IPL and My trip to Mars

I heaved a sigh of relief as Sania Mirza and Shoaib Malik got married and vacated the front page. The vacant space was immediately occupied by Lalit Modi and Shashi Tharoor. I would have preferred Sania and Shoaib. As it is I had a biased opinion about IPL and the distaste is only increasing. In one of my earlier posts I had mentioned that IPL was no sport and I see many others expressing similar opinion. It is 10%cricket, 20%bollywood, 30%money and 40%more money. We are mad about cricket and bollywood. The combination multiplied the madness. Those who knew how to cash madness, did it. A politician is never far from money and they zoomed in. The garbage bin is being emptied for our pleasure on the front pages. If you like garbage as I do, swallow an anti emetic and follow it.

“Volcano in Iceland spews ash. Airspace blocked. Thousands of flights cancelled” would have received as much attention from me as “Hydrogen traces found on Mars. May lead to finding water”. As far as I am concerned, passengers in Frankfurt airport and hydrogen on Mars are almost same. But I had to read the news in detail this time. I am expected to pass through Frankfurt airport next month and happenings there are a concern. I never thought that I would go to mars in my life.

I do not know what made me decide to make a trip to the US. It costs a lot of time and money (both of which I could have utilized better) apart from the hassle of getting a VISA which I feel is as hyped as IPL. But the human mind is irrational and I possess one. There was no other option. So, the decision is made, VISA is approved and the tickets are booked. Bombay-Frankfurt-Detroit 27th may. Suddenly Frankfurt feels like Margao.

Apart from sponging out my sister in law’s resources I do not know what I will be doing there but if anyone in the US is keen on getting my signature on a print out of any of my posts, I am willing. You don’t know what will make me famous and when. One day you may be pleasantly surprised to read “Sotheby’s auction autographed blogpost print out for record price”. You will be a millionaire! I will stop before someone says “what rot!” and try to locate Detroit on Google map.

bye,

Assorted items of the week.

After the elephant appeared in front of my house and made me post its picture and a small piece, nothing else came about and I kept quite. Moreover, our Ponda taluka library got a copy of Aravind Adiga’s booker prize winner ‘white tiger,’ and I had to read it. I am yet to finish it. From what I have read till date, it is not really my type of a book. For that matter, most of the ‘prize winners’ are not. If you ask me what ‘my type’ of a book is, I may not be able to offer a satisfactory explanation other than saying that it will be the one which makes me pick it up again and again till I finish it, even making me postpone some appointed cases by giving vague excuses, at the cost of my reputation and earnings. If I am talking to you face to face, I may be able to give detailed explanations and examples and make you understand what I mean, but it is difficult to put it in writing. Why anyone should be interested in knowing my version of ‘my type’ of books is an altogether different question. This is one of the books which I feel compelled to finish since I have read half of it, and I will. Booker prize, yes. Raghunandan prize, no.

Many news items during the past week made me react within myself and in front of my wife. “You, your views and your ideas. The world does not think like you. Thank god.” is what I got back. I was asking her why should the Times of India devote front page space to Sania mirza and Shoaib malik’s ( have I spelt it right?) marriage and the associated controversies. “It sits on my nerves to see that on front page everyday” I said. “From what I read, that fellow is either a fool or a rogue depending up on what he is saying is true or false. This lady again is a bigger fool or I don’t know what. They have a right to be what they are and do what they like. But of what consequence are they to our life?” was my question.
“They publish it because people want to read it. You have also read it in detail. If you are not interested don’t read.” My wife is very sensible when she advises me.
I agree. I can ignore the news or stop getting that paper. But I have already paid a year’s subscription which at Rs 400 is cheap and I have no intention of missing my daily dose of Beau peep, Peanuts and Garfield. I need their outlook and wisdom. I used to be equally eager to see ‘Mr Citizen’ but it is only a pale shadow of what it used to be. Even though Sri R K Laxman’s name is still there, I feel either the sketches are not his or he has lost his touch. Most of them are repetitions of ideas and neither the lines nor the words are sharp. I am a great fan of R K Laxman and have all seven volumes of his Mr Citizen collection. I keep going through them again and again. I do not want to see his cartoons going low. I feel it is time for him to stop.

“China bans import of low grade iron ore” was an item in yesterday’s paper which cheered me up a bit. If I were a resident of any other state, I might have not even read what was written below the heading. There are a dozen such news items everyday. But this news, if it is true and if Goan ore exporters do not find ways of getting around the ban, may just save Goa from destruction. I am interested in it and will follow it. I can’t help dwelling up on it in a bit of detail.

Iron ore mining and export has been one of Goa’s major economic activities. Goan ore was traditionally being exported to Japan, and Japan only imported ‘high grade’ ore. Some mines in Goa produced high grade ore which was directly exported to Japan. But a large number of mines had only ‘Low grade’ ore. Low grade ore producers imported ‘higher grade’ ore from Karnataka, mixed it with their low grade ore to get ‘high grade’ ore and then exported it. A case of “betty butter bought a bit of better butter to make the bitter butter better”.

So iron ore mining was one of the major contributors to Goa’s economy but along with it came irritants like dust pollution, traffic congestion, depletion and contamination of water resources, deforestation and so on. All these were at ‘nuisance’ level and were being tolerated.

God knows what happened to the Chinese and they started buying ‘low grade’ iron ore like hell. Export price of iron ore jumped from about 20$ a ton to 150$ a ton. There was no need of ‘better butter’ anymore. ‘Bitter butter’ could be directly exported to china. Everybody excepting fools like yours truly, who stuck to dentistry, minted money by involving themselves in iron ore business. I wrote sometime back how a friend of mine who sometimes took petty loans from me, became a millionaire after starting ore transportation business. They own a Benz, an Audi and a Range rover today. There are thousands like them who acquired new mining leases, revived abandoned mines, acted as middle men or made money just be letting their unused land to store iron ore. Mining spread into forests and into villages. Rivers got clogged with mining refuse and roads got clogged by mining trucks. Mining was not a nuisance any more. It was destruction of Goa. People grumbled, protested and fought. But nothing could stop the money power. Moreover, most of the people around mining areas were involved in it one way or the other.

Miners from Karnataka, who used to send their produce by train to Chennai and from Chennai by sea, were no more dependent on low cost rail routes. With profits jumping by 700% they could transport just not themselves but even their ore by helicopters. I wish they had. To our misfortune, they hired thousands and thousands of huge trucks and sent their ore by road to Goan ports. They wanted to export as much as possible, utilizing all available routes. They could afford transportation costs.
In no time they destroyed the road from Hubli to Goa beyond repair.

Even if the roads were Ok, there was no space for our cars and so, we travelled to Hubli when we had to, Via Karwar. Additional 100 kilometers. Once the Hubli –Goa road reached a stage where in even the mining trucks could not ply, they took the road to Goa via Karwar and destroyed that also.
We took a further deviation, forgot Hubli and travelled to Bangalore via Mangalore, about 200 Kms extra. After destroying the Hubli - Karwar- Goa road, the miners diverted their trucks to Mangalore port and finished the Goa – Mangalore road too.

That was when I started offering a prayer every morning requesting the gods to somehow influence the Chinese to stop buying iron ore. I was not jealous of miner’s profits, Audis and helicopters. I only wanted a chance for my ‘Maruti’ to use the road too. After about ten years, some minor god seems to have heard the prayer and is trying to do something. I do not know if this god is greater than the Goan exportes and the Chinese importers. From what I have witnessed till date it will not be easy for him/her to compete against the mining lobby. Whatever it is, I was happy to see a silver lining around the clouds, however temporary it may be.

I did not have intentions of writing so much about this. But I had very strong feelings and no one to listen to them. Got a chance to put out most of it today. Please bear with me.

Last piece of the day is about the SEBI ban on companies issuing ULIP policies. I subscribed to one of them - a single premium policy - last week and today I see this news. If my money is hard earned I will get it back. If I have hoodwinked some gullible patients and grabbed their money, I will lose it. From what I read in the papers it appears to be a conflict between SEBI (security and exchange board of India) and IRDA (insurance regulatory and development authority). But if anyone suffers, it will be the policy holders like me, who will have put in their savings in the hope of getting good insurance cover and reasonable returns.
The Kannada adage says “kONagaLeradum hOre giduvinge mittu”. Meaning “Two bisons fight and the plant gets trampled”. How true!

There are other things to mention too. But I can’t take your patience for granted. Still, I will take just another chance. Felt bad about dozens of CRPF jawans losing their lives to naxal’s bullets. My sympathies to their families. I look at everyone in uniform with awe. I did not have the guts to become a soldier but tried to join the army as a dentist in ADC. Passed the interview and failed the medical – unfortunately due to a wrong diagnosis. I feel very bad about it even today. But that’s how fate works. I could have been Col Raghunandan by now. But I remain “oh, only a dentist.” There is a small incident behind that statement. But enough is enough. I will keep it for next post.
Bye, finally.

Neighbour V/S Neighbourhood

This is yet another of my neighbours.

She stays a little away on the other side of the main road and advertises her address thus.

She is employed in a spice farm near my house which happens to be a tourist destination. Her job is to remain lying half submerged in a stream in front of a board which says “Give bath to elephant – take bath from elephant – Rs 200." ‘Foreign’ tourists, for whom a trip to India is not complete without an elephant, part with Rs 200, apart from an entry fee of Rs 500, with pleasure and pour buckets of water from the stream over her. She in turn sprays water on them from her trunk.
Her keepers scout around Ponda for her food and when they spot an edible tree, cut it up to feed her. Today was the turn of the jackfruit tree in front of our house. One of them was cutting the tree while she stood in the shade of my garage and had a bath from my hose for a change.

Then she had her lunch and carried the packed dinner on her back.

In the process, my neighbourhood which looked like this

before her lunch, looked like this afterwards.

This neighbour is eating up my neighbourhood.

New meanings for old words

“He is a very intelligent and sharp fellow, uncle”

The young man said. We were in the same queue waiting for our chance in front of the speed post counter. The young man was my friend’s son and he was talking about one of his former classmates who happened to be a dentist. Like me. Well, not exactly. His classmate was intelligent and sharp. And I mean mentally sharp. (Any dental patient will testify that all dentists are sharp when it comes to cutting pockets.)

“He is completing his post graduation in maxillofacial surgery this year.”

I agreed that he must be really intelligent and sharp if he could qualify for a MDS seat in maxillofacial surgery. I said that he must have been quite high in merit list. I also mentioned that in the ‘open market’ that seat cost anywhere upwards of 35 lakhs.

“No, no, he did not have merit. He did not even take the entrance test. But he got the seat. That’s why I said that he is very intelligent. And he managed to get the seat for 20 lakhs. He is very sharp!”

Even though I am nearing fifty five and have learnt the meanings of the words like ‘intelligence’ and ‘sharpness of mind’ nearly forty years back, I have been seeing the world and have noticed that these words have acquired new meanings. But old learning does not die and I still tend to associate the words with old meanings. I need to be constantly reminded that the meanings of certain words have changed. If you had just narrated my young friend’s words and had asked me to use one word for such capabilities, I might have foolishly used ‘cunning’ or ‘crooked’ or some such thing.

“You know what he did? He went to this college well in advance, even before he finished his internship, made a deal for the seat and booked it paying in full. He got it cheap. Later the prices went up. still,the college did not ask for more. And they arranged things very nicely without any hassles or goof ups. They are very efficient and smart. They gave him the entrance test paper, asked him just to write his number and other details and told him to mark answers in pencil if he so wished. Rest, they arranged perfectly. Now he is finishing. He will be starting his practice in Bombay.”

New meanings for ‘efficient’ and ‘smart’ too. We had been taught to call the above arrangement, ‘fraudulent’ or ‘cheating’. And I am sure that the student was as intelligent and sharp while doing his MDS and the college management, equally efficient in seeing him through.

As we ‘liberalised’ ourselves in all ways, overhauled our attitudes and money replaced brains in our education system, use of whatever one processed (in whichever way), to get what one did not or could not, is no longer frowned up on. But still, I was under the impression that we had retained a bit of old values and saw the acts such as the one mentioned above with contempt at least when they were obvious. Here, I did not see even a hint of a feeling of wrong doing or contempt when my young friend spoke about his classmate. It was pure admiration and appreciation.

I am not a puritan and I do not stand on a moral pedestal. Still, this tendency scares me. But, maybe there is no need. If this is how things are going to be and if they are accepted by the society and future generation with equanimity, well, who am I to comment?

The photographs of Ms Mayavati with her huge garland of currency notes caused lot of enragement and invited sharp criticism. But, one of the well known columnists has written that Ms Mayavati needs to be appreciated for her candour. What other politicians did in their drawing rooms, she did in front of a large gathering.

So, if the wrongs are openly done, at least appreciate the ‘honesty’!

D V G

17th march 2010 is the 123rd birth anniversary of the legendary kannada author, historian, biographer, poet, philosopher, social activist and much more, Sri DVG.

It is beyond my reach to describe him completely or even name all his works the most popular and famous of which is the ‘Mankutimmana kagga’ a collection of nearly a thousand verses which gives us an insight into Sri DVG’s thinking and help us take a philosophical view of ourselves and our life while moving along with its compulsions. This quality of the collection has made it earn the title ‘The Bhagavadgeeta of Kannada’.

The complete works of Sri DVG totals nearly ten thousand pages and include biographies, plays, poetry, philosophy, political and social science and much more. Though he wrote in Kannada, he had extensive knowledge of English and Sanskrit and has liberally quoted from both in many of his works. He was an expert in economics, history, political science and social science and he worked and lived on his own terms.

He earned his living by running a news paper and expressed his views fearlessly. His knowledge and morals earned him respect and goodwill, and his help was sought by people at the helm of affairs of the state.

Even though he rubbed shoulders with Dewans, princes and other highly placed officials he never sought any favours and even turned down offers of help. I believe people like Sir M Vishweshwariah about whom Sri DVG had very high regards knew that he had financial difficulties and tried to force him to accept a ‘fee’ for the help he had rendered. Sri DVG accepted the cheques as he did not want to displease Sir MV. The cheques were never cashed.

In spite of his capabilities, achievements and stature he remained a ‘common man’ and was humble enough to describe himself and ‘Mankutimmana kagga’ as

Kaviyalla vignaaniyalla bari taaraadi
Avanarivige etukuvavolu ondu aatmanayava
Havanisidanu idanu paamarajanada maatinali
Kavana nenapige sulbha - mankutimma

I have damaged the kagga by separating the words to suit English typing. The broad meaning of it is that “Neither a poet nor a scientist. Have rendered in simple words, the inner feelings, to the extent (am) capable of reaching. In the form of a verse only because it is easy to remember.”
Meaning “nothing great about me or these verses”.

The more I try to write about him the more I get confused and go on babbling endlessly. I neither have full understanding of Sri DVG’s persona nor his work. I am like one of the blind men describing the elephant by touching a part of it. I think I should stop here and before doing so would like to mention that I have made a better mess writing about him in kannada, which is posted on the kannada blog www.todayskagga.blogspot.com by sri venkatesh murthy, who maintains the blog and posts one verse everyday on the blog along with the meaning. You may get it in your e mail everyday if you subscribe to the group. (free). That is a great service.

You are free to go over there and read my kannada article on your own risk.

Bird in my living room (after snake in my backyard)

No. I had no intention of starting introduction of all birds, reptiles and insects living in my backyard/living room. It so happened that I got up a bit earlier than usual today and opened all the windows and the French doors leading to the balcony. This bulbul which had risen early too, probably in the hope of catching an early worm, and was searching for it in the vicinity of our house, mistook our living room light for a brighter morning and thought that there were better chances of locating the worm there. It did locate a worm but of the two legged variety, not edible and not worth socializing with. It decided that the darker morning minus two legged worms was far better and wanted to return. But it could not locate the door through which it flew in and got scared. It started flying around frantically and my efforts to lead it to the door/window only scared it more and made matters worse. It was flying dangerously close to the fan and so I switched the fan off. The first sensible act. As the fan stopped rotating the bird calmed down and sat on the blade for a little rest. I had used the camera just a day before in my effort to capture the snake and so, it was within reach and was charged! I could not help the temptation and got a picture.



Within seconds the bird decided that it cannot spend all its life sitting on the fan blade and renewed the search for the exit. I switched on the balcony lights and tried to help the bird see the way but what was clearly visible to me was not visible to the bird. No surprise. Even my wife and children fail to see what is very clearly visible to me. After another frantic search, it selected the short wall next to the clock for a rest and probably felt better looking at its friends.



From there it flew straight to the French door and I thought that its troubles were over. But no. it missed the door by six inches and settled on the inlaid ‘ashtalakshmi’ plaque hanging just above the door.



I settled on the sofa and instead of trying to act, tried to think. It occurred to me (surprise) that if I switched the lights off the bird may be able to see the twilight outside and find its way. I performed the second sensible act of the morning and the bulbul flew out to be free again.
Lesson: Sensible acts get results.

snake in my backyard

I went to the balcony to throw some trash into my neighbour’s empty plot strictly following the urban tradition and casually looked down to see if any of the clothes that we hang on our balcony for drying had fallen down. I noticed the snake gliding slowly along the compound wall between the banana sapling and the wall, lifting itself up every now and then as if to see how tall the compound is and if it can climb it over. After looking at it for a minute I felt that I would be better off with my glasses and since the snake was not in a hurry to move ahead, went into the house hoping that the snake would be there till I return with my glasses. The snake was not in a hurry. Yes. But it did not have so much patience as to remain there waiting, while I ran to the TV table, searched for glasses, ran to the computer table, searched, ran to the book shelf, searched, remembered that I wore my glasses to sign the courier fellow’s papers at the front door, ran to the front door, found the glasses on the window next to the door, put it on my nose and returned. It had better business. So, this is what I found when I returned at last with my glasses firmly on my nose.




I expected it to have moved along the wall and focused my improved sight along the wall but there was no sign of the snake. I looked this way and that way and found it trying to climb on to the coconut sapling. Now the next madness caught me. I wanted to get a picture of my subject of observation and I ran inside to get the camera. The hunt for the camera turned out to be more challenging than the hunt for the glasses and when I returned with the camera, again there was no trace of the snake. Coconut sapling was present and I captured whatever was present. (the white stuff by the way is my effort to make it grow better).




There were some shrubs and bushes next to the coconut plant and I thought I lost the snake. But just as I was searching from my vantage point, it reappeared on top of the compound wall as if to give me another chance. I switched the camera on, turned it in the snake’s direction, thought that I had got it but got “remove the lens cover” message on the screen. By the time I removed the lens cover and focused the camera again, there was only the empty compound wall and I could see the tail disappearing into my neighbour’s jasmine bush.




From the jasmine bush it must have got underneath the pile of wooden pieces and when it emerged out of that pile, I was ready with the camera (with the lens cover removed) and managed to get it on the screen and got the first picture. If you have an eye sight better than mine, you will succeed in locating the snake between the pile of wood and my neighbor’s basement plinth. Yes, that piece of thread is the snake.




Now, I was bending precariously over my balcony railing trying to reach as near to the snake as possible and get it into my primitive camera when my wife reminded me that even my camera contains a zoom button and I need not zoom out of the balcony myself. I used the zoom just in time to get the head and half of the snake in one picture



AND half of snake and the tail in another.



At last I did get the full snake though in two pieces. I may not win a prize for backyard wild life photography but can always boast my photography skills on my posts.

Now, for some info on our resident snake. It is not intruding in my property. We have intruded in its property and it is tolerating us. It has been residing in this area since much before we thought of building our houses. I had last seen it one and a half years back and had thought that it has found some other place free from human irritation. But it seems to like our company. Nice to see it again.