Blowin' In The Wind

Man, have we changed!

Man is sexless, says William Safire. So why am I not shocked or insulted? Because he is absolutely right, etymologically speaking. Let’s put the words in context. In How Not To Write: The Essential Misrules of Grammar, a slim little paperback, he writes:

Etymologists know that the word man, going back to the Sanskrit manus, means “human being” and is sexless. Although man and woman are differentiated in English, the universal meaning of man to encompass both sexes remains. Why accept a fiat from anti-sexism headquarters to change it now?

Safire is deriding the tendency to replace a word like “chairman” with “chairperson”. The “man” in this case can be a woman too, he argues, going back to the root of the word.

Personally, I would rather not call a woman a chairman. But he is right. Manus -- or manush (pronounced mah-noosh) as we say in Bengali -- means a human being.

I was amazed. I am a Bengali myself and yet it had never occurred to me that the English “man” and the Bengali manush were, in any way, related.

Later, I looked up the Concise Oxford Dictonary, which said “man” comes from the Sanskrit manu.I didn’t know that word, but Safire’s manus immediately made me think of the Bengali manush.

And I was struck by how people mutate, too, like any other species.

No one will mistake a Bengali or any other Indian with an Englishman or a German, and yet many of the words we use come from the same stock. We speak what scholars call the Indo-European languages, which also include Greek, Latin, Persian, Gaelic and Slavic among others. I don’t understand any of those languages; yet they all have the same roots.

I can imagine how we changed. There were intermarriages; foreigners went native. The Aryans in India became different from those in Persia, as did the Greeks from the Latins.

We are still changing. We Bengalis in India speak the same language as the Bangladeshis; yet our accents are different, and so are some of the words we use. Pakistan was once part of India. Now, on the Arts and Letters website, Pakistan's Dawn newspaper is grouped with Al Jazeera, Tehran Times and other publications from the Middle East.

Changes are taking place elsewhere too. Think of the growing Hispanic and Asian populations in America -- and the former British Conservative leader, Michael Howard. His father was a Romanian shopkeeper who changed his name from Hecht to Howard. And he himself, an immigrant’s son, is British to the core.

Britain and Pakistan

The Shadow Of The Great Game: The Untold Story Of India's Partition by Narendra Singh Sarila

Tony Blair had to go because his Iraq policy proved deeply unpopular. We have read how Britons disapprove of their military presence in Iraq. But he was only pursuing traditional British policy. The Middle East matters so much to Britain that it even helped to create Muslim states -- and not just in the Middle East. We are talking of Pakistan.

Everybody knows India was partitioned because the Muslims wanted a separate state. What's less known is that a separate Muslim state also seemed to be in the interest of the British, who lent a hand in its creation. Take Kashmir, for instance. Its Hindu maharaja opted for India; Pakistan tried to seize the country by sending raiders across the border; Indian troops fought back; and Kashmir got divided into an Indian and a Pakistani zone. Few people know, however, that it was British military officers who put Gilgit, Chitral and other remote areas in the north under Pakistani control. They were serving with the Gilgit Scouts, part of the Pakistani forces. I read that in The Shadow Of The Great Game: The Untold Story Of India's Partition.

British officers at the time were still serving on the Indian subcontinent, mostly in Pakistan, and their presence restored an uneasy peace in Kashmir in 1948, it's said. That's not the full story, according to the author, Narendra Singh Sarila. The British commander of the Indian army prevented his soldiers from going ahead with the plans drawn up by his Indian subordinates. And he was supported by the British Labour government of the time, headed by Clement Attlee. The Indian prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, could do nothing.

This might seem strange. But Narila should know. He was aide de camp to Mountbatten, the last Briton to govern India.

Now why did Britain help Pakistan? Look at the map. Karachi is the subcontinent's nearest port to the Gulf. Peshawar is close to Afghanistan. Kashmir extends all the way up to to Sinkiang in China. Hence the strategic importance of Pakistan. Britain needed Gulf oil and wanted to keep out the Soviets, who lay just across the border from Afghanistan.

Britain wanted to retain a military presence in this corner of the subcontinent even if it had to pull out from the rest of India. And Jinnah, the Muslim League leader, was ready to make such a deal in exchange for Pakistan. He collaborated with the British during World War II when Gandhi and Nehru instead of cooperating with the British started the Quit India movement because Britain refused to promise them independence.

The Indian nationalists made a mistake by starting the Quit India movement, says Sarila; Jinnah got what he wanted by cooperating with the British. But he didn't have a choice. Not even all Muslims wanted Pakistan. The North West Frontier Province -- now a part of Pakistan -- supported the nationalists. There were divisions even in Jinnah's own Muslim League. But successive British rulers in India -- Linlithgow and Wavell -- supported him as a counterfoil to the nationalists who wanted to get rid of them.

Why Jinnah wanted Pakistan has been extensively written about. So I won't go into that here even though that's part of the story.

But reading this book, it becomes clear that the British saw the founding father of Pakistan as a willing tool for their colonial interests.

Winston Churchill hated Gandhi and called him a naked fakir. Jinnah, on the contrary, was a brown sahib. He wore three-piece suits, gave speeches in English, smoked and drank and did not follow Muslim religious practices.

Above all, he was not a Hindu. Sarila writes that "an overwhelming majority of Englishmen in India by this time considered the Congress party and the Hindus generally their enemy and the Muslims their friend". Then he quotes from Wavell's diary: "The immense gulf between the Hindu religion and mentality and ours and the Moslem is the real core of our troubles in India."

Poor Wavell, I wonder if he would have felt a similar kinship to the Taleban.

It's just as well Jinnah got his Pakistan. India has enough problems of its own.

Dead white masters

The Ruling Caste by David Gilmour

Now their stories are being told. Empire's Children, about Britons who spent part of their childhood in the colonies, is being shown on Channel 4, I read in a newspaper. It interviewed actress Diana Rigg, who is part of the story. Her father was a railway official in an Indian princely state.

But does anyone outside Britain care for such stories? The book, Empire's Children, has been lying on a Singapore library shelf for weeks now. I decided to leave it where it was after a quick browse but picked up a similar book from the same shelf -- The Ruling Caste, about the Britons who ruled India.

British historians marvel that millions of Indians were kept under British rule by just a hundred thousand British soldiers and officials. But India was no Iraq or Afghanistan, which the British failed to subjugate even then. Unlike unruly Afghanistan, India after a failed uprising in 1857 was a pacified country ruled by civil servants. This is their story.

They changed with time. The Haileybury men sent out by the East India Company to manage its possessions gave way to the competitionwallahs, who entered the Indian Civil Service (ICS) formed after British rule was formally imposed on India after the war of 1857. The Haileybury men were more likely to go native and take Indian mistresses. They included men who spent their entire working lives in India and didn't return to Britain until they finally retired from service more than 30 years later. The ICS officers went home every few years if they were Britons. A tiny minority were Indians. But they are not in the spotlight here. It's the white man's tale. And of white women too.

The author David Gilmour explores every aspect of the lives led by the civil servants and their wives: the job prospects, the increasing workload as the officers rose up the ranks, their trips to Britain when they wanted to get married or put their children in school, their social life in India. They were a privileged lot with vast retinues of servants and they entertained themselves, especially in the hill stations which reminded them of Britain. There were affairs and romances.

Some also dabbled in politics. A few were elected to the British parliament. The Congress party which led India to freedom was started by a Briton. There were others, too, who were sympathetic to Indians. Some even openly criticised the government. Usually the government took a lenient view, sacking officials only if there was a scandal. Generally, they could retire home on a pension.

The officials had power and perks. But it was a lonely life.The author writes about the small stations -- small towns -- where a judge and a district officer might be the only Britons. And the officer would have to go on tour when his wife would be left alone at home. The author describes the loneliness she must have felt. Yes, indeed. She could not have mixed with the Indians in town, of course. It's just as well the empire is gone. No one should have to endure such apartheid.

 

Sex, politics and families

Cold Is The Grave by Peter Robinson
Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow

I just finished reading Cold Is The Grave by Peter Robinson and Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow. Both are whodunits though the latter is a courtroom drama as well. Robinson is English and Turow, American. Reading them reminded me how much British crime fiction has changed unlike its American cousin.

Turow writes about the same sleazy world as Raymond Chandler. Robinson's milieu could not be more different from Agatha Christie's.

Robinson develops his characters at length. We learn a lot about his hero, Inspector Banks -- his failed marriage, his closeness to his two grown-up children, his romance with a colleague, his musical tastes and love of whisky. Other characters are not neglected either. The policewoman he has an affair with is portrayed  in detail. And so is his superior officer and old adversary, Chief Constable Riddle. The story begins in Riddle's house with his eight-year-old son stumbling on a porn site which forces Riddle to ask Banks for a favour.

Banks, the knight in shining armour, obliges his old enemy. But he can't prevent two tragedies, both in the same family. Cold Is The Grave is a must-read for fans of Peter Robinson and Inspector Banks. Something unexpected happens to a key character.

Turrow is more focused. The story is told in the first person by his hero, deputy prosecutor Rusty Sabich. His former lover -- and colleague -- has been murdered and the investigation falls on him. The story drags a bit in the early chapters as he obsesses over his former lover and broods over his unhappy marriage. But then comes the twist. He himself is charged with the murder. Out on bail, he carries on his investigation while his lawyer defends him in court.

Someone else, of course, turns out to be the murderer. But I wasn't surprised when the killer's identity was revealed. One can guess from the clues in the book.

Yet this book was the more satisfying of the two. Turow is more vivid in his account of politics and corruption. Robinson tackles those issues too. But they are not central to his story. It is more domestic. Both are stories about dysfunctional families and the mayhem they can cause. But Presumed Innocent is more interesting because it looks at the wider world.

The city hall politics and the corruption and infighting in the police department it exposes gives it a noirish cast. And that has been the staple -- and part of the enduring appeal -- of American crime fiction since Chandler.

Singapore: Property prices in a golden age

Singapore is enjoying a golden period, says Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew. It's true the economy is flourishing. My attention was naturally drawn to the Sunday Times headline which quoted his words. After all, how many leaders can make such claims?

But it's significant what he had to say about property prices. Check spike in property prices or lose competitiveness, he warned. And that appropriately was the headline used by Channel NewsAsia.

The property market, especially at the higher end, is booming, pushing up prices even in some of the public housing estates. Plenty of homeowners and developers have been making a killing and the Straits Times -- the Sunday Times' sister newspaper -- has been breathlessly reporting the story.

But Mr Lee had his reasons for urging caution. He must have been thinking of the previous property boom, in the 1990s. Singaporeans had become millionaires, he said at the height of the property boom. I still remember the Straits Times front page headline. But then the bubble burst. The Asian financial crisis hit the economy hard. Property prices collapsed.

Even now, many housing estate apartments are still worth less than they were before the bubble burst.

Meanwhile, rising costs are not deterring multinationals from coming to Singapore, reports the Straits Times today, quoting Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong.

But expatriates have been murmuring about rising rentals, as has been reported even in the Straits Times.

And Singapore was not featured in this year's list of the World's 50 Most Livable Cities by the Economist magazine. I was surprised because Singapore did very well in the magazine's previous surveys.

Singalong at Novena church

I had a lovely surprise when after visiting the Potong Pasir and Little India temples yesterday evening, I wound up at Novena church. Two women singers backed by two guitarists and a keyboard player were singing Christian music. The congregation was singing along encouraged by the singers. The simple lyrics were flashed on a screen with background pictures so even those not familiar with the songs could join in.

I have seen evangelicals singing similar songs but this is the first time I have witnessed such a singalong by the Catholics at Novena church. I was moved by the music. I love the hymns sung during services, but this too was beautiful. The simple lyrics and the contemporary music touched a chord in me. The singers sang with passion and the congregation responded beautifully, raising voices in harmony. It was a religious experience, encouraging worship and devotion. I wish besides praising Jesus, the group had sung about Mother Mary too. Her turn will come. There will be prayers to her on Saturday when people from all over Singapore will gather at the church to say their novenas.

Big Brother in business

We all know the world is getting more and more Orwellian with privacy getting to be a joke as every little detail about us, from our blood group to our work history, is fed into databases. But the state and the government are affecting our lives in ways even Orwell didn't envisage.

Take today, for instance. I went to work, had my dinner at a  food stall and logged into my computer. And a government-linked company benefited at every step. The public bus belonged to a government-linked company, the food stall was in a public housing estate, and my Internet service provider is another government-linked company. This is Singapore. Praised as one of the world's least corrupt, most competitive economies. Where government-linked companies dominate almost every sector of the economy.

In fact, we would have no public buses, no commuter trains, no radio, no television if these companies suddenly went out of business. Many of the people would lose all their savings too. Yes, one of the big banks too is a government-linked company. As is the biggest local supermarket chain.

In current economic thinking, which favours private enterprise and free markets, this might be seen as statism. But the evils of statism -- poor service and  economic stagnation -- are curiously absent in Singapore. The government-linked companies do provide good service and chase growth and profits as zealously as the most ruthless multinational. A couple of years ago it emerged that the government-linked DBS Bank employed fewer people in Singapore than the multinational Citigroup. The government-linked media company Starhub will be raising cable television subscription charges next month. It wants to make more money just like any other business.

It might be asked why, if they are like any other business, have them at all. But they play a vital role. They have built up the infrastructure Singapore is famous for. They run the excellent transport system and communication network among other things. Of course, they have to be paid.

Not that every government-linked company bothers to ask before taking people's money. The Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) is one of Singapore's richest companies. "Set up in 1981 to handle Singapore’s huge provident fund deposits, the GIC’s portfolio of well above $100 billion makes it one of the world’s largest fund-managing companies," reported the Telegraph in Calcutta (Kolkata) recently. The Indian newspaper reported that because GIC -- along with Temasek, another government-linked company -- wants a bigger stake in the Indian bank, ICICI. Let's hope it makes a good investment for, after all, it's the people's money.

I am sure it will. Singapore does have a good nose for business. In fact, I read that Singapore government-linked companies owned more Australian assets than the Australian government itself.

Winners and losers

I wonder where the Straits Times editors and reporters live. Apparently not with the huddled masses in the densely packed public housing estates. Why else should a news report describing the popularity of one housing estate say its residents' letter boxes are stuffed with flyers from real estate agents every day? I also get them though my neighbourhood is no longer considered a prime location.

I am happy where I am no matter what others think of the place. But some people in Bishan might have gnashed their teeth in indignation at the Straits Times front page report today that theirs is no longer the most popular housing estate in Singapore. It was certainly unusual for the Straits Times to report things are not so hunky dory in at least one corner of Singapore. The bad news is not likely to do any good for property prices in Bishan.

But I must congratulate the Straits Times for letting slip the truth. I don't mean the news about Bishan but what appeared lower down in the report. It said: "Mr Ismail (a real estate agency boss) noted that the price index is 20 per cent lower than in 1996."

Gotcha! Singapore has not yet fully recovered from the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Why else should the price index be lower than in 1996?

I remember those glory days when a Singapore dollar was worth almost the same as the German mark. Now Germany uses the euro, which is worth three Singapore dollars.

Yes, Germany has an unemployment problem. But economic deprivation is not exactly unknown in Singapore. Ask the cleaners and hawker stall assistants how much they earn -- then try to figure out how they cope on such wages.

Even the current economic growth wouldn't have been possible without a government initiative to reclaim land from the sea, starting a property boom, and business-friendly policies, encouraging foreign investment. But to keep the economy growing, the government is greenlighting projects that were no-go before. Casinos will open, motor racing begin. Now that China has become the workshop of the world, Singapore is trying to become another Las Vegas or Monaco.

Sure, money is flowing into Singapore. Joining rich foreigners are newly minted local millionaires. Plenty are getting rich even from property sales as developers buy out private apartment owners in en bloc sales to redevelop the real estate and make a profit. But there are winners and losers, millionaires and cleaners. They may be living in the same country, but in two very different worlds.

Is Britain getting to be like Singapore?

Is Britain getting to be like Singapore? Yes indeed if you recall what happened last week. Gordon Brown succeeded Tony Blair as British prime minister without having to fight any elections. He did not have to go to the hustings as he became the uncontested leader of the ruling Labour party.

That seemed unique to the British media. Blair's predecessor, the Conservative John Major, had to win the party leadership contest to become prime minister in November 1990 though he did not face a general election until 1992. He won it only to lose the next election in 1997 to Blair.

Blair, in fact, had to win both the Labour party leadership contest in 1994 and the 1997 general election to become prime minister.

No wonder the British commentators felt Brown was getting a pretty easy ride. But does it always have to be the hard way?

Singapore is booming under Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who came up just like Gordon Brown. Former prime minister Goh Chok Tong stepped down in August 2004 and Lee took his place. No one was surprised as Lee, like Brown, was the long-time heir apparent. And, like Brown, he was finance minister  before succeeding to the top job. Still holding the finance portfolio, Lee served as prime minister for more than  one and a half years before calling a general election in May last year when he won handily.

He was following the same career track as his predecessor. Goh became prime minister in November 1990 succeeding Lee's father, Singapore's first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, and consolidated his position by winning the 1991 general election.

Lee Kuan Yew, in fact, was the only Singapore prime minister who came to office by winning a general election. Both his successors became prime ministers first and then called elections. There can be no question, however, about their abilities. Goh was a popular prime minister who steered Singapore to an economic recovery. And the economy is booming under the younger Lee.

Uniquely, both former prime ministers are still in the Cabinet. No wonder, Singaporeans joke about the father and the son and the holy Goh. That's one difference with Britain, which instead of an amicable trinity had a divisive diarchy, the Blairites feuding with the Brownites. No such rift has ever been reported in Singapore.

Brown wants similar harmony too, calling for a government of all the talents. Talent is what the Singapore government seeks, both local and foreign. Really, now, who would have thought Britain one day could become a bigger Singapore?

My wife is missing Singapore

I just spoke to my wife in Calcutta (Kolkata). She said she is missing me and Singapore. And I am missing her. She was here with me only two days ago, though we had already said our goodbyes by this time of the night. It was time for her to board the Singapore Airlines flight to Calcutta.

We waved goodbye to each other from the opposite sides of the glass-fronted doors after she walked into the immigration area. She loaded her hand baggage onto a trolley and disappeared past the immigration counters and I rode the escalator up to the viewing gallery.

Instead of heading straight for the viewing gallery, I paused at a glass-panelled balcony overlooking the passengers' waiting lounge. And, sure enough, from there I saw my wife posing at a little pool while another woman took pictures of her with her old Nikon SLR. There was just enough film for two more shots when we said our goodbyes and she wanted to use up the whole film before boarding the flight.

I waved at her from the balcony to get her attention but she didn't look up and see me. She didn't know I would be there.

Years ago, when my son was a kid and she used to come with him, both of them used to look up to the balcony  knowing I would be there and we would  wave at each other. But such encounters had been getting uncertain in recent years. So she didn't look up this time. And I left the balcony feeling a little embarrassed for waving like a madman without getting her attention.

I couldn't see her plane from the viewing gallery. So looking out into the rainy night, I thought of our last moments together. We had reached the airport early and check-in had been quick, giving us time to have a last meal together -- at the airport McDonald's.

We had McChicken and shared a bag of fries. I made her have a sundae, too, which she loves. To my surprise, she bought a strawberry sundae instead of a chocolate sundae. But then she explained why. On a rare visit to a club, she might at the end of a meal get ice cream served with chocolate sauce. But she has never been served strawberry sauce. Incidentally, there's no McDonald's where we live in Calcutta, though there may be one in the nearby Salt Lake township, she said.

She is missing Singapore, she said today. That's only natural. And not just because I am here. There are other reasons as well.

Take the last day we spent together. We visited Novena church and a temple in Little India. At both, we prayed in peace. Then we had dosas for lunch at a friendly Indian restaurant. And when it was time to go to the airport, the taxi arrived within five minutes of our phone call. Not only did the taxi driver take us to the airport by the quickest, shortest route. He even kindly unloaded the luggage without being asked to.

Helpful too was the young officer at the check-in counter. When my wife asked for an aisle seat, saying she had pain in her legs, he gave her one next to an empty seat so she could sit comfortably throughout the four-hour flight. And he didn't expect her to thank him for it. She discovered what an excellent seat she had been given only when she boarded the plane.

We spent a wonderful five weeks together. And the last day gave us all the more reason to like Singapore.