The show must go on...

What is it about Indians that we are never ready or willing to retire?

Over the last few decades, politics has become a young man’s game in the West. Tony Blair was 43 when he became Prime Minister of Britain. Bill Clinton was marginally older at 46 when he was inaugurated as President of the United States of America. Barack Obama, the next Democratic President of the US was 47 when he was sworn in. David Cameron was 43 when he took over as Prime Minister of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition in the UK.

Small wonder then, that some doubts have been expressed about whether Hillary Clinton, the Democratic front-runner at the next Presidential poll, is past the age of being a player. She will be 69 in 2016, and if she wins two terms, she will be 77 by the time she is ready to retire. And that, say political observers, is simply too old.

Contrast this with Indian politics. Our two-time Prime Minister Manmohan Singh turns 81 this September, so you could be forgiven for thinking that retirement would be on his mind. Not a bit of it. As he recently declared in one of his all-too-rare interactions with the press, he is not ready to call it a day quite yet. If the UPA won the next General Election, he would be happy to serve under the leadership of Rahul Gandhi.

But why blame Manmohan Singh alone? At a venerable 86 this November, L.K. Advani is still not ready to walk into the sunset. Having suffered from the ‘always the bridesmaid, never the bride’ syndrome through his last few decades in politics, Advani wants one last chance to walk down the aisle as the main attraction. And even though the BJP has announced Narendra Modi as its prime ministerial candidate, Advani persists in hanging around the fringes just in case opportunity for that final fling at power presents itself.

Yes, I know that attitudes to age – and the respect accorded to it – are very different in India than they are in the West. There, they equate youth with vigour and value it accordingly. Here, we see an equivalence between age and wisdom and venerate both. But even so, nursing political ambitions at the grand old age of 80+ is beginning to seem a little absurd to most of us.

But the more I think about it, it seems to me that this is not just about politics in particular but about our character in general. There seems to be something about the Indian psyche that just cannot contemplate the thought of retirement.

Take our cricket stars, for instance. None of them wants to go out in a blaze of glory. Instead, they stick around as the magic fizzles out bit by bit and there’s nothing left but sheer weariness as we see them hovering at the edges, mere shadows of the stars they once were. Yes, I know, you’re thinking of Sourav Ganguly, who took years to retire: first from one-day cricket, then Test cricket, then first class cricket and finally the IPL (I am a bit hazy on the details; it all took so, so long). But even the great Sachin Tendulkar is playing to much the same strategy, rolling out his retirement plan in slow motion, as everyone speculates as to whether his 200^th Test will actually be his last.

If Sachin or even Sourav had been Australian, they would have retired at the peak of their game, not when their fans were getting piqued by their lack of performance. Adam Gilchrist retired from Test cricket when he was still on top form. Ricky Ponting said goodbye to his Test career the moment his performance started flagging. But not so our Indian stars. They hold on for dear mercy, squeezing in one more series, one more tournament, one more endorsement deal…

Movie stars are no different, really. I am not suggesting that they need to retire from acting as they age, but surely it is not too much to ask that they recuse themselves from playing the young, romantic lead – especially when the girls they are harassing into submission could pass off as their daughters? But no, the audience is expected to suspend its disbelief as 40-something actors try and pass themselves off as college kids.

So, what accounts for this peculiarly Indian disinclination to move on? Why do our politicians, our movie stars, our cricketing superheroes, all cling on for dear life, having to be dragged away from centre-stage kicking and screaming?

I have to confess that I am baffled. This is the country that gave us the concept of four stages of human life. Brahmacharya: when a man leaves home to be educated and leads a celibate life. Grihasta: when he marries, starts a family and assumes his worldly responsibilities in the world of Maya (illusion). Vanaspratha: when he renounces the world to live like a hermit. And finally Sanyasa: when he concentrates on spiritual matters in an attempt to attain Moksha (freedom from the cycle of rebirth).

Alas, in the India of today, nobody is willing to let go. And Maya trumps Moksha every time.

Storm in a T-cup

Despite all our hard-won freedoms, a woman’s sexuality still remains the best way to target her

As some of you may remember I wrote a column a few weeks ago that mentioned Sourav Ganguly’s refusal to go off quietly into the sunset. To be honest, I expected to attract some flak for it. After all, Dada’s supporters are famous for their fanatic devotion to him, so a certain amount of abuse was likely to result for saying that it was high time he retired.

So, yes, I was prepared for being told off for a) not knowing anything about cricket; b) being guilty of ageism; c) being anti-Bengali; or even d) being anti-Sourav.

What I did not expect was that most of the attacks would be waged on such a personal level. That they would be couched in terms of how old, fat, unattractive – and, as would follow – sexually frustrated I was. The comments and mails took in everything from references to bestiality, frigidity, even nymphomania. But no matter what kind of perversion they referred to, they all centred on my sexuality (or, perhaps, on the lack thereof).

In retrospect, perhaps, I should not have been surprised. We may have come a long way, baby, but a woman’s sexuality still remains the easiest way to target her. Want to shut her up? Easy. Just call her any one of the following names: slut, slag, bitch, whore, or that other ‘c’ word that is so deliciously taboo.

And while not everyone descends to this level, a certain casual misogyny has become a marker of our modern culture. We think nothing of it if a woman is referred to as a ‘cow’ or a ‘dog’ in private conversation. And when this sort of thing spills over into the public space of the blogosphere or twitter, well then, hey, that’s just another manifestation of free speech. Deal with it.

Certainly, the hate and the bile on the Internet is an equal opportunity game. The men are targeted just as much as the women. And yet, for some reason, it’s only the women who face sexual abuse, no matter what the original provocation may have been.

No man is ever told that he deserves to be raped by dogs. Or that he is so ugly that he will never have sex with anyone other than himself. No, not even if he pays them.

The women, on the other hand, are fair game. It doesn’t really matter what you are commenting upon. It could be Sourav Ganguly. It could be cricket. It could be politics. It could the movies. It could be music. It could even be something as innocuous as the weather. But if anyone doesn’t like what you say, then you are an ugly, fat bitch who needs to be taught a lesson (and yes, you can well imagine what that lesson would be, even if I can’t refer to it in a family newspaper).

It’s a bit like walking down a crowded street or through a busy market. You can be sure that someone will ‘accidentally’ brush against you and that somebody else will make some crass comment about your derriere.

In that sense, putting yourself out there in cyberspace is a bit like travelling in a crowded bus in real life. Sooner or later, you are going to get your bum pinched – or worse (speaking metaphorically, of course). Or even going to a party where some men will spend the entire evening having a conversation with your breasts. Yes, we’ve all been there – and had that done to us.

No matter how liberated we may feel, no matter how hard we may have fought for our freedoms, a woman’s vulnerability is still tied up with her sexuality. And so it remains the easiest way to attack her. The abuse may be physical or verbal – but the target remains the same.

Part of it is down to the fact that as a society, we are so subliminally attuned to objectifying women that we do so even without realising it – and sometimes women are just as guilty of this as the men. (In fact, recent research suggests that the first thing women notice about each other is their waistlines – how slim or thick they are.)

Look at the way our politicians are portrayed in the media. Most of our male politicians are not exactly oil paintings. But for some reason, it’s only female politicians like Mayawati and Mamata who are derided because of their physical appearance. It’s never the men who are told off for their lack of grooming or good looks.

Even when men attack one another, they do so through the medium of women. The most common abuses – whether in Hindi or English – remain ones that involve having sex with the other man’s mother or sister (for some reason, it is never the wife). When it comes to name-calling, then again we have the classics: ‘son of a bitch’ and ‘bastard’, both of which are more about the mothers than the sons.

So, I guess despite all our talk about women’s liberation, we are still in some measure prisoners of our own bodies. And the best way to attack us is to violate them – through speech, if not through actual physical violence.

In that context, the torrent of twitter abuse about the Sourav column is just the proverbial storm in a T-cup. But what it says about how women are seen in our world is what is truly shaming – and worrying.

Goodbye seems to be the hardest word

Nobody in this country ever seems to retire with good grace – or in good time

Consider the curious case of Sourav Ganguly. Once one of the most successful captains of the Indian cricket team, these days he is reduced to warming the bench at IPL games featuring the Pune Warriors while newspapers report snidely about how he scored 27 runs off 24 balls at the nets, but managed to get caught twice and bowled out once in the process.

How did it come to this? I know this won’t make me very popular in the bylanes of Kolkata, but I blame Sourav himself. He was a great cricketer, a wonderful captain, and a fierce competitor. But despite being a great strategic thinker when it came to the game, he failed to gauge when he should declare his innings in real life.

Surely Sourav should have seen the writing on the wall in the last season of the IPL when he didn’t contribute a great deal to his team, the Kolkata Knight Riders. But despite every indication that the franchise had lost interest in him, Sourav still put himself up for auction – only to be humiliated when no one bothered to bid for him.

Even then it was not too late. Sourav could have made a gracious statement about how he had decided to quit the game forever (even though, technically, it was the game that had quit on him). And indeed, for a time it looked as if he had made his peace with reality, finding solace in the commentary box instead.

But just when you thought that he was out, Sourav – much like that monster in horror movies who refuses to stay down for the count – was back again. This time, as a replacement player for Ashish Nehra (oh, how the mighty have fallen!) in the Pune Warriors team. No, not as their secret weapon who would be fielded to slay the opposition, but as a bench-warmer who watched his first games from the safety of the team dug-out.

I don’t know about you, but all of this just makes me sad. Why subject yourself to this needless humiliation when you can go out with grace and dignity? I mean, look at Shane Warne. The man retired from Test and one-day cricket when he was at his peak. And now, even though he is the lynchpin of his team, the Rajasthan Royals, Warnie has announced that this will be his last season as a player in the IPL.

Warne has understood something that Sourav plainly hasn’t. Leave the stage while they are still asking, “Why?” Don’t leave it until they are demanding, “Why not?”

But then, why blame Sourav alone? This is a disease that seems to be endemic in India. Nobody in this country ever seems inclined to call it a day, clinging on with their fingernails for dear life. And even when they are forcibly ejected, they tend to go out kicking and screaming.

By any reckoning, both Manmohan Singh and L.K. Advani should have retired years ago, leaving the field clear for a younger lot of leaders to take over. But despite having heart surgery in his first term, Singh still put himself forward as a candidate for the Prime Minister’s job in UPA’s second term in office. And L.K. Advani, who failed in his bid to become Prime Minister, continues to play a pivotal role in BJP politics instead of taking a backseat.

Manmohan Singh is now 78 years old. L.K. Advani is 83. And yet, neither of them seems to think it all politic to contemplate retirement from public life. Contrast this with such Western democracies as Britain and the USA. The American President, Barack Obama, is still a few months short of 50 while the British Prime Minister David Cameron is a sprightly 44. And their predecessors, George W Bush and Tony Blair retired at the ages of 61 and 54 respectively, making a clean break from domestic politics.

Our bureaucrats are no better. Rare is the secretary of the Indian government who hangs up his red tape once he has reached retirement age. Instead, our babus vie with one another to find plum post-retirement government sinecures so that they can stay on in their plush bungalows (and drive around in their white Ambassadors) for just a little while longer. The lucky ones get the Governorships that haven’t been gobbled up by ageing politicians; the rest make do chairmanships of state corporations and the like. Retirement at 60 is strictly for losers.

Not that other professions are any different. The movie world is littered with examples of people who defy the laws of logic to still remain in the business. Govinda continues to make execrable comedies that plump the depths of bad taste. Rekha continues to be pulled out of the moth-balls (or should that be aspic?) for a cameo turn every now and then. And Dev Anand – God bless his evergreen heart – continues to churn out movies that nobody ever watches.

I guess the soul is not the only thing that is eternal in these parts.

But, of course, it could be a lot worse. Take a quick look across the border at Pakistan and count your blessings. While their politicians may have a rather short shelf life unlike ours, their Generals never seem to retire – they just become terror masterminds instead.