Life Isn't Like a Panda - There are Shades of Grey!

They say a picture can speak a thousand words. This isn’t necessarily a good thing. Navjot Sidhu can speak a thousand words. Mamata Banerjee can speak a thousand words. The question is - would you really want those thousand words to be spoken to you? The truth is there are times when you really do not want a picture to speak a thousand words. Take, for example, those ‘friends’ of yours that incessantly put up pictures of themselves or of their innumerable vacations on social networking sites. As soon as the picture tries talking to you, you wish it would just shut up – a thousand words in such cases could lead you to inflict grievous self-harm.


And then there was this curious phenomenon that saw pictures of cute furry animals being the rage in the email forwarding universe. I’ve often wondered if the inventor of the email feels that his achievement has been tarnished by the fact that it directly led to the invention of the forward. What was it that made somebody think “Hey, my friend is having a terrible day at the office. He’s just been looked over for promotion, this girl he was interested in is sleeping with his arch nemesis and he got car-jacked on the way to work. Why don’t I put together some pictures of cute, furry animals and email it across to him? That’s bound to cheer him up!”


At this point, you might want to tell me “So some people like to spend all their time putting together pictures of cute furry animals and sending it to everyone on their mailing list in the hope that it gets circulated again and again. What’s the big deal? It’s not like they’re harming anyone, or that it makes any difference to grave matters of world affairs. So why are you ranting about this?” That’s where I’d beg to differ – the equivalent of sending forwards of cute furry animals has actually taken place at the pinnacle of global politics, and has had a significant outcome on the course of geopolitical events over the last few decades.


Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you…(drumrolls)….Panda Diplomacy!


To begin with, let’s look at the background - 
1945 - The Second World War is over, and to keep themselves occupied most major world powers are engaged in this cat-and-mouse game that’s called the Cold War. China joins the ranks of the communists and is an ally of the Russians – hence making the US antagonistic towards China. This goes on throughout the 1950s and the 1960s – there are no diplomatic ties at all between the US and China.


By early 1970s, though, the situation began to change. The US and China decided they couldn’t ignore each other any longer, and Richard Nixon announced a visit to China in 1972. The Chinese, methodical as always, thought long and hard about what steps could be taken to improve ties between the two countries. There were all the usual measures – removal of trade barriers, opening of diplomatic channels, paradigm shift in foreign policy…that sort of stuff. But this was all regular stuff that often happened at summit-level talks – there was nothing new or remarkable about this, nothing that would really get the people excited, nothing that would yank them out of their state of apathy and jolt them like a cold-water shower on a rainy winter day.


And that’s when the eureka moment struck – pandas! Why not gift Nixon a pair of pandas? When the Americans saw the Chinese gifting Nixon a pair of pandas, it was sure to melt the hearts of even the most cynical commentators. And it did – the pandas were donated to the Washington zoo amidst great fanfare and were a wild success. Over a million Americans visited the pandas in the first year alone – and the US-Chinese relationship has not looked back since then, going from strength to strength. Well, at least until the day the Chinese wake up and ask the US to return all their money!


For those of you wondering what Nixon’s return gift was, it was a pair of musk oxen – but this did not receive as much publicity, possibly on account of the Chinese not being too pleased about the fact that the musk oxen did not arrive with cooking instructions. 


While this was the most famous example of Panda Diplomacy, it wasn’t the first or the last – until the 1980s China had donated about 2 dozen pandas to various countries as a sort of ultimate gesture of grand goodwill towards that country (no prizes for guessing how many India got – none). So there have been a few other instances when that last option was ticked in response to the second question in the Panda Requisition Form. For those curious, this is what the Panda Requisition Form looks like.

In the 1980s, though, things got even more interesting. China decided that rather than gifting the pandas, it would loan them to countries for the price of 1 million dollars a year! A panda loan - that would surely be far more interesting than getting one of the usual calls for a personal loan that most of us keep getting. Imagine this – you’re a high ranking official in, say, the British government, and your phone rings one fine morning:


You: Hello?
Chinese-sounding voice at the other end of the line: Good morning, Sir! I’m calling from the Chinese government. You want panda loan?
You: No thanks, old chap. I'm afraid I'm not interested.
Panda loan salesman: Only 1 million dollars a year, Sir. And pandas…they are very cute and cuddly. You’ll like, Sir.
You: That's all jolly well, old fellow...but I really don’t need a panda right now.
Panda loan salesman: We give you one month’s supply of shoots and leaves. For free! And we give you import waiver document. And we no charge for shipping and…
(Disconnect phone)


Perhaps India could take a leaf out of China’s book and use cute, furry animals during summit-level talks with Pakistan – what have we got to lose? Rather than the usual abrupt end to the talks when both parties go back sulking and blaming each other, it could turn out something like this:


Zardari: Listen, Manmohan. You know the drill; we’ve been through this before. There isn’t any major breakthrough going to happen as that would mean either you or me losing face politically and consequently the next election. So we need to come up with something that’ll make it look like we’ve made progress and this hasn’t been a massive waste of time.


Manmohan: You’re right, people are tired of these Confidence Building Measures – it’s starting to wear a little thin. We need some fresh ideas that’ll make it look like real progress is being made. So I hired a creative agency to do some brainstorming and come up with something new. I think you’ll like what you hear – they’re very persuasive and use a lot of big words and analogies.


The head of the creative agency – a crisp, suited Don Draper-type character confidently strides into the room with a nonchalantly arrogant air about him.


Crisp, suited Don Draper-type character: Confidence Building Measures. Let’s begin with the name, gentlemen, because the name is what sets the tone. Confidence Building – you know what that says? That there’s currently zero confidence between India and Pakistan! That may be the reality – but do the people want reality? NO! People want hope, people want dreams, and people want to go to bed dreaming of a brighter future. That’s how all the big brands are built – Coke, Intel, GE – they all promise a better tomorrow. That’s why blockbuster movies with happy endings far outsell gritty realist movies – people want an escape! So let’s not call it Confidence Building – let’s call it Confidence Enhancing. This suggests that there’s already confidence between India and Pakistan – it just needs enhancement. 
And measures – why use such a dry word? Do you think people connect to measures in an emotional way? NO! Measures are seen as mathematical and functional – people don’t want that! Your marks are a measure, your weight is a measure, your targets are a measure – would anyone want to be reminded of that? NO! People remember milestones, not measures! Your first kiss, the day you graduated, your first paycheck, your wedding date – people live their lives from one milestone to the next. Milestones are what you measure your life by; milestones are what you’re left with when you look back at your life. So let’s call it milestones instead of measures. So what we have then, are Confidence Enhancing Milestones as opposed to Confidence Building Measures. Confidence Enhancing Milestones – doesn’t the mere sound of that fill your heart with hope? In fact…


At this point a kitten walks into the room across Zardari’s chair.


Zardari (excitedly looking at kitten – until now he had a particularly stiff demeanor – suddenly it is replaced by unbridled joy): Oh my God, Manmohan! Is that kitten yours? It’s like the cutest thing ever! Can I please have it? I’ll give you anything in return – take all of Kashmir. In fact, take NWFP as well while you’re at it – I have no idea what the hell to do with that region. I’m sure you could make it into a tourist destination or something – it has mountains. We’ll also hand over Hafeez Saeed to you; stop helping Dawood – anything at all, as long as you let me have the kitten. Pleeeeease???


65 years of bitterness ended by one cute kitten. No wonder those forwards are so popular.

Somewhat Historical

If there’s one subject from school that no one seemed indifferent about, it was history. In a way, history was the chicken liver of academic streams – you either loved it or you hated it, and most people hated it. And although I hate chicken liver, history had always been a fascinating subject for me - full of intriguing stories made boring by the fact that you had to memorize them. 


What was rather baffling, though, was why history had to be the same every year. At the beginning of each year, history started with the ancient civilizations – the Indus Valley, the Egyptians, the Mesopotamians (also known as the Sumerians just to confuse you) and the Chinese. After then briefly touching upon the Greeks, the rest of the world would be forgotten about and the focus would shift to India, with the chapters on South Indian kingdoms being skipped if you were in a North Indian school. Finally, every year, history would end with India gaining independence. 


It wasn’t the same with other subjects – you learnt something new each year. For all the other subjects, people seem to have put some level of thought and planning – presumably breaking up the year-by-year syllabus on level of difficulty, how much a child of a certain age could absorb and other such criteria. But for some curious reason, the person who devised the history syllabus thought “You know what? Instead of children learning something new each year, why not force them to study the same goddamn stuff every single year?” If this were a cartoon, at this point there would be diabolical, crazed-scientist type laughter from the history syllabus guy accompanied by ominous lightning and thunder in the background. Ordinarily, you would expect a person with such thoughts to either be sentenced to death by firing squad, or if that’s too extreme for your liking, be quietly asked to go tend to his gardens and leave the whole syllabus business to someone more capable. But instead, the fellow was hailed as a revolutionary in educational circles “Teach the same thing every year? What a mind-bogglingly brilliant notion that is! Why didn’t we think of this before? Just to silence our detractors, we can have something different for the 10th Standard, but until then, it can be EXACTLY the same. I bet no one would even notice.” 


In spite of all this, though, I still loved history – and history was one of the first things I noticed while walking about Kolkata. Maybe it had more to do with the part of Kolkata I was staying in, but the city just seemed to ooze history. Of course, this isn’t the centuries-old sort of history that envelops you on visiting an actual historical town like Hampi. It’s not the sort of history where if you picked out a building and told me “Chandragupta Vikramaditya used to drink here with Kautilya on Friday evenings” or “This is the park where Sher Shah Suri was relaxing in when he got the idea to build the Grand Trunk Road” I’d believe you. It’s a very recent sort of history, but one that still adds a lot of character as far as a city is concerned. It’s the sort of history where if you told me “India’s first telegraph message was sent from this building” or “This building was inaugurated by Queen Victoria to commemorate cotton trade between India and England”, I’d find that perfectly acceptable. Every second building seemed to have some sort of stately, heritage air to it, as if to tell you “This may look like a dusty, stained and dilapidated building now, but important financial transactions used to take place here – this is where the first business houses started their businesses.” You might think that all this isn’t that big a deal, but it’s utterly fascinating for someone from Bangalore where most buildings tend to be all glass and no character.


And given how deserted the roads tend to get after 10 in the night in Bangalore (or Delhi, for that matter), it was a pleasant surprise to see the amount of people on the streets even at 11. And unlike Mumbai, it didn’t have the feel of “Oh, I work super hard and party super-duper hard so I just have to get from point A to point B and am therefore on the road” – it had more of a “Oh, I just feel like hanging around and killing some time and am therefore on the road” sort of feel to it. People were just milling about – standing and chatting around the pavements, under trees, playing cricket on the streets, etc – no one seemed to be in any sort of rush. And you just felt safe – I know this sounds utterly illogical and has no basis in reason, but think of it this way. Which of these scenarios seem the least likely to occur to you if you’re walking alone late at night?
1. Delhi - A burly Jat driving by screeches to a halt near you; brandishes a shiny pistol and threatens to beat you to pulp, shoot you and then discard your body in some hinterland-type area if you don’t hand him all your money.
2. Mumbai - You’re caught in the middle of some underworld crossfire and are now being chased by them as you’ve witnessed too much to be allowed to live.
3. Chennai - You’re lost and no one is willing to speak to you in a non-Tamil language, leaving you with no choice but to keep walking on the road until you drop dead.
4. A menacing-looking Bengali…See! I cannot even continue with this sentence because the mere mention of a menacing-looking Bengali sounds oxymoronic and has therefore already made this the least likely scenario!


I’m sure I’m wrong on this – there must be heaps of crime statistics out there that prove that Kolkata isn’t any safer than most big cities in India – but it just didn’t feel that way. Even the cops looked friendly – as if they would offer you a cup of tea and a roshogulla before arresting you if you ever did do something that warranted arrest.


Now, a lot of you might protest at this point “What do you mean a Bengali cannot be a dangerous, cold-blooded criminal? I have two words for you – Bob Biswas!” That may be the case, but the feeling I got was more along the lines of what Robert Clive may have felt before deciding to go ahead with the Battle of Plassey. Here was a chap without much of a track record at colonizing – but when he started trading in Bengal, the thought probably struck him “Hmm…the whole trade philosophy of give and take is fine, but I think I prefer just the take part of it. Why don’t I just conquer Bengal? The Bengali may be ferocious in debate, but he’s unlikely to engage in prolonged armed conflict, particularly if I attacked in the afternoon.” Of course, being possessed of a character that’s devoid of imperialistic or dictatorial tendencies, invading Bengal did not cross my mind – but it probably would have if I was predisposed towards such militaristic activities. 


Of course, Kolkata is renowned for its street food – and unlike Tom Cruise, the hype is perfectly justified. But apart from mastering the art of making delicious rolls, the roll shop populace has also achieved mastery over the mathematics of permutations and combinations to create an elaborate menu out of 3-4 basic ingredients. Every roll shop would have 3-4 basic ingredients – chicken, mutton, egg and maybe veg/paneer. The menu, though, would stretch to an entire page, or be painted on an entire wall, thanks to the various combinations of single and double that you could choose for each. Chicken roll, therefore, would form an entire section in the menu, with items in that section coming in the following forms: Chicken Roll, Double Chicken Roll, Egg Chicken Roll, Double Egg Single Chicken Roll, Double Egg Double Chicken Roll, and so on.


Come to think of it, it’s a bit like this post – I’d started thinking there isn’t a whole lot to say and so this would be a short post, but its ended up being about as long as most other posts!