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The process of land reforms initiated by the LF government, known as Operation Barga, further consolidated their hold over rural areas. However, the two processes were not taken to their logical conclusions. Says Debabrata Bandopadhyay, former land reform commissioner of West Bengal, “Operation Barga registered the names of around 15 lakh bargadars, but did not grant them ownership rights over the land. Similarly, the LF government has not devolved any significant power to the panchayats.” In fact, far from empowering villagers at the local level the panchayati raj system has become a “wide nexus of corruption” according to Manoj Bhattacharya former MP and spokesperson of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP) an LF constituent. “If people oppose the ruling party then they are deprived of the amenities provided by the panchayat system and threatened,” he adds.

This was illustrated by a visit to Kemia-Khamarpara panchayat on the outskirts of Kolkata in North 24 Parganas district. These are the rural areas adjoining the up-market Rajarhat and Salt lake localities. The urban-rural divide is stark indeed. Driving through Kolkata’s commercial district of Salt Lake is a revelation. Many of the gleaming steel and glass buildings housing IT majors wouldn’t look out of place in Mumbai or Bangalore. The rural hinterland of Kemia-Khamarpara is clearly changing. A board in front of a field announces that this is the site for ‘La Martiniere School for Boys’. Another sign points the way to a ‘vedic retreat’. Manas Ghosh, president of the local Trinamool Congress (TMC) unit is predicting a rout for the CPI (M) because people are fed up with corruption and cronyism by panchayats led by the party. A case in point is the Union Government’s NREGA scheme which guarantees a minimum of 100 days of work per person in rural areas. Since the job cards are issued by the panchayats the party has entered their men’s names in the rolls. “These people do not work, but get paid anyway while the deserving ones go jobless,” says Ghosh. There are also allegations that CPI (M) cadre are intimidating opposition candidates into not filing their nominations.    

The fact that the CPI (M) has a vice like grip in rural West Bengal was driven home during the Nandigram uprising in 2007. Nandigram was a solid red bastion till plans for taking over farmland for a chemical hub was announced. Overnight party workers, disgusted with the party attempting to shortchange them, switched allegiance to the BUPC. “One important lesson of the 11 month struggle was the absolute need for unity to defeat the CPI (M),” declares Arjun Sengupta, a government employee and Assistant Secretary of the non-party West Bengal Government Employees Union (WBGEU). One factor that has benefited the LF hitherto was the feeble resistance put up by a disunited and fractious opposition. Post-Nandigram, there seems to be a realization for some kind of united front. Thus an alliance was forged between the Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) and the TMC. This unlikely pairing of a “left” and “right” party seems strange till you realize the symbiotic nature of the alliance: the TMC contributes the numbers (it is the only opposition party that has some kind of mass base) and the SUCI contributes the intellectual capital. There is a possibility of many more such informal understandings at the lower levels among parties to defeat LF candidates. Further, even LF front partners may be working to undermine each other and big brother CPI (M). A report in the Statesman on May 20 quotes Left Front Chairman Biman Bose saying that “the LF partners’ incapacity to evaluate their organisational strength has posed a problem in unifying the Left”. The report also quotes him saying that “several thousand candidates of some of the LF partners are contesting against the nominees of other partners. At some seats the LF partners have been contesting on the basis of an understanding with other forces”.   

Pravas Ghosh, Secretary of the WB unit of SUCI, explained the alliance in terms of putting up a common front to “break the nexus of vote-bank politics controlled by the rural gentry and mafia that the panchayats have turned into.” The SUCI is contesting 1,775 gram panchyat, 427 panchayat samity and 63 zilla parishad seats throughout WB.

On the other hand is ‘Babu Sheik’ of Chanduli village in Bardhaman district. Babu was with the CPI (M) and a member of the party’s village committee. The village committee has the final word on implementation of local projects by the panchayat. Babu was aghast with the rampant corruption regarding the distribution of rations at the fair price shop. “Rice and wheat meant for above poverty line (APL) and below poverty line villagers was diverted to the open market where it was sold at a profit,” he says. When he protested he was suspended and implicated in a number of false cases in the local police station. He then joined the CPI, an LF constituent, but is working to split the left vote to defeat the CPI (M) candidate.         

The PDS scam hit the headlines in late 2007. The basic issue is that fair price shops, through which essential commodities like rice, wheat and kerosene are distributed has been misused by the ruling party. Essential supplies are sold in the open market while the BPL people do not receive their share. Villagers in Bankura, Birbhum and Bardhaman took matters in their own hands and demanded their rightful share outside ration shops and in many instances beat up the dealers and burnt the shops. Many of the dealers were connected to the ruling party. This surge of rural anger came right on the heels of the Nandigram violence.   

The political space vacated by the CPI (M) is being filled by other political parties. For instance, CPI (ML) Liberation is trying to represent the rural poor, a constituency that was once the calling card of the CPI (M). CPI (ML) Liberation is one of the splinters of the CPI (ML) party formed after the exodus of an extreme-left faction of the CPI (M) in 1967 after the Naxalbari uprising. I traveled to Mahipalpur village in Hooghly district to see how CPI (ML) Liberation was planning to contest the polls. Hoogly, incidentally, is where Singur – which witnessed a violent agitation against land acquisition for Tata’s Nano car factory – is located.

CPI (ML) liberation is contesting in 2000 odd GP seats throughout WB. The party is positioning itself as the guardian of the rights of the landless peasants, or so claims Shankar Baul Das, who is contesting on a party ticket for the 28 Bolagarh ZP seat. Some of the demands on which he is canvassing include raising the number of work days under NREGA from the current minimum of 100 to 200 and raising the minimum wage to Rs 100 per day. The party has found some traction here after a near revolt of agricultural labourers after the CPI (M) dominated panchayat reneged on wages owed to them. Then there is the issue of Singur. The issue of land acquisition will play some part in determining the fortunes of candidates who contest on various party tickets though it is difficult to predict its exact impact on the final outcome. Land acquisition is also contentious because of the sheer number of people who depend on agriculture in WB. According to a Liberation activist, there is a lot of disguised unemployment in agriculture in the state because productivity has peaked due to the intensive use of machinery and pesticides. This has led to a lot of out-migration of agricultural and other labour from West Bengal. So is industrialization the solution, I ask him? “How can fertile farmland be handed over to industry even as food prices are rising. In any case, instead of inviting new industry how about reviving all the sick industrial units in the state,” he retorts.                 

The wider debate about industrialization is West Bengal has been sidelined by political nitpicking. But the fact remains that the CPI (M) remains as committed as ever to it. On May 1 I was on a bus traveling to North Bengal when I saw something interesting. It was an advertisement issued by the government in the English-language newspapers commemorating May Day. But instead of the traditional hammer and sickle, the sickle had morphed into an industrial style cog-wheel with serrated edges and the hammer had also acquired industrial appendages!

North Bengal is known for its tea estates. Darjeeling tea is famous worldwide. A lower grade of tea is grown in neighbouring Jalpaiguri district, known as Dooars chai. The problems affecting agriculture in North Bengal are well documented, but officially unrecognized. Jalpaiguri – which lies at the confluence of Northeastern India, Sikkim, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Bihar and Nepal – is home to a variety of people. There are 131 tea gardens in Jalpaiguri employing 2.5 lakh workers, mainly adivasis from Jharkhand and Nepalis. The town of Banerhat near the Bhutan border lies close to a cluster of tea gardens. I visited some of them with Victor Basu who is trying to organize the labour there. As I rode with him I noticed graffiti scribbled on the tea garden fences: We demand the immediate creation of Gorkhaland. The old agitation for Gorkhaland had flared up again under a new leadership. The Indian-Nepalese concentrated in Darjeeling want their own state to be carved out of the hill areas of WB. There is a substantial population of Indians of Nepali descent here and there is talk of including certain blocks of Jalpaiguri in the proposed new state.         

Earlier in the day I was talking about the role of panchayats with Sarita Pradhan, a labourer from Kathalguri tea garden, in the office of Dooars Jagran, the organisation the Victor runs. Kathalguri shut down in 2002 when the owner ‘abandoned’ it and left the workers to their fate. Since then Dooars Jagran has recorded 525 starvation deaths in Kathalguri alone and another 300 in Ramjhoda. Victor estimates the total number of deaths in Jalpaiguri’s closed tea gardens at between 900-1000. Of course, the statistics and cause of death are disputed by the government.    

Panchayati raj was introduced in the tea gardens only in 1997. There is a lot less awareness about the role of panchayats. Sarita didn’t show any enthusiasm to vote because no benefits have accrued from local self-government. A ‘people’s manifesto’ is being prepared by Dooars Jagran in association with the West Bengal Education Network (WBEN), a statewide coalition of activists, NGO’s and self-help groups. The manifesto contains 12 demands to be presented to the candidates in the polls when they come canvassing for votes in the tea gardens. Among them: implementation of NREGA, social audit of public finances and provision of proper education facilities.

At Diana tea garden Vijay Singh, a temporary worker at Diana points out that the integrated child development scheme which is implemented by the panchayat is not functioning properly because the ICDS centre has no building. The scheme is meant for taking care of the children of working women. But when it rains, which is quite often, the children have to remain at home. “The government declared the formation of gram unnayan samities in every panchayat in 2004 to ensure greater participation to solve just these issues, but it has not been vary effective,” says Vijay. The Sampoorna Grameen Rojgar Yojna, another Central scheme to be implemented by the panchayats, has not functioned effectively here. Under SGRY Rs 62 has to be given out per worker per day which includes a minimum of 5 kg of rice at a rate of Rs 6/kg. Party controlled panchayats have given less and pocketed the difference.

The final halt on my way back to Kolkata was at Malda. This district is one of the more backward ones and has a host of rural problems: trafficking of women, rural poverty, etc. But what I found was even worse. From Malda I headed to Bangitola GP, which lies in Kaliachak 2 block, bordering the Ganga. There is a huge problem of soil erosion in the villages bordering the Ganga. For the past 50 years around 40,000 families in Malda have lost their land due to soil erosion. The problem began with the construction of the Farraka barrage further downstream, near the border with Bangladesh. The barrage destroyed the natural flow of the Ganga which started overflowing its banks upstream.

I was sitting in the office of the Ganga Bhangan Pratirodh Action Nagric Committee (Ganga PAN). Ironically, their office had to be relocated here from Panchanandpur three years ago because that village went underwater! Some of the members of the organization had lost their homes and fields 6-7 times. Khitir Bux, an office bearer of Ganga PAN committee says, “We estimate the number of displaced people here at 2 lakhs”. People who cannot afford to buy new land simply move into shantytowns or migrate. Malda has one of the highest out migration rates in West Bengal. With poverty and migration come the inevitable trafficking of people, which includes women and children. There are a lot of women from these areas who are promised jobs and marriage outside the state by touts, but instead end up in bars and brothels. In fact, studies by NGOs have shown that a disproportionate number of women working in the ‘dance’ bars and brothels in Mumbai are from West Bengal. “Every day around 350-400 people leave Malda,” says Ruhul Amin a resident of Bangitola.

The results of the panchayat polls may not necessarily reflect the turbulence in West Bengal’s politics. That there has been a dent in the Left’s support and the opposition has gained is undeniable, but overall, the Left still has a majority, though not as commanding as in the past. One question that will confront the Left and which will have to be resolved is how to continue the industrialization project in a manner that does not alienate the population at large.  

Note: A shorter version of this article appeared in Himal Magazine in July.

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I had never before known a person who was even HIV positive and now I was sharing a flat with someone whom the doctor had given a year to live. Since we lived in the same house there were a lot of things of daily use that Krish and I shared; utensils, mugs and buckets, books and newspapers. I knew, at some abstract level, that AIDS is not transmitted through the sharing of household items. And yet a lot of people would never live with a person who had AIDS, much less drink coffee from the same mug or sit on the same commode. And yet, at no point did I feel I was in a dangerous situation. I was gaining an insight into alternative sexuality; the passion, politics, stoicism and, dare I say it, the suffering. It is an issue that is shoved under the carpet in India.

Krish was reserved with me. We didn’t converse more than what was absolutely necessary: maybe a word about the house keys or coordinating timings so that none of us would be locked out. Hi’s and bye’s were redundant in his scheme of things. Krish often got friends home – office colleagues, bosses, but mostly random people he befriended in the neighbourhood. You see, where we stayed was one of the hipper addresses in town. It was also a place where LGBT’s congregated because of the work being done by the NGO.

Most of the ‘boys’ Krish brought home were of the same orientation as him. They would bring food and booze, get drunk and crack jokes. Anand once explained to me that since Krish was HIV + no one wanted to fuck with him. In fact, one of the main problems that MSM’s (men who have sex with men) with AIDS face is the lack of sexual partners. Out of sheer desperation he was forced to befriend random men on the street and have sex with them. It was strange watching Krish in such situations. He would invariably be drunk and pleading with whichever partner he was with at the moment. Once they found out he was desperate they would turn the screws on him. Blackmail him for petty things, money, expensive gifts. Krish would acquiesce, because he didn’t have much more time left.

I’ve often wondered what a person living out a death sentence might experience knowing that you have to die someday but not knowing the exact moment when your body would kick in. Krish was indifferent to life, as if daring it to do the worst it could. He was beyond caring about the ordinary things in life, things that you and I might live for: like a walk in the woods or a drench in the rain.

I once contracted hepatitis and was bedridden for 4 months. Hepatitis is a boring disease because you can’t move as it makes you feel tired and your diet is restricted because of a bad liver. There were times when I felt utter hopelessness. At such moments life seemed bleak indeed, like a dark wall with no future. Impotent rage, born of utter despair, would make me flail out at anything and anybody. But I survived.

Krishnendu conducted himself much better than I did when I was temporarily down. I never saw temper tantrums or emotional outbursts. He never did a self-pity routine either. He just stoically went about life, or what remained of it. Maybe he had withdrawn from the social trappings that oil our daily transactions and keep relations between humans smooth. Maybe he didn’t feel it was necessary to indulge them.

I never asked him how he felt. He didn’t encourage it and I couldn’t nerve myself to ask, however tentatively. Truth be told, his sullen ways were intimidating and he made no effort to dispel the pall of sternness that hung around him. So I continued to observe him while he continued to ignore me. We barely acknowledged each other. For all we were concerned, though we lived in the same flat, we might have been on different planes of existence altogether. Anand once told me that Krish had a ‘crush’ on me. Was I flattered? Maybe.

I didn’t feel sorry for Krishnendu or pity his condition.

Its been over a year since I moved to Bombay and last met Krish. Anand was in town recently with some disturbing news. Krish was terminally ill. He was on his deathbed, barely able to move. It was a question of a few days, at most. His family had signed a bond to the effect that they were washing their hands off him and in the event of his death his NGO should conduct his last rites according to Hindu traditions. They would have nothing more to do with him.

As in life, so in death.

Note: All names have been changed

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India’s WTO obligations meant that product patents would have to be granted. Since India signed the WTO agreement in 1995 she was given 10 years to bring her domestic laws in compliance with WTO requirements. But the TRIPS agreement also permits certain flexibilities. It was in this backdrop that section 3(d) was woven into the Patents Act via the amendment.

What 3(d) says is : The mere discovery of a known substance which does not result in the enhancement of the known efficacy of the substance would not be considered an invention under the act.

Translation: salts, esters, ethers, polymers, metabolites, pure form, particle size, isomers, mixtures of isomers, complexes, combinations and other derivatives shall be considered to be the same substance unless they differ significantly in properties with regard to efficacy (emphasis mine).

There are other safeguards provided in the 2005 Amendment, but I will not get into these now.

Gleevec is the crystalline form of the Mesylate form of Imatinib, a molecule discovered in 1992. It was a revolutionary breakthrough in anti-leukemia treatment. In 2002 Novartis started marketing Gleevec in India and also applied for an EMR. At the same time Indian companies were selling generic versions of Gleevec for a tenth the price Novartis was charging. Consider these figures: Novartis charged Rs 1,20,000 per patient per month while Indian companies were charging between Rs 8,000 to 12,000.

Novartis was granted an EMR on the basis of its patent for Gleevec in Australia. Based on this Novartis dragged some Indian pharma companies to court for selling Gleevec generics. The Madras HC restrained 7 companies. This impacted the procurement of low cost alternatives of Gleevec for cancer patients in India and around the world. In India alone 25,000 people are diagnosed with CML every year.

Several organizations opposed the granting of EMR for Gleevec as a result of which the Chennai patent office denied a patent on Gleevec to Novartis. In May 2006 Novartis filed a petition in the Chennai High Court against the patent office’s decision on the grounds that

• This was not TRIPS compliant
• It violated the equality provision of the constitution
• The terms ‘efficacious’ as used in 3(d) is vague and ambiguous. What does it mean and who defines it. How much more efficacious should a new entity be?

On August 6, 2007 the Chennai High Court dismissed Novartis’ petitions on all counts. The judgement stated that an Indian court wasn’t the proper forum to arbitrate on whether domestic law was in compliance with TRIPS.

Hold the victory celebrations. There are some questions to consider. How does the ‘Gleevec issue’ impact public health and access to cheap and affordable medicines? It is disturbing that not only does India not have a publicly funded universal healthcare system, but also spends less than 1 percent of GDP on health. And in a time of general retreat by the state from essential public services can we afford a ‘let the markets decide’ logic prevail in the health care sector, particularly in a country like India where 25 percent of the population lives below the poverty line?

Paradoxically, medical tourism is the latest buzzword for ‘India shining’. Tourists from abroad come to India to avail of world-class medical facilities in private hospitals at an ‘affordable price’ which is nevertheless out of reach for the average Indian. And poor Indians go to rundown government hospitals where they contract additional diseases by the time they finish filling out forms in triplicate.

Moreover, how do we negotiate the complex regime of intellectual property rights and the legal shields meant to enforce them while at the same time providing a modicum of succor to the people whom it excludes? At the same time evolving a system of intellectual property rights that protects indigenous as well as locally developed knowledge from bio-piracy.

Note: I want to thank Julie George at the Lawyers Collective for her time and excellent paper ‘How the Patent Regime endangers people’s access to medicines’ for insights as also Chan Parks’ cover story in the LC newsletter. Most of the material here is borrowed from these sources.

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In late 2007 the editor of The Economic Times sent a mail to his colleagues stating that a senior editorial person would interface with Private Treaties clients at different centres of the paper. What this means in practical terms is that news about clients should not end up looking like a press release on the page, but should mesh with general news reports.

One of the assumptions on the part of the reader is that newspaper content that in not marked ‘advertorial’ is fair, balanced and unbiased. However, the existence of Private Treaties might well compel news reports that are essentially PR masked as news. Compare this with the fact that ToI rarely ever gives any negative coverage of anything or anybody. The philosophy behind this is a psychological reasoning that negative news on a particular page puts the reader off and hence there is a greater chance that advertisements on that page will go unnoticed.

There are about 100 plus companies that B,C&C has signed Private Treaties with in the last four years. Which means that in addition to providing ‘branding and advertising’ support, no negative news story about these companies will be published in any of B,C&C’s numerous media outlets. Also, positive news stories about their rivals will not be published. And its not as if its hidden from public view. The Private Treaties website gives out the ‘investment philosophy’ as well as the clients portfolio. The companies are mostly mid-size unlisted entities dreaming of breaking into the big league, but which may lack the revenue or marketing and media savvy to promote themselves. What B,C&C does is pick up a 5-10 % equity in these companies in return for ad rates well below the market rates and positive news coverage. Its a double whammy because there is no long term capital gains tax while ad revenue is taxed. It is estimated here that profits from Private Treaties have earned B, C&C Rs 500 crores, in addition to the Rs 1,200 crores reported for 2006-07.

In fact, the model has proves so successful that other media companies have started their own Private Treaties units. Dainik Jagran, Dainik Bhaskar and HT Media Ltd, publishers of Hindustan Times, are ready to replicate B, C&C’s business model. And in a bow to print, television companies are also getting into the act. TV 18, the holding company of CNBC, CNBC Awaaz, CNN/IBN and IBN 7 has followed suit as has NDTV, Though they claim there will be a tight wall separating ads from editorial and that there will be no conflict of interest. That remains to be seen.

So where does this leave the reader? Out in the cold, unfortunately. Because there is no way of telling which news content was paid for and which is not. According to market rumour, you could pay your way into Bombay times (the daily city supplement of the ToI). Paid for content would contain a small m inscribed inside a circle somewhere on the outer fringes of the photo or news article. This was a sign that the item was sourced through Medianet, an in-house Bennet Coleman company that sourced paid news items. But after criticism they dropped even this residual attempt at warning readers. And frankly, how many readers would take the trouble of searching the net for information on Private Treaties, assuming they even know that such a thing exists.

As journalism goes it sucks, as a business model it is an overwhelming success.

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But who said IPL was about sports? When rookies sell for larger amounts than seasoned players you begin to suspect that what was really auctioned was their marketing potential. Consider the fact that Symonds was the second highest auctioned player. Hey, this guy was involved in a race row with Harbhajan Singh and thanks to 24/7 news became a familiar, and reviled, figure in India. Now consider the marketing potential: Harbhajan and Symonds star in a television commercial in the near future for some inane product and recreate on screen their famous ma ki/monkey spat. Imagine the financial windfall.

Apart from marketing considerations, IPL raises other interesting questions. In a sense it has made geography irrelevant. If a city-based playing 11 consists of different nationalities playing together could it earn the same loyalty and passion from fans that a more homogenous national playing 11 commanded? The gentleman’s game has taken the first step towards a more globalised form. And if the IPL truly kicks off and establishes itself among fans will the support for a city-based team trump the support that the national team traditionally enjoys? The club Vs country tussle in football provides an interesting example of what might eventually happen in Twenty20 cricket. Will the city undermine the nation-state?

Another consideration is that the mega bucks on offer in the IPL may prompt players to abdicate national duty in touring other countries. The implications are clear: the balance of power in world cricket has shifted to India from the game’s traditional power brokers of England and Australia. And with it come uncomfortable questions of how a financial, if not athletic, leader of the game conducts itself.

The recent racism row offered interesting insights. The Indians were furious with the racism charge slapped against Harbhajan. Withdraw the racism charge or we quit this tour, they are reported to have told the Australians and their own cricket board. But lets face it, Indians are racists in the sense that most Indians adore white skin and look down upon Africans. Just check out the matrimonial columns that want “fair brides” or the ads that sell fairness creams. In the future, as more foreigners come to India to play Indians will have to confront the racism issue.

An Indian city will host Australian, South African, Indian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan players in a team coached by persons from any of the above mentioned nationalities, payed for by Indian capital, watched by an international (international in cricket usually means 10 countries) audience on Japanese and Chinese made television sets, transmitted by a Japanese owned company.

Will audiences bite? Wait and watch.

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The construction boom of the ‘90s and the new millennium resulted in working class areas becoming more upmarket with the construction of highrise apartments meant for the rich and upper middle class. The mill workers and cab drivers who inhabited these chawls cashed out while they could and fled to the suburbs, where housing was more affordable. In a sense, the working class, many of whom were Maharashtrians, were being priced out of the downtown area that was slowly turning unaffordable for all but the super rich. As one friend of mine put it, this was ethnic cleansing by other means.

Its not restricted to only the posh areas. Take Dharavi for instance. The largest slum in Asia is also set for change. Dharavi harbours many thriving industries in its narrow and rundown bylanes. Leather manufacturing units, pottery units, jewellery stores are some of them. Kumbharwada is a thriving potters colony in the heart of Dharavi. The potters here are migrants from Gujarat who came to Bombay generations ago. The potters houses open out into a common courtyard in which they work together. Pots jostle for space with potters’ wheels. To one side are the ovens where the clay is baked. The ovens belch out smoke which covers Kumbharwada in a thick fog of white smoke. The Slum Rehabilitation Scheme (SRA) threatens to break up the community life of Kumbharwada in particular and Dharavi in general. The slums are to be replaced with apartments. Residents of Kumbharwada ask, “What will happen to our community”. There are no easy answers.

Its not as if answers are any more easy for people who live in highrise buildings. Take me for instance. I am a typical middle class resident of Bombay, trying to earn a living in a big lonely city. I was born in Bombay to a Tamil mother and Telugu father and spent 10 years living in a Maharashtrian colony speaking Hindi and Marathi with my colony friends and Telugu and Tamil at home. Those happy early childhood years translated into a love for Marathi, which I still understand and can speak to an extent. I am pretty comfortable with Marathi and in the company of Maharashtrians.

At different points I have lived in Delhi, Hyderabad, Goa, Chennai and Lucknow. I can speak Telugu, Tamil, Hindi and understand a smattering of Bengali. In addition I went to my Grandparent’s place in Andhra Pradesh every year for summer holidays. They taught me to read and write Telugu. I spent a formative part of my life and college years in Hyderabad and made many good friends. I have fond memories of Hyderabad, but am not overly attached to it. On the other hand I am also fond of Mumbai, but am not overly attached to it either. Come to think of it, there is no place I can call ‘home’ in the sense that I am rooted to it.

My search for ‘roots’ has led me to learn Telugu more fluently. I take long distance telephone tutorials in the language from my Grandmother and have taken to reading a Telugu paper daily in Mumbai. According to Raj Thackrey I am a traitor. Do I feel like one? I don’t know what a traitor feels like? Maybe Raj knows something that I don’t.

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