Forty -five-year-old Sukumar Trivedi did not cry hoarse against war at anti-war rallies and he didn’t watch live war propaganda on his TV. Instead, he chose a unique way of expressing his outrage at US strikes on Iraq. He quit his ‘‘comfortable’’ job at the United States Information Service (USIS).Working as Information Assistant at the hi-security USIS office in Mumbai, Trivedi, a professor-turned-journalist, tendered his resignation five days after Gulf War II began on March 20. In his letter to the US consulate administrative officer Maria Brewer, Trivedi said he was quitting due to the ‘‘wholly unjust and unjustifiable invasion of Iraq by the US Government.’’He hasn’t stopped at that. He is trying to acquire a visa and has contacted two city organisations to find ways to get into Iraq and help the victims of the US bombings. He says he is not looking for publicity or funding for the same and claims he can make it on his own.‘‘I felt I was being party to this war. I enjoyed my job of translating articles from the Gujarati media into English. But after the war began, I felt I will not enjoy it any longer. It was a deeply personal decision,’’ says Trivedi, smoking restlessly at his one bedroom flat in Vasai.Trivedi attributes his decision to quit working for an American institution to an overwhelming feeling of helplessness about contemporary events around him dating back to the Gujarat riots. A Masters in Economics, Trivedi, 45, taught the subject at an Ahmedabad college before turning to journalism. He worked with Gujarati newspapers like Janmabhoomi, Gujarat Mitra, Samkaleen, Vyapar, and Gujarat Samachar. He has penned four books on theoritcal economics in Gujarati. He had been working with the USIS since August, 2002, till he resigned on March 25.
