India

[Elvis]

The Bollywood gossip here is a sort of professional interest of the writer, and of course a national pastime.

Mon, Jul 13, 2020 12:03 pm
To: you + 3 more

I wrote three letters today, to you near Chicago, Meghna in New York and Prarchi in Mumbai. I also made two long cell calls, to lonely Prachi and lonely Abhilash. The last two people are really frustrated, partly because of the virus. I called partly because of their frustration.

Prachi, from Pune, had been told by Mr. Nair to be good to me, and she has been, and still is. She's now frustrated because she has lost her job writing for a Pune newspaper. She is so lonely that she writes almost as if she now thinks she should have accepted my proposal. (The only woman I ever proposed to.) I didn't really understand that the virus was part of this. Prachi wants to get back to Pune, but can't figure how to do it. Interstate travel is still difficult here.

Abhilash is completely alone (Prachi is with her mother) with his two cats. A new problem faces him every. Breaking a bottle of oil on the kitchen floor, a cat ****ing on a yoga map, etc.

They were both happy that I called. And here's part of the Amitabh-Jaya-Ashwariya-Abhishek story that Abhilash and I discussed.

To him, Amitabh and Jaya have been sleeping not just in separate rooms for over ten years, but in separate homes. Not just because of his affair with former co-star Rekha, but his womanising in general. A famous Bollywood hairdresser has accused him of many affairs. She should know, because a lot of female Bollywood stars have passed through her salon.

But Abhilash laughed when I told him that I'd heard Amitabh was sleeping with daughter-in-law Ashwariya. Ashwariya herself has quite a story. Introduced by a producer with a reputation, he bought her a large flat. Leaving him, she took up with brutal, drunken co-star Salman Khan. Then there was Vivek Oberoi. So it sounds like Amitabh's son Abhishek may have sort of rescued her, no matter how dysfunctional his family. It's no wonder that Jaya is the only virus-free member of the family--she's the only one who doesn't live in the same house.

And, further on the suicide of Sushant Singh Rajput, Abhilash calls him one of the few innocent souls of Bollywood. He'd just gone through a breakup, had lost all those films, and was seeing a psychiatrist. His manager, a woman, had committed suicide a few weeks before he did. He must have felt lonely also. And again, the virus and the lockdown might have had something to do with this.

Right now I'm one of the least frustrated people that I know. I can watch films on my laptop rather than in theatres, or whatever in want on YouTube, and not worry about a family (I have none). I have only friends, and a near future. At 84--err, 82, most people that I grew alongside are dead.

But I don't want to say too much about that. There's always the virus. You never know.

Yours,
[signed]

[Elvis]

I sent this article about India federalism, by Indian economist Advait Moharir, to my American friend living in Bangalore, and he wrote the reply that follows.

https://nathantankus.substack.com/p/und ... ralism-and
Understanding India’s ‘Federalism’, and 2020’s Fiscal Troubles
India enters the "Municipal Quantitative Easing" Era

Oct 12, 2020

Well, this is interesting. It explains, in some terms, why in the second Modi regime (he was reelected about two years ago) the economy is so bad. The growth rate was predicted at 7%, but now India may be actually contracting.

The article makes the economy sound like a flat version of the caste system. The more money a state has, the more it can borrow. Smart entrepreneurs in any caste can increase their wealth, if they have any, to rise themselves not to a higher caste (you're born into one) but to a financial level where many of their problems are solved. They can borrow, while the lower states or castes cannot, falling into deeper debt. (Some subcastes have risen in the hierarchy.)

Some states may be well enough and are anti-central government enough to not want or have need to borrow from the top. Kerala and Tamil Nadu I presume are like that. Kerala has a mixed population, physically isolated from the north by mountains, as well as west from Tamil Nadu. Kerala is mostly lower caste Hindus, and Tamilians are very prideful of their heritage. West Bengal needs money certainly and may be in the low category now because it is at severe odds to the centre. UP is run by a Yogi, so it's in good with the centre--it is poor yet able to borrow. UP has the largest population in India. Kashmir, the only Muslim majority area, has had it's semi-autonomy stripped and its rebels jailed. It's not getting any money, I'm sure, but needs it now more than ever.

____


Others factors counteract the enclosed "federalism" article" and in some states help:

Modi knows nothing about fiscal policy. When he became Prime Minister, he had all paper money above Rs.500 (about $7.00) exchanged in banks, to stamp out black money. It had no effect: black money is held in foreign currency and illegally traded for rupees at far more than the normal rate.

The largest statue in the world, of the Marathi king and warrior Swaji, now stands in Mumbai bay. (Tamil Nadu plans to build a bigger statue for its hero.) That takes money.

Modi and his cohort Amit Shah are trying to reduce the minority Muslim population as much as possible to form a pure Hindubhoomi (nation). The Muslims who are of royal heritage have money. That money will be difficult to take away, but the centre wants that also.

The same for Bollywood. Maharastra, hosting Bollywood, also not run by Modi's BJP party is mostly liberal. True, Bollywood is releasing more mythological and historical films than in decades, but that's by a minority of filmmakers. The centre is pushing at Bollywood, partly through stories around the suicide of recent star Sushant Singh Rajput. The newspapers are full of them. Stars with no connection to the actual case are halled into court on "drug use." Pot is illegal here (thanks to the US) so pot makes headlines. This keeps the papers off Modi's financial failures. My boyfriend says Modi wants Bollywood's money.

Finally, you my also know that the pandemic, which started in the cities, has caused all daily wage earners to return to their northern villages. They have no work--construction workers, street-hawkers, tea vendors, vegetable vendors, rickshawallas, barbers, beggars--now spreading the virus in the poor northern countryside. The Chief Minister of Karnataka, where I am now, tried and failed to stop day workers from returning home because of much ongoing Bangalore construction, here in the IT-Seattle of India. Karnataka has the most corrupt state government in India.

I was about to write accidentally "streetwalkers' I instead of street-hawkers, and their livelihood is gone too. Brothels closed, at least in Kolkata, women are now reunited with their children, who live in government houses. Thus, I assume, few of the women are anxious to go back to work.

That's what comes to mind.

[signed]

P.S. A 'historical' note. The family that my friend Rekhs married into once owned an entire city block--four apartment houses, one at each corner, most or all occupied by family. But Indira Gandhi decreed that no one could own more than a certain amount of property. So they sold three of them. Rekhs says they have enough money for no one in the family to work for forty years. One of her daughters just finished film school, the other is prosperous in San Diego.

Rekhs herself writes English subtitles for South Indian films. Her mother was a proofreader for Macmillan.

This letter reminds of old times. You remember, I'm sure, that we met in a 'Geography of India' class.

Indeed, I did meet him in a Geography of India class, 36 years ago.

[Joe Hillshoist]

There was a 250million strong protest/general strike in India last week on Thursday.

That doesn't include the protesting farmers as far as i know. But they are planning on joining forces.

So 10 days ago what is probably the biggest protest/general strike in human history happened. WE are living in interesting times.