A day later, we started seeing the shocking images of the “boat” in which they were taken for the trip. This was not really a “pleasure trip boat” as you would have expected. Two small boats which could carry upto 5 people safely were tied together with some sort of platform on the top and if reports are correct, upto 40 children and teachers climbed onto it and only half of them returned. Obviously there was no life jacket, no radio communication, no life guard and nothing which would have prevented the gravity of the event when it happened. Additional information provided indicated that the boat had no license to operate and driver had no training. It was just a disaster waiting to happen and it did.

A day later we also saw another scene. The entire Cabinet of the state came to the village and as the dead bodies awaited burial, they met in the school room officially and made proclamations of grief, of compensation, of outrage and inquiry.

In days which followed, boat owners across the state were chased by virtually everybody who had some administrative control over them. This included officials from the police, officials from the transport department, officials from the tourism department and so on. Armed with the strong public opinion, boat rides in many tourist locations were stopped and number of boats taken into custody (sure, is the boat which is the problem, not the people as you would have thought).

One month from then, we don’t hear about the arrest of boats or actions on boat safety anymore. Boat rides are back so are the drivers (without training) and boats (without licence). It is a rule of statistics that the next major accident will not be in boating.

Sure, it was not.

Last week, a shop selling fire work crackers caught fire and exploded in Calicut, killing 8 people and injuring many more. The explosion happened in the early hours of the business which resulted in the low casualty but it could have been much more if the incident happened in the afternoon or evening. By then I had given up on the Asia net, so I did not have to see the images, which I am sure would have been horrific and saddening. But I did read stories of young boys who just started working in these shops during their summer holidays to supplement their family income. That made me sad.

In this case, there was not much of an evidence left. With the fire, explosion and the rescue effort, the shop where it all started had ceased to exist. The owner of the shop was dead. This of course left lot of room for speculation from illegal storage of high grade explosive to deliberate causing of explosion.

But the third part of the circus did happen. The entire cabinet, or at least most of it, came to the site and went around, make proclamations of grief, compensation, outrage and inquiry. Without waiting for any forensic experts, they also alleged conspiracy in the whole incident.

As sure as day follow the night, the entire state machinery was after fire cracker shops since. Across the state, shops are being raided and findings of storage of explosive without licence, explosive beyond the limit of the licence and so on are being found out and exposed. Explosives are being taken to custody (sure !). I think this festive season will have to quieter without crackers.

But two things we can be sure about.

1.                  By next festive season, the cracker shops will be back

2.                  Before that, there will be yet another tragedy, which statically will neither be on the boat nor in cracker shop. But that is not because these sectors have learnt any lessons. There are other disasters waiting to happen to these sectors will have to wait on the back of the queue.

I can think of at least one hundred possibilities which can lead to multiple casualities in Kerala any day. I will not even count traffic accidents in them because it is so common that Malayalees seems to have factored that into their daily life. Here is a sample,

1.                  An electric line passing over a temple pond falls down and electrocute people taking bath in those ponds

2.                  A truck carrying petrol hits an electric post, catch fire and explode in the middle of the town, killing 100 people

3.                  A thunderstorm cause the roof of a school to collapse killing those children

4.                  A landslide caused by the removal of soil from one of the hills buries an entire village downhill

5.                  A factory storing benzene catch fire and explodes killing workers

As a trained HSE personal, I can go on and on with possible scenarios. I can also predict what will happen if any of these things happen;

1.                  The entire public attention is focussed on that event and the individual/organisaton who caused it is vilified

2.                  Government announce outrage and orders inquiry

3.                  Government machinery go after that specific issue for next one month

4.                  All is forgotten, life goes on

This is the biggest tragedy of all. We learn nothing from these tragedies and solve nothing for our children. So they are exposed to ever increasing possibilities of tragic deaths.

But the fact is that people are dying and most of these are preventable death. I was doing a presentation last year and collected information on the number of people dying in kerala from traffic accidents and I compared that with teh number of people getting killed in Kashmir by terrorists. Guess what ?. We kill more people on the road than they do up in the hill. There are thousand of soldiers in kashmir to protect our people and on our street, there is no body to protect us. It is free for all. This is sad.

There are three important things about safety which we should understand if we have to get sustained results.

1.                  Safety is an attitude which has to be planted and nurtured. You cannot achieve sustainable safety standards within a culture of permissivity.

2.                  Safety cost money. You cannot both have cheap goods and services and good safety.

3.                  Safety needs comprehensive and sustained effort. You can’t fix it sector by sector, you cant fix it in fits and starts

If Kerala were to achieve a sustainable safety standard, we have start planting and nurturing a safety culture within ourselves and especially our children. We should train ourselves and our children to look at the safety risk associated with EVERYTHING we do to such a degree that it becomes integral to our whole thought process, something we do subconsciously without being prompted.

• This would mean that we will no loger be able to get driving licence without learning to drive


• This for example would mean that we may no longer stand on the foot board of a bus


• This would mean that we will no longer driver after we had alcohol


• This would mean that we will no longer use a high current appliance on a low current socket


• This would mean that we will no longer get into a boat which has no safety jacket available


• This would mean that we will demand that the driver of every bus displays the number of accidents he has caused his career


• This would mean that we will no longer subject our elephant to the high decibel noise of our music instrument and fire works


• This will mean that we will no longer fix the fuse in our house with copper wire


• And so on…

As you can see, this would alter fundamentally the way we live. This may also cost money, but safety is not cheap.

Incidents such as the tragedies described earlier are occasions for us to start thinking of safety more seriously. Government can also help to create this awareness. Here is a simple suggestion.

I was travelling in Serbia and along the road, I saw a small patch (1 m X 1 m) flower plants from time to time. I asked my interpreter “what is it ?’ and she said “you know this started during the war, when some soldier died at a spot, others did not have the chance to take their body back to the family. So they buried them there itself and planted flower plants on top. Later on their family came their every year in memory and tended to those flowers”. “However, these days, these patches are created by people whose close family members died in a road accident along this road and the family comes once every year and pray for them”.

Now imagine if we had this tradition. Kerala will instantly turn out to be a garden. Some patches in particular will need multiple layers to accommodate for all the dead.

I forgot all about this book, till it arrived one day in a parcel, from Joe. I promised myself to read it on my trip to Cyprus.

I was travelling by an early plane to Cyprus on Sunday the 11th of February. I misread the flight timing as 8:30 AM (which turned out to be the time of arrival in Frankfurt). So when I arrived at the airport at 6:12, well in advance for the flight, I figured out that the flight was infact at 6:50.  In any case, the guy at the check in counter did let me get on to the plane. Geneva must be the last international airport where one can arrive 38 minutes ahead of the flight time and still be on the plane.  The last time I was in London, in December 2007, I had to be in a queue for 3 hours, OUTSIDE the airport before I could get in to the check in counter queue inside the airport.

Anyway, my comment is not about the length of the check in queues at various airports but about the book which Joe sent. The book's name is "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" by Tahir Shah.

I started reading the book at 6:25 in Geneva airport and let me tell you, I have never enjoyed  a book as much as I did this one. I did not keep the book down, nor did I take time to eat or drink, till the time I finished the book. In between I landed in Frankfurt, waited for next plane, took off. Just as the plane was taxiing in at Larnaca, I finished the book.

The book is about a British guy of Afghan origin, who get fascinated by Magic to which he was introduced in his childhood by another Afghan (who is the guard of the tomb of his great grandfather). In his adulthood, the boy returns to India, to the tomb of his ancestor, to meet with his Magic Teacher and continue his learning. He is then referred by the teacher to another Guru and in the process of learning, he travels all over India seeking out Godmen and Godwomen. He is joined by a young boy who is a "walking crime wave" who can trick anybody to part with their money (including the author). Together they travel to various cities in India visiting Lunatic Asylums and Asrams meeting witches and psychic healers, Gurujis and fish cure experts.

The book is fantastic for its content and hilarious in its style. Tahir Shah is neither celebratory or contemptous about the situations he encounter in India. He is cheated and robbed multiple times in various locations. He comes across criminals, Godmen, witch crafts and so on. But he continue to keep the balance in looking at those incidents as pictures in a great canvas without feeling too much bitter about those.

The book is an honest cross section of India today and might come as a shock to people who have got used to seeing only positive and shiny pictures of India and its IT and corporate world. Just around the corner, the world of superstitions and Godmen is also busy and active. Also, in a somewhat unique feature in India, the new generation IT whiz kidds are equally taken in by the Godmen and some of the later Godmen are well educated charlatans. To take a miracle fish cure administerd by one family in just one day of year in June, half a million people turn up and not only special buses are run on that day, but also special aircrafts !. So there is no distinction in social class too on belief in superstitions. The two Indias are actually not separate worlds, but an intertwined mosaic.

Having visited most of the cities visited by Tahir and also knowing many of the charecters myself, I know the stories are mostly true. Whether he actually encountered all of them, I dont know. Whethere there was indeed a trickster with him all the while, I cant tell. But who cares. His stories are entertaining and the Trickster is fascinating.

I recommend this book to all Indians for they will find it very enlightening. I also recommend this book to non Indians who will find the book very amusing.

I am again on this topic, but this time my focus is on the entire tamasha ongoing under the very nose of Sami Ayyappan. Take the following scandals which came to light in the last one year.

1.  The father of the priest at the Malikappuram temple accuse Vellappally Natesan, the Charismatic leader of SNDP of influence in swindling upto 45 lakhs from his son. The complaint was sent to the less charismatic but perhaps more influential leader of NSS, Mr Narayana Panicker. In the end the fight became one between NSS and SNDP. There were street protest arranged by SNDP against NSS and press statements by NSS on SNDP leader.

I found it very amusing, but what stood out is the following. The fact that the jobs of the chief priest in these temples is getting increasingly lucrative. If Malikappuram Shanthi gets upto 45 lakhs, how much will the Melshanthi in ayyappan temple will get ?. I was also told that once you get this job at least one year, then your regular market value for puja elsewhere also go up. So in the end it, eligible candidate, will try to try their best to get into this job. One should therefore not be surprised if there is money changing hand, like for posting in Valayar checkpost. The question really is why is Ayyappan not taking care for this ?.

My friends from other communities often think that all Nairs are NSS and Narayanapanicker is some sort of religous leader. Nothing can be farther from truth. In fact I have never been to any NSS function. The only time I went to the local NSS office was when we had to get a letter from the local NSS to get admission to the NSS co-operative training college. Guess what, we had to pay money to the local office as well as the college to get admission, nair or otherwise. Did we get any concession because we were nair, i dont know. But what I certainly know is that NSS or Narayanapanicker does not represent nairs. They represent the various colleges and institutions they have built up using the Nair brand. Good for them !!.

2.  The Thanthri of Sabarimala was caught with two women in a flat in Ernakulam. It turned out that this was all part of a blackmail racket which has been ongoing for sometime. The investigations are ogoing.

3. There has been multiple allegations of corruption against the officials of Travencore Devaswam Board

4. There were specific scandals about the purchase of goods for Sabarimala and they provision of food for devotees.

The police is working on the scandals, devaswam minister is working on cleaning up the board, high court is working on briging those responsible to book. For people like me, there is a simple question. What is Ayyapan doing about all these. If he want to sort these out, he can sort all these out in a flash. Why doesn't he ?

Now one of the advantage of Hindu religious practice is that one could use astrology to find the preference of the God. So important decisions in temple is made after doing "Devaprashnam" by knowledgeable astrologers.

The last astrological session in Sabarimala to get Devahitham turned out to be a Tamasha of the highest degree. The astrologer made some predictions and then set up his followers to sent faxes to the temple office substantiating his predictions.

Why wasn't there a lightning when this nonsense was going on right in front of Ayyappans eyes ?. Why is that the police and politicians has to sort out the misdeeds which are going in his name right under his nose ?.

To an objective observer, there are only two answers. One Ayyapan don't care. It does not matter to him if his thantri is with women, being blackmailed or his astrologer is setting up stories. It is therefore upto us, the faithful to defeat these people around him. And our way, use your money wisely. Dont pay to the thanthri, melshanti or devaswam board. Go and pray, please. But keep the money with yourself. Once the money is taken out of the equation most of these fraudulent charectors will also take off and real faithfuls will return to the jobs.

When I went to Sabarimala, my brogther in law told me the following. There are lot of people sitting along the way seeking your money in various forms in the name of Ayyappan. But the only person who is honest is Pandalam Raja, he only ask for himself. So let us pay to him.

I started reading Richard Dwakins latest book "The God Delusion", partly because I enjoyed his previous book "The Selfish Gene". I actually did not know that Richard Dwakins is indeed very active in the battle againt God(s) and Religion (s). I am glad that he is.

The book is written in a very straightforward fashion and words are not minced when it comes to taking on religion (or God). Most scientists whom I know, would normally concur with Mr Dwakins argument about the irrationality about the belief in God. However, they might give some space for Religion, as a code of life (moral life) and so on. However, Dr Dwakins gives no such corner, and rightly so. Religions gives no moral guidance for its followers. On the other hand it destroys the moral code which people may otherwise have is one of the themes of this book. Somewhere in the book there is a statement such as "Good people will always do good and bad people will always do bad, however it takes religion to make good people do bad" and I feel that is very true.

I recommend this book to all, believers and otherwise. More importantly I recommend this to scientists who are not strong enough in their views on God and children whose world view is not yet fully formed.

This is how Showkat Osman Surfaced

"Dear Friends,

Muralee

The Sabarimala season is coming to an end and going by the reports so far, it has been a successful year in terms of pilgrim arrival (30 % increase), net revenue (30 + % increase). There have been no incident of stampede (which happens occasionally) and no incident of terrorism (which is feared increasingly). So on the whole a good year.

Sabarimala has fascinated me for a very long time, so much so that I went to Sabarimala in 1983 even though I was probably at the peak of my atheist beliefs just to see what is that which attracts people to go their in spite of the difficulties and contradictions.

First about the difficulties. Sabarimala temple is in the middle of a forest and in the past people had to walk through the forest. Occasionally pilgrims were attacked by leopards and killed. In fact such attacks were common enough to become part of a proverb in Kerala

“ividunnu aarum malakku povanjittano ?, Avinde engan puli illanjittano ?

Literal translation don’t give the essence so I will give the context. A guy went to Sabarimala and was eaten by a leopard. His family did the final rites and arranged for a feast. One of the neighbors was not invited for the feast so she is complaining that why is that no leopard eats her husband when he go to Sabarimala (so that she could also arrange for a feast !).

Anyway, the time when pilgrims were eaten by leopards is long over. In over three decades of me following the pilgrimage, there was not even one report of such attacks. However the pilgrimage has not become less risky though. The thousands of people who crowd to the temple especially during the few auspicious timings create chaos inspite of the best efforts of the temple administration and local police leading to stampede and deaths. (eg. In 1993, 53 people died ). Add to this the numerous traffic accidents resulting in death and injuries. In the recent periods, increasingly there is suspicion and fear of terrorist attacks (like in Akshardham or Banaras) at the temple. So statistically speaking it is still a dangerous venture probably more dangerous than what it used to be.

Difficulty is yet another thing. In the past people had to walk initially from wherever they are to Sabarimala (100s of kilometers) then from Erumeli (about 50 kilometer) and now about 5 kilometer (from Pampa). However, the size of the crowd has increased so much that it could take upto 24 hours to complete the 5 kilometer journey. Add to this the lack of proper sanitation facilities, sometime difficulties in climate (rain, cold etc), the difficulties have mounted too, just that the nature has changed.

Anyway, enough about dangers and difficulties. Now something about the nature of the contradictions.  The Ayyapan (the deity of Sabarimala) story is a mixture of facts and fiction, myths and legends. The story also straddles two time periods. The story begins in the cosmic period where the Gods and Demons (Asuras) are churning the cosmic ocean (palazhy) for the elixir (amruthu) and then cuts straight into AD 1000 or so where a king in Kerala goes for hunting into the forest. The story still cuts back into the cosmic period where Lord Ayyapa saves the entire “Devalokam” (world of Gods) by killing a demon who had acquired supernatural powers. The story will still cut back to the historic periods.

It is not my intention to reproduce the Sabarimala legend. Excellent compilation is available at the website http://www.sabarimala.org. I will just reiterate one more part of the legend. The Lord Ayyappa was actually born by the union of two male Gods (Lord Vishnu and Lord Siva). At the point of the union, Lord Vishnu was in the female form (Mohini) but at the time of birth the Lord had reverted to the male form. The birth therefore was not through normal channels (for obvious reasons) but through an incision on the thigh. When two Gods are involved in the process anything was possible.

In my childhood days, the sighting of “Makaravilakku” was a big event. Apparently on the 1^st day of a certain Malayalam Calender month, when the prayers are offered at the temple, divine lights will appear in the sky. This was taken as the conclusive evidence of the divinity of the temple and truth of the legend. I recall listening to running commentary of the divine lights (no television channels then). However, somewhere in 1970s it became evident that the lights were not divine but very much human and lighted from the other side of the hill under instructions.

As mentioned, it is not my intention to recite or challenge the elements of the legend. What fascinate me is that in spite of the discovery of the fraudulent nature of the “divine light”, the obvious contradictions in the legend and the daunting difficulties,  the number of people who go to the pilgrimage just keep growing at 30 %.  And what is interesting is that it is not only the conventionally religious people who go to Sabarimala. It is a place where people who are on the fringe lines of faith as well as people from other religions (Christian and Muslims, though not frequently) go. Not only that they go, but they go again and again, year after year. This is very interesting to me.

As mentioned, I went to Sabarimala in 1983 and that too when I was in the prime of my atheist beliefs. I used to go to Guruvayoor (yet another popular temple in Kerala) and stand outside as others went into the temple to pray. However my trip to Sabarimala was more like doing things which others don’t do in my house (the last time anybody from my house went to Sabarimala was before my birth in 1964). So I wanted to break that mould and surely it did. Since then, almost every year there has been a visit and these days there is more than one person visiting the temple every year.

My memories of Sabarimala trip is reasonably pleasant. First of all those days there was no threat of terrorism, traffic was smooth and there was no queue. One could walk the 5 kilometer distance from the parking lot till the temple in an hour and a half or two, offer the prayers and return. My only unpleasant memory is about the toilets in Pampa (which was non existent more or less, there were raws of pits adjacent to the river and one had to simply answer the calls of nature in public). Moreover, the toilets were so close to the river that the entire river was polluted and it is in this river that one had to bath before and after. In the end I did not take the holy bath. (Incidentally I also could not take bath in Prayag where the three holy rivers of India (Gaga, Yamuna and Saraswathy) meets. Sometime your technical knowledge works against your spiritual urges.

I have some funny memories too. When one go to Sabarimala, one is supposed to observe certain things. This include not eating meat for 41 days prior to the trip. All along the pilgrimage route restaurants compete with each other to attract pilgrims. All of them then put up banners such as “vegetarian only” and all the staff in the hotel will be wearing all the signs indicative of their own allegiance to the pilgrimage (black clothes, garland, beard etc). I was in one of them when one of the waiters (in fully religious attire) asked me if I would like to have some special (meat or fish !) and if I did, they have made arrangements in a separate room !!. So much for the façade. I also noticed that local made liquor was liberally available and consumed all along the pilgrimage route including the 5 kilometer trekking.

I have just one more memory of my trip. This is about the extremely friendly nature of the security men who were posted there. The policemen posted there were all very helpful and I knew that they were putting in upto 16 hours shifts to help people. Gave a different face to the police.

As the Sabarimala season come to an end, all these thoughts come to my mind. Coming as it does this year around the same time as Haj, I also think of many lessons which we can learn from the way Haj pilgrimage is handled so as to improve the security and comfort of the pilgrims. Here are my suggestions.

1.                  Working within the carrying capacity of the system:  Sabarimala as tourist destination is growing at 30 % an year, however the facilities are not matching with this growth. There are institutional bottlenecks (such as the duration of opening of the temple) which one cannot change. However there are other bottlenecks which one can (such as parking space, traffic control etc). However, what is needed foremost is to improve predictability of the pilgrim flow in advance. This needs to be done on a daily level (day to day crowd management) as well as seasonal level (design of overall facilities). I think it will be useful to take a lesson from the Haj here and initially identify the carrying capacity of the system both on a daily and seasonal basis and then allot quota for the key states (Kerala, Tamilnaadu, Karnataka and Andhra). The economist in me would actually suggest charging for the quota so that the highest bidder can take more, but I don’t want to be supporting the commercialization of  the pilgrimage  though personally I am not against such an idea to generate revenue which could be used to support the pilgrimage itself.

2.                  Improving Comforts along the route: There is substantial scope for improving the comforts of the pilgrims, right from the point they leave their home (or enter Kerala) till they return. This include for example providing a 0800 telephone number with volunteers speaking Tamil, Kannada and Telugu will be at hand to answer questions or assist pilgrims taking the pilgrimage. Assistance required may include assistance with police (eg. Traffic accident), medical (eg. Medevacs) and so on. There are need for proper sanitation facilities all along the pilgrim route (currently not many and certainly not enough). In order that restaurants do not cheat pilgrims by breaking religious practices (as I described above), there should be a system of accreditation for restaurant all along the route whereby restaurant which are interested in benefiting from the pilgrim season should submit themselves to an inspection regarding the food handling practices. Accredited restaurants will have the right to put up a signage and certificate to that effect.

3.                  Improved Sanitation and Waste Management at the pilgrimage site itself. Though there has been effort to improve sanitation facilities it remains inadequate. Coliform counts were about 10000 towards the end of the pilgrimage. Technical options for handling these are many and well known, What one needs is proper planning and investment.

4.                  Healthcare Management: Healthcare management is not just about providing medical facilities to the ill and injured. It is also about ensuring that only people of adequate health initiate the pilgrimage and also people do not carry contagious disease to the pilgrimage. Again example from the Haj where pilgrims from countries where Polio has resurfaced to carry certificates of polio vaccination is a good case in point.

If we put our brains to it, there are quite a lot of things one can do to improve the convenience of the pilgrims coming to Kerala and make the pilgrimage a great experience. Sabarimala should not just be seen as a religious expedition but as an opportunity for Keralaites to demonstrate our hospitality and culture to millions of people from our neighbouring states who come over here. 

I have been tracking the reactions about Saddams execution around the world. In Iraq where he lived and died, the reaction was mixed and predictably on shia sunni lines. In neighbouring Iran, who bore the brunt of his campaign in the eighties, people were reported to be happy. In Jordan, which sometime supported and sometime opposed Saddam, the reaciton was mixed. In Kuwait, which was yet another party in a conflict involving Saddam, people reported to be happy and relieved. In much of western world the reaciton was reported to be mixed with those supporting the execution agreeing that justice has caught up with a brutal dictator while those opposing disagreeing with the justice on number of counts, including the process, the timing, the punishment and so on.

However, even in places where people disagreed with the process, timing or punishment, nobody tried to make a case that Saddam was innocent of the various crimes attributed to him.  Not even in Iraq.

Well, I have not described one place which was brought to a standstill due to Saddam's death. That is Kerala, a tiny state in India. As soon the news spread of his execution, calls were made for "hartal" , which translate to closure of shops, stoppage of public and private transport. All political parties, and there are dozens of them in this place, supported the Hartal and leaders of both ruling party and opposition were on streets protesting against the execution. Opinion makers came out with statements condemning the exeuction. Political leaders went a step further and warned serious consequences for United States and other forces of imperialism !. News papers next day was full of articles, opinions and reports condemning the execution.  Saddam was presented as a hero of its people, the final frontier against American imperialism and a martyr to his causes. 

In all the above, there was no mention about what Saddam did and was there any case for him to be held accountable for. TV channels and news paper articles repeatedly made reference to how he was a friend of India and supported India's case in various Islamic and Arab forums. There was tearful testimony from a guy who once cooked food for Saddam (and therefore was an expert on Iraq issues). There was yet another tearful testimony from a nurse who worked in the Iraq hospital during Iran Iraq war and was given a gift by Saddam (and therefore was yet anotehr expert on the issue). Listening to the expert who cooked Idlis for Saddam one just couldnt figure out how could somebdoy (who ate Idlis) be actually be a bad charector. Must be something to do with the American Imperialism (they dont eat Idlis anyway).

I have no complaint about those who support Saddam for whatever reasons. There are hundres of families in Kerala who worked in Iraq and have gained from its prosperity. There are at least few people who were lucky enough to have served Idlis to him and got personally rewarded in return.  My point is that the entire public debate in Kerala was so one sided on the issue that nobody dared to ask any question as to whether there was any case to be answered here. What type of a person was Saddam, what is his political record, how did he create and maintain an administration, objectively speaking what was the economic and social progress made during his period. Was there crimes committed during his period. Was there errors of judgement made by him or his administration ?. The issue was treated and presented so one sided and people who have no intellectual contribution to make was presented as experts making emotional statements. 

In the long run, the type of emotional swamp we create in Kerala will become an ideal habitat for the type of crocodiles whom we may not support. But by the time we realise the presence of crocodiles amongst us it will be too late. Those who are involved in crocodile hunting knows, one first has to drain the swamp before hunting the crocodiles. So when the time comes for the crocodiles to be hunted,  the society will therefore get hit first prior to the extremists who hide in it.

This morning, it was relatively quiet and I decided to hunt for two of my long lost friends. First was Md Showkat Osman who did masters with me at IIT Kanpur. Last time I heard of him, he was at Bangladesh Institute of Technology, Dhaka. So I started there.

Well BIT Dhaka no longer exists I think. All searches ended up in Bangladesh Universtiy of Engineering and Technology. But buet.ac.bd ended up in broken link. Search for him on environmental ground took me to another institute. I called them up and the guy who picked up told me that Showkat left 2 years back but kindly gave me the phone number. The phone numbers did not take me anywhere.

I came across an article by Showkat in a magazine which had worldbank in it. So I hunted down the page of world bank in bangladesh and asked them if they could put me in touch with Showkat. Let us see.

If I do manage to get him online, then I would have successfully hunted down all my classmates from IIT/K. That will be a new year gift for all of us.

Christmas also brought to me the thoughts of another classfriend of mine, this time somebody who as at school with me. Jolly NV, a very pretty young girl with a nice mole on her cheeck, was my classmate from 6th to 10th standard and it was essentially a two horse raise all through those period. Every exam we fought to see who got better marks. I think the competition assisted both of us in securing higher marks than what we would have managed had we been on ourselves.

I last saw her in 1979 walking to St Xaviers college, though I did hear about her as late as 1990s when one of my friends told me that she is now married to yet another of our friends and she is working in Life Insurance Corporation of India. I had done a little bit of mining for her before but that did not succeed. So today I started looking for her based on the limted information I have about her. Her name, LIC and family name.

I wasnt very successful for an hour or so when I thought, hmm, may be I should check the telephone directory for her family name. That did bring me few names but in India where telephone numbers are mostly installed in the name of the guy, I couldn't get much closer. I then searched the telephone numbers listed to see if that gets me a better contact.

In the end, I did get a contact with similar family name but someway far from the village. I am not sure if they actually belong to the same village. Let us see.

I will keep you posted on the progress.

So the only thing I could do extra was to turn on the television on the Christmas day. The only Indian channel I get (Asianet) was promising special programmes for Christmas so I thought that should help me to pass some time.

Well it turned out that there was indeed nostop programmes for Christmas but Jesus, there was nothing about Christmas per se. Look at the menu.

7:30 AM - Interview with Chitra (Malayalam Film singer)

9:00 AM - Heartmates (Programme by Film starts and directors)

12:00 Noon - Perumazhakkalam (Film), took 4 hours with advertisements

18:00 hrs - Achuvinte Amma (Fil), again 4 hours with advertisements

You thought the film onslaught is over. Well, not yet. There was Kavya Madhavan speaking essentially about herself (thank you), at 10:00 at night.

I often hear this nonsence in Malayalam channels and also from Malayalees about how Malayalees are so intelligent etc. Now if we assume that the channels feed people what they want and if what they want is films, film stars and more of it all through the Christmas day, it is not really giving too much of a brilliant picture of this intelligent community !

The good news is that I did not watch these. I went to office !!

Take Arundhathi Rais “God of Small Things” as an example. The story is so crappy that I wouldn’t have crossed tenth page had it not been for pursuing my dream. So I continued, like reading differential equations or fluid mechanics the day before the semester exam. The story and the language continued to be bad or worse till the very last page and then I threw the book away in disgust. Later on, unable to bear that fact that I have been fooled,  I sold it to somebody in Brunei so that I did not feel that I was cheated of my money. I only wasted my time.

Arundhathi Roy was famous even before she got Booker prize. Her mother is well known (and well respected, including by me) for the fight she made on behalf of Christian females in Kerala for right in family property. People said, though I don’t know if it is true, Arundhathi Roy is also related to Prannoy Roy, who is a celebrity in Indian Televisions. I tried to reason that it may be because she is from a famous family that she is getting the prize. Knowing how the western world still perceive Indian woman as underprivileged and oppressed, I also assumed that it could be because of her thirdworld identity that she got the prize. Whatever the reasons,  I was sure that it not because of anything I read.

One day trying to think positive, it dawned on me that it is neither the language nor the substance and not even her personal qualifications, which gave her the prize. It could be a trick she played in creating the book. Those of you who have read the book would notice that there is no continuity of time or space in the book. Chapters go back and forth in time It could as well be that she wrote a crappy story, sorted that into 40 or so chapters, then just mixed the chapters all together and then bound them. What resulted was still a bad story but one had to actually read the full book to find what the story was. The reader had to reconstruct the story into its logical sequence in his or her own head even to feel cheated. Now I don’t read a lot but I hadn’t come across this trick before and may be that is what won her the prize. Good for her, I thought. She is now even a bigger celebrity and is lending her name to causes worthy and otherwise. I think she is aiming at the Nobel Prize

So when I picked up The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai, Booker prize winner for this year, I was still chasing the same dream. I knew she had even more famous lineage and literary contacts than Arundhathi Roy, but I wanted to check out the book anyway.

Well, it turned out that this book is very bad too, both in story and style. However, there is no trick either. Bad story is told in the very old style of narration, though occasionally going back through flashbacks in the mind of the cook and the judge.

The story is set in the foothills of Himalaya around the time of the Gurkha agitation. The main characters are the judge Jumunbhai Patel (a former Indian Civil Service officer), his granddaughter Sai, his cook, the son of the cook (who is an illegal immigrant in the US). Into the rather empty and meaningless existence of the Judge’s family comes Gyan, the science tutor for Sai. Then there are some peripheral charetecters who live both in the hills and in the US. The story is not developed in any direction, neither he full story of the judge (why did he leave the civil service), nor that of the Gurkha agitation (where it came from and where it ended) is taken to its logical conclusion. The romance between Sai and Gyan is cut off abrubptly for the most unlikeliest of the reasons. In the end, only closure in the book is that of the cook as his son returns to him in the very last scene of the book.

On second thoughts I shouldn’t have read the book, not at least when Siddharth was away and Babu was down with chicken pox. The atmosphere a home was already gloomy and the book did not help. Page after page, the book produced volumes of negativity. Everything and everybody in the book was a failure and a disaster. Not that they were failing in real life. Jumunbhai Patel, born into a poor family, survived on 10 pounds a month in the UK and passed Indian Civil Service successfully. A most laudable achievement by any standard. However Kiran manages to pour ice water (shall I say liquid nitrogen) over it and demeans the achievement by first saying he was not in the first list, then saying he was in the extended list meant only for Indians and finally making him the last in the list.

Every other character, their love, their desires are all painted black, blacker and blackest. Bijus struggle for survival is portrayed as meaningless existence. The wonderful affection which brings him back to India to see his father as the hills of Siliguri are burning due to Gurkha agitation is painted black with luggage delays and mean behaviour of Air France staff. In the end he is not even given decent clothes to go home to.

The fate of Indians is painted in blackest possible terms everywhere. In Nigeria, In Tanzania, in South Africa and so on. In the end the author falls to the same mindset which she is trying to expose, one of inferiority and helplessness. Now I must make a confession here. This is a period novel, of a time around 1986. I first came out of India in 1995 and the fate and repute of Indians have changed dramatically since. People no longer want Indians out, they want Indians in. Germany wants them, UK wants them, Finland wants them and so on. Not only that, others are now coming to India too. But I escaped the blackest of the periods I think.

The only positive character in the whole book is Saeed Saeed, the guy from Zanzibar (and not Tanzania). He manages to outwit the fathers of pretty and not so pretty girls in Zanzibar, he outsmarts the immigration officer with forged passports, he go around with all sort of women white, black, good and ugly, he move from job to job with ease. I must thank the author for not letting him die of aids in the end. White amount of black ink she had, that would have been an easy stroke.

Anyway, as I finished the book, I felt depressed. I felt like a person who have been peeling black onions, with other peel coming off as black, hoping finally some bright stuff will emerge. Well in this particular case nothing emerged. Only black, black and then emptiness. And probably it is this blackness which gave her the award. How black could one go/