THE AMERICAN COLLEGE UPDATE….

Hurrah! The false criminal prosecution launched against me in April 2008 under the instigation of the former Bishop & Co ended at last, after 5years 7months and 2days. I stood trial in a special sessions court in Madurai. 

The charges were hurling of casteist abuses on a student and criminal intimidation of him. The jail sentence could have been not less than two years. On 27th November, the Judge called me in and said he would pronounce the judgment at 2.00 P.M. As I walked out of the court hall, the court peon hurriedly followed me in the corridor and scratched my back from behind and in a soothsayer’s voice said, “You are going to get a favourable verdict and please reward me suitably as soon as you hear that.” I only laughed.

At 2.00 P.M. the judge pronounced my acquittal. As I walked out of the court hall, I was received by two of my AC colleagues. (Of the hundred odd loyalists only two remain now). Both sounded very sympathetic and one of them asked me why I should not launch some legal action for having been harassed through a false case by my enemies. I said I did not have a clear answer. But I started thinking as we all walked towards my lawyer’s chamber.

The crucial thing for my acquittal as far as I know, was the categorical admission by the student-complainant during the cross examination, that the complaint itself was false and he did it only under instigation. He further stated that he made such averments initially in the court under compulsion only. He explicitly expressed his regret to the court. 

In my understanding it was perjury. After testifying before the court that day, the complainant came straight to the cafeteria where I was sitting with my lawyers, fell on my feet and asked to be forgiven. I too, in flamboyance spoke words of forgiveness and consoled the youngster saying that all that melting of his soul happened because he happened to tread on the soil of a noble institution called American College. Like a repenting Tamil movie villain in the closing scene, he promised to return to me as a great man much reformed though. I instantly suffered the super consciousness of an Indian Guru.

Now, let me come to the implied suggestion of my friend that I should prosecute the youngster. But I tell him that, this more than five years of harrowing experience, has only taught me greater wisdom than thirst for seeking justice through courts.

Whenever I ask my lawyers about perjury they joke at me saying that my ideas are coloured by courtroom scenes of Hollywood movies. They say that there is no strong perjury law in India. It seems that judges also are not keen on perjury offences committed during court proceedings.

But I blame Lord Macaulay and the British who laid the foundation for our criminal jurisprudence. They surely believed in the oriental notion that Indians are congenital liars. Perhaps they thought, a strict law on perjury would be too harsh on the natives. Less said better about our parliamentarians. They themselves constantly lie on anything from travel claims to declaring wealth. It is quite natural that in the 66 years of freedom they have not thought about stopping lies told in the courts or under oath.

For me, moral laws look somewhat more important than laws of the legislature and pronouncements of the courts. See here, the instigator is not under scrutiny. He is the real criminal. He instantly turned a youngster into a wrongdoer through lure of money. But moral law worked in him at least in slow ferment and changed him in 5years 4months 3 days forcing him to make the confession of truth finally. In fact, the moral ferment worked 3 months faster than the ordinary law through the court. I won. 

“Jesus” said my friend, hearing this. This suddenly reminded me of the Christian Law. I asked my friend “Do you want to know about the Christian Law?” He said “I will be pleased sir…. after all we are Christians.” Then I said, “About 2000 years have lapsed after Jesus was killed through false charges and illegal prosecution… Christian Law does not seem to have caused any ferment in our minds in 2000 years.… especially in the minds of Bishops, High Priests and church men…see how our new Bishop himself recently faced a false case … a rape case.”
With certain desperation and finality, my friend asked me “What is the earthly use of these courts then?” I answered him saying that we certainly need them because this is where both the criminals and the innocent are brought together to tell their lies and truths and wrestle. They call it rule of law, an important ingredient of a civilized society.


Chinnaraj Joseph

PARADIGM SHIFT AND NOT REVOLUTION: GIVE UP DELUSIONS KEJRIWAL!

The past two hundred years of world history is replete with examples of emerging democratic aspirations and accompanying fluidity of social and political conditions either regressing into earlier forms of retrograde beliefs and practices or slipping into dictatorships. Positive changes in democratic beliefs and refinements over practices have not happened in terms of smooth linear progressions. They have happened only over painful convulsions of society or even over show of organized and unorganized violence by interested parties and their adversaries. Even the so called matured democracies like the UK and the USA could not escape this experience.

This prelude though might look a little farfetched however would put the present situation in India in perspective. Democracies like good wine do not mature overnight. Let us have a brief look at our less than seven decade history of democracy.

On obtaining Independence, India’s elite thought that putting in place a well synthesized liberal constitution to support a form of parliamentary rule, would get us democracy. Constitutionalism and elite leadership exhausted their mandate by late 1960s. As a response, the major faction of the very party that pioneered national independence and liberal democracy, under Indira Gandhi regressed into experimenting first with a left leaning populism with a command economy and when that did not work, with dictatorship curbing constitutionally guaranteed freedoms and proclaiming Emergency. This was responded by waves of protests and resistance movements at the cost of many personal sacrifices of both leaders and cadres alike.

The fight against Emergency positively introduced two vital aspects into Indian democracy: i. the belief that irrespective of the state of socio-economic development and literacy, the Indian people can use their discretion to cause a ‘revolution’ through the ballot box (which they have once again demonstrated in some measure in the Assembly elections in Delhi); ii. the Supreme Court of India is a necessary bulwark against any derailment of democracy as it responded to Emergency misdemeanors by propounding the theory of ‘basic structure of the constitution’ thereby providing an in-built safeguard against any future abuse of the constitution by the legislators. This was a major paradigm shift leading to further strengthening of the institutional foundation of Indian democracy.

This set in motion the post-Emergency social and political activism culminating in new forms of political articulations and formation of political parties representing hitherto politically marginalized backward castes, dalits, tribals and ethnic groups. The politics of patronage by monolithic national and regional parties came to an end. The dalits, the tribals, the backward castes and women came to acquire independent powers of negotiation by winning elections either through the freshly floated parties or of-late, accommodated by mainstream parties as candidates. This, no doubt is not a mean achievement for Indian democracy and I would call that as another favourable paradigm shift. However, this also brought in, certain unintended consequences.

The new-found faith in elections made political parties and leaders get obsessed with winning elections by crook or fluke. They found a new cocktail by mixing policy populism and freebies with money and muscle and used it to win elections. This led to wholesale promotion of corruption and criminalization of political parties. The citizens came to be seen as purchasable voters. We nearly lost everything we gained through previous struggles and stood vouching for the most perverted form of plebiscital democracy. Neo liberal reforms and privatization provided opportunities of gold rush for parties and political leaders.

But what we very often fail to recognize is, Indian democracy’s ability for self-correction. When the political gloom encircled especially through fraudulent electoral practices and overwhelming corruption, two creative responses came through. First it was Sheshan as Chief Election Commissioner who marvelously responded to the situation by proposing and implementing a comprehensive election reforms which no one can deny effectively curbed many questionable practices and brought greater accountability in conducting elections. Second, it was the effort primarily of the social activist Aruna Roy which resulted in the enactment of the Right to Information Act in the year 2005. An impassionate analysis of the happenings of the past ten years would show the kind of potentials they have created for the well-meaning citizens for course-correction of Indian democracy. Does this not qualify as another paradigm shift?

Think for a while what Kejriwal would have done for stepping up his political career without RTI? How he would have created the activist platform ‘Public Cause Research Foundation’ the pre-politics that helped Kejriwal later launch Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)? How he would have fared in Delhi elections without Sheshan’s reform?

These questions I ask not to cause vain or discount Kejriwal’s achievements. It is first to underline the resilience and the true potential of Indian democracy for course correction if handled properly. Second, it is to properly locate Kejriwal in the right historical and institutional context so that we can assess what challenges that await him, and for us, what to expect from him. Without taking up this exercise we would historically see him as a messiah of mystical wilderness with superhuman potentials to deliver or, contemptuously dismiss him as another political aberration.

In the days of de-ideologised politics, it is always difficult to make a logically neat analysis of what a leader like Kejriwal and his Aam Aadmi Party stand for. Is he right of centre or left of centre? Or is he simply an old fashioned utopian socialist? Going by his immediate announcement of water and power subsidy after Delhi victory, can we blame him of having continued with populism? Worse, the party’s economic manifesto is still under preparation.

When we try to comprehend Kejriwal and his movement only the following come to our mind with certain incoherence and apparent contradictions: from the beginning he has been consistently pro-poor; equally consistent has he been in his crusade against corruption; he believes in constitutionalism meaning that he believes in the authority of the government and therefore he also believes that good governance derive from good laws as was evident from his fight for enactment of Lok Pal; but he does not categorically exclude vigilantism; he believes in the support of the intellectuals, academics, middle class professionals, corporate honchos and celebrities; but he also believes in the direct participation and decision making by the Aam Aadmi; he wants to hold the constitutional office of the Chief Minister of a state; but he would also like to continue with street protests; but would run the state; but would foolishly call himself as an anarchist.

I will simply excuse Kejiriwal for the lack of coherence not only because he needs more time to settle down in his new role but also for the simple reason that he did not start with a theory or ideology or even a party. His sincere and honest involvement in one issue led to the involvement in another. Improvising upon and expanding his area of operation, he became the Chief Minister - took a less traversed road to power.

But I will not excuse him for his giddy acts of street protest, his loud-mouth and inability to honestly restrain delinquent party colleagues. Kejriwal seems to suffer both from a pattern of regression resorting to earlier habits of protest as well a delusion of grandeur which makes him say that he is an anarchist [revolutionary]. Perhaps the unexpected success has shocked him too much. What he seems to have suddenly forgotten is the immense trust people have come to place on him is because of his honest and pragmatic involvement in addressing issues that directly affect the poorer strata, particularly in Delhi -fair working of PDS, corrupt free administration, access of the poor to basic necessities like water and power and efficient working of the law and order machinery. The middle and privileged classes too, see in his anti-corruption crusade several answers for their own urban woes and of course guilt-free wealth creation. In other words, amidst gloom why people chose to vote for him was because he would give good governance. Perhaps they do not have the right vocabulary to say that to him.

Unfortunately Kejriwal by saying “Change can’t be incremental,” and “I am an anarchist” is after all selling some cheap fantasy that he is up to founding an alternate system of polity and economy. Kejriwal must first realize that he is very much a product of neo-liberal polity and economy and by all fair judgment has ample scope to further improve upon the democratic polity and nothing beyond. This in itself is a laudable goal and he must have the woolliness of his vision removed. He must also realize that his very strength for mobilization of people, campaigning and protest do not draw from a revolutionary upsurge of a people asking for demolition of a system but from within the facilitating structures of the Indian democracy and the aspirations of millions of people longing to get good governance by participating in an electoral process. His and his colleagues’ populist anarchy would not only demean the rule of law but also weaken the very platform on which he is standing.

Kejriwal awaits two immediate acid tests to pass. First one is a major political challenge passing of which would certainly help him cross the threshold factor as a harbinger of major political reform. This means winning of 6 out of 8 Lok Sabha seats in Delhi and polling of at least 15% of total votes in AAP’s favour on the total count, in the coming Lok Sabha election. This he ought to do using the same transparent way of fund collection and choosing the right candidates. Then he would prove to the world that he has the potential to clean up corruption from India as the very root of corruption as we have argued above is in its electoral system. He will create a cascading effect all over india.

Second, he should quickly settle down to give Delhi a model of governance at least in a year so that the model can be replicated elsewhere without which he will quickly loose his turf in Delhi itself.

For these two things to happen he has to put a party in order and make it work responsibly with some focus and commitment. For the moment it looks a motley crew. Mr. Kejriwal are you clear of your mission?

Dr. Chinnaraj Joseph

CONSUMER GREED: “SOULLESS MAGGOTS”

We are not quite aware that how much the consumer culture 
has promoted greed in a manner that it has promoted in turn a new type of villainy in every one of us. We have become so cynical that we want to live in an idyllic present. We are fond of saying “Nobody can change this world.” A very close friend of mine wrote to me recently, “Principles and philosophies, ideologies and protests and struggles and sacrifices have already lost their meanings in this world. Why you old bloke try to pain my soul with your preaching of inner meaning of any work of art?" I was disappointed. Then for no conscious reason the vision of a python, an elephant and swarming maggots entered my mind. And I wrote the following.

SOULLESS MAGGOTS…

It’s not simple villainy,

death in dark shafts of greed

silk-screened sweet smiles.

Marauders loot your house in day light

leave you wounded.

Python eating elephant in the yard

complains of flatulence

you laugh

but a few vets wait for its droppings.

Houseflies are senseless

they ever hover over

your maggoty wounds

simple creation are maggots soulless

soon would they want a corpse.

A Tribute to JV

Prof. J. Vasanthan 

I think it is more correct to say that JV bade us farewell yesterday. Unlike many, he wanted to be truly in charge of even his final journey from home so that no dead ritual, no habituated priest and no requiem, could misrepresent his faith and deep spirituality. As he was consigned to flames, what finally flew back from the ember to imprint on you was his signature-JV.

The closing phrase of a very secular hymnal that gently floated through and fell on my ears in the crematorium was “Ponavar punniam namakku.”(The good that the departed has left behind is ours). This made me pause for a while and feel more poignant.

I know that there are many close friends and colleagues who can talk more authentically than me about JV. I was not his student. I was not his colleague in the department. I would not claim myself to be his intimate friend. I was not an active member of the Curtain Club either. Joining the faculty in 1981, I was seventeen years junior to him. My student day awe of the word ‘JV’ I still carried in my head. My wife, who was yet to be my wife, had known him much earlier. Even then, I avoided him. 

But my first accidental meeting with him in the canteen was a serious beginning of a relationship the memories of which I would cherish forever. His first conversation with me put in me such great self-worth that all the ‘myth of a monster’ was gone in a single encounter. He took me seriously. Till this day I value this gesture as it was very important for me as a young person aspiring to grow. 

The first art I saw in him was his conversation. The beauty of his conversation was in his ability to listen and appreciate. Unlike many artists, he was no narcissist. He entertained everyone who went to him and got himself entertained by them. Once he told me, “Even if I am too bored of someone, I do not stop taking inspiration from him or her to draw a cartoon character.” That was his aesthetic self defense.

There was a general notion that JV did not take criticism kindly. But my experience was radically different. It needs no mentioning that Shakespeare and stage drama were his passion. At one point he wanted me to act in one of his plays. I was in fact frightened. It was not only that I did have little talent for acting but also very little knowledge of the play under question. Then he suggested that I can see his play and provide a critique. I was just married for a few weeks but dutifully came with my wife and sat in the third row. In the first twenty minutes we became impatient for obvious reasons and wanted to go out. We stole ourselves into darkness and tried to slip out. Before we reached the parking lot we were caught by JV who had followed us. “So you didn’t like my play?” he asked. There was a disappointment in his voice. We felt thoroughly embarrassed. We gave some vague excuses and left, apologizing. But I felt sad. I went to him in a few days and confessed: “Sir, somehow I don’t like stage plays…Is it not possible that you innovate on the form and even on the script.” Saying this I became nervous. “Then you help me in that,” he said without a wink. I knew my inadequacy. The name ‘David of TTS’ figured in then and he held a series of meetings with him. But it became one of his unfinished projects. His passion didn't blind him or anger him. After a long time, when I casually asked about it, he without any pretension said, “I think it is too late in the day.”

It was 1984. Street theatre became a counter point to his stage drama on campus and I was busily promoting it with the help of Thedal Troupe. In my enthusiasm I went about telling everybody “Ours is Curtainless Club.” It was BG who called me one day and asked me, “Chinnaraj, don’t you think you are hurting JV.” It took a while for me to realize my rudeness. But JV never even once expressed his displeasure. He continued to be only curious about Street Theatre and had his conversations with me, with the same old elan. I discovered that he was an exemplary model of a man too sure of himself and too gentle to take notice of the ordinary and commonplace in people and get ruffled. Possibly he was the only senior colleague with whom I never entered into an argument.
He spoke spontaneously. He wrote with enormous candour. Simple things amused him. He celebrated things he remembered with significance. His quick wit of course took you by surprise.

‘No politics’ was his politics. He never easily took sides. His equipoise attracted everyone. This does not mean that he was indifferent to issues that mattered. He was greatly anguished by the events of 2008. He without hesitation threw his weight on the side of justice and unequivocally condemned the aggression of the church. In a way it exasperated him and he started feeling very hurt by the turn of events. At one point even he avoided being dragged into any conversation relating to the college. 

The last long conversation I had with him was about a year or more ago. It lasted for about three hours. It was about his childhood, days with his mother and grandfather at Kovilpatti, black & white photography, talk about Sawyerpuram, my village where from his grandmother hailed and about a few of his paintings. It was full of nostalgia. He was already frail and almost stumbled as he got up. He went into his study and searched for something. He came out again and said, “Chinnaraj I wanted to gift you one of my paintings but I don’t find it.” I convinced him that I would come some other time and receive it. But that never happened. I saw him finally in the hospital bed on Jan13. When His wife mentioned my name there was a half wink of his eye lids.

What makes JV special? Of course his talents as dramatist, writer, painter and convesationalist come to our mind. Unlike many artists, he never allowed himself to be carried away by ‘a self of projected talents.’ He buried his talents deep in his personality and presented ‘a life sublime’ that made him so charming and endearing. Art and living were not two different things for him. He suffered no grandiose. This singular aspect of his life made him a teacher extraordinary. This made JV give his signature to American College. This made people of Madurai cherish him. 

For me personally, he always gave me the necessary emotional and intellectual warmth to grow but gracefully allowed the critical distance. I could never go away from his orbit.

It is important to remember here the contribution of Mrs. Padmini Vasanthan his wife and constant companion without whom JV would have lost half his charm.
I think the most fitting way to pay tribute to JV is to create an endowment and plan for a memorial lecture as an annual event. JV story needs to be appropriately remembered. 

Ponavar punniam namaku! 

Chinnaraj Joseph

NEMESIS

When public enemies like Narahasura torment you, you long for nemesis to catch up with them. Everyone has his/her own way of expressing it. I thought I can say it this way:

NEMESIS

What I speak now is what I’m prompted to speak: 

I saw truth spreading its wings like summer sky;

but your bright stars slip into black holes!

your hands smell of fresh blood

jackals on the trail!

You clutch still the trump cards

but will not play them again.

You will go blind on Thursday;

Friday will dawn for your enemy.

Mighty mars will leave your house!

You will lie on its floor like a

starving frog of summer sand!

Like the plague of a medieval town

will end, your reign of torment.

JESUS SAVES LAKSHMI’S MONEY…

Ten days ago, I was at Indian Institute of Management ( IIM) Indore. When I arrived there, the first person I met was the reception officer of the Executive Residence in the front desk, a man in late thirties but with early balding. He was neatly dressed sporting a tie. The moment I saw him, I thought he was a South Indian. But he would not give you the least chance to identify himself so. Every time he detected my slightest curiosity, he put it down with a stony smile by slightly twitching his cheeks but firmly holding the lips together. Every time I experienced it, I gave him in my mind a new name- ‘unfriendly’, ‘arrogant’, ‘stoneface’ and ‘musudu’. 

The last day when I was preparing to leave settling my accounts at the desk Mr. Stoneface of the IIM, surprised me with a big friendly smile showing all his teeth. Now, I only wanted to reciprocate it by a tight lip plastic smile. As the car didn’t arrive, I left the luggage at the desk and walked towards the dining hall for taking a cup of tea.

But Mr.stoneface came along into the dining hall and very eagerly offering to speak and help me with a tea. I was annoyed. Without me listening he spoke: “Sir, like you, I am a Christian… I thought I must talk to you before you left.” This further annoyed me. But I said,” You look like a South Indian.” He said,” I am Rao from Mysore… you know I have married a Jabalpuri Christian girl. Jesus has blessed me with a beautiful child… do you want to see?” He showed me the photo from his cell phone. The child was really beautiful, about two years old. “You got converted then?” I asked.”Sort of so, but what I wanted to share with you sir, before you left is that I feel the continuous presence of Jesus in me.”

“You stopped going to temples?” I asked him. He said, “No… You know what happened during the Lakhmi pooja at home? I left a bundle of ten thousand rupees in front of the deity leaving the incense stick burning near it. We both, I and my wife left locking the house. As I reached office, I suddenly realized that the notes would be burnt. I can’t go home from work. I prayed to Jesus and forgot about it. When I went home in the evening the incense sticks had burnt only four notes and stopped. I got them exchanged in the bank next day. It is not a big miracle sir I know, but it is really the presence of God that day that kept me happy and without anxiety.” As I shook hands to leave, I didn’t ask “Which God?”

But I cursed myself for having tried to put him into a category. Lesson: “Do not cast aside unsmiling faces in public.”

But do you know which God keeps Rao’s peace?

MAHATMA MADIBA AND SOUTH AFRICA

Dear Barbara and Peter,

On the 6th of December even before the Indian TV and the News Papers announced the death of Nelson Mandela, a friend of mine called me from Australia early in the morning to share the news. Though anticipated, the news badly upset us. More than me, my wife Tresa was upset as she always called herself as an ardent fan of Mandela.

My thought immediately went to you and Peter as I felt that this is probably the time you must have been in South Africa to share the feelings of millions of fellow South Africans celebrating the life of the giant of a leader and an extraordinary human being. For us, the consolation was to continuously watch BBC and occasionally break down witnessing the scenes of police brutality and the killing of the ordinary and the mighty alike, during the apartheid years.

Adulation of great leaders like Mandela, is an inevitable and natural human reaction. But to look back and reflect on our memories and meaningfully link it to our present and future, is the most difficult and painful thing. The leaders who inspire us are not either our blood kin or our personal friends. But when they die, we feel a strange sense of loss because consciously and unconsciously, we have borrowed their dreams if not shared them as their equals; we have sought indulgences in their sufferings and sacrifices to lead a life in comfort; even when they are old and out of action, we have searched for their long shadows of twilight for soothing ourselves under it.

Any one in India, who is a little mindful of history, would admit that the pre history of our anti colonial struggle started only in South Africa. Our people from Tamil Nadu by virtue of providing their slave labour, gave the early apartheid vocabulary of ‘coolie’ and ‘samy,’ to South Africa. When I first read Gandhi’s autobiography as a young boy, the most fascinating but annoying part I found, was his narrative on South Africa. It was such an interesting coincidence, in 1990, when Tresa started a serious study of Gandhi’s political activism in South Africa, we watched in awe, Mandela walking out of the apartheid prison. The same year he visited India. We were really excited. South Africa became psychologically closer. Whenever Tresa got excited, she used to repeat “Mandela is one man whom I want to meet one day and give a hug.” I used to heartily laugh.

Interestingly, she wrote in her thesis that Gandhi was more radical as an anti apartheid political activist in South Africa, than as he led the Indian National Movement. This angered many Gandhians here. Whenever Mandela acknowledged Gandhi, we used to feel mighty proud of Gandhi’s early radicalism and our understanding of it.

1993. Aparthied had come to an end. I came to US. When I came to PLU, I least thought I would be able to freely speak all that I thought as to be Third World radicalism. I feared I would be branded. The very first news that awaited me in the international programme office of PLU was,“A South African woman professor is interested in co teaching with you.” The first question I asked, “White or Black?” I was unnerved when I heard “White.” I was put off. But by noon, you almost nabbed me in the buffet lunch and talked me out on your proposal of co teaching, Nelson Mandela, some celebration over his release from prison earlier in Tacoma or Seattle if my memory serves right, your anti apartheid activism in student days, final suffocation and leaving of South Africa to escape oppression.

Looking back 20 years, I would frankly admit that I did not understand anything during that overwhelming conversation but two things- the empathy you had for the suffering and the oppressed and the exaggerated respect you had for my Third World consciousness and scholarship which I least expected from a “White South African.”

Discussing and teaching of Acheby’s “Things Fall Apart” became a great turning point in my teaching style later and more specifically in addressing the sense of ‘loss and recovery’ one needed to address in postcolonial conditions. Tacoma year, really brought SA still closer and I must really thank you for that. You became my (South African) home away from home in America.

Mahathma and Madiba - Tresa and I think, it is difficult to compare; and one need not compare. Both are great in their own ways. Then what makes Madiba different? It was Madiba’s earthiness. This, we can understand from his own utterance. Once he said,“ I could never reach the standard of morality, simplicity and love for poor set by the Mahatma…While Gandhi was a human without any weakness, I am a man of many weaknesses.”Endearing indeed!
Then come, his resoluteness and courage. Twenty seven years of apartheid prison did not break him. Ironically, it recovered in him, a great urge for forgiveness and reconciliation.
What if the apartheid regime had killed Mandela? I don’t raise this as a perverted academic argument. This question suddenly came to my mind when I chanced to see in the TV, the 137 nooses hung in the apartheid museum to signify the savage hanging of 137 anti-apartheid activists and Mandela’s ANC colleagues. Mandela was perhaps lucky. In our adulation for Mandela, we should not forget one thing; in that 137, there could have been a few Mandelas in the making. Maybe, this is a matter of our hope and despair. As we mourn the death of Madiba, it is important to remember with equal respect these noble men and women who laid down their life for the sake of securing freedom and dignity for all of us.

They say in the press and elsewhere, after Mandela, the scam ridden ANC would lose much of its ground. No! His ghost will be there to tell us that it is important to fight for freedom and pay a price. When Mahatma died, did any one anticipate the arrival of Madiba? Certainly no! But Madiba said, “The ghost of Mahatnma inspired me.” So let us not despair that Madiba is gone. In the true Indian and African sense, his ghost will be there with us. We will have Mahatmas and Madibas arriving on this earth as long as we deny our fellow beings freedom and dignity. Let us not despair… let us not despair! Let us thank him for his life.

But for you and I, there remains one big challenge - to tell this truth to the present generation!

Lots of love to you and Peter,
Tresa & Chinna