THE TAKING OF TRIVANDRUM 6-3-2-1

Although the title here may mislead you into believing that I was part of a hijacking in accordance with the recently released movie with a similar name, let me tell you that the truth is quite far from it. What I’m going to describe to you is more of a quarter of an hour of fast paced action. The kinda thing you normally get to see in the movies. ;-) The fascinating part being that this was done in one shot……No retakes whatsoever!!! Before I get into the thick of action, here’s a little prologue to the Scene I’m going to describe so you know why this whole thing was ever so important.

I’ll snap back in time to somewhere around the first week of July ’09 when I received a very special mail from one of my close friends. Nirmal, who I gotta know through one of the Gully Cricket Gangs, was getting hitched. Now, I have reached a stage in life when I have seen scores of relatives, friends and colleagues getting married and settling down and I realized that most of them don’t ask you for anything out of the ordinary when they are sending out an invite……All they want is for you to be with them when they are tying the knot. I don’t know the exact reason; perhaps, it could be that they find it comforting and reassuring that you are there with them when they are taking such an important step forward in life or it could just be that they are seeking the blessings of all their well-wishers before embarking on this new phase of life. Whatever the reason may be, Nirmal’s case wasn’t any different and he expected the lot of the Cricket gang to be there with him for the wedding. The very fact that the invite mentioned the venue as Trichur, Kerala got me all excited and I immediately sent out an e-mail to those addressed on the mail asking who will be interested in coming along with me and what a good plan may be considering that the Wedding was on a Friday.;-)

I received only one positive response the same day!!! Mighty disappointed that I was, I tried to lure the others by telling them about what they may expect to find there in Kerala including and not restricted to Ele-Pants being decorated with traditional Onam adornments, Hot Mallu Chicks doing their Hair with the ubiquitous Home-Made Parachute Cock-A-Nut Hair Oil or even wonderful Sea-food being cooked in Cock-A-Nut oil. Hell, I was even willing to publish a Picture Story on The Making of delicious Banana Chips also fried in -you guessed it right- Cock-A-Nut Oil!!! By the way, as you would also have already guessed, there is no such thing as a Cock-A-Nut……I was merely preparing our guys to get used to the Mallu way of pronunciation. ;-) The Cock-A-Nuts apart, we had to come up with a plan and book our tickets accordingly as the wedding was planned during the Onam Season and getting Train Tickets was always going to be tough. I preferred a Train journey over and above anything else for the simple reason that it was going to be a neat eleven hours before we could come across a landscape that was peppered with Coconut Trees and for the active person that I am being seated in one place for that long was not only tough……..It was going to be impossible!

A couple of days and several mails later, I realized that only the two of us, Sushil (Remember the lone Positive response) and myself were going. Considering the fact that neither one of us knew Malayalam and that Nirmal was going to be paying total attention to his newly wedded wife, we decided that we would simply attend the wedding and get back home…………... No other sojourns or paying visits to nearby places. So, the plan was that we would be leaving for Trichur on September 3^rd (Thursday) evening, attend the wedding on September 4^th (Friday) and leave for Bangalore the same night so we could be back here on Saturday morning. I logged in to the IRCTC website and found that the onward tickets were quite easy to get as it was a Weekday whereas the Return Journey was already showing a Waiting List for every damn Train I tried. Bearing in mind that I was booking tickets a good 1½ months in advance, you can estimate the kinda popularity & demand on that route. When I thought I had run outta all possible options for a comfortable Return journey by Train, along came a good Samaritan in Shatty (He’s one of those who had chickened out from this Trip only coz he had shared his leave calendar with his Manager and was too scared to apply a SL for a day) who suggested that we try the Garib-Rath that arrived @ Trichur early Saturday morning at about 2am and promised to bring us back to Bangalore by 11:30am. I took a chance with that Train and found to my surprise that Tickets were available in plenty. Without further ado, I straight away booked two 3^rd AC seats as a contingency plan just in case Tatkal Bookings didn’t work out on any of the other Trains. So by the mid week of July, we were all set, a plan had been put into place and more importantly we had the tickets. ;-) Here’s the itinerary for your reference:-

Onward	BNG=> TCR	Return	TCR==>BNG
Train No	6321	Train No	2528
Train Name	Trivandrum Express	Train Name	Garib-Rath
Sched Departure	Sep 3rd 18:50	Sched Departure	Sep 5th 1:40
Sched Arrival	Sep 4th 4:50	Sched Arrival	Sep 5th 11:30

Fast forward now to the D-Day, the date of Travel, September 3^rd. Sushil had flown in from Hyderabad on the 2^nd itself and was raring to go. I was working that day and planned to leave about an hour early from work and come home to NLO so the two of us could leave together to the Railway Station. It was almost 4pm and here’s where the action gets real pacey. I will be including the significant times just so you get a feel of it as if it happened right before your eyes. It is about 4.15pm by my watch and I’m all set to wind up and leave when all of a sudden there is an e-mail I receive in my Inbox and an important task that I’m supposed to take care of. I’m working on it while the clock slowly chugs away to 4.30pm and around about this time, I’m approached by my colleague Sujatha who says that she needs to get to my side of town to visit her relatives. I tell her that I’m cool with that, offer to drop her off somewhere close to the place where she has to go to and set about finishing the pending task at hand. The clock strikes 5.00pm and I’m still at the office. I knew I had hit the threshold and had to leave that instant if I were to go anywhere close to the Train I was planning to board. Its 5.15pm by my watch and the new facility @ Domlur, EGL that I’m working out of is having 4 Blocks, close to 3000 employees, several tiers of basement parking, a sea of vehicles and multiple exit points; I’m just in my 1^st week here and I took about 10 mins to search my vehicle and find my way outta there. It is about 5.30pm by my watch and something told me at that moment that it was going to be one hell of a Race against Time. Nevertheless since it was a Thursday, I always knew at the front of the back of my mind that it was going to be easy and that I would make it well in time.

I guess I spoke too soon about making it in time coz what I was about to witness was one of the worst traffic snarls and that too that early in the evening. By the time Sujatha and I reached M.G Road, it was 6.00pm when ideally I should have been home by that time. She immediately cautioned me that the initial plan of going home and then getting back to the Railway Station would not work out and gave me one of the best ideas. She told me to park my bike at the old office on MG Road, call my friend and tell him to come straight to the Railway Station with my travel bag and the two of us leave for the City Railway Station from where she would break off to the Central Bus Stand to go to her place. The time by my watch was 6.05pm and soon the call was placed, the plan agreed upon and Sujatha and I boarded an auto for the Railway Station. There was still no reprieve from Traffic Snarls and by the time we were at the Railway Station my watch was showing 6.35pm. I make another call to Sushil and learn from him that he’s also about 5-10 mins away from the Station. All seems to be well but I still had to take care of my bag that I take to office everyday and handing it over to Sujatha seemed to be the only way. Now, I’m a very chivalrous guy and considering that my bag weighs a ton because of all the Shit I put in it, I offered to carry it all the way to the platform from where Sujatha could board her bus. So, we took the subway and were walking across to the City Bus Stand when all of a sudden we see three Chinkys( You know the Mongolian Race of people who hardly have their eyes open and who all look the same) running past in a hurry. I started off asking Sujatha why people can’t be early to the Railway Station and why does it always have to be last minute. Little did I know that I would be put in a similar situation in roughly 5 minutes from then. :-D So, I dropped Sujatha to the Platform, gave her my bag, bid an adieu and started off jogging toward the Railway Station. Its 6.40pm by my watch and I know I have a good 10 mins to get to the Train which is about 400 mts from where I started off jogging.

Here’s a thing……I had booked these tickets about a month and half in advance of which I made a mention earlier and they were neatly tucked away in my Travel Bag which happened to be with Sushil now. I know nothing about the Train…..No Train name…..No Train number……No Platform number…..No Final Destination even( I was getting off at Trichur remember). As I’m jogging away, I place a call to Sushil to find out about his status and to ask him to pick up something for us to eat. Now, imagine the scene in the Matrix when Neo pinches a cellphone off a bystander and starts running to seek directions from the operator so he can get to a Land-phone and come out of the Matrix world. Well, my situation was no different except that it was my own Cellphone and I was on the lookout for a big train to take me outta Bangalore!

6.42 by my watch and Sushil’s telling me over the phone that he has just made it to the station and is on his way to some stall to pick up something for us to eat. I ask him to stay on the call and this is when I inform him that I will be there asap to help him with the luggage. This is also around about the time I have just entered the Sub-way running in really fast and I suddenly realize that I’m in the same situation as that of the Chinkys I saw about 5 mins ago. In all that pace that I had picked up and the fact that I was in a sub-way Sushil’s voice started to break and all I could hear was a garbled mumbo-jumbo until the worst happened……I lost contact with him. Another 30 secs pass and I am outta the Sub-Way making my way to the Grand entrance of the Station when I make the call again. By this time, I guessed that Sushil would have made his way to the Train and so the 1^st thing I asked him as soon as he answered the call was the Train number and the Platform number it had halted at. He told me that it was Train number 6321 on Platform 5 and that he was inside the Train luggage et al. I asked him to stay on the call as I made it inside the grand entrance of the Railway Station when all of a sudden Sushil tells me that the Train has started off. There was no time to look at the watch, so I really can’t tell you the time, but, I can tell you that this was the single longest and fastest dash I had ever made in a long time. I had to literally push people and make my way through those darned Metal Detectors at the entrance which took 30 secs of my precious time. Once outta there, I saw the Sky-Bridge on the left and made a dash for it. Five…..Five giant leaps is all it took me to get to the top of that Bridge and start running toward Platform 5. There was no clear indication of the Platform numbers or perhaps I was so panicky that I missed them altogether and I started frenetically counting tracks and looking out for moving trains. Finally after running about 50mts there it was the electronic signboard that said 6321 [God bless those Signboards….Very clear and can be seen from quite a distance]. All this time Sushil was on call with me and at this point I once again confirm that the Train number is 6321 and just when I thought I was going to make it I hear a “Dude, I got off” from the other end of the line. He felt I was not going to make it and in sheer disappointment had gotten off. This sort of was another compelling factor for me to somehow make it lest I be pounded with several questions to which I would not have any answers whatsoever.Here’s another thing……. the exits from the Bridges lead out into only even numbered platforms and as I see the Train going past me below, I’m confused about the exit I must take to come closest to the running 6321. If I took the exit leading to Platform 4, I would come across two tracks side by side, the one next to Platform 4 empty and the other one that had my Train running on it while if I took the exit to Platform 6, I saw a row of old buildings separating Platform 6 and 5 and wondered where the nearest break in the buildings would be so I could get to my Platform…….Platform 5. I knew that taking the exit leading to Platform 4 would be utter foolishness and so without thinking further I ran down the stairs that lead me to Platform 6. In all this time, Sushil was just watching his train go past him and I don’t think he would have ever been in a situation such as this in life that would have taught him the meaning of the phrase “So near yet so far.”

Our booking was in Compartment S-9 which had long gone and Sushil’s telling me over the phone that there are many people willing to help him board the train…..One bogey passes and the next has people at the Door willing to help…..I hear Sushil say a No and the next one comes along and so on and so forth. In all this time, I’m only running and nowhere near my train. I can hear him over the phone requesting people to pull the Chain but no one’s risking it. After I ran down the stairs to Platform 6, I am still running and madly on the lookout for an opening so I can go to my Platform and get a chance at this speeding train but there wasn’t one for quite a distance when all of a sudden I came across a small Tunnel of sorts from where I could see my train whizzing past. As I’m running toward the tunnel, I’m just shouting “Board, Board…..I’m there, I can make it.” into the phone and as soon as I come outta that Tunnel, there I see Sushil throwing the baggage into one of the compartments and boarding it safely while I’m still a few paces away from the Train which by now had picked up considerable speed. I pressed the End Call button on the phone, put it away haphazardly in my trouser pocket and ran alongside the train till I could find an open door…..There was one and without hesitating one bit took a leap of faith and lo & behold I had made it.

Even as I was panting and gasping for breath, I asked the gentleman by the door the Compartment number I had boarded to which he said it was S-1……the last of the Sleeper Compartments. I donno what lay behind this, additional AC Compartments or General Compartments; regardless of whatever they were, there was no looking back and I headed straight for the Compartments in front. Two bogeys later I come across Sushil at the far end of the compartment S-3, a big smile on his face, glad that he had made it after having gotten off. We rejoiced right over there and to all those people who wondered why on earth we were celebrating, we told that while most of them would have come in 20 mins before the scheduled departure and found their seats, we came 5 mins after the Train had left and still managed to board it!!! We also decided then that this was truly a memorable experience and one that needed to be penned down and published on a blog-site. We had to make our long journey to S-9. Sushil had by that time become a popular figure. In every bogey that we went past people were shell shocked to see him there and all those who had offered to help him with the luggage were dumbfounded that he had made it. As we were making our way toward S-9, call it co-incidence or Luck by Chance that fate wanted to teach me how to value time but I saw the same set of 3 Chinkys that had run past me about 15 mins ago, when I was unperturbedly walking toward the Bus-Stand to drop off Sujatha. I ideally should have been running along with them to catch the TRIVANDRUM 6-3-2-1.

All’s well that ends well people and we sure did learn our lesson; coz for the Return Journey from Trichur, we were at the Railway Station a good hour in advance. ;-) The whole thing was a wonderful experience and here’s what we got to see in Trichur. I dint have my trusty Canon with me so took a few with my Mobile Camera just for the record. Please pardon the poor quality of the Photos.

The Rooms @ The Dass Continental

The view outside showing the Pig Meat Market & the Puttanpalli (New) Church.

Another view showing the outside of our Hotel.


The View showing the Parking place.

And before I forget, there are a few people I would like to thank without whom this trip would have never happened.

Nirmal & Shobha ==> Thanks for inviting us and treating us to some of the finest in Trichur. Your hospitality was indeed praiseworthy. Happy Married Life folks.

Sushil ==>Thanks for bringing along my Travel baggage and having put up with my tardy behavior & of course my broken Malayalam while in Trichur.

Shatty ==> Thanks a ton for suggesting the Garib-Rath. For the Poor-Souls that we are, it helped us avoid severe body pain on a fine Saturday morn!

Last but not the least…….

Sujatha==> Thanks for taking along with you my Office baggage and I’m really sorry I couldn’t drop you off somewhere closer to NLO as planned initially. If it weren’t for your idea of taking that auto straight to the Railway Station, it wouldn’t have been possible for me to come out with such a big Blogpost about it. :-D

And, finally…..Thanks to all my Readers for taking time off your busy schedules to go through this.

Of Peace n War

Man has evolved from being a primitive Neanderthal to the contemporary Homo Sapien over a long period of time. A period long enough for him to have realized his mistakes and redeem himself as the most sophisticated social animal to have ever graced the surface of the earth. During the very beginning, man wandered about aimlessly and often solitarily. His main interests were to hunt for his “Meal of the Day” and crash for the rest of the day. As years passed, he realized the need to hunt in groups, the need to socialize and the need to create a niche for himself. And, here we are in today’s world where Social Networking takes the cake in cyber-space. There are about a million Websites and a zillion Tools all striving to get you connected and socially networked. If you just had access to a PC or even a mobile that can get you on the internet, you can be rest assured that you will find your relatives, girlfriends, boyfriends, Ex’s, friends and foes even but never will you find yourself alone.

All through the ages, if you would have noticed, the reason to be together as one unit has been fuelled by the sole desire to survive, to persist, to live on and overcome the fear of being a mortal and dying one day; so much so that “United we stand and divided we fall” today seems to make a lot of sense. It took a long time for him to realize this but he seems to have learnt it after all and to an extent that he is now the most dangerous animal on Planet earth despite being physically much weaker than most creatures in the Animal Kingdom. In the Pre-medieval times, battles were fought between colonies to showcase supremacy and plunder everything that came in the way of victory. Moving on to Post-medieval times, wars were fought between kingdoms to showcase supremacy, seize natural resources, expand territories and enforce upon the defeated their ways of culture, tradition and their values. In the modern times, however, Wars have been fought with many countries rallying against perhaps just one or two of them who have veered off the right track. If you looked at the recently concluded World Wars, the Allies did not want to occupy Germany nor strip them of their tradition and values. They were observed to be treading a path that most felt was immoral….A path in which all people saw was the growth of Nazi power, concentration camps, execution of Jews, the rise of Dictatorship and a fall in democracy, freedom and independence. A war was inevitable.

In my honest opinion, War is a good thing. I don’t know what it is about the war that most hate but I, on the contrary love everything about it. The scores of games and movies that have been released based on wars have all been most captivating, to say the least. But, wait, you may ask what kind of experience I have that I am basing my verdict to talk this way about Wars??? It is a known fact that War is horrific, gory and is all about death, destruction and mayhem, but, there is always a purpose behind everything that ever happens and I find myself falling in love with the purpose nearly every single time. As John Lennon once said “You may say I’m a Dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” All my life I have dreamt of serving the Armed Forces and in that endeavor even came close to getting recommended for the Air Force performing extreme tasks in real quick times and surviving days of stiff competition. If it weren’t for my Physique and the small build, I would have been flying high and answering a resounding “YES” to the call of the Indian Armed Forces……. “Do you have it in you”??? Although this never happened, it never deterred my spirit and I have been doing what I could do best…….virtually living that dream incorporating their principles like discipline, selfless service, camaraderie, trust and going beyond the call of duty whenever a situation demanded. There is always a subtle difference between a civilian and a person from the Armed Forces. They are taught to be disciplined, focused, dedicated and made to work on meager supplies of the essential food, shelter and clothing. I absolutely, totally love those countries which make it compulsory for every youth to serve the nation by being in the Armed Forces even if it is only for a short while. Only then will people realize how invaluable the freedom they are experiencing today is. Only then will they have mutual respect and inculcate all the good values that every society yearns for. Only then will a sense of responsibility and sacrifice dawn on them. Only then will they follow rules and regulations and appreciate the need for them. Only then will they know what hardship is all about and manage their resources well. Only then will they appreciate that Life is a gift and is too precious to waste frivolously and irresponsibly.

The people of the new generation here in India have received freedom served on a platter. We never had to work hard or dedicate or focus ourselves for a common cause. Earlier, if people participated in rallies for be it “The Quit India Movement” or “The Salt Satyagraha” it was very well justified. But, today it appears that we participate in rallies for achieving quite naïve and silly endeavors like getting the names of movies changed[as in the case of Billu Barber] or a section of people asking for the Government to regard them as SC/STs[ as in the case of Gujjars]. What an irony this is??? In the past Dr.Ambedkar fought for getting equal rights for SC/STs so they would never be looked down upon but today the Gujjar clan want themselves to be recognized as SC/STs although they don’t qualify for such a category. Hell, these days there are people who can set fire to Public Transport vehicles just because of an accident that may have ensued on a congested road. The thing is ”Sarfaroshi ki tamanna abhi bhi hamaare dil main hai” and it just so happens that it is all giving vent to triumph in the most trivial of intentions.

An idle mind is a Devil’s workshop. If people don’t have anything to focus on, petty struggles will always ensue. For example, Maharashtra asking for Belgaum to be made part of their state and Tamil Nadu asking for Hogenakal Falls to be included as part of their territory. But, if there is a war at hand, everyone displays solidarity holding a candle or standing united hand in hand. It’s all about fighting for a common cause or focusing on a malady that is bothering the nation. It took many years, many governments, scores of Prime Ministers and Presidents to realize that smoking is a big social evil and come up with a simple rule as Smoking is prohibited in Public Spaces. We always tend to let the situation get out of hand before we take firm decisions in the best interest of all. Take Population for example, we are now officially the second most populous country in the world, behind China only by a small margin. For a country such as China that is nearly thrice the size of India in terms of the Surface Area, it is still OK for them to maintain and feed such a huge population. If we do not come up with a plan to control population, the alarming rate at which it is growing will guarantee that quality will suffer and at the same time supply of human resources will be higher than the demand.

It’s a shame really if we cannot protect our own people living in the border areas from some of the extremist neighboring countries in spite of the fact that Defense has been given the highest priority and allocated the maximum finances in nearly every budget out till date. I don’t see a point in doing so much for the defense of the country and still not feeling secure at the end of it all! Let’s get done with this once n for all so we can concentrate on other things that are of greater magnitude and have far reaching consequences. I agree that there would be a considerable loss of life, destruction to property and civilian life will mostly be mired in total chaos. But, hey, you can’t have the cake and eat it too. To gain something you gotta lose something. Cities destroyed can be rebuilt; Lives lost will be remembered for their exemplary bravery and martyrdom. The current state that we are in is best described as a body that’s suffering from slow poisoning just because it is controlled by a vacillating brain that has given in to certain temptations the world terms…………….. “Social Evils”.

Would you like a peace within which there is always a war? In simpler terms it’s like asking if you are going to like a heavy downpour that gets over quickly or a mild drizzle that never ceases to stop. The only difference being that you don’t have to wait for the Rainy Season to experience both and then come to a decision. You can make it happen…….You can choose right here, right now!!!

Incredible India!!!

India, the largest democracy in the world, a land made up of 28 states and 7 union territories, with nearly 1 billion inhabitants, India ranks second only to China among the world's most populous countries. It is not known as a Sub-Continent for nothing. Its Geography is so diverse that there is hardly any Continent in its entirety to challenge it. We have the Coldest places like the snow-capped Himalayas in the North, the driest regions like the Thar Desert in the North-West, the wettest places like the Cherrapunji receiving the highest rainfall in the North- East, Rainforests in the South and a coastline that extends over 7600 kilometers. With all this varied Topography, comes a great deal of cultural khichdi in the people of this country. There are about 22 different Languages that are officially recognized while more than a hundred that are spoken countrywide, about 6 Religions practiced and more than 90 festivals and fairs being celebrated all over the country. It has the famed history of being the World’s largest, oldest surviving civilization. Currently the world’s 12th largest economy and home to many of the world’s ever growing list of Billionaires.

Despite all this, I’m deeply saddened when I write this, and, it can be swallowed like a bitter pill that the country has gone straight to dogs!!! It appalls me when I see that so little has been achieved when much more could have been ever since India became a sovereign nation and today we get to hear about the completion of 50 glorious years of Indian Independence. In a country that has always been poverty-stricken, illiteracy ridden and facing scarcity of resources and infrastructure, I wonder whether opting to go the Democracy way was the right thing back then. Abraham Lincoln defined democracy as a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people."; but, frankly, What kind of progress can you expect out of a government that is being ruled by people whose middle names are Scams, scandals, profit, self-centered interests, mayhem and many more; very agreeably woven inside of a farcical façade of selfless service, diligence, kindness, dedicated efforts, altruism and more. There is many a reason for me to detest Democracy especially for a country like India.

Let me digress a little before I get to the details of why and how something other than democracy would have put the country in Top gear. I wouldn’t be wrong when I say that the youth of today is highly influenced by the Western Culture. A culture that is slowly but surely gaining popularity. The reason is simple……….It is too damn uncomplicated…….. It is too damn straightforward. At this stage, I’m left wondering again that if all this were true, why then did we chase the British back then, if just fifty years later, we would start to appreciate and admire their culture subduing our own. I agree that they adopted the Divide and Rule Policy which threatened the subtle harmony which we were so known to have, but, today do we stand any more unified? Many states now fight for Natural Resources, Individuality, Language superiority, Border Demarcation issues and many such other reasons. I agree that they had a policy of the Doctrine of Lapse, which stated that if the ruling Royal Family did not have a progeny; their entire assets would be automatically acceded to the British Government. I scoff at how insignificant this Policy would look today. The way the population curve is exponentially increasing, there never can arise a situation where people are ever going to run out of children. People make oodles and oodles of money, some to an extent that if their misappropriated assets were reclaimed, they could easily run the Government for months.

I believe that before having gone the Democracy way in India, we should have reached a certain milestone in social reform and economic progress. All through these following paragraphs, I shall provide some excerpts from the book titled “ Indira Gandhi, the emergency and Indian Democracy” by author P.N Dhar. The author was head of Indira Gandhi’s secretariat and one of her closest advisors through the 1970s.

In a country that performed Gheraos, bandhs, rail and rasta rokos at free will, bringing Democracy would have indeed brought in a lot of problems. As Dr. B.R Ambedkar candidly told the constituent assembly while introducing the draft constitution:- “Constitutional morality is not a natural instinct. It has to be cultivated. Democracy in India is only a top dressing on Indian soil, which is essentially undemocratic.” There were bound to be problems if this whole British Parliamentary System were incorporated in a single step in India. If you recall, the British system of governance had emerged in a country that had passed through a renaissance, a reformation, and an Industrial Revolution that had resulted in a large and educated middle class. The Indian decision to work a parliamentary democracy was always going to be a huge challenge.

Nehru described the entire enterprise rather sportingly as an ‘Adventure of Democracy’. His ambivalence in the matter of social discipline is obvious in his reply to a question put to him in Sweden: ‘Have you any trouble with the remains of the Satyagraha technique you adopted to gain independence?’
Nehru answered: “It is a very interesting but rather intricate question. First of all, a country which for a whole generation practiced a certain technique of opposition to the government, it is not easy to shift over to make people think differently. It may be their own government, but people still have the habit of thinking of opposing the government. Because for a whole generation they thought so .Secondly, they are apt to adopt that technique, not rightly I think, but some variation of it, just to press on some complaint or something, which is sometimes apt to be a nuisance.”

P.N Dhar writes Political culture in India has increasingly deviated from the norms of constitutional democracy over its evolution. Agitation, protest and the mobilization of public opinion on disputed issues have become more widespread than in the British Period. Protests and disagreements are now conducted as if the government is not elected but imposed. Part of the explanation for this phenomenon is that it’s a carry-over from pre-independence techniques of protest against British Rule. Ambedkar had foreseen some of the possibilities. After he had wound up the debate on the draft of the constitution, he had said: “If we wish to maintain Democracy not merely in form, but also in fact, what should we do? The first thing in my judgment we must do is to hold fast to constitutional methods of achieving our social and economic objectives…… It means that we must abandon the method of civil disobedience, non co-operation and satyagraha. When there was no way left for achieving economic and social objectives, there was a great deal of justification for unconstitutional methods. But where constitutional methods are open, there can be no justification for these unconstitutional methods. These methods are nothing but the grammar of anarchy and the sooner they are abandoned, the better for us.”

His wise words fell on deaf ears. Some thought that he was merely attacking his old adversary, Gandhi, and nobody took his warning seriously. The disobedience of law was given a political color and interpretation. It not only carried no penalties, on the contrary it had an almost Gandhian moral aura. Gunnar Myrdal, a social democrat himself, analyzed this problem in the early 60’s and was highly critical of the Indian state for its reluctance to enforce its own laws. He called it a ‘soft-state’, which he defined as one ‘where policies decided are not enforced, if they are decided at all’, and where ‘the authorities, even when framing the policies, are reluctant to place obligations on people’. He bemoaned the fact that this reluctance is not only excused, it is also idealized.

One event that comes to my mind at this stage is the State of Emergency declared in India between June, 1975 and March, 1977 by the then President Fakruddin Ali Ahmed, upon advice by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi under Article 352 of the Indian Constitution effectively bestowing on her the power to rule by decree, suspending elections and civil liberties. During the Emergency, many opposition leaders were jailed, freedom of press was suspended and powers of the judiciary were curtailed. Although people may look at this as a form of Dictatorship, many good things happened back then which will force you to think otherwise. Here are some excerpts from the same book I was talking about earlier:-

The first impact of the emergency was in the urban areas, on people mostly of the middle class. These were impressed by the immediate gains of the emergency: No strikes, no bandhs, industrial peace, quiet on the campuses, suppression of smugglers and hoarders, stable prices and a spurt in the economic activity. The Twenty-Point programme held out hope for the alleviation of poverty for the rural poor. It included implementation of land-ceiling legislation, a big increase in the allotment of house sites for the landless, a moratorium on rural debts to give relief to small farmers, village artisans and landless farmers, and the abolition of bonded labour. All these measures provided the emergency with some legitimate political and social purpose.

Indira Gandhi felt that the results were quite satisfactory. The implementation of the land ceiling legislation, for example, yielded 19761.7 million acres for distribution among the landless as against 62,000 acres previously. Similar results were achieved in the allocation of Residential Site; over 3 million were allotted in the first year of the emergency. The 20-point economic program increased agricultural production, manufacturing activity, exports and foreign reserves. The national economy achieved high levels of growth and investment, and as strikes were non-existent, productivity increased rapidly. Communal Hindu-Muslim riots, which had re-surfaced in the 1960s and 70s, virtually ceased, and the government seemed to be working with vigor.

If such were the profound effect of an Emergency, which was like a period of Dictatorship for the two odd years it was enforced, then I start to wonder, if that should have been the way to go initially, grow and develop to satisfy the pre-requisite conditions for a successful Democracy and then make a paradigm shift toward an even brighter India Shining. Will I be able to see a novel India, the one I wanted to see twenty years ago, at least twenty years from now???

Only time will tell……

Femmè Fatalè........

Boys need Girls.Guys need Gals.Men need Women. They bring out the best in us. They are our source of inspiration and motivation. They are the impetus that we achieve feats extraordinairè. They are the reason why we dress up to look killer. They are the reason we learn to play our first guitar. They are the reason we buy Mean machines and perform mind-boggling stunts. Any whichever way you look at it, there is no way we can do without them. Let’s admit it. They are the reason we are who we are on Planet Earth.


Forget Homo Sapiens for a moment. How often have we seen that the Males of almost all fauna are the most beautiful, charming, striking and the strongest? There is a reason for all of this. Males know either through instinct or learn from experience that they have to be the best to be able to attract a befitting mate. Being excellent in any one department doesn’t earn an animal much credit. The Male has to be “Definitely Male” in the profoundest sense of the word. He has to be the best of the best in every damn conceivable attribute to be able to get himself a partner that others only yearn to get. Let’s hypothesize subtracting away the entire feminine half from the total population. What do we have??? It is not just the Male population we are going to be left with, but, a faction of creatures that will invariably be bland, lifeless and bereft of any competition among themselves. For then, whom should they have to work hard to be the best? There simply isn’t a reason for them to struggle it out. There simply isn’t any drive at all.


Sometimes, I thank the person sitting upstairs that he gave only limited understanding capabilities to almost all creatures……… Perhaps, he has created them with only enough knowledge so their existence answers the question “What do you as a creature need to survive??? Take care of your basic needs….Food and Reproduction.” If on the contrary, he had created them in such a way that the intelligence levels of all creatures would have been on par with the Humans, then the kind of unreasonable problems that we face today with the Human kind would have extended to all creatures. One such issue that we face today with people is a Skewed Sex Ratio of Males to Females in the Country. Sex-Selective Abortions happen to be one of the several problems that a Girl-child faces and what more than for this to happen even before she is born.


Nowadays with the kind of Technological Advancement we have, it is very easy for expecting parents to know the sex of their to-be-new-born. All they have to do is to go to a Hospital or a Private Nursing Home which is equipped with a state-of-the-art Ultrasound scanning machine and a shameless, immoral doctor. That is all there is to it really. Technology as you all know is a Double-Edged sword. Let’s use it to benefit ourselves by trying to know about say, how the foetus is doing, whether it is receiving the proper nourishment, what posture needs to be adopted to a maximum extent so that the foetus doesn’t receive shocks and such. Hell, when our mothers gave birth to us, they dint know a thing or rather they didn't have a choice to know something. It was only after we came into this world that we knew of our strengths and weaknesses and molded ourselves accordingly to come out on tops. Let’s please not use this technology to know the sex of the child that would be. Let’s not kill the anxiety and patience built up over a period of 9 months in under a minute by yielding to the temptation of using a machine whose intended purpose was totally different.


A bigger challenge lies in fighting something that is deeply rooted in the tradition of this Nation……Son-Preference. Indeed, there can be none better than our people at far-sightedness. Even before the child is born, we are already thinking of his/her marriage, what kinda money will come/leave the family, whose name will stay, what his/her education will be like, what line should (S)he follow? Hello people??? :-O…….The answers will unfold over a period of time. Let us not fast forward through life in 10x speed. It is almost as though, we want to live and see the 20 years of the kid’s life in like 20 mins. It is not as though we are just another class of animals brought into this world from the Land of Narnia who can Talk n Jabber. We are Social-Animals whose scientific name reads Homo-Sapiens. It is in our names to be “homogenously sapient” in this regard at least. Let us accept Nature the way it reveals the mystery.


Modernity and Economic progress don’t seem to have done much to help the situation either. People still have superstitious beliefs that if the Son-child performs the last rites once they have passed away, they will obtain Moksha or Salvation.It is only by seeing beyond all this that we may see the end of this Social-Evil.Targeting the right audience in urban and rural areas alike where there is a skewed Sex-Ratio or cases of female infanticide reported would make for a good beginning. Bringing the guillotine down on those who determine and reveal the sex of the child, invariably the doctors themselves, would provide the much needed boost to curb such heinous acts of Sex- Selective Abortions. Remember people that the girl-child could be a responsible and mature elder sister or a caring and adorable younger sister to someone.She is on par with anybody else and is certain to excel in the journey called Life. Sex-Determination of the Foetus is a crime. We may not know what the future holds for us, but, it is this very uncertainty that makes life worth living.

Nature: The Ultimate Redeemer

Snap back in time to 10,000 B.C. If you have seen the movie by the same name, you don’t even have to strain your imagination. Did you observe how sparsely populated the world was back then. And, if you have read recent reports about the calamity that struck China "Death toll from China quake nears 20,000" you will realize how insignificant this would have been back then. If the Technical advancement were to have been the same as now back then, the Headlines would probably have read “Quake hits uninhabited portion of China. No loss to property or life.”
Too much of anything is bad. This is most applicable to Population. Have we ever realized that by keeping population to an abysmally low number, there is hardly anything to lose, but, there is much to be lost by going overboard? Any animal specie reproduces in large numbers, because it knows for a fact or has an instinct that by the time its offspring grows up to a stage when it can further reproduce, its population would have dwindled to such small numbers that it pretty much evens out and its sustenance will be kept constant. What do we fear that we are propagating in the billions? We give every offspring a chance to live. Whether it is perfectly normal children or children born with deformities of all kinds from having a heart with a hole to Siamese Twins to those with brain disorders, all get an opportunity to live and almost everyone lives till a ripe old age without ever breaking a sweat. At least for Humans, it is no more a wretched world out there. Everyone has a fair chance. Mankind will never go extinct, unless Judgment Day befalls us or some Comet/Meteor happily moving light years away from Earth suddenly decides to alter its course and strike us.

Population Explosion is a bane of the society. That’s why it is referred to as an “EXPLOSION” ………there is a sudden increase in lots of things, problems mainly. Some of the things I can think of would include scarcity of natural resources, food and shelter; increase in Industrialization leading to excessive Pollution manifesting itself as Global Warming, spoiling the sanctity of Air, Water and Soil, putting added pressure on the Earth, which, ultimately vents out its fury in the form of Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Hurricanes and Storms causing destruction to Life and Property indiscriminately. As you can see it all comes back to us. What goes around comes around.....

It appalls me to see the way we try to reform Smokers and Drunkards into complete teetotalers throwing warnings at them, showing them the consequences and even implementing taboos against these social evils being shown in movies and such. What are we trying to do here people??? :-O There are more things at stake than trying to transform a section of the population who wouldn’t abstain from smoking and drinking even in their after-lives. They would stop at nothing to satisfy their urges. You can bring in New year Resolutions, Gandhi Jayanthi’s, increase taxes 200% and much more, and it still would all be in vain. That’s a certainty. If we paid attention to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution which he talked about in his Treatise “The Origin of Species”, he talks about something called “Survival of the Fittest”. Although in Animals, the term ‘Fit’ would mean Physical strength and endurance, in case of us Humans, it could mean lots of things starting off with the archetypical meaning of being fit in body and mind to having lotsa Political influence to being born with a Silver-Spoon.If you compare with the past few centuries, average Life expectancy seems to have increased by a big margin while mortality rates have reduced to an all time low. People will generally live long and if there are some who would like to spend their money on their own downfall and in the process ‘enjoy’ their life which others seem to look upon as ‘suffering’, I see no harm in allowing them to continue on their journey. The Fit survive while the Unfit perish. It’s a very simple philosophy yet an undisputed reality of Life.


It is indeed high time that in India at least, something be done about Population. The way we are growing, we are sure to beat China in no time at all despite us having less than half their surface area in terms of inhabitable land. This seems to be the only aspect in which we are taking a keen interest to lead the world. :-P There are so many Orphanages and Adoption Homes where kids are crying out loud for a new life. If all you want is somebody to take care of you when you are old or if you want to feel responsible enough while in a relationship and that seems to be coming to you with a kid being around, go right ahead and pick’em up. Hone them to become Masters of their Destinies and Captains of their Souls. There is certainly nothing more gratifying than the sense of achievement you derive whilst doing this. You will know at the end of it all that the juice was worth the squeeze.

The Mahatma once said that the World has enough for everybody’s need but not for everybody’s greed. Beyond a certain population baseline it is only natural for Nature to look at even everyone’s basic need as Greed. The Demand is always Sky- Rocketing while Supply is hitting Rock-Bottom. The way we are growing, eating up the entire Animal and Plant Kingdom, encroaching their habitats in Sanctuaries and National Parks for either rehabilitation, farming or even Multi-Million $$$ Projects we fail to realize that we are slowly but surely moving towards being a very Lonely Planet. It won’t be long before the Third Rock from the Sun will be inhabited by only Human Kind while traces of the existence of Flora and Fauna on the Planet will be confined only to Museums and Encyclopedias.

Of all the creatures to ever grace the surface of Mother Earth, Man is the most meanest, deadly, brutal and obstinate of all who will stop at nothing to ensure that he survives……. he lives on. Man is fast growing to being Godlike. He is omnipresent, close to being omniscient and closest to be being omnipotent. It would be in the best interest of all if he would use this gift for the benefit of all life on Earth and realized that there is a fine line between equilibrium and imbalance. The slightest trace of imbalance will call forth somebody to restore balance and Mother Nature is only happy to do it for you. If you don’t know what balance is, I know what is....... whispers Mother Nature.

Sound Off!!!

A small article I wrote for the Hindu back in 2005 lashing out at some of the most common problems as Hindu rightly described the section as "SOUND OFF"!!!

Date:28/03/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/mp/2005/03/28/stories/2005032801600100.htm

Precious Drops
What stops us from doing a simple, sensible thing like placing a bottle under that leaking tap, asks Kiran A. Nayaknur

Kiran: `Can't we do something to see that the future generations enjoy at least a part of the benefits we're enjoying?'

I was struck by a hoarding in the city that says: "The air, water and soil are not gifts from our parents, but loans from our children."
I recall this line every time I read a headline in the newspapers about rise in oil prices, shortage of water, or rise in the city's temperature. Why are we frittering away our resources so carelessly? Can't we do something to see that the future generations can enjoy at least a part of the benefits we're enjoying?
Just consider these: why not place an empty water bottle under that leaky water filter of yours, which would, in the course of a day, collect enough water to satisfy the drinking water needs of a person for a whole day? Why invest crores of rupees to build a super flyover on Hosur Road to ease traffic congestion, while imposing a simple rule that each car should carry a minimum of four persons can drastically reduce traffic build-up over a period of time? Instead of spending crores on settling water disputes, why not build desalination plants in coastal areas?
I had plans of buying a bike. But the recent news of further hike in fuel prices, coupled with the knowledge that it is a diminishing resource, made me reconsider my decision. Could there come a day when you may need to reconsider your decision about buying a bottle of mineral water or worse still, catch a breath of fresh air only in oxygen parlours?