The Earthquake

 Earth has nothing more cruel to show!

 All, reduced to rubble, to dust returneth.

 Rasped Nature, growled the belly of  Earth

There made arid, how hope, now, can grow?

 Hurt would be all  in soul who pass by.

 Quietly watches the snow peaked Himalaya.

  Utter loss, Oh, Shiva, why such 'Maya'?

  Ahoy, says the heart, eyes sans tears dry.

  Kindred flora n fauna thou destroyeth

  Even now wake up, thee, Universe urgeth!

Pratima@ The tragic earthquake is a warning in a way to human beings for tampering with Nature. The Himalayas are earthquake prone as the tectonic plates underneath are still mobile. In such a sensitive area come up base camps, and hotels and what have you, for the Mount Everest adventurers. 

As the rising sea levels are already drowning low lying islands, the crumbling Himalayas seem to say to human beings, thus far, and no further your sports, your adventures, your progress, and the resultant environmental regress! Hence this acrostic!

Strays

 It is pitch dark. You partied hard. It is already past midnight. Your bike is racing, almost as if you were Schumi. Suddenly from somewhere hidden in the dark comes a grrrr, two eyes with indescribable emotions glare at you, and thus begins a chase till, may be, you are past two crossroads. In a split second though,  the new chase soon begins.

No, there is no mystery neither suspense. No, it is not the Devil incarnate. It is just a stray or two (The Lord save you if the entire pack assumes the 'guardian of the nukkad' duty!) performing their innate compulsive instinctive desire/duty of guarding their corner! Summer, monsoon, winter, nothing deters them. They bark, they chase, they bite, their favourite area being the shin of the victim!

Most people hate strays whose number must be in lakhs. Yes, I love dogs. Yet I have a different take on strays. In my opinion, they need to be saved from people, and people need to be protected  from them. A stray mostly scavenges. Yes, certain people feed them on a regular basis. 

Instead, it would be better to take them to a vet, get them an anti-rabies shot, find them a good, loving home. Otherwise, they should be neutered. It is very cruel on the animal as well as on human beings in the vicinity to let a stray be a stray, and non-neutered, and unvaccinated.

Given their dustbin-foraging, fights over food, their untreated wounds, the strong likelihood of rabies lurking in their system, the strays can be a health hazard, both for themselves, and for human beings. 

Yes, there are a few large-hearted  individuals who have built enclosures for them. Blue Cross holds adoption mela's. Such efforts are often limited. Hence the need to treat the stray with all possible vaccines, and get them a good home. Ratan Tata, Sachin Tendulkar, Madhuri Dixit have shown the community the way through such adoptions. Hope the 'stray' issue soon becomes 'normal'!

Pratima@The utmost cruelty, however, is 'have money, will buy a pedigree' policy.  These pets are used to a certain lifestyle imposed on them by human-beings. The 'masters' break their normal life, instincts, very strong in strays.   

A dog is a responsibility. He is (like a member of the) family. He is neither amusement nor fashionable show-off possession. Dogs are hyper-sensitive and hyper-intelligent. They need our love. Talk to your doggie for a few minutes a day, and experience his immense joy and unbounded love!

Oh, yes, come what may, never abandon a pet. Whatever be his health condition due to old age, he deserves and needs our care and concern. Our turn it would be to show unconditional love which he showered on us throughout his life!

 

Aamrika to jaana hi hai!

 Have you watched that recent film entitled "Dunki"? No, I have not. Well, Shashi Tharoor mentioned it in one of his columns. Apparently, it inspired a Gujarati family to enter the U.S. illegally via the Canada border way as it is vast, and hence the border security force presence is comparatively less there, unlike the Mexican  (walled) border. The American border was just a few feet away, and this family of four froze to death!

That is the kind of craze to go to America. Hence the title of our blog which is a take on the film title "Pyar to hona hi tha". In the article mentioned above, Shashi Tharoor says that people pay middleman hefty sums to the tune of one lakh dollars so as to land in America any which way!

Very sad it is because the Trump administration with its MAGA measures is against immigrants, illegal and legal, both. One of Mr. Trump's election promises has been to deport illegal migrants from Day One of his presidency. The Trump-Musk debate, the MAGA supporters' demonstrations clearly indicate the American mood. Yet the craze mentioned in our title!

Actually, Indians, even those with post- graduate qualifications, cannot right now be sure they would be able to get jobs in the U.S. of today. Anyways, most all Indians there get paid the minimum wages as per the U.S. legal system. Yet these wages ARE much lower than the payment made to Americans. Given such realities, the Friday 'pink slip' is going to be much shared! The American tax regime is very strict and truly heavy, in addition.  The pay cheque itself, moreover, comes with the tax cut by the employer. There is hence hardly any chance of any tax deductions as in the Indian I/T filing. Yet logo kon Amrika to Jana hi hai! Sad delusions!

Actually, India IS equally good right now. Surely, moreover, there would not be any racist slurs nor the need to accept a pay cheque that pays lower than the 'natives'. As for the mad race for the green card, for American citizenship, the less said about it, the better! Why then the sad chase, especially when America is no longer the dream that it in the sixties was, given the multi-nodal geo-political development of the contemporary world. Hope people wake up from such nightmares!

Pratima@ Such dreams should be seen with open eyes!

Loss of Vision

 January 4 is the Braille day. Louis Braille, who in his childhood turned blind due to a freak accident, designed this tactile mode of reading so that the 'vision'-ary atrophies of the visually impaired can be challenged.

Now a days, softwears such as the "jaws", and other such auditory kind of apps can help the visually impaired with auditory inputs. Even then, the subtle discrimination against the blind continues because there is lack of vision in and amongst the so-called able-eyed.

Even the actual physical loss of vision is on the rise currently, given the increased screen time, and eating habits that titillate the tongue but are not particularly conducive to health.

Much worse is the metaphorical loss of 'vision'. Currently, most people are utterly blind about their egos, their positions, their affiliations.  According to them, it is always the others who are eternally wrong. In my opinion, one of the most obvious examples  of this kind of blindness is 'hating someone for the sake of hating '. 

Once this 'dis-ease'  strikes you, you are blind to the prejudices within your own self, and you look at the rest of the world only from those blinkers! In the process, you tend to sound more and more pathetic!

As for the visually impaired, some of my Spanish and German students have been so 'fortunate'. Yes, I consciously write so!  They refuse any senti pitying by others, and surely there is absolutely no self-pity. They are unbelievably independent and feisty. They consider themselves absolutely  normal, and live life on their own terms. They have indeed opened my eyes in more ways than one!

Pratima@ When I was teaching Spanish to one such batch, Spanish books with the Braille version was not available. They had only my voice as their tool. Their complete concentration, their retention power, their genuine commitment to studies, unlike the 'normal'  others, were truly eye-openers!  Somehow, thereafter, I naturally tend to avoid the 'blind with selfishness', 'blind with rage' kind of metaphors!

Anniversary Celebrations

 How to celebrate anniversaries of great people? I would have thought that the best solution would be by inculcating their thought patterns in daily lived lives. Sure, the contexts would be different. So one takes the major idea, re-looks at it, re-searches it, re-invents it, but incorporates it, if and as far as is possible, in one's life. 

Let me give a concrete example that would be easily understood as it is extremely popular. Yes, I am referring to Chanakya. On the internet,  'so said Chanakya' kind of sites assign all sorts of quotes to him, without checking if he really said so, that is, without authentically  consulting the actual source.

Such stuff gets easily followed which fetches bitter responses against Chanakya as an old fogey, as a conservative, as a reactionary, blah, blah, blah! Manu, too, faces the some fate. People, who may not have even actually seen, forget, read,  the 'Manusmriti', gas most authoritatively  about it! Instead, 'leave the dross, accept the relevant' should be the open negotiation strategy which, too, can be debated. We are an 'argumentative' enough society for such discussions, for looking up alternatives!

Why all this fulmination? Is that your question? Well, since at about 8 p.m. yesterday, there was an overflow of messages regarding how the celebration of the Savitribai Phule birth anniversary should be.

Her contribution is indeed grand, though many committed historians have pointed out certain major discrepancies in that narrative. That is not our theme right now. Anyways, it is too big to be addressed in a short blog. Actually, such doubts should be addressed through a proper book, I suppose.

Here let us briefly look at the discussions about how to celebrate the anniversary. There were extremely flippant suggestions such as lighting a diya (rather like the COVID clapping, beating of drums, right?), putting on one's forehead her kind of "chiri" kumkum!

 To begin with, these days, very, very few women wear the kumkum. If such is their notion of personal choice, would they wear the 'chiri'? If they do, it would be more a fashion statement than a tribute. Most, moreover, would be busy taking selfies. The entire gravitas of the celebration would thus be surely ruined!

It would, moreover, be mere tokenism. Instead, on such a day, why not/how about creative alternatives to find out more about her, about those days, about the fight women in other countries put up (even today! Look at Iran, for instance) for rights such as 'right to vote', 'right to education' which we have got as part of that 'package' called independence!!

As such awareness raising never happens beyond empty tokenism (which is, otherwise, attacked hugely for every possible religious festival), every year typical rituals, a bow to making everything into a consumer goodie, would continue, but ideas would never ever flourish!!!

Pratima@The most certain way of tokenism is assigning a divinity to thinkers, and follow typical rituals. One need not then discover nor debate the complexity of their vision!

Media Alternatives

 Time was when the media used to be strong. Merciful, or otherwise, media could make or mar careers. Now the very careers of  typical traditional media are at stake, right?

Who is to blame? COVID is the culprit, would be the general perception. Well, people were cooped up for twenty-four hours in each other's company which might make "home, sweet home" more like a prison house. The escape route was the OTT platforms which introduced a wealth of 'wonder content'.

The subscription rates were not very high, I believe. Till eyes refused to watch, 'aye, aye', said most I's! Once one gets used to quality and variety, it is tough to accept the same old recipe of partisan politics, sensationalism, and filmy gossip, right?

COVID made people binge watchers and reluctant readers. Much more than that the 'dis-ease' generated a new race (the term 'race' is used here in all its associations, a group, who created fast, and fast racy stuff). Nam to suna hi hoga! Yes, the youtubers, the bloggers, especially the video bloggers, the podcasters, and so on.

The sources this entrepreneurial journalism needed were manageable, a camera, a microphone, a computer, a mobile, easily available, equally accessible. Their themes would always be unusual, their analysis razor sharp. Topics the mainstream media may choose to ignore, given the various affiliations, would be openly and ably discussed on the blogs, podcasts and YouTube channels. These  bloggers, youtubers and podcasters hence have a huge fan following.

They are friendly, seem to talk to you like a confidante who can be relied upon, and present a fresh perspective. In fact, so popular they are that their funding is open source public funding. May be, that is why they add that feel of (stakeholder-ly) authenticity.

The variety in this by-now-quite-established field is truly mind-boggling. Such is their fresh, at times, whistleblower kind of approach that even mainstream media seem to adopt their ways. Want proof? Look at "Vantage with Palki Sharma" at First Post. Well, who wants to read these days? If youtubers can condense infotainment, obviously there are tons of takers, ready to 'take on the wor(l)ds'!

Pratima@No harm admitting that you have got mildly addicted to our daily dose of blogging, right? Well, none can stop an idea, despite the AI, whose time has come. Sure Victor Hugo would not mind that minor add-on!

New Year Resolutions

 Yes, new year resolutions are always a source of rib-tickling fun. They sprout like mushrooms in the monsoon, and vanish in to the stratosphere, like the promises of many a 'neta' types.

 These kind of resolutions mostly include health care, and, as a result, exercises. In the white heat of the New Year enthusiasm ( the wicked may argue that actually  in the aftermath of a huge hangover! But that is okay. Some people never improve. Oh, no, I am referring to the nasty no-sayers!), people rush to the gym, buy the costly annual membership, to 'suit' which there is a purchase of Nikey shoes and branded gym-type clothes, and all. 

Tops it is a week that the "josh" lasts. After a week or so, if Vicky Kaushal were to ask his trademark "how is the josh?" question to such gym-goers, there would be a deafening silence because, in the first place, there would not even be handfuls left to answer him!

Most such New Year resolutions, not to drink, not to smoke, not to waste time, not to use the mobile constantly, for instance, evaporate in to thin air faster than river beds in the heat of summer. Yes, they are made in the haze of a vague feel, are not genuinely thought through. Hence they are thus transient.

Issues you genuinely care for never need such resolutions because they are etched on to your very soul. No amount of disturbances, destructions (by the power-mongers rampantly crowding every possible field), despair or depression (currently oh-so-fashionably popular) can distract you from your goal, your target, however impossible it may appear, and quite often.

In brief, barking dogs never bite! Those who are lazy or disinterested, an excuse sure they find, while those ready for grind, sooner, not later, their destinations, sure they find!

Pratima@ It is most remarkable that Mr. Devendra Fadnavis chose to spend the first day of the New Year in Gadchiroli where he welcomed back in to the main fold many 'wanted' naxalites, and boarded the first ever state transport bus to Chattisgarh.

 Such gestures do send a very positive message in a political climate far too long dominated, nay, vitiated, by the Beed incident. The C.M. sure deserves a huge round of applause. Hope the metal mines there are environment-friendly, and related industries empower the local Adivasi's.