OM MANGALAYA NAMO

Mangal Ho!

A bee wanted to pee and inadvertently drifted into the editorial section of the leading news channel ‘News XXX Now’ (now you know that this post is a work of pure fiction because no such section exists in news channels)

These are some of the droppings that the bee sampled with a lot of glee in the short while on the way to pee, which incidentally helped its cause a great deal.

Editor : Oye Rags (short, and apt for Raghav the reporter), who is the boss of this Mangalyan business yaar…

Rags : O teri, ye toh maine poochha hi nahi… Sirji hoga koi Madrasi…

Editor : O khotte, vo toh obviously wali baat hai… But I want a name and a photo. Aur ek chhota sa interview bhi…

Rags goes out and comes back with some papers.

Rags : Sirji, kana tha na koi Madrasi hi hoga…. (shows papers and photos to the editor)

Editor : O yaar koi asaan naam nahi hai? Koi aur dekh team mein… Aur koi better shakal.

Rags : Satyanaas sirji… saare hi Madrasi hain… Aur ek se ek killer naam.

Editor : Interview ke liye baat hui…

Rags : Haan sir… Bhai so raha hai. Biwi kehti hai bees din se nahi soya… he  he he

Editor : Ajeeb aadmi hai yaar. Country ka itna bada achievement hai, khud Modi ji pahunche hain… aur ye so raha hai… Kamaal hai… Kuchh nahi ho sakta is desh ka…

Rags : Sirji maro goli inhe… Ek todu angle aaya hai dimag mein… Mangalyaan ne 65 crore km ki Mars ki doori poori ki… Modi ji ki sarkar ke ho gaye 123 din, nahi 124… 130 din pakad lo… Yani Modiji ke ek din mein Mangalyaan 50 lakh kilometer chala… Record hoga sirji… first time in the world!

Editor (grinning ear to ear) : Shabbaash mere sher. Kya angle laaya hai yaar… Ek panel bana… Bangali discussions ko anchor karega… Prime time…

Rags : Sirji Bangali kaun…

Editor : Abe Bangali ko nahi jaanta? Tu iss industry mein kya kar raha hai, balki iss desh mein kya kar raha hai be? … Beta ye apna Bangali saare news anchors ka baap hai…

Rags : Achha vo Arn…

Editor : Haan ji, vohi… Bade badon ki awaaz nahi nikalti uske saamne… par phir bhi uske show mein aate hain…

Rags : Sir panel mein kisko bulayon?

Editor : Ek toh Modiji ka minister hoga, ek baba pakad le – sadhu, jyotshi, math wala, koi bhi chalega par aggressive hona chahiye – ek opposition ka tatpoonjiya lele,

Rags : Sir ladies?

Editor : Haan, politician young lady pakad le… ya koi page 3 wali le le, ek hi baat hai… ek business wala aur ek filmon se le le… Sun, Amir ko pakad. Satyamev ke baad social side par sahi control hai uska…

… The bee couldn’t control the pee any longer and left. But we must thank her (or him or it, lest the women’s groups have any objections to my selective objectification of the female species) for bringing to us the behind the camera strategies, decisions and insights to the mouth-warming, heart-watering coverage of Mangal Ho currently unfurling on the News XXX Now these days.

Congratulations to all Indians.

Thank you Modiji.

Signing off with glee… and an urgent need to pee!

O teri MOM ki jai…

P.S. If in the true scientific spirit, you are offended by my words, let me apologize and urge you to read the link below (from FB and also transcripted below). For the true pursuit of science can scarce be a media event. Let us learn to celebrate science and scientists rather than the politics, marketing, advertising and the hype, which sometime surrounds them, and threaten to subsume everything of meaning and worth.

Salute Team ISRO!

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10204810803889971&set=gm.677781018972971&type=1&theater

DOCTORS VS AAMIR KHAN

Letter no.3

A letter to an Ignorant Perfectionist

Dear Mr. Aamir Khan,

I have been trying hard but cannot get over the fact that you can 'sell'

ignorance with such ease and honour.

Though I agree to 'parts' of your show, lets first get the facts right.

1. You said patients on dialysis live upto 15-20 years. Fact - The 5 year survival rate of patients on dialysis is about 25-30 % ( less than many cancers). Renal transplant remains the best available treatment option for chronic kidney disease. (I hope you take responsibility for people who after watching your show plan to not go for kidney transplant and die in less than 5 years)
2. An overenthusiastic girl from the audience said that her father was forced for an emergency liver transplant '6-7 years' ago for gastroenteritis. Fact- Even today there are a handful' of hospitals in India offering liver transplants. To think that 6-7 years ago, just a gastroenteritis patient was offered liver transplant is not only improbable but technically impossible.
3. A diabetic patient blamed a doctor for losing a toe. Fact- Lacs of diabetic patients per year lose entire limbs due to diabetic foot (cellulitis and gangrene). Doctors go about stepwise cutting off toes , then foot , even the leg upto above knee level in order to save as much limb as possible. The patient in your show might still be able to walk just because of the timely action taken by the surgeon.

Mr. Aamir Khan i am not getting back at you because i took your show personally. Yes , I agree that there are doctors indulging in shameful malpractices and even i know a few of them. But i can proudly say i am surrounded by more doctors who work day and night just to ensure that their patients get the best BAD' doctors should be punished and we all can come together to ensure we do not encourage such malpractices.

Secondly i would have appreciated if you would have thrown some light on the entrance examinations and the hard work , dedication and sacrifices a doctor needs to clear his MBBS, MD, DM etc examinations. I wish you had spent half a day in the emergency department and OPD of a Govt. Hospital and realised that the work timings, working conditions, lunch breaks, doctor : patient ratio, hours of sleep per week , living conditions in the hostel and the stipend is worse than a class 4 labourer. You would have also surprisingly realised that the 'DOCTORS' are the only 'FUNCTIONAL' part of a Govt. Hospital which still caters to thousands of patients in a day. When you compared statistics of U.K and India , why didnt you include the salaries, living standards and the doctor: patient ratio the doctors have in developed countries.

Coming to generic drugs, Yes, a large amount of rural population should have access to cheap generic drugs. But one should not forget the pharma companies that charge more for the drugs are the ones that spend crores of rupees for research and development of new drugs. Had there not been drug trials no new drugs would have been invented and we would have mortality rates compared to stone age.

Also i agree that most doctors endorse certain brands of drugs (which i do not deny may be for some financial gains also ) because thay have faithin the quality of the 'active drug' of certain companies. Yes many local companies manufacture generic products ( which is a copy of the originalmolecule discovered by the expensive company which can be used for unaffordable patients. But you did not mention that many of these generic drugs are of substandard quality and are the reason of many uncalled for deaths due to drug reactions. Most doctors would not want to take responsibilty of the quality of the 'generic' drugs.

Lastly, What do you mean when you say ' People of high IQ and desire to earn money should not become doctors'.

Why arent doctors allowed to have an ambition ??  How can a person who earns 4 crores for an episode of a so called 'social' show decide on what should be an individual's ambition and financial staus !!  Why can there be no doctors who earn well for their professional skills and do not indulge in malpractices ?!

It just reflects your hypocrisy. I would like to offer  a few solutions to the problem.

a) ' BAD' doctors indulging in malpractices should be suspended for life. We need a strong regulatory authority to publish expected treatment 'protocols' and punish doctors found to be doing unethical practices.

b) Regulatory authorities should also keep a check on the quality of drugs being manufactured  and at the same time 'sold' at the local chemist.

c) Govt. medical colleges and hospitals should multiply several folds, increasing the number of doctors in each department, improving the doctor: patient ratio. Doctor's salaries and living conditions should be looked after and should be comparable  to other professionals.

d) Regular CME'S and licensing exams (like other countries) every 5-10 years.

e) The Govt. should spend 6-8% of GDP ON HEALTHCARE and a part of  which should also be committed to  the research and development of newer drugs.

f) No politician  should be allowed to be associated with any private medical colleges.

g) The general public should be educated well about common diseases

and the 'acceptable' qualifications of the doctors.

These are just a few points i can think of at the moment. I am sure had you bothered to have a panel discussion and find solutions in a healthy way, We could come up with a lot more viable solutions.

However you chose to sensationalize your show, by hiring 'few' people with 'fake' or 'amplified' problems and shed a few tears.

Hope you understand that Your allegations like ' HAMARE DESH KE DOCTORS ITNE BIMAAR KYUN HAIN' and 'MAUT KE SAUDAGAR' are as serious as calling all actors 'Rapists' (after the shiney ahuja incident) and all Muslims 'Terrorists' . Knowing that you twisted not one but not many known medical 'facts' to strike a chord with the 'ignorant' 'naive' audience, How do you expect me  to have faith in you and the stories you would project in the upcoming shows. You have betrayed a large segment of the 'classes' as well as 'masses'.

All i can say is i feel sad for the death of the 'image' you created in our minds and hearts. An unbiased Aamir who strives for nothing but the truth and the betterment of the society was after all a MYTH.

Condolences,

An honest Doctor

Male Libido… And the Power to Shake!

Hey guys,

Looking at the population increase trends, the number of dicks is increasing across the world (India contributing big time to the trend) even though the sperm count is falling, suggesting an increased efficiency of sperms, or an increased eagerness of ova, or both... Come, be a part of the Global movement!

Anyway, right here, back home in India…

A)... TT of T (Tarun Tejpal of Tehelka) and the recent sexual harassment stuff tells you to keep away from women. 

B)... Supreme court and the new found longevity of article 377 tells you to keep away from men.  

C)... The current Delhi political situation tells you to keep away from power.

The only place these three naturally and normally happen is the bedroom of married men… Unless of course the woman wants it the other way!

For, outside the bedroom, all men are those power hungry blokes with malafide intentions and no sense of accountability at all.

Now, please don't try to deny this. If you are a man, this is true. Period.

But times are a-changing, guys! You got to fear... and you got to change too. When the world starts thinking like dicks, dicks have a helluva lot to think about.

So, outside the bedroom, you are advised to take your libido in your hands, be sexually self-reliant and and rejoice in your own false orgasm.

And then you will be a man, my son!

And the whole world will be (up) yours!!

(Disclaimer: Sorry to have unintentionally hurt your feelings and pride if you are an honest or corrupt, straight or gay, man or woman (or animal, PETA please listen), in a newly awakening India of today)

Guilty

I love you my child.

And look what I have done for you. With all my supposed intelligence and wisdom, my reason and intuition, my infinite leadership and vision, this is what I have ensured for you-

A pointless faulty education, screwed up environment – no parks to play, no clean air to breathe, contaminated water to drink, insufficient / unhealthy food to eat - terrorism, naxalism, social inequalities and injustice, political unrest, economic turmoil and crony capitalism, insecurities physical emotional and mental, dangers within and outside the house, fears, mistrust, angers often misplaced, mass apathy and callousness,  hopelessness, cynicism, disillusionment…

And yet I think I know, that I have a right to tell you and you have an obligation to listen.

Mere bachhon mujhe maaf karna.

The Delhi Rapist

The Delhi gang rape victim died today after days of a brave but futile struggle.

How do I feel? Angry yes, sad yes, pained yes. I want to react, do something, anything which might express my agony and frustration, relieve me of a great emotional burden that I feel on my chest. Anything, absolutely anything will do…

Then I see this four line news item on yesterday’s newspaper about another gang rape and suicide of a minor girl in Patiala. What do I feel? Nothing. Angry no, sad no, pained maybe.

And then it dawns on me…

• It is not the event that impacts me but the ‘story’ around the event. All I want is a good story, told well. Even if it is a horror story... (and there are a lot of expert story mongers on a variety of news channels who are more than keen to do my bidding)
• Being so engrossed in the story (so as to even forget the event as soon as the story dies) I can only react to stories but can’t really act meaningfully to influence, shape or prevent events. 
• I am someone who is too bloody engrossed in the game of whodunit, so much so that I have forgotten to ask ‘what went wrong - what goes wrong’. In other words, I can only blame but can't take responsibility.
• I would rather debate than resolve anything. I refuse to see the futility of debates. If debates could resolve anything then why so much disenchantment with the parliament? Debate is all that the 500 odd johnnies do there! ... Debate is a great spectacle. It gives me a sense of self-importance and intellectual titillation. It makes me feel that I have played my part without actually having to do anything... I love debates.
• My fears make me react (something like this can happen to me). I have no real courage to act. No courage to respect and protect (neither women nor anyone)… Else

1. Wouldn’t I stop sex determination tests and female foeticides / infanticides in my own house
2. Wouldn’t I stop rationalizing or sympathizing with khap mentality
3. Wouldn’t I say no to dowry, covert or overt
4. Wouldn’t I ensure that my daughter gets as much food, education and affection in my house as my son gets
5. Wouldn’t I ensure that my father didn’t abuse my mother whatever the provocation
6. Wouldn’t I, when schools make mandatory for girls to wear salwar suits instead of skirts (in the name of our tradition), insist that boys should be made to wear kurta pyjamas by the same logic
7. Etc. etc. etc.

• In all of the above, I can be a boy or a girl, a man or a woman. In fact I am none. I am a bloody eunuch. Impotent. Imbecile.
• I have been plotting these rapes for as long as I can remember. Years, decades, ages. I am the one who write the script, set the stage, get the actors and pull the curtains… And I am the one who watches – in agony, in horror or in sadistic pleasure.
• I will never be caught, tried, convicted and punished.
• But I will always be haunted and hounded by fears which will lead to and find sustenance in my reactions and inactions.
• And sometime, maybe, sooner than later, I will get raped... Karma... Justice... Misfortune... Who knows? ... A self fulfilling prophesy.

I am deeply ashamed. I am sorry. Probably I deserve the state I am in. Help me God!

Hang Aseem Trivedi...

Serious, solemn, deferential, in hushed tones – that’s how you are supposed to talk about dead people… and national symbols. For when the life goes out of a thing, there obviously cannot be any humor left (for that matter, any other emotion).

Hence, I strongly recommend that Aseem Trivedi must be tried, found guilty as charged and hanged. In spite of the fact that I am an impractical buffoon and so am fundamentally against capital punishment, yet this is one exception I must allow for nothing less will do. How dare he lampoons a national symbol!

That done, now there is a reason to celebrate. For if sedition scores a notch better on tolerance scale than blasphemy, which it obviously does, then we have proven ourselves as a state much more tolerant than our bête noir Pakistan, with whom any victory must be savored, how so ever unsavory. 

But this victory is bigger because the intolerance shown by Pakistan is even bigger considering that the person at the receiving end is an 11 year old kid… (Though any introspection or reverse scrutiny about the person in our case would be quite pointless, and well, seditious!) There can absolutely be no doubt how much more blessed Aseem Trivedi is for being a liberal cartoonist  in India than Rimsha Masih is, being a christian kid in Pakistan.

John Nash must be very happy because India and Pakistan have repeatedly re-endorsed the validity of his Prisoner’s Dilemma theory (as if it needed any more validation after the Nobel Prize). Both losing is surely a much better option than the enemy winning!

By the way, as an afterthought, isn’t there any provision in law for sedation charges, in which case the 545 MPs should be rounded off at once for not allowing one billion people to wake up for so many years… Even as we debate whether morphine should be allowed to lessen the pain of terminally ill patients ! @#$#@%#$#<>?#@  

Bharat Mata Ki Jai

(and, Mother India’s mother’s eye… hope that does not invite sedition charges)

My Teachers... A Tribute

"We are all like match sticks. We carry our fire within us but only as a possibility. We have to come to the match box surface, to grind ourselves in and bang our heads for the fire to come out. And a true teacher is like that – a match box surface..."

I believe everyone has at least one blessing in his or her life. Mine has been that God brought great teachers into my life. Many of them were formal teachers, yet many were those who presented themselves at various times in my life and taught great, invaluable lessons.

So, I was luckier than most in that aspect. However, I am sure that we can all look back at our lives and will be able to locate that one teacher who had that great impression on us and somewhere shaped who we are. These were the people who gave more and more without expecting anything in return. At least in their relationship with us, they gave out of love and they often gave of themselves. No gratitude expressed is enough for these great men and women, who, neither rich nor famous, will always hold the highest pedestal of reverence in my heart.

They say that human mind cannot distinguish between memory and imagination. To it, an actual experience and an imagined experience are quite the same (which really explains why positive thinking, visualization techniques and many other therapies work!)

As I look back at many of these teachers now after a gap of years and decades, the mind gets muddled in the detail of things. The line between what actually happened and the interpretation of what happened blurs. However, the impressions of what happened, to whatever degree they are accurate (and I should like to believe that they mostly are), are very real and sharp in my mind. And since it’s these impressions, and not necessarily the truth, which has remained with me and shaped my life, I would like to share some of them.

Year 1977-78, Jaipur, me about 11 years and in class 7…

Ms Anuradha Pandit is assigned our class as a young English teacher. Now, we were from that generation of ‘Hindi medium’ middle class people where English was a foreign language, a chore and something which had to be endured and scraped through. But that changed soon with Ms Pandit. Her classes used to be one fun filled riot. She would play pranks with us and occasionally even whistle!... We had a game where all of us had to speak in English and anybody using a Hindi word was fined 10p (the penalty always accrued but never collected). Hers was one class in the whole day everyone looked forward to.

And of course she taught. Taught better than many. But more importantly, she made me interested in a subject for the first time in my life. Before that you studied something because you were told to do so, you wanted to impress your parents and teachers, or whatever. For the first time I studied because I enjoyed doing so.

Personally, what I learnt from her, looking back, is the importance of engagement and fun in teaching. She was the first of the great teachers in my life and a smile comes on my face whenever I think of her and those years.

Year 1981-82, Delhi, me about 14 years and in class 9…

The session had just started. We were sitting in the class waiting for the new History teacher, someone who had come on transfer and had just joined the school.

By class 9th, it was clear that we were the ‘science’ types. There was neither any interest nor motivation to study History and the past experience with the subject was nothing to talk about. I think many kids, even if they were sure shot ‘arts’ cases felt the same and it was one bunch of 45 disinterested, lackadaisical and sleepy children awaiting the new teacher in a sultry July afternoon.

And the teacher walks in. He was one extremely fair, short and rotund guy in mid-thirties whose aspect ratio might have been rather uncommonly exaggerated for a human male. He had a kind face and mischievous eyes.

Plonk! He raised himself and sat on the table, facing us. He looked like someone who loved teaching and belonged, every inch of his girth, in that class at that moment.

And thus spake M Tahir Nayyar…

History is His (Mankind’s) Story and I will tell you the story.

Kitaaben band, copiyaan band… Mein kahaani sunaoonga aur tum sunna… Par kitaab padhte rahna kyonki main test mein sawaal kitaab mein se poochhoonga… Kitaab mein kuchh na samajh mein aaye toh bejhijak poochhna… Lekin ek shart hai… Mujhse ye na poochhna ki Hindustan kab aazad hua… Kyonki ye har kitaab mein likha hai aur ye poochhne ka matlab hai ki tumne kitab nahi padhi… Mujhse ye poochhna ki Hindustan 15 August 1947 ko hi kyon aazad hua, 14 ko kyon nahi aur 16 ko kyo nahi?

Only Tahir sir could have said that. What command over his subject, what love for the kids and what a story-teller?

I can still visualize people standing on the deck throwing cartons and boxes of tea into the sea! That’s how vivid ‘Boston Tea Party’ of 1773 and the whole of American Revolution is in my mind even today.

It was some coincidence that in 1989 when I joined Hindustan Zinc Ltd. at Zawar Mines after my B.Tech. he was the principal of the Central School there. He stayed there for one more year before he was transferred to Dehradoon but during that one year, I had a free access to his house. If I did not go for 2 days, he will call the third. Though his own children were much too small at that time, he loved me as his own…

I recently learnt that he passed away few years back and the world is much the poorer because they hardly make such teachers any more.

June 1991, me 23 years, in first class compartment of Chetak Express coming from Udaipur to Delhi on LTC…

The cabin had four berths. I occupied one of the lower berths and was waiting for the train to depart. It was still half an hour before the train left. The evening breeze was building up and felt good on my tired, sweaty face. Leaning on the window, I lit a cigarette and closed my eyes…

Images. Last few months had been bad. I was feeling suffocated at Zawar Mines. The lead-zinc mining township of Hindustan Zinc Ltd. had a population of about 25000. It was located 8 km off Udaipur Ahmedabad highway, about 45 km from Udaipur. Practically, it was a hilly adivasi area essentially in the middle of nowhere.

The plant was old, the technology nowhere close to what I studied in Engineering, the politics was as petty as it was stifling and the salary? Class I officer grade used to be ‘baees sau se chaar hazaar’. With Rs. 1064/- basic, I used to get less than Rs. 2000/- (after deductions, etc) every month for my life locked into the endless A-B-C shift misery.

The economic crisis was yet to hit India, Dr. Manmohan Singh was hardly a known name and liberalization was a word very few were acquainted with. For someone brought up in Delhi, I just could not see myself spending the next 35 years of my life in this back of beyond.

I had been telling my seniors for some months that I will leave before completing 2 years here. They used to laugh at me telling they felt the same when they initially joined. Now those guys were around for 15 year, married, kids… settled. I had joined HZL on 1st July 1989. This was June 1991. Time was running out…

Yet, what could I do? I had taken some MBA entrance exams but could not get through. The shift duties never really agreed with me and it was physically beyond me to put any decent study hours for the preparation.

Chucking the job that too a government (PSU) job was too much a risk back then for our middle-class (actually lower middle-class if you consider the salary that a government officer – my dad – used to get in those days!) situation and sensibilities.

So, here I was pensive and smoking, leaning on a train window. You can actually put a Dev Anand Hum Dono song as a voice over to that visual – main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya, har fikr ko dhuen mein udata chala gaya… Only the fikr was more adamant in my case!

Two guys entered the coupe. Both in their mid-thirtees.

One was this heavy set giant of a man of about 6 ft 3 or 4 inches. The other was a more normal packaging. The train started. The two gents chatted for some time and then the ‘normal’ guy retired to the upper berth.

I could make out from their conversation (clarified further later by my giant friend) that they were both architects working for Udaipur town planning department and were going to Jaipur for some official work.

Intimacy comes fast when the spirits are high! As soon as it was night, my friend took out a bottle of rum, some cola and namkeen and invited me to join him. The invitation was as earnest as it was tempting. I could not refuse. There was also no reason to…

I do not remember what we talked or how we got down discussing my particular predicament but that’s the topic which consumed most of the evening. Considering my state of mind at the time and the magical effects of rum, it might have been an outpouring!

What I do remember very clearly is my senior friend telling me….. if you think you are not doing justice to the job and the job is not doing justice to you, it is criminal to continue. Leave NOW!... A worthy life may be tough but it is still better than a life of unceasing compromise… Do not imagine it will be easy. Your family and friends may call you a fool, numerable hardships may come but no compromise… For there is nothing nobler or more spectacular than a man living his life on his own terms with courage and conviction… and willing to pay the price…

With these impressions I dozed off. When I got up in the morning he was gone. I don’t even know his name nor I ever went back to enquire about him at Udaipur. But almost as a tribute to him, I reached Delhi and never quite went back to my job. It was 30th June 1991, precisely 2 years from the date of my joining HZL!

The least I can say is that conversation and the subsequent action changed my life forever and continue to shape it today. Though some people close to me would rather have it otherwise!

Thank you sir. Hope to meet you some day…

I hope that some day I will be able to touch a life like that! That would be a fitting tribute to all my teachers... Till then, let's remember them all.

Happy Teacher's Day!!