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Journalism of Courage
Kargil comes in handy for event managers
Is war more fun than peace? It would certainly appear so. Every day through the last fortnight brought news of a show to raise funds for martyrs of the war or a celebrity off to visit soldiers in Kargil. An event manager I was talking to before he left for the recent war zone said it was the fastest route to sponsorship these days. Variety entertainment, fashion, beauty contests — everything has the ubiquitous Kargil tag, the warranty of social conscience. The difference in priorities becomes glaringly obvious when you consider, on the other hand, the low-key interest generated by Hiroshima Day around the same time. August 6, the day of the bomb has become an occasion for Indians to protest against the use of nuclear weapons. Last year, in the aftermath of Pokhran, there was a concerted attempt to raise awareness and register protest in the city: a rock show, exhibitions in schools and colleges and talks. This year the Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal organised itstraditional march from Azad Maidan to Hutatma Chowk. The rain mercifully held back and the protesters — mostly students, social activists and some members of the general public collected at Flora Fountain — took a pledge against nuclear arms. The crowd, though sizeable, was however a drop in a city of millions. Given how fearful we, and the entire world, has been and still is about the hostilities between India and Pakistan escalating into a nuclear war, one would have expected the concern to be far more widespread.
The NCPA was for lazy afternoons. You could listen to music, classical, Indian, Western, on headphones or sit around the circular table looking up books on culture and the arts. The British Council was an essential stop for students of English literature and the social sciences. The atmosphere was a bit forbidding and its strict collection of late fees the bane of many a careless borrower. Yet it had a retinue of faithful regulars who came for the newspapers and its large collection of fiction. The American Center was enormously popular as well, though more for newer subjects such as management and women’s studies. One had to wade through a sea of kids at the gate, all trying to make it to a university in the Promised Land. But inside all was calm. Infact, if you went often enough you could see what a crucial space it was in the lives of so many kinds of people — retired, working, research students, freelancers.
Libraries, though, reflect the times better than most institutions. I remember when the British Council shifted premises, over a decade ago, from a sleepy nook behind the LIC building to the hub of Nariman Point. The interiors changed as well, and there was a whole new slew of books on computers and management. Now it’s the turn of the American Center to reinvent itself. The library that was shut for two whole years has just reopened. Except it’s not a library any more but a modern electronic information resource center.’ Vital features include a larger reference area, internet access, an online legal, news and business information service and new CD ROM databases on various subjects, including women’s issues. The ambience is as quiet and cool as it has always been, though the changed agenda does give it a new businesslike sense of urgency. Aharbinger to the coming century.
(The writer is a former editor of Elle)
