Hope, Audacity and a Hijack

(Foreword: One of my first( July 2008); it was well received saying ‘powerful’! India is going to Polls this week after 6 years and US in two years. It would be interesting to look back after reading this! Good Luck!)

I confess ignorance about the American mind!

I am aware that a lot of Indians and among them, so many 'Mallus' have settled there and some are its respected citizens. All I know is that it has cosmopolitan culture with a strong democracy and fundamental citizen rights including free speech. Its currency is still the most accepted international legal tender. Though it is criticised for playing the world police, there is no credible alternative to its present policies.

Back in India, another democracy, some of us are pelting stones at everything American. We torch Mr. Bush's effigy. We can't accept the nuke deal and therefore get uranium for our reactors. We prefer darkness to globalization. State of Kerala in India has the most number of rivers. Yet, we cannot have another hydro electric station because that will kill our environment and endanger rare species of animals and plants. Atomic stations are a no no due to dense population and high costs, while thermo power stations face no objections, whether they are polluting or not. We should have something, right? We have to sit in darkness for half an hour every night between 6~10 p m. Day times it is usually the other way round. We have electricity as a guest. We have accepted power cuts as natural and socialistic like rations in the good old days! We amaze at the development happening in other States in India. We like to live in paucity. We are slowly becoming cynical. Everything American has to be despised, even if it is good, because it comes from imperialism and capitalism. Not so about Barack Obama.

 Here comes somebody who talks about change. Someone who says values and virtues are indispensable for a country much like its growth of GDP. He says as a country, America has empathy deficit to understand 'feelings' of other countries. Who else can say this credibly than Obama Jr.? But I still think he is 4 years younger for the top job. What he should have done is to become the vice president nominee and then later become the President. But why not? Americans ask us. With all the support, will he make it to the top job, nobody can say. What happened to Al Gore?

 It is difficult to predict America. Anybody can hope to make a fortune there, but to enter the minds and get through the primaries should be tougher than going through the eye of the needle!

I must confess I was with Hillary. I do not know what happened. It is not just the phenomenon; it is a little bit of impatience or lack of understanding and perseverance. The undercurrent was very high. We heard a lot about a New York Mayor. Nothing happened. Are Americans averse to accept a woman on top?

Now as everything is over, we have to look forward to the 'Phenomenon'. Of course he is! Only I am late in accepting him. Or, like Americans, I did not take him seriously from the very beginning. Here is the story.

In Nairobi, Kenya, Hussain Onyanko Obama was a cook to Christian missionaries during World War I. He has visited Europe and India when he served in the British Royal Army. He accepted Islam at Zanzibar and added Hussain to his name. He had three wives. Obama Senior was born to Akuma but was brought up by Onyanko's third wife Sarah. Though born in Kenya, Barack Obama Sr. was a brilliant young man who got scholarship to study in America. At age 23, he joined Hawaii University to study Economics. In Manama, he met Ms Ann Dunham, a fair and beautiful young lady. Against all odds, they got married on February 2, 1961. Those days it was difficult for a white lady to marry an African. But Ann was a liberal like her parents and who could think above sectarian beliefs. Barack Obama Jr. was born to this couple on August 4, 1961.

It is amazing to read how Ann brought up our Obama. Obama Sr. and Ann separated as fast as their union. Obama Sr. received an opportunity to study in Harvard. He wanted to leave Hawaii.
Ann was a feminist and was a liberal when (in those days) there were no liberals and feminists. Much unlike them, who throw the wedding ring in river or to auctioneers with bitterness, Ann, infact kept the relationships and whenever she could, allowed Obama Sr. to communicate with our Obama.  Obama was very happy to meet his father when he was 10 years old, and when Obama Sr. came to Hawaii.

Ann was married to Lolo Soetero, an Indonesian and young Obama settled with them in Djakarta along with his sister Maya who was by then born to the couple. Ann was an agnostic and she read a lot of religious books and encouraged Obama and her sister to read the Bible, Hindu Upanishads, Buddhist and Taoist teachings etc. She brought home cassettes of Martin Luther King Jr. Obama remembers his mother as the greatest influence in his life.

Obama liked to be back in Hawaii for his High School. Like any child, he wanted to be close to Grandpa and Grandma. At the age of ten, he studied in Honolulu in the renowned Punahau School. Madeleine Dunham was then Vice President of Bank of Hawaii.

Ann's second marriage was by now facing rupture. In 1980, they separated. Ann was still doing field work in Djakarta as part of her studies about Japanese handicraft in Indonesia. Hawaii University gave a Doctorate to her in Anthropology. She worked for United States Agency for International Development, Ford Foundation, and Women's World Bank. By now a Cancer Patient, she was back in Hawaii in 1994.

 Obama studied in Occidental College for 2 years and then did his Graduation at Columbia University in Politics and International Relations. Came 1988 and he joined Harvard Law School. He was the first black president in the history of Harvard Law Review in its history of 104 years!

In 1991, he took the Law degree and taught constitutional law at Chicago University as part time lecturer from 1993 to 2004. He worked as a summer associate in Sydney and Austin, where he met his wife Michelle Robinson. Their first date, a movie -Spike Lee's "Do the right thing" -was indeed helpful! They got married in 1992 and have two daughters Malia and Sasha.

Ann always told Obama and Maya stories about how Negroes in South America became Scientists, Doctors and Advocates by studying donated books. She always told them that to be a Black is to be the owner of a great inheritance. In 1995, she died. Her body was cremated in Hawaii. Obama remembers her agility, her bountiful happiness and her ability to astound.

The hijack is nothing but the seizing of our attention to this new phenomenon. But when I read about Ann, I do understand. The image I am getting from what Obama says is that the new American is a soul searching and responsible individual. Obama seems to be a responsible Individual. He is brought up to be so. Being spiritual is not being a victim to false beliefs.

To read and understand Indian Upanishads with a critical mind is not easy. It is the distance between today's Rasputin like Swamis and our Nithya Chaithanya Yati. After all it is the ability of mind and imagination which equates 'Narayana' with cosmic body. It is the same ability of the Good Samaritan. It is very easy to dub all Asian religions obscure. It takes about the same effort Ann took to understand them. It needs the same tolerance level she had for keeping relationships for her children with their respective fathers. To learn one has to read and should be listening to learned Gurus. Spending days in Himalayas with some narcotic addicts will not make any body a learned one.

Sadly Ann's tolerance and passion for knowledge is what we are missing today. May be due to MCPs, may be due to FCPs. What we need are more Anns for more Obamas. Not Madonnas. Ms Rice might make it, Ms Hillary may have to wait or let us have hopes on Ms Chelsea for instance. For the American Woman, the trip to the top is long. Let us hope Ann's dreams will come true.

The new found acceptance of Obama in India is coming from the hypocrisy of Indians. Is it because it rings like Osama? Obama equals Obama and America equals only America. Be it Rice among the Republicans or Obama for the Democrats, I do not think change will happen that fast. It is a long long road.

  (Story of Obama is adapted from K Balakrishnan Nair's 'Obama equals Obama' in Malayalam Weekly June 27, 2008.Views expressed here are strictly personal views of the author.)

(July 2008; Gather)