Ideas and Identities Melt Here

Tonight is a hot sultry night in Vancouver, Canada. I sit down to write a few thoughts about Chowk. Today is the birthday of Chowk. A 48 hour long day, spanning the world. The day we the Chowkwalas commemorate the beginning of Chowk. I remember how in the early days every article, every paragraph and every person was read and discussed by all the editors. Each hit was like a golden peal, like a clap of applause in the silent amphitheatre of virtual space.

Chowk passed the teething stages and went on to weaning, the slow weaning from its editors who had felt the need to write and discuss every article, and read every line posted on Chowk scores of times, to a more independent forum, changing the nature of the editorial job. The quality of writers, the number of posters, and the number of submissions grew exponentially. The first tottering steps became a run and now Chowk is a self-sufficient entity. Chowk is just four years old, just a blink for a magazine with the potential of Chowk, yet I miss the early days, the heady days when we first fell in love with Chowk, where paths intersect.

In this year, so much must have happened in our lives. Close ties formed and broken, children born, migrations and new degrees—events forging new identities. On Chowk space too, interactors developed their alternative personalities and explored ideas they would never do in ‘real’ life. A part of Chowk charm is that people can explore ideas and views that they would never do otherwise, quite so freely. People put on masks, take off masks, develop new identities and criticize friends. We have seen identities come and go, some obnoxious, some insecure, some silly, some brilliant, always stimulating—since the ideas that they bring are never fake. So, unlike state media, where lies are the biggest truth (e.g., delighted reactions of Pokhran residents to the Indian nuclear tests in May 1998), Chowk gives equal airtime to those who want to say something different.

Our favourite spot, India-Pakistan has stayed on its turbulent path, and the much hoped for summit went off like a wet firecracker. The only real images of the summit I take away are crass jokes about Indian and Pakistan embassy staff and chief players like Vajpayee and Musharraf. In the age of the Internet nobody lives in a glass- house. A round of jokes, and a round of parties is the most that the serious Summit achieved. The real issue, if there is such a thing apart from huge and fragile egos, was buried under mounds of words.

A couple of days ago was the Janmashtami—the celebration of the birth of Lord Krishna. Thousands of people gathered in a local temple to perform the required rites. Men women and children mingled, strangers united under Krishna. An air of celebration suffused the place, colour, music, chants, beautiful figurines. I thought how somewhere a mile or two from here, people must be gathered in a somber, silent mosque, happy and at peace to be near god too. And along with that, people must be gathered in a chapel, a church and a forest to remember god. Can truly these colourful, peaceful places create so much pain, so much bloodshed, and such hatred? The conviction that God looks like Krishna versus the conviction that God is indescribable; can it truly mean that you and I could kill each other? Does it really matter? I think that the Krishna story is sort of cute, and a bit gentler than chopping off some poor goats head. At least at Chowk you have the choice to agree or disagree. Lets hope the real world of Musharaff and Vajpayee is listening too.

Happy Birthday Chowk. May you live long and keep talking.