Protection and human nature

Another mixed bag as usual. There is a new ad nowadays on the FM channels for a pill that prevents 'unwanted' pregnancy. The woman in the ad says that she took a pill post-intercourse that prevented her from getting pregnant. Now, imagine that some day in the future the couple decides to have children and the woman gives birth. She holds the new-born in her hands for the first time and is overcome with emotion at the sight of her child. Now what would her reaction be if somebody tells her that she once killed a life-form which would have taken the same form as the baby in her hand? Well, I do not wish to enter a discourse on the ethics of abortion, but still, is it ethical?

The Roman Catholic Church forbids abortion under any circumstance. A similar, if occasionally slightly more flexible stand is taken by other religions. A few popes were of the opinion that the foetus does not possess a soul till it starts kicking inside the womb. If I remember right, according to Hindu belief the soul enters the embryo as soon as fertilization takes place. So well, an abortionist would be guilty of what is called sisuhatya paatakam or sin incurred through child-murder. So should we say, that prevention is better than abortion? This opens up a further debate (which issue in today's world doesn't?) . Islam forbids birth control as does the Roman Catholic Church. I personally feel the prevention route is always better.

There is another interesting thing that I would like to discuss here. This point was once raised in the Andhra Pradesh assembly after Chandrababu Naidu's campaign about AIDS which promoted the use of condoms. A BJP member asked whether the government was encouraging infidelity by asking people to use condoms. His question was why would a guy contract AIDS if he was faithful to his wife? A point to be noted! Is this a general assumption that men are always likely to cheat on their spouses? Is this justified?

(Written with some help from Wikipedia).

Coming to the other topic. In Kolkata there are these private vehicles on certain routes that offer you rides for a small amount. It is better than getting on to a bus but less expensive than hiring a taxi. There is one thing I have observed. Let us say that the vehicle is going from A to B. The driver stops frequently at bus stops asking people if they would come. Let's say a prospective passenger wants to go to D. Though the car does not go there per se, it passes through a location C from where the passenger can take another vehicle. In many if not most cases, the passengers refuse to get on to the car unless it is going specifically to where they want to go. In my opinion they want 'value for their money'. So I am curious as to whether this is a local phenomenon or is this the case anywhere in India or for that matter the world? The passengers don't get on to it probably because they know they will get another vehicle which actually will go directly to D. Well, see what man becomes when he has choice. This is probably one of the disadvantages of having a lot of options, in any aspect of life, people become extremely choosy!

Deserving and demanding

A few days back I was coming back from Rourkela to Kolkata by train. I was lying down in my berth when a person selling pens walked by. He was handicapped and I actually needed to buy a pen, but I did not call him. When he walked back, I asked him to stop and purchased a pen. Immediately he took out an unrecognizable photo and started talking about some treatment for somebody. He was actually proclaiming the fact that he was disabled to sell pens! I said I was not interested and asked him to leave. He only left when I threatened I would return the purchased pen. Some might judge me to be insensitive, but the question is should sympathy be deserved or demanded?

All over India we see children, men and women of all ages and physical abilities begging. I do not know what they were actually doing, but I once saw some children actually restraining a foreigner in Kolkata. Why does the government never do anything about them? There are a few schemes like the NREGS which might seem good intentioned but again are aimed towards garnering votes. If the beggars had been part of a vote bank I am sure that the government would have started schemes for them. There is always a lament against any developmental scheme - about funds. Imagine how much money would be available if only our babus and netas sacrificed their unnecessary perks for the benefit of others! I shall give but one example here. In India the President's post has been a largely ceremonial one, and the less said about our current president, the better. The central government has recently doubled the pay for the president. Why? Because the MPs were drawing a larger salary!

Sikkim is one part of India where you will not find any beggars on the road and the citizens there are rightly proud of the fact. In a lot of cases one only needs the resolve to live with dignity to do so. I once saw a disabled person walking on all fours and selling gutkha and pan masala in a train.
There is a well-known sayin - "Give a man a fish, and you have fed him for today. Teach him how to fish and you have fed him for a lifetime.

Extending the logic a little further, why is there always a knee jerk reaction to farmer suicides? I am in no way comparing farmers with beggars. I am only extending the logic of the saying. The government has decided to write off debts of a lot of farmers after the suicides. But a better alternative would be to ensure that the conditions that cause farmer suicides do not arise in the first place. For this probably one of the most important things to do would be to improve irrigation facilities. Leaving aside the stock exchange slump, the economy is doing well. At least some of the money required for improving the agricultural sector can be mobilized from them. But the question is - what about the political will required?

Cricket, fire and a pain!!

Last post on September 15, 2007. Oooh, that's a long time back!! Well, as all of us know the Indian team has been sent to the cleaners by poor umpiring, the whole nation is reeling under the injustice meted out to poor Bhajji. The scheming BCCI while seeming to support the Indians down under has not provided legal assistance to Bhajji...am I the only one or does anyone else feel there has been an overdose of the controversy?

While the umpiring has been bad, it would do good to the team if it analyzes its own performance without taking into consideration the decisions that have been deemed unfair to it. It has been said that the actual Australian pitch will be experienced by the Indians only in Perth. This has been said by Jadeja and a similar statement has also been made by Wasim Akram. Let us see how it holds up against Australian fast bowling on such a track.

Somebody please tell Mr. Sharad Pawar to be more active in what is actually (I hope I am right) his rightful role, that as the union agricultural minister. He seems to be more active in activities concerning cricket than others. One can only wonder at the state of India's cricket today - a selector thinks it is more important to write columns in a newspaper than to do his actual job, a manager who is media-hungry and who runs and poses with the team members whether or not he has had anyting to do with their victory, so on and so forth.

Another item that has been in the news is the recent fire in Kolkata. I have heard one or two interesting theories about it which I would like to share here. One, shared by a taxi driver is that the promoter wants to construct a new building in place of the existing one. The shopkeepers are not vacating their stores and hence the fire. Another one is that the fire loss will be shown to reduce the tax that needs to be paid to the governement!

Lastly, if anybody wishes to write either GRE or GMAT, please be warned that the post-test application process is a Pain with a capital P you know where. There is a saying in Telugu that only a person who gets into the water can judge how deep it is. Trust me, occasionally you will feel like just bashing your head against anything solid.

the abode of clouds - part 2

Shillong, if not Meghalaya is going crazy about this guy called Amit Paul who is on Indian Idol (I happened to watch a show in which he was singing, he seemed to be a very good singer). There were hoardings and banners all over the place exhorting the locals to vote for him. I even read a newspaper article asking people to vote. It lamented that a guy from Darjeeling was ahead of Amit Paul by 2 lakh votes (I think). The banners carried a message to the singer – “be Indian idol and make north east proud”, god save this country!! I don't know the final outcome of the show, I don't watch it.

On the second last day I managed to finish my work by around two and set out to see the local sights. I went to this place called Shillong peak a few kilometers outside the town. It is supposed to afford a very good view of the city. Unfortunately it was very cloudy and I managed to see nothing. Next I saw Elephant Falls. A nice waterfall, but the water downstream is kind of dirty – it has been made to go slow to create a tiny pool to facilitate boating, which no longer seems to take place anyway. I also saw a cathedral, a golf course and a lake called Ward’s Lake after this guy who got it built. My taxi driver (a local this time) was complaining that he had recently lost in the quarterfinals of a caroms tournament. Then he kind of surprised me by saying that last time he had won the tournament (I have absolutely no idea about the tournament). This guy seemed to follow the aforementioned television show quite avidly. Cherrapunji is supposedly a great place to visit. But the catch is that anybody wanting to go there will have to devote a day for the visit. When he dropped me off at my hotel, I gave him a tip of Rs 20. He said in a rueful voice that he was expecting it to be 50, so I had to increase it by 30 rupees!!

Coming back to Guwahati, there were traffic jams at one or two places, possibly caused because of the traffic being held up to facilitate some neta’s cavalcade. It is probably time for the courts to take notice of the discomfort caused to normal citizens whenever a VIP uses the same road as they are and to do something about this. On the return flight I actually saw rain fall from the clouds. Watching this from a plane was a novel experience. One or two people to who I told about my trip were of the opinion I have a great job. To anybody else who thinks I do, I must say the same thing I said to them – the grass is always greener on the other side!! Khublai, my reader for having read this!

the abode of clouds - part 1

Kum no? That is Khasi for ‘how are you?’ I visited Shillong around August 22nd on some official work. I flew down to Guwahati from Kolkata and then took a taxi to Shillong. It was the first time I had ever gotten onto an ATR. It’s a pretty small plane, though the ride was not as uncomfortable as I had expected it to be. Alliance Air (Indian airlines) needs to seriously do something about its air hostesses. They look thoroughly de-motivated to begin with. But the worst part is that they might de-motivate people from ever flying again with the carrier. There seemed to be present only the bare minimum amount of courtesy required to be shown to a fellow human being. Ask them something and the look they give you will make you regret your asking!!

Guess which vehicle was my taxi? A Santro!! The taxi guy was quite talkative. In his opinion if India is put under martial law after removing all the politicians, it will be a much better place. He had a good opinion about the army. Of the police though, he was pretty critical. And yes, he does not believe in seat belts. If you need to bolt out of a vehicle that has just run off the road, and down the hill, a seat belt will restrain you – that was his logic. He talked about the poor non-Assamese being killed in Assam. The general impression one I got was that he was slightly against the well-to-do part of the population. En route to Shillong there is this place called Bada Paani. It is actually a hydel power project. But the vistas there are simply stunning. There is an area just outside Guwahati which is the border between Assam and Meghalaya. The border at this place is actually the road. On one side of the road it is Meghalaya and on the other it is Assam. At one point on this road, along the Meghalaya side you will find a line of liquor shops and none on the Assam side. A little further off towards Shillong, there is a temple which is supposedly modeled along the lines of the one in Tirupati of Lord Venkateswara.

Inside Shillong the local taxis are almost all Maruti 800s, the first time I ever saw this. Unless you reserve one for your use, these taxis operate on a sharing basis. One day I had to stay back at the site till after 10 in the night. I called up my hotel to ask about dinner and found out that its restaurant had closed at 9.30 itself. I roamed about futilely on the roads near my hotel till about 10.30 to find something to eat. I came back to my room thinking that I was to go hungry that night. Luckily I had a fruit juice packet in my suitcase and also was able to persuade a waiter to provide me with some toast. The town goes to sleep very early. By around 10, everything is closed down, no traffic, no open shops, nothing.

(to be concluded in the next blog)

SLOKAS!!

Hmm, I shall give a string of slokas and their meanings starting from this blog. If i may be permitted to blow my own trumpet, these are from my class six Sanskrit textbook. I somehow still remember these, but not slokas from other classes.

na chourahaaryam na cha raajahaaryam
na bhraatrubhaajyam na cha bhaarakaari
vyaye krute vardhata eva nityam
vidyaadhanam sarvadhanapradhaanam

The wealth called education cannot be stolen by thieves, cannot be taken away by the king (let's say, the authorities), cannot be divided by brothers, is not a cause for burden. It increases on being spent, it is the most important among all wealth

Media neutrality, radio and me

The title may seem a little strange. I am going to write about three different things, there is no inter-connection. And those of you who are pretty optimistic in their outlook towards life, kindly proceed no further. This is a cynical piece of writing!!

The media is supposed to be unbiased and concern itself with only reporting facts, leaving the public to make their own deductions and conclusions. Right? Hogwash!! Today everything is about sensationalism, TRP ratings and readership survey results (i forget what the rating system used in radio is). For e.g., take the case of the sentencing of Sanjay Dutt. I think i will be right in saying that the sentencing of the guy to six years RI has had more press coverage than the death sentence given to Yakub Memon. Agreed, crores are riding on the actor, still!!

Then we have the over-enthusiastic TV channels jumping one over the other in conducting sting operations and exposes. While they do talk about good issues, it is the melodrama that gets onto your nerves. As per hearsay, the Hindu is biased towards the Left, the ToI towards the Congress and India Today towards the BJP. The day when all of mankind lets go of biases and believes in cold, clear logic, that is when the media will become unbiased!!

Now moving onto radio, 1-2 years back there was an FM radio channel in Hyderabad. We first found out about it's existence through our car music system. The channel NEVER had anything but songs on air. Contrast that with today's FM channels. You have the RJs yakking about anything and everything under the sun (if they can talk so much, i must be given the license to exaggerate a little) and that too in strange voices. This is similar to those TV shows where you have a hostess going around to colleges and residential areas asking people about songs, their lifestyles, all the while giggling and laughing like a hyena who has just had a glass of bhaang!! Another interesting thing to see is the reaction of the normal public in front of a camera. Imagine a scene in front of a court after a verdict has been give. A lawyer is being asked to comment. Now visualize the people standing behind him. Some keep straining their necks to be in the camera's field of view., some wave their hands etc.

Now coming to me, a few people must have thought what the name of the blog means. It means this and that in Telugu. Watch this space for more stuff.