A story of unbelievable compassion

Mr. Franek Herzog, a 82 year old Polish immigrant to United states and living in Hebron, Connecticut, is planning a visit to Orchard Lake in Michigan in the first week of August. He would be travelling there for a two-day reunion with a group of 18 other Polish war survivors from the second world war. During the reunion, the most prominent subject that is bound to be discussed, would be their stay in India, about seven decades back and the arduous, improbable journeys they made from their war-torn homes in Poland to the erstwhile Indian princely state of Nawanagar, which provided an oasis for approximately 1,000 Polish children for four years until the hostilities ceased.

Their story opens, right at the beginning of the world war II, in the year 1939, when Nazi Germany and Communist USSR attacked their common neighbour Poland. Improvised Polish army was no match for the invading armies and soon the polish nation surrendered. Nazi Germany and USSR decided to divide Poland between them. Germany holding on to west Poland and USSR on to east Poland. Both the Nazis and Soviets sent huge numbers of Poland’s elite, like military families, police, doctors, teachers, and anyone else suspected of patriotic feelings to prisons and labour camps. Soviet Union later went a step further. They decided and deported more than 1.5 Million Polish citizens to deep interior points like Siberia and Kazakhstan. The purpose of these deportations were two fold. Firstly it was thought that it would simplify the polish integration into Soviet empire. Secondly it provided a supply of labour for Soviet Union's collective farms. Entire families were packed into railway goods wagons in Poland and were confined in them for six weeks as the trains rolled east towards Kazakhstan. Anyone trying to escape was just shot. The deportations soon got converted into a massacre as starting from April, 1940, the Soviets killed an estimated 18,000 Polish army officers and professionals in an event that has come to be known as the Katyn Forest massacre, after the region in Russia in which the executions were conducted.

However, as things turned out later, the same deportations became a deliverance for the deportees from the Nazi concentration camps and the subsequent genocide. In 1941, Hitler suddenly attacked Soviet Russia with a blitzkrieg. This made the Soviets change their strategy towards the Polish deportees. At that time, thousands of Polish deportees were in prisons in Russia. It was thought that an army could be created out of these deportees, who could fight the Nazi's. A general amnesty was declared to all polish deportees. An exiled Polish Government in London readily agreed to formation of this army and an agreement was signed with Soviets. This army was supposed to fight in North Africa with the British and was to be assembled at just north of the USSR border with Iran, on its way to middle east through Iran.

The soldiers were supposed to gather together in bases in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan before proceeding further. All the polish deportees saw this mass transit of soldiers as an opportunity to escape from harsh life in USSR and an epic journey of thousands of Polish families began towards Turkmenistan from all over USSR, who hoped to join the soldiers and eventually cross over to Iran.

To take up this journey, many families had to escape from the community farms (many farm bosses simply refused to allow them to leave.), have money to buy train tickets and travel for months from Siberia to south. They had to change trains frequently, sleep on bare floors. Conditions were filthy with no proper washing facilities at stations. People were infested with lice and infections spread like wild flowers. Many of them died just waiting for the train tickets.

Polish army, along with migrant families, crossed into Iran by ship across the Caspian Sea or by road at the end of 1942. Some 37000 adults and 18000 children made it. After this, the soviet border was closed and another Million Polish citizens remained trapped inside forever. Iranian's were sympathetic towards the polish and treated them kindly. Some of them stayed in Iran but majority moved towards Afghanistan and finally to India. In April, 1942, after a month’s journey, the children arrived at a temporary home by the seaside in the Mumbai suburb of Bandra. “The first thing we did after coming to the house was to have a god meal,” Mr. Herzog recalled. “After the meal, we went to the bathroom to take showers…What a luxury!” After a three-month stay in Bandra, during which the Polish orphans were nursed back to health and given basic English lessons, Mr. Herzog and his companions left for more permanent quarters in the Nawanagar village of Balachadi.

Navanagar was an Indian princely state of British India, in Kathiawar region, situated on the south of the Gulf of Kutch and ruled by Jamsaheb Digvijay Singh Jadeja, an extremely compassionate ruler. When he came to know about the plight of the Polish refugees, he once decided to open his province for the Polish refugees. He, along with rulers of Patiala and Baroda and Industrialists like Tata's raised a sum of six hundred thousand Rupees and set up a camp at Balchadi near Jamnagar, which had special accommodation, schools, medical facilities and opportunities for rest and recuperation for the refugees. When the first batch of about 500 severely malnourished and exhausted orphans reached the camp, he welcomed them warmly. He coordinated with the Polish Government in exile and arranged to impart education in Polish language apart from catholic priests.

In 1943, work started on a camp in Valivade, in Kolhapur, another princely state,(now part of Maharshtra state) that was intended to provide war-time domicile for 5,000 Polish older people, women and children from the Soviet Union. It was designed to be “a Polish village on an Indian riverbank.” Some of the older Polish orphans from Balachadi were moved to Kolhapur, Mr. Herzog among them. He threw himself into the scouting unit there, and took several weekend hikes, including one to Panhala, a fort associated with Shivaji.

Between 1942 and 1948, about 20,000 refugees stayed and transited through India for a duration ranging from half year to six years in some cases. After the war was over, the refugees were asked to return to Poland. However, many chose to be repatriated to the UK, the US, Australia and other Commonwealth nations while just a few returned to Poland. The Nawanagar Maharaja gave them a personal send-off at the station.

Mr. Herzog says: “I have a few friends from the Balachadi Camp in US, England, Australia and Poland. But as the years march on, there are fewer and fewer of us. It is likely that the story of Polish war immigrants is likely to fade away sooner or later. The great deeds by the Nawanagar Maharaja, done almost Sixty Five years ago, are already forgotten in India, but in today's Poland , Maharaja of Nawanagar, Jamsaheb Digvijay Singh Jadeja is still fondly remembered. Many survivors even today still recall with emotion and tears, the Maharaja and his kindness.

30 July 2013

No entry for the oversized!

Every morning, I go to a fairly well known eatery in Pune, to have my mid morning coffee with few friends. The restaurant is mostly crowded around that time and sometimes it becomes rather difficult to find a seat. There is no choice then but to stand quietly in a corner and watch the tables in the restaurant to find if someone is leaving and then make a dash for the empty place. One particular gentleman, who used to be there almost every morning, was a rather unwelcome sight for us over the years, because he was so much oversized that he would occupy sitting space of two people alone. I thought (very cruel and mean thought no doubt!) many times then, that this eatery should really ban the entry of such oversized people in the restaurant during busy hours. Obviously, the restaurant owner would never accept my idea, as such oversized customers usually also consume large quantity of food and are most preferred customers for him. People like me, who sit there at the busy time and consume just a cup of coffee, are for him a business compulsion, he would rather do away with, if given a choice.

Whenever I travel by air, ( I travel cattle class by compulsion) my only wish is that no oversized fellow gets a seat next to me or even in my row. I usually opt for an aisle seat in the aircraft because there at least one side is assured not to have an oversized co passenger. I have observed many a times, sheer plight of other passengers who have the misfortune of sharing an aircraft seat next to a giant. I have always felt that they should have a special section for heavy weights to enjoy each others company. In this case I am sure that airlines would be on my side because an overweight passenger is a loosing proposition for them as he pays less per Kilogram.

My likes and dislikes apart, it now appears that some countries even seem to think on similar lines (HaHa!). New Zealand, an island archipelago country in south pacific, has recently denied to renew work permit of a person on grounds that he is over weight. An immigration spokesman for the country says that the permit extension has been rejected because the person's obesity puts him at "significant risk" of complications including diabetes, hypertension and heart disease. It is important that all migrants have an acceptable standard of health to minimise costs and demands on New Zealand's health services."

Albert Buitenhuis, a South African chef has been told by Immigration officials that he is too fat to be allowed to live in the country. Buitenhuis weighs 130 Kg (286 pounds) but Immigration officials think that he does not have "an acceptable standard of health". Mr Buitenhuis and his wife, Marthie, moved from South Africa to Christchurch in New Zealand, in 2007 and have been getting their work permits renewed annually without any problems, according to his wife.

Strangely, the situation is bit ironic. When Mr Buitenhuis moved in New Zealand, he was actually a lot heavier. He weighed 160 Kg's then and at least 30 Kg heavier than today. No immigration official or any one raised any objection then. They applied for work permit year after year and there were no issues.

Secondly New Zealand could never be considered as country of lean and thin people. As per latest survey, it has one of the highest obesity rates in the developed world, with nearly 30% of people overweight. It is therefore strange that Mr Buitenhuis faces expulsion in spite of shedding 30 Kg of weight.

The couple has appealed to New Zealand's immigration minister, arguing the chef's recent weight loss. Irrespective of my personal bias, I think it is a great injustice, to single out someone, who has stayed in the country for 6 years and suddenly tell him that he can not stay because he is overweight.

30 July 2013

The great deception

This bit of news really floored me. I do not know whether to call it a bloomer or a case of ignorant vigilance. Perhaps it is like the proverbial glass that is half empty to the host and half full to the guest. Skeptics may think it to be a case of utter foolishness, but let us first see what happened and then give judgment.

Lance Naik Sheminderpal Singh of Indian army was posted at point 4715 near Thakung in Eastern Ladakh as a sentry/observer, overlooking the Line of Control between India and China at a height of about 4,715 metres above sea level (more than 13000 feet), near Pangong Tso, a high-altitude lake shared by India and Tibet.

In August 2012, lance Naik Singh sighted a strange and bright object crossing over the Line of control from the east around 6PM and remained visible throughout the night up to 5AM. He saw another object crossing the LAC around 4AM and remained visible till 11AM. There are simmering concerns within India army about cross-border transgressions and the use of unmanned aerial vehicles by the Chinese to look into Indian territory and all the soldiers have been asked to watch carefully for any cross border transgression by the Chinese. The soldier promptly reported the sighting to his senior holding a rank of Subedar major, a junior commissioned officer, who must have asked him to continue his observation.

In all, army personnel documented 329 sightings of the unidentified objects, until February 2013, seen over Thakung. Eventually, Lance Naik Singh's prompt observation reports, slowly reached the upper echelons of Indian army winding its way through a series of officers of various ranks. The army headquarters, already gripped with issues concerning Chinese incursions in sensitive Eastern Ladakh, took note of the reports and decided to call the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bangalore, who promptly deputed two astronomers to Ladakh earlier this year to resolve the mystery of the two objects that the army had been observing in the sensitive border zone since August 2012.

One of the two astronomers, Tushar Prabhu says: "Our task was to determine whether these unidentified objects were celestial or terrestrial." The two astronomers interviewed army Lance Naik Singh. Who told them that he had noticed a delay of four minutes in the appearance of one of the objects each consecutive day. He also told them that the object seemed to be the brightest light in the sky and always appeared to move with respect to the stars. Astronomers then asked the army to use a theodolite to record the horizontal angle and vertical elevation of the two objects. Army personnel performed these observations between February 17 and 22, 2013 and submitted the data to the astronomers.

After analysis, the astronomers came to the conclusion that the first object observed from Point 4715 has to be planet Jupiter as observations exactly matched with the planet’s diurnal motion and the apparent motion of the object due to the rotation of the Earth. The second unidentified object that appeared early in the morning is planet Venus, which is currently moving behind the Sun and will in the coming months appear as an evening object. The army observers were erroneously considering these two celestial objects as unmanned aerial vehicles.

As I read this story, I instantly remembered that one night in July, which I had spent in a tent just on the shores of the lake “Pangong Tso” near Line of Actual control in eastern Ladakh. After dinner, as I was returning to my tent, in almost freezing conditions, I just happened to look above at the sky. The sky was clear and was just sparkling and dazzling with brilliance of starlight coming from billions of stars above in the heavens. Much more significant from this was the fact that the stars appeared to be hanging so low that I imagined that they could be reached easily by an aircraft. In fact I clearly remember the Big Dipper constellation stars hanging very low and of big size.

After returning from Ladakh, I found out that this deception of seeing the stars big, bright and very low is due to increased atmospheric transparency observed at the high altitudes. So, there was nothing foolish, when Lance Naik Singh, mistook the two planets for UAV's moving in from east, across line of actual control. Both Indian and Chinese armies have been increasingly using pilotless aircraft with sensors and high-resolution cameras to watch each other across the border. In the last three years, the number of such transgressions are reported to be spiraling. Transgressions are not only over land but also in airspace. Against this background, sensitivities of the two sides and their armies/border police are extremely high.

I would therefore consider Lance Naik Singh's watchful observations as something for which he should be commended and not laughed at. I have many a times mistaken a distant aircraft at night to be a planet first, only to realize later that it is moving much faster and must be an aircraft. Therefor there is nothing silly in Lance Naik Singh's sharp observations. It is far better to be being over cautious and over react and be on guard on the line of control in Ladakh, than showing carelessness and casual approach. Lance Naik Singh and his superiors deserve a pat on their backs.

29 July 2013

Long forgotten musical tracks # 3

Connie Francis (born Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero, December 12, 1938) was a top singer of Italian heritage of 1950's. She often was called as MGM Nightingale mainly because of her contract with MGM records. I loved her melodious voice.

In 'Long forgotten musical tracks' this week, here is a song, which was once extremely popular. I heard this song for the first time in the Alfred Hitchcock film The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) starring Doris Day and James Stewart in the lead roles. The song, which was sung by Doris Day in the film, received the 1956 Academy Award for Best Original Song. However, here is the version sung by Connie Francis, thanks to You tube.

If you can not see the embedded video on your android devices, here is the link.

You can also copy and paste the link hhttp://youtu.be/ZQBKUoyPy7E in your You Tube App. If that also does not work, search You tube for Que Sera Sera Connie Francis.

Enjoy!

A 1000 year old treatise on architecture

'Raja Bhoj' is well known to students of Indian history, as one of the illustrious kings from the past. Raja Bhoj, ruled the central Indian region of Mālwa from the beginning of the eleventh century to about 1055. He was a great warrior and fought many a battles during his illustrious career, with many great and powerful adversaries including army of Sultan Mahmud Ghaznavi, who had earlier invaded famous shrine at Somnath. This king also died in the tradition of a true warrior, defending his capital, in a battle.

Raja Bhoj was not only a good general, with his military career seeing several major victories over rival kings. He is remembered more for his intellect and patronage to arts and culture. He constructed many spectacular temples, one of the most dramatic of which is seen in the form of the great temple of Shiva termed Bhojeshvara at Bhojpur about 30 km from Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh state. Another notable construction, which is a historical civil engineering masterpiece, is the Bhoj lake, which was built by damming and channelizing the Betwa river.

He was a philosopher and is also supposed to have paid great attention to the education of his people. It is said that his subjects were so learned that even humble weavers in kingdom also composed metrical Sanskrit poetry or “Kavyaas.” He is believed to have authored as many as 84 books. Though, we shall never know whether he actually wrote these or just sponsored them. Many researchers however believe a strong role by the King himself in the authorship.

One of his books, Samarangana Sutradhara, written in Sanskrit, is a discourse in 80 chapters, on civil engineering, detailing construction of buildings, forts, temples, idols of deities and mechanical devices. It is also rather famous as it devotes one full chapter on building of flying machines. Being the only ancient Indian source known about building airplanes, Raja Bhoj's work has attracted much attention. But the book does not explain process of building airplanes completely and says that it has been done purposely, for sake of secrecy.

However real greatness of this book lies in the other chapters which deal with many varied subjects such as geology, astrophysics, measurements, norms of town planning, residential houses, colonising, temples, military camps and so on. This book has been studied, and analysed by many scholars from India and abroad. However a full and true translation, which would give full justice to the vastness of the subject, was missing. An octogenarian from Pune city in India has recently completed this stupendous task after working on it for nearly two decades. The translated book would be published by Indira Gandhi National Centre of Arts (IGNCA, Delhi), in six volumes by October 2013.

Mr Prabhakar Apte, the octogenarian, who has tranlated this book, has an educational background of MA and PhD in Sanskrit. Prior to his retirement, he was working with Archaeology Department of Deccan College and Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeeth (Tirupati). At Deccan College, he was also the editor of Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Sanskrit. During his professional stint at Tirupati, he came in contact with temple architecture discipline. Mr. Apte says: "The experience came handy during translation of Samarangana Sutradhara." He also feels that he was in a better position to translate the book because he had support from his engineer friend Aravind Phadnis. He adds "It hasn't been an easy task. Translation and decoding of such a text is only possible when a Sanskrit-oriented technologist and technology-oriented Sanskritist come together. ”

This book like all books written in those times, begins with a story somehow linking the author to Gods. Story line here, begins with mythological architect of the Gods, Vishwakarma, asking his four sons, Jay, Vijay, Siddharth and Aparajita, to go in four directions to colonise the earth. His sons come up with several questions. The book gives us the answers given by Vishwakarma to these questions, in words of Raja Bhoj.

Some of the elements covered in the book include master plans of all site plans, town planning, basic measurement units, colonies according to social strata, palace complex, residential houses, temples, military camps, definition of machines and more.

Mr Prabhakar Apte deserves all praise for his painstaking work of two decades and his research. His translation should prove to be a great asset for scholars and researchers in future.

27 July 2013

Chocolates, coffee and Bookstores

During my stay in USA, there were two chain stores that I liked to visit most. The first was the popular coffee house chain 'Starbucks.' I used to love the coffee aroma that would hit me, as soon as I stepped in and the comforting and relaxing atmosphere inside the shop. The second shop that was on my 'most liked' list was a bookshop known as 'Barnes and Noble.' Here again, I used to particularly love the aroma that came from brand new books on the shelves of the store, mixed with that of freshly brewed coffee, which originated from a coffee shop located almost in the middle of the store.

Initially, I kept wondering as to what this coffee shop was doing in the middle of a bookstore? But I soon realized that the aroma of freshly brewing coffee kept lingering in the store and made the customers like me wait a little longer in the shop and browse through some more books.

There has been extensive research on smell related matters. Sometime back I wrote a blogpost about Ms. Sissel Tolaas, a Norwegian born scientist working in Berlin, who is deeply involved for last two decades, in this world of smell. A study conducted in 2008 and published in the Journal of Consumer Research says that the smell of chocolate chip cookies made women more likely to make an impulsive clothing purchase than women who were not exposed to the aroma. Other research has found that relaxing smells like lavender may lower heart rates of shop patrons, making them more relaxed. Such customers are more likely to buy something without thinking too hard about it. It has also been found that certain smells may even help consumers remember products better.

An experiment for a period of 10 days was recently carried out by researchers in Belgium and results published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology. In this experiment, dispensers releasing smell of chocolate were placed at two different locations in a bookstore. It was observed that approximately 20 % of the observed 201 customers, positively showed more of purchase-related customer behaviors like looking at several books closely, reading the summaries of books, hanging out in the store, talking with staff and asking questions.

The overall conclusion of the experiment was that the customers were twice as likely to look at multiple books closely and read, what they were about, when the scent was in the air compared to situation when smell dispensers were moved out. Also, the customers were nearly three times as likely to interact with personnel and ask questions after browsing the whole store. Conclusion; people engage more with the merchandise and staff when a bookstore smells like chocolate.

There were few more observations too. Women were more likely than men to spend more time and buy books in the romance and cookbook sections with chocolate smell. Another interesting finding was that chocolate smell made the customers get drawn more only to certain categories of books like those on subjects like food, drink and romance against certain categories like history, mystery and crime.

Researchers call these subjects as congruent with the chocolate smell and call subjects like history, mystery and crime incongruous with chocolate smell. They also think that their research, though done in a book store, may turn out relevant even for shop owners selling other stuff and who want their customers to linger or stick around in their shops longer. They say that retailers can make use of pleasant ambient scents, to improve the store environment, leading consumers to explore the store. The shop owners should also pay particular attention to whether the scent is thematically appropriate for the store’s products. e.g. for a shop selling sea surfing gear, smell of sea breeze.

Ms. Sissel Tolass, whom I have mentioned above, says that we have almost forgotten now, that the nose also happens to be an important sensory or perceptive organ. We detect smells through use of our nose. But modern humans make so little use of this sense of smell that the power of this perceptive organ is just being wasted. Maybe we would get back little more to world of smells if more and more shop keepers, restaurant owners use this smell techniques in their shops or restaurants.

26 July 2013

Cutting flab means gold in Dubai

As years pass by, our bodies, once so supple and slim during our young age and youth, start accumulating excess fats from the foods we consume. This is a normal process and there is really nothing to worry about. However for some individuals, there is either something wrong with their metabolism or they have periods of excessive mental anxiety. Such people start accumulating large amounts of fats on their bodies, become overweight and eventually obese. Once this stage is reached, it is quite difficult to cut the flab and regain youthful shape of the body. In India, most of the men tend to accumulate fats on their tummies, whereas, women tend to gather fats around their hips.

Their are certain jobs where long periods of inactive waiting are involved. Truck drivers, chauffeurs for cars, have such kind of duties. They also tend to become obese. Many policemen in India are also obese. in spite of leading a tough and hard life and it is a great worry for the police force.

The junk or fast food and sodas also contribute to obesity. People from rich and affluent countries become easy pray to this excess fast food and soda consumption, because of the easy availability of fast food joints and excess cash in their own pockets. As per some statistics, I found on net, 35.7 % Americans can be called as Obese. In India, one of every three individuals is overweight, though not obese. The situation is becoming similarly alarming world wide.

The city state of Dubai is one such place. This desert city is incredibly rich and is known for its sky scrapers, shopping malls and lavish real estates. The fast food industry thrives here with American chains like McDonald’s, Subway and KFC as well as a variety of local quick-service restaurants doing very well. The wealth of the people and availability of fast food is now getting reflected on Dubai residents with over half of them overweight.

What is true about Dubai is also true to some extent about this entire region. According to a study conducted by Phillips Healthcare, regional obesity rates rival that of the United States. In Saudi Arabia, a recent survey found 66 percent of men and 71 percent of women are overweight or obese, while in Kuwait 74 percent of men and 77 percent of women are also overweight or obese. In Abu Dhabi alone, 30% of schoolchildren are overweight or obese.

Back to Dubai, the health authorities here are working to educate its citizens on making healthier choices, with child-focused initiatives on nutrition education. However, temptation of fast food and luxurious western lifestyle is so great that this effort do not seem to bear any fruit. In an effort to help people reduce weight, local government officials recently announced a 30-day challenge in which it promised to pay the participants a gram of gold for every kilogram of weight lost.

In other words, for every kilogram lost, the Government is ready to pay almost 2700 Indian Rupees to anyone who participates in the programme. The deadline to sign up for this was July 19, 2013. Dubai official Hussain Lootah said that there is no limit on the golden payout, but participants must lose at least two kilograms by August 16. Health care providers will be on hand to suggest healthy living recommendations to the participants for the month-long challenge.

It should be interesting to find out whether lure of Gold can prove strong enough to make overweight residents give up their easy life style, fast food and start exercising. Airlines, police forces world over are known to threaten their overweight employees with disincentives such as transfers to dull, back office jobs, unless they reduce their flab. But this Dubai plan is probably the first one, where gold is being offered as an initiative to reduce weight.

25 July 2013

Pray to the God to stop the rains!

An old lady, whom I knew for number of years, was a very pious and religious minded person, with full faith in her God. She firmly believed that the God controlled each and every single activity in her life and that happened around her. “Even our thoughts also are controlled by the God”; she used to say. If someone did something good, she would give full credit only to the God saying that the God brought in such good thoughts in that person's brain so that something good would be done by him. About evil deeds, she used to be surprisingly silent and never allowed her God to come in. Once she had an accident, fell down and broke some bones. She accepted the situation calmly and explained to everyone around that she fell because her God wished so.

I am very much reminded of this old lady today, after I heard an amazing statement issued by the chief minister of Delhi, the national capital region of India. She said this, after some people complained to her about her government's failure to deal with perennial problem of waterlogging in the city of Delhi.

Delhi area has been getting incessant rain since last week end. This heavy downpour had brought the national capital to a grinding halt with roads across the city submerged, leading to massive traffic snarls that left commuters stranded for hours. The rains also flooded the forecourt of the arrival area of IGI airport, causing inconvenience to the passengers coming out of Terminal 3.

When people complained about the inefficiencies and lack pf preparedness on part of civic bodies, to the chief minister, she came out with a curious statement: “Pray to the God to stop the rains!” Amazing! I have never come across before, this kind of statement, from a head of a state Government, in India.

The situation in the national capital region of Delhi is absolutely tailor made for passing the buck and to avoid any responsibility by anyone. The Government of Delhi is the supreme governing authority of the Indian national capital territory of Delhi and its 9 districts. It consists of an executive, led by the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, a judiciary and a legislative. The present Legislative Assembly of Delhi is unicameral, consisting of 70 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLA). The chief minister is the executive head of the Government.

To confuse things, there is also, The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) that is supposed to handle civic administration for the city as part of the Panchayati Raj Act of the Indian parliament. See how beautifully confusing the whole set up is. No one is sure about who is in charge of what? A perfect example of this are the storm drains provided on Delhi roads for clearing the rainwater so that there is no water logging. According to the chief minister, the municipal corporation of Delhi are responsible for this and should find a solution to the problem. But the public works department or PWD of her own Government of Delhi, have taken over 500 streets with a width of 60 feet and more from the civic agency. The total length of the roads taken over by PWD are over 800 km-long and the responsibility of maintaining the drains along the roads has also been taken over by PWD.

To further complicate the situation, Government of Delhi is controlled by the ruling party at the federal Government, but the Municipal corporation is controlled by the main opposition party. So as chief minister keeps criticizing the civic body controlled by opposition, they (opposition ruled municipal corporation) had slammed PWD of state Government for the flood like situation on many arterial roads.

After the massive chaos on the city roads after week end rain, when chief minister was asked about whose responsibility it was to clean the city drains? She came out with even a curiouser statement "I do not want to get into fixing anybody's responsibilities. It is the responsibility of the civic bodies."

It seems that the chief minister may be absolutely right after all. The water logging problem can be totally and completely solved if there are no rains at all. How simple! That is why the chief minister is asking people to pray to the God for no rains. If God decides so, there would be no rain and obviously no water logging.

Some ignorant voters in Delhi may venture to ask the chief minister, as to what purpose they have elected the Government, if things are to be left to the God. But poor blokes do not seem to realize that the chief minister has actually lead them down a golden path to get rid of all the ills from their life with a magic mantra in the easiest of all fashions. Just prey to the God! Great!

24 July 2013

Death of a watermelon vendor

We all believe in symbolism, don't we? For showing our emotions, material possessions, fears, anger, we invariably resort to symbolism. That is why emoticons are so popular in modern age communications. I read somewhere, that people buy very expensive cars to flaunt their wealth and not for use. The car here becomes a symbol of wealth. It is no longer a medium of transportation. Followers of modern Hindu religion, very well know that the idol they worship is an inanimate object, yet it is subjected to all kind of worldly rituals and it is even decked up with ornaments and expensive clothes. The idol of a deity here, therefore is nothing but a symbol of an unknown power entity, whom we fear and are also awed.

Social movements too need symbols. Mahatma Gandhi was a super strategist and used symbolism in an absolutely masterly way. I always feel fascinated to read about his 'Satyagraha' movements. In one of his 'Satyagraha,' he used a simple ritual of making salt from brine water in such superb fashion that within weeks it got converted into a major political movement against the British. He used many such symbolic gestures such as hand weaved cotton on home spinning wheels effectively to counter British commercial interests that were killing India.

Sometimes things happen in the other way. A relatively minor event, can become a starting point of a major conflict. The murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire by a Serbian in 1914 led to the start of World War I, barely one month later, killing thousands of people. Here also, this murder was a symbolic event. Obviously not every such symbolic event would lead to a major catastrophic change. The spark of such an event can start a big fire only if there are lots of dry wood splinters around, otherwise the spark just gets extinguished.

Last week on 16^th July 2013, in China's Linwu county, Hunan province, a farmer, Deng Zhengjia, was selling watermelons, grown on his farm, along with his wife , when he was approached by several Chengguan Police. The Chengguan are officially designated as 'Urban management officers,' and ensure that law and order is maintained in urban areas. The Chengguan confiscated 4 watermelons and asked the farmer couple to move to another designated area as the area where the couple was selling watermelons, was not approved for street vending. Obeying the orders, the farmer couple moved to an approved spot.

After about 50 minutes the same group of Chengguan police got into a scuffle with the same farmer now standing at the permitted spot. According to China news agency, seven or eight Cengguan started to beat this farmer Deng with the weight from his weighing scale. After 10 seconds or so, the farmer fell down and suddenly died. The dead farmer's wife and some eye witnesses say that the officers continued to kick his body after he fell down and refused to call 120, China’s medical emergency line.

Chengguan are widely conceived as arrogant bullies in China, who are believed to abuse their power. When Chinese media broke the news of Deng Zheng, there was immediate wide spread condemnation. Wang Juntao, a popular microblogger, who posts under the name “Laorong,” retweeted one of his old posts about Mohamed Bouazizi, the Tunisian street vendor who immolated himself after his scale was confiscated by authorities. Mr. Bouazizi’s self-immolation triggered the revolution later known to the world as Arab Spring. A user on Weibo, Sina Corp.’s popular microblogging service, said “China’s chengguan are addicted to beating up people.” Another added that the tragedy “couldn’t be tolerated by God” and was “the nightmare of China.”

Realizing the wide spread resentment, the municipal administration in Linwu suddenly went on defensive. Calls to the local publicity bureau in Linwu were unanswered on afternoon. A person who picked up the call at the urban management administration, refused to comment and said that he was not clear about the event.

For next two days, thousands took to the streets in Linwu county of Hunan province in order to keep the dead body from being taken away by local law enforcement officers. Local media say that the people believed that keeping the body for autopsy was the only way to prove that the vendor was lethally beaten.

Around 4 AM on morning of 18^th July, about 200 local police officers attacked the crowd with sticks and shields, and managed to take the body away. There were witnesses and reporters, including a reporter from the website of state broadcaster China Central Television.. Immediately, bloody pictures of injured civilians were posted on Weibo, and two reporters from a local Hunan television network also alleged that they were beaten when interviewing witnesses.

On same day, the family of Mr. Deng finally consented to an autopsy conducted by a forensic team designated by the local government, but only on the condition that they be allowed to be present during the autopsy and keep samples from it, according to Hunan Daily, a Communist Party newspaper. However it was observed that the most of the posts about the event, from newspaper Hunan Daily’s official Weibo account, were later found deleted.

The autopsy was conducted on that day afternoon around 2:30 p.m., according to Hunan Daily. The local government held a press conference at 4:00 p.m. but didn’t announce results and kept the results under wraps. 

 

A blogger, who calls himself as Chengpeng, says: Deng Zheng had a simple Chinese dream. All he wanted was a sweeter watermelon seed so that he could harvest more watermelons and quickly sell them so he can have a good home dinner. But you can not even dream of selling more watermelons in China, because not only you are not protected, but you can not even keep your treasure of watermelons. You reap what you sow.

Blogger Chengpang might have become emotional, but his point is well taken. No one can really say whether death of a watermelon vendor can bring about major repercussions and reforms about the urban police. That would depend upon so many other factors. The fact remains that even in a tightly politically controlled country like China, the writing on the wall is very clear. But it must be accepted that not every symbolic event brings about a revolution or an Arab spring.

23^rd July 2013

India's Midday Horror of Horrors

Whenever I go to buy groceries, my list invariably includes some toiletries and household cleaning stuff along with the food items. While bringing back the purchases, I take a simple precaution, which all the readers also must also be following. I pack all the toiletries and cleaning stuff in a separate bag and see that these are not mixed with the food items. This precaution is to ensure that the traces of cleaning stuff, which usually comprise of some poisonous material or other, under no circumstances get mixed up with food. This precaution is so basic that I stand aghast and feel horrified to learn that a school headmistress of a school in Dharmashati Gandaman village of Saran district from Bihar state of India, who is supposed to be an educated person, would ever store bags of fertilisers and pesticides, next to bags of potato, rice and cooking oil, meant for cooking free meals to children in her school, in her own house.

Consequences have turned out to be absolutely disastrous and a calamity as 27 of the young children, who had consumed cooked food prepared from the raw materials, stored in Headmistress's house, have died a terrible death due to food poisoning. Police are yet to ascertain whether food adulteration was of food or the cooking oil and whether it was accidental or a deliberate criminal act of poisoning, as alleged by some people, after initial tests showed traces of insecticide.

The primary school, runs in a 20x15ft room, which also serves as a community hall for weddings in the village. Midday meals were cooked in the small veranda by a cooks designated as 'sevika,' Pano Devi and Manju Devi. On that fateful day, Pano did not report for duty and a meal of rice and soya curry was cooked by Manju. She and her two children also ate the meal and fell sick. It appears that the cook had informed the principal that the mustard oil given to her by the headmistress to make soya curry, had a foul smell. Things however are more complicated as the food stuff was supplied by Headmistress Meena Kumari's husband Arjun Rai who runs a store in the village. The food poisoning was so severe that one of the victims had died within minutes of eating the lunch.

In a natural reaction angry villagers have turned violent and have ransacked the Headmistress Meena Kumari's house and other Government offices. Headmistress and her Husband are both absconding. Villagers have been demanding death for them.

Where do we go from here? The law would take its own course and the culprits would be surely punished and brought to justice. The heart breaking loss these 27 families have suffered is impossible to reconcile without any doubt. There has been much debate in the media about India's midday meal scheme itself, which is world’s largest school feeding programme involving 120 million children.

Secretary of an institution, which runs a number of Pre-Primary and Primary schools withing city boundaries of my home town Pune, is a relative of mine. After this disastrous event, I asked her about the midday meal scheme as it is organized in Pune city for Primary level students. This is what she had to say.

The food stuffs are purchased by the administration of the District itself directly. However Principals or headmistresses of the beneficiary schools have the right to inspect quality of food grains. Cooking area, utensils, cooking and serving staff are all centralized and controlled by district administration again. School have right here again to check quality of cooked meals. Usually one or two teachers would always taste the meals for taste and spiciness before serving staff serves the food to the children.

Schools are basically accountable for keeping tab on number of meals served and whether children were given food (Quantity of rice) as per Government rules. This seemed to me a fair arrangement because centralized cooking can be controlled very effectively.

However, I do not really know, what happens in small towns and villages, where local politicians are in a position to make a quick buck by bending some rules. Midday meal scheme, everyone connected with it agrees is extremely beneficial to children. Many poor children of India, have started attending schools because they get a square meal. The primary school attendance has grown by many folds, since this scheme has been started.

Just because one Meena Kumari and her husband, have singlehandedly managed to cause this irreconcilable tragic loss either with their utter negligence or with a criminal intent, I feel that 120 Million primary school children of India should not be deprived of one square meal, which some of them may find hard to get otherwise. Midday meal scheme should continue without any doubt, but with many more and tighter controls and with full transparency so that any parent or media representative can assure himself, about quality and purity of food stuffs purchased and how the meals are prepared, distributed and served.

22 July 2013

Long forgotten musical tracks #2

This week's long forgotten musical track is Colonel Bogey. It was written in 1914 by Lieutenant F. J. Ricketts (1881--1945), a British army bandmaster who later became director of music for the Royal Marines at Plymouth.

I heard this one, for the first time, while watching the film, 'Bridge on the river Qwai,' starring William Holden, as a whistled marching tune. It became very popular later and even Indian Army adopted it in their ceremonial functions. It has bee recorded by many bands and orchestras around the world. 

 

This is the original version brought to you, thanks to You Tube.

If you can not see the embedded video on your android devices, here is the link.

Otherwise, you can also copy and paste the link http://youtu.be/QuVYS4uw0as in your You Tube App.

Here is the film version, again  thanks to You Tube. It was my great favourite once. I also wrote one blogpost about the railway shown in the film. It was commonly called as death railway because of so many construction workers died while building it. You can read the blogpost  here.

If you can not see the embedded video on your android devices, here is the link.

You can also copy and paste the link http://youtu.be/83bmsluWHZc in your You Tube App. Enjoy!

21 July 2013

Boom town goes bust

In the summer of the year 1991, I travelled for some business work to the US city of Milwaukee, located on the northern shores of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin state. I took an Amtrak train from Chicago's Union station in the morning and was in Milwaukee in about one and half hours or around 11 AM. Mr. Jeff (name changed), whom I was supposed to meet, was waiting at the station to receive me. After welcoming me to Milwaukee, he led me to his car for taking me to his office. His car, a flashy green looking monster, was parked in the parking area. Noticing that I was looking at his car, Mr. Jeff proudly told me that this was one of the best cars in US, fully made in Detroit. I kind of smiled and kept my reaction muted, so as not to offend my host.

This green monster of a car, had post office red upholstery inside with ochre yellow furnishings. There were gleaming and shining chrome borders of squarish shape everywhere, around the wind screen, instrument cluster and radio console and even around the horn button. I sincerely felt that this car looked something far different from my concept of a nice looking car. Honestly speaking, it looked quite horrible. Naturally, I kept my feelings to myself for obvious reasons. Later on, while driving the car, when Mr Jeff casually told me about the fuel consumption of his car with great pride, I had no words of even false appreciation left in my mouth. If this was the stuff they were making in Detroit, it was no wonder that the auto industry there had collapsed, I felt.

It was not as if back home in India, the automobiles produced were of any better quality at that time. With the only exception of Suzuki cars, we had on Indian roads, horrendous moving junks known as Premiers and Ambassadors. Even then, this Detroit product was bit too much for me to digest. It is true that even around that time in 1991, Detroit auto industry no longer was the pristine glory of American Industrial revolution. Though there were still few ardent supporters of Detroit cars like our Mr. Jeff, common American man was no longer a fan of Detroit cars with most opting for cheaper, better and more fuel efficient Japanese automobiles.

Way back in 1950's, however, the words, automobiles and Detroit were almost synonymous. World's three biggest auto manufacturers, Ford, General Motors and Chrysler had their major plants in Detroit. At the height of its industrial power, Detroit was an irrepressible engine of the American economy. Many considered that Detroit had put the world on wheels. Detroit offered well-paying jobs, a gateway to the middle class for generations of autoworkers and affordable vehicles for every one.

By 1991, when I was visiting Milwaukee, all that had changed. Cheap imports of Japanese cars first and then their subsequent manufacture on US soil, had broken the back of the Detroit auto industry. Japanese cars were not only sleek, looked awesome and had such ridiculous low fuel consumption figures that they were not even comparable with Detroit monsters.

With the auto industry gone, the Detroit city itself had began the slow process of death then and there only. Now, almost after thirty years after the town started its downward fall, its death knell has been sounded. The city of Detroit has became the biggest U.S. city to file for bankruptcy on 18^th July 2013. Its finances, ravaged with a long slow decline in population and auto manufacturing that once made it the very symbol of American industrial might, now gone.

What does it actually mean? The federal bankruptcy court filing, conserves cash so the city administration can operate by diverting city funds to debt repayment. It would mean laying off municipal employees, selling off assets, raising fees and scaling back basic services such as trash collection and snow ploughing. City services like Police, Fire brigade and Hospitals would no longer be adequately paid with their finds diverted to debt repayment.

Detroit's population, which had grown to 1.8 Million during its days of glory in 1950, has fallen to a mere seven hundred thousand today. Its budget deficit is believed to be more than $380 million. The long-term debt was anywhere between $17 billion and $20 billion. The city administration was raising money of Government backed bonds to pay its 10000 employees.

Once the pride of Detroit, its automobile factories with multiple floors, built in the post-war boom years, are all lying vacant. Even US manufacturers moved of Detroit and built up their single story plants, based on Japanese designs elsewhere. Things look rather dark for Detroit.

The only silver lining to otherwise gloomy picture, is that General Motors Corp, which has its headquarters in Detroit, has announced that they would stay put. An official announcement says: “GM is proud to call Detroit home and today’s bankruptcy declaration is a day that we and others hoped would not come,We believe, however, that today also can mark a clean start for the city.”

20^th July 2013