Spoilage while starvation

Thanks to a delhi resident, news is out that FCI godown have been the waterloo for food storage, spoiling a milliion tonnes of food grain. This startling fact has come out as a result of RTI and has been covered by most of the newspapers.

The polpulation of india is 1,129,866,154 (July 2007 est.). Leaving aside infants, we can assume that the eating population of india would be around 1 billion. Let us assume that 5% of this population needs food badly due to starvation (infact the number would be lesser). This means we have wasted  around 20 Kg grains per head of starving people (10 million tonnes grains/ 50 million population). Assuming a person would eat 300 gm (which is elixir for those starving as of now) per day. This means we have wasted total of around 66 days of grains for them. 2 Months are long enough for a person to die out of starvation and much longer for  a mother not be able to feed her child and as a result letting them die out of malnutrition.

 Now add upto this the amount spent to save the grains from being spoilt. This is around 242 Crores and another more than 2 crores spent in disposing the spoilt grains. Leaving aisde the area it occupied while getting rotten and what impact it would have on other set of grains and how much rodents would have taken away to feed their families.

India’s average annual per capita income is around Rs 30,000.  the wastage above means we are wasting the annual income of around 82, 000 (245 crore/30,000) people to keep around 5% of india deprive of their 2 months grain.  The people who are dying out of starvation have a much lower income than average per capita. Just imagine if 50 million indians could have been given work on a minimum prescribed government wage, the same money could have kept them working for quite some time and would have been productive for the economy.

In the inflationary economy as of today, every single rupee matters for the exchequers and when we come to know that all our hard earned money is being spent of keeping our people hungry, it certainly inflicts pain. Measures are being taken to control export so as to ensure availability of grain in country to counter inflation and at the same time the spoilage ensures that the measures taken remain half-baked ideas.

More so most of the suicide deaths are happening in the region represented by our agricultural minister. Woudl he wake up and do something? Would finance minister get out of his high of doling our debt relief as vote machine and focus on the real issues?

Filmy Villains - reflecting the changing face of society

Here we were discussing about the way movies reflect the society in general. 

Though i accept that movies do, to a great extent reflect our social values, they also have so much of masala in order to achieve saleability that the mirror seems to be tainted and the image gets distorted to certain extent. Specially hindi movies, which shows the lead actors (or heroes) to be so goody goody that it becomes unrealistic. We are taught that way. If you take up any of our epic, the lead roles’ acts are justified to an extent that it irritates. Whether be it the Ram forcing Seeta to take shelter in forest or Yudhisthir gambling his wife, along with brothers and kingdom, attempts are made to justify each of them. Similar approach is taken up in movies where every Hero’s approach is justified and corrected.

Though recently movies are being released where heroes are also been shown in grey colours but still, in a bigger picture,  the balance in his character is at large.

However what reflects the society’s problem or pain area are the character of the villain.

The character of villains have evolved a lot over a period of time.

Initially it used to be mythological villains like demons, which were replaced by villains who would play the destroyers of peace in a village with a whole and sole aim of disturbing heroes and attempting to grab his love interest.  The lady-catcher gave way to black marketeers and stockists in Manoj Kumar Movies, reflecting the food crisis in our country and justifying ‘Roti, Kapda aur Makaan’ slogan. The war sentiments in 71 got reflected in villians taking anti-national stand and trying to sell of national treasure, document or trying to occupy territory for anti-national activities.

Then came Ajit’s era, where Mona darling was second to Sona (gold), depicting the clutch of smugglers on our economy. Gold gave way to diamond for its sheer brilliance, size and portability. Whereas you needed a ship to smuggle gold in, diamond was being smuggled through heroes or heroines been forced to do that.

Diamond gave way to drugs as it started becoming carze for youths and issue for society in general.  Drugs peddlers became part of the bigger picture that the villain used to draw with his prowess. 

Pakistan became and remained a villian all along. Earlier though the name of the country was never spoken, lately the country name and its flag are being displayed without hesitation. War movies gave another reason to showthe neighbour country in bad shape and shade.

 As the world started bracing itself with the modern day disorder and to fight against the evil of terrorism, hindi movies followed with full commitment with its lead character vowing to fight against terrorism. Especially if the lead actor is someone like Sunny Deol, he can take on the terrorist of whole of the world single-handedly and his dhai kila ka haath is good enough to counter anyone anywhere.

Hope to see Robots as the next set of villians very soon.

Checking mail…a pleasurable experience

The hazard of being online all the time is that if the mail has not been checked for an hour, a feeling of missing something in life seeps in.

At one end am I and another end is my younger sister.  She is miles away from anything related to internet. The nearest she had been is to know and to see that her elders are hooked to the net.

However recently, on my last vacation, i pulled her legs and opened an email account for her. She was damn sure that she would not use it in her life time. But true to its word “Man proposes, God disposes”

She had to send me soem document and i asked her to take help of the internet.  Inertia was playing hard on her mind as she gave so many excuses to avoid logging in to the net.  But as i was not to give in and as it was imperative to me to get the doc immediately, I asked her to go to a cyber cafe and give me a call so that i could help her help me.

i received a call after some time signalling that she has reached and now it is my turn to guide her through the process.

Here is how it went:

I asked her to open internet explorer and she asked the cyber cafe attendant as to where and what is internet explorer and how to launch it.

She was happy to find out the field where URL has to be keyed in. Happier she was to open Gmail login page. But here the terror striked. she had forgotten her username and password. I have a habit that i generally forget the user names but do remember teh password so none of us knew the username. Woth some trial and error I could recollect her user name and asked her to log in using the username and password. In the process i had to tell her how to enter email id and password and as password wass being entered in encrypted format, it was an amazing thing for her. Finally she could log in.

As her name is included in my friends’ list, I coudl see that she is online now and I told her that then she had logged in.  This was another amazing thing for her to learn that I could find out whether she is logged in or not, even sitting so far away. When i pinged her, see was ecstatic seeing my message. She had seen us chatting so many time but first hand experience is quite a new thing for her.

Finally she could attach the file and send the mail and was all smile. Her smile was crossing the boundaries and was touching me through the phone.

Such a trivial thing for some could be a source of immense joy for others.

Empowered with the new found power, she left the place, promising me that she would be in touch regularly and would now keep on checking her mails.

Mobile Mania

Last evening, I went for a dinner with my friends (two of them). One of them (say ‘X’ for nameshake)has actually coerced us two to come over, though the role of host was overtaken by the other friend (say ‘Y’), not him. We were also asked to be at the venue slightly early so that we can wrap up early too and could go and watch Indo-pak match (at least watching indo-pak match was my perspective).

Somehow I made it to the venue bang on time inspite of driving for more than 15 KM and then started the wait. Hunger was playing at the top of my mind and i gobbled some chat and icecreams while waiting. While i was finishing the plate of chat, ‘Y’ called up and announced that he is near to the restuarant and its time now for me to join him there.  ‘X’ was still far away from the venue and would take another 30 minutes to come over.  This meant our drink order was to wait.

Thanking God, to grace us with the presence of Mr X after due time, happily we ordered for our respective drinks and started our dinner. But lo! the joy of company was short-lived. Mobile phone played menace and kept on playing throughout. ‘X’ was on phone for whole duration of our dinner and we were on our cue of curshing him. Having ingulfed the food and expressed our discontent with the way he was on phone, we got his dinner packed, handed over to him and left the place.

Though it was an incidence but it is not an exception. I have found many a people getting hooked to the phone and leaving their companions totally obscured and make them feel bad. Any get together or dinner has apurpose of meeting the old faces and having some quality time away from the hectic schedule. It is a time to let your hairs down and defocus yourself from the nitty gritties that life has to offer. But people make it all the more complex by attending to the phone ad nausum. Attending to some important call is still fine but even then to an extent that the person whom you have asked to be with yourself gets irritated.

Not only there, many of us have habit of using mobile phone during meetings and be on call almost throughout the meeting.

What the heck is benefit of letting mobile intrude into our lives so much that it spoils the purpose of the moment?

I read somewhere some times back: “In our times we never had phones but we always knew where our friends are, today we carry mobile phones and still be away from our friends” - how true.

Horse riding - session II - Getting the Rhythm

The scene of horse gallop, with the rider on top, going in full flow crossing the meadow attracts me a lot all the time.

So finally i decided to learn horse riding the moment a mail from HR landed telling us that certain corporate tie up has been put in place whereby we can learn horse riding at a cheaper rate. I was among the first ones to nominate self and thereby began my journey on the back of the horse.

I always had thought that all the labour has to be done by the poor horse and the rider has a gala of time. But the first encounter with riding changed all that. Something which looks so innocent and easy from afar is not a cakewalk is what i learnt on the very first day.

The first day was uneventful except for the excitement of learning new thing. I got onto a platform and rode the horse. the instructor gave me some instructions and tied up the saddle properly to make me comfortable. the half and hour ride was my introduction to the process and i was made to get up and sit down on the back of the animal while Rohit (that was the name of the horse) was taking a stroll in the field. during all these exercise, i could feel the pressure on my abdomen muscle growing and that made me realize that the exercise is done not only by the horse but the rider too.

All the excitement of first day turned into a bigger one for the second session. The instructor taught me how to mount the horse without a platform support. I had already learnt getting down trick in the first class and how it is important not to be near the hind legs of the horse and how to caress the neck of the horse before mounting and after getting down. On top of the horse, i started my second session and it became drab soon as the horse was going slow and i felt as if I am on an evening walk.

Finally i could persuade my instructor to make the horse run. In spite of his admonitions and rebukes, I could persuade him to follow my wish. so he brought a long belt to tie up the horse and to take the control thereby and a whip. no sooner than the whip landed on the back, the stallion was in full flow. Needless to say, I was caught unprepared and was taken for a ride by the horse both literally as well as figuratively.

I was getting jerks from the beast and was jumping on its back without any control or rhythm. i was clueless as to what to do. The beats was not giving me any time to synchronize my jumps with its gallop. i was getting up in the air and falling back on its back and in the process hurting myself. At the same time I could not afford to ask the instructor to stop. Hurting my body was nothing in comparison to hurting my ego.

The chief instructor gave me some clues and i could bring myself in sync with the gallops and then it was such a smooth ride as if it were a symphony of sorts. i started enjoying the session and the gallop. But it was to be short lived, The rhythm was broken somehow ( I have no clue how it was but murphy does exist) and again i had the roller coaster ride to face. and all of a sudden the horse stopped and I was to be handed over to Pavan dev (air) before crashing onto the ground. But thankfully I had held saddle fastedly and could intervene my jump off the horse’s back. A panic seeped in but i brushed it aside and started another run and got myself into sync.

One thing that it made me clear: how important it is to be in sync with the instrument you are using lest it harms you only.

Now I am ready for the third session and looking forward to the evening.

Nuclear Deal - a quagmire of political compulsion

Once again, as the countdowns for the govts in India as well as in US have started, thebuzz around N-deal has resurfaced.

The lines have been drawn and almost everyone is on one side of the line of another. Congress and some of its allies have been favoring the deal whereas the major faction of its allies ‘the left’ has been opposing the deal vehemently.  Though there have been very few reason in opposing the deal but as it signifies India getting nearer to US and since the deal is also being perceived by the world as US effort to contain China by promoting India, left is left with little option but to oppose the deal. Known for supporting our neighbour, even if it went against our national interest, this should have been expected by the left.

BJP on the other side is playing the role of opposition and been opposing the deal, though mildly and it does not require any brain to guess that if in the next general election, BJP comes to power, it would sign the deal.

So the biggest one caught in all this quagmire is an inefficient and handicapped govrnment. They cannot run without support from Left and cannot openly take support of main opposition party against the ally. This has only resulted in delaying of inking the deal.

However now the time is ripe. Elections are around the corner and even if left withdraws the suppport, it woudl be only 3-4 months earlier than scheduled announcement by the government of general election.

But would left withdraw the support is the question. Having a 60-member strength in parliament make them indispensible ally. At the same time it is hard to fathom that left would return with such strength after general election and even left parties are aware of this. So it helps them no good to pull the chair from below the butts of the government. Hwoever what holds good for congress to go ahead with the bill, no fear f losing much time before election, hold good for left too. At the most its 60 MPs would lose 3 months of royal treatment in parliament.

Congress can still pull it off for the next 3-4 months by redoing ‘Narsimharao’. BJP can walk out during voting for Nuclear deal, giving unfair advantage to the congress over its estranged ally. However congress would rather prefer to go to the public with a face of a martyr for a noble cause than delaying it for 3 months.

Whatever the political agenda the political parties are pursuing, one thing is clear that nuclear fuel is the need of the day for our country. India needs lots of energy to be generated to fuel its economy and that too at a lower rate. the only two ways out are more reliance on nuyclear power and on unconventional sources of energy. Unconventional sources give a strategic advantage that there is no dependency on any foreign nation and ecological advantage of being completely nono-polluting. However nuclear power is more prominent source as we have certain infrastructure, which is being utilized at less than 50%.

When our economy is eyeing a growth rate in double digit, with a history of shortage of power, we need to enhance our energy supply at a much faster pace. Considering this at least, communists should rise above their own interest of keeping china happy and BJP should get rid of being a opposition party alone and act in national interest.

The only thing i can wish for is post 25th Jun meeting with Left parties, congress would go ahead with the deal and let left decide where they wish to be. Left has had its run of ruining the economy, which could have been run properly by two able people (PM and the FM) but its the time now to call spade a spade. Let people of india remember this government for some noble reason too.

Metamorphosis in Bihar

It was more than a year since I last visited Bihar. That time the conditions of the roads were so bad that a distance of 55 KM (Purnea to Muraliganj) would take anywaherebetween 2.5 hours to 3 hours and a journey  of 90 KM (Purnea to Bhagalpur) would be considered as half a day project. Nt only this, at the end of the journey, one would be left with no single muscle in the body, which would not pain.

However the things have improved a lot since then. When I was asked to take a bus journey from Patna to Muraliganj, i must confess, I was not ready. However having no option left, I had to take the bus and even while getting into the bus, I was dreading the trip ahead. But by the time I disembarked from the bus, the fear of road travel in Bihar had been alleyed. I could not feel a single jerk throughout the journey and was felling much better than what I expected at the end of the travel.

My real encounter with the roads happend a couple of days later when I took a bike journey for about 150 KM. The whole trip took me around 6 hours, which included around 3 hours of stops to meet people on my way. So if I take only travel time into account, it would not have taken more than 3 hours.

The main reason is that the roads have been constructed in a very good way. For 150 KM, it was not more than 10 KMs that the road was bad and that too was under construction. NOt only that the roads were constructed well, it was marked well too for lanes - a thing unheard of in that part of the world for a long time. 

what surprised me the most is construction of a flyover in Purnea. Generally the traffic in Purea is quite less. However since the railway track has been promoted to broad gauge recently, the traffic near railway junction is expected to grow as it also coincides with a prominent agri market of the place. The construiction of the flyover goes on to suggest the far sightedness of the state government. In one word if I have to say, I woudl say, it was ‘impressive’.

I hope the development work in various other fields also keep on happening with the similar pace and may we see Bihar ranked among the developed states.

Puja at Purandevi temple

The Symphony of cuckoos

in the shades of green;

And the lake nearby

So still and serene;

 

The chants of matras

rhyming with the chime

making one oblivious

to the passage of time

 

May like this moment, ever

tranquility of mind prevail.

 

Train travel

After a long time, i decided to take a train journey. I am fed up of traveling in flight where the environment is so formal and you have to sit through the journey, most of the time not even knowing who is there on the next seat. So I decided this time to invest some time of mine in train travel and took up the train from Bangalore to Patna - a full 48 hours journey.

The thing that I like the most is that during long train journeys, you tend to make groups and chat endlessly. the topic would keep on moving from trivial daily life issues to politics and the condition of state.  This journey was no different. The moment I got into the train, strings stuck with a family and in no time we were talking as if we are long lost friends. The fact that both of us were having RAC seats added to the cohesive force.  soon the group increased to include everyone around.

The first encounter with TTE resulted in promise of getting a bearth for us to sleep instead of sitting arrangement that we were subjected to by the railways till then. That was followed by a confidence building exercise with the TTE and finally culminated in TTE allotting two seats to the family and one to me. The only unexpected thing (for the TTE) happened that we refused to pay him some amount for the ‘help’ he was offering us. Nonetheless we were happy to get the seat and with a word of thanks we moved to our seats.

Then we focussed on other issues like temperature moderation, allocation of blankets and pillows, availability of water etc. All things taken care of, we set in the mood for a long travel. We noticed that in our bogey only there was a group of UNICEF volunteers travelling, who had gone to bangalore for soem conference. Having a group of 28 people in the bogey also meant lot of noise and lot of entertainment. Apart from the small skirmishes, the group presented itself in a very good manner with evening singing sessions and prayers. As if everyone in the bogey was spellbound, there was no activity in other sections of the bogey during the singing session. It was revealed later that one of the group member was a professional singer and has soem audio/video releases in his name. That just added to the charm as more and more requests came pouring in and most of requests were honoured by the humble chap.

haviong said this, it does not mean that the journey was pleasant throughout. The longevity of the journey resulted in restlessness and boredome, which was augmented by the insipid food provided by the railways. It was food to be enjoyed iff you have no other option left, which stood true for us anyway. So we did enjoy the same somehow but the next day, we had to say not to that food and bet on the possibility of getting some edible delicacies at any railway station, which finally was not to be.

The worst was yet to come, which came in the form of engine giving up on its responsibility of pulling the coaches ahead. The breakdown happened in the mid of the jungle and the heat prevented us from getting down and enjoying the local fauna too. This also resulted in a delay of more than an hour, on top of couple of hours of delay that was incurred on some resaon or other.

Finally we reached the destination four hours late and took a sigh of relief.

Another train journey? yes but after soem time not right now. I would be happy to save time to spend with family and friends than encountering adventures of failed engines, insipid food and long and tiring journeys. But the charm of meeting and interacting with new people and spanding a time to remember would certaiinly pull me back to the train, that I am sure of.

Registering complaint is not easy

Yesterday I had another encounter with the traffic police.

While driving on the bannerghatta road near sagar apollo hospital, a truck stuck my left side view mirror and took it off.  On the over congested road, it was difficult for me to stop the vehicle and fight with the truck driver but somehow I managed to do so, resulting in a traffic jam behind us. The truck driver, as usual, was not ready to accept his mistake and was adamant to an extent that I had to take him to the police. The traffic constable at the junction took us to his officer. This officer, instead of trying to talk and close the issue, asked me to check whether truck driver would compromise or else asked me to go to the police station. In between kanadda language too had its impact and i was in dark as to what was discussed between the triuck driver and the police officer,. But at the end, he directed us to go to the police station.

By the time I reached police station, truck driver, taking advantage of the crowd had fled away with his truck and then I realised what had transpired between the two.

When I reached the station, instead of investigating what had happened, the police officer there started giving me lecture on why I do not know kanadda even though I earn my bread in Bangalore. This, for him, wasa bigger crime than the accodent. However, somehow I convinced them to see my vehicle and help me out.

The sub-inspector inspected teh vehicle and took me to his work place and offered me a seat. Apart from this, he also offered me a sheet of paper and a pen to write complain. Before I could have picked up the pen, he asked me what I wish to write. My answer ‘ I told you what happened, let me know if there are any terminology involved”, helped him to start on another round of lecture. He went high on bringing me face to face with the reality.

“We shall take the complaint and then we shall draw sketch and then investigate the vehicle before proceeding” he said, ” and you will have to leave yorur vehicle here. you can take it only after we have completed our investigation.”

I: “But I have to leave for my native tomorrow”.

He: “No problem, you can report complaint after you are back”

I: “Thanks. And what after that?”

He: “After that we shall send the report to RTO. If the truck owner is identified, we shall ask him to come to court and then the court case will go on. If court finds him guilty, he would be charged”

I: ” and what about my repair?”

He: ‘that you shall get it done by the insurance company”

I: “but it shoudl eb he/his insurance company which should pay for the damage.”

He: “That depends on court order.”

I: “So how much time it would take”

Now as if taking me towards nirvana, he just smiled at me and I got my answer. Then he again started on another leg of lecture detailing me how futile it is to register the case and chase it and how people do not register complaint even if it is a bigger damage and how my damage is nothing in comparison to what people ignore.  So I should understand what I must do.

At the end, he did not forget to mention ” I am not stopping you from registering complaint, you can come over anytime to me and register it.”