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The trouble with Brexit (Part 2)

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2. The ‘unique’ British media

When I first moved to London from The Netherlands in 1990, there were quite a few things that struck me as more than a little odd about the UK. Carpet in the bathroom? What was that all about? Separate hot and cold water taps? Weird…Why did some people leave a little bit of tea at the bottom of their cup? Who was Del Boy? And what exactly were Yorkshire puddings?

I also soon realised that, unlike The Netherlands, the UK didn’t really see itself as being part of Europe. If you were going to the continent from the UK, you were ‘going to Europe’ – as if you weren’t already in it! I reminded my English friends that London was not in Asia or South America, much to their amusement. It was also a long-standing British joke that Germans were Krauts, Italians were Wops and the French were Frogs. Even if there was no malice in these terms and it was meant to be funny, it still underpinned an underlying feeling of ‘us’ versus ‘them’. 

In spite of (or perhaps because of?) all of its eccentricities, I did fall head over heels in love with this beautiful country though. I loved the language, the “hello mate!” and “alright, darling?” greetings, the wit, the banter – and pretty much everything else! I even found myself an English boyfriend, and asked him what the British, in general, think about the Dutch. “We tolerate you”, my boyfriend answered with typically dry British humour.

His father read several British tabloid newspapers every day: the Sun (with its famous Page 3 Girl), the Daily Mail and the Daily Express. It was my first brush with something I found even more puzzling than anything I had seen before: anti-EU sentiment on a massive scale.

I couldn’t believe just how many hostile articles there were in these newspapers, and that pretty much all of them were blatant lies. Where I came from, nobody really talked about the EU – most people didn’t really have an opinion about it. But in London, they most certainly did – and it was all extremely negative! “Oh, it’s just a bit of a joke”, I was told, “these silly stories are not meant to be taken too seriously”.

Interestingly enough, I later found out that the origins of some of these so-called “Euromyths” – funny but completely fake news stories about the EU – could be traced back to none other than good old Boris Johnson. He had been hired by The Times during the 1980s (a job he got through family connections), was fired for making up two stories, and was hired by The Daily Telegraph almost immediately afterwards to become its Brussels correspondent between 1989 and 1994.

Boris loved ridiculing the EU for his own amusement, and invented plenty of stories about it. His Euromyths always followed the same pattern: they started off with a tiny element of truth, but soon turned into completely made-up conspiracy theories – ones that were so crazy that it was almost funny! There was supposed to be an EU plot to ban prawn cocktail flavoured crisps, Brussels bureaucrats wanted to standardise condom sizes, and one of his most memorable headlines was “Snails are fish, says EU”. Years later, Boris was quite happy to admit that he enjoyed telling complete porkies about the EU: “I was sort of chucking these rocks over the garden wall, and I listened to this amazing crash from the greenhouse next door over in England, as everything I wrote from Brussels was having this amazing, explosive ­effect on the Tory party. It really gave me this, I suppose, rather weird sense of power.”

Over the next 30 years, EU bashing became a staple of most British tabloids, and Fake News became fashionable long before the expression was even invented. Here’s just a small selection of some newspaper headlines over the years:

  • “Bureaucrats declare Britain is ‘not an island'” (The Guardian)
  • “Eurocrats say Santa must be a woman” (The Sun)
  • “Scotch whisky rebranded ‘a dangerous chemical’ by EU” (Daily Telegraph)
  • “Domain names – .uk to be replaced by .eu” (Daily Mail)
  • “EU plot to rename Trafalgar Square and Waterloo Station” (Daily Express)
  • “EU to ban zipper trousers” (The Sun)
  • “2-for-1 bargains to be scrapped by EU” (Daily Mirror)
  • “New EU map makes Kent part of France” (Daily Telegraph)
  • “Corgis to be banned by EU” (Daily Mail)
  • “EU forcing cows to wear nappies” (Daily Mail)
  • “Brussels ban on pints of shandy” (The Times)
  • “Now EU crackpots demand gypsy MPs” (Daily Express)

This is just a tiny, tiny part of it – and these are just the headlines, so you can only imagine what the accompanying stories are like! Sadly, deliberate misinformation, half-truths and outright lies are still the order of the day in some newspapers. It is no wonder that the British press has been amongst the least trusted in Europe for years.

Hardly any British politicians challenged this negative portrayal of the EU in the media. Nobody said: “Hey, hang on a minute! How come we still have playgrounds, corgis and bendy bananas, if we’re constantly being told that they have been banned?” It probably suited them that the EU could be used as a convenient scapegoat for their own unpopular policies.

At first glance, all of this anti EU-ism may seem quite harmless, and even a bit of a laugh. However, it is probably fair to say that after many years and decades, the ‘drip, drip’ effect of this narrative did start to influence British opinions. And not just those of tabloid readers, but, as you can see above, also readers of more respectable newspapers like The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian. A persuasive portrayal of an EU full of spoilsports getting rid of British playgrounds, double-decker buses and truckers’ fry-ups became a powerful ‘alternative fact’ in the UK: surely everybody knew what those patronising busybodies in Brussels were like? They were the enemies of common sense and the British way of life, so it was high time that the UK started fighting back against these oppressors. And this is exactly how some very influential Eurosceptic newspapers portray themselves: as noble representatives of the man on the street, fighting against those nasty elites in Westminster and Brussels.

You might therefore be surprised to learn that most of the UK media is owned by just a handful of extremely wealthy men with very strong ties to Westminster and the political establishment. One of them, Ukip donor Richard Desmond, sold the Daily Express not long ago – but that still leaves four billionaires with a huge amount of power and influence.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch owns The Sun, The Times, the now-defunct News of the World (shut down after the phone hacking scandal), and also pro-Trump Fox News in the US. His company News Corporation has subsidiaries in the Bahamas, the Cayman Islands, the Channel Islands and the Virgin Islands. From 1986, News Corporation’s annual tax bill averaged around 7% of its profits. Anthony Hilton, columnist for the Evening Standard wrote during the referendum campaign: “I once asked Rupert Murdoch why he was so opposed to the European Union. “That’s easy,” he replied. “When I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice.”

Identical twins the Barclay brothers are the owners of the five-star Ritz hotel in London, as well as pro-Brexit publications The Daily Telegraph and the Spectator. Currently number 17 on the Sunday Times Rich List, they have houses in both the Channel Islands and Monaco. In 2012, BBC’s Panorama reported that they had paid no corporation tax for the Ritz, and in 2017 the Barclay Brothers lost a £1.25 billion tax case against HMRC.

The Daily Mail is owned by the 4th Viscount Rothermere. His great-grandfather was a friend of Adolf Hitler, and supported the Nazis when he owned the newspaper in the 1930’s. He also wrote an interesting article entitled ‘Hurrah for the blackshirts’, supporting Oswald Mosley and the facist movement in Great Britain. The current Viscount Rothermere is said to be richer than the queen, he has non-domicile tax status and owns his media businesses through a complex structure of offshore holdings and trusts.

So, not exactly ‘men in the street’, but billionaires with direct access to Downing Street, influencing opinions all over the country through their newspapers.

Regardless of their owners, does this mean that we should not have any critical Eurosceptic newspapers at all? Is the EU, in reality, just a perfect club of countries happily working together, holding hands and singing Kumbaya, that shouldn’t be questioned?

No, of course not.

There is nothing wrong with a healthy dose of scepticism towards the European Union. The Eurozone crisis, the migration crisis, the banking crisis, problems in Eastern Europe: it has plenty of problems – some outside of the EU’s control, some within it. But this is about fairness and balance. The world is not black or white – there are always fifty shades of grey in the middle. So let’s be sceptical of both sides. Let’s look at the pros and cons of the EU, without painting it as some kind of one-dimensional monster.

Why, for instance, do British newspapers never write about the good things the EU has achieved: clean beaches, no roaming charges, the protection of children that is enshrined into EU law? Why does nobody mention that the British film industry has received nearly £300 million in funding from the EU in the past 10 years? And why do you never hear about about all the money the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and European Social Fund (ESF) have spent in poorer regions within the UK?

How about the £640 million it has paid to save old buildings in  Birmingham city centre? A £2 billion investment for Wales? £1 billion for South Yorkshire? €60 million to help repair flood damage in the UK, and a similar amount for Cornwall over the last ten years? Not a peep about any of this in the British media.

And while we’re at it: apart from some more balance, can we also have a discussion that is based on evidence-based facts please? I know that it it is not always easy to separate fact from fiction, but there are plenty of fact-checking websites out there these days. Take the famous fake Lisbon Treaty post doing the rounds on Facebook: “OMG!!! WHY IS NO ONE TALKING ABOUT THE LISBON TREATY THAT COMES INTO FORCE IN 2020??” Because it’s fake news, that’s why. And it is not just the Brexiteer side that makes things up, by the way. A recent claim that Nigel Farage was involved in the far-right National Front as a teenager is based on an old photograph, that is almost certainly not him.

Media bias, alternative facts, Russian bots, fake Twitter accounts: they are all a threat to democracy and our ability to separate truth from fiction.  Apparently, it will soon be possible  to make photo-realistic HD video, audio and document forgeries, even for amateurs, and some of these forgeries will be good enough to fool even some types of forensic analysis. Imagine what damage a Fake News story can do, when it’s accompanied by a very convincing Fake Video?

And whilst talking about media bias towards the EU, we haven’t even touched upon newspaper stories regarding some other groups of foreigners: immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees. More about that next time.

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Johanna Brunt was born and raised in The Netherlands. She has spent half her life there on the continent, and half her life in the UK. After studying English and European Studies at the University of Amsterdam, she moved to London where she started working for an international airline. She is married to a Brit, and they have three children together.

The trouble with Brexit – Johanna Brunt

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It is the beginning of May, 2019 – nearly three years after the UK’s 2016 referendum, during which it decided to leave the European Union. Even at this late stage in the game, nobody knows if Brexit is going to be hard, soft or sunny side up – or whether it will even happen at all! The UK has just been given a Halloween extension, and some much-needed breathing space. The entire country is confused about backstops, trade deals and tariffs, and thoroughly fed up with the way everything has been handled in Westminster. It is high time for a progress report: how did we get here, and where do we go from now?

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  1. The Single Market and the Cherry Picking Myth

Brexit. A subject that has divided the country, parliament and political parties in the UK for three years now, and shows no signs of becoming any less polarising. With a difference of only 3.8%, the Leave campaign won the June 2016 referendum. Why did so many people think that Britain going its own way would be the best course of action?

There were two main reasons why people voted Leave in 2016. The first one was sovereignty. Many people were happy for the UK to cooperate with other European countries on trade and other issues, but they felt that over the years, the EU had grown too big for its boots. They were sick of being bossed around by unelected politicians in Brussels, and wanted to take back control.

The second biggest issue was immigration. A lot of British people didn’t like the European idea of unlimited Freedom of Movement. In their eyes, it meant that any Juan, Jan or Janusz could just enter the country, settle in, and undercut local workers or claim benefits.

So let’s have a look at this big European bully, that seems to feel entitled to impose its rules on the UK. What exactly is the European Union, what are the pros and cons of membership, and is leaving the EU the right thing to do for the UK?

The EU was originally set up with the aim of ending the frequent and bloody wars between neighbours, which culminated in WWII. It is based on the idea that when countries trade together, and have a close working relationship, they are less likely to wage war against each other. The founding values of the European Union still form the core of European policy: freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights.

Today, the EU is incredibly big and powerful – probably a lot bigger, and a lot more powerful than most people in the UK realise! It accounts for almost a quarter of the world’s GDP (23%), meaning that it is also very rich, compared to most of the rest of the world. In fact, out of 193 countries in the United Nations, only 35 are considered ‘advanced economies’ according to the IMF – and out of these 35 countries, 27 are inside the EU.

So how did the EU become so big, powerful and rich? The answer lies in just three little words: The Single Market. This is when things get pretty boring – but please bear with me, as it is absolutely central to the whole Brexit debate!

The Single Market is by far the biggest, and most advanced single trading area on the planet. It is an ongoing process of harmonisation and standardisation, designed to make it as easy as possible for people, goods, services and money to move around those countries that are a part of it: the 28 members of the EU, plus 4 non-EU countries: Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein (EEA countries), and Switzerland. It does not only cover free trade, meaning that the countries within the Single Market don’t charge each other tariffs (import taxes). It also covers something much more advanced than that, and something that is quite unique: frictionless trade.

Frictionless trade means that countries within the Single Market have decided to not only eliminate tariffs and customs barriers between themselves. They have also made it as easy as possible to trade and allow free access to each other’s markets, by having the same standards and regulations for goods and services. That means the same safety regulations, environmentally friendly packaging, food labelling, consumer guarantees etc, to create a fair and level playing field between countries. Kind of as if the Single Market was a single country, really! This way, manufacturers don’t have to set up different production lines, to make different goods for different countries. Essentially, it gets rid of trade barriers and internal borders, making it easier for companies to operate internationally, and enlarge their markets.

Imagine, for instance, that you are a British manufacturer of hairdryers. If you want to sell those hairdryers to other countries, you would normally have to deal with different regulations that other countries have, because of their different legal systems. Spain may have certain laws regarding particular hairdryer components, or they may have completely different safety standards to the ones that you have in your country. And Austria, Malta and Sweden may also have slightly different rules and regulations. That would make cross-border trade much harder for you – those countries wouldn’t allow you to sell your hairdryers in their countries, because you don’t comply with their standards. Setting up different production lines for different countries you want to sell to would increase costs for you, leading to higher prices for your products, and reduced competitiveness. You would probably just end up staying in your own country, and lose out on the opportunity to become a big company that trades internationally.

The Single Market has removed those regulatory barriers by allowing frictionless trade between Single Market countries, both in goods and in services. Incidentally, services are things like banking, insurance and telecommunications which make up about 80% of the economy, so it’s quite important to the UK (fishing is less than 0.5%, by the way..). This way, it is now as easy for you to sell your hairdryers from London to Lisbon, as it is to sell them from London to Leeds.

You may ask yourself: “That’s all very nice, but that’s all about trade and stuff. How does that affect me?” Well, having a healthy economy means high employment (jobs), more people spending their well-earned money and keeping the economy going, and more money for the government’s coffers. Companies have to pay corporation taxes, its workers pay National Insurance Contributions and income taxes, and all of that money goes into HMRC. With that pot of money, governments can then pay for schools, hospitals, housing, the police and other public services. It’s a win-win situation, because your country has high employment and more money to spend. Membership of the EU and the Single Market has undoubtedly been of great benefit for the UK, which used to be known as the ‘sick man of Europe’ in the 1960’s. In fact, it has been so successful that it has made the UK the fifth biggest economy in the entire world (although it dropped to sixth soon after the 2016 referendum).

In order to prevent the member states from engaging in unfair competition, and to keep a level playing field, the Single Market also involves countries having certain baseline standards regarding workers’ rights, health and safety regulations, consumer protections, environmental rules, food and animal welfare standards etc. A great number of these kinds of regulations and laws have been written by the UK, which is seen as one of the ‘Big Three’: the three largest and most important countries within the EU (along with Germany and France).

The famous European CE mark, for example, originated from the old British Kitemark. If you see it on a toy that you bought for your children, you can be confident that it is not going to have any tiny components that your baby may choke on, or that he or she is not going to get ill because the toy is covered in toxic paint. All countries within the Single Market have agreed that they will not compete with each other by trying to lower basic standards that exist to protect workers, consumers and the environment, and that they certainly won’t try to get rid of them altogether.

Some of these regulatory rules and standards apply to more than just the 28 EU countries plus those 4 non-EU countries. The Single Market has essentially turned the EU into a huge global powerhouse – one that negotiates its own trade deals with other countries and trading blocs, on behalf of its member states. As an EU member, the UK is part of about 40 trade agreements that the EU has with about 70 other countries, which have taken decades to negotiate. And because it is so big and powerful, the EU has a lot of clout. For instance, if you now buy a toy from China it will have to have a CE mark on it, because the EU has forced China to comply with European safety standards – thus protecting European consumers.

Having these basic common standards is also good news for ordinary citizens, as many EU laws protect them from being exploited by unscrupulous employers. For instance, it means that you can’t be forced to work more than 48 hours a week – you can if you want to, but your employer can’t sack you if you don’t. Things like paid holidays, a ban on age discrimination, LGBT rights, paid maternity leave etc are also enshrined in EU law. It is therefore no coincidence that pretty much all UK unions, as well as the vast majority of economists, campaigned against Brexit during the 2016 referendum campaign.

As you can imagine, the EU has been very keen to protect the integrity of the Single Market during the Brexit negotiations. This consist of four pillars, also known as the ‘four freedoms’:

  1. Freedom of goods
  2. Freedom of services
  3. Freedom of capital (money)
  4. Freedom of people (labour)

EU negotiators set out their strategy from the beginning, and they have been very clear all along: “Anything can be discussed, but we can’t separate these four freedoms, that the success of our Single Market is based on.”

Unfortunately though, the UK spent the next few years trying to cherry-pick bits out of the Single Market cake. Take the Chequers proposal: “We’ll have that freedom of goods part, thank you very much – but you can keep the freedom of movement part that we don’t want.” When the EU explained that you’re either in the Single Market or you’re out of it, and you can’t have it both ways, the UK press were outraged: how dare the EU humiliate our prime minister by refusing our cherry-picking proposals? Surely they should give us what we want?

This rather one-sided British point of view shows a really basic misunderstanding about the importance of the Single Market to the EU, and its role in the prosperity of all EU countries. The EU sticking to its guns is not about it being vindictive, or about punishing the UK. It is about the EU being strong and stable. Its main aim is, of course, to protect the interests of its 27 remaining member states, not that of 1 soon-to-be ex-member. After all, there is not a single organisation in the world that will give better terms to non-members than to members. So why would it be reasonable to expect the EU to change a winning formula, that has taken decades to develop?

When you look back at old footage of pro-Brexit politicians being interviewed before the referendum, you notice how many of them expected the EU to cave in to the UK’s demands. They talk about the UK wanting complete and full access to the Single Market after Brexit, without it having to adhere to the rules on its four freedoms – particularly the freedom of movement part. Or they talk about keeping access to ‘a’ Single Market, rather than ‘the’ Single Market (as if there are two).

It took a little while before it dawned on these Brexiteers that they couldn’t have their cake and eat it. That that unspecified, magical ‘deal’ that they had promised their voters was, in fact, unavailable – and that it had never existed in the first place. It is as if they had decided to cancel their Netflix subscription, but were then completely taken by surprise when they switched on the tv on a Saturday night, and couldn’t watch any movies anymore. And what’s more: they had a go at a rather baffled Netflix afterwards – an organisation that had always been quite clear about its rules.

So where does this odd mix of pie-in-the-sky thinking (“the German car industry will give in to our demands because we are too important to them; we hold all the cards”), victim mentality (“the bullies in the EU want to punish us”) and anti-EU hostility (“it is an elite conspiracy against the public”) come from? And how did we get to a situation where so many British people genuinely believe that the EU is evil, vindictive, and out to get them? Look no further than the British media, and several decades of Project Fear. More of that coming up next week, in part 2.

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Johanna Brunt was born and raised in The Netherlands. She has spent half her life there on the continent, and half her life in the UK. After studying English and European Studies at the University of Amsterdam, she moved to London where she started working for an international airline. She is married to a Brit, and they have three children together.

My Cup Runneth Over…

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I started my Guest Blog month in the hope that at least 50% of the people I had contacted for articles (people whose thoughts, lives and words I admired) would get back to me with some material. In actual fact, nearly 80% did! Yes I did pester and harangue them quite a bit (SORRY!) but my goodness, the response! I am humbled, grateful and overwhelmed beyond description.

My month overran, once again, like last time. But I didn’t mind and nor did my readers. It’s refreshing to come to a blog and read something new and unexpected. And boy, were the articles different and the topics varied!

André chronicled his unusual life and path in My unlikely journey to fatherhood. It was honest, heartfelt and emotionally uplifting. The response to his article was phenomenal. People reached out to tell him (and me) how much they admired him for his choices. His love for his children and their mothers shone like a beacon, and I hope it allowed other seemingly unlikely candidates to believe that they too can be mothers and fathers. After all, families come in all shapes and guises. It is love that holds them together.

The ghost in the office was Shantanu’s retelling of a mysterious series of events that occurred in one of his early offices. Does the supernatural exist? For a practical and rational person like Shantanu, nothing can explain away the incident he mentions. Spooky and eerie, sometimes there are things that are beyond the realm of our understanding, and maybe it’s best to leave them as is. What did you make of it?

Diya had a cushy existence till she decided to take the plunge and start teaching a group of underprivileged children in My rendezvous with God’s angels. What she found there was more rewarding than she could have ever expected. Their innocence, their eagerness to learn, their love for their teacher transformed her life. She learned to let go of the petty annoyances that plagued her, and immerse herself in giving back. To this day, it enriches her life in ways big and small.

Making mosaics became more than a hobby for Jyoti. It was an unconventional choice of craft and she encountered more than her fair share of problems, from the paucity of tools to the reluctance of other practitioners to share their skills. As a result, she started her own blog with the aim of helping other beginners and amateurs to source materials, tools and provide guidance in the process as well. Not only does she create the most beautiful mosaics, but also believes in the adage – ‘Gaining knowledge, is the first step to wisdom. Sharing it, is the first step to humanity.’ In Why do I make mosaics? Jyoti’s passion, humanity and humility shine through. She is an incredibly inspirational lady.

The Call of a Siren was an article sent to me by someone who wished to remain anonymous. If you’ve read the article, you will know why. The beauty of it is that this man has turned his life around from that lapse of judgement he details, and today he is an incredibly successful entrepreneur. He is also an avid reader and dabbles in the occasional bit of writing. It was my exhorting him to put pen to paper that created this thrilling recounting of an incident from his 20’s. I’m sure you’d agree that it reads like an episode from an exciting television series. My own heart was thumping as I read it for the first time! My friend, if you’re reading this, write more. You do have a gift.

HeartonWheels is Jeanne’s raison d’etre. She spends half her life in these refugee camps in Greece helping children overcome the trauma of escaping from war torn countries and being separated from their families. In extremely difficult conditions, she tries to fill their lives with laughter and with joy. This is not just a part time job for her, it is a calling. She is invested physically, mentally and emotionally in the well being of her charges. Her dream is to provide free education to all children in such conditions and through her mobile bus, which she is raising funds for, she hopes to realise this dream. Do have a read and contribute to her justgiving page if you can.

To say that Mohana has had an interesting life would be an understatement. A straight A student, who, for many years let her academic qualifications dictate the course of her life, then suddenly, on what seemed like a whim, let her art and talent take her on an entirely different journey. Yet, in her article, Life’s Nudges to Eke an Untrodden Path, Mohana explains how the seeds of this journey had been planted many years ago. The daughter of a renowned dancer, Mohana herself was an exceptionally talented danseuse. But it took many years, and many tiny hints from the Universe for her to realise where her true path lay. Unapologetically spiritual, she incorporates elements of her faith in her dance. There is an unalloyed joy that she transmits to her students through her teaching, that elevates her dance from the ordinary to the extraordinary.

Bharat is a writer I admire immensely. His grasp on the English language is breathtaking. He can bend, twist, transmogrify and transmute words into astonishing combinations of sentences, transporting the reader into worlds where these words dance and twirl around one like whirling dervishes. A man whose imagination is so fertile, so fecund that he can trot out poem after poem without breaking a sweat. Yet, a self confessed procrastinator, it took me close to a year to get him to write about his Vipassana experience. For a man of words, how strange it must have been to have none for ten days. A retreat that is a true test of one’s mettle, but also a retreat that helps one to delve deeper into the self. Bharat’s take on it is part humorous, but there is an underlying awe and a deep love and respect for humanity that comes through. A tale of two beards is more than just about beards, it is about man’s search for meaning and silence in a world that grows louder and more chaotic each day.

Finally, the poignant and heart wrenching The Bus Stop was Joan’s tribute to her mother who suffered from Alzheimers for several years before succumbing to it. Disease of any kind strips the body of its well being and dignity, but Alzheimers strips the mind of everything. To not know oneself, one’s own life forgotten, one’s family becoming strangers, must be a horribly scary and isolating experience. Joan’s poem gives words to the wordless. It is an insight into a lost and wandering mind, trying to find its bearings, trying to grasp fruitlessly at memories that are slipping away. ‘Am I a lost article?’ is what her mother asked her once. Maybe we all are, lost in one way or another. But to be lost to oneself… what could be worse than that?

My Guest Blog month hasn’t quite ended. A colleague, the extremely intelligent, erudite, politically astute, deep thinking Joke Brunt is working on a series of articles on Brexit for me. The month of May will be devoted to her take on what Brexit stands for, and what the ramifications will be, to those of us on both sides of the fence. Do keep reading, keep commenting and stay engaged!

A very BIG thank you to all of my contributors once again.

The Bus Stop – by Joan Foulks

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I waited for the bus

But the bus just passed me by

I had the ticket in my hand

The schedule memorised

 

The destination isn’t clear

Just somewhere far away from here

Somewhere where I won’t be scared

Where my aloneness can be shared

 

I’m tired of staring at the wall

The words in books I can’t recall

My past times now so meaningless

Their joys? – diminished nothingness

 

I can’t remember who I am

Or friends I might have known

We’re all strangers in my brain

Silent shadows each alone

 

Time has somehow stopped for me

Invisible I can’t get free

I’ve become the living dead

Hopeless, all I feel is dread

 

The Present needs the Past and Future

To be real and not conjecture

Lost in timeless fantasy

I’m angry that I can’t find me

 

(Am I a lost article? –

Or a God Particle

In a quantum parallel

Not lost but doing rather well?)

 

I want my life to seem familiar

Not full of loneliness and terror

I want to love and laugh again

I want to live! – not just pretend

 

Why can’t destiny be kind

To my kaleidoscopic mind

Make my worries go away

Make the Past come out to play?

 

If I could just get on that bus

I think I’d sweep away the dust

So memories’ ghosts could reappear

In a clearer atmosphere

 

I know I’d ride and ride and ride

Till I remembered when I died

So I could finally find some peace

And my soul could be released

Into the endless sea

Or the burning sapphire sky

My heart a dancing wild balloon

Drifting towards eternity

 

A poem about dementia by Joan Foulks.

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NPR broadcast a story about a senior care home in Dusseldorf where most of the residents needed only slight assistance, but there were also a significant number who suffered from dementia. Increasingly, some of these residents would walk outside the home and get lost. The Assisted Living Home did not want to have a ‘lock down’ situation, creating a prison atmosphere for those who were mentally and physically sound, but they were also worried about harm coming to those who needed a bit more attention. They thought and thought and then came up with the idea to build a bus stop, a fake one, a place that had the appearance of being a bus stop but where no buses would actually stop. This worked like a charm! The wanderers would gravitate  towards the bus stop and sit endlessly, not marking the passage of time and patiently waiting for the bus that never came. The staff would make a point of checking the bus stop often, to collect their charges and bring them back inside.

It is human nature to want to discover, change surroundings, explore, no matter what the circumstances of ones life. I wrote this poem for my mother. Many of the phrases I used were said to me by her and her fellow companions at the care home where she spent the last three years of her life.

In memory of Margie who would have been 98 on the 29th of April.

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A TALE OF TWO BEARDS/ SILENCE OF SOUND / CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE VIPASSANA KIND – Bharat Shekhar

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A few days ago, searching for skeletons in my cupboard, I came across this pinkish red, rectangular piece of paper. One side had serrated edges, as though it had been torn out of a larger piece. The paper read – 

NAME : Bharat Shekhar

ACCOMMODATION : MA-2A. 

I stared blankly at it, no recollection whatsoever of what it was about. But as they say, sometimes you just have a gut feeling that you are looking at something important. In this case, it was more a butt feeling. My butt was trying to tell me something.

I turned the paper over, and memory came flooding in. On the other side was printed, “Please tear this portion and insert it in the plastic tag attached to your cushion, which will be allotted to you in the meditation hall.”

Aah! No wonder I had a butt feeling. This paper was proof that for ten days my butt and the aforementioned ‘cushion’ had almost become a continuation of each other for ten plus hours a day – a torture that slowly turned to acceptance and then into a feeling of quiet (and quite numb) achievement. 

OK. So, let me get to what this is all about. Last year, I attended a ten day Vipassana course July 1-10, Jaipur, bang in the middle of a heatwave. Not the most clement of time to be without any air conditioning, that too, in close confines with 150 other profusely sweating bodies, trying to stay absolutely quiet and still and observe one’s breathing and/or sensations. To add to it, outside, in the surrounding Aravali hills,  the peacocks and peahens would be screaming their heads off pleading to the rain gods. To mere mortals, their cries sounded like petulant, ‘Mein hu! Mein hun! (I am! I am!)’, a reminder of our egos, just when we were trying to forget them.  

In the final count however, the physical discomfort, the mental distractions, the vow of silence, the abstinence, all added to and became a part of that experience that was far greater than its parts, that gestalt called Vipassana. 

But again I get ahead of myself. So let me describe the movement step by step. Ever since I had heard about Vipassana’s rigorous meditation regime from a practicing, enthusiast friend, more than a decade and a half ago, I had been instinctively drawn towards it. When I found out that it was entirely non-denominational, non religious and rationalist, that longing to attend a course and experience it myself became an itch. 

However, laziness and other circumstances intervened and it was only last year that I finally got to fill out the online form. I realised the true magnitude of that operation when I saw there that there were over 165 Vipassana centres  dotted all over the world. All were run entirely by volunteers, did not charge anything from the participants (not even for board and lodging), and depended entirely on donations. They did not want to spread, or propagate any religion or ideology apart from the meditation practice itself. For more details, you can check out https://thali.dhamma.org/ 

So it came to pass that I packed my rucksack, and found myself at the Jaipur Vipassana Thali (centre), on a hot afternoon on the first of July 2018. Looking at the other people registering (average age mid twenties), it was clear that I was in the ‘Uncleji’ category. The Centre (Thali) was tucked away in a verdant bowl of the Aravalis, the haunt of langoors, peacocks, peahens, and (allegedly) a leopard too. It covered several acres of prime property with a few large buildings that included the dining halls (two), the prayer halls (four) and a grand pagoda. Apart from these, the property was dotted with small structures, which turned out to be double rooms that would be the participants’ homes for the next ten days. 

Clearly a well oiled operation, it was run entirely by volunteers or Sevaks, who looked after all the activities and needs of the participants, which were many and varied. They ranged from answering queries to serving food, collecting laundry to be cleaned to running the projector for the daily hour long pravachans (talks) by SN Goenka, the person who had popularised Vipassana. The teacher who led the meditations was also a volunteer.

So what was the whole hullabaloo about? Let me quote from the horse’s mouth, their site https://thali.dhamma.org/vipassana.shtml :

“To learn Vipassana it is necessary to take a ten-day residential course under the guidance of a qualified teacher. The courses are conducted at established Vipassana Centres and other places. For the duration of the retreat, students remain within the course site, having no contact with the outside world. They refrain from reading and writing, and suspend any religious practices or other disciplines. They follow a demanding daily schedule which includes about ten hours of sitting meditation. They also observe silence, not communicating with fellow students; however, they are free to discuss meditation questions with the teacher and material problems with the management.

There are three steps to the training. First, the students practice abstinence from actions which cause harm. They undertake five moral precepts, practicing abstention from killing, stealing, lying, sexual misconduct and the use of intoxicants. The observation of these precepts allows the mind to calm down sufficiently to proceed with the task at hand. Second, for the first three-and-a-half days, students practice Anapana meditation, focusing attention on the breath. This practice helps to develop control over the unruly mind.

These first two steps of living a wholesome life and developing control of the mind are necessary and beneficial, but are incomplete unless the third step is taken: purifying the mind of underlying negativities. The third step, undertaken for the last six-and-a-half days, is the practice of Vipassana: one penetrates one’s entire physical and mental structure with the clarity of insight.” 

And thus it came to be, that I found myself in room MA2, a tiny unit with two beds, a ceiling fan and an attached bathroom. In complete silence. The only thing that made a noise was the fan, or the bed creaking occasionally, or the peacocks and peahens mournfully but unsuccessfully calling out for rain.

Every morning, at about 3.45 am a volunteer went around the rooms, gently tinkling a hand held bell, which served as a bell to wake up the volunteers. From then onwards till 9.30 pm, it was (with three short breaks for food and rest), meditation, meditation and meditation, totalling to about ten hours. 

I will not bore you with chronological details, just a few brief impressions, about how it went for me. I can broadly divide it into three phases, death of the idyllic and idealised picture, stare into the void, and rebirth.

In the first phase, all those idealised notions of miraculous, heavenly meditation that would cure one of all past life baggage and ills, solve lifelong existential questions and so on,  got peremptorily and rudely thrown out of the first available window of the meditation hall. A few fans desultorily whirled above. It was awfully hot to be enclosed in a hall with 100 other profusely sweating bodies (all male as there was strict segregation). Sitting in the lotus position, the back drooped like a limp lettuce. Without any back support, the spine arched into an aching curve. The legs fell sleep, while the rest of you only wished that it could. After a while, all these discomforts were dwarfed by the pins and needles (which in time, assumed the size of scimitars and knives)  that were seemingly being driven into the backside by some invisible but malevolent meditation devil. 

This was only the physical part. The mental disintegration was even more extreme. It was almost impossible to stay in the present and focus calmly on the breath for more than a few seconds, before every useless, negative thought, worry and fear came flooding in. This was the second phase, ‘the dark night of the soul’, and one tossed and turned both mentally and physically, wishing one was anywhere else but(t) here. 

However, we had been warned in advance (by the teacher and the nightly videos of SN Goenka) about this phenomenon. It was normal, and one had to cross these stages to reach the third. After the third day, which was the worst for most people, the negativity soon eased. There was a calm(er) acceptance of discomforts, both mental and physical, and greater ability to focus on breath and sensations. There were moments of euphoria, when the whole body and soul combined in one unity and soared high above in the heavens. New solutions suddenly presented themselves to ancient problems. There was a feeling of sudden camaraderie and love for all humanity. Sigh. We had been warned against this opposite extreme. The aim of Vipassana was not to get a ‘high’, but to aspire for equanimity, and achieve an equipoise which accepted both good and bad sensations with equal detachment. Tough task, but over the course of these ten days of simple living, one began to be aware that this was a worthy ideal to aspire for. As an aside here, it is easy to want to be detached from ones negatives – all those fears and worries, but it is much more difficult to not be attached to ones feel good factors. There were moments of that calmness (tip of the iceberg), and a feeling if the benefits were to attach, it would have to be a lifelong practice, not just a one off, but a daily  one. To really get the feel, you have to experience it. As they keep emphasising: Vipassana is entirely experiential. Words cannot do it justice. You have to sit through it, breathe and feel it in your pores, in your senses to even begin to get it.

Oh, and before I end (somewhat hurriedly, as one could go on and on and on), you may not have noticed but a part of the title of the piece was ‘A tale of two beards’. So let me throw some light on that mystery. One of the beards was mine, a rapidly whitening French beard, sometimes sported by the English speaking ‘elite’ of this country. 

The second beard belonged to my roommate, the one I shared the room with for those ten days. He came in somewhat late on the first day and I groaned mentally, partly because by then I had been hoping that I would have a single occupancy, and partly because of his appearance. If I was of uncleji age, he belonged to the granduncleji phase of his life. In his mid 70s, the man was very short (below five feet), and so bowlegged that he swayed from side to side with every step he took. He was clad in a saffron robe and carried a tattered thaila (bag) from which I could see another garua vastra peeping out. He gave off such strong emanations of Amla tel and Dant Manjan that they almost surrounded him like an aura. He had thick bristling eyebrows, white hair tied in a topknot, a Sadhu’s flowing beard, which he also tied in a knot, and an expression of the sort that reminded me of Durvasa, the perpetually displeased sage.

I wonder what impression he formed about me. From his expression, it certainly could not have been very favourable. Anyhow, that’s how far our communication went for the next nine days, as we were not meant to talk or even look at each other. Before we wound up very night, there was a recorded video talk by SN Goenka (the man who popularised this practice the world over). In these talks, using popular idiom and language, he often tore apart the superstitions of religious beliefs, especially things like blind faith in rituals and the harm they did to true spirituality. Post these, when we returned to the room to sleep, I thought I could espy a troubled expression on my roommate’s face. “Ah,” I conjectured smugly, “his traditional beliefs are being challenged and he does not like it. Good.” On the sixth night, I woke up to find him feverishly reading (though we had been told to keep no reading or writing material)  in torchlight from a pamphlet titled ‘Tarak Mantra’ and reciting something over and over, under his breath. In my mind, this confirmed the ‘fact’ that he was a traditional, reactionary sadhu who was getting his comeuppance by having to reexamine his precious casteist beliefs rather late in life. 

On the tenth day we broke the silence and participants were allowed to talk to each other. That’s when the walls of misconceptions that we had formed about each other came crashing down. For instance, (due to my bulk and the cut of my beard), he had thought I was either a businessman (aka gold smuggler) from Dubai, or an actor who did ‘negative’ roles in TV serials. Haha. Then he introduced himself as a Mahant or temple keeper from a small hamlet called Ravat Bhata near Kota. Far from being hurt by Shri Goenka challenging traditional beliefs, he waxed eloquent about how much sense he had disseminated in his videos, and how important it was to have a ‘modern’ view in life. At this point, he simpered a bit and said that he also used to give weekly talks (pravachans) in his temple, talks that he blushingly admitted were largely attended by ‘ladies’. Now, he was running out of material for them, and part of his reason for attending this course was to get inspiration from Goenka’s speaking technique and ‘borrow’ some of his style and content. His parting request to me was to procure some joke books and send them to him, so that he could deliver better punchlines in his pravachans to the ladies.

So much for those impressions that we form about each other. This apart from the Vipassana technique was the other valuable life lesson I learnt. We are so much in haste to form opinions about, judge, and put each other in prefabricated moulds of appearances that we forget each one of us is far more, and far different in reality.  Each and every one. 

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Bharat Shekhar lives in New Delhi.He tries to write when he can, and doodles when he can’t. When in doubt, he gazes at his navel.

Life’s Nudges to Eke an Untrodden Path- Mohana Narayan

by

Holi, the festival of colours, was just around the corner. I was commuting back from my work at TCS, my first job out of college, in Delhi back in 1995. The bus journey back from Gulab Bhawan to Gurgaon required me to take a DTC (Delhi Transport Corporation)  bus from ITO to Dhaula Kuan, and then board a Haryana Roadways bus from Dhaula Kuan to Gurgaon, each about an hour’s journey, depending on the traffic.

I used to observe the differences in the interactions of the people in the two sections of the journey. The Haryana Roadways bus would be filled with older middle-aged folks typically used to the long commutes, and who seemed to know many on the bus. One of the middle-aged men would take out a couple of decks of cards and lay out his briefcase between the seats as a tray and a few of them would start playing their card games amongst chit-chat and entertaining jokes. It had been on one of these commutes that I had struck up a conversation with a co-passenger, a lady I saw regularly reading a book on Buddhism. Something about her aura had me asking her questions about the book, and we ended up having some good discussions. After a few chats, she had invited me to their Buddhist SGI group meeting and a couple of months earlier, I had attended one of their meetings and found their resonant mantra chanting to be a powerful source of connecting deeper. In fact, more recently I had started waking up early to chant for an hour or so and somehow would find that on those days, things would just fall into place and somehow I would be in rhythm with the universe.

In contrast, the DTC buses would be filled with people who had shorter commutes, each busy and lost in their own world, mostly avoiding any substantial conversation with their co-passengers. Not to mention the riff-raff crowd that would regularly harass the women on these buses, in a city that was infamous for ‘eve-teasing’ even 20 years ago.

On this particular day, there was a man standing right next to where I was seated, leaning in more closely than required, making me quite uncomfortable. I was still in my early 20s, a tad shy to create a huge hue and cry, but did tell him in no uncertain terms to stand properly (it was a super crowded bus, with no leg-room but one could perceive the unwarranted brushes). Even after a few sharp remarks, this man continued to push and shove and take every opportunity to rub up against me. At this point, I just started chanting my mantra in my mind and just zoned inwards, as the bus still had a good half hour or more to reach my destination. As guided, I requested my Higher Self to annul any karmic equation between this “unknown” person and me, seeking forgiveness for any past karmic negativity on my part and sought help in this situation.

The bus was moving at its regular Delhi DTC speed, the breeze flowing in through the windows, which had a couple of bars across them and I was just tuned inwards. The most amazing thing happened next! Splaaaash! A wet, plump, water-balloon came flying in through one of the windows (missing the bars across a moving bus) and slapped across this man’s face, getting him all wet! The physics of the path of that balloon as well as the math of the probability of it landing on his face are mind-numbing! All I remember is his mumbling something incoherent and getting off the bus at the very next stop. This was during Holi, and somehow a balloon, some kid had thrown at some other kid, had become the missile that launched my heart into steadfast faith for the rest of my life!

My God! Yes, I use that term so lightly without realising how close my God is to me. The one who has so many galaxies to attend to, looking after me, hearing my sincere, inward plea, a teeny-tiny soul in the vast cosmos of creation. Imagine! No less than the story of Narasimha Avatara (which I now teach as part of a Dashavatara dance piece to young dancers), where God could no longer take the atrocities of an arrogant father towards his own son and stepped out of a stone pillar, from an intangible form into a living, breathing form to protect the boy and his steadfast faith.  

I believe God is willing to help out, as long as I own up to my mistakes and am willing to grow and learn from all the drama that happens around me. A humbling but mind-boggling experience for me at an early age that formed a foundation of Faith, that has been tested many times since. And there have been times, when I was disappointed momentarily or wondered why I had to deal with certain situations with seemingly no help from the Higher one. In most of these cases, however, a few years down the line, when I looked back in retrospect, those very challenges where I did not get the help I asked for, were the ones that helped forge my next growth arc.

Even my current full-time job/mission of teaching classical Bharatanatyam (an Indian classical dance form) and something that I enjoy so much, has been a result of multiple challenges that were thrown my way. After working in software technology and product management for about 15 years including 3 years at TCS, 7 at Oracle and 5 at Yahoo!, when I was laid-off unfairly (or so it seemed to me) by a man I had myself interviewed and hired into a position before going on maternity leave, only to come back after the break to find my work being continuously undermined, partly I believe due to some feeling of  insecurity, it had seemed like a big blow. Though in part, I was relieved because with two kids including an infant, I had been spreading myself thin with early morning calls with EU and late night calls with the Bangalore office, with diminishing time for the family. Even so, without a full-time job, life seemed incomplete.

I decided to go with the flow, and start an Indian after-school program, based on what I felt was needed for my son, who was in third grade then. My Masters degree and education in Entrepreneurship from Stanford came in handy and gave me the required impetus as well. The advice of my Professor Tom Kosnik rung in my ears – “When you want to start something new, don’t wait till you get it all perfect – just start somewhere, and things will evolve in the right direction!”.

I put together a creative program (the first Indian after-school program in Bay Area, thankfully many have started since 2008), with wholesome snacks and multiple classes including Hindi, Vedic Math, Yoga, Indian music, Bollywood dance, Bharatanatyam, Spelling Bee, Science Bee etc during the after-school hours so kids could spend more time with their parents on the weekends. This ran very well for 5 years and I had 25 kids attending classes from 3pm to 6pm daily, in a rented space with 3 rooms. In particular, I started enjoying teaching Bharatanatyam dance classes, as my mother and Guru had been performing (an AIR A-grade artiste) and teaching for over 30 years, while for many of the other subjects, I hired other instructors.

Then God struck again with a different water-balloon! Disaster or challenge is just another name for God, I say. Just before the summer break, five years into running SarvaGuna, my printer which I used to use to print worksheets for the kids broke down; the projector we used to use for presentations stopped working; the rental space came up for leasing and the landlord wanted to only lease for a period of 3 years minimum.

I was feeling bogged down by the operational logistics of running an after-school program (including the pick-ups of students from various schools etc.) but in contrast enjoyed the time spent in creative choreography and found teaching dance to be truly fulfilling.  I decided to listen to God carefully and check if he was guiding me on to my next step. Stepping back, I realised it was teaching dance that I enjoyed the most, and the hours would just melt away in dance classes! I realised that whenever I am dancing or teaching dance, every moment is spent right here in the present – there is no band-width for the past or the future, so every minute dancing was a minute of meditation for me.

Having just moved into a new home, I decided to be courageous and not risk-averse. I took a leap of faith, with just a handful of students to focus on teaching Bharatanatyam dance classes at SarvaGuna, and built a dance studio in our home itself. I told myself that as long as I am doing what I am passionate about and good at, other things will take care of themselves.

And they did! Everything just fell into place like it was meant to be. I enjoyed the time choreographing new pieces, especially those that helped me connect with my God in various shapes and form. Soon students just came by word-of-mouth and I started earning enough for a decent livelihood; we started doing very well at local competitions and now my summer Arangetram (solo debut recital of 3 hours) students have started performing beautifully! A few months ago, Indian Raga approached me to choreograph a piece for a collaboration. (Here is the Hanuman Chaalisa I enjoyed choreographing and dancing to: http://youtu.be/eWaRWqb5FNs ). We have 4 summer Arangetrams planned for this summer. In late March 2019, at a competitive Bharatanatyam competition (only Bharatanatyam entries were evaluated exclusively), SarvaGuna students won awards and placed in top three across all categories! (https://www.facebook.com/166823550147119/posts/1194310570731740/)

While my Faith has come a whole circle back to appreciate the depth of content in our Hindu texts, my spirituality continues to let God intervene as and when needed in my life. In different life situations, when one feels like one just got dumped with a bucket of cold water, it is perhaps the Universe’s way of nudging us along a different direction. I know my own story is incomplete and there may be more surprises, jolts and nudges to come my way in this roller-coaster life. All I can do is hang on and have Faith. Let us all pay attention to those nudges (or jolts), seek courage for travelling down untrodden paths and we may just discover new joys and lessons come our way…

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Mohana Narayan
Website: www.SarvaGuna.com
FB: www.facebook.com/SarvaGunaLearning/photos
Video: http://youtu.be/eWaRWqb5FNs

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With a masters in Entrepreneurship from Stanford University and a background in Computer Science Engineering (Birla Institute of Tech, Ranchi) prior to 2008, Mohana spent the early part her career focused on product management in the software technology world.

Mohana Narayan has also trained in Bharatanatyam from a very young age under the able guidance of her mother and teacher Guru Smt. Usha Narayan, who is a renowned dancer and AIR A grade artiste from New Delhi. Smt. Usha Narayan, has passed down a deeply ingrained sense of aesthetic values and awareness of clean lines and angles of movement and a natural gift for heart-felt abhinaya or expression. Mohana has performed from a very young age along with her mother in many performances and dance productions in India and abroad. She has assisted in training young students for over 20 years now. Mohana enjoys teaching dance as well as formulating unique choreographies. She has presented various thematic productions over the years including recent ones such as Navavidha Sambandham, Andaal Anubhavam, Sri Ramanuja Vaibhavam, Nruttya Nikshepa Atma Nikshepa, training hundreds of students for these large productions with a creative flair founded on pain-staking attention to detail. Mohana trains students of various age groups with an eye for detail and focus on one-on-one attention promoting individual strengths. As the founder of SarvaGuna, which has since 2008 conducted many workshops, classes, and student performances, she has worked with students of various age groups and enjoys bringing out the best in each individual. Mohana’s forte is understanding, utilising and enhancing stage dynamics’s whether it be in solo or group performances, as well as to seek out the divine, magical element in literary compositions. While her primary training in classical dance has been from her mother Guru Usha Narayan in the Pandanallur style, she has also trained with other instructors and Gurus of the Tanjavur, Kalakshetra and Vazhuvoor styles. She continues to train and learn from senior Gurus at every possible opportunity. She incorporates the most dynamic of these aspects in her own choreographies. In addition, she continues to train post-arangetram students in new items for a second margam to advance their skills and finesse in this beautiful artform.

Mohana lives with her husband and two children in the Bay Area of California, where she has been residing for over 20 years now.