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dam-l LS: Bizarre Indian Express article on Rally for the Valley (fwd)
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From owner-irn-narmada@igc.org Fri Aug 6 17:40:36 1999
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Subject: LS: Bizarre Indian Express article on Rally for the Valley
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Some magical realism from the Indian Express.
> Friday, August 6, 1999
>
> When the valley waited for the river child
>
> S PRASANNARAJAN
>
> NEW DELHI, AUG 5: It was the river-rafting novelist as
>a rainy revolution's
> pin-up girl. It was Arundhati Roy, the famous waif from
>the banks of the
> Meenachal, as the flower child of the Narmada. It was
>fiction garlanded by
> choreographed reality.
>
> It was the Rally for the Valley.
>
> For seven nights and six days, city-slick radicalism
>sang Hum sub ek hai with
> cowdung-smelling andolan, backpack brotherhood tangoed
>with bucolic
> solidarity, and the Narmada didn't give a dam to the
>bachao-barking invasion.
> As the well-meaning Martians landed in the Valley, the
>novelist alone stood
> apart, so conspicuous in her casual, curly smallness.
>
> As more than 200 aliens from distant planets romanced
>through places like
> Pathrad, Maheshwar, Chotta Barda, Kasrawad, Nisarpur,
>Kakrana, Jalsindhi
> and Domkhedi, all zones of submergence, singing,
>dancing, sloganeering
> `Free the Narmada, Stop the Dams', curiosity number one
>was of course ``the
> anthardeshiya lekhika Madam Roy''. But condoms,
>crocodiles and
> Shivlingams providedunsolicited adjectives to the river
>yatra. Things so
> distant from the ``anger and sorrow'' of Roy.
>
> When body fluid achieved metaphoric harmony with river
>water in
> Maheshwar, did Shiva, the presiding deity of the temple
>in the ghat, laugh?
> Used condoms, illuminated by a hundred diyas in the
>Narmada, in the
> shadow of Maheshwar's revered Shivlingam? The
>remarkable loudspeakers
> of NBA (Narmada Bachao Andolan) gave the answer in the
>language of a
> less-than-erotic revolution.
>
> It all started with a middle paragraph in a local
>broadsheet. The Maheshwar
> SDM reportedly told the correspondent that used condoms
>were found on the
> jail floor occupied by arrested NBA activists, men and
>women. It happened
> more than a year ago. In the rally night of July 31,
>this exclusive revelation
> looked like a sleazy footnote to the salvation theology
>of the NBA. The
> sudden appearance of the district collector could only
>turn the erotic into the
> bureaucratic. And nobody bothered about the molested
>sacredness of the ghat.
>
> ``Deny it,deny right now'', demanded the Narmada
>revolutionaries.
>
> ``Let me explain'', said the collector, who
>incidentally represents a
> Government which is rather indulgent towards the andolan.
>
> ``Explanation? The condoms were there because of you
>and the SP. There are
> women police in the jail'', fumed a She Revolutionary
>from the NBA.
>
> ``How can a woman speak like this!''
>
> At the end of it all, the collector, Bhoopal Singh
>(``It is a Sanskrit name'', he
> explained to this correspondent as a way of
>establishing his sacred
> credibility), didn't end up in the Narmada. He survived
>the fury, disentangled
> himself from the revolutionary, sat there sweating with
>the cops. And offered
> a chair to The Indian Express.
>
> ``You know, I can deal with all of them if it is
>one-to-one''.
>
> ``You're used to it?''
>
> ``Oh yes. In private we talk business.''
>
> Later, in private, NBA activist Silvie revealed: It was
>an S Kumars (the
> private builder of Maheshwar dam) plant, this condom
>business. (But Singh
> thinks there may be an officialvideotape to prove it
>all.) Also in private,
> Ashish Kothari, an exceptionally quiet redeemer amidst
>the NBA
> loudspeakers, said: ``It was in bad taste. They forgot
>civilised behaviour''. In
> the din and darkness, nobody heard or saw the response
>of the Shivalingam.
> And the diyas have already travelled quite a distance
>in the river, as if they
> were running away from the pornography of the andolan.
>
> Their destination must have been Kasrawad, the home of
>Baba Amte, the river
> father. He was waiting for the river child. She, in
>jeans and shirt, her
> fluorescent purple scarf like a beautifully convoluted
>sentence on a thin,
> spartan page, came to the Baba, sat at his feet and
>listened to the
> media-friendly Baba speak. ``Saraswati has come to the
>Narmada'', the Baba
> told a crowd fed on bananas and tea. ``She will stir
>the conscience of the
> people'', he said. Lying photogenically under a banyan
>tree, the Baba paused
> after every sentence, savouring the response from the
>cameras and the
> rallyists. ``My daughter has raisedthe conscience of
>the world'' ``Thank you
> Baba'', the daughter said, holding his hands. Even
>satellite dishes and cows
> of the ashram must have found the riverbank intimacy
>quite liberating.
>
> Actually, liberation's last resort was an intimate
>remoteness called Jalsindhi,
> protected by mountains and caressed by the river. The
>end of the world, the
> nerve centre of the andolan, the passion of the
>andolan's highest diva, Medha
> Patkar. She jumped out of the boat, and melted in the
>cause. Roy came
> trekking, ignoring the boat and favouring the
>mountains. ``It was great yaar,
> the walking''. Jalsindhi was greater, in its beauty, in
>its defiance. The
> andolan's last romance. For the tribals, the romance of
>that day was Roy, a
> magnificent curiosity in a Medha-affected world. Even
>the solitary crocodile
> was curious.
>
> Only the armed men from the Special Armed Forces
>deferred. ``The guns are
> for protecting her from possible crocodile attacks'',
>they said as the boat went
> upstream from Jalsindhi. But there was no one toprotect
>her when the woman
> MLA stormed into her compartment at Ujjain. The train
>was taking the tired
> rallyists back home.
>
> ``What happened?''
>
> ``A bearded woman who looked like a man came and abused
>me''.
>
> It was the local member of the Legislative Assembly.
>
> Garlanded fiction was not used to it. For MLAs don't
>read The God of Small
> Things. On that Wednesday night, the crocodile was not
>there to weep. The
> Narmada was elsewhere.
>
> ``Where is it at this moment?''
>
> ``I still can't comprehend it. In the next two days I
>may end up in a lunatic
> asylum''. The rally was such an emotional upsurge for
>her. It was too much
> beauty.
>
> In the night train, the rally was not lyrical, not
>fictional, it was not poetry. It
> was as prosaic as the NBA's damspeak. For the novelist
>alone, it was a word
> in a beautiful sentence. Suitable for any T-shirt.
>
> Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.