Sense the change

Sir — A clip from an interview featuring Jennifer Law­rence and Leonardo DiCaprio in which the former joked about DiCaprio having a hypothetical teenage daughter has sparked debate. Many viewers interpreted the joke as a sly dig at DiCaprio’s history of dating younger women. Traditionally, actors dating younger women on or off screen was seen as a marker for their desirability. The fact that the same pattern is now provoking mirth or discomfort shows that the cultural mood has shifted. The question is whether the Indian film industry is ready to adapt to this change.

Adrija Sen,
Calcutta

A letter from Gopalkrishna Gandhi to Muhammad Yunus, Chief Adviser of the interim government of Bangladesh.

Esteemed Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus Sahib,

Namaskar, Aadaab.

I would have liked to address you as Bhai Yunus. But I am being prudent and protocol compliant, so as not to presume on your indulgence. I am writing this open letter to you not as the 80-year-old Hindu Indian that I am to the 85-year-old Muslim Bangladeshi that you are, but as one born in undivided India to another born in that same Ganga-Padma country. I do teach some history but I am not going to invoke dates and divisions here. Nor am I going to tell you what you know well about Tagore whose sublime song, “Esho esho amar ghore” (Come, to my home, come), cannot be sung more beautifully than by the great vocalist of your country, Iffat Ara Khan, or about Kazi Nazrul Islam’s humane vision which Calcutta’s daughter, Indrani Sen, has captured magically in “Amar dukher bondhu” (My sorrow’s companion).

You do not have the time for any soft appeals to the heart. Nor is this some sharp appeal to reason either, much as I would like to invoke here two East Bengal-born sons of India I have been fortunate to come to know well, and whom you have known too — the Marxist leader, Jyoti Basu, and the Nobel Laureate, Amartya Sen.

But it is something no less serious, deadly serious. It is the sharing of deep anxieties like a prisoner might share with a fellow prisoner, both prisoners being on Death Row. Would that prisoner talk to the head or the heart or the soul of the other prisoner? No! He would talk to his sensitive chitto, his consciousness, which is neither hriday (heart) nor mastishka (brain) but a higher form of his mon, his mind-heart.

Don’t be alarmed, esteemed Sir. Yes, I have said that metaphorically but exactly that. We are both prisoners and facing a likely end on the gallows unless... Let me explain in just about three hundred more words.

By ‘we’ I do not mean… let me break protocol here and say Bhai Yunus and apnar anuj (your younger brother), that is me, but all of us on our subcontinent. We are all prisoners now of a new wave of bigotry that has perched us on the edge of blind intolerance that requires but a tug, a push, a drag and a hoist on to the kind of murderous height on which Dipu Chandra Das’s battered body was hung before it was burnt by a devilishly violent mob, last week, in the Mymensingh region of your great country. I will not ask if you have seen the video that was taken. Something in me died with him as I saw it.

From all accounts, there is no clear evidence that Dipu had said or posted any­thing blasphemous about the Prophet (PBUH). But rumour — mere hearsay — had it that he had. And that rumour was enough to sentence him to death, and actually execute that sentence of death.

This is hideous. Hellishly hideous. Let me tell you, Bhai, that if a youth called Danish had met the same fate in India, I would say exactly what I am saying here. Exactly. Believe me.

Let me say it straight to your chitto. I want you to protect all those you are responsible for from the deadly dice of rumour, spite, hate, and the play of sectarian violence. Would you not want to say and see to it that no Dipu will be touched by the ghoul of sectarian violence? And will you not see to it that the murderers of Dipu are apprehended for their crime?

Bhai, you and I and millions of others like you and I on our subcontinent are under the notice of death hanging from the tree of intolerance, of a civil war, no less, unless… India and Bangladesh and Pakistan retrench the ogre of hate and the spiral of vengeance in their systems. This is not a pious wish, prayer. It is the voice of the chitto of the subcontinent. The violence in Calcutta in August 1946 led to the Indian version of the holocaust of 1947. You must do your utmost to prevent that. Not just as a Nobel Peace Laureate but as the person in charge of delivering a humane order in your country — far more important than delivering an election. History beckons you.

You can play a role, Bhai. Play it to prevent the vulture from descending on us again.

Yours in hope and in trust,

Gopalkrishna Gandhi

Heaviest launch

Sir — The rocket carrying the BlueBird Block-2 satellite, the heaviest one launched from Shriharikota till date, is yet another success for the Indian Space Research Organisation (“India puts its heaviest satellite into orbit”, Dec 25). It showcases India’s superiority in space technology. The success indicates that India’s Gaganyaan mission, scheduled for 2027, is on the right track.

Mihir Kanungo,
Calcutta

Sir — India has launched into orbit its heaviest sate­llite — a 6,100 kg co­m­munication satellite — marking the rocket’s ninth straight successful flight and its third commercial mission. India is now going from strength to strength in satellite technology.

Murtaza Ahmad,
Calcutta