Goodbye

Assault on RTI

Press note from the National Campaign for People's Right to Information, please spread far and wide.

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NATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR PEOPLE'S RIGHT TO INFORMATION
NCPRI
PRESS NOTE
There is news that the Cabinet has decided to amend the Right To Information Act to exclude file notings from the Act. NCPRI categorically states that this is a completely retrograde step which seeks to curtail the Citizen’s fundamental right in an unacceptable manner. If file notings are exempted, it is a sure method of obfuscating the existence of arbitrariness in the decision making process, which enables fixing accountability on specific officers. It will encourage corrupt and arbitrary practices and be a sure way to kill the spirit of the Act. The Ministers have been ill-advised in going back on the promise to Indian Citizens of transparency and accountability.

NCPRI and al other Civil Society organizations will strongly oppose this move which encourages opacity in the decision-making process, since this would encourage corrupt practices. We recommend that the Government should stop this move to dilute the Act. Citizens from all strata of the Nation are using to it with great hope and faith to monitor and curb arbitrary and corrupt practices in the Governance.

The preamble to the Act had recognised:

"AND WHEREAS democracy requires an informed citizenry and transparency of information which are vital to its functioning and also to contain corruption and to hold Goverments and their instrumentalities accountable to the governed;

AND WHEREAS revelation of information in actual practice is likely to conflict with other public interests including efficient operations of the Governments, optimum use of limited fiscal resources and the preservation of confidentiality of sensitive information;

AND WHEREAS it is necessary to harmonise these conflicting interests while preserving the paramountcy of the democratic ideal; ..."

Thus it accepts that after careful thought by the Parliament and Citizens, a careful harmonizing has been done of the conflicting interests. It was after a lot of deliberations that this Act was framed, which codifies the Citizen’s fundamental right under Article 19 (1). An elaborate process was undertaken from August 2004 to December 2004, when the bill was first tabled. Since various stakeholders felt that there were some important deficiencies, a Parliamentary Committee was set up in January 2005, which went into an elaborate consultative process with the Government functionaries and Citizens groups. After a meticulous and detailed exercise, the final draft was prepared by the Government and tabled before the Parliament. After due debate, this bill was passed by both houses of Parliament and assent given to it by the President. Making changes in this law, eems to make a mockery of the entire democratic law-making process, the Government’s promise and actions, and the Parliamentary Committee and Citizens who contributed to this law.

NCPRI suggests that the Government desist from attacking this fundamental right of Citizens. Citizens believe this Act will take the Nation towards a true participative Swaraj, and the Government should focus on how to strengthen the implementation of the Act. This move coming in the wake of an all-India, Antibribery Citizen’s Campaign using Right To Information, would send a signal to them, that this is a move to curb their rights, since it threatens certain undesirable practices.

We call on all Indians to join with us to oppose any move to curtail our fundamental right to know and to work together to insist this retrograde step is not take. Citizens and organizations are requested to write to the Prime Minister and all Political parties and register their opposition. Citizens across the Nation should also organize themselves in meetings to explain to others and register their protest against this assault on an important right, which is important for their Swaraj.

Shailesh Gandhi (Satyameva Jayate)
Convenor

Ajit Bhattacharjea; Anjali Bhardwaj; Angela Rangad; Aruna Roy; Arvind Kejriwal; Balraj Puri; Bharat Dogra; Debu Bandhopadhya; Harivansh; Harsh Mander; Jagdeep Chhokar; Jagmohan Singh; Jean Dreze; Maja Daruwala; Nikhil Dey; P Wangchuk; Prabhash Joshi ;Prakash Kardaley; Prashant Bhushan; Prabhash Joshi; V.Suresh; Venkatesh Nayak; Vinay Mahajan; S R Sankaran; Samir Acharya; Sandeep Pande; Trilochan Sastry; Shekhar Singh; Suman Sahai; Vishaish Uppal
Working Committee of NCPRI

NCPRI
C 17A Munirka, New Delhi 110 067, India
Telefax: +91 (0)11 26178048; Phone: 26168759,
email: ncpri.india@gmail.com

Functioning like a dagger

(Names changed, but otherwise verbatim copy of real letter. I swear.)

R.Y. Pimpre
Sanjay Nemish Jhaveri.

14-A, Sleater Road, Jamal Mansion, Bombay-7 (INDIA).

November, 20,1966.

The Chairman,
B.E.S.T. Undertaking,
Bombay Municipal Corporation,
Bombay-1.


Sir,

By way of this letter I wish to bring to your notice the flagrant disregard of the Maintenance department of your Undertaking which directly function to the detriment of the travellers.

I had the misfortune to travel by bus No.375 (BMS 3175) on route No.130 this day. When I got myself seated on the left hand last but one seat on right flank of the upper deck, I had to immediately get up with immense pain because a pointed nail was functioning like a dagger, manifesting an attitude of scant respect of the Management towards the public. The nail had come out off the torn off portion of the back cushion and it was surprising that the bus was allowed to ply in such a condition. Apart from the physical pain, the dagger of your Undertaking has also caused inroads in the back of the pant which makes it useless for decent wearing purposes. It was a Khadi pant, purchased from the Khadi Emporium for Rs.10/- just two days before. I had brought all the above things to the notice of conductor no.13309 of the upper deck of the bus.

I would like you to do the following things:-

a) Tender an apology on behalf of the Undertaking.

b) To compensate me the cost of the pant.

failing which I shall be constrained to take further steps in the matter.

Yours faithfully,
(signed) RY Pimpre
20/11/66

Apparently noble purpose

One question to ask is, do newspapers have an obligation to deliver you the news? Tradition built up over the last couple of centuries tells us that the answer is "yes", and in fact it's mildly shocking to even consider that there might be another answer. And yet some newspapers in India are raising that very question and forcing us to answer it.

What's happened is that the managements now look at their newspapers from an entirely different perspective. They see the paper as a product, one that earns money for its manufacturer like any other product. Being what it is, a newspaper, it will earn money most efficiently when it is best able to deliver an audience to its advertisers. Therefore that delivery itself becomes the raison d'etre of the newspaper.

You consider a newspaper in that stark light, and everything about it starts making sense, or some kind of sense. What goes into the paper is what will draw and keep an audience. Simple. The news? That's incidental, maybe even irrelevant.

This seems to offend some people, but strictly, why? There's no god-given law that says newspapers must supply news. If I decide to print a pamphlet filled entirely with lies, and call it a newspaper, and there are people out there willing to buy it, why should I not do it? And then, what if I comfortably outsell more "respectable" newspapers that focus on news?

Some papers have discovered a formula that makes money by the bucketful. If news is an unimportant variable in that formula, why should their management lose sleep over that? Only because some of us are offended?

You think this is a cynical view of the press? You think the press has a "duty" to the public, a role to play in a vibrant democracy? You think the press is fundamentally about the freedom of expression, the freedom of the press itself?

Well, I think so too. But the success of new formulae forces me to understand that my notion of this role is hardly universally held. The more "natural" idea, in some sense, is that a paper exists, like any other product, to make money.

Not for some apparently noble purpose like giving you the news.

Whitty, Putty, Luckly

I'm trying to think of something whitty to say.. But, of course, nothing comes to mind! Spring break has been great so far! Friday, I spent the majority of my night w/ Aaron watching "Harry Potter, Chamber of Secrets". Great movie I must say! Definately not as good as the first though. But I mean, what can compare? ... So.. my weekend continues and I spend Sunday evening out at the Putty ranch driving around getting told scarey-ass stories and hoping that i wouldn't wet myself. Luckly... I managed to hold it in. ... Anyway.. I had to hump the couch. No biggie :) Bethany and I were the last to pass out at 6 this morning. I am pooped!!

PrincessKimberly, "Dreamer".

One of 17 sites the Indian government asked internet service providers to block in India.

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Postscript: Via email yesterday, someone expressed some surprise at the block on Princess Kimberly, and suggested that we should put together some lyrics for her so that she is "immortalized as a song."

These efforts of mine were not met with much enthusiasm.

In fact, none.

A Zouth Indian princess, Kimberly,
Had a face that was all, well, pimperly
When asked why this was,
She said, "It's because ...
I ... well ... I don't know ... oh, just zimperly."

Dara asked to marry Princess Kimberly.
She said, "You know, I just find him burly
I don't mind some fat
But with him it's just that
I wish he looked more like that limber Lee."

***
Another postscript: MadHat has left a response to this post suggesting that this may all have been a typo, and perhaps the government meant to ban princesskimberly.logspot.com (i.e. leaving the "b" off "blogspot) -- which, it turns out, is some elaborate Bible site. ("AmazingBibleStudies", complete with chortling smileys shouting "Oh my Gaad" on top).

Maybe, maybe it was a typo -- though I still cannot see why that site should be banned.

But nevertheless, the real typo here is not attributable to the government, but to the folks who run that Bible site. What's more, it is no mistaken typo, it was very deliberately done.

Don't believe me? Try visiting dcubed.logspot.com. Try visiting indianwriting.logspot.com. Try visiting anything.logspot.com. In fact, try visiting anything.logspot.com.

Still don't believe me? Try visiting princesskimberly.blogpsot.com (i.e. the "s" and "p" of "blogspot" exchange places). Try dcubed.blogpsot.com. Try anything.blopsot.com.

So you see: make a typo as you type in a blogspot URL and boom! Bible-dom, here I come!

The sweet smell of ... what?

So, let's see. One morning a few days ago, many bloggers wake up to find that they cannot view their sites. Some digging later, they find that the government has actually issued instructions to internet service providers to block the overarching domain. Bloggers get mad, as they should, and band together to protest and plan their response. RTI queries, media coverage, sharing of proxy details, legal action, quiet informal questions, all that starts to happen. Some more digging later, they find that the actual government instructions were to block only a few specified sites. The ISPs chose to implement those instructions by blocking everybody. Anger against the ISPs now, with calls for them to publicly apologize and compensate bloggers for losses.

Soon enough, the government sends out signals that they have clarified their stand and that the blanket ban will soon ("within 48 hours") be lifted. A nearly audible sigh goes up, of relief and congratulations. Yes, the collective anger worked. Good news. The sites will be back on air soon.

As I write this, all we have are those signals. But even so, we have the sweet-smelling air of triumph too.

All well in god's own country? Sure enough. Except for one small detail. As I write this, the instructions to ban those few specified sites still stand.

Any anger about that? Should there be?

To my mind, of course. That's the point of all this, after all: the government's decision to shut down my access to some sites. (As, before, governments have decided to shut down my access to some books, some films, etc). The lifting of a stupid blanket ban, by itself, was never the point.

So any RTI queries, any legal action, any blogger anger, must focus, first, on getting government to explain exactly why and how it took this decision about these specific sites; second, on using that information to set up the framework that will prevent government from banning anything, and I mean anything.

It's a huge goal, and it will take some doing to get there. But as I see it, that's the one worth fighting for. That's the true test of our individual commitments to freedoms.

Anything less is failure. So let's take that sweet-smelling air with a few pinches of salt.

What this is about

The government of my country does what governments find so easy: ban, block, censor (choose your favourite word). Among other Web domains, blogspot.com is currently invisible in India. Though of course, given that this is the Web, "invisible" is only in a manner of speaking: there are innumerable ways around this block. Trust a government to be oblivious to that.

There's a groundswell of anger as people gear up to fight this. It's been in the news and it will be again.

And it strikes me that this fight is not about finding the ways around ("proxies"), nor about simply getting blogspot unblocked. This should be aimed at nothing less than ensuring the government will never again do something like this. There should be no site or group of sites that they will ever again be able to block; in fact, there should be no book they will ban, no infringement on freedoms at all ever again. That's what this is about.

Part of that involves putting together workarounds for bans like these and making them public.

Part involves finding out how this decision was taken -- maybe by whom too -- so we can work out how to stop it ever being taken again. The silver lining there is that we now have a tool -- the Right to Information Act -- to do just that.

And part involves putting in place the laws and mechanisms that will prevent such a thing from happening in the future.

Long battle. Bring it on. I'm actually glad this bizarre block happened. For it opens our eyes to the way the government works and forces us to find ways to make it accountable to us. Sometimes you need something bizarre to happen, it's the kick in the behind that makes us fight for things we otherwise take for granted.

Freedoms being some of those things.

(Paraphrased from email sent to the group working on this).

Came, saw, blocked

As some of you may know by now, there seems to be a block on blogspot.com sites in India. While I can post here, I can't see this blog nor respond to comments. Until this gets resolved, I have a copy of all that's here on my wordpress site, also Death Ends Fun, here.

Some issues I have to sort out at that site still, so bear with me.

Never forget: November 1984, A

November 1984, A

Odd tone

Just days after the train blasts in Bombay, Altaf (name changed) turned 50. I am talking to him that day, so when he mentions this, I say, without really thinking, "Happy birthday!" Only to realize that he has not stopped talking, and is saying: "I'm not celebrating my birthday this year. Very close friend of mine died in the blasts."

This close friend was a man who worked in finance, left work for home that evening and was blown up on the train. Not a Muslim, like Altaf, which has some relevance to the story. His wife and Altaf work together in a school. They've known each other for years.

I say, inadequately, that I'm sorry for his friend's death.

Altaf says, "You know what? I went over to the house to be with the family. His wife introduced me to everyone as Altaf-bhai."

There's a noticeably odd tone in his voice as he says this. It's almost as if he was surprised by that "Altaf-bhai", while knowing he shouldn't be. This was, after all, a close family friend, and it was natural that she would call him that. Yet the immediate aftermath of dreadful atrocity is a strange time, when people fall prey to prejudice and easy finger-pointing. Must be Muslims who were responsible, they are always responsible, so there had better be some introspection among Muslims, and why haven't they condemned the blasts enough? (Never enough). Common thoughts, expressed often.

Then this woman, in her moment of profound grief. Treats Altaf like the close friend he is, like always.

So the odd tone in his voice.

Never forget

Never forget. Let's always remember.

Suggestions/corrections/additions welcome. Data for other dates and events -- blasts, riots, etc -- also welcome. This is just a first cut.

Two hands of the question

Let's try this, shall we? Exactly what is the distinction between riots and terror attacks?

Let's make it specific. Three examples each. Exactly what is the distinction between:

on the one hand, the massacres in Delhi in 1984, the massacres in Bombay in 1992-93, the massacres in Gujarat in 2002

on the other hand, the bomb blasts in Bombay in 1993, the bomb blasts in Delhi in 2005, the bomb blasts in Bombay three days ago.

Anyone care to explain this? (But in civil, reasonable terms. Anything else will be ignored).

It's not us

The morning after the blasts on trains, DNA had a small front-page item titled "Reign of terror." Thinking this must list previous terror-stricken times in Bombay, I scanned it. Sure enough, it was indeed such a list, and here it is:

March 12, 1993: Series of blasts rip through 13 places in the city, killing 257 and injuring 713...

December 2, 2002: Two killed, 31 injured in explosion in a BEST bus outside Ghatkopar station.

December 6, 2002: 25 injured in explosion at Bombay Central station...

January 27, 2003: 30 injured as crude bomb planted in a bicycle explodes at a shopping complex outside Vile Parle station.

March 13, 2003: 11 killed, 65 injured in explosion in a ladies' special train at Mulund station.

August 25, 2003: Two successive blasts occur at Gateway of India and Zaveri Bazaar killing 46 and injuring more than 160...

OK good. A fine list of terrorist attacks.

So now you tell me. If a "Reign of terror" goes back 13+ years to start with March 12, 1993, why would it not go back just three months more, to December 1992, when weeks of godawful violence erupted in this city? That violence killed about a thousand people and drove 150,000 people (source: When Bombay Burned, UBSPD, 1993) from their homes. Why would that violence be excluded from this list?

I really want to know. In all honesty and humility, I want to know.

Did those weeks not qualify as a "reign of terror"? Or does a "reign of terror" mean only bombs?

Well, the blurb on the back of the same When Bombay Burned says of that time: "Citizens witnessed, with growing horror, people being killed on the streets, their homes and property destroyed."

What do you think those citizens felt? What did those people being killed feel? What would you feel if you witnessed those things? Would you call that feeling terror? (The blurb calls it "horror"). What would you feel if you watched it happening in your city, lived through it like I did, for the better part of two months? Would you call it terror?

I would. I felt that terror for weeks as I wandered my city. Countless other fellow-citizens did. What else was it but terror?

For that matter, turn the clock back another 3+ years, to the end of the 1980s. That's when many Kashmiris were killed and many more driven from their homes solely because they were Hindu. Would you call what they felt as they died, what the others felt as they fled, terror? I would. What else was it?

For that matter, turn the clock back another 5+ years, to November 1984. That's when many people were slaughtered in Delhi solely because they wore turbans. Would you call what they felt as they died, what those who survived felt, terror? I would. What else was it?

Or let's ask the more uncomfortable questions. Is it terror only when we can point a finger accusingly across our Western border? Is it terror only when we can point a finger accusingly at people of one particular religion?

Is it terror only when we can tell ourselves complacently that it's not us, but them, doing it? (Whoever you want "us" and "them" to be).

When we are selective about what we call terrorism -- when we say "this massacre is terrorism but do not bring up that other one, it is not terrorism" -- we thoroughly undermine any fight we mount against terrorism.

Prayer for peace

Citizens for Peace is holding a multi-faith public meeting ‘A Prayer for Peace’ to mourn the loss of so many lives in the train blasts, and to re-affirm our commitment to peace and harmony. Leaders of all major religions will participate. Please come.

When: Friday 14th July, 5.30pm to 6.30pm
Where: K C College, Churchgate, Mumbai.

The waiting

They say we're "back to normal" in this city. And sure, I can hear the interminable drilling from next door, I can see the waves rolling in, I can smell the building's accumulated trash as the woman who takes it away comes to my front door. The buses are running, the little corner shop is open.

Normal as can be. And as one journalist just told me, the blasts here are already no kind of news any more: after all, there's new violence in the Middle East, kidnapping of Israeli soldiers, Israel attacking Lebanon.

Normal as can be too?

Yet I have the same feeling I've had after every act of terror in this country. Consider a random sample of these acts of terror:

the massacres in Delhi, 1984

the massacres in Bombay, 1992-93

the bomb blasts across Bombay, March 1993

the various bomb blasts in trains and buses in Bombay in 1993, 2002, 2003

the massacre in Laxmanpur Bathe (that report itself is a telling one), 1997

the massacre in Rukhsagar Bigha, 1999

the massacre in Senari, 1999

the massacre in the train at Godhra, 2002

the massacres across Gujarat, 2002

the continuing horror in Kashmir right from the massacre and persecution of Pandits over 15 years ago to the Srinagar attacks on July 11

now the blasts in Bombay's trains on July 11.

So right, after each of these, I have had the same feeling. Because a while after they happen, someone will pronounce sagely that we are "back to normal." Yet by now I'm beginning to wonder, exactly what is "normal"?

Is it "normal" to live from one horrible atrocity to the next, from one attack on ordinary fellow-citizens to the next? (From one newsworthy outbreak of violence to the next?) Is it "normal" that we now live our lives knowing that the killers from most of those terror attacks live their lives in our midst too? Is "normalcy" just the period of waiting for another great outrage? In fact, is it that very fact of waiting?

My answer: yes.

Rain, blood and sirens

Salon.com carries this article that I wrote about my peregrinations after the blasts. It puts together and streamlines some of what's already on this page. Comments welcome.

In touch, morning after

Morning after ... it's calm here in the land of the bomb blasts on trains. Grey skies, no rain, gentle breeze from the sea, swaying palms, people out for a jog. And as on the morning after every crisis whatever it is over the last few years, our newspaper, milk and bread is delivered bang on time. (Exception: riots of 1992-93, when the then milk delivery guy was murdered).

Just want to record three quick reactions to some stuff that's out there.

The "terrorism expert", B Raman, has these lines here:

Since 9/11, Al Qaeda has been targeting tourist spots (Bali, Mombasa, Casablanca and Istanbul) as well as means of transport (Madrid and London). Therefore, Al Qaeda's inspiration behind terrorist strikes on July 11 is a strong possibility.

I mean, I imagine it's perfectly likely that AQ is involved -- but on evidence like this? Because they have "targeted tourist spots" and "means of transport"?

I mean, some of the earliest known acts of what we call terrorism were courtesy the Palestinians in the early '70s, and they "targeted means of transport": several planes that they hijacked. In the Munich Olympics -- certainly a tourist spot -- Palestinians terrorists killed Israeli athletes. On that evidence should we assume that it was the Palestinians responsible for yesterday?

Should we just blame anyone who is a justified object of anger and hatred? Or should we investigate and dig and get to the bottom of this madness?

On Ultrabrown, Manish Vij has done an excellent job keeping people updated. Only what I would have expected from Manish, of course. But then there's this startling statement:

It strikes me that majority-Muslim areas don’t seem to have been attacked.

Where did that come from, Manish? I mean, these were bombs on trains. Trains packed with people, humans, of every description. Is it possible to imagine that these bombs were timed so that they went off when the trains were away from "majority-Muslim areas"? What sense does it make to say something like this? At a time like this?

Above all, a round of applause for the folks at Mumbai Help. Several selfless people doing a particularly unsung but vital job: putting people in touch with each other in a time of panic and stress. Bombay Addict, Saba, Falstaff, Rushina, Pete and many more (check the names!): you guys have a special place in many hearts too.

Mine, for a start.

Finally, let's not forget that Srinagar had its share of horror yesterday too. Must have been every bit as traumatic there.

Four in this rickshaw

(Fourth post on the blasts in Mumbai. #1, #2, #3).

Through the rain, miserable rubble-strewn pavements and rivers of water, to Bhabha Hospital. (Two women I pass are saying to each other, the roads in Bandra are so horrible!). Three ambulances scream into the hospital as I approach, crowds surging outside, lots of cops. I ask one guy in a uniform, can I go in to donate blood? No he says, we'll call you, for now please stay out of the way and don't make things difficult for us.

Obvious reporters also in the crowd, discussing body counts. One says to me, 22 brought dead here, number might change. Woman in jeans and a Tshirt steps forward and announces to the crowd, it's no use waiting here, those of you who want to donate blood, please go to Holy Family Hospital! (Nearby). Six men peel off from the crowd -- again, I'm reminded of petals -- and walk up the road with the woman and me.

At the next junction, a few rickshaws, and one offers to take us to the hospital. One of the men gets in, and they motion the woman in. She turns to me and asks in an urgent whisper, you won't come with me? I can't go in that alone!

Before I can respond, the men say to her, it's OK madam! Come with us! Sit in front!

And I say, foolishly, but you don't know me from Adam either! Luckily nobody hears me, and I get into the rickshaw, and she gets in after me. Four of us squeezed in the back, driver plus two more in front, and we head off for Holy Family Hospital to donate blood, all of us.

On the way she tells me, our sons are in the same class, right? Then I realize why she looks slightly familiar, and why, too, she had that urgent whispered plea earlier.

On the way too, the driver tells us all, I brought four bodies in this rickshaw earlier.

At the hospital, I try to give the driver some money and he refuses. Twice. Flatly. We all troop up to the blood bank. While we wait, dripping rainwater all over the swabbed floors, I ask everyone's names. Binaifer the woman. Shoukat the driver. Ravi, Tabrez, Anil, Nawaz and Maaz, the others.

One runs a cold storage. One works for a film producer. One is a pharmacist. One has a mutton shop. One's a student. All of us, here together on a topsy-turvy rainy tragic Bombay night, waiting to donate blood for our fellow Bombayites hit by this madness.

Anil and I, they won't take our blood. Both of us have donated within the last three months.

Out on the landing, a sudden commotion. Doctors and nurses, green transparent plastic aprons over their clothes, appear as if from nowhere. Lift door opens and several nurses wheel a man in shorts on a stretcher, blood down his legs, into the ICU.

Homeward bound, the rain has finally eased. The memories haven't.

Water in the water

(Third post on the blasts in Mumbai. #1, #2).

Those who have them (not me) are opening up their umbrellas, for it's raining pretty hard as I walk away from Mahim. Guy just ahead of me, the point from his umbrella hits me in the mouth as it opens. For a moment I think that's blood on my lips, then I realize it's just more rain. Night like this, I've got blood on my mind.

Halfway up Mahim Causeway, I'm tiring of struggling through crowds on the pavements, decide to try my luck on the road itself but the traffic nearly mows me down. Across the road, a pandal with many lights. Curious, I cross over.

As I reach, two young men press glasses of water into my hands, as others are doing to the hordes streaming past. Please, help yourself, they say. And if you've got a long way to go, please come in and have some food before you walk on. Three different guys come up to me and say this. I thank them and walk on. It's not even 2 hours since the bombs went off, and these guys are already organized with food, water, tables and shelter.

You folks at the Sai Seva Mitra Mandal, I've seen your sign there as I've whizzed past sometimes. I'd just like to say, there's a special place in many hearts for you today.

Forced Samaritan Alto

(Second post on the blasts in Mumbai. #1).

Several men stand under the hole in the train at Mahim station, their manner and huddle suggesting that they are bringing out a body. But they are not, and suddenly one breaks from the huddle and rushes across the tracks, bellowing at spectators, get going get going get out what're you looking at? He has a lathi, and seems willing to use it. I'm not yet close enough for him to target me, but I get off the tracks anyway onto a strip of rubble and filth separated from the tracks by a fence and from Tulsi Pipe Road by an unbroken concrete wall.

People are squatting on the wall, people are limpeted to the fence, people stand on the rubble and try to see what's happening. Then the huddle breaks altogether. One young man approaches the audience and says, don't wait here! Why don't you go to Bhabha or Sion hospital and donate blood?

This section of the crowd, me somewhere in the middle, makes its way through the mud and indeterminate slush to the lone gap in the wall. Now I get a frontal view of the overbridge, and the stairs and the bridge itself are so packed with people that I fear they will fall off. Watching, watching, silently watching.

Through the gap and there is chaos and noise on the road.

People milling around, the rain starting up again, traffic trying to work its way through. A bus approaches and immediately a band of men rush up, banging palms on its side, demanding that it stop. Call out to an old woman standing in the crowd, direct her to board the bus. But I want to go to Bandra, says the woman. Someone yells into the bus, where's this going? The answer is lost in the noise, but the woman turns around and becomes part of the crowd again.

Down the road, similar scenes, this time with greater purpose and urgency in the now driving rain, and with taxis and some private cars. Shopkeeper standing on the side tells me, they are trying to get rides for these people. But they won't force the private cars, they are only asking the taxis. Yet as we watch the men stop a grey Maruti Alto, even push it backwards a few feet, surround it and yell into the windows. Several minutes shouting, I can't tell why, then I see a few women crowding into the back of the little vehicle and it moves off through the crowd, who already have their eyes on the next car.

MH02 AK 6726, that Alto. Hope you got those women home and got home safely yourself.

Metal petals

Lot of traffic there, sir, says the rickshaw driver when I tell him to take me to Bandra station. Never mind, I say, let's get as close as we can. Turns out we get all the way there in a jiffy, through pouring rain. Fire engines outside, distant disjointed sounds of sirens. Inside the station, people standing around talking, eyeing anyone who walks past. Nearly continuous announcements on the PA system, saying no trains are going anywhere on account of bomb blasts, please stay calm and cooperate with the authorities.

I walk down the platform -- how odd they look, as if swept clean of the usual rush-hour or any-hour crowd -- I walk down till the southern end. It's dark here and I can see streams of people emerging from the darkness along the tracks, some see me standing on the platform and reach out, give me a hand up they say. Two men stop to tell me, bahut log marela (many people dead), there at Matunga or Mahim the whole top of the train is ripped off!

I jump down and start walking towards Mahim along the tracks. The great majority of the people are coming the other way, and especially on the stretch across the Mahim Creek (the famous Mithi River), the manoeuvring past each other is hard. But everyone does it in a sort of silent camaraderie you can almost feel.

All around there are snatches of conversations: been on at Khar, no between Bandra and Khar, no that's at Santa Cruz. Near Gaiety-Galaxy cinema. Another one at Mahim. Churchgate? Nothing there. Also at Borivli.

One train sits on the track north of Mahim station, long dark and silent. Perhaps it casts a shadow, because it is even darker as I walk past, and I nearly stumble over the stones, the sleepers, the criss-crossing tracks and switches and other rail paraphernalia. What must it have been like here an hour ago, with bodies flying about and people running for their lives?

Another train just behind this one, and as I approach there's a growing buzz of human voices on the road beyond the tracks, then from above me. I realize I'm walking under a foot overbridge. I look up and silhouetted against the sky, I see it's almost absurdly packed with people watching. In front of me more people on the tracks, and then I see the compartment.

I flinch on seeing it, at the memory as I write this.

Suketu Mehta wrote once, and famously, of hands unfurling from a packed Bombay train compartment like petals, reaching out to grab that one more commuter and whisk him on board. Here the metal of the compartment is unfurled like some grotesque petals, side and top.

Great hole in the side reminds me, incongruously, of the times my dentist looks at a cavity in my teeth and says, huge hole! It's impossible to even imagine where the door was in this thing. Just a great leering hole.

I've travelled in these very compartments, at this very time of day. Hundreds of times. I know how packed they are, how people hang from every inch. What happens to those people packed like that when a bomb left by a non-human goes off in there?

Short and salient

Navi Mumbai Anniversary Special in today's Hindustan Times. Notice from Nerul Gymkhana, announcing the upcoming "Increase of Life Membership Subscription from Rs 80,000 to Rs 150,000."

What, you will naturally wonder, do you get for this nearly doubled payment for a life membership?

Luckily for you, the notice answers that in one crisp sentence:

The short and salient features of Life Membership offered are that the main applicant and his/her spouse shall be members for his/her lifetime.

Oh.

A full 16

"What else could they have done?" responded Madhukar Sarpotdar of the Shiv Sena. This was when he was asked to explain why his party reacted to an apparent "desecration" of a statue by stopping trains (led in that, of course, by our fearless Mayor himself), burning buses, stoning shops, shutting down shops and assorted other vandalism.

"What else could they have done?" An excellent question indeed.

Excellent answer: they could have done a lot of things. After all, over the years this party has built up an enviable record of achievements worthy of emulation.

Consider. In 1995, the great state of Maharashtra gave itself a Shiv Sena Chief Minister, Manohar Joshi. In 1996, his Government held a celebration to mark a year in office. And what did Joshi proclaim was his Government's "greatest achievement" in that one year?

This: the renaming of Bombay to Mumbai.

In 1991, the Pakistan cricket team was scheduled to come to India. One match was scheduled for Bombay, at the Wankhede stadium. The Shiv Sena didn't care for this, so one night -- do this by day when there are people who might watch? Not on your life -- they sneaked into the stadium, dug up the pitch and poured oil in. Tour cancelled.

There was a public meeting soon after to -- you're going to laugh and laugh -- actually protest this achievement. The Shiv Sena assaulted people leaving the meeting, opening a crack on the head of a woman journalist. (Didn't pour oil in, though).

In 1997, a crack team of partymen rampaged through the Canossa girls' school in Mahim, terrorising students and teachers.

In 1999, another crack team ran wild in the BCCI office, destroying Indian cricket trophies.

In 2000, yet another crack team destroyed an entire hospital in Thane, chasing seriously ill patients through the corridors.

There's more. Trust me, there's more. Yet I think that in any such recounting of achievement, first prize has got to go to one Mohan Rawale.

Rawale was the party's MP from central Bombay. During his campaign for re-election in 1996, a newspaper interviewed him about his record as a parliamentarian. He spoke with fond nostalgia about one parliamentary day in 1992:

I ran into the well of the [Lok Sabha] screaming. I managed to stop the proceedings for a full 16 minutes. That, I think, was my greatest achievement.

Yes, it was! Without doubt! What I wouldn't have given to watch this achievement that day!

It's lucky he didn't stop at 15 minutes.

Also, eat your heart out, one Manohar Joshi.

Not coming up in India

In not-quite-loving memory of Kenneth Lay, here's a little more about Enron, again paraphrased from Abhay Mehta's Power Play.

From the time Enron first tested Indian waters in the early '90s, they had a major concern that they expressed again and again. So it was that on September 30 1992, the then chairman of the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) wrote to the Government of India to apprise them of this concern:

[P]ublic and judicial scrutiny of business policy and decisions as per the [Companies] Act will not be acceptable by a company like DPC.

You see, Enron wanted to work in India. But Enron did not want to follow Indian law in India. Enron told MSEB so.

And MSEB's chairman was obliging enough to pass the message on to Government.

In March 1993, the finance ministry approached the World Bank for funding for the plant. The Bank replied in April, seriously underwhelmed. It observed that DPC power would "displace lower cost [power] in the off-peak periods." Also, the "Bank's standard project economic analysis" led it to conclude "that the project is not viable."

Bad news! But the Government of Maharashtra decided to ask the Central Government to persuade the Bank to review its decision. UK Mukhopadhyay, Secretary of Industries, Energy and Labour in Maharashtra, wrote a letter to the Centre and observed:

[The Bank] does not support the project. It, however, points out very clearly that this project would be a very good project if it was not coming up in India.

An excellent reason to build the plant in India, right there.

Mukhopadhyay also wrote:

Conserving [coal] during the off-peak hours will actually enable MSEB to meet the peak demand [a] little more efficiently.

The befuddlement Abhay Mehta himself feels is clear. He writes: The GoM was seriously advocating conserving coal-based power whose variable cost was 30-40 paise a unit, to justify LNG power [from DPC] whose minimum variable cost would be Rs 1.50.

Reasoning like this notwithstanding, the Bank remained unimpressed. Asked to review its March funding decision, it answered in July 1993:

[W]e reconfirm our earlier conclusion that the Dabhol project ... is not economically justified and thus could not be financed by the Bank.

Naturally, six months later DPC and MSEB had agreed on the Power Purchase Agreement.

Naturally.

In that path blooding, I swear

Boris Becker: "I just can't believe ... that I can think of nothing to say." (on a large billboard in Bombay -- quoted from memory, may not be verbatim but is pretty close).

Rahul Dravid: "I can't think of anything to say." (on the website).

Both speaking about Aamby Valley City. And I'm wondering: it's an endorsement, an endorsement worthy of being splashed on enormous billboards, that these guys can think of nothing to say?

***
"Remove outer packing before consumption."

Message printed on the plastic that covers individual Britannia cheese slices. Lucky they told us, but wish I had read it earlier. This plastic tastes horrible.

***
Sign on a vacant plot in Sion: "This plot belongs to Mihir Madgavkar."

Another sign on same vacant plot in Sion: "Simplified Society: Mihir Madgavkar is expelled by Simplified Society."

***
Gola shop in Matunga has, among many others, these flavours available: Row Mango, Trapik Jam.

I tried the Row Mango. Dismal. Foul. Very green, bright fluorescent green.

Nearby milkshake shop has, among many others, these flavours available: Bunty Babli, Jelly Milly.

Still suffering the green effects of the Row Mango, I resisted these.

***
Seen On Tshirts Dept, considerable trouble to get these just for you so please appreciate:

"Mon Fyer. Mon en Goolam"

"All Livers are Evil and Should be Punished"

"Season all the winter Seasion the many game were started in that time many injuries in that path blooding."

Cyril Connolly?

No. Semi-carnally.

(See Eric the Half-a-Bee).

Pending stuff

Some pending matters.

Asked in Mouse-ying along to the music about Tom playing Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #2. In case you missed the discussion in the comments, that's Tom of the cartoon pair Tom and Jerry, and I'm referring to the 1946 Oscar-winning Cat Concerto. Tom plays the piano, to much trouble-making and usual fun from Jerry, but Jerry soaks in the applause at the end.

In Rana on the board, I had a picture and asked if anyone could recognize where it was taken. Again in case you missed the vital discussions in the comments, that was taken at IIT Kanpur, during the 1978 Cultural Festival. That's members of the audience on the stage during a skit that I was part of. As I mentioned in passing to one of the people who commented there, there are at least a couple of names discernible among all that's written on that board. It would be a delight to run into Himadri Rana or Shahana Das Gupta one day and say: hey, I have a picture in which your name is up on the board! (I expect them to give me strange looks).

100-statement question was for the logicians. For an answer, I can do no better than point you to the comments there, especially to Sailesh Ganesh's detailed explanation. I like this problem, and the exercise of thinking about it.

Grateful thanks for the lesson

Man called Kenneth Lay died two days ago. Brought back memories from all through the '90s, when his company Enron -- through its Indian presence, the Dabhol Power Company -- was in the public eye here in India. So many memories, some from reading, some from a trip to Guhagar where that power plant was being built, some from court battles that I followed ...

... and I want to share just one of those memories with you.

Background: Enron came to India in the early '90s, wanting to set up a power plant in Maharashtra (via their Indian presence, the Dabhol Power Company or DPC). The then Congress Government in the state carried on negotiations with Enron that were, to anyone who paid it all some attention, somewhat dubious on various counts. Putting it kindly. And a lot of people paid a lot of attention, and spoke their minds about these negotiations, this impending deal.

None of which made the slightest difference at the time. Towards the end of 1993, the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) and DPC had hammered out their Power Purchase Agreement that was, of course, the foundation of the whole project. It was written in almost deliberately complex and obfuscatory language that few people could fully understand. And in those pre-RTI days, a consumer organization in Pune tried to get a copy of the PPA from DPC.

Their reply, and I quote:

To a country as yet unused to the phenomenon of privatisation this may be difficult to understand, but in a competitive market a PPA is the one document that affords companies an edge over the other players in the field. ... [Therefore] such a document is zealously guarded by all companies.

A good lesson in the ways of the market and privatisation! Thank you, Enron!

Only, "competitive market" and "other players" are not quite accurate phrases to use here. For in this particular agreement, there were no other players, no competitive market, no "edge". DPC bid for no contract. All of its power would be bought by one customer: MSEB.

The "phenomenon of privatisation", Enron style. Thank you for the lesson.

(Paraphrased from Power Play, Abhay Mehta's superb book about the Enron saga. More to come).

Their unoffending widows

O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord, Our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of their guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of the desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst.

Mark Twain, War Prayer, 1905

Statement of Audience

(As recommended here, though with the language cleaned up to a degree. Needless to say, I fully agree with this. Thank you Pete for letting me know about it).

I realize that nothing I say matters to anyone else on the entire planet. My opinions are useless and unfocused. I am an expert in nothing. I know nothing. I am confused about almost everything. I cannot, as an individual, ever possibly know everything, or even enough to make editorial commentary on the vast vast majority of things that exist in my world. This is a stupid document; it is meaningless drivel that I do not expect any of the several billion people on my planet to actually read. People who do read my rambling, incoherent concertos are probably just as confused as I am, if not more so, as they are looking to me for an opinion when they should be outside playing Frisbee with their dog or serenading their life partner or getting a dog or getting a life partner. Anyone who actually takes the time to read my sonatas probably deserves to ingest my messed up and obviously mistaken opinions on whatever it is that I have written about.

Signed: Dilip D'Souza

This side of Neptune

Kaarsten Braasch? Who's he? Tennis player from Germany, now retired from playing on the circuit. Known for four things. (Well, I know these four things).

Played Pete Sampras, then the defending champion, in the first round at Wimbledon a few years ago. It was expected to be something of a cakewalkover (where that word came from, another time) for Sampras: Braasch was fairly low in the rankings, after all. But with a mix of slice and spin and dropshots, Braasch actually wrested a set and fought hard. Pistol Pete had to summon up all his racket prowess to eventually beat Braasch.

"He's a pain to play", or words to that effect, was Sampras's post-match reaction.

Is a chain smoker, 15 smokes a day. Let's just say that's unusual for a professional tennis player.

Has easily the most peculiar service motion this side of Neptune. I'm unable to find words to describe this flailing that would deposit the ball across the net. If you haven't ever seen it, I feel for you, because I believe nobody should die without having seen Kaarsten Braasch's service at least once. Nobody.

In 1998, he was lounging around at the Australian Open. Williams sisters, then on the up-and-up and full of immense self-belief, announced to anyone in earshot that they believed they were good enough to beat the 200th-ranked player on the men's tour in a practice match. Braasch was within earshot (perhaps smoking his 7th of the day). He was then ranked 203. He volunteered, then went off to train, Braasch style: some golf, some shandies.

Then he played Serena, beat her 6-1. Venus immediately after, beat her 6-2. Braasch wrote later:

Both sisters are great tennis players and hit the ball extremely well. However, if you've been playing on the men's tour there are certain shots you can play that are going to put them in difficulty. Try and put a lot spin on the ball - I was hitting the ball with a degree of spin they don't face week-in, week-out.

Williams sisters then announced to all in earshot that they wanted to do it again, but against the 350th-ranked player.

Braasch, now perhaps on his 10th smoke, told the press that he was about to lose a lot of ranking points, and would be at #350 in a week. So if the Williams sisters wanted, they could play him again in a week.

They didn't take up that particular challenge.

Please, please don't be content with my mangled and abbreviated account of this encounter. Far funnier are Braasch's own words.

My kind of man. God I love tennis!

***
Postscript: Then there was the time when Karan Rastogi beat Maria Sharapova.

Tibet from the 14th floor

Several years ago, a young man climbed the scaffolding on the Oberoi hotel in Nariman Point, made his way up to the 14th floor and unfurled a banner and a flag. This was no Spiderman, but a small-made, articulate, passionate fellow. The banner he unfolded up on the hotel read, in letters large enough to be seen on a thousand front pages, "Free Tibet".

Let me say that loudly: FREE TIBET.

Why did Tenzin Tsundue -- that's his name, this passionate fellow -- do this, and why at the Oberoi? Because the Chinese premier, Zhu Rongji, was in town. He and his entourage were guests at the hotel. "In no time," Tenzin told MidDay, "every window on the entire floor had a Chinese face looking at me. I was proud to show them the Tibetan flag. That one moment was worth it all."

Some of Bombay's finest eventually dragged Tenzin off the scaffolding and into custody. But Tenzin had made his point. He had reminded the Chinese premier, his entourage, and those Indians who cared to notice, that Tibet will not be swept under some bland Chinese carpet, forgotten forever.

Yet what drives a man to take a risk like that to make a point like this? After all, the most familiar response to mention of Tibet, or to incidents like this one, is indifference and a certain scorn. Far easier, you see, to disparage commitment like that than try to come to grips with the cause it represents. As Tenzin himself wrote in MidDay: "We know we are fighting a losing battle, with the world having given up on us." (Note that that didn't stop him from his climb).

Why should the world have given up on people like Tenzin? Why should India?

Well, partly because of a breed that likes to call themselves hawks. You know, those fellows who mouth profundities such as "jis ki lathi, us ki bhains" ("he who has the stick owns the buffalo"; or, as MS Golwalkar once told us, "a not-so-graphic translation into English would be, 'might is right'"). Apparently the rest of us should nod our heads at such ditties, recognizing that they capture the essence of that thing called "realpolitik" that drives the working of the world. China has taken over Tibet, it has now built a spectacular railroad in there, it is a powerful country, so why waste time considering the plight of a few hundred thousand Tibetans?

And yet, for all their knowledge of how the world works, the hawks forget the innumerable lessons of history, of a thousand struggles for freedom and justice. Of our own Indian struggle for freedom, the battle that defined us as a nation.

After all, the British definitely owned all the lathis. Where would we be today if the hawks had surveyed the scene, announced that might was right, and convinced such Indian heroes as Azad, Lala Lajpatrai, Bhagat Singh and Tilak -- not forgetting Patel, Gandhi and Nehru -- to give up the fight? To give up because what they were doing was, given the ownership of the lathis, futile?

Luckily, they didn't. Despite the lathis, India won freedom.

And that's why I admire people who climb scaffolding.

It is convenient these days for us Indians to deal with China, open passes for trade, welcome its assorted leaders when they visit, admire its progress and development. And hey, they recognize our accession of Sikkim, we recognize theirs of Tibet, simple. Realpolitik all over again, quid pro something or the other. Besides, we are desperate to emulate China's progress -- seen the "10 Wonders of the New China" message that's making the rounds? -- so we prefer to gaze at that, whatever it is. Tibet? What's that?

Only, the world really doesn't work that way. So again, that's why I admire guys who climb scaffolding and unfurl banners.

Say it with him today, World Tibet Day:

FREE TIBET.

Doshi-diots

Knock knock!
Who's there?
Amma.
Amma who?
Amma-n the outside, looking inside, what do I see?

***
Knock knock!
Who's there?
Appa.
Appa who?
Appa-rently you don't understand who this is.

***
Knock knock!
Who's there?
Anish.
Anish who?
Anish and a-nephew.

***
Knock knock!
Who's there?
Rashmi.
Rashmi who?
Rashmi to the hospital, quick!

***
Knock knock!
Who's there?
Dinesh.
Dinesh who?
Dinesh-un is on the move.

***
Knock knock!
Who's there?
Doshi.
Doshi who?
Doshi-diots threw me out of my house, can I come in?

***
Knock knock!
Who's there?
Aradhana.
Aradhana who?
Aradhana-t tell you my full name if you don't mind.

***
Knock knock!
Who's there?
Das.
Das who?
Das none of your business.

***
Knock knock!
Who's there?
Anirudh.
Anirudh who?
Anirudh-ness will not be appreciated, got that?

***
Knock knock!
Who's there?
Bindu.
Bindu who?
Bindu-ing this knock knock stuff for too long now, think it's time to switch to thak thak.

***
Thak thak!
Kaun hai?
Agarwal.
Agarwal kaun?
Agarwal gir jayega to hum sab mar jayega.

***
Thak thak!
Kaun hai?
Mehmood.
Mehmood kaun?
Mehmood mein nahin hoon batane ke liye.

***
Thak thak!
Kaun hai?
Menaka.
Menaka kaun?
Menaka na, Mehmood mein nehin hoon batane ke liye?

***
So yeah, sure, I've sunk pretty low. Thank you, thank you, I'm proud. Please add your contributions via comments, if you like.

What do you mean, "overshot"?

You know, we saw those lines of leaf-cutter ants, stalking determinedly along. But we never asked the vital question about them. So I'm thrilled to learn that Matthias Wittlinger and Harald Wolf, two German researchers, and Rudiger Wehner, a Swiss colleague, have asked that question. More than that, they have some answers too.

The vital question: how do ants measure distance, for example from a food source back to their colonies?

Well, Messrs Wittlinger, Wolf and Wehner hypothesized that they do so by counting paces. To test this, they "altered the legs on a group of ants." Some were placed on pig-bristle stilts, others had their legs amputated (ouch).

The fellows on stilts went too far. The amputees didn't go far enough. QED, or as near as you can get with ants. (One report here).

You feel for those amputees, but nevertheless, isn't that just delightful? Gotta love science.

***
Postscript: A reader points to this fine explanation of ant movements, including orientation and distance.

I also thought I'd point you once more to this prize-winning photograph, though for the time being, the ants involved don't appear to be in need of distance measuring mechanisms.

Mouse-ying along to the music

Where did Tom play Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #2? Who soaks up the applause? What did they (well ...) win for playing it?

All moisty-eyed

Been an extremely wet day. Would have stayed at home, but I had to struggle all the way into town for an appointment that was set up in ... February. Yes. In February, for 10 am on July 3. I do not make this up.

Reminds me of the (true) story of my pal Ivan in the old Soviet Union who wanted to buy a car, sometime in 1977. He goes to a car dealer in Moscow and looks over the boxy little Trabants and Pravdas or whatever the hell they were called, those rinkydink little Soviet cars. Finally, he decides on one of the vehicles.

"I want that one," Ivan tells the salesman.

"Fine!" says the salesman. Consults his books, then tells Ivan: "We can have it delivered to you in 1987."

"1987?" asks Ivan. "Which month?"

The salesman looks mildly puzzled, but looks at his books again and says "August."

"August?!" says Ivan, now looking perturbed himself. "Which day in August?"

The salesman gets a look of exasperation, but flips the pages again and says, "23rd."

Ivan is simply horrified now. "Morning or evening?" he bleats out in consternation.

The salesman has had enough. "Look chum, we're talking about a delivery that's ten years away! You want to know the month, then the day, and now you want to know the time of day? Are you out of your blinking mind?"

Ivan yells back: "But I have to know! I've got the plumber coming that morning!"

...

So anyway, fond memories of Ivan. But that's not why I'm writing this. I'm writing this because of the wet day and the promise of more wet days to come. I've been scouring the newspapers for hints on how to keep dry and look good in this weather, and finally hit paydirt in a helpful item titled "Rain-proof yourself", in the Hindustan Times (June 29). "Celebs give you their best rainy day tips", it says, and there are at least three excellent ones. Drink this in:

First, Candice Pinto tells us:

It's a necessity in the rains to wear waterproof mascara. Use caked or oil-based blush-on, but it's ideal to go without makeup!

Nice! So I caked on the waterproof mascara, or was it blush-on, enough to cut it with a knife. But wait, Candice wants me to go without makeup. What do I do now?

Second, VJ Ramona advises:

A monsoon essential is moisturiser. I'm actually in between Clarins and Shineido now.

Good point! But isn't the monsoon itself sort of ... moist, you know? And me, I'm in between Shinseido Shorin Ryu and Shotokan myself, been considering Jiu-Jitsu too. Though I'm not fully sure, how does doing all this martial art stuff keep me moisturised in the monsoon? Sweaty yes, but is that the same thing?

Third, Kashmira Shah has this:

Wear any products that are natural. Use waterproof mascara, you don't want streaks of black on your face. And always wear bras!

Great! I'm off to Passion d'Elle, the nearby bra store. Hope they have stuff in my size, 34 waist by 34 inseam.

Soliloquy, sore thumb

School I know arranges an annual programme where each class puts up a little skit. (Sort of like every school does). This year, the class teacher of one of the classes thinks up a little drama, assigns everyone parts (speaking, singing, dancing, etc), and they begin practice.

Mother of one of the kids has volunteered to run the practice sessions. She is the type who loses no chance to tell all concerned how clever her child is and how well he speaks and how much she does for him. Therefore, she is the type who is annoyed with this skit. Because as it is written, her son does not have much to say. Or, more to the point, he does not have much more than any of the other kids has, to say.

In truth, nobody has more than 5-6 words to say anyway. That's the way the play is. As with all school plays, the idea is less the quality of theatre than giving everyone a chance under the spotlight.

But this means little to this mother. Being a somewhat strong-willed and insistent type, and the teacher being something of a wallflower, the mother actually writes in a part for her kid: a longish introduction to the whole drama.

The rest stays unchanged.

So when the big day comes and the school auditorium is full and it is the turn of this class to stage their little show, this small man enters the stage alone and says his lines. Says them well, too.

Then the other kids flood in and do their bits. Nice skit, good fun. But this kid's part, this soliloquy, stands out like a sore thumb.

Ambitious parents. What do we do to our kids?

Rana on the board

***
The guy on the chair in the middle in this photograph is "Harvinder" in this story.

Do you know anyone else in this? Or where this was taken? When? (Click on the pic to get a larger version).

100-statement question

This is for you logicians out there.

Well, all right, this is also for you illogicians out there.

I hand you a sheet of paper with 100 numbered statements on it. They read like this:

1. Exactly 1 of the statements on this sheet is false.
2. Exactly 2 of the statements on this sheet are false.
3. Exactly 3 of the statements on this sheet are false.

...

99. Exactly 99 of the statements on this sheet are false.
100. Exactly 100 of the statements on this sheet are false.

That is, statement n on the sheet reads: "Exactly n of the statements on this sheet are false."

Question: Which statements are true and which are false?

There is, of course, a bonus. Replace "exactly" with "at least" all 100 times. Try the same question. Does your answer change? Why and how and wheretofore?

There is, of course, a second bonus. Still with the 100 "at leasts", add a 101st statement. ("101. At least 101 of the statements on this sheet are false."). Try the same question. Does your answer change? Why and how and wheretofore hereunder?

Of "nutty" and "sophomoric"

There are many reasons Annie Z is a fine journalist. Here's one more.

Just another suicide

That excellent magazine from Nepal, Himal, used to be monthly, went to appearing every two months, it is now back to monthly from July 2006.

I have this article about the farmer suicides in Vidarbha in the July issue.

Comments welcome.

That's not "fullstop"

Nobody, at any time, is "impure". Period.

Just wanted to say it. (Thanks to various reports and people, Uma being one).

From cheater

Want to know what makes this country tick? You could do worse than read newspaper ads. I don't mean the splendid full-pagers for some new vehicle with a name like "Santra" or "Mosambi". I mean the smaller ones. Here's a sample from an issue of the Hindustan Times last month (June 30).

***
Ad for the Kohinoor Business School in Khandala lists various "salient features" (wi-fi campus, one month free study tour to Canada, education loan, excellent placement record, etc) of its Bachelor's programmes.

But those are listed in the middle of the ad, in routine-sized black type. What's the feature mentioned right at the top, in a larger bright red font designed to catch your eye?

Foreign Education in India
This, because Kohinoor has a tie-up with Carleton University's Sprott School of Business in Canada. The power of that word "foreign".

I'm waiting for the day when we'll see an ad that says prominently at the top: "Indian Education in India". I suspect it's going to be a long wait.

***
Later in the same paper, you will find a small item that looks like news but really is just part of a large "marketing feature" and is therefore just an ad. It is about the same Kohinoor Business School, and it reads thus:

The refreshing monsoon not only gives respite from heat and humidity but also greens the life around. In case you too want to green your career, do attend a seminar by Sprott School of Business ... [etc]

All right. But I want to know, what will give us respite from ludicrous connections made by marketers? (The monsoon and careers? Right). Will I find out at this seminar? Or do I go to business school to learn how to make them?

***
Same paper also carries a marketing feature on "Bihar education at a glance." Lots of ads for Bihar universities, short writeups about some of them, all very well. Then I run into this small item that is titled:

AM College Gaya: Committed to object-oriented education
Wait a minute, I think. I used to know a little bit about object-oriented programming, but what on earth is object-oriented education?

Naturally, I have to read the writeup under that title. It says:

Anugrah Memorial College, Gaya ... adopts a balanced approach in providing value based traditional higher education as well as modern job-oriented vocational education. Present principal Dr Haridwar Singh has a vision and dedication to do something special for the college and students as well.

[italics mine]

Ah. Some clever headline writer thought "job-oriented" was too dowdy, and turned it into "object-oriented." More stuff to be learned along with connections to the monsoon?

In passing, let me applaud that particular vision for the college. "Do something special", what an idea.

***
Turning away from education, let's look at massage and escort services. (Stop jumping up and down). I've remarked on these before, but they deserve more attention. Here's the text, verbatim, from a few of these little ads, same issue of HT:

Welcome Guest,s Home & Hotels serve. Selected Models Stylies Decent Soft Spoken, Presentable Highgienic Realable, Very Charming Male/Female.

Indian, Arabian, Russian/Turkish. Hi Profile Ellite Decent Well English spoken celebrities, Models kinds Male/Female Masseurs Available.

Want to get Relaxed? Call us to have Elegant Warming Well Spoken Indian, Russian Arabian.

Bollywood Glomour Home & Hotels serve. Ultra Beautiful Highly qualified celebrities magazine models Male/Female 24 Hrs. Free of coast A/c rooms avail. Be careful from cheater.

As always, some questions.

Personally, I prefer Lowgienic realable people. Possible?

What's the deal with Indian Arabian Russian and so forth? Why no Fijians, or Sao Tomeans?

What would a "Warming" person do? On second thoughts, I don't want to know. As long as they are lowgienic.

I really would like an A/c room on the coast. Why would you put me in one that's free of coast?

And thank you, cheater. Thank you for your warning to be careful.

It's the lipstick, stupid

The wife of a banker, you live in a flat in a suburban Bombay high-rise. You have three kids of your own. You employ a maid in your home. She's young -- 10, maybe 15 -- the confusion perhaps because of that way that among children in India, it's sometimes difficult to tell their age.

Anyway, there comes a day when you find the girl trying on your mother's lipstick.

What do you do?

Simple. You decide to teach the girl a lesson for her "indiscretion and audacity."

Yes, but what do you do?

Still simple. You spank her. You tie her up. You take an aluminium rod and insert it into the girl's anus. You stuff chilli powder down her throat and into her genitals. You hang her from the ceiling of the flat.

You clean up, then you tell the cops the girl committed suicide.

Very simple.

I'm not sure what you do with the lipstick.

Read about Roma Bhatia, this particular wife and mother. Here, here and in plenty of other reports.