Monthly Archives: February 2013

A request for a brainstorming

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Sotuda had made a request.

The request was for a brainstorming.

The invitees where, I suppose, the Alumni of Visva Bharati.

The subject is a bit vague, but is to do with some conflict that reportedly happened a few days ago, between the University and a nearby resident with multiple generational connection with Visva Bharati, on the issue of land use relating to access to resident quarters.

Lately, I have been staying away from the whole Santiniketan scene, through a serious sense of disillusionment, and a feeling that my interest is better served in worthier projects with worthier efforts involving worthier people. I learned to distinguish Tagore, from the Tagorians. I could live with Tagore, but not so much with the born again Tagorians.

But, old habits die hard, and once in a while, we get bitten by the Tagorian bug, and we end up responding to tug at our aging heart, on issues raised by the people I know from Santiniketan.
And so, I ended up responding to Sotuda on Pradeep Malhotra’s google Santiniketan board, where I saw the original request.

But, my views, while likely to be too caustic to be popular – are, in my view, hard truths, and hence perhaps deserve to be archived in one place, on a blog of an opinionated so and so.

And thus, I record it here – albeit proof reading it hurriedly, and editing the text a bit.

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Invitation to a brainstorming

Responding to your invitation for a brainstorming, – your second paragraph seems to identify the subject – which relates to the Ukil incidence.

A Facebook friendship that did not last

I do not know enough details of the Ukil case in itself. A few years ago Satyasree was a FB friend of mine. He at one time started tagging me or mentioning me incessantly in his posts which often related to  a conflict that appeared to be brewing with VB about access to his home. This barrage of too many of his posts where I was mentioned and therefore got notification from FB, was beginning to flood my personal space. I did not like being forced to read all his posts, and preferred not to be notified every time he posted something.

So I informed him not to tag or mention me constantly in his posts. My intention was not to hurt Satyasree’s feelings and neither to appear uncaring about his plight. I just did not want to be flooded with his posts, thats all.

However, I have a direct way to addressing issues and perhaps with less tact than others.  I might have inherited this part form my mother.

Anyhow Satyasree did not like my comment, and made a few counter comments that I did not appreciate. Subsequently we are no more friends in FB, an unfortunate development.

On the generic topic of encroachment

Having clarified that – I feel I might respond to your invitation to “brainstorming” on the generic topic, Sotuda, and not about the Ukil case.

I have vivid recollection of discussion by my parents, uncles and other elders relating to this very topic – of encroachment into Visva Bharati land as well as stealing of non-VB public land by prominent employees of Visva Bharati. I was a school boy then and heard all that by accident. But I could follow the topic and absorb it. I could see how both the Stalwarts as well as ordinary workers were all engaged in unethical encroachment of public land.

Legality is one thing – ethics is another. To me this distinction is very important – if we claim to wish help either VB or Rabindranath’s dream of a building a inclusive just society.

The Aban Palli Story

Then there was this case with my mother’s plot in Aban Palli.

A respected University employee built a house and promptly gobbled up a road that was to pass by his plot. He planted trees and constructed a well on that slice of land, so that it would now be difficult to undo the deed.

A proposal was then made to divert the missing section of the road to go along a nearby plot of land my mother owned, so that she would lose a slice of it, due no fault of hers, to compensate for the stolen road by another person. I was a school kid then.

My mother is made of a different material. She had a penchant for standing up for things she believed in.

She consulted with Ashoke Bijoy Raha, my uncles, and a lawyer and was ready to initiate a civil court case against the Gentleman responsible. But the advice she got was not to take that step right away, but rather, erect a four feet brick wall along the southern boundary of her plot which would be in the path of this “diverted road”. If any miscreant was to break that wall in order to construct a road, then she should use that evidence and initiate a much more serious court case.

I still remember the words used by Ashoke Bijoy Raha to describe what that kind of court case is called in Bengali. “Fouzedari Mamla”, he would thunder. I still do not know what exactly is Fouzdari mamla, but will never forget that term, and Ashoke Bijoy Raha, a generally mild mannered person – used a thundering voice to highlight its significance.

The wall was erected overnight and it stands to this date. No further encroachment happened into our land. The entire community suffers there because one part of a useful road is missing and people have to use circuitous ways to go about.

Years later, after the gentleman passed away, his wife apparently admitted to my mother of the “mistake” and implied that the land allocated for the road was consumed by mistake and not by intension. My mother told me about it. By then I was living far away from Santiniketan and only visited there on occasion.

Mistake or not – the family did not correct the mistake and did not give the land back. The missing section of the road remains missing till this date, even when most of their children are also getting old and dispersed around the world, and do not even live in that house.

Mistakes do not get corrected in Santiniketan

A mistake never gets corrected around Santiniketan. This is a lesson with multiple examples. We like to keep mistakes unrecognized, unaddressed and uncorrected. We do not like clarity to emerge from a complicated issue.

Correcting a mistake needs public admittance that a mistake has been made. Correcting such mistakes requires a mind set, an ethos, a humanity, a commitment to community building that the residents of Santiniketan never learned from Rabindranath, despite all of his efforts.

Unless we address such fundamental shortcomings within ourselves first – every other dialog remains useless. It may assume a gloss of pomp and ceremony, but remain hollow and without substance and ultimately useless and general waste of time.

We represent cumulative generations of people that live in denial and engage in obfuscation of truth.

You want to do brainstorming with all the root issues under the carpet ? What kind of a brain is needed for that and what kind of a storm are we to get? A storm in a tea cup?

For all these reasons, I have found it difficult to respect people from my heart when I find people circumvent hard truths and opt to tap dance for superficiality.

Santiniketan has no real community

The general community building ethos that Rabindranath tried so tried to inculcate into our minds – of sharing and working not only for one’s own needs but also for the common good – is almost totally missing from our dialogs these days. Shyamali Khastgir might have been the last champion – but she too got mostly superficial support and has posthumously turned into a symbol to show off, but not to follow.

This is the ethos that Gandhi, Tagore and others of their time tried to instill into the people. And they all failed.

If that ethos could be cemented as a foundation in a small community such as Santiniketan – further structures could be built regarding harmony. Issues such as access to residence could perhaps be resolved by community discussions and willingness to admit faults and make required sacrifice where needed for a common good. Solution could perhaps be found following the age old idiom – বিস্বাসে মিলায় বস্তু – তর্কে বহুদূর।

What community building ?

This ethos was to be a part of a huge nation building effort by Tagore around Santiniketan, which starts with changing of one’s own paradigm with regard to what is mine only, and what should be for everybody’s benefit.

Instead of understanding this ethos, let alone believing in it and engaging in it actively – we have created generations of pundits that like lecturing everyone else how great Rabindranath’s humanism was, and why Santiniketan should be a heritage site.

I used to feel sorry for my father, my mother, and many others that clearly did not like how the selfish gene had penetrated so deeply into people of Santiniketan. They had in their heart an idealistic image of a Santiniketan that they developed from the time of their youth when Rabindranath himself was alive. They lamented the loss of that Santiniketan.

They did not highlight the root causes in widely circulated platforms. They did not have a progressive platform where such subjects would be widely discussed. They had no access to wider news media. There was no internet those days. Community building was not a topic of discussion in my childhood around the circle of people I knew.

Rising above the selfish gene

How about standing up and admitting that mistakes have been committed, either legally, or morally, or even ethically, that leaves less for the community that was supposed to be Santiniketan, of which Visva Bharati was to be an integral part?

Once we can admit to such mistakes, and thus prove we have risen above the selfish gene – one can brainstorm on finding solutions.

How about a genuine effort to consider offering VB to buy back that house and plot, thus solving the issue for good, and allowing VB to use your property for the common good of the University, as they clearly need to expand.

As it is, most of us do not live in the house built by our parents. We have better quarters elsewhere. Why do we need to cling on to something that can better serve the University ?

I did try to give away my father’s Binoy Bhavan house to the University after he passed away, but found it hard to get anybody interested in VB. I, along with my brother, even visited Kala Bhavana to check if it was practical for Kala Bhavana to be gifted with the house. But it did not work out. Nobody seemed seriously interested in VB, primarily because my fathers house was far away from VB land and perhaps there was no mechanism or interest at the time for VB to look into these issues.

A spectacular failure

We need to change our mindset – and try to adopt the community building character and belief that Rabindranath tried so hard to build, and failed so spectacularly, thanks to the Rabindra-devotees that have been so busy milking the Tagorian cow for all it is worth.

One of the reason I stay away from ex-student bodies is the sheer lack of depth in most everything that they do.

A dangerous tradition

There is a dangerous tradition of refusing to call a spade a spade, along with a caustic trend of keeping unpleasant truths shrouded in mystery or kept under wraps.

One thing the Alumni might consider is this – why don’t good people come forward with lots of good suggestions and engage in constructive debates on the issues of the day? Why is it that all efforts to have a healthy and highly participated debate amongst ex-students normally does not bear fruit? As the proverbial saying goes – the silence id deafening.

There usually is a reason why good people do not waste time with these topics. Good people are busy, and do not like to engage in pursuits of absurdities.

Neither the University, nor the people living off it and around it, or people wanting to capitalize on it half a world away, seem to have the stomach for truth. A vast majority of folks refuse to stand up for anything at all, and will only engage is trivia and rubbish. A deafening silence is the common outcome of all efforts at any root cause analysis of anything.

That more or less explains why no real brainstorming is possible with the Alumni or with anybody related to Santiniketan.

We are all afraid of truth.

One cannot engage in brainstorming, if one cannot face truth.

Besides, one must have a brain to start with, and then be willing to seriously engage it on difficult and unpleasant issues. One must also have the right mind set, dedication and doggedness to progress through a difficult an unpleasant but necessary processes.

So that is my contribution and the quota for the month Sotuda – towards a brainstorming.

I wonder if you got more than you had hoped for.

Cheers and best regards
Tonu

In search of a dead river and a living Goddess

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Yesterday, we had the Saraswati puja.

Why they link a specific date of the calendar with specific deities, I do not know. However, those are the dates when the devotees apply special attention to, and prayers at, a specific God or Goddess. So yesterday was the day for Saraswati, a Goddess that most Hindu people assign with knowledge. Understandably, it is popular among youngsters and the student community.

The elderly, perhaps not in want of further enlightenment, are perhaps relatively less enamored with this Goddess.

And then there is the issue of work days and weekends. So, in some parts of the world far removed from India, such as around Vancouver in British Columbia, the chosen dates are often rounded off to the nearest weekend. And thus it was for us, on Saturday the 17th Feb 2013. The thing to do, is to visit the temple, spend about 5 minutes or so before the replica of the deity and pray together, usually a few short sentences in Sanskrit that very few understand, so they repeat, word for word, what is dictated to them by the priest, who is one of us, but good at this job and often assigned the task of a priest for such occasions. He has a notebook with the required mantra’s or prayers, to be used for specific occasions like this.

But that prayer, as I said earlier, takes but five minutes or so. For the rest of the time, people mingle, share pleasantries, chit chat, meet up with each other, and have a meal if such is arranged by the puja committee. There is also a sort of music session where a few good singers might perform for the audience. Some might even perform a dance with some classical music or a Tagore song.

Its a nice way of spending the day.

Not being particularly religious, I would in the past often give such gatherings a pass. However, this year was an exception. I was going to drive Tan Lee da and Leena Chatterjee to the temple.

My wife, Anuradha, is more involved with decoration and other arrangements by the volunteers that help out the Puja Committee. So she was to leave early in the day, and likely would return late in the evening. And she would drive by herself.

Meanwhile, Tan Lee da and Leena di wished to go this time but was wary of driving. The reason is, he could not find the place last year, and eventually went back home without attending the puja. So, when he talked about it on the phone this time, I offered to be their driver.

Anuradha had donned a golden border Sari and looked fetching, so I took a picture before she drove off. I thought to using the caption – in search of a Goddess – for that picture.

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Anyhow, I took my time having a lazy breakfast, a large coffee, avoided Kurta Pajama for now and dressed in trouser, shirt and a jacket, and headed at Tan Lee da’s place.

Tan Lee da is a unique person. He was born in China and is a citizen of Canada. And yet, he is more Bengali at heart, and more attached to certain aspects of Santiniketan than myself. Describing him more fully would be outside the scope of this blog.4v001a

I had taken my camera along, with a standard medium zoom lens and a 16mm full frame fish eye lens. The fish eye was normally not used on people, as straight lines appear curved, but I had decided to use it at the puja, for fun. Thus, Tan Lee da became the first inadvertent subject of my experiment.

On the way to the temple, I was mainly engaged in explaining to Tan Lee da and Leena di about what I understood of the mass movement ongoing in Bangladesh regarding the trials of those accused of crimes against humanity during its struggle for independence in 1971.

We reached the prayer hall before noon. I did not make a head count, but suspect there were less than a hundred people present. I shook hands with everyone I knew and some I had not met before, and then headed for the snack section, to help myself with a cup of tea and some snacks, and met up with Dahlia and Ananya there.4v002a

Looking around, with the ladies dressed so elegantly and staying close to the deity, I felt as if the ladies actually came for blessing of the Goddess, while the men perhaps come to look at the ladies.

4v004a

I had an interesting bit of discussion with Amlan Dasgupta and Siddharth Gupta, regarding corruption of high officials in Government and politics in almost all soceities, and how our own friends and buddies would often stay away from controversial issues that so concerned us. To me, it was not much use blaming politician if we were ourselves not willing to stand up for it to an extent and raise awareness.

The visit was valuable for me as I met up with a lovely group of people from the neighboring state of Assam. Anuradha took down their phone number, and we planned to have an evening of dinner and adda one of these days.

The youngsters were going to the Roundhouse Community Centre in Vancouver regarding a function in Bengali and to honor the 21th Feb Bhasha Andolan day remembrance as a key event in Bangladesh’s aspiration for freedom of expression, language, and government. I was invited by Amlan, but could not make it as my time was tied with Tan Lee da and Leena di.4v005a

I did not stay long, as Tan Lee da and Leena di wished to return home early. Others stayed back for the music and dance sessions, which lasted into the evening. The ladies then went someplace for a further powwow, my wife included.

Anyhow, if was a pleasant way of spending a day, and I passed another year without consciously asking for the Goddess of knowledge for any blessing. To me, Saraswati is primarily a key historical river of ancient India that disappeared as the Himalayan ice age glaciers that fed the river receded and finally vanished at the Sivalik hills post ice age around four thousand years ago. To me, that river was the location where the first recognizable congregation of humans were laying down practices, rituals, lifestyles, and thoughts that would later come to be known as Hinduism.

I was not a religious person, and to me Hinduism is not even a religion that follows the conventional yardsticks of other mainstream religions. Lately I have come to question the centralized Governments of nation states as well as the concentration of power by mainstream religions. I have come identify more with agnosticism and a theoretical anarchy that is often professed by free thinking individuals such as Noam Chomsky and others. I am not a convert into it yet, since I do not know if horizontal form of local governance without vertical structure of hierarchy is at all possible for industrial societies with larger populations. We have several millennia of practice and getting hooked to a vertical system of power structure and Governance.

But, we can always ponder these issues, especially since the current vertical control model is clearly fraying at the edges, and cracks are beginning to show at its foundations.

On the drive homeward with Tan Lee da and Leena di, we broached the topic of Brahma Samaj and its decline, Arya Samaj as its current status, and what position Rabindranath Tagore took with regard to the perceived Hindu Samaj – Brahma Samaj divide of his time. People like Prasanta Mahalanobis and Sukumar Roy and their interaction with Tagore and the then Brahma Samaj were touched upon.

Not a bad way to spend a day.

Perhaps, in spite of my skepticism, the concept of Saraswati the Goddess had blessed me not so much with knowledge per se, but with a tendency to question everything I read or heard, and to analyze the information, filtering in what seemed believable at the time, and rejecting what appeared unlikely, and yet leaving the doors and windows open, for future changes in ideas.

I guess this was my way of relating to Saraswati, the river, the Goddess and the perception of knowledge.

A few videos about Debal Deb

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Dr. Debal Deb on Golden Rice. Dr Debal Deb is the true essence of a scientist. A scientist turned farmer who has the ability to understand issues and environments not only on an intellectual level but as importantly, on an emotional one. He understands what is taking place globally and has come to his own conclusions in how best to correct the damage taking place, scientifically and practically. He understands that science can be used as a solution to our food crisis, just that it needs to be functioning holistically, working with the natural systems and almost as importantly, with the farmers and their generations of agricultural knowledge.

This maverick scientist working against the corporate and institutional grain, dedicating his life to scientifically prove that nature already had the answers and what we were being sold has little to do with sustainability and everything to do with control. Debal, I was told, was one of four scientists working on what is known as the ‘Food Web Theory’. Rather than trying to destroy life around agriculture, Debal argues that we need to understand and then simulate an efficient bio-diverse environment, a more holistic approach to agriculture, one that has existed for many thousands of years. He is involved in preservation of over 1,000 strains of rice, apart from training others how to do so.

I decided to include here a few videos uploaded on U tube on my talks with Debal, that deserve to be on my blog. These are

1. Dr. Debal Deb – on Golden Rice

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2. Dr. Debal Deb on GM crop – part 2

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3. Dr. Debal Deb on GM crop – part 3

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4. Dr. Debal Deb on Rabindranath Tagore, Santiniketan, and the corrosive effects of Bengaliana

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And now I shall include below a video on not created by me, but also of Debal Deb talking about food security and against Golden rice. The video is titled – Asian Farmers Say No to Golden Rice.

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Tonu (তনু)

Visva Bharati – a wish list as a white paper

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We go through the ebb and flow of interest and disinterest – when it comes to Visva Bharati and Santiniketan. This is in contrast with my constant tug at the roots of Tagore’s evolution as a man and as an architect of modern India.

So, in one of my weaker moments, and under some coaxing by Leena di (Chatterjee – Mrs. Tan Lee, of Delta, Canada), I had written a four page note and passed it to them.

It became a kind of bother, because Leena di thought it was very good but needed to be tweaked, and then it needed to be sent to the bigwigs. Bigwigs ? I was not going to send it to anyone, big or small wig, because I really did not think it mattered.

Leena di felt otherwise and wished to send the cleaned up white paper to folks.

Meanwhile, the flow of interest has turned to the ebb of disinterest, and a suspicion that it did not really matter what anybody wrote or thought about Visva Bharati or Santiniketan. It would go its way, just like the human civilization is taking the planet to its ultimate course. It does not really matter an iota, what anybody thinks.

However, I do know from talks with Sabujkoli Sen that work is afoot on the issue of the ex-student community, so that a large database can be prepared by their computer department, and used for a global electronic voting for election of future members.

And so, I thought I will preserve my uncorrected and written off-the-cuff white paper here, before I hand it to Leena di for her to do whatever she liked.

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SRINIKETAN 

  1. Preservation of Indigenous Rice Strains.
  2. Research and promotion of chemical free organic farming.
  3. Promotion of sale outlet for organic produce.
  4. Revitalize the Samabaya Samitee arrangement for promotion of local organic farming to the University and surrounding areas, with help and involvement of other streams of Visva-Bharati.
  5. Consider inviting famous soil preservation and sustainability activists such as Vandana Shiva of Dehradun and Debal Deb of Odisha, to visit Santiniketan, study the state of Sriniketan, and help amend the Sriniketan constitution, to bring it back to health and to perform its designated function.

SANGEET BHAVAN

  1. Research on Arnol Bake’s early recordings.
  2. Research on revival of Gauria Nritya
  3. Consider presenting social dance drama not only for the yuppy upper middle class but also to the real targets of these creations – the rural Bengal. Start with having one dance drama presented in the Poush Mela along with other “Yatra”s, for a start. Emphasize on the message of the dance drama instead of superficialities.
  4. Find others means of promoting Tagore’s social messages through dance drama and other plays into the Bengal heartland and beyond. Stop hankering for visiting big cities and foreign countries for stage presentation to the non-plussed elite. Remember, Tagore went with dance drama presentation to big cities to raise funds to run Santiniketan, since he refused help from the British Govt. Today, the university runs with Govt money, and VB does not need to raise funds to this end. The dance drama were designed as social msg for the rural class and Tagore has written about this. Follow his writings and view and use your logic. Let VB be the agent of social change which it was designed to be and deserves to be.

RABINDRA BHAVAN

  1. Research on Elmhirst-Kalimohan correspondence.
  2. Research on Salil Ghosh-Elmhirst correspondence.

PATHA BHAVANA

  1. Review of course syllabus. Consider inclusion of topics such as organic farming, soil preservation, sustainability of development,  and effects of man’s actions on climate change/Global warming.
  2. Encourage senior class students in field research on these topics.
  3. Include in syllabus (civics section) – the need for an effective civil society in Bengal.

VIDYA BHAVAN

  1. Conduct research on social science to assess current situation and future trend of demographic changes undergoing in surrounding territory in the district of Birbhum, West Bengal, and South Asia.
  2. Research on the absence on an effective Civil Society in Bengal and effective means of re-invigorating it. Merge this research with ground experiments through other wings of the University and the ex-student body.

SOCIAL SCIENCES

  1. Engage in serious socio-economic study of the status of the tribals in villages around Santiniketan, and engage long term live experimentation in order to find ways to save the tribals from their perpetual state of servitude and political social and economic disenfranchisement. Make this among the most pressing themes of the socio-economic studies of the University. Engage other departments to join hands in field experiments and put in place a system by which one can learn on the job and fine tune to see what works long term. Once a successful method has been tested, promote it through the local and federal Government for the rest of the tribal community.

INDEPENDENT AUDIT OF DEPARTMENTS

  1. Arrange for an audit of the Engineering department, to help identify and root out corruption with regard to orders given out for construction as well as material orders, as well as vetting of the kind of construction that is to be erected on Visva-Bharati territory and aesthetics.
  2. Audit all departments within VB for efficiency, functionality, adherence to the constitution and to identify over-employment and surplus employment. Use this to cut the fat and trim the institution.
  3. Have a procedure in place to subject all departments of the University to periodic independent audit from reputed and capable firm.

POUSH MELA COMMITTEE

  1. Give preference to rural and artisan products and promote chances of their financial success against urban industrial products. Example, do not allow giant wheels so that rural industry of hand operated “Nagor Dola” can make a come back.
  2. Appoint qualified persons to decide what kind of performers are allowed to perform on stage for folk music, kobi gan etc, so that genuine and high quality performers are promoted instead of third grade copy cats and make belief folk mendicants.
  3. Appoint a qualified committee to revisit the issue of the purpose of the Poush Mela in todays context, that serves a purpose for Visva-Bharati to support and promote it. Consider the hygiene issues of clean water supply, sanitary facility etc of the visitors.
  4. Downsize the mela. This should be easy if industrial product outlets are reduced greatly. This will turn the Mela into something manageable and meaningful and hopefully keep the bad crowd away.

EX-STUDENT BODY

  1. Find ways to unify entire ex-student diaspora. Have no illusion, the ex-students have never been able to come together under a single umbrella in the century old history of the institution, and have more often than not been engaged in activities for personal gain in the guise of “Rabindra-prem”. Factionalism within the community plagued Santiniketan even during Rabindanath’s own life, and has pained him immensely. It has also continued till date. The reason it is not discussed is perhaps ex-students are, like most others, in denial of truth. Accepting a glaring fact is the first step towards addressing the problem. This is going to be very difficult, but take this task on a war footing. This should, in my view, be the first task of the Ex-student body, instead of lecturing the University or anybody else.
  2. Engage in development of a strong and forward thinking civil society in and around Santiniketan, with inclusion of staff and students of VB-Santiniketan, Sriniketan complex, local shopkeepers, surrounding villages, and the Samabaya Samity movement. Creation of such a civil society was the hall mark of early Bengal reformers, and a lesson that was being fine tuned by Rabindranath around Santiniketan. This is a subject hardly ever talked by the current batch of ex-students. Better late than never. Most of the progress of the concept of Visva-Bharati hinges on a vibrant civil society around the place, and by extension, influencing greater Bengal and India. Engage in introspection on the future of VB, which is affected by greater forces around it such as the decline of a reform oriented Bengal civil society, encroachment of corruption and nepotism in all walks of life, changing demography and population density, and VB’s dependence on financial dole outs from Delhi. This too is a long and hard task, but there is no getting away from it if one wishes to see long term survival and improvement of Visva Bharati to a world class institution for hatching greater visions for humankind, while having very strong socio-economic roots into the rural community surrounding it. This was what VB was, and this is what it was conceptualized to be. If well wishes of VB do not engage in it, nobody else will.
  3. Improve upon this list by more cognitive thinking, analysis of ground reality, a more serious study of Rabinranath’s introspections on the need of a future India, fresh analysis of the future awaiting Bengal and India in this rapidly changing and deteriorating state of the society and planet. Get Visva Bharati to engage in these essential studies on a serious footing for proper implementation of Rabindranath’s vision and the meaning behind the word Visva-Bharati. The institution was to be a hot bed of cultural, social and ecocnomic lab experiment of ideas, and not a static body frozen in time and reproducing meaningless dance dramas without their social context.
  4. Make all functions of the Ex-student body “COMPLETELY TRANSPARENT”, with every aspect of its dealings open in public domain and with no “SECRETS”. The group must stand the test of transparency.

Tonu