Right People at Wrong Places?

It was quarter to midnight, had our dinner in Pizza Hut, Hiranandani Gardens, Powai.

I felt greedy when Ketan floated the idea about trying some new flavors at Naturals Ice Cream Parlor. And so, both of us decided to go for it, even though we had quite a lot of work in the lab. The parlour was just a 10 minutes walk. We had just crossed the Galeria building, when suddenly, a lady’s voice called Ketan’s name from somewhere behind: Ketu… hai…Ketu…. When we turned our heads towards the direction of the sound, we could see a group of young guys and gals discussing with each other, and one of them, a short, lanky, girl with a big nose pin, dressed in a pair of shorts and Tees came out… Shy as he is by nature, Ketan could not understand how to react…. Moreover, my presence made him slightly uncomfortable. Before he could say anything, she had already started talking and had extended her hand for a warm handshake. I could guess, that Ketan wanted to avoid, and make that meeting a quick affair, but could not. Instead, gave his mobile number, and promised her a treat some other day It took some 15 minutes for him to convince her that he was busy today and finally to say “good night” to her. We had to rush, as it was past midnight. Unfortunately, could not get Ice cream as the shop was closed by that time.

By the time, I could observe that and Ketan was still in that mid-night (shock) meeting. I casually inquired…

What happens boss? Whats the matter..

“Nothing, it is just paining”

“What? What is paining?”

“My palm is paining…Mala scratched my palm with her long nails… could not say any thing to her..”

“Oh! thats interesting“, I just made this comment with a smile…

I could see that Ketan was feeling bit restless, but could not figure out whether his restlessness was because of his meeting this girl at a wrong time and wrong place? or because of the scratching and the pain It did not take time to figure out … “it was his meeting her at a wrong place, at a wrong time and in my presence” which was the cause of his restlessness. Afterwards, he made several stories, and has been clarifying since … that “she is just a school mate of mine, had never spoken to her before, just a friend… blah blah…”; trying to convince me…

This is not only the story of Ketan… In my last 7 years of campus life, I have witnessed at least some hundred different incidents. Interestingly, most of them are at night, between 12.30 am to 4.30 am. I could remember meeting Boni with his “friend” at about 4.20 am on a rainy night (morning?) while going to the station to get the early morning local train to Khopoli. Both of them were standing, under a tree in the main road, completely drenched in the rain… I was in a hurry, just said “Hi” and went on my way. Poor Boni called me at least some 4 times on that day… with different reasons… just to know, what was my reaction…!!

Another such incident happened, while I was returning to my room from lab at about 2.30 am, I saw Nutan going towards lake side at that time of the night with her new friend. I was in half sleep, was about to rummage my cycle into them. I thought it was my mistake and was about to say sorry, but they just vanished in no time. Next day, Nutan called a friend of mine and invited her for a dinner treat at Laxmi. Though my friend could not understand the reason of her sudden invitation, she could smell some thing fussy during the dinner. Nutan inquired many things about me from my friend, and finally asked, “did aamjunta say anything to you?” It was just a bouncer for my friend. Realizing that my friend does not know any thing about the last night’s incident, Nutan changed the topic in no time.

On a different note, I could remember when Suryapratap narrated the story of Nidhi and Mohan. Both of them were in their initial days of love, used to go for dinners, movies, malls; but when some of our friends saw them or spotted them, they used to behave as if they are just strangers…

Once during my graduation days, I was on a vacation with my family to Koraput (Odisha). While getting down from the bus at a hill station near Koraput, I saw Radha and Sid waiting there for a Bus. Before I could go closer and say a “hi” to them, they just vanished from the place, reason… they had bunked classes and had come to this place without any one’s knowledge. Embarassing for me because they did not acknowledge, and my parents were asking…“is there any thing wrong between you and Sid?” Why did he leave without saying a Hi to you? Embarassing for Sid as well… for obvious reasons.. I had no other way out but to convince my parents, that he was not Sid, but some one else….

That happens People behave interestingly when they meet some one at a wrong time and wrong place. Moreover, our cultural and societal restraints make us slightly conscious when we are in the initial days of “dating” — though I still do not understand the full-implications of the term.

Being discreet about relationships is common — me, you, the politicians, celebrities, and the aamjunta. The answering patterns are common… “we are just friends”, “it was a courtesy visit”, “we are family friends”, etc., etc. Celebrities use these tactics very coolly for the camera and paparazzi and so does the aamjunta. But, paparazzi exists in all societies and these statements are sometimes forgivable because after all there is something called : “privacy” !

Aamjunta, have you experienced any thing of this kind?

Disclaimer: All names used in this post are fictionalized. However, the incidents described are inspired from real-life stories.

“Married and my Husband has no other wife living”: Bigamy in India!

While browsing through the Placement Blog, I came across Coal India Limited’s Management Trainee Joining Form. It is a 26-page document with so many blanks to fill in declarations, personal details and professional details, etc. But, what surprised me is the declaration that the new employee has to sign at the time of joining:

• That I am married and have only one wife living.
• That I am married and my husband has no other wife living.

CIL MT Joining Declaration

I was wondering, how come the wife will declare that her husband has no more wives? Does that imply, that a female trainee can have more than one living husband? Moreover, does she know every thing about her husband’s life and personal relationships? Why does the employer need to ask such kind of questions?, which has more to do with the personal life than the professional one. How does disclosure of marriage help in seeking better employees?

If this is the law of the land, that your husband should have only one living wife, then how come Chief Minister(s), Central and State Minister(s) have multiple living wives? Not only that, there are enough sitting MPs and MLAs, who have multiple living wives. Even Celebrities and Film Stars too have multiple simultaneous relationships. Is it a fashion meant only for people who can afford it? Is it a necessity for power game? I am not going to write the huge list of people who have multiple (living) marriages here. This is because, I do not want to encroach some one’s private life and make that public. It is not a personal vendetta, rather an ideological battle.

There are couple of questions which came into my mind.

1. If it is considered as a part of law under IPC to have only one living wife, then what prevents the state machinery to block them from power? Is it not a double standard?
2. How can people (netas/leaders) with multiple wives decide whether their followers will have one or more wives? I mean to say, that most of these people in power wield these laws meant for aamjunta, when they themselves break these laws.

Aamjunta, what do you think?

Note: I do not advocate the thought of Bigamy or polyandry. I am still an eligible bachelor

Aamjunta (Re)Actions: “Lessons or Atma-manthan”

Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.

John F. Kennedy

The recent Indian Lok Sabha elections have been trend setting in a unique way. Actually, it was aamjunta who was victorious in the last election against nefarious combinations and opportunistic alliances. It was the win of individuals who have actually “worked” against the arm-chair media savvy election campaign policies of parties. For almost the first time, aamjunta voted for people rather than parties.

Now, the election drama and mud-slinging at each other is over! For many of us the election results were beyond our expectations. But, if you analyze from a very close angle, you can sense that the results were obvious. The common man or the aamjunta has done the right job by choosing people whom they see working for their society or their community. Of course, this time too there were manipulations, but which political agency doesn’t manipulate?

Every political party uses its influence through the state machinery; some time wins, some time loses badly. The hunger for power never diminishes. In the name of democracy and ideology, family members fight with each other for the same seat. The reason – it is an election between political parties, and for them, bringing power “home” at any cost is of foremost importance. The seat should go to their own family member, no matter which part he/she belongs to and does not matter who wins the race. Politics has become dynastic in nature.

Going down the memory lane ……

It was a by-poll in the Laxmipur assembly segment of Koraput in Odisha, some time in the mid nineties. Two brothers were contesting; the younger one had a Janata Dal ticket and the elder one on a Congress ticket. Both of them were staying together, and had a single Mahindra Jeep for election campaigning. With Biju Patnaik’s photo in the morning and with Indiraji’s photo in the evening, both brothers managed to campaign and divide people. Front side of their house was the Congress office and rear was Janata Dal’s office. Campaigning ended peacefully, but the election did not. There were violence during the election and at least 5 people died on the election day. But, for whom and for which political ideology these people fought with each other and lost their lives? Ultimately, power had to be in the family, the brothers had great understanding among themselves, but because of their personal power-hunger 5 innocent civilians lost their lives. One of them ruled, while the other expanded his business in the constituency of the brother, whereas the aamjunta suffered.

Things have changed a bit today. Awareness has gone up. E-campaigning has taken a big stage, mobile campaigning is the tool now. One would be astonished to see Advaniji’s Photo and a message “whom do you want to see as a strong PM?, vote for BJP and L. K. Advani” in Dawn’s (leading Pakistan Daily) on-line news portal. Getting SMS… very common at least 1/2 SMS in a day came to cell-phones prior to elections; some times I wonder “what happens to the Supreme Court’s Directive and TRAI’s observations?” Do the political parties and their SMS campaigning not come under these directives and observations? Some one should file a PIL on this.

With IPL-2 in parallel, election campaigning did not come to as much lime-light as it used to be. Even then, the hate-love speech of Varun Gandhi and Sanjay Dutt, fasting of Karunanidi, Desh ki samman of Advani, anti-Computer-cum-English (i)literacy of Mulayam Singh, Jai Ho of Congress, Manus of Raj, played an interesting role during the time. Election went off smoothly, with some Maoist attacks and violence in between. But, overall, it was smooth. And on the voting day – some people enjoyed voting in the queue and majority…. enjoyed the holidays. In Mumbai, it was a 4-day holiday, resulting in a 44% voting turn out; the worst was in South Mumbai though

Like every time, this time also, I had decided to spend the day in front of the TV Set for counting. But, at the final moments did not feel like wasting my time. Went back to work instead. In most places, the results were as expected. The win of Congress or loss of BJP, did not create enough interest in me. What I could see was very clear, “the aamjunta has won, voted not the right party but the right person at the right place“. For example in Mumbai- all seven seats were won by Congress-NCP coalition. The in-fight in Senas and rise of MNS has spoiled the chances of the winning of Sena-BJP combine. BJP was the worst loser in this. They should have sensed this result long back; when bhaiyas were beaten up in platforms and thrown out of trains. Congress did not arrest Raj, Senas supported the movement and the BJP was a mute spectator. And the result – the hate of bhaiyas for the Sena-BJP combination was on rise, affected the result, not only in Mumbai, but also in UP and Bihar. On a lighter note, let me ask – who is representing Manus of Mumbai in Delhi? Bhaiyas or Manus? All the winners in Mumbai have north-Indian links. BJP as well as the Sena have to realize this. BJP especially has to act as a national party and not have the bias of a regional party. Unless they act/react at the right moment, others have and will always take away the ship.

In UP, whether someone accepts or not, the hate-love speeches had an impact on the vote share. Interestingly, Kalayan Singh’s dal-badlu at the last moment, Behenji’s dalit ki beti ka nara, jhappi-ya-pappi of Sanjy Dutt did not have much impact on the result. And with BJP – how can some one believe of “Ram Mandir ki nara” in the 21st century? Do they think the aamjunta is a fool, does not understand their politics of divide and rule? Common man understands that there is no point in fighting for political leaders and parties, because ultimately it is the common man who suffers, neither the parties nor politicians. This common man’s shops, shanties and slums and lives are at risk during communal or social violence. We are made puppets who dance at the tunes of politicians and ultimately put fire into our own homes. So, this time if their leaders can change their parties because their sons and daughters are not getting tickets, then why can’t aamjunta not change their votes? Moreover, why should they support some people who could not fight for their cause in Mumbai and other places. The public sentiment has to be understood by the parties. Indian electorate is slowly coming of age. Right steps at the right time is more important.

Congress too should not get overwhelmed with the results too. They won, not because they deserve, but because of the shear frustration of the aamjunta on the action and reaction of others and also because aamjunta was afraid of a new deadly coalition and post-poll pathetic jod-tod or alliances. The reaction was more against horse trading after elections rather than parties per say.

It is true that local problems and local issues have a big impact on the elections. Regional parties use this to lure the voters and make a good business out of it at the center. Some times they succeed, some times not. Let us discuss from north to south. The grand alliance of LJP and RJD was a costly affair. LJP got wiped out and RJD managed to save 4 out of 40. (Un)Fortunately Paswanji has to sit idle this time without any ministry and Laluji’s train got de-railed. Their betrayal of Congress was a costly affair. In West Bengal, Trinamool Congress and Congress combination has brought some hope after 40 years. Didi can now dream of becoming the future CM. But, on her way to the CM’s chair, she has created Singurs and Nandigrams with the help of Communists. Both the parties have to be blamed for this.

Down the line, in Odisha, BJP have lost the ground. Their big mistake was taking BJD as a casual partner. In politics, nothing is casual, no one is a friend and no one is an enemy. Their mismanagement and failure in negotiating with BJD costed them the worst in this election. With some 6 odd seats (from 32 in 2004), in the Bidhan Sabha and zero in the Lok Sabha, how do they dream of ruling that state? Their other blunder was communaliztion of Kandhamal. Interestingly, they won 2 out of 3 assembly segments there, but lost all over the state. Not only that, the impact of Kandhamal was heard in southern states like Kerla and Tamil Nadu, north-eastern states like Manipur, Sikkim, Assam and others. Unless they come out from this mind-set and ideology, I doubt… many prime ministers in waiting will come and go from BJP; will be dropped at the queue.

Further South, BJP did not get a friend in Andhra Pradesh. Chiru’s Praja Rajyam (rule of the subjects) has cerated the spoil for them. The Praja Rajyam not only blocked TDP from the power race, but also blocked BJP from creating a base in south. With two people’s fight, the third person wins; so does the Congress. Further south, every one wanted to become the messiah of Tamil cause in Sri Lanka. Karunanidhi’s certificate to Prabhakaran, Vaiko’s open support, Subramanian Swamy’s comment, Jayalalithaa’s u-turn on Tamil issue made not only furore during the election, but also changed the history and statistics in Tamil Nadu’s election. Congress and DMK got a face save, AIDMK rose from the last time dust bite. But, like every election, this time the incumbency did not have any impact. BJP lost every thing, neither AIDMK nor DMK was with them. Similar drama was seen in Kerla. The left got a massive blow, may be that was the nuclear (bomb) blow.

The states like Gujurat, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, Chatisgarh, Jharkhand and some extent in Maharastra the BJP has got a face saving, whereas in Odisha, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerla, the entire north-east, and Rajasthan (their one time gad or durg or fort ) it got wiped out. In most of the states, they lost to regional parties, with whom they had seat sharing before. BJPs “media-savy” central leadership did not have proper coordination with the state leadership. Result: complete failure. Like BJP, the lefts also had a miss in both West Bengal and Kerla. No one other than their party caders should be blamed for their poor performances. The ghosts of Singur and Nandigram are not letting them go as before.

And the congress, rose from a nil to 20+ in UP, from no where to power in West Bengal and Kerla, from a miss to hit in Rajasthan and 100% in Mumbai and Delhi. What else? Somewhere they won on their own, some where they won because of their friends, and some where they won because of the in-fights of their rivals. On the other hand, the biggest loser in the tally is the BSP. They fought some 500+ seats all over the country, but managed to get only 20+ seats. With that number also, their leader dreams of becoming the PM of the country. Interestingly, every one in India now is interested in becoming the PM, starting from Sharad Powar to Arjun Singh, Pranab Mukharejee to AK Antony, Mayawati to Mulayam Singh, LK Advani to Narendra Modi, Lalu Prasad to Nitish Kumar and Ram Vilas Paswan to Deva Gauda... every body was in the race. In fact, even Jaspal Bhatti and Shekhar Suman were also Prime Ministerial candidates… Hmmm, but, finally Manmohan Singh sworn-in as the PM.

Anyway, the elections are over, the results are out, and swearing in ceremony is over. Many are doing in political terminology “atma-manthans” now. Better luck next time

Aamjunta, watch it, keep an eye and judge properly next time too.

PS: There are certain terms which form a part of political lingo of India that have been used in this article. The author documents these terms without any offence to the general readers.

Waste Mat Karo, Taste Karo…

It was 8th Aug, 1990, I joined hostel at Ravenshaw College, Cuttack. Was stepping into a new life — a life other than my home. I had just completed my 10th at the time. In the initial days of my hostel life, I was unable to cope up mainly with the life style and hostel food. Food was (is) never bad, only that the preparation was not as per my taste, which was tuned to Mom’s kitchen. But, over the years, I’ve changed my food habit as well as my taste buds. Nothing great about that; this happens if you stay in hostel for more than 15 years . Now, I love hostel food. However, that does not mean, I do not have cribs. Yes, some time I too have cribs, like, “that item is bad, this is more oily, no green veg, chapati is not properly baked, rice is half cooked,” etc., etc… Very common cribs among regular hostelites.

Enjoying and cribbing over food is natural, and we do that in home, hotel or hostel. But, there is a difference in cribbing over food and wasting food. We waste food everywhere — home/hotel/hostel. Even the best preparations in the best banquets are also sometimes wasted. But, in this article I have basically concentrated on the food wastage in hostels.

One can observe the amount of food that gets wasted per day in a hostel and can collect the data of this wastage, the results might be appalling. The amount of wastage in bigger hostels are really big and are easily noticeable. In small hostels too there are food wastage, but hardly any one cares to notice that properly. I am reproducing here some of our observations based on the statistics of Hostel-12/13 mess of IIT Bombay.

To know the exact amount of wastage and the pattern of wastage in our hostel (Hostel 12-13, IIT Bombay), the mess team started taking a stock of it. Every day, the mess team weighs the entire wasted food per meal (breakfast, lunch, tiffin and dinner separately) and reports the same in the mess notice board. Just to give an idea of the amount of food we waste in our mess, I inquired with the Mess Manager and requested him to give me a month’s detail. Thought of putting a week’s data here:

Date	Breakfast	Lunch	Tiffen	Dinner	Total
01/04/09	16 Kg	50 Kg	10 Kg	45 Kg	121 Kg
02/04/09	15 Kg	45 Kg	14 Kg	52 Kg	126 Kg
03/04/09	20 Kg	55 Kg	12 Kg	50 Kg	127 Kg
04/04/09	18 Kg	48 Kg	10 Kg	55 Kg	131 Kg
05/04/09	21 Kg	45 Kg	20 Kg	60 Kg	146 Kg
06/04/09	17 Kg	50 Kg	10 Kg	45 Kg	122 Kg
07/04/09	20 Kg	48 Kg	09 Kg	55 Kg	132 Kg

With the average per day per meal of 800 mess members, the amount of food wastage one see in the above table is definitely a matter of huge concern. In an average day, the amount of food we waste in the hostel is around 130 Kg, which might be sufficient of another 400+ meals!! That means, every 4 person who eat in our mess waste food sufficient to feed one more person. Is not this statistics alarming? When people in this country die of hunger, a small mess like H-12/H-13 wastes food sufficient for 400 people daily. If you extrapolate this statistics to other hostels of IIT Bombay, then I wonder how much food we waste daily. There are roughly 5000 inmates and 14 hostels in IIT Bombay!

Many students justify the wastage, saying “the quality of food is not good”; “we are paying, so we will waste”; “why should the mess manager makes the profit alone?”, etc., etc… Are these excuses of educated people acceptable? On my part, I simply reject all these excuses. These are in-human!

One should remember that food wastage is not only a local issue, it is also a national issue. There should be an awareness campaign on this aspect. In fact, the mess team had started an awareness campaign in H-12/H-13 mess. They write articles in institute magazines and keep on putting various quotes/photos in the mess with “save food” campaign. Yes, the wastage has gone down after that, but not significantly. The statistics I’m showing here is based on data of the post-awareness campaign. Just imagine, the amount of wastage we had before!!

In my last post “Mumbai Blues“, I had narrated the incident of an old man looking for food in garbage/dust bins. In a country like India and in a continent like Asia which faces the biggest challenge of poverty, malnutrition and shortage of food, can we afford such a dangerous luxury of food wastage?

Aamjunta, what is your take on this? What do you say on my quote “Waste Mat Karo, Taste Karo”? Do share your views.

“Mumbai Blues”- Aamjunta’s Aankhon-dekhi

It was almost quarter to eleven on a regular working day…

I had a tough day at lab and hostel trying to juggle with balancing my time and thesis writing. Additionally, summer seems to take toll on one’s energy level. That evening I got so irritable, stressed and exhausted that was unable to utter a single word. The demand and supply chain of the thesis writing was not matching. Demand was very high resulting in high pressure on the quality, quantity and the pace of my output. Anyway, I decided to skip dinner, had some biscuits instead in lab itself. Suddenly, my exasperation with the process made me think seriously of taking a break and I decided to go to either lake side or some where else and to sit there for some time by myself. I decided that I will not seek company and so did not ask any one to come along with me. On normal occasions, I have friends whom can ask and who will not deny their company. But, today it was different — just wanted to be by myself. Wanted some private and quite moments for myself.

I left lab somewhere around 11.00pm with my bag, laptop and books. Headed for an unknown destination. I was near the SOM kiosk, when I saw an auto coming from hostel side. Waved my hand gesturing him to stop, fortunately he halted. I asked him…“Boss kahin chaloge?” kahan? – he asked.. hmmmm HN chaloge? (will you go to Hiranandani?). He agreed immediately and I comfortably slipped into it. I was so tired that did not even feel like getting down at HN Galleria. But, the auto reached HN in no time. I got down, paid him, walked to the ice-cream parlor had some ice-cream and then cool drinks.

After a while, I started feeling better and sat for some time near the galleria arch. My phone rang…friends and family were trying to reach me…. But, I decided not to disturb others with my stress stories. Switched that off and kept in my pocket. It was slightly breezy that evening and I sat observing people — precisely people of Mumbai in the dark night. Many couples were around too, sitting very close to each other and sharing their life and thoughts. Mumbai affords so little of private space that people have to find shelter in the market-places, malls and theaters to spare some time for their love stories. Most of these couples were in completely engrossed mode, and it did not not matter to them who was sitting there, who was staring at them or who was passing-by. I felt slightly out of place being without a (female ) companion to share some intimate moments. I left the place so as to allow the couples to enjoy their privacy, and searched for some other place to sit. It was almost 11.30 pm by that time. The chairs in front of Haiko mall were empty. Selected a corner seat, so that I do not disturb people and people do not disturb me. I sat for some time, looking here and there, luxury cars coming and going, the autos, the people around, the security guards and the “night-riders” like me. A unique aspect of Mumbai is that it suddenly bustles and jostles with the night moving into deeper darkness. The corner seat I had chosen for myself gave a nice view of many landmarks of HN: the Rodas hotel, the Haiko mall, the Pavilion restaurant and the main road. In the light of the street-lamps the roads of Mumbai glitter like the body of a slithering cobra.

There was no one sitting around me. I was alone. But all of a sudden, my attention got diverted when I saw an old man, ill-looking, in his late 60s or early 70s. He was almost on the verge of nudity as his torn dhoti and gamccha were in threads, hardly did help to cover his sickly body. He looked like a scare-crow who has been brought to life and left in the glitter and glitz of the mega city…. Trying desperately to hide his bare chest and body with his dirty old gamchha, the man was on his way to some unknown destination. He seemed to be only busy searching for something in the dust-bins placed near the roads and the malls. I was curious now and started to take an interest in this character who seemed straight out of some novel. The man came closer to where I was sitting, he had huge eyes placed on a completely dark skin. He stopped near the dust-bin that was placed close to my chair and started searching for some thing. I was curious… what must he be looking for and at this time? Many things came into my mind… starting from incidents of putting bombs in dustbins to searching for food…. I started observing him from a close angle as he hunted the dustbin as if on a treasure hunt. He was only picking up the cans (cool drink cans) and plastic bottles. Collected some 4/5 bottles, 2/3 cans, 1/2 poly bags… but was still searching for some thing else… became curious.. what is he looking for? and at that late night?

Before I could ask any thing, a lady in her late 30s came and asked him politely with a voice full of compassion, “baba kya dhund rahe ho”? The old man was surprised beyond words… for the words “baba”… he seemed to have never have come across these words! He looked frightened for a moment, but when he saw that the lady meant no harm, gathered a little courage and told her… “kuchh nahini”…. Then she asked, “aap ko kya chahiye?” He was quiet for a moment and replied, “nahin beti.. kuchh khana dhund raha hun… (looking for some food). I am taking these things (bags, bottles and cans) such that I can sell them get some money tomorrow. I don’t think I’ll get any food from here at this time of the night. But, can not sell these now…It’s late”. I was shocked to see that the man was not begging, he was just hunting for left-overs in the dustbin. The lady seem to stifle her tears and went back to her husband, got some 20/30 rupees…gave him that money and said.. “kal ka bare me bad me sochna.. aab jao… kuchh khalo...(think about tomorrow, when it is tomorrow…go and eat something now)”. He took that money, smiled gratefully and left. And I… sat thinking… where is he going? I had only 30 rupees in my pocket, enough for going back to hostel in an auto, couldn’t even spare that with him. But, was extremely happy to observe that even there are people in the busy life of Mumbai who come and help a man like that on their own accord. What amazed me even more was that the man did not beg from any one…

I was lost in my own thoughts, when suddenly my attention got diverted by the parking sound of a huge Honda city in front of Rodas Hotel. A gorgeously decked-up lady in her early 30s got down from the car. She was accompanied by her little baby (hardly 1/2year old) and her husband. The husband was carrying the baby, was dressed in a neat three-piece suit. He was perhaps in mid-thirties, calm, composed with signs of prosperity. And she… I hardly traced any sign of clothes. She was also on the verge of nudity, her nano-skirt and figure hugging back-less top with low-cut neck lines, nine-inch sandals and dark luscious wine lipstick.… She looked like something which I have only seen in a few fashion magazines like FHM or Femina. The couple were heading for the Pavilion restaurant for some high profile party. I was wondering how come people dress like this? Are married ladies in Mumbai so liberal in front of their husbands? I thought may be I am getting old fashioned and orthodox. But, somehow could not help myself comparing this scantily-clad young lady with that semi-clad old man…. He was also barely dressed like her…. But the difference was painful, he could not afford, whereas she did not want…While the old man was frightened even of a dog crawling near him, this lady bursted on the security guard and scolded him as he did not open the door fully for her to enter….

Hmm, both the incidents took me away from my own state of troubled existence….I had enough of this world too…checked my wrist watch… it was almost 12.30 am and past midnight…. The scenes of HN had already overpowered me and cleansed my own tension of thesis writing. I started looking for an auto…to get back to my “home” for the last 7 years.

Aamjunta, do share your experiences if any…

P.N.: This post is a kind of sequel to Anne de Plume’s post on “Who is a Human?” on Iris

From Single-Seater to Multi-Seater: Vision of Higher Education

“Vision without action is a dream. Action without vision is simply passing the time. Action with Vision is making a positive difference.”

Joel Barker

In order to decide the future course of a huge country like India, “right” vision at every level is required. Without right vision, it is not only difficult, but also impossible to cater the need of the nation. The purpose of this article is to emphasize the fact that unless a nation (especially people who are in charge of planning or decisions making) has a vision or insight into the kind of decisions that can affect its long term goals and realizes the problems that can crop up with one mis-step, many generations can suffer in the long run.

In the recent past, the Government of India has increased the number of seats in all institutes of  higher education including IITs and IIMs to accommodate the new OBC quota. There have been debates and counter-debates on the issue of quota. It also  met protests ranging from the aamjunta’s court to the supreme court.  But, it was a political decision which had to be accepted. These kind of decisions are irrevocable in nature and need to be accepted as “facts” of our society. But, the idea of increasing  the number of seats to meet the quota and the inclusion of quota itself have serious repercussions. The massive inflow of students resulted because of which it became a practical issue and a challenge for all IITs in 2008-09 . IIT administrations buckled up and started increasing the number of seats. However, unfortunately no decision making bodies ever bothered to examine the repercussions of the increase in the number of  seats. The question of infrastructure, faculties, quality, availability, environment, etc., seemed to be not even taken into account. The seriousness and hurriedness that was shown in implementing the quotas in all IITs and IIMs was at least not seen in creating the right infrastructure to accommodate that quota.There were mere announcements as to such and such number of seats have been increased in IITs, IIMs etc., but no steps were taken to create and to provide the right ambience to sustain the quality while increasing the quantity of students.  Interestingly, quota came first, then the increase of seats to counter and then the question of infrastructure and quality; shows the depth of their vision. Committees were formed as a reactive measure, not as a proactive measure.  One has to realize that vision is proactive, not reactive.

If increasing the number of seats along with quota is the vision, then some one has to suffer. Who suffers in the end? The students! Existing students in all the premier institutions are now being forced to share accommodations, change hostels, etc, etc. Even in the final year of your  BTech or MTech it is not certain whether you will get a single-seater or  a multi- seater room in your hostel. New students who might be joining in the coming semesters will even be in a worse position; (a) they will obviously have to compromise with the existing infrastructure of the new institutions and might be at the receiving end since preferences will be made mostly on seniority basis, and (b) they will have to cope up with the demands of academics while still groping for the basic minimum facilities. Neither parents nor students nor authorities realize this until they really experience that how frustrating this can be. Just an increase in the number of seats does not solve the problem of quota in higher education.

Forget the undergraduate programs, the PhDs are also sharing accommodation. Research is supposed to be the most crucial and sensitive activity, which if we take the given parameters, need at least the best facilities and infrastructures. Researchers are supposed to be at least entitled for a single accommodation if not all the benefits that a researcher in the west gets during his/her research tenure. But where is the space to accommodate the massive inflow? Starting from cycle stands to hostel council rooms, from guest rooms to corridor, everywhere constructions are on in full swing. THE REASON: there are no rooms for new students. Single rooms have now become double rooms and double rooms might be tripled or quadrupled. Even then, it is not going to accommodate the huge number of new comers. Some have to still suffer.

Fortunately or unfortunately, newly constructed hostels are coming up of late. But at what cost and at what speed? In IIT B for example, authorities have allowed many huge trees to be felled. Even those trees which were planted as part of “vanmahotsavs” and other such occasions are now completely chopped down. While the country’s Prime Minister and cabinet are making speeches and tours to huge environmental summits to protect the ever-deteriorating environmental conditions, in one of its most prestigious institutions there is a rampant felling of trees. IIT B boasted of some of the best ecology of the country and was no less than a shady gurukul, but thanks to the vision of our decision makers now we have a dry-dreary campus which is facing the tough blows of a hot summer. Moreover, for creating all new buildings most of the time roads are being dug, Internet/electricity/ telephone cables are cut, water pipes are broken…

The fault is also of the aamjunta’s, because of our ignorance we do not even bother to ask about the environmental concerns that comes with reckless development. All that which matters to us is our greed for our children and ourselves to get an opportunity to “study” in IITs or IIMs or elsewhere. However, we do not have the foresight that may be our grandchildren or the next generations may never know that such an institution ever existed in India. Our governments and decision making bodies are amazingly good with “maximal use of available resources” without actually thinking of “optimizing” or generating new resources. Where is the vision to understand the capacity of a certain institution or establishment? If an intake has to be doubled up, then why is not there an equal allotment of new land and new space to accommodate the numbers? In addition to it, the red-tapism, contract procedures, tender rules, etc., etc., .. all these things create hurdles to build new hostels even in the existing land (forget about getting new lands). The pace of construction of these buildings are pathetically slow, usually takes 200% times more than the stipulated time.

However, it is not the students who only suffer. To meet the huge intake, the intake of faculties into IITs have also significantly steeped up. Similar problems are also faced by faculty for faculty quarters and offices. There are no quarters for new faculties and most of them are staying in 1 hall-kitchen type flats. Office rooms are also a big problem. IITs which are considered to be aggressively growing research organizations, cannot provide all faculties the minimum facility of a lab and a decent office. Younger faculties who join the institution cannot even expect to bring their spouse, as there is no certainty if they will get a quarter. If this practice and apathy continues how do the governments expect to attract new faculties required to teach/guide the huge population of places like IITs.

But, the problem of infrastructure and other fundamental facilities in higher education in India is neither new and nor is it limited only to institutions like IITs. Universities and especially state universities are in an equally sorry state. An earlier instance of my own experience with this huge intake without a vision comes to mind in this context. In 1995/1996, Govt of Odisha decided to go for a 30% women’s quota in all engineering colleges, since elections were around and the vote bank had to be appeased. I was in the 3rd year of my engineering. Fortunately, we were the last batch and did not suffer the unprecedented inflow into our college. We could manage to get single accommodation in our final years which was very important because of our semester exams, placement and other career decisions badly required at least some personal space for ourselves. There was a ladies hostel with 40-50 seater capacity. That was grossly inadequate to accommodate the massive 30% inflow of female students into our college (UCE, Burla). Nothing was done and no allied campus was set up. Finally, as is typical of our decision making authorities, it was decided that our single seater hostel which was meant only for final year students was to be converted into a ladies hostel. The reason; contract process had not even started to build a new ladies hostel while the government had already issued orders to allow immediate increase in the intake. But, then who suffered? Final year BTechs who succeeded our batch. Ironically, the vision of authorities was such amazingly regressive that the final year BTech boys were doubled and tripled up in the hostels while the first year BTech girls got completely single accommodation .

One tends to ask the question that do the authorities not think about all these aspects? If yes, then why is there an apathy and a delay? Who is accountable for this? Why should the common man, students especially suffer?; no infrastructure, no hostels, clumsy classroom, what else is required to prove the amount of respect that the governments, political parties and decision making bodies have for the thing called “education”? If no, then who is responsible for this gross lack of vision? Who is going to take care of the environment and people – planning commission, knowledge commission, MHRD, parliament, judiciary or the aamjunta?

As said before, my intention here was not to debate on the pros and cons of the quota system. Quota has become a brutal reality of this country. But through this article, I appeal specifically to those who are in power, who are coming to power and those who are aiming for power to kindly not to play politics with the educational aspects, which is the actual future of the country. Before implementing any decision, make sure that it is properly studied and its requirements are met. Implement with your eyes open and with a vision, not with closed eyes. The common man also needs to understand and be a part of the process of planning the future of the nation and the world.

Think 1000 times before taking such big decisions. And learn to take appropriate decisions. Action without a vision will not lead to anything productive.

Aamjunta, what is your vision?

Glimpses of India – from the Eyes of an Aamjunta

Boarding the Train

It was almost 2.00 pm, I started journey home from my room. As usual this time also I forgot to carry one of my bags. Forgetting things in the last moment is becoming a usual habit in me. Something or the other … I forget to carry at the last moment , no matter who accompanies me and how long or short the journey is. Have faced many problems due to this forgetfulness. I sincerely hoped if I could manage this trip without that bag. Luckily, I did not forget to carry my last minute shopping item.

It was getting late for a Local train journey to Dadar and so decided to call for a taxi. I am privileged to own the tel. no of “Vijay taxi wala”. He reached dot on time and was waiting downstairs. I was carrying my laptop with me. In the main-gate (of IIT Bombay), the security guard was supposed to stop any vehicle and ask whether any one is carrying any electronic item as per the security rules. But that did not happen here (that was not the first time also). No one asked me and no one stopped my taxi. Even though I was ready with my gate pass, I was expecting the security guard to follow the minimum security measures. But no one bothered to inquiry. They hardly ask any one carrying any thing; just mute spectators in most of the cases. But, at times certainly harass people to show their power and to score a point. Unarmed, unprepared and indifferent security force of IIT Bombay

Anyway, managed to reach Dadar before time. Konark Express, Train No. 1019, my train and home for the next 37 hours was scheduled at 3.10 pm from CST. But, I decided to board the train from Dadar at 3.25 pm to save some time. Vijay could manage to drop me within 35 minutes as there was hardly any traffic at that time (quite unusual in Mumbai). I entered Dadar Station through Platform No. 6. I was expecting huge police presence in the station after the incident of 26/11 in Mumbai. Yes, traces of police presence were there, but could not find their preparedness and alertness.

My ticket was in RAC and therefore I had to check before boarding whether the ticket was confirmed. Asked the police officer sitting at the enquiry counter to guide me to the place where boarding charts are put. After asking him 3 times, he answered my query with a sign language and pointed his finger towards the notice board in Platform No. 5. I was relieved to see my name in the confirmed tickets list. Tough to travel by RAC for 37 hours without a sleeper berth. Anyway, was lucky this time. My serial number was the last in confirmation, though it was the last berth of the coach. I just thanked my starts and made some telephone calls to friends and relatives to inform them that my ticket was confirmed. Train was on time and I boarded the train.

Train Journey – A Mini-India

My berth number was B3-64. Already two people were sitting in 63/64 by the time I reached there. Both of them were claiming that they have 63 – RAC! Interestingly, some one else came in and too claimed that his seat no is 63. Three persons for the same seat!! Could not believe. With the help of the PNR number verification from a BSNL Mobile, they could resolve the seat problem. Two of them had RAC, and the other person was having W/L ticket only. The wait-listed person could not believe how come his seat had not got confirmed, when he had already booked his tickets 25days ago. This gentleman was W/L number 1 whereas the other gentleman was W/L 36! The other gentleman could manage to confirm his ticket through some VIP quota, even though he bought the ticket at the last minute, leaving the other guy with W/L-1. Looks like aamjunta suffers every where, no one listens.

By the time the seat confusion got resolved, TT had verified our e-tickets and the train had reached Kalyan. A new drama was unfolding related to ticket buying and selling. Seat no. 59/B-3 was still vacant. The lady who booked the ticket did not show up. Every one was eying that seat. In principle that seat should go to the person with the lowest RAC. But, I wondered … will the TT allot that seat without taking a single pie? The person seating in B3-63 with RAC started buttering the TT and literally begged for berth no. 59. He did not hesitate to bribe the TT too, opened his wallet and gave two one hundred notes to him. And the TT… thanked his stars, took those with a smile …. his first income of the day. I thought when we are talking and gossiping against corruption and corrupt practices, we forget to include ourselves in the list of culprits. Both bribers and bribe takers are equally responsible.

In the mean while our train had reached Pune, I was dozing off in the upper berth. With a big suitcase, a young girl in her late twenties entered our compartment. Pushed her suitcase under the seat, tried to occupy the seat no. 59, which was already assigned to some one else. She could not believe that her seat was allocated to some one else . She started arguing with the TT and the commuter. After realizing her mistake (booking from one station (CST) and boarding from a far-off station (Pune)) she became distraught and composed, but had to finally accept. She requested the TT at least to allow her to board the train and to share the seat with the other gentleman who was occupying seat no. 63 in RAC. She could manage to convince the person and shared the seat.

In the mean time a couple of plain cloth police men came and inquired with many of us and checked our luggages. May be the bombings in the trains and other places in India are the reasons for this checking. But, I did not find a single police man afterwards, in the next 30 hours of my journey. What kind of security measure then? Couple of my co-passengers (including ladies) were software engineers working in Pune. To spend their boring train journey, they were ready with many things, at least some 10 different type of snacks, all the meals of train’s catering and most interestingly they had enough bettle (paan) leafs and all masalas (jurda, kimam, katha, supari.. etc.). Each of them are experts in making the bettle pack and in eating those. Amazing scenes. There was another co-passenger who had a RAC ticket and started narrating his links and connections with big politicians of Mumbai and his lunch/dinner parties with the IPS/IAS officers and the ministers in Mumbai. He did not leave a single stone unturned to boast of his greatness. I did not understand one thing, if he had all the connections then how come he could not manage to get a confirmed seat? May be Laluji ki raj me kuchh gadbad hai

Home Sweet Home

Train journey was cool, though a bit boring. I reached Bhubaneswar on time – at 4.35 am. My brother was there to receive me. Once I reached there, I found myself at home. The care and concern of my brother, home made food of my bhabhi and the love of my sweet nephew — what else I wanted? The Bhubaneswar which I had carried in my memory and that which I was seeing were completely different. Nowadays, it has grown like any other city in India. But, on the flip side as an outsider in my own homeland, I could witness rash drive of young (kids some times) students and unemployed mass, the effect of liquor on our society, eve-teasing, showiness and artificial smiles of relatives and friends. Tough to accept I stayed for a day at Bhubaneswar, visited couple of my relatives and friends in the evening, did a little bit shopping for my nephew and niece. I was meeting them after a gap of 18 months, longest gap so far. I knew my parents were eagerly waiting for me in my village…. I got at least 15 calls on that day with only one question: “when are you coming?” “Come at that time, do not bring this and that”… etc., and etc…

Once I reached home (village), I felt like the king of that place . Very happy… I started showing all the photos of my last China visit, and was telling the stories of my success/failure, life, future to my parents. Suddenly I realized that I forgot to bring the Umbrella which I carried for my father. I left that in the bus, forgot completely…I felt very very bad. The umbrella was an amazing and unique piece, many people were interested to take that… but, I was adamant that it was meant for my father…. I tried my best to follow the bus, enquired with the driver through some of my relatives, but could not trace it. Felt very low as I was too much attached to the umbrella and carried a lot of dreams to present it with love to my father.

Small Incidents of Big India

I stayed hardly for 4 days at home. These four days I was completely cut off from the rest of the world. There were important calls which I was expecting on my MTNL roaming cell. But alas… MTNL and BSNL had problems, my roaming phone was half of the time struggling to find and register itself with BSNL. More than 90% of the time, its signal was down, and the rest 10%, frequent call droppings, one sided voice, bad signal quality …. I was pissed off with their services. How come these so called basic service providers (largest telecom. operators in India) do not maintain the basic quality in their services? Nobody was listening to my complaints, they were not even accepting their fault. In fact, even now after a month of my coming back from home the service and signal is extremely poor. Other users also are facing similar problems. Had it been in USA or other European countries, the operators would have been sued for service failure. I had to struggle a lot to call my friends in Mumbai for updates.

While at village, I came across with some interesting facts. My father was narrating to me about the Rs 2/- per Kg rice scheme introduced by Orissa Govt to help the needy. Initially when I heard about this I was thrilled and was very happy that the Govt is helping the poor; the common man. But my happiness was short lived. Looks like Rs 2/- per Kg rice is the biggest problem at this moment. Most of the people who are availing the scheme are becoming very lazy. Many of them are not working for more that 4/5 days in a month. Reason, a day’s earning is sufficient for their livelihood of a month.. 50 kg of rice (Rs 100/- is the daily wages) and the other 2/3 days’ work is sufficient for the rest. More than 70% people are not working, not ploughing their land even… why to spend time and money, when they have free food at their door step? The question that came to my mind… is that Rs 2/- per Kg rice scheme for the benefit of the country? Are we doing justice to the tax payers’ money? Why is the govt playing with the country’s future? For vote shake? For power? Election is around, and many parties are committing Rs 2/- or Rs 3/- per Kg rice. My frustration became serious, when I came to know the names of BPL (Bellow Poverty Line) card holders… many rich people of that area are having BPL cards, they get those rice in Rs 2/- per Kg and sell that in Rs 20/- Kg in the market. Pathetic attitude.

During my short stay, I visited couple of Govt. and Private schools, couple of Engineering colleges. What I saw there and what I experienced was pathetic. The condition of the education system and commercialization of basic services in many parts of Orissa (in India too) is something which is of serious concern. Engineering education is a big business there. In the name of charity, people just do business and exploit. They also spend huge amount for bribing the authorities (be it state education board or national education board) to get the accreditations. The common man suffers everywhere… their land is being sold at a cheap price to these institutes, their kids are not getting quality education, they pay heavy price as donations and fees for education, and they do not get their full salary. No one is interested to send their wards to Govt. run schools. Every one is interested in English medium schools. But the English medium schools charge heavily as fees and donations, make interviews of the parents and the kids . My nephew was asked for his Class I admission : Name two Chief Ministers in India who were married in the same day?. Neither the Govt rulings nor the court directives stop them from blatant commercialization. Not only that the quality of teachers they have are very poor. Many of them are under paid too. With this kind of education, where do we see our future? I could not visualize…

Corruption, attitude problem, politics, castism… everything is corroding this country and the common man. Unless the common man does some thing and realizes that he/she has to be aware and do things to help himself/herself who else can save? It is late, but not too late. Still there is time to shape the country, to guide the youth and to channelize the taxpayers’ money.

Aamjunta it is your turn now.

Sunset to Sunset – a Day in IIT

Have you stayed in the hostel any time during your graduation or post-graduation? Have you experienced the most relaxed life of the hostel?

Read this to refresh your memories, or to know some thing interesting, if you have not been to those places, or to know a different life style.

Thanks Anne de Plume for giving me the opportunity and space to write in your blog space “Iris: From the Quill of Anne de Plume” . I am honoured . It is the Second Article of the theme: “Life of a Research Scholar in IIT”. The first one was published by Anne: “Sunrise to Sunrise: a Day’s Work @IIT”.

Hope you enjoy this article.

Thanks.

Qualitative Expansion of Indian Education System – Need for a Strong and Better India

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

M. K. Gandhi

Even after 60 years of independence “Education for all and 100% literacy” is still a dream in India; though the present country wide average literacy rate is around 60%, it is actually less than 50% in many parts of India. The youth literacy rate is around 71% in India, whereas it is around 99% in neighboring China. We will have to accept the truth that we still lack in terms of basic education and literacy as compared to many other countries. Not only is quantity affecting, with this percentage of literacy bringing development to the door step of every Indian is difficult. When the illiterate common [hu]man does not understand and does not know the schemes drafted for him/her, then how do we expect (re)action from her/him?

Our first and foremost goal should be to start with providing basic education to all. This needs proper planning at the apex level. But, by drafting the schemes at parliament or at the planning commission level, our responsibilities do not get over. In fact responsibility means — to complete the process and implement the scheme at the ground level; by involving the mass in the process of education and development and by expanding the base of education.

Expanding the reach of the present educational system is crucial. Basic education should reach every single child of our country. Making all children go to school, not just enrolling them (we have 96% of enrollment of children at present), and teach through innovative means is the key in this direction. These measures can not only help us increase the percentage of literacy, but also can increase the quality of our life in general. This will also create a position for the economically weaker strata of our society to understand the schemes designed for them. Various studies show that there are people in India who are still untouched by the modern society; modern education system has not reached them, forget about sanitary condition and health care. But, what have we done in this direction? How serious we are in our endeavour? We spend just 3.5% of our GDP on education, way below China’s 8%. Is that enough to increase the reach of the education to all?

On a finer level of introspection – the numbers of schools we have in India are not enough. The quality of education is not there. English medium education is still considered as a status symbol confined to the cities only. In the name of free primary education, wasting of taxpayers’ money is enormous. Education for girl child is still a farfetched dream and is not encouraged even in the civilized sections of our society. Facility for the students at the school level is also not that encouraging. Many schools do not have even the basic infrastructure; no chair, no table, no toilets and even no roof. The mid-day meal programme, which is the main attraction for kids to come to school in many parts of India, is not properly implemented. In some places, the program gets disrupted by corrupt practices of hoarding and stealing. We need to overcome these problems through various corrective actions in terms of opening more quality schools for all not just for a set of people and making the authorities accountable. Moreover, the call for awareness should not be confined to vision books or newspaper articles or to statements in the parliament only. It needs implementation through whatever means possible.

To attract more children to school, not only we need to motivate the kids and their parents, but also need to create social awareness. For that we need quality people around in the form of teachers. But, unfortunately we face serious shortage of quality teachers. Not that we do not have quality people, but the attitude of many of us towards teaching is extremely negative. Teaching is not considered as a career at the first hand. The salary structure for the teachers is not at all encouraging. In the name of Sarvasikshya Abhijan (“Education for All”), new teachers are getting appointed with a monthly remuneration of Rs 600/- (i.e., Rs 20/- per day) at the primary school level, which is even less than the monthly remuneration of unskilled laborers. Even then, many people apply for a single teaching post, not because they all are interested, but because of the rampant un-employment in the society.

Even if we succeed in bringing more students to school, we are not in a position to motivate them for higher education. Percentages of dropouts at and after school are very high. For instance, the percentage of dropout students is about 40% at the primary level. Only over 33% high school students complete graduation. This has to be looked into seriously. Unfortunately, we do not have planned guidance system/schemes to tackle the dropout problem. For the growth of the country, we need trained man power, be it trained labor or trained farmers or trained educators or the intellectual class with a research base. Unless, we stop the dropouts at or after school, and provide education to all through corrective and affirmative actions, where do we get the required manpower?

College education is also necessary for growth. But, in India, college education is not that accessible to all. Even if it is accessible, the quality of education is not as good as compared to that of other developed countries. Technical education is still a far cry for the common man. The present form of college education does not ensure any form of employment opportunity in most of the cases. In the recent past, in the name of software boom, we have opened many engineering colleges. But, by opening engineering colleges only a country does not succeed. We need infrastructure, laboratory facilities and quality instructors to teach. Couple of years back in the name of expanding education we had allowed mushrooming of universities and colleges in many parts of India and have compromised on the quality of education. Honorable Supreme Court’s ruling in recognizing the institutes and maintaining the basic quality should be taken seriously. We have also to remember that unless proper mechanism and quality is maintained in both the teaching and the taught, the system will crumble. Educating the educators is more important at this point than educating the student. Even though there are schemes in research places, such as Quality Improvement Programme (QIP) or study leave, the output is not visible. Caution and quality measures are definitely required in this direction.

The other important challenge of Indian education system is conversion of undergraduates into graduate studies or research. Even though the number of graduates which India produces per year is six to eight times higher than that of countries like USA produce in a year, the retention of graduates for higher studies leading to doctoral studies is very less in India. This needs to be looked upon with urgency. High conversion rate of graduate to doctoral is important. More number of doctoral students should be enrolled into the system and people will opt for doctoral studies, if the programme is encouraged with higher fellowship, better facilities for research and other infrastructures. This requires emphasis on research by the society and by government.

However, the doctoral research programme should not be misunderstood with time bound degree. It has a different requirement and philosophy. Continuous research can be done, only if one’s basic requirements are fulfilled. One has to remember that at the age of 30s (average age of doctoral students in India); the equation is different, very hard to ask for a financial help from parents. Hence, financial help is a must, if we are really serious for research as an imperative for development of the nation and our researchers as national assets.

With the opening of new IITs, IIITs, IIMs and many colleges in the country, care needs to be taken to attract quality researchers in the form of students and faculties. The faculty crunch needs to be tackled with highest priority and research needs to be emphasized with seriousness. However, encouraging the youth to opt for teaching and/or research is not exhibitive. We have to remember that the wellbeing of researchers will definitely have direct impact on the growth of the nation. If we need 10% GDP growth, we have to give importance to value based education and encourage youth for opting a career in research and teaching.

The other major problem which we are facing is caste based reservation policy. Yes, we introduced caste based reservation as a corrective measure, but there are people from various unreserved-castes who are underprivileged and are backward too. They have still not come at-par with their other fellow Indians. It is our responsibility too to bring them to the main stream, to bring them to the mass, to include them in the nation building. But, why to politicize that? Why to make caste as the only factor for reservation? In fact, with caste based reservation we too support casteism and further divide the society adding fuel to the age old caste based divisions. Many have already availed the reservation and have joined the mainstream. Should we give further reservations to them? Let the people who are really underprivileged and need reservation avail this opportunity, irrespective of the caste and religion. This will expand our reach and include the mass. A serious discussion and brainstorming is required on this issue.

Many of us still do not understand the rationality of reservation at higher education level and that too after 60 years of independence based on some old data-base. Simply political! When we do not give as much opportunity as required to the unprivileged at the school level and bring them even to secondary school level, what is the rationality of reservation at higher education? Instead of giving reservation at the higher education, let us give opportunity to them and prepare them at the primary school level, at higher secondary level and at the under-graduation level. By stopping the dropouts at the school level and bringing them to higher education level, we can reach the mass in a more effective way, which will have definitely have better impact than having reservation or quota system in higher education. We have to understand the need of quality in higher education along with the quantity.

On a slightly different note, there were concerns and differences in the recent past due to reservation at the private sectors. Most of the private sectors are opposing the caste based reservation at their places. To survive in a competitive market, should they be not given a fair chance to decide their own action and whom should they hire? Instead, the private sector be encouraged and directed to provide resources for better school and other facilities at least till the higher secondary level. Let them also participate in the nation building process by supporting the education system. There can be a similar project like the Governments directing the major telecom operators to provide basic services in rural areas of Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Maharastra and Rajasthan, which is definitely a success in India. Similar schemes can be duplicated in the education sector too.

With all my arguments, I however do not discount the level of planning or vision at the highest levels. Yes, we need planning, but that is not a big problem in India. With planning commissions, ministries, development boards, knowledge commissions, we can at the least hope for better plans. But, what about implementation? Many will not deny that we lack in implementation skills. For better and quick implementation, let there be an independent survey by a group comprising representatives from NGOs, Governments and Private sectors. Let there be collaboration between these agencies for the implementation part along with the Government machinery. But most significantly, the common man should be a part of the implementation.

To conclude, let us pledge to bring more children to school, control the dropouts and encourage teaching and research with quality and quantity for a better and strong India.

Jai Hind.

(Article earlier submitted as an essay to a competition hosted by National Knowledge Comission)

Slumdog Millionaire and its Colonial Connections

“Hit British film Slumdog Millionaire has won the top prize at the Academy Awards, winning eight Oscars including best director and best picture”. Headline, BBC News, 23rd Feb, 2009.

While the entire Los Angles was playing the tunes of Jai Ho, it was welcomed with mixed response and feelings of pride, joy, frustration, ego and identity crisis in India.

If writing the screenplay, directing and producing the movie by Britishers qualify enough to be called a British movie, then it is not appropriate. The movie is an adoption of the award-wining novel “Q & A” of Indian author and diplomat Vikas Swarup. Not only that, the heart of the movie is based on the slum life of Mumbai, the very own city of India. The crew, the cast and the location, the theme, the life… all are Indian. What else is needed to call this as an Indian movie then?

Whether you call it as Indian movie or British film, wining Oscars by the Indians or the Britishers for their talents is encouraging. For the Indian Cinema, wining Oscars will definitely add a new chapter to its success story. If you say that was the success of Indian art, then it was the success of the British business model too, which got clicked at the time of recession. They came, shot the people and their life with a limited budget, made huge money out of that and sold the “piece of art” to the world with an Indian tag. It was the conglomeration of the “piece of art” and the business model, which brought the glamour of red carpet for some thing made out of the story of a slum.

Many criticized the movie, saying that it portrayed the ugly side of Indian slums and sold the lives of the poor (garibi) to the rich. They are not completely wrong though. But then, showing poor (garibi) is not anything new. Many have done that in the past. Then, why should they be blamed only? When our very own people do not do any thing for the slums,  what do we expect from movie makers who are in a way “art capitalists”. In fact, these movie makers are at least contributing to the economy by giving jobs to the slum dwellers either as an actor/actress or part of the support system, while shooting the cinema in the slum locality. Making of such movies too create social awareness among the mass.

To be honest, Garibi Hatao, or Garibi Bhagao are phrases coined for the sake of ballot politics in the name of social equality, for the sake of discussions in political circles and for the sake of publishing research papers by scholars and intellectuals. These are age old practices in India. The word garibi is being exploited by the politicians, political thinkers, the intellectuals, the researchers and the cinematographers. But, do these people really want garibi bhagao? I doubt! Both garib and garibi exist in its complete essence.

Some argue that the film is just an art, and there is no relation between garibi and the movie. But, it is not true. The movie is of course mixed with the emotion and the identity of the mass. More over, garibi is not an Indian phenomenon only. It is there in every part of the world. Then, why do you exploit garibi with Indian tag at the international arena for the sake of art or money?

Through a different perspective, if you analyze the pre- and post-days of the release of the movie, then you can find some connections between the movie with the colonial world. Even though  colonialism in terms of British Empire had disappeared long back, a new form of colonialism has started in the form of social divisions of poor and rich, higher caste and loser caste. Be it showing the slums of Mumbai to the western world in the name of art, or making a movie on the life of slum dwellers, or adopting a novel written by a “post-colonial” writer, a link is present every where (directly or indirectly) with colonialism. The plot of the movie is also an out come of the social imbalance created by the colonial world.

In a literary perspective, this movie is just a show case of the “post- colonial”  life and era. It is  the story of the oppressed and the oppressor, the ruled and the ruler and the difference of the poor and the rich. In the name of art, culture and  literature, it is just an exploitation of the mass. Almost all Indians went crazy when the child-stars of Slumdog returned home from Oscar ceremonies. But like the hunch in the movie that how can a slum “dog” be a millionaire, in real life too the lives of little kids like Azhradduin (Jamal) and Rubina (Lathika) have changed forever, for good or worse only time can say. Azharuddin has been reportedly beaten up and manhandled by his father for the sake of money and glamour. These people are still staying in slums — but they no longer belong to their “origin” and neither are they accepted in the so called “glamour classes” of our society. They might be pitied upon, shown as “art-pieces” in more film festivals and treated as “museum-creatures”, but only few might think that they are “human-beings” having a right to lead “normal” lives. They are doubly colonized: (a) By their own society/country which only lives on “breaking news” ; (b) by the “art-connoisseurs” of the world ready to make business out of their plight.Unless this is understood and taken care of, many such Slumdog Millionaires will be re-produced in different parts of the world — in the name of showing  life, and art,   staking the identity of a nation, of a city and a section of people.

The question arises; do we want that to happen and to repeat? Do we want ever to see the slums? Or do we want to change the life of the underprivileged? The choice is yours, and you have to write your own fortune and create your own destiny, whether to be called as slumdogs or millionaires.

Aamjunta, just think over it.

Jai ho!