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Everybody's man
Prime minister Inder Kumar Gujral has a firm handle on the demands of coalition politics. As much has been proven by his remarkable ability throughout his short tenure to bend whichever way his friends with the most potential for making trouble insisted. But, on his last leg as Prime Minister, he is showing a remarkably poor understanding of the notion of responsibility for his own policies and, indeed, a lack of grip.
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Better latex than never
If ever there is a controversy that needs to be capped pronto, it is this one. The war of words between minister of state for health and family welfare Renuka Chowdhury and the Hindustan Latex (HLL) over the supply of condoms to the ministry comes at a time when the country's family welfare programme is in poor shape. While the old, insensitive approach of setting arbitrary targets and wielding scalpels is regarded as unacceptable, today's family planning wallahs seem to be floundering on bureaucratic indifference and apathy.
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Talking of Independence
It was a summer's day. Scorched, stuffy with that pre-Independence flavour.My father, very much a Gandhi man, had been in the trenches. He had taken to khadi, then to the country, then, dangerously, to non-violence. Of course, one day they had to beat him up. And I saw it. For thirty years, living in penury, not going to the public schools, not having the rich food, not having the paisa to take a rickshaw, not learning manners, not having the luxury of being non-violent, seeing only the rule of the brute; for thirty years I tried to run away from the memory.
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The heart-in-pieces generation
Now that the talk of the town centres around Salman Rushdie, Vikram Seth, Amitava Ghosh, Githa Hariharan and Arundhati Roy, many people in the subcontinent have forgotten two outstanding novelists who dominated the literary scene for nearly two decades after Independence. Ahmed Ali and Attia Hosain's genre of writing may not be replicated by today's novelists, but their powerful and creative representation of change, decay and uncertainties in a given historical context should inspire upcoming novelists.
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