The case of a smelling shoe

Something was stinking, the other day when I had just come to office. It was bad, I ignored it for sometime, but then every now and then, my senses reminded me that it was stinking. Something from down, was it the shoe? What else could stink in office. There were three people in the office, the other two were sitting together and working on some problem, am sure they were also feeling the same, but guess it was too embarrassing to point to someone that the shoe was stinking so everyone was quiet.

My shoes don't ever stink, at least that is what I always thought. But was it the other two people, I did not know.
I remember the last time I had been faced with such a smell was way back in hostel. Somehow from somewhere an insurance agent had come and his shoes were terribly terribly stinking. Today the smell was not that strong, but still it was bad, specially in the corporate office.

I wanted to ensure that my shoe was not smelling, so making it look very natural I just dropped my pen and bent down and ooopss... the right leg was stinking. It was bad. The more embarrassing thought was that I had been running around at couple of customer locations in the morning giving some marketing presentations and all that with this stinking shoes, But I had not realised that in morning, probably because I was fully absorbed. Probably someone would have tried to suggest me, but I would not have never paid any attention.

Well I don't know what you do in this kind of situations, I thought for possible solution, did not want to be caught washing the shoe in the loo. Finally decided that it was enough and I should call it a day, and should leave office, before giving a chance to anyone to tell me that my shoes were stinking. Thought would reach home early, get rid of the shoes and then send them off for washing or whatever treatment they required.

When I reached home rather early at four, and I removed my shoes to examine it, I noticed a big chunk of Cow Dung, that was smeared on the bottom of my right shoe.

When they built the dam.....

This is the story about this young man, name I do not know. He was not the kinds that would form the characters of the books or the kinds that were portrayed in the movies. He was a simple man, and he lived in a small village near the Narmada valley, almost at the border of Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. Life consisted mainly of going to forest and tending to small farm, the needs were not many, everything was got locally, and apparently till some years back the only thing that used to come from the city was salt.

He owned a small piece of land, which he spent most of his time tending to. His life appeared to be set, he was just stepping in to manhood and he already had found a girl for himself. Girl happened from the adjacent village which was about 15km away, walk was the only way to go. He had fallen in love with her, at the small stream which flowed near their village, and merged in to Narmada. Love marriages were not very unknown in the community and infact they were encouraged. So he was looking forward to the beautiful life to come, not aware of the huge calamity that was to fall on his head.

So as it happened, he realized that his village was one of the three villages identified in Gujarat which was to be submerged into the Narmada dam which was going to be built. He did not know much about the Dam and he did not understand much, other than the fact that it would produce Bijli, something that always filled him with wonder and amazement, something which he had seen in cities when he had traveled and something which he yearned for. He was supposed to get some money, there was confusion, so much of money looked attractive, but he could not fully figure out why was he asked to be moved from a place where he had stayed for ages. In the confusion he had also realized that the girls father had rejected his proposal for marriage. Girls father could not marry his daughter to someone whose future was uncertain. He was too confused to fight back, too uncertain to make any claims. Things were changing rapidly, and he was not able to keep pace with the change.

One year down the line, nothing remained same for him. He found himself in completely different world. He lost his land for some money. Money some of which was left, some he had spent lavishly and some he had lost. He had got land somewhere but it did not seem the same. The girl was already married somewhere, and he had stopped thinking about it because it bought pain and memories of lost world. He was doing odd jobs, he felt that he had lost his identity. But someone had told him, what the newspapers said, Dam was going to be considered as one of India's greatest pride but papers did not mention anything about him or his village



PS: Most of the story is true, heard about it in Mozda, a small tribal village in Gujarat. I also went and saw Sardar Sarovar, which is massive, and which has bought water to places where water was a struggle. But someone has had to pay the price for it.

Taking a Stand

Hi,
I am back after a long holiday and back to blogging. It was a hectic travel and net access was difficult and even you did not feel like sitting in front of the computer. Lots of travel blogs to write but before that just wanted to write this small story which I read somewhere. Am sure you are gonna like it.
"
Once upon a time, during the time of Mahabharata, there was this great warrior who wanted to be part of war between Kauravas and Pandavas. So he set out to Kurukshetra battlefield. On his way he met Krishna.
"I want to participate in great Mahabharata" he told Krishna.
"What can you do?" Krishna asked him
"With one arrow I can kill all Pandavas, with another arrow I can kill all Kauravas, and with one arrow I can kill Krishna" he said (he did not know that the man he met was Krishna)
"Prove yourself?" Krishna said.
"Ok, look at that tree, with one arrow I can pierce all the leaves of this tree"
Krisha asked him to do it, secretly plucking five leaves of the tree and putting under the five fingers of his feet.
The warrior shot the arrow and it after piercing each and every leaf, it came and pierced each of Krishna fingers one by one.
Krishna was very impressed and he realized that the warrior was of the highest class.
"On which side would you like to fight the war?" He asked,
"I always fight on the side of losers" the warrior said.

This really bothered Krishna, because he knew this would create a loop. The warrior would first fight on Pandavas side, and when they would be about to win, he would join Kauravas, and so on. The fight would never end. So he decided to end the warrior
Krishna asked the warrior, "Would you help me to fight against a a person who is destroying the dharma that I am trying to establish on Earth?"
Warrior said, "yes I will cut his head" he said
Krishna showed him the mirror. Warrior immediately realized that Krishna wanted him to be killed, but true to his word he offered his head to Krishna.

Pleased with him, Krishna asked him for the boon, and the warrior asked to be allowed to see the battle even when he was dead. So Krishna placed his head on the tree, where in spite of being dead he could watch the battle.
"

Well the story ends here and I have picked it up from Professor Devdutt's site. So Devdutt says that this story teaches us to take a stand because if you don’t take a stand then you end up being nowhere and don’t allow others to reach anywhere.

He says that in our day to day corporate meetings, we see people who are so brilliant that they can see things from both sides. When someone proposes a plan, they argue in favor of it, but as soon as everyone is about to agree to the plan, they argue about the misgivings of the plan. At the end of it, everyone is confused and you don’t take any decision. Hence the meetings just remain as mere intellectual discussions without any outcome.

So many of my meetings in my company have been like this. We just talk and talk and talk and talk very intelligently without making any decisions what so ever.

Even in my personal life, for lots of things I find balance arguments in favor and against doing something. And most times in these cases I don’t decide and keep thinking it over and over again. Guess it is best to decide something and move ahead and review the decisions at some point of time later.

Also reading Devdutt site makes me believe that there is so much in our mythology stories. If you try to interpret them, there are so many things. These stories are not just some imaginations, but have deep rooted meaning. Wonder why don’t we have more of these in our textbooks rather than decoding half French poems by William Wordsworth and "thou thy" language of Shakespeare.

The Snake and a holy man

 

There was a certain village, where one snake used to live. Now this snake used to keep biting people and all the people in the village were very scared of him. So the people of the village never used to venture out of the house much because of the snake, even children did not used to play outside their houses.

 

One day one holy man was passing through the village and he was surprised to see the village so quiet, and on enquiring he got to know about the snake. So this holy man went to talk to the snake, in general you cannot talk to snakes, but holy men have special powers and they can talk to them.

 

Holy man gave all the gyan to snake, and explained him that it was not a good idea to be biting people around and harassing other living beings. It was against the scriptures and he might suffer in his next birth. The snake was very impressed with the holy man and he promised that he is going to change himself and become a really good good snake.

 

Now fast forward, one year ahead.

 

The holy man is again passing through the same village, and he sees the village full of activity. He feels very proud of himself. As he goes forward he sees a group of children crowded around something, jumping and playing. When he went near he saw that these children had surrounded the same snake, and they were hitting him with stones and catching its tail and the snake looked completely tortured. Snake was looking very sorry looking and meek.

 

The holy man drives all the kids away, and feels very sorry for the snake. He asks the snake, what happened. Snake says that as people started realizing that snake had stopped biting, they started making fun of him, and harassing him.

 

Then the holy man tells the snake, “I had only asked you to stop biting, but not to stop hissing, you have to be nice but still stand up your ground.”

 

“Be nice to people, but don’t get walked over”, I guess this is the moral of the story.

 

Guess this is little stupid story, but I really found it very relevant and really liked it.

 

 You may also like to read the following:

How umbrella and slippers came in to existence

A small story

Of Tree walk and Battle of Plassey

Yesterday I went to this Tree walk which was organized by Bangalore walks, they do it every weekend.  So me, lekha and raghu landed up there 7 am in the morning on a sunday. 

 

Vijay was going to be our tour guide, you can find his entire series of articles on the Banglaore walks website. And I was expecting more of botanical kind of walk, where he would give information about each and every tree, but then it was much more than that. What was very impressive was that he told us lot of stories about each and every tree, stories related to its origin or how it came about being in lalbaug abd his individual experiences and observations with the trees. 

 

For example he was explaining us this tree called Palash, I have seen this tree before but never paid much attention to it. It has a tree which has bright orange flowers, and it is also called the flame of the forest. Traditionally Gulal was made from the flowers of this tree (until all the synthetic gulal came into being), and it was used as dye for clothes. 

 

But well one of another interesting things that he told was that, apparently, battle of Plassey was fought in Palash groove and hence the name battle of Plassey. I googled little bit and found this in one of the NCERT text books.  (I don’t remember studying this, but isnt this good way to teach associated trees with history, it would be so easy to remember) 

 

From NCERT ,

 

"Did you know how Plassey got its name? Plassey is an anglicised pronunciation of Palashi and the place derived its name from the palash tree known for its beautiful red flowers that yield gulal, the powder used in the festival of Holi."

 

Photos of Palash tree,

Flowers of Palash tree

Palash tree in bloom

 

 

Like these there were other numerous stories which Vijay told, and it was fun.

 One another thing which I found particularly interesting was about Bamboo flowering.

It seems that Bamboo trees flower once in about 40-50 years, and during that they produce large quantities of seeds. After this bamboo dies and regenerates from these seeds. But this is not the end of story, apparently this large quantities of seeds result in substantial increase in rodent population in that year since rodents thrive on the seeds. And after consuming the seeds rodents move to fields and granaries and which results in large amount of crops getting destroyed. Apparently most of famines of Mizoram (which has substantial Bamboo forests) have been a result of this Bamboo flowering.  Hence Bamboo is also called "Flower of Famine".

From India Today,

 The flowering of Bamboo sends Mizoram into terrifying spiral crop devastation and food shortages. The last time bamboo bloomed 48 years ago, it led to famine and two decades of violent insurgency.

Related Hindu article here,

Researched article on Bamboo Flowering here. 

Related Stories: 

Story of Robert Clive

How Bangalore came in to existence

 

Getting the "wrong books"

Yesterday I had been to crossword to redeem one gift voucher that I had got long time back. I bought couple of books and then then as always I wrote my name on the book along with the date. 

For some reason yesterday, this simple activity made me travel 15 years back, when I was in school, and it used to be such a great thrill every year at the start of the school term to sit and write the names on new books that we used to get and what a thrill it used to be. That was the time to discard the old torn books (I have never been that organized kind of guy and my books by the end of the year were most often or not in atleast two parts), and fashion the new ones. 

I remember one such incident, I think I was in class five or something. And as every year we used to get the list of the books to buy, along with our report card for the next year. This time around, I had decided take money from parents and go and buy the books for myself, instead of waiting for parents to take off the time of their busy schedule to get them. Parents generally never hurried to get the books early, mostly they went just about a day before the school was supposed to be reopened. 

So this time around, I struggled hard and got money from parents and got the books for myself very much earlier then the school was supposed to start. And I spent rest of the vacation writing my name on the books slowly, after painfully selecting the pen that I wanted to use, and then trying to look for interesting pictured newspapers which I could use to cover the books, and so on. Finally the day came when my school started, and  to my surprise I found that the some of the books that I had got were incorrect. To my horror I had got the books which were not supposed to be of my syllabus, of some different grade. In the evening when I told this to my parents, they were upset, and we immediately went to the bookshop, but since I had put my name on the books with all kinds of pens, shopkeeper would not exchange it for the new books. My father had to buy another set of books for me, and he requested the shopkeeper to keep the "wrong books" and try to sell them even at half price to get some money back.

I dont remember my parents being very angry with me or something neither do I remember getting any punishment, just the instruction that from here on we were supposed to write names on  our books with pencil and not with pens. I dont even remember if my father got any money for those "wrong books", but I am sure that he made have made endless trips to the shop to check if the books were sold.  

I even remember that every year we used to get this number of notebooks that we need for the year.  Starting for english classwork, to english homework, to english composition to english grammar, different notebooks for different things. We used to need about 20 such notebooks, and then father used to sit and analyze and ask me  to use the same notebook for composition and grammar and do the partition in middle and so on. In our school they used to allow partition in the middle of notebook,  if the subject belonged to same teacher. So parents used to patiently sit and look at teachers and subjects and try to optimize the number of notebooks and reduce them to 15 or something, which I was never keen on, but convicing me with various kinds of reasons. 

When I think about it right now, I understand how much struggle it was for parents to save money for the start of year, for our books, notebooks, uniforms etc. Probably that was the most difficult times. And sometimes as kids, we were so adamant to make life difficult for them.  But they just went through all that, never making us realize the struggle they had to go through day in and day out. 

I owe so much to my parents for what and where I am today. 

The Envelop Story

Well, in one of the marketing conference, and one of the speakers told this interesting story which i really liked, Ofcourse it is related to marketing, but probably you can apply this to real life.

"

There was a certain airline company say HiFly airlines, which used to consume about 1 million of envelops every year. They used envelops to communicate to customers their tickets, offers, new flight informations, frequent flyer programs and so on etc. At start of each year they used to float a tender, asking for proposals (pricing) from envelop companies for that years quantities,  and then as it happens the contract goes to lowest bidder.

So this was just a pure price game, there was not much of options for the envelop companies other than to put the best possible deal they could afford and hope for the best.

But one envelop company tried to do it differently. They approached the HiFly airlines and said that they would like to do research on the envelop usage in their company. They wanted to find out, for what purposes the envelop were used, how many people respond back, sizes of envelops used  and so on. Envelop company told HiFly that it was just some extra work that they were willing to do purely from research point of view. The airline people did not find any problem in this, and they allowed the research to be done.

In course of research the Envelop company found the following,

1. Most of the envelops that went out were for  frequent flyer program, and offers for free flights. 

2. About 80% of the people never opened those envelops.

Considering this observations the Envelop company suggest to airlines that for frequent flyer they should be designed differently. They should  be windowed envelops, and top of envelop should be printed like this,

You are 

[3] (Through the window)

Flights away from getting a free flight (something as in below picture)

Apart from this the envelop company gave quite a few other suggestions as to how to make envelops more attractive, and more tempting for people to see it.

Airline company really liked these suggestions and on trial run, they really found out that it substantially increased their responses to their otherwise mostly unread envelops.

After this Airline company got rid of the tender process. They joined hands with the this particular envelop company, to provide them with envelops and to also do frequent analysis on their usage and suggest changes.

"

I really liked this story, because most times, we dont take initiatives or do more work, not because we dont want it, but most times  because uncertainity clouds us. But sometimes I guess we have to do stuff, with genuine interest, and without bothering about rewards,

rewards come, maybe little later but they do. 

Story time..

Last time I went to Blossoms, I picked up this stories from Premchand. (Premchand was one of the greatest writers in Hindi, at the start of this century. He was written lots of novels, and short stories and some of his movies have been made in to successful films) 

I read one of his stories and I really liked it. So I am putting the gist of that story here.

"

So as it happens, the story starts with marriage. This newly wedded girl comes from a staunch brahmin familiy, and is very religions. She does not eat anything before taking bath in the morning, and does not eat in places where non-vegetarian is consumed. The guy on the other hand, is also a brahmin, but he has learnt to accept things. He has lot of friends who are muslims and christians. He does not eat non-vegetarian, but he goes and dines at their places. The girl finds this extremely hard to accept. She thinks it is an attack to the purity of her existence. 

The guy, is not able to understand this wife. He thinks that this is because of blind following of values, which have resulted in unacceptance and superiority kind of feeling in his wife. One day, he sits and gives a big discourse to his wife, he says, "God resides in each one of us. Be it the maid, or my friends or animals and birds. It is the same God. Just like sun gives light to everyone, irrespective of everything, we should not discrimate between people based on caste, religion and anything. All are equal"

This speech has a big effect on the girl. She realizes that she is making the mistake. All of sudden she developes a huge respect for her husband, she starts thinking of him as God like figure.  She becomes very considerate to the maids, servants in their house. Once the maid, complains of severe headache. While earlier she would have just given some medicine and sent her off, now she massages her head for ten minutes. She feels bliss after doing this. Earlier there was different food cooked in house for the family and for servants. Family was served basmati rice and meals included sweets, while the servant were served normal rice with just some dal.  The girl thinks that this is inequality and God will get offended with this, and hence she ensures that all including family and servants get the same meal.

The guy, initially was happy to see the change in his wife, now does not like it. One day, there is big function in their house and the guy gets special sweets made. But on the morning of function, his wife spots, some poor people outside her house and she feeds them all the special sweets. The guy gets infuriated at this. He tries to explain her that God created inequality, because some people deserve more and some people deserve less, because of their activities in previous birth, and sometimes you should let this inequalities be. But the girl does not understand, she begins to think  that her husband is hypocrite, bending the rules for his convenience. Her godlike respect for him slowly starts diminishing.

" 

White washed Rainbows

Guest Article: White washed Rainbows

By: Sucharita Roy

(This is written by one of my doctor friends called Sucharita. This article has always inspired me, and continues to inspire me. This is little long but trust me worth the read)

Something happened last year during my outdoor duty at the Department Of Ophthalmology that I must mention.A hastily gathered group of 20 odd students collect everyday around 9 30 am to see patients that would help them in knowing the subject better and in a more restricted sense of the term, help them sail through the 3^rd professional exams.We have been caught up in this frenzied state of being ever since clinicals have started where we learn to see patients to get a proper hold on our subject. And may be caught up with th speed of learning up hundreds of diseases and their associated clinical conditions,differential diagnoses(other conditions that can masquerade under a different disease by mimicking its clinical presentation)….the number of explanations can be put up ad infinitum.Whatever the case,that morning 26 of us gathered in the outdoor department of the Department of Ophthalmology eager to learn and see some new cases.

The teacher we were allotted that day was Dr Madan Mohapatra,a very efficient doctor and a really nice person .And that morning he was his usual incisive yet gentle self, teaching us the nuances of ophthalmology that we could handle at that stage. The crowd was beginning to warm up as the day progressed and we were shuffling about in the small room all craning our necks together at the same time tryin to look into th pupil of a patient who just had a new lens fitted or to see the pattern of injury caused by an iron foreign body.Perched as I was,at the side of sir with the plan of seeing the cases better than most others because I was right next to the patients most of the time so even the tiniest pathology wouldn’t escape my notice, I was having fun in my own little way. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary, or so it seemed.

The next patient was a young boy, no more than 7 years at the most. He came holding this father’s hands and sat on the stool and was wearing a yellow T-shirt and black pants and had on a pair of black glasses the kind of which you get in hospitals or the ones immortalized by the Bollywood Surdas Rajendra Kumar.My mind started whirring at 3000rpm trying to spot the diagnosis as I did some mental maths.

Appearance-Healthy

Attitude-Cheerful (grinning to be exact)

Gait- Normal, no deformities

Skin and Hair condition- Healthy, no evidence of malnutrition.

Injuries-None observed except the eye area which will be revealed after he will open the glasses.

Most probable diagnosis-Childhood cataract operated and patient has come for a routine check up after lens implantation.

As my mind was doing this the boy was running his hand across the edge of the table. He was turning his head from where he supposed his father must be to the other side probably trying to find him out. Nothing about him to suggest he could not have been a boy straight from the fair, who had made his father buy him the goggles from a vendor. All he lacked was perhaps a red balloon; and I could half imagine him clutching one in his left hand. Or was there a lack that dint meet the eye? Only time would tell that,and in a few seconds it did.

I smiled at him when he turned his head towards me, and was about to make a face at him when unexpected words came floating upon my self-indulgent ears that makes me turn on music in a crowded hall oblivious to the surroundings..”A very unfortunate case..” , Madan Sir was saying. I was confused, `Did the cataract operation not go well? ‘. Things were not making sense. I wanted to know what had happened. But my playful indulgence had already cut off the reason Sir had given to justify his statement. I waited for him to take the child’s glasses off half wishing to do it myself but afraid lest I irritate his eyes. Madan Sir turned towards the boy who was now smiling at him stretching his hands possibly with the hope of shaking it. “And now there is nothing that can be done”, he said and took his glasses off. There was a single collective gasp.I was by the side of the boy so I bent forward to see wondering what could have moved even the stiffest students to flinch. And my jaw dropped at what I saw.

There was a fleshy crater in place of where his left eye should have been. At least 2 fingers deep and as wide and extending right to the back of the orbit where the bare remains of what should have been the optic nerve stood out like a stubbed cigarette butt. Across the back of the orbit were the stitches that had tagged the sclera into the roof. The black silk stitches were put there to prevent infection from spreading intracranially. The right eye was there but it was possibly worse than the other. The cornea (the transparent thing in front of the colored part of the eyeball which is what is actually donated when people donate their eyes) looked like a glob of pudding had fallen on his eyes there.

We call that clinical condition Keratomalacia. A blinding disease caused by the dietary deficiency of Vitamin A, which causes blindness and makes the skin flaky.In layman's terms it simply melts the eyes.But its not something people need not buy expensive capsules to treat or prevent; it is found in abundance in all green leafy vegetables and if one even ate the papaya that grows in abundance in our state one will never get that condition. However what was shocking was that someone who looked so healthy and had no other manifestations of a deficiencyshould suffer from it;weird to explain but at imes more frequent than sometimes a disease silently creeps up stealthily from behind even though there is no outward manifastaion of a lack thereof or something happening. His skin looked pretty healthy and it was hard to imagine what amount of depravation he must have faced before this happened to his eyes. And I wondered what his parents were doing till then instead of getting him to a hospital sooner. And the only thought I could possibly have that time was which was worse to have- a hole on the left with the lids sinking into it or a non-functioning eye on the right that the lids could not close.

The right eye was beyond repair was what we heard from sir, and so the inevitable reoperation a few weeks after to take his right eye out to prevent him from dying because once the cornea on the right melted and dislodged, the right eye would become a nidus of infection that would gnaw into his brains and kill him within a week. I was feeling suffocated, and i wanted an explanationfor the fact that such injustice be done to someone so young and what were we doing at all if we could not save vision even in one of his eyes with all our unbridled pride for saving people's lives.. I wondered what sort of life we were sending him back to. Sooner or later he will be relegated to begging on the streets and cursing the doctors who took his eyes out to give him a life he hated with all his might. And then if we were claiming to make so many advances in medicine why we could not do something that was so widespread in a country like ours where 10% of the children born suffer from avoidable blindness so if we have a 10% of a billion odd population it makes 10 crores of children under the age of 5 out of which at least 10 percent lose their sight in any eventuality..which amounts to 10000000 blind kids in the country and growing every second. I was confused and embittered about what I felt to be the handiwork of poverty that can stifle so many lives and take the light out of any meaningfulness in it.

“But surely sir there must be some way, at least a cornea transplant; couldn’t that be done?”, I had blurted out just as he was about to resign this patient because the wound on his left was healing appropriately. All heads turned at me, known as I am for my abruptness and near disrespect for behaving like a subdued student who thinks every word spoken by the teacher is the rule. Madan Sir looked at me and I began to wonder if I had blurted out something stupid.My classmates looked as blank as the whitewashed walls.I wished hospitals were painted any other colour.yellow,green or even black or red..would be something instead of blankness.At times a white can be a dark as a black.Only we can see it..we see it everyday.And i hope it remains to us.

“Good question”, he said. “But do you think we can consider that possibility here?”, he asked me.

“May be sir”, I struggled with the ineffectual abilities of an amateur at the science. “His entire cornea is sloughed so there will be no rim to place it “,I was thinking inside.

“Maybe sir if we could find a big cornea from a donater”, I blurted feeling incredibly stupid because I knew there being no supportive tissur in the boy’s eyes to support it, it would be just a matter of days before the graft would slough off.On the outside I waited for him to chide me for speaking like a “civilian” ( excuse me for this but its essential for us to maintain this language code. You have no idea how difficult it is for me to write about it in proper English. Its just that I want to put the thought across and I hope you will sympathise with me in my ineffectual efforts to do so).

For a moment Sir regarded my suggestion. I still don’t know if it had a truth value in its import. But whatever there was he started to say “Even if we consider a transplant we will at least have to see if it will be effectual even if its grafted into it”. “And for that “, he said and looked around hopin to receive an answer which at that instant was not forthcoming from anyone including me, “We need to see if he has any PR and PL because otherwise we do such a huge surgery and find his eye melts right after 2 weeks,and its just not worth it”.

(PR and PL are medical acronyms for Perception Of Light and Projection Of Rays ,which measures the basal function of the retina which ,once gone, can never be regenerated. Projection of Rays is the last function to go in blindness.Its the pixel of vision if you might call it in clinical terms.)

Madan Sir took a torch and put directly into his eye and asked him if he felt anthing.He didn’t.“No PL”, “Bad sign.Lets hope at least th PR remains”, he said and took the torch to all the 4 quadrants askin the boy if he ever felt something coming from somewhere he should say from which side he felt it was coming from. Notice he used the terms "something", and "feeling" instead of "light" and "looking" because the boy had no idea what light is all about.He had the condition ever since he was a kid until his eyes ginally gave way like wax which made him seek hospital attention.The boy immediately took a fancy for what he thought was a game. As sir showed the torch from all sides he giggled and tried to catch the torch each time.For 15 seconds the room was filled with 20 nauseated students, an expressionless father, a doctor assessing a patient if he could do something more other than taking his eyes out, and the blissfully innocent giggles of a kid who had possibly no idea what vision is all about so something in place of the nothing he saw or rather felt to be exact made him think life was beautiful.

And he played a good game.PR was lost in 1 quadrant. So in short there was some hope of a graft working in theory. Sir told had circumstances been a little more beneficial they would have even risked the benefit of doubt to a graft and see how the body responded. Sometimes the human body responds in ways no one can explain and miracles can happen. So who knew. But in this case “Where is the money to go on about it?”, Sir said as he looked at me.“The father had to be convinced the first time if we didn’t operate his son would be dead within a week. The hospital is going to do the second enucleation for free” . There was my half nodding and 25% of a half lipped smile as I understood what he was saying through his eyes. This is the language people of a profession share when they talk about the impotence of a situation that cannot be helped. This is the language a doctor buries in his heart and his lowered head when his family members disconnect the lines and take away their patient because they cannot afford the healthcare costs and if they put the patient in the hospital they will be dead before long because they haven’t eaten for last 4 days

Something started to sting my eyes.And mostly it was guilt.Guilt at having an intact life ;having resources to sustain and indeed enjoy that intactness at times even abusing it; and guilt at the injustice I was doing to the vastness of possibilities in my existence weighed against my own protestations of the injustices I felt were done to me for every mundanely unimportant thing that had upset me.Gulit at the privilege; and guilt at what I was doing about the responsibilities bestowed with the endowments.And disgust mostly at myself for my procrastination of happiness because of my own weird reasons that at this time seemed corrupt with selfishness.

And disgust.A lot more of disgust actually.Disgust that someone like me could make myself so miserable about things that seemed nothing in comparison to this blind boy in front of me who has never seen a ray of light in his life and whats worse, he has no idea what he is stepping into.And disgust at him for being happy in a situation like that.His smiles burnt my beliefs and faiths and smothered my self indulgences. I cant say I liked him.Its weird to explain. I hated him because he was missing something he didn’t know.I hated him for what was going to happen to him.And I hated him for not questioning for his being the way he was.For being happy with his losses.I was despising his happiness.

What struck me much later for his appearance that belied hs codition is a fact that most patients in our state think going to a hospital is a special occasion, much akin to going to the house of a relation, so its not unusual to see ladies bedecked in jewellery and pata sarees even if its only to open the petticoat and lie down crumpling all those folds for a pelvic examination.So in all possibilities he was probably dressed ina fresh pair of clothes borrowed from someone and thoroughly oiled and groomed by his mother for his hospital visit.

Whatever it was, he was bade away.I wanted to rush to him and hold hime in a tight embrace and I dont know why i wanted to do that. He would have most probably run awaythinking I was a mad woman. A part of me chided myself for transfering which is a term used when doctors feel more than they should for a patient.Its what brought Seth Lazarus a brilliant surgeon in Erich Segal’s DOCTORS to commit multiple acts of euthanasia on experimental dogs at first and then terminally ill patients.Sometimes I put myself in that position and think what I would have done..And there is not a definite “Yes” , but at the same time there is also not a definite “No to that.Because transference really affects a doctor’s ability because out of compassion he might just be the reason for the patient's death for not thinking logically and clearly.

I cant lay more expression to what I was feeling for my ability to express falls way short of my feelings at that time. And I most certainly didn’t want to look up and see what my friends were growing through.Summarily the case was dismissed as the next patient came to have his 5 minutes of fame with our audience.And the Boy from the Fair was forgotten for the time being.

But what I remember most at this time after 2 years is not my angst and frustration or revolt against things way beyond my powers to modify.In some weird way that cant be explained I only preserve within the confines of my memory the realization that day of a human’s capacity for happiness.In the little we have from life its just that it takes just us and only us to make us feel the way we want to.And for that, I feel proud I met that boy who showed me that one should not waste life in misery thinking about what the morrow will bring because anyways a person has no idea about that..and to waste time thinking about the darkest of possibilities and in turn being sad for something one has no idea of, life is too short to indulge in this way.

The world of nothingness from which the boy came that day and into which he disappeared was in ways way more colourful than all our starched white formalin sprayed existences.And way more white.If anything his shirt and my imaginary balloon made up for yellow and red..and his smiles and possibly the sighs and the silent tears of the rest in the room that day made up for the rest of the colours of the rainbow that bloomed in OPD2; and still blooms in my mind when I think of him after so long.Against a whitewashed silent blackness, its a rainbow hued smile that inspires you to rise up and to try to be better at what i am doing..Because people like him need things from this world.And people like us need to do it for the world.

And that completes a circle.

God bless him wherever he might be.

P:S:-WITH GREAT POWER COMES GREATER RESPONSIBILITY. (Spiderman)

Different prespective

"Before I joined Ananya in 1998, I was just wasting my time. I was in a children's remand home in Bombay, and then in a hostel in Hubli. I ran away and got into smoking and drugs, until one of my friends introduced me to this school. I started studying here. I have stayed here for eight years, I have given my 10th class exam, and now I am working in CAPS IT solutions. I work as an office administrator. I want to thank Ananya, and all the teachers, because whatever I am today is due to them. I want to encourage my other friends who are in Ananya to study", he says

"Dont you want to study more?" I ask him

"No, now I want to work for some more time, I want to get my younger sister married, after that I will study more, I want to learn software uncle, (he calls me uncle, even though I dont like being called uncle)"

"Do you not want to get married?"


"No uncle, I read in paper daily, husband wife fighting, so
I dont want to get married, first I want to study"

This was my excerpt of talking with one of the Ananya students on one of my visits there, I wanted to post this for a long time but never managed to do it.


PS: Ananya is a school for the underprivileged children in Bangalore. It is one of the most wonderful NGO schools that I have seen.

How Bangalore came in to existence..

This month for the issue of Sattva, I had to do a brief writeup on History of Bangalore. And it was very good, and interesting, doing the research. Considering that I have stayed over five years in Bangalore I hardly know anything about Bangalore history, and interestingly enough most of the people whom I asked in my office, who have been in Bangalore from quite some time did not know much.

Bangalore dates back its history to over thousand years, but it was a small village, as compared to Hampi and Srirangapatnam, which during their glory days were apparently great cities. I also read at various places that there is a folk lore that Bangalore owes its name to one of the Hoysala Kings, (which was as early as 11th century), who on his hunting expedition, lost its way somewhere here. Tired and hungry he came across a poor woman who fed him boiled beans, and the king named the place “benda kaal-ooru” (which in Kannada means town of boiled Beans), which was eventually colloquialised to “Bengalûru”.

Later Kempagowda who was one of the ministers of Vijaynagar formely found Bangalore, by building a small mud fort, and four watch towers in four corners of city, (they still exists, there is one in Lalbaug in the right picture)

But apparently Bangalore still remained a small settlement, until till about early 19th Century. When British defeated Tipu Sultan and got hold of Srirangapatnam, they set up their settlement there. But apparently it seems that the place was infested with lot of mosquitoes, and after ten years of many malarial deaths, British shifted their settlement to Bangalore, and start developing which we present day call cantonment area.

So Bangalore developed as two distinct settlements, one consisting mainly of British near Cantonment and the other one consisting of local population near the city area (what we call chipeth). Hence all this names of Infantry road, Brigade road, Residency road etc.

In course of doing all this research I also read this interesting book on Bangalore from Peter Colaco. Next time you get jobless in crossword take a look at this book.

I think that in schools you should have a simple chapter on regional history, which I guess is very important. It was not there in my syllabus in my schooldays. I grew up only learning about History in bigger perspective of India as whole.

It is funny now that Bangalore all of sudden has become a all new city to me. Each of the road and building I pass has a different story and meaning for me. Some day when I become more free I will try to pen down other things about Bangalore.

A small story...

He was half-awake, still on the bed, when Mr. Reddy called. "Please can you be at Indian coffee house at 8:30 morning", he could hear Reddy say. "Ok," he said and cut the phone. But he was in no mood to get up, he generally liked to lie in bed early in the morning, listening to the birds and thinking about his girl friends, atleast those who he thought of as girlfriends. He didn't want to spoil his sleep for some Reddy, and he got some satisfaction in making Reddy wait for spoiling his dreams.

He was wondering how people could be so selfish, seven in morning was not the time to bug people, especially when you did not know them and further still when you had to get some work out of them. But he did not say anything on phone, because Mr. Reddy was after all niranjan's father. He had worked with Niranjan on one project during college time and they had had a good time.

He delayed as much as he could getting up from bed, but then finally woke up and got ready to meet Reddy. Early morning MG road is deserted, and he quite liked to drive on empty roads, even parking is so easily available, and standing outside the coffee house was this middle age man, a typical shop-keeper-uncle type, with a big tummy, and sure enough he was Mr. Reddy.

"Mahesh"
he nodded,
"I waiting, 7:30 AM"? Mr. Reddy added,

"But I said 8:30 uncle", he blurted in a louder voice, He was in no mood to be guilt-tripped by some Reddy who was standing for one hour on a relatively cold Bangalore morning.

"Language problem, you fast English, less understand" he said

They went inside.

"15 minutes only, then you go office", Mr Reddy said

He was relieved, he had a important review meeting in office at 10 and he did not wanna get late for that. Not much that it mattered, but he still wanted to use this as an excuse to escape from him, and return to comfortable work desk with google talk and orkut.

"Lawyer from Guntur, you witness, give same, what you give in court, copy is there" Mr. Reddy said and handed him the copy.

He looked at the copy, and memories flooded of that afternoon in court, all those cross examination questions, "Did you see the truck coming", "Was it a cold night", "Was it a foggy night", all those things which he hardly remembered. He was actually sleeping when it happened, and he did not even realize it until much later, when he had woken up to lots of commotion, people shouting, in languages he did not understand, and he was sandwiched between two seats. He did not remember exactly when the realization had hit him that it was an accident. He only remembered wriggling out through the window, someone helping him out, and for some strange reason he was the only one out there wearing shoes, every one else in their bus was barefoot. His next memory was taking one of his colleagues to the closest hospital, in a police jeep. He was in a kind of semi conscious state in disbelief, probably in shock, but somehow the hospital, and then police station and everywhere else, seemed to be a dream. Only when he was at police station someone said Niranjan had died on spot.

Niranjan was his classmate and after that they had landed up in a job in the same company. Niranjan had planned the whole trip. He did not even remember the last thing Niranjan had said or his last expression. probably at the tea shop on the highway, after which Niranjan had choose to sit on the first seat and he for some reason was sitting on the third.

He did not even see Niranjan's body, he did not have the courage to see it. Days later he was still looking at the empty cube and half expecting Niranjan to appear suddenly. They said he had died on impact.

Then he remembered the court case, he had already given witness once. That was for Shivkumar. Shivkumar was sitting next to Niranjan and had met the same fate. He had not given entirely correct witness then either, he had said that he was awake when it happened. He had said that it was not a foggy night, though he did not remember anything of that sort, he had also said that the other vehicle was speeding. In reality he had no idea how and what happened, he was sleeping blissfully. But he had done that because he felt sorry for Shivkumar's father. The insurance lawyers were very smart, and probably had he said the truth Shivkumar's father would probably not have got a single rupee, which did not seem right. Poor father, he was old, fighting a lone battle against those tricky viley lawyers. And he had not entirely distorted everything, had he been awake, probably he would have witnessed same thing. Surely Shivkumar's father could not be punished for his sleepiness. He had felt happy then that he could help the distressed father who had grown really old travelling in crowded BMTC buses for three months, trying to get some insurance claim.

But right now sitting in front of Mr. Reddy, he was wondering and questioning to himself if he had to repeat the same things again. Why did these fathers want so much money from insurance? And Mr. Reddy did not look that old - he could surely take care of himself. Why making him do the same things and repeat the same things. But he was afraid that if he altered the statement this time around, it would be difficult reconciling to the court what he had said earlier and what he would say now. He was getting himself in to trouble trying to help people and the questions inside him were becoming more probing.

He had decided within himself that he would try to get things done in the right way especially in government offices. He had done that for his driving license, he had got it without paying a single rupee as bribe because he was adamant that that has to be done this way. Then why not fight insurance lawyers in right way, but then how many things he could possibly take up inlife. And after all Niranjan was his good friend. Further still the the idea scared him that had it not been for two seats, probably his father would have been here with Niranjan. That was scary and disturbing thought.

So he slowly and carefully read his previous witness and kind of memorized it. And then off he went to court to give witness. And it did not take long, but it required patience, same old questions, same cross examinations, same senseless things, like "did you see the other vehicle coming", "how far was it when you spotted it", "what is your religion". He wondered why would religion matter, he had half the mind to say that he was an Indian and he did not believe in religion, but then he did not want to create a scene, and unnecessary complicate matters. It is not a great feeling to see things getting repeated all over again, and then it made me wonder, how difficult it might be for rape victims, every hearing to go over it again and again, and then all of sudden he was feeling happy that he was better off. Comparatively this was nothing.


All was done, and he was free again. Mr Reddy thanked him and said, "I get 80 Lakhs",

80 lakhs!!! his mouth dropped, all of sudden he felt that all his lying was only to satisfy Mr. Reddy's greediness. What was he going to do with so much money, especially after Niranjan was no more. It was little disgusting that all this fight and all this business was just for money. Everyone wanted money, insurance lawyers wanted to save money of insurance, probably because they get commision on what they save, this Mr. Reddy, wanted more money for this son. All of sudden he felt things very oppressive, as he was going down the lift of court building. He was wondering what was he doing here, probably and the realization that he also had the hand in all this shameful business. It was very bad feeling.

And amidst these thoughs when he was stopping an auto to run way from that shameful place, he heard some final good bye from Reddy, and he did not care to return the good bye. He was glad that he was out of all this shit.
But as auto started, he caught this words," Will call, when settlement done, Niranjan, said you work NGOs, with money, want start Niranjan trust which scholarships poor children for them studying "

Changing the mindset..

By,

Guest Writer - G Krishnan
gk(at)fireprosystems.com,

"

There is a small tea shop near my office and when we go for a chai, I always noticed that the used tea cups (plastics) are thrown into the gutter nearby. I have told the owner of the shop to keep a small carton box (trash box) and tell the people to drop the used cups into the box. But he was reluctant and it is understandable. But I did not leave it. I showed him the drain near by and there were >1000 used cups.
I told him that it is his responsibility too to educate people saying, when it rains all these plastic cups will clog the drain and we complain about municipality that they are not cleaning the drain. Drain is only for water to flow thru and not for any hard materials.
Tomorrow if it rains heavily and your shop gets submerged/damaged due to clogging of drain, it is because of you and not because of the Govt. Ever since he started keeping a trash box near his tea stall and I can say atleast the no. of cups thrown into the drain is reduced.
Also I take this opportunity to tell all that it is all of us who can make or break. If we decide to spread this simple message across, we can save the deaths of people esp children (since the poor children play in these areas), cattle etc. during floods/heavy rains.
Also since these plastics are not bio-degradable, it must be trashed in a proper way for recycling.
When ever I visit a road side stalls, I ensure that I spread this message.
To conclude I must say that I changed the "mindset" of the tea stall owner to "set mind". Let all of us set mind in changing this bad practice/menace.

Thanks for giving me an opportunity to voice out my story. Hope it benefits the entire society.

"

From Beggars to Entrepreneur

Maddy pointed me out to this Video of Mohammad Yousuf which was posted on ngopost. This is really inspiring and here is the little excerpt from it.

"
I always insist that all human beings are entrepreneurs, without exception. it is part of human being, you cannot take it out, it is built in to him/her. Simply we could not build the society where we could unleash that potential, it remains dormant, because society never gave that idea, we do not talk about that in class room, in education system. Educations system encourages you to get good grades, and we say that if you get good grades you get good job. And it does not encourage entrepreneurship.

So this time we wanted to demonstrate that all of us are entrepreneurs, so the idea we came up with was that, lets have special program for beggars, our idea was you cannot be poorer than beggars,because that is last stage of survival, so if you can make entrepreneur out of beggar then there is nothing like it.

So we went to beggars and started talking to them, and we wanted to know at what point in time in life they started begging, what pushed them to beg and why they continues. Always the story was that I never thought that I will continue, when I started I could not find any other alternative, I thought next month I will stop but I did not have any solution and so I continued to be beggar.

So we suggested them as you go from house to house for begging, would you like to carry some merchandiser with you such as biscuits, cookies, candies, toys. etc, So that you can give a choice to the family, if they want to give you charity or they want to buy something from you, or they want to do both. So you are giving them choices. And you are going from house to house anyway, this is something you can add to your activity. And they liked it, and our thought was that we will have couple of thousand beggars in that the program and see how it goes and learn lot from them. It became such a popular program, today there are more than 100 thousand beggars in the program and more than 10 thousand of them have stopped begging completely, they are sales person, door to door sales person"

This and lots more, I have become a fan of this guy.

Stories from Hong Kong...Origin of word Good...

First day in Hong Kong, and I was sitting in the bus reading the newspaper, and I found a section there called, some origin of words and learn chinese kind of thing,

So found the following entry which was talking about the origin of hte word good.

Good is written as,
好 and pronounced as (Hau)

and here is how it is formed,

The first character in the above word

女
means woman, girl etc. (Pronounced Nu).

And the second character
子
means a boy (zu)


And you combine this together to get
好

which means good (Hau)
So a girl and boy together means good.

Isn't this interesting.

Did you see RDB?

The below is one of the mails that I had written to a friend, and then had ended up forwarding to loads of friends, but posting it on blog.
"

On one of the jobless sundays, I had gone to cancel a railway ticket of one of my friends. It was a tatkal ticket, and he had not travelled, because it was waitlist...(dont bother about the technicalities that much, it was actually quite complicated).


First I went and stood in the railways reservation queue.... it was quite a long queue, and I was there with a book in my hand..remembering the good old hostel days, when we used to stand in queues to get those concessions. I reached the counter after quite sometime, but Oopss... he said for some reason this cannot be cancelled at the counter, the software did not have any such option, I would have to go to the station master. I could not blame the operator.


Well I went all the way back to platform, went to station master, and he casually asked me to go and meet some railway inspector, again in the reservation building. I nimbled back to the reservation building, this fellow was not there, I had to sit there in his office, my book giving me company. He came after some good half an hour, I was little irritated now, asked him. He asked me to go to Accounts section in main railway administrative building.


I dont know what made me go all the way to the main adminsitrative building, (if you familiar with Bangy, you would know it is about 500 meters from the reservation buidling), I guess the good mood of the morning, or may be wonderful weather prompted me to go there. Reached and there was not a person to be seen. Ofcourse it was closed, it was Sunday.


I was laughing at my folly, all my good mood was turing in to equivalent irritation against that railway inspector, against the station master and against everyone working in railways. Everyone just wanted to sit in the chair and take a nap and skip work.


But as I was leaving, somewhere down those empty desks I found this lone guy working. I was so happy to find him, this was the target to vent out all my frustration of last three hours or running around here and there. And I melted down everything on that poor guy. But that fellow to my surprise turned out to be quite nice. He explained me the relevant rules, he even showed me the website of railways, which explained the rules of various corner cases of reservation and cancellation, and said the final authority was that railway inspector, and I had to go to him.


Yups another direction... I was in no mood to go there again...I wanted to go home and finish rest of the book, I could let go 200 rupees...after all it just means one pizza or two DBCs, I already had wasted so much time. But I guess he read what was on my mind.


He asked "Did you see RDB?", (RDB is Rang De Basanti ofcourse)

I was surprised at this question, I said "Yes!"

He said.. "Either you complain about this, or go home grumbling"


It struck like a sting. I could almost read him, almost hear him say "this IT poeple of AC offices, cribbing all the time, making comments on how a railway inspector should behave, commenting on his lack of manners, on his ethics and so on". He had that look in his eyes.

He was a relatively young guy, someone who had perhaps recently got married, and I could feel that in a way he was telling me, "help me change the system" kind of stuff.


But he had hit me, I could not go back now, I was determined to complain. But I did not have any proof, so what do I do.... So I again decided to go back to the reservation office and back to the reservation inspector, this time around he was there.


This time, I said "Please write it and give me". As it turned out, he finally looked carefully at my case, and got my work done, he mumbled something that rules have changed recently and he did not quite understand last time what I wanted to say and so on. I got my 200 rupees.


It is little hard to describe, but that day, that fellows words "did you see RDB?", did hit me, I did not even take his name, and I dont even remember in which of those infinite corridors of that administrative building that I found him. But I think will remember him for a long time to come. And from that day onwards I have been using this technique of "please write and give me" shamelessly.

I would strongly suggest that you too use it..
"

Cheers and have a great weekend.

Once upon a Time...

"
Once upon a time, there lived a great great sage, in the middle of the forest with all the lovely trees around him. He was a great archer. He had a beautiful wife. His wife was a great athlete... pre PT Usha types.

So as it used to happen this sage used to shoot an arrow, and then his wife used to run and get it back. That is why sage had only one arrow, because he did not need another one. He used to shoot and his wife used to run and get it back.

Now as it happened, one day his wife went after the arrow but did not come back for long. Sage was getting very worried and angry. His wife was very beautiful so he was getting suspicious. Finally very late in the evening she arrived. Sage asked her very angrily "Where have you been, it is almost night?", she said "Dont get angry at me, get angry at the sun, because it was so hot that my feet burnt, my face burnt and I got tired and fell down. Only after the sun went down I could do my work".

Not this sage got very angry. He knew that right in the middle of the day sun stopped for a second. And he said "I am going to teach a lesson to Sun, tomorrow at afternoon am going to shoot the sun down."

Having heard of this all the gods got very disturbed, because the sage was the greatest of archers and he was quite capable to shooting the sun down. So they began to worry. Next day sage took bath did his morning pooja and got ready to shoot the sun.

Gods came and requested him not to do this, because that would destroy the earth, but he was very angry "Sun has troubled my wife and am going to teach him a lesson"

That is when one of the Gods came and gave him an umbrella and a pair of slippers and he told the great sage "Instead of shooting down the sun, why dont you gift these to your wife"

That is how umbrella and slippers came in to existence.
"

I happened to attend one of the seminars of guy called Devdutt Pattaniak . This story was narrated then. Devdutt is a medical doctor by education, marketing manager by presentation and a mythologist by passion (that is what his website says). What I know about this guy is that he is a fantastic story teller. He made a two hour presentation, explaning the relevance of Mythology in todays corporate scenario. I liked the way he put the analogy, it was very new and innovative some of the things were far fetched, but it was full of all this kinds of story, that made it very pleasurable to sit up and listen to him, that too right after heavy lunch.

For example the above story says, "Instead of changing the world change yourself, or rather Adapt to changing world"

Anyways, his website has some nice interesting stories, take a peek. And keep his name in mind, next time he has a presentation somewhere please attend it.

The story of Lost shoe...

My shoe died. I dont complain, it had a fair bit of adventurous journey starting from US (my friend had got it), and it had been to sakleshpur trek and to Karwar, bombay, delhi, baroda, pune, hyderabad. The left shoe had kind of given up and I had to keep three of my left foot fingers at a particular angle else they would just come out of the shoe. And it became too embarrassing to wear it anywhere, because of the fear that the slightest stress and the figers would pop up.

So off I went yesterday with one of my friends, to great old Marathalli to buy a pair of nice shoes. After a lot of looking around at the astronomical pricing of the Reeboks and Adidas, I finally settled for one nice and cute looking Levi's canvas types of shoes. Did not cost whole lots, and was quite decent, dung colour, long shoelaces (the longest that I have seen).

It took me about ten minutes to buy the shoe, and you wont believe how much more time we took to buy a shirt for my friend, hopping from one shop to another, trying to match the colour, buttons, neck, fit, collar, sleves, print, length, fabric, texture, and dont remember what more and after two hours my friend could not find the desirable combination of all of them, and we decided to call it quits. (this shopping is another experience all together, will write about it sometime later)

Exhausted we took the rick back to go home. Wanted to go to a particular shop and it was closed, then my friend wanted to buy the cake for some birthday and wanted to buy it from Swe-chei(Sweet Chariot), and we could not locate it. It was getting late and little bit of drizzle, it was getting little chaotic but finally we just managed to locate one Swe-Chi. We were having a small debate as to who to pay the auto bill, (sometimes I act nice), I lost the debate and had to pay the bill. Got down, paid, went to shop only to realize that in all the confusion had left the shoe in the auto.

So depressed, one K, down the drain. At all these times I always feel this pinch of guilt, because I start thinking about my parents, and how they have saved each and every penny to raise us. Even ten rupess means a lot of money for them. And here I was throwing 1K, just like that, by being nothing but purely careless, there was no excuse for this. Among this big guilt thought, there were these other small thoughts emerging as to when to go again to buy the shoes, if to buy the same ones or the other pair, and how long I will have to keep wearing floaters in office which I so hate because of all the dust and mud that gets in to between my fingers. Furthermore I was embarrassed at the my declining impressions over my friend, (this was the second time it had happened, last time I had lost the helmet, and then the bike key, all on same day, but found everything).

My friend suggested that I run along the road, and look for the auto guy, but I put off that idea, because there was no point running around the road looking for a particular auto, considering that all the autos look same, and I had not paid much attention to how the auto guy looked.

Thankfully though we got the cake, but would you believe it, as soon as we were about to step out of the shop, and there on the other side there was this auto-guy, he U'ed and came to our side of road "Sir, aap bag bhool gaye", We were so happy. He even did refuse to take money for the extra round that he might have had to put. I got my shoe back (am wearing it now). The auto guy disappeared, and lost himself among other autowallahs. I absolutely like the auto guys in Bangy, they rock.

So the story of shoe ends here.

Yesterday incident really made me happy :D. It was a perfect ending to a near chaotic evening.

Robert Clive..

In one of those after lunch film making sessions, when I was feeling terribly sleepy, all of sudden, I hear some discussions on some Robert Clive commiting sucide. The named looked very familiar, mentally I tried to locate where I had heard the name, thinking about any suicides that had been featured on CNN-IBN. Was he some music band guy or something, no movie star as well, perhaps a political guy.

I blurted out in class "Kaun Robert Clive yaar?",

"How did you pass out, Robert Clive, who established British Empire in India?",

Ooops, everything came back, Battle of Plassey, Siraj Ud Dullah, and so on. And he committed suicide, I did not know that. The guy who I would assume, had everything name, fame, money. He killed himself !!!

As the story goes, (I did not know most part of this story, maybe you all may know it), he was the spoiled brat, was expelled from multiple schools. He was sent of to India at the age of 18, to get rid of him, because at that time survival rate in India was only about 50%. He was posted at Madras as a clerk. It is said that he was totally depressed there and made a failed attempt to suicide.

He was considered lowly character by his fellow British, because he spent lot of time with locals, boozing, and doing all kinds of shitty things. But this is where, he developed lot of those contacts with locals, and where he discovered the way of getting things done by bribing.

It is also said that the "Great battle of Plassey", (that I used to imagine was a big fierce battle) hardly lasted for more than an hour. There was no attack from the opposition, Clive had bribed Mir Jafar (head of armed forces of Siraj Ud Dullah), and in the final battle, Mir Jafar refused to move. And the battle got over. Siraj Ud Dullah, fled, but was later captured and killed. Mir jafar became a puppet Nawab of British.

Clive returned to England, with all the glory, but was severly criticized for making lot of money in unfair ways, and he was as it seems in state of depression. He was levied with charges of corruption.

At 48 he commited sucide. It seems there was even a controversy over his burial. And after a life of establishing a British empire in India, his grave was unmarked and remains so.

The gloriouis Robert Clive, abandoned by his family, and almost like expelled to India, looked down upon by fellow people, ended up changing the face of history, but personally had rather a sad life. Almost feel sorry for him.

What you see is now always what it is!!!

I guess before you start cursing me, of this uninvited history lessons, I will sign off.

PS: Wikipedia says that "mirjafar" in Bengali is still used as synonym to traitor. Wonder if it is true.

One more PS: What I wrote above is as narrated by our film making instructor, but verified from wikipedia, seems true.

First day at school

Sunshine wrote a post on gutter baby, recalling how she had once fallen in gutter when she was three, and I have a similar story to share..

It was way back in 1983

As it so happened, we have recently moved in to the new house, my paernts had bought a house (just 85k !!!). We were among the first to occupy a house in that colony. And all around our house lot of construction was going on. Among the other things getting constructed there was this one rectangular gutter. For some vague reason on that day, they had kept it open. Me and my elder sister were jumping across it (along the shorter side). Each trying to tell the other , "If you can I can too". And then my sister just to show how big and how capable she is, as compared to me jumped along the longer side as well. How could I stay behind. I wanted to do the same, and bang I went inside, with my head hiting the edge of it as told later to me, with blood dripping nonstop from my head.

I dont remember anything after that, neither does my sister remember anything. I guess she would have just gone inside shouting and calling for mom. My mom says that they took me to the doctor, (our next door was a doctor). And saved me.

But as a momento of that incident, I still carry this deep cut on my forehead, whose reference I have given in infinite forms that I have filled. While people may search for their unique identification marks, in split second I say "deep cut on my forehead).

I have only two photos of myself, which dont have that cut... :D

Now that I am at it, there is one other incident that I vividly remember, that is my first day at school.

I was all in tears, I never wanted to go to school, but my papa would not take anything. I got ready to go to school but with the condition that papa was also going to stay there with me all the while, but somehow smart as my papa is, he managed to dodge me and disappear and I was in this room with all the kids and monstrous looking spectacled teacher. I did not talk with anyone, and finally this teacher cames and asks me my name and I say "Rajesh", (Yups Rajesh is my real name), and next she askd me was my surname. I had no idea what was that supposed to be. At home they had made me momorize my name, fathers name, mothers name, all about pencils, slates, bicuits, but never this surname.
I still remember that scene so well, teacher bending over me trying to catch it at all I muttered soemthing, wondering if I was shy, afraid, with green and white oil painted school wall in backgroud, with other kids staring at me, some even laughing and giggling at me, I was terrified as hell, wondering what was gonna happen to me, papa was nowhere to be seen.

For that one moment, I hated my papa with all my might, why did he not tell me. Where had he dissappeared. He had broken his promise and he was not there, I was never ever going to listen to him again. Probably I would never even talk to him again, but for one moment I wanted him there, to come and open those iron gate and take me outside, I wanted to be home and play.

I dont remember anything after that, just that one teacher took me somewhere and I was again made to sit. And I guess I sat there, crying all the time, looking at the door, just waiting to see some familiar figure there. Forming all those schemes to take revenge from Papa. And go and tell mom, about all the things that had happened, I was sure she was never even going to send me here again.

The confusion, which I learnt much later from my papa, apparently was because they were planning to divide the batch in to two classes and as is the case always there were more than one Rajesh, they wanted to know my second name, so that they could put me in right class.

But as it turned out later, I hardly went to the school for more than a week. I was always full of tears and would break into crying everynow and then again. Teachers also got sick me. My parents got me out of school. And I spent one more year at home, playing, and blissfully Njoying. Next year they got me admitted directly to U-KG.

Even now, when I go back to my hometown, and I meet some of our old family freinds, they keep telling me about those days, and wondering how I ever managed to study to be an engineer.