Today, in The Wire, Prof. Truschke has written about how scholarly voices are being silenced in India. She came under the criticism of some rightwing Hindu fanatics for writing a history about the  Emperor Aurangzeb, which showed him in a better light than popular belief. I give below my own take on the Great Moghul, allowing humour to triumph over history.

INDIA - A MOGHUL TEA PARTY             

Cast of Characters

THE EMPEROR SHAHJEHAN:                   A handsome man, with an imperial beard, beautifully dressed, as you have seen in pictures

PRINCESS JAHANARA:                               Very beautiful, a bit like Aiswarya Rai, dressed in salwar kameez

PRINCESS ROSHANARA:                           A younger version of her older sister

CROWN PRINCE DARA SHIKOH:             A handsome young man of 22, informally dressed in kurta pyjamas

PRINCE AURANGAZEB:                             Slim and handsome, similarly dressed

PRINCE MURAD:                                         Still a boy, rather tubby, similarly dressed

Scene

The royal rose gardens in Agra

Time

One evening, early spring, 1637

THE SETTING:          [It is the royal rose garden of Akbarabad in the 17^th century... A magnificent low table laden with fruits, and a hundred dishes, on a wide beautiful Persian carpet. Beautifully dressed serving maids flutter about arranging things, and leave. THE EMPEROR SHAHJEHAN enters, followed by his sons, DARA SHIKOH, MURAD, and AURANGAZEB, and his daughters, JAHANARA and ROSHANARA, chatting. They seat themselves on low cushions, and start to help themselves generously. After a little clatter, SHAHJEHAN speaks]

SHAHJEHAN:            I want to discuss something important, that’s why I have sent away the servants. All our advisors have their own axes to grind,  they are such clever bastards they have me confused. But I know I can trust your judgement.

AURANGAZEB:        [concerned] What’s up Dad? I should have been more attentive at

Court, I know, but I have been travelling through the villages in the  Ganga basin. I came back to report that most of our poor Hindu farmers have had a disastrous year. There isn’t enough food to go around, and frankly I find all this opulence disgusting.

SHAHJEHAN:            Zebby, that’s precisely what I am concerned about. We must do something quickly, but what?

DARA SHIKOH:        Excuse me, we are an Islamic empire, are we not? Zebby is always so solicitous about these benighted kafirs. Why don’t they convert to Islam?

ROSHANARA:           Dar! You are such a Muslim fundamentalist! Maybe it comes of being Crown Prince, or something. Don’t let anyone outside the palace hear you talk like that, or the Rajputs will be up in revolt.

SHAHJEHAN:            Dar, that’s right, you are Crown Prince, and you’ve got to be a lot more diplomatic. Remember the way grandfather Akbar got round everybody? Marrying into their royal family, bringing Hindu pandits to Court. For one thing, they were excellent accountants.

DARA SHIKOH:        Dad, I’m very careful, but to be honest, I can’t stomach most of their customs – I mean, take Sati, women being butchered because their aged dotard husbands have died! And dedicating young girls to their filthy temples and making them devadasis. Disgusting!

AURANGAZEB :       Dar! I won’t have you speak of customs you don’t understand. Why don’t you read some of the books on Hinduism in the old Humanyun Library for a change? Sex is not something filthy – how do you think you were born? – it is the force of Nature that produces eternal rebirth.

JAHANARA:              Dad, please stop them arguing about religion. Zebby will always be a Hindu, and Dar an old-fashioned Arab maulvi. I am sick and tired of such arguments, not at tea time in any case. Mumu, don’t you agree?

[Murad nods in agreement but keeps on eating and drinking]

SHAHJEHAN:            Listen, we have something more important to think about than Islam or Hinduism. The people are on the verge of starvation, and I am determined to prevent a famine at all cost. I have a vague plan I want to check out with you first. The rains have failed in the Doab, but the Deccan has had a good harvest. Our Hindu merchants could bring up the grain very quickly by forced marches, but, here is the problem, the poor have no purchasing power. Remember Dar when your time comes, never get offside of your Hindu merchants. They will save the empire for you, if you keep your Islamic fundamentalism in check. So, what’s to be done?

ROSHANARA:           Dad, I can’t bear to see our Hindu subjects in such a pitiable plight. Buy the grain, Dad, empty the treasury if you must, but buy and distribute free.

SHAHJEHAN:            Rosy, you are such a soft-hearted girl it gets in the way of your good sense. You know what will happen? Our merchants will corner all the wheat, and people will still starve. Our Hindus are pious and efficient, but for them the laws of commerce are the laws of God.

MURAD:                     [suddenly breaking silence] Dad, throw a great party for a month. Let everyone be invited, let everyone eat.

SHAHJEHAN:            Mumu, I don’t want to feed our fat soldiers and our lazy court officials one more morsel. No, public works are the only way out. Like building roads, buildings, that sort of thing. We must give work to people, and put money in their hands. It has to be a large public work that can go on for a number of years, and build up people’s incomes, and yet be non-controversial, nothing anyone can object to.Something way out, it should blow their minds.

AURANGAZEB:        [leaping up] I know just what it should be! Dad! Build a tomb!

SHAHJEHAN:            Zebby, don’t be crazy! What do you mean, a tomb?

AURANGAZEB:        [resuming his seat] Not any old tomb, Dad! But the greatest, the loveliest, the most extraordinary Tomb ever built. Build it for poor Mom. Every wretched Persian hanger-on in Court is a poet, or fancies himself a poet. It will be accepted Dad. Totally, non-controversial!

JAHANARA:              History will call you a great wastrel, Dad!

SHAHJEHAN:            I don’t care a Banjara’s curse what history says of me. I think Zebby has got something here. Let me think about it. But we’ve got to act very quickly.

AURANGAZEB:        I will call all the architects round tomorrow morning to the Diwan-I-Khas. A thousand trades will be vitalized. We will have fifty thousand men breaking ground across the Jamuna in a week! People in Rajasthan are in poor shape as well. We will order marble from there; get all the quarries going! All the artisans as far east as Lucknow will be called up! Just think, Dad! What will they do with their wages? They are all from farming families, they will put it into land, into water works. We will banish food scarcity forever!

DARA SHIKOH:        Dad, I give in right away. Zebby should be the next Emperor!

AURANGAZEB:        [very seriously] Dar! This is no joking matter. I don’t like the ramshackle way we Moguls have run this great land for so long. We must respect the institutions we build. The right of primogeniture must be scrupulously respected. Like it or not, Dar, you must be Emperor, when Dad passes away a thousand years from now, and I will support you, just give me the Finance portfolio.

DARA SHIKOH:        And what will you do with it, Zebs?

AURANGAZEB:        We must get rid of all this meaningless extravagance. We must have a ‘lean and mean’ administration, and invest tax money usefully. Everyone must become a ‘nationalist.’

JAHANARA:              What do you mean by that?

AURANGAZEB:        [impatiently] Just the same as loyalty to the Emperor, only it is deeper, it is loyalty to themselves as a people of one land. India must become a strong unitary State, allright, under an Islamic Empire, come by in a fit of absence of mind. Come to think of it, I am going to put on a new ‘persona.’

ROSHANARA:           Dad, it is painful to have an intellectual in the family! What is a ‘persona’?

AURANGAZEB:        A word, I thought up – something like a mask, only you can never take it off. You will be glad to hear, Dar, I am going to become a very pious Muslim.

DARA SHIKOH:        [interested] Really, has the good Maulvi got through to you at last?

AURANGAZEB :       Listen, the trouble with Hinduism is that the beliefs are too liberal, they are not for this age, maybe for some other future period. Right now we need strong unified belief, as in Islam, to build a strong unified State, to bring people together. If we demand loyalty from people, we must be equally loyal to them. I shall never let any personal consideration come in the way of ensuring the people’s welfare. 

DARA SHIKOH:        Zebby, you can go build one unified State for yourself. I don’t agree with you, seriously. All this talk of unity is very dangerous. Akbar would have lost Agra if he had tried to impose uniformity over this great land. He adopted a federal structure, and that’s the only one that will work. I will follow your example, Zebby, and put on, what did you call it? – a new ‘persona’. I will act out the liberal Prince. Rosy, get me some of these Hindu sacred books, will you? I will have someone translate one of them in my name into Persian. You see, if we let everyone do his thing, they will all come to us here in Agra, to the Royal Court, to mediate between their differing interests. And Freedom, not Unity, will get the ‘economy’ going.

JAHANARA:              Now, what in heaven’s name is that?

DARA SHIKOH:        Well, I can coin terms just as well as Zebby here. I don’t just mean commerce, or trade, or agriculture, but the sum total of work, how each work activity supports and depends on another work activity. That inter-relationship is what makes the gross product of all work grow, and that growth is dependent on local freedom of action, not on Zebby’s idea of a strong centralized State.

SHAHJEHAN:            I love to see my children argue.

MURAD:                     All this is nonsense, Dad. You don’t have to do extraordinary things to get people going. Build your tomb if you like. I am all for art, and extravagance. You should hear Father Pius go on about how art and architecture brought wealth to poor cities like Firenze, Venezia, Milano, of his country. Dad, people don’t want to do great things like Zebby, they just want to have a good time. Have we any idea how many people were employed to produce this single bottle of wine? Or these dishes? They all represent work, money, incomes. And dancing girls mean jewellery, costumes, weaves of cotton and silk of a thousand hues. This great land lives on its textiles. A rich life for us means a good life for everyone in Hindustan!

JAHANARA:              I don’t understand any of this intellectual cut and thrust. No one in court understands any of you either, I know. I am sure even in the future, learned historians will never understand any of you. Anyway, these ideas have given me a headache. Mumu, let’s go away, and plan a great party.

MURAD:                     Right on!

[Jahanara and Murad leave]

ROSHANARA:           We are such a close-knit family. I hope all these stupid ideas never come between us, and we always stay together.

SHAHJEHAN:            Don’t worry, Rosy, love. We will always stay together.

[AURANGAZEB grips his father’s hand, while DARA SHIKOH looks on fondly. ]

LIGHTS BLACKOUT

END OF PLAY

What Price the Bard?

THE DIRECTOR’S CUT

Scene:          A STAGE. Working Lights. Chairs strewn all over the place, empty coffee cups. Director and cast enter in ordinary day clothes.

CAST: Director; Weedy Young Man; Serious Young Man; Old Headmaster; Portly Jovial Man – Prim Tightlipped Lady, Cross Young Marxist lady; Old Lady in her Eighties; Stern Lady Lecturer, Brahmin Lady

Director:  Okay, everybody! We are starting on a mission where none of our groups have gone before! We are going to do Shakespeare!

Cast[all]: Ooh! [some clapping]

Director: Yes, it’s going to be tough. And I am going to be mercilessly professional! Got that! You will be made to weep! But at the end of the day, you will be doing Shakespeare!

More clapping from Cast.

Someone: We are with you!

Others:         All the Way with Boss-man’s Say!

Director: Good. For our first play I am picking the most difficult, and also the most theatrical. We are going to do Richard the Third!

More Oohs and Ahhs.

Prim Tightlipped Middleaged Lady[uncertainly]: I’m not very sure [pause] I’m not at all sure we should do that.[in a rush] At least I am not going to be part of it if you insist!

Director[confused]: Why?... Why, what’s the matter?

PTM Lady: Well, the main character, Richard the Third, he is differently abled. Shakespeare keeps on about his deformity, makes me sick. My husband lost a leg defending our country in 1971. God only knows what I went through during rehab! And it was heartbreaking to see how people – even your good friends – were callous. My husband deserved the respect of the nation, not pity!

Director [mumbling]: I am so sorry... what you must have suffered...

PTM Lady: Humiliating. Not just me, my poor brave husband!

Director [brightly]: Shakespeare wrote 39 plays! More if you ask me, but that’s the official tally. Let’s start with something funny! Midsummer Night’s Dream! I have been laughing at Bottom and his group since I was six!

Cross Young Marxist Woman: I am sure You have. It sickens me to think how the bourgeois middleclass think poor people are idiots. They are not! Who do you think puts food on the table? The poor, the downtrodden, the oppressed! Have any of you spent a day in a village? Anyone? I have. A celebration in a village is far more sophisticated than any show I have seen in Covent Garden or Carnegie Hall!

Director [quickly to cut discussion short]: You are right, you are right. Let’s all put our heads together. Come on people! Community Effort!

Weedy Young Man who fancies himself as an Actor: I say! I have an idea. Let’s do Henry the Fifth! I ... was Henry in our school play.

CYM Woman: In our first production we will show ourselves to be unashamed colonials! For the Brits, Agincourt was a romantic victory; for the French a disaster. The Brits raped France for a hundred years then turned on India!  

WY Man shrinks back out of the light, as some nod doubtfully.

Director[trying to regain control]: Let’s stick to Comedy, shall we? Which one gets the most votes?

Mischievous Portly Man: I vote for Taming of the Shrew!

Stern Lady Lecturer: If I didn’t know you, I would hit you over the head with my bag. You know, it’s not funny! Not funny at all! How long must we tolerate male chauvinism? You think it is a joke, but it is only a pathetic admission of your own adolescence!

Director: People! People! Let’s not quarrel! A dramatic cast should be knit closer than any family. Madam, you know we would not do that play. I have serious reservations myself. Okay, [uncertainly]shall we try Twelfth Night?

Old Headmaster: It is vulgar. We did the play once at my old school. All the boys – I mean the bad mischievous ones – got on to the double meanings, and kept shouting ‘and so she makes her Pees’ during ‘Founders Day.’  I was embarrassed. Our richest patron withdrew her support. I still shiver at the thought.

Serious Young Man[lifting his head from a book by Foucault]: We should do something really meaningful, if we do anything at all. Let’s do King Lear.

Old Lady in her Eighties: Poor old well-meaning man. There is no respect for old people. I suppose there never was. I am not complaining, my servants are reliable, of course they pilfer, but who doesn’t? But don’t you think it’s a shame, the way the old are treated? Even architects and designers, who should know better. Slippery floors, narrow stairs, uncomfortable chairs. Will the play help people see things in a different light? I am afraid not. They will say, a foolish old man, confirming stereotypes.

Portly Man: I say! Let’s do something romantic. That will bring in an audience. We should try and get a few more than the usual dozen family and friends type. Let’s do Romeo and Juliet. It’s a crowd puller if ever there was one.

Brahmin Lady [sharply]: No thank you! The cinemas and TV give us enough of all this romantic love nonsense. Children start to believe that they must fall in love, and that too with the most unsuitable person! I live in dread everyday thinking of my daughter in college. I will not breathe easy till she is safely married off to some good wellplaced boy from our community. I am not prejudiced, don’t get me wrong, not at all. But marriages with Muslims and Dalits do not work. It’s all this wrong notion of love. Marriage means having a family like your ancestors with their way of life.

Dead silence for a bit.

Weedy Young Man re-emerging: We need strong theatre. Something that gives us actors good parts. Like Macbeth! Good roles for men and women!

Stern Lady lecturer: Witches! And Bad Women! Yes, let’s perpetuate patriarchal prejudices. Every year idiots burn poor old women as witches!

WY Man slinks back into darkness.

Old lady: Shakespeare always meant magic to me. Taking us out of our present world. Tempest is magical. My daughter played Miranda when she was in sixth class. She wore a blue dress and she danced so beautifully.

Cross Young Marxist Woman: It’s very good of you to bring it up, Madam. The East India Company was given its commission in Shakespeare’s heyday. And the Tempest is prescient it how mercantile-capitalism was going to invade other countries and enslave oppressed people!

Old lady [bewildered]: Enslave? Enslave who? I mean whom?

Director[quickly]: Yes, yes, Madam, there is this new version, making Caliban a slave and all that. Played out if you ask me. Any other ideas?

PTM Lady: I do not hold with all these newly-worked political versions. Now someone will tell me Othello was all about racism!

CYM Woman: Yes, it was!

PTM Lady: How was it? Go ahead tell me!

CYM Woman: Pretty obvious, isn’t it? Black anti-hero!

PTM Lady: He was a Hero! A great military leader! He loves Desdemona deeply. Read the play, he was misled by a traitor, Iago.

CYM Woman: Read the subtext. A black man, however normal on the outside, however great a man, is deeply flawed in character! It’s as plain as the nose on your face.

PTM Lady: I beg your pardon! If we are to make personal remarks...

CYM Woman[hastily]: I meant idiomatically, I mean.

PTM Lady: Well, watch what you say!

Brahmin lady[firmly]: That marriage was doomed because it was unsuitable. That’s the point.

Portly Man [butting in good-naturedly]: Why don’t we think of something, which both a serious play and also a comedy. Let’s do The Merchant of Venice. It has a good court scene and that is always a crowd-puller. And a very good role for Portia! Hey, ladies?

Stern lady lecturer: I do not support Israel after what they have done to the Arabs. But I am also not a Holocaust denier. Europeans victimised Jews, and Jews victimise Arabs. We should not make fun of anybody because of their race or looks, or impairments [looking kindly at PTM Lady] 

Director [taking a grip on himself and the situation]: Hamlet! The master play! We are doing Hamlet! It’s my decision and I am sticking to it!

Oohs and Ahhs and an uncertain pause.

Old Headmaster: There has been an ongoing debate ever since I can remember whether Shakespeare, the Modern Humanist, had any political agenda. Remember, the English Revolution, the first of many, was already in the making. Was the Bard making a point in Hamlet?

Stern lady Lecturer: Most probably, that women shouldn’t remarry!

Serious Young Man: The role of violence in maintaining State Power.

Cross Young Marxist Woman: Why did Hamlet put on an air of madness? Why?

Serious Young Man: Ah! What is called madness is dictated by the State! Hamlet was withdrawing himself from the structures of State Rule.

Cross Young Marxist Woman: Wrong! He was waiting for the Popular Will to manifest itself. Neither the aristocracy, with which he identified, nor the bourgeoisie, with whom he studied in Wittenberg, could bring about revolution. Shakespeare antedates Winstanley!

Old lady in her eighties: Who, my dear? Stanley who?

Director [getting up]: Look, I have to run along now, and tell the sponsors that we are agreed on a play. Shall we do Karna confronting Kunti? We have done that before, and the sponsors will support any dharmic play.

Everyone nods. Light dim out.   

TAMASHA!

Climate Change! Starving World! Nuclear Weapons!
What do they care? You will get a Ta-ma-sha!
Ta-ma-sha! A Ta-ma-sha!
Stunted Children! Oppressed Women! Vanished Wildlife!
What do they care? You will get a Ta-ma-sha!
Ta-ma-sha! A Ta-ma-sha!
You won’t get food, you won’t get jobs, you will get a Ta-ma-sha!
Ta-ma-sha! A Ta-ma-sha!
You been there long. What did you get? A Ta-ma-sha!
Ta-ma-sha! A Ta-ma-sha!
Don’t you know what they will do? A Ta-ma-sha!
Ta-ma-sha! A Ta-ma-sha!
Grow up now! Don’t look for a Ta-ma-sha!
Ta-ma-sha! A Ta-ma-sha!
Take charge now! To hell with a Ta-ma-sha!
To hell with Ta-ma-shas!

COW TRILOGY

Leader Cow: ‘That was brutal but had to be done. I’m glad I helped gore that heifer to death!’

New Cow: ‘Oh! What had she done?’

‘She ate holy alfalfa! That’s what she did! Deserved death!’

‘Isn’t that extremist…fundamentalist? Maybe you could have explained…’

‘No! It can only be death for eating holy alfalfa!’

‘But we eat napier grass, and even roadside flowers, so…’

‘I relish napier grass, elephant grass, flowers, plants, everything! But alfalfa is sacred, never forget!’

‘Horses eat alfalfa?’

‘Horses! Don’t talk to me about them! One day we will gore all of them to death!’

‘Leader Cow Ma’am, you got trounced in the farmyard elections.’

‘Nonsense! Pigs voted for pigs, chicks for chicks, goats for goats. Next time they will vote for me!’

‘If there’s a next time. Ma’am, our cows voted against you! You want them all to be black-and-white. Look around, they are all shapes and colours!’

‘Pure cows are black-and-white like me! If not, they have no place here! I’m pure Holstein-Friesian.’

‘No Ma’am, you’re cross-bred… that too by Westerners. Really, you’re foreign to the farmyard!’

‘You’ve got a big mouth. I’ll shut you up for good!’

‘I’m so happy Leader Cow Ma’am is here! All these Angus bulls, Devon heifers, Galloway calves were treating us like nobodies! Now they know we are real cows!’

‘Yes, by Jove! I’m building a cow temple in Kensington and getting real cow-dung to make it holy!’

‘Hey, but you cows are nowhere like Leader Cow. Your mothers were Kangayan, you’re not black-and-white!’

‘I’m black-and-white if I say so! Girs and Red Sindhis have now become black-and-white! Our black-and-white identity makes us proud!’

‘But back home the mood is changing…’

‘Shut up! Heil Fuhrerin! Heil Fuhrerin!’

‘Ducessa! Ducessa! Ducessa!’

ISIS-ization of Hinduism in Three Days

DAY 1

‘Why are all of you in my house?’

‘We have made a list of 1742 unauthorized books in your library.’

‘Unauthorized by whom?’

‘By us, the Pure Hindu Sena.’

‘But they are all great books of world literature!’

‘Just Western rubbish! Why don’t you have the Ramayana?’

‘I do have commentaries somewhere…’

‘Not English rubbish! Ramayana in Sanskrit!’

‘I can’t read Sanskrit.’

‘And you call yourself learned? Burn all these books. Let it be a lesson to everyone!’

‘Can you read Sanskrit, you who will destroy my library?’

‘I’m Sena Chief, I don’t need to. Burn the books!’

DAY 2

‘Yesterday we cleaned out your neighhbour’s library. We come to you because of the noise you are making.’

‘What noise, Sir?’

‘That noise.’

‘Famous piece of classical music, Sir. Bach’s cantata “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.”

‘So you are a Christian?’

‘No, Sir, I am a Brahmin!’

‘Shame on you! Why don’t you listen to Tyagaraja?’

‘I do Sir, here is ‘Manasa Sadinchene.’ Shall I play it?’

‘Think you are fooling me? Boys, destroy all this Western muck! We will write ‘Purified by Hindu Sena’ on your gate! Thank your Brahmin parents we are not purifying your body – as yet!’

DAY 3

‘This street is troublesome. We had to correct two of your neighbours.’

‘Sir, I don’t listen to western music. I don’t read books.’

‘You are a Brahmin?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Vegetarian?’

‘Of course, Sir.’

‘My advice is, don’t eat western vegetables, cabbage, cauliflower – even potatoes. Ayurveda says they are all bad. A Brahmin should follow ancient ways.’

‘Yes, Sir, from now on.’

‘Good. And, yes, you have two growing daughters? They shouldn’t go out in the evenings. When they go out, they should be fully covered, and you should be with them. Otherwise who is to blame if something happens?’

                                                      ISIS-ization completed

STYLES OF MYSTERY

The modern taste in literature is firmly anchored in mystery, and the grand novel in the style of Dickens, Tolstoy, or Flaubert lies forgotten. But even the fabulously successful Ms Rowling and her Harry Potter books cannot compete with the popularity of Agatha Christie, whose work celebrates her 125^th anniversary this year.  Her 66 books have sold over two billion copies, and have been translated into a hundred languages, a record matched only by Shakespeare and the Bible. Her play, The Mousetrap – which incidentally derives its title from Hamlet – opened in London’s West End in 1952, and continues its unparalleled run at the Ambassador Theatre over all these decades! This iconic play even interested the famous Tom Stoppard to write his own The Real Inspector Hound!

Born in 1890 to an aristocratic English mother and a rich American father, Agatha was educated at home in Torquay, a picturesque little town in Devon. As a child, her interest in mystery was kindled by Edith Nesbit’s famous children’s novel, The Railway Children, which describes the travails of children whose father is wrongly convicted of spying. Her early attempts at writing were rejected by several publishers, just like the first Harry Potter book. Her aviator husband, Archibald Christie, who incidentally had been born in India, thought her writing to be no more than a lady’s diversion.

Her first break came when she created her famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, in her book, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, naming the place after her own home. The book was an instant success. But heartbreak was soon to follow, when her husband sought a divorce, having fallen in love with another woman. Agatha disappeared, and the world sought the famous writer of detective fiction, only to find her ten days later in Harrogate in Yorkshire, distraught and on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Her writing and her only daughter, Rosalind, helped her recover. She found happiness again in her second marriage to the archaeologist Max Mallowan, many years her junior. With him she travelled to the Middle East, and her experiences there gave rise to a number of books based on the orient. She was to quip later that it was great to be married to an archaeologist for his interest in her grew as she got older!

Just as Conan Doyle grew tired of Sherlock Holmes, she got fed up with Hercule Poirot and his prissy little ways, and his punctilious care for himself and his waxed moustache. She created other characters, but none caught the public’s fancy except for old Miss Marple who made her first appearance in 1940 in The Murder at the Vicarage. Despite her reluctance, Albert Finney made Poirot immortal on the screen. The 1974 movie, Murder on the Orient Express, became a classic, starring an incredible cast of famous actors, including Sean Connery, Ingrid Bergman, Sir John Gielgud, Vanessa Redgrave, Lauran Bacall, Michael York, Anthony Perkins, to name a few. Vanessa Redgrave later played the role of Agatha in the film based on her mystery disappearance in 1926. The great character actor, Charles Laughton, also immortalised a short story of hers in the film, Witness for the Prosecution.

Agatha Christie’s most popular book though has neither Hercule Poirot nor Miss Marple in it. And Then There Were None, with no detective, remains a world favourite having been renamed, politically correctly, from its earlier unfortunate title, Ten Little Niggers. Her popularity has rested on her skills as a wordsmith, the unexpected twists she gives to her plots, and the homely little touches she gives in her descriptions of places and people as few male writers can do, and maybe not even PD James.

This month the publishing industry is marketing an Agatha Christie celebration in the port town of Torquay, and undoubtedly it will be very successful in terms of publishing and tourism. But what remains a mystery of the times is the insatiable desire of people for mystery and fantasy. The mystery novel found its birth in the 19^th century with Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone – which was devoured eagerly by the teenaged Agatha – and Emile Gaboriau’s police detective, Monsieur Lecoq. It established itself in the forefront of literature with Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes books, and swept into America with the exploits of Ellery Queen and Perry Mason. The public perhaps wished to be diverted from the miseries of industrialized urbanization, and their wish was soon enflamed by Hollywood which gave them classical escapist films during the Great Depression. Bollywood has not been far behind in helping us forget reality with the pipe-dreams of fantasy. Even today’s children seem to prefer the magic of Harry Potter to the real mysteries in scientific exploration.

Vithal Rajan, Hyderabad, 15 Sept, 2015

India’s Antique Elite and Their Unsolvable Energy Question

For the first time since the days of the Mahatma, an Indian leader has appealed to the people of India to participate directly in developing the country, and giving a helping hand to the poor. The Prime Minister’s efforts are laudable, and require the full support of all citizens. Unfortunately, unlike Gandhiji, he is unable to shame other leaders for their lavish lifestyle or undeserved perks. Voices have been raised by the middleclass that they see no reason for giving up their LPG gas subsidy when parliamentarians are petty enough to hold on to every possible perk and benefit at great public cost.

A recent NSSO report says that even today, in the seventh decade after independence, two-thirds of rural households still use firewood for cooking, and even the poorer third of urban families. Not only does this ruin the eyes of women, as the Prime Minister so kindly pointed out, but kills over half a million of them every year through respiratory diseases, besides increasing carbon emissions, loss of forest cover, leaching of top soils, water run-offs, floods, devastation, and enfeebling the roar of the tiger, which the elite  are delighted to hear. According to the NSSO calculation, India might need to provide around 15 crore new LPG connections, if we really want to help the poor. If all of the middleclass generously and patriotically cooperate, they can help no more than 15% of poor households, and that is no realistic solution. So what is to be done?

The Government of India earned international brownie points by being the first to establish an independent ministry of renewable energy, but after the applause abandoned it to light-weight politicians who needed a ministerial berth. To make more sure that it would trouble no one anymore, a web of rules and regulations have made its functioning opaque and unworkable.

Despite India being a sunshine subcontinent, the government has done little other than ritualistic moves to promote solar energy. Concentrated Thermal Solar Power units in the megawatt range have been set up in several other countries, including the United States. Spain has over 50 such units, while India is beginning a research project on this technology. Very few of India’s six lakh villages place a demand higher than of 5 kw. Decentralised PV solar units, locally managed by panchayati bodies or people’s associations can help meet most of rural India’s energy needs, but this step could also lead to sharing of some power democratically with the grassroots. However government policy since its East India Company days, despite the ritualistic 73^rd and 74^th amendments to the Constitution in support of such democratic dispersal of power, has firmly believed in tight centralisation of power. So, demand-side management of power needs, while commonplace in developed countries, remains only a lecture room concept in India.

Perhaps, as a gesture towards India’s contribution to the global struggle against climate change, the MNRE bodies like NEDCAP, or its Telangana variant TNREDCL, could do aggressive marketing of the box-type and the parabolic type of solar cookers. Large scale use of such cookers could save everyone a lot of money and reduce firewood consumption by a third, if not by half. It is not beyond the wits of our very clever bureaucrats and bankers to devise a methodology to enable the poor to acquire these cookers and pay back over time. But such sales will afford no profit to our corporate moghuls, or present media-savvy photo ops to leaders. Helping the poor in small ways has not been any leader’s priority, except when voicing his intention to do so at electioneering times. And environment concerns are strictly relegated for international conferences.

ONGC has put up huge placards in airports and other public places in support of the Prime Minister’s call to you to give up your LPG subsidy. This is the wealthiest public sector unit with annual profits in the range of Rs 25,000 crores. Hence it has the capacity to think out new ways of reducing public expenditure and our dependence on fossil fuels. Strangely, despite the usual ritualistic directive that petrol should have 10% additive of ethanol, little is done to achieve this. In fact sugar companies have a disincentive to produce and sell ethanol since the government stipulated purchase price is less than the market price offered by liquor companies for the distillate. It is a known fact that since ethanol is easily miscible with petrol, it could even form 25% of the fuel without affecting vehicle performance. If India were to follow the example of Brazil, where all vehicles run on pure ethanol or ethanol-mixes, several thousand crores of rupees in foreign exchange could be saved. With that money, ONGC could give LPG cylinders to at least a crore of poor households. Vehicle owners would be happy since the cost of fuel would decrease, sugar companies would make better profits, consumer price of sugar would be steady, and several crore farmers growing sugarcane would have more sustainable incomes.

It would be surprising that the authorities are so reluctant to follow the Brazilian path to bio-fuels when clearly so many sectors would benefit. However, it seems the strong liquor lobby is against ethanol use since it might push up the price of liquor they acquire from sugar mills. Governments and politicians are sensitive to their pressure since excise taxes form the greatest part of state revenues, apart from the profitable black market in this industry. Here again well known technology exists which can easily increase liquor production by a factor of ten if sugar companies would increase distillates as balancing products when seasonally there is over production of sugar, decreasing prices. Again, such management would benefit many sectors, including sugarcane farmers who suffer periodically when sugar mills refuse cane.

Such national refusal to utilise available technologies and increase production of energy and profits would be inexplicable if not for the attitudes that dictate decision making among the country’s elite. To take advantage of the different ways of utilizing renewable energy resources the elite must involve many small local and private bodies in decision making. They are aware that this would be the first step in diluting their power, and they refuse to do so. Their vested interest to retain control of the destinies of the country in their own restricting hands makes them ideologically cling to the platonic ideal of ‘philosopher kings’ who would benignly care for the masses. Such an elitist ideology makes them spend unconscionable sums on nuclear energy, which even after several decades has produced very little energy while continuing to pose for millennia a  threat to all life, even under the best of management conditions. Plato conceived his philosophy 2500 years ago when Greeks depended on the work of four slaves for every free man. It is a vast pity that our elite believe in such antiquated ideas stifling progress, and reducing the living standards of the great majority to no better than that of semi-serfdom.