[Reader-list] Fw: The Mango Tree

Thu Apr 30 12:40:11 IST 2009

----- Forwarded Message ----
From: subhrodip sengupta <sub_sengupta at yahoo.co.in>
To: kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com
Sent: Thursday, 30 April, 2009 12:35:20 PM
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] The Mango Tree

Dear Kshmendra,
               thans for your well-sorted out response, indeed making caste of society fight against each other
wouldnt put an end to the tendancies which we are critiqing, neither would nation-chauvinist attitude help, whatever qualm I might have with my neighbour, I would not implant a bomb in his territory, that would harm many others,(who knows, including kids of my family?), but somewhere within the motions of the society, do we find tendencies, dominant ones, once subscibed to by a certain caste, now having spread to many leading such a lifestyle. These then become 'values', values of deserting ones old parents and going abroad, values ofstaying away from ones family for days together, or other values not necessarily concerned with this such as late night partying, rave-partying etc. For some it is inevitable, irresistable, to quote one of the leaders 'sar char kar bole' to othe it becomes intolerable, and infringing into their peace of mind, so that they decide to step ahead and do something about it! When there is a miniature genocide, some look at it as a
 miniature civil war, some even say it is terror sponsored, some say it challenges the integrity of nation as they take sides of police, and consciously or otherwise favour the vested interests ehom the regime, I should say alas was favouring consciously, some others say it was a Genocide. The questions involved are those of scales, values, and whoch motions does one identify using those values. Some values of the Baniyas has been kept alive in the mordern, indeed many ofhrough a our indegenous businessmen are caste biased, and they'll take you a story of rishtadari, thiugh they may not even trace back the long chain, what they mean is Jati, or may be sharing the same gotra, though the latter is rarely the case. As Inder has noted, I am greatful that he did, I would like to go a bitt off his analysis which I find a bit spiritualstic, I would rather, sourly(like an unripe mango) say these tendencies materialise, but again jati-system did some
 harshness to the women, so knowing the 'spirits' of by fellow people, I would not like to provide a deterministic tone, progeny being a vital factor in the villages, 'Ok am a baniya, my forefathers thought like this, I must share the same thoughts!' Sometimes by using strange words you may force somebody to think, when you deny certain values in your speeches, you force people to recognise rergressive tendancies, when you swear to cut the hands of people who disturb members of your community, or that police tortured you saying your mom is a muslim, you are reminding people of counter communal tendancies, and the nature of secularism, from it's positive dictionary meaning,to secular governments intent(implications), why is it silent to your people, people, to whom we are communicating do have their own abilty to judge things, they do know, who this policeman is, better than many of us who stay in AC rooms and rely on mainly influential contacts to get
 the slightest works done, and they do decide based on their own judgement, values and interests, whether they want to live together or fight, whom to support and to what extent, when SSC results are not published before elections, I do see some arrangement in that independant fair function of the soverign state too, and thats why I often quote these elections in most places are a struggle for the nation not for it's people, for people would include into similar class people whom you do not like, and would be negative towards, thats where excessive Nation Chauvinism, calling Pakistani gives a value judgement of whatg you think about them, doesnt strongly bother me for I do not spend sleepless nights thinking about democracy or SWAT valley issues either, but might rightly bother some muslim brothers as some hindu brothers get bothered when they find a hindu in Pakistan in distress.  And yes, when values need to be changed they need to be uprooted,
 isolated from the value system, so that they do not come back due to any accident, yes in this ecological or say eco-feminist challenge to such practises under Capitalist farming, we are reminded of many other adulterations from injections to colours to our well loved leaves (saags) to baingans, and pumpkins to our coloured potatoes, of how we do not know to jugje vegatbles, but turn essentially fetish, I also share my angush in which restaurants serve salads, ok some of them. The question then is about realising that such practises exist and to resist them ,not resist or fight against each other. THE idea is to influence and persuade people dominated by some practises not to do so, to uproot such values so that contertendancies do nor revrse them I call this phenomenon Majburi, the Object was a Mango, and how many of us again started fighting over it, People are instrinctively too chauvinist to correct themselves and this relates to how efficient one
 is, this applies to feudal ruling classes. When someone talks of Singur or Nandigram (polar issues), I do not feel ashamed, well MY dad is neither a a supprter of Sir Tata nor is he Tata himself, nor was I responsible to any big extent(so that epole do not crowd me for being insensitive) for the rape of this girl. One has to know why the other person is behaving thus, may be he is wrong, may be he is right! Else the idea of kin-pride, Nationalism etc is only to justify power and hiding the potent evil in their garbs, when some disturbance disarrays these evils, chaos starts which need to be Justified, but Alas can not be always!
       By the way does one know who the author of this passage is? IF somebody can get me the answer, I'd be greatful. 
thanks for reading(open ended)

________________________________
From: Kshmendra Kaul <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com>
To: subhrodip sengupta <sub_sengupta at yahoo.co.in>
Cc: Readers list Yousuf Sarai. <reader-list at sarai.net>
Sent: Wednesday, 29 April, 2009 3:10:45 PM
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] The Mango Tree

Dear Subhrodip

Sir!

1. May I first tell you how fascinated I am by the manner in which you (usually) construct your mails.

2. If typecasting a group / community with negative attributes is alright in any one case, then it has to be alright in every case. Such putting into compartments is very useful if the intention is to attack. It is counterproductive if the intent is to understand.

3. The reference to Pakistan was made because such an attitude towards the "Hindu Baniya" used to be ingrained into the psyche of Pakistanis through their school textbooks. I do not know how it is now. At least the remanants of that can still be found in their Media (especially TV). And it would appear amongst some in India too. Do we have to re-inforce them? Should we?

4. Imagine if everyone was liberal with such typecasting. No do not imagine it, just see it happening all around us day in and day out:

- Punjabis are this kind of people
- Bengalis are this kind of people
- Kashmiri Pandits are this kind of people
- Kashmiri Muslims are this kind of people
- Communists are this this kind of people
- Capitalists are this kind of people
- and on and on and on

You can see how such rigid proclamations destroy ....... (open ended)

Kshmendra

--- On Tue, 4/28/09, subhrodip sengupta <sub_sengupta at yahoo.co.in> wrote:

From: subhrodip sengupta <sub_sengupta at yahoo.co.in>
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] The Mango Tree
To: kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com
Cc: "Readers list Yousuf Sarai." <reader-list at sarai.net>
Date: Tuesday, April 28, 2009, 9:09 PM

very true sir, but why give Paki tone to it? There are hindu punjabis, biharis non-baniyas etc who share the same thing for hindu baniyas, and a second class to the marwaris. They do and it is well-noted in Hindu literature, I can tell you  Bibhutibhusan, a bengali.
And can for the sake of not attacking a caste, can we ignore it's tendancy? Ok, lets take it not that deeply, but strong feeling of author.

________________________________
From: Kshmendra Kaul <kshmendra2005 at yahoo.com>
To: reader-list <reader-list at sarai.net>; Inder Salim <indersalim at gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, 28 April, 2009 2:56:40 PM
Subject: Re: [Reader-list] The Mango Tree

"""""" The 70-G-wallay are Baniyas (the traditional business community) and hence have a natural tendency to think about their personal benefits only.""""""

Natural tendency ? Sounds very racist.

Derogatory remarks about "baniyas" crop up most often on the Pakistani Media. It is more specific. It is the "Hindu Baniya". It used be taught that way in Pakistani school textbooks. Do not know if it still is.  

Kshmendra

--- On Mon, 4/27/09, Inder Salim <indersalim at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Inder Salim <indersalim at gmail.com>
Subject: [Reader-list] The Mango Tree
To: "reader-list" <reader-list at sarai.net>
Date: Monday, April 27, 2009, 10:14 PM

--
THE MANGO TREE

The centre of the universe is not the place where I am standing, but
the Mango Tree in front of my balcony. But because of different
seasons its centre of importance shifts,  particularly when there are
no mangoes on its branches.. Almost a decade back, when I shifted into
my flat, there was no such tree over there, but indeed a structure
conducive for the growth of a Mango Tree, or any other tree, was
always there. This space where these small and big trees exist belongs
to the entire colony, a public space,  where people relish their
evening strolls, or let  their children jump a little, and also
scatter biscuit and chocolate wrapper around, carelessly. The Trees
are mostly non-fruity ones, so everything is cool, except this Mango
Tree.

Right now, the entire colony is talking about this mango tree, but the
flats which are directly facing this mango tree are constantly
thinking about it. I am also looking at the mango tree, but among
other things, what puzzles me is the question why the tree gives birth
to hundreds of mangoes when it does not want its entire crop to grow?
As I notice some little green mangoes keep on falling on the earth,
naturally. Why? It fascinates me. This is perhaps, what we call
mysteries of the nature, so no need to interfere or worry on that
account.  But still there are plenty of mangoes on the tree, and
everybody is silently looking at them, who simply want to eat them.
But there is some helplessness in their looking at them.

The reason for this is that the 70-G-wallay (family living in the
Ground floor) happened to water this mango tree sometimes , and now
they have the birth right to harvest the entire crop of this tree.
True, I am witness to that, but I doubt if they  actually  had planted
the tree. I believe, somebody had carelessly thrown a mango kernel
into the park which has given birth to this controversial tree.  The
70-F-wallay, 70-S- wallay, and 70-T-wallay (families living in First,
Second and Top floor) feel that they too have the right to eat some
mangoes. These families live closer to this tree, but other families
which are facing it too have the similar desire but, I guess the
intensity of the desire to eat these mangoes is directly proportional
to the distance of the eyes that are looking at this mango tree.

The trouble is that the 70-G-wallay leave no stone unturned to ensure
that the mango tree is under their control during the crop time. They
don’t even let a singing bulbul, or a peaceful dove, let alone stray
colony monkeys to come near this mango tree.    They use all the ways
and means to keep the other away from the reach of this tree.  They
must have even counted the number of mangoes on the tree which are
still unripe, quite green but distinguishable from the green of its
foliage. The 70-G-wallay are Baniyas (the traditional business
community) and hence have a natural tendency to think about their
personal benefits only. I must say, with some confidence, that such
families are the predecessor families of the entire world capitalism,
like monkey is known as the predecessor of the man.. A limited thought,
but business is usually created to be inherited by their successors,
usually sons. So, there is a tradition, to own the factory, an orchid,
an oil well etc.  Right now, here in this colony, there are people who
want the entire mango tree to be felled since they don’t get their
share of mangoes, but there are people who are content with the idea
of a tree alone. Although, the later category of people are quite in
minority but they are happy that there is a place for a dove to make a
nest, or twig for a squirrel  to jump from this tree to another tree.

Yes, some children from outside,  say from other underprivileged
families, whom I guess have never tasted a mango in their life, do
come and try to steal a mango or two from this tree  by throwing a
stone or a small stick. The 70-G-Wallay quickly come out from their
flat and use all kinds of popular vernacular to chase them away.. The
rest of families again remain silent, who otherwise would not like
these outside children to venture into the protected colony, where I
too happen to own a flat.

The result is that every year, the 70-G-wallay harvest the unripe crop
lest it might be shared or stolen by others. The entire unripe-unripe
crop is harvested, because the fear of losing the crop intensifies
with the passing of each day, which is just good enough for  ordinary
pickle at the best. The real mangos never see the light of the day.

I don’t about the whole world, but in India, the nature of business is
such that the entire crop of Mangoes is usually plucked from the
branches while it is still growing, still green. The golden fruit
becomes golden only in the dark rooms of Mandi (Fruit markets) where
they are dumped for couple of days, or weeks, to hit the stalls on the
very day they turn golden, golden red or golden green.  Who knows if
some chemicals are injected into the mangoes to give them a more
golden look, or make turn them even tastier? After all we are lured by
products which are masked, glossed, either on TV, cinema, or in the
Malls, or in the life directly. After all, the idea of mango is
usually smarter than the actual mango.

But there are spaces where Mangoes are allowed to turn golden on the
trees itself, and subsequently relished with their maximum sugar and
vitamin levels. But, as we know that is outside the structure of
business and people like 70-G-wallay don’t have a clue about that. So,
has anybody ever tasted a real mango?

The question is that there is just one mango tree, and thousands of
eyes on its couple of hundred odd mangoes on the tree. Right now, the
people like 70-G-wallay who control the production of plant don’t let
the mangos grow naturally. So they too have not tasted a mango, and
neither let others to taste a real ripe one.

So  has anybody tasted a real mango, if there is one, and if yes, who
deserves to eat that, and relish?

please press to see mangoes
http://pics.livejournal.com/indersalim/pic/000hz44h/

With love
Inder salim

http://indersalim.livejournal.com
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