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He wanted to give a thumb-nail introduction to Faridpur town as it appeared to him in 1950. His fixation with the main road that ran from tepakhola to the bazaar at the other end was not only because of its length straight forward direction and important status, it was also because of a few landmark buildings that hugged along the stretch. The most adorable and pretty was the Zilla school, located in the middle but he was carried away so much by its presence that he started with its description in detail throwing in a few vignettes of his student life there. His life in Faridpur, which passed from boyhood (Koishore has no equivalent in English which is between childhood and adolescence, but Tarunnya in Bengali squares with adolescence in English nicely. It is the same confusion over seasonal names in English and Bengali, the former having four and the latter proud of having six even though the lines between some are maddeningly blurred). The main road, starting at Tepakhola, was at the periphery of the town where river Padma entered into a form of narrow and winding estuary. The navigability being shallow, no steamer or launch could approach Tepakhola ghat, which served mainly as a port of call by boats. There was no Gonja (river-linked wholesell bazaar) and Tepakhola remained decrepit and modest knowing its meagre potentials. Near Tepakhola there was a kutcha bazaar but it had nothing to do with the ghat, and catered to local residents with goods produced around. Adjacent to the bazaar was an orphanage from where some students attended Zilla school, one of whom reached London is 1962 and came to his bed-sitter. Being enterprising, he must have done well in life.
    The main road left Tepakhola without any fanfair or air of importance and went past a few two storied buildings on the right side, separated by a ditch. Faridpur town was a low-lying area and most land went under water in monsoon. For this reason, the highway, the by- ways and the buildings and all structures had to be constructed on raised land. In dry season the empty ditches and low lying lands looked bleak and bare, like gaping holes, making the landscape very uneven and pock-marked. But in the rainy season the ditches and low-lying land filled up with water bridging the glaring troughs and creating a mosaic of blue, green and brown. The town then a assumed the look of an uninterrupted expanse, whispering like a symphony of blue and green. The beauty of low-lying areas like Faridpur, and for that matter in most of Bangladesh (not so much in West Bengal) is in full blossom only in monsoon because rain water connects the dots criss-crossing the distance with little canals, ponds, and open water bodies (beels). During monsoon, the country boats became ubiquitous, ferrying people and goods. In Faridpur town, of course, there was no country boat, most people walked on road, and lanes or used bicycles. His father and other officers went to office in cycles, and the deputy commissioner walked to his followed by a peon, as did the district Judge and others. Transport was neither essential, nor a status symbol then. There were two or three troops carrier in the police line, leftovers from the second world war. On the rare occasions when they moved, the road and its environs trembled and thick brown dust swirled around as in a storm.
   Two hundred yards from the Tepakhola ghat came a T-junction on the road. The branch road going right had a one storied building where a non-Bengali refugee family lived. He had a son of his age who became a figure of fun because of his eccentricities. Firstly, he used to go to school with half a dozen pen and pencils in his pocket because he wanted to hedge the risks of pen drying up while writing and pencil being broken while writing in a hurry! He did not want to waste time refilling the pens or re-sharpening the pencils. The number of pens and pencils increased manifold during half-yearly and annual examinations when he presented quite a spectacle, almost looking like a handyman. His second obsession was to insist on taking part in the annual drama. Since he could not speak good Bengali, he was offered the role of Mrita Sainik (dead soldier). After a few years playing that dumb character he revolted and wanted to have a genuine role with dialogue. He was a likable bloke and a sincere one, to boot and the director of the play could not be harsh on him. So he was given the role of the queen who would mostly sit by the king’s side and utter from time to time “Ji Jahapana”. This was no problem for him because ‘Jahapana’ was very much his cup of tea being a Farsi word and Ji, of course’ was part of his daily vocabulary. But there was a problem that had to be contended with and it proved intractable. To give the appearance of a woman (queen!) he had to have (ahem) breasts and the usual proxy for breasts on stage in those days was dried shells of coconut cut equally in half. Since cups of coconuts dryied in “ripe old age”, were big and robust, those ill-fitted the small torso of the ‘drag queen’. Then breaking the convention of all male stage playing, instead of dry coconut, cups of ‘bell’ (a fruit having slightly a bigger size than tennis ball but with a very hard shell) were procured for him. Rolled into layers of clothes the cups displayed a very genuine appearance.
   Next to the non-Bengali family’s house was a two storied building which was abandoned by a Hindu family and used by the Additional Deputy Commissioner, who was always a ‘non’ Bengali, most probably a CSP officer. All the occupants of that house had to lift bedstead through a pulley to the veranda upstairs because the doors downstairs were too narrow for modern beds. The ADCs were all bachelors, having joined the service recently. Being their next door neighbor, they were frequent visitors to their house and their father encouraged he and his brothers to speak in Urdu with them to help pick up the language. Till then, the impression was that urdu was going to be the state language of Pakistan though demonstration was made against it in 1948. Being a loyal govt. servant his father did not question that idea.
   Their house was on the right side of the main road after it left the tri-junction. There were deep ditches on two sides, which were filled up in monsoon. There was a small road made of earth connecting the main road to their house. Within the boundary of the house first came a rectangular shaped big lawn, on the left of which was a small concrete floor where chairs were set up for sitting in the afternoon. On three sides of the concrete patch was vegetable garden where cauli flowers, tomatoes, cabbages and raddishes were grown in winter. In summer, rows of beanstalks stood in slight angles with luxurious growth of the plant. There were many date-palm trees scattered over the garden, particularly near the border. In winter, gachua (cutter of data-palm tree) came with his sharp sycle and riding up to the top he would faster his waist with a piece of rope to the tree and shaver, several layers of the soft portion of the tree fix a horizontally half-sliced bamboo pipe to let juice flow down. Beneath an earthen jar would be hung tied to the tree at an angle that would allow date juice to fall inside the jar. In a steady trickle in the morning the gachra would come to bring down the earthen jar. Very often he would show a puzzled look, seeing the small quantity of juice that callected in the jar. Little could he realize that, he and his brothers had made short shrift of his collection at dead of night. Date palm tasted best at night because of the freshness and the chill. But people mostly drank in the morning with breakfast when it smelt different and the chill touch was gone.
   Behind their house there was more land for vegetable growing, the size of which was even bigger than the front one. It would have costed a lot to till the land, weed it and sow the seeds of various vegetables if hired labour was engaged. But by following the prevailing custom, newly recruited constables from the adjacent police line was brought in the afternoon to work in the garden work which was ironically called ‘fatigue work’. Perhaps the authorities meant the work to be really ‘fatiguing’ and made no bones about it. In any case, it appeared inhumane to use the labour of constables for physical work that had no relation to their jobs or professional skills. Moreover, they had done all types of physical drill, and weapons training from morning till noon and deserved an afternoon’s rest. He always felt embarrassed when they came to work in their garden. The recruits, too, did not look happy and they kept their faces low, as if to hide shame. He could not understand how his father, an otherwise decent man, agree to this kind of forced slavery.
   He was told later that in police, army and smilar services the fort soldiers, who would be doing the ‘dirty work’ (beating up people, shooting enemies, etc.) had to be de-humanisied first. They had to undergo a personality change, as otherwise they would consider their adversaries (including criminals) as fellow human beings. The toughness would be lacking if the original shell was left intact. So the idea was to pack as much rage, vengefulness and contempt as possible, so that they could be ruthless and cruel when called into action. This hypothesis makes sense, as otherwise no justification can be found for the brutalities and atrocities perpetrated by them. The practice of “breaking the horse” was applied to dehumanize the law enforcing agencies’ lower ranks and soldiers in army has been age old and has been followed all over the world. Abu Ghraib, Kundun and Gitmo prove that it is not going to go away anytime soon, whatever furore they may create from time to time. Stanley Kubric said about it all in ‘Full metal Jacket’.
   Their house was the best of all, in his opinion, in Faridpur town. It was vast and sprawling surrounded by tall green trees and big lawns and ground, giving it the look of a country estate. Peace and tranquility reigned supreme. The design of the house was unique and must have been done by one who had a fine sense of balance in landscaping. On the ground floor were five big rooms with a bathroom and pantry. The kitchen was separate but adjacent to the main building. In the second floor there was just one big room with an attached bath. The rest of the space was used a big roof where they could play, sit and gossip at night and lie down on mats to look at the starry sky. It was there, on that roof, that he and his brothers came to identify the main stars, galaxies and constellations, like Casiopia, Libra, Kalpurush, Lubhdhok etc. which became familiar to them in no time. Of all the constellations, Kalpurush impressed them most, what with his swashbuckling posture and the hanging sword. The stars could be seen only on dark nights when the sky looked like a diamond-sequined robe. In moonlight nights the sky was awash with milky white rays with specks of cloud sometimes playing with the moon in a hide and seek game. Only the evening star was visible in those nights, rising high and then descending to the west, becoming the morning star. The pole star to the north was fixed but it was not always
   visible.
   In their new house at Faridpur, for the first time, they indulged in the luxury of living comfortably without congestion. With nine brothers and sisters theirs was a big family. (It was quite common in those days with many Muslim families even when there was one wife). Previously, not to speak of having a separate room, they could not have a bed for each. Beds had to be shared by brothers and sisters and during sleep kicking and blows by hand went on intermittently without their knowledge, as if by conditioned reflex. Only in the morning the displaced positions, would show how much space was grabbed by whom and who were the losers. Their living postures would also have changed. To complicate matter, some would wet beds, shifting the blame to others. In Faridpur with so many bed rooms the congestion in bed eased and turf raiding became unnecessary. To equip the rooms with new beds their father had even started buying second hand ones from Hindu families who were leaving. Later after seeing Rajen Tarafder’s ‘Palanka’, he realized the other significance of selling and buying of beds. It was a metaphor about dislocation and displacement. It also implied acquisition without a patient and eager wait. The same object had two different backgrounds and meanings, for the two parties. Melancholy mixed with jubilation in a strange chemistry of feelings.
   In front of their house, and across the main road, there was a pair of rowak (cement bench) leading to a petite looking one-storied house of yellow colour. It had a small verandah with slim but ornamental columns. On both sides of the veranda were two rooms of equal length (the breadth could not be seen) and the same type of windows. Three brothers, Rakib, Iskendar and Kaiser lived there with their widowed mother. They were of the same age group as his two elder brothers, Momin and Hannan and thus soon became friends. Their mother was very affectionate and treated them warmly. Visits between the two families became frequent and a relationship of informality and cordiality set in. Even he was not unwelcome to the company of others.
   Rakib Bhai’s family had a radio set, which no one else in the area had. It was a popular source of entertainment for all of them. Whenever some interesting programme would be on air his brothers would give the signal, putting on and off the switch for light. This was particularly effective at night. At ten ‘o’clock, the popular musical programme ‘Anurodher Ashar’ would start playing songs by popular singers like Hemonta, Jagonmoy, Shymal, Konika and others. He particularly remembers hearing one of the song of Hemonto, ‘Kona EK Gaer Bodhur Katha Tomai Sonai Sono, Rup katha noito noi”. It was a pathetic story of a village wife whose family became a victim of the 1942 famine and their village home was wiped away. The song sung in mournful tune which still haunts him and his brothers as it must be many others. When the song was played, the switch did not have to be put on and off. Their neighbors had already put the volume on high.
   Iskandar Bhai was a wing commander in PAF but was retired pre-maturily. He was killed by Pakistanis in 1971. Before his arrest he had fallen sick. While recuperating he painted life size portraits of Tagore, Nazrul, Subhas Bose and other Bengali celebrities on the walls of his room. They were still there on the walls after his death, a testament to a time of harmony, love and celebration of life.

Here is a thought for the war lobby that must have surely begun planning how to sabotage the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus link scheduled to start from 7 April. In the third week of October 1947 war began between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. The conflict has lasted 58 years. In the first week of January 2004 Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and President Pervez Musharraf signed the Islamabad declaration that has served as the basis of the current rapprochement. Peace will have lasted 58 weeks by the time the first bus leaves Srinagar for Muzaffarabad.
   In 58 years of conflict uncounted thousands of young lives have been lost and not a single square inch of land has changed hands. In 58 weeks of peace, yesterday’s heresies have become today’s facts, and what was unthinkable five years ago will become a reality six weeks later. Fireworks in Srinagar welcomed the promise that Natwar Singh and Khurshid Kasuri offered in Islamabad.
   India-Pakistan relations are an exercise in the art of the possible. Occasionally, as happened this week during external affairs minister Natwar Singh’s visit to Islamabad and Lahore, this is elevated to a fine art. While credit must always be evenly shared, a particular word of appreciation is necessary for the statesmanship of Natwar Singh. He did not let politics interfere with national interest. The Islamabad declaration was made by a bitter political foe, but instead of being petty and finding fault he built on that understanding and delivered far beyond conventional expectations. The declaration was a foundation, a statement of intent: nothing more, and indeed nothing less. The hard work still had to be done.
   It says something about the state of the BJP that it has responded to the Kashmir bus like a crab with ulcers. If the BJP is searching for much-needed comfort in traditional anti-Pakistan postures, then I have some news for the party. Atal Behari Vajpayee made all that irrelevant.
   The war lobby, which of course is a coalition of varied interests, must have an objective, for war cannot be an end in itself. Let us try and examine what it is as coolly and unsentimentally as possible. Militants, the self-proclaimed “jihadis” who have picked up the gun, believe that the status of Jammu and Kashmir can be changed by continuous, low-intensity, high-casualty warfare as long as they have the protection of a base outside the reach of the Indian Army. They underestimate the will of a state to preserve its geographical integrity. It is easy to be gulled by the rhetoric of a television debate, particularly when someone else’s child is being sent into the killing fields.
   Situations do not remain static. India and Pakistan have taken significant steps in the last seven years to preserve their national integrity, the most critical element being that they are now mature nuclear powers with efficient delivery systems. This has created a sense of psychological parity, particularly in Pakistan, which laboured, with reason, under the weight of being the smaller and therefore more vulnerable nation. The new zero-sum game has a happy calculus: neither side can win, and both might lose all they have if they are not careful.
   You could extend the syndrome. All the three principal military powers of Asia, China, India and Pakistan, are now mature nuclear states (North Korea would fall into the category of an immature nuclear state). China, India and Pakistan therefore lend the region from the Pacific to the Indian Oceans an unusual degree of geopolitical stability, for the era of defeat is over. So if a 1971 is now impossible, so is a 1962. A mixture of fear and opportunism was once the basis of uncertainty, and uncertainty promoted tension and adventurism. The beneficial paradox is that peace opens up opportunities that war once closed. China would never have recognised Sikkim as part of India under the threat of war. It has done so through the compulsions of peace.
   Peace has its compulsions as well, but since no sabre rattles we rarely hear about them. The compulsion of war is sacrifice: eat grass if you must, but find the money for arms. The compulsion of peace is economic growth and a better life. People put pressure on their leaderships to deliver more consumer goods, better basic infrastructure, health care, safety and a whole clutch of freedoms: to talk on phones without being tapped, to get access to entertainment, to travel with ease across frozen borders. Rasheed Masoodi lives in Srinagar, is 65 years old and has not seen his father, who lives in Muzaffarbad, for 56 years. A son who is a grandfather will now meet his father. Raja Mohammad Hussain is 96 and cannot restrain his joy that he will be able to see his birthplace, Muzaffarabad, before he dies. Peace has relit hope that conflict had extinguished. Those in power sneer at sentiment. They deliver sermons on what they will do for Kashmir, and have no time for the Kashmiri.
   India and Pakistan, having fought over Kashmir for so long, have at long last found time for the Kashmiri.
   It would be a disservice to underestimate what has been achieved. The last time a vehicle plied between Muzaffarabad and Srinagar was in October 1947, and it carried men intent on war. That is not a facetious truth. It is a harsh memory that has led to more bitterness on our subcontinent than any other fact of our history barring partition. Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, father of Farooq, never forgot the human price that Kashmiris had to pay as a problem became a tragedy and the tragedy spiralled out of control. The dream of an open road that could reunite families was always a part of the National Conference manifesto.
   It requires will to change a won’t. Natwar Singh and Khurshid Kasuri showed precisely how diplomacy can be used creatively when the will to do something positive exists. You can either find a solution for every problem, or a problem for every solution. And the bus was as tricky as it gets, for it involved issues as basic as identity and sovereignty. The two foreign ministers chose to look for solutions. They operated on the strength of a basic agreement, that no decision would be tantamount to any dilution of the known positions taken by the two countries on Kashmir. Pakistan could not accept a Kashmiri crossing a disputed border with an Indian passport for it would have been tantamount to recognition of Kashmir as a part of India. So a document was created that would contain all the details that a passport has, would be issued by the Regional Passport Officer (who is a servant of the federal government) and handed over to the other country for permission to enter, just as a passport is handed over for a visa.
   Now, it was Pakistan’s turn to accommodate. Under UN resolutions, any travel across the Line of Control should have been regulated by UN personnel (who actually do exist, however nominally). Instead the travel will be handled bilaterally. Further, the Northern Areas of the original Kashmir state have been separated from “Azad Riasat-e-Jammu-o-Kashmir” by Islamabad. But under this agreement, residents of that region will also be permitted a Kashmiri status if they want to take the bus.
   India dropped one of its demands to accommodate another agreement with extraordinary potential, the gas pipeline that will, if all goes well, run through India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran to Turkmenistan. At one level, it is a project that suits India’s needs much more than Pakistan’s, for Pakistan would have got the gas in any case. But that is not the main point of the concept. This is a daring example of what should be called eco-politics: the triumph of mutual economic benefit through the application of positive political skill. The crossroads of so many neighbours are policed by the devil. If India and Pakistan can cooperate and define common strategic goals for this energy-rich region, they can together challenge the domination of any power that seeks unilateral primacy in the Middle East and Central Asia. This is not a claim made without consideration, or a day dream.
   Is there any significance in the fact that the bus was first mooted by India? Yes. It is evidence that Delhi is ready for flexibility. Not so long ago, rigidity was synonymous with patriotism. That cul de sac has been breached, and suddenly possibilities are opening up. India could become the meeting point of pipelines between Burma and Central Asia.
   War breeds vested interests that will not easily surrender their lucrative space. Peace must build its own vested interests. Natwar Singh has placed us on a bus that could create such interests: some at the emotional level, others at the economic level, for he has also opened up tourism in the valley to Pakistan.
   It is a significant achievement. But every achievement is only the starting point for the next one.
   This article first appeared in The Asian Age

It was the greatest legal victory against corporate power in living memory. Last week, two penniless activists, Dave Morris and Helen Steel, persuaded the European court of human rights that Britain’s libel laws, under which they had been sued by McDonald’s, had denied them their right of free speech. The law will probably have to be changed, depriving the rich and powerful of their most effective means of stifling public protest. So why aren’t they hopping mad? The company that sued Dave and Helen will say only that “the world has moved on ... and so has McDonald’s”. The Confederation of British Industry, so quick to denounce legal rulings it doesn’t like, hasn’t uttered a word.
   They don’t care, and they don’t need to. You can see why by reading the serious organised crime and police bill, which has now passed through the Commons for the third time. What civil law once gave them, criminal law now offers instead.
   There has been a great deal of disquiet about this bill, but not because of its effects on protest. The public complaints have concentrated on the clause banning “hatred against persons on religious grounds”. This is important, but not nearly as important as the parts almost everyone has missed. Once this bill becomes law, it could be used to ban people from handing out leaflets to customers entering McDonald’s, whether their contents are defamatory or not.
   Section 121 of the bill prohibits people from “pursuing a course of conduct which involves harassment of two or more persons” in order “to persuade any person ... not to do something that he is entitled or required to do, or to do something that he is not under any obligation to do”. Harassment, the bill explains, can involve “conduct on at least one occasion”, “in relation to two or more persons”. In other words, you need only approach someone once to be considered to be harassing them, as long as you have also approached someone else in the same manner.
   The law is left wide open: there is nothing in it to prevent a company seeking an injunction and damages against someone who has handed out leaflets to two of its customers. To demonstrate harassment, it needs to show that the protester’s conduct has caused its customers “alarm or distress”; but again the law grants as much scope as it could ask for. (To be continued)
   — The Guardian