OBOC - Burkina Faso

It does look like it's been a long time since i wrote my last review. There is a good reason for that. Malidoma Some's "Of Water and the Spirit" was not an easy read for someone like me. What do I mean by that? For a mind used to thinking like a Westernized brain, which has rejected many ritualistic traditions of its own culture, reading about shamans, magic and more rituals is certainly a difficult task. But I was up for the challenge and it proved to be an interesting read with many valid points.

Malidoma (the name means "Be friends with the stranger or enemy" )- a 4 year old who was snatched by the French colonialists from the comfort of his tribe, to be converted to a "civilized christian", spends 16 years of his life in a Catholic Missionary school in an almost imprisoned state. Slowly losing touch with his Dagara culture and acquiring French language skills while forgetting his native tongue and his native ways, there comes a point when he can't take it anymore and so he escapes from the school and traces his way back to his village. But, now that he has learned the white man ways, he is treated with suspicion by the village elders and he himself is caught between two worlds with no ability to communicate his inner feelings. At this point, it is determined that he should undergo the initiation rites of an adolescent boy to see if he can re-integrate with his tribe. How he comes through these rites and goes on to act as a bridge between the White Man and the Black Man forms the rest of the story.


Firstly, the book is written under the premise that the Western civilization has lost its soul and needs to look at traditional and indigenous societies to better understand them and come up with new ways of communicating! Even if you disagree with the first part of the sentence, I bet you can't disagree with the latter half. Despite living in a globalized world, people often exhibit very poor understanding of other cultures or groups of people who are not like them and so the role of people like Malidoma gains importance.

Secondly, the book manages to capture the sense of homelessness many of us feel these days as we get uprooted from our native cultures and are forced to become citizens of a completely different kinds of society. This issue is center stage right now with culture wars cropping up everywhere, from banning the burkha in France to questioning what it means to be British in the UK or the anti-gay rights bill in Uganda!

The third theme of the book is around native wisdom, the role of elders in society, the need for initiation rites for the adolescence, and there are some very valuable insights into these topics from Indigenous societies which modern societies can pick up from. This is also something that Joseph Campbell used to talk about.

But a major part of the book is the description of the shamanistic rituals and the magic and wisdom of the Dagara. It took me sometime to go from suspending my rational mind to following along with wonderment the mystical rituals of the Dagara. The beautiful relationship that Malidoma shared with his grandfather and the scary rituals associated with death, the perplexing initiation rituals like staring at a tree, jumping through  fire hole, swimming under the currents, finding your cave with the help of your animal of choice and being buried alive for a day were all grippingly narrated. Here my little reading of Joseph Campbell and listening to his lectures helped tremendously as I started looking for allegorical meanings for the rituals instead of their literal ones.

Just a minor complaint - What was missing completely from the book was any details on the women in the Dagara society. Other than a few pages about his relationship with his mom, the entire book was about the transformation of boy into manhood and that might very well be the theme of the book. Given that the book is emphasizing the role of communication between different kinds of people, it would've been nice to understand a bit more about the significant other of the Dagara society :)

The book is not an easy read at all, there is lot of pain and agony and perplexing rites which require one to delve into their deeper meaning, but at the end it is well worth one's time as it offers a window into a society which is quite alien to people in the West. Malidoma who is now teaching both in the USA and France is a great example of a "homeless" but not rootless man who is also a bridge between two worlds

Committing Sacrilege

I know what I am going to say is tantamount to sacrilege among the Indian community and it might even strain the marital chords of harmony a little bit :) but I can’t contain it any longer! I just can’t stand cricket these days and especially the IPL.  There, I’ve said it now and I already feel better.

Growing up I know I was one of the crazy eyed millions who has done everything that any self-respecting cricket fan would do – gazing at giant posters of cricketers (and yes Aussie ones – now that is another story) in my room, shedding tears of joy at the Aussie win of '87 world cup, having the courage to face being called unpatriotic by close friends for that reaction, reading every word of Sportstar, owning a cricket dictionary and knowing all the relevant terms  and field positions enough to take on any cricket trivia and gaining extra brownie points for knowing all of the above despite being a girl!

Now that part of my life seems so long ago and I have moved from there to  where I am now in a decade. Maybe it is just the lifestage that I am in or I am simply a sport luddite longing for the good old days. But whatever the reason, the cricket of today in my eyes is in the doldrums. Played purely for providing mind-numbing entertainment, it has a Bollywood quality to it that I can’t stand.

Cricket especially the IPL version is a simple equation Corporate sponsors + Big Money + Bollywood = big payback for the relative few who make it and movie like entertainment for the masses! And here I was naive to think that after all the scandals that plague huge spectator sports, there will be a mass rebellion by the public against these. Boy, I have never been so off! The Indian cricket-hysteric public seems to have completely forgiven the match fixing scandals that plagued the scene a few years back, and welcomed the IPL with open arms - despite the fact that with a 4B turnover the chances of scandals are much higher!

I wonder what is the contribution of cricket to the Indian economy. How many jobs has cricket and its associated industries created? I compare this to Bollywood/ Kollywood or whichever one you choose. Here is another industry which is plagued by "black money", tax evasion, inflated salaries and very low success ratio - but at least on the face of it, the industry directly employs countless people and some of them in decent-paying unionized jobs I think. Am I correct in assuming the Movie industry in India does more collective good than the "Cricket industry"? I don't know but this seems a good sociology/economic research area.

The more i think of spectator sports in general the more i've come to believe that it must've been a great invention of the powers that be to channel the energy of the masses, keep civil unrest at bay, and divert attention from the really big issues at stake. No wonder there is a strong nexus between politics and big sport! When sports and entertainment dominate the news and media who has time for anything else!

After all cricket is a religion in India, and just as countless number of religious scandals does not hinder the growth of more Babas and Gurus offering sure-fire salvation, why should any number of scandals hamper this religion's progress!

OBOC - Bosnia

This is my almost 10th attempt to write a review for "Sarajevo: A war journal". What can I say? READ this without fail. The End. Now, that should be enough!

So here i am setting myself up to fail as I know i can never capture my feelings about this journal accurately and yet making a feeble attempt to write a tribute to the people of Sarajevo who survived the unthinkable.

Pick up this book if you ever want to understand what it feels like to be in a constant state of siege, when you learn to accept a day as "peaceful" if there are less than 10 sniper deaths, continue to breathe even after seeing a 6 month old baby getting amputated, ready to trade 10 Rembrandts to buy 2 liters of cooking oil, when your entire town suddenly feels like one giant concentration camp and when an ordinary bridge suddenly becomes a boundary.

How can all this happen right in front of our eyes, broadcast live into our households and yet very few of us actually know what happened in the Balkans in 1992? Are only countries rich in oil worthy of protection from encroachment from neighbors? Were we too fatigued after the Gulf War? Were we all collectively ignorant, too preoccupied?

I have to say the words of Zlatko Dizdarevic are worth a thousand pictures and videos from CNN or even the BBC. If only we all could've read the Oslobodenje, the newspaper that documented the genocide from the inside as it happened - but how could we, when Oslobodenje didn't even have newsprint and had to resort to "distributing" their paper through fax machines or simply pasting their paper on walls or whatever was left of them! How did they even keep the paper alive when surrounded by death and destruction?

The frustration and the anger comes through powerfully in this journal and hits you with raw force. How can Sarajevo ever rise from this? The answer is a testimony to the soul of the people of Sarajevo - whether it was the cab and bus drivers who took you around the city for no charge, or the small business men who were willing to distribute their meager profits to anyone who didn't have money, or the geniuses who hung a banner from a building to "blind" the sniper, or figured out a way to string a bread network from one building to another.

The journal ends in 1993. It would be another 2 years before the NATO involvement and signing of the Dayton Agreement. How did Oslobodenje and Dizdarevic and all the other brave souls of Sarajevo survive 2 more years of this without going insane! Why didn't Dizdarevic talk about his family, his own emotions? Did he need the shield of irony, understatement and dark humor to survive the madness and preserve his dignity?

The journal left me wanting more, that I even overlooked Charlie Rose and watched the interview with Dizdarevic! I leave OBOC-Bosnia knowing for sure I will pick up "Portraits of Sarajevo" without fail.

OBOC - Burma

What can James Joyce do for you? In the case of Pascal Khoo Thwe, Joyce was responsible for throwing him a lifeline in dire circumstances in the middle of nowhere to a positive future. Yes, Pascal’s love for Joyce as a student cum waiter drew him to John Casey a Cambridge Professor who was touring Mandalay.  This chance encounter led him to be rescued by Casey from the jungles along the Thai-Burma border to Cambridge where he became the first Burmese student to complete an honors degree in English Literature!

 “From the land of green ghosts” is Pascal’s fabulous memoir that opens a window into one of the most closed countries of today – Burma and offers a perspective from the group that has been at the forefront of fighting for change inside the country – the students.

As a young Padaung growing up in a small town in Shan State, Pascal’s world was his tribe replete with rituals, shamans, soccer games, rice wine. This part of the book helped me understand the multi-cultural nature of Burmese society (the book even had a brief history of Burma which helped set the context). Having tried his hand at entering the seminary Pascal gave it up to go to Mandalay at the age of 17 to study at the prestigious University. Mandalay which was 375 miles away from his home town was an entirely different world and little did he know that this journey would be the foundation for his own awakening.

The transformation from a student to a political activist was catalysed by his falling in love with Moe – a remarkable Burman woman and an underground freedom fighter who was tortured, raped and murdered by the regime. Inspired by Aung San Suu kyi, tribal, religious and cultural differences were set aside when standing united against the Junta. As a reluctant witness to the atrocities perpetrated by the regime, Pascal could no longer take it lying low and his sense of security is shattered even when he returns to his idyllic village.

This sets the stage for the next phase of his life when he becomes a student leader and is forced to take refuge in the jungles along the Thai-Burmese border as a result of the Junta’s crackdown on students. Joining the Karenni guerrillas in these jungles, Pascal has front row seat to the fight against the military in these jungles and witnesses first hand the countless students falling prey to mines, mortars and malaria.

At such a low point in his life, he smuggles out a note to Casey in desperation asking for any help. Casey responds with books, money and a passage to the British embassy in Bangkok and eventually a UK visa and an opportunity to study in Cambridge.  Overwhelmed with gratitude to Casey and guilt towards the friends and the cause he was leaving behind, Pascal’s decision to move to Cambridge was one of the most agonizing ones he had to make. A refugee and an outsider in Cambridge, far from the comfort of his tribe and friends, the pressure on Pascal can only be imagined. This memoir is a testimony to his achievements and his contribution to the cause.

On a side note, it was interesting to note the admiration for the British despite the colonial legacy, not just by the author but also from many Burmese tribes. BBC Radio is often their only reliable window to the outside world and life under the British was simply much better for the average Burmese when compared to life under the regime