole wide world. Of course, our dear old neighbour being what he is, he copy-pasted the draft, making a clown of himself in front of the whole world! 

Does not it, however, show what a smarty pants Ole Donald is? I refuse to believe silly tirades written by extremely narcissistic intellectuals getting old who revel in the clap-clap-clap from their respective echo chambers. Such people would viciously attack you if you just dare to ask them about a title they wrongly quoted or to question their current pet peeve. But they would call Trump brainless megalomaniac!

I do not think Mr.Trump is an old fool publically peeing in his diapers as such public intellectuals paint him to be. In my opinion, he is a shrewd businessman who knows very well how to negotiate, nay, manipulate, a transaction to his advantage!

Sure, a leader (especially THE so-called 'Potus') should be a statesman. That is the idea(l). Reality, as we know too very well, however, is vastly different! Look at any of the major events in the Trump regime so far. He has always behaved like a wily shrewd businessman which he basically, anyways, is. 

Remember how he negotiated the Nobel Peace prize? The exchange rate with the current winnie (better term for the lady!) was the raided Venezuela-n president and his wife whose whereabouts are currently in some deep vault, right? 

Remember how he threw a terrible feat when the Ukraine president did not accept his terms and conditions? Yes, there IS a method in his so-called madness. He is treating (body) politic(s) as  a trade deal! Often such business moguls throw a mock tantrum to get the other side of the negotiating table accede to their terms and conditions. 

Ancient civilizations, however, have their own stipulations! Yet, for the sake of all children of all gods (and, not only for the children of Iran and Palestine as sensitive intellectuals would have it!), let us all hope n pray, the Americans would think beyond the mid-term elections, and Iran (and all its terrorist cohorts) beyond the non-existent uranium well-hidden in the tunnels where the U. S. army searched for one lone pilot! 

Oh, Lord, forgive not all pretences, because all of these pretenders know very well what they are doing, however much they may give it big big and cute sounding sweet names!

Pratima@ Just as the Iran war makes my eyes well with tears for children there who are now playing "funeral, funeral", equally heavily does my heart twist for all the Indian migrant labourers in the entire Middle East  (and their families back home here) who have to hold on to small time jobs despite the terrible war conditions.                                                      Imagine the plight of a mother, a sister, a wife or a daughter (and also all the male counterparts in the family) when they watch on the television the pyrotechnics of the most modern warfare, without a word about what exactly is then happening to their near and dear one in those far away war-infested lands! 

Quotes n words of the day:                                      "I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity." — Dwight D. Eisenhower

"War is so unjust and ugly that all who wage it must try to stifle the voice of conscience within themselves." — Leo Tolstoy 

"When the rich wage war, it is the poor who die." — Jean-Paul Sartre

"A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough." — Anonymous

"War is often decided by those in power, but fought by the powerless." ---Anonymous

Health is all

 'King Lear', Shakespeare's most tragic play full of all possible human sufferings, ends with 'ripeness is all'.  The title of our blog today is a take on this quote. On this World Health Day, our blog believes, moreover, that a ripe, that is, a mature, look at health is all. 

What is health? Is it a gym-trained/toned bod? Yes and no. Well, such a body most often is all muscle n no mind, protein packed, and more a mere show-off. 

Better hence might be alternative therapies for health such as yoga. Yoga, for instance, believes in a balance of body and mind. By no means are yoga asanas mere physical exercises. Supplemented they are by a particular food and supported they are by pranayama, the breath control, though not merely the fab, trendy way which the market, especially overseas, has popularised it as.

Health is in a way closely associated with the soul. Such inner fulfilment depends on better relationships, especially with the self, overlooked most often in our era of selfies and group-fies and in the obsession with the MNC driven life style full of monies and stress to be avoided through good company and better life style. 

I am not sure though that the soul is thus satisfied. It needs a close connect with nature, with creativity, with some larger purpose, with one's duties to self and to others, especially the immediate family, often taken for granted, and for a ride. 

In other words, health is not merely eating an apple a day so as to keep away the medical fraternity, often now sold to corporate packages, heavy duty latest gadgets, et al. Missing is the friendly touch of the family doctor whose very presence half healed the patient. 

What is health then? Often the best answer would be the Vaidic negation which asserts,  "naiti, naiti, naiti," "n iti!", not this, in brief. Is health wellness, though that, too, is a marketing funda! Health is not mere humour, not mere 'happiness'. Is it stress management, despite and especially during the AI-driven days! Anxieties, worries, stress, potions n tablets! What indeed is health? Faith? Of what sort? Oh, yes, better avoid this 'baba', that 'buwa' and some sect! Soiled superstitions sullying souls!

i suppose, health is getting to know better one's self, body, mind, soul, togetherness-es, responsibilities to self and others. I think, health is realising that given the end of it all, that is, death, which could be so near n not very far, living the limited breaths allotted to us most creatively, joyously, and in fullness. What say?

Pratima@Health in fact is the only wealth. So Seneca asserted ages ago.

Quote of the day:                                                         "Your body hears everything your mind says,”  explains Naomi Judd.

Word of the day: health                                                 According to the World Health Organization,  health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, not merely the absence of disease, focusing on active, functional living. Maintaining good health involves a balanced diet, regular exercise, adequate rest, and strong social connections. It is a vital resource for everyday life, promoting longevity and the ability to manage stress.