The telephonic affair with a mysterious lady

Cochin, Kerala

27 April, 2010

Dear Chacko,

This refers to your observations about the recent reports on the alleged affair and marriage of a Pakistani cricketer to a Hyderabad girl over the phone/internet and subsequent allegations of impersonation and denials. This calls to my mind a rather incongruous “affair” my friend Ravi had with one of his telephone friends at the beginning of his career. He would claim later that there was no romance in it. Yet, one may not fail to notice some trappings of an affair in it.  And it ended in a totally unexpected and disillusioning anticlimax.

Ravi says he crossed her path for the first time and the last time in 1971. He had just joined the services of a financial institution as a ‘direct recruit’ that summer. Initially he was given the responsibility of documentation for newly sanctioned loans. You may be aware, Chacko, that large projects are almost always financed by consortia of financial institutions and banks. Hence it is necessary for each lender to ensure that the clauses in its loan documents do not contradict with those of the others in the consortium. They would iron out the differences through personal discussions.

My friend tells me that in a couple of days after he joined the institution he received a phone call from a young lady officer of another institution who introduced herself as Persis Gandhi. She sought certain information about the terms of one of the loans in his portfolio, and he gave her the information with the help of his assistant. What struck the young man then was her extra-ordinarily feminine voice. Her diction and accent had the flavor of what was described in those days as “convent education”. And her agreeable telephone etiquettes had the stamp of business-like maturity. He was impressed.

Persis must have been impressed with him too, for she called him again the next day. The same honey-dripping voice, the same mature diction, the same etiquettes and the same business-like, efficient talk. She asked him correct questions, and she responded to him with exact answers. No superficial mannerisms, laughing or giggling. And no curiosity-driven questions or references of a personal nature. Clearly, Ravi thought he had many things to learn from her.

Now, Chacko, when he said that such exchanges became an everyday routine, I was inclined to reckon that ‘something’ was in the offing. And you too might be getting ‘ideas’ now. But hold on till you come to the end of his story.

The daily calls were mutual, and Ravi said their conversations certainly benefited both of them. Her searching queries inspired the young man to study his cases carefully and in advance so as to be in readiness for answering her unpredictable catechism. And she acknowledged on more than one occasion that some of his thoughts had benefited her as well.

My friend says, for long their conversations were strictly official and brief. However, as happens most often in such circumstances, such daily conversations, howsoever formal and official in content, invariably lead in due course to the informal and the personal. A kind of quasi-official friendship develops. So there were times, not infrequent, when they digressed to the personal. And he soon found she was unmarried. She said she didn’t like the men who proposed. And those who proposed included some of her “big bosses” too. Ravi says he took care to impress her that he was a family man. But this information about him did not seem to make any difference to her. Her tone when they discussed such personal matters, he says, was one of disinterestedness and she spoke with the coolness of information-passing. And this caused his admiration for her to go even higher.

There were barren days, infrequent though, when she didn’t contact him and he didn’t contact her. Her absence was invariably noticed by him, but he says he never missed her. And, on the next possible occasion she would explain to him the reasons for her silence. 

Days passed and it was soon December. The country was at war with Pakistan. The duo would critically discuss Indira Gandhi’s war plans, Nixon’s infamous ‘tilt’ towards Pakistan, the Soviet Union’s possible intervention, etc. To Ravi’s delight he found her to be well versed in current affairs. Her passion about the war was based not on the kind of mindless patriotism of the common folk but more on her awareness of India’s history and her perception of the country’s destiny. And her exultation when India won the war on the 16^th of that month seemed to surpass even that of the Prime Minister herself, and my friend suspected for a moment that Persis might somehow be   related to Indira Gandhi. In any case they had a common surname. And, for the rest of the month she had only words of praise for Indira Gandhi.

Now, Chacko, by then they had been telephone friends for some seven to eight months. I asked him if they had not met face to face even once. Well, he said an opportunity soon arose. And it was the young lady who took the initiative. It was decided that Persis would meet him at his office at 12 noon the next day. How could he know then that it would be the end of their 'affair'!

Ravi was looking forward to her arrival. But she was not to be seen at the appointed time. However, some 15 minutes later there came in to the hall a slim elderly lady who was an exact replica of Indira Gandhi with the same hair style and the same little gray patch on her hair, the same proud, self-possessed gait, and dressed in soft elegance. Ravi was puzzled. She was seen consulting the security guard who pointed his finger in the direction of Ravi. Straightaway she approached him and introduced herself in her familiar, honeyed voice, “I am Gandhi - not Indira but Persis”. Her words fell on him like a bombshell. 

I could not help laughing when he came to this stage in his narration. Instantly he asked me to spare my laughter. A thunderbolt was in the offing, he said. She told him the purpose of her visit. And that was to bid adieu. She would retire from service the next day! Yes; that was a thunderbolt.

So, the “young lady” was 58, twice his age! Noticing his acute discomfiture, she coolly exclaimed with a hearty laugh, “Oh! Now the mystery is lost! What a shame!”

“Yes, it was a real shame”, Ravi would recall later. He said with some resentment in his voice that, by denying him all those days even a hint about her age, she was perhaps unconsciously exercising an element of passive deception on him. Some kind of timely clue could have helped him position himself rightly early on in their relationship.  

“Of course, ours was a quasi-official friendship with no sentiments attached, and hence no regrets and no damage done. And, truth to tell, I had no guilt feeling.”

*                    *                    *

Now, Chacko, I can only guess why the lady came to see him for the first and last time in the guise of Indira Gandhi. In the first place she was proud of her close semblance with the Prime Minister. And then her surname. To emphasise that semblance she might have given herself a few touches. That was perhaps her way of demonstrating her admiration for her icon who was being hailed by the world in the aftermath of her victory in the war as the new queen-empress of India. And she might have been moving around in the last few days of her career in that guise bidding adieu to her friends and receiving their attention and accolades for her being Indira Gandhi's 'dupe'. I can’t make any other guess about this otherwise mature lady's whim. Nor could Ravi.

*                    *                    *

Dear Chacko, this happened some four decades ago. Now, I am not surprised about Shoab Malik’s case which you have referred. I get the impression that the young fellow had some vague infatuation for that unseen girl on the phone. But did she intentionally fool him? And if she did, for what purpose? He avers he had not even seen the girl. When I read about it, I thought it was a ludicrous story especially because of its many loose ends. So, leave it at that, and let me join you now in wishing the young couple Sania and Shoaib a happy married life. It could be one more drop of friendliness in the dry ocean of Indo-Pak friendship!

Warm regards,

K X M John

27/04/2010

Human side of population control

When the Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus observed a couple of centuries ago that population finds its level based on fertility rates, famine and diseases, he could not have imagined that the last two factors, namely famine and diseases, could be eradicated in such a spectacular manner as has been realized in recent times. In such a changed context, the fertility factor if unchecked could trigger a population explosion far surpassing possible growth in livelihood, thus making life difficult and progress impossible.  Hence the need to control population by downsizing the family.

Such need was most keenly felt in independent India which had a fast-growing population living at subsistence level. Hence the justification for state intervention in controlling fertility to adjust to the new realities. And it was India that took initiative first among the countries, in 1952, under the visionary leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru, towards adopting population control as a state objective.

At the same time, social norms were changing. Joint family system gave way to nuclear families, and women began to work for money. It became difficult for working couples to look after more children. And all of a sudden a competitive culture burst upon the society. Children demanded attention, not only in material terms but equally so in emotional terms. Their educational and healthcare demands have made each child a precious project to be taken up with delicate care. If children are God’s gift to parents, what they make out of the children has to be their return gift to God. And it becomes difficult for parents to give themselves to their children if their number exceeds a critical level; and two is considered by most parents as the optimum.

Therefore, if population control is a state objective, then family downsizing is a keenly felt need of the people. That means there is no quarrel between the state and the citizen. What the state thinks at the macro level, the people want at their personal level. To go by a saying in Malayalam, what the doctor has prescribed and what the patient had eagerly desired happen to be the same. So, what the state is required to do is to create the needed ambience to help people achieve their goal of two-child family.

That being so, why the state and its spokespersons often take self-righteous stands and become indignant and intolerant whenever they fancy that people might transgress their own self-accepted ‘norm’ unless under constant threat of penalties? And why is the strident tone often adopted by state agencies and even well-meaning lawyers to express their disapprovals in the matter?

This habitual intolerance is exemplified in the recommendations of the Kerala Law Reforms Commission headed by V R Krishna Iyer for the purpose of protecting the interests of women in the state.  It had recommended that any movement, campaign or project which would stand against the said norm would attract penalty. And there are lawyers who would uphold this kind of recommendations, unmindful of the fact that they have become anachronistic and redundant in the context of states like Kerala. (See the article on the subject that appeared in NIE on 7/11/11.)

Kerala is the one state in India which has recorded decadal growth in population below 10 percent. Its growth rate was 9.43 percent during 1991-2001 and still lower at 4.86 percent in 2001-11, matching with developed countries in the world (e.g. USA: 7.26% and China: 5.43%). The growth percentages at pan-India level were 21.54 in 1991-2001 and 17.64 in 2001-11. Then why this legal activism in Kerala?

In the article cited above, there are justifying references to judgments upholding state cruelties to employees who had ‘violated’ the two-child norm. There is mention of a Supreme Court order upholding the termination of services of an air hostess because she became pregnant for the third time in violation of her service rules. Instead of declaring the rule draconian and unconstitutional, the Court upheld her termination of service on the grounds that, paraphrased, she was unfair to the country by adding to its burgeoning population!

It may be observed that India’s decadal population growth has come down from 24.8 percent (in 1961-71) to 17.64 percent now. (The improvement was better in the case of southern India and the adjacent states of Maharashtra and Orissa.) This reflects people’s realization of the benefits from smaller families and not from any imposed norm. Compulsory sterilization attempted by the Government during the Emergency misfired because it went against the grains of the people; in fact it only caused to harden their attitudes although for a short while. (If China lifts its dictatorial grip on its population, that moment there could be a backlash and the population may grow berserk for a while.)

Therefore, it is time the state plainly recognize the premises that family size is the prerogative of the parents, that people are increasingly realizing the benefits of the small-sized family, that they would self-adjust accordingly and that the Govt’s role be limited to educating/sensitizing the people about its macro implications and providing conducive ambience. Of course there are rural pockets in India especially in the North where this realization is yet to strike roots – areas marked by higher fertility and mortality indicators.

According to a recent report of the National Health Survey covering 284 districts in the North, there are severely handicapped districts in places like UP where the crude birth rates and death rates are several times higher than in neighbouring districts. For instance, while the birth rate in Bageshwar district in Uttarkhand is 14.7 children per population of 1000, it is 40.9 in Shrawasti in the neighbouring UP. If the death rate in Dhemaji Dt in Assam is 4.5 per population of 1000, it is 12.6 in Shrawasti. Rudraprayag in Uttarkhand reported infant mortality rate of 19 per 1000 live births; it is 103 in Shrawasti.

Obviously places like Shrawasti need Govt’s special attention in the form of education and healthcare. Once this is ensured and development take place, people could be expected to be sensitized about their family’s welfare in the modern sense; and family downsizing will naturally follow. Surely, crude pressure from the state will not yield the desired results from under-developed areas such as Shrawasti.

To summarize, family sizing is primarily the family’s concern.

In the modern context, people increasingly realize the benefit of small families, and they will adjust themselves accordingly, thereby ensuring national interests too in the process. No developed country in Europe or America had to apply state pressure to bring about the desired result.

K X M John

13/01/2012

(This article was published in the New Indian Express on 16/01/2012)