Mainstream Weekly

I Salute You

Som Benegal — 2015-07-20T07:42:59Z

One more link with the past has gone,
One more patriot gone to rest forever,
United with history in the journal of her life.
O, Aruna Asaf Ali, I salute you
For your tireless wanderings
Through the maze of revolution,
But never faltering even though
Your comrades locked you out at journey's end.
Som Benegal
July 31, 1996 (Mainstream, August 10, 1996)

- 2015

A Contemplative Testament

Som Benegal — 2009-11-24T14:02:27Z

Soon reaching my 88th birthday, I realise that it has been a long journey through life. No doubt it has had high moments of considerable achievements in various fields which seemed beyond credibility, but there were also low points of physical and mental pains sustained over many longer years than imaginable but met with fortitude and understanding.
Now, at this moment, I realise that I have become a traveller with an uncertain tether in search of the lost horizon of an improbable (…)

- November 2009

I Salute You

Som Benegal — 2009-07-18T10:02:26Z

One more link with the past has gone,
One more patriot gone to rest forever,
United with history in the journal of her life.
O, Aruna Asaf Ali, I salute you
For your tireless wanderings
Through the maze of revolution,
But never faltering even though
Your comrades locked you out at journey's end.
July 31, 1996 Som Benegal
(Mainstream, August 10, 1996)

- July 2009

Requiem for an Old Comrade

Som Benegal — 2008-06-30T15:01:03Z

An old ditty of World War I went: “Old soldiers never die, they only fade away.” Nikhil Chakravartty who was an old soldier, and comrade who left us ten years ago never died but, more importantly, has never faded away.
Nikhilda was a soldier but not of the military kind—he was a soldier, a dedicated soldier, in the unrelenting struggle for the emancipation of the poor, the depressed and the deprived of his country and, indeed, the world. He was a comrade who brooked no discriminatory (…)

- June 28, 2008

The Perpetual Struggle

Som Benegal — 2008-05-29T18:03:51Z

MUSINGS
The Jaipur terrorist blasts have brought on the usual recriminations, accusations and counter-accusations, the scoring of points, the utter helplessness and renewed assurances of strong action, the ruthless pursuit and punishment of the guilty. But all this misses the fundamental and basic point. Violence is the cardinal motivation of all living things in the world as we know it, on land, sea and air. Meaningless or meaningful conflict is the hall-mark of this violence. One does (…)

- May 24, 2008

The Renaissance of the Asian Identity

Som Benegal — 2008-04-27T15:04:46Z

From the islands of Japan in the Far East striding across a wide swath or chain of Manchuria, Korea, Mongolia, China and the rolling steppes of Central Asia, carrying with it island clusters, archipelagoes, peninsulas—India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia, Indo-China, the Philippines and north-westwards through Afghanistan, Iran, numerous other states and territories to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea at Lebanon and Israel is called Asia.
This enormous geographical (…)

- April 26, 2008

Modiphobia to Modiphoria

Som Benegal — 2008-01-26T20:37:05Z

What transformations politics and public life can bring about! And in democracies particularly. Leaders once reviled, jeered at and abused become heroes and icons. Leaders once hero-worshipped end up defamed, defiled and denigrated. Some rare souls have the privilege of being a pendulum swinging from one side to another, and getting away with it!
We have many examples in world history and in our own. Quick-change artists have, of course, met with ridicule for their opportunism and even (…)

- January 26, 2008

Please, No Ecstasy for Pakistan's Agony

Som Benegal — 2007-12-25T22:13:57Z

MUSINGS
It would be sad, indeed, if we in India, should feel a sense of glee and vicarious pleasure in the tumultuous goings-on in Pakistan today. The situation there is so complex that it would take a political or mathematical genius to sort out the meaning of the moves and counter-moves, each more baffling than the other. It is a fact that the division of India on the quaint concept of the two-nation theory was a tragedy of Himalayan dimensions. Much controversy on the subject, hot (…)

- December 22, 2007 - Annual Number 2007

Coalition Dharma and Drama

Som Benegal — 2007-12-11T15:42:18Z

Musings
If there is one thing that is painfully obvious it is that coalition dharma is nothing but drama—in fact, just empty, negative melodrama. When people talk of the coalition era, which has come to stay in India's politics, and polity they are talking too hastily on ill-founded presumptions and suppositions. These are compounded by the torrent of misleading opinion surveys and forecasts, which only reveal contradictions and off-the-mark results.
History shows, not only in (…)

- December 8, 2007

O, Gandhiji, Where Art Thou?

Som Benegal — 2007-10-05T14:40:35Z

Gandhigiri is much in the air, nowadays. It is, of course, with the young new generation growing up and fortunately looking around to see what the lie of land is and how they fit into it, and what they should do about it to mould it to their hearts' desire. I do not accept the utterly mis-conceived notion that the young generation is only concerned with itself and only with the reckless up-in-the-air fun of life detached from the realities—the stark realities—on the ground. The young (…)

- September 29, 2007