india – Page 2 – Oook! Eeek!

Let there be light?

The August 30th, Edition of the Hindustan Times, Mumbai had a column titled “Higher Knowledge, Clearer Concepts” by Asish Arora. This was one of their regular columns called Inner Voice which I assume has to do with some airy, “spiritual” topics and so I happily skip over it everyday.

For some reason I did read it that day and was confronted with this opening passage:

When we were in the junior classes, we were taught that light travels in a straight line. In the higher classes, we learnt that a beam of light can disburse in seven rays. After that we learnt that there are two more rays besides the seven which are invisible. Later, we learnt that light does not travel straight, it is a wave. Again we learnt that it is not even a wave, it is a particle.

The column goes on to talk about how one progresses similarly in “devotional life” (whatever that is.)

I wanted to laugh at first. I don’t care what Mr. Arora opines on “devotional life” or spirituality and “paths to self-realisation.” They’re all pretty much a load of crock to me anyway, but his idea of light is wrong in so many ways! But I suddenly realised how this was not funny at all. If an analogy is all he wants to draw, there are plenty of them available, but making things up out of ignorance or malice is a no-no.

His blathering ideas on the nature of light annoy me more because if any of his readers are not aware of the reality, they would tend to assume that Mr. Arora being so well-versed in “self-realisation” knows what he’s talking about and so end up believing his account of light too!

All of this from a newspaper whose advertising tagline is “Let There Be Light!”

*sigh*

Water (b)logged!

So there I was, happily plonking away at a keyboard at work, while people around me ran helter skelter and started leaving for home. Yeah, the rain outside seemed a tad on the heavier side, but I didn’t think anyone needed to panic. It was just rain after all. Then came the announcement over the PA system that all further classes were cancelled for the day and students were advised to go home. Hmmm. That seemed serious then.

But so what, I’ve survived heavy rain before. Not a big deal. What can Bombay throw at me? Ha! Most people seemed to just melt away. I was left alone with a couple of the students doing a small experiment. They lived close by and so they didn’t worry about getting home. We finished up our work and I sent them home. I was the only one left in the lab and the rain was pouring down. It wasn’t just raining cats and dogs, but lions and tigers too.

Around 4:30pm or so I decided it was time to venture to the local suburban railway station. The rain seemed to have abated a bit, but water flowed all over the roads and umbrella in hand, I sploshed my way through since there seemed to be no sign of the buses.

In about 20 minutes I got to Nana Chowk which had turned into a little lake with cars marooned in it and people resolutely making their way to the station. I waded through the waist deep water, taking care to avoid the open manholes which were marked with little red metal posts.

The station was packed with people. Announcements were being made that trains were cancelled until further notice due to flooding of the tracks. The lighting at the station, the rain and the cold made for an eerie feeling. Couple that with vendors yelling that they had fresh, hot batata vadas and it was the most surreal I’ve felt in a while.

People were slowly making their way along the tracks from the Churchgate terminus heading north even as the water levels on the tracks built up. I watched for a while, waiting with the milling crowds on the platform wondering what to do next.

Eventually, I decided what the heck, so many people can’t be wrong, I might as well walk with them too!

I trudged slowly mixing with the crowds that seemed to only get larger, until we got to the next station, Bombay Central. There the water levels were too high on the tracks and people were scrambling to climb over a wall and get off the tracks. By now I’d given up trying to protect myself with an umbrella and had put it away. I joined the near-stampeding crowd and managed to get over the wall with not too much trouble. The brand new jeans I had worn that day escaped without any damage. Yay!

Once I got out onto the road, I decided it was time to try and call some friends. But apparently the cell phone networks were busted too. I could barely get through to any numbers. With some luck, I managed to get through to a friend who worked at Prabhadevi and had a bike. He told me to make it to his office and we could bike it to his home from there.

I still didn’t know or realise how serious things were. I thought I could easily get a taxi to Prabhadevi. But once I began asking them, I noticed the long lines of vehicles stuck on the road. Nothing seemed to be moving. Some of the cabbies had rolled up their windows and were taking naps on their front seats!

Some more walking I guess. I walked, waded and semi-swimmed through Tardeo, upto Haji Ali. Traffic was still clogged up although along Haji Ali it seemed to be moving a bit at least. This was a horrible part of the walking, the wind blowing in from the sea carried with it raindrops and that stung. I was surprised that they didn’t raise any welts!

Worli Naka was flooded in parts and people formed gangs that were directing the others safely past holes, ditches, fast flowing water and open manholes. Pretty neat, that they organised themselves so quickly.

I got to Prabhadevi and my friend’s workplace around 7:30pm. Three whole hours after I’d left home. What followed was a mini-adventure too. The security refused to let me into the office saying that it was after hours. Even after my friend came down, they said I couldn’t be allowed in since I could just stay overnight at the office and that’s a no-no. It boggled the mind. A little convincing and they allowed me go upstairs. I dried off as best as I could, uploaded the pictures I had taken to Flickr and we decided it was time we attempted to get home.

We left (to the relief of the security guys) and headed towards Bandra. Traffic jams, flooded roads and intermittent rains that soaked us, or me at least since my friend had rainwear, followed us all the way. At Mahim, the water flowing into the bike’s fuel tank and engine was just too much for it and it gave up on us. As tired and worn out as we were, we were forced to wheel it along to a service station in Bandra (an ordeal in itself since it involved lifting the bike over a road divider, sloshing through more water, etc) A little fuel in the bike and she roared back to life!

The next problem we faced was that neither of us had a change of clothes and we were hungry! It was now close to 10pm. A quick bite at a small restaurant and another miraculous call to another friend that lived close by who I could borrow clothes from rounded that part of the evening off.

We headed to the other friends home, and I decided I might as well stay there for the night. I managed to dry off and change into fresh clothes. A soggy unread newspaper was removed from my backpack, my camera was still intact if a little wet and the bag itself was soaked through.

I tried to sleep after reading a couple of chapters of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (not interesting enough to keep me awake!) but like what I’d been through was not enough, I picked up a fever overnight and could barely sleep longer than 20-30 minutes at a time.

Thus ended my 26th of July, 2005…

Home is where the hearth is?

On one of the four bus journeys I make during a regular work day, I suddenly got to thinking of what if feels like to be “at home.” To me, Bangalore has always been home. I was born there, I grew up there and only left there for a long period of time just about five years ago. Yet, I don’t recognise that city much anymore. And I feel vaguely uncomfortable in my parents’ new home (They just moved in November.)

I lived in a hostel (a dorm for my American readers!) for two years after I left Bangalore. I never felt much at home there either. My first few months in that city I hated because I resented being put into the programme I was in and I was generally annoyed with classmates and other people. In short, I was being a brat. I grew to like the people and made some of my best friends there, but I still didn’t feel at home. It was always just this place I was at to study.

I moved to the US then to join grad school there and I thought I would never feel at home there since everything would be quite different. I was wrong and I was right. Some things were not so different, I had to fend for myself, cook my own food, etc but I was surrounded by other Indians and had very few American friends to start off with. (Not too many at the end either but then my excuse is that I wasn’t in the US long enough!) You’d assume I’d feel at home since there were all these Indians around me. But no, most were so different from me in so many ways, in thoughts, in ideas of what was “cool,” in backgrounds back in India, and, not the least, in the subject they were in grad school for. All engineers! And me a biologist! My first few months were spent in some sort of denial, I spent hours online chatting with my friends back in India and spent hundreds of dollars on long distance phone calls to India!

It took a while, but I finally clicked into a routine in America. I had more (and new) friends and I was out doing things, school began to occupy my time and teaching turned out to be a lot of fun! (Not the grading though!) I began to enjoy the “creature comforts” that were so easily available in the US. Netflix, highspeed internet a given where ever I was, fairly comfortable living for cheap, good food and drink was affordable on my student stipend, and generally scratching the consumer itch that we all have. I was just thinking I could feel at home there. I was planning to get a car and maybe move out on my own or with a single roommate.

But then, I moved again. Back to India. I decided I wouldn’t be too heartbroken about leaving the US, and that I should be back into the groove when I was in India. Once again, I was wrong and right. It took me a while to confirm the job I was offered here and that job was in Bombay and not Bangalore. So it meant moving to a city I was not very familiar with yet again. It meant having to strike it out on my own in a city in India which it is supposed to be the toughest to do. I’m doing pretty well I guess. I still don’t have a place to stay and have to live with my god-parents for now, but I’m confident I’ll be finding a place soon and living the “cool single life!” *grin*

I do miss some of those things from the US and of course I do miss my friends, and I have a hell of a lot of gripes about this country, but on the whole I don’t mind being in India at all. It’s home.

Going home…

I leave for India on a flight this afternoon out of Chicago.

After months of agonising (and not posting anything here either) I finally made the decision to leave grad school and go home to India. This was something I considered as far back as last summer, but a bunch of meetings over three days with the Director of Grad Studies at my dept. convinced me otherwise and he also told me to explore options with other depts. I did and found a dept. and a lab willing to take me in and that I was interested in.

A year of mostly no work but lots of interesting new things followed. Which also included me teaching in a classroom regularly and having a great deal of fun doing it too! But alas it was not to be. For sundry reasons I find myself deciding I’m better off out of grad school for a bit and looking for a job. I can’t stay in America unless I am in school, so I have to go home.

The 20th of this month was the last day I spent in East Lansing. I spent the day finishing up sundry chores and doing a little shopping. In the evening I met up with some friends at the Peanut Barrel. It was a happy-sad occassion. In fact I feel a bit sad writing about it now.

I got home later that night and had a ton of laundry to do. And of course pack my myriad books and comics for shipping the next day! I ended up not doing the packing and catching a few hours of sleep.

The 21st morning was spent in a frenzy of packing and sealing and clearing out my closets. My friend arrived to pick me up later and helped quite a bit. We spent ages at the post office trying to ship the books back to India and I think it was past 1pm when it was all done.

We drove to Chicago right after that. My friends in Chicago were annoyed since I promised them I would be in town by afternoon and they had great plans for the afternoon and evening. Taking me to the beach, out to a club, etc.

I have spent the past week, mostly just faffing around here, meeting people, taking walks in the evenings (Oak Park is a beautiful neighbourhood.) I also found a book sale and quickly snaffled up a copy of Steven Pinker’s “The Blank Slate” for just about $4.

Yesterday, I walked over to a local cinema and watched a sub-titled version of “Hero.” This is absolutely the best Chinese martial arts film I have ever seen.

Earlier this morning, I went to the post office and mailed off a box of my Groo comics and also my phone to A in Maryland… sigh, I’m going to miss that phone too! 🙁

The World’s Largest Democracy

That’s India, that is. My country!!

National elections just completed on May 10th and the results were counted and tabulated on May 13th and declared later that afternoon. What’s that you say? So quickly? Of course! Because the world’s largest democracy was also the first country in the world to have a fully electronic election!! No confusing paper ballots, no hanging chad, nothing. Walk up to your local electoral booth and push a button corresponding to the candidate you want to vote for. Et voila, its all done. (Yes, there are disadvantages, but this is not the crux of my post anyway.)

And, in a suprise to many, incumbent government and world at large, the coalition that had governed India for the last 5 years was voted out! The NDA led by the BJP lost quite a few seats in Parliament despite gains in some states (Karnataka for example.) At the same time, the much reviled (in recent times) Congress party was resurgent, winning many more seats than were predicted.

In all likelihood, the new government will be formed by the Congress party and it’s allies. And the new Prime Minister of India will be the Italian-born widow of a former PM. There are many things about Mrs. Sonia Gandhi that would move her down in the list of potential Prime Ministerial candidates. But for some odd reason, the so called urban educated elite of India seem to be obsessed with her being “non-Indian.” Conspiracy theories of her being nothing more than a spy for Western powers have long been bandied. And more disgustingly, things such as “We don’t want a ‘gora’ (fair skinned westerner) to rule over us” are being said. Strange then that while the educated, literate and well read population of India has an irrational hatred for her, the rural, poor and uneducated have voted her resoundingly into power.

There are those that would say that the anti-incumbency factor plays a role in the BJP losing power. True. I will not disagree. There are those that say that people voted in the Congress and not Mrs. Gandhi. I laugh. These same people will say you should vote for the BJP because it has Mr. A.B. Vajpayee as it’s leader. Yet they think the Congress will not and should not be given the same consideration. Since before the election, it has been clear that Mrs. Gandhi has been the candidate for the post of PM as far as the Congress was concerned. Was there any doubt about it?? Can anyone honestly say they voted for the Congress oblivious of the fact that they would install Mrs. Gandhi once in power?

Don’t mistake me, I am not supportive of either the Congress party or Mrs. Gandhi. I detest the idea of her being my country’s PM. But, it’s not because she’s not Indian-born. She is politically naive, she cannot hold her own in even the simplest of interviews (she comes to every press conference with prepared statements) and she is surrounded by a coeterie of less-than-desirable elements and of suspect motives. The plain fact is that she is the leader of the Congress only because she bears that magical name. Because she was married into that almost holy clan. She had a mother-in-law and a husband who were former PMs. Not to mention the husband’s maternal grandfather who was the first and longest serving PM of India. Who says India doesn’t have a monarchy? 😉 And yet, at the same time, one can understand the reasons for the party to insist on having one from the Nehru-Gandhi clan to lead. The millions of rural and urban illiterate can’t really be expected to be up to date with the latest political trends. But they still need to put their trust in someone and vote that someone into power. And there’s where the magic of the Gandhi name comes in.

Neither the Congress nor the BJP have a clear majority in Parliament and that has led to speculation that a government will be formed with tie ups to other parties such as the CPI(M) or other regional parties like the RJD or BSP. This has also led to people assuming that the government will be unstable, or will lean towards pro-labour, leftist policies since communist parties will be part of its mix. Consequently, the markets have had their highest ever fall in recent times and many foreign investors seem to be pulling out of India in anticipation of the coming “instability.”

There’s probably a lot more to say… and I’m still not sure why I wrote all of this here, but I needed an outlet for my thoughts. I promise, no more politics for a while!! 😉

Mera Bharat Mahan! (My India is Great!)

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Someone on flickr uploaded this picture:

It’s a mosaic image of all the soldiers that have died in Iraq (some faces are repeated since the mosaic dimensions are larger than the number of those killed.)

I followed the link through to the original blog post it came from.

Reading the comments on that post made me wonder about the extremes, right and left. Some of the points the right made seemed to make sense. But there were also a generous helping of the maddening kind that refused to listen to your point or that just plain annoyed you with their stubborn rhetoric and bluster.

It saddens me to see otherwise intelligent people being so polarised over such issues. America is not alone, over the last few years, intolerance and the conservative right have grown in India. For all you know, this year a fundamentalist Hindu party will win a majority in the Indian Parliament (Yes it’s election year in India too). This party, the BJP, has ruled India for the last 5 years or thereabouts but have been kept moderate in their actions by the fact that they did not have a clear majority and so had to appease minor and more liberal parties (who could help the opposition party vote them out with a no confidence motion.)

I may be paranoid, but I fear the day that the BJP is allowed to implement it’s religious right policies as governance in India. I have seen it first hand in the state of Gujarat (which is ruled by the BJP) when I lived there for two years. For months, communal riots were the norm. I have seen cars being torched, property destroyed, and yes, people killed. The horror stories that I encountered in the media from those months still make me shake with fear and anger.

One single mad act by a group of Muslims led to months of carnage by Hindus egged on indirectly by the inaction of the Govt. or in some cases by more direct ‘help.’ Even today, a complete investigation into the actual event that sparked things off and the subsequent rioting, looting and killing has not produced anything of consequence.

But I digress from the point I wanted to make with this post. Why do people follow ideaologies blindly? Many of those killing today, whether they’re Al Qaeda, VHP, Hamas, or any of a number of groups do so in the name of religion. And yet, every one of those religions usually has a respect for human life as one of its tenets. (Of course, fundamentalist Hindu websites and rightwing Christian websites will point out verses from the Q’uran that encourage/condone violence or repressive behaviour, but I could pull out equivalent verses from the Bible and any of a number of Hindu religious texts.) So what makes (or made) the IRA go out and bomb Protestants? What makes the various Imams and Maulanas in mosques in Iran, Iraq and in India spew venom against any non-Muslim? Why do the various spokespeople for the RSS, VHP, Bajrang Dal thunder about the glory of a purely Hindu India? Why do Americans rally against the removal of “under God” from their Pledge of Allegiance or against evolution being taught in a science class?

Are we all so insecure? Do we have to retreat insularily into our own ‘safe’ cultures when the least threat raises its head? Why is xenophobia or a fear of that which is different so common in the world today?

I don’t have any of those answers. They are difficult questions. But maybe we need to think about the answers?

I’ve rambled again, I tend to write as I think and I guess it might be hard for people to follow this train of thought, but I assume some have, so I’d appreciate comments on this post please!