If you are an Indian, you may not like it, but still...

Reflections on India By Sean Paul Kelley
    
Sean Paul Kelley is a travel writer, former radio host, and before that an asset manager for a Wall Street investment bank that is still (barely) alive. He recently left a fantastic job in Singapore working for Solar Winds, a software company based out of Austin to travel around the world for a year (or two). He founded The Agonist, in 2002, which is still considered the top international affairs, culture and news destination for progressives. He is also the Global Correspondent for The Young Turks, on satellite radio and Air America .
    
     If you are Indian, or of Indian descent, I must preface this post with a clear warning: you are not going to like what I have to say. My criticisms may be very hard to stomach. But consider them as the hard words and loving advice of a good friend. Someone who’s being honest with you and wants nothing from you. 
    These criticisms apply  to all of India except Kerala and the places I didn’t visit, except that I have a feeling it applies to all of India , except as I mentioned before, Kerala. 
    Lastly, before anyone accuses me of Western Cultural Imperialism, let me say this: if this is what India and Indians want, then hey, who am I to tell them differently. Take what you like and leave the rest. In the end it doesn’t really matter, as I get the sense that Indians, at least many upper class Indians, don’t seem to care and the lower classes just don’t know any better, what with Indian culture being so intense and pervasive on the sub-continent. But here goes, nonetheless. 
    India is a mess. It’s that simple, but it’s also quite complicated. I’ll start with what I think are India ’s four major problems–the four most preventing India from becoming a developing nation–and then move to some of the ancillary ones. 
    First, pollution. In my opinion, the filth, squalor and all around pollution indicates a marked lack of respect for India by Indians. I don’t know how cultural the filth is, but it’s really beyond anything I have ever encountered.  At times the smells, trash, refuse and excrement are like a garbage dump. 
    Right next door to the Taj Mahal was a pile of trash that smelled so bad, was so foul, as to almost ruin the entire Taj experience. Delhi , Bangalore and Chennai, to a lesser degree, were so very polluted as to make me physically ill. Sinus infections, ear infection, bowels churning was an all too common experience in India . Dung, be it goat, cow or human fecal matter, was common on the streets. In major tourist areas, filth was everywhere, littering the sidewalks, the roadways, you name it. Toilets in the middle of the road, men urinating and defecating anywhere, in broad daylight. 
    Whole villages are plastic bag wastelands. Roadsides are choked by it. Air quality that can hardly be called quality. Far too much coal and far to few unleaded vehicles on the road. The measure should be, how dangerous the air is for one’s health, not how good it is. People casually throw trash in the streets, on the roads.
    The only two cities that could be considered sanitary in my journey were Trivandrum –the capital of Kerala–and Calicut . I don’t know why this is. But I can assure you that at some point this pollution will cut into India’s productivity, if it already hasn’t. The pollution will hobble India ’s growth path, if that indeed is what the country wants. (Which I personally doubt, as India is far too conservative a country, in the small ‘c’ sense.)
    The second issue, infrastructure, can be divided into four subcategories: roads, rails and ports and the electrical grid. The electrical grid is a joke. Load shedding is all too common, everywhere in India . Wide swaths of the country spend much of the day without the electricity they actually pay for. With out regular electricity, productivity, again, falls. 
    The ports are a joke. Antiquated, out of date, hardly even appropriate for the mechanized world of container ports, more in line with the days of longshoremen and the like. Roads are an equal disaster. I only saw one elevated highway that would be considered decent in Thailand , much less Western Europe or America . And I covered fully two thirds of the country during my visit. 
    There are so few dual carriage way roads as to be laughable. There are no traffic laws to speak of, and if there are, they are rarely obeyed, much less enforced. A drive that should take an hour takes three. A drive that should take three takes nine. The buses are at least thirty years old, if not older. 
    Everyone in India , or who travels in India, raves about the railway system. Rubbish. It’s awful. now, when I was there in 2003 and then late 2004, it was decent. But in the last five years, the traffic on the rails has grown so quickly that once again, it is threatening productivity. Waiting in line just to ask a question now, takes thirty minutes. Routes are routinely sold out three and four days in advance now, leaving travelers stranded with little option except to take the decrepit and dangerous buses. 
    At least fifty million people use the trains a day in India . 50 million people! Not surprising that waitlists of 500 or more people are common now. The rails are affordable and comprehensive, but they are overcrowded and what with budget airlines popping up in India like Sadhus in an ashram, the middle and lowers classes are left to deal with the overutilized rails and quality suffers. No one seems to give a shit. 
    Seriously, I just never have the impression that the Indian government really cares. Too interested in buying weapons from Russia , Israel and the US, I guess. 
    The last major problem in India is an old problem and can be divided into two parts that’ve
    been two sides of the same coin since government was invented: bureaucracy and corruption. 
    It take triplicates to register into a hotel. To get a SIM card for one’s phone is like wading into a jungle of red-tape and photocopies one is not likely to emerge from in a good mood, much less satisfied with customer service. 
    Getting train tickets is a terrible ordeal, first you have to find the train number, which takes 30 minutes, then you have to fill in the form, which is far from easy, then you have to wait in line to try and make a reservation, which takes 30 minutes at least and if you made a single mistake on the form back you go to the end of the queue, or what passes for a queue in India. 
    The government is notoriously uninterested in the problems of the commoners, too busy fleecing the rich, or trying to get rich themselves in some way shape or form. Take the trash for example, civil rubbish collection authorities are too busy taking kickbacks from the wealthy to keep their areas clean that they don’t have the time, manpower, money or interest in doing their job. 
    Rural hospitals are perennially understaffed as doctors pocket the fees the government pays them, never show up at the rural hospitals and practice in the cities instead. 
    I could go on for quite some time about my perception of India and its problems, but in all seriousness, I don’t think anyone in India really cares. And that, to me, is the biggest problem. India is too conservative a society to want to change in any way. 
    Mumbai, India ’s financial capital is about as filthy, polluted and poor as the worst city imaginable in Vietnam , or Indonesia –and being more polluted than Medan, in Sumatra is no easy task. The biggest rats I have ever seen were in Medan! 
    One would expect a certain amount of, yes, I am going to use this word, backwardness, in a country that hasn’t produced so many Nobel Laureates, nuclear physicists, imminent economists and entrepreneurs. But India has all these things and what have they brought back to India with them? Nothing. 
   The rich still have their servants, the lower castes are still there to do the dirty work and so the country remains in stasis. It’s a shame. Indians and India have many wonderful things to offer the world, but I’m far from sanguine that India will amount to much in my lifetime. 
   Now, have at it, call me a cultural imperialist, a spoiled child of the West and all that.  But remember, I’ve been there. I’ve done it. And I’ve seen 50 other countries on this planet and none, not even Ethiopia , have as long and gargantuan a laundry list of problems as India does. 
   And the bottom line is, I don’t think India really cares. Too complacent and too conservative.

When tree is a crowd!

Saw the extent of damage done due to an old peepul tree uprooting in one corner of Bangalore on Saturday afternoon and was instantly reminded of a scary scenario. Experts have time and again warned that the trees in Bangalore are not healthy. And you know what? If this city is known as ‘Garden City’ because of its number of trees, then you must also be aware that their very existence (in an unhealthy form) is also a real big threat to life and property in Bangalore.

Haven’t we seen that happen?

Thank God, it’s not raining nowadays; but when that happens – and in its full glory – we see branches falling apart from their trees, if not the trees themselves falling on the heads of passers-by.

It’s not funny lest you are visualising a Laurel & Hardy kind of a scene. L&H normally shows survivors out of even the worst case; like a tonne weight of a pillar falling on a guy’s head and all we do is laugh at its absurdity because the next thing you see is the guy standing up groggily and walking away to be poked into the eye by either Laurel or Hardy.

What happened on Saturday afternoon was ghastly, not funny. A painter on his way riding a bike was conked out by the falling peepul tree and he was out like a light even before he knew what hit him. That’s what I say is not funny. Because the next time it could be you or me in that hapless painter’s place.

Life in Bangalore is, as it is, very dangerous. As if we need something from above us to kill us because something around us is not. What a checkmate!

So what do we do? Cut the trees which are unhealthy and risk the “green activists” to take to the streets. Every time BBMP screams “Cut”, the activists go “Action!” like as if a film is being shot. And what we do get is nothing short of a comic film, anyway!

These tree activists remind me of relatives of patients who die in hospitals, and all these relatives do is scream “negligence” and the whole world goes against the doctors.

It’s not different with the trees in Bangalore, too. Experts at Institute of Wood Science and Technology, do know that there are several trees in Bangalore which are standing and are unhealthy, and which need to be cut. But if the BBMP tree engineers pay heed to their advice, you will see jack-saws coming out. A little later you will see the tree activists.

Oh boy, this cat-and-mouse game! But who suffers in the end?

                                <p><a href="http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-06-iron-fertilisation-significantly-deep-sea-ecosystems.html">Iron fertilisation would 'significantly' change deep-sea ecosystems</a></p>
                                <p>Adding iron to the oceans in an effort to curb growing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere would lead to 'significant changes' in deep-sea ecosystems, the latest study suggests.</p>
                           

Let fight against corruption start with YOU; not Anna Hazare or Baba Ramdev!

Why are we so frustrated with the ongoing corruption in our country? Going by frustrated statements of some people I have come across recently, it almost looks like they are spelling doom for India.

But the fact is far from that!

These people may make you feel that there is no future in this country, and all that, but if you observe them closely you will realise how much a part of the corrupt system all of us – including them – are!

Just the other day, I came across a person who was so frustrated with all the corruption that he kept asking how long we will have to tolerate this. What really shocked me was his question: “When will they make life better for us? When will I get a 2 BHK flat?”

My shock is because of this: Why should we expect one or the other type of a government to come to power in the state or at the Centre to ensure that our lives are better or worse? Is it because we always try and find solutions from the government, whichever is in power?

If we are actually doing that, then I am not surprised that we remain in the pits; and will continue to be so – frustrated, angry and even suck up to the philosophies of doom, as is being presented by the Naxal movements in the country.

This person’s impressions that it is the government which will provide you with all happiness made me realise that it’s not him alone, but our entire nation which believes in such a thing. Everyone wants an ideal leader; everyone expects a government to usher in grandiose for them; everyone wants someone else to take the axe so that their own lives are better.

But no one will himself/herself take the step to make things better for others. It is this breed of people which is going to make the difference that will take us all to a better, corruption-free life.

If we do not believe in this, then we are a pathetic lot who should have first learnt lessons in citizenship before jumping to take independence from the British.

Take corruption itself. Where does it begin, and why do we see no end to it? It is because we all are an inseparable part of corruption, although when it comes to blaming, we point fingers at others, or at best at the party in power itself.

Let me share an experience with you. When people gathered to stage a dharna at Freedom Park in support of Anna Hazare’s campaign to enact the Lokpal Bill and to fight corruption tooth and nail, I found one person who I know personally – and who himself indulged in corrupt practices in his professional life – vowing to take his family there and express his support for the cause. But the first thing that came to my mind was this: if people like him are participating in a dharna in support of Anna Hazare then this movement itself would be doomed. Because there is no point in having corrupt people camouflaging as honest, sincere individuals suddenly participating in these campaigns only to let go later and resume their corrupt ways of life. Where are we headed in that case?

Therefore, it is up to us to set an example; no matter others saying things like “What are you trying to be Mahatma Gandhi for?”

I think it is in the Indian blood to go to foreign shores (mostly the West), return home praising the discipline among citizens, and then continue with the indiscipline here in India without a care in the world. That’s why they say Indians are best behaved when abroad. But if they can behave well abroad, why can’t they do it here, in their own country, if they really want to rid it of corruption?

Why, among all things, should we blame the government ahead of blaming ourselves?

We need to make the beginning; we need to ensure that our country is corruption-free. It is up to us; it’s not up to people like Anna Hazare (despite his good intentions) or Baba Ramdev, or even the government itself to rid us from corruption. We have to do it…ourselves, and from our hearts!

7 Reasons Not To Mess With Children

1 A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales.
The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because even though it was a very large mammal its throat was very small. 
The little girl stated that Jonah was swallowed by a whale. 
Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible. 
The little girl said, 'When I get to heaven I will ask Jonah'. 
The teacher asked, 'What if Jonah went to hell?' 
The little girl replied, 'Then you ask him'.

  2 A Kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom of children while they were drawing. She would occasionally walk around to see each child's work. 
As she got to one little girl who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was. 
The girl replied, 'I'm drawing God.' 
The teacher paused and said, 'But no one knows what God looks like' 
Without missing a beat, or looking up from her drawing, the girl replied, 'They will in a minute.' 

3 A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her five and six year olds. 
After explaining the commandment to 'honour thy Father and thy Mother', she asked, 'Is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters?' 
Without missing a beat one little boy (the oldest of a family) answered, 'Thou shalt not kill.' 

4 One day a little girl was sitting and watching her mother do the dishes at the kitchen sink. She suddenly noticed that her mother had several strands of white hair sticking out in contrast on her brunette head. 
She looked at her mother and inquisitively asked, 'Why are some of your hairs white, Mum?' 
Her mother replied, 'Well, every time that you do something wrong and make me cry or unhappy, one of my hairs turns white.' 
The little girl thought about this revelation for a while and then said, 'Mummy, how come ALL of grandma's hairs are white?'

   5 The children had all been photographed, and the teacher was trying to persuade them each to buy a copy of the group picture. 
'Just think how nice it will be to look at it when you are all grown up and say, 'There's Leanne, she's a lawyer,' or 'That's Thore, He's a doctor.' 
A small voice at the back of the room rang out, 'And there's the teacher, she's dead.' 

 6 A teacher was giving a lesson on the circulation of the blood. Trying to make the matter clearer, she said, 'Now, class, if I stood on my head, the blood, as you know, would run into it, and I would turn red in the face.' 
'Yes,' the class said. 
'Then why is it that while I am standing upright in the ordinary position the blood doesn't run into my feet?' 
A little fellow shouted,
'`Cause your feet ain't empty.'

   7 The children were lined up in the cafeteria of a Catholic elementary school for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples. The nun made a note, and posted on the apple tray: 
'Take only ONE . God is watching.' 
Moving further along the lunch line, at the other end of the table was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies.
A child had written a note, 'Take all you want. God is watching the apples.'

Inner Peace: This is so true

If you can start the day without caffeine, If you  can always be cheerful, ignoring aches and pains, If you can resist complaining and  boring people with your troubles, If you can eat the same food every  day  and be grateful for it, If you can understand when your loved  ones are too busy to give you any time, If you can take criticism and  blame without resentment, If you can conquer tension  without  medical help, If you can relax without alcohol,  If  you can sleep without the aid of  drugs,      Then, you probably are.. ...the family       dog!            And you thought I was going   to get all spiritual......

Win this one for Sachin -- Harsha Bhogle

This is specially for those people who would have made fun of him again last night when India lost (against South Africa). 

Remember when you failed an examination. How many people recall that -- your class, friends, relatives? You failed to make it to the IITs or IIMs. Who remembers? How many times have you had the feeling of being the best in your class, school, university, state…..; you failed to get a visa stamped this quarter…, you missed a promotion this year…; how did it feel when your dad told you in your early twenties that you are a good-for-nothing...and now your boss tell you the same?

You keep introspecting and go into a shell when people, most of whom don’t matter a dime in your life criticize you, back-bite you, make fun of you. You are left sad and shattered and you cry when your own kin scoff at you.

You say I am feeling low today. It takes a lot from us to come out of these everyday situations and move on.

A lot???

Really?

Now here’s a man standing on the third man boundary in the last over of a world cup match. The bowler just has to bowl sensibly to win this game. What the man at the boundary sees is four rank bad balls bowled without any sense of focus, plan or regret. India loses yet again in those circumstances when he has done just about everything right.

He does not cry, does not show any emotion. He just keeps his head down and leaves the field. He has seen these failures for 22 years now. And not just his class, relatives, friends but the whole world has seen these failures.

We are too immature to even imagine what goes on in that mind and heart of his. That’s why I would never want to be Sachin Tendulkar.

True, he has single-handedly lifted the moods of this entire nation umpteen number of times. He has been an inspiration to rise above our mediocrity. Nobody who has ever lifted the willow even comes close to this man’s genius. His dedication and metal strength is unparalleled.

This is especially for those people who would have made fun of him again last night when India lost.

They are people who are mediocre in their own lives. Who just scoff at others to create cheap fun. Who have lived in a small hole throughout their lives and thought they have seen the oceans.

Think about the man himself.

He is 37 years of age. He has been playing almost non-stop for 22 years. The way he was running and diving around the field last night would have put 22-year-olds to shame. The way he played the best opening quickies in the world was breathtaking. He just keeps getting better which is by the way humanly impossible. It’s not for nothing that people call him GOD.  

But still I don’t want to be in those shoes. We struggle in keeping our monotonous lives straight; lives which affect a limited number of people. Imagine what would be the magnitude of the inner struggle for him; pain, both mental and physical; tears that have frozen with time; knees and ankles and every other joint in the body that is either bandaged or needs to be attended to every night; eyes that don’t sleep before a big game; (and) bats that have scored 99 international tons and still see expectations from a billion people.

And he just converts those expectations into reality. We watch in awe, feel privileged.

Well I think its time that his team realizes that enough is enough.

They have an obligation, not towards their country alone, but towards Sachin. They need to win this one for him. Stay assured that he himself will still deliver and leave no stone unturned to make sure India wins this cup.

This is not just a game, and he is not just a sportsman. It’s much more than this. Words fail here.....

---By HARSHA BHOGLE