MY MUSINGS ON THE WORLD AROUND

Abuse of Power

2010-10-24T07:51:00.000-07:00

We, the modern Indian upper middle and upper classes, have been by and large supposedly taught to reject blind faith and to think rationally thanks to the boost that «scientific temper» received ever since our beloved Uncle, Chacha Nehru, ensured that it was made one of the Fundamental Duties of every citizen of India to develop a «scientific temper». Without elaborating much on this subject as that can take the space of 10 blogs or more, I directly arrive upon the problem of the blind faith that is conferred upon doctors. Since physicians are perceived as men and women of science who work with the sole and single-minded objective of curing a malady or alleviating the troubles caused by a disease based on their medical studies, there is apparently no need felt to question the remedies they prescribe (including medicines and surgeries), their training (good marks ≠ good doctors always) or even whether they are psychologically sound enough to be in the close proximity of their patient.

The recent rape of a Vashi lady patient under anaesthesia by Vishal Vanne (I refuse to prefix his name with Dr.) did not come as a shock to me. It definitely did shock and anger my parents, especially my father who is an orthopaedic surgeon himself. He is of the opinion that Vishal Vanne should be bobbitised as that is the only punishment fit for him. I, for one, was only stoic, only wondering whether more such things could have come to light earlier, had patients not been under complete anaesthesia. A late-night conversation at my hostel with a roommate 5 years ago had shocked, outraged and numbed me enough to not feel anything this time around. My former roommate has an elder sister who is a doctor. Let us call her Dr. V. Dr. V. did her M.B.B.S. at a reputed medical college in Bombay when she experienced stuff straight out of movies based on psychopaths. Dr. V’s parents had started hunting for a single, young, eligible doctor for her when she consented to have an arranged marriage as she did not have a boyfriend. The very first proposal they managed to fish was from a cardiac surgeon. The girl refused him without meeting him. The parents were taken aback. Furthermore, she instructed her parents not to allow a surgeon even in the veranda of the house! This left her folks flabbergasted. She explained her reaction. She had participated in several surgeries where she had witnessed surgeons (young and old) abuse patients under anaesthesia (not penetrative assault of course) and make such debauched and deplorable comments as to be unimaginable to someone with even an iota of decency. On those occasions she had wanted to escape from the operation theatre as she was unable to concentrate on the task at hand and was unwilling to tolerate indecency aimed at the patient and herself. I was left stunned and speechless. Given my paternity, I also felt betrayed. I was extremely embarrassed too (as if the guilt were my own) as the other two girls present at that time made a quick glance in my direction (possibly to gauge my reaction) and looked away. At that moment, I would have given up anything to be told definitively that my father was not a surgeon or a doctor at all! However, that would have made him a quack given that he tells the world that he is a surgeon. Nonetheless, he was and he is a qualified surgeon with verifiable credentials and I had to make my peace with that. Dr. V has now completed her M.D. and she is now married to a M.D. She stuck to her decision of not having a surgeon for a husband.

That exchange had remained in my mind ever since and it continued to torment my soul. I once casually brought up that conversation during a tête-à-tête with my parents and asked my father if surgeons have a reputation for being perverts in the medical community. Their reactions were remarkable. My mother, who was convinced that nobody from her husband’s profession was capable of such a thing, declared Dr. V. to be crazy. My father however was perturbed and disconcerted. He did not say a word and he avoided eye contact for quite some time with his 19 year old daughter. A year or two later, I mentioned the same conversation to a lady doctor in my French class. She admitted that such things are commonplace and it disturbs her that any and every kind of a person, irrespective of character, can become a doctor as long as they score high marks in the medical entrance test and class 12 exams. The doctors who abhor perverse and anti-social behaviour in hospitals and medical colleges often don’t speak up for the lack of conclusive evidence and since student doctors have the additional burden of obtaining their degrees before starting a revolt. My father may not be guilty or even capable of such a crime but he along with this lady doctor friend of mine and Dr. V., is guilty of not protesting on the spot against errant doctors or at least reporting such things to competent authorities. What compounds the gravity of the Louts Hospital rape case in Vashi is the fact that Vishal Vanne is not even a surgeon! He is an ayurvedic doctor and yet had access to an operation theatre where these guys have no business! The Lotus Hospital has rightly been served the show cause notice.

The school and college system does not very actively seek to inculcate correct principles amongst students. Most teachers very conveniently and erringly label high scorers as ‘good and sincere children’ and those who are distracted, average or low scorers as ‘failures’ or ‘wasted’. Such sweeping generalizations have multiple faults of their own but the worst being that we, as a society often fail to acknowledge the fact that even criminals are very sharp, intelligent and clever. Combine this with knowledge, professional and/or social position and the nerve to act out depraved desires and then the likes of Vishal Vanne ruin lives. The same reasoning also applies to our notoriously corrupt bureaucracy, fouled by a large number of unscrupulous IAS, IPS and IRS officers who were all high scoring students during the years they were being ‘educated’. Seemingly trustworthy, unethical people in positions of power (even seemingly insignificant such as that of a surgeon) are precisely those who we refer to when we say in Marathi and Hindi that the monkey has a burning torch i.e. माकडाच्या हातात कुलीत or बंदर के हाथ में जलती मशाल

Elevator = Alleviation of troubles

2010-10-23T22:04:00.000-07:00

It is either not allowed or it is not obligatory in India for building with 4 storeys or less to have an elevator. I do not know the reason for this. If anyone does, you are requested to enlighten me about the same. I am still very young and disease/disability-free (thankfully) to be bothered by non-elevator buildings but unfortunately certain family members are not. This has got my blood boiling.

The last Ganesh festival took us to my aunt’s place. She lives on the 3^rd floor of a 4 storied building in Thane. Here is what happened.

1. My mother, whose one knee has recently decided to be troublesome, took more than 6 minutes (with a nearly 2 minute halt at the 2^nd floor) to get to the 3^rd floor. She had only a slightly-less harrowing time coming downstairs.

2. Upstairs, my aunt looked much more portly than she was last year. I was taken aback by the change. My aunt and her husband are diabetics in need of regular exercise. My dad, an orthopaedic surgeon, gave his cousin a sermon on the benefits of walking. She just had one dry reply. “I have not left the house in months. I am old now. The legs don’t permit that. It’s easy to go downstairs, but it’s an uphill task getting back home. Her husband had the same complaint.

The conversation between my parents, my aunt and my uncle got me thinking and brought to mind troubles of people facing the same predicament due to varied reasons. Consider the cases below.

1. A friend’s mom recently underwent a hip replacement surgery and needs the assistance of a walking stick to get around the house. She stays in a 4 storied South Bombay building without a lift. This lady is largely confined to her house as using the staircase gives her leg aches.

2. Imagine the agonies of expectant mothers in such buildings. Movements become much slower and demand more efforts during this period. The woman will have to trek up and down the building during the 2^nd and the especially strenuous 3^rd trimester if there is no lift. A working lady might even consider going on leave earlier for this reason. It will also be a tough task to help a lady in labour out of the building. It can be suggested that she move out to a more convenient location as the due date approaches but why should such a need arise?Just because lifts aren’t considered important for all buildings?

3. Heart patients who live in these buildings must also find it taxing to go downstairs and come upstairs every time the need arises. This kind of exertion may not even be advisable for many amongst them. Someone may not have a cardiac problem today but it’s hard to tell who may suffer from a degenerative heart disease. Somebody who is fine today may not be so next year.

4. Consider the cases of temporary disabilities. Say I sprain an ankle or fracture my leg. I will not be handicapped for life but that period of convalescence will also mean of a period of confinement to my home if it is in a 4 storied building.

I spoke to a co-worker about this problem as he is committed to civic engagement. I asked him if he knew what could be done to resolve the same, maybe a PIL or something. This is what he said. If the 4 or less storied building has space, an elevator can be installed, provided all residents agree and are will to pay for it. But there is a catch. People living on the ground floor often refuse to pay stating that they will hardly ever use the facility. This argument is fallacious as irrespective of the floor people live on, they have to contribute to the maintenance charges of the society and those include the money for maintaining the lift. People living on the ground floor do pay for these things in buildings that have more than 4 floors everywhere.

This problem won’t be resolved anytime soon but something has to be done. At least people have to be made aware of the fact that this problem exists before they face it themselves. Till them, I guess my mom, my aunt and uncle and other acquaintances will just have to put up with the uphill task of getting home.

To do or not to do. Decide well.

2010-07-29T04:04:00.000-07:00

There are precisely three reasons I chose to write this blog.

1. A sex-crazed friend who now claims that he is ‘changed’.
2. The print promotion for Udaan in Mumbai Mirror.
3. The article ‘Sex get younger’ dated July 25, 2010 in Times Life!, Mumbai Edition.

The media references above give statistics and changing opinions regarding the attitude towards sex in India. My friend gave me a headache. More about that later. The ‘Udaan’ display ad claimed that 9 out of 10 boys and 7 out of 10 girls are ok with pre-marital sex. It did not state the number of youngsters surveyed, their age and socio-economic groups or the cities surveyed. The Times Life! article presented uninhibited outlooks of 20-somethings with regards sex and how more and more Indian teenagers are becoming sexually active at earlier ages. Being a 20-something myself, I wasn’t taken aback by any of it as I know what our generation thinks like and wants in life and yet I found certain things worrisome. Do I plan to moralize in this blog? No but there are certain fundamentals that do not change irrespective of your age, socio-economic class, era, skin colour, religion, caste, race, nationality and location. That is what I plan to rant about.

It is my childhood friend mentioned above who made me concerned about the state of affairs of the people of my age group and socio-economic class who are well-educated, well-travelled and who have excellent access to information from across the planet thanks to the internet. My friend and I, until recently, had argued on a regular basis about India’s ‘conservative, closed and regressive’ stance towards sex and sexuality. These arguments continued even after he shifted base to live with Uncle Sam for graduate education. Do not think that we do not talk about anything else but this buddy has a knack for bringing any conversation on to this track. Most of our arguments would commence with his complaints about Indian girls being very traditionalist about sex, our refusal to satisfy our ‘biological urges’ (whatever that means!) and our ‘hypocritical’ wait for marriage to lose our virginity. I resisted and fought the urge to use the much employed “Will-you-like-it-if-your-sister-practices-what-you-preach-?” rhetoric for the sake of propriety and our long-standing friendship. It is none of anybody’s business when or why someone (male or female) decides to lose their virginity to. It is an extremely personal decision that shouldn’t be taken just like that. Before our last and final argument, I had often tried to reason with him the dangers of casual sex and multiple partners as date rapes, MMS scandals (remember DPS scandal?), the spread of salacious rumours, damage to reputation and psychological scarring. He always rubbished these arguments and seemed convinced that such things only happen to others. I would get accused of not being open-minded. Clearly his definition of open-minded and my definition of open-minded were not the same. If his understanding of the word is correct, I would rather not be open-minded at all! Once, I had to make my stand very clear about a few things. The personal life of any adult is none of my business till the time that person is doing it behind closed doors (windows and roof) and that his/her partner(s) is (are) consenting human adults! Keep very quiet about things and I won't take. Juicy details don't get out without the partners making it public! The involvement of minors or animals in a sex act makes it a criminal offence and hence my business as people who try and have sex with animals often turn to abusing children when they grow bored of animals. At this point, I was accused of changing the topic and being too politically correct. I did not get that accusation but realization dawned upon me, albeit late, that a rational and objective debate with this character was useless.

The last time a similar argument took place (on an ISD call) he simply bowled this ‘maiden’ over. The argument this time was about India’s reluctance to accept casual flings and one-night stands. He asked me to look at how liberal and open the Western societies are. I firmly held my ground. I told him that we ought to look at and emulate the 10,000 excellent aspects of industrialized societies and avoid their problems. I do not think casual sex and one-night stands are immoral nor should it be illegal for adults to indulge in these things but I personally find them highly avoidable for multiple reasons. He asked me to explain my hypocrisy. This enraged me but I kept my cool. For the first time, I got down to extremely practical issues. I asked him to spell and explain the terms ‘Chlamydia’, ‘Syphilis’, ‘Herpes’ and ‘Gonorrhea’. Here are his responses.

‘K-L-A-M-I-D-I-A’ – Sounds like some worm.
‘S-I-P-H-I-L-I-S’ – Must be another worm.
‘H-E-R P-E-A-S’ – Don’t know.
‘G-O-N-O-R-I-A’ – This is definitely an earthworm.

I was simply stunned. For those of you who are and who are not stunned, read further carefully. I brought it to his notice that these are STDs (sexually transmitted diseases). He replied by saying that such things only happen in books! What is the next thing that we are going to think up for shouting out loud? The sex education seminar held in our school (St. John the Baptist High School) has been completely wasted on him. I had cut the call immediately as I had nothing left to say and neither did I want to hear further rubbish. We haven’t heard each others voices since.

Here was a high-scoring engineer, who had missed the merit list in class 12 by a very slim margin, who spoke like an idiotic and irresponsible person, being precisely the kind ‘Rancho’ from ‘3 Idiots’ criticised, well-trained but not well-educated. That telephonic conversation left me disturbed. I decided to ask a dozen more friends to spell and explain the terms ‘Chlamydia’, ‘Syphilis’, ‘Herpes’ and ‘Gonorrhea’. All of them hold at least a Bachelor’s degree and are well-travelled, nationally and internationally. I drew zilches everywhere. There was only one girl who correctly said that Herpes is something that gives you boils. To worsen the situation, one guy actually revealed the height of anatomical ignorance when I brought up the topic of STDs. He called the vagina an ovary. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. This moron had obviously learnt everything he knows about sex only from porn and porn doesn't teach you anything important. The gravity of the epidemic of ignorance of sex-related issues hit me real hard that day.

The media is constantly telling us about how adventurous we, the youth, are getting about sex. Well, tell us something we don’t know! Give us the basics for heaven sake. A lot of practical information can be given out regularly in the media about sexual health for although most people know that HIV/AIDS can be prevented by the use of condoms, most don’t know that condoms don’t provide 100% protection. (For their credit, Mumbai Mirror and Bombay Times ran one article each in the last 2 months.) Only abstinence does. In fact, there are nearly 30 odd STDs and condoms don’t work well for all of them. Herpes can even spread by just kissing on the mouth! In fact in the USA, the country my crazy friend adores for its supposedly liberal attitude towards sex, 1 out of every 4 teenage girls contracts a STD and Herpes affects 1 out of every six people. Apart from AIDS, other STDs probably don’t get talked about because a Parmeshwar Godrej and a Richard Gere do not make a song and dance about it. The truth is that they exist, became curable after the discovery of penicillin (except Herpes) and are now becoming incurable about a century later.

There are other things too that need to be kept in mind before getting adventurous. Some people consider anal sex harmless as it cannot lead to pregnancy. That’s right but it can lead to tearing of the rectum and penile fractures. Gentlemen, you can fracture your penis even if there isn’t a bone in it! And lastly, everyone, please get the names of the male genitals and the female genitals right. There are 3D body maps on the net to help you out! I highly advise all ignorant fools to check out how pregnancy takes us from being miniscule embryos to kids and how puberty takes from being kids to adults. This is the 21st century for heaven's sake! In fact, even in the USA, responsible citizens are hopping mad about ignorance and the fact that unsafe sex has stopped being scary for some people.

The problem of AIDS in India is very different from that of industrialized nations. In those countries, the problem arises because their citizens have more than 5 sex partners on an average in their lifetimes. In India, these diseases are greatly restricted to MSMs, migrant workers, truck drivers, CSWs, drug addicts and the spouses and children of these people. We can do our Health Ministry a favor and keep things this way. I have a strong hunch that the revolting sights of babies born with congenital syphilis and herpes and other emotional and social repercussions must have made societies across the world look down on people who have multiple sexual partners. Even Helen Keller had voiced concerns about syphilis being a leading cause of blindness in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Let us, the educated and economically sound youth (SEC A &B), take responsibility to keep ourselves away from high risk activities and not create new problems for our society. After all, we are the ones who walk around like Mr. / Ms. Know-It-All. Let’s make best use of our access to information and not be ignorant about what we are against. It’s best to make optimum use of the internet and base our decisions on modern, scientific knowledge (most of which comes from the Western world at any rate!) and behave properly. After all, the internet isn’t there just for social networking. It isn’t worth spoiling our lives over few minutes of satisfying our 'biological urges'!

Post Script:

1. As a Facebook rat myself, I got back to my friend by putting links from http://health.aol.com about Syphilis, Gonorrhea, Herpes and Chlamydia on his Wall. They stayed there throughout daytime Indian Standard Time while he slept at night, Central Daylight Time, USA & Canada. Imagine that 'open-minded' individual's horror AND panic stricken phone call that arrived subsequently. ;)

2. In case if you suspect that you or your partner has a STD, call 69999999 or 28888888 (JustDial.com) to locate your nearest gynaecologist (for a girl) /urologist (for a boy) and get the requisite tests done. Any delay will only worsen the situation.

Crooked rickshaw-drivers and lackadaisical RTO and why Raj Thackeray has a point.

2010-05-26T03:27:00.000-07:00

While the whole nation chooses to rant against Raj Thackeray and the antics of his MNS, I’ll play the Devil’s advocate and argue his case against UP wallahs and Biharis. I do not object to these guys monopolizing the taxi and rickshaw driving jobs in the city of Bombay. The constitution grants every Indian the right to settle and work anywhere in the Union of India. These guys are working hard to feed their families. They are doing the right thing by toiling hard to sustain themselves. They have also made the choice to not pick up guns and fight against the Republic of India like the Naxalites. Furthermore, they are far from the criminals who choose to run begging rackets by exploiting little children instead of earning their bread by the sweat of their brow.

However, the above facts do not justify the swindling of customers according to the whims and fancies of taxi-drivers and rickshaw drivers. Read the following incidents to understand what citizens of Bombay, New Bombay and Thane, Marathi and non-Marathi people included, undergo on a regular basis.

1. I stay at a place called Saket Complex in Thane. It costs about INR 19 or 20 by rickshaw to come to my residence from Thane railway station and vice-versa from a place called CIDCO about 3 mins away from the station. From the station, it will cost you INR 25-30. Once on a Sunday evening, there were no rickshaws near Saket Complex. I was waiting for one. With me, there was a slightly aged couple. Their manner of dress suggested that they were village folks. A rickshaw came by and this couple asked him to take them to Thane station before I could. I asked the couple if we could share the fare because I had to go to the same place. They agreed. I asked the rickshaw driver to take us to CIDCO. The couple looked confused but I assured them that we would reach where they intended to. On reaching CIDCO, the fare came to INR 20 which we split into half. This couple was surprised. This is how the conversation took place.

The elderly man: Bees rupaiya? Itna hi paisa hota hai! (20 rupees? That’s all it costs?)
Me: Jee haan. Itna hi hota hai Saket se yahan tak. (Yes sir. That’s all it costs from Saket to here.)
The elderly man: Hum jab aaye they, tab hamse 70 rupaiya liye they. (When we had come, we had been charged INR 70 for the richshaw.)
Me: Kya? Sattar rupaiya kaise? (What? How were you charged Rs. 70?)
The elderly man: Jee whoh rickshewallah bole they ke ek seat ka 35 rupaiya hota hai. (The rickshaw driver told us that they charge INR 35 per head.)

I was shocked. This couple was fleeced. Judging from their accent, they were definitely UP wallahs or Biharis. We started walking towards the station.

Me: Kya aapko malum nahi tha yahan pe paisa kitna hota hai? Kya aap yahan pe pehli baar aaye hain? [Didn’t you know how much it (rickshaw fares) costs here? Is this the first time that you have visited this place?}
The elderly lady: Jee haan. Yahan pe shaadi thee. Hum Mira Road se aaye hain. Thane toh pehli baar hi aana hua hai. Humare pehchaan wale Saket mein rehte hain. (Yes. There was a wedding here. We have come from Mira Road. It is the first time that we have come to Thane. We have friends who live in Saket.)
Me: Jab aap aagli baar aayenge, toh CIDCO se rickshaw lijiye ga. Station se mat lijiye ga. (When you come here next time, take a rickshaw from station. Do not take one from the station.)
The elderly man: Hum toh wapas yahan aayenge hee nahi. Koi kaam hee nahi hai yahan pe. (We won’t come here again. We don’t have any business here.)

We exchanged good-byes and parted ways.

2. A Gujarati gentleman from our neighborhood once complained about a similar incident with his guest. His friend had been charged Rs. 50 from Thane station to Saket Complex.

3. Some weeks ago, there were severe traffic problems on the road from CIDCO to Saket. It generally takes 10 mins to get from CIDCO to Saket. That day it took vehicles more than 45 mins. So I decided to walk home instead of waiting for the traffic to clear out. Half-way through the road, I asked a rickshaw fellow to take me to Saket. He agreed. He did not start the meter. I asked him why. He said, “Madam, fixed rate, tees rupaiya. (Rs. 30)” Preposterous! I got off immediately. That ride should not have cost me for than Rs. 15. Later, as I continued walking, a Bengali couple who live in the neighbourhood, called me out from a rickshaw and offered me a lift. We got down at Saket. On getting off, I realized that it was the same rickshaw fellow who tried to dupe me. The Bengali gentleman was the one who got duped instead. Arguments yielded no result as the rickshaw-wallah had been given a Rs. 50 note. He returned Rs. 20 and drove off. This rickshaw fellow was definitely from the group that Raj Thackeray is ranting against.

4. Once, a neighbour and I took a rickshaw from Mulund station to Kopri Bridge. My neighbour regularly goes to Kopri Bridge to cross over from Mulund into Thane but I had never been there. Suddenly my neighbour confronted the driver and asked him where he was taking us. He replied Kopri Bridge. She told him that he was wrong. The argument revealed that he thought that Kopri Bridge and Mulund-Thane check-naka were the same place! The two places are nearly 3 kms apart. Had I been alone, I might have landed up at the check-naka instead of Kopri Bridge. It would have been a complete waste of time and money. The driver was again either an UP-wallah or a Bihari.

5. A co-worker Malyalee Borivali resident visited Thane sometime ago. He had to visit a place near Malhaar theatre. This theatre is roughly a kilometer away from Thane railway station and Thane bus depot. He does not know Thane. This guy got charged INR 70 instead of the usual INR 12 to 15 for a rickshaw ride from Thane station to Malhaar. I asked him how the driver spoke Hindi and the reference was towards India’s north.

6. My office is located near the Nehru Planetarium, Worli, Bombay. In case if you decide to come to this place in a taxi from Byculla station, you have to tell the taxi driver to take you to a well-known hotel called the Copper Chimney or to the Lotus or to Atria Mall or to Poonam Chambers. There have been multiple occasions on which the taxi driver has told me that he does not any of the 5 landmarks I previously mentioned! The driver literally asked me to keep giving him instructions.

I cannot help but feel from personal and second-hand experience that Raj Thackeray has a point, a very valid one at that. No matter how much I despise the violence that his thugs carry out, I have to admit that he has voiced the concerns of civilians everywhere in the city, Marathi or otherwise. Most of the traffic police personnel and RTO officials (I will not say all) lack scruples and neglect duty. They issue licenses to rickshaw drivers from other states although the Motor Vehicles Act clearly prohibits this. The driver has to be domiciled in the State that he/she is working. This means that someone who has lived all his/her life in Maharashtra cannot drive rickshaws and taxis in UP/ Bihar/ Delhi, etc. and vice versa. This is a central government act. This seems unfair but as of now is the law. Even more important is that the law requires the driver to know the area that he works in. This is essential to protect travelers from incidents mentioned in point 4 and 6 and yet the RTO does not take the necessary pains to do what the law asks of it. Raj Thackeray had raised questions regarding the integrity of the RTO on the same issue during a rally in Thane. His question was, “Don’t you have any shame? How can you neglect duty?” He had very clearly stated that we can be assured that if a commuter visits a locality for the first time, he/she will be over-charged by a Bihari / UP wallah rickshaw / taxi driver as described in points 1, 2, 3 and 5. The solution to this is not MNS-style brutal histrionics. The MNS got a well-deserved black eye when its MLAs were suspended for turning the Maharashtra legislative assembly into a wrestling ring. Fist fights are not the answer to everything. Cheats are bound to take advantage of the irresponsible attitude of the law enforcers and of the fact that most commuters hassled by traveling to and fro to work or slightly lost in an unknown area will not do much to confront them. The Chief Minister of Maharastra, Mr. Ashok Chavan was right when he spoke of the strict implementation of the Motor Vehicles Act. Not just Maharashtra, all states should do this. The taxi unions protest every diktat issued by the State with regards to the use of Marathi which is in fact very practical. I wonder what answers they have to this abominable behaviour of their members. The Motor Vehicles Act has to be strictly implemented by the law enforcers themselves. That is what they are paid for. No one deserves to be cheated even if the cheat has poverty as an excuse.

P.S.: I choose to say Bombay because the origin of the traditional English name Bombay holds that it was derived from a Portuguese name meaning "good bay", Bombain or Bombahia. The prosperity of this city commenced because it was identified as an excellent harbour, not because of the local goddess Mumba.

THE TRAGEDY OF ENGLISH AS A SECOND / THIRD LANGUAGE

2010-04-05T01:34:00.000-07:00

During my junior college years, I had opted for Marathi as my 1st language, with English being compulsory as the second language. It was for the first time that I got to know the manner in which the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education is creating one batch of students after the other, who can’t use English properly in day-to-day life. I had always thought during school that our English textbooks neither contained thought-provoking lessons nor did they do much for improving our vocabularies. One might say that the ICSE, CBSE and IB board schools cure this problem but the fact is that my family cannot afford those schools. Had our parents not exposed us to the English media at home, I doubt that my siblings and I would have been fluent in English.

While studying Marathi during my two years of college, I was exposed to a wide range of Marathi literature, right from short biographies, essays, poems and travelogues. We had these in school but qualitatively speaking, the one that we studied in college were more serious in nature. I learnt a lot about different social classes of Maharashtra, during different eras. The textbook effectively dealt with myriad range of subjects from the freedom struggle, caste prejudices, superstitions, child marriage, dowry, unrequited love, lives of expatriates, religion and mythology. I regret not having studied the subject seriously back then or having preserved my textbook. Those two years opened me to my own literary heritage, that which I was indifferent to.

However, I cannot say the same for our English lessons. The chapters were barely age-appropriate and did not provoke deep thought. I cannot say that the English textbook served as an introduction to the rich literature of England and North America. It did not do justice to even Indian writers. I don’t even remember one single chapter properly. That students could not have improved their English language skills with the help of those lessons is beyond doubt. It would irritate me to find that the English textbook was far inferior to that of Marathi. Our college had in fact provided us with a supplementary textbook to make up for the mediocre textbook of the Maharashtra board. However, I did not give it much thought back then.

During the first year of B.Sc., I met many people from all over Maharashtra. Almost everybody had pathetic English language skills. The Dr. Balasaheb Sawant Konkan Agriculture University is ware of this problem and has hence integrated an English language course in the first semester. Alas, the textbook prescribed by the University is best suited for 11 year olds. It is not astonishing that most students don’t gain anything substantial from those lessons. In fact, there is a joke on our campuses that agriculture students cannot speak English beyond, “I go, you come”. I admit that it is difficult for students from Marathi medium schools, rural and semi-urban areas to become fluent in English. But this does not imply that Universities and the State Education Boards treat them as intrinsically weak at linguistics and not expect them to cope with larger vocabularies and complex texts. They are not morons. People learn. This defeatist attitude of the staff towards the English language skills of the students leads them to excuse horrible spelling mistakes. Numerous agriculture students shamelessly misspell key terms. For e.g., ‘Alphonso’ becomes ‘Apanso’, ‘buffalo’ becomes ‘bofelow’, ‘porcupine’ becomes ‘pokcurpine’ etc. Even scientific names are goofed up! The misspelled scientific names of plants and animals may make Carlus Linnaeus turn in his grave! That’s inexcusable come what may! If some rare, straight-thinking professor does cut marks, he is accused of being too strict and harsh! That’s the equivalent of accusing a policeman for abuse of power for making a legal arrest.

The lenient approach of the education authorities towards erring students gives no incentives to students to improve their vocabularies, make fewer mistakes and write better. This approach is largely concerned with passing out as many graduates as possible without caring a damn about the quality of education they receive. The idea seems to be that they don’t want someone to be left behind just because they can’t spell properly. However, this has created a crisis of sorts. This deplorable stance towards writing skills seems to have affected every sector and there are IT companies claiming that they’ve had to reject fresh engineers due to poor English language skills.

Our State education boards need to radically revise the current syllabus and teaching methods for English. Attention desperately needs to be paid to all four language skills namely reading, writing, speaking and listening. The boards need to harmonize the English language syllabus to the Common European Reference Framework for Languages. The syllabus and teaching should ensure that students reach the B1 level by class 10, B2 level by class 12 and C1 level at the time of their graduation. The class 11 and 12 English syllabus must include practical life English skills such as teaching students how to write CVs and letters of motivation. These skills constitute an important part of level B2. In my third year of B.Sc., I was clueless about writing a C.V. and a statement of purpose. Since I come from one of the only 1 million Indian households (1.4% of urban Indian households) that have an internet connection, I logged on to the World Wide Web and learnt these things myself. Even my little sister did not know how to write a CV before her placement interview. I made our lives easy by simply getting a Europass CV made for her. Now what is someone who does not have an access to internet or elder siblings or appropriately educated parents to help them out supposed to do? The teachers should be asked to advise their students to watch Star Movies, HBO, Sony Pix and Zee Studio as these channels sub-title their movies. Students can improve their listening and reading skills at the same time. This is infotainment at its best. The education boards and universities can make it compulsory for students to pass CAE Level C1 or CELS Higher or BEC Higher anytime before completing their under-graduate education. The universities can arrange for the British Council to conduct these exams on their campuses. In this manner, there will be no need for an English language course in the Bachelors curriculum and the students will get a certificate from the University of Cambridge stating that they have the C1 level. The certificates of the mentioned exams are valid for life unlike the IELTS and TOEFL scores that are valid for only 2 years from the date of passing.

This issue needs to be addressed at the earliest as for Indians, English is not just a language it is a job-skill. Our country can’t afford deny good employment opportunities to people just because they are not proficient in English. In the meanwhile, I'll get back to completing a Marathi book "Vyakti ani Valli" by P. L. Deshpande. I recently realised that I read English, French and Spanish way better than Marathi. Back to my roots. Now!

The Human Whatever Virus…

2009-12-25T02:28:00.000-08:00

Humanity has always been ravaged by viruses of one sort or the other. Well it had to be! Even other animals, plants and bacteria are. Natural forces do have to regulate populations of all species right? I agree that viruses have nearly halved the human gene pool on several instances but that does not mean we go barmy every time a new virus is brought to the public’s notice! Why the fuss? What’s wrong with the Fourth Estate?

In recent history, we had the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, more popular as HIV that hit off the trend of media-induced phobia and continues to be a rage all over the planet. Every ‘celebrity’ who has any little thing to their credit or has had even the most minuscule space in the entertainment industry jumps on to the bandwagon to prevent the ‘AIDS epidemic’. Well, commendable intentions here but HIV is one of the best dangerous viruses known to mankind. Unlike most other viruses, it does nothing to spread! It is largely dependent on the host to be promiscuous to spread on to other victims! There have been multiple instances of iatrogenic infections but the medical and paramedical community knows how to deal with such cases.

The other crazy thing we had on our hands was the SARS because of some corona virus around 2003-04. That thing just fizzled out thanks to the concerned government authorities, especially the Chinese taking prompt measures to prevent its spread. Nevertheless, they did delay the mandatory information of the outbreak to the WHO and the international community. The next thing in line was the Avian Influenza. The hysteria surrounding it was implausible. We were studying agriculture with Animal Husbandry as an integral part of our studies. Regular poultry farm visits never stopped. Everyone was unperturbed but the media just went bonkers! How often do most people play around with or come in contact with birds? City dwellers have the most minimal contact often limited to pets or cooked chicken. Despite assurance from doctors that cooking kills the virus, chicken consumption fell drastically. The animal lovers’ tribe with PETA as their leader went around town happily telling everyone that chicken lives were being saved. The media scared everybody with reports of an imminent avian flu pandemic which never happened thanks to the systematic genocide of poultry birds that we humans inflicted.

The latest scare has been due to the Swine Flu which is caused by the H1N1 virus (Haemagglutinin 1 Neraminidase 1, try not forgetting this one!). I agree that more than 10,000 victims have been claimed by the virus in the US alone. But that does not justify the fear-mongering by the members of the press. Some friends and my mother almost suffered panic attacks that loved ones and they would fall seriously sick. Governments across the world rightfully wanted the media to tone down the reports but the media did not relent. After all, what can you expect from a pig but grunt? The WHO estimates that the Spanish Flu (also a strain of the H1N1) of 1918 killed nearly 40-50 million people worldwide, the Asian flu (H2N2 virus) of 1957 exterminated about 2 million humans and the Hong Kong flu of 1968 (H3N2 virus) claimed nearly 1 million lives. In fact, these viruses are now the cause of the seasonal common colds that we suffer! That means all of us have probably suffered from the Swine and the Avian influenza at one point or the other.

Thankfully, the swine flu frenzy is dying down. Authorities are minding their business well and doing the needful. In the meanwhile, some pharmaceutical company is trying to bring another virus into fashion i.e. in the media spotlight to sell a vaccine. Ladies and gentlemen, I am talking about the Human Papilloma Virus. Depending upon your gender, it can cause cancers of the anus and/or penis or cancers of the vulva, vagina, anus and cervix. Page long ads in the papers are trying to convince women to protect themselves against cervical cancer with this vaccine. Well commendable intentions again but there is no need! One of my acquaintances immunized herself against the HPV and asked me to do the same. I refused. To begin with, people who don’t have access to clean toilets and those who have multiple sexual partners are the ones at risk of a HPV infection. I don’t fall in any of these categories. I don’t need the vaccine. Thank you very much. She looked cross and tried to tell me that cervical cancer claims more Indian women than breast cancer annually. I replied that it was obvious. Child marriage is still rampant in the interiors and teenage mothers have the highest risk. The point is that unless you are in any of the high risk groups you don’t need the HPV vaccine. If you do, you also need to be inoculated against Hepatitis B.

The reach of the electronic and traditional media helps a great deal about informing people about new disease outbreaks. I am thankful for being told about the symptoms. Nonetheless, everyone will be better off if the death toll is kept to page 2 and 3 or even beyond that if possible. Any viral infection can cause death. Even the most common and well-known viruses continue to kill so many around the year and so do bacterial infections like Tuberculosis. But no one writes about that and people have definitely not stopped spitting! The next time a new virus pops up and the media decides to be the cock of the walk and tells us that Doomsday is coming, relax; we can’t be wiped off that easily.

How French Blogging temporarily put me off English Blogging

2009-12-25T01:09:00.000-08:00

Hi, I am back. I had to start blogging again and chose to start with the auspicious Yuletide season. I was taken aback by people who wrote in to ask why I had stopped but that gave me the necessary to push to be here again. I literally had to say ‘Adieu English blogs’ five months ago because I was pursuing my last level of French (Level C1). My professor, Mr. Bhushan Thapliyal, got us also blogging in French, keeping contemporary trends in mind. Wow, I never imagined that blogging would be homework someday!!! Anyway, our professor Bhushan, trained us for the writing section of the DALF C1 exam by making us blog our brains out. This is because he is pursuing his Ph.D. on the use of blogs as a pedagogical tool. Cool! Who could have thought about that?

The ‘blogging for school’ brainwave came to Bhushan about three years ago when he was teaching school kids in the 12-15 age groups in France. French kids these days don’t write correct French and have made argot, verlan and the SMS lingo their standard language, even in exam answer sheets! This new way of writing and talking French is equivalent to babble for their parents, teachers and the French society at large. The purists are of the opinion that this phenomenon is an unprecedented crisis for the French language. Bhushan wanted to get his students to write correctly. It was only a question of how. The students refuse to fall in line. Now most of these innovative, stubborn scholars are internet junkies who have lost even the most miniscule interest in TV. Bhushan decided to encroach on the virtual space to fix things.

With the assistance of Université Stendhal Grenoble III, he introduced blogging into the curriculum. School essays on various issues were to be written and posted on the blogs of students which they created specifically for class. Students responded in the most astonishing manner. People actually started writing correct, traditional French with all the accents, grammar and vocabulary right. Students were not being adamant about using argot on blogs. You see, the whole world has access to blogs and hence these students wanted to keep their blogs comprehensible and coherent so that everyone and anyone who understands French can read them. Argot wouldn’t work. Mission accomplished.

Bhushan decided to duplicate his experiment in India. He came to the Alliance Française de Bombay. eHere, blogging was a newxperience for roughly everyone in class. I was in his second batch of guinea pigs for the C1 level. He even got the other teachers ofAlliance to unleash the blogging wave on their classes. We would discuss French current affairs in class with the help of 3 news articles related to each theme. That took care of our reading and speaking skills. We would then scrutinize and reorganize the ideas in these articles to write argumentative essays or to write a synthesis or summary with the maximum word limit of 250 words. That exercise greatly helped to improve my French writing skills and also my ability to simultaneously use articles about the same subject from different sources.

I received the result for our DALF C1 last week. I passed. That’s what counted. I was fairly satisfied with my performance. The French blogging did help a lot for the writing section because we had to respect the time and word limit for that essay. We thoroughly enjoyed our coursework. Introducing blooging in studies helps make people tech-savvy and it is surely fun ‘When blogging enters the curriculum’. It is high time that MS Word adds 'blogging', 'blog' and 'blogger' to its dictionary. Blogs are here to stay.

One Culture. Agriculture.

2009-06-30T04:00:00.000-07:00

What do you do in agriculture? What is the point in pursuing it? These are stupid questions that I face incessantly from people. They simply don't find it fit for study or they just can't imagine what one does in it. Ignorant, uninformed fools! The food we eat comes from agriculture. The fabrics, cotton, wool, silk, jute, we wear come from agriculture. The medicines we take have many ingredients of an agricultural origin. Our homes require timber for construction and also the furniture that is made of wood. The paper we write on comes from wood and hence is a forestry product. Sanitary pads and diapers are also made from wood. But this irritates people.

Sometime ago, I got the precise answer to this question. This answer gets people interested and it also earns me respect. Plus, they find agriculture really, really cool. Now whenever some asks me why I took up agriculture, I simply say that people will give up everything but not alcohol, cigarettes and drugs. Alcohol comes from sugarcane. Cigarettes come from tobacco and Drugs especially ones like marihuana and cocaine come from poppy. All of these are thus agricultural products. In fact, India is the leading producer and exporter of tobacco in the world. Overall tobacco production in India is about 700 million kilograms yearly. Rich and diverse Indian geographic and agro-climatic circumstances promote dependable availability of extensive array of tobaccos for export throughout the year. As a matter of fact, no matter how much tobacco addicts deny it, tobacco does lead to cancer and heart disease. Most tobacco users (or abusers?) being extremely careless about their health only diagnose their health problems very late, especially cancer. Those last stages of cancer are so painful that the only thing that relieves their pain is medical cannabis or medical marihuana as conventional pain killers simply don’t work; so most tobacco users are potential marihuana customers in the future. (That is, if their doctors are bold and fearless enough to prescribe medical marihuana). India and Turkey produce opium for medicinal purposes, making poppy-based drugs, such as morphine or codeine, for domestic use or exporting raw poppy materials to other countries. The United States buys 80 percent of its medicinal opium from these two countries. In the USA, California's highest grossing cash crop is poppy, with annual sales reaching $14 billion. Vegetables, the state's second highest grossing agricultural produce, win a measly $5.7 billion. The celebrated Californian grapes rake in only $2.6 billion. Such is the demand for marihuana. To talk about the contribution of the alcohol industry to India, let’s just say that alcohol is a noteworthy provider to government revenues in numerous states. In most states this accounts for more than 10 per cent of total state tax revenues, whereas in the Punjab this goes to more than one third.

I declare with utmost confidence to anyone who asks me the point of studying agriculture that I want to work either with a cigarette company or with an alcoholic beverages manufacturer. (Well I am not really sure if I would like to work with the highly bureaucratic poppy business guys. It is very difficult in India. The licences are never ending) People find that seriously cool. Even non-smokers, teetotallers and non-drug abusers (if that is a term) look up in awe.

It is ironical how talking about food, clothing and shelter, which are indispensable for keeping our body and soul together are frowned upon whilst alcohol, cigarettes and drugs that degenerate the mind and body are venerated.

P.S.: I got interested in the alcohol, tobacco and poppy trade after a family member’s death at a young age due to cancer last year. He was a chain smoker.

Reality Meets Career Dreamz Unlimited

2009-06-07T20:53:00.000-07:00

As a child, a question that all of us incessantly face goes something like this, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I call it the ‘which carier’ question. (A lot of people spell and pronounce career as ‘carier’!) Most kids give stereotypical answers like ‘I want to be an engineer’ or ‘I will become a doctor’. Their parents chase the horizon prospecting the best advice of ‘career counselors’. (What on earth do you need those guys for?) I had also fallen into that ‘I want to be a doctor’ trap but managed to pull myself out of it. I had decided against becoming an engineer the very first time I had heard the word because I had assumed that engineers built engines of trains and that I couldn’t see the point behind that. That extremely juvenile assumption is only condonable for a nine year old. When I consider all of the things that I ever wanted to be, I marvel at the way my dreams changed from toddlerhood to adulthood. (‘Toddlerhood’ is a word in ‘Nataliaish’, not English). The TV, whom many accuse of being an idiot box, gave me fantastic direction all the way.

When I was 5, my answer would be that I wanted to be an air-hostess. That was probably because I was a frequent flier between Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and Bombay, India. The air-hostesses seemed exceptionally interesting then. In the following years, probably when I was 8 or 9, joining the Air Force had become my ambition after reading about the stories of the 1971 Indo-Pak war martyrs. Around the same time, I had also seen a TV show about the procedure for entering the Indian Air Force. My dreams were grounded when we found out that I was suffering from moderate degree myopia at that young age. My flat feet further ensured that my dreams of being airborne stayed firmly on Terra Firma. Around the age of 11 or 12, I started yapping about becoming a doctor, probably because half the world (read: schoolmates) said the same. I had definitely decided that I would study science, but had no clue regarding which branch of science.

My first serious answer to that “which carier?” question, was only at the age of 13, when I was in class 8. I wanted to be a dinosaur paleontologist. This had nothing to do with Ross from Friends. I had once killed time by watching a 3 hour long documentary on the National Geographic channel about the mass extinction of dinosaurs. (I had had the privilege of being alone for 4 hours at home). Most of the dudes who spoke on the show had their designations displayed on screen as ‘Dinosaur paleontologist, University of @#$%^^&*’. I was convinced that the purpose of my life was to be a dinosaur paleontologist. That left my father frantically reading up on the web regarding the subject and I was left explaining to everyone who would ask me the ‘which carier’ question about dinosaurs and their dead bodies. It would feel fantastic to explain things to adults looking dumb with question marks on their faces. You are the smarter one in that situation! My fascination for becoming a dinosaur paleontologist lasted about 10 months, but that has set off an interest in the ‘terrible reptiles’ that is going to last me a lifetime.

Later, I juggled with the ideas of being a professional basketball player (I was on the school team), being Miss Universe (well that started with Sushmita Sen’s victory in 1994 but my height didn’t increase sufficiently), starting a music band (inspiration Spice Girls) and landing on the moon i.e. being an astronaut. I had even wanted to be a cartoon film animator after I had watched the making of the Disney movie ‘Dinosaur’ on Discovery Kids. None of those plans lasted more than a month or 2 at the most but the changes were quite interesting. I even had phases of being without a career plan. But then I got addicted to another show on Discovery Channel. This time I had my father worried sick.

The Discovery guys aired this fantastic TV series every afternoon called ‘Medical Detectives’. Most of the dudes and dudettes (female dudes) on this show were labeled as ‘Forensic Psychiatrist’ or ‘Forensic Pathologist’. Their use of science and technology to crack crimes and screw up culprits had me hooked, totally. Watching endless re-runs of this show had a firm place in my list of pastimes. Most kids my age knew the dialogues of Friends by heart. I knew this show by heart. (Don’t dare to label me a geek.) I told my Dad that I wanted to be a ‘Forensic Psychiatrist or a Forensic Pathologist’. He was astonished and he asked me, “But you wanted to do something about dinosaurs, right?” I replied that my plans had changed. His expression turned to something that suggested that he had been force fed castor oil. He never digested my idea of becoming a ‘forensic psychiatrist’. Anyway, his behavior only affirmed the fact that he is mentally and psychologically stable as no sane father would jump for joy if his daughter declared that she wanted to see delinquents everyday or spend her lifetime working in a morgue. From the age 14 to 16, much to the mortification of my dad, I declared with certitude to anyone who asked me about my career plans that I wanted to be forensic psychiatrist. I even appeared for the entrance tests for the admission to M.B.B.S. Having stubbornly stated that if I would ever be a doctor, my qualifications would have to stand as Dr. Natalia Hule M.B.B.S., M.D. (Forensics), my father staunchly told me to not be a doctor at all. He tried to convince me to be a dentist but I didn’t see the point examining jaws all my life. This was said with due respect to the 4 dentists who have examined and treated my jaws for 6 excruciatingly long years. But what’s the fun? My mother was left scandalized. I told them that I may consider being a forensic dentist (I had seen one talk on Medical detectives). My father had looked as if he wanted someone to tell him that he was hallucinating. My parents ultimately won and managed to get the forensic bug out of my head.

In hindsight that was a good thing, because there was something that was always lingering in the confines of my mind that would get me dreaming of the infinite possibilities of waste management, rural development, water shed management and pesticide-free food production for a better environment and to thwart global warming. Captain Planet and his Planeteers on Cartoon Network had triggered that off for a change. I had learnt pretty late that these things were called organic farming and sustainable agriculture. I was perpetually oscillating between the choices of doing an M.B.B.S. or B.Sc. Agriculture ever since I was 15, although I didn't speak too much about agriculture to everyone. I finally decided to pursue Agribusiness. Thank God for that! Not only did it help me study my interests further, it also educated me about the two countries I live in – India and Bharat.

The verbose here may convince the reader that the writer currently works for some agricultural products company or is probably toiling away with a NGO for watershed development. She is not. Here is the anticlimax. The author, compelled by personal misfortune partly brought about by her own gullible streak, and the economic tribulations of our time, currently works (just for the GOOD money) as a receptionist and hopefully will shift to the post of a French language translator in multinational defense company, much to the chagrin of her mind and heart, making a mockery of everything that she has ever dreamt of.

Beautifully refreshed! - Courtesy Vodafone

2009-05-07T03:05:00.000-07:00

This Vodafone ‘Beauty Alerts’ ad refreshed some comical memories. Those Zoozoo kiddies are reminiscent of my sister and me as pre-schoolers. I remembered a similar episode that took place when I was 6 years old and my sister 3. My sister and I had cried buckets that day because we had been scared out of our wits! I remember it clearly despite my young age. Mom had put on a face pack that had turned white on drying up. She looked nothing less than a phantom! My sister and I had fled the house and had taken refuge in our neighbour’s home. All efforts to calm us had to be aborted due to our singular refusal to stop howling and see reason. Even my grandmother failed. We had agreed to step into our house again only when mom had washed her face clean and seemed to be mom again.

Good job Vodafone!

My Elections Story - 2

2009-05-01T02:39:00.000-07:00

Popat! That is what happened to me! Not just me, but also my sister and my best friend. Outrageous! Preposterous! Scandalous! Our names did not turn up on the electoral rolls! We registered for voting but we simply did not figure on the lists! Shame on you Election Commission! You deprived young voters like me of our right to exercise our franchise! Shame! Shame! It would have been the first time that we would have joined the dance of democracy but we were deprived of the privilege! Even some elders in our housing society found their names missing from the rolls! Horrendous! Despicable! Contemptible! Better work next time EC! I DO NOT intend to miss out on the Maharashtra Assembly Elections.

P.S.: Please do not turn the next elections into a long weekend also. That was largely responsible for the low voter turnout in Mumbai.

Unreligiously Yours

2009-04-22T22:41:00.000-07:00

Friend: Hi Natalia.

Me: Hi! Howz life?

Friend: Good. What’s up?

Me: Head, hair and ceiling.

Friend: Bad joke.

Me: That wasn’t a joke. I stated a fact.

Friend: (irritated) Let it be. Hey tell me, what are you?

Me: (I was confused. What can one possibly present as an answer to that question?)I am a specimen of the Homo sapiens.

Friend: Now why do you have to get biology involved in this?

Me: What do you mean?

Friend: I mean like what are you?

Me: Well in accordance with human obsession and fascination for borders, I carry an Indian passport so that makes me Indian.

Friend: No, I mean what religion are you?

Me: How can a person be a religion?

Friend: Alright! What religion do you follow?

Me: Ah that makes more sense. Hee hee! Haa Haa! My name confuses you doesn't it? Natalia Hule does not give you a clue as to about whether I ma a Christian or a Hindu. My looks baffle you more because you can't associate me with a particular region of India and the fact that I speak Marathi, Hindi and English equally well worsens your case further. Haa haa, stay confused. I won' t help you... Well I follow ‘Nataliaism’

Friend: What?

Me: It is a very recent religion. It started the day I was born. This religion has only one Goddess, she is called Natalia. The Goddess has only one devotee, her name is Natalia. The religion has only one prophet, her name is also Natalia. The principles of this religion are whatever Natalia finds right. This religion prohibits conversion. The Goddess Natalia explicitly states that there shall never be any reincarnation or resurrection whatsoever. The Goddess Natalia does not promise any Land, Water or Air. By the way this Goddess, her devotee and the Prophet is all me, and not some other Natalia. In this manner, I shall remain in peace with everyone and anyone around me and also prevent any possibility of war and riots after I am gone, hence ensuring peace even after my demise.

Friend: Hey this idea is great. (I was slightly taken aback to hear this) Everyone should create their own religions and not bother others. What do you think?

Me: I think I’ll complete the assignment for French class.

Diabetes Demystified - Unraveling the mystery of diabetes mellitus for the layman

2009-04-14T23:13:00.000-07:00

As unpredictable as earthquakes, conversations can get us talking or explaining anything in the universe at any given point of time. My memory falls short of recollecting exactly what led us to discuss diabetes that day but I managed to straighten the my friend’s comprehension of diabetes.

Friend: I avoid eating sugar or sweets. They are known to cause diabetes.

Me: No, they do not cause diabetes.

Friend: How is that possible? Eating a lot of sugar causes the blood to go sweet and that condition is called diabetes.

Me: No it is not. You are mistaken. You believe the human body to be like a cup of coffee that will become sweeter as we go on adding sugar to it. It is not like that.

Friend: Then what is it genius?

Me: Well let me give you an example. But promise me that you won’t ask me questions while I explain. The example is far-fetched but you will understand what it is. But don’t ask questions, we won’t get anywhere.

Friend: But what if I have a doubt?

Me: No way! No questions! Try and believe for a little while that I am Lord Krishna and you are my devotee Arjun and we are on the brink of the commencement of the final battle of the Mahabharat! Lord Krishna had asked Arjun to not ask him questions while he spoke the Bhagvad Gita.

Friend: Oh my God! This is the height of exaggeration!

Me: I know but may I begin my explanation?

Friend: Go ahead.

Me: To live life fruitfully, we need money. We keep that money in a bank. When we need our money for use, we can only obtain it from the bank with the help of an ATM card. For the time being, we will forget the option of withdrawal slips, alright?

Friend: Fine. No problems, next?

Me: Now consider this situation. You have lost your ATM card. Will you be able to obtain your money from the bank?

Friend: No

Me: Situation no. 2. You have an ATM card but it is damaged beyond use. Will you be able to obtain your money from the bank?

Friend: No

Me: Now you are without money, i.e. liquid assets. Hence you start liquefying your other assets i.e. you sell your other assets like your vehicle, gold, etc. to obtain money to run your life smoothly. But the money in your bank will remain unaffected; in fact it will increase due to the interest.

Friend: Yes

Me: Now as we require money, the body requires glucose. The body puts this glucose into the blood like we put money in the bank. To obtain our money, we use the ATM card; the body uses ‘Insulin’ to obtain the glucose from the blood.

Friend: Oh, ok. (He looked liked he had heard the word ‘insulin’ for the first time)

Me: Now if the body does not have insulin, it will not be able to obtain glucose. If the insulin is damaged, i.e. of a bad quality, the body will still not be able to obtain glucose. Just like the case of the ATM card.

Friend: Oh, ok.

Me: Just like us, the body starts liquefying the other assets available. It first starts burning all fat available to produce energy. Therefore, diabetes patients become thin. Now the glucose in the blood remains unaffected; it in fact increases because we continue to eat food. This is why and how the blood turns sweet. Not because of sugar, but because of a lack of insulin. Is it clear?

Friend: Now I’ve understood what diabetes is. It’s good you asked me not to ask questions. I might never have understood your example. How do you think up such things?

Me: One may call me the epitome of immodesty as I self-assuredly state that I have a brilliant imagination and a fantastic ability to draw up incredulous but pertinent analogies.

Friend: There we go again.

And so we continued our blah, blah, blah… about everything under the sun.

P.S.: I was originally planning to title this post as ‘Diabetes For Dummies’ but decided against it because that might have amounted to copyright infringement!

My Quest for French Literacy

2009-04-09T23:36:00.000-07:00

There was a time, during the level 2 of my French studies that I was convinced that I would never be able to read French. After about 3 or 4 sentences, my mind would just go on a vacation to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. I was persuaded to quit my pursuit of French proficiency. Then the money-minded element of my head told me that quitting would be equivalent to a waste of money! Now that was good motivation to continue. But it still did not solve my problem of having a slight headache while reading French; I just couldn’t read.

I then told myself that it would be advisable to concentrate on the Listening skills for a while. Since I reckoned that babies learn to talk due to prolonged auditory exposure to language, I subjected myself to a blitzkrieg of French songs and movies. It would also cause an annoyance. I plainly could not comprehend the sounds that the French people produced from their throats and mouths! Now I had to discipline myself. There was no way I was going to give up. So I started watching the French movies and cartoons along with the French sub-titles, hoping that I would understand the dialogues that way. So I discontinued French reading for a while. 2 weeks later, I read an article (not in French) in the Times of India. It changed my approach towards improving my reading skills.

This article was titled Power of subtitles and was written by Gurcharan Das. It spoke about the efforts of Dr. Brij Kothari and his work with DoorDarshan. This project is about subtitling of songs on DD shows like Rangoli, Chayageet and Chitrahaar. The viewer subconsciously associates the spoken word with the words displayed on screen, thus practicing reading in an unobtrusive and hassle-free manner. It involves no extra cost or time investment for the viewer. This method effectively increases literacy levels even with just 30 minutes of exposure to such programs every week. Thanks to Dr. Kothari’s mission, a Nielsen-ORG survey, conducted in 2002 and 2007 to measure the influence of subtitling, showed that only 25% school children could read a simple paragraph in Hindi after five years of education. However, this soared to 56% if they also watched subtitled songs for 30 minutes a week on Rangoli. Similarly remarkable outcomes were reported among adults.

This convinced me that I was on the right track and my methodology was perfectly sound. From that day onwards, I watched 2 French movies or animated films, along with the French subtitles weekly. That amounted to nearly 5 to 6 hours of French audio and visual exposure per week. I did that for 4 months. My efforts paid of in January 2008; I managed to read the French novel, L’Africain of J.M.G. Le Clezio in 10 days! I had become perfectly literate in French. J’ai devenu francophone! I wrote about this to Dr. Brij Kothari on his website http://www.planetread.org/home.php. He wrote back saying that my experience mirrored his own while he was learning Spanish. That was seriously cool. According to AC Nielsen’s ORG-Center for Social Research, there are nearly 312 million early-literates and 444 million non-literates in India. This estimated number of non-literates is significantly higher than the official figure of 296.2 million. I wish all channels start sub-titling their shows. Everyone stands to win. Channels get better TRPs. Higher literacy levels means better levels of income that translates into higher sales for advertisers. That is fantastic motivation to speed up India’s conquest of 100% literacy and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.

My Elections Story - I

2009-03-31T03:10:00.000-07:00

Being the socially aware, India-loving Indian that I am, I wanted to make sure I vote this time; I missed out during the last general elections as I was a few months short of 18. I was heartbroken. It may seem that my favourite figure of speech is the hyperbole but the fact that I was not eligible to vote made it look as if I was a lesser citizen. At least in my head! But anyway, I did manage to register myself in my constituency in the nick of time. I say nick of time because JaagoRe.com took me for a ride! Now someone would ask me how? Well those Vote do! Vote do! Guys went around promising everyone that they would make he registration process hassle-free, claiming that their website generated form would mention the nearest Election Registration Office (ERO) of the aspiring voter’s area. I thought this was cool and fill up my form on their site. Those bozos did not mention my ERO. Damn! Now why would I waste my time on a website just to get a filled form that I could have filled myself! I searched http://google.com/ for the ERO of Thane city. I found the number. The voice on the other said that I was calling the Customs office! This happened too many times. I gave up. I then inquired around my neighbourhood if someone had any clue as to whom to approach with regards to exercising my franchise. Here I was a victim of rumours. The registration it seems was going on at two places – Dadoji Kondev Stadium ad Saraswati School. Both places had stopped accepting forms they told me. I nearly went ballistic. I was going to be left out once again. I landed a job shortly and my outrage took a backseat. But it did not die out. Then I read a wonderful report in Hindutan Times. It told me that forms would be accepted till April fool’s Day, 2009 that the office of the ERO could be found on http://ceo.maharashtra.gov.in/ . There was a ray of light; it brought light to my gloomy chamber of electoral despair. It was like finding an oasis in a bone dry desert. I was in 7th heaven. I got my act together. I found the ERO of Thane city and spoke to an official there. They told me that forms were being accepted at DADOJI KONDEV STADIUM! The same place where work had supposedly ended. Mon submitted my sister’s and my form over there. We are told that we won’t get our Voter ID card but will be able to vote if we have other identity proofs. Mission accomplished.

I am finally going to vote.
Three cheers for the world's largest democracy! Hip Hip Hurray!

P.S.:
1. I have no clue as to whom am I going to vote for. I think I’ll just do an “Inky Pinky Ponky, Daddy had a donkey” in the voting booth and decide!
2. To its credit, Jaago Re campaign has done commendable work to spread awareness amongst the 18 to 30 age group.

Prank

2009-03-24T21:58:00.000-07:00

I once had casually called up my best friend, but I received a shock when I reached the wrong number. At that point of time, I believed that cross connections were not possible on mobile networks. This is how the affair took place.

I dialled 9820098200.

Me: Hello Tejaswini.

Voice at the other end: Tejaswini? This is Manoj Tiwari’s number.

Stunned, I apologized and hung up.

I dialled the number again.

Me: Hello Tejaswini?

Voice at the other end: Wrong number this is Anush Parekh’s number.

Now I was feeling jittery. I was sure I had dialed the correct number. I made a third attempt.

Me: Hello Tejaswini?

Voice at the other end: No. This is Rohan Dasgupta.

I hung up, nearly convinced that the world had gone mad. Sense dwelled upon me in a few seconds and I had the saner thought that the Dolphin network might have gone barmy.

I was slightly on the edge. I simply couldn’t fathom the fact that I was unable to reach my best friend’s cell number. I called up her boyfriend.

Me: Hello Arvind?

Arvind: Hi Natalia. Bolo, how are you?

Me: Arre, what is Tejaswini’s mobile number?

Arvind: (in a tone that expressed surprise and the obviousness of the answer) 9820098200. Are you ok? What happened?

Me: I have been dialling this number but a man is answering the call.

Arvind: No way! I am the only man in her life!

Me: Thanks for clarifying your status in her life but I don’t know what’s happening!

Arvind: Hey chill, she is at a friend’s place for some project work. Someone must be fooling around with her cell.

Me: Oh ok. Thanks I’ll try again. Bye.

Arvind: Bye.

This time I had got smarter. I dialled her number again but from my Mom’s cell.

Me: Hello, May I speak to Kumodini Agrawal?

Voice at the other end: This is Tejaswini’s number.

Me: Very good. Give her the phone!

P.S.: The mobile number used here is that of the Vodafone India helpline to prevent any trouble Bye!

Gluttony and the Laws of Economics

2009-03-20T21:02:00.000-07:00

I am a food-lover. So is my friend a gourmet. Our love for good food goes to such heights that we don’t care a toss about customs and traditions when it comes to our gustatory preferences. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday are all fine for devouring all types of foodstuff inclusive of non-vegetarian fare. Every morsel of food is religiously chewed 32 times to enjoy the taste and nutritional benefits to the hilt. Fasting is a vice in our book. Prolonged dialogues on the pleasures of food, especially chocolates are a ritual. I can eat chocolates non-stop . CadburyFlake and Ferrero Rocher top my list. In my opinion, 1920 was the most important and eventful year of the 20th century as that was the year Cadbury launched Cadburyflake.

We have another friend who shares this trait of ours. Regrettably, this friend is a glutton. This guy shows absolutely no interest whatsoever in taking pleasure in the finer aspects of food, savouring the different flavours of the spices that linger on your tongue and enjoying the immense psychological delights that food provides us. All he seems to understand is wolfing down gargantuan portions of food and assumes that being a connoisseur of good food is equivalent gobbling down larger and larger quantities of food and drinks. It completely beats the point of culinary pursuits. He eats like a pig, stuffing his face on every edible thing in sight ; he eats humongous quantities of fast food , has an unquenchable thirst for soft drinks and commits the cardinal sin of likening junk food with delicious delights. That he is a dipsomaniac does not deserver special mention. He boasts that no amounts of alcohol can have any effect on the ability of his cerebrum and cerebellum to work in tandem with each other. Policemen around the planet will undeniably disagree with him and medical practitioners may consider this claim as a subject worth researching. I am willing to bet insane sums of money on his liver being as greasy as that of a duck destined to descend on our dishes as Foie gras. Well, to put it simply he celebrates the New Year 365 days of the year!

We had once collectively tried to drill sense into that part of his central nervous system that includes all his higher nervous centres; enclosed within the skull; continuous with the spinal cord i.e. his head. My friend attempted to bring about a change of the locus of feelings and intuitions i.e. heart. The timing was wrong. We were having a golgappa munching session. She first sought the support of scientific statements. She commenced her sermon by elucidating how his excessive food consumption could lead to hypertension, diabetes, cardiac complications, stomach ulcers, arteriosclerosis and every possible lifestyle disease that she had committed to memory. He rubbished her monologue retorting that he was convinced that scientists publish such gobbledygook simply because they do not have better alternatives for disposing off their research grants and doctors uphold these claims because they derive sadistic satisfaction by scaring all souls in sight. Result = zilch. It was now his turn to launch into a discourse about why and how he would never quit eating and drinking the way he does as he believed that he wanted to die a happy man, happy because he ate and drank to his heart’s content.

My objection to his elephantine consumption was more on the basis of economics. I told my friend to leave him in peace. My friend and I have studied economics. The gluttonous creature has not.

Me: Forget it. He won’t understand. Let’s wait till the marginal utility of all that he consumes hits zero and then becomes negative. It has to.

Friend: Yup you are right. The marginal utility has to hit zero, then it will become negative and finally he will suffer from something!

Gluttonous friend: What do you mean? (Chomping on golgappas)

Me: I think it’s not his fault. The Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility does not work in his case!

Me and Friend:

Gluttonous Friend:

I had, economically speaking, proved him abnormal.

Suicidally curious

2009-03-15T08:12:00.000-07:00

We are told that curiosity killed the cat. Well I don’t know which cat but a few years ago, my little brother was well on his way to join that cat. As an eight year old, he was very cute, sweet and always enormously curious to know what his elder sisters were up to. I was in class ten at that point of time. Often, he would join me while I was studying; snuggle into my arms while I would read my textbooks. He would always be intent on reading my texts. He never managed to sustain his enthusiasm beyond two paragraphs at the most but I guess he would get a kick by reading out of a 10^th standard textbook while he was himself in class 3.

On fine day, he joined me while I was reading up the Science 1 (Physics and Chemistry) texts. He started reading as usual. That paragraph enumerated the precautions to be taken while handing electronic equipment. He had learnt for the first time that handling electronic equipments with wet hands can cause a shock; that we must wear rubber slippers or gloves while using such machines and especially electric sockets, etc. he asked if all that was true. I replied in the affirmative. He wanted to know what a shock was. I told him that it can cause a seizure (I faked one to explain what it may look like), burns and a heart attack which means that our heart stops working abruptly. He nodded seriously and went off to play as usual.

Three days later, in the morning, after he had had his bath, he was madly calling out my name from the bathroom. I thought he had forgotten his towel. When I went to look, this little devil already had a towel wrapped around him. I asked him what the matter was. The conversation that followed went something like this.

Brother: I am going to tell Mom to take you out of school. There is no need for you to go to school. They teach you nonsense in class 10.

I was stunned to witness my education being questioned.

Me: Why? What happened?

Brother: Come in. (Pointing to the bathroom)

Before I could even understand what was happening, he splashed handful water on the switchboard and turned on and switched off the switch for the geyser.

Brother: You see, your textbook is wrong, the switchboard was wet, my hands were wet, I am not wearing rubber slippers, I touched the switched board and I did not suffer a shock, neither did I die. I am still alive.

I rolled my eyes in disbelief. He actually checked whether he would be killed!

I understood my mistake and patiently explained what insulators were. It then seemed to dawn upon him why he was yet alive.

Hardliners breed popularity of porn

2009-03-11T03:48:00.000-07:00

There are some things that should never be prevented under any excuse whatsoever. Preventing boys and girls from inter-mingling is one of them. Healthy interactions should be encouraged from a young age so that people do not feel awkward in the presence of the opposite sex. Many youngsters in semi-urban and rural India simply do not know how to talk to the members of the other gender. Their interactions always result in stoic silence, eve-teasing or worse. When feelings, even the most banal ones, are suppressed they come out later violently and in varying vicious manifestations.

The likes of Pramod Muthalik could take a lesson from Saudi Arabia and indeed all those who practice Wahabi Islam. When total interaction between men and women is proscribed, sexuality and sensuality come to be equated with perversity. Platonic relationships become likened with depravity and consensual sex becomes almost incomprehensible. When a society reaches this stage, pornography, the most demeaning of practices for human dignity, takes centre stage. Even the most stringent effort of the Saudi authorities cannot stop porn from circulating in its territories. No matter what we do, it does not go away. It is like gangrene. It is not cured. It destroys.

Saudi Arabia has the highest traffic of smuggled pornography in the world. If my memory is right, the smuggled porn material in Saudi Arabia is worth $200 million annually. I think I had read this in the Times of India. In fact, mobile phones are largely used for circulating porn in that country. This further shows how segregation, on the grounds of gender, breeds perversity. The Saudi authorities it seems are taking to the most sophisticated techniques to block out porn sites, but what happens once they are downloaded? Do they have any power to get rid of all the porn that is downloaded and circulating in that country? What happens now to the stringent and puritanical practices of Wahabi Islam? The very fact that they prohibit the masculine and feminine members of their population from freely interacting with each other, leads people to live out their desires vicariously, to seek refuge in porn.

We are only slightly better off in India. But we can mighty well afford to not give Pramod Muthalik and his likes the attention that they seek. They should not be allowed at any cost to implement their malevolent design. We really do not want to stoop down to the levels of the Saudis.

A Hairy Tale

2009-03-08T03:28:00.000-07:00

Friend: Hi Natalia!

Me: Hi! Howz life?

Friend: Bad.

Me: What happened? Did you put up a few kilos? You seem to be in good shape.

Friend: No re! Stop kidding! I have a problem.

Me: Oh! If it is not weight, then it must be a boy.

Friend: Are you a mind reader or what?

Me: Nope. I am experienced. That expression on your face says that you are pining for your Prince Charming but you never told me that you have a guy.

Friend: That is because I don’t have one. I started liking one recently. But…

Me: He doesn’t notice you, doesn’t seem to be interested in you. Oh he doesn’t look at you!

Friend: (sarcastically) Thank you for completing my sentence. So what should I do now? How do I get him to at least look at me?

Me: Hey I am not a love guru nor am I an agony aunt.

Friend: Natalia help!

Me: (Sensing danger) Ok Ok. Let me think. Hey you have nice long hair.

Friend: Thank you for the compliment but how does that help me?

Me: Move around with your hair open when he is around. That will help you definitely.

Friend: How do you know? That advice sounds silly to me!

Me: You are a bad observer. Boys love girls with their hair open.

Friend: How do you know? Tell me that first!

Me: Haven’t you seen that Parachute Coconut Hair oil ad, with the jingle Gorgeous Hameshaa (Forever)?

Friend: So?

Me: That ad is from a man’s point of view. It’s a man singing about his favorite girl/ woman or maybe wife or girlfriend. It’s very different from other hair product ads which always extol the virtues of Shampoo X or Hair oil Y or Hair Colour Z! And those ads always have women talking about the benefits of the product. The Gorgeous Hameshaa campaign is different; it’s about a guy admiring his girl doing different things with her hair. Many of the women in that ad are with their hair open. That means that men prefer their women with their hair open. Women with long flowing hair excite men. I am sure!

Friend: You sure? Serious?

Me: Yup. I think open hair would work better than a low-cut T-shirt anyway!

Friend: Yuck. Stop joking! I am serious.

Me: Thousand apologies! (With folded hands, she was offended)

Friend: So tomorrow, while he will be hanging around the canteen during recess, I go there with my hair open, all prep and proper. He is generally there with his friends. I hope he notices me and likes me. We might even be able to get to the point of talking in a few weeks.

Me: Oh! (Sneakily) But let me warn you, even his friends will be excited if they see you like that. Open hair excites all men. By the way, excitement in such cases generally means an erection.

Friend: (Furiously) NATALIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

At that point, I ran for my life.

It’s Raining Men, Hallelujah!

2009-03-01T21:35:00.000-08:00

My friend: Tell me Natalia, have you ever seriously loved a guy?

Me: Yup. Next?

My friend: Just one guy?

Me: Hmm, nope, wait let me count them.

My friend: You're joking! Are you nuts?

Me: Nope, I seem to have a weird fortune with guys. Every time I like one I find out that he already likes or is dating someone else! Crazy isn’t it? But anyway, they were more like big crushes!

My friend: (Giggles) so tell me, how do you cope up in a situation like this? Can you just move on?

Me: Absolutely! Why should I create trouble for myself and the guy? It can get complicated. And besides, there is no harm if one guy doesn’t like you. India is full of men. Our predecessors have ensured that. They never wanted a situation where girls would have trouble finding dates!

My friend: Explain, explain! What do you mean by that?

Me: Well you see the sex ratio of India is 927 females per 1000 males. That means a surplus of 73 boys! So if I don’t get one guy, I know I still have 73 waiting in the line for me! Yipee!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My friend: Natalia you seriously are weird! And what if you don’t find a match even amongst them?

Natalia: No, problems! I shall simply register myself on http://www.bharatmatrimony.com/ or http://www.shaadi.com/ . «Invited groom for tall, FAIR, educated girl, slim, whatever will be my age/ 5’4”, working from educated family, teetotaller, non-smoker, non-vegetarian. Caste no bar. » The moment people read the word 'fair', I shall be flooded with offers! No problems at all. I assure you, someone or the other will like me that way. But I pray to God that I don’t ever feel the need to register myself on those matrimonial sites! I am not an uninteresting character at all!

My friend: Hey of course you are not! We are just imagining some hypothetical situations. (Gleefully) It’s bad for the boys! I pity them. They don’t have as much as choice as we girls do.

Me: Oh no! Not at all! They can always go to Russia, Japan, and many other East European countries! All those places have more women than men! In fact the last time I read about it, there were 884 males per 1000 females in Russia and 1040 females per 1000 males in Japan! So boys need not worry at all. However, their families would! I wonder how most Indian families would react to their sons bringing home a European bahu (daughter-in-law)! The guy gets past caste, language and nationality barriers in one clean sweep! Globalisation at its best.

A bony issue.

2009-02-20T08:06:00.000-08:00

There are many words in the English language which make no sense. One of them is ‘Orthopaedics’. You see the word Orthopaedics comes from the Greek words Ortho – straight and Paedia – which means ‘child; so orthopaedics literally means “Straightening children!” Now orthopaedic surgeons are much more than 'Straightners of Children'. This word refers to one of the earliest medical treatments given to children born with malformed spines and limbs that would give them abnormal postures. This practice gave the name for the profession. How inadequate. I personally feel the word should be ‘Osteiatrics’. Osteo is the Greek word for bone and iatria means medical healing. So when we put the two together we get ‘Osteiatrics’, just like in Paediatrics. That aptly describes everything that Orthopaedic surgeons do. They medically heal bones, and therefore they should be Osteiatrians / Osteiatric surgeons. However I DO NOT PLAN to go about demanding a change in the name of this profession for the following reasons:

1. I do not want to irritate the orthopaedic community which wisely and rightly spends its time and resources on curing and finding better cures for debilitating bone problems.

2. I do not wish to look inspired by idiots who go around changing names for nothing. For e.g. Bombay to Mumbai, Calcutta to Kolkatta, Madras to Chennai and Bangalore to Bengaluru and so on. (I wonder why someone hasn’t yet made any noises about changing Delhi to Hastinapur)

3. I do not want to be considered insane.

But I still think that Orthopaedics should be Osteiatrics. That would be one more step towards logical words and spellings.

P.S.: My apologies to my father, an orthopaedic surgeon himself, for breaching / intruding / infringing / violating the name of his profession.

Valentine's Day in a village

2009-02-12T21:45:00.000-08:00

Most Indians go holidaying to their native place or their village during the school vacations. The major Indian festivals like Diwali, Ganesh Chaturthi or festivals of local importance cause mass bookings on trains and buses, leaving the Indian Railways and State Transport services burning the candle at both ends. Going to the native place at least once a year, is almost the single most important thing on people’s mind during the run up to the holidays or the festivals. But one of my friends does not care a toss about the visit to his native place during the vacations or the festivals. This guy goes into the “going to the native place craze” during the run up to Valentine’s Day.

"Valentine’s Day is round the corner. I won’t be attending college. I am leaving for my village” was his regular refrain 3-4 weeks before Valentine’s Day during all the 4 years of our Bachelor’s degree in my agriculture college. Everything else seemed of tertiary importance (saying secondary importance would amount to an understatement). The first time I heard him talking about his trip to his village for Valentine’s Day, my reaction was something like this:

Friend: Valentine’s Day is approaching. I am going to my village. (He was talking to someone else)

Me: WHAT? What did he just say?

That day I could not ask him the reason for some reason. I simply assumed that he had a loving girlfriend, who longed for him in his village, who was more important to him than food, clothing and shelter and that he would consecrate the weeks before Valentine’s for her to make up for his absence during the rest of the year. My imagination did shift into an overdrive but I had to assume an answer for his inexplicable frenzy to visit his native place for Valentine’s Day. He sure did disappear for nearly a month before Valentine’s and returned only a week after Valentine’s Day. This was too much for me. What could he possibly have done during such a long period? Frenzied love-making sessions for a month? Or did he belong to some bizarre cult that had its own month long celebrations and customs for Valentine’s Day that were hitherto concealed from the eyes of the world? I had to ask him.

Me: Hi! How was your trip to your village this time?

Friend: Fantastic. It was more enlightening than last year.

Me: Enlightening? What do you go to your village during Valentine’s Day for?

Friend: For the preparations for Valentine’s Day?

Me: What do you mean? I am lost. Are you trying to tell me that your tiny, distant village in Pune actually celebrates Valentine’s Day?

Friend: No. We don’t do such things in our village. (Emphasizes 'such')

Me: Then what do you do?

Friend: My uncle cultivates flowers. He has 3 greenhouses where he cultivates all sorts of flowers especially the ones that are demanded the most during Valentine’s Day. You see he exports flowers to Europe. This time of the year, we face a shortage of labour on the greenhouse for tending to the flowers. (He had all my attention) I go there to help him out. It is the best time to learn about flower cultivation and greenhouse management. I also get to learn a lot from his manager who handles the export part. I work myself in the storage and packaging sections for the flowers. We have to handle those flowers like we hold new-borns. They are very delicate and even slight damages result in revenue losses. It is a mad race out there amongst neighbours. I didn’t tell you. Most of my uncle’s neighbours also grow flowers. They wildly compete amongst themselves to produce the best flowers. They even tease and mock each other about if someone's flowers seem inferior than their own. It is seriously embarrassing if someone else’s flowers are better than yours. It is back-breaking work but immensely satisfying. Our flowers leave for Europe a week before Valentine’s Day and then it is the accounts work that takes up our time.

Me: Oh my! I could not even imagine this. (I felt ashamed of the possibilities that I had imagined) It must be hard work. I bet you know all that happens in a greenhouse off pat.

Friend: Absolutely. I can handle a greenhouse all on my own. My uncle totally trusts me. I feel that I learn more on the greenhouse than during our horticulture classes. But theoretical knowledge is also important.

Me: That is great! Are the revenues good?

Friend: Yes. It depends on the orders. We earn up to Rs. 6 lakhs for 5-6 weeks of work. But these people (purchasers) do not always pay up on time. Europe purchases lots of flowers during Valentine’s Day. For that matter, even Bombay and Poona have a huge demand for even Grade 3 quality flowers. Valentine’s Day is good for business. I love it.

Me: I agree with you.

I had actually learnt how a certain farming community in Pune benefits from Valentine’s Day celebrations. They even admit that they love it. I appreciated my friend's yearly pilgramage to his village for Valentine's Day. I wonder what the Ram and Bajrang worshippers, who protect our “Great Indian Culture” and would by now be receiving ‘pink chaddis’ with love, would feel about this.

Have you ever seen a man’s penis?

2009-01-23T08:13:00.000-08:00

Well only men have a penis but that is a question my friends jokingly asked me one night at my hostel. I answered, in matter-of-fact manner, “ I must have seen at least 70-80 of them.” my friends burst out laughing, barely able to control themselves. Later, they wanted to know how that was possible. The two of them could barely keep their eyes from popping out. I told them that on the bus from Thane to Panvel, which passes from multiple suburbs of New Bombay, I have to put up with the site of men openly defecating on the streets with their privates parts on public display. Free - for - all. You can’t escape it. Look to the left. It’s the same. Look to the right. It’s the same. You only avoid such sights if you studiously look heavenwards  or keeping admiring your own thighs. Those who can sleep in the bus manage to protect their eyes from the obscene exhibition but not their noses from the putrid smell. You put with this shameless, quotidian display of male venereal organs even on the train from Thane to Panvel. In the mornings, our rail tracks and highways virtually turn into shit tracks and shitways. On hearing my explanation, they were still laughing but with intermittent screams of “Yuck”, “Kiti ghan!” ( Marathi for "How dirty!") . Then I told them that I could bet that even they had seen penises in the same manner. They said “Yes”. It is the same on the railway tracks from Kurla to Panvel and even from Rasayani to Alibaug. We then launched into a tirade about how revolting, nauseating and shocking the sight of the human penis is. (Of course, in the given context). I wondered out aloud why women aren’t seen defecating openly? If they have the sense to go to secluded places then why not men? And more importantly, why are people still defecating in the open? Can’t the local municipalities provide toilets for all and spare us the sights of penises and bare bottoms? And even more importantly, why do those who “fight for saving Indian culture” do not make a hue and cry about this? After all displaying penises in public for any reason whatsoever, (leave aside infants and toddlers) is definitely more serious and indecent than as compared to say a Richard Gere pecking a Shilpa Shetty on her cheeks or a Rahul Mahajan and a Payal Rohatgi in a swimming pool together! 

Mangal sutra: The license to have sex.

2009-01-17T08:05:00.000-08:00

Once, on my home, I took the usual bus out of Rasayani to Panvel. While getting into the bus, I nearly bumped into the woman standing in front of me. I managed to control myself and at the same instant I realized that she was pregnant. I found a seat for myself and my friend. The pregnant lady sat down on the seat next to ours in the other row. I casually looked at her face and was left dumb-founded. She was evidently 2-3 years my junior. I was 19 at that point of time. I asked my friend if she felt the same. She replied in the positive. The girl could not have been more than 17 and yet she was on her way to motherhood. I felt disgusted at that moment. This child had been decorated in gold jewelry in a manner that reminded me of decorated bulls during the Maharashtrian harvest festival of Bail-Pola, when we worship our cattle. Her attire made her look older but her face gave away the truth. At the age of 17, I was caught up with my class 12 examinations, where as this girl was forced into producing a baby, hence teenage sex and teenage pregnancy, all under the pretext of matrimony. Such a disgusting and dangerous thing to do! We urban youngsters get accused of aping western culture and values which supposedly ruin Indian culture while our rural teenage counterparts are encouraged to get screwed up with the blessing of their whole families, societal approval, under the guise of good culture and in the name of marriage. How cool is that? There was a time when I believed that teenage pregnancies in India were the only the stories of those deserted, orphaned girl children on the streets who had no families to keep them safe and would hence fall prey to rapists; Or maybe those God-forsaken members of the fairer sex who had been cursed into human trafficking at a very tender age. But my years in Rasayani, Panvel jolted me out of my asinine assumptions and ignorance. In India , you are free to have sex and churn out babies if you have mangal sutra dangling down your neck, irrespective of you age and maturity.

What a difference!

2009-01-10T06:39:00.000-08:00

Mumbai Mirror popped up a pleasant surprise today. The Sci-Tech section had an interesting article titled “Japan scientists unveil robot suit for farmers.” It is seriously cool. The Japanese are obsessed with robot sand there are no limits to the sort of things these guys do. The robot suited is aimed at old farmers who have difficulty performing operations that require crouching or raising their hands. At 25kgs, methinks its pretty heavy but hey if someone can afford to use it why not? The device is expensive but much needed in countries that don’t have sufficient farm labourers. I however lament the lack of concern and serious efforts to better the conditions of agricultural labourers here in India. The Japanese have created robots to ease human drudgery and here we are still having humans slogging it out like oxen. Women are the worst affected in such cases. Many agricultural operations like manual weeding, sowing, harvesting require the labourer to be in the crouching position. The labourers are often women and married ones at that. These women suffer multiple miscarriages because of their work without ever finding out about it. The crouching position is dangerous during the first trimester of the pregnancy as it does not allow the foetus to attach itself to the mother’s uterus correctly resulting in the loss of the pregnancy. This work also harms the pelvic girdle of women severely. Some social activists have tried to address these issues and also attempted to improve the working conditions of female farm labourers in some areas but in vain. However there won’t be a solution in place without government intervention and nationwide poverty alleviation efforts.

Maharashtrians! Learn Marathi first!

2009-01-09T07:58:00.000-08:00

I am a Maharahstrian. I speak Marathi at home and with friends. My head was pretty fucked up by Raj Thackray’s tirade against North Indians. The idiot went about screaming that Maharashtrian culture is under threat from Hindi speaking bhaiyas. He wants everyone living in Maharashtra to learn Marathi which is a good and practical idea. But I hate the man. I hate his ways and I hate him for admiring Adolf Hitler never mind if he condemns (superficially?) the Holocaust. This guy seems blissfully unaware of the fact that 22.37% of Marathi people themselves cannot read and write Marathi! And this is Maharashtra government data. 13.8% Marathi men cannot read and write whereas 32.5% Marathi women cannot read and write Marathi. Horrible! Horrible! Marathi culture cannot be threatened by non-Marathi speaking people. It comes under threat only when Marathi people ignore the Marathi language. But I’ll tell you; these politicians loathe the idea of 100 percent literacy. Their dim-witted ideas will not find an audience then.

Mind your language

2008-12-20T01:17:00.000-08:00

At my agriculture college, I was some sort of a mini-celebrity, the reason being that I am fluent in English. My classmates, most of them from rural Maharashta, never seemed to realize that there are thousands like me, who speak the language of our former colonial rulers very well, in fact better than me. People would always seek my advice to improve their command of English. Honestly, most of them were horrible when it came to speaking the Queen's language. Being no teacher of English myself, I was often clueless about the guidance to give. My general counsel would be to listen to English news on TV and to watch English cartoons (unfortunately Cartoon Network doesn’t air cartoons in English anymore). They did not think it would help them. People on TV speak English too fast they would complain. I didn’t know what to say beyond that. But now I do know what to tell people when they ask me that question about English improvement. Watch movies on HBO, Star Movies or Zee Studios as they have English sub-titles for their English dialogues as that way people can improve their English listening and reading skills. Gradually they well start speaking well too. I feel like screaming this out from the rooftops. I so wish all people in our country become fluent in English. The Indian industry won’t face shortages related to employees who can’t communicate properly in English. Job seekers will find better employment. One more step towards development

Bipolar

2008-12-14T02:33:00.000-08:00

I called up a friend at my university. I spoke to him after a very long time. He had a lot of things to talk about as usual. Power cuts, hampered work at his factory, English movies (he has a tough time understanding American and British accents), etc. I asked him about a professor who once worked at my college and who now works at the university. He almost immediately sounded agitated. He told me that this professor got married last November and is now allegedly dating one of his students at the university! His wife doesn’t live with him as she is at his native village. This professor had a similar record at my college although he wasn’t exactly dating any of my batch mates; he was flirting with at least 3 of them. This guy is an out and out hypocrite and a pervert who clearly has no idea regarding the utilization of his sexual energy. He had once admonished a whole bunch of girls including myself for wearing western clothes (read: a pair of denims and a T-shirt) and would constantly rant about the need to preserve Indian culture and Indian values. Bullshit! He was thrown out from our college for demanding bribes from his students for increasing their marks. Indian culture and Indian values, my foot! He was dating one professor at my college too. She was fortunate to have decided against marrying this bastard. Her parents, it seems, were opposed to the idea of accepting a non-Konkani man for their son-in-law. She is so very well settled today and ended up marrying a person much better than this asshole. I hate this man and I so wish I could skin him alive. But unfortunately, that’s unconstitutional.

Fair trial no matter what!

2008-12-11T05:19:00.000-08:00

I've been reading people writing things like the arrested terrorist Qasab does not deserve trial and that he must be executed immediately. I partially agree with them. With due respect to our constitution, he does deserve to be executed but not without a legal trial. So must Pragya Singh and Colonel Purohit be executed. They are all equals. Hang them in public. Or even better. Burn them at stakes. Unfortunately, that's not in accordance with our Constitution. These idiots may make a mockery of it. But we must respect it.

Ban on Google Earth? Are we missing the point?

2008-12-11T02:36:00.000-08:00

People have been talking about the use of Google Earth in the planning and execution of the terror attacks of the 26th of November 2008. A ban on Google Earth will prove completely pointless. Consider this: Google Earth was launched on 28th of June 2005, much after other terrorist attacks like the one at the Olympic village in Munich in 1972 were Israeli athletes were taken hostage by Palestine fidayeen, the hijack of the IC 814 in Kathmandu in December 1999, the hijack of the Indian Airlines flight 182 Kanishka by Khalistani terrorists in June 1985. Did the terrorists have access to Google Earth back then? The recent attacks in Mumbai took place because our security agencies failed to act on intelligence reports. Terrorists exploit loopholes in security and the callous attitude of administrative personnel at all levels. Troublemakers and terrorists will cause mayhem unless and until we become vigilant.

My Fair Lady

2008-12-09T23:33:00.000-08:00

A fine morning on national highway .
I was in a ST bus on my way to college.
The bus halted at the toll counter on the way to Rasayani.
A man’s voice called out, “Natalia Hule.”
Nothing more.
Wondering who it was, I looked out of the bus window.
It was a stranger, who was smiling lecherously in my direction accompanied by his cronies.
It was the first time I saw him.
I was irked and worried.
I am no movie or TV star for strangers to call out my name on the roads.
Nor am I Osama Bin Laden for someone to have difficulties finding out details about myself.
I asked a friend at college if he had any idea about someone asking for me.
I gave him the description of that stranger.
He responded saying that it could be anyone. (I knew that)
He said that people in that area (Rasayani and neighbouring places) were crazy about fair girls.
The moment they spot one, they go to insane lengths to find out her antecedents. Never mind if the girl is ugly, it’s the pale skin that counts.
It’s a disease there.
I was shocked.
I understood why Fair & Lovely sells in this country.
We are congenital racists.

PlanetRead::Spread the Word

2008-12-08T22:57:00.000-08:00

PlanetRead::Spread the Word: "[...] More: PlanetRead::Spread the Word"

We all live in a big poultry house.

2008-12-08T05:20:00.000-08:00

Men are or have cocks.
Girls are chicks.
Hence, the world is a poultry house.
You were wrong Shakespeare!
This isn’t a stage.

The Awakening.

2008-11-30T04:56:00.000-08:00

The massacre of the 26th of November in Bombay has scarred all of us in some manner or the other. It scares me till this day to think that I escaped that bloodbath. I left VT station at 8:30 pm. The atrocities at VT started at 9:30 pm. The killers were planning to open fire at 7 pm. It could have happened any time that evening. My friend was at the station at 9 pm. My classmates from my French class were bang opposite Leopold Café when the bomb went off there. They could not return to Thane that night. They spent the night at a friend’s place at Peddar Road. I slept that night thinking that the mayhem would end by the following morning. I was foolishly mistaken. What happened next was witnessed by the world. The Taj Mahal Hotel, the Oberoi Trident, Nariman House and VT station had turned into scenes of carnage. I was simply numbed by the thought that it was a marine invasion. What were our Navy and Coast Guard guys doing? My brother’s classmate lost his father in the Taj. His father was the Head Chef at the Taj, the captain as they call them. An acquaintance lost seven of her colleagues in the Taj. She did not sleep for 3 nights after hearing the news and had to finally be put to sleep like an infant. My friend escaped a blast at the Trident. She was right inside the building. My French teacher lost two of her neighbors in the Taj. The Director of my former workplace lives in the building right next to the Nariman House. He witnessed the tragedy up-close. Radio France International called me up for my testimonial. So were my French teachers and many French expatriates. But I finally lost it when I saw the funerals of Hemant Karkare and Major Sandip Unnikrishanan. I cried till the point that I looked diseased. That happened to a whole lot of other people too. The city is angry and united. This time our anger won’t die down. We won’t let it. We are going to use it a positive force against the enemies outside and the enemies within. We will come up will solutions and get them implemented too.

Lexically correct.

2008-11-25T01:52:00.000-08:00

My mom has a curious affinity for dictionaries.

She loves them. She can’t seem to purchase enough of them. We have an English, Marathi, Hindi, French and even an Urdu dictionary at our place.

She taught me how to read a dictionary when I was 6 years old.

So when some months, when my sister asked my mom for some cash to watch the movie ‘Tashan’, my mother responded in the negative straight away! Taken aback, my sis demanded to know the reason for her refusal.

Our mom said that the word ‘Tashan’ is definitely not Marathi. She explained that she tried to find its meaning in the Hindi AND Urdu dictionaries and her efforts came to zilch. Hence, given that the word ‘Tashan’ is meaningless, mom reasoned that the movie is bound to be meaningless. She staunchly refused let one rupee of her money to be wasted on idiotic ‘scenes after scenes’!

My sister never got to watch the movie. Her friends went for it. They called her in the evening to say they wasted their time and money on ‘Tashan’ and my sister was fortunate to have escaped the ordeal. My sister prompted reported their views to our mom. Mom patted herself on the back for her lexical logic.

Bio! Bio! Bio!

2008-11-21T01:21:00.000-08:00

Back when I completed class 12, there was a big mania for pursuing a bachelor’s degree in biotechnology / microbiology / life sciences and in that order. I bet half the people who jumped into these streams did know what they where getting into. For example, I have a friend who did her BSc in Biotechnology and is now completed disappointed about her decision. She did not like. She is now trying do an MBA and says that she didn’t like one single day of her biotech studies! There is a boy who also followed the same course of studies and is now pursuing perfumery. But at least his post-graduate studies have something to do with his Bachelors! I know another two girls who did their BSc in microbiology and are know studying management saying that microbiology was useless. Well there is nothing wrong about people studying management, but I completely disagree with them when they say that their studies related to the biological sciences were useless. Their reasons for choosing their Bachelors were wrong. We do not do our Bachelors just because newspapers like ‘The Education Times’ scream that the future holds great ‘scope’ for these fields. We choose our careers based on what we like. If you don’t like anything, you are bound to be in a mess.

Anyway, what I’ve found out over the last 4 years is that Bachelors degrees in Agriculture, Horticulture, Biology, Botany, Zoology, Biotechnology, Microbiology and Life sciences have nearly the same standing in the job market. It is only if you pursue a masters in one of these fields does it make sense for your careers. Now since I am in a studies councilor mood, let me tell those confused souls out there pursing one of the above fields what to do. If you can’t move abroad, it pretty difficult and expensive to make good careers related to the biological sciences. However, there are education options in France and Germany which provide good education at relatively affordable costs.

Learn German and/or French people. That will prove to be a good career move.

Then look through:

1. DAAD http://campus-germany.org for courses like food processing, environnement protection, masters in beer brewing, wine etc.
2. CAMPUSFRANCE http://campusfrance.org/en Search for courses related to the same fields. You will come across good courses.

Don’t worry. Your career decision is a good one. Just sculpt it properly

DELF B2!

2008-11-20T23:46:00.000-08:00

My DELF B2 exam got over yesterday. What a relief! I slept peacefully. I desperately need that certificate and I think its coming. The hard work of the last 4 months seems to be paying off. I was just eating, drinking and sleeping French for the last 4 months. I have lost count of the number of magazines I read, the number of websites I used for French audios and the number of French movies I watched in the past 4 months. My fear of not being able to talk for the 20 minutes session of ‘Speaking’ section had nearly driven me out of my mind in August. But I did speak for 20 minutes and how! The decision to pursue DFA 1 and B2 part 1 together was a good gamble. I was advised it would prove tough but it has worked in my favor! The writing section turned out to be very easy; thanks to the exercises we did during DFA 1.

Finally my thanks to all the resources materials that helped me in my preparation for the big day:

Le Français dans le Monde. The magazine and the accompanying audio cds are a must for any French language student. More information on http://www.fdlm.org/
Radio France Internationale. The daily news broadcasts and interviews with authors, film-makers, politicians and people from diverse fields immensely help you to acquire the requisite listening skills for level B2. More on http://rfi.fr, the radio http://www.rfi.fr/radiofr/pages/001/accueil.asp and French language http://www.rfi.fr/lffr/statiques/accueil_apprendre.asp
At the B2 level you are also expected to understand the Canadian accent very well, in that case Radio-Canada, http://radio-canada.ca.
France 1, for all the information about all that goes on in France. http://www.tf1.fr/
TV5 Monde. For the help needed related to French exercises similar to the questions of the DELF exams http://www.tv5.org/
Alliance Française de Bombay. http://afindia.org/bombay
Alter Ego 4, Campus 4 and Café Crème 4. The best textbooks possible!

I am so happy! Vive la Francophonie!

French Language Exams

2008-10-11T02:09:00.000-07:00

There are exactly four examinations of French that are recognized all over the world. They are:

DELF-DALF
TCF
TEF
TFI

DELF-DALF

The DELF-DALF exams are conducted by the CIEP, Centre International d’études pédagogique and awarded by the Ministry of National Education of France. DELF stands for Diplôme d'études en langue Française and DALF stand for Diplôme approfondi de langue Française. DELF and DALF have been consistent with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages since 1 September 2005

The DELF-DALF diplomas are 6 in number, DELF A1, DELF A2, DELF B1, DELF B2, DALF C1 and DALF C2, each corresponding to the respective level on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

These tests are meant for non-French people who would like their French language skills recognized either for education, employment or for personal reasons. The DELF and DALF diplomas are independent, so you can appear for the examination you choose. You can also attempt the examinations for multiple diplomas during the same examination session. Contact the Alliance Française in your country to find out the examination centers in your country or click here. Have a look at the sample papers here. For information on fees, contact the examination centre where you would like to take the diploma(s). Address your queries to delfdalf@ciep.fr

TCF - Test de connaissance du français

The TCF are conducted by the CIEP, Centre International d’études pédagogique and awarded by the Ministry of National Education of France. Like the DELF-DALF every non-French person can appear for the TCF. All candidates obtain a certificate of results that grades them at one of six levels (from A1 to C2) on the competency scale defined by the Council of Europe (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages). This means that it is not possible to fail the TCF. There are 4 types of TCF depending on your reason for appearing for the TCF.

General TCF
TCF for Future students who plan to do their studies in France or in any French speaking country. TCF DAP for Bachelors courses and TCF for Masters.
TCF for International Bodies (International Relations)
TCF for Quebec: For those who wish to immigrate to Quebec, Canada

Contact the Alliance Française in your country to find out the examination centers in your country and the cost of the exam or click here. It is also advisable to contact the Embassy of Canada in your country if you plan to appear for TCF Quebec. Address your queries to delfdalf@ciep.fr

TEF - Test d'Evaluation de Français

The Test d'Evaluation du Français is awarded by the CCIP (Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie de Paris/Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Paris) This certificate is valid for one year from the date the exam was taken. The TEF can be attempted for the following reasons:

Higher studies in France or Canada
Emigration to Canada
Emigration to Quebec

To find out the exam centers for TEF in your country and the exam fees, click here. To attempt the TEF in India or just for more detailed information, click here. Address your queries here.

TFI – Test de français international

The Test de Français international evaluates the French level of non-francophones. This multiple choice test assesses a candidate's ability to understand, speak, read and write French as it is used in the international workplace. It is conducted by ETS Canada, the same body that conducts the GRE and TOEFL.

This exam can be attempted for educational, professional and personal purposes. The score obtained on the TFI can be used on the resume to indicate your French language proficiency. Look here to see what the scores mean. Contact the following offices to know the centers in your country or contact the TOEFL centers in your city to know if they conduct the TFI also. In case if you plan to give the TFI in Europe, click here.

Head Office/Siège Social
Educational Testing Service Canada Inc.
212-133 Princess Street
Kingston, Ontario K7L 1A8
Tel: (613) 542-3368
Toll Free: 1-800-615-8666 (Canada & U.S.)

Québec Office/Bureau du Québec
Educational Testing Service Canada Inc.
C. P. 69044
Laval, Québec H7X 3M2
Tél: (450) 689-3151 / 1-888-689-3151
Téléc: (450) 689-2790

The scores obtained on the DELF-DALF, TCF and TEF correspond to each other. Have a look at the following website to find the equivalences in accordance with the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

http://www.alliancefrmarseille.org/en_cours_cadre_europeen.html

It is best to prepare for these exams by pursuing French courses at the Alliance Francaises in your country.

All the best!

Caste? Indian. Thank you very much.

2008-10-10T05:14:00.000-07:00

Towards the end of November 2001, we were nearly into the final days of school, class10 i.e. S.S.C. we had to fill out our application forms for the Secondary School certificate examination. Before filling out the final form, we were given a dummy form to fill. The dummies were supposed to be checked by checked by the administrative staff of the school to rule out idiotic errors. Once, a boy supposedly filled in the name of his father as Reverend Father Ivan Mascharenas instead of his own father’s name! Can you beat that? At the age of 15? Anyway, the poor soul must have been confused or simply absent-minded. So we got along the business of filling our forms and submitted them. Some students were summoned to the office of the administration for errors in their forms. I was one of them. I was baffled. Errors? In my form? Impossible! I went to the office. I was handed over my form. Not a single problem. Most of my schoolmates standing there were called for the verification of their caste status. It was my turn. I asked the officer what was wrong. She said I had not entered my caste. Indeed I had not and on purpose. I had left it blank. I told her that I was not interested in filling that detail. I didn’t even know my caste to fill it in the first place. She said it was mandatory as incase if I belonged to some backward caste I would be eligible for government benefits. I said I was not interested. My dad is an orthopedic surgeon and my mom has studied law. I was more than privileged. Thank you very much. Moreover, I continued my tirade by stating that throughout our school days we had been ingrained with the idea that we were Indians first and Indians last. Nothing in between. She refused to accept my form. I argued that the form stated (in very fine print) that the candidate should have be an Indian national and must be born before 30th of December, 1986. I fulfilled the criteria. No success. She refused to accept the form. Instead she gave me a file of our admission forms that we had submitted at the time of taking admission into school. I was told to find out the caste entered in my form. I grudgingly did that but I did have my revenge because I got to joke about my schoolmates looks in their photos as 4 year olds. I reached my form in that file. I recognized Dad’s handwriting. He had entered both religion and caste as Hindu. I saw no problem with that. I filled in that stupid detail.

High Time We Start Disrespecting Our Elders

2008-10-05T00:56:00.000-07:00

OK, I do not advocate retorting every few sentences, but we need to realize that respect is like money. You have to earn it to receive it. Your age or social status does not automatically grant you access to money or respect. I sickens me every time people talk down to us youngsters about the importance of respecting elders. What for? I completely understand and agree with the fact that our are far more wider than us due to their experience and the knowledge they have gained over the decades. After all, they have already committed and learned from many mistakes that all of us do all the time. We must profit from their experience. That's exactly what they wish too. But what about those who have remained stupid despite their years? What about their egoistic bastards who refuse to learn? What about those sclerotic morons who refuse to look at newer, different point of views? Should we respect them too? Or will it be better to ask them to shut up? I prefer they latter. I have seen endless number of geriatric entities going around sermoning young people to respect them without caring two hoots for the fact that respect is to be commanded and not demanded. Beggars, fuck off! I do not care a damn about those who are liked by many senior people (including our parents' generation, not just our grand-parents' generation) for being very respectful towards their elders as respecting elders says nothing about your intentions and character. You may be doing that out of sycophancy just to earn brownie points. Or just for giving the impression that you are well-bred. I prefer people who respect everybody impartially. Someone who respects their elders and juniors equally is someone who truly has class. It is easy to respect people who are elder to you, who have a elevated social or economic status as compared to yours or those who are simply seem stronger than you in terms of sheer physical strength. But what is seriously cool is respecting those younger than you, those less economically / socially privileged as compared to yourself or simply those smaller in size than you. That's strong character! That's cool! I won't go around faking respect for people if they do not deserve it just because they were born before me. You haven't done me a favor.

"Indian Women can't divorce." - Yeah right, Madam I.A.S!

2008-10-01T23:38:00.000-07:00

There are sometimes when I wonder if education really brings about a change in our attitudes towards our self and towards life and society. One would normally expect highly educated people to being more sensitive and informed about socio-economic and political issues and evils. It is however these very people who seem to repeat sins of thousands of years and ensure that they are not eradicated. Look at this for example. I spoke to my English professor from junior college recently. She narrated an incident about her friend (female), an I.A.S officer, who is also married to an I.A.S officer. This lady’s husband is an alcoholic and a wife beater. This lady I.A.S officer puts up with abuse 24/7! Her friends, including my professor, advised her to divorce her husband, as it is the only solution to her problem. Her response to this counsel left them scandalized. She said that she could never do something like that as she is an Indian woman and that she will end up losing her face if she is divorced!!!!!!!

My heart goes out to those women who are trapped with dangerous husbands due to financial constraints or simply due to being ignorant about the fact that they can legally get a divorce, but this idiot just makes me nauseous. Education has not made any difference in neither her husband’s attitude nor her own.

The Futility of Penalizing the 3rd child

2008-09-02T08:28:00.000-07:00

There are talks in the Kerala government circles these days regarding the imposition of the ‘two-child’ norm for couples failing which they will be penalized Rs. 10000 per ‘extra’ child and disqualification of the 3rd child for of free healthcare and education. This rule might be forced to bring down the birth rate further. Kerala already has the lowest birth-rate in India. I sincerely appreciate and approve of their intentions but sadly, they have missed the point. I wish to know whether beggars, commercial sex workers and slum dwellers will be made to shell out the fine for it is always this category of people who seem to have a gaggle of kids with them. Making something compulsory will make people resent it. Moreover, it will add to the workload of our sufficiently stressed law enforcement agencies. Instead, there should be higher emphasis on sex education so that people started making educated choices in their sex lives. We must adopt a sensitive approach towards educating the masses about safe sex and use of birth-prevention methods. Experiments in Uttar Pradesh are already bearing fruit. In Lucknow, a youth-oriented initiative, called Saathiya, is working closely with chemists to educate clients, especially those from weak economic sections of the array of birth control measures available and even reducing the awkwardness associated with the sales of condoms. This has lead to an increase in condom sales, some areas even reporting a 300% jump in the sales of condoms. This project was launched by Private Sector Partnerships for Better Health and USAID, the development funding arm of the US government. A 2006 project called "Condom bindaas bol" was intended to tackle a fall in condom sales in 8 Indian states that represent 45% of the Indian condom market. The more recent launch of the "Condom Condom" ringtone to popularize condoms in These states – Bihar, Chattisgarh, Delhi, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal - constitute 40% of India's populace of more than 1 billion. The Kerala government can take a leaf out of these initiatives and promote them instead of cooking up stupid money-minting schemes. The more recent launch of the "Condom Condom" ringtone to popularize the word 'condom' hits bull'e eye. It will undoubtedly help deflate the shame associated with the word in popular usage.

We cannot blindly imitate China and impose a ceiling on the number of children couples can have. China is slowly confronting problems related to an ageing population and low number of youngsters. The one child norm created a preference for boys, which in another 10 to 20 years may translate into higher crime rates by testosterone charged single males unable to find partners. The situation is also grave in countries like Japan, Russia and Germany where employment might take a hit if there aren’t sufficient numbers of young men and women to replace those who retire from active work life. The Japanese Health minister, Hakuo Yanagisawa, went overboard by saying that he wants 'birth-giving machines', aka women, to have more babies. It is easy to imagine the outrage he managed to cause! Germany is concerned about 30% of its adult women being childless by choice; the figure touches 40% in case of female who have completed graduation. The Germans have also debated compensating working parents with €3,000 annually for childcare costs against tax, urging women to have more children. A number of other countries facing declining birthrates have offered similar incentives. Australia offers a $4,000 additional benefit for each child and in recent times has proposed to reimburse all child care expenses for women who desire to work. Numerous European nations, with France, Italy and Poland, have offered some arrangement of bonuses and monthly compensation to families. Closer home, Singapore has a principally bountiful plan: $3,000 for the first child, $9,000 in cash and savings for the second; and up to $18,000 each for the third and fourth. Several Japanese regions, in the face of almost calamitous population loss, are offering rich incentives. Yamatsuri, a 7000 strong municipality, north of Tokyo, offers parents $4,600 for the birth of a child and $460 a year for a decade. In a throwback to the Stalin era, the Duma intends to tax childless couples either to encourage Russians to have more children, or make childless Russians help absorb the costs of the government’s maternal capital program, which gives 250,000 rubles (9,200USD) to mothers for the birth of another child. In fact, for every sixteen Russian deaths, only 10 Russian tots join the population. All the mentioned countries are now confronting the challenge of supporting the retirement of its seniors who are turning into an unproductive, economic burden in the absence of youth.

These nations mentioned here are naturally at the other extreme of the demographic spectrum, their problem being the antithesis of our problem. The irony of demographics across different continents should teach everyone some lessons. Undeniably, we do need to stop our people from breeding like vermin but that does not imply that we start imposing fines. The countries with low birth rates also have 97 to 99% literacy amongst their women. The government can do much good by improving sanitation and other facilities in schools so as to keep girls in school. The lack of toilets is often cited as a reason for girls dropping out early from schools. According to a survey conducted by National University of Educational Planning and Administration, only 37.42 per cent of the 11,24,033 schools in 604 districts had toilets for girl students. The absence of toilets can be a major disincentive for pubescent girls to pursue schooling. If local governance bodies like Gram Parishads and Zilla Parishads start ensuring that the local schools have separate functional toilets for girls and boys, that may help keep girl longer in schools, thereby increasing literacy and decreasing the chances of early marriage, often responsible for high fertility. All Indian states should adopt the scheme in Bihar, Mukhya Mantri Balika Cycle Yojana (Chief Minister’s Cycle for Girls Scheme), and provide cycles to girls for going to school so that transport between their residences and schools does not prove to be a hindrance for education. The Indo German Watershed Development Programme in Maharashtra has shown that watershed development in villages leads to reduction in migration due to lack of employment and leads to women’s empowerment. This also leads to improvement in literacy levels as children get to go to one school for an academic year and do not have to miss out on school due to their parents’ search for employment form town to town. The IGWDP has successfully shown that within 2-3 years of the implementation to a watershed management program, the demand for education amongst women rises. Higher levels of education do transform fertility rates as well as income levels. Better facilities for women will encourage more women to pursue careers. Dividing time between work and family, inevitably calls for a small family. That will predictably cause people to have just one or two children. Even if some families opt for bigger sizes that should not pose a problem.

Improvement in literacy levels cannot certainly be the only solution to high levels of fertility. There must be adequate efforts to improve the perception of the girl child. If people continue to consider daughters as liabilities, then early marriage to get rid of the ‘burden’ will be inescapable. The preference for sons also leads people to keep having more girl children in order to beget a boy. There also lies one cause of high fertility. But urbanization of semi-rural and rural areas may help curb such extremist reproductive behaviour over the coming decades although it may not reduce the bias against girls. Affluent areas of Bombay, Bangalore and New Delhi continue to have some of the worst sex ratios in the country, but at least the families remain small. There must exist efforts at the grassroots levels to convince people that educated women are beneficial to the family. Very often, people favour less educated girls for a daughter-in-law as they believe that better learned girls are disobedient and headstrong. This is far from the truth. Educated women take better care of their families as compared to uneducated women.

Keeping in mind the myriad problems of gender and perception of education that we have in this country, a fine to bring down the birth rate with prove futile. Those living below, on and slightly above the poverty line will be de facto exempted from such fine. People will not be treated equally when it comes to imposition of such fines. The attempts to reduce the birth rate should be sustainable and must be implemented in such a manner that we do not end up like China, Germany, Japan and Australia in about 40 years. Otherwise, it is our generation that might become a burden for our children who may not be sufficient in number to support an ageing population.

From Witch to Bitch

2008-08-30T04:52:00.000-07:00

In the middle ages, any woman who annoyed any one around herself was branded a 'witch'.

That got outlawed.

So today, she is simply called a 'bitch'.

Over the centuries only one consonant has changed but the usage is always in the same context.

Four reasons why I will never have an arranged marriage!

2008-08-15T05:09:00.001-07:00

Well, I have nothing against being introduced to suitable boy by my parents just as I don’t mind going on a date with someone my friends suggest, I might meet the love of my life in both the cases, but I do have certain problems with the manner in which arranged marriages work in this country.

My first problem is that why can’t a guy find a girl for himself for keeps? Why does he need his parents to do that for him? Is he a man or a joke? (Ok, that’s directly translated from Hindi into English!)
Next, How would I know if he is not some homosexual getting married to a girl just to please his parents? I have no intentions of being stuck in a loveless or a sexless marriage! Yuck! In case of a love marriage scenario, you can be assured of the fact that your boyfriend has the ‘hots’ for you!
I am fair. Not like the Caucasians, but by regular Indian standards. In India, many men and their parents are obsessed about having a fair wife/ daughter-in-law to ensure that their future generations are good looking. (In India, you are good-looking if you are fair, that suffices.) I refuse to let my children being subjected to racism even before they are conceived or even before their parents had the chance to sleep with each other!
Most importantly, I want to get married at my own risk, for my own sake and at my responsibility. No one other than my husband and myself shall be responsible for what happens between the two of us, even if we get a divorce! (I hope that never happens) I have a few friends who said that they will opt for an arranged marriage as in case of a divorce, it is their parents who are to be blamed and not them as they had, like good children, obeyed their parents wishes, and hence it is the parents who had made a wrong decision. What spineless, heartless creeps! Don’t get married if you can’t shoulder responsibilities! I don’t ever want to meet or worse marry a guy who thinks in this manner. Never!

Same Language Subtitling for higher levels of literacy

2008-07-25T02:25:00.000-07:00

Literacy is roughly defined as the ability to read and write for a person who is 15 years of age and above. The literacy rate of India stands at an abysmal 61% as reported by the 2001 census. Furthermore for males it is 73.4% and that for females is 47.8%. Dr. Brij Kothari has developed an ingenious method to counter this problem. He has set up PlanetRead that uses “Same Language Subtitling (SLS)” on popular film songs all over the country on TV in the same language as the audio. PlanetRead’s “karaoke” approach to literacy provides recurring and habitual reading practice to over 200 million early-literates in India. In addition, nearly 270 million illiterate people are motivated to become literate. Currently, “Same Language Subtitling (SLS)” is used only on DD shows like Chayageet and Chitrahaar. HBO, STAR Movies and Zee Studios also use them for their movies. If all TV channels in India start employing this method, we will reach our goal of 100% literacy faster. Our hindrances will only be the lack of access to television in many parts of the country and absence of electricity in many areas. Consider this, according to the article In India, the Golden Age of Television Is Now of Vikas Bajaj in the New York Times, there are roughly 105 million homes with televisions in India , up from 88 million in 2000. The current number of television households is about the same as in the United States , though for India that amounts to only about half of the country’s households, compared with 98 percent in the United States . Look at the potential effect Same Language Subtitling will have on our population. It will also prove good for young school going children who will progress faster in school. The other group that stands to benefit is people who cannot hear and those who are hard at hearing. India is a very populous country (estimated 1 billion plus population) so the number of deaf people can not be definitely estimated. It is known to be in the millions - some estimates are as high as 60 million. Same Language Subtitling helps deaf people (with an access to television) to benefit from TV programs. Although India is rapidly developing, there is still plenty of poverty, and thus a high rate of deafness. Improving rates of literacy will help reduce poverty and a whole lot of other problems. Join hands against illiteracy. Tell your friends about it. Forward this email to them as well as your favorite TV channels. Some email addresses are colorstv@viacom18.com, sales@indya.com, zeemarathi@zeenetwork.com, zeetelevision@zeenetwork.com.

We have to ask our TV channels to support Dr. Brij Kothari’s initiative. For more information http://planetread.org/home.php

The Great Indian Parental Dream

2008-05-29T06:09:00.000-07:00

Day and time: Early Monday morning

Place: Panvel rickshaw stand

Destination: Rasayani

Heading to college as usual after the weekend spent at home, I was waiting for the mandatory 10 people to fill into the ‘tum-tum’ or the 10-seater Vikram rickshaw, which is the second line of transport in Indian towns and villages, after the ubiquitous ST buses. The ‘tum-tum’ leaves only when it is filled to capacity. A lady seated herself on the seat facing me. She was a typical sari-clad, bony, Maharastrian, village domiciled, married young woman. She was accompanied by her 5 year old daughter. She was observing me with curiosity. She finally inquired about the place I was heading to. I replied that I was going to Rasayani. She wanted to know whether I lived there. I answered that I was a student at S. S. Patil College of Agricultural Business Management in Rasayani, the local MLA, Vivekananda Patil’s college, and that I stayed at the hostel there. She seemed awestruck by my large travel bag and by the fact that I was living away from family. She exclaimed that it is amazing how a girl like me was living away from home for the sake of education. I responded by saying that I was not alone. There are plenty of girls and boys who do the same. She then started a monologue about the educational status of her family and the virtues of education.

“Education is so important. No one can succeed without it. It is only after we educate ourselves that we can improve in life. We women should be very particular about our education. My husband has studied up till class 12. I have completed my Bachelor of Arts in Marathi literature. (She had an air of pride at this point). We have enrolled our daughter in an English medium school. Only English medium schooling makes sense in this day. (Pointing at her daughter) But she has no interest in her studies. (Can you) talk to her about it.”

I asked her the class in which her girl was currently. I frankly saw no point in explaining the necessity of regular studies to a child so young that she had no concern about the state of her clothes (While playing, her frock had come up right to her belly) The lady said that the girl was in Upper Kindergarten. I replied that the child was too young to take studies seriously and must play to her heart’s content at this age. My chatty co-passenger’s next response left me speechless.

“Oh no, she must start studying hard. The girl must at least become a doctor.”

God Almighty! "Child must become a doctor" - The Great Indian Parental Dream.

I struggled to keep myself from laughing but controlled myself by thinking that the woman was wonderful. Despite of living in a locality where child marriage is still rife, she has big dreams for her daughter. Whether her girl enters medical school, we will never know, but she will ensure that her daughter completes her formal education. Amen.

See original photo here.

I hate you , but I wanna touch you!

2008-05-11T05:47:00.000-07:00

The infamous Indian caste system has brought us enough ignominy which we could have done without. This caste system had leaded us to ostracize and to brand certain members of our society as untouchables. This has confined them, till this day, to the fringes of the social order, especially in rural and semi-urban areas. But yet, I wonder why we keep hearing about cases of Dalit women being raped by ‘upper caste men’? If these ‘upper caste’ people do not even want the shadows of a Dalit to fall on them, what gets them to the point of forcefully having intercourse with a Dalit woman? Does that happen without touching the woman? Doesn’t this type of physical contact ‘contaminate’ those ‘upper caste’ rapists? When I would read about such cases, this question would pop up in my head like those irritating pop-ups which keep hampering our web-surfing activities. But I was reminded of a song that I had heard a few years ago. Someone had come out with this unimpressive and incomprehensive song whose lyrics went like “Mallika, I hate you, I hate you. But I wanna touch you, but I wanna touch you.” Those lyrics simply went over my head at that time but I never imagined that they would help me understand a social issue which continues to irritate and infuriate me. The acts of rape and abuse are a way of asserting that the rapist is superior to the victim and therefore more powerful whereas the victim cannot save herself/himself and hence is powerless, inferior. These acts just help the villain to reassure his own insecurities and to feel better about himself. The hatred towards the victim helps to justify the act of rape saying that she deserved it, whereas the rapist also finds an outlet for suppressed sexual desires. The lower caste tag makes this justification easier. Convenient isn’t it?

Communication and confusion

2008-05-02T07:53:00.000-07:00

Our class 9 English professor Madam Gonzalez had arrived in Thane for the first time. She was hunting for a house. She was told about a flat in K. Villa. She reached the place with her son and asked a neighborhood shopkeeper for the owner of that place.

Shopkeeper replied, “Aap unse nahi mil payenge, who aadmi Gujarat gaya hai.”

On hearing this Madam Gonzalez demanded, “Thik hai, woh vapas kab aaye ga? Hume unka ghar kiraye pe chahiye.”

The shopkeeper looked scandalized. He shopkeeper responded, “Madam aap kaisi baat kar rahi ho? Aadmi Gujarat gaya hai. Aadmi Gujarat jaane ke baad vapas kaisa aaye ga?”

It was Madam’s turn to be scandalized. She answered, “Kyun vapas nahi aaye gaa? Uska ghar hai idhar! Thik hai, agar woh vapas nahi aane waala toh koi contact number hoga naa uska. Hume usse baat karni hai.”

The shopkeeper was perplexed.

He retorted, “Aap samajhti nahi hai kya? Idhar ghar hai toh kya hua? Gujarat jaane ke baad koi aadmi vapas nahi aata.”

Madam was about to snap back at him when her son interrupted, “Mamma, he did not say ‘Gujarat’ gaaya, he said ‘Gujar’ gaya.”

She narrated this incidence in class while she was teaching us the importance of accurate pronunciation and active listening.

Royally Obsessed

2008-05-01T04:19:00.000-07:00

Circa 1949 We, the nation of India accepted and decided to be a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC when we adopted our constitution on 26th of November, 1949. The Iron man of India, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel spent a good amount of his time knowledge and astute statesmanship to unify India as we know it today by convincing a hoard of princely states to blend in and give up their titles.

Circa 2008 The Board of Control for Cricket in India launches the Indian Premier League, the biggest and most spectacular cricketing event in cricketing history. The team names were announced and I couldn't help but notice that they were just reeking of monarchy. 8 teams announced and 4 were indisputably monarchical in nomenclature. The Bangalore Royal Challengers, Rajasthan Royals, Chennai Super Kings and King's XI Punjab. The last two being the most ludicrous. The name Chennai Super Kings immediately suggests that every member of the team is a King. I just couldn't help but wonder how can 11 Kings peacefully co-exist on the same turf? The Wadia & Zinta owned team is even sillier. King's XI Punjab! Pray, tell me, which king rules Punjab? Is the Indian Government listening? Just kidding!!! Vijay Mallya's team's name is comprehensible as it is a brand promotion and reinforcement exercise. Smart way to get around the juvenile legislation that prohibits liquor advertisements. The Rajasthan Royals clearly draw a reference to the former Royal family of Jaipur which still own palaces in Rajasthan. We simply can't give up our fascination for monarchy. However, the funniest and silliest title is undoubtedly that of Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla's (yes Juhi also) Kolkata Knight Riders. Knights existed in Medieval Europe, never in India! And most definitely, no Knights in Kolkata! Then why Knight Riders? I guess it's still a long time before we become passionate about Democracy just as much as the Americans and the French but I am not complaining.

2008-04-29T08:29:00.001-07:00

The Niveau 3 Batch at Alliance Francaise

2008-04-29T08:26:00.000-07:00

Education Abroad

2008-04-05T08:12:00.000-07:00

So want to fly oversees huh? Dreaming about exploring another continent? Meeting different people? Very good. You could have given very tough competition to Christopher Columbus himself! Talking about great explorers, if the land discovered by Abel Jansoon Tasman seduces you, use the website http://newzealandeducated.com Yes my dear friend, New Zealand was discovered by Mr. Tasman on 13th December 1642. Use the website well!

Now, lets move to the former Terra Australis Incognita, yes Australia, the land found by Captain James Cook and a few adventurous souls before himself. All of them sponsored by the East India Trading Company offcourse!! http://www.india.idp.com/ is their website to help out confused souls like yourself. Help yourself and find courses that shall prove of interest to you.

But I must say the most fascinating and successful discovery was made by Senor Amerigo Vespucci a few weeks before Christopher Columbus did on the 12th October 1492. Yes people , The Land of the Free, the United States of America. This discovery continues to fascinate us till this day and if you are equally fascinated, attracted to its everlasting charm http://educationusa.state.gov is the thing for you. As we are in India, it would be wise to consult http://fulbright-india.org

And finally if you would like to study in the land of our former colonial rulers, http://britishcouncil.org/india is the website to look out. Moreover, the United Kingdom has this site http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/tol_gug/gooduniversityguide.php to know the rankings of colleges.

In 1497 an Italian named John Cabot sailed west from Bristol, England, intent on finding a new trade route to the Orient for his patron, King Henry VII of England. This particular heroic gentleman ended up finding, Canada. If you dream of the North pole for your neighbourhood, head straight for this country. The Governement provides a website called http://aucc.ca and choose the English version.

Finally, when you choose colleges, make sure you find ou the email address of their head of international relations and send them your queries and do not forget to attach your CV. All the best!

An Evening of a lifetime with Azouz Begag

2008-04-04T05:37:00.000-07:00

Now, that was an evening to last a lifetime!

It was an extraordinary day which started on a rather ordinary note. I had come from college after completing nearly 4 hours of train travel (2 hours Thane – Panvel, 2 hours Panvel – Churchgate). On reaching the Alliance Française de Bombay, I found out they were not working due to the press conference for the French Touch Festival. It was 1 ‘o’clock in the afternoon. I didn’t know what to do. The French Words conference with Azouz Begag was to begin at 5 pm at the Cercle Littéraire, near Max Mueller Bhavan. Having no place to go, I had reached G. D. Somani School to use the Self Learning Centre for killing time. I met my French class batch mates, leaving from the Concours “Plume d’Or”. The studies plan at the Self Learning Centre was abandoned. Next stop was Kamath restaurant near the World Trade Centre, Cuffe Parade. After lunch, we finally left for the Cercle Littéraire. All this incessant traveling had left me exhausted and sleepy or rather hypoxic.

The Cercle Littéraire is an aged, attractive but barely discernible structure. On entering it, we went through an old-fashioned, English style staircase which had the allure of an abandoned or to put it better, a barely visited place. It was slightly gloomy. I was contemplating returning home. I shall remain eternally grateful to myself for deciding against it. We assembled ourselves in the chairs in the small room where the conference was supposed to take place.

5:30 p.m. Mr. Begag arrived with the French Consulate General officials. Mr. Azouz Begag is a French politician (I discovered that after the conference!), writer and researcher in social sciences and economics. He is of an Algerian descent. He was at the Cercle Littéraire to speak about political and immigration issues. The conference began and this is how he opened it. “I do not speak French.” Bam! We had all been given extracts from his various books (all French) to familiarize us with his works and here the man jokes about not knowing the language. He spoke a mélange of French and English for the opening 2-3 minutes, called Franglais. The French do not appreciate that. Anyway, more about that later.

He spoke about the life of his parents in Algeria, a life of hardship with no water, electricity and work. Hunger and disease was routine. Illiteracy was rife. Footwear, not shoes, was cut out of Goodyear tyres. Democracy existed in Algeria. The victorious candidates won nearly 99% of the votes cast. Votes were in accordance with the decision of the entire community. Only a few ‘freaks’ would vote in keeping with their individual opinion. He narrated this in a highly animated style with very vivid gestures. He actually kept his foot on the table pointing at his shoes to say that shoes didn’t exist in Algeria! He might just have been speaking about the slums of Bombay or the remote villages of India. He acknowledged that as well.

Azouz Begag was born in Lyon, France in a slum of North African immigrants. He spent his entire childhood, with 8 siblings (the average for Algerian families), in a minuscule 2 room, wooden hutment. His relatives, who had arrived in France after Azouz Begag’s father, had similar family sizes and dwelling spaces in their vicinity. His father had arrived in France in 1956 with just a small piece of paper mentioning the name and address of the factory owner who had promised him employment. He went around with his friends, asking for directions to the place. None of them spoke French, only English. It was nothing less then a miracle that they reached the place they were supposed to reach.

At the factory, workers were just numbers. They were non-entities who had no faces, no names. It was always number so and so who was supposed to complete this and that on a given day. Job security was unheard of. Despite of his economic hardships and being illiterate himself, Mr. Begag senior was extremely particular about his children’s education. He told the young Azouz that books can make a man fly. He would demonstrate this by holding an open book and making it flap like a bird. He would tell his children that with books they could fly over and away from the slums. He was tremendously proud of his Algerian roots and always spoke of returning back to his village in Algeria. He never learnt French as he did not consider it to be his language. He died in France with his dream of returning to Algeria remaining unfulfilled. His, was the story of all blue collar immigrants, all over the world.

After having spoken at length about his childhood and life in Lyon, Azouz Begag started conversing with us. He wanted us to ask him questions. Thinking about an extract from his book Le Gone du Chaâba, I asked him about him about his relations with his peers and teachers in school. He narrated his school life filled with perseverance and dedication towards his education and the consequent dislike, both his French and North African immigrant, classmates felt for him. The French had an aversion for him as they could not accept an Algerian, an outsider surpassing them in studies. The Algerians were abhorrent of him for his ‘attempts’ to become like the French. His French teachers made sure that the Algerian students never said “The capital of ‘our’ country France is Paris.” while studying Geography. It was always “The capital of ‘your’ country France is Paris.” Segregation was the norm.

Conditions at home were more conflicting. The day the young Azouz learnt that the Earth rotates around the Sun and not the other way round, he described that to his father. He was slapped. He was awakened forcefully at 5 a.m. the next morning by his father. With his ear being squeezed, he was dragged to the window. His father forced him to look at the Sun during the subsequent sunrise.

His father asked him, “What is moving, us or the Sun?”

The young Azouz had to answer, “The Sun”.

“Your teacher does not know anything. Don’t listen to him. Believe what you see”, said his father.

His teachers at school would say, “Don’t believe what you see. Don’t listen to your parents. They don’t know anything.”

Young Azouz was of the view that both of them were right in their respective places.

Later, he spoke of his relations with his relatives, his beliefs about his religion and the importance of immigration. On being asked whether he practiced Islam, he answered no. He cited that his parents possessed tolerance that measured 360˚. He never managed to complete reading the Koran and his parents simply asserted that only if Allah wishes would he (Azouz Begag) read the Koran. If it is not Allah’s wish that he read the Koran, so be it.

The evening helped me understand my own childhood experiences better. The Algerians are much like us Indians when it comes to family values and lifestyles. Hospitality is the most preferred value. They never refuse or mistreat a guest. That is the key reason behind Begag senior’s relatives following him to France and his efforts to accommodate them. Mr. Azouz Begag’s first contact with India was through Hindi movies. The Algerians loved Hindi films. They never understood a word of it. The rationale behind the popularity of Hindi cinema amongst the Arabs is that Hindi movies are clean and suited for family viewing. The lead actor and actress will just dance and sing in the rain and go home. Nothing beyond that! So perfect for families! I understood why my family would always be requested by Egyptians to provide photos of Amitabh Bachchan during our stay in the Middle East and Egypt.

The subject of immigration is closest to Mr. Begag’s heart. He emphasized that in the next decade the countries of the European Union would be competing for attracting immigrants to run their economies. He highlighted the reality that immigrants always stimulate growth. Systematic integration of immigrants into the mainstream society actually helps economic expansion and it is their isolation which leads to crime and social problems. Most of us were already thinking of the recent clashes between the MNS and North Indian workers in Bombay (Strange, ‘North’ Africans are considered a problem in France). Mr. Begag pointed out that majority of the French football team members were black and no one bats an eyelid. Zinedine Zidane is of an Algerian origin and nobody considers him an outsider. He is a Frenchman. A little trivia, Zinedine Zidane and Azouz Begag belong to the same village in Algeria. Mr. Begag is of the opinion that the notion of identity is changeable. We can change an identity just as mush as we can cultivate it.

Mr. Azouz Begag is a lover of the Arts. He explained how literature and cinema are a reflection of the society and how they help us understand ourselves better and to reach out to fellow beings. One of his best loved movies is “Pané et Chocolat”, 1973 by the Italian film-maker Franco Brusati. It is about an immigrant’s life and Mr. Begag realized, after viewing the film, that he was not alone. There were many others who faced segregation like him. Amongst his favorite authors, he lists Ernest Hemmingway and Amitav Ghosh. He appeared awestruck by the approach in which Ernest Hemmingway shot himself. “Fantastic!” he exclaimed. Azouz Begag calls Albert Camus his brother. Such striking parallels in both of their lives! Azouz Begag and Albert Camus (separately) topped their class at school, were children of illiterate parents, had exceptional writing skills and faced problems blending into the French society. Azouz Begag was an Algerain immigrant living in France. Albert Camus was a French immigrant living in Algeria.

I was amazed at how much I discovered that evening, about the world and myself. I had never imagined that life can be so similar in different countries, in different time periods. Azouz Begag’s style of speech is highly conversational and animated. He immediately puts the listeners at ease and yes, his talks drive away fatigue too. The imagination and attention of the audience is instantaneously captivated by his talks and vivid gestures. His frequent use of Franglais was later explained by my professor as some form of personal vengeance against the French society that had subjected him to separation and isolation. He still has to affirm that he is French. He is absolutely an astute diplomat. He wrapped up the evening by saying that after the wonderful time he spent with students of Bombay, he will be settling down in Bombay! Anyway, I found myself scrambling for his autograph and photograph right after the end. I don’t know what I might have lost had I not attended the conference. I appreciated for the first time what a wonderful decision it was to join Alliance Française de Bombay. I shall remain eternally grateful to them for that wonderful evening with Azouz Begag.

Sex Education in India

2008-01-13T01:15:00.000-08:00

Elizabeth Taylor once said, “It is bad enough that people are dying of AIDS, but no one should die of ignorance.” That pretty much summarizes the need for sex education. Most opponents of sex education vociferously argue that children and the entire community at large do not need sex education as our ancestors did not have it. Most people, who challenge the need for sex education, miss the point that HIV /AIDS did not exist at that point of time. Earlier, HIV/AIDS was known as GRID, Gay Related Immune Deficiency, as it was mistakenly believed that this condition exits only amongst homosexuals. It was only in the year 1981 that the first case of HIV/AIDS was confirmed in the USA and not until 1986 was it found for the first time in India. So from the year 1986 to 2008, it has been just 22 years that this disease has been known to exist in India. It is not really astonishing that it is incurable as of yet. Consider this. Every century has been witness to a certain killer disease that has claimed millions of lives before the human race eventually found a remedy for it. The 19th century had no other option other than to be a silent onlooker to the recurrent Bubonic plague epidemics or the Black Death that had wiped out more than 1/3^rd of Europe’s population. Tuberculosis has beleaguered mankind for centuries. The history of Influenza testifies that it is more deadly than the 1^st World War. The 21^st century will have to fight against HIV/AIDS. What distinguishes HIV/AIDS from the above diseases is that it is not contagious and its modes of transmission can be avoided. The greater the numbers of people who are educated about and report the disease, the better the chance researchers stand of curing it sooner.

An additional issue that has to be seriously dealt with during sex education is abortion. “The USA legalized abortion in the year 1973. The period from 1973 to 2004 has seen nothing less than 37 million abortions. The genocide in Hitler’s concentration camps exterminated 6 million Jews. Therefore, one might argue that the number of fetuses aborted in the USA is greater the 6 times the number of Jews killed during the 2^ndWorld War hence amounting to state sponsored genocide.” – Freakonomics .Actually, it has helped keep America’s population from exploding. In India, more than 5 million female fetuses are illegally aborted every year, amounting to virtually 50 million girls not being permitted to take birth in the past decade itself. That is so much more horrible as compared to the USA. Sex education can be effectively employed to raise awareness regarding the use of abortions and to sensitize people to the importance of balanced sex ratio in nature so as to prevent its abuse. It can also be utilized to highlight the relation between skewed sex ratios and human trafficking.

Sex education should ideally be started at the primary level than during high school. When we talk about sex education during the primary school years, it doesn’t imply that we need to educate our 6-7 year olds regarding childbirth, pregnancy, contraception and HIV/AIDS. What it does mean is that we have to make our children aware of the fact their bodies are sacred, that they have a right to privacy and that no one can violate them. So in case of the tragedy that a child does fall victim to a paedophile, he/she knows that it should be reported to a trusted family member so that the criminal is brought to the book, the crime is further prevented and that the child receives appropriate medical treatment for any physical or psychological damage that may have been caused.

Sensitization of the sexes to each others need is an issue that can and must be addressed during the course of sex education. Such a topic is ideal for people over the age of 15 when they are better equipped to understand sexual relations and intimacy. Of course only psychiatrists, teachers, child psychologists and other experts are capable of determining whether it should be taken up earlier. Men and women need to be made aware of the fact that even within a marriage or an intimate relationship, consent to sex is relevant and necessary and that consent cannot be taken for granted. Both genders need to understand that marital rape does happen and that it should be punished. At the same time, we need to realize that even a man can be harassed and tormented in a relationship, may be not sexually but in other ways. Their problem should be appropriately redressed.

The legal facet of sexual relations and sexual issues should be identified and adequately dealt with. Sex education should comprise of legislation apropos to concerns such as human trafficking, prostitution, child marriage, dowry, child abuse and drug abuse. The path breaking Prevention of Domestic Violence Bill, 2001 must also be inculcated in the education curricula. This shall help make people aware of their legal rights, impress upon their minds the legal implications of sexual violence and hopefully start a fruitful tradition of public discussions and participation in legislation and their better implementation.

When Bill Gates donated $100 million for HIV/AIDS prevention in India, many commented that 100 million was disproportionately large given the nature and the extent of the problem in India. We have the highest number of People Living with HIV/AIDS. It is worth keeping in mind that the only country in Asia that has successfully tackled the problem of HIV/AIDS is Thailand. It has demonstrated that the number of new cases can be slowed or even halted with an intensive education program reaching out to the whole community. Thailand, a country the size of Maharashtra, was spending $100 million per annum on its

As a nation facing severe problems with regards to child marriage, human trafficking, HIV/AIDS, gender discrimination and skewed sex ratios, it is high time we tackle these issues head on and solve minimize them to the maximum possible degree. We must stop being foolish and say that “Indian culture” does not permit sex education. The above mentioned problems harm India, sex education will save India. It is only by sex education and not by moralistic sermons that we can preserve and allow Indian culture to flourish, for Prevention is better than cure.

The Necessary Evil - Celebs Gone Wild

2007-12-31T22:38:00.000-08:00

Hi there, I have recently taken a liking for VH1, it’s a cool channel, great music and some cool entertainment shows. It’s just like the Entertainment page of Bombay Times in action. I recently enjoyed watching this show called ‘Young, Hot Hollywood’. It was a complete entertainer, packed with all the antics of young media created American celebrities like Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, Lindsay Lohan and the likes. The above brigade also have their British counterparts – the WAGS – Wives and Girlfriends of English Footballers (Victoria Beckham leads the pack here), who lead similar lifestyles. The paparazzi would go bankrupt without them. Or maybe the other way round. Methinks this is a chicken-and-egg problem. But never mind that. The show had a liberal sprinkling of the spending sprees each one of these dumb (or extremely smart) people goes on, the dating games they play and most importantly, the money they earn. These people are filthy rich and they earn big bucks. No wonder their spending is proportionate to their earning! I used to think that a whole bunch of them were blowing up their parents’ fortunes (Not Britney Spears though.). Oh! So ignorant about the celebrity culture! Inaugurations, product launches, and disco appearances – everything fetches them big bucks. Add to it their respective designer lines! COOL! So what if you end up on the wrong side of the law every other week. Jail time is a part of life man!

Tragically, these people are emulated the world over and have youth all over the North America, Western Europe and now certain parts of Asia, including India trying to live like them. (No matter if their exorbitant annual expenditure considerably exceeds their annual income!) As more and more people have large incomes, the spending on luxury brands increases. Just click here to see what companies are doing in India. Luxury product companies must be having the time of their lives if sales of designer clothing, accessories, cars, etc. are currently on an upward spiral. This explains to a certain extent the rise in the number of people willing to pursue a MBA in Luxury Brand Management. Big business man!Even though ‘Young, Hot Hollywood’ is important for driving the growth of Luxury brand companies, with the companies themselves admitting their importance, we cannot afford to get obsessed about them, nor give them more importance or print space than necessary. (I’m giving them extra cyber space though!) Trying to live like them is foolhardiness, a definite no-no.

A whole lot of us need to remember that they are spending the money they earn and are not running up hefty debts. None of them has bad credit. No matter how much extra publicity or popularity Paris Hilton earned from her jail term,

Cars + alcohol = Disaster.

Cars + Drugs = Doomsday

The Hilton girl and her comrades have either a rich and famous family or huge fortunes to fall back on. Everyone else doesn’t.

See the original photo here.

Brilliance Personified – Long Live Ekta Kapoor!

2007-12-31T06:31:00.000-08:00

A recent conversation with Mom was around the storylines of our Queen of Soap Operas - Ekta Kapoor’s daily shows. I was disgusted at the pairing of Prachi Desai with Ram Kapoor in Kasamh Se. (I don’t watch the shows; get my updates from Mumbai Mirror, Anil Thakraney’s Ouch Potato!). I was wondering about the logic behind creating pairs that have almost a generation gap between themselves! Add to it the plots that can land you an appointment with the psychiatrist. Mom replied, “Throughout her teenage years, she must have been a couch potato, having nothing other to do then watch English soap operas. Later she must have got the idea about adapting those stories in to the Indian context and making daily shows. Thanks to her Dad, she had all the requisite resources available. Now, that explains all the nonsense being broad casted.” On hearing this, I realized for the first time that the stories were actually closer to American and European lives than Indian. Where do you see a person being married twice or thrice? We are deteriorating though! Now this set me of thinking and here is what followed. For quite some time I’ve been wondering what was the finale of a soap opera, Celeste, that used to be aired on Zee TV a long time ago, maybe a decade. It’s quite weird but I used to watch it with Mom and the Zee guys pulled it off abruptly. I never knew the show ended till me Googled it (Yes I did. Morbid curiosity) and found the synopsis on IMDB.com! I even found out that it had a 2^nd season named, "Celeste, siempre Celeste". This is a Spanish soap opera from Argentina. While reading the synopses, I found out, that together, the 2 shows had an uncanny similarity with almost all of Ekta Kapoor’s soaps. They had all the ingredients of run-of-the-mill ‘family’ shows, littered with a generous dose of an extra-marital affairs, infidelity, unknown parentage, secret offspring, wayward son, childless daughter, amnesia, inheritance and property disputes, extra marital pregnancies and parental objection to lovers… You name it, you got it!

I was earlier an avid viewer of Kyunki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi and Kasautii Zindagii Kay. I stopped watching after the first generation ages ago. To a certain limit, the shows were alright for pass time viewing but later the depression factor started mounting up and I gave up on them for good. For quite some time, I used to agree with a huge bunch of journalists and feminists that Ekta’s shows were retrograde and portrayed women in a bad light. After I read the stories of Celeste, Dynasty, another English soap opera, and the likes, I realized that Ekta’s shows were not retrograde but European and American. It was at that point that I was convinced that Madam Ekta is brilliant. An astute business woman, who managed to mould European lifestyles into an Indian setup and has captivated audiences of all ages by making them relate to the anguish of the protagonists, whom they readily connect with ( coz a lot of people love to make up problems in their heads which have nothing to do with reality). Add to it the sheer extravagance of the sets which show royally furnished homes, which undoubtedly, a huge number of us might fantasize to live in, packed with grand celebrations of everything from marriages to festivals. We have a cocktail that most Indians would die for! Year after year, Ekta’s Balaji Telefilms, the Grand Indian Soap Opera Factory, continues to dish out show after show from its established assembly line. But to her credit, she has managed to revolutionize the Indian television industry. The Empire she has created is something most of us can only dream of. I truly admire her for the excellent business model she developed and continues to improve on it. She was even listed amongst the TIME magazine’s WORLD BEATERS. She truly is one. To quote the lady herself, “A company that makes millionaires is a better company than a company that makes millions”- Koffee with Karan, Star One. No wonder all her actors and actresses are her staunch loyalists. Guess what, according to the article, Making the most of India's soft power, By Shashi Tharoor the shows are even popular in places like Turkey, Afghanistan, Nepal and Pakistan! Look at what the Pakistanis are saying themselves, "All our top-ranking serials are inspired by Ekta Kapoor.!" The Lady is even planning to make shows for the American audiences! Way to go Ekta!

But no matter, how popular her shows are I don’t watch them. Even Madam Kapoor herself says,"(If you) Don't like them (her shows), don't watch them." They are just too depressing and repetitive. I do not agree with her overtly aggressive business ways too, consider the alleged rigging of the final result of Prachi Desai winning on Jhalak Dikhla Jaa and further more the harsh shooting schedules for her shows. Furthermore, actor Pankaj Kapur has once said in an interview that the television industry no longer wants good actors, just good-looking people! Methinks he was referring to the 'K' serials as all of them have the hottest young people in town. Just look at Aamna Shariff – Femina’s 50 Most Beautiful Women! But for now, I’ll keep all that aside. Ekta will remain an eternal favourite of mine. One of the most fantastic Women Entrepreneurs of all time! What do you think? Let me know. Tata!

See original photo here.

Cementing Death

2007-12-28T08:59:00.001-08:00

Hello! Want to know the cheapest prescription for rodent death? Simply mix small amounts of sugar, cement and maize flour and place them at suspected rat burrows. It is believed that after rats eat this mixture and drink water subsequent to eating it, they die. The cement hardens in their stomach causing death! Believe it or not, this practice is followed in many Indian villages. Another one of the marvels of Indigenous Knowledge Technologies of India!

Letter to Arjun Singh

2007-12-28T08:55:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. Arjun Singh,

Ever since the Five-year plans came to be used as a guideline to channelize our nation development endeavors, every plan has been treated as just another tome, left to gather dust, with no comprehensive efforts to ensure that the recommendations of the Plan be implemented. Instead what you politicians do is to play along with centuries old problems by aggravating them and not solving them to ensure that you can hold on to your vote banks and have sufficient irrelevant topics for your election campaign speeches. I don’t know what it takes to get you people to realize that proper development efforts in the right sector will help you garner more votes than anything else as the effects of such efforts have a far more widespread impact than anything else. As in your position as the Human Resource Development Minister, you seem to be highly devoted and overtly enthusiastic about projecting yourself as the messiah for the upliftment of the underdeveloped masses of our country. Since you have chosen education as the tool for social upliftment, let me remind you of the education-related monitorable targets of the current five-year plan (2002-03 to 2006-07):

Ø All children in school by 2003; all children to complete 5 years of schooling by 2007

Ø Reduction in gender gaps in literacy and wage rates by at least 50 per cent by 2007

Ø Increase in literacy rate to 75 per cent within the Tenth Plan period

We all know that India is nowhere close to achieving these targets by the end of year 2007. In the face of your recent proposal to introduce 27 per cent reservation for the other backward classes for so called social development, I ask you the following questions:

Ø How about spending the Rs. 8000 crore for accelerating the efforts of the government (if any) in the achievement of these targets?

Ø Is it an unwritten rule that every Five Year Plan has to be a failure?

Ø Are Planning Commission and its formulated five-year development plans only a farce?

Let me tell you that India’s development targets in the tenth five-year plan are far more ambitious than the Millennium Development Programme of the UN Development Programme. It is high time that we (government and the people of India) take our Plans seriously and work towards making them a grand success so as to ensure the enhancement of the standard of living of the Indian people. The Human Development Index rank of India is 126 on the Human Development Report, 2007. 177 nations were surveyed in all. Shouldn't we be aiming for a more respectable position, as even nations like Saint Lucia, Namibia, Vietnam, Cape Verde, Guyana and even the Occupied Palestinian Territories have better ranks? As a proud citizen of India, who had the privilege of having great scholars like Dr. Abdul Kalam and Dr. ManMohan Singh as President and Prime Minister of my nation respectively, I hope that you will resort to real knowledge based development programmes at the grass root levels to ensure social justice and development and understand the fallacies of the hike in reservation which won’t lead to any major social gain.

Yours truly,

N. Hule

(A CITIZEN WHO BELONGS TO AN OBC CASTE BUT REFUSES TO USE THE RESERVATION FACILITY AS I HAVE A DOCTOR FOR A FATHER AND A LAWYER FOR MOTHER. I WOULD NEVER LIKE MYSELF TO BE CALLED BACKWARD IN ANY MANNER.)

Hindutva in India

2007-12-28T08:54:00.000-08:00

As a person who been brought up in a Hindu family and more importantly in India that has a predominant Hindu population, I seriously wonder whether there are any true Hindus in this country.The incidents such as the ones mentioned below force me to think in this manner.v . An estimated 5-lakh female fetuses destroyed every year to avoid the ‘brunt’ of a daughter’s upbringing. That means 10 lakh people (5 lakh mothers and 5 lakh fathers) Hindu or otherwise do not follow any religion. This figure stands for one year and has been and is multiplying with each passing year. I shudder to think how many sinners this country has to sustain for the crime of female infanticide and foeticide. Add to this number the unscrupulous gynecologists executing these crimes. Diabolic. All of them.“ A person who silently suffers from injustice is a bigger sinner than the one who inflicts injustice” – Bhagvad Gita. Yet we come across countless women who unflinchingly suffer from domestic abuse at the hands of their husbands for years, decades. Why do they do so? Just to keep their honour (?????) intact. Just to show the society that their marriage is strong. To what lengths can people go to preserve a farce? Thus, we come to the conclusion that all these women and their husbands cannot be Hindu or of any religion. Add the in-laws, if involved. Such shameless hypocrites!v All criminals – rapists, thieves, murderers, smugglers, etc. do not belong to any religion. They just know selfishness. You know, in case of rapists, even the rape victims should be treated as sinners if they don’t fight for justice. I mean, how can a victim be quiet about it? There are so many cases of rape that go unreported especially the ones involving assaults by friends or family members. I know it is easier said than done but Goddess Durga isn’t worshipped for time pass, is she? Rapists should be ideally burnt alive but no, the society simply doesn’t seem to understand this.

All corrupt politicians, bureaucrats, policemen, and people giving bribes have no regard for ethics, humanity and totally lack a sense of justice. The question of being religious does not arise. I wonder whether these guys plan to take all the money to their graves. Paisa kha kha ke kitna khaoge bhai? These people have seriously thick skulls, considering that all the black money can be invested in improving public health care infrastructure. But no, but these idiots solemnly swear that they lack all conscience whatsoever. To hell with the country to which they are in great position to provide service!

People with no regard for punctuality are sinners. All religions place high importance on timeliness. Thus, all those following the IST – Indian Stretchable Time, do not really follow any religion.

Everything works according to their convenience.Krishna preaches in the Bhagvad Gita that caste is not hereditary. It is based on the person’s choice of occupation. Throughout the history of civilization, men have taken up the professions of their fathers due to high-level exposure to that kind of work during their childhood. There are many exceptions to the above case. Those are the individualists who opted for a profession of their own choices. This shows that caste is not inherited but decided by the chosen occupation of the individual. So pray, tell me why is the society divided into so many illogical sections such as SC, ST, NT, OBC OPEN and other blah, blah, blah. Our ancestors committed the sins of discriminating against ‘lower’ castes by terming them untouchable and treating them inhumanly. Why? Because most of the lower castes, especially the ‘shudras’ were engaged in menial jobs like keeping the villages clean. Such morons! Will the village/town remain clean without people to look after cleanliness and sanitation? No. Yet our highly educated Brahmins and Kshatriyas preferred to act like demons and propagated caste based discrimination in society. Result. Caste based hatred and discrimination till this date. No wonder the quota-related reservation fracas! Someone, please tell the men and women running our country to start concentrating on producing employable graduates from our universities!!!! However, that brings me to my conclusion that all those believing in the caste system being hereditary and not profession-based are not Hindus as they are not obeying Lord Krishna himself. That makes all people claiming to be ‘Hindu’ but saying that they belong to so and so caste are downright hypocrites. So much for the country holding the world’s largest Hindu population! These statements just don’t apply to Hindus but to people across all religions.

Okay, as for now I think I better stop here. I need to spend some more time thinking up of other ways in which people can be termed religion less. In the meanwhile, if you think of some other ways in which we can claim that people call themselves of a certain religion just for convenience, then please let me know. Till then, bye!

INDIA

2007-12-28T08:53:00.000-08:00

Formidable natural barriers protect the land of India. The Himalayas guard the north and northeastern frontiers; the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal protect the Indian peninsula. Before the Partition, we literally had the Indus forming the northwest boundary of India. Amongst these marvellous guardians of the Indian sub-continent, the Indus was the most pervious. Here starts the story of our great nation’s name.

The early Aryans (probably coming from central Asia) who settled in India named the river the Sindhu, meaning ocean, a large sheet of water. Naturally, the land around and beyond the Sindhu came to be called the Sindh, the people inhabiting it were Sindhi and their language was Sindhi. The Persians pronounce the letter ‘S’ as ‘H’. Later on, when the Persians or the Iranians conquered India, the river came to be called the Hindu (better than calling it Hindhu!), the land became Hind, its people and language were now Hindi. Thus, everything related to this land was Hindi, but I wonder how the word Hindu came fit on people of a certain religion instead of all people living in the land. Maybe because other religions came to this land much later.

When the Muslim conquerors came to India, the place automatically became Hindustan – the sthan or place of the river Hindu/Sindhu. Its people were now Hindustani. The British probably pronounced the word Hindus as Indus, half eating up the letter ‘h’. Thus, the river was renamed Indus, its land was now India, and people and their culture came to be called Indian.

It is very sad that most of us have forgotten this and we continue to describe others and ourselves with unnecessary adjectives relating to stupid things like caste, religion, state of origin and in extreme cases even the districts where we came from! Irrespective of whether we have even visited our native places! No wonder this nation often finds being torn apart on account of macabre incidents taking place in the name of religion and caste. No wonder inter-caste and inter-religion marriages still face opposition in the society.

Our Preamble describes our nation as being a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC. Let us all remember how the name of our great country originated. I think this will resolve all the unnecessary social conflicts in this country and help us to build a peaceful and progressive society. Let us honor the name of our nation and live up to it. We are Indians first and Indians last. No need for anything in between.

JAI HIND!

Morbid curiosity

2007-12-28T08:52:00.002-08:00

“Never blindly accept what your teacher teaches you. Confirm it yourself by testing it and only then accept or reject it according to your findings.”

- Gautam Buddha

As humans, we are all born inquisitive. There exists an immense, almost inexhaustible drive to learn more about our surroundings and all daily happenings. Scientific temper is an inborn character, it not something to be learnt. Recollect how toddlers in the age group 2 to 4 years drive the parents down the bend by asking reasons for everything and anything around. This is the basic foundation of learning, to seek out for knowledge. True education of an individual starts here. However, the as we grow up this trait of ours is weakened every day either because our elders don’t have answers for our question or because they are simply not patient enough to explain everything. Then come the school years, where everything is only to be crammed irrespective of comprehension and only the ones with the best memories (read: rote power) are considered good enough. Good enough for what? I don’t know.
As student I’ve always had seemingly weird but logical queries. None of my teachers or parents answered them. They were either laughed at or I had to put up with hypothetical and even philosophical chatter. Here are some of my questions which never got answers:

1. I had once read that the rat fleas that live on rats spread plague. Now snakes prey on rodents including rats. If a snake consumes a rat, it will also consume the fleas living on the rats. Does this food chain cause plague in snakes? This was a serious question that bothered me in class 9. My teacher looked at me point blank and smiled saying it has got nothing to do with the portion! Incredible!

2. Mosquitoes spread the malaria causing protozoan parasites of genus plasmodium to humans and have caused unprecedented losses of human lives throughout history. Now a simple doubt, why don’t mosquitoes die of malaria themselves? I asked my parents and the response was like this, nature has its own control mechanisms for the human population. This is one of those. Cool! I later on found out that the Plasmodium protozoa feeds on red blood cells. The mosquitoes do not have any of their own, so they just carry they parasite without any harm to them (mosquitoes). This was in class 9 again.

3. The housefly is an insect vector for Hepatitis A. Why doesn’t the housefly die of Hepatitis A itself? Again no answers for this one. Even my zoology professor was perplexed. This man is a qualified doctor who took up teaching for the love of it. Spent few minutes pondering over it and I found the answer. You see, Hepatitis comes from Hepat – Liver and itis – inflammation. Inflammation of the liver. Now a housefly doesn’t have a liver, forget an inflammation of the liver.

These are only some of the questions I had asked in school, much to the irritation of my teachers (they always unskillfully tried to hide it). It’s the same tale in college. I am still the Mrs. DOUBTfire in class. Even have to tolerate the worst of abuses from the unintelligible members of the batch. (Yes, that’s the price I have to pay for being morbidly curious!) They say I waste time in lecture! But the dumb asses simply don’t understand that half of what we learn is when we tumble upon some other information while looking for something else! That’s exactly what happens when we ask questions. Learning is so much more exiting and enriching when we question what we learn and try to reason it out. Go ahead and ask. No matter how much someone gets irritated. Ask questions and just see how better off you will be!

Self-imposed underemployment!

2007-12-28T08:52:00.001-08:00

I met a bus-conductor on the regular 8 am bus to college. This man was blowing his whistle hard at the bus driver to take a proper reverse. I was in for a little fun as usual. I blew my whistle at him and threw my fake snake at him. A few laughs later, he was talking to me, telling me about his academics and inquiring about mine. I was shocked to know that he holds a B.Sc. in electronics from Nashik University. Moreover, he had also cleared the prelims of M.P.S.C. exam twice and that of the U.P.S.C exam once! He couldn’t clear the mains in both cases. Astonished, I was, at his present choice of occupation and I asked him why he was working as a bus conductor. Pointing at his forehead, he blamed it on his destiny. This shows the lackadaisical attitude that exists in our country towards employment. I mean, surely, this person can definitely find some better occupation. The problem of unemployment amongst the educated youth seems to be more of a lack of street-smartness and common-sense than that of insufficient jobs!

For the Love of Studying Abroad!

2007-12-28T08:48:00.000-08:00

My favorite pastimes are Yahoo! Answers and reading. I can’t decide which one I prefer the most. I am addicted to books and Yahoo! The whole thing is that I love answering questions, even more than I love thinking up weird questions. I am sort of a braggadocio really! I like to show off what I know. A bit immodest but I can’t help it! The thing is Yahoo! Answers give me the most wonderful platform to be extremely useful and at the same time get an ego boost! I love it when people from across the globe tell me that what I told them was extremely helpful. I am the top answerer for Yahoo! India in the Studying abroad section and I feel good about the fact that I can tell people the right thing to do and simplify certain things for them. Making an investment to move to an alien land just for better education and life, in the processing altering the A-Z about your world view and lifestyle is not a joke and no can afford to go wrong. Even worse, is to be duped or mislead by some selfish crook out to swindle your money in the promise of admission to some ‘phoren’ university! The most popular foreign education destinations have their own education portals to assist international students and only they should be contacted. You got to be safe man! In case if you ever plan to study abroad, contact the following sites and their offices in your nation:

Germany: http://www.campus-germany.org
France: http://www.campusfrance.org/en
UK: http://www.britishcouncil.org
USA: http://www.fulbright-india.org, http://www.princetonreview.com
Australia: http://www.idp.com
Canada: http://www.aucc.ca
Netherlands: http://www.nuffic.nl

Erasmus Mundus Programs:

http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/education/programmes/mundus/projects/index_en.html

Now these are not the official websites but should prove useful:

New Zealand: http://www.geebeeworld.com

Spain: http://www.spainexchange.com

All the best for your erudition in a foreign nation!

TOBBACCO HELPS SAVE LIVES.

2007-12-28T07:50:00.000-08:00

Crop plant lives that is.

Here is what I found when I was reading my Bible of Agriculture, the Handbook of Agriculture, published by the Indian Council of Agriculture. Indigenous Technical Knowledge shows the use of tobacco to save crop lives or to put it properly, to control pests.

A lethal tobacco decoction used to control larvae of Helicoverpa armigera in soybean. Here is the brew. 1.5-2 kg of green leaves of tobacco are boiled in 5-6 litres of water till the solution becomes dark brown. After filtration and cooling for 6-7 hours, 4-5 litres of the decoction are blended with 70-80 litres of water. The affected crop is sprayed with it every 6 days. Thus tobacco i.e. nicotine sounds the death knell for Helicoverpa armigera in soybean! Soybean saved! Long live soybean!

Murderous sticks! Farmers slot in sticks and rootlets of tobacco into the land by employing disc harrows. The Termites get nicotine kicks that toss them out of the gene pool!

1 kg tobacco + 5 kg sand + 250 ml water = Tobacco poison for pests in maize. The mixture is slowly added to the crown of the crops, 20 days after the sowing of the crop. Stem borer insect infestation in 1 hectare is satisfactorily controlled with 6 kg of this mixture. 40^thday after sowing sees the same treatment being repeated. It’s quite cheap too. Rs. 25 per hectare!

Go ahead let your plants consume tobacco.